Author: Serkadis

– March 31st, 2009 – Newport Corporation, a worldwide leader in laser and photonic solutions that Make, Manage and Measure Light®, introduces the affordable, CONEX™ family of compact, photonics control instruments. The product family features three new devices that connect easily via USB plug-and-play technology and allow simple, but highly functional PC-computer control solutions. Multiple units can be connected to a single USB port and for CONEX-PSD9 and CONEX-IOD models, the USB port also powers the modules, eliminating the need for additional power supplies and/or cables. The intuitive LabVIEW-based utility program software provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for each module. A comprehensive set of LabVIEW VIs (virtual instruments) is also available.

Three models are initially introduced. The first, the CONEX-CC motor controller/driver is a very compact, low-cost motor controller/driver for Newport’s low-power DC servo motor stages or actuators. The CONEX-PSD9, a position-sensing detector, provides accurate XY position information of laser beams and is ideally suited for laser beam stabilization, laser tracking and general beam diagnostics. The third, the CONEX-IOD, is a highly versatile, general purpose I/O module that works with many third party devices and features both digital input/outputs and 12-bit analog input/output interfaces.

Newport’s easy-to-use CONEX photonics instruments are ideal for tasks that require an affordable solution when the use of a computer-controlled system is specified. For more information, please visit: www.newport.com/CONEX.

Taiyo Yuden Introduces Two Additional Compact and Low Profile
Power Inductors for Mobile Devices Maintaining Industry-Leading DC Bias Characteristics with an Approximate 17% Reduction in Size and Thickness

TOKYO, January 19, 2010 ¯ Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. today announced details of the commercial release of two significant new additions to its expanding lineup of power inductors. The new wire-wound power inductors BRL2515, measuring only 2.5 mm x 1.5 mm with a maximum height of 1.2 mm, and
BRFL2518, measuring 2.5 mm x 1.8 mm with a maximum height of 1.0 mm, for DC-DC converter applications in cell phones, smartphones, DSCs, portable music players and related equipment are released in response to growing demand for more compact, thinner mobile devices.
While maintaining the industry-leading DC bias characteristics (a rated current of 900 mA based on DC saturation and inductance of 2.2ìH) of the existing BRL2518, measuring 2.5 mm x 1.8 mm with a maximum height of 1.2 mm, the new BRL2515 (a rated current of 1000 mA) reduces the chip surface
area by approximately 17%, while the BRFL2518 (a rated current of 850 mA) requires an approximate 17% lower profile. In this manner, Taiyo Yuden is contributing to the further reduction of mobile device shape and size.
Production will commence in January 2010 at an output pace of 10 million units per month. The price for samples is 20 yen per unit.
Technology Background
In addition to providing a variety of functions including Internet access, video and movie viewing, music listening and high resolution photography, the market continues to call for more compact and thinner smartphones and other sophisticated cell phones. These needs contribute to a complementary
growth in demand for smaller and slimmer DC-DC converter application power inductors that do not compromise the DC bias characteristics that are required to prevent loss of inductance even with high DC currents.
Taiyo Yuden has risen to this challenge. In employing a single-sided electrode structure, the Company has realized maximum design efficiency. Through the wire-wound power inductor BR series, which offer excellent DC bias characteristics in a compact and low profile package, Taiyo Yuden has attracted wide acclaim. Further improving the core design and materials used in the BRL2518, the BRL2515 maintains DC bias characteristics in a smaller size, while the BRFL2518 offers a lower profile.
Looking ahead, Taiyo Yuden will continue to develop products that match market needs. In this regard, the Company is committed to realizing innovative new product development advances in wire-wound power inductors.

Since different applications and machines require different kind of feedback systems, the Swedish encoder manufacturer Leine & Linde proudly announce a new series of programmable encoders with SSI interface.

The programmable SSI encoders are the natural choice for customers in need of an encoder which easily can be adapted to suit different types of machines. Due to the encoders programability functions such as scaling of the resolution, change of data format and counting direction imply that one uniqe encoder can be used in a vast variety of applications. Programability brings cost savings for the machine builders thanks to the reduction of encoder variants.

Installation has never been easier
Once an absolute encoder is about to be installed on a machine, it usually needs to synchronize its zero-position with respect to some known physical position of the machine. On the programmable SSI encoders can this “preset command” easily be set via dedicated wires. Optionally can the preset command also be set by a hardware push button directly located at the encoder, simplifying the commissioning of the device.

No special tools required for the programming
Programming of the encoder can easily be performed by an ordinary laptop computer equipped with programming software. The new programmable SSI encoder reaches a total resolution of 25 bits. Mechanically the series comes in either shaft or hollow-shaft versions. Enclosure is robust and reaches levels of IP67. Upon request can the series even be provided in stainless steel versions for the harshest environments.

For more information please contact Magnus Johnson, Tel. +46 (0)152-265 53; E-mail [email protected]. You can find out more at www.leinelinde.com

Back in February, there was a fair bit of attention paid to some of the more ridiculous parts of the IIPA’s filing for the USTR’s Special 301 report, which seeks to figure out which countries US diplomats should threaten most heavily over their failure to kowtow to US copyright interests. The IIPA is, of course, the mega-lobbying group, made up of a variety of other lobbying groups, including the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, ESA and NMPA. A lot of attention was paid, in particular, to the IIPA’s claims that countries that promoted open source software (something that would reduce infringement) were as bad, if not worse, than those that did not crack down on unauthorized copying.

However, some parts of the IIPA’s are even more troubling. Public Knowledge has been digging through the report and is reasonably troubled by the call by the IIPA to expand pre-trial detentions in India for those accused of copyright infringement. The PK article goes through this issue in great detail, but basically some parts of India have laws that allow the gov’t to lock people up as a form of “preventative detention” for people they’re afraid might do something (think Minority Report’s “pre-crime”). Not surprisingly, there are some concerns about how these rules have been used to violate human rights — but still, they are mostly used for “drug-smugglers, human traffickers, bootleggers, and the like.” However, two parts of India expanded the law to cover copyright violations — and, in the case of Tamil Nadu, it was expanded all the way down to merely the potential of possessing a bootleg movie or CD.

In its report, the IIPA claims that by expanding the law to cover copyright, Tamil Nadu successfully deterred infringement. But Public Knowledge looked through the details and found that there was only a temporary blip (something that the IIPA fails to mention, of course):

Given this state of affairs, it’s hardly surprising that pretrial detention would “continue[] to result in some deterrence,” as the IIPA claims. But while initial reports showed that the imminent addition of ‘video piracy’ to Tamil Nadu’s Goondas Act had a huge deterrent effect, by the time the rule had been in effect for a year piracy had largely bounced back and the local film industry was already clamoring for even more laws. Even the formation of a special video anti-piracy police force (something, incidentally, that the IIPA often calls for in its reports) did not stem the tide of piracy in Tamil Nadu. So it’s unclear how much deterrence these statutes even produce.

Now, of course, it seems troubling enough that a group representing the RIAA, MPAA, BSA and others would call for locking up people for up to a year just because they might come into possession of an unauthorized product, but it’s even more troubling that the IIPA appears to be calling for the US diplomats to punish or threaten India if they do not expand this rule even further. This rule already goes way beyond anything that would be legal in the US, and the point of the Special 301 report is to highlight countries that don’t provide “adequate and effective” rules for protecting copyright. Yet, when a country goes way beyond what’s reasonable, the IIPA is still complaining? And even when those laws don’t appear to help and seem ripe for serious human rights violations? Wow.

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Article Tags: Martin Hertzberg, Reply To Article

To all:

I just couldn’t let this article in the latest New Yorker article Up in the Air by Elizabeth Kolbert go by without comment.

Marty

Dear Editor:

Kindly forward this e-mail to Elizabeth Kolbert. Obviously, the attachments to this e-mail are to voluminous for a letter to the Editor, but I sincerely hope that she will read and learn from them.

Here is my letter:

Elizabeth Kolbert, in her “Up In the Air” comment of April 12, 2010, has made an heroic effort to revive the dying theory that human emission of CO2 is causing global warming/climate change. But those of us who know it well and its “living will” to decline heroic measures, feel that the wisest course of action is to let it pass peacefully in the hospice of dying theories.

There is a simple way to tell the difference between scientists and propagandists. If scientists have a theory they carefully search for data that might actually contradict their theory so they can test it further or refine it. The propagandists, on the other hand, select only the data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that disagrees with it. How else to explain Ms. Kolbert’s argument that “despite what it might have felt like in the Northeast these past few months, globally it was one of the warmest winters on record”? Actually, the global data summarized in www.climate4you.com show significant world-wide cooling for the past decade. The data also show nothing beyond the normal range of variability in either the polar ice area coverage or in the rate of rise of sea level for the last 20 years.

Read in full with comments »   

A coalition of neocons, oil industry executives and religious extremists want to redraw the boundaries of the Middle East. But it’s not going to turn out the way they want: Afghanistan is a no-win situation, and reports of war crimes and torture continue to do irreparable harm to America’s reputation all around the world.

Show: Freedom Watch
Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 04/06/2010

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General Motors told its dealers earlier this morning that it is shutting down its Hummer brand for good. After a possible sale to Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery failed to receive Chinese government approval in February, GM said it will consider other offers for the SUV brand.

After failing to come to terms with other offers, GM has decided to move forward with closing the brand, Hummer spokesman Nick Richards said. Jim Bunnell, GM’s general director of network support, broke the news to dealers during a conference call this morning.

Hummer CEO Jim Taylor will retire effective immediately.

Hummer has 153 stores in the United States. To clear out the remaining 2,200 new Hummers in stock, Richards said Hummer will run incentives through the end of this month.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Frustrated trying to find natural products at boutique nurseries and big-box retailers that have a patchy (kinda like your July lawn) selection of organic products and whose sales staff don’t know much about them?

Try finding a local feed and seed store. Many stock just what you’re looking for. Why? Because organic farmers use an array of organics and also because farming has a long history of employing natural treatments. How do you think they got things to grow down on the farm before all those chemical concoctions were created?

So here’s a list of useful landscape products we found at our local feed store, the venerated 124-year-old Lewisville Feed Mill in Lewisville, Texas.

1 – Chicken Manure – It may be poop, but it’s a premium fertilizer that’s higher in nitrogen than cow manure. However, because it’s so rich, it can burn plants. Organic gardeners recommend composting it first. Dairy cow manure is less rich and can be spread around and used as a top dressing on lawns and beds. For the straight poop on this topic see this excellent article: Manure Matters by organic gardener and author Marion Owen at PlanTea.com.

2 – Cottonseed Meal – Also a good nitrogen feed for lawn or gardens and it won’t burn turf, even if it’s liberally applied. It also supplies phosphoric acid and potash. No room to ruminate about those ingredients here. Suffice it to say that they’re nutrients your grass needs. One downside, because cotton is notoriously pesticide-heavy crop, this can contain pesticide residues.

3 – Alfalfa Meal – Another nitrogen source. Good for working into beds and amending soil when planting. For a comparison chart on organic fertilizers, see Rodale’s All New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening.

4 – Corn Gluten – The gold standard among organic gardeners for pre-emergent weed treatments. Some people also use it as a fertilizer. It comes in flake and granule form. You’ll pay more for granule, but it will stay put better too. For more info on why and how corn gluten meal works see the corn gluten website at Iowa State University, the leader in developing this natural weed fighter.

5 – Liquid Seaweed – Where’s a rich source of nutrients? Oh yeah, the oceans! Dilute and use as a foliar feed. Also works diluted in a couple gallons of water as a perk-me-up for flowering plants and shrubs. Cousin is Kelp Meal, considered a good soil conditioner.

6 – Expanded Shale – Not everyone needs this, but if you do need it, you need it badly. Expanded shale in tiny pebble form helps break up hard, clay soil, improving the drainage and aeration for plants. This rock also soaks up extra moisture and then releases it when the surrounding soil is dry, a minor miracle not to be celebrated in hot climates.

7 – Green Sand – A green-blue sand for “greening” and fortifying flowering plants and vegetables with potash. It’s rich because it’s derived from marine sediment rock. Also effective in loosening clay soils.

8 — Molasses – Don’t get organic gardeners started on this topic, they have a zillion versions of how to mix and use it, perhaps because the bag comes with instructions for feeding livestock, leaving open the question of garden applications. We say just a dab, like two or three spoonfuls does great things in a watering can. Molasses also works as a soil amendment, raising the level of microbe activity. Sweet.

Copyright © 2007-2010 | Distributed by Green Right Now Network

Filed under: Sedan, Performance, Japan, Hatchback, Subaru, Australia

There are more iterations of the Subaru WRX than there are wallabies in the bush. At least it feels that way to Australians. As the name suggests, the WRX Club Spec 10 is the 10th special edition Rex that Subaru has seen fit to grace the land down unda. We don’t actually get special WRX editions here in the States (save one STI variant), but that’s okay as Subaru seems to completely redesign their hot little rally champ every 24 months. However, if we did live in the world’s most scenic former British penal colony, here’s what we’d get.

Starting up front you’d get the lip spoiler off the STI for enhanced aerodynamics that (supposedly) “improves stability and cornering.” Then there’s a “flexible” strut tower brace to improve stiffness steering. We think “flexible” is Australian for “adjustable” because there’s also a “flexible” lower bar (sway bar) as well as a front end chassis brace. All of this will help reduce front end floppiness and sharpen up the already famed WRX’s handling reflexes.

WRX Club Spec 10 owners also get slightly wider 17-inch STI wheels, leather seats, sunroof and sat nav. This isn’t the very greatest WRX kit we’ve ever encountered, but Subaru of Australia is limiting the total Club Spec 10 output to just 250 units. meaning that each one is assured to be collectible. How much? $49,990 Australian dollars, or just over $46,000 in our non antipodean currency.

[Source: Subaru]

Subaru introduces WRX Club Spec 10 for Australia originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For quite some time now, the record labels have believed that if they couldn’t put old school copy protection on music files, the “next best thing” would be watermarks. This idea started showing up more than five years ago and when iTunes finally went DRM free, we were among those who pointed out that the files still contained identifying watermarks, in that the files themselves included info on who purchased the files. Two years ago we pointed out how these were a serious problem from a privacy perspective and it was best not to go down that road.

Surprise, surprise. The industry didn’t listen.

As a bunch of you are submitting, with streaming/cloud music suddenly becoming popular, apparently the record labels are demanding that companies use such watermarks as a new type of privacy-invading DRM:

The labels, say our source, are demanding that a user can only stream music that is watermarked to their username. Change the username, or try to stream music that you’ve ripped from a CD, and those songs won’t play.

While a bunch of people submitting this seem to think the watermarking is new, it’s not. That part of the story has been known for years. But what is new (if not surprising) is that the labels are trying to lock up streaming services by using the watermarks as a weak form of DRM. Of course, like any form of DRM it won’t work. Instead, it will annoy legitimate users who are stopped from listening to music they legally obtained the rights to. And, on top of that, it will put their privacy at risk. And for what purpose?

New decade. Same story.

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From Green Right Now Reports

The EPA  has proposed adding 16 chemicals that the agency considers eligible to become “reportable chemicals” to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list — including some that wind up on smoked or grilled foods or in the air around incineration facilities.

Inclusion in the toxics registry means that companies and industries using these compounds would have to disclose that they are using them, and how they are disposing of them, to the EPA, which in turn makes the information public. (See the TRI Explorer tool on the EPA website.)

The TRI list exists to help  insure the safety of the public and the environment from needless or excessive exposure to chemicals used in industry. It was set up after industrial accidents, such as the Bhopal chemical leak of methyl isocyanate that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, according to the EPA history.

The chemicals on the new list were selected for inclusion because they are likely carcinogens. Four of the 16 are polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), which are also known in many cases as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), and include “chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic (PBT) and are likely to remain in the environment for a very long time,” according to the EPA.

PACs  “are not readily destroyed and may build up or accumulate in body tissue”.

People are exposed to these particular PACs, or PAHs, by breathing contaminated smoke or by eating grilled meats or other food with residue from smoke or incinerated coal or wood.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reports that humans can be exposed these ways:

• Breathing air containing PAHs in the workplace of coking, coal-tar, and asphalt production plants; smokehouses; and municipal trash incineration facilities.
• Breathing air containing PAHs from cigarette smoke, wood smoke, vehicle exhausts, asphalt roads, or agricultural burn smoke.
• Coming in contact with air, water, or soil near hazardous waste sites.
• Eating grilled or charred meats; contaminated cereals, flour, bread, vegetables, fruits, meats; and processed or pickled foods.

The Toxics Release Inventory includes nearly 650 chemicals at use at more than 22,000 industrial facilities in the U.S.; so this new group of chemicals would be part of a long list of potentially harmful chemicals that the federal government tracks.

The list of 16 being proposed for inclusion on the Toxic Release Inventory will be considered during a 60-day public comment period. The proposed new chemicals are:

1-Amino-2-4-dibromoanthraquinone

2,2-bis(Bromethyl)-1-3-propanediol

Furan

Glycidol

Isoprene

Methyleugenol

o-Nitroanisole

Nitromethane

Phenolphthalein

Tetrafluoroethylene

Tetranitromethane

VinylFluoride

1,6-Dinitropyrene

1,8-Dinitropyrene

6-Nitrochrysene

4-Nitropyrene

Aston Martin has announced that it will return to the legendary Nordschleife circuit for the 5th consecutive year at the 38th ADAC Nurburgring 24 hour Race with it’s new four-door sports sedan – the Aston Martin Rapide.

Aston Martin said that the Rapide will see little changes for the race besides some of the mandatory changes required to compete in the demanding race and will be driven by a team of engineers from the company’s Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire, England.

“This race represents the ultimate final engineering durability test for any sports car – it subjects the car to the toughest possible assessment under public scrutiny, said Aston Martin Chief Executive, Dr Ulrich Bez who will lead the Rapide driver team. “The Rapide has the capability to carry four people in comfort but first and foremost it is a sports car and we will subject it to the same tests we would our other sports cars. We already have a proven track record at the Nurburgring racing our road cars with limited modification and in recent years we have enjoyed success in winning the SP8 class both in 2008 and 2009.”

The Aston Martin Rapide race car will see some race safety modifications, interior trim removed to reduce weight, re-tuned suspension and will run on slick tires designed for track use.

The 38th ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hour Race will take place on May 15/16 2010.

Click here for more news on the Aston Martin Rapide.

Refresher: Power for the Aston Martin Rapide comes from a 6.0L V12 engine making 470-hp and a peak torque of 443 lb-ft. Mated to a Touchtronic 2 6-speed gearbox with electronic shift-by-wire control system, the Aston Martin Rapide can go from 0 to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds with a top speed of 188 mph.

Aston Martin Rapide Race Car:

Aston Martin Rapide:

– By: Omar Rana

People keep insisting that we’re crazy to think that Rupert Murdoch is going down the wrong path with his paywall plans. I keep hearing from people saying “don’t bet against Rupert — he’s the sharpest guy in the news business and he knows what he’s doing.” But I just can’t see it. Not when he continues to say things that just aren’t true. The latest, sent in by reader sinsi, involves yet another interview with Murdoch where he insists that once he puts up paywalls Google and Microsoft will be forced to stop linking to his stuff. Instead, he wants them to put up a subscription form:

“We’ll be very happy if they just publish our headline or a sentence or two and that’s followed by a subscription form,”

Ok, Rupert, how about you start? After all, we’ve pointed out that a ton of your own properties have news aggregators, and looking through them, not a single one appears to have subscription forms. Why not?

But, even more ridiculous, is his insistence that people will start paying:

“I think when they’ve got nowhere else to go they’ll start paying,”

Not if but when. Recent profiles of Murdoch have suggested he doesn’t use the web, so perhaps he doesn’t realize it, but there’s always somewhere else to go, and if News Corp. is so short-sighted to lock itself away from the open web, well that just opens up a much greater opportunity for his competitors to make sure they’re the place to go.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Performance, BMW, Specialty

Formula DRIFT is recognized as the North American professional drifting championship series. Autoblog has been invited behind-the-scenes with GSR Autosport, and their driver Michael Essa, as the team builds, tests and campaigns a V10-powered BMW 350R during the 2010 racing season. This is the second installment in our series (see Part 1) as we follow the team throughout the creation, testing and race season.

Armed with a 2008 BMW 335i coupe, a shattered BMW M5 and boxes of components stacked around the shop, the team gets busy tearing the near-perfect 3 Series apart. The bumpers, doors, hood and trunk go first, followed by the glass sunroof and remaining sheet metal on the roof (hundreds of spot welds must be painstakingly drilled out). The stock twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter N54 is carefully removed and put aside. The interior is completely gutted and the heavy glass front, side and back windows are cut out. The chassis sits bare on the cold concrete shop floor.

Continue reading GSR Autosport BMW 350R: Part II – We decimate a 335i and a Formula Drift racecar materializes

GSR Autosport BMW 350R: Part II – We decimate a 335i and a Formula Drift racecar materializes originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoever you are, just admit it, and all will be forgiven.

One of you obviously leaked the number before the 3:00 release form the Fed.

 

Join the conversation about this story »

No, seven different card games are not coming to DSiWare. 7 Card Games is the game’s name, and it features seven ways in which people play with a deck of cards.
 
 
 
 

Here it is, folks, the chart to break a million retailers’ hearts.

It’s the Fed’s latest consumer credit reading, and after starting to come back, total outstanding consumer credit has fallen right back down, with a monster month-over-month decline.

Join the conversation about this story »

Facebook’s lawyers have been getting pretty nasty lately. We recently covered the company’s threats against the creator of a useful Greasemonkey script, and now a developer named Pete Warden has shared the sordid details of his legal run-in with Facebook — where they threatened to sue him for his activity aggregating publicly available data found on Facebook.

You should read the full story, but basically, he built a simple crawler for public Facebook info, initially for his own purposes. He made sure that Facebook’s robots.txt didn’t block such crawlers — and he also emailed someone at Facebook (who he had dealt with before), but didn’t hear back from anyone. As his crawler worked, it started collecting a bunch of interesting data, and so he set up a website to let people explore some of this (again, public) data.

After playing with some of the data himself, he started making some interesting maps and charts with the data, and did a simple analysis of geographic locations of Facebook friend connections to show people what you could do with the data. He noted that if others (such as professional researchers) wanted to dig into the data, he would let them access a version of the data set (with identifying info stripped). The chart he released got picked up by a variety of sites and quickly got passed around.

And that’s when the lawyers called:

On Sunday around 25,000 people read the article, via YCombinator and Reddit. After that a whole bunch of mainstream news sites picked it up, and over 150,000 people visited it on Monday. On Tuesday I was hanging out with my friends at Gnip trying to make sense of it all when my cell phone rang. It was Facebook’s attorney.

He was with the head of their security team, who I knew slightly because I’d reported several security holes to Facebook over the years. The attorney said that they were just about to sue me into oblivion, but in light of my previous good relationship with their security team, they’d give me one chance to stop the process. They asked and received a verbal assurance from me that I wouldn’t publish the data, and sent me on a letter to sign confirming that. Their contention was robots.txt had no legal force and they could sue anyone for accessing their site even if they scrupulously obeyed the instructions it contained. The only legal way to access any web site with a crawler was to obtain prior written permission.

Mathew Ingram reported on the data getting forced down, and got a statement from Facebook that seems to miss the point:

Andrew Noyes, manager of public policy communications at Facebook, said in an email that Warden “aggregated a large amount of data from over 200 million users without our permission, in violation of our terms. He also publicly stated he intended to make that raw data freely available to others.” Noyes also noted that Facebook’s statement of rights and responsibilites says that users agree not to collect users’ content or information “using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

But I still don’t see what the legal argument is. At best, I could see them terminating his account for disobeying the terms of service — but even then the whole thing doesn’t make much sense. The data is publicly available and, as Peter notes, it’s pretty much standard practice for people to aggregate and analyze such data. However, he also pointed out that he couldn’t afford to be a legal test case, and so he gave in and negotiated with Facebook to remove the data.

In the end, though, this shows Facebook’s rather schizophrenic view towards data and privacy. On the one hand, it tries to push everyone to open up their info, but then if anyone does anything useful with it, they threaten to sue?

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Wow, haven’t seen a decline like this in a awhile.

The Fed just came out with some very ugly consumer credit numbers, and the Dow is now down about triple digits.

On a sequential basis, consumer credit fell 5%, way worse than expected.

Here’s the full announcement from The Fed.

Below is the chart:

Join the conversation about this story »

According to a Ford insider, the limited-edition Ford Focus RS500 sold out within 12 hours of being revealed, even though FoMoCo has yet to announce prices. The source said that despite Ford being forced to unveil the car 48 hours earlier than planned, it received over 500 expressions of intent to purchase.

“From that moment on people were literally walking into dealers or calling them up and placing orders for the car,” the Ford source told AutoCar. “However, because we had to quickly bring the car’s launch forward we hadn’t even briefed the dealers on its existence. It led to some quite confused phone calls between dealers and head office.”

FoMoCo is now sorting through the list to provide equal allocation across Europe, ahead of the order books formally opening in May.

Refresher: Power for the Ford Focus RS500 comes from a turbocharged Duratec RS 2.5-L 5-cylinder engine making 345-hp with a maximum torque of 339 lb-ft. That allows it to go from 0-62 mph in 5.6 seconds with a top speed of 163 mph. Only 500 will be made.

2011 Ford Focus RS500:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: AutoCar