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Vimeo has just rolled out the broader mobile support it first announced last week. The site is making a couple of big moves one with the wider availability of 1080p videos and the second being better support for most smartphone platforms. Subscribers to Vimeo Plus can now use the mobile version of the site to convert their videos into mobile-friendly formats…. (read more)

I don’t know about you, but I hate flying. Hate it. But I might just change my tune if I get a chance to board the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane. Boeing revealed the Dreamliner a few weeks ago and it’s slated to go into commercial use by the end of 2010.

Unlike the jarring environment of most airplanes, the Dreamliner is designed to promote a soothing experience by using three stage LED lighting in the cabin.

Instead of tiny portholes, the Dreamliner users the largest windows available on any commercial aircraft, giving you a better view of the horizon. The windows even feature “smart glass” which can be dimmed at the flip of a switch.

Now if they could just add an extra 12 inches of legroom I might just be happy on my next flight.

[via PSFK]

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Article Tags: John Coleman

The excitement is building at KUSI as work continues on the one hour prime time special report on Global Warming: The Other Side. The telecast will make its TV debut on KUSI on Thursday evening at 9 PM. Set your DVR for this one. I have been writing feverishly and doing a series of interviews with experts, but that all fades when compared to the big news break we are preparing to reveal for the first time. We will be bringing the Climategate scandal from England to the United States. Remember in late November a huge file of emails and computer codes from the Anglia University Climate Center in England were leaked or hacked and the revelations of manipulations of temperature data and collusion among the scientists there and those in the U.S. with whom they worked were mind boggling. Well, on our program an even greater degree of manipulation from the United States will be revealed for the first time. It ought to make national news in the days that follow. We continue to work diligently on the program.

Meanwhile, a highly significant new understanding of what may be the real natural force behind global warming and cooling may be unfolding on the internet. Anthony Watts, the intrepid meteorologist and friend of mine, runs a great blog called Watts up with that. From the posts on his site he collects the data and writes:

Source: kusi.com

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What Congress giveth, credit card companies are poised to take away.

In six weeks, the final major provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act will take effect.  The law prohibits many egregious tactics used by card issuers, such as retroactively raising interest rates on consumers' balances.  But issuers have reacted to the sweeping new consumer protection law by quickly inventing new egregious tactics, including raising rates and lowering credit limits on half of all U.S. cardholders. 

And that may just be the beginning. Bill Hardekopf of Lowcards.com expects a series of new “gotchas” from card issuers in the year ahead, as they struggle to recover revenue lost to the CARD Act or the economic downturn.  Here are six new booby traps consumers should watch for this year.

1) More cards with annual fees

Today, only about 20 percent of credit cards come with annual fees, Hardekopf said, and consumers with good credit can easily avoid them. That will be less true this coming year. Already, Bank of America is surprising some existing customers by adding fees ranging from $29 to $99.  

Annual fees need not be so obvious, however.  Citibank is demanding $2,400 minimum annual spending from some customers — otherwise, they face a $35 fee.

It's important to carefully watch your bill to see if an annual fee has been added, Hardekopf warns. Otherwise, you might pay the fee unknowingly.

Despite the expected onslaught of annual fees, Hardekopf says consumers should still be able to find annual fee-free cards. 

"I believe the credit card industry is competitive enough to where there will be an issuer or issuers who will offer free cards," he said.

Consumers who are tagged with a new fee should seriously consider dumping the card and getting a new one. That should be done with care, however. Never close the old card without receiving a new one first, because closing the card will hurt your credit score and could prevent you from getting a new one.  Even closing it later will hurt your score, but probably not enough to exceed an unwanted $99 annual fee.

2) Fixed-rate cards changed to variable rates

It will be harder for banks to raise consumers' credit card rates once Feb. 22 rolls around. There is one loophole: Variable rates will still float up and down in line with the Prime Rate. Since bank rates have nowhere to go but up, variable rate card rates will definitely be going up.  Watch the mail for notice that your fixed-rate card is no longer fixed. If you don't like the change, consider switching to a new card – but follow the advice above.

3) Increases in interest rates

Many existing cardholders have already endured rate hikes; now, it's time for new cardholders to get hit. The CARD Act has no limits on the rates that consumers can be charged when applying for new credit cards.  Unable to raise rates on current customers, banks will target new customers with higher prices.  Why is this important? Consumers who feel jilted will be shopping around, and may not find options as many attractive alternatives as in the past.

4) Increases in existing fees

The CARD Act eliminated some fees, such as over-limit fees, but it did nothing to cap other fees. The best example so far: balance transfers between cards have typically been 3 percent for some time.  Last year, Bank of America hiked the fee to 4 percent and recently JP Morgan Chase raised its to 5 percent. Cash advance fees will likely follow suit, and late fees probably won't be far behind.

5) New fees

This is the most alarming area of all.

"Overall, I think fees is the big word for 2010," Hardekopf said. "There are people dreaming up fees right now that you and I have never heard of."

Card companies are taking tips from other industries in their fee-invention schemes, he said.  Some issuers are charging $1 a month for paper bills (imitating the cell phone industry). Fifth Third Bancorp recently added a $19 inactivity fee for customers who don't use their cards during a year. (Stockbrokers were the trail blazers on that one.

"Since fees represent such a cash cow for issuers, expect aggressive increases in existing fees as well as some brand new fees on your credit cards," he said.

6) Futzing with rewards

Decreasing the value of rewards points might not sound as harsh as a penalty fee, but it is.  Card issuers have myriad ways they can toy with rewards values, and many have begun doing so in earnest. Many miles cards now require more points for travel; some have added "tiers" that make travel more expensive, effectively devaluing the points. Other cuts are more obvious: Cash reward cards that lower their percentage rebate, for example. One of Hardekopf's personal cards now rebates only 1.25 percent of all purchases, down from 1.5 percent.

"I'm an avid user of credit cards. I put everything on my card just so we can get the cash back," he said. "This decrease in rewards is costing us money and I'm irritated."

Better or worse?

While the CARD Act contains many positive consumer protections, it's open for debate whether consumers will be better off after it takes effect than they were before, given the reaction by banks.  Hardekopf thinks there's not much room for debate.

"I think consumers are worse off than they were before," he said.  "Taken with what the issuers have done in response to the CARD ACT, I do think it has hurt more people than it helped."

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In Taiwan, fisheries fell to an 18-year low after a typhoon flooded fish farms. But were farmers only victims, or the villains too?

Declining Revenues Affect All the Major Carriers

12 January 2010

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US – The decreased demand for coal has been a factor crucial to profits for the country’s rail carriers for the past few months. Those whose business relies heavily on transporting the fuel for the nations power stations will demonstrate over the next few weeks how successful they have been in keeping shareholders happy in the light of reduced revenues across the rail freight sector and the results are likely to be interpreted as favourable compared to many of the larger truck operators and sea freight carriers, despite the trials and tribulations in the sector.

There isn’t much good news however when one considers the situation as a whole, although the rail carriers appear to be making the best of a bad job with less to work with. The next major rail corporation report is due with a conference call by the CSX Corporation who will speak to shareholders at 8.30 am on 20th January to analyse Q4 figures announced the previous evening.

Third quarter figures for the group saw a 15% decline in volume with revenues down 23% to $2.3 billion. Operating ratio was up to a record level and this produced earnings of 74 cents per share, down from 93 cents the previous year, this, on earnings of just $293 million compared to 2008’s $380 million. Analysts are predicting earnings per share will be about the same level this time, around 76 cents, again against an 11% drop in revenue to around $237 million.

What is worrying is the underlying trend downward for year on year figures, but most observers feel that the market has now bottomed out although no one is expecting a rapid recovery to anything like previous levels.

The CSX figures are, as is usual with the large corporations, clouded by previous write downs and adjustments, often making it impossible for all but the most closely involved experts to put a truly balanced analysis together. It would seem that CSX, third largest rail freight transporter by turnover, are likely to have achieved better results than some of their closest rivals.

When Warren Buffet “bet the farm” on the purchase of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, one position up in the revenue volume table from CSX, many investors began to look closely at the sector. Now, with results from the company due the same day as opponents Union Pacific on 21st January, observers are bound to draw comparisons. Both are likely to post disappointing results with predictions of reduced revenues, down around 18% for BNSF and 12% for UP, according to reports. The Norfolk Southern Corporation are due to post their figures before the month end and similar drops in revenue and returns are also anticipated.

Buffet however is playing the long game and management changes were announced this week at BNSF, there will be a stockholders meeting on the 11th February to vote on the $44 billion merger and the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway investment group. Rather than diminishing its rivals the deal has reinforced confidence in the sector at a time of lower returns for most investors.

Carriage of bulk agricultural products will always be a mainstay for the rail groups and simple logic means people will always need to eat, so grain products are a staple in every sense of the word. Whether home grown or imported there is a steady supply of freight trucks ferrying produce and this supports a large part of the rail freight market. Look, however, for an increased intermodal challenge from the major rail companies in the coming years. By developing profitable multi modal depots, something the US lacks considering its size, plus their own in house local trucking capabilities, the rail carriers can counter the parts of their market which have reduced, and may continue to fall off. BNSF claim to carry coal which supplies 10% of the nation’s electricity. With demands being made to reduce emissions across the board, the continuing shortfall of revenue for the rail groups from their power generating supply divisions must be made up by attacking the long haul truck market with increased vigour. The ongoing trend in the push for more efficiency and cleaner air may well result in more rail company owned logistics facilities in a country with ample space to accommodate them.

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In 2004 everyone freaked out when Gmail launched because Google would be reading your emails to figure out what ads to serve you. “Privacy advocates objected to the advertising model, which involves Google’s robot eyes scanning every e-mail for keywords and displaying contextual advertisements alongside a user’s inbox,” noted Wired.

That might sound familiar to your great-great-great grandparents. Supposedly many people were apprehensive about using telephones in the early 1900s because they knew the phone companies could listen in on their phone calls. There are people who won’t use phones today because of the ease in which calls can be tapped.

But the rest of us seem to be ok with Gmail. And our phone. That’s because the benefits of those products far outweigh the privacy costs. And people are going to be just fine with Facebook, too. Even if they did do a switcharoo on privacy settings a month ago that is still reverberating through the tech press.

Contrary to published reports, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not say “the age of privacy is over” in my interview with him last Friday evening at the Crunchies. You can watch the video here for yourself. What he said is that he wants Facebook to change with its users, and keep its product fresh. Which is exactly what they are doing.

The fact is that privacy is already really, really dead. Howard Lindzon nailed it the other day when he said “Equifax, Transunion, Capital One, American Express and their cousins raped our privacy,” Everything we do, everything we buy, everywhere we go is tracked and sitting in a database somewhere. Our location via our phone, or our car GPS. Our credit card transactions. Everything. Honestly, a picture of you taking a bong hit in college is mice nuts compared to the mountain of data that is gathered and exploited about every single one of us every single day. You just don’t really see that other stuff because those companies don’t like to talk about the data their gathering. I don’t see an Equifax blog post outlining exactly how they are gathering and selling your information, for example.

The point is that we like Facebook. Very, very few of us are going to stop using it. It was inevitable that they’d rip the bandaid off and try to get their users to make data public. It’s what’s best for Facebook. And if users hate it enough, someone else will launch a competing service that has different policies and thrive. You can guess what the odds of that happening are.

I spoke to Blippy CEO Philip Kaplan earlier tonight. Blippy is a service that lets users publish everything they buy with their credit cards.

Crazy right? Who’d want to do that? Well, apparently a lot do. The company has let in 2,500 people so far. Those 2,500 people are publishing $200,000 worth of purchases a day to their friends. It’s less than a month old and they’ve tracked $3.8 million in transactions already, with an average transaction size of $46.

And more than 10,000 people are on the waiting list to get an account and gladly share their consumption behavior with the world.

Why are they doing it? To share what they’re buying, and talk about it. Or to let advertisers see what they like and tailor offers to them. Or something. The point is, we don’t really care about privacy anymore. And Facebook is just giving us exactly what we want.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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	Detroit 2010: LaHood says Volt is “obviously the kind of green car Americans are looking for” So says the guy who works for the government that owns 60 percent of the company that will sell the Volt.		Detroit 2010: Toyota confirms “Prius Family” Don’t tease.
	Detroit 2010: Chrysler shows off its Fiat 500 BEV Sadly, this is just a packaging exercise at this time.	Other news: Detroit 2010: BMW decides to extend MINI E lease program Detroit 2010: Ford sweeps NA Car and Truck of the Year Detroit 2010: Toyota FT-CH is a younger, cheaper brother for the Prius

AutoblogGreen for 01.12.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Beckham has added another tattoo to his already huge collection of body art. The 34-year-old soccer ace already has 17 tattoos on his bod,y but decided to get the latest one — black and white image of Jesus Christ — to pay a tribute to his grandfather Joe West, who passed away in December.

Gemballa has been refining Porsche cars for the last 27 years, so it might sound a bit awkward to some the thought that the German tuners could choose a Ferrari Enzo as a base to start their latest project: the Gemballa MIG-U1. The car, which will be produced in just 25 units, underwent an extreme makeover and is now the living proof the tuners’ know-how is not limited to Porsche cars only.

Exterior modifications include a new front spoiler lip, a new rear spoiler with a flap that… (read more)

By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch

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LONDON (MarketWatch) — Cadbury said Tuesday that its 2009 performance was “well ahead” of market expectations as the U.K. chocolate maker reiterated its rejection of a 10.5 billion pound ($16.9 billion) takeover bid from Kraft Foods.

The company said revenue rose around 11% in 2009 and would have been up 5% excluding the impact of currency fluctuations. The trading margin also improved by 1.55 percentage points to 13.5%, with its performance helped by a strong fourth quarter and the contribution from its restructuring program.

Cadbury’s Roger Carr said the performance meant Kraft’s offer is “even more unattractive today than it was when Kraft made its formal offer in December.”

“Don’t let Kraft steal your company with its derisory offer,” Carr said in a message to shareholders.

Low multiple

In its second defense document against the bid, Cadbury said the offer is worth around 12 times its 2009 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That is lower than any comparable transaction in the sector, the group added.

The company also noted that the shares of its peers have risen around 12% since the offer was made as markets have recovered.

Kraft’s bid is worth 300 pence plus 0.2589 Kraft shares for every Cadbury share, which valued the offer at 763 pence a share, or 10.5 billion pounds at Monday’s closing prices.

Cadbury shares dipped 0.3% to 779 pence Tuesday.

Cadbury, which has already lifted its medium-term growth forecasts as part of its defense against the bid, is targeting sales growth of 5% to 7% over the next four years and a margin of 16% to 18% by 2013.

The group said Tuesday that the full-year dividend is expected to grow by 10% to around 18 pence a share. Cadbury will announce further details on its 2009 performance later in the week.

Door still open

Cadbury’s latest defense came shortly after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 99,999, -301.00, -0.30%) (BRK.B 3,325, +2.99, +0.09%) said it planned to vote against a proposal to fund the deal by issuing millions of new shares.

Buffett’s investment vehicle, which controls around 9.4% of Kraft’s stock, said it was worried about the fall in Kraft’s share price and wouldn’t give the company a blank check to pay for the deal. See story on Warren Buffett’s concerns.

Cadbury’s Carr said on a conference call Tuesday that Buffett “is clearly getting an iron grip on the Kraft management,” but that the U.S. billionaire’s statement didn’t change Cadbury’s position at all.

Separately Tuesday, Italy’s Il Messaggero newspaper reported that UniCredit and Mediobanca are ready to provide a loan to Italian chocolate maker Ferrero to fund a possible joint bid with Hershey Co. (HSY 36.18, -0.20, -0.55%) .

Both companies have previously said they might be interested in bidding for Cadbury and are seen as the only potential rival to Kraft after Switzerland’s Nestle (CH:NESN 48.90, -0.30, -0.61%) said it wouldn’t make an offer.

“We have made it clear that this is an open door for people that can make sensible offers,” Carr said on the conference call.

Simon Kennedy is the City correspondent for MarketWatch in London.

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Article Tags: John Coleman, [email protected], Ronald D. Voisin, Video Link

Well worth the listen…especially because it’s absolutely true !!

John Coleman on Global Warming

Let me add a little to what John has said in this video…it’s real important.

First I want to emphasize that every known interglacial is accompanied by a naturally occurring, but delayed, spike in CO2. And that these CO2 spikes are in large part responsible for, and fundamentally required for, the spikes in bio-diversity that come with each interglacial (great times for life on Earth…all life on Earth). But here is where it gets a little tricky. When we estimate the total manmade output of CO2, and compare that to the observed increases in atmospheric CO2, we can only account for approximately half of what we measure we are emitting.

Some have interpreted that this means that we are responsible for 100% of the observed increase. In fact the interpretation is even much more dire. Mother Nature is being forced to “choke-down” half of our emission, through various absorption processes, while the other half accumulates in the atmosphere, to account for the observed increase. Surely then, we are responsible for 100% of the observed increase – and then some. And we are dangerously tampering with a finely balanced system.

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By Andrew Cleary

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — Cadbury Plc, the U.K. confectioner fighting a hostile bid from Kraft Foods Inc., urged shareholders to reject the U.S. foodmaker’s “wholly inadequate” offer after posting a surge in 2009 profit.

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Operating profit rose 27 percent to 808 million pounds ($1.3 billion), the Uxbridge, England-based company said in a statement today. Sales rose 11 percent to 6 billion pounds. Analysts anticipated profit of 806 million pounds and revenue of 6 billion pounds, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The results may encourage shareholders to hold firm for a higher offer, said Jon Cox at Kepler Capital Markets. Kraft’s “derisory” offer values Cadbury at 12 times 2009 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, lower than similar transactions, the U.K. company said. The shares of rival companies have risen an average of 12 percent since Kraft made its approach, it said.

“It’s a good, crackerjack set of figures but does it really change anything too much? I’m not so sure,” said Cox in a Bloomberg Television interview today.

Watch

Kepler’s Cox Interview
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — Jon Cox, analyst at Kepler Capital Markets, talks about Cadbury Plc’s 2009 sales performance and the hostile bid from Kraft Foods Inc. The U.K. confectioner said sales and profitability rose in 2009 and urged shareholders to reject the U.S. foodmaker’s offer on valuation grounds. Cox speaks with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua and Poppy Trowbridge in London.

Cadbury’s shares were unchanged at 781 pence in London today. Kraft’s Kraft’s cash-and-stock offer is currently worth about 763 pence.

The confectioner’s shares briefly fell below the offer price last week after Hershey Co.’s executives and board members were said to be divided about whether to make a bid for Cadbury. Warren Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway Inc. also said it will vote against Kraft’s plans to issue new shares to fund part of the deal.

Dividend Increase

Cadbury’s full-year dividend rose 10 percent to 18 pence. The company has forecast a “double-digit” increase in annual dividends over the medium term.

The defense document “doesn’t add anything new to the debate in our view,” Nomura International analyst Alex Smith wrote in a note to clients today. “We still see a majority probability of a successful Kraft takeover at a higher price of around 840 pence.”

Similar takeovers in the industry have been done at between 14.3 times earnings and 18.5 times, Cadbury said in the statement. Food industry takeovers have been down at an average multiple of about 16.2 times earnings, according to Sanford C. Bernstein research. Nestle SA last week bought Kraft’s pizza business for 12.5 times earnings.

“Applying any of the comparable multiples would imply a price per share far above Kraft’s offer,” Cadbury Chairman Roger Carr said in the statement. “Kraft’s offer is even more unattractive today than it was when Kraft made its formal offer in December.”

Cadbury’s 2009 operating margin rose 1.6 percentage points to 13.5 percent, wider than the company’s Dec. 14 forecast of “at least” 13.3 percent. Cadbury’s 2009 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization were 1.02 billion pounds.

The confectioner today forecast 2010 revenue growth within its 5 percent to 7 percent range, driven by the release of new products.

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	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.94 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Following recent reports that Michael Schumacher will test a GP2 machinery at Jerez during the course of this week, the Formula One feeder series issued a short press release in which it reveals that the 41-year old German will in fact drive a development GP2 car to be used in the series from 2011 onwards.

According to the series organizer Bruno Michel, this is a great opportunity to benefit from the input of a 7-time world champion in evaluating several suspension configurations … (read more)

Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” talks stripping, his worst date, and his most prized possession — Chapstick — in a new 10@10 segment for The Jay Leno Show Monday.