The EU will demand around double the budget cuts on the table from Greece, a senior government official told the WSJ:
“They [the EU] are telling us the current measures will only cut two percentage points. They are pushing very hard for another package of around €4 billion,” the official, who asked not to be identified. “Greece thinks a package of €2 billion to €2.5 billion will be enough to achieve the targets,” he said.
It’s an impossible situation for Greek Prime Minister George Papandreo, who literally can’t afford to stand up to the EU, and who also faces mass riots from Greeks who will suffer from the austerity budget. Wednesday’s riot required police intervention with tear gas and billy clubs.
January marked the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year home sales increases statewide, while the median price logged its first uptick since September 2007.
The Illinois Association of Realtors reported Friday statewide sales of existing single-family houses and condominiums in January 2010 were up 14 percent, totaling 5,483 homes sold compared to January 2009 sales of 4,809 homes.
The median price in January was $145,300, up 0.2 percent from $145,000 in January 2009.
Nationwide, sales of existing homes took a large drop for the second straight month in January, falling to the lowest level since summer. It was another sign the housing market’s recovery is faltering.
The National Association of Realtors says sales fell 7.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.05 million from a downwardly revised pace of 5.44 million in December.
The results were far worse than forecast.
The median sales price was $164,700, unchanged from a year earlier and down 3.4 percent from December.
In the Chicago area, year-over-year home sales were positive for the seventh consecutive month, up 29.2 percent to 3,922 single-family and condominiums sold in January compared with 3,035 homes in January 2009.
The median home sale price was $175,000, down 5.4 percent from $185,000 in January 2009.
“We are seeing an accelerated spring market despite the snow and cold in Illinois with the homebuyer tax credit the driving factor for rising home sales,” said Mike Onorato, president of the Illinois Association of Realtors.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois Department of Public Health has added five lakes and rivers to its 2010 consumption advisories for sport fish.
The additions are the result of expanded sampling by the Illinois Fish Contaminant Monitoring Program.
Officials screen fish samples from about 40 bodies of water each year for contamination from 14 banned pesticides and chemicals.
Public Health Director Dr. Damon Arnold says the advisories are not meant to discourage eating fish. But they help cooks determine how to prepare them. Contaminants may be harmful especially to women in childbearing years and children.
New to the list this year are rivers and lakes in in Pulaski County, Marion County, Shelby County, Morgan County and Cook County.
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (AP) — Bank of Illinois is suing three real estate investors, claiming they owe the bank millions of dollars.
The countersuit filed Thursday in McLean County is the latest step in the saga of the troubled bank and developer Larry Hundman.
The lawsuit comes after the investors told the court they can’t be forced to pay a $3 million loan Hundman’s company defaulted on last month. They’re listed as guaranteeing the loan, but they claim their signatures were forged.
The bank, however, denies that and claims they are trying to “shirk their promise to repay $3 million that they benefited from” as investors in Hundman’s company.
Bank of Illinois is trying to get $9.3 million in defaulted loans tied to Hundman.
Hundman’s attorney, Tom Arkell, declined to comment on the countersuit.
CHICAGO (AP) — A top minister says the Nation of Islam has intensified efforts to reach troubled black youth and will focus much of its annual Saviours Day convention on the issue.
The convention starts Friday and ends Sunday with Minister Louis Farrakhan’s speech.
Reform has been central to the Chicago-based movement that espouses black nationalism.
But the group has increased its work with teenagers, particularly after last year’s beating death of Chicago student Derrion Albert.
The teen’s graphic death was captured on a cell phone camera.
Ishmael Muhammad is the national assisting minister. He’s been speaking in schools since Albert’s death.
He says that later this year the Nation will start a youth mentoring program for those who were incarcerated.
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. says he knows he’s a dark horse candidate in seeking the Democratic nomination for Evan Bayh’s Senate seat.
McDermott said he met in Washington this week with Bayh and Congressmen Brad Ellsworth and Pete Visclosky to discuss the race.
The second-term mayor says he understands Ellsworth is the favorite to win the nomination from the state Democratic Party’s central committee but that he also sees his candidacy as a way of keeping northwestern Indiana’s concerns in the process.
McDermott is the Democratic chairman in Lake County, the state’s second largest. He says he talked with Bayh about how Lake County could have a more significant role in statewide races.
Congressman Baron Hill also is considering a bid for the Democratic Senate nomination.
Advertising has been the main driving engine of the entire online economy, so you’d think that, after all these years, there’s no way someone could really come up with something new. Bug Digg showed that approaches that might seem counter-intuitive might very well pay off in the long run. Last year, the social news aggregator introduced Digg Ads, a new ad format … (read more)
Before the new Pagani C9 makes its debut later this year, the Italian supercar maker will send off the current Zonda with a one-off special-edition model called the Zonda Tricolore.
While the regular Zonda looks like a jet fighter, the Zonda Tricolore is built in honor of Italy’s equivalent of Blue Angles and carries a color scheme used by aeronauts – including blue tinted carbon fiber elements and pairs of red, white and green stripes running down the hood.
Like the Zonda Cinques, the Zonda Tricolore uses a body and tub crafted from a special weave carbon fiber and titanium. Power comes from a Mercedes-Benz sourced 7.3L V12 making 678-hp, mated to a 6-speed sequential gearbox. That allows the Zonda Tricolore to pull from 0 to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds.
As far as production goes – Pagani is only making one Zonda Tricolore so you can expect it to be the most expensive unit ever sold.
I like it when companies port their old games to the iPhone platform, even when the results are somewhat less than amazing. Aside from being the best way to convince your somewhat technophobe friends that the iPhone and iPod touch are totally worth buying, they also allow me to indulge in some pleasant gaming nostalgia during my commute or whenever I have a spare moment.
Even though I have played them both many times before, I have no doubt that I’ll enjoy playing through Final Fantasy I and II once again now that they’re available on the iPhone. Square Enix ported both titles to Apple’s App Store, now available for $8.99 a piece.
Now whether or not you’re willing to pay $9 for these classic titles may depend on how many times you’ve played through them in the past, and on how many different platforms. Versions of the games have appeared on the NES, GameBoy Advance, PSP, PlayStation, DS and Wii. Some of the newer ports featured extra levels and bonus content, which are included in the new iPhone versions, so if you haven’t played them lately, you might have good reason to take another spin.
The new iPhone versions also offer much-improved avatar designs and better sprites, though the story and gameplay mechanics remain unchanged. As someone who’s never not enjoyed playing through a classic Square title, I’m not too worried about becoming bored or being underwhelmed. By the same token, I know exactly what I’m in for, so there’s not likely to be any surprises coming my way.
I’m mostly just hoping that my purchase in this instance encourages Square Enix to continue releasing its classic titles for the platform. I don’t think it’s too impossible to imagine a time when Final Fantasy VII and VIII are available as fully ported iPad titles. And some more original content would be nice, too. Song Summoner is great, as far as tactics games go, but I’d love an original Square Enix RPG title for the iPhone platform that uses the device’s specific capabilities in a similarly innovative fashion.
A cursory attempt at playing the new games reveals some finicky, context-based controls that take a little getting used to, but eventually don’t really take anything away from the experience, though they certainly don’t add to it. As with most iPhone games, you do get the advantage of having the app auto-save your progress on exit so that you can quickly resume without having to return to a save point or something equally annoying. Like I said above, very few surprises here, but if you’re a fan of the series, there’s probably nothing I can say to either convince or prevent you from buying this.
“the United States cannot afford to merely fund research and say a prayer that some entrepreneur will commercialize it down the road,”
So he’s asking for advice on how to improve the commercialization of federally funded research. Here’s a simple and practical idea that he almost certainly won’t consider:
Bayh-Dole, of course, was officially designed to do exactly what Locke is supposedly now looking to do. It specifically gave universities and other organizations the right to patent and control federally funded research, with the misguided belief that this would increase commercialization of federally funded research. The law was enacted thirty years ago, and we can now say, pretty conclusively, that it has failed and has only served to hold back commercialization efforts and to massively stifle federally funded research in a number of areas, through a series of (somewhat predictable, if you understand what monopoly rights do) unintended consequences.
First, tons of universities set up tech transfer offices because of Bayh-Dole. Thinking that the law would suddenly create a new revenue stream in licensing patents, universities spent heavily on setting up such offices to facilitate the transfer of patents to commercial entities. Unfortunately, patents, by themselves, are rarely that valuable, and most universities greatly overestimated the value of their patents. This hurt in multiple ways. Fewer patents than expected were licensable — and even when a potentially licensable patent came up, the tech transfer office often valued it way too high, such that companies refused to license it, or if they did, were saddled with such debt that they couldn’t build a real business. On the whole tech transfer offices have been a huge money loser for the majority of universities.
Second, Bayh-Dole actively stifled important research. Academic research has always been about active sharing of information, with different individuals testing, retesting, and modifying various hypotheses and tests. But with the focus on patenting, suddenly universities didn’t want their professors sharing any more, greatly holding back the standard process by which research actually becomes useful.
Third, by focusing on patenting and creating an exclusive right around federally funded research, it limited what fields that research could be applied to for commercialization. That’s because often, the licensing would be on an exclusive basis to a single company in a specific field — blocking out all other potential commercialization routes.
If Locke is serious about improving commercialization of federally funded research, it’s time to work with Congress to dump Bayh-Dole. Federally funded research is research paid for with American taxpayer money. To lock it up such that only a single organization can make use of it is a travesty, and is doing tremendous harm to both actual research and commercialization efforts. Instead, it’s time to recognize that the drive to innovate comes from market needs and competition, not from gov’t granted monopolies.
We’ve had nearly thirty years to witness that Bayh-Dole failed in its stated purpose. It’s time to get rid of it.
After 96 days in Loyola University Hospital’s burn unit, Diana Lynn Davajon of Arlington Heights passed away peacefully, with her husband by her side.
“She had a tremendous will to live,” George Davajon said. “But in the end, the infections were just too much.”
She suffered burn injuries from a Nov. 13 fire in their second floor condominium. Mrs. Davajon had lived in Arlington Heights for more than 35 years, after growing up on a farm in Blandensville, IL. She was 67.
Before the couple met, Mrs. Davajon had a successful career as the assistant banquet manager at Allgauer’s on the Riverfront in Northbrook, where she worked closely with members of the Allgauer family.
“She started with us shortly after we opened in 1973 and she was a big part of our success,” said Frank Allgauer. “She was very personable, and a real go-getter.”
As an event planner, she helped arrange special occasion banquets at the restaurant, including weddings, bar mitzvahs and anniversary parties, as well as seasonal events for the different holidays.
“Planning the weddings were her favorite,” her husband says.
Having spent her formative years on her family’s farm, before moving to Galesburg where she attended Galesburg High School, Mrs. Davajon brought her warm personality along with her knowledge of foods and cooking to her catering role.
Mrs. Davajon worked at Allgauer’s for more than 10 years, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.
“She was an excellent cook,” George Davajon said. “That’s one of the first things we realized we had in common, was our love of cooking.”
Allgauer’s is located within the Hilton Chicago Northbrook, and when the Hilton Lisle/Naperville opened in Lisle, the Allgauer family opened a restaurant and bar there. They tapped Mrs. Davajon to help get the banquet side up and running.
The couple met in 1977 and married in 1983. In recent years, Mrs. Davajon had retired from the banquet business to spend more time tending their home together.
She had a flair for decorating, her husband said, and she loved to garden. Although they lived in a condominium complex and she had no backyard plot to cultivate, she developed a vibrant container garden on their balcony.
“It was award-winning,” her husband says. “She took second place in a village garden contest they held.”
The couple had no children but instead enjoyed animals, caring for their cats adopted from the Buddy Foundation in Arlington Heights.
“She was the love of my life,” her husband says. “She was funny and outgoing, and she loved to have company and entertain. She just smiled all the time.”
A court ruling has issued an injunction against file hosting service Rapidshare. The company will now have to filter all file uploads for 148 book titles, mainly academic belonging to six book publishers. Failure to comply with the court’s decision will cost up to $339,000 in fines and even prison time for some of Rapidshare’s management tea… (read more)
BMW fuel cell motorcycle design concept – Click above for image gallery
Like many other automakers, BMW has expended plenty of research and development on hydrogen fuels. But unlike every other automaker, BMW has focused on liquid hydrogen with internal combustion engines. A group of design students at ISD of Valenciennes, France felt no such constraints in their latest project.
They’ve created a BMW badged motorcycle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell with a lithium polymer battery for electrical energy storage. Hydrogen is stored in a 20-liter cryogenic tank mounted where the engine would normally sit, with a suspension consisting of single-sided swing arms front and rear. Propulsion comes via a shaft drive system from the 100 kilowatt motor.
At this point, the bike doesn’t physically exist, but it looks really cool in the video after the jump. A tip of the hat to Radhika!
As a part of his efforts to delegate more authority to each region in order to monitor safety issues, Toyota President and CEO Akio Toyoda will create two new executive positions in the United States. The two positions will consists of a “Chief Safety Executive,” who will work full time on recalls and safety concerns and a higher-ranking chief quality officer who will sit on a Special Committee for Global Quality led by Toyoda.
“Virtually all decisions relating to recalls and safety matters are decided in Japan,” said Jim Wiseman, spokesman for Toyota. “This is an effort to elevate key North American executives in major positions of responsibility and authority in that process.”
During hearings this week, Toyota’s top officials agreed that the concentration on decision-making had resulted in a slow response to potential dangerous defects. Also, Toyota plans on passing on reports about defects discovered in one region to the others.
“We intend to share information in a more timely way in regions around the world,” Toyoda said.
Existing home sales plummeted to 5.05 million units in January compared to 5.44 million in December.
This is solidly below the 5.5 million units that economists had been expecting.
NAR: Existing-home sales fell in January but are above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – dropped 7.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 5.05 million units in January from a revised 5.44 million in December, but remain 11.5 percent above the 4.53 million-unit level in January 2009.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there is still some delay between shopping and closing that affected current sales. “Most of the completed deals in January were based on contracts in November and December. People who got into the market after the home buyer tax credit was extended in November have only recently started to offer contracts, so it will take a couple months to close those sales,” he said. “Still, the latest monthly sales decline is not encouraging, and raises concern about the strength of a recovery.”
Total housing inventory at the end of January fell 0.5 percent to 3.27 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.8-month supply2 at the current sales pace, up from a 7.2-month supply in December. Raw unsold inventory is 9.6 percent below a year ago, and is at the lowest level since March 2006.
“Activity should be picking up strongly in late spring as buyers take advantage of the tax credit, which is critical to absorb distressed properties reaching the market and to continually chip away at inventory,” Yun said. “With a downtrend in the number of homes on the market, especially in the lower price ranges, values are beginning to firm but with great variance around the country.”
The national median existing-home price3 for all housing types was $164,700 in January, unchanged from a year earlier. Distressed homes, which accounted for 38 percent of sales last month, continue to downwardly distort the median price because they typically are discounted in comparison with traditional homes in the same area.
A parallel NAR practitioner survey4 shows first-time buyers purchased 40 percent of homes in January, down from 43 percent in December. Investors accounted for 17 percent of transactions in January, up from 15 percent in December; the remaining sales were to repeat buyers. The survey also shows that buyer traffic increased 9.4 percent in January.
NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz., said buying a home in the current environment has become more challenging. “First-time buyers and others who need a mortgage are increasingly losing out to all-cash investors for the best bargains in many areas, particularly for foreclosed homes where cash is king,” she said.
“Inventory conditions vary by price range, and of course there are major differences depending on location. Realtors® are the best buyer resource for strategies on winning bids in increasingly competitive markets,” Golder said. “The bidding for more desirable homes will only accelerate between now and the April 30 contract deadline to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.”
According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage edged up to 5.03 percent in January from 4.93 percent in December; the rate was 5.05 percent in January 2009.
Single-family home sales fell 6.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million in January from a level of 4.76 million in December, but are 8.6 percent above the 4.08 million pace in January 2009. The median existing single-family home price was $163,600 in January, down 0.4 percent from a year ago.
Existing condominium and co-op sales dropped 8.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 620,000 in January from 675,000 in December, but are 38.1 percent above the 449,000-unit level a year ago. The median existing condo price5 was $172,400 in January, which is 1.4 percent higher than January 2009.
Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast fell 10.9 percent to an annual pace of 820,000 in January but are 22.4 percent above a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $245,300, a gain of 8.8 percent from January 2009.
Existing-home sales in the Midwest declined 6.9 percent in January to a level of 1.08 million but are 8.0 percent higher than January 2009. The median price in the Midwest was $130,300, which is 1.0 percent below a year ago.
In the South, existing-home sales dropped 7.4 percent to an annual pace of 1.87 million in January but are 12.0 percent above a year ago. The median price in the South was $140,200, down 2.0 percent from January 2009.
Existing-home sales in the West declined 5.2 percent to an annual rate of 1.28 million in January but are 7.6 percent higher than January 2009. The median price in the West was $203,400, down 5.8 percent from a year ago.
The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
Think the government will start divesting illiquid mortgages?
It seems unlikely with home prices still falling.
Breakfast With Dave: We had mentioned yesterday that there was something fishy about the seasonal adjustment in that Case-Shiller home price index for January — especially since LoanPerformance flagged a price decline. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) index just came out and showed a whopper of a slide, falling 1.6% — steepest decline since November 2008 — and the data is seasonally adjusted.
We’ve heard a lot of rumors about a 5-Series Hybrid in recent months, but today BMW makes it official with the new BMW Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid, which will debut at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show next month.
Based on the new BMW 5-Series, the Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid features a 300-hp straight-6 gasoline with TwinPower Turbo technology mated to a 40 kW electric-motor and an 8-speed automatic transmission. BMW says that when compared to the 5-Series with the “conventional” combustion engine, the Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid reduces fuel-economy and emissions by more than 10 percent.
Other fuel-saving drivetrain technologies include the Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid’s ability to allow all-electric, zero-emission driving in city traffic. It also has a special hybrid-based Auto Start Stop function that offers additional efficiency by consistently switching off the combustion engine when stopping at the traffic lights or road congestion.
Will the Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid enter production? We don’t see why not.
BMW Concept 5-Series ActiveHybrid:
Press Release:
The new BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid
Munich: The new concept car offers a particularly good rendition of the new BMW 5 Series Sedan in all its dynamic, efficient and innovative qualities, at the same time representing the ongoing development of the BMW ActiveHybrid X6 and the BMW ActiveHybrid 7 with their drivetrain technology already in production.
The drive system featured in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid consists of a straight-six gasoline engine with TwinPower Turbo technology, eight-speed automatic transmission, and electric drive. Integration of BMW ActiveHybrid technology in a sedan already extremely efficient with its “conventional” combustion engine reduces both fuel consumption and emissions once again by more than 10 per cent. At the same time the electric motor offers a boost function, supporting the gasoline engine in generating particularly dynamic drive power for an even more sporting driving experience in the car.
Intelligent energy management likewise serves to enhance the efficiency of the overall system, its unique functions ensuring appropriate control and management of all energy paths within the car and appropriate interaction of the drivetrain components precisely adjusted to driving conditions.
The drivetrain technology featured in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid allows all-electric, zero-emission motoring in city traffic. At the same time a special hybrid-based Auto Start Stop function offers additional efficiency by consistently switching off the combustion engine when stopping at the traffic lights, a road junction, or in congested traffic. Optimised comfort, finally, is provided by the auxiliary climate control function already featured in the BMW ActiveHybrid 7.
Special development of ActiveHybrid technology as part of BMW EfficientDynamics.
The concept car based on the new BMW 5 Series Sedan for the first time presents the next generation of BMW ActiveHybrid technology, a special solution exclusive to BMW for intelligent interaction of the combustion engine and electric drive focused specifically on the requirements made of a dynamic sedan in the upper midrange segment.
Taking this approach, BMW is consistently continuing the development of hybrid technology according to a modular principle (best of hybrid), thus offering the optimum rendition of BMW ActiveHybrid technology for each concept and vehicle segment.
In accordance with the BMW EfficientDynamics development strategy, this ensures highly effective and practical use of hybrid technology for the reduction of both fuel consumption and emissions.
Also in the BMW Series Sedan segment: the BMW among hybrids combines supreme dynamics with maximum efficiency.
The combustion engine is supported in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid by an electrical drive system developed specifically for this model and arranged in compact dimensions between the straight-six combustion engine and the automatic transmission. Drawing its energy from a high-voltage battery at the back of the car, the electric motor develops maximum output of 40 kW.
An automatic clutch connects the gasoline engine and the electric motors.
Due to the particularly high level of torque generated from the start through the electric motors, the interaction of the two drive systems ensures extremely spontaneous and dynamic acceleration whenever required.
Perfectly integrated, precisely controlled: high-voltage battery supplying power to both the electric motor and the on-board network.
In overrun and when applying the brakes, the electric drive systems acts as a generator developing electric power fed into the high-voltage battery. This converts kinetic energy otherwise wasted as heat in the brake system into electric power saved for subsequent use.
Such energy obtained without any further consumption of fuel may then be used to generate drive power or operate electrical functions in the car.
This principle is the same as that of Brake Energy Regeneration already applied in BMW’s current production models, with the level of electrical energy generated by the electric motor being significantly greater and the increase in efficiency correspondingly higher.
The high-voltage battery likewise developed for this specific concept is fitted within a high-strength special case near the rear axle of the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid. This leads to an optimum position in terms of both safety and harmonious weight distribution. An integrated control unit permanently analyses the charge status of the high-voltage battery and controls both the battery charge process by way of Brake Energy Regeneration and the system cooling process. Apart from the electric motor, the high-voltage battery also delivers electric power to the car’s on-board network. Among other things, this allows efficient operation of the car’s auxiliary climate control activated whenever required by a remote control function to cool down the car’s interior significantly even before starting the engine.
Convenient use of the all-electric driving mode and the Auto Start Stop function is likewise guaranteed in this way, with all electrical functions such as the audio system, climate control or navigation remaining fully available even with the combustion engine switched off.
Unique: intelligent energy management with advance analysis of driving conditions.
BMW ActiveHybrid technology provides its unique potential in terms of both efficiency and driving dynamics under all kinds of conditions and throughout a wide load range.
Unlike conventional hybrid cars whose extra efficiency is largely limited to city traffic, both the BMW ActiveHybrid X6 and the BMW ActiveHybrid 7, by combining the combustion engine and the electric motor, are able to offer significantly lower fuel consumption and emission ratings also at higher speeds. This is made possible by technically sophisticated power electronics masterminding the interaction of the combustion engine and electric motor and thus optimising the overall efficiency of the drive system as a whole.
The BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid once again raises the range of functions provided by such power electronics to an even higher standard. As an example, the energy contained in the fuel and provided by the high-voltage battery may now be used even more specifically and efficiently to provide that Sheer Driving Pleasure so typical of BMW.
Taking additional factors into account, the interaction of the two drive units in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid is tailored to the driver’s requirements and current driving conditions with maximum precision. At the same time the power electronics also control the operation of the car’s ancillary units and comfort functions, again in the interest of maximum efficiency.
The range and diversity of parameters taken into account by the system is indeed quite unique in the automobile, just as the number of functions controlled in this way. A high level of all-round networking allows the power electronics to provide intelligent energy management, thus optimising the operating strategy of the entire vehicle under all conditions.
A further unique feature of energy management in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid is the car’s ability to adjust its operating strategy not just to current, but also to upcoming driving conditions. To do this the power electronics from the start evaluate data indicating a possible change in exterior conditions or the driver’s wishes and prepare the components in the drivetrain as well as the car’s electronic system for a possible change in requirements.
To analyse driving conditions up front, the system uses data provided by engine and chassis management as well as the sensors in the driver assistance systems on board the car. Data saved in the navigation system on the route chosen by the driver likewise goes into the final calculation, enabling the system to forecast driving conditions on the route directly ahead. Then, proceeding from this analysis, the car is coordinated in advance and the optimum use of all systems serves to use the energy available with maximum efficiency.
Should the system determine, for example, that the autobahn ahead is about to lead downhill, the charge level of the high-voltage battery is intelligently controlled in advance to regain brake energy upfront with maximum efficiency.
Similarly, the high-voltage battery may be fully charged in good time before the driver reaches his destination, enabling the system to switch off the combustion engine at an early point and change to all-electric drive along the final stretch of road. Indeed, this forward-looking function is able to extend the cruising range on electric power by up to 30%.
The BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid: the future of driving pleasure and efficiency in the upper midrange segment.
Optimised to an even higher standard in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid, the drivetrain and control systems underline the great significance of hybrid technology as a cornerstone of BMW EfficientDynamics. Looking at a new generation of hybrid technology from BMW featured in the BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid therefore offers particularly attractive perspectives, the ongoing development of BMW ActiveHybrid technology serving to provide substantial progress in all areas leading to a harmonious all-round concept with distinctive features typical of the brand.
The BMW Concept 5 Series ActiveHybrid is therefore more dynamic, efficient and more intelligent than conventional representatives of this drive technology, standing out clearly as the BMW among hybrid cars in this segment.
For all Smartphone lovers Ultimate Start will be something special. And I belive it will soon be the first application that any Smartphone owner will want to have installed.
First thing that caught my attention is how user friendly this application is. After few minutes of usage, you can tell that developer is active user of this platform. Every functionality is where it suppose to be and allows you to do what you want with fewest key presses possible. So lets start a little deeper.
More after the break.
Ok…I can’t help it…i’ll start with this bonus feature. Audio routing for Skype!!! Yes, when Skype is an active application it will route audio to an earpiece so that you can finally use it in a right way. One small problem is that this feature can’t work on all devices because it’s device specific (Developer says it will probably work on most HTC devices and it is tested on s740, s730 and HP Voice Messenger…it works on my s740 very well). Anyway, as you will see, this application is so good that even if this feature doesn’t work on your phone you can be more than happy with all the other features that Ultimate Start offers.
Main feature of Ultimate Start is of course Start Menu. It looks really nice. The thing that you will use the most is T9 search of the whole Start Menu tree. You are probably use to that in Contacts application and we all know how fast you can get to any contact. Well now you can use that in your Start Menu to get to any application that you have installed. But that’s not all. This Start Menu has some special folders. Bookmarks folder contains folders for every browser that you have installed (IE, Oper Mini 5, Iris) and it is filled with all the bookmarks from corresponding browser. So instead of scrolling through your default start menu to open appropriate browser and then going to bookmarks list and finding the bookmark that you want to open, now you can with just few key presses open bookmark in your favorite browser. Bookmarks can be opened in default browser or in corresponding browser (default). Since not all sites look good in all the browsers, this is very useful. Second special folder is Java applications folder. This folder contains direct shortcuts to all of yours Java applications. This works for Esmertec Jbed java emulator. Navigating between pages of Start Menu is animated and is really working fast and smooth.
There is a task and process manager with standard features of closing application/process and activating applications. Both of them also allow T9 search and ascending/descending sorting of a list by CPU usage, RAM usage or name.
Tools page has some very nice icons with following features : turn screen off, reboot, shutdown, flashlight (white screen), mirror (black screen), screen rotation and taking screenshot in 10 or 20 seconds.
Switching between pages is nicely animated with gear rotating icons in the middle at bottom of the screen. There are 6 types of animations and random option. Animations are somehow optimized according to a speed of your device. When you change animation or smoothness/speed on Settings page than application needs to run the animation a few times to optimize it. Also battery and RAM status are always visible above menu buttons which is very useful. Order of pages can be changed through Settings but I think it’s best the way it is. Wherever you are in the application, you can press ‘0′ to get list of keys and actions that are available on current screen.
Also nice thing is that Ultimate Start costs only $4.99 which is very affordable and you can find demo version here.
Online video is big and, despite little money being made from it at the moment, everyone wants a piece. And with broadband speeds going up worldwide, online video ventures with professional content, along the lines of Hulu, are beginning to be viable on markets other than the US. Baidu, the leading search engine in China, is betting on its home mar… (read more)
The players stormed back onto the ice half an hour after beating the United States 2-0 on Thursday and staged a raucous celebration — smoking cigars and swigging beer and bubbly.
Haley Irwin poured champagne into the mouth of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals swinging from both their necks.
Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed with goofy grins.
Goalies Charline Labonte and Kim St-Pierre posed at center ice for Poulin, lying on their stomachs with a giant bottle of champagne resting just above the Olympic rings.
Rebecca Johnston actually tried to commandeer the ice-resurfacing machine.
Poulin, who scored both goals for Canada, doesn’t turn 19 — legal drinking age in British Columbia — until next month. The drinking age in Alberta, where the Canadian team trains, is 18.
Photos showed Poulin on the ice with a beer in her hand.
Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said the antics were “not what we want to see.”
“If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing,” he said, “but not in public.”
In a statement released late Thursday, Hockey Canada apologized.
“The members of Team Canada apologize if their on-ice celebrations, after fans had left the building, have offended anyone,” the statement said. “In the excitement of the moment, the celebration left the confines of our dressing room and shouldn’t have. The team regrets that its gold medal celebration may have caused the IOC or COC any embarrassment.
“Our players and team vow to uphold the values of the Olympics moving forward and view this situation as a learning experience.”
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said earlier that the players were asked to return to the ice to have photos taken. “We understand that some people may have felt that their behavior was over-exuberant,” he said.
Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said it was “quite an emotional moment for our team” and added: “It was not our intention to go against any IOC protocols.
“In terms of the actual celebration,” he said, “it’s not exactly something uncommon in Canada.”
Not even uncommon at these Olympics. After Jon Montgomery won a gold medal for Canada in skeleton, he walked through the streets of Whistler guzzling from a pitcher of beer that he gripped with two hands.
American Scotty Lago, who won a bronze in halfpipe, voluntarily left the games after a photo surfaced of a woman kneeling below his waist to kiss the medal.
At Canada Hockey Place on Thursday, the celebration started much earlier. As time expired and the team skated into a massive pile-up near their goal, cheering fans threw flags over the glass to the players, who wrapped them around their shoulders like capes.
“I looked up in the stands and saw a sign that said, ‘Proud to be Canadian,’ and that’s what I am today,” said goalie Shannon Szabados, who made 28 saves.
AP National Writer David Crary contributed to this report.
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