Isadora Bell

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Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Technology, Saab

Bloomberg reports that Saab has joined up with the Swedish government to create a new company to produce automatic transmissions. The task is being funded by Fouriertransform AB, the Swedish government's venture-capital arm, and Saab will provide around 50 powertrain engineers to tackle the nitty-gritty. Called VICURA, the company will build gearboxes for Saab and any other automaker that wants to farm out powertrain work, while helping Saab generate cash outside of its car sales. According to Jan-Ake Jonsson, Saab chief executive officer, the move is essential for getting the ailing automaker back on firm financial footing.

The partnership is just the latest in a number of similar ventures undertaken by the Swedish automaker. Saab hitched up with American Axle in September to build electric all-wheel drive systems and other hybrid components. Similarly, BMW inked a deal with the company to supply engines for its future products in the same month.

[Source: Bloomberg]

Report: Saab and Sweden team up for transmission joint-venture originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/27/report-saab-and-sweden-team-up-for-transmission-joint-venture/

Heartland Payment Systems Hewlett Packard Co Hewlett-Packard High Tech Computer Hon Hai Precision Ind

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It was only a matter of time: a page on the Chromium Projects website has emerged, detailing how to install Ubuntu on a Cr-48 netbook. The process is, understandably, a little risky -- but it's not like there are any tech bloggers out there that don't know how to use Linux, right?

Snarkiness aside, the process is actually very easy. You have to hack at the SSD's filesystem a little and fiddle with the Chrome OS kernel, but if you do everything right, you should be rewarded with a dual-boot system capable of running both Ubuntu and Chrome OS.

The best bit, though, is that you have to enable 'developer mode' to escape Chrome OS's 'verified boot' security measure. To do this, you need to flip a switch on the back, under the battery, as per the hilarious instructional photo shown after the break.

Continue reading How to boot Ubuntu on the Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook

How to boot Ubuntu on the Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/14/how-to-boot-ubuntu-on-the-cr-48-chrome-os-netbook/

Nokia Novell Novellus Systems Nuance Communications Nvidia

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Facebook, in a continuing drive to upgrade the most popular portion of its site, will roll out facial recognition auto-tagging of photos in the next few weeks -- if you live in the US, anyway.

Now, when you upload photos, Facebook will compare the faces in the photos with the faces of your friends. If a match is found, you'll be prompted with a suggested tag. If Facebook can't identify a person, it will ask you to enter their name, which will presumably help with identification in the future. If you upload a batch of photos of the same person -- say, from a wedding or birthday party -- Facebook will group those photos together and suggest a tag, making tagging a one- or two-click affair.

With a shocking grasp of foresight, Facebook is going to let you opt out of the auto-tagging process, too! If you don't want your face to be recognized in other people's uploads, hop over to Privacy Settings > Customize Settings, and deselect "Suggest photos of me to friends." [This option doesn't seem to be visible yet, but that could be because I'm in the UK -- or because the roll-out hasn't begun.]

There's no mention of whether you'll be able to auto-tag old photo albums, but I suspect it will be possible.

Facebook Photos, now with facial recognition auto-tagging originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/16/facebook-photos-now-with-facial-recognition-auto-tagging/

Infocus Informatica Infosys Technologies Ingram Micro Insight Enterprises

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Filed under: Safety, Technology

We all see bad drivers. Now, one company has developed an iPhone app called DriveMeCrazy, which allows you to digitally jot down a license plate and deem someone a "bad driver." This information isn't then simply posted to some lame social network, it's reported to the DMV and your insurance company.

While the idea of being able to report someone for driving like a jackass sounds great, there's little question that this will lead to abuse. What if someone were out to get you and reported you simply because they felt like it? Perhaps the person who didn't get that parking spot you ended up with is feeling particularly angry. Maybe the other driver didn't see your blinker even though you had it on for the last 15 minutes. This is DrivemeCrazy's inherent flaw.

In addition to empowering virtual snitches, DriveMeCrazy also lets users reward good driving, as well as "flirt" with other DrivemeCrazy users. We now await the first report of a DriveMeCrazy user getting a real ticket for using a mobile device to serve up a cheesy virtual ticket while driving.

[Source: DriveMeCrazy via Wired]

DriveMeCrazy app provides outlet for virtual tattle-tales originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/18/drivemecrazy-app-provides-outlet-for-virtual-tattle-tales/

Perot Systems Phillips Planar Systems Powerchip Semiconductor Priceline.Com

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If you took a specific subsection of plants -- daisies -- and headed down to the Popular Archetypes store to exchange your zombies for pirates, you'd be about 90% of the way to making a tower defense game called Pirates Love Daisies. It's that last 10%, however -- a little flash of brilliance with a soupcon of quirkiness -- that makes the game. In this case, it's HTML5; Plants Love Daisies is one of the most accomplished HTML-CSS-and-JavaScript games to date. With a truly excellent interface, it plays like a mature, latter-generation Flash game, but it retains the svelte efficiency of HTML, with barely a blip on the CPU graph.

If you've never played a tower defense game, now's your chance. Pirates Love Daisies is easy to play, family-friendly, and features a tutorial that walks you through the mechanics of the game. The visual style is nothing short of beautiful (but cute), and the soundscape is excellent. The point, though, is that Pirates Love Daisies is written in HTML5 -- and when you realize those scudding clouds, buzzing flies and droplets of rain are all being rendered by the browser, your mind blows.

That's not to say the game is without issues, though; despite looking the best in Internet Explorer 9 beta 2, it crashed multiple times (see screenshot after the break), and Firefox 4 beta 7 didn't even get past the loading screen. Firefox 4 also had significantly degraded audio, for some reason. Chrome 9 worked just fine, but seemed to use more resources than IE9.

Gallery: Pirates Love Daisies, HTML5 tower defense game

Continue reading Pirates Love Daisies is an HTML5 homage to Plants vs Zombies, made by a Flash zealot

Pirates Love Daisies is an HTML5 homage to Plants vs Zombies, made by a Flash zealot originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/17/pirates-love-daises-is-an-html5-homage-to-plants-vs-zombies-mad/

Elpida Memory Emc Ems Technologies Emulex Epicor Software

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Filed under: Etc., Technology

The U.S. Post Office is having a rough run of things. With expenses increasing at every corner, our nation's mail system is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Needless to say, the institution is currently looking into extra ways to rake in cash that doesn't involve hiking the price of stamps. Michael Ravnitzky, Counsel to the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, has come up with a pretty clever plan that could turn postal vehicles into high-tech havens capable of pulling down information on everything from weather and air pollution to road conditions and public safety.

The premise is simple: slap a cheap set of data recording equipment on the roof of each mail truck and then sell the collected data to interested parties. The trucks could be calibrated to warn of biological or radiological attacks to alert the defense department or simply provide a larger sample group for meteorological study. The post office could even lease space on its vehicles for whatever sort of data collection equipment government agencies or private entities could dream up, and Ravnitzky says that it could even be used to fill in blank spots in cell phone coverage. Of course, the likelihood of this coming to fruition seems pretty slim. After all, this is the federal government we're talking about...

[Source: The New York Times | Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Could the U.S. Postal Service fleet be outfitted like Google Street View? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/20/could-the-u-s-postal-service-fleet-be-outfitted-like-google-str/

Hon Hai Precision Ind Hynix Semiconductor Hypercom Ibasis Idt

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Google, in association with a couple of boffins from Harvard University, has just released an awesome tool that should entertain you for at least 10 minutes, and possibly more. It lets you compare words, or phrases, from a corpus totaling 500 billion words from 5.2 million books -- in Chinese, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish.

The potential applications for such a tool are surprisingly large; written works make up the entirety of recorded history, after all. That history might not be entirely accurate, but analysis can still yield some fantastic info. The Google Blog offers a couple of interesting graphs -- Virus vs. Bacteria, which chronicles the massive improvements in science and medicine; and Tofu vs. Hot Dog shows both the growing popularity of vegetarianism, and America's love of cow -- but it's very easy to make your own, telling graphs.

Analog vs. Digital, for example, or America vs. England (compare American English to British English). If you find any interesting combos, leave a comment!

Google Books now lets you compare word and phrase frequency in 5.2 million books originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/17/google-books-now-lets-you-compare-word-and-phrase-frequency-in-5/

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