And here is a little something to spice up your morning. Of course we don’t recommend trying this at home (especially if you’re going to be the one in front of the truck video taping it while it’s drifting).

Follow the jump for the video.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Real JDM (via Straightline)

Discovery Communications, Sony Corporation and IMAX Corporation, a trio of entertainment powerhouses, are teaming up to deliver the first dedicated 3D television network in the US. The network will feature 24/7 programming from Discovery, Sony Pictures Entertainment, IMAX and other third party 3D content creators with a focus on genres that look stunning in 3D. These include natural history, space, exploration, adventure, engineering, science and technology, motion pictures and nightmare-inducing children’s programming. The joint venture is still in the preliminary stages with each company having signed a non-binding Letter of Intent. With 3D televisions set to take CES by storm and a network for non-stop 3D content in the works , it won’t be long before we are donning those goofy glasses and watching Shark Week in glorious 3D. Full press release after the jump.

Discovery Communications, Sony and IMAX Announce Plan to Launch First 24/7 Dedicated 3D Television Network in the U.S.

– Three-Way Venture to Bring Next-Generation Experience to Home Television Viewers –

– Joint Media Call with Discovery, Sony and IMAX CEOs at 3:15 p.m. EST Today; See Dial-in Details at End of Release –
2010 International CES

LAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Three of the world’s leading media, technology and entertainment companies – Discovery Communications, Sony Corporation and IMAX Corporation – today announced a joint venture to be established to develop the first 24/7 dedicated 3D television network in the U.S. The partnership brings together three leaders with an extraordinary collection of award-winning 3D content, technology expertise, television distribution and operational strength to deliver a high-quality three-dimensional viewing experience to home television audiences.

“Today’s announcement is the next step in fulfilling Discovery’s mission of providing groundbreaking content for our affiliate partners and enlightening viewers with the most immersive and realistic viewing experience available anywhere.”

“Discovery’s business strategy has always focused on delivering groundbreaking content through new platforms, including the first suite of digital channels launched in 1996 and the first 24/7 basic cable HD channel in 2002,” said Discovery Founder and Chairman John Hendricks. “Now, as Discovery celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2010 as the world leader in satisfying curiosity and bringing audiences the most realistic viewing experience, we continue to change the face of television with the launch of the first-ever 24/7 dedicated 3D television network.”

“Sony is the only company with expertise in every part of the 3D value chain,” said Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman, CEO and President, Sony Corporation. “We are delighted to be partnering with Discovery and IMAX, two premier companies also dedicated to leadership in 3D, in this groundbreaking new venture. It is clear to us that consumers will always migrate to a better and richer entertainment experience, and together we are determined to be the leader in providing that around the world.”

“By partnering with Sony and IMAX on 3D, Discovery will lead the way in revolutionizing the next-generation home viewing experience in the U.S. and around the world,” said Discovery Communications President and CEO David Zaslav. “Today’s announcement is the next step in fulfilling Discovery’s mission of providing groundbreaking content for our affiliate partners and enlightening viewers with the most immersive and realistic viewing experience available anywhere.”

“IMAX has been a pioneer and recognized leader in 3D technology for more than twenty-five years, delivering the premium in-theatre experience to audiences around the world. We’re reaching more and more consumers with the recent expansion of the IMAX® theatre network and the growth of 3D movie content,” said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. “This new business venture is the first step in our strategic effort to take 3D into the home and extend the IMAX brand. We’ve already had strong collaborations with Discovery Communications and Sony in the past on IMAX event film titles, and we are thrilled to work with such strong partners to be the first to make in-home 3D a reality.”

Discovery, Sony, through its U.S. affiliate, Sony Corporation of America, and IMAX each will be equal partners in the joint venture. It will be launched in the U.S., with a goal of driving consumer adoption of 3D televisions and giving the network long-term leadership in the 3D home marketplace. In the future, the companies also will explore international distribution opportunities in selected markets.

The new 3D network will feature high-quality premium content from genres that are most appealing in 3D, including natural history, space, exploration, adventure, engineering, science and technology, motion pictures and children’s programming from Discovery, Sony Pictures Entertainment, IMAX and other third-party providers.

Discovery will provide network services, including affiliate sales and technical support functions, as well as 3D television rights to Discovery content and cross-promotion across its portfolio of 13 U.S. television networks. Sony will provide advertising/sponsorship sales support, and will seek to license television rights to current and future 3D feature films, music-related 3D content and game-related 3D content, while providing cross-promotion at retail stores. IMAX also will license television rights to future 3D films, promotion through its owned-and-operated movie theaters across the U.S., and a suite of proprietary and patented image enhancement and 3D technologies.

Governance for the joint venture will be handled by a board of directors comprised of members from each of the three companies, with the day-to-day operations run by a separate staff and management team that will report to the board. A search for the venture’s general manager will begin immediately.

The parties have signed a non-binding Letter of Intent. Specific financial terms of the venture were not disclosed. The parties will work towards prompt execution of definitive agreements, subject to any necessary regulatory approvals.

Conference Call Details
Discovery Founder and Chairman John Hendricks, Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, Sony Corporation Chairman, CEO and President Sir Howard Stringer and IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond will hold a joint media call to discuss the venture at 3:15 p.m. EST today. To access the conference call, in the U.S. dial 1-888-396-2298, or outside of the U.S. dial 1-617-847-8708, and use the following passcode: 30218

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When a manufacturer picks AMD or Intel chips for a particular model, it’s often a bit of an exclusive marriage. Toshiba, however, is going Big Love for its new 11.6-inch T115 and 13.3-inch T135 ultraportables, which can both run AMD Neo, AMD Turion or Intel Pentium SU4100 processors. Nothing absolutely blazing, but at the $450 starting point (for AMD) you’re hardly past a netbook cost for something considerably peppier. The laptops, which measure less than an inch thick and weigh 3.5 and 3.9 pounds, respectively, offer up 9 hours of battery on Intel and 6 hours on AMD, with the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics in the latter providing some decent low-power video decoding (including Blu-ray, if you have an external drive). Prices scale up to $700, with a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM at the high end.

We played around with both models, and while there’s nothing specific to gripe about, we can’t say we’re super impressed by Toshiba’s heavy handed, ultra-gloss approach. It feels a little last gen and cheap, particularly in comparison to the refined mini NB305 — whose chiclet keyboard is almost preferable to the slightly mushy keys on display here. The price point and feature set makes these certainly worth a further look, but we wish Toshiba would get over its plastic fetish and make something a bit more desirable.

Toshiba’s T115 and T135 thin-and-lights start at $450, offer Intel and AMD flavors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t worry Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3, we didn’t forget about you — even if we are totally smitten with the your futuristic sibling the IdeaPad S1 Hybrid. The 10-inch S10-3 throws away the design of the S10 and S10-2 for a thinner body and a decorated lid, and we’ve got to say the 2.4 pound netbook felt quite light and sturdy in our hand. Under the lid we’re loving the same chiclet style keyboard that we saw on the Skylight, though the touchpad with integrated mouse buttons looks a bit small for our tastes. For $399 ($379 on Amazon) the S10-3 seems like it could be quite a worthy 10-inch netbook competitor, though we will have to see what its Intel Atom N470 and three-cell battery (there’s an optional six-cell) provide in terms of battery life.

The $499 S10-3t tablet version is going to take a bit more of a sell though. The convertible netbook (fine, netvertible) is thicker and heavier than the S10-3 largely due to its hinge and thicker touchscreen. But regardless of the somewhat awkward design (especially with a protruding six-cell battery strapped to its back), the capacitive touchscreen was quite responsive to our touches and gestures, and we’re pretty impressed with Lenovo’s Natural Touch interface that its got running on top of Windows 7 Home Premium. But don’t take our word for it, hit the break for a look at the finger-friendly fun in action.

Continue reading Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 and S10-3t hands-on

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 and S10-3t hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• iP90 Clock Radio/Audio System: This is the latest clock radio from the company, displaying a sleek design (pictured above) that’s much more visually appealing than the last one we saw and, interestingly, sports a sync button that will suck the time right out of your iPhone and use it to set the device. No more swearing at yourself for scrolling too quickly past 9:54pm.
• iP42 Dual Alarm Clock Radio: This version (pictured after the break) slims things down a bit and, honestly, uglies them up a bit compared to the iP90, but adds the ability to manage two alarms at once. Sync button makes an appearance here, too.
• iP39 Kitchen Timer and FM Alarm Clock Radio: Wrapping things up is a cooking companion, featuring stainless steel accents that are said to provide “the look and feel of a premium kitchen appliance.” Sadly we have no images of this Bertazzoni wanna-be, but we do know that it’s designed to be easy to clean, also sports an alarm clock, and adds a dual bake timer into the mix as well.

Continue reading iHome’s new clock radios will ensure neither you nor your iPhone ever sleep too late

iHome’s new clock radios will ensure neither you nor your iPhone ever sleep too late originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[Thanks, Freddy]

Continue reading Modder merges Bose headphones with inline Apple remote, shows you how (video)

Modder merges Bose headphones with inline Apple remote, shows you how (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony NW-A845 Walkman slips into European hands, too thin to be noticed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Can’t wait to get the faster, theoretical 4.8 Gbps data transfer speeds in your laptop promised by USB 3.0? Seagate is happy to help get you there with the BlackArmor PS 110 Upgrade Kit. The $179.99 package includes a portable Seagate USB drive with 500 GB of storage with included data backup software for Windows computers. A certified USB 3.0 cable tags along as does a unique way to “upgrade” your laptop to USB 3.0. The company estimates the actual throughput to be three times faster than a USB 2.0 solution.

Since we can’t all just rip open our notebooks and swap out USB interfaces, Seagate’s upgrade kit provides a PC Card adapter with a USB 3.0 port. That means this solution is fairly limited since only laptops with PC Card slots can take advantage of it, but if you’ve got one, this upgrade kit will work as advertised. I’d call this one for the early adapter crowd, but ironically I’d estimate that most early adopters have moved beyond PC Card slots by now.

If you’re bullish about Brazil, Russia, India, and China, then don’t forget there is an entire second tier of less-appreciated-but-giant economic growth stories — the MAVINS.

Commodities play a major role for these economies.

They are uniquely positioned to feed and benefit from global economic growth via their relative commodity advantages, yet at the same time, they have massive domestic market expansion opportunities due to a surplus of under-utilized land or people.

With the right policies, these nations are likely to blow away expectations over time and become leading powers in their regions. The MAVINS combined economies could easily equal 60% of today’s America by 2020, over 200% of today’s America by 2050, and then keep growing robustly thereafter.

Meet the MAVINS — >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The BRICs Will Power A Huge Year For Base Metals
• Russia Is The One BRIC Energy Companies Aren’t Interested In
• Goldman Sachs Likes BRICs, Leverage, And Cyclicals

Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Smart, Design/Style

Not digging the Smart ForTwo‘s two-color paint palette? Think you can do better? You’re in luck. Daimler, Smart‘s German parent company, has announced a contest where customers and budding designers can customize their own ForTwo. Hit up styleyoursmart.com and you can… well, style your Smart.

You have until February 23rd to post your own smarty-pants design, and the winners will be announced three days later. America’s tiniest automaker promises prizes totaling about $7,200 (€5,000), which, we imagine, is plenty of money to turn your design into a reality… assuming you already own a ForTwo.

At this point, the contest has just begun and there don’t seem to be too many contestants just yet, so we grabbed the most colorful option for our lead image above. We briefly considered plastering our own Fortwo with the Autoblog logo, but thought better of it. Perhaps if they’d finally fix that transmission… Press release after the break.

[Source: Smart]

Continue reading Visually Challenged: Daimler encourages you to design your own Smart, results vary

Visually Challenged: Daimler encourages you to design your own Smart, results vary originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gov. Pat Quinn today signed a bill into law that will provide greater consumer protection to Illinois residents with health insurance.

The new law ensures that all denied health insurance claims can soon be reviewed and decided upon by a qualified, independent doctor.

“This important consumer protection legislation will improve health insurance in Illinois and help people fight back when claims are unfairly denied,” said Gov. Quinn.

“This new law guarantees the right to an independent review of denied claims for everyone with health insurance in Illinois.”

Under current State law, only Illinois health consumers who are enrolled in a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) have the right to an independent, external review when claims are denied.

However, millions of Illinois residents, with other types of health insurance coverage, do not have this important right.

Effective July 1, House Bill 3923 extends the right to an independent review of a denied claim to all Illinois residents with health insurance coverage.

The new law will allow Illinois residents to submit their health insurance claim for an external review after it is denied by their insurer.

The external review will be conducted by a qualified, independent doctor, who is selected by a nationally-accredited and Illinois Department of Insurance-approved Independent Review Organization.

The external review is binding and must be completed within 20 business days. In certain urgent cases the review must be completed within 72 to 120 hours.

Also under the new law, insurance providers that cover small businesses must accept a standard insurance application by Jan. 1, 2011.

This new requirement means small businesses, which usually do not have dedicated human resources departments, will not have to fill out long and often complex applications that differ from one insurer to another.

The standard application enhances insurer competition and makes it easier for businesses and individuals to shop around for the best and most affordable insurance, according to the Illinois Department of Insurance. This law also applies to individuals who will now be able to use a standard health insurance application.

The standard application will be developed by a committee of consumers, small business owners, insurance agents and insurance company representatives. The committee will work with the Illinois Department of Insurance.

Last week, when you were making sure your champagne was chilled to celebrate the demise of the awful first decade of the 2000’s, GMAC also had reason to rejoice. On December 30th, it got its third bailout from the government. Given the timing, you might have missed this news. Well there’s some more this week: GMAC expects to post a $5 billion loss. For just the 4th quarter. It’s very disappointing to see the government continue to plow money into such a flawed firm.

Let’s quickly review the bailout tally for GMAC thus far. Its fresh $3.8 billion bailout from last week adds to its prior $13.5 billion. This also increases the U.S. government’s stake to 56.3% — a majority share. So congratulations American taxpayers: you now own GMAC too.

And how about the firm’s recent performance? Its full-year loss is now expected to total around $10 billion.

Since I’ve already made the argument that GMAC should be allowed to perish, I guess there’s not a whole lot else for me to analyze on this front, other than just to shake my head in disgust.

It’s doing so poorly mostly because of its terrible mortgage portfolio. Why keep the firm alive? Do we really need it to originate new mortgages? No, we have plenty of other banks to do that. Do we need it for auto loans? No, GM can go elsewhere to get its auto loans financed. Maybe I’m missing something; I still need some help on this one.

The firm doesn’t appear to pose systemic risk to the economy. But its failure probably poses significant risk to Washington’s fundraising efforts. Luckily for those politicians, the news of the latest bailout was neatly drowned out by the New Year’s holiday.

After watching all the ads,  you’re finally thinking about getting a new smart phone but not sure what to get. Maybe price is an issue, or maybe it performance. Ether way I hope that this is a help to your new year shopping. It seems that the guys at BillShrink have put a nice article together on what is the overall cheapest phone today.

In terms of “new generation of smart phones”, it’s nice to see two Android handsets on the list.  Do you think the Nexus One can be the flagship phone they’ve been waiting for?

Hironobu Sakaguchi and the rest of the Mistwalker crew might’ve promised more info (qjnet/news/mistwalker-to-divulge-more-details-about-new-game-spring-of-next-year.html) coming this spring about their new project but we’re not waiting for the snow to melt before they spill some beans. A

Remember the Noble supercars? Lee Noble, one of the men that helped grow the Noble brand left the automaker a while ago and decided to produce a supercar of his own. The company is called Fenix Automotive and their first car is already being built at their headquarters in South Africa.

The new car is a mid-engined two seater with a new design and a chassis built by Lee Noble himself.

"The M12 was hugely successful, but we needed to move the game on in terms of… (read more)

A vessel carrying vehicles from Hyundai and its sister company Kia was hijacked by Somali pirates last week. The ship, known as Asian Glory and operated by EUKOR Car Carriers, was hijacked on New Years day while on its way to Saudi Arabia after departing from Ulsan.

According to statement today from South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritimes Affairs, the vessel was carrying a total of 2,405 vehicles including 2,388 from Hyundai and Kia.

“As soon as the vessel embarks, all risks related to the vessel are the responsibility of the distributor,” Hyundai said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg. “All payments for the cars have been made, while the cars are also insured.”

The hijacking of the vessel was among the first successful attacks on merchant ships in the 500-mile security corridor since July.

Hyundai Motor and Kia have asked for a quick and safe return of the crew, the Korean automaker said.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Bloomberg