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Italian world touring car driver Stefano D’Aste confirmed his return to Proteam Motorsport for the 2010 edition of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. The former winner of the 2007 independent title will therefore make his 3rd appearance in the Proteam garage in the last 5 years, after previous stints with the Italian outfit back in 2006 and 2008.

Following a decent campaign in the series in 2008, D’Aste decided to leave the team and head to Wiechers-Sport for the 2009 season…. (read more)

Google may be acting tough in the US and other places where it can get away with it, but in China it’s as docile as a puppy, or at least that is the impression it gave when it rushed to apologize to Chinese authors for copyright infringement no less. At the heart of the issue is, yet again, Google Books which scanned books from a number of Chinese a… (read more)

Apple is doing a fine job keeping shush about the tablet computer it has been working on for several years and which is due to be announced later this month in California.

But just in case anyone was still in doubt about its imminent launch, France Télécom / Orange executive Stéphane Richard this morning confirmed on air that the device is to debut in the ‘next couple of days’.

Richard, number two at the telecommunication services giant, told French journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach that the tablet would soon make its entry into the market, and that it will be equipped with a webcam (gasp!).

Here’s how the relevant part of the conversation went:

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Selon Le Point … l’hebdomadaire Le Point, dans quelques jours votre partenaire Apple va lancer une tablette …
Stéphane Richard: Oui.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: … dotée d’une webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Oui.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Est-ce que les usagers d’Orange en bénéficieront aussi?
Stéphane Richard: Bien sûr!

Which translates to:

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: According to weekly Le Point, in a couple of days Apple will be launching its tablet computer …
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: … equipped with a webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Are Orange customers going to be able to enjoy it?
Stéphane Richard: Of course!

Richard was clearly caught off guard, and it’s always fun when such a thing happens on video. The segment, available on NowhereElse.fr, is evidently in French, but if you want to listen in on the relevant part of the chat you can skip to the 6:10 mark.

For your reference: France Télécom is one of the world’s largest telecommunication services companies. The company owns Orange Group, the fifth largest telecom operator on the planet and primarily active in Europe and Africa.

France Télécom, through its Orange subsidiary, currently offers the iPhone in some 28 countries and territories. In September 2009, Orange UK announced that it had reached an agreement with Apple to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers, bringing an end to the two-year exclusive agreement between Apple and O2.

In short, it’s an Apple partner whose management would be aware of plans to bring its new tablet computer to market. Anyone still in doubt over its existence?

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

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The members of the Cambridge House and Senate delegation announced that the city of Cambridge has been awarded $107.8 K by the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Clean Energy Choice program. The Trust is providing Cambridge with …

It’s 35.4 degrees in Miami this morning, one of the city’s coldest mornings in decades.

The ongoing Florida chill is what’s devastating the orange juice crop, and sending prices soaring.

In the UK, a freakishly cold and snowy winter is prompting a range of anomolies from a natural gas shortage, to a surge in activity at adultery websites.

Meanwhile a deep freeze in the rest of Europe is pushing up all energy prices. Oil is at a 15-year high.

Same too for China, where cold and snow is causing a surge in demand for heating oil.

The world is freezing!

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See Also:

• Call The Dukes: Deep Freeze Threatens To Destroy Five Months Of Orange Growing
• ‘Alarmist’ Gas Crisis Turns To Rationing As UK National Grid Cuts Off Factory Supplies
• Blistering Cold Sends Oil To $83

A bunch of folks have sent in Randall Stross’ latest silly feature piece in the NY Times claiming that the classic use of the “buggy whip” as an example of an industry put out of business due to a changing marketplace is inaccurate. But, that’s not what the article actually shows. Oddly, the article barely discusses buggy whips at all, other than to say that other suppliers of horse-and-buggy parts did adapt and did change. In fact, the article highlights that many companies that were smart enough to adapt did fine:

There were 13,000 businesses in the wagon and carriage industry in 1890, Mr. Kinney said. A company survived not by conceiving of itself as being in the “personal transportation” business, but by commanding technological expertise relevant to the automobile, he said. “The people who made the most successful transition were not the carriage makers, but the carriage parts makers,” he said, some of whom are still in business.

One is the giant Timken Company, whose signature products, roller bearings, were first used in wagon wheels in the 1890s. They easily adapted to the automobile because they could be applied “to nearly anything that moved,” Mr. Kinney wrote.

But that proves the point exactly (and goes directly against what Stross seems to think it says). Those companies, like Timken, that didn’t limit themselves by the exact final product, did fine. They recognized that the end market was changing and worked to make sure that the products they offered made sense in the new markets as well as the old. The buggy whip makers, on the other hand, didn’t do that. That’s exactly the point of the buggy whip analogy and it seems to be supported by this claim. No one said that it was impossible for companies to adapt — and the examples of companies like Timken, prove that. The problem was for the firms that didn’t do this… like the buggy whip makers.

The article also claims that many of the carriage makers did, in fact, try to make the shift from carriage making to automaking, with Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company being the most successful, before eventually going out of business. But, again, this misses the point of the story. The argument isn’t that companies can’t adapt, but that they will often be held back by legacy issues. Just look at the music industry and how it attempted to “adapt” to the online world by launching ridiculous music services that no one used like MusicNet and PressPlay years back. But, the vast majority of carriage makers were greatly hindered by their legacy business. The story of William Durant — who founded both General Motors and Chevrolet — is instructive (but makes no appearance in the Stross article). He worked for a carriage maker, and was one who spoke out against cars as being “smelly, noisy and dangerous.” But when he realized that the world was moving towards them, and that his current company wouldn’t be able to adapt due to legacy issues, he jumped ship to Buick.

So while Stross’ story is entertaining, it doesn’t seem to prove the point it set out to make, and does quite the opposite. It declares that “buggy whip makers never had a fighting chance” to adapt, but does nothing to support that claim, other than pointing to the fact that others did adapt. That doesn’t prove the point. It just shows that adaptation was possible and that the buggy whip makers didn’t do it. Whether or not they could have remains an open question.

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The “best of 2009” parade hasn’t quite finished yet, with Greentech Media posting a “best of” their energy storage stories – Top Ten Energy Storage of 2009.

Energy storage – you can’t do electric vehicles without it, and it sure would make renewable solar and wind energy a lot more useful.

That’s the imperative behind 2009’s push into energy storage – from the fast-moving world of batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to the slower development of a variety of technologies for storing power on the electricity grid.

1. A123, Green Tech’s First IPO of 2009: A123 Systems broke the green tech IPO drought in September, when it debuted its shares to the public markets and was immediately rewarded with a doubling of their price. But the lithium-ion battery maker has since seen shares fall to close to their initial offering price of $13.50, perhaps linked to the scaling back of electric vehicle plans by customer Chrysler. A123 is also making batteries for grid energy storage, bridging two worlds that have until now been mostly separate.

2. The Government Boosts Vehicle Batteries” Next-generation batteries wouldn’t be where they are today without the billions of stimulus dollars the federal government has aimed at the sector. In August, the Department of Energy handed out $2.4 billion to such companies as EnerG2, A123 Systems, Johnson Controls, eTec, EnerDel, Saft and Chrysler and General Motors, most of it to build battery factories in the United States – a key goal of the grants, given Asia’s dominance in battery technology and manufacturing.

3. Fuel Cells’ Waning Fortunes? What the federal government has given to batteries, it has taken away from a once-favored alternative – fuel cells. Technologies to convert hydrogen into electricity and water are clean, but they also require a massive infrastructure to deliver hydrogen – which is mostly made today by cracking natural gas – to millions of vehicles. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he will cut back drastically on DOE funding for vehicular fuel cell research, which he described as decades away from commercial viability. In the meantime, fuel cells soldier on in the stationary power generation market, and are finding niches in forklifts and other short-range heavy vehicles, as well as in military applications.

But wait? Panasonic has started to deliver fuel cells that burn natural gas to produce heat and electricity in Japan and Bloom Energy is expected to come out of its hidey hole soon to talk about devices that pretty much do the same thing for industrial customers. By exploiting heat and power, these fuel cells can be 80 plus percent efficient. …

Rumors of a romance between MTV reality stars Whitney Port and Brody Jenner are heating up the blogosphere this Monday. Tipsters tell The NY Daily News that despite the newly-single Brody’s on-again off-again courtship with Whitney’s best friend, Lauren Conrad, the enterprising fashionista has reportedly begun secretly seeing the notorious lothario.

And that’s news that likely won’t sit well with LC.

“Lauren and Brody have an ongoing relationship,” a source dishes. “And she’s spoken about it with Whitney a lot, on camera and off. She’s definitely not going to be happy to hear that the two were getting so comfortable, especially when she wasn’t around.”

Brody called it quits with former Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole last month.

We are looking for a better way to store our garlic, onions, and potatoes, and we love the look of this multi-tray vegetable store from Garden Trading.

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This article originally appeared on The DIV-Net January 4, 2010.

Linked here is a detailed quantitative analysis of SYSCO Corporation (SYY). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

Company Description: SYSCO Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the marketing and distribution of a range of food and related products primarily for food service industry in the United States and Canada.

Fair Value: I consider four calculations of fair value, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:

1. Avg. High Yield Price
2. 20-Year DCF Price
3. Avg. P/E Price
4. Graham Number

SYY is trading at a discount to 1.) and 3.) above. The stock is trading at a 19.3% premium to its calculated fair value of $23.42. SYY did not earn any Stars in this section.

Dividend Analytical Data: In this section there are three possible Stars and three key metrics, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:

1. Free Cash Flow Payout
2. Debt To Total Capital
3. Key Metrics
4. Dividend Growth Rate
5. Years of Div. Growth
6. Rolling 4-yr Div. > 15%

SYY earned three Stars in this section for 1.), 2.) and 3.) above. A Star was earned since the Free Cash Flow payout ratio was less than 60% and there were no negative Free Cash Flows over the last 10 years. The stock earned a Star as a result of its most recent Debt to Total Capital being less than 45%. SYY earned a Star for having an acceptable score in at least two of the four Key Metrics measured. The company has paid a cash dividend to shareholders every year since 1970 and has increased its dividend payments for 39 consecutive years.

Dividend Income vs. MMA: Why would you assume the equity risk and invest in a dividend stock if you could earn a better return in a much less risky money market account (MMA)? This section compares the earning ability of this stock with a high yield MMA. Two items are considered in this section, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:

1. NPV MMA Diff.
2. Years to > MMA

SYY earned a Star in this section for its NPV MMA Diff. of the $919. This amount is in excess of the $500 target I look for in a stock that has increased dividends as long as SYY has. If SYY grows its dividend at 6.5% per year, it will take 1 year to equal a MMA yielding an estimated 20-year average rate of 3.72%. SYY earned a check for the Key Metric ‘Years to >MMA’ since its 1 year is less than the 5 year target.

Other: SYY is a member of the S&P 500 and a member of the Broad Dividend Achievers™ Index.

Conclusion: SYY did not earn any Stars in the Fair Value section, earned three Stars in the Dividend Analytical Data section and earned one Star in the Dividend Income vs. MMA section for a total of four Stars. This quantitatively ranks SYY as a 4 Star-Buy.

Using my D4L-PreScreen.xls model, I determined the share price would need to increase to $33.61 before SYY’s NPV MMA Differential decreased to the $500 minimum that I look for in a stock with 39 years of consecutive dividend increases. At that price the stock would yield 2.92%.

Resetting the D4L-PreScreen.xls model and solving for the dividend growth rate needed to generate the target $500 NPV MMA Differential, the calculated rate is 4.7%. This dividend growth rate is less than the 6.5% used in this analysis, thus providing a margin of safety. SYY has a risk rating of 1.25 which classifies it as a low risk stock.

SYY operates in a relatively stable industry in which it is the market leader. Its size, product diversification and scale continue to help it to weather the economic downturn better than its competitors. A focus on cost reduction has helped its margin. Though SYY is trading above my buy price of $23.42, it is one I will continue to purchase base on its quality as my allocation and its dividend fundamentals allow. For additional information, including the stock’s dividend history, please refer to its data page.

Disclaimer: Material presented here is for informational purposes only. The above quantitative stock analysis, including the Star rating, is mechanically calculated and is based on historical information. The analysis assumes the stock will perform in the future as it has in the past. This is generally never true. Before buying or selling any stock you should do your own research and reach your own conclusion. See my Disclaimer for more information.

Full Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I was long in SYY (3.9% of my Income Portfolio). What are your thoughts on SYY?

Related Posts:

• 10 Dividend Stocks With Above Target Returns
• 3 Styles Of Sucessful Dividend Investing
• 11 Dividend Stocks Increasing Dividends and Long-Term Returns
• 7 Dividend Stocks To Slay The Wall Street Giants
• Dividend Payout vs. Free Cash Flow Payout

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It seems the “solar tower” dream never dies, with the ABC reporting that a (hitherto unknown to me) company is talking about building 3 plants in Victoria (I’m assuming this is a retread of the old solar tower scheme planned for the area, not a CSP plant – details are sparse) – Asian company eyes solar tower development

An Asian development company has lodged applications for planned solar towers in north-west Victoria.

Suntec Solar is not revealing the exact locations of its three preferred sites at this stage, but says they are each about 800 hectares of private land and each would be the site of a 200-megawatt solar tower.

The company says it has shifted its focus for solar tower development to north-west Victoria because the land is flat, the weather is ideal and the sites are close to transmission infrastructure.

It says meteorological and solar testing has found the sites are suitable and will finish archaeological and environmental surveys by March.

Average quality rating by the Stockhouse community. Karl W Miller, a senior energy executive and institutional investor,issued the following through his advisors, regarding the state of theUS renewable energy. Mr. Miller has issued a Sell opinion …

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) today unveiled the entries for three of the World Rally Championship’s support series throughout the 2010 season. Having already announced the manufacturers’ entry list of the WRC for the upcoming campaign, the ruling body gave us a glimpse of how the field will look like in the P-WRC, J-WRC and the WRC Cup for S2000 Teams.

In the Production Car World Rally Championship, there will be a total of 11 entries for the 2010 season, but only… (read more)

Car sharing provider Zipcar and social online ride sharing community Zimride launched an integrated car and ride sharing application on five new campuses at last week’s CES event. The new campuses include the UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maryland and George Mason University.

The integrated Zipcar-Zimride application allows members to share a ride by posting the date, time and destination of the trip to the Zimride campus community. Moreover, … (read more)