Category: News

Small-scale farmers and pastoralists in Ethiopia are likely to bear the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change in the region, which will include increased poverty, water scarcity, and food insecurity, according to a new Oxfam report released today.

The international development agency’s report, “The Rain Doesn’t Come on Time Anymore:  Poverty, Vulnerability, and Climate Variability in Ethiopia”, was launched at a special Earth Day celebration organised by the Climate Change Forum-Ethiopia in collaboration with other environmental organisations.   While Ethiopia has always suffered from great climatic variability, including droughts that have contributed to hunger and even famine in the past, the report details how climate change is set to make the lives of the poorest even harder.

“People who are already poor and marginalised are struggling to cope with the added burden of increasingly unpredictable weather,” said Abera Tola, Oxfam’s Horn of Africa regional director. “It is getting harder and harder for families and communities to bounce back from ever-changing, inconsistent weather affecting their livelihoods, and many have been forced to sell livestock or remove children from school – coping mechanisms that only increase the cycle of vulnerability.”

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and eighty-five percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The agricultural sector is especially vulnerable to the adversities of weather and climate since it is rain fed, done using relatively basic technologies, and on tiny plots of land.

“From the Rift Valley to Tigray, farmers and pastoralists around the country have shared with us the toll that the changing weather is having on their communities, from ruined crops to dying cattle,” said Tola. “Even relatively small shifts in the growing season, can spell disaster for the poorest farmers and pastoralists who are already struggling in poverty.”

Women and girls in particular are disproportionately affected by climate variability. In times of crisis, women tend to stay home with their children, while men move away to look for alternative means of survival. Women also have fewer options to find other ways of making a living, especially since women’s literacy rate is not even half of that of men. Women are also not given a say in household decisions and are frequently without cash savings or assets to sell to buy food and other basic items.

“The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined,” Sefya Funge, a farmer in Adamitullu Jiddo Kombolcha district in Ethiopia told Oxfam. “Because of a lack of feed and water, most of my cattle have died. The few that survived had to be sold so that we could buy food to live on. As I no longer have the means to support my family, only three of my eight kids are still with me. Losing our assets was bad, but the fact that our family is separated is devastating.”

With some assistance from non-governmental organisations and the government, small-scale farmers and pastoralists are adopting a variety of coping mechanisms, according to the report. In the farming areas, many are shifting to more drought tolerant crops and varieties, improved forest management practices, diversified energy sources, and alternative means of income from off-farm activities. Pastoralists have also divided pasture into wet and dry season grazing areas to better manage risk, while others have changed the composition of their heard from cattle to camels and goats, which can better tolerate dry, hot weather.

Poverty, limited resources, little alternative sources of income and livelihoods, lack of knowledge and expertise, and the absence of appropriate public policies and financing, increase vulnerability and decrease people’s capacity to cope.

Oxfam has made several recommendations – at the national, regional and community level – for the development of a holistic approach to increase resilience, so communities can bounce back from climatic shocks quicker.

Recommendations at the national level include:

• Prepare and implement a national framework for guiding climate change adaptation and mitigation, . building on the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) and integrated with the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP)
• Investing in agricultural research on the use of new crop varieties and livestock species that are more tolerant to drought.
• Ensuring civil society and community participation, especially women’s groups, both in formulating climate change policies and in integrating climate change into development priorities.
• Ensuring priorities and investments address the gendered impact of climate change.
• Strengthen cooperation among policymakers, nongovernmental organisations, research institutions, and the media.

Recommendations at the community level include:

• Investing in livelihood opportunities and risk management strategies for poor farmers and pastoralists, particularly women.
• Investing and improving agriculture extension services
• Preparing long-term adaptation plans based on the sharing of best practices through community participation, civil society engagement, and the participation of academic and research institutions, with regular monitoring to identify promising practices for scaling up.
• Building on what farmers and pastoralists are already doing to adapt to climate variability and change. Investigate these practices further for their sustainability and impact on poverty and inequality, and potential for replication or enhancement.
• Investing in new forestation programs, reforestation, and sustainable management of the remaining forests. Ensure that management systems guarantee a return to the communities that manage the resource-the only way to ensure genuinely sustainable use of forests and woodland.
• Investing in community environmental and drought monitoring systems and improve community disaster risk reduction capacity.
• Increasing use of renewable energy such as solar energy and promoting photovoltaic technology.

Oxfam has also asserted that developed countries have the responsibility to not only reduce emissions that cause climate change, but also help Ethiopia adapt to climate change impacts that will still affect the poorest, no matter how fast we reduce emissions.

“Climate change is impacting the poorest first, despite the fact that they didn’t contribute to the crisis,” said Tola. “As global climate change negotiations continue, world leaders must not forget the fact that poor people are dealing with the negative impacts of a changing climate every day.”

/ENDS

Back in February we reported about a new feature that may be coming soon to Google — Store View, as part of Google Place.  Well it looks like the project is being launched and Google has sent out a troop of photographers to take some snaps in select cities worldwide.

Interested business owners can sign up for the service here — http://maps.google.com/businessphotos.  Of course, Google can’t visit every store that signs up, so there’s already talk of allowing store owners to upload their own photographs to their Place page at Google
Places.

I see lots of potential for this project, both good and bad.  My wife can do some virtual shopping for purses on 5th Avenue, but so can unsavory types who may be interested in what’s inside a store for all the wrong reasons.  What do you think?  Good?  Bad?  Ridiculous?  Shout out in the comments! [via Google LatLong Blog ]

Images in pathology. Invasive squamous cell carcinoma of vulva that wanted to be a puppy.

“Squamous cell carcinomas of the vulva are usually well differentiated. Foci of invasion may be well circumscribed and show maturation (the head of the puppy). For such foci located close to the epidermis, diagnosis of invasion may pose a challenge. Careful examination and deeper levels may disclose clear cut foci of invasion. How many such foci can you find here? For answer see below.”

“Answer:
At least 3:
Below the hind foot
In front of the neck
Above the tail”

Images in pathology. Even the bone smiles!

“Figure 1 shows an unusual bone finding from a 56-year-old woman’s biopsy. We encountered a “smiling” osseous trabecula; we do not know why it is so happy; nevertheless we want to share it with all fellow pathologists because a beautiful smile is always a beautiful smile!”

Images in pathology: parotid bunny eating carrot.

Just look at that cute fluffy little tail!

Images in pathology: Snoopy in flight gear.

“Electron microscopy of a mesangial region from a glomerulus demonstrating an
interesting artifact.”

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Two Cute: Research that would make grad school snugglier
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Viewing cute images increases behavioral carefulness
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Does pizza cause cancer?

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

DavidK over at FuzeMobility seems to have retired his Fuze for a HTC HD2 and appears to be pretty impressed with one of its features, the dual LED flash.  He took some pictures in a completely dark room to see what the useful range of the flash is, and his results are pretty surprising.

Regarding the set up of his test he says:

Nighttime with all lights off and no substantial ambient light (just what makes it through the windows and into a kitchen). A regular camera (DSLR, pocket camera, etc) will not detect any light and the image is just black. So, how does the HD2 fare in this setting? Take a look for yourself.

FYI all the photos are treated the same way. The background is blurred except for a bag of Animal Crackers which I zoomed into and set in detail so you can see the actual photo size relative to the inset.

David has a whole collection of pictures, but I will only reproduce the ones at 5 feet and 20 feet.

See the pictures after the break.

 

5 feet 

20 feet

He concludes:

The light on the Fuze is good and it’s a great flashlight but it can’t hold a candle to the HD2’s dual LED flash. If you have any concerns about going out at night and missing the shot because of a poor cell phone camera (maybe you even have a phone without a flash at all) if you’re carrying the HD2 you won’t have anything to be nervous about…except blinding your friends:)

See the rest of the pictures at Fuzemobility here.

There has been plenty of talk about what Facebook would announce at the f8 conference this week, but the full magnitude of what the company has in mind didn’t really hit home until after the keynote by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a related presentation by Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor (Liz has a great overview of the issues here).

Both carried a single, unmistakable message: Facebook wants to own your activity on the Internet. Zuckerberg did his best to portray this as a great thing for users, but the corollary is inescapable: Facebook will be everywhere you are, watching what you do, keeping track of that data, and talking about what you’re doing to your friends and companies you “like.” A quick survey of the web shows that some seem to see this as a great idea (“Hey, I can show lots of cool stuff to my friends!”) and some are less enthusiastic (“Facebook is going to be following me and tracking my every movement!”).

The reaction from some observers on Twitter was positive. The LA Times said that it would “make sharing easier,” while Deborah Schultz of the Altimeter Group said, “A world that is more open and connected — always a good thing (despite some snarky comments); thanks FB for pushing open!!!” Her fellow Altimeter analyst Jeremiah Owyang was less enthused, however, describing it as Facebook’s “crusade of colonization.” The New York Times’s response was somewhat more tempered, calling it “Facebook to Go.”

Silicon Alley Insider called it a plan to “infiltrate the web,” and Silicon Beat said Facebook wants to “conquer the world.” Kevin Marks of BT, a former engineer with Technorati, said that “Facebook wants to replace links between sites with a database stored on their servers that they control access to,” and Eric Marcoullier (co-founder of Gnip and MyBlogLog) quipped: “Coldplay’s ‘when I ruled the world’ playing at F8. Interesting, if appropriate, choice.” Dan Gillmor of the Knight Center for Media Entrepreneurship summed it up by saying that “Facebook wants to be the Internet,” while Chris Dixon, co-founder of Hunch, said “we might look back at the 00’s as the golden age of the web, when we were ruled by Google, a benign dictator.”

As Liz has pointed out, the key to what Facebook wants to do is to control the hooks and tools that allow it to understand and participate in the social web, the “people-centered” web. By watching and indexing your “likes” and the likes of millions of others — Zuckerberg said that within 24 hours of his keynote, there would a billion “Like” buttons and plugins around the web — the company can create an incredibly powerful map of the relationships between people and their friends, and between people and the things they like, whether they are movies or bands or dishwashing detergent.

That’s a tremendous power to have, and the youthful CEO of Facebook makes it seem friendly and appealing. Why wouldn’t you want to share with your friends? But to use a popular phrase from Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. Let’s hope Zuckerberg chooses to use his powers for good instead of evil.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Andrew Feinberg

Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Sedan, SUV, Wagon, Plants/Manufacturing, Crossover, Hatchback, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Fiat

Italiophiles rejoice! Though the move isn’t unexpected, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne has officially confirmed that the Alfa Romeo brand will make a return appearance to the United States starting in 2012.

The first vehicles that should hit American dealerships (of course, we don’t yet know where the cars will be sold, but Chrysler‘s woefully underutilized dealer network would be a good bet…) will be the midsize Giulia, which will come in both sedan and wagon variants, along with a compact SUV built in the States using European Giullietta hatchback underpinnings.

One year later, Alfa plans to begin offering a five-door version of the beautiful MiTo hatchback in the States, which will be joined by a new Alfa Romeo Spider. Could it look something like the 2uettottanta concept from Geneva? Someone get Dustin Hoffman on the phone pronto.

Moving on to the 2014 model year, Alfa will redesign its compact Giullietta hatchback and send it to America. A second, larger SUV will show up in the same year and will be built in America using architecture borrowed from the next-gen Jeep Liberty.

There was plenty more news coming from the Fiat camp today. Stay tuned for a much more comprehensive breakdown of the Italian automaker’s far-reaching plans for the next several years.

[Source: Fiat]

Alfa Romeo return to U.S. confirmed with big ambition, Chrysler will provide pair of CUVs originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook, with its open graph announcements at the f8 conference today, is digging itself deep into the infrastructure of the web. Outside developers and existing sites will now be able to hook into Facebook users’ data and activities directly and persistently, keeping logs well beyond the previous limit of 24 hours.

Organizing the world’s information by powering it is clearly a direct affront to Google. Where Google observes links and relationships between web sites from a distance, Facebook aims to be the glue that connects the web itself. The implications are thrilling, but also scary — what if Facebook goes down?

The benefits of using a Facebook authentication system were already strong. Bret Taylor, Facebook’s director of product, at today’s keynote explained just how strong when speaking of his own struggle to grow FriendFeed, the real-time social company Facebook eventually acquired. Users who signed up for FriendFeed with Facebook Connect were four times more likely to become active than any other form of sign-up, said Taylor.

But now, beyond fostering better participation by inviting users to connect their real identities and their real relationships, web services will be able to use Facebook to explode user engagement and relationships. They can use Facebook’s social plugins to expose personalized friend activity and recommendations. And Facebook will establish persistent, dynamic links to users’ participation on connected sites around the web through its “like” buttons.

Users now have the ability to express their interests not only by saying what they like — say, a local restaurant — but by saying what web site represents it — say, a Yelp review page, instead of the official restaurant site. Web services would be silly not to participate.

As a user, having your social self represent you around the web will at first be creepy but ultimately be useful. As one Facebook engineer put it to me today, “Imagine if you had one login for the whole web. That would be so sweet.”

In preparation for f8, a few Facebook employees hacked together examples of what outside developers could do given the new open graph tools. For instance, Facebook.me would allow users to use Facebook as a CMS. Say you’re one of those crazy MySpace devotees who wants blinking disco lights on your profile. Great. Make a web page, host it at whatever URL you want, uglify it to your heart’s content, and port in data that dynamically connects to Facebook. You can imagine brands and small businesses might want to use this in lieu of a traditional web page.

Another demo, KlugePress, gives the ability to use a nice template and port in Facebook event information. Only users who are invited to the event on Facebook would be able to load a KlugePress invite (this is tricky, and wasn’t really figured out yet for the demo). If users are logged in to Facebook and have permitted access, they can RSVP, comment and see details as they would on the bland Facebook event page. The data itself is sent right back to Facebook. (Pictured above is a KlugePress skin on an older event from my own profile.)

By inviting developers to integrate with it so tightly, Facebook is enabling new opportunities — but also asking for an awful lot of trust.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my bio.

Aaron unboxes the Pantech Link, a featurephone that bears a striking resemblance to several smartphones in the marketplace. Complete with a 2.4-inch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, and a 1.3-megapixel camera, is the “Quick Messaging Device” worth a look?

Just a day after criticizing members of the GOP for participating in a closed-door meeting with Wall Street executives, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is in hot water following a report on Tuesday which indicated that he attended a fundraiser earlier this year hosted by the president of Goldman Sachs.

When asked to confirm or deny his attendance at the event, Reid evaded the question and instead read a prepared statement regarding his involvement in financial regulatory reform, MSNBC.com reports.

"I’m leading the effort to rein in Wall Street," said Reid. "I’m going to make sure that in this legislation I do everything within my ability to make sure that banks aren’t too big to fail."

However, later that day Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley confirmed that the Nevada senator attended the fundraiser, stating that the $37,000 that was raised was done so in accordance with campaign rules.

In response to the news, National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brian Walsh told NBC that "one can only presume that Senator Reid will be returning these donations immediately."

Manley indicated on Wednesday the congressman plans on keeping the donations.

It is said that timeless philosophy sparks innovation. Home entertainment products have been welcome presence in our living room for years, and that’s why they must embody something essential and not look outdated as new trends emerge. Enduring qualities help these products blend in well and constantly satisfy us. But designers must also capture something new, something that makes us want to update our living room, and even our entertainment habits themselves. Sony’s quest to save the world from aesthetically boring products created by competitors has resulted in a new vision called Monolithic Design. In this interview courtesy of Sony Design, we learn from the members of Sony’s Creative Center about the meaning of this concept.

Matsuoka: From the beginning, Sony has stood for doing the unprecedented and staying one step ahead. These principles motivate us to strive for originality, inspire new consumer lifestyles, show the beauty of functionality, and emphasize usability—our design philosophy. All of this is fundamental to our work as designers, and they remain constant goals of ours.

Before designing home entertainment products for 2010, I wanted us to rethink design and take a fresh look at these elements of our philosophy. Our goal was design surpassing traditional trends and techniques, and design that can shape consumer values and lifestyles. In other words, design that can realign people’s values. With this in mind, we set to work.

In creative work, we draw on our own experiences and sensibilities to express ourselves. But groundbreaking inspiration rarely strikes if we face the same routine every day. That’s why our first step was to send some designers to other locations around the world to collect ideas for exploration. I knew that their inspirations, aesthetic discoveries, and exciting experiences there would expand their creative repertoire and prove indispensable in design development.

As soon as they returned, we discussed product qualities they felt people should appreciate. What design themes should be reflected in new Sony home entertainment products? We discussed many potential directions to take, many ideas for textures, colors, and so on. Yuki’s proposal in particular struck a chord with me—the concept of a single panel.

In its purest form, a panel or monolith has no extraneous elements at all. It’s primitive and directly conveys its inherent nature. For this reason, upright panels look attractive and powerful. As timeless, fundamental forms, panels don’t bend to fashion, so to speak. They can stimulate people, enticing us to update our décor and the style in our lifestyle.

The adjective monolithic is also used in reference to integrated circuits, which have various components integrated onto a single chip. For our own purposes, we reinterpreted the word as “something dense, intelligent, and high-performance,” and I think this matches the direction we’re taking in new home entertainment products. In the end, we built on Yuki’s idea of a single panel and distilled the overall design concept for these products down to our version of Monolithic Design.

Kubota: In television design, normally you start with the functionality for watching video images and then consider how to present it in an original way. This time was different. What I designed first was the sense of presence the physical object conveys. An attractive upright stance, and the aura of freshness and pleasant tension this evokes. Then I had to imagine how to encapsulate the television functionality within this abstract framework.

We faced two tasks. Narrowing it down to the purest expression of an instrument for watching video images, with all needless details gone. And then, ensuring it’s beautiful even when off. This meant rethinking what makes TVs look like TVs—the stand and bezel design. What I visualized at this point was the simple image of a glass panel resting on a solid metal bar.

Stand design generally entails making stands more compact and less noticeable. But through Monolithic Design, we abandoned these rigid preconceptions and chose a simple aluminum bar to support the screen. Other examples in this series of televisions express the gestalt of Monolithic Design more abstractly, as in models dominated by a glass screen in front. To make it happen, our engineers worked diligently to develop new production techniques. Thanks to this, it gives the impression of being a sleek, simple glass panel when off, and images seem to radiate from the front surface of the glass when it’s on.

Matsuoka: We have defined the following three elements of Monolithic Design.

First is something we call “On/Off Conscious.” We want to highlight the beauty of the device as a high-performance TV when it’s on. When it’s off, we want it to fade gracefully into the surroundings as an object of sculptural art. Whether they’re on or off, the sets exude high-performance and other desirable qualities.

Next is “6° Upward Style.” At eye level on a stand, large-screen TVs can be truly overwhelming. Ditch the stand, lower the screen, and tilt the screen slightly up instead (by 6°), and it’s not only easier to watch but it frees your living room from that overbearing presence. This may tempt you to update your living room in general—by replacing any old, worn-out stands with a stylish low cabinet, for example.

And last, “Contrast of Materials.” Here, we sought an alluring sense of contrast from a combination of different materials, which we hope you’ll appreciate. The base and the sides are aluminum, and the front is glass. We coordinated the contrasting textures and qualities of these genuine materials, which harmonize with each other.

Of course, in televisions as in other products, styling should be tailored for the particular series or category. That’s why some new sets may not present all three design elements. Still, Monolithic Design is the unifying concept for our line as a whole. Aesthetically, you’ve found a good solution if you’re looking for a consistent ambiance in your living room.

Suzuki: Monolithic Design appears in Blu-ray disc players, surround-sound speakers, and other home theater products. In all cases, our goal is the ultimate expression of the essence of the component. Excessive elements are avoided, as you would expect with subtractive design.

Making televisions and other products look nicely balanced together was something we were careful about. If other components are too slim—whether because manufacturers believe TV sets should dominate the living room or just because thin is in—they end up looking insubstantial in comparison. Instead, a sturdy framework is more natural and gives components a sense of presence. And besides avoiding excessive slimness, we must avoid what’s fake. We think this brings us closer to the essence of AV equipment and our goals in Monolithic Design.

The simpler product design seems, the harder we must sometimes work to arrange it with our engineers and adjust the production line. Other home theater components are produced differently than televisions. To be exact, we can’t use the same styling techniques. In pursuit of contrasting materials in these products, we might try plastic instead of aluminum, but with the kind of body involved, surfaces inevitably became a little warped. Maybe the materials just don’t support our original design goals. Normally we might overcome this by introducing a subtle curve or adopting special coatings. But smoke and mirrors are unacceptable in creating the “ultimate panel” according to Monolithic Design. So we reconsider the issue from the standpoint of production. We try several approaches as we come closer to the ideal texture and flatness of metal.

Eshita: How could we share these design goals and what excited our designers with people through Sony branding for BRAVIA and other home entertainment products? That was my role, and my work ranged from organizing the Monolithic Design concept (concept-building) to helping us tell the story of this development in promotional communication.

I asked myself many questions. What values of ours could we share with consumers? What exactly was this shift in values we sought? In each case, Monolithic Design yielded compelling answers. The first time I saw mock-ups, I sensed how promising they were as unprecedented products that could set a new standard.

I also anticipated that we would need a user interface that matched the product design better, and that we must develop a new image for the UI.

Nishizawa: You’ll notice the familiar Xross Media Bar (XMB) in the user interface, but it has been refined in subtle ways.

On the screen, the graphics seem to hover over the glass panel, supporting the Monolithic Design theme. Our product designers and engineers both applied a little ingenuity to make it happen. In the UI design as well, edges fade into blackness and other subtle visual cues make the displayed interface seem integrated into the product itself.

On-screen lighting effects give an impression of depth and direct your attention to what you should focus on (which seems to float). These touches make controlling the set enjoyable. Once you access Favorites, for example, the main screen drops into the background, and the illuminated options in front of you hover over it.

You’ll also notice that instead of a yellow glow to indicate selected items, there’s a new prismatic effect. The effect builds on colors in underlying images, so it’s both natural-looking and beautiful. You can see how carefully the glow is rendered, too. The selector seems to pulsate, as if breathing, and it changes color over time.

These and many other details contribute to well-integrated product and interface design, rounding out the Monolithic Design and sense of presence the sets convey.

Eshita: In promotional material as well (especially visual communication), we make sure you can appreciate the freshness of Monolithic Design and the values it represents, not to mention the attitudes of our designers.

There are many things to admire in the Sony entertainment ecosystem: superb picture and audio quality, Internet connectivity for access to much more content, and intelligent features that respond to the installation environment, for example.

To demonstrate that Sony home entertainment products have truly changed and excite you about transforming your own living room with a new television, we focused on how fresh Monolithic Design feels—a sense of presence that sets the tone for the room as a whole. Some promotional material draws on a study we conducted after expressing the ambiance of Monolithic Design visually, in order to convey how it can change a living room (and in what ways) clearly.

Maesaka: Specifically, we started by preparing hundreds of visual scenarios with the Monolithic Design product group. Using this material, we set to work verifying how it met our expectations. It proved how versatile this design approach is. The products obviously blend in nicely in home environments, but they even look beautiful outdoors, in natural settings. After adding models representing people to these scenarios, we saw the potential not only of demonstrating how elegant the products are but also of showing how these lifestyles are desirable.

Good examples of Monolithic Design are simple and minimalist, but they yield fresh and fulfilling experiences for us. Focus only on product appearance, and you miss highlighting this valuable quality. What gave us the complete picture was an idea that emerged after repeated study.

In advertising, we have used some key visuals to express Monolithic Design. One visual representing the resolute presence of the home entertainment product group is the figure of a standing girl (as seen in the first image in this story). We chose to have the TV on in the ad, which is our attempt to convey the kind of experience the television affords, so that people can recall some kind of story involving this kind of setting.

Other promotional material introduces what led to the conception of Monolithic Design. But whether in videos such as these or in the details of feature illustrations in printed brochures or online advertising, we ensure the same tone and style in a variety of publicity. We make sure our messages in advertising are consistent. Once you see what we’re trying to convey in stores or on the pages of brochures, we hope you’ll experience it for yourself in your own living room.

Matsuoka: We believe that Monolithic Design introduces new values in home entertainment and will motivate people to update the overall ambiance of their living room. May these products excite you about the new style of entertainment that can be yours.

Here is another incredible video from Sony about the 2010 Sony BRAVIA HDTV design story, of course heavily influenced by Monolithic Design:

According to a new study recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, people who consume a diet rich in vitamin K may have a considerably decreased risk of developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

For the study, a research team from the Mayo Clinic recruited 603 newly diagnosed Non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients as well as 1,007 control participants and had them answer food questionnaires regarding their dietary intake two years prior to enrollment in the trial.

Lead investigator James Cerhan and his colleagues found that respondents who had a vitamin K intake in the top quartile of the study had a 45 percent lower risk of being diagnosed with the disease compared to those in the bottom 25 percent. They also discovered that the link remained after accounting for a variety of risk factors, including age, sex, obesity and smoking.

"Whether the protective effect we observed is due to vitamin K intake, or some other dietary or lifestyle exposure, cannot be definitely assessed in this study," said Cerhan. "But these findings add to a lot of other data that support a diet that includes plenty of green leafy vegetables in order to prevent many cancers as well as other diseases."

Just weeks after announcing that it would be closing its doors due to bad press and financial concerns, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) continues to show its resolve.

Bertha Lewis, the chief executive officer of the controversial anti-poverty group, was on hand at an appeals court in New York on Tuesday to continue to fight for the organization’s federal funding, which was stripped by Congress last year in the wake of several voter fraud and tax evasion scandals.

Justice Department attorney Mark Stern argued that Congress had every right to take action against ACORN’s "widespread mismanagement" of resources, and asked the court to temporarily block a judge’s ruling that the funding cut-off was unconstitutional, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Jules Lobel, attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that the group’s $25 million annual budget was needed to help distressed individuals receive government subsidies to stay in their homes. The three-judge panel has yet to rule on the case.

Lewis indicated after the hearing that a positive outcome in the case could lead to a resurgence for the struggling group.

"If we can survive this, inch by inch, little by little, this organization can build itself back up," she told the news source. "We’re going to fight like hell to stay alive."

Tesla Motors will be bringing its right-hand drive all-electric Roadster to Japan. The company said that it will ship a dozen Japan Signature Series Roadsters from Port Hueneme, California to Yokohama in early May for delivery to select customers throughout Japan.

“With its combination of high-level car enthusiasts and interest and appreciation of cutting edge technology, Japan is a natural market for the Roadster,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “The Tesla Roadster is a no-compromise (dakyo no nai) vehicle that makes no sacrifices on performance, design, or engineering.”

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Tesla Roadster.

Tesla said that the Japanese government is currently working toward a full-scale electric-vehicle roll-out program and is working with regions around the country to install power outlets for vehicle charging.

Japan hopes to reduce carbon emissions 25 percent by 2020.

Tesla Roadster S (RHD):

– By: Kap Shah

Despite the negative comments that have made their way through the tech space as of late, AT&T appears to be unaffected.  The nation’s second largest wireless carrier released its first quarter earnings report today, and things are looking good.  Among the highlights, the company gained 1.9 million customers (the highest first quarter in the company’s history) to close with 87 million total subscribers.  iPhone activations continue to be incredibly high as well, with 2.7 million new devices introduced to the network during the quarter.

Postpaid churn dropped to 1.07 percent, while total churn stood at 1.30 percent; both record lows for AT&T.  Postpaid ARPU (average revenue per user) increased 3.9 percent to $61.89 while data ARPU rose 21.9 percent to $20.13 (thanks to 26.8 million “3G postpaid integrated wireless devices” on the network).  Though the Q1 net income of $2.4 billion was down year-over-year, it’s still a nice load of cash to throw in the bank.

Needless to say, it was a fantastic quarter for AT&T, and proof that they don’t need to aggressively respond to competitor’s claims.  Despite the repeated attacks, they continue to bring in customers at a record pace.  What’s more, coverage in New York City appears to be improving (slowly but surely), as the company reported that 3G dropped calls are down six percent in Manhattan, and down nine percent in the New York City metro area. 

That’s all well and good, but let’s hear from those that are using the service in real life.  Are you pleased with the coverage?  Wanting to switch?  Kind of “meh” about the entire situation?  Jot your thoughts down below!

Via AT&T, Engadget, BGR

Additional Q1 2010 Reporting (as it is available):

• Verizon Wireless
• AT&T
• Sprint
• T-Mobile

The jokes kind of write themselves, don’t they? Microsoft’s Bing is the newest big-ticket advertiser for the WNBA, with the Bing logo appearing on Seattle Storm jerseys. Take it away, commenters. [NY Times] More »

Filed under: Hybrid, Chevrolet, GM, Electric

According to Consumer Reports, Chairman Ed Whitacre has said that the Chevrolet Volt will go on sale this October. Of course, we’ve heard this rumor before, and each time GM says that the original target date is not moving. Last year, for example, Jon Lauckner, General Motor‘s vice president for global product planning, said, “Our date with destiny is November of 2010.” Given the intense scrutiny GM is under with this particular vehicle program, we wanted to hear form the source if anything has changed. Dave Darovitz, who handles corporate communications for the Volt
and the fuel cell Equinox, told Autoblog:

As you can expect, we’re pretty excited about the market potential for the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle. Our plans and focus have not changed – we continue to drive toward a flawless consumer experience when we launch in the fourth quarter this year in California, Michigan and Washington D.C.

Kind of cryptic. Darovitz doesn’t say it won’t be October, but also makes it clear that GM’s plans remain what they have always been. Guess we’ll have to keep waiting, for the Volt and to learn about the real release date.

[Source: Consumer Reports, GM]

Is the Chevy Volt coming in October? The news is cryptic originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Powertrain and More
Dave Van Sickle, Canadian Auto Press

Ford’s Super Duty is already the most popular heavy-duty pickup on the market, sometimes outselling heavy-duty Dodge and Chevrolet trucks combined. The new 2011 Super Duty lineup demonstrates that the Ford truck team isn’t resting on its laurels, but still focused on continuous improvement.

And those improvements are everywhere. The real news, however, is the all-new powertrains, one of which features the new 6.7-litre Power Stroke V8 turbocharged diesel engine. For years, Ford equipped its heavy-duty trucks with diesel engines supplied by Navistar. That’s all changed. Designed and built in-house, the new Power Stroke delivers 735 pound-feet of torque at 1,600 rpm and 390 horsepower at 2,800 rpm – 85 pound-feet and 40 horsepower more than the outgoing product.

For those who don’t want or need a diesel, the new 6.2-litre V8 gasoline engine delivers 405 pound-feet of torque at 4,500 rpm and 385 horsepower at 5,500 rpm; the new engine is E85 (Ethanol) compatible, useful if you travel to the south or can find a station that sells it north of the 49th.

The new diesel engine features inboard exhaust architecture, where the exhaust manifolds are located in the valley of the engine and the intakes are on the outside. The cylinder heads are essentially turned around from where they would be in a conventional V8.

The turbocharger is located in the engine’s valley so it can be directly connected to the exhaust manifolds. A dual-sided compressor wheel runs in a single housing, allowing a single unit to function as a twin-turbocharger system in a smaller, more efficient package. It combines the fast response of a small turbocharger with the ability of a large turbocharger to move and compress large amounts of air. This arrangement shortens the connections between manifold and turbo, reducing the system’s overall volume, resulting in faster spool up and reduced lag. It also places components that need to be in cooler air away from hot exhaust pipes.

The fuel system injects fuel at more than 29,000 psi to eight-hole piezo injectors that deliver up to five injection events per cycle to spray fuel into the piston bowl. The direct-injection system is calibrated and phased for optimum power and fuel efficiency.

The exhaust gas after-treatment system meets the new, more stringent 2010 emissions requirements for nitrogen oxides, which have been lowered by approximately 80 percent. The system is the same as that offered by other automakers, using a three-stage process that requires the use of a urea solution that Ford calls Diesel Exhaust Fluid. This widely-available fluid, commonly known as Ad Blue, is added to an onboard storage tank through a port next to the fuel fill port.

The valvetrain features dual hydraulic lifters, improving performance and reliability by using two pushrods per cylinder instead of the conventional single pushrod.

An all-new six-speed automatic transmission was designed to manage the high torque produced by the new diesel engine. The improved fuel economy – up 18-percent over last year’s truck for best-in-class results – and greater capability – towing of 11,975 kilos (26,400 pounds) and a 2,957-kilgram (6,520-pound) payload – is due largely to the all-new 6R140 heavy-duty TorqShift six-speed automatic transmission. The new tranny is responsible for more than half of the overall improved fuel economy.

The new transmission features enhanced Tow Haul with integrated engine exhaust braking and SelectShift Automatic capability, which includes Progressive Range Select and a manual mode. A convenient rotary selector on a steering column-mounted stalk controls manual shifting.

A new, stronger torque converter is core to the improved transmission performance. It was designed to allow the transmission to lock earlier, and at a lower rpm—that translates into less slip and better fuel efficiency. The new design has more precise control of the lock-up clutch, allowing better control of converter clutch slip for smoother lock-to-lock upshifts.

The new transmission has a wide ratio span so the transmission now has a lower first gear for better off-the-line performance, and a taller overdrive ratio for improved highway efficiency. While the gearing itself is important, the key to overall efficiency is matching that gearing to the correct axle. With the diesel engine, up to four axle ratios are available on the pickups – 3.31, 3.55, 3.73 and 4.30.

The Power Take Off output gear is linked through the torque converter to the engine crankshaft. This allows the transmission to power auxiliary equipment such as snowplows, aerial lifts, tow truck lifts, cement mixers or dump trucks. The power is available any time the engine is running.

The 2011 Super Duty offers a factory-installed fifth wheel and gooseneck substructure directly attached to the frame. The upper fifth wheel structure can be removed from the bed in less than a minute, making the bed available for regular hauling chores and the gooseneck hitch ball can be removed in seconds. The electrical connection is mounted on the side of the bed wall, for a clean installation.

Ford’s Trailer Sway Control system, integrated with AdvanceTrac and Roll Stability Control monitors the truck’s motion when a trailer is attached. Trailer Sway Control can determine from the yaw motion of the truck if the trailer is swaying and can apply precise braking or reduce engine torque to help stop the trailer sway.

Normal braking is proportional to driver brake pressure for smooth brake stops. If the vehicle’s Anti-lock Brake System is engaged, the trailer brake kicks in to minimize trailer wheel lockup. In trucks with Trailer Brake Control towing trailers with electric brakes, the Ford system can, during a sway event, also apply brakes to the trailer to help stabilize it.

There’s much more to the new Super Duty—things like an information window on the instrument panel that you can scroll through to calculate travel time, average speed, distance and fuel economy. You can even get precise directions about connecting a trailer and it reminds you to plug in the wiring harness, hook up the safety chains and fold up the tongue jack.

And there’s a better ride, better handling and above all better fuel economy. If you really need a truck, take a look at this one.

Available now, 2011 Super Duty prices range from an MSRP of $35,499 to more than $80,000, from the base F-250 right up to the XXXL F-450. The body configurations and load capacities are as varied as your needs require and then some, allowing for the ideal truck for almost any requirement.

Well, you had to know this was going to happen. In the last year, there had been an awful lot of talk about a previously considered obsolete concept of “hot news” — which created a copyright-like protection for factual information, without any statutory basis. It’s a very troubling concept that shouldn’t have any real basis in the law, but does exist due to a nearly century old Supreme Court case. Lots of news publishers have started making noises about “hot news,” and in March we had the first ruling that blocked a publication from reposting factual information under a “hot news” claim. Once that ruling was made, you had to know that more lawsuits would follow pretty quickly.

And off we go. What’s interesting here is that it appears that it’s Rupert Murdoch testing the waters this time. Murdoch, of course, has been making odd claims about Google “stealing” content, while also suggesting that fair use doesn’t exist. But rather than take on Google in court, it looks like Murdoch is targeting easier prey. Murdoch-owned Dow Jones is suing Briefing.com for copyright infringement and hot news appropriation. You can read the full complaint below:

Basically, the complaint is similar to TheFlyOnTheWall complaint from last month that successfully claimed “hot news.” Dow Jones claims it puts out info over its wire service, and minutes later Briefing.com seems to put out similar news, often using the same headline. Of course for the most part, headlines are not copyrightable, but are they covered by hot news? We may find out soon enough. The whole thing is silly of course. If Dow Jones can’t compete against some company copying its headlines and summarizing its stories, it must not be adding very much value. Suing over this is basically an admission of that very fact.

Either way, my guess is that this particular lawsuit has little to do with Briefing.com — or even Dow Jones and its newswires. This is Murdoch testing the waters on hot news. Of course, he may come to seriously regret doing so, given how many of his own sites probably violate the same hot news concept.

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By Tim Shoemaker

Newmoney.gov has recently unveiled their modifications to the $100 bill.

I would have to agree with YAL’s blogger-in-chief Bonnie Kristian, the more changes they make, the more worthless it appears.  H/T Bonnie