Filed under: Ford, Volvo, UAW/Unions, Geely

Report: Geely may need to come up with $1.4B to fix damaged Volvo after purchase originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Virgin Media contractors earning more than £300 a day have been told to accept a 15 per cent cut in rates or leave the company....

A lot happened in the US smartphone market from October 2009 to January 2010, but thankfully there are companies like comScore kicking about to help us make sense of just which platforms were the biggest winners and losers during this period. The biggest platform was not surprisingly Google’s Android which saw an uptick of 4.3% to a total of 7.1% thanks in part to the successful launches of handsets like the DROID, DROID ERIS and Hero. RIM’s BlackBerry OS, which faired second best with a gain of 1.7% continued to dominate the total smartphone market at 43%, but one has to wonder if RIM could have done just a little bit more. After all, it did launch the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Curve 8530 and Storm2 during these months. Apple’s iPhone didn’t do as well as many would have guessed, but its 0.3% increase makes quite a bit of sense when you consider the tradition of people holding out on iPhone purchases in the six months leading up the summer release of the devices later iteration. Nonetheless, it does hold a 25.1% stake in the US smartphone market. When it comes to market share, one’s success is another’s misfortune. Not exactly a stranger to losing ground, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile managed to shed 4.0% thanks in part to what can be politely summed up as a general indifference to its current platform (how things will change). After this, we saw Palm with a loss of 2.1%. In Palm’s defence a lot of this can be attributed to people finally getting around to ditching Palm OS, but the fact remains that thing’s aren’t going to well for a company that many felt was on the path to recovery just 15 months ago.

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DICE a annoncé que le mode multijoueur de Battlefield Bad Company 2 sera inaccessible pendant quelques heures dans les deux prochains jours. Les serveurs seront fermés un temps durant le week-end afin d'augmenter les capacités du jeu à gérer le trafic en ligne. En effet, il semblerait que le suc...

OnLive boss Steve Perlman has revealed that the cloud gaming service will allow users to rent PC titles on a game-by-game basis, highlighting a more flexible approach for customers.

The company said earlier in the week that the basic OnLive packages consists of a $14.99 monthly subscription with games priced on top of that, but a new Portal will not charge for access to selected rental titles and free-to-play demos.

"The OnLive Game Portal is for gamers looking for direct access to OnLive games without being required to subscribe to the features of the full OnLive Game Service," said Perlman.

Read more...

Maybe Thomson Reuters was feeling nostalgic about the flurry of negative attention that both the New York Times and the Washington Post got last year when they came out with policies on the use of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook. For whatever reason, the wire service recently issued new guidelines for its staff, and they suffer from many of the same problems that both the NYT and WaPo policies did. All of these flaws boil down to one thing: A desire to control something that fundamentally can’t be controlled, and a fear of what happens when that control is lost. Without even bothering to enumerate the positive aspects of social-media use, the policy starts in with the warnings right away:

The risks, of course, are everywhere — someone might say something embarrassing, or post a tweet that others could twist to disparage Reuters:

The overwhelming message is that, while social media is great and useful for many things (although none of those things are ever mentioned), it is a minefield of potential dangers and even a potential threat to the company’s traditional media business:

The policy says that “where practical, you should ask someone to check content of Twitter posts,” even as it admits that this is frequently impossible, and warns that supervisors will be monitoring those tweets to see if they cross any lines. It even says that “when using Twitter or social media in a professional capacity, you should aim to be personable but not to include irrelevant material about your personal life.” Why not? No reason is given, but the obvious implication is that it’s “unprofessional” or might “damage the brand.”

I happen to think the opposite is true (within reason, of course). I enjoy it when journalists I know — like Reuters reporter @bobbymacreports, for example — post things that indicate they are human beings. And I don’t think any less of a media brand when one of its employees posts something that turns out not to be true, because I know that they are doing their best, and will correct what needs to be corrected.

• I Can’t Navigate My Location Friend Requests Tech Insider
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Right at the end of the new policy, Reuters says something that cuts to the heart of all the difficulties with social-media guidelines. The policy baldly states: “Don’t scoop the wire.” So I mentioned on Twitter that Reuters’ own editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, did exactly that himself when he was Twittering from Davos last year and posting about a number of newsworthy events. Schlesinger then responded that “some stuff belongs on the wire first. some stuff belongs on tweets. some stuff you can’t always tell immediately.”

That phrase could just as easily be applied to all of the other potential negative outcomes that Reuters is trying to avoid with its policy. Some things are bad to say on Twitter, and some things are not — and some stuff you can’t always tell immediately. Obviously, you probably shouldn’t chew out a source publicly on Twitter using abusive language. But that’s a little like putting a warning sign on a chainsaw saying “Do not stop chain with hand.” If your employees need to be told that kind of thing, they are probably too stupid to be on your payroll and should be sent to work for your competitors instead.

If you trust your writers and editors, whom you presumably hired and continue to employ because they are smart and capable, then let them use social media for what it was meant for: engaging with readers in as many ways as possible. Don’t get consumed with fear about a loss of control over them — embrace it.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Why NewNet Companies Must Shoulder More Responsibility

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user LunaDiRimmel.

Photo courtesy Coastal Treated Products Company.

In a discussion in the comments on yesterday's "plastic plywood" post, I mentioned that I was often reluctant to buy plywood and other "new" timber products at the hardware store because I didn't know how to tell if I was buying forest-friendly wood or not. A kindly gent named Hank responded to tell me that it was as simple as looking for the seal of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and supposedly that even the big orange store "is surprisingly good at stocking FSC certified lumber." I haven't verified that last bit for myself, but I did spend a long time googling around yesterday afternoon and satisfied myself that these FSC folks are on the level. That's their "tree with a check mark" seal in the photo, above. Now I know what to look for. And so do you. [Thanks, Hank!]

More:

• Single-sheet flatpack plywood design competition
• MAKE and CRAFT: Now with More Huggable Trees

More than half a million travellers to be hit by successive weekend walkouts, with the first beginning on 20 March

More than half a million British Airways passengers face strike disruption this month after the Unite trade union announced walkouts over two consecutive weekends, prompting BA to withdraw a last-ditch peace offer.

Unite has called a series of strikes by up to 12,000 flight attendants, beginning with a three-day walkout on 20 March and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March.

Brief hopes of a reprieve for the 525,000 passengers affected by the strike action were extinguished this afternoon when the BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, withdrew a compromise offer after hearing that Unite had set dates for the first cabin crew strike in 13 years.

BA said the offer, which included a partial repeal of staffing cuts, was conditional on Unite not setting strike dates.

Walsh told the BBC that the two sides were "not close at all" to reaching an agreement and described Unite's counter-offer of a 2.6% pay cut for staff as "morally wrong". He said passengers already booked on to flights from 19 March to 31 March could apply for a refund or reschedule their journeys.

A BA spokesperson said: "Our offer to Unite was conditional on the union not naming strike dates. Because strike dates have been announced, Unite has invalidated the offer. It is no longer on the table."

BA's move means strikes are certain to go ahead next Friday unless the tentative lines of communication between both sides, described as "slender" by one source close to the talks, yield a new compromise.

This morning Unite said it would put the BA proposal out to a consultative ballot with the result due next Wednesday. However, the simultaneous announcement of strike dates angered BA, which said it had offered Unite an extension to its strike mandate.

Speaking before BA's move, Len McCluskey, Unite's chief negotiator and assistant general secretary, said he was willing to keep talking. "There are no negotiations [planned] but of course we remain open to meeting with BA anytime, anywhere."

The two sides are haggling over a £62.5m target for cost savings in the annual cabin crew budget, which BA has achieved by unilaterally cutting staffing levels on flights by at least one person. This followed a voluntary redundancy programme that saw 1,100 flight attendants leave the company. Unite wants the majority of those positions reinstated and has offered a 2.6% pay cut this year to help fund the move.

The industrial action has been timed to cause maximum disruption to BA, with the airline facing a struggle to reinstate a normal timetable between strikes.

BA normally carries about 75,000 passengers a day on 650 services. Walsh has said he hopes to operate a substantial proportion of the airline's Heathrow airport long-haul operations and a good number of short-haul flights during the strikes.

The airline has pledged to break the strike with 1,000 volunteer flight attendants drawn from the ranks of its non-cabin-crew workforce, and is preparing to hire 23 aeroplanes complete with their own trained crew.

BA has said it will operate its entire schedule from London City airport during the industrial action and has claimed more than two-thirds of its Gatwick-based crews will work normally.

Informal channels of communication are still open between BA and Unite via the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Brendan Barber.

According to BA's withdrawn offer, the airline was willing partially to repeal the staffing cuts at the heart of the dispute and would consider putting around 184 cabin crew positions back on its 239-plane fleet. However, Unite wants 700 positions returned to BA aircraft and has proposed about £60m worth of cost savings to fund the proposal. BA says the figures are significantly short of its cost-cutting target.

Unite is also threatening to hold a consultative ballot over proposed changes to baggage handlers' contracts. If union members vote against BA's proposals an industrial action ballot will be held, although that move is several weeks away.

Unite argues it has been bypassed by BA despite holding talks about the baggage handler contracts. Steve Turner, the Unite national officer for civil aviation, said: "It is hugely concerning that BA feel that management by imposition is their preferred approach. Very soon no worker at the airline will feel that either their job or their terms and conditions are safe. This instability cannot be healthy for the airline."

A BA spokesman said: "We are consulting with our ground-handling staff at Heathrow about potential changes to improve the way in which we work. Any talk of a ballot for industrial action is speculative and premature."

• British Airways
• Airline industry
• Air transport
• Transport
• Trade unions

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wolfram Alpha, the search engine that's not a search engine, has hired Barak Berkowitz as Managing Director.

Barak is formerly CEO of blogging company Six Apart. He will be in charge of growing Wolfram Alpha's business.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• Googlers Won't Create The Next Google
• Wolfram Alpha Releases A $50 iPhone Application
• Search Engine Wolfram Alpha Launches With Big Dreams And No Chance

[SXSW] I saw Sobees for the first time at DEMO 09, it is a social sites networks aggregator that looked pretty good when I saw the demo, it offered a monetization model via brand sponsorship. Today, the company launched Sobees for SXW and MIX10: the Sobees event applications aggregate Flickr photo stream, Google news, Twitter real time search, the official RSS feed from the event, the official Twitter messages from the event, your personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. Sobees partnered with Salsadev.com to provide the trending keywords within each conference, allowing to refine the search and finding news, photos and tweets related to the trending topics at SXSW and MIX10.

You can try the applications here (Silverlight 3 working on Macs and PCs for most browsers):

• http://sxsw.sobees.com
• http://mix10.sobees.com

Permalink: Sobees For SXSW and MIX10 from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

Suppose there is a pre-profitable company that is raising venture financing. Simple, classical economic models would predict that although there might be multiple VCs interested in investing, at the end of the financing process the valuation will rise to the clearing price where the demand for the company’s stock equals the supply (amount being issued).

Actual venture financings work nothing like this simple model would predict.  In practice, the equilibrium states for venture financings are: 1) significantly oversubscribed at too low a valuation, or 2) significantly undersubscribed at too high a valuation.

Why do venture markets function this way?  Pricing in any market is a function of the information available to investors. In the public stock markets, for example, the primary information inputs are “hard metrics” like company financials, industry dynamics, and general economic conditions. What makes venture pricing special is that there are so few hard metrics to rely on, hence one of the primary valuation inputs is what other investors think about the company.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• Silicon Valley Isn't New York's Enemy -- Wall Street Is
• Every Time An Engineer Joins Google, A Startup Dies
• What Is The Right Amount Of Money To Raise At A Startup?

Google will begin on Thursday a public test of a Blogger layout customization tool that the company says significantly broadens publishers' ability to modify the look of their blogs.

Facebook might be taking longer to go public than many predicted, but that doesn't mean you can't own a piece of it right now.

Second Market is a New York City based startup that operates markets for various types of illiquid assets.

Last spring, Second Market added private company stock to the list of assets it trades. And by a huge margin, the most-traded company in that market is Facebook.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• How To Use Google's New (Free) Photo-Editing Tool, Picnik
• How To Build The Ultimate Stock Screener
• A Growing Secondary Market In Private Equity

GDC: R.A. Salvatore wants you to die originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: InstantAction demonstrated at GDC 2010

Continue reading InstantAction streams full games to any web browser, gives indie developers a business model (video)

InstantAction streams full games to any web browser, gives indie developers a business model (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.