Category: News

The 2010 Geneva Motor Show in March will also represent the official return of Cadillac in Europe as the brand is currently working on establishing a new dealership network across the continent. Speaking for just-auto.com, a Cadillac spokesman said the brand is looking into ways to set up a network of around 120 to 130 dealerships in Europe.

"Yes, we are doing a restart of these vehicles in the spring," the spokesman said. "No particular date, but I assume the Geneva show would… (read more)

Following an amazing performance of Japanese carmaker Toyota under the US Car Allowance Rebate System last year, the manufacturer said it would welcome the competition of American made cars, should they be allowed entry in Japan’s clunker program.

"We support that it will be allowed," Yoshi Inaba, Toyota Motor North America president told Autonews during the Automotive News World Congress. As expected, Toyota’s support was welcomed by the American automotive industry.

Sen. Debb… (read more)

Filed under: Motorsports, Ferrari, UK, Racing

Fans of classic racing liveries were elated when Aston Martin brought Gulf racing back on its Le Mans challengers. Now we’ve got another classic scheme on our hands, courtesy of STP.

The iconic American motor oil company has sponsored such notables as Graham Hill, Jim Clark and Mario Andretti, but is most commonly associated with Richard Petty’s stock cars. This year, however, the livery will be coming back on the GT3-spec Ferrari 430 Scuderia shown. It’s being fielded by Chad Racing in the British GT Championship and driven by Daniel Brown and Chris Hyman, the former a highly rated rookie driver in open-wheels. Details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: Chad Racing and STP]

Continue reading Back on Track: Classic STP livery returns on Ferrari 430 Scuderia GT3

Back on Track: Classic STP livery returns on Ferrari 430 Scuderia GT3 originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marcus Ericsson is reportedly in pole position for securing the test/reserve driving position within the Mercedes GP Formula One team. Although there were several reports linking an experienced driver to that role (yes, we’re referring to F1 veteran Nick Heidfeld), some media reports from Finland suggest that Mercedes is searching for some young blood for that position.

Finland’s Turun Sanomat was the publication that reported this piece of news, through its live correspondent to the Madonna … (read more)

	Detroit 2010: 1,000 Tesla Roadsters have been built, Model S still over two years away Let’s look forward, not backward.		Detroit 2010: Smart USA’s Jill Lajdziak says lifestyle message can boost sales Would a temporary store make the Fortwo more appealing?
	Detroit 2010: Edison2’s Very Light Car scoffs at Electric Avenue It’s an ICE vehicle, for one.	Other news: Toyota to deploy 100 fuel cell vehicles in U.S. demonstration program Detroit 2010: CT&T debuts three models, including Multi Amphibious Vehicle Surprise: Study finds electric cars a good fit for urban environments

AutoblogGreen for 01.14.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A team of researchers has achieved a milestone in soybean research that could enhance its use for the production of biodiesel. Soybean, which is considered one of the most important sources of protein and oil, has now become the first legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence. As of now, researcher have determined the genetic code, they can expand their reference to more than 20,000 legume species and could access the evolutionary innovation of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

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Despite Chinese government efforts to cool housing prices, their rise just accelerated at the fastest pace in 18 months during December.

Bloomberg: Residential and commercial real-estate prices in 70 cities rose 7.8 percent from a year earlier, the National Development and Reform Commission said on its Web site today. That topped a 5.7 percent gain in November.

…

“We only expect to see about a 5 percent increase in overall prices this year as we believe that would be acceptable to the Chinese government,” Raymond Cheng, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse AG, said before the data release. “They don’t want the bubble to burst.”

The scariest idea supporting Chinese asset markets is the faith in the government to control the economy. Confidence in the government’s ability to keep the economy humming, property prices rom getting out of control, or support the stock market is the kind of problem that doesn’t show itself until it becomes enormous and disastrous.

Don’t miss: Why Shanghai Real Estate Is The Most Obvious Bubble Ever — >

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See Also:

• Look Out: Goldman Sachs Is Now Dumping Shanghai Property
• Morgan Stanley: Keep Riding The Hong Kong Property Bubble, It Can Still Go Way Higher
• Why Shanghai Real Estate Is The Most Obvious Bubble Ever

paperbag alerts us to the news that Peter Jackson is the latest filmmaker to go semi-ballistic over a film leaking to the internet. His new film, The Lovely Bones, apparently showed up online via a screener copy, leading Jackson to warn:

He stated that although up until [now] he did not hold a grudge against file sharing, he is heavily disappointed that the leak even happened to begin with. He also stated that “those responsible for the leak will be brought to justice with the maximum prosecution of the law in mind” and that “anyone who is caught illegally downloading the film will also be prosecuted to the fullest”, both statements which are sure to lose him a few fans.

Jackson is definitely a director with a huge and loyal following. These are people will see his movies no matter what — even if they happen to download them. It’s a bit surprising that he would go to such an extreme, even to the point of claiming that those who are caught downloading the film will be prosecuted (though, we wonder how he’s going to figure out who downloads the film). Being anti-fan is no way to build a business these days.

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The Renault Group has released its 2009 global sales results today. The company now has an overall (passenger cars & light commercial vehicles) market share of 3.7%, representing a slight 0.1 percent increase.

When it comes to sales, the group registered a 3.1% decrease, with a a total of 2,309 million units. However, the 3.1% figure is smaller than the 4.7% drop for the world market.

In the passenger cars market, the manufacturer increased its share by 0.2 points to 4.3%. More importantl… (read more)

LotusLive has scored a big win over Microsoft Exchange in perhaps the most significant deal to date for a SaaS provider. The IBM deal with Panasonic means that 300,000 people at the electronics company will drop Exchange for the LotusLive, web-based collaboration service.

We would normally not cover customer wins, but the LotusLive deal with Panasonic is so large it signifies how lucrative this market could be for cloud service providers.

We expect these deals to pop up everywhere as more companies see the benefits of shedding IT assets for cloud-based services. In turn this will change how companies negotiate. With more competition and publicized wins, managers will look beyond the desktop for the best deal possible they can find from a cloud services provider.

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Panasonic will use LotusLive for its calendar; email; web conferencing; messaging; file sharing; project management and contact management as well.

LotusLive will also replace Lotus Notes and other collaboration tools.

The LotusLive tiered pricing structure looks similar to what we see with many SaaS providers. According to eWeek, the cost for LotusLive starts at $3 per user, per month. As the client uses more services, the price per user increases.

The win also shows that Google Apps is not as dominant as it sometimes appears. Google Apps has not scored a win on this scale.

Still, Google Apps has had the most success as a provider of online collaboration service. It recently closed deals with several large enterprise customers, including the city of Los Angeles.

All of these wins show that enterprise customers will move faster to the cloud than many expected. In the coming months, we expect Google and IBM will intensify its campaigns against Microsoft. IBM may also have an advantage against Google as the LotusLive pricing structure makes it easy for customers to make an investment. Google offers its services for free and $50 for a premiere account.

It may seem like Microsoft is the one most vulnerable. But we don’t think so. Its cloud-based platform, Azure, may be the best fit of all for many enterprise customers. Further, its deal with Hewlett-Packard means it now has a powerful package it can sell, combining HP servers with Microsoft software.

This is already proving to be quite a year for cloud computing. And just think, we’re only halfway through the month of January.

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By Jonnelle Marte, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

“Sexting,” the short– and sometimes annoying—term for “sexy texting” is getting a lot of negative attention these days as anti-sexting ad campaigns heat up online.

The Ad Council has launched a series of Public Service Announcements promoting the slogan “Think before you post.” One depicts a teenage girl who keeps getting creepy comments from people who seem to know intimate things about her. The football coach compliments her on her new tattoo. The ticket collector at the movie theater asks what color underwear she’s wearing today. Then we hear a voice saying “anything you post online, anyone can see.” Another video shows a girl posting a picture on a bulletin board that instantly reappears after someone takes it down, allowing everyone at the school– even the janitor– to get a copy. The message: once you post something online, “you can’t take it back-anyone can see it.”

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Ailing Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ is expecting a recovery of up to 50 percent in the Russian market, as the local auto sector is showing signs of recovery for the current year. Nevertheless, AvtoVAZ has a lot to do before restoring the pre-crisis figures as vehicle production dropped according to just-auto.com by 63 percent in the last year.

AvtoVAZ, 25 percent owned by Renault, will also benefit from a restructuring plan established by Russia and the French manufacturer back in November. Accor… (read more)

For all its efforts, Microsoft just can’t get ahead in the search market. After seeing some growth in the months after it launched, Bing dropped significantly in December to just 9.9 percent of the US search market, down from 10.7 percent in the previous month. Yahoo isn’t faring any better either seeing yet another month of declining market share. Google, on the other hand, is surging ahead at the expense of its competitors, according to numbers from Nielsen.

A total of 9.95 b… (read more)

A date has been set for the arrival of DSi XL in the UK. Not only is the date set, the accompanying titles have bee identified as well. Details after the jump.
 
 
 

Here we go again! Following the second day of testing a GP2 development car at Jerez, 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher revealed to the media that he feels a bit of pain in his neck. Sounds familiar? Well, according to the man himself, the neck pain after this kind of testing is quite normal and doesn’t resemble the pain he had when testing for Ferrari midway through last season.

There is some minor muscular strain, but it’s completely normal, Schumacher was quoted as saying by Germany… (read more)

After opening the Pacific-10 season with a demoralizing 92-66 loss at California, Stanford men’s basketball proved itself anything but demoralized. Instead, the Card returned to the court hungry for a win and determined to prove itself a conference contender. Cal’s disappointment was quickly erased with a we-can-win-at-the-end victory over USC, followed quickly by a we-can-win-decisively stomping of UCLA.

Chris Seewald/The Stanford Daily

The one caveat? Both were home games and the only win Stanford has outside of Maples is a 57-52 victory over Virginia in the Cancun Challenge. Now, only one question remains for the Cardinal: can they win on the road?

Luckily for Stanford, the team’s first away game since the Bears is a meeting with the team currently at the bottom of Pac-10 rankings, the Washington Huskies. The Huskies are 1-3 in the conference — although 10-5 overall — after winning their first game against Oregon State, then dropping three in a row to Oregon (home) and the Arizona schools (on the road).

However, Washington does boast the conference’s leading scoring offence, which averages 79.6 points per game. In its last two games, though, Stanford has held its opponents to 53 and 59 points, respectively, and head coach Johnny Dawkins hopes the trend will continue in Seattle.

“I thought our defense was terrific [in the last few games],” Dawkins said. “We were very active, we forced turnovers and more importantly, we didn’t give up many easy baskets. Holding our opponents under 60 is very good and it’s a standard that we want to set, where we become a very stingy defensive team.”

This stingy defense will have its work cut out for it against Washington senior forward Quincy Pondexter and sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas. The duo rank third and fifth in the Pac-10 in scoring, putting up 19.5 and 18.3 ppg, respectively. Pondexter also snags an average of 7.9 rebounds and knocks down 81.3 percent of his free throws. He’ll be Card standout Landry Fields’ toughest match-up of the season thus far, but will also be a warm-up for Saturday’s standoff with the conference’s leading scorer from Washington State, Klay Thompson. (Thompson and Fields are the only two who top Pondexter in scoring, tallying 23 and 22.1 ppg, respectively.)

“[Washington State has] one of the best players in the conference in Klay Thompson, who is a terrific, terrific scorer,” Dawkins said. “Our match-ups with Landry Fields, versus him and Pondexter, are key match-ups for us. Those are three of the best players in our conference and we need our guy — Landry — to be the player he’s been all year. And that’s a rock for us and one of the best players in our conference.”

The backcourt battle will prove equally important against the Huskies, as Stanford sophomore Jeremy Green falls just behind Thomas in scoring for the year with 17.6 ppg. But, he has spent his last two outings leading the team, with 17 against the Trojans and 30 against the Bruins. Green hits roughly three shots from long range every time out — making him the Pac-10’s best three-point shooter — offering a threat that Thomas has yet to match.

After Stanford’s own comeback from a slow season start, Dawkins is taking nothing for granted and knows Washington will be looking for a win tonight.

“I expect Washington to come out in the game very strong,” Dawkins said. “They’re a very competitive team — they’re a team that’s going to come out right away and try to hit us hard and their crowd is going to be terrific. They’re coming off a few losses, so they’ll be hungry, and we need to match their intensity.”

The crowd may very well prove to be another factor for the young Card, which often plays to a less-than-packed Maples, but Dawkins believes that experiences from other games from the season will help Stanford adjust to playing to a new environment.

“I think the games we played in the preseason plus the Cal game will be beneficial,” Dawkins noted. “We’ve been in some hostile environments, some great crowds, and I think our kids have learned from those experiences. And now it’s time for us to go on the road again and to show the poise, to execute under pressure, be able to work and communicate through large crowds.”

Hostility will meet Stanford from both opponents and crowds this weekend. But this time around, Stanford hopes it will fare better than the last time it hit the road.

The Combi version of Nissan’s popular NV200 van will be available in February in the UK, the carmaker recently announced. Priced from £15,685, the NV200 Combi has a seating for up to seven passengers and is equipped with a 1.5-litre turbodiesel engine. The power unit returns 53.3 mpg in the combined cycle , while emitting just 139 g/km of CO2.

There was only one way we could make the NV200 any better and that was to expand the range. The Combi version widens the appeal of the van outside of t… (read more)