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Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Technology, Chevrolet, Ford, GM, Pontiac, Saturn

In the automotive realm, marketing can sometimes prove just as important as the actual product. Take, for instance, Ford’s well regarded EcoBoost technology, which couples turbocharging with direct injection to produce more horsepower and reduce fuel consumption. Would it surprise you to hear that General Motors has had similar technology on the market for over three years?

It’s true. GM’s first turbocharged, direct injected powerplants hit the market for the 2007 model. The 2.0-liter Ecotec mills put down an impressive 260 horsepower and a matching 260 pound-feet of torque, and they were lauded by the press in the engine bays of the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, Chevrolet Cobalt SS and Chevrolet HHR SS. But few people outside a core group of enthusiasts actually remember this fact.

Says Uwe Grebe, executive director of GM’s global advanced engineering, “We didn’t have a badge and say, ‘This is the most important thing we will put on all our brochures.’” Ford, however, did just that, and it’s EcoBoost engines are right at the tips of all our tongues when we discuss today’s most advanced powerplants. So, how does The General fix its mistake?

Well, that’s a tad complicated. “It would not be good to say, ‘This is EcoBoost, only better,’” explains Grebe. “People need to know what it is,” but “people don’t want to know every detail of the technology.”

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req’d]

Report: GM struggling to market turbo technology originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Mike was having trouble getting Verizon to actually show up and install his FiOS. He wasted two Saturdays and a Sunday waiting and fruitlessly calling Verizon customer service. But after a nice e-mail to the CEO, Mike says his FiOS was installed immediately.

In a concise but detailed e-mail, Mike wrote CEO Ivan Seidenberg ([email protected]) and copied Consumerist, his local Better Business Bureau and the FCC.

The next morning, he received a call from Verizon Executive Customer Service, who had competent technicians at his home within 24 hours.

And though he was glad to have the problem resolved, Mike still wanted some resolution on all the time and energy spent trying to get some help:

After the first bill was generated, I again contacted executive customer service and voila, they adjusted my bill and gave me most of what I had originally wanted: 1 month worth of charges deducted from my bill (although I believe I’m still paying the taxes and fees on that service).

The moral of the story? EECBs work, even if it only gets through to one person. And executive customer service does get the job done once you get through to them.

Isn’t it nice to hear a happy ending on occasion?

The best bulwark against potential Russian aggression in the Black Sea region of Eastern Europe is the spread and establishment of democracy, the president of the nation of Georgia told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on April 19.

But that means democracy in all its expressions, including free elections, free speech, free assembly, and the right to disagree with the government, said Mikheil Saakashvili, who was elected president of Georgia in 2004 after the so-called “Rose Revolution,” which ejected the incumbent administration.

“The best guarantee of our security is a democratic, stable Georgia state that has built lasting partnerships with Western institutions,” he told the crowd at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Security in our perception cannot be separate from democracy or stability. They are two sides of the same coin. Georgia is a small country that is directly being undermined by a military superpower. Its security cannot rely … on its army or the number of its weapons.”

Saakashvili, who studied at Columbia University and the George Washington University National Law Center, became the youngest president in Europe when elected in 2004. He was re-elected early in 2008. In August 2008, tensions between Georgia, which was once part of the Soviet Union, and Russia escalated into a military confrontation, something that Saakashvili referenced many times in his remarks.

“Our democracy has had no choice but to grow and mature at gunpoint,” he said. “Today over 20 percent of our territory is occupied.”

Yet the overall thrust of Saakashvili’s remarks was positive. His humor, good looks, and charisma were on full display as he spoke of Georgia’s success in combating organized crime, poverty, and corruption. Saying Georgia now has a “meritocracy,” he described what he called the country’s economic vigor and transformation in the post-Soviet world.

But, he acknowledged, “The fate of our nation still remains unclear.” Continued security means social responsibility, economic opportunity, freedom of expression, and tolerance of minorities, Saakashvili said. When security forces do not run the state, there is support for institutions, not just for personalities, he said.

“Security is knowing that if your leadership fails to deliver on their promises, you can replace them without taking to the streets or rallying the intervention of a foreign power,” he said.

Reform has, however, a limited window of opportunity, he added. Leaders must use their initial popularity to enact reforms because they likely won’t be popular for long. Then, after new reforms take hold and if their popularity rises, they may be able to enact more reforms, he said. But, he emphasized, “The window is very small.”

At times, Saakashvili almost sounded like an American conservative in his calls to reduce the size of government and support a free-market economy, saying Georgia public spending is kept to no more than 30 percent of GDP. He said he resists calls for regulation.

“I don’t trust any government to regulate anything. I don’t trust MY government to regulate.”

Georgia is at a crossroads, he said, trying to make its way between “Yeltsin chaos” (a reference to former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin) and “Putin-style stability,” a reference to the often-criticized strong-arm tactics of Russian ex-president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The invasion, he insisted, only underscored how Georgia’s new democratic institutions were robust. “As Russian tanks were advancing toward the capital, the whole society united in support of the institution,” he said. “No crime, no riot, no panic.”

(Editor’s Note: this is one of the Research Executive Briefs that will be included in SharpBrains’ 2010 market report, to be unveiled on May 24th. We asked leading neuroscientists to share findings and implications from their own recent published scientific studies in order to better forecast the development trajectory of emerging applications for cognitive health and brain fitness. Money quote: “This highlights the need for special attention in the choice of the games to be used when considering potential real-world applications.”)

Brief prepared by: Bjron Hubert-Wallander, Bjorn & Daphne Bavelier, Bavelier Brain & Vision Lab, University of Rochester.

1. Main findings for 2008 and 2009:

Over the past ten years, research conducted by our lab and others has shown that playing fast-paced, action-packed videogames can lead to significant benefits in how well one pays attention and how well one sees. Specifically, our studies have shown that training for as little as ten hours on action video games (like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Unreal Tournament) can lead to measurable enhancements in our ability to spread our attention around the visual field, our ability to keep track of multiple moving objects, and our ability to pick out relevant information from a rapid sequence of visual events. Most recently though, we have shown that action videogame training can also positively affect more basic aspects of vision such as our ability to resolve small details or see faint patterns.

Published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in 2009, one of our studies compared two groups of college-aged males, those who had a history of playing action videogames and those who had very rarely or had never played videogames at all. By analyzing both groups’ performance on a task designed to assess contrast sensitivity, the term for our ability to detect fine differences in brightness, we showed that the videogame-playing group’s visual sensitivity was higher than the non-gamer group. In order to rule out other potential explanations for this effect (perhaps those who enjoyed greater natural visual abilities are more likely to develop into action videogame players, for example), the second part of the study involved giving non-gamers experience on action videogames to see if this alone could improve their contrast sensitivity. In this part of the study, a pool of subjects who had never played action videogames before was tested on various aspects of their vision and then randomly split into two groups. One group was asked to play action videogames for a total of 50 hours over two and a half months while the other group was asked to play 50 hours of non-action videogames (slower paced strategy or social games such as The Sims or Restaurant Empire). Several days after the training ended, both groups’ vision was again tested. Those who played the action games showed improved contrast sensitivity while those who played control games did not. Thus, the improvement initially noted in habitual action videogame players is not due to environmental factors or preexisting differences between action gamers and non-gamers, but rather is caused by the action game-playing itself.

2. Context to understand those findings (i.e., why are they significant and relevant):

Though the ability to detect fine differences in shading may not sound impressive in itself, this ability underlies and has profound implications for nearly all other functions of everyday vision. Detecting differences in brightness allows us to identify lines and edges, which in turn allows us to perceive objects as distinct from their backgrounds. Doing this becomes much more difficult when visibility is reduced or in poor lighting. Thus, those who have greater contrast sensitivity can better see obstructions or other objects while driving at night or in fog, for example. They can read better, navigate better, identify objects better, and generally operate more effectively overall, especially in dim light.

Using a similar approach, we have previously found that playing action videogames also improves the resolution of vision. Our ability to resolve small details in clutter is a prime determinant of our ability to identify specific objects in a crowded visual environment. Reading, too, is an example of the kind of visual chore that is dependent upon visual resolution.
These works are the first in the scientific literature to demonstrate that visual abilities as fundamental to our everyday sight as contrast sensitivity or visual resolution can be improved by training. Importantly, these studies also establish that not all video games have the same effect on vision. If they did, we should have seen improvements in both the action game group and the strategy game group in the experiments we describe above, but this was not the case. This highlights the need for special attention in the choice of the games to be used when considering potential real-world applications.

3. Implications for healthcare, technology and/ or education:

Given the crucial role of contrast sensitivity and visual resolution in everyday vision and the vast number of people for whom this ability is compromised (by gradual age-related deterioration or by acute visual impairments such as amblyopia), the importance of this discovery is apparent. Poor vision is often treated by corrections in the optics of the eye, but optical problems only account for a portion of these cases; many times the problem lies in the brain. Since the improvements induced by action videogame playing take place in the brain, not in the eye, videogame training could make a difference above and beyond eye-based treatments for those with low vision. Thus, we suggest that interventions that include action videogame play as a component could be used to enhance the visual abilities (and thus the overall quality of life) of many who suffer from low vision. We are currently assessing the effectiveness of just such an intervention for both amblyopic patients and older adults.

Just as many suffer from impaired vision, many others are in professions that require or benefit enormously from excellent vision. For example, aircraft pilots (both military and commercial) must be able to see relevant objects in the sky and on the ground in order to perform their jobs effectively, especially at night or in cloudy skies. When flying at hundreds of miles per hour thousands of feet above the ground, the consequences of not noticing obstructions or enemy aircraft in time to act on them can be catastrophic. Since excellent vision and visual attention are important skills for many professions (military personnel, taxi drivers, firefighters, and most athletes, to cite a few), it is likely that a large portion of the population could benefit from the enhancements discussed here. We envision that our findings can ultimately be harnessed by training regimens that alleviate visual deficits as well as bring super-normal visual capabilities to those whose safety depends on it. We hope to see such applications in the not-too-distant future.

Scientific citations:

• Li, R., Polat, U., Makous, W. & Bavelier, D. (2009). Enhancing the contrast sensitivity function through action video game playing. Nature Neuroscience, 12(5), 527-8.
• Green, C.S. & Bavelier, D. (2007). Action video game experience alters the spatial resolution of vision. Psychological Science, 18(1), 88-94.

Napolitano at memorial in Oklahoma City, April 19

A day after she was in Oklahoma City to commemorate 15 years since the deadly bombing there, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday expressed concern that groups inside the United States, including anti-government groups, could be seeking to launch violent attacks.

“The question is not ideology,” she told Fox News in a wide-ranging and lengthy interview. “We’ve always had groups on all sides that have held beliefs that are very strong and express them very vociferously.”

Instead, the issue is “the turn to violence,” according to Napolitano, who, as U.S. Attorney for Arizona at the time, helped lead part of the federal investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing.

“Whenever you go to Oklahoma City, you need to go to the memorial, and you need to walk through that museum,” she said Tuesday in a somber tone. “That will teach you the difference between those who are merely expressing themselves — loudly and with anger — and the violence that we must seek to prevent.”

In March, federal authorities arrested nine militia members from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, accusing them of planning to kill law enforcement officers and start an all-out war with the government.

Days later, the FBI acknowledged it was investigating a series of letters sent from an anti-government group to governors across the country, promising to remove the governors from office if they did not resign themselves.

Nearly a year earlier, the Department of Homeland Security issued a controversial bulletin to local law enforcement, warning that current economic and political factors could help “right-wing extremist groups” recruit new people.

Shortly after the assessment became public, Napolitano denounced it and said it should never have been issued.

But the recent militia-related arrests and FBI investigation have not changed Napolitano’s views on the assessment, as she continued to distance herself from it on Tuesday.

She bristled at even the term “right-wing,” saying it was something she didn’t want to use.

When read some less-controversial lines from the assessment, Napolitano said she agrees that “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terror cells is more pronounced than in past years,” and that “the current economic and political climate has some similarities to the [early] 1990s,” which led to the Oklahoma City bombing.

She also said she agrees “in part” with the line saying, “The economic downturn and the election of the first African-American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment.”

After all, she said, “Those are things that we in law enforcement are dealing with all the time.”

But, she said, the assessment issued a year ago was “not written in a fashion that was usable by local law enforcement.”

“I think now, having been in the job 15 months, the goal that we need to have is to give local law enforcement tactical intelligence-based threat information that they can act upon — not generalizations and not comments about ideologies,” she said. “There is a balance there, and there is a nuance there that our department now needs to not only express but communicate with local law enforcement.”

On Monday, Napolitano toured the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum with Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry, Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty and Fire Chief Keith Bryant.

Citty and Bryant responded to the bombing 15 years ago, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

During a speech on Monday, Napolitano called the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, an “unspeakable act of terrorism.”

“We honor the continued need for vigilance against the hateful ideologies that led to this attack, so that we can recognize their signs in our communities and stand together to defeat them,” she said. “I wish it were possible to stand here and say that threats from terrorism and violent extremism have gone away since then. We know that’s not the case.”

Penn State manages almost 20 percent of its electricity consumption through green power purchases. …

… “Penn State leads the Big Ten and ranks third in the nation among colleges and universities in the amount of green power it uses, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ” …

Via Penn State: Leadership in green power use

Penn State Emissions Reduction Progress: “Maruszewski explained how the Office of Physical Plant employees have been working towards their goal of reducing emissions 17.5% by 2012. So far, Maruszewski said, the campus has reduced its emissions and consumption by 12% since 2004/2005, while the University added over one million square feet during that time. ”

• Green power partnership.
• Penn State Sustainability Initiative.
• Penn Staters celebrate Earth Week (PDF).

Exciting news for Motorola Devour users, as Verizon is now pushing out OTA (over the air) updates for the Android-powered device. Though this isn’t the much-anticipated 2.1 update that everyone is waiting for, it is a release that improves on the previous version and fixes quite a few bugs.  The software version update, CALAND_X_01.15.08P, offers the following changes:

Enhancements:

• Device performance
• Improved response time when Menu, Home, and Back keys are pressed.
• Adjustments to improve the accuracy of signal strength indicators on the display.
• Stability improvements made to browser, contacts, and V CAST Music with Rhapsody® applications.
• Multiple enhancements to incoming call performance.
• Volume keys will now function within the Mobile IM application.
• Improvements made to ensure pictures are uploaded in the correct orientation.

Email and Calendar

• Improved functionality to allow users to more easily delete POP3 email accounts.
• Changed display when setting up new email accounts, prompting users to use a back slash instead of a forward slash.
• Enhanced Exchange ActiveSync® Calendar agenda view to display meeting titles.
• Verizon.net email accounts will now auto-configure.

Audio

• Overall improvements to ringer, voice dialing application, and multimedia audio when using a headset.
• DEVOUR 1.15.83 includes updated versions of Google applications.

The painstaking wait for 2.1 can only last so much longer.  With most Android devices already having 2.1 or scheduled to get it in the near future, the Devour is bound to receive it around the same time.  Regardless, we’ll take what we can get.  Devour owners, does the update quench your Android thirst, or are you holding out for 2.1?

Via BGR

Johnson & Johnson has underperformed the market in recent months and lowered its outlook for earnings on Tuesday, but it is still a value investor’s best friend, according to Ockham Research (Hat tip: Seeking Alpha).

Ockham recommends that disappointed investors view the numbers for the health care giant in context. For instance, J&J is trading for about 12 times its cash earnings. Its price-to-sale ratio is only 2.8. Both those numbers are well below its averages over the past decade.

Ockham thinks J&J should be trading for at least US$73 a share, well above the current US$66.

“That kind of margin of safety is difficult to find in the currently overheated market,” says Ockham.

It argues that, with a 3% dividend yield and the potential for double-digit gains, J&J represents a fine roosting place for anyone nervous about today’s market.

Freelance business journalist Ian McGugan blogs for the Financial Post

Some commentators who take the economy’s temperature by watching Wall Street just don’t understand why consumers are so bummed. Look, they say, GDP is up! The S&P looks awesome! Hello, retail stocks! Well, yes. GDP is growing. The S&P is up 70% year-over-year. Retail stocks look nice. But this misses a bigger picture. Consumers are people, and consumer confidence grows from an improving labor market.

So maybe this helps put things in perspective. In a new Pew survey, more than half of respondents said someone in the house has been without a job and looking for work in the past year. Nine months after the economy stopped shrinking, this is what a bummed recovery looks like:

by Tom Philpott

Lynn Henning checks a stream for CAFO contamination. When government regulators toe the industry line, citizens have to fight back. Photo: Tom DusenberryIn “Chewing
the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around
the Web.

————-

I write a lot about the meat industry’s nearly unbridled power in this country, which it uses to abuse labor, land, farmers, water, animals, and communities in execution of its business model. Sometimes, citizens fight back—and win. Lynn Henning, a family farmer in rural Michigan, is one such person. She and her husband run a 300-acre corn and soy farm—within 10 miles of no fewer than 12 concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs). Her effort to document the ill effects of living surrounded by these vast fecal/pharmaceutical mires has caused her and her family plenty of trouble. Her car is often followed—and even run off the road; dead animals appear on her lawn. But her work has resulted in hundreds of citations for the CAFOS that surround her house; and in 2008, based on evidence that Henning dug up, the state of Michigan for the first time ever denied a license for a CAFO. Efforts of citizens like Henning expose our pathetic regulatory structure around meat production—and act as the necessary spur for improving things. I congratulate Lynn on winning the 2010 North America Goldman Environmental Prize—and congratulate Goldman for understanding and highlighting the relavance of this issue.

Related Links:

Time for the public to reinvest in food-system infrastructure

USDA Inspector General: meat supply routinely tainted with harmful residues

Fred Kirschenmann, winner of NRDC’s Growing Green “Thought Leader” award

Going green for Ford doesn’t just mean developing compact cars like the Fiesta and offering EcoBoost engines. The automaker announced today that it is making its vehicles, which are 85 percent recyclable by weight, more eco-friendly through the increased used of renewable and recyclable materials.

“By increasing the use of recycled or renewable content and reducing the use of undesirable materials whenever possible, we’re helping to reduce waste to landfills by millions of pounds – and we’re doing it around the world,” said John Viera, Ford’s director of Sustainability and Environmental Policy. “More than ever before, the spirit of ONE Ford that drives our global product strategy also drives our commitment to sustainability.”

Click here for prices on the 2010 Ford Taurus.

Ford said that it saved approximately $4.5 million by using recycled materials in 2009. It said that it diverted between 25 and 30 million pounds of plastic from landfills in North America alone.

The 2010 Ford Taurus is the eleventh vehicle from the company to feature earth-friendly bio-based seat cushions and seatbacks. The Ford Mustang, F-150, Focus, Flex, Escape, Expedition and Econoline as well as Mercury Mariner, Lincoln MKS and Navigator also use the sustainable material.

Follow the jump for the press release for more details.

Press Release:

FORD IS MAKING GREENER VEHICLES THROUGH INCREASED USE OF RENEWABLE AND RECYCLABLE MATERIALS

* Ford is making its vehicles, which are 85 percent recyclable by weight, more eco-friendly through increased use of renewable and recyclable materials; the 2010 Ford Taurus is the latest model to use eco-friendly bio-based seat cushions
* In 2009, Ford reduced the amount of automotive-related plastics to landfills by nearly 30 million pounds and saved approximately $4.5 million by reusing recycled materials
* Ford’s “reduce, reuse and recycle” commitments are part of its broader global sustainability strategy to reduce its environmental footprint
* Automobiles are among the most recycled consumer products. More than 95 percent of all end-of-life vehicles in the U.S. are processed for recycling – compared to 52 percent of all paper and 31 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles

DEARBORN, Mich., April 20, 2010 – Ford is making its vehicles more eco-friendly through increased use of renewable and recyclable materials such as the soy and bio-based seat cushions and seatbacks on the 2010 Ford Taurus.

Ford vehicles are now 85 percent recyclable by weight. In 2009, Ford saved approximately $4.5 million by using recycled materials, and diverted between 25 and 30 million pounds of plastic from landfills in North America alone.

The 2010 Ford Taurus is the eleventh Ford vehicle to feature earth-friendly bio-based seat cushions and seatbacks. Ford has more vehicle models with seats that use soy and other bio-based foams than any other automaker. Ford Mustang, F-150, Focus, Flex, Escape, Expedition and Econoline as well as Mercury Mariner, Lincoln MKS and Navigator also use the sustainable material.

“We already have bio-based foam on more than 2 million vehicles and we’re looking to convert 100 percent of our fleet to it in the future,” said Jerry Brown, Ford chief engineer of seat and restraint engineering. “This is just one way that Ford is advancing the use of eco-friendly materials in the industry.”

Ford’s “reduce, reuse and recycle” commitments are part of the company’s broader global sustainability strategy to reduce its environmental footprint while accelerating the development of advanced fuel-efficient vehicle technologies around the world.

Building in green materials
For the past several years, Ford has concentrated on increasing the use of non-metal recycled and bio-based materials, including:

* Bio-based (such as soy) polyurethane foams on the seat cushions, seatbacks and headliners on 11 vehicle models. The 2 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles on the road today with bio-foam seats equates to a reduction in petroleum oil usage of approximately 1.5 million pounds
* Post-consumer recycled resins such as detergent bottles, tires and battery casings used to make underbody systems, such as aerodynamic shields, splash shields and radiator air deflector shields. The latest example is the engine cam cover on the 3.0-liter V-6 2010 Ford Escape. As a result, Ford has diverted between 25 and 30 million pounds of plastic from landfills
* Post-industrial recycled yarns for seat fabrics on vehicles such as the Ford Escape and Escape Hybrid. A 100 percent usage of recycled yarns can mean a 64 percent reduction in energy consumption and a 60 percent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the use of new yarns
* Repurposed nylon carpeting made into nylon resin and molded into cylinder head covers for Ford’s 3.0-liter Duratec® engine. The industry’s first eco-friendly cylinder head cover is used in the 2010 Ford Fusion and Escape
* The automotive industry’s first application of wheat straw-reinforced plastic for the third-row storage bins of the 2010 Ford Flex. The natural fiber replaces energy-inefficient glass fibers commonly used to reinforce plastic parts

In support of Ford’s global product development strategy, material engineers are developing standardized specifications for sustainable materials while working with parts purchasers and suppliers to use eco-friendly components in different markets.

For example, the European Ford Focus uses recycled polymer in such components as the battery tray, wheel arch liners, seat fabric and carpets. Materials engineers are in the process of determining if recycled polymer can be used for similar components in the global Focus coming to North America and Europe in 2011.

“Sustainable materials need to meet the same high standards for quality, durability and performance as virgin material; there can be no compromise on product quality,” said Valentina Cerato, Ford materials engineer in Europe.

What the future holds
Materials researchers continue to explore sustainable material applications, such as an eco-friendly replacement for the fiberglass used between the headliner and roof sheet metal that will be bio-based, lighter weight, and will deliver improved acoustics and neutralize odor.

In addition, Ford researchers are developing natural-fiber composites as a potential substitute for the glass fibers traditionally used in plastic car parts to make them stronger while reducing vehicle weight, which helps improve fuel economy and reduces emissions. Natural fiber composites also are more eco-friendly, because their production and end-of-life incineration are less energy intensive than glass fibers, which also results in lower emissions.

Ford researchers also are investigating ways to use plastics made entirely from sustainable resources such as corn, sugar beets, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. These renewable materials will help reduce dependency on petroleum, reduce CO2 emissions and allow the composting of the material at the end of a vehicle’s life.

“Natural fiber-reinforced plastics and plant-based polymer resins help reduce CO2 emissions by being entirely compostable, and in some cases reduce weight, which helps improve fuel economy,” said Debbie Mielewski, technical leader, Ford Plastics Research. “We have to entertain the thought of bio-replacement in baby steps, looking at every aspect of a car that could be green. One day I hope to see the world of automotive plastics go totally compostable, removing petroleum by 100 percent.”

What comes out
Automobiles are among the most recycled consumer products in the world. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 95 percent of all end-of-life vehicles in the U.S. are processed for recycling – compared to 52 percent of all paper and 31 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles.

In Europe, automakers are required to take back the vehicles they’ve produced at the end of the vehicles’ useful lives. Ford has end-of-life recycling networks for its vehicles in 16 European markets and participates in industry collective systems in another 10. In 2007, Ford became one of the first automakers in Europe to be certified in compliance with end-of-life requirements, including:

* Design and produce vehicles that facilitate the dismantling, reuse, recovery and recycling of them at end-of-life
* Reduce the use of hazardous substances when designing vehicles
* Increase the use of recycled materials in vehicle manufacture
* Ensure that parts do not contain mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium or lead

Reuse is a big part of the recycling story. Auto recyclers supply more than one third of all ferrous scrap to the U.S. scrap processing industry. When manufacturers use scrap iron and steel instead of newly produced ore, they reduce air and water pollution by more than half during the manufacturing process.

“In theory, end-of-life vehicles are nearly 100 percent recoverable. In practice, however, the cost in energy and labor to recover all vehicle material often exceeds the value of the materials and offers insignificant value to the environment,” Viera said. “We remain focused on achieving the highest economically viable and environmentally sound recovery percentage possible.”

– By: Stephen Calogera

PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew has released three new consumer-generated flavors—Distortion, Typhoon and White Out—though only one will survive. The product introductions comprise stage two of a year-long, social-media-backed crowdsourcing effort, in which the beverage brand asked fans what they were looking for from their favorite drink. TV and online ads breaking this week ask consumers to narrow the three down to one. (Sorry, America.) In the ad shown here, a shirtless beach dude guzzles some Typhoon and orange-and-red tidal waves and a typhoon-like-swirl build in the ocean. See the other two spots at Dewmocracy.com. In the White Out ad, a woman being pursued by ninjas is able to escape by blending into a wall, thanks to the beverage or her awesome camouflage skills. The chosen flavor will join last year’s winner, Mountain Dew Voltage, on shelves on Labor Day.

—Posted by Elaine Wong

Depois de revelar uma primeira imagem e a apresentação do conceito CLS Shooting Break no Salão do Automóvel de Pequim, a Mercedes-Benz divulgou novas imagens (que você pode conferir na galeria abaixo) e um vídeo do modelo, no qual podemos conferir detalhadamente suas novidades.

O conceito adianta o futura StationWagon Mercedes-Benz CLS, que de acordo com a companhia alemã, tem data prevista para estrear no fim de 2011. Mesmo ainda em sua fase de desenvolvimento, o modelo já tem três motorizações diferentes: Um V6 de 3.5L de 300 cv, o V8 de 4.6L e 435 cv de potência, além da versão esportiva AMG, que vem com um potente motor V8 5.5L bi-turbo com 563 cavalos de potencia.

Todas as novidades do conceito Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Break serão conhecidas durante a sua apresentação no Salão do Automóvel de Pequim, que irá abrir as suas portas dos dias 27 de abril a 2 de maio.

Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Break

Fonte: Autoblog.it

Luke Timmerman wrote:

The folks at San Diego-based Phenomix are wrestling with some serious cognitive dissonance today, which is a fancy way of saying they got some serious bad news mixed in with some good news.

First, the bad news. Phenomix’s U.S. partner, New York-based Forest Laboratories (NYSE: FRX), said today in its quarterly financial report that it has terminated its alliance with Phenomix to develop dutogliptin, an experimental drug for diabetes. That decision came after Phenomix unveiled results from its first pivotal-stage clinical trial of the treatment. And that’s the confusing part. Phenomix said today the study of 544 diabetic patients showed its drug reached its primary goal, and all of the secondary readouts, which suggests it is comparable to other medicines in its class in terms of safety and effectiveness, CEO Laura Shawver says.

Forest didn’t bother to explain its decision in a conference call with analysts today, other than to say it dumped the Phenomix deal “for business reasons.” Part of Forest’s calculation has to factor in the competition. Phenomix’s drug is designed to block an enzyme called DPP4. Merck led the way in October 2006 with sitagliptin (Januvia), the first drug of this class approved in the U.S. By blocking DPP4, these drugs raise the levels of a peptide called GLP-1, which signals that food is in the body and tells the pancreas to make more insulin to control blood sugar. The market for these DPP4 blockers ought to be worth more than $10 billion a year, Shawver has said. The Merck drug alone generated $1.9 billion in worldwide sales last year. Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb also have FDA-approved drugs in the same class.

Laura Shawver

“We agree with the business decision on dutogliptin, as it always looked like a “me-too” opportunity to us,” said Thomas Russo, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, in a note to clients today. That said, Forest’s termination might send an unfriendly message to other biotech partners. It may “leave marks on the (Forest) business development track record,” Russo wrote.

No matter how you slice this story, it’s bad news for Phenomix. The company signed the partnership with Forest back in October 2008. The deal brought in $75 million in upfront cash to Phenomix and promised to generate as much as $340 million more in milestones over time, with Forest agreeing to equally share expenses and profits from the development of dutogliptin in the U.S. About a year later, Phenomix found another partner, Italy-based Chiesi Farmaceutici, in a deal that covers Europe and other territories around the world.

Today’s announcement from Phenomix is from just one …Next Page »

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

It has been all quiet on the BlackBerry front for a while, with RIM hard at work on the next big version of the OS, 6.0. Not much information is getting out but the BGR has gotten hold of some mighty tasty screen shots of BlackBerry 6.0. It seems that the next BlackBerry update will be all touchy-feely, at least the screens look built for touch control. The best news for me is the word that the new BlackBerry web browser is all webkit. Now that’s music to my ears.

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The government of Saudi Arabia has announced a new section of its capital Riyadh is set to be powered solely by nuclear energy. This will be the first nuclear power plant in the Gulf states, and the first in the broader Middle East.

If the U.S. government backs Saudi Arabia’s bid to build a reactor, they’ll be creating the potential for nuclear growth within the GCC, or Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman.

All of those states are also reviewing the possibility of producing nuclear fuel, so they can export more oil and gas to foreign markets.

The GCC is largely allied with the United States and their key security issue is Iran’s rise in power across the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. must be concerned that by allowing oil-rich ally Saudi Arabia to invest in nuclear technology, it will be further escalating its conflict with Iran.

The talk of a double standard in terms of peaceful nuclear energy in the Middle East will have further credence if the U.S. allows a Gulf state to make the move to nuclear.

The main issue is the non-proliferation treaty. While Gulf states would likely be willing to join, protected by the massive U.S. arsenal, Iran has serious security concerns and is pushing for Israel, which has its own semi-secret nuclear deterrent, to sign up before it does.

Peaceful nuclear power could be the straw that breaks the region’s geopolitical back.

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