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According to a report by Italy’s Quattroruote, Ferrari is planning to show a concept version of the 599 Hybrid at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. The report says that Ferrari will draw on the experience gained in this year’s Formula 1 with its energy-recovery Kers system.

The concept will carry a set of lithium-ion batteries and an electric-motor while delivering supercar performance. Fuel-economy is expected to be reduced by 35 percent when compared to a V12 engine. That will improve fuel-economy from the current level of 9 mpg to 14 mpg.

Stay tuned for more details.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Quattroruote

The wait has been long, but now there’s finally a means by which to connect your dear, yet almost buttonless, iPhone or iPod touch to a Bluetooth keyboard for some more intense finger tapping action. The project that delivered us this teasing video back in February has at long last reached the application stage, where simple commoners like us can use it to synergize our gear — provided we’ve had the wherewithal to free it from Cupertino’s overbearing clutches first. The BTstack Keyboard app is now available in exchange for $5 at the Cydia store, so if you want to be the first to write a bestseller on his or her iDevice, there’s no time like the present.

Update: We’ve done the inevitable and had a quick play with the app ourselves. Pairing our iPhone and keyboard was a veritable cinch, and we were met by delightfully rapid responsiveness throughout, whether using it in Safari, composing text missives, or jotting those novella notes down. You should note that command, cut, copy, paste, and highlighting functions are not yet active, and then hurry along past the break to see a video demo.

Continue reading Want to connect your iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard? There’s a (jailbroken) app for that (Update: video!)

Want to connect your iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard? There’s a (jailbroken) app for that (Update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Toyota

The unintended acceleration issue has reached critical mass for Toyota, but is it an isolated incident for an automaker with an otherwise stellar record for being frank with its customers? A recent investigation by the Los Angeles Times shows that Toyota may have concealed safety issues on several occasions in an effort to keep its name clean. The newspaper is reporting that it uncovered several incidents in which Toyota concealed defects or delayed recalls even after several complaints were made.

For instance, there was an issue with a plastic panel that could be dislodged, potentially leading to unintended acceleration issues in some 2003 model Toyota Sienna minivans. Engineers reportedly discovered the problem and fixed the issue after 26,000 units were made. Toyota didn’t announce a recall until six years later. Then there was a steering issue with 2004 Toyota 4Runner models. Toyota recalled the vehicles in Japan but insisted that no recall was necessary in the U.S. even after there were dozens of complaints that showed the problem was real. The Japanese automaker finally recalled the SUVs in 2005. More recent was a suit filed by Dimitrios Biller; the ex-Toyota lawyer who alleges that his former employer hid safety data and evidence in rollover cases.

And that’s not nearly all. Click past the break to keep reading about more possible safety defects the LA Times suggests may have been concealed by Toyota.

Continue reading LA Times details Toyota history of concealing safety issues

LA Times details Toyota history of concealing safety issues originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our leaders aren’t done yet… and neither are we

I thought it would be a neat thing to post the unusual holiday traditions we might have just in case someone likes the idea and wants to start it for their own.

IMG: sxc.hu

I began our family tradition in a very unusual way and it has stuck with my family, I think the kids may continue the tradition but not all of them. This shows me that each person takes a little something they learned through childhood with them but alters it somehow.

For example: Growing up we never opened gifts until Christmas day, sometimes though we’d be allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve. When my son was born we just couldn’t keep the presents from him and ended up opening them on December 21st that first year, we’ve continued it every year since. I know this is unusual but for us it is just a gift a night, even if it is a dollar store gift, Christmas Eve all presents are opened and then the only thing left is whatever Santa leaves under the tree on Christmas Day.

On Christmas Eve the kids and I do our baking (which I think many homes do), we also watch one Christmas movie and drink a hot chocolate with marshmallows as we all sit together and take it all in. Do you watch any specific movies? Tonight we will be watching, “It’s a Wonderful Life” the kids have never seen it (except the oldest) and I think they’ll enjoy it.

What are some of your holiday traditions? I have a friend that has a Magical Elf that runs around their house. Now I’m unfamiliar with the story exactly but I know I’ve read it once before. If I’m not mistaken the ELF appears in different parts of the house and its a way of showing the kids that Santa’s watching.

I’ve also heard kids leaving shoes outside for Santa, hanging stockings, wearing Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and playing board games all night, etc.

Post from: Blisstree

Unusual Holiday Traditions

Chris O’Donnell alerts us to a post from someone who originally thought things like Trent Reznor’s massively successful Ghosts I-IV business model experiment was a good thing, but who is now worried about the eventual consequences of somehow segregating fans. The argument is that only a small group of true fans will buy these really high end offerings, that include certain things that other true fans will recognize, making them part of an elite tribe. The fear is that these tribes will exclude those who don’t pay up for the super duper deluxe versions.

It’s an interesting theory, but I don’t think there’s much to support it in reality. First of all, as a recent excellent Hypebot piece explained, true fan tribes are nothing new, nor is the fact that many will shun outsiders or newbies until they’ve really shown themselves worthy of acceptance. So I don’t see how this is particularly different. Also, a lot of these super deluxe packages aren’t necessarily about stuff you can “wear” that would be noticeable in gatherings. On the whole, it just doesn’t seem like that much of a problem. There will always be elitist fans and some will always snub less enthusiastic fans. I don’t see how that changes now that those more enthusiastic fans have more ways to support the artists they love.

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Small local businesses are different from enterprises and Internet startups. They may not have anyone to sit around working out their media buys. They may not want to splurge on ad creation. But they do want to advertise to potential buyers who are nearby.

iPromote, which already operates a Web-based local ad network for small businesses, has extended its reach onto mobile phones. For a minimum of $5 per day, iPromote will serve display ads — that means they’re not counting clickthroughs, they just show the ad and hope for the best — to mobile phones near an advertiser’s place of business.

CEO Michael Barr said in a prepared statement that this is “a major breakthrough for local businesses that can now access mobile advertising to directly reach new customers in their local area.” Mobile ads today are a small percentage of the online ad market, but no one seems to doubt that over the next few years, mobile ads are a guaranteed growth area. Especially if mobile ads prove more effective than outdoor advertising at getting shoppers to come in from the sidewalk.

Barr said it’s “a tremendous opportunity for iPromote.” No argument there. What we want to know is how tremendous.

Meanwhile, if you’ve got time to kill over Christmans, give iPromote’s automatic ad generator a spin. Punch a URL into the box on iPromote’s homepage, and it will mix images from that site with pictures from a stock photography database to create both Web and mobile display ads. (Remember, these are designed to get a brand name in front of consumers, not to get them to click.) You can edit the result, the premise being that it’s easier than starting from scratch. iPromote’s software put a ChaCha logo in place of ours, but we like the Guy From an Old Painting.

iPromote, headquartered in San Luis Obispo, California, was founded in 2003 and is privately funded. The company has an estimated 16 employees.

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Background checks are simultaneously one of the coolest and one of creepiest things you can do on your iPhone. Intelius made a splash at the most recent DEMO conference (co-produced by VentureBeat) with its DateCheck app, but users have to pay anywhere from $10 to $200 for each background check.

BeenVerified, on the other hand, released an app a few days ago providing three free checks per week. It sounds like iPhone owners are getting plenty of use out of that offer.

Since BeenVerified released its app on Dec. 18, the company says it has been downloaded and opened 54,423 times. It’s ranked 50 on the iTunes list of most popular free apps, and seems to be gaining steam, with 18,203 downloads yesterday, compared to 7,084 the day before. Those users have performed 110,829 background checks so far. (BeenVerified sent me those numbers at around 1:30 Pacific time today.)

The New York company’s data includes criminal records, property records, social network accounts, and more. You can check one of your iPhone contacts with just a click. But if you want more than three checks a week, you have to upgrade to BeenVerified’s premium service, which costs $8 per month.

BeenVerified launched its web-based background checks in September 2008. It has raised $800,000 in funding. Get the app here.

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Filed under: Budget, Hatchback, Fiat

Last month Fiat head Sergio Marchionne put Chrysler’s five-year plan on everyone’s plate to digest. This month he’s done the same with Fiat’s 2-year plan. One of the first items to come out is that the dinky Fiat 500 will get an even dinkier motor: the 0.9-liter, 2-cylinder turbocharged MultiAir gasoline engine.

Right now the smallest engine on offer in a 500 is the SOHC, inline 4-cylinder, 1.2-liter petrol with anywhere from 68 to 74 horsepower. The new unit will muster 65 horsepower in its naturally aspirated guise and 80 to 105 horsepower with the turbos on board. In addition to the reduced carbon dioxide output, the engine is lighter and more fuel efficient.

The news here isn’t the output – the base three-door Fiesta, for example, has a 68-hp, 1.3-liter engine in the UK, and the Peugeot 107 has a 1-liter, 68-hp lump described as “zippy” – it’s the size of the engine. While Ferrari tries to see how much power it can extract from a slightly smaller engine, Fiat, on the other hand, appears to want to see how small it can build an engine and still extract anything.

[Source: Carscoop]

2010 Fiat 500 first model to get company’s new 0.9-liter engine originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Holidays will no doubt bring many new Xbox 360 owners, so now is a good time for me to do a quick round up of some resources that can may help new those owners get the most of that new purchase.

Once you have your console connected it to your TV, be sure you are getting the best possible picture. This Xbox.com support article goes over the various types of connections that the Xbox 360 supports, and can help you get the best looking picture based on the cable you are using. The best tip I can offer you is if you are using a Component Cable (the one with red, green and blue video connecters) make sure the switch on the cable going into the Xbox 360 is set to HDTV. Again, read the support article and this can help you to make sure you’re getting the best picture possible based on the connection type you are using.

Once you are all set up, be sure to connect your console to your home network. This support article walks you through the options.

Now that you have the console online, you can sign up up for a free Xbox LIVE Gamertag. This will allow you free access to all the latest system updates, game demos, game add-ons, Arcade games and much more.

With your new Gamertag, you can now sign into Xbox.com and browse the Xbox LIVE Marketplace directly in your web browser. From here you can easily add items (like free demos) to your download queue. If your Xbox 360 is turned on, and signed into Xbox LIVE, your downloads will begin immediately. If not, the next time you turn it on the downloads will automatically begin. You can get more information on background downloads here.

If you need immediate Xbox 360 help, hit up my friends on the official Xbox support Twitter account. They’re just waiting for your @ replies!

For great family fun, gather everyone around the Xbox and play the special Holiday edition of 1 v 100 LIVE this Saturday, December 26th. It’s a free and fun way to see if that family know-it-all really knows all.

Here are some resources that new Xbox 360 owners may find helpful:

The Official Xbox 360 support site. Start here before going anywhere else.

The Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the web. Use your computer to browse the marketplace.

The Xbox forums. From game help and discussion to console questions, this is a good place to interact with members of the Xbox community.

If you want to hear from top game developers, as well as learn a little about what happens behind the scenes at Xbox, you should subscribe to my weekly audio podcast. (via iTunes or Zune.) It’s a fun way to learn about new games, things about the Xbox 360 you may not know and much more.

Finally, you may want to follow me on Twitter, where I often post about new demos and other items of interest for gamers.

Have fun with your Xbox 360 and I’ll see you online!

Edit: Read the comments for some good reader tips!

All of the editors at WMPoweruser.com wish to convey our season greetings to all our readers and their families. May your Christmas be filled with love, peace and many great gadgets

From the WMPoweruser.com team.

El futuro eléctrico del fabricante de deportivos italianos está todavía más cerca según la revista Quattroroute. El 599 GTB híbrido en el cual el consejero delegado de la marca, Amadeo Felisa, confirmó que estaban trabajando durante el pasado Salón del Automóvil de Frankfurt verá la luz en marzo en Ginebra. Este modelo montará un motor V12 acoplado a otro eléctrico situado cerca del eje trasero y alimentado por un paquete de baterías de ion-litio.

Como también se sabía por las declaraciones del presidente de Ferrari, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, el prototipo hará uso del famoso sistema KERS de recuperación de energía cinética que la marca ha estado probando en sus coches de Fórmula 1. La misión principal de todo el sistema eléctrico será la de reducir los consumos y emisiones de forma que Ferrari pueda cumplir con las próximas normativas anti-contaminación europeas.

Para conseguirlo, la ayuda del motor eléctrico y del sistema KERS permitirán proporcionar energía para funciones como la del arranque y parada del motor automáticos (Start&Stop), así como una dosis extra de potencia para las aceleraciones pero sin aumentar el gasto de combustible ni emitir más CO2. De hecho, los beneficios podrían llegar a traducirse en una reducción del 30% en el consumo urbano, pasando de 27 litros a los 100 kilómetros a 17.

Las baterías, por otra parte, aprovecharán la frenada regenerativa para recargar energías, del mismo modo que hacen los coches de Fórmula 1 de la marca. Por otro lado, aquellos que teman por la pérdida del carácter de Ferrari en los próximos modelos no deben preocuparse, puesto que Montezemolo ya confirmó en Frankfurt que cualquier producto híbrido será “fundamentalmente un Ferrari“.

Vía | Motor Authority

At our Realtime CrunchUp in November, Bazaar Labs showed off their iPhone application Flixup, which scans Twitter to create aggregate scores for movies. Tonight, just in time for the busy Christmas movie-going season, they’re launching the website for the service.

The website works just like the app. The main page shows the “Top Movies” based on the amount of talk on Twitter. For example, right now Avatar leads the pack by far. Flixup’s Buzz meter also shows if the talk about the movie is positive (green), neutral (yellow), or negative (red). Avatar is not only being talked about the most, but it’s also very clearly green, which is impressive (it’s definitely worth seeing if you missed our screening of last week).

And just like the iPhone app, Flixup works better if you sign in with your Twitter account (via OAuth). If you’re signed in, when you click on a movie title, you can see the conversations about the movie on Twitter that your contacts are having. You can also click to see all the conversations on Twitter about the movie. And you can rate the movie (on a 1 to 5 scale) or say if you’re interested in seeing it or not and tweet all that out with the click of a button.

On the individual movie pages you can also get additional details about the film and see its trailer. And Flixup features its Rotten Tomatoes score as well. This is appropriate since when the iPhone app was previewed, we called it the “Rotten Tomatoes for Twitter movie talk.”

You can find Flixup’s free iPhone application in the App Store here.

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The wait has been long, but now there’s finally a means by which to connect your dear, yet almost buttonless, iPhone or iPod touch to a Bluetooth keyboard for some more intense finger tapping action. The project that delivered us this teasing video back in February has at long last reached the application stage, where simple commoners like us can use it to synergize our gear — provided we’ve had the wherewithal to free it from Cupertino’s overbearing clutches first. The BTstack Keyboard app is now available in exchange for $5 at the Cydia store, so if you want to be the first to write a bestseller on his or her iDevice, there’s no time like the present.

Want to connect your iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard? There’s a (jailbroken) app for that originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Budget, Hatchback, Fiat

Last month Fiat head Sergio Marchionne put Chrysler‘s five-year plan on everyone’s plate to digest. This month he’s done the same with Fiat’s 2-year plan. One of the first items to come out is that the dinky Fiat 500 will get an even dinkier motor: the 0.9-liter, 2-cylinder turbocharged MultiAir gasoline engine.

Right now the smallest engine on offer in a 500 is the SOHC, inline 4-cylinder, 1.2-liter petrol with anywhere from 68 to 74 horsepower. The new unit will muster 65 horsepower in its naturally aspirated guise and 80 to 105 horsepower with the turbos on board. In addition to the reduced carbon dioxide output, the engine is lighter and more fuel efficient.

The news here isn’t the output – the base three-door Fiesta, for example, has a 68-hp, 1.3-liter engine in the UK, and the Peugeot 107 has a 1-liter, 68-hp lump described as “zippy” – it’s the size of the engine. While Ferrari tries to see how much power it can extract from a slightly smaller engine, Fiat, on the other hand, appears to want to see how small it can build an engine and still extract anything.

[Source: Carscoop]

2010 Fiat 500 first model to get company’s new 0.9-liter engine originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hi, Jack. Have you ever heard about the role lutein, found in highest amounts in kale and spinach, plays in vision or eye health? I just watched a video (it’s 23, second from bottom on p.1) by Robyn Openshaw (the self-named Green Smoothie Girl) and she claims that she had really bad eyesight in college. Since then she’s had two to three handfuls of raw spinach a day (in smoothies) and she says that now her eyesight is 20/15. On another site, it says you’re supposed to cook the greens to release the lutein, so now I don’t know what to think.

Robyn Openshaw is misinformed about vitamin B12, saying in Part 2 of her GSG-SMOOTHIE 2.0 video that you can get it from brewer’s yeast, aloe vera, or a steak once every three years. Whether green smoothies improved her eyesight, I really have no idea. If they did, it could be any number of things in them, not just lutein.

All that said…Yes, lutein is thought to be good for protecting the eyes. I did a little research to see if lutein is better absorbed from cooked or uncooked spinach and it appears to be better absorbed from cooked, though the difference is not great according to this abstract.

It also appears that luetin is fat-soluble which should mean that eating some fat with foods high in lutein would increase its absorption. Fat soluble molecules are often better absorbed when cooked, but the one abstract above, the best one I could find, indicated that this is not the case for lutein.

Tell us. We want to know. I, for one, got nothing. Just beer. But it was an amazing beer called Stiegle.

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