For 33 consecutive years, the Ford F-150 has been America’s best selling vehicle-car, truck, SUV, basically anything with a motor that movies. Moving more than 500,000 units in an average year, the F-150 is just a sales beast, and it is only getting better.

A report by PickupTrucks.com is saying that the F-150 will be getting the new Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) 3.7 liter V6 in the near future. This is the same engine that delivers 305 horsepower and 30 MPG in the 2011 Mustang.

Read more of this story »

When (if?) health care reform passes both the House and Senate, will it help airlift the president’s approval rating out of the 40s? I say yes. My colleagues Dan and Megan have expressed doubts. Here’s why I haven’t changed my mind.

From Greg Sargent, this is a really important observation:

The CBS poll finds that Obama’s approval rating on health care has
dipped to 36%. But the poll also asked whether people think the reform
proposal, in various ways, goes too far, is about right, or doesn’t go
far enough:

In
every one of those polled — covering Americans, controlling costs, and
regulating insurance companies — more think the bill doesn’t go far
enough.

Now, I think it’s misguided to add up the “Not far enough” and “About right” groups to approximate the bill’s actual approval. Some of those “Not far enough”-ers under the Controlling Costs category could be conservatives who blame Medicare for strangling government spending. Or some of those NFE-ers under the Regulating health insurance companies category could conceivably be Republicans who want their health insurance improved but also hate the idea of paying for 30 million additional Americans’ health care. But I do think there is a lot of liberal support for Obama-esque health care reform hiding in the “Not far enough” group. And I think that with a real life bill on the president’s desk, some of these critics from the left will eventually admit that something is better than nothing.

Furthermore, my sense is also that this health care poll is a microcosm of Obama’s overall approval rating. Obviously, there are a lot of Americans who think Obama is driving the country off a cliff. But I think there are also a lot of moderates and liberals who think he’s generally driving in the right direction, but not fast enough. I don’t know enough Americans to know that this is true, but the sense I get from a lot of liberal blogs I read is that the case against Obama is a phalanx. From the right, you get anger about radicalism. From the left, you get disappointment about incrementalism.

That doesn’t mean that opposition to Obama is somehow less serious just because it includes people who would probably vote Democratic anyway. After all, disappointment with your party can be the difference between 100,000 Democrats going to voting booths versus staying home. It just means that when we cite the numbers against the health care bill, and against the president, it doesn’t make sense to talk about the opposition as a homogeneous bloc.

Jessica Simpson has taken to Twitter to confirm her rumored relationship with Smashing Pumpkins rocker Billy Corgan – revealing the odd couple has teamed up for a new song.

The singer/actress was alleged to be dating Corgan after they were snapped on a night out together last month. The longtime pals remained mum on the rumors, but Jess has decided to go public with the union.

“I am blessed. Going over a song w (with) @billy…” Jess Tweeted last Tuesday. She accompanied the message with images of the couple in the studio.

Los Angeles.  Los Angeles police detectives announced an arrest in the case of Hideko Oyama, the 74-year-old hotel manager who was stabbed to death at the Chetwood Hotel, January 5, 2010.

Jian Hong Li, a 39-year-old Chinese national, was a resident at the Chetwood Hotel who checked out on the day of the murder.  "As a resident of the hotel, we had wanted to interview Mr. Li, but he had disappeared," said Lt. Paul Vernon, commanding officer of the detective division for downtown.  "Detectives followed leads from Los Angeles to Camarillo, only to discover him walking on First Street, just east of the Los Angeles River."

Around 3:30 PM, January 12, one week after the murder, detectives caught up to Jian Hong Li as he walked on the sidewalk near First and Boyle Streets in East Los Angeles. 

Detectives questioned him at the police station.  "In short order, the detectives were able to compare, confirm, and tie forensic evidence to Li’s presence at the crime scene," Vernon said.  "Once the detectives interviewed Li, they were able to develop enough probable cause to arrest him for the murder." 

Detectives now believe robbery was the motive for the crime.  Li’s bail was set at $1 million.

The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office in a couple of days.  Once filed, the police department will announce a time for a news conference with Ms. Oyama’s daughter present.

"It’s only right to acknowledge the two lead detectives in this case, Thayer Lake and John Thacker," Vernon added.  "Hopefully their tenacity and hard work will give some solace to Ms. Oyama’s family."

The case remains active, so anyone with information is asked to call Central homicide detectives Thayer Lake or John Thacker at 213-972-1254.  Anyone with information about this crime is urged to call 77th Homicide Criminal Gang Group at 213-485-1383. During non-business hours or on weekends calls should be directed to 1-877-LAPD-24-7.  Anyone wishing to remain anonymous should call Crimestoppers at 800-222-TIPS (800-222-8477).  Tipsters may also contact Crimestoppers by texting to phone number 274637 (C-R-I-M-E-S on most keypads) with a cell phone. All text messages should begin with the letters "LAPD." Tipsters may also go to LAPDOnline.org, click on "webtips" and follow the prompts.

For months after I bought my Palm Pre, I had a daily routine. After my daily cup of coffee, I’d hit up the App Catalog and tap the Recent button to see what new software was out. It was a bit of a chore, so I’m glad to see that Palm now offers RSS feeds to the App Catalog data. There’s quite a few feeds that you can add to your favorite RSS readers — I use Google Reader — and each makes it far easier and efficient to keep up with webOS software developments.

A full list of feeds is readily available at the Palm Developer site. I’ve already added the one that tracks all applications, but you can watch for just beta apps or updates as well. Clicking through on your reader takes you to the application’s specific web page for more details, a photo and a way to shoot app info to your phone. It’s a solid implementation and I’m actually wishing Google would offer the same for its Android Market. Apple could use this, too, even though I found a third-party feed for the App Store. Unfortunately, it seems out of date, so I hope Cupertino follows in Palm’s footsteps on this one.

If you’ll pardon my terrible photoshopping skills for a second (Hey! I was using a trackpad! Also, my hands were tied behind my back, my eyes were closed, and, uh, my house was on fire), you might be looking at a fairly close representation of Aliph’s next Jawbone headset.

You see, the gents over at HTCPedia spotted a listing for this never before seen, as-of-yet unannounced Bluetooth headset on.. wait for it.. Craigslist. Weird, right? It happens more often than you’d probably imagine.

According to the original poster of the contraband headset, this guy is called the Jawbone Icon – and according to the few pictures they’ve released, it looks like a weird mash-up of the short-and-stout Jawbone 1 and the sleek-and-textured Jawbone 2. If the pictures are representative of the real deal (that is, if this isn’t just some really, really intense bootleg), it looks like Aliph’s sticking with the same packaging design they’ve used for the past few generations.

One interesting twist: it looks like they might be switching toward using a microUSB port on the headset, instead of Aliph’s proprietary magnetic-grappler-thing. That’s good news for the travelin’ folk, as that generally means one less cable to carry (and subsequently lose.)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Kimbo Slice came out of hiding for an trip to Las Vegas last week. If you follow @kimboslice on Twitter you know he played a little chess, then hopped on a Cessna with "Kimbro," hung with his paisans at Nove Italiano at the Palms and then made an appearance at the AVN Awards show.

The screengrab on the right via SportsbyBrooks is from a 2008 video where Kimbo taught MMA to adult stars from Reality Kings. 

Anyone else assuming that Kimbo isn’t training his stamina, footwork and submission defense six days a week right now? 

Airplane photo via Twitter.com/kimboslice and Nove Italiano photo from N9NE Group

Ford’s Fusion Hybrid was named Car of the Year at the International Auto Show in Detroit, with the American automaker’s Transit Connect following suit and taking Truck of the Year, Freep.com reports.

The Fusion Hybrid, which jurors said drove “more like a normal car than many hybrids,” sold 22.4% more units in 2009 year over year, totaling 180,671 vehicles.

Roughly 20% of the Fusions that Ford sold in 2009 were hybrids, according to the company.

The Transit Connect, a commercial van that was released just this past summer, is targeted for sale to small businesses, and starts at $20,780. It gets 22 m.p.g. in the city and 25 m.p.g. on the highway.

According to GreenCarReports.com, Ford plans to release limited numbers of an electric version of the Transit Connect in 2010, which will start at $21,475.

See Also: Check Out The Concept Cars Of The Future Unveiled At The Detroit Auto Show

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Ford Sales Up 32.8% For December, Annihilating Expectations
• Ford Investing In Michigan Battery, Hybrid Production
• Ford Shares Surge After Surprise Profit And Outlook

As Haiti reels from yesterday’s massive earthquake and its continued aftershocks, and nations rush to put rescue efforts together, scientists analyzing the seismic event say this disaster may have been a long time coming.

The earthquake in Haiti had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and it appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, scientists say [AP]. This fault, called the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, may have been slowly building up pressure since the major 1760 earthquake that struck Haiti.

“It’s been locked solid for about the last 250 years,” said Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS). “It’s been gathering stress all that time as the plates move past each other, and it was really just a matter of time before it released all that energy” [BBC News]. Chillingly, scientists led by Paul Mann warned just two years ago that such a massive quake could strike Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. But there wasn’t much the impoverished Caribbean nation could do with that information, Mann said: “The problem with these kinds of strikes is that they can remain quiescent — dormant — for hundreds of years,” he said Tuesday evening. “So it’s hard to predict when they’ll occur” [CNN].

The BBC reports that the fault system of which Enriquillo-Plantain is a part normally moves less than an inch per year as the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates slide by each other, but this earthquake may have caused the earth’s surface along the fault line to offset by as much as three feet.

The fact that the Enriquillo-Plantain appears to have released all its fury at once raises further worry for people living near strike-slip fault zones—California’s San Andres fault also falls under this category. However, Caribbean geology expert Grenville Draper says that the Hispaniola fault system doesn’t behave exactly like California’s. The movement along the Hispaniola fault is relatively small compared with plates moving underground in California, Draper said. The effect would be less-frequent earthquakes, but relatively large ones when they do occur [Miami Herald].

Related Content:
80beats: Science Via Twitter: Post-Earthquake Tweets Can Provide Seismic Data
80beats: Major Earthquakes Can Weaken Faults Around the Globe
80beats: A Major Quake Could Release Plutonium from Los Alamos Lab
The Intersection: Ways to Support the Relief Effort in Haiti

Image: Wikimedia Commons / The Weatherman

German Tuner RDX RACEDESIGN has created a subtle aerodynamic package for the Peugeot 207 hatchback and the 207 CC.

The complete kit includes a new front bumper lip, headlight masks, redesigned side skirts, a rear apron attachment and a roof spoiler.

The modified front bumper lower part is available for all pre-2009 facelift models. It costs EUR 143  and it comes in a paint-ready form. The headlight masks come in a black colour, they can be installed this way or painted in the car’s colour… (read more)

When it comes to smart grid deployments the need for “open” architecture using Internet Protocol has become resounding (IP is one of our Winners of 2009 on GigaOM Pro). Hey, even the phone companies — who have long built closed, proprietary networks — want to offer something in the ballpark of an open network. This morning […]

Air hockey tournaments scheduled across the state to highlight new ticket and give players additional chances to win cash and prizes

The Illinois Lottery recently launched the Chicago Blackhawks® Cash scratch-off ticket, and is kicking off 16 air-hockey tournaments across the state through February.

The winner at each event will win $500 in cash and a Blackhawks jersey.

“Air hockey is one of those all American games that most people have experienced in their lives at one point or another” said Paul Arnell, director of promotions for the Illinois Lottery.

“The Lottery loves to give people the opportunity to have fun, play some of their favorite games, and possibly win money at the same time.”

At each event, participants aged 18 years or older will place their name on an entry form when they arrive.

At the beginning of the tournament thirty-two players will be randomly selected and placed in a bracket style format in the order in which they were picked.

The contestants will face-off until the last person standing is crowned the Air Hockey Star. Below are dates, locations and times of each event:

About Chicago Blackhawks® Cash Ticket

Each ticket costs $2 and is available for purchase at Illinois Lottery retailers across the state. Winners can win a variety of prizes ranging from a Chicago Blackhawks® jersey up to $20,000 in cash. The ticket also offers second-chance opportunities where players can submit five non-winning Chicago Blackhawks® Cash tickets for the chance to travel with the team, including:

• Roundtrip travel for two with the Blackhawks on a team charter flight
• One room in the Blackhawks team hotel
• 2 tickets to the game
• A ride on the Blackhawks team bus to the morning skate and the game
• 2 Blackhawks replica jerseys
• $500 spending money

For more information about the second-chance promotion visit illinoislottery.com.

About Illinois Lottery

Founded in 1974, the Illinois Lottery is a state agency with annual sales over $2 billion. Since its inception, the Lottery has contributed more than $14 billion to the state Common School Fund to assist K-12 public schools. Players must be at least 18 years old.

For more information on the Illinois Lottery please visit our Web site at illinoislottery.com.

The T-fal Actifry promises to fry your favorite foods using just 1 tbsp of oil. Being an avid fan of deep fried miracles including chicken wings, onion rings and french fries, I just had to try it out.

Price

$300 – Out for about a year in the UK, just hitting the US market.

How It Works

I’ve described the Actifry to friends as an ice cream maker combined with a convection oven. Basically, it’s a big nonstick pan equipped with a constantly rotating silicone stirrer. You load all the food into the pan, drizzle it with a relatively small amount of oil and then close the clear lid. The controls include just two buttons—one for on/off, one for a timer. Fired up, hot air blows around making it sound, as you might expect, like a weak hairdryer. The idea is that the air blows the oil around and cooks the food while the spatula keeps everything cooking evenly.

The Cook-Off

I put the Actifry through three crucial tests, constantly questioning whether it was better than a convection oven. The first, chicken wings (buffalo style), because you can’t generally duplicate a the crunch of a fried wing in the oven. The second, sweet potato fries. (Battered food like onion rings will just gunk up the system, so I settled for something that’s also pretty difficult to oven fry.) And last, I made straight french fries—the devices biggest selling point by far.

Chicken Wings
I tossed, I don’t remember how many, chicken wings into the machine. I sprinkled them with a pinch of paprika and a tbsp of oil, then I let the machine go to work. 30 or so minutes later, I smelled that the chicken was done. And I had to admit, the pieces were a beautiful golden brown.

So I took a bite and…they were chewy, just as if I’d baked em. And actually, a bit overcooked as well, since I was going more for texture than taste.

Winner: Tie

Sweet Potato Fries
Traditionally, good sweet potato fries are considered difficult to make—even ordering them off a restaurant menu can be a crap shoot. I actually make great sweet potato fries in the oven, baking them for about 20 minutes before throwing the switch on convection to give each fry a bubbly, slightly crisp skin. Theoretically, the Actifry would cook the potatoes in a similar manner.
Theoretically. What I got, and it’s tough to see here, was basically a pile of fry-shaped mush. It tasted fine—you can’t really screw up a sweet potato—but the fries were limp and occasionally pulverized by the spatula. (The lamb chops, btw, were delicious.)

Winner: Oven

French Fries
At this point, the honeymoon is over. The Actifry is as big as a crock pot, and so far, it’s basically just a crock. But I’m willing to let it all pass if the Actifry is the ultimate healthy french fry machine. A decent fry can be baked, but getting the texture perfect, like a shattering yet silky crème brûlée or crusty yet gooey french bread, is an art tough to match by oven alone.

After cutting Idahos as equally as possible and rinsing away the extra starch, I fired up the Actifry, almost nervously, on behalf of T-fal.
What came out roughly half an hour later was admittedly good. Taking the first bite, I was surprised by the decent balance of crispness and mushy innards. The golden color wasn’t uniform, but I don’t mind a few extra crispy bites in my french fries, and had I attempted fries again, I may have let them cook even longer (and risked breaking them down for super crispiness).

Still, munching through the plate of potatoes with my wife, I realized 2 things. One, I’m not sure this is significantly better than what I could do in an oven (with an oil mister and a bit of flipping). And, two, I’m not sure this is significantly easier than what I could do with an oven. (After all, I still peeled and cut up a few fresh potatoes.)

Winner: Actifry…by a nose.

Mostly Just Hot Air

The Actifry isn’t necessarily a bad idea or a bad product, it’s just a product that 99% of us don’t need—and it’s hard to imagine that it really sells for $300. For french fries, I’d say it’s a bit superior to what the average Joe can pull off in an oven (results vary, I’m sure, resident chef-types). But most of the fried goodness you want to eat can be bastardized just as well with equipment you already own, if not better.

Or, you know, there’s always the option to actually cook foods by submerging them in hot fat. Deep frying is about as simple as cooking gets, if a bit messy and unhealthy. [T-fal]

Cooks decent french fries

Can’t cook much else

Costs $300 more than the oven you already own

Exceedingly healthy

Filed under: Concept Cars, Detroit Auto Show, Etc.

We love auto show season, mostly for the chance to see all the coolest new cars and concepts that the world’s best automakers have to offer. This year at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, though, there weren’t nearly as many new models to point our DSLR lenses at… for rather obvious reasons.

As such, we’ve cut the typical Top 10 in half and compiled a list of the Top Five Introductions from the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. Keep in mind that there are a number of reasons why a vehicle might be interesting or important, and we’ve run the gamut to represent all different types on our list.

Interestingly, you’ll only see Detroit-based automakers in our Top Five. That conclusion wasn’t reached on purpose, we simply judged each new model on its own merits and this is how our musings turned out. For an added bonus, each of us in attendance picked our own personal favorite. So, without further ado, click here to see our Top Five Introductions from the 2010 Detroit Auto Show.

[Image: Bryan Mitchell/Getty]

Continue reading AB’s Top Five Introductions from the 2010 Detroit Auto Show

AB’s Top Five Introductions from the 2010 Detroit Auto Show originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

• @350 @aycc @SSC_Intl @ayicc @iycn @JYDofCOP @CYDCopenhagen @SustainUSAgents @FYEG @climatjustice @MYCJN miss you!!! #
• RT: @guyshrubsole: @DECC and @EdMilibandMP want to know how to engage with youth on climate http://tinyurl.com/yfruybh – submit your ideas! #