divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/63869?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+How+Dubai%27s+fantasy+skyline+tumbled+to+earthch=Art+and+designc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Art+and+design%2CArchitecture%2CWorld+news%2CDubai+%28News%29%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CGlobal+economy+%28Business%29%2CCulture+sectionc5=Art%2CCredit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CArchitecturec6=Steve+Rosec7=2008_11_21c8=1121986c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Architecturec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FArchitecture" width="1" height="1" //divpThe fireworks have fizzled out, 4,000 lobster shells are being scraped into the bins, and Lily Allen's probably reaching for the paracetamol – but, she won't be the only person in Dubai with a hangover today. Yesterday saw the a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/21/atlantis-palm-dubai-kylie-lohan"opening of the Atlantis Palm Jumeirah Beach/a, yet another flash new architectural marvel in Dubai, augmented by yet another onslaught of superlatives, celebrities, and headlines across the world. /ppCome this morning, it's not just the champagne that's gone flat. It has finally happened: the Dubai bubble has burst. Architecture-spotters like myself have looked on in amazement, or rather incredulity, at the way the tiny emirate has continued to unveil ever grander construction projects – taller skyscrapers, huger hotels, vaster artificial islands – in a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/25/architecture.middleeast"apparent defiance of the global credit crunch/a./ppNow, that crunch has hit home. This week's a href="http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2008/11/staff_axed_as_credit_crisis_hits_dubai.html" Architect's Journal reports/a that "architects and developers in Dubai are freezing recruitment and making redundancies as the emirate's real-estate market begins to crumble." Large developers in Dubai are laying off staff, including Emaar the company behind the a href="http://www.burjdubai.com/" Burj Dubai/a, the world's tallest structure, the magazine reports. Other headline-grabbing projects like the Palm Deira, the next artificial island planned off the coast, are on hold indefinitely, and foreign architects and construction specialists out there, such as RMJM and Ramboll Whitbyird, are making staff cuts or freezing recruitment as a result, says the AJ. /ppAccording to one British architect I spoke to, who was in Dubai just 10 days ago, the situation is even worse than that. "Projects are being pulled left right and centre," he said. "Unless they've been funded by a sovereign wealth fund, they're being pulled. A lot of things have to be redesigned more cheaply, to sell at lower prices. Where people have made first down payments on projects, they're not making the second one. And a lot of what has been completed will be standing empty."/ppNot that anyone in Dubai will officially admit any of the above. The general climate is one of denial, say insiders. "Nobody wants to lose face, and everybody's trying to put a gloss on bad news. No one's come out and cancelled anything, but a lot of things are 'on hold' indefinitely." /ppDubai's "build it and they will come" philosophy has worked spectacularly so far. It has successfully jostled itself on to the world stage, largely by pulling off previously unthinkable architectural feats and boosting them to the skies with juicy publicity. Remember when David Beckham was buying a house on the Palm? How many people have seen him there since? Still, the publicity worked: properties on the Palm changed hands for huge sums before they were even built, peaking at a preposterous £5m. Today those houses are apparently closer to £1.8m, down from £2.7m just two months ago. /ppReality however, has finally come to town: the Dubai Financial Market – the general stock index – has fallen from a high of 6,315 earlier this year to just 2,012 yesterday. Emaar's share price has plummeted 79% in less than a year; according to some estimates, property prices have fallen by as much as 49% in parts of the Dubai market. The overall figure is much lower, in the region of 4%, but this is a place that's become accustomed to its figures only going in one direction and a lot of people are being caught out by the turnaround./ppSo now, it's more a case of "don't build it, because nobody can afford to come." The general destruction of wealth in the rest of the world will not help Dubai's tourist industry either. Fewer people have the income to afford a Dubai-standard holiday, and even those who do might be put off by the authorities' response to the a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/17/dubai" recent "sex on the beach" scandal/a, in which two Britons were jailed for three months for their public canoodling. Needless to say, we can expect discounts on rooms at the Atlantis Palm Jumeirah Beach pretty soon. /ppWe cannot simply write off Dubai though. It's already too well established for that and it's still in a very strong position to emerge as a dominant global financial centre, having taken less of a battering than, say, London or New York in the past year. The Burj Dubai is likely to remain the tallest building in the world for quite some time (surely nobody in the world has the appetite to challenge it?), but for the time being, the a href="http://www.nakheel.com/en/corporate" elaborate man-made coastline of the future/a that has become Dubai's abiding image is likely to remain just that – an image./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture"Architecture/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/dubai"Dubai/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/globaleconomy"Global economy/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Artscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227284156048112116220444056"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Artscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227284156048112116220444056" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

Mercedes-Benz has already toyed around a bit with some internet-connected in-car systems, but it looks to really be going all out with its new myCOMMAND system, which it's now showing off at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Among other things, it would constantly pull various traffic information off the internet and take it into account for route selection, as well as give you access to internet radio stations, let you make VoIP phone calls, and even give you a browser that'll let you " surf the internet in the accustomed way." Mercedes is also promising that the entire system will be completely intuitive, with most of the primary functions controlled with a single rotary pushbutton, and two secondary buttons provided for things like menu operation. Of course, it's all still very much a demo at this point, and Mercedes itself says it'll be least a "few more years" before it actually winds up in a production vehicle.

[Thanks, Jason]

Filed under: Transportation

Mercedes-Benz shows off internet-connected myCOMMAND system originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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div align="center"a href="http://benzinsider.com/2008/11/mercedes-benz-shows-new-internet-based-command-system/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/mercedes-benz-mycommand.jpg" //abr / div align="left"Mercedes-Benz has already toyed around a bit with some a href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/04/mercedes-brings-google-yahoo-maps-to-your-vehicle/"internet-connected in-car systems/a, but it looks to really be going all out with its new myCOMMAND system, which it's now showing off at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Among other things, it would constantly pull various traffic information off the internet and take it into account for route selection, as well as give you access to internet radio stations, let you make VoIP phone calls, and even give you a browser that'll let you " surf the internet in the accustomed way." Mercedes is also promising that the entire system will be completely intuitive, with most of the primary functions controlled with a single rotary pushbutton, and two secondary buttons provided for things like menu operation. Of course, it's all still very much a demo at this point, and Mercedes itself says it'll be least a "few more years" before it actually winds up in a production vehicle.br /br /[Thanks, Jason]br //div /divpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/transportation/" rel="tag"Transportation/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/mercedes-benz-shows-off-internet-connected-mycommand-system/"Mercedes-Benz shows off internet-connected myCOMMAND system/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:49:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://benzinsider.com/2008/11/mercedes-benz-shows-new-internet-based-command-system/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/mercedes-benz-shows-off-internet-connected-mycommand-system/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1378321/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/mercedes-benz-shows-off-internet-connected-mycommand-system/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/AcFeqQjEUxyAphiQHslPbWllau0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/AcFeqQjEUxyAphiQHslPbWllau0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=pF2yxYzS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=pF2yxYzS" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=YNz9oeMo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=YNz9oeMo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/tYHjTxQ4Oxk" height="1" width="1"/