The next generation Nissan Micra, or, if we are to trust rumors which say this will be the Japanese carmaker’s future "global compact car," has been caught testing, from a distance (and with a shaky hand, apparently), prior to its presumed unveiling in March this year.
The limited information available on the Micra hint to the car being built on a new platform, dubbed V, which will also be used as the basis for a small MPV and a compact sedan. According to a report by A… (read more)
Opera Software hasn’t exactly been flying high lately so the latest shakeup of the company’s management structure may prove to be just what it needed. Cofounder and CEO for the past 15 years at the Norwegian company, Jon von Tetzchner, is stepping down from his position and is being replaced by Lars Boilesen, the company’s chief commercial officer (CCO) so far, with quite a few years at Opera as well.
“Lars Boilesen brings both a very significant industry experience and a deep understanding of Opera to the role as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. In short, Opera’s spirit runs through his veins,” Jon von Tetzchner, the company’s former CEO said in a statement.
“My decision to assume a new role in Opera is based on a lengthy consideration process. As outgoing Chief Executive, I leave confident in the company’s continued leadership in key markets, our strong management team, our ongoing commitment to innovation, and our robust financial foundation,” he added.
Boilesen started working at Opera in 2000 and he served as the company’s Executive VP of Sales until 2005, when the company saw a great shift from being just a browser maker to a web browsing technology provider, offering tools and services to a big number of mobile devices, as well as consumer electronics devices.
He left Op… (read more)
Google has measures in place to ensure that legitimate blogs can’t get mistakenly taken offline as spam, but they’re apparently not enough to prevent certain Blogger sites from being caught in the crossfire. The recent plight of one blogger who had his blog unceremoniously removed after being reported for spam has brought this issue to light, though Google promises that further measures are about to be in place that will help mitigate it.
Blogger user John Hempton wrote an essay on January 2 about Astarra Strategic Fund, a fund management group that Hempton believes is fraudulent. In the post, he explained how Astarra fits into the Australian privatized social security system, noting that he sent a letter to authorities to voice his concerns that eventually got him into the newspapers. One day later, Hempton’s entire blog was no longer available on Blogger, with a note on his end from Google saying that the “spam prevention robots” had detected his blog as spam.
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I started my research career in what may have been the first and only age of science journalism. Newspapers were big and growing, and many had dedicated science sections; magazines like Scientific American and Science News appeared to be flourishing. But, even before I finished my PhD, our technician showed me a sign of things to come: a program called Mosaic that could let you go straight to weather satellite images without waiting for the five o’clock news. Fast-forward to the present day, and the newspaper business is collapsing, taking its science coverage with it, while scientists talk directly to the public through blogs and tweets. Despite all the changes, one thing has remained largely constant: the US public continues to suffer from serious scientific illiteracy.
Will the Web ultimately provide a killing blow or the resurrection of science journalism? I’ll be given the opportunity to pontificate on that topic at this year’s Science Online conference in North Carolina, where I’ll be taking part in a panel discussion with Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, and David Dobbs. All of them have experience with both traditional journalism and new media, and should do a better job of providing perspective on some of the changes than I can.
But from my outsider’s perspective, it looks like newspapers will struggle to find their footing and, even if they do, they’re unlikely to have the resources to return to the golden era of science coverage. What I do expect I’ll do is talk a bit about our experiences with science coverage, and the opportunities and limitations of how things work here, and what they might say about online science reporting in general. To make some of this concrete: providing science coverage at a technology site provides a function similar to coverage in a newspaper: it puts science in front of people who might not otherwise bother to hunt down a dedicated science blog. But we’re doing that without the sorts of resources that a newspaper might have. In their better years, newspapers could afford to ship someone to the Arctic to cover polar researchers in their natural habitat.
I certainly don’t want to be completely Ars-centric, though; I expect I may also wind up discussing some of the material we’ve covered at Ars, such as the role of press releases and press release aggregators, and the potential of open-access science. You might also want to visit the blogs of the other panelists, as they’ve been considering some issues they feel might be worth discussing, as well.
In any case, I’d also like to offer our readers the opportunity to have some say about the discussion: what questions do you think need to be discussed, or what issues do you feel should be highlighted during the panel? (The plan is to record the session and post video, so you should have the chance to actually see some of the answers if your pet issues get discussed).
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Former Renault boss Flavio Briatore has won his legal case against the International Automobile Federation (FIA), the Reuters news agency reported a few minutes ago. The Italian boss contested the definitive ban imposed by the ruling body for his alleged involvement in the greatest race-fixing scandal in the history of Formula One, also known as the crash-gate.
The 59-year old launched his legal case ahead of the Paris’ Tribunal de Grande Instance in late November. When appearing … (read more)
Lois Lee, MD, MPH works in Children’s Emergency Department Injury Prevention Program
Having grown up in Florida, I never 
understood the appeal of winter sports until my son took up skiing. Now, to keep him and his sister active in the winter, we enjoy skiing, sledding and ice skating. These are great family activities, but they do carry some risk. Read on for safety tips to keep healthy while having fun in the cold!
Head injury
Children and adults are at risk for head injuries when participating in winter sports, either from running into another person or into a stationary object like a tree. Research has shown that wearing sports helmets can decrease brain injury risk. If you or your child has a head injury when skiing, snowboarding, sledding, snow tubing or skating, you should contact your doctor or be seen in the Emergency Department if any of the following symptoms are present:
Cold weather injury/hypothermia prevention
It’s important to wear appropriate clothing and to dress in layers to stay not only warm, but also dry. Check in often with your children to make sure they aren’t wet, cold or shivering. Make sure they stay away from lakes or ponds, which may appear frozen on the surface, but may not be strong enough to support even a child’s weight.
How do you keep your children both active and safe during the winter months?
If ESPN, Discovery, Imax, and Sony have it their way, 3D television may actually go from novelty to reality in 2011. I can’t wait for the sensory overload of white sharks trying to eat the pants out of me.
scovery, Imax, and Sony are expected to announce the channel—which will feature a mix of 3D content starting in 2011—at CES. It will be 24 hours, which make it different from the ESPN 3D network, which will only operate when they have any sports event filmed in 3D. [NYT and The Live Feed]
Steve Ballmer will be delivering the CES keynote tomorrow. While the company has had much success in 2009, principally with Windows 7, Bing, the X-box 360 and Microsoft Sync, the loss of market share by Windows Mobile has had many calling for the head of Steve Ballmer.
CES 2010 will start on 7th of January 2010 and lasts until 10th. Many are expecting news regarding Windows Mobile 7 to be announced there. More likely however is news about an update to Windows Mobile 6.5, with a version designed for capacitive screens.
Additional areas where useful announcements could be made for Windows Mobile would be announcements regarding services to Windows Mobile, such as better integration with Microsoft’s other properties such as Xbox Live and Zune, or improvements to existing services such as My Phone.
With much of Microsoft’s public image now riding on how well they do in the mobile sphere we will not be the only one keeping a close eye on Steve Ballmer’s keynote, which will be streamed live here on Wednesday January 6th at 6.30pm PST (2.30 am 7th London time).
What are our readers expecting from CES? Let us know below.
Via i4u.com
theodp writes “A few days ago, the Toronto Star reported that security experts point to ‘Israelification’ as a possible cure for what ails North America’s security-paralyzed airports. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel’s, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience. ‘It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,’ said Rafi Sela, president of a transportation security consultancy. Unless a more sensible approach to security is adopted, Sela warned that North American airports could be crippled by needless airport evacuations. As if to prove his point, Newark Liberty International Airport — which is planning to unleash $160,000 high-tech full-body scanners on travelers to improve security — had to be evacuated Sunday night and flights were grounded after a man walked the wrong way through a screening checkpoint exit to enter the secured side of a terminal. Looks like we may owe Mr. Sela an I-told-you-so on this one.”
I had seen the Toronto Star article when it came out, and it’s definitely worth reading. It does appear that the Israelis are a lot more focused on security that works, rather than security theater — though I don’t think any security system is foolproof. I do think that there’s a lot to what Sela says at the end of the article as to why the TSA hasn’t followed Israel’s lead:
“We have a saying in Hebrew that it’s much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it’s dark over there. That’s exactly how (North American airport security officials) act,” Sela said. “You can easily do what we do. You don’t have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept.”
As for the question on “full body scans,” while not mentioned in the article, it’s worth noting that Israeli airport security apparently doesn’t use such machines either. I saw an interview recently with an Israeli security expert, who said that using such machines (the ones that allow screeners to effectively see travelers naked) would create a much bigger mess, as traditional and religious men would become incredibly offended at screeners seeing their wives naked.
The key difference in the two systems is that the US (and most others) seem intent on scanning what you’re bringing on the plane. The Israelis are a lot more interested in who you are and how you act.
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Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber is the latest celebrity to bite the Big One on the Interwebs. Teeners across the Globe rose Tuesday morning to find the World Wide Web atwitter with rumors that the “My World” star, 15, committed suicide at his home late Monday evening.
Could it be? Is Justin Bieber dead?
Don’t have a cow, ladies: MTV News snoops have done some investigating and assure us that the bright-eyed singing sensation is alive, well, and looking forward to having the cast taken off his fractured foot in the next few weeks.
You’re nobody ’till somebody kills you on the Internet!
Sony Europe has stated that the latest A-Series Walkman, the NWZ-A845, will be coming to the continent in February. The new A845 is part of a larger NW-A840 series, which initially had a Japan-only debut in late 2009 and has been available there in black and brown and up to 64GB. Unfortunately, it seems that Sony Europe is going to offer only the 16GB model in black, which is odd because I thought they would surely hit the market with a large capacity player – at least 32GB.
UPDATE: It appears that the Asia Pacific region is going to get the 16GB and 32GB Sony A840 series Walkman in February as well.
We have some doubt that the A-Series will show up at CES 2010, but then again the S745 is selling unannounced by Sony Canada so anything is possible.
The reason why I say this is according to one of my contacts, Sony had this set for a CES reveal but I think that the American MP3 player market is too volatile and Sony may not have wanted to make the gamble. This is why we might be seeing region-specific launches. The latest A-Series Walkman is absent from some more recent Sony CES documents I’ve witnessed. So my contact and I are literally betting a beer as to if it is going to launch at CES or not.
If you have forgotten, this simply is the most brilliant Walkman offering from Sony to date – it has all of the features people have been asking for in previous Walkmans while shedding what it needed to. In my opinion, this is the most stylish appearance I’ve seen in a personal media player – and it has a jaw-dropping 2.8 inch WQVGA OLED screen. This is also the thinnest Walkman ever created at only 7.2mm. Sony has also finally come to the table with a better assortment of capacities – with the NW-A845 (16GB, Y24,000), NW-A846 (32GB, Y30,000), and NW-A847 (64GB, Y40,000) all due on October 31st. What’s also new for the first time is a TV-out function, that can output at 720×480 (SD) quality.
We have further pictures and a video of the A840 series in our original exclusive, “Sony’s Gorgeous New A-Series Walkman Features OLED, Up To 64GB Capacity.”
Since 2007, the consensus of the economic establishment—bankers, policymakers, CEOs, stock analysts, pundits—has been catastrophically wrong. They didn’t see the economic storm clouds gathering. When the raindrops began to fall, they failed to forecast the deluge. As a result, throughout 2008, executives, investors, and consumers chased the economy down—cutting back after things unexpectedly got worse; cutting back again when the roof fell in.
The Great Panic of 2008 may have destroyed blind optimism. But if excessive optimism was the near-fatal pose in 2008, blind pessimism has emerged as the reflexive post-bust crouch…
Virtually all the market geniuses who hung on as the Dow was scythed in half between October 2007 and March 2009 failed to call the market turn. Most hedge-fund managers have chased the 60 percent rally since March, not led it. Economic forecasters similarly missed the dramatic turn in the overall economy this spring. Having failed to forecast that the economy would shrink at a 6 percent annual rate through the first quarter of 2009, economists also failed to project it would start growing again at a decent pace in June. And they’re still behind the curve. My bold prediction for 2010 is that the consensus of the forecasters surveyed by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, which projects the economy will grow only 2.4 percent in 2010, is too pessimistic, perhaps by half.
Read the whole thing at Slate >
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That was the question that Tyler Cowen posed to Moodys’ chief economist Mark Zandi in an interview posted last week for the Big Think’s “What Went Wrong” series. If you follow my writing, then you know that I would love to see investors rid themselves of their dependence on the rating agencies. Since Zandi works for Moodys, I was very interested to hear his response. I don’t entirely agree.
First, let me say that I really like Zandi. I’ve talked to him a few times for articles, and he’s good at what he does, a nice guy and quite smart. He’s also one of those rare people who prefers to get things right, rather than bend himself into pretzels to fit into some political ideology. So I don’t think he’s just speaking the company line here, but expect that he really believes what he’s saying. Still, I disagree. He replies:
I think there’s a function for rating agencies because in a sense, there is a lot of despaired information and bringing it altogether is very costly and doing good analysis is difficult and you need scale to do it. Some bond houses are gaining that scale and doing that on their own. There’s the PIMCO’s of the world and other big bond houses that have the skill necessary to put together the staff to do the kind of analysis that needs to get done. But many other investors don’t have that scale and the rating agencies, in a sense, provide that for them. And so, there are scale economies in that kind of analysis and in a sense the rating agencies provide that.
Also, there’s a lot more esoteric kinds of bonds and securities that are issued and it always will makes sense to have, I think, something like a rating agency providing an opinion as to the quality of that particular bond or that security. So, I think there’s an economic reason for rating agencies, so I think they will always be around, obviously the role is going to change as a result of events, but I think there will always be a role for them.
I see things differently for two reasons.
First, how about the stock market? There’s plenty of information to analyze when evaluating a stock, but investors do that without an over-reliance on rating agencies. For that matter, banks and investment houses could develop fixed income research teams for bonds that serve a purpose similar to the equity research groups that exist today to look at stocks. That would provide a diverse spectrum of ideas, rather than a government-sponsored oligopoly of agencies charged with this task.
Second, maybe it’s good that full analyses of complex bonds are costly. I don’t know about you, but I think that there were entirely too many mortgage-backed securities in the market during the housing boom. Maybe if investors had to bear the cost involved with doing the analysis themselves, they would have been a little less eager to scoop up those bonds. Maybe then, demand for MBS would have been more restrained. Consequently, there would have been far fewer mortgage originations. The housing bubble might not have been nearly as severe, and we would have saved ourselves from a lot of trouble.
The point is that complex securities should be costly. When a market has a staggering demand for complexity, then there’s probably a market failure lurking in the shadows, particularly when investors aren’t doing the work. By having a few rating agencies that claim to understand these puzzling products, and the market accepting their declarations as gospel, investors will fail to assign the right cost to abstruse bonds. I think the market would ultimately benefit from a complexity premium.
ENVIAR
IMPRIMIR
http://www.nacion.com
TAMAÑO
Las multinacionales que llegaron y las ya instaladas en el país crearon unos 5.500 nuevos puestos de trabajo e invirtieron al menos $300 millones durante el 2009.
MÁS SOBRE ESTE TEMA
* Vaticinamos año similar al 2009
* Cinde prevé lenta mejora de sector manufactura
Gabriela Llobet, directora de la Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas de Desarrollo (Cinde), afirmó que con esas cifras se cumplió la meta planteada por la organización a inicios del año pasado.
Los números son inferiores en $128 millones y en 800 empleos a los de 2008, pero Llobet aseguró que, pese a la crisis y la recesión, el 2009 no fue nada malo.
Dijimos que tendríamos metas más conservadoras y las cumpliremos. Estamos acostumbrados a medir el éxito en montos de inversión extranjera directa, pero a la hora de la hora lo que deja es el empleo, dijo Llobet.
Con las nuevas plazas, abiertas fundamentalmente en firmas médicas y de servicios, las más de 170 transnacionales radicadas aquí por medio de Cinde cuentan con casi 50.000 empleados.
La cifra sería mayor, pero por la crisis se perdieron casi 1.000 puestos en empresas de manufactura avanzada, que incluyen a las que fabrican componentes electrónicos y automotrices.
Por ejemplo, en mayo la alemana Continental congeló operaciones sin haber comenzado a producir piezas para los autos de la marca Chrysler. La decisión dejó vacantes a 80 personas.
Si nos comparamos con países competidores donde sí hubo cierres, aquí no fue tan duro, incluso Firestone Industrial Products abrió una nueva planta en Turrialba, agregó la funcionaria.
Dinámicas. Las empresas que más arribaron y reinvirtieron aquí en el 2008 son las de manufactura de dispositivos médicos y de servicios.
Entre las de salud se establecieron: St. Jude Medical, BeamOne, Precision Wire Components, Atek Medical y Moog. En servicios llegaron Arcus, Ace Global, Star Tek, Tierra Verde y Motif. Además, Schematic, Oracle, IBM, Amazon y HP se expandieron. También la firma de implementos médicos Baxter trajo aquí sus operaciones financieras para Latinoamérica.
En ambos sectores continúa el dinamismo, señaló Llobet.
La directora de Cinde añadió que las empresas de implementos médicos son antirrecesión porque la atención de la salud difícilmente se pospone. Además, la cercanía con EE. UU. también propició el ingreso de firmas de servicios que, ante la complicada situación financiera, hallaron aquí una forma de ser eficientes a menor costo.
I just wanted to post this graph, which I found while researching vaccinations.
Antivaxxers: bite me*. We win.
Assisted living has rapidly emerged over the past decade as the long-term care of choice for older Americans, but a Harvard Medical School study reveals that in Massachusetts, this type of housing is far less available than it is nationwide.
The research, published today in the journal Health Affairs, also finds that assisted-living facilities – one of the fastest-growing forms of senior housing because they offer more privacy, freedom, and flexibility than nursing homes – are disproportionately located in more upscale areas…
Read more here (The Boston Globe)
CME Group Inc. will announce earnings for the fourth quarter and full year of 2009 before the financial markets open on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010.
The company has scheduled an investor conference call that day at 7:30 a.m. Central time.
A live audio Webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of the company’s Web site, cmegroup.com.
Following the conference call, an archived recording will be available at the same site.
Those wishing to listen to the live conference via telephone should dial (888) 791-4322 if calling from within the United States or (913) 227-1353 if calling from outside the United States, at least 10 minutes before the call begins.
As the world’s largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage risk.
CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate.
CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago.
CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the largest central counterparty clearing services in the world, which provides clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded contracts, as well as for over-the-counter derivatives transactions through CME ClearPort®.
These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk in both listed and over-the-counter derivatives markets.
The Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, Globex, E-mini and CME ClearPort are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.
CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. NYMEX and New York Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Further information about CME Group (Nasdaq: CME) and its products can be found at cmegroup.com.
Filed under: Car Buying, China, GM
Needless to say, global auto sales were incredibly bad in 2009, with one extremely big exception. The Chinese market boomed thanks to an expanding economy and plenty of government subsidies to keep the country’s fledgling auto industry running strong. Few automakers saw more success in the land of the Great Wall than General Motors, with the automaker and its Chinese partner registered 1.8 million sales – a 67 percent increase over 2008 levels. Sales have been so good that GM China’s sales surpassed those in the US in nine of the first 11 months of the year. The General put an exclamation point on a splendid 2009 with December sales that were up 96.6 percent versus the same month in 2008. If only the General could see that kind of success in the U.S.
As impressive as GM’s Chinese sales were in 2009, the automaker sees bluer skies in 2010. GM China president Kevin Wale said in a statement that the company feels 2010 will be stronger than 2009, adding “the industry outlook is strong, and we expect more growth, albeit on a somewhat slower pace.” That’s great news for GM, especially given the company’s painful struggles in North America and Europe.
While GM is being very thrifty elsewhere in the world the General is spending money and expanding in China. The company opened a laboratory and safety facility in 2009 and it will also open a massive proving ground in the near future.
Gallery: 2010 Chevy Sail
[Source: Detroit News]
Boom Time: GM reports 67% sales increase in China originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, full-time MBA program will host an information session for prospective MBA candidates on Wednesday, Jan 20.
The session will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the James A. Haslam II Business Building, Room 402. Registration will be at 5:45 p.m.
Representatives of this innovative 17-month program will present information on the structure of its integrated, team-based curriculum; the application/admissions process; financial aid; and career opportunities. Admission is free, and pre-registration is not required.
Parking is available in the University Center Parking Garage located on Phillip Fulmer Way. Bring your parking ticket to the information session for validation.
For more information, contact the UT MBA Program Office at 865-974-5033 or at [email protected].
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C O N T A C T :
Cindy Raines (865-974-4359, [email protected])
