Category: News

Most anybody can buy outdoor ads to hype an upcoming TV show, but History (formerly known as The History Channel) kicked it up a notch with iconic images from America: The Story of Us projected onto landmark buildings. (Having a banking behemoth sponsor the ambitious series probably wasn’t a bad idea.) The promotions—technically, they’re light shows from a company called Artlumiere—happened for seven straight days last week and bathed the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles, Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Grand Central Terminal in New York in multistory images of the Statue of Liberty, the Old West, the Nina, the Pinta and that other ship. The birth-of-a-nation series, which launched Sunday night, has had considerable on- and off-air weight thrown behind it from History and sponsor Bank of America, which produced its own two-minute "story of us" mini-documentaries. Those will air throughout the 12-part series. Our brother blog, The Live Feed, has reported that the initial broadcast broke History ratings records with 5.7 million viewers, making it the network’s most-watched special of all time.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley

Home prices finally got a boost in February in comparison to last year, but not all major cities are out of the gutter.

Almost half are seeing their prices decline year-over-year, and peak to trough stats are still dismal.

See if your city is part of the price recovery, according to the newest release of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

San Francisco, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.36%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 12.05%

Peak To Trough: -36.9%

San Diego, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.77%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 7.55%

Peak To Trough: -36.43%

Los Angeles, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.2%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 5.35%

Peak To Trough: -36.2%

Washington, D.C.

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.04%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 5.07%

Peak To Trough: -28.94%

Denver, Colorado

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.18%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.69%

Peak To Trough: -8.54%

Cleveland, Ohio

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.02%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.43%

Peak To Trough: -15.42%

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.9%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.1%

Peak To Trough: -29.28%

Dallas, Texas

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.39%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 2.71%

Peak To Trough: -6%

Boston, Massachusetts

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.48%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 1.81%

Peak To Trough: -14.56%

Atlanta, Georgia

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.85%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -0.86%

Peak To Trough: -20.73%

Phoenix, Arizona

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.42%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -1.58%

Peak To Trough: -51%

Charlotte, North Carolina

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.38%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -2.43%

Peak To Trough: -11.58%

Chicago, Illinois

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.03%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -2.88%

Peak To Trough: -26.26%

New York, New York

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.15%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.14%

Peak To Trough: -21.1%

Miami, Florida

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.26%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.36%

Peak To Trough: -47.39%

Portland, Oregon

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.87%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.74%

Peak To Trough: -21.08%

Detroit, Michigan

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.9%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.3%

Peak To Trough: -43.89%

Seattle, Washington

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.78%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.58%

Peak To Trough: -23.33%

Tampa, Florida

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.31%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.98%

Peak To Trough: -42.24%

Las Vegas, Nevada

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.14%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -14.62%

Peak To Trough: -55.76%

20-City Composite

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.1%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 0.7%

Peak To Trough: -29.25%

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Francia y Japón también hacen negocios en el mundo del automóvil. El grupo PSA, Citroën-Peugeot, y Mitsubishi han decidido unir sus fuerzas competitivas para crear un nuevo SUV que revolucione el mercado. El vehículo en cuestión estará basado en el Mitsubishi ASX y podría llegar a principios de 2012.

Este vehículo, destinado al mercado con mayor crecimiento en Europa, estará basado en una plataforma ya existente de Mitsubishi. A esta plataforma se le conoce por RVR en Japón y ASX en Europa. El coche tendrá diseños específicos para cada una de las marcas y presentará la opción de tracción a 2 y a 4 ruedas.

El volumen de producción que tienen previsto asumir tanto Peugeot como Citroën es de 50.000 unidades al año. En lo que respecta al grupo PSA pretenden equipar su versión con un motor diésel 1.6 HDi, lo que nos dejaría un más que respetable consumo de 4,7 litros por kilómetro.

Los intereses de cada compañía en esta operación son distintos. El grupo PSA pretende crecer en un mercado que todavía no domina y que probablemente crecerá en un 60% en todo el mundo hasta el año 2015. Mientras tanto, Mitsubishi pretende obtener economías de escala en su plataforma ASX.

Ambas compañías han demostrado en el pasado que pueden trabajar perfectamente juntas. Entre los proyectos que han llevado a cabo se encuentran los modelos Mitsubishi Outlander, Peugeot 4007 y Citroën C-Crosser en 2005, la construcción de una planta en Rusia y el lanzamiento a finales de 2010 de los coches eléctricos Peugeot iOn y Citroën C-Zero.

Vía | MotorTerra

As most of you know by now, police entered Jason Chen’s home, seizing his computers and gadgets. While the investigation’s in process, we can’t comment much on this. We stand by our colleague and our coverage of the lost iPhone. More »

A new report on global health policy calls for the United States to maintain its commitment to fight HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis and to double the funds committed to maternal and child health, to $2 billion a year.

The report, unveiled at a Boston University (BU) conference co-sponsored by BU, Harvard, and the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday (April 26), also recommends strengthening efforts at disease prevention, setting national global health priorities for the next 15 years, and bolstering collaboration and support of international institutions that can help in the effort, such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, UNICEF, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Harvard Provost Steven Hyman, who spoke at one of the event’s three panels, said it’s important that, as the academic field of global health emerges, it not be bound in a traditional academic silo. Though the creation of academic disciplines has been an important way to focus efforts in some fields, Hyman said a more problem-centered approach that draws solutions from many fields is more appropriate for global health.

Hyman said New England is well placed to play a key role in global health, with collaborations already established among universities, hospitals, and businesses.

BU President Robert Brown said that student interest in global health is “profoundly” greater now than it was a decade ago and that the international flavor of the region’s universities — both with many students from abroad coming here and students studying abroad — will give the area an advantage as global health increases in importance.

The evidence that more students are interested in global health today is reflected on Harvard’s campuses, Hyman said, in courses that are so packed that students have to be admitted by lottery. When they graduate, though, he cautioned, those students will need careers that can harness their enthusiasm and apply it toward the greater good.

“The real question is are we going to create the kinds of … opportunities that allow this wonderful burst of idealism to be wedded to a career path that allows a student to make a career in global health,” Hyman said.

Novartis senior director Phil Dormitzer, who spoke on the panel featuring Hyman and Brown — and which also featured U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano and Genzyme Senior Vice President James Geraghty —  said that New England’s concentration of research institutions attracted Genzyme’s operations a few years ago from the San Francisco Bay area. Still, he said, one of the biggest challenges in global health is not necessarily marshalling the brain power, clinical expertise, and capital to conceive, test, and bring products to market. To be usable in the developing world, where the need is greatest, vaccines and critical drugs need to be made very inexpensively, something that is best done in other parts of the world.

New England, Capuano said, has long outgrown its textile mill industrial roots and specializes in well-paying, knowledge-based industry. Today the dominant industry is in the biosciences, which Capuano said will likely move elsewhere as it matures, as production practices become refined and as manufacturing costs become more and more important. By then, Capuano said, the region’s powerful combination of knowledge-based resources will likely be on to the next big thing, whatever that may be.

“We do intellectual capital. We build it in the university, we test it in the hospitals, we commercialize it in our businesses,” Capuano said.

Outside of New England, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) student Amy Bei, participating on a panel of future global health leaders, said it is critical that capacity be built in the developing nations themselves. Bei, who worked in Tanzania on malaria, said she has a passion to help train local scientists.

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Ford, Specialty

Ford and Hurst have a long and illustrious history of working together to create special edition Mustangs, and the latest fruits of their labor can be seen in our high-res image gallery below. The 2010 Hurst Mustang Pace Car will make its first official appearance during the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge race that will be held at Virginia International Raceway on April 25, 2010.

There will only be one 2010 Hurst Mustang Pace Car, and it will make appearances at the Hot Rod Power Tour, a slew of Larry H. Miller dealerships and finally at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas before being auctioned off next January. Proceeds from the car’s sale will benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer. A hot Mustang convertible for a worthy cause… what’s not to like?

Though you won’t be able to march into your local Ford dealership and drive off in a new Hurst ‘Stang, you will be able to get “promotional items” inspired by the car… including ‘skins’ for pinewood derby racers. Sadly, the miniature version won’t be sporting the full-size car’s polished 20-inch wheels, Hurst shifter or 550-horsepower supercharged V8 engine. What they will have in common, though, is the iconic black and gold Hurst color scheme. See below for images and click past the break for the press release.

[Source: Hurst Performance Vehicles]

Continue reading Hurst debuts Ford Racing Mustang Challenge pace car at VIR

Hurst debuts Ford Racing Mustang Challenge pace car at VIR originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has dug itself into quite a  deep hole.  Costs remain very, very high (see Harvard study: “Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!).  And nobody wants the CO2 stored underground anywhere near them (see CCS shocker: “German carbon capture plan has ended with CO2 being pumped directly into the atmosphere”).

Now comes a new study in the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, “Sequestering carbon dioxide in a closed underground volume,” by Christene Ehlig-Economides, professor of energy engineering at Texas A&M, and Michael Economides, professor of chemical engineering at University of Houston.  Here are its blunt findings:

Published reports on the potential for sequestration fail to address the necessity of storing CO2 in a closed system. Our calculations suggest that the volume of liquid or supercritical CO2 to be disposed cannot exceed more than about 1% of pore space. This will require from 5 to 20 times more underground reservoir volume than has been envisioned by many, and it renders geologic sequestration of CO2 a profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions.

The study concludes:

In applying this to a commercial power plant the findings suggest that for a small number of wells the areal extent of the reservoir would be enormous, the size of a small US state.  Conversely, for more moderate size reservoirs, still the size of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay reservoir, and with moderate permeability there would be a need for hundreds of wells. Neither of these bodes well for geological CO2 sequestration and the findings of this work clearly suggest that it is not a practical means to provide any substantive reduction in CO2 emissions, although it has been repeatedly presented as such by others.

Realistically, it has always been hard to see how CCS could be more than a small part of the solution to averting catastrophic climate change, as I discussed at length in my September 2008 post, Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?

We need to put in place 12 to 14 “stabilization wedges” by mid-century to avoid a multitude of catastrophic climate impact — see “How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution (updated)”   For CCS to be even one of those would require a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the current flow of oil out of the ground. That would require, by itself, re-creating the equivalent of the planet’s entire oil delivery infrastructure, no mean feat.

But any significant amount of leakage would render CCS pointless.  The UK Guardian’s article on the study quotes the coauthor:

Previous modelling has hugely underestimated the space needed to store CO2 because it was based on the “totally erroneous” premise that the pressure feeding the carbon into the rock structures would be constant, argues Michael Economides, professor of chemical engineering at Houston, and his co-author Christene Ehlig-Economides, professor of energy engineering at Texas A&M University

“It is like putting a bicycle pump up against a wall. It would be hard to inject CO2 into a closed system without eventually producing so much pressure that it fractured the rock and allowed the carbon to migrate to other zones and possibly escape to the surface,” Economides said.

The paper concludes that CCS “is not a practical means to provide any substantive reduction in CO2 emissions, although it has been repeatedly presented as such by others.”

The Guardian talked to “The Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA), which lobbies on behalf of the sector”:

Jeff Chapman, chief executive of the CCSA, believes Economides has made inappropriate assumptions about the science and geology. He believes the conclusions in the paper are wrong and says his views are backed up by rebuttals from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National laboratory and the American Petroleum Institute.

The British Geological Survey confirmed it was looking at the Economides findings and was hoping to shortly produce a peer-reviewed analysis.

Yet the concern laid out in the study is not a new one.  Indeed, my 2008 post quoted a BusinessWeek piece, “The Dirty Truth About Clean Coal”:

The method is widely viewed as being decades away from commercial viability. Even then, the cost could be prohibitive: by a conservative estimate, several trillion dollars to switch to clean coal in the U.S. alone.Then there are the safety questions. One large, coal-fired plant generates the equivalent of 3 billion barrels of CO2 over a 60-year lifetime. That would require a space the size of a major oil field to contain. The pressure could cause leaks or earthquakes, says Curt M. White, who ran the U.S. Energy Dept.’s carbon sequestration group until 2005 and served as an adviser until earlier this year. “Red flags should be going up everywhere when you talk about this amount of liquid being put underground.”

Precisely.

Since CCS is probably at least two decades away from being practical and affordable for large-scale commercialization (assuming we have a high and rising CO2 price by then), we’ll have plenty of time to test different wells and geologies and find out just how many of those red flags we should be paying attention to.

Fortunately, there are many, many other carbon-reducing and clean energy solutions available to us now:

• An introduction to the core climate solutions

We know a lot of you guys and gals out there are former BlackBerry users and abusers. And so we’ll put the question to you? With the unveiling today of the BlackBerry 6 operating system, how does it stand up to the likes of Android and the various flavors it comes in? (Sense, Motoblur, Touchwiz, etc.) Check out the video after the break if you haven’t already seen it, and check out all the coverage at CrackBerry, and let us know. Anything to be worried about here?

read more

For the tiny flatworm, regeneration of missing body parts is a piece of cake. Someone chopped its head off? No problem! It grows a brand new one in about seven days, complete with a spanking new brain with all the right circuits and connections. (As for the chopped-off head, it just grows a new body.) This amazing ability of the flatworm to regrow a missing head and to produce a brain on demand has now been traced back to a key gene, researchers report in a PloS Genetics study. The identification of the gene is exciting news for scientists who wonder if humans, too, can one day learn to regenerate missing body parts. The Register reports that the discovery of the “smed-prep” gene unlocks the mechanisms by which the hard-to-kill Planarian flatworms grow new muscle, gut, and brain cells:
Even more importantly, it seems that the information contained in smed-prep also makes the new cells appear in the right place and organize themselves into working structures – as opposed to nonfunctional blobs of protoplasm.
Lead researcher Aziz Aboobaker describes the worm’s regenerative superpowers to the BBC:
“One of the reasons they can do this is because they’re chock-full of stem cells. We estimate that at …

Oh…great. A Russian company is now marketing a new cruise missile system that can be hidden in a shipping container, turning any merchant ship into a warship able to take out an aircraft carrier. Cool? More »

While lots of attention was paid to the claims that the confiscation of Gizmodo reporter Jason Chen’s computer’s would “settle” whether bloggers are considered journalists, the details in that case suggest otherwise. However, a much more important case on that particular question was decided late last week. It’s the case of Shellee Hale, which we’ve covered in the past. Basically, Hale posted some information claiming a security breach at another company. She revealed this information as a comment on another site — and when she was sued, the company demanded she reveal where she got that information from. She claimed that her sources were protected, as she was a journalist.

The court ruled against her, saying that because she had “no connection to any legitimate news publication,” her own investigations weren’t journalism. That’s troubling for a variety of reasons, especially given the wide latitude in determining what constitutes a “legitimate news publication.” Hale appealed, and unfortunately, the ruling last week from the appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling:

“Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media,” wrote Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo.

The court also claimed that her activities were not journalism because they “exhibited none of the recognized qualities or characteristics traditionally associated with the news process, nor has she demonstrated an established connection or affiliation with any news entity.”

Again, this is problematic. In an age of participatory journalism, people who do journalism don’t need “an established connection or affiliation with any news entity.” They can easily establish one with various sites, or they can simply set themselves up as a “news organization” on their own. Furthermore, as technology has changed the whole process of journalism, there’s an awful lot about journalism today that “exhibits none of the recognized qualities or characteristics traditionally associated with the news process.” That’s because the news process is constantly changing — such as its expansion into participatory efforts these days. This ruling is troubling in that it looks backwards, not forward. It’s also a reminder that rather than various broken state laws that shield journalists, it really is time for a federal shield law to protect journalists.

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Uma das coisas que mais irrita o usuário é um navegador lento. Quem nunca se estressou com a demora de carregamento de alguma página ou praguejou quando o programa simplesmente travou e fechou de repente, fazendo com que você perdesse tudo?

Independente de qual seja o problema, é fundamental que ele funcione perfeitamente, seja para aproveitar ao máximo a velocidade de seu computador e internet ou para evitar complicações futuras. Mas e quando o navegador já está “condenado”?

Em alguns casos, esses problemas já são crônicos. A lentidão já faz parte da rotina, o browser precisa ser reiniciado e hora em hora e nem mesmo reinstalá-lo resolve. Se isso acontece com você, saiba que está na hora de dar um reset no navegador. Clique na imagem ou aqui para ler essa matéria do Baixaki.

Where some people just see a detour sign and say “argh,” the owner of a California A&W franchise sees an opportunity to grow his customer base.

Taking advantage of some free space on the detour signs placed in the vicinity of his eatery, Peter Knight placed signs pointing hungry drivers in his direction.

“We’re trying to be as aggressive as possible,” he explains. “We had to get some kind of sign out there.”

According to Knight, his signs are working as people who would never have thought to stop by his A&W are now popping in for a bite.

“We’ve actually seen some new customers because we’ve directed traffic in a different direction,” he says.

 

Creative A&W Restaurant Owner Takes Advantage Of Detour Signs [Fox40.com]

If you have a free two minutes and want to get a quick look at OS 6.0, which will be released in the third quarter this year, you can check out this video.

I really wish they had made a more straight forward video, without the bouncing screen shots and dancing people. And the crappy music, though that’s on a more subjective topic.

This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.

RIM gives us a video look at OS 6.0

This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.

RIM gives us a video look at OS 6.0

Ford is having a great run of it. Just today they announced a $2.1 billion first quarter 2010 profit, which is up from 2009’s first quarter by $3.5 billion (yep, they lost $1.4 billion in Q1 2009). I don’t think there’s any other greater vote of confidence in their new line of products than that… but the good press on their products keeps on coming.

In a comparison on the San Francisco Chronicle website, out of 7 hybrids analyzed the Ford Fusion Hybrid came out number one in terms of how many years it will take to pay off the added cost of the hybrid system versus a non-hybrid model. According to the paper, at only 5.6 years the Fusion Hybrid beats the next closest competitor by almost 6 years. But is the analysis really meaningful or has the SF Chronicle bunged this one up badly?

(more…)

We know you’re focused on Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Goldman Sachs (GS) right now, but at some point today you should take a few moments to note that the Fed is meeting, and will thus induce a whole new round of nervousness into this market.

Mike O’Rourke at BTIG spells out the key things you need to think about:

The FOMC’s latest policy meeting occurs today and tomorrow.  For nearly a year, FOMC meetings have been either uneventful or unimportant, or both.  The most notable excitement was last November’s meeting when expectations rose that the FOMC might amend or drop the “exceptional and extended” (E&E) language.  It was in that statement that the FOMC essentially locked in the E&E language by  providing an explanation for it.  The FOMC announced the interest rate decision by explaining that, “The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”  The bold portion was qualifier language added at that meeting and has remained in subsequent statements to date.  As the recovery now broadens beyond a Financial markets recovery to a real economy recovery, investors need to be prepared  for the FOMC to take monetary policy off the auto pilot mode that it has been on for some time.  As such, FOMC meetings and Fed speeches should garner heightened attention. 

So, what would actually prompt the Fed to change its language and prepare markets for the tightening process?

There are a few key economic indicators heading to the red zone.

Here’s one noticeable “v” which suggests inflation in the offing.

Low capacity utilization has been central to the argument that inflation is basically impossible.

Beyond that, the Fed is watching:

• Unemployment (still very elevated).
• The CPI
• The employment cost index (which is ticking up again)
• Inflation expectations (still calm)
• Commodity index (ticking up again).

Right now, none of the indicators would require the Fed to move towards a more hawkish stance.

But! And here’s the kicker:

Retrospectively, all of the qualifiers the FOMC identified appear tame.  Excess Reserves remain tethered to the Fed despite the exceptionally low interest rates.  M2 is barely growing year over year.  One other aspect we should note is the currently stalled Financial Regulatory Reform Bill, which moderates the Fed’s 13-3 emergency powers.  Essentially, once the Fed begins a permanent unwind of its balance sheet, it may not have the flexibility to bring it back up should the need arise.  The combination of these factors reinforces the current dovish stance the FOMC has taken and the slow unwind as described by Sack.  The conversation does not end there, because the Fed must also look prospectively.

In the March meeting minutes released earlier this month, the FOMC removed the 6 month calendar expectation from E&E that FOMC members previously indicated.  One could argue, that a indicate a shift in language has commenced.  The simple fact is that the data warrants some type of language adjustment.  The two key areas of weakness the FOMC members have highlighted during this recovery have been housing and employment.  The most recent data on both fronts has shown early signs of light.  One month‘s data certainly does not make a trend, but revisions in both cases have been upwards and forward estimates are also in the positive direction.  With economic data ramping up, the Fed can afford the luxury of shifting gear with words, especially since they do not have to follow through with action anytime soon.  Since the Chairman has been so adamantly dovish recently, we cannot say that we know E&E will be altered or gone tomorrow (although it should be), but, at a minimum, we expect a baby step towards tighter language.

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