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By Lauren Goode, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is testing out a new design of its TouchSmart technology that doesn’t actually require customers to touch the screen.

The new design, called the “wall of touch”, is an interactive touch screen wall comprised of up to nine 43 inch to 46 inch, 1.5 inch thick panels with a resolution of 1080p. Driven by an H-P Z800 workstation, the wall acts as a large immersive H-P TouchSmart computer both in terms of content and resolution. Users can access cable feeds, satellite feeds, downloaded and streaming content from the web such as YouTube, Hulu.com, and social networking sites, as well view DVR and DVD content.

Philip McKinney, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of H-P’s Personal Systems Group, recently stopped in New York to show off the technology. Unlike most touch screen interfaces, users don’t have to make actual contact with the wall for it to interpret their gestures.

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Hybrid, Geneva Motor Show, Hatchback, Lexus

The first images of what may be the production version of the new Lexus LF-Ch turned up in the Autoblog inbox this morning from an anonymous tipster. The car in the photos is still mostly veiled by a tarp and wrapped in semi-opaque plastic, but a Lexus badge is clearly visible on the tailgate. Even more visible is the shape of the rear glass and the overall proportions of the car, which perfectly match the compact hybrid concept that Lexus debuted last fall at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

The wraparound backlight is directly lifted from the concept, although the taillight clusters are larger and more conservative, with a shape more in keeping with other contemporary Lexus models. The hybrid C-segment hatch will likely share most of its underpinnings with the HS 250h and Euro-market Toyota Auris on which the Lexus is based. We don’t know for sure if Lexus plans to offer the LF-Ch in North America, although the concept was shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month and Americans seem to be increasingly favoring hatchbacks, so the odds would appear to be good. We’re expecting this car to appear on stage at the Geneva Motor Show in early March, so stay tuned.

Spy Shots: Possible production version of Lexus LF-Ch bound for Geneva originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Performance, Government/Legal, Earnings/Financials, UK, Electric

Ginetta Cars, a small British automaker that’s been building racing and road cars since 1958, would like to build an electric car. Unfortunately, it can’t due to a lack of money. Ginetta had requested £1.7 million in funding from the UK government, but the request was denied because the project was deemed “too niche.”

Similar in principle to the Tesla Roadster, Ginetta’s G50 EV was to be a two-seat sportscar with a powerful electric motor driving the rear wheels with electricity storage handled by a large lithium ion battery pack. Though exciting, that kind of vehicle doesn’t exactly appeal to the masses. Ginetta chairman Lawrence Tomlinson responds:

This is a real pet project of mine… We have the running prototype and all the components sorted, but it will cost us too much to develop ourselves. We could easily turn this into a usable everyday vehicle, not just a sports car prototype. We can extend the range to 250 miles – I drive it and charge it up using my windmill, so I don’t see how the car could be any greener.

[Source: Autocar]

Report: Ginetta G50 EV stalled due to lack of funds originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A second autopsy was scheduled to be performed Tuesday on Bears defensive end Gaines Adams in South Carolina at the family’s request, according to a law-enforcement official with the Greenwood County (S.C.) Sheriff’s Department.

Adams, 26, died Sunday morning after suffering cardiac arrest as a result of an enlarged heart.

Marcia Kelley-Clark, chief deputy coroner for Greenwood County, told the Tribune it was a natural death.

Toxicology tests are being run by the State Law Enforcement Division, although drug use is not suspected. Those results might not be available for several months.

Adams died at Self Regional Hospital near his home in Greenwood. His girlfriend made the 911 call, and Adams was pronounced dead at 8:21 a.m., Eastern time.

The family could be searching for further confirmation that an enlarged heart was indeed the cause of Adams’ death and that no other factors were involved.

No one knew Adams had a heart condition.

Family members were scheduled to meet with Blyth Funeral Home & Cremation Services on Tuesday  to discuss funeral arrangements.

By Vaughn McClure

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Mozilla Labs has rolled out a major update to Bespin, an open source text editing engine that is built with standards-based Web technologies. The project has undergone a “reboot” with the aim of improving the ease with which it can be used and enhanced.

Bespin 0.6, codenamed Ash, reflects the significant effort that went into the architectural overhaul. The code is more modular and is designed so that virtually all of the core functionality is implemented in plugins. The developers have also made it considerably easier to embed Bespin in Web pages, an improvement that will lower the barriers to adoption.

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Inflation or deflation?

Perhaps no debate has the power to divide the investing and economic community.

Gluskin-Sheff economist David Rosenberg has been banging the deflation drum for awhile, despite all the talk of a “reflation trade” and the Fed’s commitment to expand the money supply aggressively.

In a recent note, he performed a very valuable service, offering a big rundown of what industries are in deflation and which ones are in inflation. Several industries remain mired in deep deflation, though a few are coming back.

If you’re an investor in various industries from food to retail to airlines, this is must-know stuff.

Check out the charts — >

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See Also:

• Rosenberg’s Themes For 2010: The Consumer Is Still Toast, Housing Is Down, And Everyone Is Delinquent On Everything

January is National Radon Action Month, or NRAM. Read more about EPA’s radon activities and what others are doing to reduce their radon exposure.

I was buying shampoo yesterday and was, for some reason, drawn to a particular brand I had never bought before. I didn’t realize why I was drawn to this particular product until later that day when I caught myself humming the jingle of the shampoo’s commercial on my walk home.

What influences you to change your behavior in your day to day life? An article? A friend’s message? A public official’s warning?

Our goal in public health marketing is changing individual’s behaviors, but influencing someone to test their home for radon can be challenging. Science has informed our thinking about radon. Now, we’re challenged to convey actionable messages to the public.

EPA and its partners have promoted radon awareness through a national media campaign. All of EPA’s public service announcements, or PSAs, are actually free for the public to download for TV, radio and print.

In 2001, the National Academy of Television, Arts, and Sciences bestowed a national Emmy Award to the PSA, “Take the National Radon Test: Man on the Street,” for raising awareness of the health effects of radon.

Because information from a trusted source often moves people to act, EPA developed a campaign around the Surgeon General’s Warning against radon. Similarly, the National Conference for State Legislatures works with other partners to air state legislator’s messages on local radio stations during NRAM 2010. Last year, 154 legislators urged their constituents to test their homes for radon through these PSAs.

EPA has also bundled the radon message with other environmental movements to reach the public in new ways. For example, radon is now part of a larger green campaign to sock it to radon. EPA also sponsored a YouTube video contest to promote the message: “Radon. Test. Fix. Save a Life.” The winning entry, Eddie’s Story, can be found on our Website.

EPA’s radon marketing efforts are expanding to reach a variety of audiences, but there is always room to grow. What is science without an actionable message? What have you done to influence individual behavior change through public messaging?

About the author: Rebecca L. Reindel, MFS, is an Association of Schools of Public Health Environmental Health Fellow in the Indoor Environments Division, part of the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air. She is completing her Master’s Degree in Public Health at the George Washington University. She holds a Master’s in Forensic Toxicology and has previously addressed workplace exposures for taxi drivers and was an instructor at GWU.

Taking advantage of its presence to the 2010 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), Italian manufacturer Maserati announced US pricing for the GranTurismo Convertible. The four-seater will retail starting a base MSRP of $135,800, without taxes, title and other fees.

For that amount, the GranTurismo offers a 4.7l V8 engine developing 433 hp and paired with a six-speed adaptive automatic transmission with standard paddle shifters. The list of options for the convertible are featured b… (read more)

Ryan McBride wrote:

Cardiorobotics, a Middletown, RI-based developer of robotic devices for medical and non-medial uses, has raised $5 million in equity investments, according to an SEC filing. The startup, which was founded by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, announced in summer that it closed a $11.6 million Series A round of venture capital to develop its robotic probes for surgical applications. Xconomy wrote in depth about Cardiorobotics’s technology and its first-round financing in August.

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Jim Rogers is now saying that property prices in Shanghai and Hong Kong may be an inflating bubble set for a painful pop.

Recently, Rogers’s bullish views on China have been contrasted in numerous media stories to the bearish views of Kynikos hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, who  has been publicly warning of a China bubble.

In a Bloomberg story out this morning, Rogers seems to be changing or clarifying his views. Now he’s warning that property prices are being driven higher by speculative demand. When it comes to property values there doesn’t actually seem to be much distance between Chanos and Rogers.

“Certainly, Shanghai real estate or Hong Kong real estate should decline,” Rogers said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Singapore bureau. “My goodness, if anything’s in a bubble in the world, that and U.S. government bonds are certainly very overpriced.”

But don’t put Rogers in the same camp as Chanos yet. While Chanos thinks the popping of the property bubble will have deep and destabilizing effects on the Chinese economy, Rogers is still bullish overall on the broader Chinese economy. And he’s still saying that Chanos doesn’t understand China.

“His remarks show a lack of understanding about Dubai and of China. Dubai’s economy is built on real estate speculation, whereas China’s is not. It is just part of the Chinese economy,” Rogers was quoted as saying in the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper.

And Rogers seems confident the Chinese government can manage a soft-landing.

“China now realizes that they’ve created too much money, that prices are going up too much and they’re trying to slow things down,” Rogers said in the interview. “These things are designed to take some of the heat out of the economy. Let’s hope it works.”

But Rogers isn’t shorting Chinese stocks and says he hasn’t sold anything, he hasn’t bought any stocks since November 2008. 

For some of us, Rogers confidence that the Chinese property bubble will be contained and won’t spill over to create troubles in the financial sector and the broader economy sounds a bit too reminiscent of similar assurances about the US housing bubble. In fact, we seem to be moving through the same stages from bubble denial to bubble containment.

Let’s just hope the notion that “it’s different in China” meets a better fate than “it’s different this time.”

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Jim Chanos: Just Wait Until The Chinese See Communist Insiders Flipping Their Homes
• Jim Rogers: Jim Chanos Couldn’t Spell ‘China’ 10 Years Ago
• Jim Chanos: China Is Headed For A Huge Crash

A 17-year-old boy is accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl at his South Side home over the weekend, Chicago police said this morning.

The boy, whom authorities declined to immediately identify this morning, was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault this morning in connection with the attack in the boy’s home in the 8600 block of South Morgan Street on Sunday.

Police could not specify the relationship between the boy and his victim.

The boy is scheduled to appear for a bond hearing this afternoon in Cook County Criminal Court.

– Staff report

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Article Tags: Green Tories, Public Polls

DAVID Cameron was given a stark warning yesterday that his enthusiasm for green policies is unlikely to be shared by the ­coming influx of Tory MPs.

A poll of the 240 Conservative candidates best placed to win seats at the election found most ranked tackling climate change as their lowest priority.

Reducing Britain’s soaring ­deficit was rated the most important issue facing the country.

The poll, published by the ­conservativehome website for Tory supporters, will come as a blow to the party leader. Mr Cameron has repeatedly campaigned on the slogan “vote blue, go green” and was famously pictured with huskies in the ­Arctic to highlight the threat of global warming.

Source: express.co.uk

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The perfect complement to your steering wheel desk, Brando’s "Steering Wheel Bluetooth MP3/FM Car Kit" features convergence up the ying-yang and places it right in front of you as you barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds.

For starters, you get a Bluetooth speakerphone. But! There’s also a built-in MP3 player. And to get those tunes to your stereo, we’ve got an FM transmitter. For private calls, there’s a detachable Bluetooth earpiece. A built-in phone book can hold 600 numbers! Feature overload! LCD display! Support for microSD cards! Rechargeable battery! Keypad! Only $48!

Steering Wheel Bluetooth MP3/FM Car Kit [Brando]

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Carbon fiber, people. That’s the ticket right there. It’s the miracle substance that allows Sony to stuff super fast components into a 13.1-inch laptop while keeping the weight at around 3.2 pounds. And while most ultraportable notebooks favor style over substance, the impending VAIO Z Series due from Sony in March will feature an Intel Core i7 CPU, NVIDIA graphics, 1920×1080 screen resolution, and the ability to stack four solid state drives in a Raid 0 configuration. Again, all at just over three pounds.

The line has been announced in Europe with a release window sometime in late March. It’d stand to reason that we’d see something similar here in the US sooner or later as well. The notebooks will be available in various configurations – here are a couple possibilities:

It’ll be interesting to see what Sony’s able to do as far as battery life is concerned. Those Core i7 chips suck quite a bit more power than the ultra low-voltage and Atom CPUs that we’re used to dealing with. Pricing, of course, will be a factor as well. Four solid state drives aren’t cheap but, hey, maybe there will be a configuration with a single drive.

We’ll find out more as we get closer to the actual launch — hopefully some info about US models as well.

Sony Press Release [Sony Europe via SlashGear]

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Filed under: Apple Corporate, Switchers, Apple History

It’s hard to believe that Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad campaign is already 4 years old. Since its introduction, the campaign has invited both parody and serious responses from competitors. Plus, poor* John Hodgman and Justin Long can’t walk out the door without someone calling them either “Mac” or “PC.”

Some have been better than others (the Christmas ads are always a highlight), and Apple keeps several of each year’s ads on their site. If you’d like to browse the full history of these ads, check out this page assembled by the folks at AdFreak. They’ve gathered every TV spot and sorted them chronologically and by year. In case you were wondering, there have been 66 in total. The most ads aired in 2006 (19) and the fewest in 2009 (14).

Enjoy the archive and have fun re-watching your favorites.

*My sympathy is short lived, however. Consider their paychecks.

TUAWEvery “Get a Mac” ad in one place originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When was the last time you baked fresh yeasted bread at home? I have not been baking bread very frequently, and I miss it! That irresistible fragrance of crusty bread in the oven, and the hot, steaming slices with pats of butter — so delicious! I fully intend to bake a loaf of bread this week, so to inspire you and myself, here’s a look back at some yeast breads we’ve featured on The Kitchn — starting, of course, with that delicious and convenient No-Knead Bread!

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Randy Williams started the 2009 season as a non-roster invitee, but finished the final two months with the White Sox despite a rocky August.

It appears Williams is a lock as the second left-handed reliever to Matt Thornton unless non-roster invitee Erick Threets harnesses the wildness and overcomes the injuries that have stunted his development with the San Francisco Giants’ and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ organizations.

Threets, 29, was throwing as hard as 97 mph in 1997 and made 10 appearances with the Giants in 2007-08. He struck out seven, but walked 12 in 12 1/3 innings.

Last year, Threets struck out 28 but walked 16 in 41 1/3 innings for Triple-A Albuquerque. He could be one of pitching coach Don Cooper’s prime spring-training projects.

Threets missed all of 2004 because of an arm injury.

By Mark Gonzales

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A 1990 Aston Martin Virage, first owned by famous comedian Rowan Atkinson is currently for sale for £22,995 on Auto Trader. You may know Atkinson better from his roles as Mr Bean, one of UK’s most loved characters.

Atkinson, however, has had several appearances in blockbusters such as James Bond’s Never Say Never Again, The Lion King, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually.

The star currently has a fortune estimated at £100 million, a part of which he invested in his passion for c… (read more)