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  • Volkswagen Golf volta a ser o carro mais vendido da Europa


    Depois de permanecer por um bom tempo na liderança dos veículos mais vendidos no continente europeu, o Volkswagen Golf havia perdido o trono das vendas, mas agora voltou a assumir o posto no qual sua montadora anseia obter em todo o mundo. No mês de abril, o Golf modelo alemão se tornou novamente o mais vendido, superando a marca das 49 mil unidades.

    O segundo colocado no ranking, o Ford Fiesta europeu (não o modelo que temos aqui no Brasil), teve mais de 32 mil unidades vendidas. Outro carro da Volkswagen que estava na oitava posição e agora subiu para o quarto lugar foi o Polo.

    Já o Opel Corsa caiu da quarta posição para a sétima, ficando atrás do Astra. O Ford Focus consegue aparecer na lista dos dez mais vendidos, com mais de 21 mil unidades, que está atrás do Renault Mégane. Em último lugar está o Fiat Panda. Vejam a lista completa a seguir.

    Carros mais vendidos em abril na Europa, por unidades:

    1.Volkswagen Golf – 49.395
    2.Ford Fiesta – 32.226
    3.Renault Clio – 29.258
    4.Volkswagen Polo – 28.092
    5.Peugeot 207 – 26.415
    6.Opel/Vauxhall Astra – 25.854
    7.Opel/Vauxhall Corsa – 25.628
    8.Renault Mégane – 22.094
    9.Ford Focus – 21.948
    10.Fiat Panda – 20.958

    Via | Auto Portal


  • Money weakens ability to savour life’s little pleasures | Not Exactly Rocket Science

    Chocolate_coins

    Today is Towel Day, where fans around the world celebrate the works of beloved author Douglas Adams, a master of witty prose and observational humour. Consider his description of money:

    “This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

    Adams was right to highlight the perceived link between money and happiness. Many people dream of the life they could lead if they won the lottery, a world of mansions, fine restaurants, and first-class travel. But few consider the costs. These fineries could lead to enjoyment overload, compromising our ability to savour life’s simpler pleasures, whether it’s a walk on a sunny day or the taste of a bar of chocolate. This idea of wealth as a double-edged sword is widely held and while it’s easy to suggest that it springs from jealousy, a new set of experiments supports the idea.

    Jordi Quoidbach from the University of Liege showed that richer people aren’t as good as savouring everyday pleasures than their poorer counterparts. Even the mere thought of money can make us take mundane joys for granted. Normal people who were reminded about wealth spent less time appreciating a humble bar of chocolate and derived less enjoyment from it.

    Quoidbach’s study helps to make sense of a trend in psychological research, where money has an incredibly weak effect on happiness. Once people have enough to buy basic needs and rise out of abject poverty, having extra cash has little bearing on their enjoyment of life. Perhaps this is because money both gives and takes away: it opens doors to new pleasures, while making delights that were already accessible seem less enticing. Obsessing over wealth is like being on a hedonic treadmill – continuously running to stay in the same emotional place.

    To begin with, Quoidbach asked 351 university employees, from cleaners to senior staff, to complete a test that measures their ability to savour positive emotions. Each recruit was asked to put themselves in a detailed pleasant scenario, from finishing an important task to discovering an amazing waterfall on a hike. Afterwards, they were quizzed in detail about how they would react to the scenarios, to see how strongly they savoured the experiences.

    Using other questionnaires, Quoidbach also assessed how happy they were, how much money it would take to live their dream life, how much money they earned and how much they had saved. And as a final twist, half of the questionnaires included picture of a large stack of euros, while the other half saw the same picture that had been blurred beyond recognition.

    He found that the more money the recruits had, the worse they were at savouring their positive emotions. Of course, it’s possible that people who appreciate their lot in life are less eager to chase after wealth. But Quoidbach found that a person’s savouring ability was unrelated to their desire for money. And even suggesting the thought of money, by showing them the euro picture, had the same negative effect, dampening their to the happy imaginings.

    Regardless, the recruits also tended to be slightly happier the more money they had. Other studies have found the same trend, but Quoidbach’s important result is the money would have had a far greater impact on the volunteers’ happiness were it not for its negative effect on their savouring ability.

    Of course, there’s only so far you can take the results of the questionnaires. A more objective experiment would be better, and that’s exactly what Quoidbach did. He asked 40 students to volunteer for a taste test. They were given a binder that included a questionnaire about their attitudes toward chocolate. On the opposite page, marked as material for an unrelated study, was a picture of either money or a neutral object. Afterwards, all they had to do was eat a chocolate.

    Two researchers kept an eye on them and not only timed their munching, but rated how much enjoyment they were showing. The results were clear – the recruits who saw the money took 32 seconds to eat the chocolate, significantly less than the 45 seconds spent by the others. And on average, their happiness rating, as judged by the observers, was 3.6 out of 7, compared to a higher score of 5 for their peers. (Incidentally, the observers didn’t know which group their subjects belonged to, and their scores strongly agreed with one another’s).

    These studies are part of a growing body of research showing that the link between money and happiness is more complicated than we might imagine. Elizabeth Dunn, who also worked with Quoidback, has previously shown that money can buy happiness if it’s spent on others, but that having money reduces the odds that people will actually spend it in this way! Dunn has also found that money is better used to buy happiness if it’s spent on experiences rather than goods. And here we see that wealth can undercut the very happiness that it boosts.

    In both experiments, a simple reminder of wealth undermined people’s ability to appreciate life’s little pleasures, be they imagined ones or the very physical joys of chocolate. That’s a striking result and Quoidbach explains it best himself. “One need not actually visit the pyramids of Egypt or spend a week at the legendary Banff spas in Canada for one’s savouring ability to be impaired,” he writes. “Simply knowing that these peak experiences are readily available may increase one’s tendency to take the small pleasures of daily life for granted.”

    Reference: Psychological Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797610371963 or here

    Image from Muffet on Flickr

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  • The White House Finally Explains Keynesian Economics

    Larry Summers gave an interesting speech yesterday defending and explaining the White House’s economic policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His thesis was classic Keynesian economics: “Appropriate short-run expansionary budget policy can make an important
    contribution to establishing the confidence necessary for sound
    growth,” Summers said. In other words, deficits are good, for now, because heavy public spending in downturns is still required to juice long-term growth. Good for the administration for making that argument explicitly.

    The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank attended the speech. He chose to focus on the idea that Summers was being obtuse and boring:

    It was the language of the PhD thesis: “Conditions for fiscal policy to
    have an expansionary impact are especially likely to obtain . . .
    considerations militating in favor of sustainable budgets . . . the
    ultimate consequences of stimulus for indebtedness depend critically on
    the macroeconomic conditions.”

    So, look. Milbank writes mainstream political columns that stir snark and analysis into something distinctive and popular, and that’s his thing, and more power to him. But come on. This wasn’t a major public address. It was a speech by a brilliant economic wonk to a graduate school for advanced degrees in government and international affairs. If Summers had stopped to explain to second-year Masters students the definition of a “multiplier effect” or a “catalyzing investment” (other terms Milbank mocks Summers for using), it frankly would have come off as pedantic.

    Economic messaging is really important, and Milbank is right that the administration is still seeking a messenger mixing the panache of Austan Goolsbee with the gravitas of Summers. But it’s unfair to bash Summers for speaking over the heads of “Americans worried about finding or keeping a job” when it’s perfectly clear that his actual audience was much worried about getting an A in Advanced Topics in Monetary Theory.





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    White House – Washington Post – Keynesian economics – Fiscal policy – Government spending

  • The Seven-Atom-Long Transistor That Will Change the World [Computing]

    It only measures seven atoms but, according to project lead scientist Michelle Simmons, computers made with this transistor—the smallest ever made—will “solve problems that would take longer than the life of the universe with a classical computer.” More »










    Computer Science – Michelle Simmons – Technology – University of New South Wales – Quantum computer

  • Crazy violent explosion shoots out two cosmic bullets | Bad Astronomy

    I deal with superginormously ridiculous energies, velocities, and sizes all the time as an astronomer. You get used to it after a while… then something like this’ll slap you upside the head: a star that exploded more than 5000 years ago launched two epic bullets. One is a cloud of gas screaming away at thousands of kilometers per second, and the other is the cinder of the star itself, an octillion-ton cannonball blasting through space in a totally different direction.

    chandra_n49

    This is a composite picture of the supernova remnant N49: an expanding lumpy sphere of gas about 30 light years across (300 trillion kilometers, or 180 trillion miles)*, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. The blue in the picture is the emission from gas heated to millions of degrees, and shows X-rays detected by the Chandra observatory. The yellow and purple are from Hubble data, showing gas being whipped and beaten by shock waves slamming around insides the remnant.

    Turn your attention to the little blue blob to the right, marked by the red arrow. It’s outside the main bubble of the nebula, meaning that it must be moving faster than the gas in general. This is seen sometimes in supernovae remnants: a bullet or focused blob of gas screaming away. It may be caused by magnetic fields in the expanding gas just after the star explodes, launching the octillions of tons of matter away in all directions, or it may be due to focusing from shock waves, which can sculpt the gas and create little pockets of denser knots.

    Either way, this bullet is moving away from the nebula at speeds of more than 2200 km/sec (1300 miles per second) — fast enough to cross the United States in less than 3 seconds. The mass of the blob is unclear, but to give you an idea of the energies involved, it emits 10 times the Sun’s total energy in just X-rays alone. Incredible.

    Now focus your attention to the star-like point source indicated by the other red arrow, near the top of the remnant. The astronomers took a good look at that object, which was previously known to be an object called SGR 0526−66. SGR stands for Soft Gamma ray Repeater, an object that periodically blasts out flashes of super-high-energy gamma rays. SGRs are neutron stars, the ultra-compact and überdense (I know, I’m running out of adjectives.. but just you wait…) leftover cores of stars that have exploded. They can have more than the mass of the Sun compressed down into a ball just a few kilometers across! A cubic centimeter of neutron star material (usually called neutronium, a word I love love love) weighs about as much as the combined weight of all the cars in the United States. So there’s that.

    The astronomers found the age of the SGR to be a few thousand years, which matches the age of the nebula! That means it’s very likely this is the leftover core of the star that exploded and created N49 itself. But what’s it doing way off center?

    Astronomers think that sometimes the explosion can be off-center in the star, so that things don’t quite expand the same in all directions. Given the energies involved (hint: a LOT) this can give the neutron star a kick, sending it caroming through space at high velocity. If SGR 0526-66 is indeed the leftover cinder from the explosion, to get where it is in the time since the explosion it has to be moving at a velocity of at least 790 km/sec (490 miles/second). Think about that: this is an object with the mass of the Sun and it got kicked so hard it went shooting off hundreds of times faster than a rifle bullet.

    Yeah, you might want to sit for a moment and soak that in.

    It gets worse! Since it’s seen in the Chandra data, that means it’s hot. Glowing at several million degrees, the energy it gives off in just X-rays is a hundred times the Sun’s total energy production! If you replaced the Sun with SGR 0526-66, you’d barely be able to see it since it’s so small, but it would hardly matter: the X-rays it gives off would cook the Earth like a marshmallow in a furnace. If that’s not enough awesome for you, the magnetic field at the surface of the neutron star is about 100 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s!

    Neutron stars are small in stature, but nothing else about them is.

    Studying supernovae remnants is interesting scientifically for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that they create the heavy elements in the Universe, so we literally owe our lives to them. That would be enough… but I know that secretly, astronomers study them because they are simply so frakkin’ cool.

    Or maybe it’s not so secret.



    * A lot of these remnants look like mammograms to me. Make of that what you will.

    Image credit: X-ray: (NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.); Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H.Chu & R.Williams et al


  • First Look: May 25

    Why do platforms that deliberately restrict consumer choice do just as well, if not better, than platforms offering unlimited choice? Examples abound in dating services, executive recruitment, and real-estate brokerage. In the online dating market, for instance, eHarmony restricts potential candidates for its members while rival Match.com lets its users browse as many profiles as they like. In the working paper “Platforms and Limits to Network Effects,” HBS professors Hanna Halaburda and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski discuss competitive strategy in these environments and the options available to platform designers and proprietors who want to maximize the strength of network effects.

    Among other cases this week, “Zotter—Living by Chocolate” explores how entrepreneurs could create new markets for niche products. In the case HBS professor Mukti Khaire and coauthors detail how an Austrian-based chocolatier weighed options to cross borders and to scale up its time- and labor-intensive manufacturing process. Meanwhile, “Apple Inc. in 2010” by Professor David B. Yoffie and Renee Kim studies the iconic company’s next steps in the midst of global competition.

    — Martha Lagace

    Publications

    Heterogeneity and Graceful Technology Retreats: A New Perspective on Responding to Dominant Technological Threats

    Authors: Ron Adner and Daniel Snow
    Publication: Industrial and Corporate Change (forthcoming)
    Abstract

    We explore the implications of a real and common alternative to attempting the transformation required to embrace a new, dominant technology—the choice to maintain focus on the old technology. In considering this choice we distinguish between “racing” strategies, which attempt to fight off the rise of the new technology by extending the performance of the old technology, and “retreat” strategies, which attempt to accommodate the rise of the new technology by repositioning the old technology in the demand environment. Underlying our arguments is the observation that the emergence of a new technology does more than just create a substitute threat—it can also reveal significant underlying heterogeneity in the old technology’s broader demand environment. This heterogeneity is a source of opportunities that can support a new position for the old technology, in either the current market or a new one. Using this lens we explore the decision to stay with the old technology as a rational, proactive choice rather than as a mark of managerial and organizational failure. We then consider the distinctive challenges and organizational dynamics that arise in technology retreats and their implications for the ways in which managers and scholars should approach questions regarding the management of capabilities, lifecycles, and ecosystems.

    Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?

    Authors: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Ralf Martin, and Raffaella Sadun
    Publication: Economic Journal 120, no. 544 (May 2010)
    Abstract

    We use an innovative methodology to measure management practices in over 300 manufacturing firms in the U.K. We then match this management data to production and energy usage information for establishments owned by these firms. We find that establishments in better managed firms are significantly less energy intensive. This effect is quantitatively substantial: going from the 25th to the 75th percentile of management practices is associated with a 17.4% reduction in energy intensity. Better managed firms are also significantly more productive. These results suggest that management practices that are associated with improved productivity are also linked to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    Download the paper: http://www.stanford.edu/~nbloom/BloomGenakosMartinSadun.pdf

    Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act

    Authors: Dhammika Dharmapala, C. Fritz Foley, and Kristin J. Forbes
    Publication: Journal of Finance (forthcoming)
    Abstract

    This paper analyzes the impact of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, which provided a one-time tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign earnings and thereby reduced the cost to U.S. multinationals of accessing a source of internal capital. Lawmakers and lobbyists justified its passage by arguing that it would alleviate financial constraints. This paper’s results indicate that repatriations did not lead to an increase in domestic investment, domestic employment, or R&D—even for the firms that appeared to be financially constrained or lobbied for the holiday. Instead, estimates indicate that a $1 increase in repatriations was associated with a $0.60 to $0.92 increase in payouts to shareholders—despite regulations stating that such expenditures were not a permitted use of repatriations qualifying for the tax holiday. The results indicate that U.S. multinationals were not financially constrained and were reasonably well governed. The fungibility of money appears to have undermined the effectiveness of the regulations.

    Working Papers

    Competing Ad Auctions: Multi-homing and Participation Costs (revised)

    Authors: Itai Ashlagi, Benjamin G. Edelman, and Hoan Lee
    Abstract

    We model competing auctions for online advertising, with attention to the participation costs that limit advertisers’ interest in using small ad platforms. When participation costs are large relative to the volume of traffic an ad platform can offer, an advertiser may forego use of an ad platform that the advertiser otherwise finds profitable. Mergers between ad platforms can increase advertiser welfare if the resulting click-through rate and volume of traffic are sufficiently improved relative to the offerings of the ad auctions when separate. When there is an insufficient improvement, such mergers can harm advertisers.

    Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-055.pdf

    Agency Costs, Mispricing, and Ownership Structure

    Authors: Sergey Chernenko, C. Fritz Foley, and Robin Greenwood
    Abstract

    Standard theories of corporate ownership assume that because markets are efficient, insiders ultimately bear agency costs and therefore have a strong incentive to minimize conflicts of interest with outside investors. We show that if equity is overvalued, however, mispricing offsets agency costs and can induce a controlling shareholder to list equity. Higher valuations support listings associated with greater agency costs. We test the predictions that follow from this idea on a sample of publicly listed corporate subsidiaries in Japan. When there is greater scope for expropriation by the parent firm, minority shareholders fare poorly after listing. Parent firms often repurchase subsidiaries at large discounts to valuations at the time of listing and experience positive abnormal returns when repurchases are announced.

    Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-094.pdf

    Platforms and Limits to Network Effects

    Authors: Hanna W. Halaburda and Mikołaj Jan Piskorski
    Abstract

    We model conditions under which agents in two-sided matching markets would rationally prefer a platform-limiting choice. We show that platforms that offer a limited set of matching candidates are attractive by reducing the competition among agents on the same side of the market. An agent who sees fewer candidates knows that these candidates also see fewer potential matches, and so are more likely to accept the match. As agents on both sides have access to more candidates, initially positive indirect network effects decrease in strength, reach their limit, and eventually turn negative. The limit to network effects is different for different types of agents. For agents with few outside options, the limit to network effects is reached relatively quickly, and those agents choose the platform with a restricted number of candidates. This is because those agents value the higher rate of acceptance more than access to more candidates. Agents with higher outside options choose the market with a larger number of candidates. The model helps explain why platforms offering a restricted number of candidates coexist alongside those offering a larger number of candidates, even though the existing literature on network effects suggests that the latter should always dominate the former.

    Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-098.pdf

    Varied Experience, Team Familiarity, and Learning: The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety (revised)

    Authors: Bradley R. Staats, Francesca Gino, and Gary P. Pisano
    Abstract

    Prior work examining the relationship of varied experience (i.e., the concurrent completion of multiple tasks) and learning by groups finds inconsistent results. We hypothesize that team familiarity, i.e., individuals’ prior shared work experience, may help explain this difference, as familiar teams may be more effective than unfamiliar teams at using the knowledge gained from the concurrent completion of multiple tasks. A sense of psychological safety may be one reason that team familiarity could aid in the process of team learning. In an experimental study, we find that familiar teams learn at a faster rate than unfamiliar teams. Additionally, we find that team familiarity leads to the development of psychological safety and that the relationship between team familiarity and team learning is mediated by psychological safety. By separately examining task variety, team familiarity, and psychological safety, our work offers new insights and direction for the study of learning in teams.

    Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-016.pdf

    Cases & Course Materials

    Harvard Business School Executive Education: Balancing Online and Offline Marketing

    John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
    Harvard Business School Case 510-091

    How does a small business set its online media budget? The HBS Executive Education Division can be viewed as a small-to-medium sized business unit with annual revenues of $107 million. As we watch it change its culture, practices, and organization from offline to online marketing, we have an opportunity not simply to see the metrics used in online marketing budget allocation, but also the stresses involved in the birth of a new go-to-market culture.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/510091-PDF-ENG

    Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America’s Pastime Goes Digital

    Anita Elberse and Brett Laffel
    Harvard Business School Case 510-092

    In January 2010, Bob Bowman, chief executive officer of Major League Baseball Advanced Media—MLB’s digital arm—is facing a number of decisions related to its “app” for Apple’s new iPad. What are the best name, price, and set of features for MLBAM’s iPad app? The case describes what is often seen as one of the most successful paid-content businesses in sports and media. Provides in-depth information on MLBAM’s four main sources of revenues and relates those to the league’s overall revenues. Describes the company’s online and mobile offerings in considerable detail and outlines the choices facing MLB’s offering for Apple’s iPad device, enabling a rich discussion of viable marketing strategies.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/510092-PDF-ENG

    Organizational Alignment, Performance, and Change in Professional Service Firms

    John J. Gabarro
    Harvard Business School Note 908-416

    This note describes the relationship between organizational alignment and performance in professional service firms and how to use McKinsey 7S Alignment to diagnose a firm’s or practice’s alignment, identify misalignments, and determine how to bring about the changes needed to re-align, as well as the changes needed to re-align the organization with its existing or new strategy.

    Purchase this note:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/908416-PDF-ENG

    Toby Johnson (A): Leading After School

    Boris Groysberg, Leslie Danford, Amy Lodge, and Tereh Sayles
    Harvard Business School Case 410-103

    After completing her MBA in 2007, Toby Johnson, a former army pilot with the 18th Airborne Corps Rapid Deployment Force, joined PepsiCo’s Leadership Development Program (LDP). For her first assignment with PepsiCo, Johnson accepted a position as a manufacturing manager at a Frito-Lay plant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Williamsport plant had 200 employees and 54 million pounds of production per year. The case describes how Johnson took charge of the plant and her action plan for implementing a new set of changes. During Johnson’s tenure at Williamsport, the plant was nominated as a potential site for a company-wide transformative initiative. This initiative would entail major changes in the current team structure and incentive program within Frito-Lay. Johnson needed to think carefully about this change implementation.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/410103-PDF-ENG

    Purchase this Supplement (B):
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/410104-PDF-ENG

    Digital Media Group: The Shanghai Bid

    G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon
    Harvard Business School Case 810-099

    In December 2008, Thomas G. Tsao, acting CEO of Digital Media Group (DMG), a venture-backed provider of technology and media used primarily in subways, must decide how to structure the company’s bid for the advertising concession in Shanghai’s 13 existing and planned subway lines. This is complicated by the fact that he is also a general partner in Gobi Partners, one of DMG’s largest investors. The company is bidding against its largest competitor, which also investigated acquiring DMG a few months before. DMG has very little cash, and the publicly traded competitor knows it. How does Tom structure the bid? How does he get the money for it? How does he manage the company, given its inability to attract a CEO and his firm’s need to have an exit? Lastly, how does he manage his responsibilities—to his firm, his limited partners, his coinvestors, and the company?

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/810099-PDF-ENG

    Gobi Partners and DMG

    G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner, and Ann Leamon
    Harvard Business School Case 810-095

    Thomas G. Tsao, founding general partner of Gobi Partners, an early stage venture capital firm in China, must decide how to manage his firm’s largest investment after the departure of the CEO. Tom has temporarily stepped in as CEO, but finding a replacement with the necessary technical and language skills is difficult. Moreover, the company is facing significant challenges in winning business and restructuring its own operations. Should Tom stay on as CEO? Revisit one of the candidates who had withdrawn? Try harder to sell the company? At what price? The case provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of active investment management in an emerging market from the perspectives of the many stakeholders involved.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/810095-PDF-ENG

    Zotter—Living by Chocolate

    Mukti Khaire, Stefan Aichinger, Monika Hoffmann, and Maximilian Schnoedl
    Harvard Business School Case 810-091

    This case is about a boutique chocolate manufacturer’s decision to grow. Zotter, an Austrian company that was a pioneer in the organic and Fairtrade chocolate movement, uses the traditional confit technique to make premium hand-scooped chocolates in unusual and innovative flavor combinations. Having done many novel things to educate the market about the value of premium organic and Fairtrade chocolate, Zotter consolidated its market position within the premium segment of the Austrian market for chocolate. The company only recently started to sell its product outside Austria. However, the time- and labor-intensive manufacturing process and the high prices of Zotter chocolates limit the scalability of the company, even though the founder desires to grow. While the founder has many ideas for the firm, it is not clear which path would be optimal for the kind of growth he desires. The case provides students an opportunity to discuss how entrepreneurs create markets for novel products, and how they can consolidate their position.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/810091-PDF-ENG

    CityCenter (C): Turmoil and Choices

    John D. Macomber
    Harvard Business School Supplement 210-066

    “CityCenter (C)” follows the (A) and (B) cases chronologically. The (C) case explores the decisions facing MGM MIRAGE following a lawsuit by partner Dubai World and suspension of Dubai World’s cash contributions to the project in early 2009. Issues include the discussion of activity by secured lenders and other involved financial actors, like Carl Icahn and James Packer, as well as MGM MIRAGE major stockholder Kirk Kerkorian. The firm considers various options and remedies with respect to the claim by Dubai World. “CityCenter (C)” can serve as an in-class handout to advance class discussion of the (A) and (B) cases to encompass events as they unfolded.

    Purchase this supplement:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/210066-PDF-ENG

    CityCenter (D): Financial Crisis, Grand Opening, and a New Paradigm

    John D. Macomber and Griffin H. James
    Harvard Business School Supplement 210-067

    “CityCenter (D)” follows the (A), (B), and (C) cases with subsequent chronological events through CityCenter’s grand opening in December 2009 and financial results through March 2010. The case includes a simple valuation exercise intended to explore CEO Jim Murren’s options as he seeks to avoid an MGM MIRAGE bankruptcy. The (D) case presents Murren with the choice of selling the Borgata casino in New Jersey or receiving an ownership stake in CityCenter itself. Students will draw on EBITDA comparables and projections to complete a simple valuation analysis to take a position on which asset to sell. “CityCenter (D)” can serve as an in-class exercise or homework assignment to follow discussion of the (C) case.

    Purchase this supplement:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/210067-PDF-ENG

    Design Creates Fortune: 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard

    John D. Macomber and Griffin H. James
    Harvard Business School Case 210-070

    A real estate developer assesses its ability to capture the benefits of investing in LEED Platinum, Vedic Design, and EnergyStar components in new buildings. The building at 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard in Rockville, Maryland is said to be the healthiest building in the National Capital Region. Does this matter? Can the developer realize higher rents because of this? The developer performs a detailed cost-benefit analysis of energy-saving measures that overlap and reduce their cumulative benefit. They consider the impact of these measures in combination with Vedic design features (aka Vastu) on the overall health, productivity, and business success of building occupants. “Green leases” are discussed as the developer tries to establish a leasing strategy that reflects these benefits and associated cost savings. The case takes a deep look at many of the critical on-the-ground issues involved with innovative real estate development.

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/210070-PDF-ENG

    Apple Inc. in 2010

    David B. Yoffie and Renee Kim
    Harvard Business School Case 710-467

    On April 4, 2010, Apple Inc. launched the iPad, the company’s third major innovation released over the last decade under its iconic CEO Steve Jobs. Apple’s strategy of shifting its business into non-PC products had thrived so far, driven by the smashing success of the iPod and the iPhone. Yet challenges abounded. Macintosh sales in the worldwide PC market still languished below 5%. Growth in iPod sales was slowing down. iPhone faced increasing competition in the smartphone industry. And would Apple’s latest creation, the iPad, take the company to the next level?

    Purchase this case:
    http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/710467-PDF-ENG

  • Fire Emblem remake coming within the year for DS

    The Fire Emblem series re-ignites as one more title is remade for the Nintendo DS. If you’re familiar with Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, then this might spell good news for you.

  • Suzuki recalls 2010 Equator pickups over suspension concern

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    2010 Suzuki Equator – Click above for high-res image gallery

    Remember the Suzuki Equator – the overlooked, rebadged version of the Nissan Frontier that went on sale in early 2009? There hasn’t been much to talk about the slow-selling Fronquator, but now a recall involving vehicles manufactured between November 2009 and March 2010 (a whopping total of 582 units) brings the little truck into the front of our minds again.

    According to the official recall statement from NHTSA, the Equator’s lower control link bushing collars may not contain welds that meet strength specifications, which can alter the wheel alignment over time. The safety recall is taking place as you read this, and dealers will replace one or both lower control links if necessary. The full details are available in NHTSA’s statement, after the jump.

    Gallery: 2010 Suzuki Equator

    [Source: NHTSA]

    Continue reading Suzuki recalls 2010 Equator pickups over suspension concern

    Suzuki recalls 2010 Equator pickups over suspension concern originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Goldman Fears Lincoln’s Derivatives Language

    Morning Money has posted a Goldman Sachs research report, and it seems the investment bank is spooked by just one thing in the financial regulatory reform bill: Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s (D-Ark.) derivatives spin-off language.

    To the extent that strains in European sovereign debt and short-term money markets cause broader risk deleveraging, U.S. financials are not immune from falling asset prices. At the same time, while regulatory risk is (hopefully) reaching a peak, it does create the specter of an overhang for some time. In particular, our Washington analyst does not expect the Lincoln proposal to make it into the final bill, but should this occur, it would be very negative for investment banks and potentially exchanges, as volumes would suffer.

    “Volumes would suffer” means nothing more or less than that derivatives speculation would become more expensive and thus less lucrative and thus less of a priority for investment banks — something that advocates of tighter regulation argue should be a feature, not a bug, of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) merged and final bill.

    But, Brian Beutler reports at Talking Points Memo, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), expected to be on the conference committee, says there is no way the Lincoln derivatives language is making it through.

    “I mean there’s no partisan fight here, it’s just: let’s get the language right. And the language which is in the Senate bill is wrong. It’s just plain wrong. It’s going to cause significant contraction in the credit markets, and it’s going to make the derivative markets less stable less sound and push a lot of business and competition — business which we want in America — overseas.”

    What does Goldman think the likely profits scenario for financial firms is? Not as good as the bubble years, but better than the average over the past 70 years — basically, rosy.

    Our normalized EPS estimates adjusted for potential regulatory impact implies that large banks can still generate a return on tangible common equity of 21% which is equivalent to a ROE of 13%. This compares to an average ROE for the banking industry of 15% during the 15 years preceding the crisis (1992-2006) and 11% during the 70 years preceding the crisis (1937-2006). While our implied ROE is higher than the average of the past 70 years it is lower than the past 15 years which we think is attainable. We believe that the benefits of increased scale and efficiency stemming from industry consolidation will partly offset the costs of added regulation, implying that the industry can generate a return higher than the average of the past 70 years but not as high as the past 15 years.

    The report also argues that fundamentals are improving: The real estate market has bottomed out, consumer delinquency has peaked and unemployment is starting to look better as well.

  • Diddybeats In-Ear Headphones with ControlTalk Review

    9740775 ra 219x300 Diddybeats In Ear Headphones with ControlTalk ReviewWhen Sean “Puffy” Combs aka P. Diddy announced his collaboration with Monster for a new pair of headphones, he made sure to declare that they would not only sound good, but look good too. The concept behind his diddybeats is that not only should they surely impress your ears, but they should also make a fashion statement by resembling jewelry when not in use. We have seen this before with Lady Gaga’s Heartbeats and even Vivienne Tam’s soon to be released Butterfly In-Ear Headphones. These are headphones designed to make a statement in and out of your ears.

    Design
    Back in January Diddy emphasized how important the quality and design of the headphones were to him. He explained that he wasn’t going to endorse a project that he wasn’t fully invested in. Along those lines, Monster and Diddy made sure to have the diddybeats not come in just one color but three –  black, pink, and white, Diddy even spoke about how much he personally likes the color pink. Each bud sports a ‘db logo’, and a leather-wrapped aluminum housing with polished-enamel endcap. The cable used on the earbuds is the flat tangle-free cable that first debuted on the Dr. Dre Tour In- Ear headphones and it is maintained with a cable slider piece. Right under the cable slider piece is a metal adornment that has the Monster logo on one side and the diddybeats logo on the other.

    The diddybeats also have ControlTalk, which makes it ideal to work with your iPhone for picking up calls and then resuming your tunes when the call is done. Also included is a simple yet purposeful pouch for your new headphones so that the assortment of included eartips don’t get lost. This time around Monster has heard the complaints of many (in regards to the Tours) and has included a whopping 8 different pairs of eartip styles – from foam, to mushroom, to trees. There is enough of a selection that you should find the right tip that not only gives you the best listening experience but sound-isolation too.

    Sound Quality
    So to the meat of the review – the sound quality. Well the first thing that we should mention is that the included manual suggests that your diddybeats experience will only get better once you break in your new headphones in with over 20 hours of use. As much as that is a good tip – it’s the first time we have ever seen such a a statement. Why can’t it just blow you away right out of the box for $149.95? But we digress.

    We put the diddybeats through the same tests that we would normally do any pair of headphones, earphones, In-Ear headphones etc… we listened to tracks in 128kbps, 192kbps, and 320kbps to test them.

    Throughout each listening session, the diddybeats held up well, exhibiting strong balance between both bass and treble through all the different bit rates. However these headphones performed much better when listening to anything above 162 kbps. When listening to anything lower, the bass performed well while the treble and mid-range almost sounded muted and muddled. These lower bit rates, hold back the quality of the music. It was like the music was  screaming in our ears to be set free from the sucky bit rate of 128kbps.

    However just a bit rate of 162 kbps makes a world of difference. Songs like Fireflies from Owl City made the diddybeats shine. The headphones performed great picking up the vibraphone, piano, and violin sounds leaving you with a rich smooth experience. The same can be said about  songs from artists like Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and even Diddy himself that are bass heavy and in some cases feature autotune. If you only have lower bit rates to work with, which is what you typically have on your iPod or iPhone,  you’ll get a better experience if you just simply turn the volume up. You still won’t experience nearly the essence of the diddybeats and what the drivers can do but at-least it won’t sound watered down.  Also having put it through its paces for three days, we have to admit that the sound did actually get better as we used them.

    Comfort
    Personally, in the past the foam tips would have been it for me but I actually experienced a better fit, comfort, sound quality, and noise cancellation with the included smaller mushroom shaped eartip this time around. It also handled the bass better as well as provided a suction in your ear of pure sound, while I felt the foam tips let some of it escape.  When you have the diddybeats in your ears, you are conscience of it, unlike the Turbines or even a few other cheaper models we tested.  You physically feel them in your ear regardless of how good the music is coming out of them. In addition if you are like many folks that often have their buds falling out of your ears while walking (my Co-Editor complained of this problem with the diddybeats – I didn’t have this issue). Instead of listening to them in the traditional way, you can always put the headphones in your ear upside down and  flip the cable around the top portion of your ear.That will keep it in and not have it falling out all the time.  You are also not sacrificing the sound quality either and the best part is the logo can be seen by all any way you wear it.

    ControlTalk
    The diddybeats sport Monster’s ControlTalk technology which lets you switch between listening to music and talking on your phone on the fly. The ControlTalk cable in particular has a call answer button and a built-in mic. If you’re using an iPhone or one of the recent generation iPods, than ControlTalk also lets you control music and video playback. ControlTalk lets you answer or end a call, decline an incoming call, play or pause a song or video, skip to the next or previous song or chapter, scan forward or backward through songs and video, and also control the volume. Callers sounded very clear when using the ControlTalk to make phone calls. We were also told by callers that we normally spoke too using the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote & Mic that we sounded so much clearer and louder. Previously when we had used the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote & Mic to make phone calls, we were often told by people that they couldn’t hear us and we would have to switch to using the handset when making a call. There is no doubt that Monster’s ControlTalk technology is superior and it’s also easy to use.

    Conclusion
    So did the diddybeats truly make a fashion and technology statement impression us? Yes. The diddybeats are a well made product that feel good in your ears and in your hand. The diddybeats look expensive with their metal and leather finishes, that combined with the iPhone ControlTalk capability and the approval of P Diddy help justify the $149.99 price tag. Yes, it’s a bit pricey, but anything that has a celebrity attached to it usually is, and we all buy it anyway. It also looks like Monster took the time to release a product that is designed and packaged well.

    But besides being endorsed by a hip-hop star, the In-Ear Headphones produce. In comparing it to the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote & Mic these are far superior even if those are cheaper. When compared to even the Dr. Dre’s Beats Tour In-Ear Headphones they even perform well just based on comfort and noise cancellation. However the Tours did perform a bit better in regards to Bass output – but those headphones were meant to be DJ headphones in your ear, where as the diddybeats are not. While the Tour’s struggled at being a pair of headphones you could wear for hours on end due to its unusually deep In-Ear shape, the diddybeats provide comfort, and quality sound that consumers will enjoy and even the novice audiophile will appreciate. The diddybeats are being exclusively sold at Best Buy and are retailing for $149.95.

    The Good: Designed well, looks expensive and well made, sound quality is excellent for 162kbps bit-rates and above

    The Bad: Tends to fall out of some people’s ears – even with all of the included ear-tips, sound quality on lower bit-rates is just average

    For the purpose of the review Monster provided us a pair of complimentary DiddyBeats.


  • Avila Therapeutics Strikes $209M Lung Cancer Deal with Clovis Oncology

    Avila Therapeutics logo2
    Ryan McBride wrote:

    Avila Therapeutics has a new target for its new class of drugs—lung cancer. The Waltham, MA-based biotech startup has clinched a $209 million deal with Clovis Oncology for drugs against mutated tumors in the lungs, according to the companies.

    The companies are keeping a tight lid on the details of the deal, including how much cash Clovis is paying Avila upfront versus downstream in the form of potential milestone payments. Avila says that the deal includes an upfront payment, development and sales milestone fees that could total as much as $209 million. The firm also has a shot at making money from royalties on potential sales of drugs that result from its partnership with Clovis.

    Boulder, CO-based Clovis is tapping Avila’s technology to combat non-small cell lung cancer that has built resistance to existing treatments such as the anti-tumor pills erlotinib (Tarceva) and gefitinib (Iressa). The Avila approach is thought to be promising against resistance, because its drugs are designed to form irreversible covalent bonds with their targets, making it a lot tougher for tumors to find an escape valve to keep growing. Avila and Clovis are seeking to develop a drug like this that can block a specific a mutation that is that is thought to prevent those existing treatments from binding with proteins that help lung cancer cells grow. Also, Avila could make drugs that target only the growth proteins with the mutation, meaning that healthy tissues where the proteins are present would be spared.

    Clovis is funding clinical development and commercialization of Avila’s lung cancer drugs, which are in pre-clinical development. The Colorado company is also paying to develop a diagnostic test that would identify patients with mutated forms of lung cancer who are most likely to benefit from the drug.

    Katrine Bosley

    Katrine Bosley

    Avila’s deal with Clovis builds on its existing research of drugs to combat resistant forms of hepatitis C and immune system malignancies. The firm, founded in 2007, brought in $51 million through two rounds of venture capital funding from Abingworth Management, Advent Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Novartis Venture Fund, and Polaris Venture Partners. We’ll have a chance to hear more from Avila CEO Katrine Bosley next month, as she is one of the featured speakers at Xconony’s XSITE business innovation forum at Babson College on June 17.

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  • Report: Laptop sales are rocking fueled by netbooks sales


    People might not be buying houses and cars at the pre-recession levels, but laptops are flying off the shelves led by netbook sales. (Quiet, don’t tell John. He hates netbooks.)

    Consumers clearly want mobility. Laptop shipments are up 43.4% over last year with 20% of them being low-cost netbooks. The notebook segment as a whole made up 13% of the total PC sales in the first three months of 2009.

    But it was the netbook numbers that’s most surprising. We’ve been hearing for weeks that netbooks are dead, no one buys netbooks, blah, blah, blah. However this Gartner seems to say differently by finding netbooks sales are up 71% over last year. So maybe the netbook segment isn’t dead, Mr. John Biggs. Perhaps the is a market for small, low-cost notebooks.


  • Obama to Create Small Business Lending Fund

    Today, President Barack Obama is formally unveiling a spate of initiatives to improve hiring at and bolster lending to small businesses, pushing again for a priority first announced last winter.

    The centerpiece is the new $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund, which will offer funding to small community banks. (It will be separate from a similar one housed in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.) Other initiatives include nixing capital-gains taxes for small-business investment and increasing the cap on certain Small Business Administration-backed loans.

    Details after the jump:

    Obama will discuss the plan and urge congressional action today at an 11:30am event honoring small-business owners at the White House. Thus far, the administration’s efforts to ease the gloomy economic picture for small businesses have sputtered, with an oversight panel dryly noting, “it is not clear that [TARP has] had any significant impact on small business lending” at all. Small businesses — which tend to be much more risky to lend to, but have created around two-thirds of new jobs in the past decade, remain hobbled by frozen credit markets.

    The initiatives, held in the Small Business Lending Fund Act, passed out of the House Financial Services Committee last week. (View the committee’s markup here.) And with the bill low-cost and supporting the country’s small businesses one of the most unassailable congressional priorities, it should pass the House soon.

    “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. This shouldn’t be an issue of big government versus small government,” Obama plans to say. “This is an issue of putting our government on the side of the small business owners who create most of the jobs in this country.”

    Still, the best thing for small businesses would be an improved economic picture overall. Until demand ticks back up, businesses hire more people and Americans start spending, there is only so much the White House can do.

  • The Story Behind The Hackers Behind The Largest Credit Card Number Heist

    A few years ago, the story broke about how TJX, the corporate parent of a series of retail stores, including TJ Maxx and Marshalls, had suffered a huge data breach, after some hackers had accessed its computer network via an insecure wireless connection at one of the stores. A year and a half later, we wrote about the arrests of some of those involved. The following year, we wrote about another hack, at Heartland Payment Systems, that had the potential to surpass the TJX hack as “the largest ever” in terms of the number of records accessed. It later came to light that both hacks were actually done by the same guys, supposedly led by Albert Gonzalez, a hacker who was actually on the government payroll at the time (after turning informant upon being caught a few years earlier standing in front of an ATM with a handful of fake ATM cards).

    Back in March, Gonzalez received a twenty year sentence for the crime — the longest sentence for “hacking”-related crime in the US. Others involved in the deal have been sentenced to shorter terms recently as well. Now, Danielle Alvarez, from the Miami New Times, points us to an article written by the paper that details the story behind the hacking, and the folks involved — including the news (which I hadn’t seen elsewhere in following this story) that one suspect end up killing himself after hearing of Gonzalez’s arrest. It’s a long story, but reads like something that will get turned into a movie at some point. Of course, the study plays down the security flaws at the companies, like TJX, which sent unencrypted credit card data over its network (a point Gonzalez’s legal team tried to make in properly calculating how much “damage” he did). Still, it’s a fascinating story about a group of young hackers, who wanted to “get rich or die trying,” and how at least one of them succeeded at the latter.

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  • Study: With $27 trillion global market at stake, it’s time for the U.S. to lead in clean technology

    A new WWF report has come out further emphasizing the great need for the US to do more to seize its fair share of the growing multi-trillion dollar clean energy export market. This repost by Lynn Englum from WWF’s blog gives an overview.

    Numerous news articles/op-ed pieces (see here, here & here) along with warnings from high-ranking governmental officials (see here & here) and Congressmen from both sides of the political spectrum have warned that the U.S. is losing the clean energy race to Europe, Japan and China.  These countries are ramping up their national renewable energy portfolios and gaining export market share, positively positioning themselves for the largest future export markets in clean technology deployment—the developing world. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), approximately $27 trillion will need to be invested in clean technologies in developing countries over the next four decades.

    Why will these future markets be so large? In coming years, emissions will grow most sharply in developing countries, making clean technology deployment vitally important. The U.S. has enormous potential to lead in these markets, but without U.S. legislation that puts a price on carbon and includes public finance to help unlock developing country markets for clean energy, America will continue to fall behind top competitors and miss important opportunities.

    A new WWF report, Getting Back in the Game, reveals the potential for U.S. market share in clean technology deployment in the developing world. WWF estimates that the $27 trillion investment needed in developing countries translates into a $150-450 billion annual export market. The report finds that if the U.S. is able to capture a 14% market share of this potential clean tech export market—on par with our current market share in environmental goods and services in developing countries—280,000-850,000 new, long-term American jobs would result.

    A crucial component for harnessing the clean technology export market is public financing. Although private capital will provide the substantial majority of the finance for clean energy development, public financing to undertake key policy and institutional reforms and reduce investment risks in developing countries is needed to prime the pump. Well-targeted public investments can leverage much larger amounts of private capital and benefit American businesses by opening new markets for U.S. clean energy industries, spurring innovation and lowering costs for clean technologies.

    Including public finance in a climate and energy bill is vital for generating a dedicated stream of revenue, avoiding the volatility of yearly congressional budget approval. Previous versions of the climate bill (House-passed Waxman-Markey bill & Senate’s Kerry-Boxer bill) set aside 1% of revenues from allowances to develop markets and overcome barriers to clean technology uptake in developing countries and help facilitate U.S. exports to these new markets.

    To unlock new opportunities, this set-aside (which is not currently in the American Power Act) must be preserved and a climate and energy bill must be passed. Without legislative passage and public finance components, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage clean energy market share to overseas competitors and fall behind in the energy race.

    See press release, Investing in Clean Energy Projects Abroad is Key to Creating Jobs, Growing Energy Tech Economy in U.S.

    ************************************************************

    Key findings of the report:

    • The US is falling behind top competitors, both in clean technology investments domestically, but also in exports of clean technologies abroad.
    • Developing countries offer the largest future export markets— The International Energy Agency estimates $27 trillion will need to be invested in the developing world in coming decades.
    • Getting back in the game requires that the US pass legislation that both puts a price on carbon domestically and includes public finance to help unlock developing country markets and accelerate demand for clean technologies.
    • US companies are positioned to take advantage of those new markets. Capturing a 14% market share in this new market could result in 280,000-850,000 new, long-term American jobs. However, being positioned to capture that market share depends on whether domestic industries are supported by passing comprehensive climate and energy legislation that puts a declining limit on carbon pollution

    Related Post:

  • Android-based Dell Streak Tablet Soon

    Dell announced on Tuesday its launch plans for its Dell Streak, a 5-inch Google Android-based Tablet.

    Early this June the Dell Streak will be available across the UK and in the US later this summer. The company did not provide specific launch dates for either country’s launch.

    The Android-based Dell Streak Tablet is designed to provide people “on-the-go” entertainment, social connection, and navigation experience. It will be running Android 1.6 but Dell also confirms that the device will get an upgrade to the Flash-capable Android 2.2 later this year.

    The features of the Dell Streak are: 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, Qualcomm’s 1-GHz Snapdragon Processor, 2 GB internal storage, maximum 32GB of external SD storage, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a front-facing camera for video chat. The Streak will also have 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity.

    The price of the Dell Streak or the U.S. carrier details were not yet announced.

    Related posts:

    1. iPad’s Contender Google Android Tablet
    2. Archos Tablet to Compete with iPad?
    3. Verizon, Google developing a new tablet PC

  • Siemens enlarges stake in concentrating solar company

    Siemens Energy increases stake in solar thermal specialist Archimede Solar Energy


    By Katrice R. Jalbuena
    Archimede is a joint venture between Angelantoni Industries and Siemens that produces solar receivers for concentrated solar power plants. Photo by Archimede Solar Energy

    Siemens Energy has increased its stake in solar thermal specialist Archimede Solar Energy S.R.L. from 28 percent to 45 percent, as the energy arm of the German conglomerate attempts to accelerate production at a facility in central Italy.

    Archimede is a joint venture between Angelantoni Industries and Siemens that produces solar receivers for concentrating solar power plants. The purchase price was not disclosed.

    Providing insights on the decision, Rene Umlauft, chief of Siemens’ renewable energy division, said Archimede’s technology is an ideal addition to their portfolio.

    “Siemens already has the most comprehensive portfolio in the promise of concentrated solar power business. We can provide about 70 percent of the components of solar thermal power plants from a single source,” said Mr. Umlauft.

    Starting in early 2011, the Massa Martana plant in central Italy’s Umbria region will have an annual production capacity of approximately 75,000 solar receivers. In its second stage, the plant’s capacity will be increased to 140,000 per year.

    The solar receivers sit at the heart of parabolic troughs to absorb solar energy which is converted into heat and then into energy. Archimede’s use of molten salts allow for the production of energy without the use of toxic or dangerous materials.

    The solar receivers of Archimede use molten salt as the heat transfer medium. They can reach an absorbance higher than or equal to 95 percent and a design emissivity lower than 10 percent at 400°C and 14 percent at 580°Celsius.

    Archimede is currently constructing its first commercial plant featuring its products in Sicily. The Priolo Gargallo project, to be operational by as early as June, will use 1,500 molten salt solar receivers.

    Components and solutions for thermal power plants are part of Siemens’ environmental portfolio, out of which Siemens reported 23 billion euros ($23 billion) in revenues last year.

    Siemens (FWB:{yootooltip mode=[cursor] title=[SIE] width=[556] display=[inline]}

    {/yootooltip}, NYSE:{yootooltip mode=[cursor] title=[SI] width=[556] display=[inline]}

    {/yootooltip}) estimates that the solar thermal power plant market will experience double digit annual growth up to 2015, reaching a volume of more than 10 billion euros.

    “With the increase of our shares in Archimede we are further strengthening our cooperation with Angelantoni Industries,” said Mr. Umlauft.

    Latest News in Concentrating Solar Power
    {loadposition LatestREConcentratingSolarPower}

  • Michael Lohan On “The Early Show” [May 25]

    Loose-lipped Michael Lohan — aka “Every Fallen Child Star’s Worst Nightmare” — is pleased with a court order which will see his scandal-bitten daughter confined to California and forced to wear an alcohol-detecting bracelet – insisting the ruling will help his daughter overcome her problems.

    The Mean Girls actress left a Beverly Hills courthouse in a huff on Monday, wearing the accessory strapped to her ankle after facing Judge Marsha Revel. With a bang of her gavel, Revel ordered Lohan not to leave the state and not to drink alcohol or take drugs for the foreseeable future. The hearing came five days after Lohan missed a mandatory court appearance because she was strande at the Cannes Film Festival without a passport.

    On The Early Show Tuesday, CBS anchor Maggie Rodriguez spoke with Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom and Lindsay’s estranged father about the actress’ legal troubles and recent order to wear a SCRAM alcohol-monitoring device.

    Lindsay’s due back in court on July 6.


  • Report: 70% of corporate executives plan to increase spending on climate change initiatives

    From Green Right Now Reports

    Whatever the state of the political debate about climate change, the issue increasingly looks settled in the board room. Despite challenging economic conditions and regulatory uncertainty, global executives believe that the climate change agenda will significantly impact business performance and strategy over the next few years according to a new survey by Ernst & Young.

    The survey, “Action amid uncertainty: the business response to climate change,” found that corporate executives expect to make significant investments to deliver both cost savings and revenue generation opportunities relating to climate change. Seventy percent plan to increase spending on climate change initiatives between 2010 and 2012. Nearly half plan to spend between 0.5 percent to more than 5 percent of their revenue on climate change initiatives. For a U.S. $1 billion company, this represents an anticipated spend of $5 million to $50 million annually.

    Three hundred global corporate executives from 16 countries with at least $1 billion in annual revenue participated in the survey conducted during spring 2010.

    “Corporate leaders are not letting the lack of global standards and regulations slow their climate change investments,” Steve Starbuck, Americas Climate Change and Sustainability Services Leader at Ernst & Young LLP, said in a statement. “Other market drivers, such as equity analysts’ growing interest in climate change performance, are prompting a further need to act and be more transparent,”

    Consumers and equity analysts are two of the factors driving this investment trend, Ernst & Young says. Corporate climate change activities are being driven by evolving customer demands according to 89 percent of survey respondents. Some sectors, including automotive, consumer products, and technology, unanimously agree that changing customer preferences have created significant drivers for action and innovation. Meanwhile, equity analysts are increasingly linking the business response to climate change and company valuations. Over 40 percent of the senior executives surveyed believe that equity analysts currently include climate change-related factors in company valuations.

    Energy efficiency is at the top of the list as 82 percent of respondents plan to invest in this space over the next 12 months. About half of the respondents confirm new ventures, such as spin-offs or start-up businesses, as an area for focus. Additionally, 65 percent of executives intend to focus investments on new products and services.

    Ninety four percent of respondents see national policies as important or very important in shaping their climate change strategies, although 81 percent recognize the importance of global or international policies.

    “Keeping abreast of national climate change legislation and business incentives across jurisdictions will prove challenging, but necessary for many businesses, even those that do not traditionally regard themselves as multi-national due to the connectivity of supply chains and markets,” Dr. Lorraine Stephenson, Ernst & Young Partner and Oceania Climate Change Leader, said in a statement. “Businesses will need to prioritize investments to capture opportunities and mitigate risks in response to the growing number of climate change policies, in developing and developed countries, since the December Copenhagen meeting.”

    Other key findings from the survey include:

    • In the developing economies of China and India, executives rank product development as the top challenge to achieving their goals, 97 percent and 72percent respectively. Respondents in Australia, Canada, U.S., Japan, Germany and France indicate that regulatory and compliance issues present primary challenges in the next two years.
    • Approximately 66 percent of respondents are discussing climate change programs with their suppliers and 36 percent of respondents are already working directly with these stakeholders to decrease the carbon in their supply chains.
    • Transparent reporting is gaining momentum, as 64 percent of respondents report greenhouse gas data in an annual corporate social responsibility or sustainability report. Of the organizations that say they report, 62 percent verify their data through an independent, third-party.

    The Ernst & Young study was performed by Verdantix, an independent analyst research organization focused on sustainable business. Respondents were drawn from across 16 countries and 18 industry sectors.

  • The solar powered stilletto chopper by Giant

    solar-powered-stilletto-chopper.jpg
    Choppers are eye-catching, there’s no denying the fact. They sure make a whole lot of heads spin around and drop open quite a few jaws ever time a leather-clad, bearded, tattooed and muscled dude rides one around town. Well, now the environmentalists will marvel at choppers too, and not just because they look awesome and sound lovely, it’s because one of them has embraced eco-friendliness.

    This unique “stilletto” chopper by Giant is a five speed bike with a brushless hub motor conversion. It power up using solar energy and runs on a 36 volt battery pack. The bike uses a solar panel array of 36+ volts and 10 watts. The bike hits 18 to 20mph quickly, enough for your cruising pleasure. The battery can also be ripped off the bike easily, and charged at home, just incase the sun decides to rest on particular days. And if that’s not enough, it has pedals too, incase you decide not to use any power but your own. A great design, the bike is sure to grab a lot of attention.

    [Motorbicycling]