Mereja

Category: News

  • blog post:’Heat Trees’ – taking a leaf out of natures book

    Heatsinks aren’t a novel energy efficient type of washing bowl, they are parts that are placed on high powered IC packages to help remove the heat more effectively and thus lower the operating temperature of the package which in turn increases reliability, can improve performance etc.  etc. Such approaches are observed in nature, from Elephants ears to the low sun apparent surface area of homo erectus. It could well be that the evolution of heatsinks also take a leaf out of nature’s book. (more…)

  • Report: Car production to increase by 69% in first-quarter of 2010

    After a sore 2009 with production being cut and plants being shuttered, American automakers are getting ready to significantly boost car production as the economy shows some signs of recovery.

    According to data from Ward’s AutoInfoBank, the industry plans to produce 2.93 million cars and trucks in North America between Jan. 1 and March 31, an increase of 69% from 1.73 million built in the first 3 months of 2009. Nonetheless, that’s still significantly less than the 3.58 million vehicles produced in the first quarter of 2008.

    “Consumers may be scared, but they don’t like that rusting hulk in the driveway,” said Sean McAlinden, chief economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. He forecasts 2010 U.S. auto sales to hit 12.4 million.

    According to R.L. Polk & Co., the average age of vehicles in American driveways has increased from 6.7 years in 2001 to 8.1 years in 2008.

    – By: Omar Rana

    Source: Free Press


  • 187x faster than Bluetooth: Sony preps TransferJet-compatible devices

    DSC-TX7_sony

    TransferJet is a close-proximity wireless transfer technology Sony introduced in 2008. The idea is to let two electronic devices quickly exchange data (theoretically at up to 560 Mbps) just by bringing them close together (touch is possible, too). By way of comparison: The data transfer rate for Bluetooth Version 2.0 + EDR stands at just 3 Mbps.

    Toshiba announced during IFA in Berlin last year they are planning to use the technology in their products soon. And now Sony made its move, too (if you don’t count the TransferJet-compatible LSI Sony announced in November).

    The company is preparing a number of computers and digital cameras that support TransferJet, enabling users to transfer data between these devices as long as they are no more than 3cm apart (Bluetooth: about 10m). Sony made several big product announcements yesterday in Tokyo, but Sony’s American website shows that some devices featuring Transferjet actually will be available in the US earlier than in Japan.

    Sony already lists the DSC-TX7 (pictured above) in their American online store for $400 (to be shipped on January 25), while the DSC-HX5V will set you back $350 and will be available from March 15 in the US (in Japan, both models will go on sale next month). An 8GB Memory Stick with TransferJet is listed in Sony’s American online store for $100 (release date in the US: February 8).

    America will also get TransferJet-compatible Sony notebooks (Vaio F series) soon, it seems. This model, the VPCF11MFX, for example, is already listed and has a price tag of $1,720 but lacks a release date as of this writing (in Japan, a total of three Vaio F computers will hit stores as early as this Saturday).


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  • HERALD SUN: Cadbury takeover of Kraft all sweet

    Herald Sun, January 20, 2010 12:00AM

    BRITISH chocolate maker Cadbury is finalising terms of an improved 12 billion ($A20.8 billion) takeover bid from US food giant Kraft after a bitter battle.

    “The boards of Kraft Foods and Cadbury confirm that they are finalising the terms of a recommended offer for Cadbury. A further announcement will be made shortly,” the companies said yesterday.

    Kraft chief executive Irene Rosenfeld increased the first bid after Cadbury rejected it as “derisory” and US chocolate maker Hershey prepared to mount a rival offer.

    A purchase by Kraft would create a company with about $US50 billion in annual sales, adding Cadbury’s products to Kraft’s Oreo cookies, Toblerone chocolate and Tang powdered drinks.

    British-based Cadbury and Kraft declined further comment last night.

    Hershey is unlikely to top Kraft’s offer.

    As recently as last week Cadbury called US-based Kraft an “unfocused conglomerate” with businesses in “unappealing categories”.

    Ms Rosenfeld faced pressure from her shareholders to get the price right.

    Billionaire investor William Ackman last week joined Warren Buffett, Kraft’s biggest shareholder, in saying Kraft risked diminishing the merits of a Cadbury takeover by issuing too much stock to pay for it.

    Kraft has informed Mr Buffett of the revised deal with Cadbury, a source said.

    Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company said on January 5 it may support a Cadbury takeover if it concluded the final offer “does not destroy value for Kraft shareholders”.

    Mr Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management recently bought a $US950 million stake in Kraft, or 2 per cent of the company.

    Mr Ackman said a purchase of Cadbury made “tremendous sense”.

    Kraft advanced US46 to $US29.58 on the New York Stock Exchange last Friday, before Monday’s US holiday. Based on that price, the original bid of 300p in cash and 0.2589 Kraft shares was more than 60 per cent stock. The new offer consists of 40 per cent stock and 60 per cent cash.

    If Kraft reduces the number of shares it plans to issue to less than 20 per cent of its existing shares outstanding, it no longer needs to have the deal approved by its own shareholders.

    Kraft had scheduled a special February 1 investor meeting, but Berkshire Hathaway had already voted its shares against the proposal.

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  • Mighty River Power tests $430m geothermal project

    The National Business review has an article on the expanding geothermal power industry in New Zealand – Mighty River Power tests $430m geothermal project, lodges consent for another.

    Mighty River Power is a step closer to completing its $430 million Nga Awa Purua geothermal power station and has lodged consents for another $400 million geothermal station at Ngatamariki, near Taupo.

    The state-owned company said testing at Nga Awa Purua was conducted over the weekend and electricity was added to the national grid.

    The 132 MW station north east of Taupo, is a joint venture between Mighty River and the Tauhara North No. 2 Trust and is a welcome new addition to electricity reliability to the peak North Island, the company said.

    Maximum output, expected in April, will provide power to 130,000 homes – or the equivalent of every home in Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua and Taupo. Until then, testing will continue, with electricity added to the grid in stages.

    The planned station at Ngatamariki, 17 kilometres north east of Taupo, is also in partnership with the trust.

    Mighty River Power chief executive Doug Heffernan said it had been fortunate to develop a cooperative business model with Maori Land Trust partners, including Tauhara North No. 2 Trust, that enabled such projects to be feasible, given the significant capital investment needed.

    “At $430 million for Nga Awa Purua; $300 million for Kawerau; and at least $400 million for Ngatamariki, its easy to see how we are nearing the end of our initial $1.2 billion geothermal investment programme,” he said.

    “These are great projects that are providing a secure source of renewable electricity to help power the New Zealand economy.”



  • SMART MONEY: Cadbury Accepts $19.6 Billion Offer

    GOOD MORNING. stocks in Asia closed mixed today; U.S. futures are pointing to a lower open.

    By any stretch, $19.6 billion should buy you a lot of Dairy Milk chocolate and Trident gum. But now that Kraft Foods (KFT: 29.58, +0.46, +1.57%) has struck a deal for Cadbury (CBY: 51.90, +0.06, +0.11%)—creating the world’s largest confectioner–will it pay off for shareholders?

    Cadbury’s board accepted a deal for the company at 850 pence (including a special 10 pence dividend) or roughly $19.6 billion, 50% above Cadbury’s share price before Kraft’s initial offer in early September. The higher bid includes 500 pence per share in cash, up from 300 pence, and the rest in Kraft shares. Large Kraft shareholders such as Warren Buffett had opposed giving Kraft a blank check to issue millions of shares to fund the deal, a move that could have sharply diluted earnings. Kraft plans to issue 265 million new shares to fund the deal, compared with its original plan to issue 370 million. But Kraft said the deal would add around 5 cents to earnings in 2011, providing a percentage return on the deal in the mid-teens. The higher cash component appears to have swayed Cadbury’s board. Question now: whether Kraft shareholders will see a higher long-term share price too.

    Cadbury’s profit growth certainly looks attractive. Operating profit margins have been rising, thanks in good measure to its highly lucrative gum business, and should hit 14.7% this year, up from 13.5% in 2009, estimates Jefferies analyst Simon Marshall-Lockyer. Organic revenue growth should hit 6.5% this year, up from 4.8% in 2009, he notes, and sales are growing more rapidly in emerging markets, which account for 38% of Cadbury’s global sales, versus 20% for Kraft. Chocolate and gum also tend to generate higher margins than staple grocery items, Kraft’s main business. And Cadbury’s revenues have been growing steadily in North America—up 13% in the fourth quarter—while Kraft’s sales are expanding at a fraction of that pace. Kraft is paying 13 times Cadbury’s underlying 2009 profits—not cheap, analysts say, but not excessively rich either.

    Of course, the history of big “transformational” deals is littered with failures, and integrating the supply chains, manufacturing plants and global operations of such large firms will be no easy feat. Kraft has been trying to decentralize operations, while Cadbury has been streamlining its business units—both aimed at improving profitability. “We have great respect for Cadbury’s brands, heritage and people,” said Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld in a statement. The challenge now: coming up with a joint recipe for success.

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  • SwitchGames building the biggest market for used games

    switchgamesSwitchGames is a game trading site that has ridden the wave of demand for used games. Today, the company says its users are now offering more than 100,000 items for trade on its peer-to-peer game trading community.

    The New York company, which was a finalist in the GamesBeat 2009 startup competition, makes it easy to trade games quickly and safely without fear you’ll be ripped off. The company hit its 100,000-item milestone in less than a year, said company founder Jason Crawford.

    Overall, used games are a $3 billion business. Much of that is traded through GameStop retail stores. But users don’t get paid very much, while GameStop resells the games for a tidy profit. SwitchGames instead empower users so they can get much better deals.

    The selection adds up to 43 percent of all current-generation console games that are available on eBay. At this rate, Crawford predicts that his site will have more games available than on eBay, the biggest site for used game sales. Some game publishers and developers hate used game sales because they say it hurts new game sales. But SwitchGames argues that gamers wind up purchasing more new games because of the value they get by buying and selling used games.

    The company has three full-time employees and launched 11 months ago. Rivals include Goozex and Swaptree. Goozex charges a $1 fee per transaction and has more than 10,000 games available. Swaptree charges for postage and has 2,727 games available. By contrast, SwitchGames allows for free trading and allows gamers to send their games directly to each other. It is funded by angel money, as well as friends and family.


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  • Mobile payments firm Boku gets $25M in spending money

    bokuBoku is on a roll. The mobile payments company bought two companies, combined them and, in June, launched its service, which lets people pay for online goods and games with their mobile phone accounts. Now it has raised $25 million in a third round of funding.

    The San Francisco-based company was one of the finalists in our startup competition at MobileBeat. Now its service is available in 58 countries, and it has more than 1,000 online merchants, game publishers and others using its service. DAG Ventures led the round, and investors Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures also participated.

    Boku lets users pay for an item simply by using their mobile phone number. On Facebook, for instance, you can pay for a virtual good in a game using your phone number, which is often easier than remembering our credit card number, says Ron Hirson, senior vice president of product and marketing. Boku verifies the transaction by sending a text message to your phone. You then reply by hitting ‘y’ in a return message. Then the charge for the item shows up on your next mobile phone bill.

    This works great for people who want simple payment, and it’s also great for people who don’t have a credit card. Customers vary from 35-year-old mothers playing FarmVille on Facebook to people living in Singapore who don’t have their own credit cards.

    The amount of money raised is impressive. So is Boku’s speed. The company has agreements with 190 carriers around the world. In June, it announced it had raised $10 million and was buying two mobile payments startups, Paymo and Mobillcash. (Prior to that, it had raisd $3 million). In the past month, the company announced 12 new partnerships with online game developers.

    The hiccup for the moment is that Boku relies on phone carriers to complete the billing transaction. For that service, the carriers collect a hefty fee. But Hirson said he believes that the mobile carriers will lower the fees this year to kickstart business.

    The company was founded in 2008 and it has 50 employees. Competitors include Zong, PayPal, credit card companies and other direct payment providers. Zong in particular has an interesting twist: It lets you use your mobile phone number to pay for something, but instead of charging the transaction to your cell phone bill, Zong charges it to your credit card. That means you avoid the big cell phone carrier charges.


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  • Google’s spat with Chinese government causes ‘postponement’ of Android phones

    You have to love a good clash of legitimate titans, and they don’t get much bigger than Google and China. After deciding to stop censoring its Google.cn results, the Mountain View company of evil-non-doers has stepped up its offensive with the announcement that two Android phones — one from Samsung and one from Motorola — which were slated to make their arrival on China Unicom on Wednesday have now been postponed. We’ll read between the lines and guess that the phones will be “postponed” if China plays nice, or “never gonna happen” if it doesn’t. Google seems intent on demonstrating the full impact of its potential withdrawal from China, and this show of its sway with mobile manufacturers will hardly go unnoticed.

    [Thanks, David Casteneta]

    Google’s spat with Chinese government causes ‘postponement’ of Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Silicon Power crams 128GB into 400x Compact Flash card: a world’s first

    Whoa, we just hit yet another major performance milestone in removable storage. Silicon Power is touting the world’s first 128GB 400x Compact Flash card with write speeds of 90MBps and support for PIO Mode-6 (as defined by CompactFlash spec 2.0) and Multi-Word DMA 4 (as defined by CompactFlash spec 2.1) transfer mode in quad-channel configurations. In other words, it’ll play nice with new HD video capable DSLR shooters. Unfortunately, the card is only being announced today — no price or ship date in the press release. Sigh.

    Silicon Power crams 128GB into 400x Compact Flash card: a world’s first originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • CE-Oh no he didn’t! Part LXVI: Acer founder predicts extinction of US PC makers within 20 years

    Oh, this is as tasty as it is salacious. Acer founder and former chairman (now retired) Stan Shih has come out with the bold prediction that US computer brands are on the way out — if they do not adjust to the new reality of a PC market focused on low cost. When asked how he foresees Acer and ASUS establishing their brand credentials in the USA when they’re engaged in constant price wars, Shih resolutely stated that lowering costs and prices is the way to do it. Drawing an analogy to the fate of US television brands (pow!), Shih pointed out his belief that American vendors aren’t capable (slap!) of delivering the sort of affordability that the market is set to permanently demand. As harsh as his words may be, let’s not forget Acer recently jumped Dell for the number two spot in volume of global sales, so let’s not ignore what may in fact be prophecy rather than mere prattle.

    CE-Oh no he didn’t! Part LXVI: Acer founder predicts extinction of US PC makers within 20 years originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Robin Givhan’s “Motivation” Revealed – I’m Writing A Book Dadgummit!

    Well NOW we know why Robin Givhan has been penning those poisonous  hit pieces on First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a book coming our called “Michelle.” We thought the “look at me” venom was because Craig Robinson stood Robin up when they were all at Princeton, but nope, its pure “look at me” capitalism at work.  Now it all makes sense. Here is the video from the Today Show

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    Okay so Aminah, I’m going to lock myself in an undisclosed location in February and not leave until I have a book proposal because we can’t leave the historical record up to Robin Givhan.

    All the Best!

    Gina

    Previous Post:

    What’s Influencing Robin Givhan

    Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

  • Take Our Mobile Tech Survey — Win Some Cash

    Here at jkOnTheRun, we have some of the smartest and most well informed readers around when it come to mobile devices. With this in mind, we wondered what would happen if we asked you your thoughts about tech products such as smartphones and web tablets.

    So, working with our colleagues over at GigaOM Pro, we present a short survey asking about just that. We also think you would love to see the results, so if you take the survey, we’ll send you an executive summary of the report we’ll produce for GigaOM Pro, and we’ll also be posting some results on jkOnTheRun as well.  And if that doesn’t compel you, if you take the survey you might win one of two $50 Amazon gift certificates we’ll be giving away to those here who take the survey.

    And  just so you know, these results are only going to be used for this survey and analysis for a report (which you’ll get the summary results for in PDF), and nothing else.

    So head on over, take the survey.  It’ll only take a few minutes. You’ll also get some interesting analysis as well as maybe some free Amazon $.

  • Lithium and REE: BYD wins backing to make e6 TNR.v, CZX.v, WLC.v, LI.v, RM.v, LMR.v, SQM, FMC, BYDDY, AVL.to, RES.v, QUC.v, CCE.v, NSANY, RNO, TTM, TM

    “BYD claims the longest range available on the market for the road ready EV with 205 miles. Time will tell very soon whether we can trust this spec. There will be issues with safety testing in US and auto brand recognition, but we think the price will cure a lot of initial market problems and this car will take market by the storm. Whether BYD will be able to make money out of electric cars we are not sure and think that margins will be sacrificed for market penetration in the West and the real driving force will be a conventional vehicles booming sales in China. This scenario will be very positive for our Next Big Thing – price competition in EV space will make electric cars affordable and bring our mass market sooner rather than later with an explosive growth in Lithium and REE Demand.”

    We have a very good mix for publicity of Electric Cars: Warren Buffett, richest man in China – founder of BYD and China with largest auto market in the world from 2009. BYD aim at competition with GM Volt pricing its car at USD40,000 – is our prediction about price war and razor thin margins already in play? Now we should see the pricing move for GM Volt – will it be below USD40,000 in the end?

    BEIJING, Jan. 19 — New-energy vehicle and battery manufacturer BYD Automobile Co said Monday that it has won approval to produce the e6, its first pure electric car, in the country.
    A BYD official said the e6 accelerated the auto maker’s new-energy vehicle strategy and will help domestic car makers compete against international rivals.
    BYD Auto’s e6 is presented during the 2010 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) at Cobo center in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A., Jan 11, 2010. (Xinhua/Zhang Jun)
    China-based BYD, backed by billionaire Warren Buffet, will launch the plug-in e6 sedan in China in the first half of this year for about 300,000 yuan (43,988 U.S. dollars), mainly supplying government, public services and taxi fleets. BYD also plans to sell the e6 in the United States at the end of this year with a price tag of about 40,000 dollars.
    With government support, hybrid and electric vehicles are becoming an industry trend as consumers seek ways to reduce emissions to protect the environment. Demand for such vehicles has prompted car makers to increase investment and speed up engineering in the field.
    General Motors plans to launch its extended-range electric car Volt in the US this year before introducing it to China in 2011. Nissan plans to launch its Leaf plug-in electric car in 2012.
    BYD said the e6 is a sedan powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery.
    The car promises a battery-only range of 330 kilometers on a single charge. The battery can be quick-charged to 50 percent of capacity in 10 minutes, and fully charged in 60 minutes.
    Aside from intensifying competition, car makers also face challenges convincing consumers about the benefits of new-energy vehicles as some people worry about inconvenience due to the lack of charging stations.
    Auto makers also face issues over heavy batteries, which reduce the efficiency of electric cars, and recycling batteries.
    Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, said recently that the car maker is aiming to become the world’s largest auto maker by 2025. Last year, BYD saw sales jump 130 percent to 400,000 vehicles. It set a sales target of 800,000 units this year.
    At the ongoing Detroit auto show, BYD was the only Chinese car maker to attend. Its lineup also included the F3DM, the world’s first dual-mode plug-in hybrid.
    Besides BYD’s e6, the new-energy vehicles the government approved included Dongfeng’s Fengshen S30 and Changan’s Zhixiang.
    (Source: Shanghai Daily)”

  • “Paranormal Activity 2″ October 2010

    Paramount Studios has hired Saw VI director Kevin Greutert to step behind the camera for the eagerly-anticipated Paranormal Activity sequel, The Hollywood Reporter said Tuesday. Paranormal Activity 2 hits theaters Oct. 22, going head to head against the latest Saw movie at the box office this Halloween.

    Oren Peli, who directed the original Paranormal Activity as an independent film, will produce the follow-up.

    Paranormal Activity – who was shot on budget of just $15,000 — grossed more than $150 million at the international box office last year after gaining momentum via an online campaign. The critically-acclaimed horror hit is the most profitable film in Paramount’s history.


  • Google Delaying Launch of Two Android Phones in China Due To Censorship Row [Google]

    Whoa, the dispute between China and Google just got even more messy, with Google being forced to delay the launch of two Android phones from Motorola and Samsung on the China Unicom carrier.

    The launch was initially slated for tomorrow, but with Google announcing last week they’d no longer be censoring search results in China—and then being attacked by Chinese hackers—it’s not at all surprising. There’s no word on what exactly will make Google go ahead with the launch as planned, but I’m willing to bet my last dollar that the main stipulation is for China to allow Google to continue with its plight against censorship. [AFP]






  • REUTERS: Kraft snares Cadbury for $19.6 billion


    LONDON (Reuters) – Kraft Foods (KFT.N) agreed a deal to buy Cadbury (CBRY.L) for around 11.9 billion pounds ($19.6 billion), creating the world’s top confectioner after frantic last-minute talks broke an impasse over price.

    Kraft’s CEO Irene Rosenfeld had to inject more cash into her bid and drop the number of new Kraft shares in the offer to win over Roger Carr, chairman of the 186-year-old Cadbury and mollify her top shareholder, billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

    Kraft’s cash-and-share acquisition, which dealmakers said was struck after all-night negotiations at the London headquarters of investment bank Lazard, values each Cadbury share at 840 pence, with shareholders also set to get a 10p special dividend, bringing it to a total of 850p.

    The enlarged group will pip privately owned Mars-Wrigley to the title of the world’s top sweet maker, bringing under one roof Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate and Trident gum and Kraft’s Milka, Toblerone and Terry’s chocolate brands.

    Cadbury shares hit a record high of 838 pence in early trade and were up 3.3 percent 834.5p by 1154 GMT (6:54 a.m. EST).

    “We believe this is a very well-priced, and well-structured, deal from a Kraft perspective and we expect Kraft’s shares to open higher this afternoon which could push the value of the offer above 860p,” said Panmure Gordon analyst Graham Jones.

    Kraft shares traded in Frankfurt (KFT.F) were up 0.4 percent.

    The new bid, which won unanimous recommendation from the Cadbury board, consists of 500p of cash and 0.1874 new Kraft shares, compared to Kraft’s original offer of 300p cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares, which valued the shares at 745p in September, when the deal was first proposed

    Buffett, who owns a 9.4-percent stake in Kraft, had warned Rosenfeld not to overpay and issue too many new Kraft shares, and Kraft responded on Tuesday by saying it was issuing 265 million new shares compared with its original plan to issue 370 million.

    “We have great respect for Cadbury’s brands, heritage and people. We believe they will thrive as part of Kraft Foods,” Rosenfeld said in the offer statement.

    She increased Kraft’s annual cost savings target to at least $675 million by year three, up from $625 million, but made no mention of possible job losses at Cadbury 46,000 global workforce. She told Reuters in an interview that she found additional synergies after speaking to Cadbury’s Carr.

    One leading Cadbury investor, Standard Life Investments (SL.L), with a just-under-1-percent stake, said it supported the board’s decision to recommend the Kraft offer.

    “We are supportive of the management’s decision although the achieved price is slightly light of our stated target,” said David Cumming, head of UK equities at Standard Life.

    COUNTERBID NOT SEEN

    Analysts say a counter bid for Cadbury is unlikely. The UK Takeover Panel gave Hershey (HSY.N), the U.S.-based maker of Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s peanut butter cups, and Italy’s Nutella chocolate spread and Tic-Tac candy maker Ferrero until January 25 to make a firm bid.

    Cadbury shareholders now have until February 2 to decide whether to accept a deal that values the shares at 13 times the group’s estimated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in 2009.

    “Looking at precedent transaction multiples around 15 times, if Kraft can get one of the best consumer staples for 13 times, then good luck to them. It gives Kraft the growth engine they’ve been craving for years,” said analyst Warren Ackerman at brokers Evolution Securities.

    Kraft said the deal would be accretive to 2011 earnings by around 5 cents on a cash basis and give a mid-teens percentage return on investment, well in excess of Kraft’s cost of capital.

    Cadbury unions have opposed the move fearing big job cuts and UK politicians have also weighed in, with general elections looming, and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference after the deal was announced that he wanted to protect investment and jobs at Cadbury.

    “The one thing I want to say is this: we are determined that the levels of investment that take place in Cadbury’s in the United Kingdom are maintained,” he said.

    Felicity Loudon, a fourth generation member of Cadbury’s founding family was appalled that the iconic chocolate maker looked destined to fall to Kraft, and believes that jobs will be lost and that Cadbury chocolate will never taste the same.

    “I’m horrified, we shouldn’t give up. I just think there’s a cultural imbalance. For a quintessentially, philanthropic iconic brand to sell out to a plastic cheese company – there’s no mix there,” she told Reuters.

    (Additional reporting by Paul Sandle, Keith Weir, Sharon Lindores and Brad Dorfman) (Reporting by David Jones; editing by Dan Lalor and Sitaraman Shankar)

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  • Deep Walkability

    Alex at WorldChanging has a post on pedestrian friendly urban design – Deep Walkability.

    Several pieces of Net flotsam today (local columnist Danny Westneat’s clueless call for more parking lots around Seattle’s new light rail stations; a NYT article on findings that walkable density appears to increase property values and buffer against real estate crashes), got me pondering again the nature of “walkability.”

    Walkability is clearly critical to bright green cities. You can’t advocate for car-free or car-sharing lives if people need cars to get around, and the enticement to walk is key to making density wonderful, to providing realistic transit options, to making smaller greener homes compelling and to growing the kind of digitally-suffused walksheds that post-ownership ideas seem to demand. So knowing how to define “walkable” is important.

    That said, I’m skeptical of most measurements of walkability. Though I’m a fan of efforts like WalkScore, I think it’s important to acknowledge their very real limitations. WalkScore, for instance, is a measurement not of walkability but proximity. If we’re going to make decisions based on algorithms, we’d better make sure we’re using the right formula.

    The big thing I think falls out of most walkability formulas is a quality critical to the actual experience of walkability, and that’s the extent to which the place in which you live is connected (by walking routes and easy transit) to other places worth walking to.

    Unfortunately, in North America many great neighborhoods are islands of comparative pedestrian friendliness in seas of sprawl and pedestrian hostility. They may offer a lot of services close by — you may be able to walk to buy a quart of milk or drink a cup of coffee in the cafe — but going anywhere else involves a choice of long walks through forbidding surroundings and along dangerous streets or unhappy waits for inconvenient and underfunded transit.

    To live in such a neighborhood is to understand the full impact of a half century of planning and public investment that treated a person walking as at best an afterthought, and very often as an inconvenience to cars that ought to be discouraged. No matter how great the cafes, sidewalks and street trees are in these ‘hoods, they are not actually truly walkable because unless you want to feel like a prisoner trapped within their boundaries, you still must own a car.

    The true test of walkability I think is this: Can you spend a pleasant half hour walking or on transit and end up at a variety of great places? The quality of having a feast of options available when you walk out your front door is what I’m starting to think of as “deep walkability.”

    It’s this deep walkability that ought to be the top priority driving urban design and development in our communities. We ought to be looking at how to knit our walkable communities together and how to make friendlier the unwalkable streets between them.

    In most cities, serious walkers (and bikers) share stories about the routes they’ve taken, hidden paths through the fractured landscape that let you walk safely and happily from one people-centered place to another. A killer urban ap would be one that revealed these urban songlines. A smart urban policy would be one that aimed to weave new walking routes through the whole urban fabric, until places walkers feared to tread were the exception rather than the expectation.



  • Recipe: Cara Cara Orange Curd

    2010-01-20-OrangeCurd2.jpgSoon after Elizabeth mentioned them, we spotted cara cara oranges at our local grocery. We ate a few for afternoon snacks, but then our thoughts quickly turned to dessert. Wouldn’t this sweet citrus make a great jam curd? Why, yes it would!

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  • Mobile Payments Startup Boku Lands $25 Million In Funding; Rebrands Service As Paymo

    Mobile payments for micro-transactions on the web are steadily gaining traction. This morning, the space received more validation as several prominent venture capital firms made a significant a investment in recently launched mobile payments startup, Boku. Boku has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by DAG Ventures with previous investors Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, and Khosla Ventures participating in the round. This brings Boku’s total funding to $38 million since the startup’s launch in June. Boku’s marketing chief Ron Hirson tells me that the startup is also rebranding its consumer platform as Paymo, but will retain the name Boku on the merchant and publisher side.

    Boku, which acquired competitors Paymo and Mobillcash in June, doesn’t require users to have a credit card or bank account to make a micropayment. Users enter their cell phone number on the site, reply to a text message and then all virtual charges are automatically charged to the user’s monthly cell phone bill. As we’ve said in the past, it’s ridiculously easy. Because of its acquisition of Paymo and Mobillcash, systems that had significant international reach, Boku gained a strong base of users around the world.

    Today, Boku’s reach extends to 58 countries and 190 carriers, with two more countries (Latvia and Lithuania) being added by the end of the week. Carriers in Brazil and Argentina will also be added shortly and is expected to bring a large amount of users because of the high mobile phone usage stats in South America. Hirson says the new cash will be used to further the companies international growth and expand product offerings.

    The startup is also seeing success on the publisher side, announcing 12 new partnerships with online game developers in the past month. In fact, since June, the company has developed mobile payment relationships with over 1,000 game and app developers to help power payments for virtual goods and currencies on many of the top social networks, including Facebook and MySpace. The startup currently powers mobile micropayments for both Playdom and Playfish, which was acquired by Electronic Arts.

    One potential obstacle to mobile payments platforms is the high fees that mobile carriers charge to the payment systems (which are then passed on to the publisher). Boku told us last June that different cell phone carriers charge varying fees that range between 10% to 50% of the purchase price, which is a hefty amount in transaction fees. But it looks like Boku is on its way to remedying this problem. Hirson indicated to me that the company is in negotiations with carriers to bring fees. He said that carrier fees in parts of Europe will come down first and hopefully roll out to the Americas and remaining parts of the world.

    Of course, its worth mentioning Boku’s main rival in the mobile payments space, Zong, which struck a large deal last year with Facebook to pay for the social network’s virtual currency. Zong also recently launched an alternative payments system, called Zong+, which lets users bill microtransactions to credit, debit and prepaid cards.

    With $25 million in the bank, its hard not to imagine that Boku could snap up a few smaller players in the mobile payments and microtransaction space. When asked about the possibility of further buyouts down the line, Hirson said that while acquisitions aren’t currently part of Boku’s immediate strategy, he couldn’t rule out the possibility in the future.


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