Author: Serkadis

Forget all of the talk about Greece and Germany. The spread between 10-year Greek and German bonds tells you all you need to know.

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2009 was the year of virtual goods and the market exploded thanks in no small part to the rise of gaming on social networks, notably Facebook. Zynga is the biggest social-game developer and it now attracts an audience in the hundreds of millions of users. Its games, like Farmville, top the charts as Facebook’s most popular apps and rely heavily o… (read more)

Even with all the recall headlines surrounding Toyota, MotorTrend has awarded the Camry its best midsize family sedan for 2010. Wondering why? Check out this video of Technical Director Frank Markus taking us through seven of the best selling cars in America as part of MotorTrend’s family sedan comparison.

Follow the jump for the video.

Click here to read MotorTrend’s comparison of the seven sedans.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Toyota Camry.

– By: Omar Rana

It’s been a while now since ICANN announced plans to open up the top level domain space. While we’ve questioned for many years the utility of still requiring limited TLDs, ICANN’s plan to open up top level domains appeared to be more of a moneygrab than any real attempt at openness. That’s because to get your own vanity TLD, it was going to cost somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000. Who would pay that? Apparently consumer electronics firm Canon.

Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that Canon is the first company to get its own TLD, appropriately: .canon. And, no, this doesn’t mean that you’ll now need to go to http://canon.canon — but just to http://canon (that is, once it’s launched, which won’t be until at least late 2011). Oh, and apparently the cost has now solidified at $185,000. This really does seem like a pure vanity play. It’s not like anyone was having any trouble finding Canon before, and most browsers (the vast majority of those that are actually used) will often automatically add the .com if you leave it off anyway.

There might be an argument for some sites, such as social networking sites to go down this road, so that you can set up profile pages like YourName.Facebook or whatever — but it’s hard to see the value for companies like Canon.

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Some of this morning’s biggest gainers on the S&P 500 include health care plan providers, who ultimately stand to profit from mandatory insurance requirements in the healthcare reform measure.

Take a look at these gains:

• Unitedhealth Group Inc (UNH): $34.39 / +2.38%
• CIGNA Corp (CI): $36.58 / +2.06%
• Aetna Inc (AET): $33.85 / +1.84%
• Coventry Health Care Inc (CVH): $26.26 / +1.82%
• Tenet Healthcare Corp (THC): $5.75 / +1.59%
• WellPoint Inc (WLP): $64.83 / +1.58%

Below, a chart of YTD performance of the above stocks.

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See Also:

• Check Out This Morning’s Worst Performing Healthcare Stocks
• This Morning’s Biggest Movers On The S&P
• You Literally Can’t Lose In This Market

Ontem aconteceu a apresentação oficial da companhia McLaren Automotive, bem como o lançamento do seu primeiro modelo, a McLaren MP4-12C, que será a primeira de uma grande linha de carros esportivos planejados pela companhia, que possui enorme experiência com carros de Fórmula 1.

Presentes no evento da companhia, estavam os pilotos Jenson Button e Lewis Hamilton que colocaram as mãos na nova máquina para testá-la nas pistas (vídeo do teste logo após o link). O supercarro possui um motor V8 de 600 cv e 8.000 rpm. Sem sombra de dúvidas, haverão comparações com a McLaren F1, mas isso vai ter que esperar um pouco, já que os resultados de performance da MP4-12C ainda não foram divulgados.

Confiram a seguir o vídeo de teste dos pilotos Button e Hamilton, e várias imagens da MP4-12C e de seu processo de montagem, além de outros protótipos que foram usados para teste e outros veículos da McLaren que estão em exibição. Todas as fotos foram iradas por Vlad Savov da Weblogs, Inc.

Lançamento do modelo MP4-12C

Via | Autoblog

Every major Apple product launch tends to follow a pattern that many of us have just accepted. Long lines, constrained supply and lack of accessories are all common for the launch day. But with the release of the iPad right around the corner, one company dared to follow Apple’s advice to the world. Instead of the frustrating experience of buying a new iPad and not being able to get a quality case for days or even weeks, Hard Candy Cases will be ready to deliver on day one — and all it took was just thinking different.

A visit to Hard Candy’s website quickly reveals that its iPad cases will ship this month, ahead of the launch for the device itself. Digging deeper, these cases are not just generic cases that happen to fit the general size of the iPad, but quality cases that snugly fit Apple’s multitouch wonder. So how did the company pull off quality products on such an amazing timeline?

It begins with the resolve of Tim Hickman, the CEO of Hard Candy Cases and founder of Speck Products, another popular accessory manufacturer. In the traditional manufacturing process, Apple would release technical documents (or the manufacturer could measure the physical device itself) to provide precise measurements for manufacturers. The next step is the expensive and sometimes lengthy process of setting up the tooling equipment to produce cases. It’s easy to see why accuracy is important. As a result, its not until a period of time after the product is released that the bulk of cases begin to enter the market. Hickman’s solution was to engineer the cases in such a way that if the final device was a millimeter or so different than anticipated, specially designed bumpers inside the case could be adjusted to provide a snug fit. From a business perspective, Hard Candy Cases was able to start the tooling process weeks ago. From a consumer perspective, that means cases will be available sooner rather than later.

But Hickman didn’t stop there. In a move that is strangely reminiscent of Steve Jobs himself, a little over a month ago the CEO flew to China to persuade factory workers to work through the Chinese New Year and focus on manufacturing his product. After four weeks of sleepless nights, sheer madness and a fight to the finish, Hickman’s chartered 747 delivered 18,000 Bubble Hard Sleeve cases to the U.S. Another 7,000 will be delivered before the iPad’s launch on April 3.

Hickman’s purpose behind this isn’t to simply be the first on the market for the sake of being first. With iPad pre-orders numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the iPad opens the door for a huge market of third-party accessories and that can mean some serious profits. Hard Candy Cases, while a figurative new kid on the block, isn’t a stranger to this though. With revenue of $150,000 in its first month of operation, Hickman’s company has already captured the attention of the industry. With prominent exposure in the Apple Store and the resolve of its CEO, Hard Candy Cases is poised to provide some serious competition to other popular case manufacturers, like Belkin, Speck and Incase.

If you’ve already pre-ordered your iPad, check out some Hard Candy Cases’ products so your iPad will be protected from day one. If you’ve used any of their other products, let us know what you think!

Filed under: Motorsports, Convertible, Performance, Maserati, Celebrities, Luxury

What do Formula One drivers drive in their downtime? Well, when you’re a two-time world champion like Fernando Alonso, you get to drive pretty much whatever you want. That is, assuming the team you’re driving for isn’t owned by a specific automaker. Then you’ll need to drive whatever the provide you with. And in Alonso’s case, notwithstanding his solo 2001 debut season with Minardi-Cosworth, he’s pretty much only driven for automaker-owned teams: Renault, McLaren-Mercedes, then back to Renault and now Ferrari.

While at Renault, Alonso drove a Megane RS that was later offered for sale on eBay. When he moved to McLaren, he got his finely-honed hands on an SLR 722. Now that he’s at Ferrari, you’d expect him to be driving a new 458 Italia or a 599 GTB Fiorano, right? Almost, but not quite.

Ferrari’s sister company Maserati has announced that Alonso has acquired a new GranCabrio – to be sold Stateside as the GranTurismo Convertible, lest we be confused. The Spanish driver – who’s already off to a great start, having won his first race with the team to which everyone said he always belonged – picked one out in (very) dark gray with a two-tone beige and bordeaux interior with a matching canvas roof. And if you think about it, his selection makes sense: if you’re driving a high-strung performance machine for work, wouldn’t you want to unwind in something a little more relaxed? Press release after the jump, photos in the galleries below.

[Source: Maserati]

Continue reading Fernando Alonso gets himself a Maserati GranCabrio

Fernando Alonso gets himself a Maserati GranCabrio originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stop focusing on all the “OW” PAIN in your life! When you’re in the NOW and not the OW you’re better able to see solutions -and better able to enjoy the journey to where you want to go!

As Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

So stop living in the OW – and live in the NOW…starting NOW!

Feeling challenged, stressed or depressed? Check out my book – THE BOUNCE BACK BOOK – which has been praised by Tony Robbins! Just click this line, right here right now!

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Filed under: Europe, Hatchback, Citroën, Design/Style

With its new premium DS range, Citroen is desperate to do the same thing to its hatchbacks as French fashion has done for clothes. But sometimes it can be a bit of a stretch.

Take for example, this DS3 crafted for Yves Saint Laurent. Citroen prepared the premium hatchback specifically for an event that looks back on the history of the YSL brand and the recently passed namesake founder, using it to shuttle celebrities and journalists around Paris. (We would have gone with a C5, but we digress.)

So what makes this DS3 different from all other DS3s? A special paint job, complete with a big Yves Saint Laurent logo on the contrasting black roof. Which may be all the fashion-forward DS3 really needs, but given the countless fashion-branded special editions (like the Fiat 500 Diesel or Versace-edition Lamborghini Murcielago) and short of the concept car which the French automaker created with GQ magazine, we would have at least expected some sort of special interior treatment for a car associated with one of the world’s best-known fashion houses.

[Source: Citroen]

Continue reading Citroen creates a special DS3 for Yves Saint Laurent

Citroen creates a special DS3 for Yves Saint Laurent originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google is about to get a little more capacity to satisfy its ever-increasing hunger for bandwidth. A high-speed Trans-Pacific Internet cable, in which it was a significant investor, is now completed and is expected to go into service in the next few months, Cnet reports. The project, which has been in the works for the past couple of years, i… (read more)

Filed under: Motorsports, BMW, Mercedes-Benz

For the past several years – even more in the case of McLaren – Germany’s automakers have been known around the Formula One paddock by their association with two of the sport’s most established racing teams. But for the 2010 season, both Mercedes-Benz and BMW have dissolved their partnerships with McLaren and Sauber, respectively. And yet, if you look down this year’s roster, you’d swear the associations still stand.

In the case of McLaren, the partnership with Mercedes has now devolved into a strict engine-supply arrangement, just the same as exists between Red Bull and Renault or Force India and Ferrari, to mention just two examples. This following Mercedes’ acquisition of the Brawn GP team. McLaren, however, is now completing the re-acquisition of the 40% stake which Mercedes parent-company Daimler held in the racing outfit, thus culminating a 15-year partnership between the two companies.

Sauber’s arrangement is a bit more complicated, however. The Swiss team, which was founded as an independent, was bought outright by BMW after its lackluster arrangement with the Williams team failed to amount to much. The Bavarian automaker withdrew its support at the end of last season, however, leaving Sauber twisting in the wind. The team’s namesake founder has since bought the team back from BMW, and is running under Ferrari power like it once did.

The most bizarre arrangement, however, left the team’s official entry labeled as BMW Sauber Ferrari, since the team was hesitant to remove BMW’s name from its letterhead and risk missing out on the revenue stream to which the team is entitled from Formula One Management’s commercial holdings. Sauber, however, says that the situation will change some time this season when they officially and formally drop the BMW name from its entry and off the nose of the car on which it still sits.

[Sources: ESPN and F1Technical | Image: Guillaume Baptiste/AFP/Getty]

McLaren, Sauber move to sever ties with Mercedes, BMW originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mais um veículo completando alguns aninhos de vida, dessa vez o Mazda MX-5! Em comemoração ao vigésimo aniversário do modelo, alguns “presentes” estão sendo entregues para ele, como o caso da Mazda França, que produziu uma série especial para o Miata, chamada “Black & Matte”.

A nova pintura consiste em um preto fosco combinado com a maioria dos detalhes estéticos do carro (rodas de liga, retrovisores, maçanetas) com preto polido.

O pequeno spider que possui um motor de 160 cv foi produzido pelo designer francês LK (Abreviação de Laure Kczekotowska) e sua idéia foi transformar a versão de produção em sua obra de arte. O novo Mazda MX-5 Black & Matte vai ser exibido no “Salon du Cabriolet, Coupe & SUV” que acontecerá em Paris no mês de abril. Modelos não inclusas!

Edição do 20º aniversário do Miata

Via | Autoblog.it

At the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, Tesla and TAG Heuer unveiled a special-edition Tesla Roadster to celebrate their new partnership. The first fruit of the partnership will be the Odyssey of Pioneers, a tour of 15 visits on three continents – a 37,000 kilometer (22,990 miles) journey that will start in Basel. The first stop in their round-the-world tour will be in Zurich on Saturday.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and TAG Heuer President and CEO Jean-Christophe Babin kicked off the “Odyssey of Pioneers” on March 18 at a star-studded event in Baselworld for TAG Heuer’s 150th anniversary.

The tour will conclude in Paris in October at another celebration with a bunch of celebrities on hand.

Like all Tesla cars, the TAG Heuer Tesla Roadster will recharge throughout the Odyssey using existing infrastructure.

TAG Heuer Tesla Roadster:

– By: Omar Rana

Article Tags: James M. Taylor, Reply To Article

The old-fashioned news media is bleeding revenue, jobs, and influence, and media insiders claim they cannot figure out why. Many reasons are to blame, but one major reason is reader frustration with a lack of balanced reporting. A good illustration is a March 11 Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot article on the public showing of a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) movie on alleged ocean acidification.

The Virginian-Pilot article, “Seas’ acidity threatens life, livelihoods, film says,” presented arguments made by NRDC – an environmental activist group – in its movie, “Acid Test,” but did not mention the substantial scientific evidence that contradicts NRDC’s alarmism.

The article parroted, without any critical examination, NRDC claims that the oceans are becoming “more acidic” as a result of higher carbon dioxide content. The oceans, however, are not acidic. The pH balance of water is measured on a scale of 1 to 14. Water with a pH of 7 is neutral. Water with a pH below 7 is acidic, and above 7 is alkaline. The pH of the world’s oceans is 8.1, which is alkaline.

The article reported as fact the film’s claim that ocean acidity has increased 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. However, a 2005 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature reports ocean pH was between 8.1 and 8.2 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and has decreased by less than 0.1 since then.

The Virginian-Pilot article also presented NRDC claims that ocean acidification is harming marine life. However, recent studies published in peer-reviewed journals such as Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, Biogeosciences, Global Change Biology, and Journal of Geophysical Research have all found that marine life is either unaffected by – or significantly benefits from – higher carbon dioxide content and lower pH.

Source: heartland.org

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Existem relatos recentes de que a Volvo está preparando um modelo crossover baseado no hatchback C30, cujo lançamento está marcado para 2012. Isso não é uma grande novidade, já que a montadora já mostrava interesse em construir um utilitário esportivo na plataforma do C30 há um certo tempo.

O modelo que seria chamado de XC30 teria tração nas quatro rodas, bem como motores a gás e a diesel. A nova aposta da Volvo para o futuro será expandir o modelo e abrir linha para mais compradores.

Segundo o executivo da Volvo, Lex Kerssemakers, haverão uma maiores expansões da linha XC em um futuro próximo, assim como os modelos XC60, XC70 e XC90. Uma versão de cinco portas do C30 também está em desenvolvimento. Apesar da carroceria atual do C30 ter um design mais elegante, Kerssemakers diz que seu espaço interior limitado afasta alguns compradores. Então, nos próximos anos maiores novidades estarão entrando no mercado.

Via | Left Lane

Michael Scott points us to a rather surprising (given the source) piece in Ad Age asking if copyright is “the buggy whip of the digital age.” Of course, most regular Techdirt readers will not be surprised to find that I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. It’s a tool for a very different system that isn’t needed. If anything, I’d argue the situation is worse than with buggy whips. At least with buggy whips, they could just fade away as the automobile grew in importance. Buggy whips couldn’t get in the way of the automakers. Copyright, on the other hand, is regularly used to stifle and hold back new forms of creativity and to silence expression.

The article itself, by Judy Shapiro, is really a conference report from an event called “The Collision of Ideas 2010,” put on by the Copyright Clearance Center. It looks like they brought in a lot of fantastic speakers, highlighting how copyright law doesn’t fit well with what content creators are trying to do, and how it’s often being used to actively harm content creators. For example:

Mr. Hoffman, the filmmaker, gave a presentation where he confided how challenging current copyright laws are for artists. As an example, he gave us detailed insights into the challenges he had creating his critically acclaimed Sputnik documentary. He explained that half his budget was spent on copyright fees alone. Most unfairly, he had to pay exorbitant copyright fees to a network for old news footage they did not even have but which David himself had spent time to ferret out. David openly concluded that, “it was better to open the floodgates” and let anyone use his content than constrain its distribution.

Unfortunately, Shapiro is getting beaten up in the comments on that piece by folks who are doing the kneejerk thing of saying “but copyright is good, because otherwise who will create!” Still, it’s good to see that this debate is reaching a wider and wider audience through conferences like this one and in the pages of AdAge. While you can always expect the kneejerk response from folks who have always been told that copyright must be good, the more people examine the actual issues, the more they’ll recognize that as a tool, it’s current design is woefully misguided and very much against the principles for which it was created.

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One of the numerous ways Mozilla Labs is using to improve its products is to encourage user feedback, and their latest endeavor was to find the most popular Firefox menu items. In February, they launched a survey regarding the usage of the browser’s menu bar, asking respondents to answer three questions:
· Which menu items are the most co… (read more)

Google has been battling privacy concerns on several accounts and things are only becoming harder as the company grows and enters new markets. Google offers some decent options for protecting your data from being gathered by the company and one method would be to avoid all Google products if you want to make sure your data stays safe. But p… (read more)

Gas detection specialist Crowcon has expanded the capabilities of its highly successful Tetra:3 (T3) personal multi-gas detector with three more toxic gas sensors: ozone (O3), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and ammonia (NH3). This complements the existing sensor range which includes flammable gases, oxygen (O2), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), and carbon monoxide (CO). The new sensors widen the applications for the T3 to include the chemical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage processing industries, as well as water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Featuring a top-mount display and the capacity to detect up to four gases at once, the T3 is designed for use in the most demanding industrial environments, including confined space work. It features intuitive, single button operation, essential for users with gloved hands.

If a hazard is detected, the T3 gives rapid and effective warning with a powerful 95 dBA audible alarm, an extremely bright red/blue LED visual warning, and by vibrating. Despite its compact size and low weight (less than 300g), the T3 is very rugged. It has a shatterproof housing with rubber over-moulding, providing extra shock and vibration protection and giving it water and dust resistance to IP67.

A lithium-ion battery provides over 18 hours continuous operation from a single charge, and there is a 30 day countdown warning of the calibration due date. The T3 is provided with a stainless steel alligator pocket clip as standard and has an optional harness for chest mounting.

To coincide with the expanded T3 gas sensor range, Crowcon has also launched a new ‘universal charger’, developed in response to the market need for reliable vehicle charging of detectors used by service and maintenance crews in the field. This latest addition firmly supports the T3 in a mountable cradle, offering a quick and easy storage solution as well as dependable charging with status indication.

About Crowcon
Crowcon (www.crowcon), a subsidiary of Halma p.l.c. (www.halma.com), is a world leader in portable and fixed gas detection instruments. The company is based in Oxfordshire in the UK and has branch offices in the Netherlands, the USA, Singapore and China. It specialises in developing, manufacturing and marketing innovative, reliable and cost-effective flammable and toxic gas detection equipment and has constantly led the field with products designed for safety and environmental monitoring.

Ends

Reader enquiries:
Crowcon Detection Instruments Ltd
2 Blacklands Way, Abingdon Business Park
Abingdon OX14 1DY
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 557700, Fax: +44 (0) 1235 557718
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.crowcon.com

Press contact:
Damian Corbet
Halma PR Services
The Castell Building, 217 Kingsbury Road
London NW9 9HP
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 8511 1821, Fax: +44 (0)20 8205 2548
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.halmapr.com