Yes, you read that title right Square Enix has partnered up with Yahoo and the two are cooking something up. The two make quite the odd couple, don’cha think? But anyway, they’re teasing for the announcement,

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) discussed how it might begin shrinking its balance sheet through asset sales during its April meeting, the minutes reveal. In the statement it released at that time, there was no mention of how or when the Fed would sell assets, but we now know that the topic was discussed at length. It looks like sales won’t begin anytime soon, and they will be very gradual.

During the financial crisis, the Fed swelled its balance sheet to accommodate asset purchases for a variety of programs meant to increase credit and liquidity in the market. Here’s a chart from the Wall Street Journal that shows the change:

As you can see, its balance sheet nearly tripled in size. Once it gets rid of all of the assets it purchased backed by mortgages, the agencies, consumer credit, etc., however, its balance sheet’s size will be pretty close to what it was before the intervention.

So when will the sales begin? The minutes say:

A majority preferred beginning asset sales some time after the first increase in the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) target for short-term interest rates. Such an approach would postpone any asset sales until the economic recovery was well established and would maintain short-term interest rates as the Committee’s key monetary policy tool. Other participants favored a strategy in which the Committee would soon announce a general schedule for future asset sales, with a date for the initiation of sales that would not necessarily be linked to the increase in the Committee’s interest rate target. A few preferred to begin sales relatively soon.

It doesn’t look like asset sales will begin soon. In fact, the majority doesn’t want to sell anything until the Fed begins raising rates. And as we know, it intends to keep rates at approximately zero for “an extended period.”

How might those sales occur? The minutes explain that too:

Most preferred that the agency debt and MBS held in the portfolio be sold at a gradual pace that would complete the sales about five years after they began. One possibility would be for the pace to be relatively slow initially but to increase over time, allowing markets to adjust gradually. A couple of participants thought faster sales, conducted over about three years, would be appropriate and felt that such a pace would not put undue strain on financial markets. In their view, a relatively brisk pace of sales would reduce the chance that the elevated size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and the associated high level of reserve balances could raise inflation expectations and inflation beyond levels consistent with price stability or could generate excessive growth of credit when the economy and banking system recover more fully.

There’s a difficult task here. The Fed must sell assets quickly enough to prevent inflation, but slowly enough that it doesn’t shock the market. It doesn’t want to crowd out the new issue markets by selling too much agency debt and mortgage-backed securities. In a perfect world, inflation won’t be a threat, and the Fed can conduct sales gradually. But by the time it begins selling these assets, once the economy is close to full strength, inflation might become more of a real concern.

On that note, the minutes also provided a little more detail on maverick committee member Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig’s usual dissent. This time, they said what he was specifically calling for:

Mr. Hoenig believed that the target for the federal funds rate should be increased toward 1 percent this summer, and that the Committee could then pause to further assess the economic outlook.

Of course, Hoenig is the only one advocating raising rates in the near-term. That’s good, because if the Fed raised rates this summer, the market would probably have a heart attack. Considering that inflation is not a threat in the short-term, but unemployment remains near 10%, it’s not very likely other committee members will adopt his view by the June meeting.

I’m asking for a small commitment after last week’s vacation. Digital photography’s predictability makes us soft. So build a pinhole camera—it’s neither hard nor expensive, promise—and take a photo with it. No more whining about lacking fancy equipment! More »

Google has been tinkering with the idea of a floating, wave-powered data center for a while, but it looks like a better solution could come from a more basic power source:  manure.  Hewlett Packard has released a research paper that states that tech companies like themselves, Google, and Microsoft could benefit from a partnership with dairy farmers, using the cattle waste for fuel.

The research paper says that the dairy farmers could rent out land and power to the tech companies with a return on investment in waste-to-fuel systems in two years, making it a great arrangement for the farmers too.  Farmers want to build biogas plants where manure is processed and the methane produced is used in place of natural gas or diesel, but the cost of equipment is often too expensive for them to finance on their own.  This is where the tech companies come in.

As companies move their larger and larger data centers into rural areas with plenty of land, teaming up with local farms seems to be a natural fit — farmers need a way to get rid of the vast amounts of waste and tech companies need an affordable, clean source of energy.

An average cow produces enough manure to power a 100-watt light bulb and 10,000 cows could potentially power a 1-MW data center, a small computing center.  But another possible link between the farms and companies is that the biogas systems require a lot of heat to make fuel and computing equipment in data centers produce a lot of waste heat, so a loop could be created where the biogas plant powers the data center and the waste heat from the data center helps power the biogas plant.

The paper sees California and Texas as being the testing grounds in the U.S. for this partnership, while China and India could also benefit from such an arrangement.

via NY Times

 

 

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official website] on Wednesday reaffirmed his commitment to comprehensive federal immigration reform, calling the recently passed Arizona immigration law [SB 1070 materials; JURIST news archive] “misguided.” Obama held a joint press conference with Mexican President Filipe Calderon [official website, in Spanish] where he expressed concern [remarks] that the law could be applied in a discriminatory fashion and indicated the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] is considering bringing legal action to prevent enforcement of the law. Calderon condemned the Arizona bill but also indicated [remarks] that both countries must work together in order to develop a comprehensive approach to immigration that will benefit the entire region. Obama’s stance on the Arizona law reflects his administration’s immigration policy [official website] that aims “to bring people out of the shadows.”

The Arizona bill, signed into law [JURIST report] in April by Governor Jan Brewer, has caused intense controversy. Proponents of the law argue that it will discourage illegal immigration, while opponents contend it will lead to discriminatory police practices based on race. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] seeking an injunction against implementation of the law. That lawsuit joined two others filed last month [JURIST report] questioning the constitutionality of the law. Earlier this month, a group of UN human rights experts indicated the measure may violate international standards [JURIST report] that are binding on the US.

It looks like Nokia fans on T-Mobile will have more choice than the Nuron and some low-end candybar phones next month.  A tipster has sent a screenshot to TmoNews that shows off the new Nokia E73, named the “Mode” for T-Mobile, that shows a photo of the device and says it will be arriving on June 16.  The E73 Mode will support 3G and Wi-Fi as well as Wi-Fi calling and it looks like it has a similar physical QWERTY keyboard and optical d-pad as the E72.  Other information, like pricing, is unknown at this time but we’ll keep you updated as we learn more.  Does the E73 look like a device you’d choose over a BlackBerry or a similar smartphone? We want to know your thoughts!

Via TmoNews

Even though we don’t buy the pricey jeans produced by True Religion Apparel, Inc. (TRLG), we know they’re popular. And after reading the 8-K that the company filed May 17, we gained a little insight into why the company’s least expensive pair of jeans retails for nearly $200.00.

Monday’s filing announced that Michael Buckley had “ceased to be President” of the company on May 12. The accompanying press release explained that Buckley was leaving the company “to pursue other interests.”

Considering that Buckley had served as the company’s president for four years, his departure seems surprisingly sudden.  A peek at past filings doesn’t reveal any hint that Buckley planned to leave the company.  However, two days before he resigned, Buckley started selling shares of the company’s stock; in all, he sold 150,000 shares over a three-day period that ended on the day that he resigned.  Yet according to the Form 4 that disclosed the transactions, Buckley still owns 193,429 shares of True Religion stock – a sizable stake in the company, to be sure.

The filing doesn’t mention whether Buckley is getting any severance compensation from the company, but we’ll watch for future disclosures on that subject.

At the same time that the company announced Buckley’s departure, it announced the appointment of new company president Michael Egeck, who will start on June 4, 2010.  Egeck has about a decade’s worth of experience in the apparel industry, and he comes to True Religion following a stint as interim President at Affliction Holdings, LLC.

Egeck got a three-year employment agreement with the company that will automatically renew annually. The agreement states that he’ll start with a base salary of $650,000 that is “subject to increase (but not decrease)”, a 2010 cash bonus of $369,973 if the company meets its target performance goals (and more, if it exceeds its goals). He also received 100,000 restricted shares of common stock as an inducement to join the company that will vest in equal amounts over three years. If the stock price remains near its current trading price of $28.01 when the shares finally vest, that benefit could be worth a few million dollars to Egeck.

Executive transitions are usually costly, and this one is no exception. At least in this case, both the incoming and the departing presidents have plenty of money to buy fancy jeans, if they’re so inclined.

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Music, Movies & TV, Photos & Video

A Goodyear, patrocinadora e fornecedora oficial de pneus da Copa Stock Car, desde 2008, também patrocinará a competição na ficção. É que a marca estará presente no conteúdo da novela Passione, da Rede Globo. A escuderia Gouveia-Goodyear, equipe de corridas que terá à sua frente o ator Marcello Antony, como piloto principal e protagonista da trama de Silvio de Abreu, autor de grandes sucessos como Belíssima, Rainha da Sucata e as Filhas da Mãe – todas na Globo.

A estratégia de comunicação, desenvolvida pela agência Y&R, inclui um pacote de patrocínio formatado com os mesmos parâmetros da Stock Car, na realidade: exposição do logo em toda a identidade visual dos materiais da equipe – carros, boxes, macacão do piloto, capacete, roupa dos mecânicos, entre outros.

“Essa ação é uma grande oportunidade para impactarmos o telespectador colocando a marca de maneira relevante e no contexto de, provavelmente, mais uma campeã de audiência”, acrescenta Rui Moreira, Gerente Senior de Marketing da Goodyear.

Além de patrocinar a equipe de automobilismo na novela e, consequentemente, o personagem de Marcello Antony, também estão previstas ações de merchandising da Goodyear, durante a novela, com o objetivo de apresentar os lançamentos da Goodyear e reforçar os diferenciais dos produtos da empresa.

Fonte: Y&R

As part of the Android section in the Sandbox at Google I/O there is a huge Android device showcase. Inside is just about every Android device released to date.

In an effort to be thorough, we shot every single device in the case. You can see the whole set on Flickr or peep the slideshow below:

Related Posts

• Required viewing: Android 2.2 Froyo keynote with Vic Gundotra
• Google TV – An Overview
• Froyo is now officially Android 2.2 (Highlights)
• Live from Google I/O 2010
• 65,000 Android phones shipping per day

Below are links to news stories of interest from newspapers that came up during a search today.  These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to your computer is recommended.

State News

 

Union, service leaders ask legislators to raise revenue  Rockford Register Star – ROCKFORD — An eleventh-hour coordinated lobbying effort by the Responsible Budget Coalition was launched in Rockford and seven other Illinois …   

Responsible Budget Coalition calls on lawmakers to get back to Springfield …  Herald & Review – Nance, 52, was one of about a dozen people who spoke at a news conference called Tuesday morning by the Responsible Budget Coalition to urge state …   

Group calls for `responsible budget’ in Illinois  St. Louis Post-Dispatch -… a “responsible state budget,” according to the Responsible Budget Coalition, a group of teachers, activists, health advocates and civic leaders. …  

Lawmaker and New Coalition Push for Responsible State Budget  MyStateline.com – Stout is looking to protect her employees and her children, which is why she joined 200 other organizations in the responsible budget coalition. … 

WREX.com –Coalition urges Illinois lawmakers to pass …  WREX-TV – Members of the “Responsible Budget Coalition” want lawmakers to raise taxes to balance the budget. Public service agencies say Illinois budget cuts and …   

Lawmakers Urged to Balance Budget  WIFR – ?The responsible budget coalition sponsored an event at Rockford Urban Ministries where speakers explained how state budget cuts and payment delays have … 

Group Wants Answers on Budget Problems  cbs4qc.com – That’s what members of the Responsible Budget Coalition said at a meeting on Tuesday in Moline. They say if things stay how they are, non profits, …  

Coalition urges Illinois lawmakers to get to work ConnectTriStates.com powered by KHQA – The Responsible Budget Coalition is made up of 200 organizations statewide that serve and represent millions of Illinois residents. …  

Responsible Budget Coalition Calls For “Leadership, Not Politics” (VIDEO)  Progress Illinois (blog) – ?Leaders from the Responsible Budget Coalition reminded lawmakers yesterday that citizens aren’t satisfied with the stop-gap budget proposals that are being … 

Agencies Demand Illinois Lawmakers Fix Budget  KWQC 6 – ?… and other Illinoisans who depend on state services from additional devastating cuts,” declared a spokesperson for the Responsible Budget Coalition. …   

Coalition urges Illinois lawmakers to pass responsible budget  Rockford WREX (NBC) 13 –   “We need a responsible state budget, a budget that will take into account the needs of the people in the state of Illinois,” says Rockford Education Association President Molly Phalen. She was there Tuesday fighting for all school districts in the state, feeling the effects of deep budget cuts. The coalition supports a tax increase   

Responsible Budget Coalition: Don’t Dig a Deeper Hole  Marketwire (press release) – ?So say representatives of the Responsible Budget Coalition, who renewed their call for common-sense revenue reforms at news conferences in eight Illinois …

 Teachers Want “Responsible” Budget Fix   Public News Service  –  The “Responsible Budget Coalition” will be rallying again today in Chicago and downstate for a tax increase to fix the state’s budget … 

Peaceful Revolution:  A Budget That a Mother Could Love  Huffington Post (blog) – … finding ways to generate more revenue like HB 174, a comprehensive tax reform package being championed by the broad-based Responsible Budget Coalition. …   

Illinois agencies call for budget deal
Moline WQAD (ABC) 8 – MOLINE, Illinois – The clock is ticking for Illinois lawmakers to come up with a state budget. It’s a $13 billion financial crisis, but they left Springfield without a deal. Now, service providers are speaking out for a solution.   

Map shows disparities in local property tax across Illinois
Medill News Service – This map of Illinois illustrates how the property tax rates that municipalities rely on to fund schools and local services often vary dramatically from town to town.   

Open season on teachers  So you want to be a teacher? The thought of leading a classroom full of kids is an appealing one to you?   

Elgin teacher pact vote Tuesday
Elgin Courier News – Having reached a tentative agreement with School District U46 earlier this month, the Elgin Teachers Association plans to take the proposal to the full union membership for a vote on Tuesday.  The proposed contract is for the 2010-11 school year. Details will not be released until after the vote by the 2,500-teacher union, according to Tim Davis, president of the Elgin Teachers Association.

ROWVA hires back more teachers
Galesburg Register Mail – The ROWVA District 208 Board of Education hired back four elementary teachers, a full-time P.E. teacher and a half-time music teacher at its meeting Monday. The industrial arts teacher was hired back half-time at ROWVA, but will also be working half-time at Galva.   

More parent outreach ahead for Rockford teachers
Rockford Register – Teachers will be required to take more steps next year to notify parents when a student is in danger of failing a class in the Rockford School District   

District’s insurance costs going up
Alton Telegraph –  had a student tell me that they may miss school to help take care of younger siblings to help avoid the extreme costs of ’school-aged child enrichment,’” said Brenda Powers, president of the Alton Education Association. Powers said families with two children needing before- and after-school care through the YWCA would pay $160 per week.   

Dozens of Illinois School Bus Drivers Lose Permits For Drug and Alcohol Abuse
Chicago WFLD (Fox) 32 – Chicago – It was a story that sent chills down the spines of parents: a Mount Prospect school bus driver arrested for driving drunk on the job. So we did some digging to find out just how often Illinois school bus drivers have lost their permits for abusing alcohol or drugs on the job. 54-year-old Betty Burden is the school bus driver Mt Prospect police arrested two months ago for DUI.   

Rock Falls still says no to Race to the Top: High school declines support of state bid
Dixon Telegraph –  The Rock Falls School Board has again decided against supporting the state’s bid for federal Race to the Top funds. Board members Monday agreed not to sign a memorandum of support, citing concerns about a lack of answers to questions that include how teacher evaluations would be tied to   

United resubmits for ‘Race to the Top’
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus Leader –  “Illinois will likely get funded during the second round, although it remains to be seen whether we as an individual district will see any of this money,” he said. The Race to the Top Money is to be used for a variety of efforts to improve education. In other business, the board approved amended budget figures that saw expenditures rise approximately $500,000.   

U of I expected to raise tuition by 9.5 percent  University of Illinois trustees this week will consider an almost 10 percent increase in tuition and a contract that would pay the school’s new president more than $600,000 a year.   

Poshard expects borrowing bill to be signed soon
Southern Illinoisan – Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard said the borrowing bill that has passed the House and Senate will be signed by Gov. Pat Quinn soon and ready for the university to utilize in case of emergency. Poshard expects the bill allowing universities to turn to commercial lending to make up for missing state support   

 5 Vying To Lead Chicago Teachers Union
Chicago WBBH (CBS) 2 – A packed field of five candidates will vie for the presidency of the Chicago teachers Union later this week amid extraordinarily tense times: a record Board of Education deficit, plans to raise class size to 35 and the prospect of salary concessions.

Political News

What lawmakers did, didn’t do this session
Chicago Daily Herald – Although lawmakers skipped town without sending a budget to Gov. Pat Quinn or addressing a $13 billion deficit, hundreds of pieces of legislation swept through – or were sunk by – the General Assembly over the last few months. Lawmakers heralded pension reform   

Gov: Lawmakers will get budget by deadline
Chicago Daily Southtown – Illinois lawmakers are going to cut it close, but Gov. Pat Quinn said he’s confident that legislators will have a budget by the month’s deadline. The Illinois General Assembly adjourned May 7, even though lawmakers have not come to terms on a state    

Quinn reaching out to lawmakers for support on budget
Decatur Herald and Review – SPRINGFIELD – As lawmakers prepare for a likely return to Springfield next week to craft a state budget, Gov. Pat Quinn has been reaching out to Democrats to find votes for the proposals he supports. Democrats have until the end of May to approve a state budget by themselves before they need Republican help.   

Lawmakers Expected to Return to Springfield Next Week
Champaign WCIA (CBS) 3 – Governor Pat Quinn says lawmakers will likely return to the capitol next week to hammer out the final details of a state budget for the next fiscal year.      

State Capitol Q&A: Gaming machines at horse tracks  Last year’s legislative session was the first time in more than a decade that Illinois saw the approval of a capital construction program.   

How can Illinois (aka Greece) climb out of its deep budget hole?
Chicago Now – Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and I debate how Illinois could–if ever–resolve its financial crisis.  To Eric from Dennis:  We have seen Greece, and it is us.  When Greek mobs were rioting over government austerity measures needed to secure sufficient international loans to keep the country afloat, the discussion on CNBC immediately turned to whether the indebtedness contagion would spread to the United States.

Kristina Rasmussen: State can balance budget without tax hike, borrowing
Springfield State Journal Register – For Illinois legislators, it’s a time for choosing. The clock on the regular legislative session is ticking down. When legislators return to Springfield later this month, they’ll be reminded that some choices will be harder than others. How we handle this year’s $4.7 billion budget deficit will continue to be one of the most difficult questions facing state leaders.

GOP candidate for lt. gov. won’t release taxes
Southern Illinoisan –  answer the real issues that voters care about,” Plummer said in a statement. His running mate, Bill Brady, briefly allowed public access to his returns, while Democratic candidates Gov. Pat Quinn and Sheila Simon have provided their returns to The Associated Press. But Plummer and Brady have rebuffed requests to see Plummer’s returns.

Audit finds Blagojevich needlessly used outside attorneys while governor, spread cost among several departments
Decatur Herald and Review – decision to hire outside attorneys was a drain on state coffers. “(T)he same work potentially could have been performed internally by the attorney general for less,” Holland noted. Gov. Pat Quinn, who replaced the ousted Blagojevich in January 2009, has attempted to limit the use of outside counsel. A memo from Quinn’s top lawyer to agencies under the governor’s control issued 

Report rips legal bills Blago ran up as governor
Chicago Sun Times – Unfortunately, Gov. Blagojevich chose to do otherwise,” attorney general spokeswoman Natalie Bauer said, adding that the current administration rarely seeks outside counsel. Gov. Quinn spokeswoman Annie Thompson said that in April 2009, Quinn released a memo to all agencies outlining that “absent exceptional circumstances, the Office of the Attorney General, 

You Paid For It: Blago’s Impeachment Defense
Champaign WCIA (CBS) 3 – all, the governor’s office only paid $21,775 of the total $7.2 million, according to the audit. The audit of the office took place over two years, and includes both Blagojevich and current Gov. Pat Quinn. The Quinn administration claims most, if not all, of the issues listed in the audit happened during the previous administration. A Quinn spokeswoman told WCIA-3 the governor sent out a memo   

Blago Petitions U.S. Supreme Court
NBC Chicago – Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich have filed two petitions with the U.S. Supreme Court, attempting to delay the start of the former governor’s corruption trial until a critical ruling is rendered by the high court within the next six weeks. The petitions, sent by overnight mail, ask the court to order a halt in the proceedings until it rules on the so-called “Honest Services” statute,  

National News  

The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand

New York Times – MICHAEL MULGREW is an affable former Brooklyn vocational-high-school teacher who took over last year as head of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers when his predecessor, Randi Weingarten, moved to Washington to run the national American Federation of Teachers. Over breakfast in March, we talked about a movement spreading across the country to hold public-school teachers accountable by compensating, promoting or even removing them according to the results they produce in class, as measured in part by student test scores.

Texas Prohibits Unions Taking PAC Money from Teachers’ Paychecks
Chicago Now – Because the Legislature has not expressly or impliedly authorized school districts to process payroll deductions for contributions to political committees such as TSTA-PAC and NEA-Fund, Texas laws prohibits school districts from processing such contributions. So teachers unions in the Lone Star State will no longer be allowed to forcefully remove money out of teachers’

TIME.com Today’s Top Stories

Incumbents Beware: Primary Voters Send Harsh Message to Both Parties

In quick succession Tuesday night, the jittery inhabitants of Washington’s marble halls found three more reasons to worry about their staying power

Bangkok Siege Ends, But Thailand Faces Deeper Crisis

As Thai troops disperse the protesters who have kept Bangkok in a state of siege for two months, fears grow that the political crisis gripping the country will only deepen

Scientists Escalate Warnings About Gulf Oil Spill

As the oil slick threatens to enter the loop current that curls around Florida and up the East Coast of the U.S., some scientists and federal officials predict increasing harm

Specter, Lincoln, Sestak: The Lessons Learned

Coverage of Tuesday night’s political primaries in several U.S. states. Get more details on The Page

American Idol: Judging the Final Three

In their last American Idol performance before the final, the contestants each call their own tune — and sing tunes chosen by the judges. Who will go home with the bronze medal, and who will advance to the final showdown?

SEC proposes rules to halt another ‘flash crash’
Twelve days after the stock market took a historic plunge that raised fears of another financial crisis, federal officials are still struggling to understand what went wrong even as they offer proposals for how to avoid another “flash crash.”
(By Zachary A. Goldfarb, The Washington Post)

Thai troops advance on protest camp
BANGKOK — After weeks of escalating confrontation, soldiers backed by armored vehicles deployed in force early Wednesday in the center of the Thai capital, moving toward the fortified encampment of anti-government protesters entrenched behind bamboo barricades in this modern Asian metropolis.
(By Andrew Higgins, The Washington Post)

Heavy oil reaches La. marshland
VENICE, LA. — A tide of sludgy oil has begun washing into the fringes of Louisiana’s coastal marshes, officials said Tuesday, as BP continued to siphon some of the oil gushing from a damaged well on the gulf floor but remained days away from trying to cap the leak.
(By David A. Fahrenthold and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post)

The House Republicans’ Class(lessness) of ‘94
Souder is just one more Republican from the class of ‘94 flouting the values he once touted.
(By Dana Milbank, The Washington Post)

To deflect and serve
To be a waiter working amidst Washington’s powerbrokers means having one’s Social Security number screened weekly if not daily.
(By Robin Givhan, The Washington Post)

Word of the Day for Wednesday, May 19, 2010

habitué \huh-BICH-oo-ey\, noun:

One who frequents a particular place, especially a place offering a specific pleasurable activity.

Having dipped their feet in the waters of electric vehicle sales in Japan once before, Honda’s president of research and development, Tomohiko Kawanabe, said that they still “lack confidence” in demand for electric cars, according to a report from Bloomberg.

“It’s questionable whether consumers will accept the annoyances of limited driving range and having to spend time charging them,” Mr. Kawanabe is quoted as saying. “We are definitely conducting research on electric cars, but I can’t say I can wholeheartedly recommend them.”

(more…)

Apple’s vaunted secrecy appears to be falling to pieces all around the Mac maker as yet another early product leak hits the web today. Only yesterday, it was the MacBook update that did end up coming true, and before that it was not one, but two cases of iPhone version 4 pre-release hardware units slipping through Apple’s grasp.

Today, an iPod touch is the leaked product in question. And the key feature of said iPod touch is the 2.0 megapixel camera featured prominently in the middle of the back of the unit, like a glaring cyclops eye. It’s never been a secret that the iPod touch was likely going to get a camera. The question was only when and in what form.

If the demo unit (which was brought to us by the same Vietnamese site that leaked the most recent iPhone 4 prototype) is any indication, then we’ll be seeing a new iPod touch that looks very similar to existing models, with the simple addition of a relatively underpowered mobile camera. 2 megapixels? What is this, the Nintendo DSi? I expected a lot more from Apple.

Of course, it’s always still possible that the model found is actually an older prototype (maybe from when the iPod touch should’ve received its camera upgrade), but the device’s capacity is 64GB, so it can’t be that old, and I’m willing to bet Apple isn’t above kneecapping a camera-capable touch. Look at its track record.

It’s become fairly evident that the iPhone 3G was probably knowingly underpowered for iPhone OS 4.0, and sold at length during a period in which Apple must’ve known it wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the software it was developing. Compare that to Mac sales. Imagine, for instance, Apple was still selling new PowerPC machines last year while developing Snow Leopard.

Personally, I hope Apple skips an actual production release of this iPod touch. A single, rear-facing 2 megapixel camera (which likely won’t shoot great quality video, if at all) has no added selling power in my opinion. It certainly wouldn’t be enough incentive for me to upgrade from my 1st-gen iPod touch. For a camera to be useful on Apple’s marquee media player, I’d need at least a 5 megapixel still camera that also shoots 720p video.

I’m not sure what’s more disappointing at this point: that Apple had an iPod touch with camera ready to go and shelved it, or that it’s just developed the thing and included a laughably low-powered lens in the new hardware. The 4th-gen iPhone better make up for this mess, that’s all I’m saying.

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Sure, HTML5 is important and all — but let’s face it, most of us are more concerned with the end result. And one of the more impressive things we saw at this morning’s keynote was Sports Illustrated’s HTML5-based web version of its magazine. Let’s talk more about that after the break, and what it may well mean in the Android mobile space.

read more

Don’t be deceived by the peaceful look of a newborn baby asleep in a crib–that little tyke may actually be hard at work, soaking up information about the world. A new study has found that newborns are capable of a rudimentary form of learning while they’re asleep, which may be an important process, considering that infants spend between 16 to 18 hours a day in the land of Nod.

Researchers recruited one- and two-day-old infants for the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With each sleeping baby, the researchers played a musical tone and followed that by a puff of air to the eyes, a mild annoyance that caused the infant to automatically scrunch up its eyes. As this sequence of events was repeated, the sleeping babies learned to associate the air puff with the tone, and soon began to to tighten their eyelids as soon as they heard the musical note, even if the air puff didn’t follow. Electrodes stuck to their scalps also showed activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in memory.

“It’s surprising how quickly they learned — the study took 30 minutes, but I think they actually learned this in half that time,” said researcher William Fifer, a developmental neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York. “We knew that a baby’s job is to be an information gatherer, a data sponge, but I don’t think we realized this also happens when they’re sound asleep.”

This research is reminiscent of another experiment done by a different set of researchers last year, which found that some coma patients are capable of the same learned response (associating a tone with a puff of air to the eye). Neuroscientist Tristan Bekinschtein, who conducted the study on coma patients, says the work on infants suggests that there may be more gradations of consciousness than we understand.

Unlike adults, who are unconscious when they sleep, he suggests that sleeping babies may be in a semi-conscious state, allowing them to learn. “We do not know much about sleep in babies but it does not look like sleep in adults,” he says [New Scientist].

Related Content:
80beats: Vegetative Coma Patients Can Still Learn–a Tiny Bit
80beats: Mother Tongue, Indeed: Newborn’s Cries Mimic Mama’s Accent
80beats: Even Newborn Infants Can Feel the Beat

Image: Eve Vagg

In his blog, IPWatchdog, patent attorney Gene Quinn reports on a presentation by Linda Katehi, PhD, chancellor of the University of California (UC) Davis, at the 2010 BIO International Convention. Describing the current “Continuum of Innovation” in tech transfer (see graphic below), Katehi said universities engage in basic research, move into translational research, then turn the innovation over to start-up companies or licensees. This process of handling research and innovation is not likely to lead to success, Katehi explained, because companies become involved too late in the process and universities don’t get market input before deciding which basic research to translate into innovations. Additionally, many universities do not properly invest in tech transfer, Katehi said. They see the TTO, rather, as a vehicle to return funds quickly instead of viewing the licensing of university innovations as a long-term endeavor.

“Universities find it difficult to succeed in tech transfer because they have adopted business models that have not been sustainable,” Katehi told Quinn. It’s costly for institutions to file for patents, and there are no clear feedback loops to bring that investment back to sustain TTO operations. Consequently, universities are under pressure to generate revenues quickly instead of investing in those activities for the long term. Katehi suggested a new model (below), which provides public/private collaboration around translational research and offers assistance to start-ups from incubators and innovation centers. She also suggested future efforts to develop a national framework for translational research, create design-build innovation centers, understand the innovation ecosystem and develop a sustainable business model, consider quasi-open innovation models, and expand public-private collaborations to fund translational research.

During an interview with Quinn, Katehi stressed the need for universities to see the tech transfer cycle as a relationship. When they’re involved in local relationships, universities are viewed as partners by industry, leading to the advancement of more university technologies from basic research to commercialization. In turn, these partnerships improve the ability of industry to succeed and return funds to the universities, continuing the cycle. The UC system decentralized its TTOs for this reason, according to Katehi. “Relationships are local,” she said. “The central office realized they needed to allow the campuses to develop their own relationships because that was the only meaningful way of doing it.”

Source: IPWatchdog.com

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Sprint’s CFO Robert Brust has gone on record stating that the companies huge push for the Palm Pre launch was a disappointment for the carrier. At an investment conference covered by the WSJ, Mr. Brust apparently told analysts:

“The Pre didn’t work out as well as we hoped”

He went on to acknowledge the phone struggled since its debut and even claims that part of the issue was an unspecified lack of supply. A rather curious remark considering there were very few reported supply issues at and following the Palm Pre launch. When asked about the iPhone, Brust said “we’d love to have it.”

Noah finds a table full of Samsung Galaxy S Android phones at Google IO and goes hands-on. This is one nice piece of hardware.