Category: News

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Dodge

This is a depressing way to start the new year. According to a “source close to the project” speaking with Automobile, plans to produce the Devon GTX have been cancelled due to the Dodge Viper discontinuation.

As a refresher, the 650-hp, Viper-based coupe was unveiled last year in Pebble Beach and was due to go into limited production this year in Southern California. We even had the chance to go for a spin the GTX late last year after one of the prototypes set a lap record at Laguna Seca. Devon hoped to thrust America back on the main supercar stage with the bespoke coupe, but without a source for the chassis and 8.4-liter engine, those plans have apparently been dashed. We’re hoping to get more details directly from Devon, so stay tuned for an update.

UPDATE: We’ve just heard back from company founder, Scott Devon, and the rumors are unfortunately true – the Devon GTX is dead. However, Devon Motorworks will live on, focusing instead on apparel and an upcoming motorcycle project. So what will happen to the one-time Laguna Seca lap-record-holding Devon GTX? One of the two prototypes will be put on display at the company’s flagship store opening in Beverly Hills this April. The other might see track duty in the hands of development driver Justin Bell. Here’s the official response from Devon:

The Viper platform being discontinued and the inability to amortize tooling costs are the key reasons. But we have two beautiful prototypes and might still race the Laguna Seca car with Justin Bell in GT2. However, our Devon brand plans have expanded to include jeans, leather jackets, watches, scents, and eyewear. Our Beverly Hills flagship store will open this April. We also have a line of motorcycles being made by legendary builder Shinya Kimura. And the black and chrome GTX will be in the store as a display piece of automotive art. I wish we could have gone into production but have no regrets and feel we achieved a significant contribution in auto design along with the Laguna Seca record.

[Source: Automobile]

Rumormill: Devon GTX shelved due to Dodge Viper’s demise *UPDATE originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wade Roush wrote:

NoblePeak Vision of Wakefield, MA, has collected $2 million out of an intended $6.8 million round of equity funding, according to a December 30 regulatory filing. Founded in 2002 by Bell Labs veterans and formerly known as Noble Device Technologies, the company makes shortwave infrared imaging sensors used in night-vision security cameras for surveillance at airports, seaports, border zones, and other settings.

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The recently opened Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, with the highest occupied floor of any building in the world, and more stories than any building in the world. Of course, Dubai declared bankruptcy last year, which makes this grand opening look less like an accomplishment, and more like an awkward answer to the question: Where did all the money go?

In any case, it’s very tall. If you had stacked the WTC twin towers on top of each other, they would have reached only 13 feet higher than the Dubai tower.

This graph from the New York Times is pretty stunning:

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Sabemos que muchos de nuestros lectores tienen alguna inclinación al diseño, un campo más que apasionante en la industria del automóvil. Esta vez, Daimler AG les da la oportunidad a todos aquellos que quieran participar en el concurso de personalización, Style Your Smart, una iniciativa creada para recibir nuevas ideas de aficionados. ¿Cómo diseñarías al Smart ForTwo?

Según el jefe de la marca Smart y director de ventas y comercialización, Marc Langenbrinck, Style Your Smart es una manera de que los clientes y fanáticos del pequeño coche se expresen, al márgen de los accesorios oficiales de la marca para personalizar sus coches.

Ante todo, decir que la idea se basa en la plataforma 2.0 Business Innovation Community, una herramienta de intranet usada por el personal y empleados de la marca para intercambiar ideas, discutirlas y ejecutarlas.

La mecánica del concurso se ejecutará de una manera similar: entrando a la página Style Your Smart, tendremos bastantes herramientas para trabajar sobre “nuestro” Smart personalizado. El sitio ofrecerá una amplia variedad de colores y formas para personalización. Pero si quieres ir más allá, se puede hacer un rediseño completo, se puede echar un vistazo a los diseños de otros concursantes, comentarlas e incluso darles una puntuación. Alrrededor de la idea del concurso también se quiere formar una comunidad social en torno al modelo.

Tienes hasta el 23 de febrero para poner en línea tu trabajo. De acuerdo a las puntuaciones otorgadas por la comunidad, un jurado de expertos dictaminará cual es el mejor diseño, que será premiado con 5.000 Euros en premios. El ganador (o ganadores) serán anunciados el 26 de febrero y absolutamente todos pueden participar.

Fuente | Daimler Media

Más información | Style Your Smart

The death penalty has lost its last intellectual underpinning.

This fall, the American Law Institute voted to abandon its long-held support for the death penalty, sending yet another signal that the death penalty in the United States is dying. The ALI’s work provides a critical framework for all kinds of state laws and its support for the death penalty has long been central to the maintenance of capital punishment in the states.

The organization, compromised of 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors, voted back in October to transform its death penalty policy. I completely missed the story at the time, but Adam Liptak spread the word in a column in today’s New York Times that quickly circled the web yesterday.

“The ALI is important on a lot of topics,” Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring told Liptak. “They were absolutely singular on (capital punishment) because they were the only intellectually respectable support for the death penalty system in the United States.”

In explaining its decision, the ALI cited many arguments from the movement to abolish the death penalty — racial disparities, uncontrollable costs, inadequate defense and the chance of executing innocent people. When the group first approved standards for death penalty statutes in 1962, the practice was untested in the modern legal framework of the United States. Three decades of cases have revealed structual unfairness and attempts to address the imbalances have failed. A preliminary report from the organization said the recommended death penalty statutes have “not withstood the test of time and experience.”

(more…)

Uma nova versão do WordPress está disponível corrigindo alguns erros de menor significância como o agendamento de posts e pingbacks que falhava em alguns servidores devido a incompatibilidades.

O WordPress 2.9.1 pode ser actualizado automaticamente através do painel de controlo em Tools > Upgrade.

Pode ver aqui o anúncio oficial do lançamento desta versão do blogging system.

WebTuga – WordPress 2.9.1

Remember back when all your friends were buying apartment or houses and kidding themselves that it was an “investment?”

During the boom, it wasn’t infrequent for people to buy places smaller than the apartment they had been renting. Worse, they often wound up paying more in mortgage payments than they had in rent. Why pay more for less? The answer always was something about how owning your a place of your own was an “investment.”

Well, for many Americans it turned out to be a pretty damned lousy investment. Now Karen Pence, who runs the household and real estate finance research group, has been explaining to the meeting of the American Economic Association that this wasn’t just a fluke of the housing boom and bust. Buying a home is usually a lousy investment.

Here are her five reasons:

1. It is an indivisible asset. If you own stocks and bonds and suddenly need a little cash, you can sell some of your stocks or bonds but not all. With a home, on the other hand, “you can’t just slice off your bathroom and sell it on the market.”

2. It is undiversified. You can buy stocks or bonds in industries or countries all over the world. A home is a bet on one single neighborhood.

3. Transaction costs are very high when you buy or sell a home because of real estate agent fees, mortgage fees and moving costs.

4. It is asymmetrically liquid, meaning it’s easy to get money out when home prices are going up. (You just take out a bigger mortgage.) But it’s hard to take money out when prices are going down because refinancing becomes more difficult. Put another way, the leverage that you have in your house with a large mortgage means your investment does well in good times but could be lousy in bad times.

5. It is highly correlated to the job market, meaning that home prices in a neighborhood tend to rise when the job market is improving in the area and fall when the job market is worsening. This means that your main financial asset provides the smallest cushion to you when you might need it most.

That doesn’t mean you should never buy. Under the right circumstances, buying a home can make perfect sense. But don’t count on it as an “investment,” especially if you might need to access the money you locked up in the house at any particular point in time. On the short term, that money might not be readily available when you need it. And in the long term, for instance upon retirement, you might also find a bear market for homes.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Why Pending Home Sales Are A Bigger Disaster Than You Realize
• Home Sweet Rental: The American Dream Is A Bunch Of Baloney
• At Least 8 Government Programs Are Distorting Home Prices

Fresh on the triumph of getting Doom and Quake working and playable, the webOS Internals team is working on getting an entire existing game environment running on the Pre: ScummVM.

For those that aren’t familiar with it, ScummVM is a multi-platform virtual machine for games developed using LucasArts’ SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion), and includes classic Lucasfilm games like Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit the Road as well as games from Activision, Adventuresoft, SierraAGI (Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards!) Humongous Entertainment (the Freddi Fish series) and many more. (The complete current ScummVM compatibility list is here.)

More details – and a video – after the break!

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Microsoft has revealed prices for the various Office 2010 SKUs that it announced back in July 2009. The company also confirmed the existence of the Office Professional Academic 2010 edition, which we first got word of last month after the retail box art for four SKUs leaked to the Web. Now these four have received US retail price tags, which we’ve outlined in the following chart:

Microsoft also confirmed that the Office Home and Student boxed product is available in a Family Pack, which allows usage of up to three PCs. When comparing the boxed price to the key card price, keep in mind that purchase rights for Office Home and Business, Office Professional, and Office Professional Academic boxed products allow for usage on two of your PCs while the Product Key Card is valid for only a single installation of the product.

The Product Key Card, first announced in October 2009, will only be available for purchase via major OEMs and electronic retail outlets. The Product Key Card is a single-license card with a key that lets users unlock Office 2010 software preloaded by the PC manufacturers. It doesn’t have a DVD inside, making it more environmentally friendly, since it is smaller than the full package DVD product. Some readers will notice that at least one other SKU is missing from the list: Office Starter 2010, which was announced at the same time as the Product Key Card. The reduced-functionality and ad-supported version includes only Word and Excel and is meant to be a replacement for Microsoft Works, so it’s only available on new PCs sold by OEMs.

Microsoft also took the time today to note that in just seven weeks, more than two million people around the world have downloaded and are using the Office 2010 beta and that “9 out of 10 beta users feel that the Office 2010 beta is an improvement over their current productivity suite.” Microsoft unleashed the beta in November 2009, emphasizing that it is set to expire on October 31, 2010. That should give users plenty of time to move to the final version, which is slated for a June 2010 release.

What is a “Brief” post?”

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One of Jack Valenti’s final battles while still in charge of the MPAA was his silly, misguided war on DVD screeners. Screeners are copies of the movie (on DVD, obviously) that are sent out to people to view (to “screen”) for awards shows and the like. Valenti freaked out that since these screeners went out before the official DVDs were out, they would lead to people uploading them online, creating a piracy problem. Of course, that assumed two incorrect things: that those movies weren’t already online and that adding one more copy would create any sort of “problem.” Valenti lost his initial battle to forbid studios from sending out DVD screeners, but what came next were a series of convoluted attempts to stop “piracy” via the screeners — including sending DVDs that could only play in special players. Two years ago, studios finally realized how ridiculous and cumbersome this process was, so it dropped the special DVD player requirement, and instead went with a watermarking option. But that’s crazy expensive. Each DVD screener now needs to be individually watermarked and tracked.

Given that, it seems that some studios are simply deciding not to support certain movies for the Academy Awards. johnjac points us to the news that folks involved with the movie Moon are pissed off that Sony won’t send out DVD screeners for the movie, as they were hoping that actor Sam Rockwell might get an Oscar nod for his part in the movie. Sony claims that it’s just too expensive to do the watermarking.

It’s really no surprise that this comes from Sony Pictures, whose CEO, Michael Lynton, is on record as saying that nothing good has come from the internet, and then when questioned on that statement, stands by it. So I guess that Lynton doesn’t use the internet, or he would know, as pointed out in the Slashfilm link above, that perfectly good copies of the movie — sans watermark — are already widely available for download. In other words, there’s no reason whatsoever to waste money watermarking the DVDs. It won’t make a difference. Yet, because of Lynton and his crew’s misguided fears, Sony Pictures won’t support this particular movie.

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Over the past several months, there have been numerous news stories about the government developing new methods of forcing people and corporations to pay taxes the way the government thinks they ought to be. We’re hearing about Washington cracking down on tax havens and looking harder at how wealthy Americans pay their taxes. Just yesterday I wrote about how the IRS is making sure tax preparers aren’t shady. Now, the New York Times reports that multinationals’ taxes are being more closely scrutinized.

Why all the additional oversight? Because the Uncle Sam needs the money: when wealth is destroyed in a nasty recession, so is potential tax revenue. But given the economic turmoil, the government knows it can’t raise taxes. But when you think about it, is there really any difference between collecting more taxes by: a) forcing people more closely follow the rules and b) just increasing tax rates?

First, a disclaimer: I wholeheartedly believe that individuals and firms should be following all tax laws prescribed, not only technically, but even in spirit. I’m an advocate for a much smaller government, and consequently much lower taxes, but I believe that the way to do that is through legislation — not trying to scam the system. So anyone wanting to pay less in taxes should be lobbying having a talk with lawmakers, not searching for tax loopholes that they can just barely contort their way through.

So I don’t mean to look like I hold a lot of sympathy with would-be tax evaders. I don’t. I think they should pay what they owe. But I also think timing matters.

For example, let’s consider a section from the NY Times piece that I noted above. It says:

Companies like Microsoft and Google have long pushed their effective tax rates down by moving functions to lower-rate jurisdictions like Ireland, which has a low tax rate on royalty income — as low as zero — and a 12.5 percent corporate tax rate, against the 35 percent rate in the United States.

Now, it just so happens that I believe that this shouldn’t be a considered loophole, but that the tax code should clearly state that multinationals can qualify for foreign earnings to be subject to the tax rates which apply in the nations where the business takes place. But let’s pretend for a minute that this was a true loophole. Imagine if U.S. multinationals were taking advantage of the system and paying only 12.5% when they should be paying 35%. In whole numbers, if a company should be paying $35,000, it’s instead only paying $12,500.

If you close the loophole, then aren’t you just effectively raising taxes on these corporations or individuals? Of course you are. The difference is entirely semantic. At the end of the day, taking $22,500 more in taxes is what actually occurs, whether you call that a “tax increase” or “better oversight.”

As a result, even though the government’s heart is sort of in the right place in forcing people and corporations to pay what they really owe, the effect would still be just as negative on the economy as if it simply instituted an across-the-board tax increase to produce the same amount of revenue. As anyone who knows some basic economics can tell you, during a recession, or in the very early stages of recovery, a government isn’t wise to raise taxes. And by increasing oversight, that’s just what it’s doing — even if it sounds good to honest taxpayers. Tax evaders should get theirs, but justice could stand to be delayed for a year or two for the sake of everyone else.

Adapted from “When Umbrella Agreements Spring Leaks,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

This past November, in an unusual move, Costco, the largest wholesale club in the United States, removed Coca-Cola products from its shelves and posted messages telling shoppers that Coke products would not be available until the company lowered its prices. Coke products returned to Costco shelves within a few weeks, but the dispute shed light on the dog-eat-dog nature of price negotiations between manufacturers and retailers.

Negotiators tend to want the best of both worlds. When reaching agreement, they want to nail down parties’ respective rights and responsibilities, but they also want to retain the flexibility to deal with ever-changing business conditions.

One solution to this apparent dilemma is to craft umbrella, or framework, agreements. (The term umbrella is more commonly used in the business world, while framework is more widely used in legal and diplomatic circles.) Such agreements set out general principles that will apply to more specific give-and-take contracts in the future. An umbrella agreement between a soft-drink company such as Coca-Cola and a retailer such as Costco, for example, would typically cover issues such as exclusivity, invoicing, confidentiality, and termination. Subsequent short-term contracts would set prices and promotional allowances for specific products.

In theory, working on these two different levels benefits everyone, as it allows customers and suppliers to create stable relationships even when market changes are largely unpredictable. However, marketing lecturer Stefanos Mouzas at the University of Bath’s School of Management, in England, cautions that the stronger party may be able to increase his advantage by insisting on favorable terms in the umbrella agreement that limit the other side’s ability to win when the parties subsequently try to hammer out dollars-and-cents deals. For example, suppliers often complain that they are held hostage by the general terms imposed by “big box” stores like Wal-Mart. Then again, some retailers grumble about manufacturers whose attitude seems to be “My way or the highway.”

Mouzas concludes that the virtue of umbrella agreements is that they give parties room to adapt to changing business conditions. When such contracts are one-sided, however, they can tilt the bargaining table in future negotiations and even lead to public disputes.

The Nexus One, the Google Phone, is really here. And everything you need to know about it? Right here.

What Is It?

It’s the latest, maybe greatest, Android phone. Google calls it a “superphone” that’s an “exemplar” of what you can do with Android. It was designed by Google and HTC, who designed the G1 and the Ion.

How Much Does It Cost and Where/When Can I Buy It?

At Google’s new web store, where you can shop for Android phones and do live demos of them over the internets to see if you like it. You need a regular Google account and a Google Checkout one to actually buy the phone.

You can buy it today on T-Mobile for $180 with a new 2-year contract. Or you can buy it unlocked, without any service, for $530. Shipping’s free.

Also, from the official pricing FAQ, if you’re an existing T-Mobile customer, who’s adding a data plan, it’ll run you $279. If you’re upgrading a data plan, it’s $379.

The standard plan T-Mobile is offering for $80 a month includes 500 voice minutes, unlimited messaging (SMS and MMS) and unlimited internet.

UPDATE: Reader Ryan points out that if you buy an unlocked Nexus One, you should be able to sign up for a non-contract “Even More Plus” plan from T-Mobile. This offers the same 500 voice minutes, unlimited messaging and unlimited internet as the above contract plan, saving you about $150 in the 24 month long haul.

Oh, and you can get it custom engraved.

It’s Coming to Verizon in a Few Months

Verizon’s getting it in 2010, though we don’t know for how much yet. (Probably $200.)

The web store is launching today in the US, and will be shipping to test markets: UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. The Nexus One is just the first phone Google’s selling with this new model, with more phones, operators and countries coming in the future.

Will It Work on AT&T?

Yes, but you won’t get 3G, because it only supports the bands for T-Mobile’s 3G in the US: UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900) and GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz).

What’s Inside?

A really fast 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, with a 3.7-inch, 480×800 AMOLED screen. The camera’s 5 megapixels with an LED flash—it also shoots MPEG-4 video with one-click YouTube upload, which should be quick over its wireless N Wi-Fi. The trackball’s got a multicolor LED for different notifications, and of course it’s got a compass, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack, two mics for “active noise suppression,” light and proximity sensors, and an accelerometer onboard. It’s got a 1400mAH battery, from which they promise 5 hours of 3G browsing and 7 hours of 3G talk time. Oh, it’s skinnier than a #2 pencil.

And did we mention Android 2.1? And Flash 10.1?

What’s Android 2.1?

It’s basically a much sexier, more polished Android 2.0, which is on the Droid. We’ve got a visual guide to Android 2.1, but some highlights: You have things like five screens for homescreen panels and Live Wallpapers, which are basically backgrounds you can interact with. There’s a revamped 3D photogallery, which pulls visual tricks like having photos zoom out when you tap an album, and load on a 3D plane when you move the phone around. And, galleries are now background-synced to Picasa.

Voice is even huger: Every text field is voice enabled, so you basically never have to type anything. Voice might turn out to be the biggest thing in Android 2.1, actually. Well, besides the fact you’ll soon be able to install apps to the SD card, at last freeing Android of the internal ROM app limit.

There’s also a new 3D framework that lets it do those fancy things like those interactive backgrounds, a new whizbang 3D photogallery app, and a refreshed, zoomier app launcher. And, we’d guess, better graphics in games. Explains a lot of the zippier, lag-free performance we noticed in our hands on, too.

Is There Multitouch in Google Apps, Since There’s No Keyboard?

No.

What’s It Like?

Like this: “If you want Android phones, this is the one to get.”

Making a delicious vegan tofu pasta salad is so simple. Start with any pasta.  I prefer whole wheat in a curly cue shape, but you can make this dish with pretty much any pasta noodles you like.

1. Boil the pasta following the instruction on the package.  Be sure to use enough water and stir the pasta occasionally as it boils.

2. When the pasta has boiled for long enough, strain out the water with a colander in the sink.

3. Now put the strained pasta in a big bowl, toss in extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.  You can add more to the dressing, such as red wine or balsamic vinegar.

4. Refrigerate the pasta.  When it is cool toss in some of the great ingredients listed below for a nutritious dish.

Baked tofu.  Cut the tofu into small cubes.  Baked tofu comes in a wide varitey of brands and flavors.  I don’t think I have ever tried one that I didn’t like.  My current favorite is the Teriyaki baked tofu form the San Diego Soy Dairy.  Tofu is excellent for adding protein to this salad.

Tomatoes.  This really only works with cherry tomatoes, as regular tomatoes fall apart when you cut them up and mix them in.

Broccoli.  Little florets add a lot of vitamins and flavor to the salad.  A bit tough to pick out, and some don’t like this, so keep on the side if you might serve this to those who don’t appreciate broccoli.

Parsley.  Dice up a little and add it to the salad, parsley gives everything a fresh green flavor.

Olives.  When possible I prefer pitted Kalamata olives, but all olives are good.  I’ll even use diced black olives from a can if I don’t have anything in a jar or fresh from an “olive bar”.

Pickles.  Cut into little pieces.  I used to be a huge fan of the pickles sold chilled in jars, but lately I’ve been slumming it with jars of “pickle chips” (not sold chilled) like you would put on a veggie burger.  Either would work just fine.  You could even add both types of pickles.

Frozen peas.  Is it just me, or do the frozen peas totally make a noodle salad?  Sure, you could eat it without the peas, but why?

Chickpeas or garbanzo beans.  Adds a nice texture along with a good dose of protein.

Three bean salad.  Just delicious when added to this dish.  I probably wouldn’t do this and also the chickpeas, as three bean salad usually has chickpeas in it.

Chow mein noodles.  This adds such a wonderful crunch.  These must be served on the side, because if you mix them right into the salad the chow mein noodles will get soggy and loose all their crunch.

Jalapeno or pepperoncini peppers.  Just to state the obvious, only add these spicy little guys if you want things hot.  These are something else you might want to keep on the side.

More noodles.  Sounds weird, but try adding even more pasta with a different shape and flavor.  For example, if you are using a bag of whole wheat curly cue shaped pasta for the base, why not try a half bag of rice wagon wheels to add a contrasting noodle.

. . . and anything else you like.  Almost any fresh or cooked vegetable or fruit (celery, peppers, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, blueberries, sun dried tomatoes, etc) could be added to this salad!

So there you have it, easy as pie!  This is a nice dish to make for a potluck, picnic, or to have for lunch all week long if you make a big batch on a Sunday evening.

Please check out more great resources for Vegans I have at my website, www. VeganUSofA. com.

For great info on vegan vitamins, vegetarian supplements and nutrition, visit www.vegetarianvitaminsguide.com today!

Vegan Dessert Cookbook ~ Pie Brownies Dairy-free Ices

US $11.25 End Date: Friday Jan-08-2010 16:29:10 PST Buy It Now for only: US $11.25 Buy it now | Add to watch list

How to make a Delicious and Easy Vegan Tofu Pasta Salad is a post from the Vegetarian Vitamins Guide blog where you can find suggestions and advice from vegetarians and vegans on vegetarian diets, supplements, vitamins and overall nutrition.

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