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eSolar and Chinese-owned Penglai Electric announced over the weekend a licensing agreement to build 2 gigawatts of solar thermal power plants in China over 10 years. (Hat tip: earth2tech)

The project will be China’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) installation, with installation of the first 92 megawatts slated for 2010.

The eSolar project should be complete by 2021 and will be co-located with biomass electricity generation facilities, according to the release. It will be located in the 170-square-kilometer Yulin Alterrnative Energy Park and owned by China Shaanxi Yulin Huayang New Energy Co.

eSolar’s technology uses mirrors to direct sunlight and turn liquid to steam, which drives turbines.

China is a leader in photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing but has not done much in the CSP arena until now, the release notes.

The Google-backed company has been going gangbusters in recent months, providing the technology for NRG Energy’s Alpine SunTower near Los Angeles, among several other deals. It also got a new CEO, John Van Scoter, last month.

It seems that market analysts are seeing the Nexus One as a major step forward for Google in the smartphone market.  Doug Anmuth of Barclay Capital is predicting that the search giant will move 5 to 6 MILLION Nexus One Handsets in 2010.  Let’s put this into perspective here.

• Motorola’s 2010 smartphone shipments are expected to be around 13 million units.  The projection from Anmuth puts Nexus One sales at just under HALF of Motorola’s projections.
• The iPhone’s projected sales for 2010 is 36 million according to Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray.  While the Nexus One projections are nowhere near this number, this new projection shows how much more of a foothold Google has gotten with Android when compared to the G1 launch sales in 2008.  The G1 sold about 1 million in it’s launch year, making it the 5th best selling smartphone that year.  If the Nexus One sells 6 million, it will be the best Android Powered handset launch to date, and will give Google a revenue of $2.6 BILLION.

If this projection is right, Google will sell 16% of what Apple is projected to sell of their iPhone handset.  While this number seems small when you first look at it, it actually marks a rather large increase against iPhone sales for an Android phone.  Now, projections are just educated guesses, but it shows a promising future for the Nexus One and Google.

Google is not known as a retailer, but this launch is placing them directly in the middle of the Smartphone melee, and builds much needed momentum for the platform.  Exciting times for Android lovers everywhere!

We grew up with our mother always having a spoon rest on the stove. We were always fascinated with how useful they are, but always underwhelmed by how cheesy they can be.

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Chromium OS, the open source build of Google’s upcoming web-focused netbook system, was made into a thumb-drive-friendly build early on by a helpful hacker named Hexxeh. His latest build, ChromiumOS Zero, adds Chrome extension support, speed boosts, and other goodies.

Here’s the official list of updates at Hexxeh’s blog, with notable improvements in the delay suffered by Broadcom-based Wi-Fi and the Chromium browser at the heart of the OS. The build still fits on a 1 GB USB drive, surprisingly, can be updated in-system from this release forward, and is offered as a BitTorrent download from Hexxeh’s site.

Wanna give ChromiumOS Zero a go on your own laptop from the safety of a USB stick? Check out Gina’s human’s guide to running Google Chrome OS, which details running a Hexxeh-based build from a thumb drive.

ChromiumOS Zero is a free download, and boots (usually) on non-Mac systems.

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While electric bikes are gaining more and more ground in Japan, the situation in the rest of the world (at least for highly advanced models) is quite different. These vehicles seem to have a hard time in America in particular, although there’s anecdotal evidence the concept does have the potential to catch on in the US as well – basically speaking.

But most of the makers of these bikes, powerhouses such as Panasonic or Sanyo, never tested waters outside Japan. Yamaha, another such company, now announced [JP] a total of five electric bikes over the weekend, all of which are likely to never find their way outside Japan. The new models are part of Yamaha’s series of PAS electric bikes.

Yamaha says the main selling point of these new models is their “smooth” driving behavior, especially when accelerating or going up a hill. Weighing between 23.2kg and 27 kg, all bikes are powered by a lithium-ion battery. Drivers can choose between three modes: automatic, “power” and “auto-eco plus”.

The flagship model, the PAS-CITY M, for example, weighs 27kg and boasts an assisted travel range of up to 32km in auto-eco plus driving mode. It takes two to three hours to fully charge the battery.

Yamaha says they are targeting women in particular with the new PAS lineup that includes bikes in “cherry pink” and “cosmetic orange” (both are pictured). Prices vary between $1,100 for the most basic model and $1,300 for the PAS-CITY M. But, as indicated above, don’t expect these to become available outside Japan anytime soon.

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We missed this one. But then again, the onle mention of the Chumby Sunfury tablet at CES ‘10 was in the Marvell booth. We were too busy palling around with Stan Lee to notice anything else. Good thing the nerds from technabob has our back and managed to get a spec sheet.

Now, I must state before we go any farther that this tablet might never make it to market. The concept could very well have been mocked-up for Marvell’s CES showing. After all, the Sunfury is listed with a Marvell PXA168 CPU. Chumby might be getting out of the cut-throat hardware business and into licensing its novel software like with the Chumby-powered Sony Dash. Still, there is a part of us that hopes we’ll eventually see a Chumby-branded tablet. Who doesn’t heart Chumby?

The Sunfire is reportably going to rock the aformentioned CPU, 802.11 b/g, 128MB or 256MB of RAM, microSD card slot, and loaded with Chumby widgets. It will also be able to playback MOV, H.264, AVI, MPEG-4, MP4, and MJPEG files. The Marvel PXA168 and Adobe Flash Lite will be tapped for most of the heavy lifting which means the Sunfire will basically be void of any real computing power and will be just a larger-screen Chumby. That’s still cool in our book.

If the Sunfury is really in the works and not just a PR scheme, we still think the hardware will be picked up by other companies and sold under their name. Chumby would likely provide the interface though. No word on price or release date.

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The drink driving limit could be reduced to the equivalent of one pint of beer, or half a glass of wine, according to some recent plans announced by Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis. Furthermore, it could also see the implementation of a new drug driving limit. The current drink limit is 80mg of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. The consequences of exceeding this limit is an automatic 12-month driving ban.

An independent expert has been appointed to examine possible changes t… (read more)

Last year, China became the world’s greatest automotive market and the effects are starting to show. Top automakers’ 2009 sales reports for the world’s most populous country reveal a strong growth when compared to the 2008 statistics, as reported by SinoCast via Gasgoo.

The greatest increase, a indescribable 93,6 percent, was posted by Beijing Hyundai Motor Company and can be translated into a figure of 570,000 units. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation reported sales… (read more)

Chinese designer Daizi Zheng has created a conceptual eco-friendly mobile phone for Nokia that could run on sugary drinks, TheDesignBlog reports.

The device’s innovative battery uses enzymes to generate electricity from carbohydrates, and reportedly works about four times longer than conventional lithium batteries on a single charge.

As if that weren’t green enough, the handset is also fully biodegradable.

No word on when the sugar water-powered gadget might be available to consumers.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Ciena Shares Tearing Higher On Nokia Acquisition Rumor
• The 10 Dumbest Green Gadgets

After rumours had been floating around all of last week, Pete Carroll resigned yesterday as HC of the USC Trojans, a position he had had for the last 9 years. It is expected that he will be named head coach of the Seattle Seahawks today, the job having just been vacated by the firing of first year coach Jim Mora. Carroll, who had a 97-19 record and won two national championships while in Los Angeles, brought respect back to a long dormant USC program.

The timing of the departure seems about right, with the Trojan’s seven season conference title winning streak ending this year and with the entire school still under NCAA investigation for a host of possible violations. Originally a NFL refugee when hired at USC, Carroll has oft been mentioned as one of the colllege coaches most likely to make the jump back into the pros.

Now the search for a new coach can be done in earnest. There are many possibilities, but one name that came out early was Oregon State’s Mike Riley, who was originally in the running for the USC job back in 2000. It is now thought that Riley will not make a move from Corvallis, having just inked a three-year extension that runs through 2019.

USC enters the coaching sweepstakes a bit late, with less than a month left before national signing day. I think that as a result, you’ll see them name someone probably this week. Updates to come.

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The jewelry in Spain speaks mainly to the brains (of Neanderthals). So says a team of archaeologists this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers led by João Zilhão have turned up artifacts they believe to be jewelry dating back 50,000 years—a time only Neanderthals and not early humans occupied Europe—suggesting to them that those Neanderthals were capable of the abstract thinking necessary to make symbolic art.

Zilhão’s team found shells and bones that showed evidence of craftsmanship, the scientists say. First, some of the shells were perforated and could have been strung and worn as a necklace. It’s not out of the question that those holes could be natural, but the team says the finds also appear to have been painted. If the researchers’ analysis is correct, the Neanderthals could have mixed up reddish goethite and hematite, yellow siderite and natrojarosite, black charcoal and sparkly pyrite to create a spectrum of paints [MSNBC].

Scientists have found similar artifacts in Europe before. But those finds were roughly 40,000 years old – dating to a period where Neanderthals and modern humans would have shared the European continent. This has led other researchers to argue that the purported Neanderthal artifacts represented mindless imitation or were from later periods, but they somehow got mixed into the wrong soil layers of the archaeological digs where they were uncovered [Christian Science Monitor]. The new finds, however, date to a time 10,000 years before our ancestors migrated to the European continent. So if these fragments truly show signs of handiwork, and if the dating is correct, that points to Neanderthals as the creators.

For Zilhão, this means that Neanderthal mental capacity was closer to that of early humans than we often give them credit for. Objects and compounds like these would have been used to “tell other people who you are,” Dr. Zilhão said. “They are like socially recognizable identity cards.” What’s more, he said, “this is exactly how the same kinds of objects and finds are interpreted in early modern human contexts” [The New York Times].

That wasn’t Zilhão’s only Neanderthal study this week, either. He published a separate study in PNAS addressing the question DISCOVER posed last month: Did we mate with Neanderthals, or did we murder them? Analyzing the teeth of a 30,000-year-old early human child skeleton, he says that it shows similarities to Neanderthals—similarities that again raise the question of whether and how much early humans and Neanderthals interbred in Europe tens of thousands of years ago.

Related Content:
80beats: Did Spear-Throwing Humans Kill Neanderthals?
80beats: Controversial Study Suggests Early Humans Feasted on Neanderthals
80beats: Rough Draft of the Neanderthal Genome is Complete
DISCOVER: Did We Mate with Neanderthals, or Did We Murder Them?
DISCOVER: Cavemen: They’re Just Like Us

Image: João Zilhão

Last May, I pointed out the massive difference between Twitter and Facebook was how Twitter was built with openness at its core. The very default was to share everything. Facebook came from the other extreme, with privacy at its core. The defaults had you sharing very little, and you had to be explicit about who you would share anything with. At the time, I noted this would make it difficult for Facebook to “become like Twitter,” because it wasn’t easy to shift its entire focus given the way it was set up and the legacy issues involved. That wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, because people can use Twitter and Facebook in very different ways, if they choose to. However, as you may recall, a few months back, Facebook tried to make that big shift anyway, pushing many people to reveal what had previously been private.

And now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is trying to explain this away by suggesting that social norms online have changed so much that privacy is a thing of the past and open sharing is just more expected:

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they’ve built, doing a privacy change – doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner’s mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it.

He’s right, of course, that a lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and the legacies of what they had done, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that just shoving everyone over the cliff makes sense. The problem with those legacy issues is that even if people had become more comfortable sharing stuff and being open elsewhere, that wasn’t how many people used Facebook, and the idea of suddenly opening up what had been private can be pretty troubling.

Furthermore, as multiple people have pointed out, given Facebook’s dominance in the market, it’s a bit disingenuous for Zuckerberg to claim that ignoring privacy had become a social norm and Facebook was just keeping up with the times. For many, Facebook is the social norm, and it helps define how people act, rather than the other way around.

My guess is that Facebook was beginning to get Twitter-envy — despite Facebook being many times bigger than Twitter. After all, people have said that Zuckerberg is notoriously aware of “innovator’s dilemma” type situations, and greatly (and smartly) fears being undercut by the next hot thing. In reacting to that, Facebook believed that without a more open system, it couldn’t really compete where Twitter competes. I don’t think that’s true, though. There were many areas where Facebook could do things differently, without necessarily knocking down the old privacy barriers. In the end, I doubt this will harm Facebook as much as some people think (people will adapt), but it does seem odd for Zuckerberg and Facebook to be suggesting that social norms mandated this massive change rather than upstart competitive pressure.

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Time for some livestreaming! At the end of this week I’ll be heading to North Carolina to Scienceonline 2010, a confab about all things scientific on the Tubes. I’m going to be talking in a session on Saturday morning at 10:15 am called “Rebooting Science Journalism In the Age of the Web” along with fellow rebooters Ed Yong, John Timmer, and David Dobbs. You can watch live on UStream and Second Life. Later, our session (and all the others) will end up where everything ends up sooner or later: on YouTube. (More details here.)

Here’s the official description of our session:

Are blogs and mainstream media the bitter rivals that stereotypes would have us believe, or do the two sides have common threads and complementary strengths? How will the tools of the Internet change the art of reporting? How will the ongoing changes strengthen writing about science? How might these changes compromise or threaten writing about science? In a world where it’s possible for anyone to write about science, where does that leave professional science journalists? And who actually are these science journalists anyway?

If you want something to read in advance, Bora Zivkovic, one of the prime movers behind this conference, has kindly organized a veritable banquet of food for thought on this topic. If you’re interested in the experiences and opinions I bring to the discussion, read this. Basically, I find kvetching and yearning for some global system a waste of time. I am interested in people doing new things.

ScienceOnline has a strong tradition of openness, and so you’re welcome to visit the session wiki and help us formulate the discussion in advance. You can also start a discussion here, which I will track.

[Image: 2001 Internet Archive]

I’m a skeptic who’s seen every consumer-grade 3D TV in existence from manufacturers like Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. I’ve seen OLED 3D, plasma 3D, LCD 3D and LED LCD 3D. And I’ve finally made up my mind on the matter.

Even though every technology coming to market this year requires glasses, even though 90% of 3D implementation is unwatchable, even though the tech will inevitably be dated within the next few years…

I would buy a 3D TV this year.

(Now realize there are about a thousand caveats to that statement, which is what this entire piece is really about.)

I wouldn’t buy any old 3D tech.

There is only one TV I’ve seen—out of very, very many—that captivated me like Avatar on IMAX. While most of the time I couldn’t wait to pull the glasses off my face, LG’s 60-inch plasma prototype, slated to be a real product later this year, sort of rocked my world with nearly flicker-free performance. Panasonic’s Viera V Series TVs, using similar methods on paper (plasma with shutter glasses), was a close second, as it strobed more. And I’m still curious as to why that was the case—whether it was shutter glasses, the lighting environment, the source material (the LG showed more animation, which looks great in 3D) or the display itself that made the difference.

Not trusting my own eyes, I sent two other members of Giz to look at each set as well. They didn’t see a difference. So I’m willing to call Panasonic and LG a tie.

As for OLED and LCDs—what you see from companies like Sony, Toshiba and Sharp—the image strobes AND the motion is choppy (imagine a low frame rate video game on top of flickering film). Those techs are a complete pass. (I know, OLED is supposed to be great. In 3D, it most certainly isn’t.)

I wouldn’t buy anything but a BIG 3D TV.

Without fail, the bigger the 3D, the better the illusion. Anything under 50 inches is basically a joke, unless it’s your computer monitor or something. And I will say, even though Vizio’s XVT Pro television wasn’t my favorite experience (it’s an LCD and thereby less smooth), the fact that it was 72-inches meant that a plane’s wing almost hit me in the nose.

I wouldn’t pay much more for a 3D TV.

LG told me that the 3D-capable version of their plasma set will only be a $200 premium over the non-3D version. I’m willing to pay that extra cost as an idiotic early adopter, knowing that the television is a nice HDTV when it’s not showing 3D. Of course, to be completely fair, that $200 premium applies to a premium set to begin with, not a bargain bin TV that many of us settle for out of sanity.

I wouldn’t watch 3D all the time.

Even in some content utopia where I could watch everything I ever wanted in 3D (right now, we’re limited to promises from Blu-ray, select broadcasters and some DirecTV), I wouldn’t choose to with the current glasses/TV setup. Even the best experience I had was tiring, and unless I’m really getting something special from meticulously produced media (like movies, or maybe even video games), I’m going to do what I do best when watching television: be lazy. For hours. Eye strain is a major concern.

Back to that content point for a moment, every movie that Pixar is making from here on out promises to be in 3D. Video games should be somewhat turn-key to make the 3D transition as they’d like. And Hollywood is definitely pushing 3D. But within 2010, it’s tough to envision a lot more than extremely limited broadcast and yet another viewing of the inevitable Avatar Extra Special Edition Blu-ray.

I wouldn’t replace my 2D TV.

If I weren’t looking for a new TV already, 3D alone wouldn’t sway me to plop down a few grand—at least not today—a decision influenced by both the imperfect experience and the limited media. It’d be nice to have, sure. But most people can and will wait, I’d bet.

I wouldn’t TOTALLY overlook an LCD curveball.

One manufacturer let me in on a secret—the LCDs on the CES show floor are mostly refreshing at 4ms. But by the time these TVs ship, they’ll be refreshing at 3ms, thanks to an industry-wide chemical-based update in LCD panels. Plasma is on top for the moment, but 3D LCDs shouldn’t be quite as bad by the time the TVs actually ship in Q3. (Though, they may still be noticeably inferior to plasma.)

So that’s my view. Go ahead, heckle me and my glasses that will look stupid and dated, well, they look stupid and dated today. But watching the best 3D TVs—namely, top tier plasma—is actually a pretty amazing experience…one that might be worth the sometimes literal headaches.

And these chicks in bikinis totally agree with me.

Esquire has somehow become the leader in cutting-edge print magazine technology. The magazine rings in anniversaries with twinkling electronic ink, invites readers to mix and match the faces of George Clooney, Justin Timberlake and Barack Obama, and now they’ve installed bar codes within articles for readers to scan with their smart phones and pull up additional information online. This is cool, I guess, for people with bar code-reading apps on their smartphones. But I think Esquire’s emphasis on magazine technology is smart for a subtler reason.

First, the new stuff:

In its March issue, Esquire will print Scanbuy codes in a spread on
“The Esquire Collection” — “the 30 items a man would need to get
through life,” said David Granger, editor in chief. Printed near each
item will be a small code that looks like a group of black and white
squares. Readers scan the code into an Internet-enabled phone, and the
code takes them to a mobile menu that provides Esquire’s styling advice
for the item and information on where to buy it.

I’m interested in this because it seems so backward. Esquire’s Web site isn’t very good. But instead of spending money on website technology, the magazine is spending money to bring web technology to the print magazine. Thing is, I think it’s a defensible strategy.

Last year the New York Times reported
that Hearst, the company that publishes Esquire, was faring much better
than expected in the recession despite having a limited web strategy.
I’d guess Hearst was faring much better than expected because
it has a limited web strategy. In the last 10 years, publishers have
given away their content for free online, thinking they could make up
the revenue with online ads. As a result, consumers today consider magazine
stories to be ad-supported commodities. But the production of a long
magazine story is anything but cost-free — it’s a long, expensive
process with wide travel and long hours. I think Hearst’s limited web
strategy has actually avoided the fate of other magazines, whose
superior websites have cannibalized readers by encouraging them to drop
subscriptions and read everything online. In a weird way, their inferior website have helped buttress their print magazines’ circulation. Esquire’s technology
revolution hasn’t been online. It’s been in print. Strange. But not as strange, perhaps, as assuming that “Everything is Free” was a workable model for magazines.

General Employment Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE Amex: JOB) reported consolidated net revenues for the fourth quarter of the company’s 2009 fiscal year.

The quarter ended Sept. 30, 2009 of $2,515,000, which were down 33% compared with consolidated net revenues of $3,760,000 reported for the same period last year.

Contract service revenues for the quarter were $1,847,000, up 2% from the same period last year.

Placement service revenues of $668,000 decreased 66% from last year.

The Company had a net loss of $69,000 or $.01 per share, in the fourth quarter of this year, compared with a net loss of $474,000, or $.09 per share, in the fourth quarter last year.

Commenting on the Company’s performance, Salvatore J. Zizza, CEO said, “It was an extremely challenging environment in the staffing industry, particularly for full-time placement services. Employment conditions in the United States continued to deteriorate during the quarter, as 700,000 Americans lost their jobs and the national unemployment rate rose to 9.8%.”

Mr. Zizza continued, “Despite the 33% decline in consolidated net revenues, we were able to reduce the quarterly net loss by 85% by controlling costs. On July 1st we implemented a major restructuring of corporate and field operations, and throughout the fourth quarter we continued to take actions to reduce and control our cost structure.

As a result, we reduced our selling, general and administrative expenses by 56% from the same quarter last year. As a result, we were able to reduce the quarterly net loss to $69,000.”

Fiscal Year Results

For the year ended Sept. 30, 2009, the Company had a net loss of $4,228,000, or $.58 per share, compared with a net loss of $1,806,000, or $.35 per share, for the same period last year.

Consolidated net revenues for the year were $10,394,000, down 32% compared with $15,235,000 last year.

During the year ended September 30, 2009, the Company recorded additional compensation expense of $1,070,000 under a consulting agreement with the Company’s former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President (the “former CEO”) that became effective on July 1, 2009.

Under the consulting agreement, the former CEO resigned from those positions and his employment agreement with the Company was terminated, and the Company became obligated to make monthly payments over a five-year period and to issue 500,000 shares of common stock to the former CEO.

The additional compensation expense is included in selling, general and administrative expenses on the consolidated statement of operations. The results for the year also include a provision for the cost of closing branch offices of $330,000.

During the period, the Company consolidated ten branch offices in four metropolitan areas.

Excluding the provision for additional compensation and the provision for the cost of closing branch offices, the Company’s net loss for the year was $2,828,000, or $.39 per share.

Business Information

General Employment provides professional staffing services, and specializes in information technology, accounting and engineering placements.

The Company’s business is highly dependent on national employment trends in general and on the demand for professional staff in particular. Because long-term contracts are not a significant part of the Company’s business, future results cannot be reliably predicted by considering past trends or by extrapolating past results.

Some of the factors that could affect the Company’s future performance include, but are not limited to, general business conditions, the demand for the Company’s services, competitive market pressures, the ability of the Company to attract and retain qualified personnel for regular full-time placement and contract assignments, the possibility of incurring liability for the Company’s business activities, including the activities of contract employees and events affecting its contract employees on client premises, and the ability of the Company to attract and retain qualified corporate and branch management.

                      GENERAL EMPLOYMENT ENTERPRISES, INC.
                      ------------------------------------
                      CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS
                      ------------------------------------
                        (In Thousands, Except Per Share)

                                 Three Months            Year
                              Ended September 30  Ended September 30
                              ------------------  ------------------
                               2009       2008     2009        2008
                              ------     ------   ------      ------
    Net revenues:
      Contract services       $1,847     $1,811   $6,280      $7,476
      Placement services         668      1,949    4,114       7,759
                              ------      -----  -------     -------

    Net revenues               2,515      3,760   10,394      15,235
    Cost of contract services  1,281      1,221    4,374       5,037
    Selling, general and
     administrative
     expenses(1)(2)            1,303      2,986   10,198      12,041
                              ------      -----  -------     -------

    Loss from operations         (69)      (447)  (4,178)     (1,843)
    Investment income (loss)       -        (27)     (50)         37
                              ------      -----  -------     -------

    Net loss(3)                 $(69)     $(474) $(4,228)    $(1,806)
                              ======      =====  =======     =======

    Average number of shares
     -basic and diluted       13,369      5,165    7,232       5,163
                              ======      =====  =======     =======

    Net loss per share -
     basic and diluted         $(.01)     $(.09)   $(.58)      $(.35)
                              ======      =====  =======     =======

    (1)  During the year ended September 30, 2009, the Company recorded
         additional compensation expense of $1,070,000 under a consulting
         agreement with the Company's former Chairman, Chief Executive
         Officer and President (the "former CEO") that became effective on
         July 1, 2009.  Under the consulting agreement, the former CEO
         resigned from those positions and his employment agreement with the
         Company was terminated, and the Company became obligated to make
         monthly payments over a five-year period and to issue 500,000
         shares of common stock to the former CEO.  The additional
         compensation expense is included in selling, general and
         administrative expenses for the twelve months ended September 30,
         2009, and it is comprised of a liability for the future payments in
         the amount of $790,000 and additional common stock in the amount of
         $280,000.
    (2)  Selling, general and administrative expenses for the twelve
         months ended September 30, 2009 include a provision for the cost of
         closing branch offices of $330,000.  During the period, the Company
         consolidated ten branch offices into four branch offices in four
         metropolitan areas.
    (3)  There were no credits of income taxes as a result of the pretax
         losses during the periods, because there was not sufficient
         assurance that future tax benefits would be realized.

                      GENERAL EMPLOYMENT ENTERPRISES, INC.
                      ------------------------------------
                NON-GAAP RESULTS OF OPERATIONS AND RECONCILIATION
                -------------------------------------------------
                        (In Thousands, Except Per Share)

    The Company's results of operations, excluding the additional compensation
    expense under the consulting agreement and excluding the provision for the
    cost of closing offices from selling, general and administrative expenses,
    are shown in the table below. Management believes that this information
    provides a meaningful measurement of the results of operations on an
    ongoing basis, without the one-time charges.

                                  Three Months               Year
                               Ended September 30      Ended September 30
                               ------------------      ------------------
                                2009      2008          2009        2008
                                ----      ----          ----        ----
    Net revenues:
      Contract services        $1,847    $1,811        $6,280      $7,476
      Placement services          668     1,949         4,114       7,759
                                -----     -----       -------     -------

    Net revenues                2,515     3,760        10,394      15,235
    Cost of contract services   1,281     1,221         4,374       5,037
    Selling, general and
     administrative
     expenses(4)                1,404     2,986         8,798      12,041
                                -----     -----       -------     -------

    Loss from operations         (170)     (447)       (2,778)     (1,843)
    Investment income (loss)        -       (27)          (50)         37
                                -----     -----       -------     -------

    Net loss                    $(170)    $(474)      $(2,828)    $(1,806)
                                =====     =====       =======     =======

    Average number of shares -
     basic and diluted         13,369     5,165         7,232       5,163
                               ======     =====       =======     =======

    Net loss per share -basic
     and diluted                $(.01)    $(.09)        $(.39)      $(.35)
                               ======     =====       =======     =======

    (4) A reconciliation of selling, general and administrative expenses
        is as follows:

                                        Three Months          Year
                                    Ended September 30  Ended September 30
                                    ------------------  ------------------
                                     2009       2008      2009       2008
                                     ----       ----      ----       ----

    Non-GAAP expenses               $1,404     $2,986    $8,798    $12,041
    Additional compensation under
     consulting agreement              (55)         -     1,070          -
    Provision for cost of closing
     offices                           (46)         -       330          -
                                    ------     ------   -------    -------

    As reported                     $1,303     $2,986   $10,198    $12,041
                                    ======     ======   =======    =======

                        GENERAL EMPLOYMENT ENTERPRISES, INC.
                        ------------------------------------
                 SUMMARIZED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET INFORMATION
                 -------------------------------------------------
                                   (In Thousands)

                                                  September 30  September 30
                                                      2009         2008
                                                  ------------  ------------
    Assets:
      Cash and cash equivalents                       $2,810       $4,165
      Other current assets                             1,287        1,627
                                                      ------       ------

         Total current assets                          4,097        5,792
      Property and equipment, net                        570          791
      Other assets                                         -          419
                                                      ------       ------

      Total assets                                    $4,667       $7,002
                                                      ======       ======

    Liabilities and shareholders' equity:
      Current liabilities                             $1,488       $1,507
      Other liabilities                                  575          419
      Shareholders' equity (5)                         2,604        5,076
                                                      ------       ------

      Total liabilities and shareholders' equity      $4,667       $7,002
                                                      ======       ======

    (5)  During the year ended September 30, 2009, the Company recorded
         the sale of 7,700,000 newly-issued shares of common stock to PSQ,
         LLC for $1,925,000 in cash, pursuant to a Securities Purchase and
         Tender Offer Agreement that had been entered into by the Company on
         March 30, 2009.  The net proceeds to the Company from the share
         issuance , after deducting related costs, were $1,384,000.

As we reported last week, Firefox’s latest version of 3.6 Release Candidate 1, has been released to the general public. Today, however, Mozilla has issued a more general release, as the new version will not only be available for download but also part of an automatic update for those already running Firefox. The release is one more sign that we’re getting closer by the day to a full-on sparkly new version of Firefox.

For those of you worried about updating, Mozilla has assured us that “over 75% of the thousands of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6,” so go ahead and take that leap. But what will you find on the other side?

Sponsor

Firefox 3.6 RC1 Features

In addition to offering this release as an automatic update, Mozilla has offered a synopsis of what it sees as the most important new features to be found in what the company hopes to be a near-final version.

• Users can change the browser’s appearance with a single click using Personas.
• To keep users safe, Firefox 3.6 alerts them about out-of-date plugins .
• Changes how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability.
• Improved automatic form-fill provides better options from your form history.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
• Support for the WOFF font format.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
• The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page-load times.
• Support for the HTML5 File API
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

While wallpapering Firefox with the latest blockbuster movie may be an attractive addition, we are looking forward to a faster and more stable Firefox. Loading scripts asynchronously should speed up some page-load times dramatically by letting faster scripts run while slower ones continue to do their work in the background – something our computers have been doing for a long time now. And the changes to third-party software integration should offer a huge boost to the browser’s stability by keeping the core components of the browser safe from being modified.

For the Web developers out there, increased support for CSS, DOM and HTML5 is always a welcome addition, and the addition of the WOFF font format may further help page-load times and give designers a greater range of choices.

Discuss

It’s been a long wait, hasn’t it? No matter, that DS of yours better be in good shape ’cause it’s gonna get some serious playtime. The much-awaited remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver are finally dated for