Eideard

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

As General Motors heads toward insolvency, the company that was once the biggest on the planet is still riding high in the world’s most populous country.

As the storied American company prepares to financially dismantle its operations between good and poor performing assets, GM China is becoming the crown jewel in the company’s operations.

“If there’s a good GM and a bad GM, China is definitely going to be in the good GM side,” said Michael Dunne, an auto analyst and managing director of J.D. Power and Associates China…

Industry analysts say the decision is a simple matter of dollars and cents: GM is now the third-biggest car manufacturer in China, which has recently overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest car market…

Read the rest of this entry »

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A Japanese university is giving away Apple’s trendy iPhone to students for free, but with a catch: the device will be used to check their attendance.

The project, which is being tested ahead of its formal launch in June, involves 550 first and second year students and some staff of a department at Aoyama Gakuin University, which is located just outside Tokyo in Sagamihara city.

The school’s iPhones are meant to create a mobile information network between students and professors, but they are also a convenient way for the teachers to take attendance in class.

As students enter the room, instead of writing their name on a sheet, they simply type in their ID number and a specific class number into an iPhone application.

To prevent students from logging in from home or outside class, the application uses GPS location data and checks which router the students have logged in to…

“With Japanese cellphones it’s possible that the location data is automatically sent. However, with the iPhone, you must always confirm before the GPS data can be sent,” Yasuhiro Iijima said…

“Up until now, we’ve been using little slips of paper to take attendance. But with a cell phone, you don’t have to spend time collecting all of those and so I think it’s quite nice,” 20-year-old student Yuki Maruya.

Bet the App Store gets some use, too.

The GigaOM Network has been increasing its group of tech blogs, but its newest feature is a subscription research service called GigaOM Pro.

Om Malik, the founder of GigaOM Network, plans to sell in-depth research reports on technology sectors and shorter, timely reports on companies and news in those sectors to technology and business executive. Subscriptions to the service, which GigaOM is unveiling Thursday, will cost $79 a year at first and more down the road, said Mr. Malik, in an interview. (Read Mr. Malik’s blog post on GigaOM Pro here.)

GigaOM is the latest example of a Web company that once relied solely on advertising for revenue adding new revenue streams. On Monday, I wrote about other start-ups making similar shifts.

“To assume that there is only one revenue stream, which is advertising, is kind of short-sighted in this kind of media economy,” Mr. Malik said. He does not believe in charging for content that publishers have already given readers for free, so GigaOM Pro adds additional services. Readers have asked for deeper analysis than blog posts can provide, he added…

Six GigaOM Pro analysts will cover four areas: infrastructure, mobile, green I.T. and the connected consumer. Led by Michael Wolf, who recently joined GigaOM from the analysis firm ABI, they will add more topics in coming weeks. Bloggers for GigaOM blogs will contribute content.

GigaOM Pro will also offer longer briefings, like a 23-page report on the smart energy home or a 65-page briefing on social media in the enterprise. There are quarterly and weekly wrap-ups and closer looks at certain companies in a sector, such as a report on whether Google will lead the way in mobile app innovation and an analysis of Cisco’s acquisition of Pure Digital. Analysts also publish collections of links to relevant articles from around the Web.

I suppose this wouldn’t be especially newsworthy or a topic for a diarist like me – except for the fact that it centers on Om Malik. Om is not a guru; but, his knowledge of tech business – grounded in a global understanding of many business streams – provides a heck of a lot more useful information than does anyone more likely to use the title.

I don’t give investment advice except to a couple of close kin. I think I ain’t bad at it because I got back to where I was before the recent crash – last week. But, if there is anyone in print, digital or otherwise, that I might credit with prompting a few of my picks – it would be Om.

Windows Vista or OS X? Who cares, says Google. The future of software will transcend operating systems.

That was one of the main messages of the company’s I/O 2009 conference, as it kicked off in San Francisco. The two-day event brings together web developers to discuss, share, and encourage breakthroughs in online applications…

“It’s time for us to take advantage of the amazing opportunity that is before us,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt … referring to the growing sense that the Internet and browsers–rather than a computer’s operating system–will be the future foundation for application development.

The notion takes a current Web trend to its logical conclusion. Unlike most of the software available on store shelves, Facebook will run on (pretty much) any computer. It doesn’t matter if you prefer Linux, or an older version of Windows, or even a cellphone. All Facebook needs is a browser. But on top of that, Facebook allows for third-party programmers to make applications designed to run in Facebook. This new level of app is now several times removed from the battle over which operating system is best.

Google’s I/O presentations imagine what will happen as this trend develops. The company showed off ways that browsers could soon adopt many of the features of traditional operating systems. Yet, as Krazit (and Google) points out:

The industry isn’t quite ready for that yet. Many of [the] applications demonstrated before the crowd of around 4,000 developers will require the widespread adoption of HTML 5 technologies, which are still under development by a consortium of companies and organizations…

But even when HTML 5 is completed, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could be a major roadblock.

The problem with that analysis is that Web roadblocks have a habit of being circumvented. New paths become new roadways. Ask the people who used rule the world at Lotus.

Microsoft may just paint themselves into an acute corner if they don’t join the upgrade.

Mom-approved

A 15-year-old Hialeah boy who had a months-long sexual relationship with a teacher at his religious school must end the affair, a Miami child welfare judge has ordered.

The boy’s mother, who is not being identified by The Miami Herald to protect her son’s privacy, appeared Wednesday afternoon before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman at the request of state child welfare administrators. They want the mother to agree to counseling and supervision by the Department of Children & Families.

The mom, Hialeah police say, consented to her son’s affair with 32-year-old Maria Guzman Hernandez, and allowed the couple to travel together for a weekend getaway at Disney World.

Hernandez, who teaches sixth grade at Our Lady Of Charity in Hialeah, was arrested Saturday night by the Hialeah Police Department after she returned from the trip. Police say she acknowledged the affair during questioning. She was charged with sexual battery on a child over whom she had custodial authority, a charge similar to statutory rape…

Har! Over at the “big blog” we have a standard header we use for Florida silliness like this. Must be something in the water.

Nothing as exciting as this ever happened to me in 6th grade.

Despite the well-known benefits of having a lifestyle that includes physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, moderate alcohol use and not smoking, only a small proportion of adults follow this healthy lifestyle pattern, and in fact, the numbers are declining, according to an article published in the June 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

Lifestyle choices are associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes.

Investigators from the Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston compared the results of two large-scale studies of the US population in 1988-1994 and in 2001-2006. In the intervening 18 years:

the percentage of adults aged 40-74 years with a body mass index greater than 30 has increased from 28% to 36%

physical activity 12 times a month or more has decreased from 53% to 43%

smoking rates have not changed (26.9% to 26.1%)

eating 5 or more fruits and vegetables a day has decreased from 42% to 26%

and moderate alcohol use has increased from 40% to 51%.

The number of people adhering to all 5 healthy habits has decreased from 15% to 8%…

Read the rest of this entry »

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Almost everybody cheers for the underdog — maybe not those born to upper-class standing with great advantages, but those of us who weren’t always want the little guy to be victorious.

We want hard work and extra effort to be rewarded. Standing at the front of the East Room of the White House Tuesday morning were two Americans who clearly had started life as underdogs.

One is now our president, son of a Kenyan. The other is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who is about to sit on the highest court in the land. Both were born without privilege. Both were raised in households with little cash, but much love. Both were raised by strong, devoted mothers who worked hard to support them.

Both were encouraged that through hard work and education they could go beyond the boundaries of their environment and their class. Somehow the flame of ambition was lit and both became outstanding students who didn’t need affirmative action programs to get to the top of their class.

Both are extraordinary role models for the next generation of Americans and both will be historic figures. And the important thing is that both President Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor never forgot where they came from or the people who helped them move forward to such heights.

It was a day to make all Americans proud.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Singapore cancer patient was held for four hours by immigration officials in the United States when they could not detect his fingerprints — which had apparently disappeared because of a drug he was taking.

The incident, highlighted in the Annals of Oncology, was reported by the patient’s doctor, Tan Eng Huat, who advised cancer patients taking this drug to carry a doctor’s letter when traveling to the United States.

The drug, capecitabine, is commonly used to treat cancers in the head and neck, breast, stomach and colorectum.

One side-effect is chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet and the skin can peel, bleed and develop ulcers or blisters — or what is known as hand-foot syndrome.

“This can give rise to eradication of fingerprints with time,” explained Tan.

“He was detained at the airport customs for four hours because the immigration officers could not detect his fingerprints. He was allowed to enter after the custom officers were satisfied that he was not a security threat.”

We may have changed out the White House and a small piece of Congress for people with brains, education and integrity – but, Homeland Insecurity hasn’t changed a jot.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Worried about heavy reliance on imported oil, Chinese officials have drafted automotive fuel economy standards that are even more stringent than those outlined by President Obama last week say Chinese experts with a detailed knowledge of the plans.

The new plan would require automakers in China to improve fuel economy by an additional 18 percent by 2015, said An Feng, a leading architect of China’s existing fuel economy regulations who is now the president of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a nonprofit group in Beijing.

The plan is going through the interagency approval process, with comments sought from automakers, and is scheduled for release early next year, he said…

The average fuel economy of family vehicles in China is already higher than in the United States, mainly because cars in China tend to be considerably smaller than those in the United States — and are getting even smaller because of recent tax changes…

Others in the government are concerned about limiting toxic air pollution and see reductions in the total combustion of gasoline as one way to achieve this. Still other officials are worried about the potential for international efforts to limit China’s emissions of global warming gases, or view greater fuel economy as a way to increase the competitiveness of Chinese car exports.

The longest march starts with a single step.

Part of that march is as much towards commerce as smarter ecology. It may take China a bit longer to get to the U.S. with more efficient motor vehicles – only because they’ll be busy selling them in markets closer to home. Outselling U.S. and European manufacturers that is.

Leaders of the Bund of Brothers
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The Israeli Knesset has approved a preliminary reading of a bill that would outlaw calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

The measure, approved 47-37, was sponsored by Habayit Hayehudi party MK Zevulun Orlev and calls for the year-long imprisonment of anyone making public comments that would “cause an act of hatred, scorn or disloyalty to the state,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

The bill came hard on the heels of another measure proposed this week by Yisrael Beiteinu MK Alex Miller that seeks to outlaw commemorating Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning, as many Palestinians and some Israeli Arabs do now…

MK Afo Agbaria told the Post, “The State of Israel has declared jihad on the Arab population. Israel is gradually becoming an apartheid state. I won’t be surprised if in the future the Netanyahu-Lieberman government imposes additional restrictions on Arab citizens, including forbidding the use of the Arabic language.”

No surprise. How sad it is to say this.