Category: News

Filed under: LA Auto Show, Hatchback, Scion

As we’ve come to expect, Toyota will roll out a special edition Scion model at the upcoming LA Auto Show. As has typically been the case with these special editions, the xB Release Series 7.0 will sport a standard body kit and an unmistakable color palette inside and out.

For numero 007, Toyota has chosen a four-piece DAMD body kit that includes front and rear lower lips plus a set of side skirts. It’s certainly not the best looking body kit available, but the real kicker is the color. The hue is called Murasaki, which means “purple” in Japanese. Yep, purple.

Inside, black fabric seats will be highlighted with more matching purple insets and a leather-wrapped RAZO GT Formula Spec shift knob. Suspension bits are upgraded with TRD lowering springs and a new exhaust system features a sportier sound and twin center-mounted tail pipes. For what it’s worth, there’s an optional rear spoiler but no alloy wheels.

Those with a hankering for a Grimace-inducing-and-recalling Scion will be able to get one of the 2,000 planned models for $18,320 with a manual transmission or $19,270 with an automatic (plus a $670 shipping and handling fee) starting this month. See the high-res gallery below and hit the jump for the press release.

[Source: Scion]

Continue reading Scion unveils $18,320 xB Release Series 7.0, will debut in LA

Scion unveils $18,320 xB Release Series 7.0, will debut in LA originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Douglass Cassel, Notre Dame Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the Law School, will lead the human rights panel discussions for the Transatlantic Strategy Forum in Brussels, Belgium. The conference, titled “The European Union, the United States and Global Governance: Major Trends and Challenges,” runs Dec. 3-4.

Cassel’s remarks compare the approach of the European Union to the approach of the United States on a variety of human rights-related subjects, including the use of military force in counter-terrorism operations and the role of international law in adjudicating human rights violations.

Says Cassel:
“The nations of the European Union and the United States of America have more in common in support of human rights than do any other two regions in the world…Within their broadly similar traditions, however, lie important differences. Some are of relatively recent vintage, such as different mixes of law enforcement and military force in counter-terrorism operations. Others are more longstanding, including sharply different approaches to international law and international criminal accountability, fundamentally different roles for religion and religious values, markedly varying ideologies of political economy, differing emphases on freedom of expression, contrasting attitudes toward state-sanctioned violence, and dramatically different approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

For Cassel’s complete remarks, click here

By Rafat Ali
paidcontent.org

At the World Newspaper Congress here in Hyderabad this afternoon, Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) CEO Les Hinton came out swinging against the world in general, as is the wont of every News Corp exec these days. More specifically, against “geeks bearing gifts”, “false gospel of the Web” and “out & out theives on the Internet”. . .:

“I was invited here to talk about the value of journalism. About how we at News Corp and Dow Jones have worked to create a debate about the future of journalism in the digital world.
We have deployed some lavish language to stir things up.
We have called Google a digital vampire, and a parasite.
We have pointed the finger at the content kleptomaniacs of the internet whose business models depend on purloining the expensive journalism of mainstream media.
But now a little context. I use Google just as most of do. What it does to enhance and enrich our lives makes it a true wonder of the age.
It is true that Google is at the heart of the crisis confronting journalism today. That their almost incalculable – and growing – power warrants great vigilance.
But the main, and most uncomfortable, truth is that this industry is the principal architect of its greatest difficulty today.

We are all allowing our journalism – billions of dollars worth of it every year – to leak onto the internet. We are surrendering our hard-earned rights to the search engines, and aggregators, and the out-and-out thieves of the digital age.
It is time to pause and recognize this – Free Costs Too Much.
News is a business, and we should not be ashamed to say so. . . ” READ FULL SPEECH

Conmemorando dicho día les dejo unos videos para concientizarnos de los cuidados que tenemos que tener frente al H.I.V. Por favor, los videos contienen escenas de contenido explícito, prohibido para menores, queda bajo su entera responsabilidad. Tomar con seriedad dichos videos.

When Dubai wobbled last week, everyone rushed to the Internet to await confirmation of the imminent bailout. 

And they saw what they wanted to see!

The airwaves (and pipes) were clogged by a steady stream of pundits declaring that there was no way Abu Dhabi would let Dubai go bust.

Why not?

Because if Dubai went bust, then…   well… then the stock market might go down for a while!  Then the idiots who loaned Dubai World money to build huge islands and buildings in the desert would have to pay for their stupidity!  Then the buildings’ ownership would change in a debt restructuring–the kind that happens every day in a normally functioning capitalist economy! 

INCONCEIVABLE!!!

Remarkably, against this tidal wave of panic and entitlement, Abu Dhabi stood its ground, refusing to reward idiocy by throwing more good money after bad.

And lo and behold… the world’s stock markets have stabilized and Dubai is having civilized conversations with its lenders, the same way folks who have had to restructure their debts have had since the dawn of time.

In the United States, meanwhile, Messrs. Bernanke and Geithner no longer have to assure us that they will never let a big bank fail–because we understand that this guarantee has basically been written into the United States constitution.  The LESSON OF LEHMAN BROTHERS has been learned, and the lesson is this:

We have become a nation of mamma’s boys.

Specifically, after 25 years of debt-fueled consumerism, we have become accustomed to instant gratification and instant fixes, led by politicians and regulators terrified of having to tell us the harsh truth:

We lost our discipline. Getting it back will make life tougher for a while.  But it will make us stronger in the end.

It wasn’t always this way.  In fact, the era of prosperity that we’ve just enjoyed was made possible by a leader with a huge spine–one who, unlike our current financial and economic leaders, wasn’t afraid to risk his job (and enormous public pressure and disapproval) to do the right thing.

Who was that leader?

Paul Volcker.

How much public hatred was Volcker willing to withstand to get us back on the right track?

Take a look at the chart below.  The red bars are the Fed Funds rate (which Volcker directly controlled).  The blue line is unemployment (which he indirectly controlled). 

In 1980, with the country beset by chronic, runaway inflation, Paul Volcker decided to do something about it.  Specifically, he hiked rates sharply, into a weak economy. 

What happened?

He killed the economy.

Unemployment soared–spiking from 6% to well over 10%, the highest level since the Great Depression.  The economy crashed back down into a double-dip recession.  Millions of Americans were put out of work.  The stock market plunged to 15 year lows.

But Paul Volcker held fast.  And a few years later, inflation was all but dead, setting us up for two decades of prosperity (and one of letting ourselves go to pot).

Fast forward to today.  Today, we are led by men like Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner.  Men who are so afraid of the consequences of making people pay for their profligacy and stupidity that they have restarted the debt bubble (free money and bailouts for Wall Street, FHA, cash for clunkers) and made Too Big To Fail a national policy.

Take another look at that chart.

Do you think Ben would be willing to withstand the heat that Paul Volcker took to get this country back on track?  Tim ?  Larry Summers?  Do you think any of them would be willing to stand up and deliver the message this country–and Wall Street–desperately needs to hear?

We don’t either.

But at some level, we can’t say we blame them.  Given our current national attitude, we would fire them instantly for even daring to suggest such a thing. 

But we’d still be better off hearing it.  And it would make us stronger and better in the end.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Dubai Actually In Talks To Restructure Debt Instead Of Getting A Bailout
• Marc Faber: Dubai Was Just The Tip of The Sovereign Default Iceberg
• How Tim Geithner Screwed Us All

By Mercy Jiménez

Professionals in the U.S. lending community should be keeping an eye on Congressman Scott Garrett’s proposed covered bonds amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act of 2009, which is currently pending in the House of Representatives.

If Garrett’s proposed legislation succeeds in becoming part of U.S. law, how competitive could covered bonds become as a source of real estate funding? What is the outlook for covered bonds vis-à-vis MBS from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? What is the potential for financing other types of debt — such as auto or small business loans — with covered bonds? Exactly how would the amendment increase the cost efficiency of covered bond funding?

In an in-depth interview for Covered Bond Investor™, transactional attorney Jerry Marlatt of Morrison & Foerster and the U.S. Covered Bonds Council answers those questions and more. Since its release Monday, it has already become one of our publication’s most-read articles ever.

To read the interview, click on the link below:

http://www.coveredbondinvestor.com/news/covered-bonds-amendment-interview-jerry-marlatt

Manhattan, KS: Kansas Campus Compact today announced that students at seven of its thirteen member institutions would be coordinating service activities on Kansas Day 2010. These activities are part of the inaugural Kansas Campus Compact’s “Commemorate Kansas/Serve Kansas” program.

The program was created to promote higher education participation in activities that foster a greater appreciation for Kansas history and promote opportunities for students, faculty, and community members to do measurable, meaningful, sustainable service to their communities in support of the Kansas State Historical Society’s commemoration of the 149th Kansas Day on January 29, 2010. The seven institutions received mini-grant funding from Kansas Campus Compact (KsCC) to support their efforts.

“These creative projects are an indication that students and faculty at Kansas colleges and universities are aware of the importance of connecting their education with a civic purpose that serves all of Kansas’ citizens. We hope that these efforts serve as a model for other institutions across the state,” said Matthew Lindsey, Executive Director for KsCC.

The schools participating in the Commemorate Kansas/Serve Kansas program are Butler Community College, Fort Hays State University, Garden City Community College, Hutchinson Community College, Kansas State University, Seward County Community College, and Southwestern College.  Students will be helping elementary students record interviews with their elders, designing Kansas history activities for elementary and middle school students and afterschool programming for the Boys and Girls Club, coordinating Kansas history after-school programming for the Boys and Girls Club in Hutchinson, recording oral histories of community members who played significant roles in the state’s human rights history, delivering educational presentations on the history of sustainability in Kansas to middle and high school students, and providing volunteer support for activities at the Kansas State Historical Museum. Site details can be found at http://www.k-state.edu/kscc/programs/kansas_day/projects.html.

Headquartered in Manhattan, KS, Kansas Campus Compact is a coalition of higher education committed to strengthening the collective commitment and capacity of leaders at colleges and universities to integrate civic engagement and responsibility into the higher educational curriculum and environment. For questions, contact Matthew Lindsey at (785) 320-0700.

###

By Robert Andrews
paidcontent.org

Is News Corp taking on Apple, as well as Google, as it looks to reassert the value of its newspaper content?

This brilliant pastiche iPhone commercial describes its UK tabloid The Sun in terms gadget-heads will love (check out its “26-inch panoramic matt CMYK, full-colour display”), and the homage is spot-on.

News International tells paidContentUK: “It is a genuine ad – it was running as a digital campaign to mark The Sun’s 40th anniversary. It was online only and linked back to the site.”

Whether the economics of news will allow The Sun the chutzpah to do it again in another 40… let’s wait and seE. . . WATCH VIDEO OF AD

To take a small amount of the floor space to achieve maximum productivity — that is the aim of the Toyoda FH-J Series.

Now it’s even easier to start into production with this affordable machine coming as a special offer. This could be your entry into automation, because of its automatic pallet and tool changer. Contact our sales department now, as this offer is time limited!

Pallet size 400 x 400 mm
Spindle speed 50 ~ 15,000 rpm
Taper size #40 (DIN)
NC-table 0,001 deg.
ATC slots 60
Control Fanuc 32i

VIDEOLINE FP: discover FP Suite with just a few clicks.
All you need is a PC with an ADSL internet connection to watch directly from your office a customised and interactive presentation of: FP PRO, FP FACADE, FP DEALER, FP GEST.
Simplicity is the only secret of our new service. No cost and no installation required. A specialised technician will help the customer during the whole duration of the videoconference presentation.
To make the presentation more effective, just supply the main information concerning the type of production, profile series, machines used, etc, when making the reservation.
Thanks to internet and the competence of Emmegisoft, the Video Demo OnLine (ViDeOLine) becomes a reality in just a few clicks.

To reserve your presentation, contact Andrea Giovanetti:
Tel: 059 566273
[email protected]

If you desire the FP DEALER and FP GEST presentations, contact Stefano Mercurio:
Tel: 0824 25344
[email protected]

EVER ELETTRONICA, having many years of experience in developing multiple motor equipment and variable projections for the dental radiography sector, offer a new control board technology for the construction of radiography systems, by means of which optimal radiographic results and high reliable diagnostic performances can be reached with maximum simplicity and safety and against reduced costs.

When applying the DRK control board a complete, modern and versatile system can be realized for the control of 4 interpolable axles (the rotation axle, X-axle, cassette axle and Ceph axle) with a precision of a hundredth of degree, necessary for the execution of programs such as panorama, maxillary sinuses, temporomandibular articulations, lateral, antero-posterior, Carpo and Cephalometric tests, in compliance with the existing regulations for electromagnetic compatibility and emissions.

The DKR board is controlled by means of a user friendly alphanumeric LCD display ( 2 rules, 16 lines) ensuring a fast start up of the system functions, and can be programmed by means of the TRIPOS IEC1131 programming environment, characterized by high level debugging, control window events and parameters, PC monitor, serial interfaces, 32 bit arithmetic, floating point and trigonometric functions, commands control, 256 user variables allocated in a backup memory, 8k retentive variables and more.

It has many digital and analog inputs and outputs for the control of the various sensors and devices of the machine and a NVRAM for the backup of data such as statistics and technical factors. Thanks to the open structure of the control board, hardware and software can be expanded.

The most important advantages of the DRK control Board are:
„Ï PWM management for the dynamic adjustment and modulation of the technical factors KV, MA, S.
„Ï Pulses control for digital CCD sensor.
„Ï Control programmable filter soft parts.
„Ï Control Real time clock for the temporary events storage.
„Ï Storage of the machine alarms in a retentive buffer.
„Ï Storage of machine events (320 events).
„Ï Availability of an Ethernet interface for remote assistance and a serial interface for on-site assistance.

OLI® has recently obtained another attestation of the extremely high level of quality of its motovibrators: ETL certification for UL- CSA rules, thanks to which OLI® can satisfy every require of specific quality needs for the US and Canadian market.
OLI® standard motovibrators will be certified following UL-CSA rules, class 2 div 2 for hazardous locations (the majority of electric vibrators manufacturer are certified only for ordinary locations, not for more dangerous environments).
Besides OLI® has achieved on the MVE standard range attestation of conformity to normative GOSSTANDARD, better known as GOST, required for the export of product into the Russian Federation.
That means the standard MVE range is now certified Atex Zone 22, ETL (UL-CSA), GOST and CE without any additional overprice.
All these certification enable OLI® to guarantee, even on the electrical parts, the MVE range and are the best evidences of the continuously effort in the research of the top level quality.
Thanks to the own OLI® commercial network, the same quality is guaranteed with an ex-stock delivery all over the world.

OLI® subsidiaries with a full stock of MVE, pneumatic vibrators, flow aids and concrete poker vibrators are:

1) OLI AUSTRALIA
2) OLI BRASIL (Division of WAM DO BRASIL)
3) OLI CHINA
4) OLI FRANCE
5) OLI GERMANY
6) OLI INDIA (Division of WAM INDIA)
7) OLI ITALIA (OLI Headquarters)
8) OLI MALTA
9) OLI SPAIN
10) OLI ROMANIA
11) OLI RUSSIA (Division of WAM RUSSIA)
12) OLI SOUTH AFRICA
13) OLI USA

CERTIFICATIONs ON STANDAR RANGE OLI® MVE

II 3D Ex tD A22 Tx IP66,
Class II Div. 2 Group F, G T4 conform to UL 1836 UL 1004 and CSA C22.2 N025, 145 – TENV NEMA4

AVAILABLE CERTIFICATIONs

ATEX ZONE 21 Increased safety range:
II2 GD
Exe II T3 Ex tD A21 T 150 IP66

ATEX ZONE 21 Explosion proof range:
II2 GD Exd IIB T4 Ex tD A21 IP66 T135°C
Ex d IIB T4 Gb
Ex tD A21 IIIC T135°C Db IP66

We’ve received a pair of Dagi Transparent Styli thanks to Dagi Corporation, which we’ll be putting through their paces.

From the website, they’re advertised as:

• Transparent sensing head
• Power free
• Easy to aim at the small icon
• Easy to play games
• Accuracy
• Slide smoothly
• Sensitivity and light action force
• Easy to do handwriting
• Easy to edit: Cut / Copy / Paste
• Easy to browse website
• Suitable Drawing / Pen Memo
• Suitable the user with fat finger / long nail

First impressions are surprisingly good, I didn’t think a stylus would make any real difference to a screen as monstrous as the HD2s, but they make things like notes a lot easier!

Are there any applications you are particularly interested in seeing these styli with?

For those of you fortunate to live in Japan, you are probably used to the usual engraving options from SonyStyle. Sony offers interesting graphic additions for many products, including their Cyber-Shot cameras. This year is no exception, with SonyStyle Japan offering a unique snowflake engraving pattern on the beautifully designed DSC-TX1. The engraving, at no extra charge, will only be available for Silver, Black and Pink – which is unfortunate for those of you wanting this on the Blue and Gold models. This will be a limited time offer and compliments the already available Safari, Race, and Heart engraving designs.

Filed under: Technology, Reviews

It’s no secret that we’ve been openly critical of the prices charged by automakers for built-in GPS navigation systems. Frankly, paying $2,000 or more for an in-dash system when you can buy stand-alone navigation units for as little as $100 is ridiculous. Even the newer, larger seven-inch screen units are now down to as little as $250, and even though they aren’t tied in to a vehicles’ wheel sensors, they tend to be plenty accurate. Now, however, there is a new option that is even cheaper – as in (sort of) free.

It’s only “sort of” free because the Google maps turn-by-turn navigation app is built into the new Motorola Droid smartphone (see sister-site Engadget’s full review of the Droid here) that recently became available from Verizon Wireless. In this case, you have to sign up for two years of mobile phone service, which includes a data plan. I’ve been a Verizon customer for a decade and just happened to be up for a biennial discounted phone upgrade. When the Droid appeared a few weeks ago, the plan to wait until the new year for a Palm Pre was discarded. We’ve now had the chance to play with the Droid and its new navigation software, so follow the jump to find out if it lives up to expectations.

Continue reading Review: Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation on Android 2.0

Review: Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation on Android 2.0 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marc Faber warns that further sovereign defaults are ahead. Dubai was just a teaser.

Starting from 0:45 in the video:

• Dubai was just the tip of the iceberg. The ultimate result of the financial crisis will be not just bankrupt banks, but more bankrupt governments.
• Massive U.S. economic stimulus means that U.S. bonds will one day have to offer higher yield than corporate bonds due to default risk.
• China has learned one thing from the U.S. — how to massage and doctor economic statistics.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Marc Faber: Gold Is Never Going Below $1000 An Ounce
• If Faber Says The Dollar Is Going To Zero, Then Stocks & Commodities Will Go To Infinity
• How Marc Faber And John Paulson Are Playing The Inflation Trade

Four soldiers serving here with the New Hampshire National Guard earned a special
distinction last week when they became their company’s first all-female medical
evacuation crew…

Soldiers from the 480th Military Police Company of the Puerto Rico National Guard
handed over responsibility for their external security mission at Joint Task Force
Guantanamo to the 115th Military Police Company of the Rhode Island National Guard
during a ceremony Nov. 12…

Some Soldiers at a base in Basra, Iraq, awoke Nov. 28 to find that concrete barriers
had tipped over during the night and had come to rest upon containerized housing
units…