Category: News

As Japan Airlines’ bankruptcy wipes out its shareholders, the nature of corporate Japan’s peculiar cross-investment tradition, investments between different companies in each others’ shares, means that a wave of write downs is ahead for a wide swath of corporations.

For example, the conglomerate Sojitz Corporation has already been forced to write off over half of their full year profit as a result of their JAL share holdings gone bad.

Many other firms face similar prospects.

Business Week: Sojitz Corp. wrote off a 15 billion yen ($165 million) investment in Japan Airlines Corp., becoming the first of 14 partner companies to take a charge on their preferred stock in the bankrupt carrier.

The Tokyo-based trading company is assessing the effect of the loss on earnings, according to a statement distributed through the Tokyo Stock Exchange today. Japan Airlines yesterday filed for bankruptcy, the nation’s fourth-largest, under a 900 billion yen turnaround plan after four government bailouts failed to revive Asia’s most indebted carrier.

Japan Airlines received a total of 151.5 billion yen in February 2008 from affiliated trading houses, banks and energy companies, including Sojitz, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Mitsui & Co., to help shore up finances. The writeoff by Sojitz represents more than half its projected net income of 27 billion yen for the year ending March 31.

Such knock-on effects resemble what happened to banks during the financial crisis, yet for Japan these knock-on effects are interestingly playing out in non-financial business space due to the nation’s odd corporate cross-investment tradition. Read more here >

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See Also:

• Kyle Bass: I Don’t See How Japan Has A Way Out
• Here’s What Will Trigger Japan’s Hyperinflationary Fiasco
• Why A Hyperinflationary Fiasco Is Brewing In Japan

Our friend Warren Benedetto of Transfusion Media has just released a spiffy Chrome extension that helps Internet users stay focused on the task at hand during the work day.

Akin to LeechBlock for Firefox, Benedetto’s StayFocusd attempts to correct fundamental productivity issues associated with the social web by allowing users to only spend an allotted amount of time on a “gray list” of websites. For example, if you give yourself 20 minutes a day to screw around on Twitter and Facebook, StayFocusd will block your access to those sites once it’s determined that your 20 minutes have been used.

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We’ve all experienced a problem similar to the one outlined in the StayFocusd intro. “You sit down at the computer, and you swear you’ll be productive. Next thing you know, it’s twelve hours later. You’ve checked your email, updated your Facebook status, browsed the trending topics on Twitter, read your RSS feeds, looked up your favorite band on Wikipedia, vanity Googled yourself, cyber-stalked your ex, looked at all your high-school crushes’ Facebook photos and lost a week’s pay playing online poker. What you haven’t done is WORK.”

The extension steps in where the average user’s self-control or restraint falls short. As one of many users who’ve switched from Firefox to Chrome and found they still wanted and needed certain familiar Firefox extensions, Benedetto said he lost several hours each day to Chrome’s unbridled browsing before realizing that LeechBlock’s absence was killing his productivity. So he took matters into his own hands, wrote his Chrome extension and released it to Google’s Chrome gallery.

The extension is highly customizable, letting users block or permit whole sites, only certain subdomains or even specific pages.

“That means,” writes Benedetto, “you can block delicious.com, while still allowing access to delicious.com/save so you can add new bookmarks. Or you can block Google.com/Reader while still having access to the rest of Google’s sites. Or you can block the entire Digg.com domain, and recapture 4-6 hours of wasted time per day.”

We’d install this awesome extension ourselves if our job didn’t entail, you know, wasting time on the Internet.

Transfusion Media is an a L.A.-based web studio specializing in graphic design, Facebook apps, Flash widgets and general interactive and web development. Benedetto has previously been a source for us, opining intelligently on the state of web design in a 2009 article directed toward startups.

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Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fit Yoga

Last week I went out to dinner and decided to get all dolled up for the occasion. It’s a rare event for me to wear high heels, but I got all glammed up and went for it. Fast forward to the end of the evening, after my shoes had been removed, and I’m shaking my head in dismay at toes all squished together like sardines and red indentations from the shoe straps. The pressure of all one hundred and thirty pounds of me weighing on the ball of each foot definitely can’t be good. I tucked the heels away and won’t be taking them out for a very long time.

We don’t give our feet enough credit for all the work they do. Think about the fact that for a good part of our day they serve as our body’s foundation and our connection to the earth. And as our body shifts from walking to sitting to running to jumping, our feet need to be balanced and strong to help facilitate that movement.

And we do awful things to our feet! Specifically, we wear restrictive footwear such as high heels, cleats, ski boots, ballet points, rock-climbing shoes and cowboy boots, which all significantly contribute to the weakening of our feet. Many of our foot problems can be attributed to shoes. It’s understandable that three out of four people will develop a serious foot problem in their lifetime.

Five ways to keep feet happy and healthy after the jump.

Continue reading 5 Ways to Improve the Health of Your Feet

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Do you think that you are unlucky? Be it in love, studies, work or family, you seem to be doomed for failure and everything you do doesn’t seem right. If this is you, then you might need to learn some of the ways to have the lucky star shining on you.

The first thing you must identify is the possibility that people who surround you have evil intentions towards you and thus making your life a miserable one. If this is possible, then you should get yourself evil eye pendants to protect yourself from such evil desires and actions against you.

Then, it is also important to have your guardian angel stand with you and invoke more good fortune and luck with you. You should get yourself lucky charm jewelry and good luck bracelets for yourself. You would find such good luck jewelry for studies, wisdom as well as work or any others. If you are struggling in your working place, then you should buy yourself good luck bracelet for work. It is important to take note that you do not share your good luck bracelet as it might means that you are sharing your luck and fortune with someone else, leaving only the misfortune for yourself.

Getting yourself an amulets talismans would also be a good method as it is a belief that even ancient Kings would carried it with them during war or diplomatic works for good fortune. If you carried it with you, you might find that your hardwork and dedication in your work, family etc. to be a success as well.

Tags: personal pentacle, evil eye protection pendants, lucky charm bracelet jewelry, good luck pentacle, ancient amulets talismans, ancient amulets talismans, Jewish jewelry, Chinese zodiac symbols, personal love horoscope, body art tattoo, tattoo ideas design, pentagram, esoteric, lucky symbols, King Solomon, good fortune, magic signs, astrological symbols, good spirits, guardian angels, tattoo artist, bad luck

Filed under: Friends & Family, Healthy Eating

Turning down dessert is a pretty big victory for willpower, and one you should be proud of yourself for. But your friends might have also played a critical role in your healthy choice — according to recent studies, self-control is contagious. Whether you realized it or not, your friend turning down seconds probably influenced you to make healthier choices yourself. And vice versa — you could be helping your friends eat less without even realizing it. If so, good for you!

But the opposite is true as well — your friends could be influencing bad habits too. In fact, it’s estimated that having overweight friends can increase your risk of obesity by an astounding 57 percent — that’s even more than having an overweight spouse, which only increases your risk by 37 percent.

Still, you can’t blame your friends and family for your bad habits. In the end, the decision to supersize your meal or choose cake over vegetables is ultimately yours, but by making the healthier choice not only benefits you — it can have a positive influence on those who are closest to you as well.

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Sony is eating crow tonight as it announced it has postponed its new Motion Controller from the spring until the fall of 2010.

The new controller is a step up from the motion-sensing controller currently selling with the PlayStation 3 game console. This new wand-like device, showcased at the E3 show last June and paraded in front of fans in September, is much more accurate in its detection of body movements. Combined with a PlayStation Eye motion-sensing camera, it can thus be used in shooting, sword fighting, and other fast action games.

It was a cool demo, but few at E3 believed that Sony would be able to deliver its Motion Controller on time for a spring launch, mainly because game developers were just beginning to learn how to make games to go with it. This delay suggests Sony needed more time to develop good games and get its technology right.

Now Sony’s launch will be in lockstep with Microsoft’s holiday 2010 launch of Project Natal, which uses a 3-D motion-sensing camera to detect your entire body movements. Microsoft hasn’t delayed Natal, but at least it has set a more realistic schedule for getting games done. Microsoft’s launch plans were known for a while, but it didn’t really confirm that Natal would launch in the fall of 2010 until earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show.

This is a little egg on the face for Sony in terms of its ability to execute, but there is nothing worse than launching a new technology that isn’t ready. Nintendo can breathe a sigh of relief, as its Nintendo Wii game console won’t looked old fashioned anytime soon, as its rivals are far behind having anything that matches Nintendo’s motion-sensing Wii controller.

Sony says the new controller will be able to detect the natural and intuitive movement of a hand. The Motion Controller is, thankfully, a temporary name. There isn’t too much more to Sony’s announcement. It looks like PS 3 fans will have to keep playing games with their old fashioned controllers for a bit longer.

Be sure to check out our latest announcements on GamesBeat@GDC, our video game conference taking place March 10 in San Francisco.

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Here’s the latest action:

Fisker motors on with $115M more — The maker of the luxury plug-in hybrid Karma vehicle, has raised $115 million in new funding, which will allow it to access the $529 million in low-interest loans it was guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy last fall. Raising more equity was mandatory in order for it to unlock this financing.

iPad? iTablet? What’s in a name? — Rumors are flying today about what Apple will call its highly-anticipated tablet set to be released in the next several months. Before now, iSlate seemed like the likeliest candidate but new trademark filings have pointed to a possible ‘iPad’ or ‘iTablet.’

Yelp gets big money after kicking Google to the curb — Sources say Yelp has raised as much as $50 million from Elevation Partners. Apparently the review web site almost got U2’s Bono as a member of its board of directors because he’s a partner at the firm.

Zune phone coming in two months? — Apparently,talk of Microsoft’s stealthy phone project has started to heat up again, one that would be running Windows Mobile 7 and be ‘Zune-like.’ Even though it has focused on mobile software in the past, the computing giant may be looking for hardware partnership like Google has with Motorola and HTC.

Microsoft wants its XBox to kill cable — Now streaming television shows and movies and even producing original content through partnerships with the likes of ESPN and Disney, XBox Live is become an even more formidable competitor for cable TV and shifting the emphasis of consoles away from gaming.

What happened to Tesla Motors’ general counsel? — The famed electric car maker seems to have lost its general counsel, Jonathan Sobel, just four months after hiring him. While the company hasn’t addressed his apparent departure one way or another, his LinkedIn profile and other evidence suggest he has moved on — but did he do so willingly? The San Francisco Daily Journal broke the story.

Bing Maps leaves beta behind – Microsoft has taken Bing Maps Silverlight into general release and has added a few new features at the same time, including integration of local event listings and vector-based routes on new map backgrounds. The Bing community blog has more.

Chinese government caught red handed in Google attacks — A few computer security companies have identified the algorithm that suggests the search engine’s recent breach was perpetrated by the Chinese government itself and not independent hackers. The New York Times has full details.

Spigit brings collaboration tools to small businesses — The company, which creates social networks allowing employees at large enterprises to collaborate on projects, has launched a version of its service for small businesses of 500 or less employees.

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Ready to get your Bing on, iPhone owners? That curious little Microsoft search engine you shrugged off just a few months ago could become a mainstay in your daily routine if BusinessWeek’s sources are correct. According to a pair of persons familiar with the matter, Apple and Microsoft are discussing dropping Google as the default search engine on Apple’s somewhat popular handset — talks that have been underway for “weeks,” apparently. BW paints the move as further evidence of an escalating rivalry between Apple and Google. In fact, one BW source claims that, “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.” No doubt, the once cozy relationship has seemingly fractured with Google CEO Eric Schmidt vacating Apple’s board and Apple recently snapping up Lala and Quatro Wireless — acquisitions that some analysts see as defensive measures against a rapidly encroaching Google. Isn’t competition fun?

Apple bunging Bing search into iPhone? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Turns out it doesn’t matter if you took up Rogers on its offer to swap your Dream to a Magic after all, because the bug’s spreading: Canada’s first keyboardless Android set is confirmed to be suffering from the same dangerous malaise as its older brother. Basically, neither model can complete emergency calls to 911 with location-based services enabled, and until HTC is able to spit out a patch, the only fix is to disable GPS altogether — not exactly an awesome solution. In the meantime, a quick check of Rogers’ site confirms that both the Dream and Magic have been pulled from retail, so let’s hope this gets cleaned up on the double. And try not to have an emergency, of course. Ever… but especially right now.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Rogers’ HTC Magic having 911 call problems on Rogers, too originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last official word we had on the launch of Sony’s PS3 Motion Controller was Spring 2010. However, we just received a press release from Sony Japan with a revised availability of “Fall 2010.” The calendar push affects Japan, Asia, North America, and Europe. In the statement, Kaz Hirai avoids using the “d” word saying only:

“We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users.”

Still no mention of Arc though Sony does concede that “Motion Controller” is just a tentative name. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Sony PS3 Motion Controller delayed until ‘fall 2010′ globally

Sony PS3 Motion Controller delayed until ‘fall 2010′ globally originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Consumer audio electronics maker Ion has announced its new Twin Video, a pocket video cam with a twist. The Twin Video features front and back cameras so you can simultaneously record your subject, and your reaction to it. The Twin Video is designed to let you easily shoot interviews or create dual-POV movies for YouTube, Facebook, and video blogs. In-camera controls allow you to be creative on the fly by swapping video feeds or switching between picture-in-picture and split screen modes…

Tags: dual lens,
Microphone,
Video Camera

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They first showed it in June 2009, then teased us with a Q2 2010 release, now Sony Computer Entertainment has pushed back the worldwide release window for the still-tentatively-named Motion Controller for the PlayStation 3. Wii-less gamers won’t be waving their arms around like lunatics, or smashing their expensive HDTVs until some time in Q4 2010 – presumably in time to catch the Christmas retail wave…

Tags: Motion controller,
PlayStation 3,
PS3,
Sony,
Sony Computer Entertainment,
Video Games

Related Articles:

• Sony goes into battle with its motion controller for PS3
• PS3 Motion Controller set for 2010 release
• Blaze ‘Wiimote’ for PS3 could beat Sony to the motion sensitive controller punch
• Playstation 2 trimmed down
• Razer, Sixense and Valve bringing motion control to PC gamers
• Gyroscopic Motion Tracking Controller for PCs and Consoles

Designer Kristina Magnitskaya has come up with this futuristic VESNA concept design. It’s a single-seat electric car shaped out from a one-piece body that comprises of natural resin composite with built-in wiring. The front wheels with an offset center of rotation run on a non-synchronous electric motor that uses a direct current with high-powered permanent magnets. The rear wheel is a reinforced-rubber sphere, and the suspension clip has four petals, with each petal containing a roller for free rotation of the sphere. Motors include geared cylinders and it uses regenerative breaking in combination with mechanical breaking via cylinders outside the belt in case of emergencies.

(more…)

Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will release its new Motion Controller (tentative name) for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in fall 2010 in Japan, Asian regions and countries, North America and Europe/PAL territories together with an extensive line-up of exciting software titles. It was originally destined to hit the market in less than a few months and there was very little indication that a delay was incoming. The new controller, combined with the PlayStation Eye camera, can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement within the game, delivering a whole new entertainment experience on PS3. This is a huge shock for many who have been closely observing the Playstation strategy in the last year or so, as the original Spring release for the Motion Controller was a huge benefit for Sony to have in place before Microsoft could make a major play with their Fall timetable for Natal.

“We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users,” said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “We will continue to work to have a comprehensive portfolio of attractive and innovative games for the Motion Controller, not only from SCE Worldwide Studios but also from the third party developers and publishers, whom we have been working closely with. We look forward to soon unveiling the exciting software line-up that further expands and defines the PS3 platform as the ultimate entertainment system for the home.”

Now that we’ve dried our eyes for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick, it’s time to cast them in the direction of the high-stakes Massachusetts senatorial race that will determine his replacement. By the time this editorial is printed, the results of the election will be in. At that time, I welcome you to join me in either a rampant celebration of potential salvation or mutual commiseration as we watch our nation descend further down the path of Obama-style socialism. Perhaps this assessment strikes readers as overdramatic, but I am not the only one awaiting the election results with bated breath. What, you ask, is the big deal with this particular senatorial race? The results will determine whether or not Democrats fill the sixty seats in the Senate required to overcome filibusters.

Should a Republican fill the seat, insidious initiatives such as the proposed health care reform legislation may not advance–at least, not easily. Of course, certain Democrats are clearly more concerned with passing something–in spite of the desires and needs of the American people. As Nancy Pelosi charmingly puts it: “We will have health care one way or another.” She scoffs at the idea put forth by the Massachusetts Republican candidate that Congress return to the drawing board to create a health care reform plan that might actually meet the wants of the American citizens. Pelosi might note that, according to recent polls, 51 percent of Americans oppose the proposed changes to the health care system.

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate in question, has managed to pull ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley in the polls leading up to Tuesday’s election. A political editor for The Boston Globe astutely observes, “…Scott Brown’s campaign has done a very good job, capitalizing on anger at Washington, anger over health care, anger about the deficit, the sort of throw-them-out mentality.” Brown has managed to amass vast popularity despite trailing Coakley by double digits in the polls just a week ago.

The former underdog in the quest for “Ted Kennedy’s seat,” Brown has the Democrats all in a tiff over how they will proceed to shove legislation down our unfortunate throats should they lose the 60th seat. Realizing that this may not be an easy feat, Democrats are taking desperate measures to restore support for Coakley in Massachusetts, including flying our illustrious president out to a Boston rally to woo crowds with the classic hope-and-change bombast. One must wonder, however, if Obama’s backing will be of much value to Coakley’s campaign, considering his ever-declining approval ratings. Former President Clinton weighed in with some enlightening remarks of his own: “The worst thing we can do is nothing.”

Now, there is a fascinating statement. It appears in varied forms of liberal rhetoric. Akin to the attitude that “some form of health care reform is better than no reform” and “making your voice heard is more important than knowing what you’re saying,” the sentiment might be rephrased as, “doing something reprehensible and ultimately pointless is better than admitting we don’t know what we’re doing.” The Democrats love criticizing Republicans for halting progress–for saying “no” without offering an alternative. What the Dems fail to realize is that “progress,” merely for the sake of pretending to have accomplished something, is not progress at all. I would rather there be no health care reform than have Congress pass the pointless atrocity to fulfill Obama’s agenda objectives. It may be blasphemy in the Age of Obama, but “no change” actually is an alternative. Go Brown!

There really is an app for everything. Gaia GPS for Haitian Disaster Relief is one of the first apps that will give you real time information on the current situation in earthquake ravaged Haiti. Its initial intention is for it to help aid relief works in the area, but average consumers can download and use it just the same. The app can be used to download satellite images of the earthquake area, get up to date overlays of disaster sites and hospitals. This version of Gaia GPS is identical to its original form except for its content in regards to Haiti. The app is free and map data is being provided by Digital Globe, OpenStreetMap, GeoEye, and it’s hosted by the New York Public Library. Interestingly enough the app is only for those 17 and older.