Category: News

AOL is on the verge of a long-awaited spin-off from Time Warner and will officially begin trading as an independent company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) later today. Shares have already begun trading, but AOL will officially be on its own in a few hours as the market opens. It’s been a crazy decade for the company which was its worth drop massively, but it’s now looking at the future and growth as content company with its eyes set on every niche market possible.

It marks the end of one the most tumultuous mergers in corporate history. It began almost ten years ago, at the height of the dot come bubble when AOL was riding high on its dial-up business and online proprieties. It was the biggest thing on the Internet at that moment and old media, Time Warner, wanted a piece of the seemingly never-ending pie. AOL was valued at $165 billion at that time, more than Google today, making the merger one of the biggest in history as well and the combined value of the newly formed AOL Time Warner giant was at $240 billion.

It didn’t take long for frictions to begin between the execs at the two companies and coupled with the burst of the ‘bubble’ a very short while after that, it soon became apparent that it would be one of the biggest disasters in the history of mergers as well. Today the two c… (read more)

Once upon a time, we all sent paper invites through the mail when we wanted to invite friends and family to a party. Remember that?! These days, there are so many more options for getting the word out. We’re curious – how do you invite people to parties?

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Brady Environmental saves time, money and the environment with Leister heaters.

From a spill dating back to the 1970s, Togiak Fisheries was faced with 70,000 tons of diesel- and gasoline-contaminated soil on the shores of Togiak Bay, Alaska.

The remote fish-processing facility wanted to sell, but the plant was stuck with the price tag of $12 million to clean up the contaminated site. The cost was overwhelming, yet so were the challenges that go into cleaning a 5-acre site this remote. Without any roadways, all supplies and equipment would have to be shipped in by barge or plane.
Brady Environmental was able to complete the project for $4 million, dramatically lower than the $12 million market rate, due to its patented system using Leister hot-air tools.

Material manufacturer recommends VARIMAT V for huge industrial roof in Vietnam

Vietnam is an up-and-coming country. Above all, the
comparatively low wages are among the important
attractions for foreign companies. 60 % of the population
is under 30, which means the potential labour
force is correspondingly large. Moreover, this “Asian
Tiger” also offers investors a very good tax environment.
The domestic market itself is also becoming
increasingly lucrative. All these are valid reasons that
make Vietnam appealing as a production location.

Gigantic flat roof
It will therefore come as no surprise that Intel singled out
Ho Chi Minh City as a location for an enormous production
plant. The world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors
has been expanding its production facilities massively
here for around 300 million US$. Welding machines
made by Leister were used in the construction of one of
the buildings. The gigantic flat roof measures 40’000 m2.

The webpage Visualizing Prime Numbers [primalchaos.yolasite.com] does exactly that. It contains a number of consecutive visualization experiments titled “Maps of Factors”. Each “map” reveals the factors for each number, so that when only 2 circles intersect the horizontal axis at their right quadrants, a prime number is revealed (highlighted by green vertical lines in the graphs). Since factors in general are geometrically chaotic in nature, prime numbers are also geometrically chaotic in nature, as the resulting image seem dependent from initial conditions (much like “atoms in Quantum Mechanics”).

If I understand this correctly, in an interesting twist, the author attempts to find large prime numbers in a more efficient way through analyzing and predicting the resulting visualizations, instead of working the other way around, that is to visually represent prime numbers which were derived purely algorithmically.

See also:
– The Visualization of Randomness
– Data Signals (also of prime numbers)
– Symmetrical Mathematics
– Ulam Prime Numbers Spiral
– Prime Number Spiral

Eco Factor: Zero-emission car powered entirely by onboard batteries.

Siemens has presented the eRuf Stormsters for the Climate Change Conference currently underway in Copenhagen. The zero-emission all-electric vehicle is built by eRuf on a Porsche Cayenne chassis. The vehicle is taking the opportunity to prove to the world leaders that the current state of the industry lays on practical EVs.

(more…)

Microsoft is pouring huge amounts of money into online search and it finally looked like it was paying off after it launched Bing last summer as the search engine was slowly picking up momentum though it was still far behind Google and even Yahoo. The latest numbers from Hitwise though show, once again, that there’s no stopping Google, the search engine grew in market share in the US by 1 percent from October to November, not a whole lot but more than Bing has managed in several months. What’s more, Microsoft’s search engine actually took a small dive in market share in the previous month.

By the numbers, Google got 71.57 percent of the market, a 1 percent rise from the 70.6 percent it saw in October. Yahoo dropped 5 percent from 16.14 percent to just 15.39 percent while Bing saw a smaller drop of 2 percent from 9.57 percent to 9.34 percent. The only other ‘major’ search engine to see a rise in November, besides Google, is Ask.com which grew from 2.62 percent to 2.65 percent, a 1 percent rise.

Search market share varies quite a lot depending on the source of the data, but the overall trend is visible. While Bing has been seeing some growth since launch Google isn’t budging, if anything, it’s also growing mostly at the expense of Yahoo. For a while, it also looked like Google was being outmaneuvered by Bing w… (read more)

Eco Factor: House designed to be powered entirely by solar energy.

Students from the University of Nottingham have designed the UK’s first zero carbon mass market home that can be powered entirely by solar energy. Dubbed the HOUSE (Home Optimizing the Use of Solar Energy), it is a full-scale zero carbon starter home that requires no form of active heating.

(more…)

We were just talking about how current child porn laws that make you a criminal based on incidental possession alone can be quite problematic. Reader Jesse highlights an example of this. If you happen to have been in Toronto on Monday, and received a copy of Metro Toronto, a popular commuter paper, buried a few pages in was a “featured picture” of some kids celebrating at an annual parade by jumping around in a hot tub. The only problem? The male in the photo appears to be, well… having a wardrobe malfunction. Not unexpectedly, a bunch of sites were having some fun with this… until some realized that these were high school students. At that point, even Gawker — who will post almost anything — removed the photo realizing that under current laws, it was likely child pornography. Jesse points out that this would appear to make a bunch of people at the Metro, all the recipients of the paper on Monday, many people who visited blogs like Torontoist and Gawker while they had those photos displayed… potentially at risk for possessing child porn (and in the case of Metro employees and these blogs, for distributing it as well) — making them all potential felons who could be required to sign up to be on sex offender lists for the rest of their lives. Isn’t something wrong with the law when that happens?

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In our poll yesterday, Kevin was the clear favorite, but the general consensus was that it was really anyone’s game. In case you haven’t seen the show, and have managed to avoid learning the winner, we’ll hold our tongue until after the jump. But we suggest you back slowly away from the internet and go watch the episode immediately.

Note: We reveal the winner and losers below.

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Precisely targeted hot air

The new filling plant of the established Swiss drinks
producer «Elmer Citro» achieves a capacity of up to
20000 bottles per hour. Prior to labeling the bottles,
which have been filled and sealed, they have to be
dried. A drying system developed especially for this
purpose blows the water away in uniform coalescent
drops. Leister Process Technologies, the supplier of
the drying system, is the worldwide leader in industrial
hot air technology.

Technological Advance for Printing Giant thanks to Leister

Visitors to Beijing often report to be deeply impressed
by the rapid growth and the prosperity of Beijing. More
and more companies have become aware of the enormous
potential of this economic hotspot. Due to their
efforts to maximize advertising impact for their businesses
or one of their brands, billboard advertising has
become one of the most important marketing instruments
in China. The advantage of billboards is that
they, at relatively little expense, attract the attention of
a large target audience. Whether it be on large citysquares,
alongside business avenues or the highway to
suburbia, or wrapped around new buildings: Wherever
you turn the eye, you will see billboards, telling the
passersby: “Yes – we are here!” RIKON, a big name in
Beijing’s billboard industry these days, has become
aware of the increasing demand on the billboard market
a few years ago. Over the last few years, this company
has become market leader.

Natural gas prices are so depressed these days, that they are very likely to rise at some point.

But according to Citi, it might be awhile. A large, sustained price move for natural gas may not come until 2011. The pain trade will continue for gas investors in vehicles like United States Natural Gas (UNG).

(Via Citi Investment Research, Oil & Services Equipment: 2010 Outlook, Robin Shoemaker, 9 December 2009)

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See Also:

• Four Reasons Natural Gas Could Explode (UNG, XOM)
• Exxon: The Natural Gas Mega-Trend Starts Today (XOM, UNG)
• Gazprom: Shale Is A Joke, And It Can't Possibly Compete With Gas

Real Time Is *Not* Fast Enough: Three Strategies For Companies To Get Ahead

View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang.

I’m about to present at LeWeb, Europe’s largest internet conference with this year’s focus on “Real Time”.  With information moving even quicker, there’s a new strategy needed for companies to adopt.  Since the accompanying slides are best used with narration, here’s the gist of my presentation:

Real time data is exploding at a rapid pace with the influx of status features and mobile devices.  This brings new opportunities for people to get information when they need it and opportunities and the companies that want to provide contextual information.  Yet, despite the opportunities, most companies are unable to keep up with the “Slow time” web as it is.  In fact, those that can’t keep up risk missing opportunities, or worse –heading off detractors before they become mainstream.  To best leverage real time data, companies must adopt three strategies:  1) Start listening now, and quickly offer social personalization features, 2) Develop an unpaid army of advocates who can respond when you’re not there, and 3) Start to invest in systems –like social CRM– that can support their overall strategy.

Looking forward to sharing more on this topic as it develops during 2010, I’ve written more about this topic and the intention web.

Also, thanks to Carmen of Rexi Media, who is a great coach on presenting, her resources for presenters, such as the iPhone app are helpful for any speaker.  Update: Here’s a video of my presentation.

The label-backed music video site Vevo has finally launched and it’s off to a good start, in terms of traffic anyway. So much traffic in fact that the service has been rocky for several hours after launch though things should be smoother at this point. The site has been in the works for a couple of years now and features videos from three of the four major music labels though the fourth, Warner Music Group, may joint at some point and is said to be in talks.

It took a while, but it looks like the music industry is finally looking ahead instead of clinging to its old ways, though it remains to be seen if it can manage to create an experience geared towards the fans rather than their wallets. For now, Vevo is claiming that the fans come first and that it will follow Hulu’s model in this respect, by putting revenue in the back seat, at least until the site can establish itself as the best way to watch music videos online.

And it may just manage that, if only because it’s becoming the only place to watch music videos. One of the greatest moves the joint venture pulled off was great support from YouTube, which will not only provide the technology for the site but will also send it a huge amount of traffic. Most music videos which YouTube hosted so far, 85 percent, will now be hosted on Vevo an… (read more)

China has slapped protective tariffs on American and Russian steel imports.

This is truly a striking development given that its usually China who is accused of dumping steel in other nations.

It's also hard to imagine how American and Russian steel could have a lower cost-basis than local Chinese products given their higher transportation and labor costs.

XInhua: China said Thursday investigations showed the United States and Russia had dumped oriented electrical steel on the Chinese market, and the United States had subsidized the exports.

The dumping and subsidies have caused substantial damage to the domestic industry, and China will charge deposits on the imports from the two economies from Friday, according to an initial ruling issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

The amount of the deposit paid at customs would be decided by the dumping margins of different producers. The dumping margins ranged from 10.7 percent to 25 percent by the US companies, and 4.6 percent to 25 percent by the Russian companies.

China launched the anti-dumping probes into imports of the oriented electrical steel from the US and Russia, and countervailing investigations into the imports from the United States on June 1.

China's anti-dumping tariffs say three things -- 1) the global steel market is pretty dismal given that American steel producers can't find closer demand to take their products. 2) the Chinese steel glut may have reached crisis levels given this act of protectionism. 3) Protectionism is hotting up. After America's tariffs on Chinese steel earlier this year, China has now returned the favor.

Bloomberg: China is striking back after the U.S., the European Union and other countries slapped tariffs and filed complaints about Chinese steel and commodity products to the World Trade Organization this year. U.S. and Russia last year exported a combined $602 million of the targeted steel products to China, according to Mysteel Research Institute.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Steel Giant Arcelore Mittal In Line For A £1 Billion Windfall Thanks To Cap & Trade
• China Has More Idle Steel Capacity Than Japanese And Korean Production Combined
• Efforts To Cool Down China's Steel Industry Completely Failed

Fanuc has recognized Hartness as a leader in robotic packaging and awarded their “Sales Leadership and “Outstanding Sales Growth” to Hartness Automation. Hartness International is a world wide supplier of packaging solutions with offices and customer service points stragegically placed throughtout the world

Sutton Tools have embarked on a major project in establishing a division in Europe with a new distribution centre based in Holland, Tilburg.

The new distribution centre will support the growth of the Sutton Tools brand within the European market. The foundations of a new Kardex Shuttle Carousel will allow Sutton Tools to efficiently deliver to the European market and offer a variety of Sutton Tools products.

If you have been reading the blog regularly for the last three of four months, you know that I recently had the pleasure of setting up a Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 server. I did the best I could, but I frankly was not that familiar with the product.

Well, I just got a new boss who is a wizard with Backup Exec and showed me a really good way of setting it up. Now I am in the process of tweaking some of the selection lists, and troubleshooting some errors here and there.

One error I came across was the following:

Backup- \\<servername>\C:
V-79-57344-33928 – Access is denied

Access denied? WTF? The account I was using was a local administrator. I looked at the permissions of C: and administrators had full control. What could it be? I tried to edit the security of C: but I got an access denied for that too. I tried taking ownership, but got an access denied for that as well. WTF?

Did any of you guess UAC? If so, you just won a pat on the back! UAC was on, and was denying access for Backup Exec. I went to control panel, and opened up User Accounts to turn off UAC, but when I clicked the Turn User Account Control On or Off link nothing happened.

I had to use an alternative method of turning off UAC. What I did was:

• Run msconfig from the run line
• Clicked on the Tools tab
• Scrolled down and clicked on Disable UAC then clicked Launch

• Copied the Selected command and pasted it in the command prompt that opened when I clicked Launch
• Rebooted

After UAC was off, I re-ran the failed Backup Exec job with no errors!