Author: Serkadis

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Sony recently released the 3.10 firmware update for the Playstation 3 (PS3), which adds several interesting new features. It also is the foundation for the Playstation embracing social media services, beginning with Facebook. Many of you may be disappointed to learn there isn’t the full Facebook experience, but Sony has done well by binding your Playstation Network account to Facebook. Any trophies you earn, Playstation Store purchases you buy, or in-game achievements you experience will be published on your Facebook profile. You can specify which of those you wish to have noted on your Facebook as well.

Here is a video from the Playstation Blog demonstrating these new features:

Full details of the update:

Photo

Displaying photos in a grid

The thumbnail images for photos under [Photo] are now displayed in a grid.

PlayStation®Network

Linking feature for Facebook™

You can now share information on Facebook™ about items such as trophies you have earned and content you have purchased in PlayStation®Store. > See details

Facebook™ is a service that helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Visit http://www.facebook.com for more information. Facebook™ is a trademark of Facebook, Inc.

Other new or revised features in version 3.10:

Settings

• The PlayStation®Network sign-in ID and password (for the user who is currently logged in) have been added as items that can be deleted when using [Restore Default Settings].

Friends

• You can now change the background color of your profile screen.

Filed under: Car Buying, Saab, Earnings/Financials

When the automotive history of the last ten or so years is written, one of the most curious chapters will be why big, flush with cash American car companies purchased relatively diminutive, relatively oddball Swedish brands. Ford and Volvo, while still not a match made in heaven, at least gave it a go, sharing platforms and technology. The merger has yielded some good results, too. Anyone that’s driven cars like the Flex or new Taurus can attest to how well Ford skin draped over a Volvo-based chassis works – especially when motivated by a twin-turbocharged, direct-injected motor.

General Motors acquisition of Saab on the other hand, was basically a complete and total disaster. Saab suffered mightily at the hands of the General, being forced to accept Opel underpinnings with hard points that prevented hatchbacks and therefore alienated the brand’s five-door loving base. The 9-5 (formerly the 9000) languished and essentially died on the vine. The Saabaru (9-2X) proved the no one wanted to pay a $5000 premium for a WRX with nice seats, and the 9-7X was for all intents and purposes a Chevy Trailblazer with the ignition key stuck between the seats. Worse, with Saturn morphing into the American branch of Opel, Saab was the afterthought after the afterthought.

According to an article in Sweden’s di, GM lost $5,100 on every Saab it has sold over the last eight years. The how is murky, but the why is that they spent a lot of money to purchase Saab and then didn’t sell very many of them. Moreover, it’s costing GM a pretty penny to unload Saab. Just about $900,000,000 to put a number on it. All in, General Motors lost nearly $6 billion dollars with Saab in the eight years they spent together. A total waste on both sides of the Atlantic. Here’s hoping for better things from the (still pending) Koenigsegg marriage.

[Source: di.se via TTAC]

Swedish Pickle: Study says GM lost $5,000+ on each Saab sold over the last 8 years originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The X2 should be out shortly, and for those who are a fan of the X1, it should be an okay update. It’s still using the MSM720X chipset though it is apparently more solid than its predecessor.

Gtrab over at XDA-Developers has posted a variety of videos of the X2, including an unboxing.

Via XDA-Developers and Pocketnow.

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Google Chrome OS may be getting all of the attention today, but such a huge company doesn’t revolve around just one product. And it’s still very much a search company so it can’t afford to get too distracted from its main bread winner. In fact it’s anything but, Google will be launching a rather significant refresh of its search engine’s design later today for limited set of users. The changes go pretty deep and are meant to make the whole experience more consistent.

Google is well known for constantly tweaking and updating its products and its search engine has seen its fair share over the years. Most of the time, those changes are subtle and unnoticeable, but little by little they have contributed to a lot of inconsistencies in the features. Marissa Mayer, Google VP of search and user experience, has had enough and is looking to give the search engine a complete do-over.

“I don’t like jazz, because you never know what’s going to happen next,” Mayer told Search Engine Land comparing the issues with the search engine to the musical style. “I’ve been calling this problem ‘user interface jazz.’ This result looks this way, and that result looks that way [something much different], and it really does slow you down.”

So Google got to wor… (read more)

In case you missed it, treasury bill yields went negative yesterday (to -0.03%) which means investors were willing to lose money in order to own them. This is a very rare occurrence.

Even simply keeping cash under your pillow would earn a higher return, in either an inflationary or deflationary environment. So negative yields, no matter how small, clearly don’t make any investment sense.

When this happened back during the end of last year, Post-Lehman, one potential reason was that institutional investors were so panicked that they simply wanted to protect the value of their capital as much as possible. The only way to do that within their scope of options was to buy U.S. treasury bills, even if they had to accept a small negative return.

Yet investors certainly aren’t as panicked as they were last year. So what’s going on this time?

The FT (via FTAlphaville) ‘The growing appetite for short-term government debt reflects an effort by banks to present pristine year-end balance sheets to regulators and investors – a practice known as “window dressing” on Wall Street, analysts said.’

And…

Across The Curve: Typically as the year end approaches clients tend to unwind profitable trades and reduce balance sheet. I think that some of that deleveraging process has created new piles of cash and that money needs a place to park.

Others are preparing to beautify their balance sheet by having some pristine government paper on the books over year end. Some of that trade has begun as investors purchase paper which will carry them into 2010.

Thus this time around it appears there is simply too much money that wants to sit tight and look respectable come year-end. Which means that we shouldn’t read too much from the negative T-Bill yield and this will eventually rebound back to at least 0%, once the year-end regulatory dance comes to an end.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Post-Lehman Deja Vu As T-Bill Yields Turn Negative
• Demand For Yield Caused The First Bubble, And It’s Happening Again
• CHART OF THE DAY: Investors Are Only Interested In High-Yield Junk

Looks like the latest battle over copyright extension is about to take place in Japan, where the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has vowed to extend certain copyrights. Specifically, he says that posthumous copyrights for compositions should last 70 years, rather than 50. This makes no sense, no matter what basis you judge copyright on. Copyright is supposed to serve a simple purpose: to encourage the creation of new works. It never makes sense to extend copyright on existing works, because those works were already created. In other words, the social “bargain” that was offered in terms of the limited times of protection available were clearly sufficient. But, it’s making a pure mockery of the law to specifically single out posthumous copyright protection to be extended because, as far as I know, the dead no longer have any incentives to create new content, no matter how long the copyrights on their old content lasts. The only explanation for doing so is to create a special welfare program for songwriters and composers. But, if that’s the case, let’s make it clear this is a welfare system, rather than anything to do with copyright.

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No More Heroes is making the jump to the PS3 and Xbox 360. We already saw some shots of the new versions in the Famitsu scan we posted a couple of day…

The following excerpt is from the blog “Surviving In Argentina,” by Fernando Ferfal Aguirre. 

Ferfal lived through Argentina’s economic implosion in 2001.  Here, he shares some of his secrets to survival.

So, guys, things don’t look good.

It pains me to see America going through this and the consequences it will bring.

These are critical days.  Now is when we’ll get a better picture of how bad things will actually get, how long until we see the economy back on its feet. Instead of trying to guess what will happen, let’s go through some things you should to right now, if you haven’t taken care of them already.

First, how about what NOT to do?

*Don’t open your big mouth!

It’s ok that you feel all nice and warm about the 1/5/whatever year food supply you already have, but there’s no need to talk about it with the guys at work, the neighbors, friends or even family that is not directly related.

Other than my wife and kids, these are things that we simply do not talk about with people that know us, know our faces, names and know where we life.

Next thing you know someone’s knocking on your door, asking for favors you simply can’t afford.

Not long ago a friend asked if I could lend him a gun for self defense… yes, right.

Here, the owner of the gun is responsible for it and is not allowed to lend it to other non licensed persons. Other than my brother, I’m not giving a gun away to just anyone.

*Don’t waste your money!

How many times have we read about paper money only being good for TP after a crisis?

Though it may have happened in some extremely primitive nations, or countries destroyed by war, do not expect that to happen in USA. It won’t.  Rather the other way around, you’ll consider it a precious commodity even more. As prices go up, you’ll save every penny.

If you already have savings you want to protect, buy precious metals, or if you have enough money, buy real estate. It’s a buyer’s market right now.

A small apartment would be a good investment.

Give it a few months, you’ll see rent prices go up in no time.

People can’t get loans to buy or they don’t have the money, so people start renting more. More demand, prices go up.

*Don’t run for the hills

This isn’t a hurricane or flood, you can’t run from this.

Running to your bug-out location and “living off the land” is a terrible idea, almost as stupid as thinking about quitting your day job to start growing corn.

If you are a farmer and that’s what you do for a living, that’s just perfect. But if you are doing it as part of preparedness for the end of the world, you need to think things a bit better. For a farm to be a profitable, you need a margin of production large enough to make it economically sustainable.

Farming as a way of producing your own food is a terrible mistake.  Spending an entire day to produce the food equivalent of what you can buy with 15 minutes of your current salary isn’t smart.

Yes, inflation, I know about it, as a matter of fact I know about it very well, but the solution isn’t growing your own food, building your own car, building your own house, digging your own petrol site or fixing your teeth yourself. 🙂

The solution is making more money and reducing expenses as much as possible.

Money ( in one form or another) makes the world go around and it’s been this way for more than 10.000 years, wont change any time soon.

No more toys, guys, at least for a while.

Ok, now for things to do…

Keep reading at Surviving In Argentina >

See Also: SocGen: We’re On The Verge Of Global Economic Collapse

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• SocGen: Prepare Yourself For The Worst Case Scenario!

Filed under: Concept Cars, Hybrid, Hatchback, Lexus

Lexus introduced its LF-Ch concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September and it’s believed to be a shoe-in for production for the European market. However, in a new Detroit Bureau interview with the brand’s general manager, Mark Templin, it is confirmed that Lexus is seriously considering bringing a production version of the hatchback to the U.S. market as well. If it does come here, it would be the smallest Lexus and would compete against the likes of the Audi A3, BMW 1 Series, Volvo C30 and Mini Cooper – only the latter of which has managed to sell in big numbers. The Lexus concept will be shown again at the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show as well as in Detroit, where Lexus officials will be evaluating reactions to a premium priced small car.

Such cars are already well accepted in Europe and the idea of smaller premium cars may yet hold some appeal in the U.S. – especially if fuel prices rise. Lexus has no intention of decontenting the LF-Ch to keep the price down if it does come to the States. While the Detroit Bureau cautions that a production LF-Ch is likely to have a conventional powertrain as standard fitment, a hybrid will probably be needed to compete with the A3 TDI and a possible 1 Series hybrid or diesel down the line.

[Source: The Detroit Bureau]

REPORT: New Lexus small car may be headed for U.S. by 2012 – perhaps sooner originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RiskMetrics Group today released its 2010 updates to its benchmark proxy voting guidelines. These global updates are developed as part of an extensive process that includes broad-based outreach to financial market participants. RiskMetrics’ governance analysts will begin applying the updated policies to all companies with shareholder meeting dates on or after February 1, 2010.

The 2010 policy updates address the governance issues stemming from a rapidly evolving regulatory environment and ongoing investor frustration with the global financial crisis. As a result, in the U.S., RiskMetrics’ key policy updates address important topics surrounding board accountability and executive compensation, including poison pills, director independence, long-term pay-for-performance alignment and management say-on-pay.

The entire 2010 global policy updates are accessible through RiskMetrics’ online Policy Gateway. The Gateway also contains helpful FAQs, summaries of outreach efforts, and other informational resources to provide all market participants with a better understanding of how RiskMetrics formulates and applies its updates.

Also, on December 10 at 1 p.m. EST, RiskMetrics will host a webcast to review its 2010 policy updates. To register for the webcast, please visit here.

We’ve just received a full spec list for the very blurry Motorola Motus and it’s pretty interesting. Why, you ask? Besides AT&T 3G support, the specs are pretty similar if not identical to the Motorola CLIQ. Our connect didn’t flat out tell us that the handset would be hitting AT&T, but hey, we can dream right? Here are the full specifications for the Motorola Motus:

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100MHz)
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• 256MB RAM
• aGPS
• Wi-Fi
• 3.1″ capacitive 480×320 display
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Weight: 133g
• 1400mAh battery
• microSD slot
• Qualcomm MSM 7201A CPU
• MOTOBLUR

Last but not least, we’ve been told the Motus is not a slider but a unique “flip” phone. That’s all we’ve got for now, but we’ll keep you updated as always.

Thanks, Daddy G.!

Filed under: Etc., Celebrities

We’ll admit up front that this news item is minimally car-related, but bear with us. In response to News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch’s repeated threats to bury all of his content behind a pay-for-it-wall, the UK’s Guardian conducted a poll asking readers which online columnists they’d pay for. The not so shocking result: Jeremy Clarkson, number one. Number two is Charlie Brooker, who we’ve heard of. The next eight? Not so much. But here’s the point.

Jeremy Clarkson writes about cars. The other day, we were arguing with a burned out (and nameless) colleague about our mutual chosen profession. Eventually he blurted out, “You’re still working under the delusion that writing a good car review is somehow noble.” Not that Clarkson is particularly noble, but the notion that the writer most people (well, British people…) want to read spends his days scribing about powersliding the tires off half-a-million dollar cars is quite heartening. Almost ennobling, really.

[Source: The Guardian | Image: AFP/Getty]

STUDY: If you’re gonna make us pay for a bloke’s writing, it bloody well better be Clarkson originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new industry has taken root in Detroit with the opening of the city’s new ‘MedGrow Cannabis College’.

Here students learn how to grow marijuana professionally, debating the ‘finer points of inhaling’ and which plants ‘give the biggest hit’.

And no this isn’t some tiny research lab, it’s clear what this is about — making money and building an industry.

Apparently Michigan issues 1,000 medical marijuana certificates each month, after becoming the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana.

Guardian: Among the first students paying $475 (£285) for six evening classes are people reliant on marijuana for pain relief and those who help them, including a clergyman who runs an Aids clinic.

Then there are young men such as Ryan Hasbany, a 20-year-old business student. He’s still a year too young to get a grower’s licence but he wants to learn the trade. “My father is a family practice doctor and he is issuing medical marijuana cards so I know there are a lot of people getting them. It could turn into a very lucrative business. The street prices are ridiculously high,” he says of medical grade marijuana, which sells at $250 (£150) an ounce in Michigan. “There’s Harvard economists who say this is what we need to bring the economy back.”

Bring on the deflation. Here are some excerpts from the college’s website:

• ‘Join one of the fastest growing, recession proof industries in the state and earn a living while helping patients with serious medical conditions.’
• ‘Med Grow Cannabis College is comitted to the economic revival of Michigan, if you are looking for work, there has never been a better time to learn how to succeed in the medical marijuana industry.’
• ‘Entry level, certified caregivers can earn between $40,000 to $100,000 a year!’

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Detroit’s Famous Pontiac Silverdome Sells For Just $583,000
• Where The Most Jobs Died: Phoenix, Detroit and Las Vegas
• Unemployment In Detroit Is The Nation’s Worst By A Mile

Earlier this week there was a discussion on Slashdot about how to evaluate a data center. The thread features more than 200 comments about items to look for and avoid when selecting a data center, including questions to ask while touring a facility. As always, there’s a variety of views, some more informed than others. But the discussion may provide useful feedback, whether you’re shopping for colo or looking for insight into potential customers.

This is one of the more hotly contended things about the HD2, some claim it’ll last days whilst others get barely get hours…

I’ve only had the HD2 for a little over a day, but as far as I’ve seen so far, battery life is pretty good. I’ve been playing with it a lot with HSDPA (not switched it to GSM at all), some bluetooth file transfers, browsing the interwebs, taking lots of pictures, texting, calling, videos and listening to music for a few hours and generally showing off quite how awesomely fast it is, and it’s survived from 7:30 this morning till now. That’s a little under 7 hours which is pretty good for what I’d call very intensive use.

With things like Chainfires WMLongLife, and not deliberately trying to kill the battery, it could well do significantly longer, possibly up to two days. For my usage it’s fine as is, though you might want a second battery if you really need it to last more than a day!

My first impressions are very very very good! If you can live with the sheer size, it’s definitely the best Windows Phone out there, maybe even the best phone out there.

I apologise for the picture: it was taken with my Diamond as I couldn’t find my camera…

Thanks to Clove and WMPowerUser for supplying the device!

For a non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation is doing pretty well financially, better than many for-profit web companies are doing these days. The organization has released some financial details for 2008, saying that revenue has reached $79 million percent in the last year, up five percent from the previous one. It’s not exactly clear why it would release the numbers in November 2009, but what is clear is that revenue growth is slowing down after revenue increased by 12 percent from 2006 to 2007.

“Our revenue and expenses are consistent with 2007, showing steady growth. Mozilla’s consolidated reported revenues (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2008 were $78.6 million, up approximately 5% from 2007 reported revenues of $75.1 million. The majority of this revenue is generated from the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox from organizations such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and others,” Mozilla Foundation chairwoman Mitchell Baker said in her annual “state of Mozilla” letter.

Firefox has had a good year in 2008, so this isn’t the reason for the slow down, rather the organization has seen some pretty heavy losses at its investment portfolio. The Mozilla Foundation lost about $7.8 million on long-term investments, about 25 percent of the portfolio’s worth. Exclud… (read more)

Bay Area Internet Solutions has built a new 80,000 square foot data center in Santa Clara, Calif. that features an innovative economizer design. One end of the data center is lined with more than 200 fans to bring fresh air into an exterior “air corridor” that surrounds the data center. The air is then filtered and used in the facility’s cooling system. Bay Area Internet expects to be able to use the air economizers to provide free cooling for 85 percent of the year. This video was produced by Emerson Network Power and features its products, but also provides an inside look at an interesting new facility in the active Silicon Valley market. This video tour runs about 6 minutes 30 seconds.

For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Filed under: Truck, Recalls, Safety, Chrysler, Jeep, Off-Road

Owners of model year 2007-2008 Jeep Wranglers with automatic transmissions may have to visit their local dealers as Chrysler is recalling 161,450 of the SUVs over potential transmission overheating problems. According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA), Wrangler models manufactured between June 2006 and July 2008 with automatic transmissions were not fitted with a transmission fluid temperature warning system. If the AT fluid in the affected vehicles overheats, it may boil over and come in contact with hot engine or exhaust components – possibly leading to a fire.

To help alert drivers that their Jeep’s transmission is overheating, dealers will inspect and install a visual “Hot Oil” message in the instrument cluster accompanied by an audible chime to indicate the elevated fluid temperature. The service will be performed free of charge starting in December. For more information, owners of the affected models may call Chrysler at 1-800-835-1403, NHTSA at 1-888-327-4236, or visit www.safercar.gov. Full press release after the jump.

[Source: NHTSA]

Continue reading Jeep recalling over 161k 2007-2008 Wrangler AT models due to tranny temp. sensor absence

Jeep recalling over 161k 2007-2008 Wrangler AT models due to tranny temp. sensor absence originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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