Category: News

Filed under: Detroit Auto Show, Budget, Hatchback, Chevrolet

On Wednesday night, Chevrolet held a media preview in Motown to discuss and show off some of what will be coming up at the Detroit Auto Show next month. Unfortunately, we were not allowed take any photos or video at the event, although General Motors officials did say we could write about anything that was discussed.

The presentation kicked off with an introduction to new Chevrolet general manager Jim Campbell who just assumed his role a week ago. Campbell and Mike Simcoe, director of exterior design, then spent the next half-hour showing off the same batch of new Chevrolets that we were shown in the GM design dome last August. All of these cars including the forthcoming Orlando MPV, Cruze, Camaro convertible, Volt and the all-new 2012 Malibu are promised to be in U.S. Chevrolet showrooms within the next 24 months. The Orlando remains pretty true to the 2008 concept, with the only real changes being to the details of the light clusters – just don’t look for it at the Detroit show.

Anchoring the entr- level end of the Bowtie’s lineup will be the Spark and Aveo. Campbell reaffirmed that the Spark will be coming to the U.S. in 2011, putting to rest – at least for the moment – rumors that the program had been canceled. The bigger news is the next Aveo which will get its first public viewing at next month’s show. Read on after the jump for more details and observations.

[Image: The Detroit News]

Continue reading Detroit Preview: Next-generation Chevrolet Aveo RS to appear at Cobo

Detroit Preview: Next-generation Chevrolet Aveo RS to appear at Cobo originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ruined Senate bill is unsupportable.

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

Good for Keith.
(transcript)

As the holidays approach, there are inevitably some jokes about heavy, hard, inedible fruitcakes that get passed around as gifts. Some people, I would bet, have never had a fruitcake – and no small part of that is due to the cake’s bad reputation. So, what is fruitcake? And is it really as bad as it is made out to be?

Fruitcake is a dense, spicy cake that is made with dried fruits, candied fruits and nuts. Most fruitcakes have more fruits in them than batter to hold them together, hence their reputation for being heavy and not as light or fluffy as some cakes. The fruit – and indeed the cake itself – is traditionally soaked in brandy or some kind of other liquor. This does add flavor, but the liquor has a preservative effect on the cake, as well. A well-soaked and carefully wrapped cake can last for months, and the flavors in the cake will meld together and deepen over that time. A cake that will last this long is not necessarily a requirement for most of today’s cake bakers, but fruitcakes have been around for centuries and the ability to preserve the cake was extremely important long before refrigeration.

If you have a fruitcake, and you can buy good ones from many retailers (the one above is from Harry & David), serve it in small slices. The spicy flavors and the sweet fruits actually make for a great combination, and while a bad one makes a good doorstop, a good one can still be a part of the holiday celebrations.

Commodities strategist Al Abaroa was on CNBC last night. Of interesting note, Abaroa believes gold will “super spike” next year:

The Pragmatic Capitalist: Gold has one more super spike left, to above $1,300 in the first-half of 2010, before losing its luster, says Al Abaroa, commodity strategist from Options Pro Corp, speaking to CNBC’s Lisa Oake and Sri Jegarajah. Abaroa also gives his take on natural gas and the agricultural sector.

The video, below:

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See Also:

• Stephen Colbert Rips Apart Glenn Beck For Being A Gold Shill
• Is The Norwegian Krone The New Gold?
• Jim Rogers: Commodities Will Go Up No Matter How The Economy Performs

While out driving, I noticed an older couple coming out of their house near the local high school. Both of them were dressed in red and white velvet, with long stocking caps on their heads. He had a smart-looking white beard and little gold reading glasses and carried a large red bag stuffed with toys. Mr. and Mrs. Claus smiled big smiles and waved as they climber into their car, which I am pleased to note was a Prius. Santa rolls environment friendly.

The sight just made my day.

The web is quickly moving to real-time, people share the information about what they’re doing while their doing it. Yet the next step beyond real time, is future-looking data, which is called the Intention Web (get up to speed by reading this post). In an effort to map out this trend in 2010, let’s list out the vendors, companies, and beyond that will facilitate this type of forward looking data.

There are countless opportunities for people to connect with others with the same goals, or for companies that want to serve them as new technologies like Social CRM evolve and develop. Scope: These Intention websites facilitate a person to publish their future goals in the context of their community, or sometimes even in public. For example, an unshared CAL isn’t a qualifier.

To The Future! A List of Intention Enabled Websites

• 43 Things: This “wish list”, they suggest that you make a list on 43 Things and see what changes happen in your life. They encourage you to connect with others with the same goals.
• Coachsurfing:  Helps those traveling to other cities to find homes and couches to stay on, by organizing availability. (thanks jasminw)
• Facebook Events: Facebook allows members to RSVP for future events, publish their own events, or see what friends are doing.
• Localist: Allows those in DC and Baltimore to find events, publish their intent to attend, and organize with friends (thanks Mary)
• Meetup: Encourages groups to organize events, plan events, and connect with others.
• Plancast: Is a social network that allows members to publish their future plans. It allows people to see who is going to other future goals, and to publish to Facebook, and Twitter.
• Tripit: This website allows travelers to plan out their travel itineraries. (thanks Sameer)
• Upcoming: This Yahoo owned property allows people to find, publish, and share future events.

Leave a comment if you know of other technologies that meet this critia

When Google started building Chrome, it made the decision to start from scratch. While this meant that there were a lot of things to do, it also meant that the developers had the freedom to make everything the way they envisioned it from the start, something that Firefox developers, which is built on Mozilla’s legacy, itself based on Netscape, didn’t benefit from. One of the biggest decisions was making individual tabs and extensions run in their own process to insulate them from each other for security and stability purposes. This is one of Chrome’s big selling point, but Firefox is catching up having enabled experimental multi-process plugins support in the latest nightly builds.

“Yesterday I landed multi-process plugin support in mozilla-central. By default, this capability is disabled, because there are still some serious bugs. But if you are willing to suffer some temporary instability, we could really use some help testing Minefield nightlies with out-of-process plugins (OOPP),” Mozilla’s Benjamin Smedbergs wrote.

The feature is very early on in the development process and is limited in its scope for the moment. Currently, it works on Windows and Linux and the multi-process capability is limited to plugins, i.e. Adobe Flash and the likes. It’s not particularly stable either, but if you’r… (read more)

The European PlayStation Store’s getting one hell of a beefy update today. The Gran Turismo 5 Time Trial Challenge races onto the starting position for the PS3, and on the PSP side gamers are getting the Metal

Filed under: SUV, Europe, Land Rover, UK, Luxury

Another week, another special edition for the UK. New for 2010, the Land Rover Freelander 2 Sport attempts to be equipped as regally as its name suggests, with either a Santorini Black or Lago Grey paint job decked out with color-keyed exterior trim, a rear spoiler, and 19-inch diamond-turned alloy wheels.

Inside is where the thrills reside, with a two-tone interior in, ahem, “Ebony & Storm,” and your choice of cloth interior or a “sports styling pack” in Lago Grey leather. Somewhat ironically, the Sport comes with a 2.2-liter diesel four that churns the wheels through a manual transmission, and it gets even better gas mileage with the fitment of stop/start technology.

The model goes on sale next month and starts at £26,695 ($43,581 USD, but bear in mind that UK market prices are higher than those of the U.S.) on-the-road. No word yet on whether North American consumers will get a shot at this model under the LR2 nameplate, so for now, content yourself with our high-res gallery below and the official press release after the jump.

[Source: Land Rover]

Continue reading Land Rover releases Freelander 2 Sport for UK loyalists

Land Rover releases Freelander 2 Sport for UK loyalists originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Notre Dame Law School alumnus Brian T. Moynihan ’84 has risen through the ranks at Bank of America, and was just elected CEO by the company’s board of directors. Previously, Moynihan served as BofA’s President of Global Banking & Wealth Management.

Link to Bank of America’s news release here: http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/bankofamerica/41726/

Fedex shares are under pressure today since the company surprisingly issued cautious guidance for the next quarter, below analyst expectations. Just after becoming more bullish just a few days ago.

FedEx: FedEx expects earnings per share of $0.50 to $0.70 per diluted share in the third quarter, and $3.45 to $3.75 for fiscal 2010, which reflects the current market outlook for fuel prices and a continued modest recovery in the global economy.

It's quite a U-turn. This latest guidance is well below analyst estimates of $0.84 for the quarter. Yet we need to be clear that this guidance that was raised across the board just recently. According to Yahoo Finance, 11 out of 11 FedEx analysts (tracked by Yahoo) increased their guidance in the last seven days.

So what happened? Analysts became too bullish on FedEx just a few days ago, upped their numbers, the shares rallied, and now it's been laid bare as pretty silly.

But...while the question as to whether FedEx shares are cheap or expensive remains open to debate, investors as a whole shouldn't read too much into FedEx's guidance slip-up.

That's because beneath the market noise today for FedEx shares, FedEx's underlying data from the latest quarter shows a continued recovery in both their U.S. Express and Ground package volumes.

Check out the chart below -- here's a V-shaped recovery.

Growth of FedEx Express U.S. package volumes has accelerated. (Note that FedEx's fiscal Q2 2010 represents the quarter ending November 30th, 2009: essentially the 4th quarter of 2009)

While not shown as a graphic, FedEx Ground volumes also grew 3.7% in the latest quarter.

Thus from a broader U.S. economic perspective, the latest FedEx results were positive. The chart above is clearly a 'V'. Hopefully it continues to be.

Check out today's FedEx's earnings release here.

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See Also:

• FedEx Shares SURGE On Higher Q2 Outlook
• FedEx Inflation: Raising Rates To Protect Margins
• FedEx: The Economy Is Getting Better

The AT&T Cotton Bowl and Samsung Mobile America formally announced today Samsung Mobile’s sponsorship of the halftime show of the 2010 Classic on January 2nd. The Samsung Jack Halftime Show will showcase the Ole Miss and Oklahoma State bands as well as a finale that includes 11 high school marching units from across the country and the world famous Kilgore College Rangerettes, who are making their 60th consecutive appearance at the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic.

“The AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic is a tradition and Samsung Mobile is proud to be a part of the excitement as the game moves to the brand new Cowboys Stadium,” said Paul Golden, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Mobile. “The Samsung Jack Halftime Show is a great opportunity for all the students to showcase their musical talents and is sure to be fun and entertaining for their nearly 100,000 fans at the big game.”

“The pageantry is what helps make college football unique and great, and it’s evident Samsung Mobile appreciates and embraces that through our collaboration,” Rick Baker, President of the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic said. “What great memories Samsung Mobile is creating for thousands of students through the Samsung Jack Halftime Show!”

Samsung Mobile, as part of their sponsorship, will showcase the Jack, one of their most popular handsets offered exclusively through AT&T. The slim, ergonomically designed Windows Mobile device will be featured in large displays in both Cowboy Stadium Plazas before the game and during the Samsung Jack Halftime Show.

Fans are encouraged to come to the game early to participate in Samsung Mobile’s interactive games and win great prizes, including the Samsung Jack. Gates to the Cowboys Stadium Plazas open at 10 a.m. CST, and doors to the stadium will open at 11 a.m., two hours prior to kickoff of the 74th AT&T Cotton Bowl.

…..

7. In my most controversial NY Times column, I said that what the economy needed was negative real interest rates, which could be accomplished via inflation. A temporary ITC does something similar. By temporarily reducing the effective price of capital goods, it creates expected inflation in this particular price. Under the numerical example above, the effective price of new capital would immediately fall by 20 percent, and expected inflation would rise by 10 percent. If nominal rates stay at zero, the real interest rate measured in units of new capital goods would become negative 10 percent. That is one way to view the way in which a temporary ITC stimulates investment spending.

8. So much for theory, but would it work?  The cash-for-clunkers program is thought by many to have promoted, or at least accelerated, car purchases. An ITC would be similar, but it would apply to business investment rather than personal cars. Instead of targeting a very narrow, politically favored industry, it encourages investment broadly. It should have positive effects on aggregate demand in the short run and positive effects on aggregate supply in the medium and longer run.

Read all 9 reasons at Greg Mankiw’s Blog –>

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See Also:

• How The Home Buyer Tax Credit Is Bankrupting The FHA
• That $8,000 Tax Credit Actually Costs $43,000 For Every New Home Buyer
• Why Is The Fed Happy Buying All Those Mortgages? Because You’re Guaranteeing Them!

If you haven’t come across this short video, it gives a good overview of how FloEFD is blazing a path of least resistance so mechanical designers can streamline their workflow using Concurrent CFD – CFD embedded in the mechanical design environment.

Note that it’s ONLY by embedding CFD within the MCAD tool that these time savings can be achieved, and FloEFD is the ONLY Concurrent CFD solution available today. It’s a new paradigm in CFD allowing analysis to be done upfront during conceptual design and concurrently with design changes made as the design is elaborated.

That’s it for me for this year. I’ve got a few things in the pipe for next year – some cool Indy Car analysis done by the guys at Voxdale, a couple of Flash animations that really help explain why Concurrent CFD is THE way to go when it comes to compressing design times to develop a fluent design process – plus some other stuff I’m hoping to get back to, like the BBQ study.

Check back early in the New Year.

Season’s Greetings!

Dr. J, Hampton Court

The European Commission today presented the results of the first-ever survey on creativity and innovation in schools. The results show that 94% of European teachers believe creativity is a fundamental competence to be developed at school, and 88% are convinced that everyone can be creative. In order to achieve that, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are considered very important among teachers (80%): computers, educational software, videos, online collaborative tools, virtual learning environments, interactive whiteboards, and free online material and courses. These results were presented at the Closing Conference of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation in Stockholm, 16 – 17 December.

China, once a proud holder of United States post-World War II debt, is getting scared.

For years the People’s Republic has bought U.S. Treasuries, eventually becoming the largest holder of U.S. debt ($799 BILLION to be exact!). Those days are long gone, though.

During 2009, China hasn’t been buying many Treasuries and has been unloading dollars in a way that makes Geithner shiver at night.

And other big U.S. debt carriers like Japan may follow suit if confidence is lost.

This presentation, courtesy of RBS, takes a deeper look into China’s holdings and associated volumes since 2005. Get ready for shock and awe.

Click here to view the presentation –>

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See Also:

• Jim Chanos: We’re Shorting Autos, China, And Commodities But Not Financials
• China Just Broke Russia’s Monopoly On Central-Asian Natural Gas
• The US-China Trade War Is Here

Avatar will drive “incredible excitement” in the months to come, says Pali Research’s Rich Greenfield.

Because of that, Rich upgraded News Corp. from a sell to neutral in a note this morning.

Greenfield says the risk/reward of shorting News Corp. after seeing a screening of Avatar is not appealing.

He writes, “the honest truth is that nobody in the world has ever seen a movie like Avatar.”

While the movie probably won’t generate huge profits, it will not be a disaster, profit-wise, he says. Fox’s film slate overall is looking good.

Here’s Greenfield:

• Earnings estimates are going higher, even without outperformance in film. As shown in Exhibit A, our revised estimates now assume high-teens organic operating income growth in fiscal (June) 2010, well above management guidance of high-single to low-double digit growth, albeit largely discounted in the stock. In addition, we believe EPS will be $0.86 now, versus street consensus of $0.81 (our prior estimate was also above consensus at $0.82).
• Our short thesis had been premised on the lack of growth post-FY2010 (we are still expecting flat EPS in FY11, albeit off a higher base). However, with earnings heading higher, shorting for an FY11 earnings miss simply feels pointless.

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See Also:

• James Cameron’s "Avatar" Could Burn Through $500 Million
• Twitter Avatar-Gate Rolls Into Day Two
• Psych! James Cameron’s "Avatar" Not As Expensive As Originally Stated