Former Formula One manager Flavio Briatore took some time of recently and decided to relax in Malindi, Kenya, alongside his pregnant wife, model Elisabetta Gregoraci. However, paparazzi followed the two even on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya and snapped them while enjoying a nice bathe in the sun.
Among the pictures taken, the Italian millionaire mogul was spotted trying not to fall overboard his private boat, taking a long walk on the beach, as well as showering himself down aft… (read more)
“My name is Steve Kleinedler, supervising editor for the American Heritage Dictionary, where I have worked since 1997. One of my many responsibilities is pronunciation. The tattoo is a stylized version of a phonetic vowel chart — it shows the relative position of the tongue in the mouth when those vowel sounds are articulated. I had a smaller, simpler version done on my upper back in 1993, and I’ve been wanting to get the full version for quite some time.
“The design is by Kyle Nelson of Stoltze Design and the tattoo artist was Mike Helz of Stingray Body Art.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Il y a quelques jours, Toyota annonçait vouloir réduire de 30% à 40% sur 3 ans ses dépenses auprès des fournisseurs sur certaines pièces. Voilà qui n’est pas bon signe pour le géant Japonais, déjà en proie à de gros soucis dans le domaine qualité/fiabilité/sécurité. Côté communication non plus, l’annonce, même si elle est surtout destinée aux marchés financiers, n’est pas habile.
Pourquoi achète-t’on une Toyota? D’abord et avant tout pour la tranquilité, donc pour sa fiabilité. Hors véhicules de niche, sur lesquels la marque est très forte, les citadines, compactes et berlines ne se distinguent pas autrement que sur ce plan. Elle ne sont pas typées, et même souvent très fades esthétiquement, la qualité intérieure est parfois bonne sur les berlines, souvent en dessous de la moyenne sur les voitures plus petites, compactes incluses. Ces voitures ne se distinguent sur aucun point, ni esthétique, ni dynamique, pas plus que sur les innovations, dont on laisse généralement le soin à la concurrence d’essuyer les plâtres avant de les adopter. Bref, l’achat Toyota (hors niches encore une fois), c’est l’achat fiabilité avant tout; « Toyota c’est du costaud ». Sauf que cette réputation est en train de changer, surtout aux Etats-unis, mais il n’est pas exclu du tout que ça arrive en Europe également.
L'auris,ou Corolla suivant les marchés,une bonne voiture,mais banale et qui s'achète surtout pour la tranquilité d'utilisation qu'on en attend
Rien que sur le dernier mois, Toyota s’est fait tirer les oreilles à deux reprises aux Etats-Unis. Et pour des problèmes sérieux. Tout d’abord,la marque a du annoncer le rappel de 110000 pick-up Tundra modèles 2000/2003 dans une vingtaine d’états du nord pour un problème de corrosion. Voilà qui arrive à toutes les marques, mais qui tombe mal quand se présente le problème suivant, bien plus grave celui-là, et qui va coûter des dizaines de millions de dollars à la marque, déjà en proie à des difficultés financières sans précédent. Une étude à en effet montré que 41% des problèmes « d’accélération soudaine » sur des voitures mettaient en cause des Toyota et des Lexus. Cette étude accuse également d’autres constructeurs pour de tels problèmes certes, notamment Ford pour le F150, mais d’une part 41% des problèmes pour 16% de parts de marché, ça fait beaucoup,et d’autre part, le géant japonais a besoin de conserver sa réputation pour vendre, et c’est donc très malvenu pour lui. Rien qu’aux USA, on attribue 19 décès à ce problème pour Toyota, ce qui est plus que pour tous les autres constructeurs réunis.
Il s’agit en fait d’un souci de pédale d’accélérateur qui se coince sous le tapis de sol. Résultat: 4,25 millions de voitures à rappeler dans le monde. Le plus grand rappel ayant existé à ce jour. Encore a-t’il fallu attendre le décès d’une famille de 4 personnes à bord d’une Lexus en Californie pour que ces messieurs, pourtant alertés, se décident à réagir. Manque de chance pour Toyota, un officier de police, en repos mais non moins assermenté, roulait derrière la voiture et a vu ce qui s’était passé.
Sans commentaires sur le travail des ingénieurs et du contrôle qualité…
Si l’affaire passe presque inaperçue en Europe, elle fait beaucoup de bruit aux Etats-Unis. Le Los Angeles Times a ainsi publié une enquête en début de semaine montrant que Toyota, au fait du problème a trainé à faire le nécessaire. Et d’autant plus que le L.A.Times met en lumière d’autres problèmes du même genre, nombreux, pour lesquels Toyota a mis jusqu’à 6 ans à réagir!
Il est aussi vrai que la marque,on le voit par exemple en France, est une de celles qui pratiquent le plus le « rappel caché ». Un problème? On ne fait pas d’action officielle mais on intervient lorsque le client vient pour une révision, sans le lui dire bien entendu. Ceci dit, même dans nos contrées, les rappels officiels et signalements de soucis de fiabilité se multiplient pour la marque. Alors évidemment, pas dans des proportions graves, mais suffisamment pour Toyota cesse quelque peu de se distinguer pour sa fiabilité.
Tableau de bord de la Prius 2,grosse amélioration par rapport à la première,mais encore en-dessous de la moyenne côté matériaux et assemblages.Il en va de même dans les Yaris.C'est très "léger" dans l'IQ,quant-à l'Auris,elle est même en nette regression par rapport à sa devancière…La qualité perçue n'est clairement pas une priorité chez Toyota.
Hors, et c’est bien là le souci, si toyota ne se distinguait plus pour sa fiabilité, pourquoi alors se distinguerait-elle? Il ne s’agit pas de dire que les Toyota sont de mauvaises voitures, loin s’en faut, mais que simplement elles ne sortent guère du lot sur d’autres plans. Il va être compliqué dans ces conditions de conserver la première place mondiale, ou même le podium, à moins de rectifier le tir rapidement.
Et c’est mal parti! Toyota vient en effet d’annoncer vouloir couper ses dépenses d’approvisionnement chez les sous-traitants de 30% à 40% sur les 3 prochaines années, pour 200 pièces des modèles à sortir. Une annonce probablement destinée à rassurer les marchés et les actionnaires, le groupe étant en effet aux prises avec des pertes abyssales,les premières de son histoire. A la place de ces actionnaires, je ne le serai pas, moi, rassuré. Car le fonds de commerce de la marque, c’est la fiabilité. Et là, même financièrement, ça ne sent pas bon. En effet, comment croire un seul instant que des sous-traitants vont fournir des pièces ou produits de qualité équivalente en diminuant le prix d’un tiers? Et qui dit baisse de qualité dira forcément pour Toyota baisse des ventes à un moment ou à un autre.
On pourrait multiplier les exemples de « gaffes » ou soucis: crash-test médiocre de l’Urban Cruiser, rappel de 1,3 million de Yaris pour un insonorisant risquant de prendre feu, plus une seule Toyota dans la liste, très sérieuse, des 27 véhicules les plus surs de l’IIHS (Insurance Institue for Highway Safety – US,équivalent de notre EuroNCAP), un conducteur qui perd le volant de sa Yaris dans un virage (photo ci-dessous, un incident isolé, mais qui tombe mal aussi au niveau communication),…
La Yaris peut-être considérée comme d'une (très) bonne fiabilité dans sa catégorie.Mais elle est loin d'être infaillible,et les alertes se multiplient.
Voilà en tous cas qui s’appelle plus jouer à la roulette russe qu’établir une stratégie industrielle… mais il est clair que le groupe, jusque là discrêt et sans histoires, semble gérer très mal la communication de crise.
Quoi qu’il en soit, cette annonce sonnera sûrement comme une insulte auprès des victimes de ces errements et en dit long sur le respect de la clientèle chez Toyota, même s’ils ne sont pas les seuls dans ce cas, loin s’en faut…
–> Dernière minute: mise en cause du freinage de la Prius III, ici.
Quelques sources:
-Los Angeles Times: ici , ici et ici.
-Autoblog.com (US): ici , ici et ici.
-IIHS: (US, équivalent de l’EuroNcap européen) ici.
-EuroNCAP: ici.
-Autonews.com: ici.
-AOL Autos: ici.
-Ainsi que de nombreux sites automobiles internationaux traitant du sujet (voir Google…)
Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site, pensez à vous abonner via Twitter. Chaque modification, nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube, fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat!
If you haven’t bought your own Christmas present yet, Amazon has just made it a bit easier to treat yourself to a Snapdragon-powered Windows Mobile smartphone by offering the LG eXpo for only $99.99 with contract, and bundled in another $50 worth of Amazon gift vouchers.
Read more at Amazon here.
Via MSMobiles.com
From the get-go I knew it would be difficult to pick just ten top posts for 2009. Off the top of my head an initial list of about 40 came to mind. But ten was my limit. I want to thank all my fellow Kitchn bloggers for so much inspiration, recipes, tips and knowledge all year. It has been a great year.
So its now Boxing day, and time to tally up our presents. Did anyone get a Windows Mobile phones or accessory for Christmas?
I myself got a HTC HD2 a few weeks ago, ostensibly a Christmas present, but who can wait that long to open it up?
Let us all know what your haul is in the comments below.
Unlike in 2009, all Formula One teams this upcoming season will have to use in-house designed and developed machineries, as the International Automobile Federation (FIA) ruled out customer cars from 2010 onwards. Needless to say, Scuderia Toro Rosso was the team most affected by this rule book change, as the Faenza based outfit used to benefit from basic input from Red Bull’s Adrian Newey.
If, until now, Toro Rosso’s car was based on the initial work of Red Bull Technology – they … (read more)
Eco Factor: Concept zero-emission vehicle made from recyclable materials.
Industrial designer James Yarger has come up with a zero-emission transportation concept dubbed the Yarga YoYo that is primarily a single seat inner city transportation vehicle. The vehicle can also be a part of a larger transportation system that offers vehicles on rent basis.
We fully expected the App Catalog people at Palm to take the holiday off – and we would have been fine with that – but it seems that somebody was in the office to push out Christmas Day presents for the webOS nation. Those gifts came in the form of a few dozen apps, pushing us over the 900 mark. The virtual stockings were stuffed with games and calculators and apps for all types. Catch the gift-wrapped list after the break.
Considering the fact that he’ll leave the Scuderia Ferrari after no less than 14 years in order to join their greatest F1 rivals Mercedes for the upcoming 3 years, it would be an understatement to say that the Italian tifosi are not happy with the situation.
Although Ferrari’s CEO Luca di Montezemolo insisted that he will continue to be friends with Schu despite his leaving for Mercedes GP, there is a large portion of the Italian fans that consider the 40-year old German a traitor… (read more)
Eco Factor: Low-emission motorcycle runs on a hybrid engine.
Indian manufacturer Eko Vehicles has announced the development of the ET-120, which is being claimed to be the world’s first production hybrid motorcycle. The ET-120 has been developed with assistance from U.S.-based Emerging Technologies and uses a 70cc gasoline engine mated with a small electric motor.
I wanted to share an appitizer they made that I believe is totally unique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this anywhere. But it’s fabulous!!!
Endives. Decent Size.
Goat cheese, flavored, preferably already sliced
prosciutto
sweet peppers
I am sorry. I am not a chef. I can’t be more specific than that. I am not sure what kind of peppers they were. Just small and sweet. Only a little heat to them.
You use one open leaf of the endive and place the slice of flavored goat cheese in the flat end of the leaf. Then you sprinkle small bits of prosciutto and small bits of these sweet peppers on top. That’s it.
Tastes freaking amazing! I didn’t even know what an endive was before this.
My wife made them today for appetizers before Christmas dinner and they were just as good.
My goals were originally defined in this December 1, 2007 Investing Goals post and last updated in my 2009 Investing Goals. As noted all year, I will fall short of my 2009 goal of $8,000 in annualized income. Looking at my long-rang goals, I am still on track to reach my 2017 goal of $30,000. The 2027 goal of $110,000 is not as clear. Given the increased prices and lower yields of new investments, my model is currently indicating this could be difficult to make. However, I will leave both 2017 and 2027 unchanged. Now, what to do with my 2010 goal?
The financial environment we are operating in continues to add complexity to setting a definitive 2010 investment goal. It seems we have quickly moved from dividend cuts to “irrational exuberance”. After divesting my income portfolio of unproductive stocks and ETFs, it is much stronger than it was a year ago. Throughout 2009, I have lowered the portfolios risk and increased the quality of its holdings.
Looking to 2010, I anticipate it will be better than 2009. That’s not to say the market won’t have a rough ride. I fully expect (and welcome) a correction. However, I don’t foresee the same level of dividend cuts we had to endure over the last 12-18 months. A correction in the market will provide opportunities to pick up world class stocks at lower prices. With that as a backdrop here are my updated goals going into 2010:
| Description | Dividend Income Annualized |
Yield on Cost |
| 2027 Goal | 110,000 | 20.00% |
| 2017 Goal | 30,000 | 10.00% |
| 2010 Goal | 9,500 | 4.90% |
As noted above, the 2027 and 2017 goals are unchanged. In setting the 2010 annualized dividend income at $9,500, I resisted the temptation to stretch it to $10,000. To achieve the $9,500 of annualized dividend income, the overall rate of growth will be have to be better than what was experienced in 2009. The 2009 yield on cost of 4.90% assumes significantly lower dividend cuts than was experienced in 2009 and 2008.
I am confident that I will finish the year with higher annualized dividend income than where 2009 ended. In addition, I feel good that my string of sequential months of higher annualized dividend income will continue through 2010.
If it were easy, everyone would do it and success wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying. Here’s to an exciting 2010!
(Photo: sanja gjenero)
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Eco Factor: Prefabricated living module for sustainable living.
IRO Prefab is the work of industrial designer Mira Yung, which has been designed considering the need for low impact sustainable homes. The IRO can be fabricated locally or can be shipped to the site via a single standard 20 feet shipping container.
The only good thing about the deadline for this week’s TechCrunch round-up falling on Christmas Day is the absolute certain fact that you won’t be reading the results. After all, with the holiday season in full swing, no one in their right mind will be reading TechCrunch. I certainly won’t.
Safe in that knowledge, I can pretty claim anything I like. That this week’s top story was Mark Zuckerberg being eaten by zebras, for example, or Al Qaeda investing in Twitter. Hell, I could probably claim that Spotify is profitable and it would still pass entirely without remark. Who would know? Just me and Google’s spider.
But I’m a professional – which is why I only missed my Christmas Day deadline by 24 hours – and as such I take seriously my responsibility to bring you this week’s top stories, regardless of whether you care or not. Hell, I’ve even come up with a festive theme in a vain attempt to keep you reading. Even though I know you’re not.
Here we go then…
On the first day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you….
One billion dollar exits
Sarah rounded off her South American research trip by profiling Wences Casares and examining the difference between billion dollar exits and what it means to feel “success”.
On the second day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Two out of every ten companies suffering from “stealth disease”
Vivek tells stealth start-ups: Get Over Yourselves: Nobody Cares About Your Secrets.
On the third day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Three years of Crunchies
The first tickets to the third annual Crunchies sold out very quickly, but there’s still plenty of time to vote for the winners across 18 categories before voting closes on January 6th.
On the fourth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Four screenings of Avatar
Or at least that’s how many Arrington has attended since the movie launched this week and he described it as ‘The iPhone Of Movies’.
On the fifth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Five hundred and fifty million dollars
Over half a billion dollars; the price that Yelp turned down when they walked away from selling to Google.
On the sixth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Six-ty thousand nooks will be shipped by Barnes & Noble this year
…despite issues with shipping pre-orders.
On the seventh day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Seven million more dollars raised by ChaCha
….despite issues with their entire business being a joke.
On the eighth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Eight million dollars raised by Livemocha
…in a round led by August Capital to allow the online language-learning community to build new partnership deals and work on product development.
On the ninth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Nine ‘rock-star’ names associated with WePay’s new group payments services
Levchin, McClure, Conway, Y Combinator…
On the tenth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Ten IPO Candidates for 2010
….and, from Europe, ten disappointing tech stories of 2009.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Eleven billion valuation for Facebook
Up from the company’s $10billion valuation earlier this year.
And finally. On the twelfth day of Christmas, TechCrunch gave to you…
Twelve (at least) religions that I’ve certainly offended by suggesting that the entire world stops for Christmas. I look forward to the comments. Not that I’ll be reading them – after all, it’s Christmas!
Have a good week!
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Audi AG registered record sales in the Chinese car market through November. The German car brand managed to sell 140,000 vehicles in the Chinese mainland in the first 11 months of the year, accounting for a 29 percent increase year-on-year.
When compared to the 2008 results, which accounted for some 118,118 vehicles, the 2009 full-year results seem to consolidate Audi’s optimistic prognosis about upcoming years.
"The fast growth of the Chinese market this year… (read more)
En esa competencia por llevar los contenidos de televisión por internet a la tele del salón, Blusens tiene una propuesta bastante interesante, BluBrain. La idea es la de un centro multimedia con mucha conectividad (Wifi, Ethernet, PLC), grabación y reproducción simultánea, disco duro e integración con un sistema NAS doméstico (el servidor se vende aparte)… todo muy completo y con un diseño bien resuelto para colocar en el salón. El precio quizás se les haya ido un poco (400 euros a partir del 15 de Febrero) porque se les va a comparar con soluciones tipo set-top box básico e incluso con discos duros multimedia, aunque BluBrain sea bastante más completo y vaya más a un perfil de quien quiere un HTPC, pero no tener que preocuparse por soluciones a medida. Entendiendo este posicionamiento de producto, el precio es más razonable.
Aunque hablamos de un dispositivo abierto en el que reproducir contenidos descargados y por streaming, un aspecto importante es el lugar privilegiado que gana BluSens y que les ayudará a impulsar su blu:generation, con el que se quieren postular como un nuevo intermediario para vender contenidos. Claro que para que ese negocio tenga sentido necesitan una masa crítica difícilmente alcanzable con el precio de salida de 400 euros, que será complicado rebajar con las características que presenta BluBrain si no se subvenciona pensando en los futuros beneficios de la entrada en contenidos…
Eco Factor: Fuel-saving aircraft uses helium for lift.
The Dynalifter aircraft is a fuel-saving combination of an aircraft and a heavier-than-air airship that requires almost no ground infrastructure. The airship gets aloft with up to 80% lift coming from helium and the remaining provided by a fuel-efficient internal combustion engine.
We’re not going so far as to suggest that this here patent application foreshadows the kind of keyboard that’ll be on a certain Apple tablet that may or may not be real, but if the suits in Cupertino do actually have such a device in the works, they’d be silly to not apply this technology to it. Dug up by Apple Insider, the latest app details a multitouch tactile keyboard that would boast a dynamic surface for helping typists keep track of where they’re at on the board. Essentially, the surface would utilize an “articulating frame” in order to raise and retract bumps to make typing without physical keys a wee bit easier, and while we’re certain that it would take some getting used to, it’s bound to be simpler than banging on a static surface that requires your eyes to be on it. Don’t go getting your hopes up, though — wouldn’t want to get them crushed when late January brings you an iPod touch with a camera, now would you?
Latest Apple patent app details multitouch tactile keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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