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La marca nipona Hyundai acaba de presentar una nueva serie de ofertas para todos sus modelos. Dicho movimiento es debido a sus objetivos de conseguir aumentar las ventas en España en un 87% ni más ni menos.

Cabe mencionar, que durante el pasado mes de Marzo gracias a sus promociones, Hyundai consiguió un aumento del 200%, una cifra muy a destacar. También debemos destacar que la marca ha comunicado que para aquellos compradores que decidan adquirir uno de sus modelos de segunda mano tendrán un descuento adicional de 700€.

A continuación os detallo las ofertas.

• Hyundai i10, 1.800€.
• Hyundai Accent, 4.200€.
• Hyundai i20, entre 2.000 y 2.500€.
• Hyundai i30, entre 1.500 y 3.500€.
• Hyundai Sonata, entre 1.500 y 5.000€.
• Hyundai Coupé, 4.000€.
• Hyundai Matrix, entre 4.800 y 5.000€.
• Hyundai i800, entre 3.550 y 4.000€.
• Hyundai Tucson, entre 3.000 y 8.500€.
• Hyundai ix35, entre 1.000 y 1.207€.
• Hyundai Santa Fe, entre 4.000 y 5.000€.

Related posts:

1. Hyundai Genesis, nuevas fotos espía
2. Hyundai H800
3. Fotos espía del Hyundai Sonata 2010

In a continuing political battle, the State Bond Commission approved a new, $70 million public health laboratory that has drawn sharp opposition from the surrounding Rocky Hill neighbors.

The 7 to 3 vote Wednesday came after a similar vote last month had failed on a 5 – 5 tie as all five Democrats on the commission banded together after saying that the neighbors had not had enough time to analyze the plans.

The state-of-the-art facility would allow for testing for anthrax and other biohazardous materials, which has raised fears among the neighbors. The lab will be a replacement for the deteriorating, 45-year-old lab in Hartford, which is within walking distance of the state Capitol, the Bushnell theatre, the state office building on Capitol Avenue, and Bushnell Park. Thousands of people walk and work near the currrent laboratory on a daily basis, and many are not aware of its location in a non-descript building near the state DEP headquarters.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell said previously that many of the concerns about the facility were actually related to a union battle over whether non-union contractors would be building the $70 million complex. One of the chief opponents of the laboratory is Shaun Cashman, a high-ranking union official who once served as the state labor commissioner under then-Gov. John G. Rowland.

State officials were surprised when Cashman recently showed up at a private meeting about the laboratory plans with two Democrats – Sen. Paul Doyle of Wethersfield and Rep. Tony Guerrera of Rocky Hill. Cashman attended the bond commission meeting Wednesday and often looked back at Doyle and Guerrera, who were standing in the back of the room.

When asked after the vote whether the dispute is over union issues, Cashman said, “I’m just looking for safety. I have no other issue beyond that.”

He then walked away from a reporter.

More than 30 different contractors are recommended to work on the project, including about a dozen with contracts for at least $1 million. Some of the biggest contractors on the list are Tucker Mechanical, Pioneer Valley Concrete, United Steel, S. G. Milazzo & Co., Ductco Inc., Gibson Associates, Electrical Contractors Inc., and Simscroft-Echo Farms, Inc. of Simsbury. Other contractors are Century Drywall Inc., WDJ Construction, CT Mason Contractors Inc., Gold Seal Roofing & Sheetmetal Inc., and Suntech of CT, Inc.

The three Democrats who voted against the laboratory were Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, state Comptroller Nancy Wyman and state Rep. David McCluskey of West Hartford. Sen. Eileen Daily, a moderate Democrat and key swing voter on the bond commission, changed her vote from last month and supported the laboratory on Wednesday. She told Capitol Watch that her concerns had been answered.

After the original vote last month, Rell told reporters that she was angry and frustrated by the process. She said the plans had been in the works for five years and were well known to town officials in Rocky Hill.

Rell’s aides distributed a timeline and lengthy details about the plan to show that Rocky Hill officials had been aware of the proposal for years.

The lab is a critical component of the state’s public health mission. Scientists at the current lab test for West Nile virus, childhood lead poisoning, rabies, and drinking water contamination, among other public health concerns.

The issue over the Rocky Hill location flared up when a group known as Construction Workers For A Safe Environment started distributing fliers to Rocky Hill residents with the statement that the materials at the new lab “may cause serious or potentially lethal disease as a result of exposure by the inhalation route.”

Stanley Einhorn, a Rocky Hill resident who found a flier on his doorstep last week, said last month that everyone on his street got the flier, which says the Rocky Hill laboratory would be at the same level as the notorious laboratory at Plum Island, N.Y., in Long Island Sound. But Rocky Hill’s, like the lab it would replace, would be a Level 3 laboratory, while Plum Island is a Level 4 facility.

“It’s not as bad as Plum Island, but there are contagious things there,” Einhorn said. “I definitely think it’s a bad idea. … There’s a lot of potential problems.”

Doyle, the state senator who sought a postponement of the bond commission vote, said last month that the brochure was “inflammatory” and “dead wrong” in certain aspects regarding the state’s plans.

“This facility has no live animals. It’s not like they’re testing live animals like at Plum Island,” Doyle said. “There’s a lot of misstatements in here. You can’t get near Plum Island. There’s 100 percent security.”

Doyle rejected the notion that the dispute was about union construction jobs, saying that the issue never came up during the one-hour meeting with public health commissioner Robert Galvin and other state health department officials at the state Capitol complex.

“I don’t know any of those [union] issues because Cashman didn’t tell me any of that,” Doyle said last month. “The motives of Cashman are irrelevant. … In the meeting, there was nothing about unions. It was all science.”

The new laboratory, which is scheduled to be built on 22 acres near the State Veterans Home and across the street from Dinosaur State Park, would replace the current lab at 10 Clinton St. in a densely packed, congested area of downtown Hartford.

Because of the weak economy and the heavy competition among contractors for construction jobs, the state had received a bid that was $12 million less than expected.

Galvin, the public health commissioner, has described the current lab in Hartford as antiquated and said its plumbing, heating and air-conditioning systems are deficient. On hot days in the summer, staff members must put containers of ice on top of specimen coolers to ensure that the samples are kept cold enough, he said.

Galvin told the bond commission last month that the lab has no experimental animals and that it’s never had trouble containing organisms it is testing.

A construction contractor has offered a price that would cut $12 million off the overall cost, and that offer expires April 15, Galvin said.

The global default rate on high-yield, or speculative, debt is expected to fall to 2.8% by the end of 2010, according to Moody’s Investors Services Inc.

“Defaults in 2010 will remain few and far between as long as the high-yield debt markets remain wide open for business and the global economic recovery is maintained,” said Kenneth Emery, Moody’s director of default research.

At the end of the first quarter, the trailing 12-month global speculative-grade default rate was 9.9%. That’s slightly higher than the default rate of 7.8% after the first quarter of 2009, but down from 13% at the end of December 2009.

Mr. Emery said the trailing 12-month default rate will decrease due to the large number of defaults in the first half of 2009 dropping out of the 12-month window.

In the United States, Moody’s forecasts the default rate on high-yield debt will fall to 3.1% by year-end. In Europe, the ratings agency said the default rate is expected to decline to 1.4%. 

David Pett

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said Wednesday the damage caused by financial market bubbles should bring about a sea change in the way the central bank acts, with the Fed needing to move toward active efforts to reign in financial market excess.

“There is little doubt that asset bubbles exist and they occur fairly frequently,” and when they burst the economy frequently suffers, Dudley said. And while it can frequently be difficult to discern the existence of a financial market bubble, the problems these imbalances create means “uncertainty is not grounds for inaction” on the part of central bankers.

Dudley’s view on asset bubbles comes as part of a broader re-evaluation of financial market bubbles by central bank officials. The shift in thinking is directly tied to events of recent years, where a huge run up in housing prices defended by most in markets ruptured, leading to the worst financial crisis and economic downturn since The Great Depression. The Fed, along with the Treasury, was forced into a broad and unprecedented range of actions to keep the nation afloat.

Since then, central bankers have been studying ways to ensure what happened does not happen again. It’s upended traditional arguments, favored by the likes of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, that bubbles are hard to spot, policy makers are ill-suited to second guess investors, and Fed policy is too broad-based to deal with bubbles.

Dudley’s comments came from the text of a speech he was to deliver before the Economic Club of New York. In addition to leading the New York Fed, the central bank’s key interface with financial markets, Dudley is also the vice chairman of the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee.

He spoke a day after the release of the minutes from the FOMC’s March 16 policy meeting. The minutes showed most policy makers decidedly reluctant to raise interest rates any time soon, fearing that acting too soon could bring to an early end a still uncertain economic recovery. Dudley did not comment on monetary policy in his formal remarks.

The New York Fed president devoted his remarks to exploring what can cause bubbles, how they can be identified, and what policy makers should do when they spot trouble.

The official indicated interest rate policy is not the best tool to moderate a market that’s running wild.

Because every bubble is its own beast, “a rules-based approach to bubbles is likely to be ineffective,” Dudley warned. Instead, talking and regulation appear best suited to the task at hand. “Use of the bully pulpit and macro-prudential tools, such as rules limiting loan-to-value ratios or leverage, are likely to prove superior to monetary policy,” Dudley said.

The policy maker explained bubbles often arise in an area where there has been some sort of technological advancement that upends traditional understandings of a given sector. At the same time, the market in which the bubble is occurring offers few easy opportunities for investors to take the opposite side of the trade, stripping away a moderating influence.

Dudley explained central bankers will find it challenging to discover whether they have a bubble on their hands, and that it will also be difficult to discern what tool is the right one for the job. Central bankers should also be prepared for the fact they may well make “mistakes” and misjudge a market, he added.

Dudley noted credit market bubbles are by their nature the bigger threat to the overall financial system, given the extent to which leverage features in those markets.

The central banker also reiterated that hiking rates to lean into a bubble is not the best way to roll, as such a move would have a “too broad” impact. He warned tighter policy than otherwise called for by economic conditions may not address the financial market excess and may come at too high a price for the economy. Such an action might also be politically challenging.

This recipe represents exactly what we love about Amy’s Breads. It’s a basic, hardworking sandwich loaf that can toasted for breakfast or used in sandwiches throughout the week. But you’ll also be amazed at the incredible depth and complexity a biga starter and a few spoonfuls of honey and molasses can add!

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Embattled Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele has been trying to reassure party members that the GOP will be ready for the midterm elections, but he is increasingly facing calls to resign.

Rocked by scandals—including allegations that young members of the party entertained guests at the party’s expense at a strip club—the GOP leadership appears to be increasingly shaky. This was exemplified by the recent resignation of a committee member Sean Mahoney, who accused Steele of spending donor’s money with "reckless disregard."

Mahoney’s resignation followed that of RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay.

And although Steel has tried to reassure the party and its followers that he took the responsibility seriously and would not tolerate misuse of funds, voices calling for him to vacate his job have been growing.

Among those calling for Steele to step aside was Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, who questioned the chairman’s ability to lead the party into November’s elections in a commentary on CNN.

"I think a change in the direction now, at this point, would do the party good," Castellanos said.

However, former New York Mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was among those supporting Steele.

Remember the issue of what to do with the corpses of the nine attackers killed during the November 2008 siege of the Taj Mahal Hotel and other targets in Mumbai that killed 166 people? The dead attackers were all presumed to be Pakistani Muslims, like the sole survivor, but local Indian Muslim leaders refused to let them be buried in their cemeteries. Islamabad ignored calls to take the bodies back. So they were left in morgue refrigerators in Mumbai, presumably until the issue was finally settled.

FaithWorld was deluged with comments after we asked if the bodies should be cremated and the ashes spread at sea. A surprising number of them suggested the bodies should be desecrated, thrown to the dogs or dumped at the Pakistani-Indian border. The discussion tapered off and the issue seemed to have been forgotten.

The only problem remaining was that those bodies had to be kept refrigerated ad infinitum.  Something had to give. Well, the Maharashtra state government finally put an end to this stalemate. As Rina Chandran in our Mumbai bureau wrote:  “The badly decomposed bodies had been lying in the mortuary of a hospital in Mumbai after Muslim clerics in the city refused to let them be buried on their grounds. Maharashtra home minister R.R. Patil told the state assembly on Tuesday the bodies were buried secretly in January.”

The trial of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving suspect, ended last week in Mumbai with a verdict scheduled to be announced on May 3.

There were lots of hot button issues in this one — Indian-Pakistani relations, how to treat the dead attackers, giving the dead a proper Muslim funeral, just to name a few — but the angle the local media seemed to highlight most was something nobody thought of at the time. Most of them — see the Times of India,  the Indian Express or the Hindustan Times — seemed surprised that the government and police could keep the burial secret for so long!

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

Rachel Coudriet, pictured above, is the latest name to pop up in the endless Tiger Woods sex scandals.

Coudriet, just 22 years old, is apparently the daughter of Tiger Woods’ neighbor. Just when you thought Tiger couldn’t top some of his other trashy mistresses it turns out he was also banging the neighbor. The entire saga long ago left surreal and turned into full blown crazy town.

Hopefully Woods can avoid banging anybody as he walks the fairways tomorrow at the Masters, you never really know with him.

Rachel Coudriet has few pictures online, a Facebook profile and Twitter were deleted when this news broke, the pictures above and below were taken from the Google cache.

More Rachel Coudriet pictures after the jump:

By Andrew Ward

This morning, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan explained that Congress pushed the central bank to fuel the housing boom.  Featured article after article has pointed out this simple fact, but it’s rather telling that the former chairman would be so open to political nature of the Fed.  Reuters reports:

“If the Fed as a regulator had tried to thwart what everyone perceived as a fairly broad consensus that the trend was in the right direction, homeownership was rising and that was an unmitigated good, then Congress would have clamped down on us,” he told a questioner at a congressionally appointed commission investigating the financial crisis.

Greenspan continues to spell out just how much of the Federal Reserve’s so-called independence is at stake:

“There’s a presumption that the Federal Reserve’s an independent agency, and it is up to a point, but we are a creature of the Congress and if … we had said we’re running into a bubble and we need to retrench, the Congress would say ‘we haven’t a clue what you’re talking about’”

The fact of the matter is that Federal Reserve is a political creature.  While one of its primary functions is to protect the banking oligopoly from the economic consequences of fraud, it is given the ability to legally counterfeit money by the very government that directly benefits from its easy money policies.  At the very least, Congress should be legitimately auditing its own creation.

This is what it looks like when the market has lost all confidence in your rescue plan.

Behold: Greek vs. German 10-year yields.

Join the conversation about this story »

mDialog, a four-year-old Canadian-based video platform company, is announcing the launch of their new Apple-focused service, an “HTML5 adaptive video streaming service with dynamic ad-insertion.” In a nutshell: it lets you stick ads into videos that work on the iPad and iPhone. The ads can be pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll and precisely geo-targeted to fit an advertiser’s needs. They can also be swapped out and replaced in real-time. The service’s ad-insertion features put mDialog’s platform more on par with that of Adobe Flash, a plugin-based technology that doesn’t run on Apple’s mobile devices.

Sponsor

The mDialog service uses Apple’s adaptive streaming specification in combination with the mDialog ad platform to deliver targeted videos to mobile device owners, whether they carry an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. And by the second quarter of this year, the same technology will be made available to the Android mobile OS as well.

For advertisers, the necessary features for managing an advertising inventory are present. On the back-end, you can customize settings like device frequency capping (how many times an ad is delivered to a unique device), time restrictions (when an ad should be played), a target impression goal (how many times a video is served), ad placement (pre-, post- or mid-roll) and geo-targeting. That last feature is incredibly easy-to-use thanks to an integrated Google map. Drop a pushpin, set the radius in miles. There’s also DoubleClick integration for those who use it.

With mDialog, advertisers can get almost creepily specific, similar to the way Facebook ads seem to know far too much about you. Imagine targeting all the people attending a game at a football stadium, Greg Philpott, mDialog’s President and Founder, suggests. Or watching an automobile ad that directs you to the dealership nearest you…and by “nearest” you, we mean not just those in your hometown, but those nearest to your precise location at this exact moment. As an aside, Philpott tells us that, in fact, the auto industry is very interested in just this sort of thing.

HTML5 Video vs. Flash: Ads and Analytics Needed

mDialog’s Apple angle is due to the fact that it’s focused on HTML5 video, both live and VOD (video-on-demand). For those who have somehow missed the news: the iPad doesn’t play Flash video. This has put advertisers in a quandary since HTML5, the upcoming but still-not-solidified standard for web markup language does not currently support in-stream advertising and real-time analytics features in its video feature. But when there’s a hole to be filled, the industry will fill it. Brightcove, for example, has advertising and analytics on their 2010 roadmap, MeFeedia’s platform allows for HTML5 video and ads, entertainment community Break Media announced the same and white label platform Ooyala offers real-time analytics, advertising and live-streaming tools. Others are sure to follow.

A few of mDialog’s features, including CPC and interactive overlays have yet to arrive. This detailed chart shows them as “coming soon.” Philpott tells us “soon” means within the next 60 days, so advertisers won’t have to wait too long. In the meantime, developers can use mDialog’s application SDK to get started on their video integrations. Interested parties can get in touch with the company via their website.

Discuss

Amazon Web Services has launched its Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), which allows developers to create a push notification system for applications. The service allows companies to deliver messages to customers of their applications or even to other applications in a couple of different formats, among them HTTP and email. Amazon SNS could be used for system administrators in an IT department (notifying clients if they’re hitting a certain limit on storage capacity or that latency on their service is too high), or it could be used to build out notifications for mobile applications, such as letting consumers when friends check into a location, or when they have new email.

Developers using the service pay per instance, as with all Amazon cloud products. The price includes a per-request, notification delivery and data transfer fee, but developers can get started with Amazon SNS for free. Each month, Amazon SNS customers get the first 100,000 Amazon SNS Requests, the first 100,000 notifications over HTTP and the first 1,000 notifications over email free. After that, prices range from 6 cents to $2 per 100,000 messages sent for delivery and 8-15 cents per gigabyte of data transferred.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req’d):Report: Delivering Content in the Cloud

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ed Siacoso (aka SC fiasco)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) kicked off his re-election campaign in his home state on April 5 by making a joke at the expense of Sarah Palin, who rallied voters in his hometown of Searchlight a few weeks ago.

At that event, the former Alaska governor said she hoped that the big government politics and the big spending promoted by the Democratic leaders in Congress will come to an end in November, and that Nevada voters will "fire" Reid.

As he was opening his speech on Monday, Reid said he "was going to give a few remarks on the people who were over here a week ago Saturday … but I couldn’t write it all on my hand."

Repeating Palin’s now-famous catch phrase, he added "You betcha!" to general laughter from the audience.

However, despite a rare display of a sense of humor, most commentators believe Reid may face an uphill battle as he campaigns for a fifth term in office.

A new Rasmussen Poll found that Reid has just 39 to 42 precent of the Nevada vote when matched against three Republican opponents. Two of his potential opponents now top the 50 percent level of support.

The designs for the new headquarters of the Korean Electric Power Company have revolutionized the concept of green architecture. This new design features a sloping podium which integrates with the landscaping, thus directing light and wind more efficiently. This 29-storey tower also employs the use of a helical atrium which extends upwards from the central plaza, providing better natural ventilation. The headquarters also has provisions for collecting solar energy incident on the building along with that in its solar park, thus making it self-sufficient. It also has windmills, which not only harness wind energy but also redirect the wind towards the centre, to provide better air circulation. The main building also features a unique moss capture system which helps further insulate the building.

The plans also consist of water retention systems, rainwater harvesting systems and grey-water systems which will reduce wastage of water. There are also provisions to integrate temperature and light sensors to regulate energy usage.
[worldarchitecturenews]

Mobile search is
likely to become an attractive expansion market: by 2012, there will be an
estimated five billion subscriptions to mobile telephony. By the end of 2013,
broadband mobile connections will account for more than half of all connections
and 40% of all subscribers will be using mobile internet. The report “Prospects
of Mobile Search”, established with input from the JRC’s Institute for
Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), aims to understand how mobile search will
impact Europe’s economy and society. It explores
also possible strategies for the EU to take a lead in upcoming technological
developments and business opportunities. The report concludes by presenting some
policy recommendations in view of the likely socio-economic implications of
mobile search in Europe.

Michael says his local Walgreens in Illinois can’t seem to unload its inventory of last year’s Hanukkah candy–so it just brings it back out with every other holiday.

The funny part is that when they bring out a batch of each holiday candy, they jack back up the prices of the Hanukkah candy. And then when that holdiay’s candy goes on sale, they also put the Hanukkah candy on sale. Attached is picture of the Hanukkah Dreidels and Candy coins that they’ve been bringing out every holiday this year.

Just a quickie here – Verizon shot off an e-mail to employees today regarding “new devices launching soon.”  With a top secret code name of “six,” what could it be?  Microsoft’s Pink phones (which is what I’d put my money on)?  BlackBerry Bold 9650?  HTC Incredible?  Apple iPhone 3GS?  Something entirely different?  Hit the comments and let me know what you think!

Via BGR

Filed under: Spy Photos, Coupe, Performance, BMW

The oft-speculated M version of the BMW 1 Series appears to be getting closer to production reality if our latest batch of spy pics is anything to go on. Exactly what badge it will were remains unknown at this point. It seems improbable that it will actually be called M1 since BMW likely wants to preserve the badge for its original M supercar. However, it is possible that the hotted up 1 could follow the pattern of the X5/X6 and be called the 1 M – and it might not even get an M badge altogether. Perhaps it will just be dubbed 135is like the new-for-2011 335is that we recently reviewed – or even a 135 tii like a previous concept shown by BMW.

1 Series enthusiasts’ forum 1Addicts.com has an FAQ of unknown provenance that indicates the car will be launched late this year and on sale in the first half of 2011. Power is expected to come from a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline six which perhaps indicates that the 135is branding is the most likely scenario. A convertible may also be part of the plan.

Our spy shooter notes that this car is clearly further developed from the previous prototypes with tacked-on black fenders. The front spoiler, widened fenders, and big alloys shrouding oversized drilled discs appear to be near-production items too. Given that the current 135i puts offers 300 horsepower, and going speculation has the hotter model delivering 350-370 horsepower.

All of which begs the question: What do you want the new top-rung 1 Series to be called? Take our survey below and let us know what you think.

View Poll

[Sources: CarPix, 1Addicts]

Spy Shots: Best look yet BMW’s forthcoming hi-po 1 Series [w/poll] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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