The first Droid Incredible commercial is available online through Verizon’s YoutTube channel. It appears the carrier plans to scare people into buying this handset as well. Kicking off the commercial is the familiar DROIIIIID sound with some very Matrix-like code falling in the background. The phone isn’t shown, but some of the standout specs are given proper attention.
Source: DroidDog
Materials: DUDERO, black paper, a fake mustache, white chalk, scissors and a knife.
Description: We bought the DUDERO – but we found it too plain and boring. So after pasting on a fake mustache, which made it look like Freddy Mercury, we decided to make the lamp into a pirate. See the result!
~ Rowan Zajkowski, Raamsdonksveer, The Netherlands
GE to raise dividend soon, CEO Immelt strongly implies to 24/7 Wall St.
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“I’ve been through a lot and everyone goes through a lot in their life, but that’s what life is, nobody’s perfect.”
Uh-oh — LiLo’s in trouble for a gun-totin’ image snapped during her photoshoot with shutterbug Tyler Shields this week. Lindsay has attracted the ire of some of her fellow Twitter junkies — and much of the rest of the blogosphere — after uploading a TwitPic of herself holding a gun to her lips. The photo will appear in Shields’ new coffee table book, The Dirty Side of Glamour.
(As we speak, a press statement from Michael “Will Snitch For Food” Lohan is probably being faxed to Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, and anyone else who’ll still listen….)
It’s not the first time Lohan has brandished dangerous weapons in odd photos that ended up going viral: in 2007, Linds left fans scratching their heads after snaps of her and former MTV VJ Vanessa Minnillo playing with knives hit the web.
All of this comes as Lindsay continues to try to convince us that the insides of her nostrils don’t look like the slopes of an Aspen ski resort. The troubled starlet called into DJ JoJo Wright’s 102.7 KIIS-FM radio show late Wednesday night and spoke out about some of the recent claims made by her father, who believes that she is out of control and in need of an intervention.
“Aside from the father drama, which is just nuts, I’m a nice person, I work hard, I just really love entertaining people and this is what I came into this business for. Not in terms of the tabloids lying about how I’m entertaining them, but you know, I kind of let it roll off my back at this point. I’m pretty numb to it,” she explains.
CLICK HERE For The Audio or Check Out Some Interview Excerpts Below:
Lindsay On Tabloid Gossip: “I don’t really pay attention to it, it’s nonsense. I don’t know why I’m such a target but I think there’s a big misconception of who I am as a person. It’s a very build you up to take you down industry.”
Lindsay On Her Current Job Outlook: “I’m working hard, I’m doing my clothing line, I’m starting a movie soon, I’m producing some shows, I’ve been working a lot.”
On Allegations That She Parties Too Much: “It’s not a crime to go and have fun with your friends. I actually haven’t been out in over a week.”
Is Lindsay A Bad Influence On Her Younger Sister Ali, 16? “My sister is fine and she is in school.”
On What Her Father Michael Lohan Has Said In The Press About Her: “I think some of it is just foul…some of the things that get said especially from my dad. No one should ever have to worry about their father saying that publicly about them. It distracts from the work that I’m doing and it only builds negative press and that’s why it really hurts me. My mom is an amazing woman and she’s been put through hell by him, so anything he says about her is completely false.”
The V-6–powered M37 is as quick as last year’s V-8 M45.
With its previous-generation M model, Infiniti found itself in an uncomfortable place: Its latest corporate VQ V-6, as found in the Nissan 370Z, was more powerful than the M45’s V-8. So offering that 330-hp 3.7-liter in the M had to be delayed until now, after a more potent, 420-hp V-8 found its way into the M. Although the V-6 gets a bit coarse near its 7500-rpm redline, not surprisingly, it propels the restyled 2011 M37 as forcibly as last year’s V-8–powered M45: 0 to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and the quarter in 14.1.
Keep Reading: 2011 Infiniti M37 – Short Take Road Test
Related posts:
Luke Timmerman wrote:
The University of Washington’s president, Mark Emmert, has been talking about making the state’s biggest institution of higher education an “entrepreneurial university.” While Emmert is on his way out, the startup fire was still burning bright yesterday when I was on campus to serve as a judge for the UW’s 13th annual Business Plan Competition.
There were 32 teams assembled at the Husky Union Ballroom with a rich variety of ideas for wireless technology, consumer goods, media, biotech, and cleantech businesses. These young people looked the part, with visual aids and prototypes at the ready. They were eager to make eye contact, hand out cards, and deliver the proverbial firm handshake. Beyond the essential body language, I found almost all of the teams I questioned were ready to provide specific answers about the market they were addressing, how their technology differs from their competitors, why customers would want it, and how this can become profitable. And these aspiring entrepreneurs were truly from all over the world, and that diverse experience showed.
Here are snapshots of four companies that struck me as interesting. You can see a list of the Sweet 16 finalists here.
—Envitrum. This company from UW won the grand prize at the UW’s Environmental Innovation Challenge earlier this spring. It turns crushed glass from a landfill or recycling center and packs it into a renewable brick building material. These bricks made from crushed glass can be manufactured at large scale for 10-15 cents each, compared with 20 to 25 cents for a conventional red brick, says Renuka Prabhakar, co-founder and CEO. The EnVitrum bricks hold heat better than conventional bricks, and they help builders rack up points toward getting their buildings stamped with the precious LEED certification for green buildings, she added.
EnVitrum will have to pass a key test in getting ASTM certification to show it has all the right properties. I asked Prabhakar how these bricks might hold up in an earthquake. That will depend more on the mortar that holds the bricks together, says Prabhakar, a mechanical engineering student. If it can pass the material certification standards, the EnVitrum bricks could be on the market within a year, she says.
—Mobee Sign. Mobile phones are truly global devices now, but e-commerce isn’t taking off everywhere. In the Middle East and Northern Africa, many merchants are set up to use PayPal to collect payment for their goods and services, but consumers are afraid to hand over their credit card online, says Omar Nesh Nash, a co-founder of this company from Seattle University.
So Mobee Sign is developing a way for consumers to buy stuff online, through their mobile phone, without having to enter their credit card. The merchant has to get …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
The Merkur Safety Razor has a chrome finish. Its double edge design provides a very close shave. Its handle is shaped like a barber pole. Chorme Plated with Bar. The safety razor has a straight edge especially great for an extra close shave.
View Merkur Model 38 Hd Classic “Barber Pole” Long Safety Razor Details
The Office of Technology Management (OTM) at the University of Illinois in Chicago is seeking applicants for the position of Assistant Director, Business Development. The successful candidate is responsible for the management and execution of the business development activities of the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at UIC. The Assistant Director, Business Development and Technology Management will be responsible for conceptualizing, implementing and executing the business development strategy of the OTM as well as advancing the overall goals of the OTM. Other duties include:
Duties:
Create, facilitate, implement and lead external business development initiatives to advance University of Illinois at Chicago’s intellectual property and maximize its financial results in both the short and long term.
Create and implement an external business development strategy to increase the OTM’s exposure to potential licensees.
Utilizing the Salesforce.com customer relationship management platform, create performance measurements for the business development strategy, create transaction summaries on all external business development activities and provide post-transaction reviews for all processes related to the external business development activities.
Keep all stakeholders regularly informed on status of pending external business development transactions and developing corporate relationships.
Create strategic relationships with other Universities to explore opportunities to bundle like technologies and go to market with complete business solutions.
Assist Director in the management of the unit. Develop, administer and evaluate major programs or projects.
Supervise Technology Management team.
Serve on OTM leadership team to ensure operating activities are within University policy.
Participate in conferences and seminars conducted by the University, Unit, or professional organizations specific to furthering the OTM’s external business development initiatives.
Participate in team project, with all other members of the OTM staff, regarding strategic planning and preparation of the Unit’s annual operating plan and budget.
Develop an annual Professional Development plan.
Act on behalf of the Director of OTM in her absence.
Serve on University, campus, and other committees/teams as assigned.
Qualifications:
Minimum qualifications include a Bachelor’s degree in a related field and five years’ relevant professional experience in business, academic, or government in business development and/or operational management; Master’s degree or professional degree (professional experience and accomplishments may be considered in lieu of the advanced degree requirement) preferred. Other required qualifications include: proven ability to exercise independent judgment and discretion to make sound decisions; strong organizational and prioritization skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously; demonstrated keen business intuition, results orientation, and interest in advancing business development activities for university technologies; outstanding teamwork and influence-management skills with the ability to successfully work with others at all levels; effective leadership skills with the demeanor, business maturity, intellect and integrity required to establish immediate credibility and establish results; exemplary skills and acumen to assume roles of greater responsibility over time; and proficient computer skills (e.g., PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.).
This is a full-time 12-month Academic Professional, benefits eligible position. For full consideration, candidates must apply to and submit a letter of application, resume, and names/addresses/phone numbers of three professional references by May 12, 2010 at https://uajobs.hr.uillinois.edu/.
Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech
Jeff Poor
Newsbusters
April 29, 2010
If you try to sweep your problems under the rug, they’ll go away, right? Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal and best known for his “hockey stick graph” hopes so.
On Fox News Channel’s April 28 broadcast of “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” Elmer Beauregard of Minnesotans for Global Warming appeared to explain the reasoning behind a video that drew the ire Mann. The video mocked the Penn State professor’s alleged attempt to cover up data from tree rings that would indicate there was no global warming.
“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but last fall, Obama was pushing the no cap-and-trade to go through the Senate because he wanted to have something to bring to Copenhagen,” Beauregard said. “And just then Climategate broke and the mainstream press really wasn’t covering it, so the coalition got together and we tried to think of a way to kind of bring this into the forefront of the American public. And I said I could make a funny YouTube video. And so, I did it to the tune of ‘Draggin’ the Line’ by Tommy James and The Shondells and put it up on YouTube and it went viral. And then Rush [Limbaugh] played it on his show and it went supernova.”
I blogged yesterday about the disaster in Greece, and its rapid spread to other European countries. Today the fish-eye is turning on countries outside of the PIIGS, including Japan, Britain . . . and us. According to the Financial Times, “The Fund has calculated that almost all advanced economies need to tighten fiscal policy significantly in the coming decade in order to stabilise debt at 60 per cent of national income by 2030 and the tightening needed in the US, Japan and the UK is just as bad as that required in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.”
So perhaps naturally, I’ve been thinking more about the parallels to the Great Depression that I talked about yesterday. Arguably, the Great Depression was the first global financial crisis, infecting the developed world along with the developing. So it’s interesting–and frightening–to observe the similarities between that crisis and this one.
I’m not sure how much to make of this. If you look hard enough, you can always find similarities in situations. But they are striking enough to make me wonder if they aren’t part of some broad template for international banking crises. Not that I’m exactly the first person to suggest this, but the mess in Greece, and the resulting contagion, makes it seem more plausible.
Dan Coats appears to have broken through in Indiana’s GOP primary for that state’s US Senate race. A poll out this morning from the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics has Coats in front outside the margin of error. Here’s the breakdown:
Dan Coats 36%
John Hostettler 24%
Marlin Stutzman 18%
Undecided 13%
Don Bates, Jr. 6%
Richard Behney 4%
The poll was conducted by SurveyUSA via recorded message delivered by random telephone calls (refered to as a ‘robo-poll’). There were 407 Hoosiers questioned who said they were likely to vote in the Republican primary. Calls were conducted from April 22nd-27th. The margin of error in the poll is plus/minus 5%.
The primary is Tuesday, May 4th.
UPDATE: The most surprising single piece of data in the poll was Coats strong standing among likely voters who “identify with the Tea Party movement”. In that group…Coats got 30%…Stutzman 23%…Hostettler 21%…Undecided 11%…Bates 9% and Behney 4%.
Why is that surprising? Coats did not win a single straw poll at any of the debates sponsored by Tea Party groups. Organizers have repeatedly told me that of the five Republican candidates…the Tea Party favorites are Stutzman, Behney and Bates.
In fact, Behney is a Tea Party organizer himself. Stutzman has courted the Tea Party vote and has won four Tea Party debate straw polls. The one candidate who has seemed to struggle for support among Tea Party activists is Coats.
Yet, this polls suggests Coats may have mended fences with Tea Partiers on issues such as Coats’ voting for a semi-automatic weapons ban while a Senator in the 1990’s…and Coats work as a DC lobbyist.
Tea Partiers may have grown pragmatic here in the waning days of the primary campaign…getting behind Coats because of his base of support among the regulars of the Indiana Republican Party. But if that’s true…it’s the first time this reporter has heard it.
Aviary has been building a name for itself and, unlike some if not many companies out there, it’s mostly due to the quality of its products. Its online image editors are remarkably potent and the company has been pushing a steady stream of updates and new features. One of the lesser known apps, though, has nothing to do with image … (read more)
In a distinct break from terse messages sent from his iPad, Steve Jobs has posted a 1,700 word missive on his Apple’s website. Broken into six sections, the essay explains Apple’s stance on Flash in detail.
Jobs attacks Flash for being closed, crash-prone, and battery draining, while defending Apple for supporting open standards and trying to create the best user experience for mobile devices. All that may be true, or not, but what this really about is control.
Countering complaints against iPhone OS being a walled garden of an operating system and development platform, Jobs argues that Flash is “100% proprietary” because development is controlled by Adobe. In contrast, Apple fosters “open standards” like HTML5 and technologies like WebKit, even though iPhone OS itself is admittedly proprietary.
Jobs then attempts to counter the argument that a device without Flash denies users the “full web” experience. He notes that H.264 is an alternative format that makes video available from a long list of sites that does not include Hulu. As for the lack of Flash games on Apple devices, Jobs admits that’s true, but argues there are more “games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.” That may be true, but all those games require an iPhone OS device, locking out tens of millions of people with nothing better to do than play Farmville at work.
Turning to “reliability, security, and performance,” Jobs slams Flash for security and reiterates that “Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.” He then points out that, despite promising a mobile version of Flash, Adobe has repeatedly failed to deliver. Jobs notes that “We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?” Ouch.
That leads into complaints about battery life, the example being ten hours of iPad video with H.264 versus five hours with Flash. Regarding the Flash interface, Jobs complains that Flash is designed for mouse input, not touch. Since most Flash websites would have to be redesigned to incorporate touch input, “why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?” Ouch, again.
Finally, there is “the most important reason.” Cross-platform apps result in the “lowest common denominator set of features.” Taking a another dig at Adobe for needing 10 years to develop a fully Cocoa version of Creative Suite, Jobs declares that Apple wants developers to use the best native tools to create the best user experience in applications. That way “everyone wins,” well, except for Adobe.
Really, it’s about control. Couching it in terms of the user experience is fine, and true, in my opinion. However, as is made clear repeatedly in the essay, Apple is determined to remain in complete control of the development of its mobile devices, from the hardware to the operating system to the application development process. The question then becomes whether Apple will be able to do so.
With the statement by Google that Flash will be included as part of Android, and Microsoft signaling that Flash will be a part of Windows Phone 7, though not the first version, it’s essentially Apple against the rest of the world. Apple may indeed succeed in “leaving the past behind” with Flash and ushering in the era of HTML5. However, should market pressures ultimately force Apple to allow Flash, it will be because the lack of Flash has hurt the viability of iPhone OS. The “past” may yet catch up with Apple, but that has yet to stop Steve Jobs and company from looking towards the future.
Modified image courtesy of Flickr user plasticbag
Facing South’s report last week on a protest last week by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity — which targeted the Center for Responsible lending, a champion of financial reform, as a symbol of “Wall Street corruption” — has made quite a splash.
A quick recap: Last week, 20 some members of AfP descended on the offices of the Center in Durham, NC, saying the consumer non-profit was tied to Wall Street scandals. How so? Several years ago, the Center received a $15 million gift from John Paulson, a hedge fund tycoon now implicated in the Goldman Sachs inquiry. The Center also used to employ Eric Stein, who now works in Obama’s Treasury Department.
That’s all the protesters needed to know: They demanded that the Wall Street reform bill in Congress be stopped, a full Congressional investigation be launched, and that Stein be fired (or, to make it rhyme, “Stein Must Resign!”).
I talked with several of the AfP protesters (you can see the video here); none I interviewed knew where Paulson’s $15 million went. But the Center said it was no mystery: It launched the Institute for Foreclosure Legal Assistance, which gives training to legal clinics about how to help families facing foreclosure. It isn’t even based at the Center; it’s run by the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
And the Americans for Prosperity members definitely didn’t mention that their own organization is one of several business-funded groups that have much closer ties to Wall Street and financial interests than consumer groups like the Center.
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC took our report one step further — and used our video from the AfP rally in North Carolina — to look at another front group, the Consumer Rights League. Despite its innocuous name, and an acronym identical to the Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Rights League was created and funded by banking interests to oppose reform.
Check out Maddow’s report here:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Consumer Rights League has its own ties to the controversy: As Facing South reported and Maddow mentioned, the founder of the League is Michael Flynn — currently an editor at BigGovernment.com, a conservative website that has led the charge against the Center and Stein.
Teasing out these connections among the myriad front groups opposed to Wall Street reform was the focus of another excellent follow-up piece in The Independent Weekly, an award-winning paper based in Durham, NC.
Lisa Sorg and Samiha Khanna of the Indy pulled together this useful chart of the ties between these organizations, which together are designed to give the appearance of widespread opposition to policies like cracking down on Wall Street (click on the chart for a bigger version):
If anything, the Indy’s chart may
understate the close web of relationships between these groups. For
example: The
John Locke Foundation, a conservative policy group in North Carolina,
has a more direct tie to Americans for Prosperity, aside from their
common
benefactor Art Pope. This became clear at last week’s AfP rally,
which was led by North Carolina conservative activist Chad Adams. AfP-NC
recently hired Adams to help raise
money, although he’s
still listed as the director of the Locke Foundation’s Center for
Local Innovation
and as a Locke employee.
Adams has another connection that’s
relevant to the Wall Street reform debate: Last year, he ran — and narrowly
lost — to be chairman of the N.C. Republican Party, basing his
campaign among Tea Party
groups
and other GOP insurgents.
Yesterday, Republicans relented on a five-day filibuster that aimed to stop movement of the Wall Street reform bill. But AfP is staying resolute: It just released a broadside via podcast — apparently by Phil Kerpen, an AfP leader and Fox News contributor who’s also targeted the Center and Stein — calling it a “very, very bad bill” and encouraging the GOP to once again vote to end debate.
There have been a lot of complaints that No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise is stricken with sluggish loading times and freezing. Marvelous Entertainment has heard the call and promises a patch coming next month.
About as fast as the online store started selling the much anticipation DROID Incredible by HTC, Verizon sold out of internal inventory posting a note that new stock will be in May 4th 2010. If you were one of the pre-orders you should be in luck, otherwise head into the store to get one!
[Via Boy Genius Report]
from guardian, 29 April 2010: “Mervyn King is warning that the victor in next week’s election will be forced into austerity measures that will keep the party out of power for a generation, according to the US economist David Hale. “I saw the governor of the Bank of England [Mervyn King] last week when I was in London and he told me whoever wins this election will be out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be,” Hale said in an interview on Australian TV reported by Reuters…” more
A new paper on arXiv shows an interesting approach to visualizing time in systems with circadian or other rhythms. I haven’t figured out if it’s useful for oscillatory dynamic systems more generally, but it makes some neat visuals:
The method makes it possible to see changes in behavior in time series with waaay to many oscillations to explore on a normal 2D time-value plot:
Orange UK revenue grew 2.3 percent this Q1 to €1.82 billion, though, following confirmation of its merger with T-Mobile UK, parent France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) is now disregarding it in its business reporting.
Too bad. The parent saw less income in every region except Rest Of World, as it reported 5.5 percent lower EBITDA of €3.76 billion on 2.7 percent smaller income of €10.9 billion.
The group says European regulatory measures forcing telcos to reduce call termination fees wiped €270 million of its quarterly income, and will hit it by “about €1 billion” over the whole year.
Data revenue in its native France jumped 24.1 percent from the previous year, nearly a third of network income. And Orange TV customers there jumped 34 percent to 2.9 million – France is a world leader for IPTV take-up, and Orange is ahead of the pack in France. Orange TV clocked up 2.7 million pay-per-view buys during the quarter – that’s 53 percent up from Q1 2009.
It’s now committing 12 percent of its income to capital expenditure, notably fitting out France with a fibre optic network.
