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Highway Improvement will Spur Job Growth in Pekin Area

Gov. Pat Quinn was joined by Pekin city officials today to announce plans to complete a section of Veterans Drive in Pekin.

The $30 million project, which is funded by the “Illinois Jobs Now! plan, is expected to create approximately 250 construction jobs.

“Illinois Jobs Now! is doing exactly what it was designed to do – it is improving our roads and schools while creating jobs across Illinois,” said Gov. Quinn.

“With this funding, the important Veterans Drive project can get underway, bringing with it new jobs and private investment to the area.”

In 1996, the city became interested in diverting IL Route 9 traffic to the VFW Corridor.

Though the project was not feasible at the time, funding through the “Illinois Jobs Now! program will enable the city to proceed with diverting IL Route 9 traffic to the VFW corridor, creating a more direct route for motorists travelling in the Pekin area.

The first phase of the project, researching the preferred alignment for the improvement, has been completed.

The second phase, which includes land acquisition, is currently underway. Construction on the project is expected to begin in 2011.

“This project is a great example of the difference that the “Illinois Jobs Now! program is making in communities around the state,” said Illinois Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig.

“This project has been talked about for over a decade and with this new funding it will soon become a reality, improving traffic flow and creating jobs for the area.”

In addition to the $31 billion “Illinois Jobs Now! program, signed in July 2009, Gov. Quinn signed the $3 billion Jump Start capital plan, which is also designed to help revive the state’s ailing economy and create and retain hundreds of thousands of jobs during the next six years.

As I continue to watch the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing, my disappointment grows. I really hoped that this would be a productive way for to identify what went wrong and what needs to be done to reform. Unfortunately, a great deal of what’s going on here feels witch trial-esque, instead of a legitimate attempt at getting useful answers. But in the sea of accusatory questions about compensation practices and selling clients bad securities, a few of the committee members are stumbling upon some legitimate questions.

One good question was asked by Byron S. Georgiou. He asked whether it would have helped if banks were forced to always hold interests in the securities they sell, which could not be hedged. This sounds vaguely reminiscent of Congress’ current ideas of how to reform securitization. As I’ve said before, this idea wouldn’t have helped and could have negative consequences, and the bank CEOs explain why.

For starters, as Morgan Stanley’s Chairman John Mack says, banks did have skin in the game. “We did eat our own cooking, and we choked on it,” he says. That’s exactly right. There wouldn’t have been a financial crisis if the banks themselves didn’t hold billions of dollars in these so-called toxic securities. If they had been required to hold these securities, you would have seen the same result.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says, this was not a failure of incentives, but a failure of risk management. The problem, he explains, was that people didn’t know the stuff was toxic.

Mack makes another good point: investors won’t like this idea. The SEC generally frowns on investment banks holding back a portion of the securities that they originate. Banks were subject to a lot of criticism for doing this in the late 90s during the tech boom. Investors wanted access to all of the securities and were angered when good offerings turned out to particularly benefit the banks because they held onto the securities. That hurdle could, in theory, be rethought, but it’s an interesting subtlety.

The other problem with forcing banks to hold onto securities that Mack explains is one I’ve also noted in the past. It would reduce the banks ability to do business. Now, some would celebrate that banks have limitations to their size and growth, but this would also inadvertently affect the market in adverse ways. For example, there would be a far lower securitization volume. That means auto loans, mortgages and credit cards would be more expensive for consumers. Corporations would also have a higher cost of borrowing, which would stifle innovation and growth.

I’d draw an analogy as follows: imagine if Wal-mart had to keep some skin in the game regarding the products it sold. For every 100 shirts it sold, it had to hold onto one. For every 100 toasters it sold, it had to hold onto one. Or maybe it just had to take on the risk of those products. For example, if the toaster turned out to be faulty and burned down someone’s house, then Wal-mart could be sued. That’s crazy — it isn’t Wal-mart’s fault. All it did was act as a middleman and facilitate the transaction. The lawsuit should be filed against whoever created the toaster.

The same logic should apply to securities. If a stock goes bad, then blame the company it references, not the bank that sold it. If a mortgage-backed security goes bad, then blame the mortgage originator, not the investment bank who sold the security. The idea that investment banks should be responsible for or bear the risk of all of the products they sell just seems crazy to me, for the same reason most people would agree it would be insane to hold such a standard in other industries, like retail goods and stores like Wal-mart.

Remember the Lulabelly prenatal belt with speakers we wrote about awhile ago? Well Ritmo is an Advanced Pregnancy Sound System, which delivers the same results but on a much more higher technological level that is safe for both mother and child and looks a lot more space-agey. Ritmo connects to most audio devices such as iPods, MP3 players, iPhones and Blackberries and has four speakers and a controller, the size of a deck of cards, which fits comfortably into a tiny pocket. Ritmo utilizes Nuvo’s patented Safe & Sound Technology to regulate the output of sound to a safe level for a baby to hear in-utero, regardless of how loud the sound was recorded or the volume that it is played.  But besides music, with Ritmo, a baby in the womb can hear their future brothers or sisters talking, a book being read, or hear how much of a Housewives of Orange County addiction you have. Ritmo retails for $129.99 and certainly prepares the baby for the world ahead…

You may have come across a leaked list of the Robot Masters in Mega Man 10 over the past few days, but if you’re looking for something more official then look no further. Capcom has officially unveiled

Frederick Lewis—producer, director and writer—has traveled to the ends of the world retracing the life adventures and travels of American landscape artist Rockwell Kent for his three-hour documentary.

Case Western Reserve University’s Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities invites the public to view “Rockwell Kent” and hear Lewis answer questions about his experience creating the film. The free, public event begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, January 28, in 306 Clark Hall.

Lewis will talk about what he describes as an “absolutely a life-changing experience.”

“Kent crammed six or seven lifetimes into one,” Lewis said.

A prolific painter and illustrator, Rockwell Kent is best known for capturing on canvas some of the earth’s remote and harsh landscape environments. During the 1930s and 40s, Kent shared the popularity of other artists, like Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell, but has faded into the background of the American art scene.

The Rockwell Kent showing continues the Baker-Nord Center’s yearlong exploration of theme, Cultures of Green: Nature and the Environment—a look at humanities’ role in portraying and understanding nature.

For more than a decade, Lewis, associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University, captured images and often stayed at the same sites where Kent created his nature paintings in such faraway places as Greenland, Newfoundland, Alaska, Ireland and Russia.

The inspiration for this film came from Lewis’ first encounter with Kent’s work while spending time in Maine.

Lewis said he was drawn to Kent’s early landscapes of Monhegan Island, Maine, and also his incredible wood engravings that he created to illustrate such classics as Moby Dick, Candide and The Canterbury Tales.

The producer initially set out to do a piece on Rockwell Kent as a regional artist, but now admits he was “naïve” about the artist’s life. The artist became a target of McCarthyism and later sued the U.S. government and won a landmark court case that allows U.S. citizens to travel to countries regardless of their political affiliations.

“It was just the tip of the iceberg story—literally since I also found myself in a helicopter shooting video of icebergs in Greenland,” Lewis said. “It became a true obsession to travel to all of the far flung places Kent visited.”

With visual history of Kent’s private and politically charged public life, Lewis hopes to revive interest in Kent, hailed by CWRU art historian Henry Adams as a “Leonardo da Vinci figure,” who could do many things.

Lewis has worked in producing films for more than 25 years. His work has aired on PBS stations across the country and has been shown at universities and museums, including the National Gallery of Art.

For information, visit http://case.edu/humanities or call 216-368-8961.

For more information contact Susan Griffith, 216.368.1004.

The best way to make a point about privacy and “invasive” body scanners at the airport–is to strip down to your underwear and then publish that video to YouTube so the whole world can see you in your nearly naked glory. Might sound strange at first, but we are covering it in Discoblog, so I guess it worked.

Warning: This video has mild nudity and so may be NSFW.

German activists from the Pirate Party thought organizing a “fleshmob” of people to strip down to their skivvies and converge on the Berlin-Tegel airport was a great idea. The activists were protesting the use of what the Germans call the Nacktscanner, or naked scanner–a body scanner that may increasingly be used for airport security, in the wake of the botched underwear bombing on Christmas Day.

As Wired reported:

The protesters marked their bodies with a number of messages such as, “Something to hide?” and “Be a good citizen — drop your pants.” One woman has the word “diaper” scrawled on her lower back with an arrow pointing to her underwear and the word “prosthetic” printed on her leg. The word “piercing” and an arrow point to one of her breasts. Another woman dressed in a beige sweater and flesh-colored tights wears a sign reading “pixelated.” (To address privacy concerns, security officials say the scanners can be programed to produce a blurred, pixelated image of passengers to protect their modesty.)

The full-body scanners work by using high frequency radio waves to produce an image of a passenger’s naked body beneath clothes. So anything strapped to the body–explosives, drugs–would be exposed. But if you chuck something in a body cavity the scanner fails to detect that. The scanners have raised concerns about passengers’ privacy, as pointed out by the semi-naked activists, but German authorities are pressing ahead with their plans to deploy them across the country’s airports over the next two years.

Related Content:
80beats: 5 Reasons Body Scanners May Not Solve Our Terrorism Problem
80beats: Are Digital Strip Searches Coming Soon To Every Airport Near You?
80beats: TSA Threatens Bloggers Who Published Security Info, Then Backs Off

Check out this new take on the traditional Android soft keyboard. Rather than just changing the color or general shape of the buttons, qwerted changes the actual size of them based on the probability that they’ll be hit next.  For instance, if you type a ‘c’, the letter ‘h’ will be larger than say, a ‘z’.  All Android users will be happy to know that it was designed for 1.5 or higher.

qwerted was created and developed by Moritz Haarmann who expects to have the app available later this month.  No word on pricing just yet.

qwerted for android – basic example from Moritz Haarmann on Vimeo.

Features found in qwerted:

• Punch-through recommendations – Depending on the individual probability, an accented or uppercase key is shown by default instead of the normal, downcase, key.
• Self-learning –  remembers the words you type, and knows them the next time you want to type them. So it’s always up-to-date with your vocabulary.
• Customizable  – Set up the size of the keys depending on your preference. Later versions will also allow skins and custom keyboard layouts ( e.g. dvorak ) to be used.

Last week there was a big controversy over the fact that some stores in NY were caught destroying unsold garments rather than donating them to charities. After people got upset, the main store in question, H&M promised that this wouldn’t happen again. This week we’ve got a related, but somewhat different story, as the NY Police have admitted to shredding and burning the counterfeit clothes they’ve confiscated, rather than giving them to the homeless, as had always been done in the past. When asked to explain why, the police claimed “no one asked” for the confiscated clothing — but many charities insist they had, in fact, made many requests for the clothing. Apparently, the destruction is being felt at clothing banks, who say they have many fewer clothes on hand this year than in the past.

Not surprisingly, a lawyer representing various clothing designers was quite happy with the news, saying that they don’t want those clothes “back on the street,” which suggests that the designers may have pushed for the police to destroy the clothes rather than help the needy. Of course, it’s worth pointing out — yet again — the recent study that showed most people are not fooled by counterfeits, and they rarely represent a “lost sale.” In fact, many counterfeit purchases lead to real purchases later on. So the idea that they act as a “substitute” or somehow “harm” a brand is not actually borne out by the research. And, of course, some companies have learned that there are ways to embrace counterfeiting to their own advantage, as a form of price differentiation.

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In a statement from Washington on Wednesday, President Barack Obama vowed to aggressively send aid to Haiti in the wake of the devastating 7.0 earthquake that ravished the island on Tuesday.

The American Red Cross has also pledged its help. The organization will provide $1,000,000 to the relief effort and is preparing to move relief supplies to the affected areas as soon as transportation becomes possible. If you’d like to help with the relief effort, visit RedCross.org or Wyclef Jean’s YeleHaiti.com. Some of you spend more than five bucks at Starbucks every morning, so surely most of us can spare at least that. Please donate what you can!

Native Americans who have opposed Cape Wind’s 420-megawatt wind farm in Nantucket Sound are meeting with officials from the Department of the Interior today to push an alternate site for the project, according to a press release.

The privately-owned Cape Wind will also be meeting with Interior Department officials and will likely oppose the re-siting of the project, claiming that it will have to start the approval process over again, according to this article in The Boston Globe. Instead, they have offered to look for native artifacts on the seabed before they begin construction.

The dispute has becomes an important test of how the Obama Administration will balance cultural and ecological sensitivities against its green energy goals.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said last week that he wants the parties – the private Cape Wind on one side, conservation groups and several tribes on the other – to come to an agreement by March 1 or he will “take the steps necessary to bring the permit process to conclusion.”

The proposal brought by various groups, including the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, would place the project at a location called South of Tuckernuck Island, which they claim has the water depth and area to accommodate the project.

The groups claim the new site will have less impact than the Horseshoe Shoal site on boat traffic, commercial fishing and endangered species and also limit impacts on tourism and the viewshed that the tribes consider sacred.

Audra Parker, the president of the Alliance to Protect Nantuck Sound, also has an op-ed in The Boston Globe today taking some shots at Cape Wind.

She writes:

Because Cape Wind is a profit-driven private development and has been given a no-bid no compete deal for 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound, its owners will almost certainly object to the new site as harder to build, and thus less profitable. But Cape Wind will gain something in the waters south of Tuckernuck Island that it does not have within sight of Cape Cod and the Islands: strong public support.

Should be interesting.

Merely two hours after I got off a plane and arrived at CES 2010, I sat down in a private meeting room with Stan Glasgow, COO/President of Sony Electronics USA. The interview took place about a hour before the CES 2010 press conference. It was the first time I’d ever interviewed someone on this level, and while mainstream press enjoy such exclusives, these types of interactions are still relatively new for bloggers. It didn’t take long for Stan’s warm demeanor, infectious smile and cool personality to make things comfortable and soon enough we were laughing together during some of his answers – it had turned from an interview into a simple conversation. It became quickly apparent to me how this is one of the best businessmen and speakers I’d ever encountered, and why he is perfect for the title he currently holds. Read on and you’ll learn some interesting things about Stan’s path to his current position, his daily routine, predictions for 2010, his favorite Sony product, how the BRAVIA Internet Video Link service is coming to the PS3, and no new OLED in 2010.

SI: Why don’t you tell us how you got started at Sony, and eventually became the Chief Operating Officer and President today?

Stan: I had built a company, Capetronic Computer Products Holdings Ltd., a global display manufacturing company primarily centered in Asia with factories in Taiwan, China, Thailand, and in California. I started that company in the beginning of computers with the original Apple Macintosh, the original PS1, and worked with Steve Jobs, Rod Canion and other beginning people (in computing). I helped design and and build power supplies, deflection technology, and other products for them. Eventually I took Capetronic public when it was close to a billion dollars.

I had worked with Capetronic for close to 20 years, and was 46 at the time; I hadn’t spent much time with my family. I said, “Now is the time to truly retire.”

I got bored in about three months – the retirement lasted about two and a half years. I wasn’t good at retirement. I started doing some consulting work with several Asian companies, and said to myself, “At this point in my life, I am not motivated by money anymore, but I am motivated to work with great people, and to make a significant contribution that would excite me personally.”

With this in mind, I thought about all of the companies I had worked with in my career, and Sony came to the top of my list since they have great people. I had the fortune of having meetings with Akio Morita and other people on that level over the years. I called up people I knew inside Sony, and asked “Can I help you guys? Consulting? Anything?”

So they gave me a consulting deal in display marketing, and I did that for about six months and after that they wanted me to formally join, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work again. I said, “Let me think about it,” and we negotiated for several months. The salary they offered was about a tenth of what I used to make. It wasn’t a money thing – so we negotiated a little more and I finally joined Sony and took over as VP of Display Marketing in June 2001; it was in the transition phase between CRT and LCD. I was very happy doing that.

I did that for about a year – meanwhile, Hideki (Dick) Komiyama (seen above accepting the Best Mobile Handset Award at the 2008 Global Mobile Awards) came over from Japan to take over the President and COO role at Sony Electronics USA. Dick and I worked together at my prior company; I bought products from Sony, and negotiated some deals with them. He took a look at me and I took a look at him, and it was like old friends of course.

He said, “What are you doing for the company?”

I said, “I am running display marketing for you.”

He responded, “That’s ALL your doing at this company?”

I said, “I don’t need a senior position anymore in my life.”

The next thing I knew I was SVP of Information Technology Division, running VAIO and several other products at the time. Less than a year after that, the move took place from Park Ridge, NJ to San Diego, CA and Dick asked me to take over consumer sales. It was typical – I get a call on a Friday, and on Monday I take over the new job. I got a call from Dick again on a Friday in 2006 and said he was, “leaving back to Japan and take another position, and everyone wants you to take over.”

I said to him, “Dick, I don’t really know this time if I really want that in my life right now.”

He said, “Just do it and help us out.” So I did, and that’s how it happened.

What is the average day for you like at Sony, from start to finish? I understand it varies greatly, but if you can, something detailed for our readers.

Every day is very different. I have a program – every night, I plan out what I want to accomplish the next day – it takes me ten minutes, and is not a huge exercise – I know the tasks, certain e-mails I haven’t responded to, or projects I need to check on and follow-up. I build all of that into it, and then I get interrupted constantly; emergencies, phone calls, and whatever else goes on – Sir Howard will call..

The day usually starts very early, I get up at five and take a walk; I used to run most of my life, but at my age I don’t run anymore – the knees don’t hold up to well, so I walk for about 45 minutes to a hour. At 6 o clock, I get ready, and I’m in the office from 7:00 to 7:15. I start my day – I originally try to get through e-mails very quickly (several hundred per day). Joan, my main assistant helps me as well as Debbie in Park Ridge, who starts earlier. They sort out the junk, and things they can take care of. I dig into my e-mails, and get that going – I speak to the East Coast initially, because no one is in our office that early. And then the office starts coming in at 8:30 to 9:00, people start rolling in.

Generally, meetings are heavily booked; 50% of my schedule is already in meetings. Some of that is due to SOX, and the new rules we have where I have to be involved on at least a monthly basis, in all major activities of the company. It has to be formal and documented and in meetings – every step of the way. I get the complaints about so many meetings, but a large portion of them today are not done because we want to do them, or because we think they’re 100% necessary..they’re done because there is compliance issues now. We’re going to be changing accounting systems in the future to a new worldwide system, rather than the US system we have today. That will also make us do some further changes. I think they’ll be better though – those changes.

So the day is interesting – it usually ends somewhere between 6 and 8 PM, half the nights I probably have dinner with somebody, such as guests in town, or some customers, or something. Then the phone calls from Japan will start – because they’re waking up. So that’s a typical kind of day.

How often do you travel to Japan for Sony in an average year? Tell us about your most recent trip there.

Because of the economic meltdown, it was more over the last year. About a year and a half ago they made me group executive of the Sony Corporation. That gets me involved in a little more activity in Japan than I was previously. I probably go about 6-7 times a year, for about a week to ten days. Maximum is two weeks. Usually in a week I can get everything accomplished.

Tell us about your most recent meeting with Sir Howard Stringer, or the Sony Board of Directors in Japan.

Let me tell you a funny thing that just happened – we had CES all programmed for this press conference, and there’s always timing issues of people, etc. We have Taylor Swift performing – she’s on a deadline because she has to get to LA tonight for the People’s Choice Awards. She was sorta at the end of the program, but the program was running long and we were trying to figure it out, so we had to turn the whole program on its ears. Sir Howard was working on it out there, and we ended up changing everything instantly – they’re all rewriting it right now. Poor Dave (Migdal, SVP of Corporate Communications), he’s going crazy.

Howard is very engaging, decisive – he really understands the world of entertainment, PR, and communications better than anybody I’ve ever seen or worked with in my life. It’s very cool. The interactions with the Senior Japanese Executives – they’re good. These are a whole different group than we’ve ever had before, they’re younger, they’re a lot more aggressive. Good backgrounds – it’s much more fun now than it was, quite honestly. They’re willing to try new things, and really be open to ideas. It’s a lot of fun.

The other thing I do that’s really interesting is we have an advisory council, where we look at the future of Sony. For some reason they’ve asked me to be a part of that, I don’t know why I was selected – I don’t ask questions anymore. I go to the meeting, and there’s some interesting people – Louis Gerstner (the Ex-CEO of IBM), Nobuyuki Idei (the past chairman of Sony), past chairman of IKEA, Peter Peterson and some of the outside directors of the board are on this advisory board – we look at future business opportunities, what major things we could do, we have people come in and present to us, and it’s fun being a part of that.

In November 2009, Sony held an investors/analyst meeting in Japan that outlined a new Sony Online Service, where any Internet connected Sony product could access a vast library of applications, music/video content, services and the ability to buy products. Sony labeled this as a new business model, and said that it would create TV’s that would “evolve even after point of sale.” Can you please tell us your thoughts on this evolution, and what your impressions were of it so far?

I think we’re making good progress – to date, I believe we have 33 million users of the Playstation Network. We’re beginning to port that network to other Sony products. We’re doing BRAVIA Internet Video Link – which is more of a streaming service than a downloading service. We’ve got that growing at a fantastic rate in our televisions right now, we added it to Blu-ray players, and we’re adding it to the PS3. We have two different delivery systems of content now ongoing. I think consumers will make the choice what’s easier for them, and then we have to also understand the business models of each of them and decided which is better for the company also. That is ongoing and going very well.

What does make.believe mean to you?

To me, it has a couple of meanings – the main meaning is that we have not had a worldwide project, a worldwide branding effort inside Sony in probably decades. Every region does its own advertising promotion, we’ve had a few things certain regions have done, other regions have not done. It was time to unite the company, from a branding perspective. Make.believe is an interesting way to do it because it gives our engineers the ability to look at creating consumer experiences that are very unique. It gives us the ability to rally our people around something new, a tag line that’s simple, yet very inspiring. The more we can personalize that for consumers in addition to our own people, I see that being a huge win for Sony around the world.

It’s got multifacets that people inside the company to rally together, getting our technical community a little more active – they’re a good community, and I’m not putting them down, but activating them because that’s a core resource of Sony.

What are your major consumer electronic predictions for the second half of 2010?

I think the adoption of 3D may be a surprise in the second half. I think the excitement of Avatar, it’s success, and the 13 other 3D films slated over the balance of the year. I believe that 3D is going to take off possibly more quickly than we’re all thinking. That could be a surprise. I think a product like Dash could be a surprise product. The Reader and our strategy of being totally open, and not having a proprietary type of software system and the fact that we’ve got a broad line moving forward positively being strong in the second half. I believe Blu-ray, now that it’s got a 3D spec, now that the prices have calmed down, I see that potentially surprising us in the second half. I like some of our digital imaging projects, I like Transfer Jet technology, I like being able to proximity – just by putting two cameras together and move pictures from one to another. And eventually move that technology to Televisions, VAIO’s, and other products.

There could be a hope that the US economy is a little better than we think in the second half.

How many 3D channels do you predict there will be by the end of 2010?

I’m aware of one network slated for 2011, one slated for 2010 – this is not easy stuff. This is complex, we don’t have it all figured out yet. I think ESPN’s going to be a pioneer in the world of sports in figuring out camera placement and what to do there. I think it’s going to take some time. I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of broadcasting of 3D in 2010; I think it will start heavily in 2011. We’ll have some that begins, but I don’t think it’s going to be pervasive.

The theatrical side is moving well, but now we’re working on the TV side of this, broadcasting, and the personalized content, getting camcorders that work in 3D, getting digital still cameras that can take a 3D picture. There’s a lot of work to be done there.

What is your favorite Sony product of all time (perhaps one you used when you were younger)?

I would have to say only because of my interest and engineering background in TV, I think the 55″ BRAVIA XBR8 that we introduced about 18-24 months ago was the best LCD TV in the world at that point, and remains the best LCD TV in the world. We did a very special type of back-lighting technology in that product that was super expensive – it was Triluminos, 3 color back-lights, directly into the back of the screen’s back-lighting. A lot of the LED back-lighting today, nearly all of it is Edge-lit, so you’re using LED’s, but you’re firing across the back of the screen and you’ve got some uniformity issues, hot spots, and cold spots. That 55″ XBR8 sits in my main family room, it’s the TV I watch most of the time, and I still gawk at how good that picture is. It was a strong seller; we’re running out of it right now, and we didn’t anticipate the final demand as well as should have because it’s a really expensive product.

Sony is releasing several 3D capable televisions featuring a new Monolithic design – what would you say to the consumer who is skeptical about this new line of 3D display products?

We’re offering consumers an option, I’m not sure how companies many are doing what we’re doing – we’re fully integrating 3D TV’s to 60″ that we’ll sell. We’re also selling a line of 3D capable TV’s, with basically no increase in price. You can add the emitter later on, and the glasses later on. So we give the consumer the option of buying a capable set that they can then make the investment later on to bring it up to full 3D.

Many television manufacturers added support for SkypeHD, and Toshiba promised some sort of video communication for its TV’s. Can we expect Sony to offer this capability as a BRAVIA add-on in 2010?

No comment.

Can we expect to see 3D Cameras (point and shoot or DSLR) from Sony in 2010?

I can’t answer that. You can see them, but when, I don’t know.

Can we expect any new OLED televisions from Sony in 2010?

We’re working on all sorts of prototypes, but I don’t see production of product in 2010. There’s a wonderful 3D OLED prototype here at CES; that’s the real way to do 3D and TV – because you’ve got direct transmission, rather than back lighting and all the other reflective ways of doing it. But getting it to be commercially reasonable in price, we’ve got a long way to go. That’s the whole problem in OLED, great technology, great feature set, but it’s really hard to get the costs down. Smaller form-factors are easy to do.

Thanks to COO/President Stan Glasgow for sitting down with us and entertaining our questions, and a special thanks to the Sony Corporate Communications team.

Morgan Stanley’s Joachim Fels points out that China latest hike for its banks’ reserve requirement ratio says a lot about what’s to come for other major economies.

Basically, he agrees with us that the Fed has been replaced by the PBOC.

Central banks will try to mop up excess reserves in a similar fashion prior to actually hiking rates. Note in the chart to the right, we have G10 major developed economies’ interest rates vs. those of Asia Ex-Japan (AXJ).

Morgan Stanley: Second, the Chinese move is in line with our view that many central banks are likely to start soaking up some excess reserves in the banking system in 1H10 before raising official interest rates in 2H.

Third, we continue to think that central banks will crawl rather than rush towards the exit, and will thus slow but not derail the powerful global ‘AAA liquidity cycle’ (ample, abundant, augmenting), which is still in full swing.

Thus in a sense, Chinese actions foreshadow U.S. interest rate policy rather than vice versa.

Likewise, in advanced economies like the US or the euro area, the banking system is awash with excess reserves (though for different reasons – QE rather than a currency peg), some of which the Fed and the ECB will want to drain before embarking on rate hikes. In the US, we expect the Fed to soak up some excess reserves – through reverse repos and/or term deposits – once the MBS purchases have been phased out at the end of this quarter. In the euro area, the ECB is already phasing out some of its non-standard longer-term financing operations. In both cases, as in China, these measures will set the stage for a smoother exit from monetary easing, though they do not constitute an outright tightening by themselves.

While liquidity mop-up operations might not, technically, be monetary tightening per se, they’re at least heading in that direction, which is what matters most in the end. Still, by claiming that the ‘AAA liquidity cycle’ isn’t threatened yet, Morgan Stanley seems to be saying we shouldn’t be heading for the liquidity exits just yet.

(Via Morgan Stanley, The China Cracker, Joachim Fels, 13 January 2010)

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See Also:

• SAVING AFRICA: China Has Done Much More For Africa Than Bono, Live Aid, And Oprah Put Together
• $123,000,000,000,000*
• January 12, 2010: THE DAY BERNANKE GOT REPLACED

Today, I became a big beneficiary of the enormous marketing budgets of pharmaceutical companies.  I know many of y’all suspected it all along.   But sadly, there was no massive check waiting for me in the mail today.  No, what happened is, I went to the pulmonologist for a lung function test, because my asthma has been steadily getting worse for months.

The bad news is what I already knew–I am no longer well controlled
enough with Singulair and a rescue inhaler, and I need to go on inhaled
steroids.  The good news is that I left with an armful of free samples,
so that I can figure out which inhaled steroid works for me most
cost-effectively.  That’s courtesy of those bloated marketing budgets
you hear so many complaints about, more than half of which go to free samples.

This isn’t such a great deal for the pharmaceutical industry, since
otherwise I’d be paying full freight for one of their products.  All it
does for the pharma firms is buy them a seat at the table–a chance to
win my business.  But it’s a great deal for me, and millions of
consumers like me who get a chance to try multiple products before we
commit to one. 

One of the things that bugs activists about this practice is that the
pharmaceutical companies record the cost of the marketing as the full
price of the product, not the cost of producing it.  But this is
actually the right accounting rule, precisely because of what I
outlined above:  the samples cost them a full price sale.  One could
argue that it should be slightly lower, because I might have insurance
which would pay a discounted rate for the product.  But whatever the
exact right price is, it’s closer to the market price of the product
than to the production cost.  Keep that in mind the next time you hear
someone complaining that pharma spends more on marketing than
development; if it weren’t for all those free samples, and the reps who
bring them to the doctors, they’d spend considerably less.

La marca gala Peugeot acaba de presentar una nueva versión de su mítico logotipo más moderno debido a que se acerca el 200 aniversario de la existencia de la marca. Además, han presentado un nuevo lema llamado “MOTION & EMOTION“.

También han confirmado que entre el 2010 y el 2012 pretenden sacar a la venta 14 nuevos modelos. Por otra parte, Peugeot se han marcado el ambicioso objetivo de subir tres puestos en el ranking de marcas donde actualmente se encuentra en la décima posición.

A continuación os dejo con un vídeo que han adjuntado en la nota de prensa:

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