The Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB) in Newark, DE, the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation (CMI) in Boston, the Boston University College of Engineering, and the biopharmaceutical company iBio, Inc., in Newark have developed a fully automated, scalable “factory” that uses natural (non-genetically modified) green plants to efficiently produce large quantities of vaccines and therapeutics in just weeks. The first-of-a-kind, plant-based vaccine factory takes advantage of plant viral vector technology developed by Fraunhofer CMB for iBio. The technology has the capability to produce specific proteins within the leaves of rapidly growing plant biomass. The factory’s robotically tended machines, designed by Fraunhofer CMI, plant seeds, nurture the growing plants, introduce a viral vector that directs the plant to produce a target protein, and harvest the biomass once the target has accumulated in the plant tissue. “Traditional methods of vaccine production can take many months. Our plant-based technology provides the means for rapid, large-scale production of vaccine material in a cost-effective manner,” says Vidadi Yusibov, PhD, executive director of CMB.

The factory has the capacity to grow tens of thousands of plants in one batch. The plants are grown in multi-plant trays that are used to handle and transport the plants to different processing stations. To automate the process, robots glide up and down a track, tending the plants — delivering trays from the lighted, irrigated growth modules to each processing station at the appropriate time. “In order to quickly produce large quantities of vaccine material or other protein-based medicines such as antibodies in compliance with [current Good Manufacturing Practices], it was necessary to develop a consistent, repeatable process. We have taken a biological process and turned it into an industrial process,” says Andre Sharon, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University and director of CMI. “Even though the process of making vaccines from plants includes many aspects of traditional horticulture, we have developed a way to automate those functions to quickly, safely, and cost-effectively scale up from a few milligrams in a laboratory setting to the many kilograms that would be required in case of a pandemic.”

In a separate collaboration, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) of Burlington, NC, have formed a joint venture to commercialize new biomarkers in a similar factory-like approach. The entity is designed to speed the translation of newly discovered biomarkers into clinical tools that can measure individual therapeutic responses, predict disease progression, and evaluate any number of biologic or disease-causing processes. Dubbed the Biomarker Factory, the joint venture combines Duke’s expertise in biomarker discovery and validation with LabCorp’s experience in the development and commercialization of diagnostic and laboratory tools. “The Biomarker Factory is at the intersection of translational medicine and personalized medicine,” says Victor J. Dzau, MD, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and CEO of Duke University Health System.

Biomarkers are being used to develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and breast and lung cancer. Research by Duke scientists John McHutchison, MD, associate director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and David B. Goldstein, PhD, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and director of Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, demonstrates how biomarkers can give critical information about the likelihood that a patient will benefit from treatment for hepatitis C. “A particularly exciting aspect of this partnership is that we will be developing deep knowledge about appropriate use of biomarkers in clinical practice and how to provide this information so that patients and doctors can make better decisions,” says Andrew Conrad, PhD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of LabCorp.

The Biomarker Factory will benefit from hundreds of thousands of biological samples contributed by Duke as well as the infrastructure in place in the Duke-led, large-scale epidemiology study known as MURDOCK, which is currently recruiting 50,000 people into a registry. The Biomarker Factory also will capitalize on LabCorp’s biorepository being developed to discover and validate biomarkers in human disease. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Sources: EurekAlert! and MarketWatch

2015. That’s when the First Interplanetary War starts, when Japanese humanoid robots arrive to the Moon to fight the Nazis stationed there. If there are no Nazis, however, they’ll just set up camp and explore, waiting for humans to arrive. More »

Press Release: HP and Palm, Inc.  today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”

“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. “We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Palm stockholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each share of Palm common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The merger consideration takes into account the updated guidance and other financial information being released by Palm this afternoon. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close during HP’s third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2010.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

Comment:

Of all the companies that were posited as possible suitors, HP has never been high on the list. HP has long been a Windows Mobile licensee, and has recently dabbled in Android. They are also a confirmed Windows Phone 7 OEM.  The details above appear to indicate that Palm will continue to run largely independently, which may limit the synergies Palm can extract from the union.

What do our readers think of this dramatic move? Let us know in the comments below.

I used to write for the Huffington Post, before it became overrun with antiscience alt-med antivax garbage so thick I could smell it through my monitor.

Case in point would be a somewhat targetless essay by Dr. Larry Dossey, who seems to be trying to say that because science is portrayed as an individual effort, but is actually usually a team effort, students get confused and marginalized. Or something. His point is difficult to determine. But in any case, he’s quite wrong; the idea of science being done by groups of people collaboratively is everywhere, from astronomy to zoology.

I need not go into details, because, happily, Steve Newton from the NCSE has posted a rebuttal on HuffPo that tears Dossey to shreds. My favorite part was when Dossey says Nobel Prizes are only given to individuals, and my first thought was “Wow, I wonder if the IPCC knows about this?”… in his essay, Newton says almost exactly the same thing. Great minds, yadda yadda.

Anyway, I suggest you read Dossey’s screed, and then read Newton’s slamdunking of it. It’s a wonderful exercise in muddied and clear thinking, in that order. With people like Newton writing for HuffPo, it makes me feel a bit better that I don’t need to as much.

Tip o’ the white lab coat Robert Luhn of the NCSE.

Below are links to news stories of interest from newspapers that came up during a search today.  These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to your computer is recommended  

State News

Daily Herald Pension Series

Reducing benefits, raising taxes among proposed pension fixes  Imagine borrowing money to pay your mortgage every year. That’s right, actually going deeper into hock to pay your debt. 

First steps to solve pension crisis  This could be the year Illinois legislators make their payment to the state pension systems, rein in pension excesses and demonstrate their commitment to carving away at a $78 billion debt they’ve spent decades ignoring.   

D-26 lays out new options for teachers
Crystal Lake Northwest – The outlook for District 26 teachers is more grim than once thought. For the fourth time, the school board formally has requested that the union make concessions to help alleviate the pain of recent budget cuts and layoffs.   

Some teacher jobs saved in Kaneland
Beacon News – The Kaneland School Board has authorized the hiring back of teachers previously pink-slipped under a plan that could have eliminated as many as 30 staff positions. The jobs are being saved as a result of the teachers union’s acceptance of a salary freeze, 

Illinois school bias task force tussles with time
Alton Telegraph – A task force assigned to study why black students are suspended and expelled from Illinois schools at much higher rates than whites is in danger of missing the deadline to hand in its assignment. The panel, created by an Illinois Senate resolution,   

Letter: Quinn, Madigan: Get some guts, stop the cuts
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus Leader – I marched in Springfield last Wednesday with my two sons. I am not a teacher or a state trooper or a state employee. But I am also no fool.  We cannot cut our way out of this crisis. What we need is enough revenue to pay for services our state provides! We must pass House Bill 174!   

Unit 5 to discuss another $7.1M in cuts
Bloomington Pantagraph –  $86 million for 2010-11. “We’ll have (everything) we actually have to implement set and ready,” Getty said, noting the board is trying to make “flexible, thoughtful decisions.” Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed cutting the per-student foundation grants by $450 in the state budget that will begin July 1. That would reduce that key source of school revenue to $5,769 per student.   

Parents, teachers object to multi-age classroom proposal  The majority of parents and teachers at a Tuesday meeting about implementing multi-age classrooms at the new Marquette Academy gave the concept a failing grade.   

None of your business
Chicago Tribune Editorial –  One measure would remove a provision awarding attorneys’ fees to citizens who have to sue to obtain documents that are illegally withheld. Lawmakers began this assault in January by exempting teacher evaluations, in exchange for teachers union support on a bill that was supposed to help Illinois qualify for federal Race to the Top money.   

Plainfield school board in turf war
Plainfield Sun – Plainfield School Board agreed Monday night to investigate installing artificial turf at its four high school stadiums despite budget concerns.   While board member Mike Kelly likes the idea of turf, he said it wasn’t the right time to conduct a feasibility study.  

Finances may force pay-to-play at Mercer County schools
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus – “The revenue shortfall will cause us to use our cash reserves. That, in turn, will make us vulnerable to future revenue shortfalls.” Last month, the school board cut 16 staff member and eliminated 21 positions to save the district an estimated $589,000. The board is seeking to cut $1.2 million from a roughly $14 million budget next year.   

PHOTO: Stepping out
Alton Telegraph – The Alton High School A-Town Steppers performed this past month in front of 1,500 educators for the Illinois Education Association Conference in Rosemont. The A-Town Steppers opened the conference with a performance that received a standing ovation from the educators and government officials.   

SIUE students return to Springfield to ensure MAP grants
Edwardsville Alestle – He said Gov. Pat Quinn will not cut huge amounts of funding in an election year, but something will need to be done about the money situation. Currently, the 2011 budget has a $1.3 billion cut in education funding, but a 1 percent income tax increase may take the place of the funding cut. State Senator Bill Haine said SIU has made some great improvements to its campus   

WIU asks Governor for funding schedule
Quincy KHQA (CBS) 7 – the university’s annual income…putting stress on the school to pay their own bills and payrolls. Now University leaders, including WIU’s President Al Goldfarb, have sent a letter to Governor Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes asking them to set up a regular payment schedule to enable public universities to stay afloat. Goldfarb said, “It’s unprecedented.  We spend every month wondering   

Political News

State lawmakers plan to leave Springfield with no budget
Streator Times-Press – Illinois lawmakers expect to be home at the end of next week, even if it will take a little longer to finish the new state budget.  Legislators expect their last day in Springfield to be on or about May 7, the scheduled adjournment date — and about three weeks earlier than usual. But few if any legislators say the state will have a budget by that time.   

Illinois lawmakers send sexting bill to governor
Chicago Tribune –  post online racy pictures of their underage classmates would get juvenile court supervision that could result in mandatory counseling or community service, under legislation sent to Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday. The measure aims to educate teens about the dangers of “sexting” while modernizing state statutes for the Internet age. Under current Illinois law, teens caught with nude photos   

Quinn responds to Civic Federation criticism of his budget proposals
necessary this legislative session to move Illinois toward budget and fiscal stability. Budget cuts in discretionary spending made by the Quinn administration both last year and this year must continue, and new revenues are needed to restore fiscal balance. One without the other cannot do the job. Both are necessary   

Redistricting proposal advances to House floor  A Democratic-backed redistricting plan is just one step away from legislative approval. But it still lacks the crucial support from Republicans in the Illinois House to clear that final step.   

Jil Tracy throws her support behind bill to stop unfunded mandates
Quincy KHQA (CBS) 7 – State Representative Jil Tracy is co-sponsoring a bill that hopes to put an end to unfunded mandates for Illinois school districts. QUINCY, IL — Every year schools are forced to follow new guidelines about one thing or another. But many times these mandates do not come with additional funding   

NEW: Senate nixes taxpayer-funded Blagojevich portrait
Alton Telegraph –  A proposal that would keep tax money from funding a statehouse portrait of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is headed to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk. The bill passed Tuesday on a 52-1 vote with state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, casting the only dissenting vote  

Giannoulias at financial reform rally in Chicago  Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is calling on lawmakers in Washington to pass financial reform, and he says those who don’t supp  rt it will have a fight on their hands. 

Emanuel: No Subpoena From Blagojevich’s Lawyers
Chicago Public Radio – White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says lawyers for Rod Blagojevich have not subpoenaed him to testify in the ex-Illinois governor’s corruption trial. Blagojevich’s attorneys have asked the judge to subpoena President Barack Obama. They say Mr. Obama’s public statements contradict statements from other witnesses, and they want him to take the stand 

National News

17,000 NJ Students Use Facebook To Organize Statewide Walk-Out
Chicago Tribune –  Last week, students in Edison and Teaneck protested their failed budget. 58 percent of school budgets in the Garden State were recently defeated in a vote. The NJ Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, say they do not endorse Tuesday’s mass student walkout. “I think the best outcome would be for the students to be in

Bill would put new ND employees into 401(k) plans
Belleville News-Democrat – Newly hired government employees and school teachers in North Dakota should have their own retirement savings plans instead of a pension that’s guaranteed by taxpayers, a state lawmaker says

 Wall Street Journal: Teacher Absences Plague Schools

(Barbara Martinez, Op-Ed, New York)

“One-fifth of New York City teachers missed work for more than two weeks last school year, with absenteeism most acute in some of the poorest districts, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.”

Politics Daily: Utah to Consider Elimination of 12th Grade

(Elizabeth Schiffman, News, Utah)

“We don’t want to rush students’ learning experience,” Alexis Holmes, policy analyst in the National Education Association’s Department of Education Policy and Practice, said. “There is a reason for allowing students to have the time to naturally mature academically as well as emotionally. . . . To encourage students to leave school in 3 years and provide them with no support, we don’t see that as being a successful proposal.”

TIME.com Today’s Top Stories

Capping Career, Dodd Relishes Fight For Financial Reform

Some observers speculated that the Connecticut Senator might move the bill more to the right. But instead he has doubled down on Main Street

Is Netanyahu Quietly Freezing Jerusalem Settlements?

Publicly, the Israeli government remains defiant of U.S. demands to halt building on occupied land, but the bureaucratic mechanism for authorizing new construction appears to have ground to a halt

The Derby: Is Kentucky Losing Its Horse Supremacy?

Behind the undiminished pageantry of Saturday’s Run for the Roses, the state’s defining industry is in trouble

Greek Crisis: It’s Gut Check Time for Europe

So now Europe may have a real crisis on its hands. It’s been clear to financial markets for months that the debt woes in Greece could spread to the Eurozone’s other financially unsound PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain).

American Idol: A Little Bit Country

American Idol introduced megaselling mentor Shania Twain as the woman who “made country pop”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, April 28, 2010

pellucid \puh-LOO-sid\, adjective:

1. Transparent; clear; not opaque.
2. Easily understandable.

In a nice example of how universities can effectively support their start-ups, Chromatin, Inc., a biotechnology company that has occupied space in the University of Illinois Research Park since 2005 through the EnterpriseWorks incubator, is expanding operations and graduating to a 5,000-sq. ft. facility. The expansion marks the company’s continued progress in commercializing its technology, which includes mini-chromosomes that were originally developed at the University of Chicago by company co-founder and CEO Daphne Preuss, PhD. With the larger laboratory and office space, the company will continue to expand its R&D activities — which enable the development of new seed products and the delivery of multiple genetic traits in plants through gene-stacking — while widening its focus to pursue new applications, such as improved feedstocks that target the bioenergy sector.

Chromatin isn’t just graduating from UIUC’s EnterpriseWorks incubator, where the Research Park provided laboratories, equipment, and greenhouse space. IllinoisVentures, the university-affiliated VC firm, was an early Chromatin investor, and the university provided early funding for student employees to work as researchers for Chromatin and MBA students to provide commercialization consulting, according to Avijit Ghosh, vice president of technology and business development for the university. U of I also provided entrepreneurship support services. “Our current expansion is a direct result of our success in commercializing Chromatin’s technology and successfully attracting financing, both of which were greatly facilitated by the university’s resources, facilities, and significant talent pool,” Preuss acknowledges.

Since Chromatin was founded in 2000, the company has licensed its technology through commercial agreements with leading agbiotech companies, including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and Bayer CropScience. The company now employs more than 30 people, including 11 in Champaign, and plans to hire additional staff this year.

Source: Grainnet

The most terrifying words I’ve seen written so far about the growing crisis in Greece were penned by Yves Smith yesterday:  “So the whole idea that the financial crisis was over is being called into doubt. Recall that the Great Depression nadir was the sovereign debt default phase. And the EU’s erratic responses (obvious hesitancy followed by finesses rather than decisive responses) is going to prove even more detrimental as the Club Med crisis grinds on.”

The Great Depression was composed of two separate panics.  As you can see from contemporary accounts–and I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in the Great Depression read the archives of that blog along with Benjamin Roth’s diary of the Great Depression–in 1930 people thought they’d seen the worst of things. 

Unfortunately, the economic conditions created by the first panic were now eating away at the foundations of financial institutions and governments, notably the failure of Creditanstalt in Austria.  The Austrian government, mired in its own problems, couldn’t forestall bankruptcy; though the bank was ultimately bought by a Norwegian bank, the contagion had already spread.  To Germany.  Which was one of the reasons that the Nazis came to power.  It’s also, ultimately, one of the reasons that we had our second banking crisis, which pushed America to the bottom of the Great Depression, and brought FDR to power here.

Not that I think we’re going to get another Third Reich out of this, or even another Great Depression.  But it means we should be wary of the infamous “double dip” that a lot of economists have been expecting.  The United States is in comparatively good shape, but the euro is in crisis, and already-weak European banks seem to be massively exposed to Greece’s huge debt load.  They’re even more exposed to the debt of the other PIIGS, which is far too large for it all to be bailed out.  The size of the rescue package that Greece needs is already going to take a fairly substantial chunk of the IMF’s war chest.

And yet, like a lot of analysts, I don’t see much chance that a bailout is going to work.  As Felix Salmon points out, even a substantial IMF intervention isn’t going to bring yields down to their pre-crisis levels, because the new debt is going to jump in front of other creditors–so while it reduces the odds of default, it also increases the haircut that debtors will have to take if the bailout actually happens.

It’s not clear that Greece has the political will for the austerity measures it’s going to have to make even if its debt yields come back down–and the higher they stay, the smaller the chance.  This is about the calculation its creditors are making, which is why yields are now in the 20% range.  Which, perversely, makes it more likely that they’re going to lose their money.

Join the conversation about this story »

The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Technology Transfer (CTT) has introduced UPSTART, a program aimed at developing UPenn IP by helping faculty form companies based on their inventions and technological innovations. The program, a suite of services designed to connect entrepreneurs, investors, and funding organizations with Penn researchers, combines the business-creation strengths of CTT and Penn’s New Ventures Team with the entrepreneurial interests of faculty founders and regional investors.

UPSTART representatives partner directly with university faculty and staff to complete the steps required to legally form a company, raise funds, and recruit employees. The program provides access to business planning, advisory, and support resources through its network of collaborative relationships with entities such as the University Science Center, the Wharton Small Business Development Center, and Penn’s Commercialization Acceleration Program. These and other resources help emerging UPSTART businesses analyze the size of potential markets, address competitive landscapes, develop product strategies, and define their infrastructure needs.

Once a marketing and business plan is established, UPSTART develops strategies and timelines to pursue external funding, including outreach to angel investors, economic development funds, seed stage VC funds, and government grant programs. UPSTART representatives also take the lead in introducing company founders to local entrepreneurs who have the capabilities to build a management team and company infrastructure. “We developed the program with substantial input from faculty members and key stakeholders at Penn, so it truly reflects a partnership between the university and faculty founders that facilitates the process of new venture creation,” says John Swartley, deputy executive director of CTT.

Source: Penn Communications

While most technology transfer offices may still be in the throes of validating the merit of expending resources on Twitter, a blog, or LinkedIn, some have already leapt into the fray, convinced these trends are not passing fads. Betsy Merrick, associate director of marketing/public relations in the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Texas-Austin, says her organization made the decision to dive in with a full-scale multi-media strategy, hoping to improve client interactions through OTC’s presence on RSS feed, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

What pushed her to launch the multimedia initiative? “I read something from Nielsen that said, across the globe in 2008, activity in ‘member communities’ accounted for one in every 11 minutes,” Merrick says. “We needed to get in on it. Our business is part of a global network. We’ve got a global ecosystem. Social media can simultaneously reach more people than traditional offline tools,” she explains. It’s understandable, she adds, that “TTOs and other similar business might have a little hesitancy. There are a number of fears of social media . . . such as a fear of the time commitment. We have a limited staff. Another thing is the fear of the unknown. It’s a new communications channel.” But the social media train has left the station, Merrick stresses, and those fears must be overcome. “It’s time for TTOs to get in on this.” A detailed article on UT-Austin’s social media marketing strategy, including 10 key steps for success, appears in the April issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To start a subscription and access the article, along with three years of archived case studies and best practices, CLICK HERE.

President Bill Clinton spoke at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington, D.C., about how he would advocate for fiscal responsibility were he running for office in 2010. His big pitch boils down to two ideas: (1) the future and (2) immigrants.

Here were his self-transcribed (read: rough, but directionally accurate) statements.

On reducing the deficit

We’re only a few short weeks away from the two-day developer event known as Google I/O.  Android developers and enthusiasts are expecting to hear some big things about our favorite mobile platform.  At this stage, we fully expect Andy Rubin and pals to give us our first looks at the next build of Android, Froyo.  Once the keynotes are finished, developers are encouraged to participate in various breakout sessions, campfires, and roundtables. 

As of right now, there are 7 Android-related sessions spread out over May 19th and 20th.  Taking a quick look at the calendar, we see a few spots left open on Thursday with “TBA” listed under Android for three time frames.  Now of course there are other TBAs listed next to a couple of other categories, but we like to think Google could be waiting to reveal these after a keynote.  Perhaps something like “Integrating Flash into your Android app” or something along those lines?

Why would we think Google might be deliberately holding out on us?  Tim Bray, a recently hired Developer Advocate,  just took to twitter with a vague, possibly coy tweet.

Google IO session schedule. Interesting TBA’s: http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/session-schedule.html

If anyone would/should know what Google is doing, he ought to be one of the inside guys.  Could he be teasing us with something awesome?  On the other hand, maybe he just happened to stumble upon the calendar in a totally innocent manner.

Do any of you have a guess as to what these sessions will be about?

Thanks Chuck!

Might We Suggest…

• AndroidUploads Week In Review
  It’s Sunday again so that means it’s time to catch up on the videos and podcasts from last week over on AndroidUploads.

  Be sure to swing by the site a time or two throughout the week to see what And…

Continuing our coverage of the EPA’s new Climate Change Indicators in the US report, below are key summary findings regarding snow and ice.

Despite what you may have heard in false science circles, we definitely have less snow cover, snowpack and ice than in the past these days.

(more…)

Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Performance, Europe, Plants/Manufacturing, UK, Luxury

At long last, the question of exactly which American V8 the newly-resurrected TVR will use has been answered. As you might have guessed, the Russian-owned, English-bred racer will get a beating heart from none other than the mighty Chevrolet Corvette. The news hounds over at Autocar managed to snag a quick interview with the brand’s owner, Nikolai Smolenski, who said that the GM eight-pot presented the most efficient and powerful solution to the company’s engine concerns.

Unfortunately, Smolenski didn’t say exactly which GM V8 would find its way behind the new TVR’s headlights. We’d love to think that the 638 horsepower supercharged LS9 would do a proper job of paying homage to the ridiculously powerful TVR models of days gone by, but it’s possible that the company could opt for the more civil (and less expensive) 505 horsepower LS7 found in the current Corvette Z06.

Either way, the car should be an absolute rocket whenever it hits the streets. Given the fact that an all-American lump is going to be pushing power to the rear wheels, there’s even some talk of the cars being sold here in the States. Our fingers? Yeah. They’re crossed.

Autocar also makes mention of the fact that Smolenski is considering a hybrid model that would allow the use of an automatic transmission. Blasphemy or not, we’re about to see a whole new take on the TVR name we know and love.

[Source: Autocar]

Report: TVR rebirth hinges on hybrid tech and Chevrolet Corvette power originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the TTO for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has signed a nonexclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Adobe Systems to develop and commercialize a technology that improves digital image processing. The announcement comes on the heels of an agreement between Columbia University and Adobe for computer graphics technology that can simulate the natural movement and flexibility of strands as fine as a single human hair. (Read the post in the IP Marketing Blog.)

The Yissum technology, called Edge Avoiding Wavelets, enables better and faster detail enhancement and preserves edges when sharpening digital images. Image processing applications invest considerable computing power in attempts to enhance details in digital images and to enable users to accurately demarcate a specific object within the image. Existing technologies for enabling such functions suffer from various limitations. The Edge Avoiding Wavelets technology, invented by Raanan Fattal, PhD, from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Hebrew-U, uses explicit computations to obtain results traditionally obtained by implicit formulations that require sophisticated linear solvers. The technology avoids pixels from both sides of an edge, achieving a sharper, halo-free image. Its performance accelerates various computational photography applications by a factor of more than one order of magnitude, according to Yissum.

“Image processing has become a household technology, and faster, user-friendly applications are continuously sought. The new image processing technology invented by Dr. Fattal is exactly such an application, and we believe that it can be extremely valuable also for other image processing software packages,” says Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. The Hebrew-U technology has been applied to Adobe’s Photoshop CS5, according to Kevin Connor, the company’s vice president of product management for professional digital imaging.

Source: Imaging Reporter

Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid to Debut in New York

Making their North American debut, Porsche will be bringing the highly-anticipated Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid to the New York Auto Show next week as well as Cayenne base model, Cayenne S and Cayenne Turbo.

The second generation Cayenne made its world debut at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month.

The automaker will sell the Cayenne S and Turbo in the US this July, with Cayenne and Cayenne S Hybrid models hitting the market later in the year.

The hybrid version combines a supercharged 3.0-liter 333-horsepower (249 kW / 337 PS) V6 engine with a 47-horsepower (34 kW / 48 PS) electric motor. Combined output is 380 hp (283 kW / 385 PS), with maximum torque of 428 ft-lb. The engine and motor are mated to a decoupling clutch, with the SUV intelligently choosing between both driving modes.

Added to this, the vehicle can travel on all-electric up to 60 km/h (37.2 miles), with the electric motor providing a power burst during hard acceleration.

Weight reductions along the entire Cayenne line also lead to better fuel economy and reduced emissions.

We’ll have more on the Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid when the vehicle is introduced in New York on March 31.

Porsche Cayenne 2010 S Hybrid

The Cayenne S Hybrid may be Porsche’s first gas/electric vehicle, but it won’t be the last.

Porsche says a similar system will be available for its first sedan, the 2010 Panamera, which bows with conventional V8 power in 2009. The hybrid version follows about a year later as a 2011 model

Source

A bit over three months since the device’s launch and two months after the major v1.4 update, the Verizon-branded Palm Pre Plus is reportedly set to receive its next OS update starting tomorrow. According to a tipster the rollout of the OTA update will begin on April 28th.

The webOS 1.4.1.1 update is primarily a bug-fix release, with the annoying double keystroke bug finally squashed and various other improvements related to Bluetooth pairing, “connection management” and and “Better Touchstone charger integration”. A full list of the bugfixes and improvements can already be found on Verizon’s support site. (.PDF link)

by Tom Philpott

Lest we forget, he was once a corn-belt senator. While the BBC explores the dark underbelly of the biofuel craze, President Obama affirms his support for crop-based fuels.

From The Hill:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday touted ethanol—both the current variety and next-wave fuels—as a key part of his energy strategy and a way to revive rural economies.

Obama endorsed expanded ethanol production during a speech at a Macon, Missouri plant owned by POET, the country’s largest ethanol producer.

“I believe in the potential of what you are doing right here to contribute to our clean energy future but also to our economy,” Obama told plant workers who produce 46 million gallons per year.

Obama’s declaration of support comes at a pivotal moment in the history of government subsidies for ethanol production. The long-standing $0.45/gallon tax credit for blending ethanol into the gasoline supply is set to expire this year. The credit costs the Treasury billions per year. In 2009, for example, 10.5 billion gallons of ethanol entered the auto-fuel supply at a cost of $4.7 billion to taxpayers.

That tax break has been in effect for years, and it’s highly unlikely that ethanol would ever have entered the U.S. gas supply without it. Ethanol provides just two-thirds the energy per unit volume of gas; it has traditionally needed the tax break to even approach competitiveness with petroleum-based fuel. I mean, how else could energy-light corn ever compete with energy-dense petroleum as an auto-fuel feedstock?

In 2007, Congress and President Bush dramatically upped government support for ethanol. They preserved the tax break, while imposing a “renewable fuel standard” which mandated that gasoline manufacturers mix ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into the fuel supply.

The mandates insured a growing market for ethanol, so you might think the industry would be sanguine about letting the tax breaks expire on schedule this year. Not so; ethanol’s political champions are fighting tooth and nail to keep the tax breaks in place. They are like spoiled children demanding an extra piece of cake, and to be paid for eating it, too.

Two corn-fed senators, Chuck Grassley (R-Nebraska) and Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota), have introduced a bill to extend the tax credits. They also want to extend another ethanol goodie due to expire: a long-standing tariff on foreign ethanol, which gives the domestic product yet another market advantage.

I’m agnostic about the tariff. With the “renewable fuel standard” in place, the tariff is probably all that’s keeping the U.S. market from being flooded with cheap Brazilian ethanol. While Brazil’s sugarcane-based product is likely more ecologically robust than our corn-based firewater, that’s not saying much. Indeed, for all the hype it’s gotten, Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol is fertilizer-intensive, relies on cheap and exploited labor, and is implicated in rain forest deforestation.

But I object to the extension of the tax credit; it should be opposed. The renewable fuel standard mandates that 15 billion gallons of ethanol enter the fuel supply by 2015. That will happen with or without the tax credit. If it’s going to happen anyway, why on Earth should taxpayers surrender $0.45/gallon for a grand total of $6.75 billion, in tax revenues?

Rather than mandating and subsidizing huge increases in biofuels, a truly progressive government would be investing in efficiency and low-impact fuels like wind and solar. In his remarks affirming his faith in biofuels, Obama didn’t specify whether or not he supports Grassley and Conrad’s absurd bill. Let’s hope he opposes it.

Related Links:

BBC on the impact of biofuels on Paraguay’s ecology and farmers

Watch out, Kerry—Big Ag’s not done with your climate bill

Scientists show ‘growing’ fuel is waste of energy

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In an astonishing statistic released this morning, Web analytics service Experian Hitwise reported that of all the Web searches performed in the United States on the top three search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing during the first four weeks of March, about two percent on average are for the word facebook. For Yahoo and Bing, Another one percent is for facebook.com, and just less than one percent is for facebook login.

Coupled with statistics for the same month from analytics service comScore, Experian’s findings suggest that, from March 1 through March 27, searches for a way to get to Facebook other than through typing the address or clicking on a bookmark, accounted for as many as 175.84 million Google searches in the US, over 78.9 million Yahoo searches, and over 80 million Bing searches.

That means an estimated 2.2% of Americans’ Web searches are for their Facebook front page.

Before one goes chocking this figure up completely to massive user inexperience: Although typing facebook into the address bar of Firefox brings up the home page of Facebook.com, typing facebook into the address bar of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome brings up results for a Web search for Facebook using the browser’s default search engine, which for many users is typically Google.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to ignore that — once again coupling Experian’s and comScore’s numbers — some 18.5 million Yahoo searches, and nearly 20.2 million Bing searches, in the US for the first four weeks of March, were for google.

The fact that tens of millions of searches every month are for the location of one of the most obvious Web portals on the planet, posed a problem for a very legitimate news site, ReadWriteWeb, last February. A news article whose headline was “Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login,” ostensibly about the social service incorporating friends lists from multiple other services, became one of the leading search results on Google and other sites, for users typing facebook login.

The result was pandemonium, as thousands of folks confused about their new destination, commented to ReadWriteWeb wondering where their Facebook had gone…and worse, lamenting the fate of all their farm animals and crops they had tended to in the game of Farmville, a Facebook app that demands persistent participation.

But what’s even more astonishing is that the parade of confused participants continues even as late as today (April 28), some eleven weeks after the article’s original date of publication. Commenters (some for real…some perhaps pretending) continue to protest against what they believe to be a change in Facebook’s format, including redecorating from blue to red, still pleading, “How do I log in?” Protesters join a sea of equally sad lampooners ridiculing the confused patrons along with, more recently, unsolicited advertisements from attention seekers.

Learning the lesson from this experience and leveraging their own gains from it, a number of sites have renamed or retitled themselves “Facebook Login,” or something similar. Despite even that fact, the ReadWriteWeb article continues to be the #6 search result that Google provides, for the estimated 85.4 million US users who type facebook login every month.

That figure is astonishingly close to the number of people that Farmville reports as active users, as Web analyst and blogger Justin Kistner reported last month. Also putting two and two together, Kistner noted that the number of people Facebook reports to be playing Farmville in March (83.2 million) exceeds the number of people believed by independent estimates to be using Twitter (75 million).

Thus, if you couple these figures, the number of people who can’t find Facebook outnumber those who can find Twitter.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

According to Millward Brown’s annual BrandZ Top 100 survey, BMW has overtaken Toyota as the world’s most valuable automotive brand. Peter Walshe, Millward Brown global brand director, said he thinks Toyota will bounce back after the automaker’s massive recall campaign kicked off toward the end of 2009.

BMW brand’s brand value declined 9 percent compared with the 2009 ranking to just over $21.8 billion while Toyota’s dropped 27 percent to just under $21.8 billion.

“It is likely that Toyota’s brand has suffered further in recent months, but it is a strong brand and is trying hard to overcome the damage through a major communications campaign,” Walshe said. “All of our evidence shows that strong brands are much more likely to recover from a crisis.”

FoMoCo and Volkswagen AG also improved their brand value.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)