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BMW executives admit they were wrong with the model mix on the new 2011 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo, which has been bringing in some sluggish sales figures. As of right now, BMW is only selling the 2011 550i Gran Turismo with rear-wheel-drive and its 4.4L twin-turbo V8.

“The V8 was probably not the right car to launch it with,” Rich Brekus, BMW’s general manager of sales for North America said at a recent press event.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 BMW 550i Gran Turismo.

BMW’s North American boss Jim O’Donnell recently told Automotive News that the new 5-Series Gran Turismo is ahead of the budget globally but is running 20 percent behind budget in North America. The 2011 BMW 550i Gran Turismo starts at $64,725.

However, since the launch of the BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo, BMW has sold a total of 1,143 units, outperforming the 5-Series station wagon last year. Starting June, BMW will offer an all-wheel-drive version followed by a 6-cylinder version in September.

Click here to read more news on the BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo.

2010 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: AutoWeek

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] unanimously in Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co. [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that fee claimants filing lawsuits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) [materials] are not required to be a “prevailing party” in order to be eligible for an attorney’s fees award under 29 USC s. 1132(g)(1) [text]. The fee-shifting statute applies in most ERISA lawsuits and allows the court to use discretion in assigning reasonable attorney’s fees to either party. Bridget Hardt filed a claim under ERISA against her employer’s insurance carrier, Reliance, after the carrier discontinued long term benefits it had previously awarded for a work-related injury. In pre-trial proceedings, the district court found “compelling evidence” in favor of Hardt but did not grant summary judgment in order to allow Reliance to reassess Hardt’s application. Reliance complied with the district court order and upon further evaluation reinstated Hardt’s benefits. No judgment was issued, but the district court awarded Hardt attorney’s fees under s. 1132. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated [opinion, PDF] the fees award granted by the lower court, holding that Hardt had failed to establish that she qualified as a prevailing party. Justice Clarence Thomas, delivering the opinion of the court, held that the circuit court’s addition of a prevailing party requirement was “inventing a statute rather than interpreting one” because s. 1132 expressly denotes that the district court can use its discretion to award attorney’s fees to either party, and incorporates no “prevailing party” provision. Therefore, a court may award fees and costs under s. 1132(g)(1), as long as the fee claimant has achieved “some degree of success on the merits.” The case was reversed and remanded to the Fourth Circuit for proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s judgment.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that a district court has an obligation to defer to an ERISA plan administrator’s reasonable interpretation of the terms of the plan if the plan administrator arrived at the interpretation outside the context of an administrative claim for benefits. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had ruled that a district court is under no obligation to defer to an ERISA plan administrator’s interpretation and that a district court has “allowable discretion” to adopt any “reasonable” interpretation of the terms of the plan.

If you’re a catalyst for change within your organization, this book is for you, you should buy several copies for your organization today.

I’m proud to be part of the next generation of Groundswell, my business partner Charlene Li’s book ‘Open Leadership’ hits the shelves today.  If you want your management team to accelerate their thinking for your social business programs, this book offers insights, examples of how other leaders have embraced these technologies, internal audits, checklists and even ROI formulas that the C-Suite demands.

Like the prequel Groundswell, Open Leadership stems from solid research and yields real world use cases.  For those of you that are managing existing social business programs you know how the biggest challenge is causing  a culture change to happen from inside out.  One of the key levers in your business program will be to obtain executive buy-in in order to bless organizational change –without it, you’re plane can truly never leave the runway without great risk.

We work closely with many of the world’s social strategist’s a corporations, and know that the biggest challenge is a cultural change of letting go to gain more. This book, is a useful tome of knowledge that can accelerate learning within your executive suite. Use this book to quickly find examples of how other leaders around the globe are adoption social technologies in order to gain more.

I’d also like to point out, from an internal point of view (having worked with her a few years now) that she truly lives and embodies the spirit of being open. She ‘let go’ of a lot of control of the company in order to make it a partnership, and is always open to our eccentric ideas. Aside from being a thought leader in the concept of Open Leadership, she lives it within her own company.   I was previously involved in reviewing Groundswell before it was published and joined the Groundswell team, and am very proud to be back again working closely with Charlene here at Altimeter Group.

So, if you’re already investing your career to catalyze change within your organization, add octane to your efforts by getting your team, and executives moving faster by ordering a case of Open Leadership now, rarely do I ask you to take action and buy anything, but I ask that you do so now

Open Leadership Resources

• Here’s the website with reviews, and details on how to order.
• Read the first chapter at no charge, it’s widely available on Slideshare.
• Engage in the conversation on Twitter at #OpenLeadership.
• Follow @charleneli on Twitter.

This item comes from Brown’s 40th Anniversary under the name Future Collectables. Other designers such as Burberry and Balenciaga have teamed up with Browns for a limited edition run on some items. Globetrotter also got on the anniversary kick with a leather attaché case release. The case features silver metal hardware, two key lock fastenings, detachable leather shoulder strap, adjustable buckles, fabric lining, studs, and vulcan fibre corners. Available now at Browns.

“There are lions and cheetahs and leopards out there, my dear. You’d be better off staying here with me.”

This is how male topi antelope lie for sex.

The area of Kenya where they live, Masai Mara National Reserve, is indeed filled with large predators that find antelopes to be just delicious, and so the topi have developed warning calls that they sound when it’s time to scurry away or else be eaten. But, according to an American Naturalist study, the devious topi males have figured out how to use their calls to fake the threat of immediate danger and keep females around, according to research leader Jakob Bro-Jørgensen.

From February to March, male topi hold small territories through which receptive females pass to assess each male’s mating potential. The authors noticed that, while a female in estrus was on a male’s territory, the male would sometimes emit alarm calls, even in the complete absence of a predator. These false alarms are acoustically indistinguishable from true alarm snorts [Ars Technica].

The motivation is easy to see: Normally, during the one day a year that a female topi is sexually receptive, she’ll have sex 11 times with four separate males, on average. However, if a male cries “wolf”—or in this case, perhaps “hyena”—she might stick around his territory, which improves his reproductive odds. Indeed, the researchers found that the males almost never made false predator calls unless there was a lady around and he didn’t want her to wander.

“In fact, males quite frequently pull the trick on females in heat and one may ask why females keep responding to alarms at all,” Bro-Jørgensen said. “The answer seems to be that females are better off erring on the side of caution, because failing to react to a true alarm could easily mean death in a place like the Masai Mara, where it’s literally crawling with large predators” [MSNBC].

The mating game is full of liars and cheaters, or course—just check out DISCOVER’s gallery of the worst offenders. Because their prevarication employs the fear of death, topi are among the most successful, too. After a fake snort of alarm the males, on average, got to have sex nearly three more times. So expect the lying to continue.

Check out DISCOVER’s page on Facebook.

Related Content:
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Eland Antelopes Click Their Heels To Prove Their Dominance
DISCOVER: The Best Ways To Sell Sex
DISCOVER: The Mating Game’s Biggest Cheaters (photo gallery)

Image: Wikimedia Commons

We keep hearing rumor after rumor that Apple will be expanding its offering of iPhone service providers to include Verizon. But both companies stubbornly refuse to comment. Indeed, there have also been recent developments that cast doubt on a potential Apple-Verizon alliance. A few examples include Apple using AT&T for iPad data and Verizon’s anti-iPhone commercials. A survey by an analyst at Morgan Stanley, however, indicates that Apple would be smart to bring Verizon on board.

Bizjournals.com reports that the analyst, Katy Huberty, found nearly 17% of Verizon customers would switch to an iPhone if given the opportunity. And the number might have been even higher than that if Apple hadn’t allowed some Verizon customers to become content with Android-based devices. This is a huge segment consumers who lie out of Apple’s reach entirely due to its exclusivity contract with AT&T.

According to Huberty, that 17% would result in nearly 7 to 8 million iPhones sold per year to Verizon customers. And this isn’t just gravy for AT&T. Since these are existing mobile phone customers, it would also mean 7 to 8 million fewer Blackberry, Android, and other smartphones sold.

These are very big numbers, and it’s bizarre that Apple is able to ignore them. While alliances between device-makers and service providers are complex, Apple must consider expanding to Verizon if it hopes to keep the iPhone sales growth going. Considering the move would also likely result in many disgruntled AT&T iPhone users switching to (or back to) Verizon, it’s hard to imagine that Verizon would have much reason to resist.

WASHINGTON—For the first time since Valentine’s Day weekend, 2009, President Obama, First Lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia will return to their home in Chicago–arriving on Thursday for the Memorial Day Weekend.

On Monday Obama will speak at the Abraham Lincoln Cemetery outside Chicago, according to a White House spokesman.

Last January in an interview I asked Mrs. Obama why the family only came back to their home on S. Greenwood in Kenwood–only once. Her reply is here.

Ronald McDonald isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, according to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner, who flatly refused to put the burger-peddling clown out to pasture at a recent shareholders’ meeting. For those of you who don’t know what he’s referring to, a group called Corporate Accountability International has called for Ronald’s retirement, calling him "a pied piper drawing youngsters all over the world to food that is high in fat, sodium and calories," and insisting that he is "sending insidious messages to young people." McDonald’s thinks its critics are overreacting, and to be fair, CAI obviously isn’t familiar with the company’s psychedelic era, which was probably worse for children than any of its current marketing. It’s also worth mentioning that a mascot is only as good or bad as the product it represents, and going after Ronald McDonald isn’t nearly as useful as targeting the nutritional content and business practices of his parent company. That said, if McDonald’s could put Ronald to work shilling healthier food choices for kids, that would be great, too. As long as they don’t go too retro on his costume.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Reader Justin read our article about BK’s new pork ribs and decided to see if his local BK had them. It did, so he put together a full report from the front lines.

Take it away, Justin:

They offer a $5.99 6 piece meal and add 2 more for $1.00. You can also add 3 pieces to a value meal for $1.99.

As you can see with the pictures, they are small, bite sized ribs. They remind me of the riblets that Applebees has. They were fall off the bone like they described but the size they show on the ads in the drive through are quite a difference from what you actually get, not that is any different from any other food item.

Official Consumerist Follower rating…C+ to B-. Nice to have a fast food option not a burger but small….

As the United States edges closer to issuing a fresh round of sanctions against Iran, foreign investors so far unmoved by international pressure will end up doing business with a Revolutionary Guard that makes even local firms nervous, an analyst warns.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the IRGC or Revolutionary Guard, is a military branch set up after the 1979 revolution to protect the regime and has become more ingrained in the Iranian economy particularly under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration.

In recent weeks, the Revolutionary Guard has declared that it can assume control of the energy industry if Westerners flee under the crush of coming U.S. sanctions. Over the last two-and-a-half decades, the powerful force has gradually moved into sectors like construction, energy and telecommunications, said Alex Vatanka, a scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Given Iran’s oil and gas reserves and the country’s reliance on revenues from crude exports, “it’s very logical for the IRGC’s economic arm” to seek an even stronger footing in the energy sector as U.S. and United Nations financial penalties against firms operating in Iran pick up steam, Vatanka told OilPrice.com.

The IRGC has the “political muscle to push political contracts” through, but it is questionable whether the group is best-suited to coordinate these efforts on a domestic level, he said. “We know their intentions in the Iranian oil industry, and [local firms are] very often hesitant when they see IRGC involvement,” he noted.

Foreign companies would be “equally, if not more hesitant, to deal with the IRGC” because the organization is at the forefront of any U.S. government or U.N. attempt to apply new sanctions, he said.

“So it really just raises the stakes for any foreign participant in these projects,” Vatanka said.

The overriding challenge is whether a firm, domestic or otherwise, can ever have a “fair struggle with the IRGC, if I can put it this way,” Vatanka explained. “They are politically so powerful that they can nullify, change terms and take the credit for anything that’s done positively and claim it to be their own. And if you stand up to them, they would basically label you against the Islamic Revolution.”

He said questions also linger about the kind of revenue-sharing the Revolutionary Guard would offer international companies.

And whether the Revolutionary Guard can even fulfill Iran’s “very big intentions” in the gas sector remains to be seen, Vatanka said, noting “there’s no evidence to suggest that they have, in any way or shape, invested technologically in energy. If it was about missiles, it would have been a totally different matter.”

In March, Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said the Islamic regime is seeking a $200 billion investment in oil, gas and refinery industries over the next five years.

Iran has only waning pools of oil but may become a “huge provider of natural gas on a global scale,” Vatanka said.

Iran holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves and the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This includes the South Pars gas field, the “largest natural gas deposit in the world, which Iran shares with the state of Qatar,” added Vatanka.

The Iranian oil industry has traditionally been aligned with “pragmatic conservatives,” he added, but there has been a shift toward “principalists, the people around Ahmadinejad,” particularly in “this pivotal” sector of the Iranian economy.

In April, Ahmad Ghalebani took over as head of the National Iranian Oil Co. from oil-industry veteran Seifollah Jashnsaz, according to Iranian press reports. Like the Iranian oil minister, Ghalebani does not hail from the oil industry, the reports state.

Regardless of the typical rhetoric emanating from Iran, the country has always had a “pretty well-oiled bureaucracy,” but these “relatively new faces and voices” have spurred more uncertainty for foreign firms, Vatanka said.

Iran has pressured a number of firms to honor previous agreements or pull out of the country entirely. Iran recently gave a two-week ultimatum to Royal-Dutch Shell and Repsol of Spain to forge ahead with their involvement in projects related to the South Pars gas field or be replaced by local firms.

Around the same time, the regime also announced that it is awarding major gas contracts to Chinese, Malaysian and Indian firms for South Pars instead of Western firms widely regarded as frontrunners, according to Iranian news reports.

India is not likely to give up its investments in Iran “without considerable pressure” from the U.N., noted Robert Ebel, a senior adviser in the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Not only does India have business interests in the country, Iran provides it with “over 400,000 barrels of oil a day,” Ebel told OilPrice.com.

At the moment, India has proposed resuming talks with Iran on importing gas through a pipeline passing through Pakistan, according to Indian press reports.

China, which has a big interest in Iran as an oil supplier, is unlikely to be fully supportive of the United States and the U.N., Ebel said. About 430,000 barrels of oil move from Iran to China every day, he added. China, India and Japan probably account for half of all Iranian oil exports, Ebel noted.

On the weekend, the head of Brazil’s energy regulator was reported as saying that his country could assist Iran with equipment and engineering if Iran offered drills to help Brazil in the exploration of deep-water oil.

Despite these holdouts, many firms have already caved into pressure and abandoned some of their investments as talk of sanctions builds, said Ebel.

Russia’s Lukoil has stopped gas sales to Iran, while India’s Reliance Industries will not renew a contract to import crude oil from Iran this year.

China and Japan are cutting crude-oil imports from Iran. Vitol, Glencore and  Trafigura have all stopped their gas supplies to the country.  And Shell also stopped selling gas to the regime.

At a congressional hearing last week, the U.S. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee issued international firms a stark warning: “Either do business with Iran’s $250 billion-a-year economy, or do business with America’s $13-trillion economy, but you cannot do business with both.”

The proposed U.S. legislation is known as the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act and will be tougher on firms than its predecessor, the Iran Sanctions Act. The revised law will pursue financial institutions and firms that do business in Iran’s energy sector or help the regime build its refining capacity.

The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, released a report during the hearing that found that seven of 41 companies previously identified as doing business with Iran received combined payments of nearly $880 million from the Defense Department. This includes $319 million to Repsol and $312 million to Total of France for the purchase of fuel.

Ultimately, the relationship between Iran and the international community will be tough to walk away from, Vatanka of the Middle East Institute told OilPrice.com. While Iran still needs Western technology to expand its energy industry, he said, large companies seeking growing markets will be hard-pressed to “totally look away and abandon Iran for good.”

This article was written by Fawzia Sheikh for Oilprice.com

Join the conversation about this story »

According to the Press Room of the Department of Defense, U.S. authorities don’t plan on interfering with the investigations of the March 26, 2010 attack of South Korean frigate Cheonan, how ever they would support a joint effort to investigate the causes of the torpedoing, so far it appears that it was an attack against South Korea it self by North Korea.

According to Navy Adm. Mike Mullen who had spoken with Navy Adm. Robert Willard (commander of U.S. Pacific Command) on May 19, 2010 the U.S. does not plan on changing military reediness in the Pacific zone, how ever the U.S. Army is closely monitoring the outcomes of the Korean situation.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates also clarified that its up to South Korea to determine what will be his attack response, Gates clearly stated that the U.S. will not interfere with the response of South Korea, however it will support the investigation efforts to determine the causes of this attack and that why it was necessary by North Korea to sink the Cheonan frigate.

On a May 24, 2010 news conference UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in relation with the newly found evidence of the Korean Cheonan sinking that this evidences are “overwhelming and deeply troubling,”

South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak announced that South Korea will sever nearly all trade with the North Korea and will bring the matter before the Security Council of the United Nations.

Source: Press Room of the Department of Defense – (http://www.defense.gov)

United Nations News Centre – (http://www.un.org)

Related posts:

1. South Korea Accused North Korea for Firing Torpedo that Killed 46
2. South Korea Blames North Korea for Sinking Cheonan
3. South Korea’s Underwater Search Suspended

Toyota said it will stop sales of its Lexus LS sedan for about three weeks as it comes up with a fix for the steering system. On Friday, Toyota announced a voluntary safety recall on approximately 3,800 late 2009 and certain 2010 model year Lexus LS 460 and LS 600h L vehicles in the United States.

Spokesman Brian Lyons said that the company was putting a stop to the sales of the LS on dealer lots until the U.S. receives repair parts, which probably won’t arrive until late June.

In the mean time, Toyota has fixed the problem in Japan, where the LS is assembled. It will be sending upgraded Lexus LS models that dealers can – those should arrive by mid-June, Lyons said.

Click here to learn more about the Lexus LS recall.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Detroit News

Car tuning is both an industry and a hobby, in which an automobile, motor bike, scooter or moped is modified in order to improve its performance, handling and presentation and improve the owner’s driving style.

As most vehicles leave the factory set up for average driver expectations and average conditions, tuning has become a way to personalize the characteristics of the vehicle to the owner’s preference.

example, they may be altered to provide better fuel economy, produce more power at high RPM or the ride comfort may be sacrificed to provide better handling.

Car tuning is related to auto racing, although most performance cars never compete. Rather they are built for the pleasure of owning and driving such a vehicle.

Another major facet of tuning includes performance modification to the car exterior.

This includes changing the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle via side skirts, front and rear bumpers, adding spoilers, splitters, air vents and light weight wheels.

A big part of car modifications are car clubs or groups. Many are specific to particular car manufacturers. Clubs often attend national shows all over the country.

Please welcome the best drifts and car tuning events around the world! This post will aggregate the most important tuning event …

Car Tuning Show

Drifts & BurnOut Car Tuning Event

Tuning Event 2009

Germany Tuning Show

Tuning Show & Service Preparation

Recaro Tuning Days

Maxi tuning show

Tuning Garage

Learn more garding car tuning

Just hours before the Senate is due to vote on a non-binding directive to its committee conferees on exempting loan-issuing car dealers from financial regulatory reform, Jen Psaki, the White House deputy communications director, has written a blog post slamming the measure:

The President has been clear on this issue, repeatedly urging members of the Senate to fight efforts of the special interests and their lobbyists to weaken consumer protections. The fact is, auto dealer-lending is an $850 billion industry, which is larger than the entire credit card industry and they make nearly 80 percent of the automobile loans in our country.

Is there any question that these lenders should be subject to the same standards as any local or community bank that provides loans?

Auto dealer-lenders sell auto loans to working families every single day, and while most dealers are no doubt above board, some cannot resist the bigger profits that come from inflating rates, hiding fees, and tacking on over-priced add-ons.

These profits can lead some dealers to treat their customers unfairly. There are countless stories of hard-working people who are never even contacted when their car loans are promised by dealers and then fail to go through forcing them to borrow at a higher interest rate or to swallow the cost already paid toward the purchase of their car while giving up the vehicle.

At this point, the Senate is not expected to advise its conferees to fight for the exemption, proposed as an amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) but not voted on. The House bill does not give the Consumer Financial Protection Agency oversight over car dealers that make loans.

If I was a U.S. taxpayer or holder of U.S. Treasuries, I would not take much comfort from President Barack Obama’s proposed Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act. Points for effort, I suppose. But fast tracking and streamlining the current fiscal process that allows the White House to submit proposed budget cuts from spending bills would do little.

1. As the Heritage Foundation notes, since 1990, presidents have proposed clawing back only $20 billion of legislated spending, with Congress approving just $6 billion of these rescissions. That’s just .01 percent of all federal spending.

2. A study by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, found that an even tougher measure, a line item veto, has a poor track record — at least at the state level. (Here is a good summary of research on the topic via the NY Fed.)

Holtz-Eakin noted that in studying the effect of line-item vetoes at the state level, he found they produced mixed results. He found no major differences in spending between states where governors had this power and states where they did not.

3. Some two-thirds of the budget — mandatory entitlement spending would be off limits.

4. Such expanded powers might work in reverse. It would give the White House power to cajole Congress into supporting its spending policies by threatening to cut the pet projects of individual members.

5. To be fair, this new proposal is just another step in controlling spending – not a solution in and of itself. Obama has already proposed a temporary freeze in some domestic programs and created a deficit panel to suggest more comprehensive solutions. The move also keeps the danger of deficits firm in the public consciousness, though Europe’s woes should be reminder enough. But the White House must be careful about deluding the electorate into thinking that current efforts by the government to trim waste will be sufficient. Investors in Treasuries surely expect bolder fiscal action.

Douglas received an unexpected delivery from UPS last week: a check from Fidelity Investments made out to Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company for over $300,000, along with a bunch of 401(k) rollover paperwork that included the real account holder’s address, date of birth, SSN, and phone number.

He writes:

The other day, UPS tried to deliver a package to my apartment. This is
strange, since I never have stuff shipped there. So I had the package
rerouted to my office.

The package arrived today, and inside the package was:

– A check for $300,234.24, made out to Vanguard
– Paperwork for someone else’s 401(k) rollover

The person who is doing the rollover is some random person from another town who I have never heard of before. I looked over the paperwork, and cannot find my name and address listed anywhere. Why the package was sent to me is a complete and total mystery.

One Google search later, and I even found this person’s Facebook page, complete with employer information and a picture. Pretty much everything that’s needed to pull off some serious identity theft.

So the question is: now what? Do I send the check back to them? Should I forward the check to Vanguard? Should I forget the whole thing?

You say you’ve got the person’s contact info, so you should let him or her know what just happened, and let Fidelity know as well so the check can be voided.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The latest hybrid notebook storage device announced today by Seagate Technology, the 2.5-inch form factor Momentus XT, promises radical performance improvements from every hybrid drive that has come before. Seagate says it can now offer this performance by literally divorcing the drive from, and breaking all connections with, the Windows-based technology that catalyzed the company’s entry into the hybrid SSD business to begin with.

Back in 2005, Seagate appeared to stand firm against what many believed to be the coming wave of solid-state storage technology, made feasible by more reliable flash RAM technology whose costs were plummeting and form factors shrinking. Seagate said at the time that flash wasn’t exactly as reliable as it seemed on paper compared to magnetic disks, in which the company was solidly invested.

One year later, Microsoft helped bring about the formation of an industry alliance for building hybrid solid-state/hard disk drives. It did so by making the ability to support hybrid drives a requirement for notebook PC manufacturers to obtain the much-desired Vista Premium logo, one of the higher tiers of Microsoft’s originally intended multi-level support program for Windows Vista. So the following year at CES 2007, standing on the podium together to represent the new market that Microsoft was effectively forcing open, were representatives from Samsung, Toshiba, and most surprisingly of all, Seagate.

The technology that these companies were relying upon was something called ReadyDrive, a series of Vista drivers that enabled caching in the SSD part of hybrid drives, especially to help accelerate boot times. But by 2008, hybrid drive manufacturers were complaining that the advantages offered by ReadyDrive were more than outweighed by the disadvantages of simply dealing with Vista.

Fast-forward to today, when Seagate product marketing manager Joni Clark triumphantly announces to Betanews that Momentus XT will not be bound to ReadyDrive at all.

“We are no longer dependent on the [operating system] to control what gets put into the flash,” Clark told us. “If you recall, the first [Seagate hybrid] drive needed ReadyDrive to enact or enable that functionality. We have a new driver that our engineers put in place — actually more of an algorithm — that we call ‘Adaptive Memory.’ This is a self-learning algorithm that monitors the LBA [Large Block Addressing] access on the drive. That algorithm doesn’t care whether what OS is running it, whether it’s a game or an Office application, or who the user is. All it knows is that there are frequently accessed LBAs, and some of them are tougher to get to than others. So it’ll take the ones that are frequent and tough to get to, even though it takes longer, and place those LBAs into the solid-state flash.

“This learning doesn’t happen just in the beginning,” Clark continued, “it’s constantly, always learning in the background. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re during the day a corporate executive, and by night you’re a gaming enthusiast; it’s going to constantly monitor and put these files into that solid-state, so you’re always going to be performing at the top of your game, no matter what you’re doing.”

Clark freely admits now that Seagate’s original Momentus product line, which included the 5400 PST announced in June 2006, didn’t live up to many users’ expectations, and that it can’t heap all the blame upon Microsoft. Many of the complaints came from enthusiasts, including gamers, who didn’t see any performance improvements — and often saw the reverse — because their programs weren’t making use of ReadyDrive. Others came from Linux users…Let’s face it, there is no ReadyDrive for Linux.

“With the first drive [5400 PST], we took a standard drive and we bolted on hybrid technology,” Clark had no trouble adding. “This new drive is hybrid-architected from the core.” Momentus XT’s new flash cache has been raised from 128 MB (or 256 MB in later models) all the way to 4 GB.

How will these facts directly impact all the programs that users run, not just some of them, and all the functionality they experience? “The first thing that people will notice, I’ll tell you up front, is the boot time,” Seagate’s Joni Clark responded. “After the third boot with this drive, I’ve seen people come back and say, ‘My boot time was cut in half.’ I don’t know about you, but when I’m running from meeting to meeting, I’m the next presenter, and I’m waiting for my system to boot so I can share some files, it’s very, very frustrating.”

In a test designed to approximate real-world workloads, Seagate engineers tested a high-performance Asus G51J gaming notebook system using a script that automated the same series of user interactions starting at bootup, then proceeding to running Excel, to calling up files from iTunes, then calling up the game Crysis Warhead, and so on. A fully solid-state drive ran the script sequence in 140.1 seconds. Momentus XT — a 7200 RPM drive — ran the script in 153.8 seconds, which is not much slower but certainly appreciably faster than the 10,000 RPM drive at 188.2, and a standard Seagate 7200 RPM drive at 225.6 seconds.

Perhaps most importantly, Momentus XT booted up the Windows 7 64-bit system in 23 seconds versus 59 seconds for the 7200 RPM HDD.

With respect to price, Seagate is also aiming for a sweet spot: $153 suggested retail for the 250 GB model, as opposed to $78 for a standard 250 GB 7200 RPM HDD, and $808 for a full 250 GB solid-state drive. Models at 320 GB and 500 GB will be available also, with pricing information to be revealed Wednesday.
The fact that Seagate didn’t test Momentus XT in a system known for power conservation is a clear indicator that there’s not much about it that’s “green.” That’s a big lesson learned from the Momentus 5400 PST days, when Seagate also tried to appeal to the energy cost-conscientious crowd.

“The first hybrid drive did try to cut down on power consumption,” Clark told us, “and actually did quite a bit. There was some spin-down going on…and we tried to increase the reliability of the drive and the performance. We were trying to be everything to everybody with that first drive. But the market came back to us and said, if you’re going to put solid-state on a drive, make sure it’s for performance. That’s the number-one thing…So with this drive, we quit trying to be everything to everyone, and we focused on the one value point that customers told us they wanted: affordable performance. So you will not see this drive spin down at all. We will spin like a normal 7200 — it doesn’t consume any more power than a normal 7200 RPM drive. Your shock is the same, and even your acoustics are identical.”

Seagate is inviting the general public to see this performance for itself, in a live webcast scheduled for Wednesday, May 26 at 2:00 pm EDT / 11: 00 am PDT. Seagate is taking reservations now at this address, and attendees will be eligible for prize drawings including one of three Asus G73 notebooks.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Didn’t they almost have it all?

In news that will send Tweeners Tweeting in sorrow, the Celebrity Hotwire is ablaze with reports that Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato have called time on their virginal love affair less than six months after going public with the romance.

On Monday, Hollywood tattles dished the dirt to ZackTaylor.ca that Joe dumped Demi in a tearful conversation last week — after being pushed to the brink by the 17-year-old’s excessive blabbing to the press about their relationship.

“He doesn’t like everyone knowing everything, and that’s what ultimately pushed him over the top. They both care for each other a lot, just need a little ‘time-out’…” says an insider. “Joe and her had a conversation the other night about how quickly the seriousness of the relationship was getting, and wanted to slow things down a bit. Obviously Demi didn’t like what he had to say, but she respects him, and the two are calming things down…..”

The Jonas Brothers star — who famously dumped Taylor Swift by phone in 2007 — and Lovato made their relationship official in February, with Joe telling Idol Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show: “We’ve been best friends for the longest time and now we’re just kind of taking the next step and it’s been really fun. We’re having a great time. …. I guess we kind of figured that one day it would happen but we didn’t feel like it was the right time.”

Demi — Joe’s Camp Rock co-star — added: “Being best friends for a while, over time feelings grow, and for me, as much as I wanted to deny it, the feelings were always there.”

This new arrangement could prove a bit wonky for the former lovers; next month, The JoBros will be embarking on a three continent world tour with Lovato as their special guest.

Durante dois dias, universitários da PUC-Campinas deixarão livros e apostilas de lado para conhecer com detalhes os desafios que envolvem todo o processo de criação, produção e venda de um novo automóvel. Do papel à realidade, executivos da Renault do Brasil contarão sua vivência prática a estudantes de diferentes cursos de graduação na segunda edição do “Renault Experience”, que acontece nos dias 24 e 25 de maio, no Auditório Dom Gilberto Pereira Lopes.

“É uma oportunidade excelente para que os estudantes tenham contato com o mercado de trabalho e conciliem a teoria aprendida em sala de aula e prática de profissionais experientes”, afirma Bruno Hohmann, Gerente de Marketing Produto da Renault do Brasil.

Cerca de mil alunos devem participar das palestras que acontecerão na noite do dia 24 (hoje) e na manhã do dia 25. O case “Sandero Story” contará, por meio de um exemplo prático e real, os bastidores para comercialização de um produto especialmente elaborado para o mercado nacional e que já é sucesso também em outros países do mundo.

Bruno Hohmann, que vai falar sobre vendas, estratégias de marketing e campanha de lançamento, será um dos palestrantes. Além dele, também participarão outros executivos da empresa: Antônio Calcanhoto fará a abertura; Maristela Castanho abordará o processo de definição do novo produto, a escolha do modelo e a adequação ao público consumidor. Júlio Ouro, por sua vez, vai expor o processo de concepção, o design e até a escolha dos fornecedores. Por fim, André Peres explicará o processo de fabricação, o fornecimento de peças e questões de logística.

Fonte: Renault

What was reported a few months ago is now official: Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will head up the Joint Forces Command, pending (a certain) Senate confirmation. In the language of JFCOM’s press release, Odierno will “oversee UFJFCOM’s roles in joint concept development and experimentation, joint capability development, joint training, and force provision and management as outlined in the Department of Defense’s Unified Command Plan.”

Last week, President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates nominated Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin — like Odierno, a former corps commander in Iraq — to take over for Odierno as the Iraq war’s final commander. Odierno’s official move to Joint Forces Command now sets off a flurry of speculation over whether the current commander there, Marine Gen. James Mattis, will either retire or become the Marine Corps’ next commandant.