The list includes Sears, Sony Pictures, American Apparel, Nokia, Saab, A&w All-American Foods Restaurants, Soap opera Digest, Sony Ericsson, Myspace,
Car rental chain Dollar Thrifty is still entertaining buyout offers from Avis and Hertz. On June 6
the embattled company recommended that its shareholders not accept Hertzs recent offer, valued at $2. 24 billion,
Meanwhile, on June 13th, Avis Budget announced that it had made progress in its discussion with the Federal trade commission regarding its potential acquisition#of the company.
Pontiac, a major car brand since 1926, is gone, shut down by a struggling GM. Blockbuster is in the process of dismantling,
Subway has 35,000 locations worldwide, and Mcdonalds has nearly as many. A&w does not have the ability to market itself against these chains and at least a dozen other fast food operators like Burger king.
and transportation cost compared to competitors many times as large. 3. Saab The first Saab car was launched in 1949 by Swedish industrial firm Svenska Aeroplan.
The firm produced a series of sedans and coups the flagship of which was the 900 series,
Saabs engineering reputation and the rise in its international sales attracted GM to buy half the company in 1989 and the balance in 2000.
Saabs problem, which grew under the management of the worlds No. 1 automobile manufacturer, was that it was never more than a niche brand in an industry dominated by very large players such as Ford and Chevrolet.
It did not build very inexpensive cars like VW did, or expensive sports cars as Porsche did.
Saabs models were in price and features, up against models from the worlds largest car companies that sold hundreds of thousands of units each year.
Saab also did not have a wide number of models to suit different budgets and driver tastes.
GM decided to jettison the brand in late 2008, and the small company quickly became insolvent.
Saab finally found a buyer in high-end car maker Spyker which took control of the company last year.
Spyker quickly ran low on money because only 32,000 Saabs were sold in 2010. Spyker turned to Chinese industrial investors for money.
Pang Da Automobile agreed to take an equity stake in the company. But the agreement is not binding,
and with a potential of global sales which are still below 50,000 a year based on manufacturing and marketing operations and demand,
Saab is no longer a financially viable brand. 4. American Apparelthe once-hip retailer reached the brink of bankruptcy earlier this year,
and there is no indication that it has gained anything more than a little time with its latest financing.
It currently trades as a penny stock. The company had three stores and $82 million in revenue in 2003.
truck, and motorcycle publications, has little reason to support a product based on a dying industry. 10.
#Swedenâ##s hotel of treehouses Tree Hotel in Sweden Swedens unusual Tree Hotel does standardized away with rooms
A variety of architectural firms and the Tree Hotel partnered up to design distinct and unusual spaces all built in trees except for the ground-touching sauna.
Pics) Why not create a comfortable, well designed hotel which allows visitors to live in harmony with nature amongst the trees?
Rooms include the Birds Nest, the UFO and the Mirrorcube, just part of the 25 different architectural flights of fancy planned for the hotel.
and the hotel is open for business. Via Core 77 Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati S
not delaying your trip to the E. R. This week is National Mens Health Week,
Improve your odds by joining a gym#mokers who are trying to quit often fall off the wagon during stressful moments.
But the most preventable accidental deaths are the 30,000 that occur on Americas roads every year.
Youre a great driver? Not surprising that you think so. According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 72 percent of drivers regard themselves as more skilled than everyone else.
Researchers trace the bias to a fundamental information imbalance, namely that the poorest performers are also the least able to recognize skill (or lack of skill) in themselves or others.
Then consider the guys youre sharing the road with: Surveys indicate theres a nearly 80 percent chance they speed regularly,
These guys make Evel Knievel look like a defensive driver. What you can do about it:
and Space Museum, imagine fostering his love of airplanes with trips to nearby Gravelly Point Park for front-seat views of the takeoffs and landings at Reagan National Airport.
The Capital Crescent Trail, a hard-surface trail from Georgetown to Bethesda, MD, developed on an abandoned rail bed, is a great bike trip that is off the beaten track.
Jogging and bike paths wind around 13 miles of shoreline earning Minneapolis the designation of being a Bike Friendly City from the League of American Bicyclists.
Also a cultural hot spot, Minneapolis is home to the Hennepin Theatre stages, which hosts Kids Nights performances (The Lion king debuted here before heading to Broadway).
Madison gets the green#light for loads of bike trails lakes, food co-ops, and farmers markets, including Dane County Farmers Market at Capitol Square, held Saturdays at the foot of the statehouse.
The strong economy here is powered by tourism the military, defense contracting, and real estate, resulting in a practically nonexistent unemployment rate, the lowest property taxes on our list,
Thats because a bad trip#can trigger hazardous, self-destructive behavior, but low doses dont produce the kind of transformative experiences that can offer long-term benefits.
and a 6-year-old#n a trip to Hershey Park. And although doctors tell her that, thanks to the effect of the illness and the treatment,
but the survey excludes housing, utilities, car purchases, and school fees, which can vary widely
$21. 70 Japans second-largest city after Tokyo, Yokohama is reached easily from Tokyo by train.
Yokohama has nine main business districts and exports many cars and auto parts. No. 6: Zurich Quick lunch:
and companies such as Credit suisse and Swiss re. Zurich is also a major transportation hub. Mercer ranked the city second in the world for quality of life in 2010,
and technology, Geneva attracts many professional visitors, as well as tourists. It ranked as the third-best city in the world for quality of life in Mercers 2010 report.
and transportation equipment. The city offers many types of cuisine, though its known best for high grade and pricey Kobe beef.
Video and pics) The stunning design resembles a spaceship;##it will be four stories and house 12,000.
and Wolfe Road currently home to Hewlett-packard, which will be relocating next year. The circular building will be an architectural feat
On a recent trip to South dakota my wife and I had the misfortune of colliding with a deer late one evening.
The U s. Department of transportation estimates that the white-tailed deer alone kills around 130 Americans each year simply by causing car accidents.
the predator#deer had a banner year, causing 211 human deaths in car wrecks. In the U s. there are about 1. 5 million deer/vehicle collisions annually,
resulting in 29,000 human injuries and more than $1 billion in insurance claims in addition to the death toll.
Evolutionary theory would lead us to believe that given the confrontational nature of deer and cars,
where the number of dead birds found stuck in the grills of cars has dropped dramatically over the past few decades.
then logically they would become aware of the dangers of running in front of cars. Nearly all other animal species have learned to avoid cars,
so it seems reasonable that deer must simply be missing something. In fact, if we push this line of thinking to the comical extreme
the deer-crossing signs found many places along roads could be rotated 90 degrees and changed from deer-crossing#signs to car-crossing#signs for the deer to read.
Perhaps this comes across as little more than an amusing idea but it brings us to a much larger topic to consider#animal intelligence.
#â Wave and Payâ##Mobile phone Payment System Launched in the UK Samsungs new phone is the first to use Barclaycard and Oranges Quick Tap payment technology.
Orange and Samsung have teamed-up with Barclaycard to provide mobile phone payments with the new Quick Tap#payment technology.
This means the sensors can be useful not only to anyone from airport security officials to military troops,
#The bomb-shelter hotel is a big hit among survivalists...Theres nothing quite like freshly grown toad straight from the garden...
Not exactly a hotel where you can order room service...Doing time...Every man is a work of art.
Tournaments will range from volleyball to badminton, from bridge to poker, from hot air balloons to marathons,
water jets, bubblers, ponds, and trickling brooks, each water sculpture will stand alone as a fine work of art.
When live music is reserved only for those willing to leave their homes, travel great distances,
live sporting events, airports, schools, parks, and even hospital waiting rooms. The question then becomes, If live music were inserted into the mix,
If airports added live music to help entertain waiting passengers, would this help change the image of the city,
winding road and it seems were blindfolded driving. And most recently, according to a story on Grist, the USDA is starting a new program
Driving down a street we typically dont worry about trees falling onto the road. Only rarely do they undergo a radical transformation quickly.
Step 2#Breaking the Paradigms All knowledge and habit once acquired, becomes as firmly rooted in ourselves asa railway embankment in the earth.##
Flying cars, cures for cancer, the first person on Mars, teleportation, and space hotels are all persistent concepts that drive the energies of people on earth.
Attractors are ideas that have been perpetuated through movies books, science fiction, artwork, and other media. They will all eventually come to pass because of the consistent level of intellectual bandwidth being dedicated to keeping the visions alive.
as well as the distinctive aromas of clerics, fighters, mages, paladins and such. I totally guessed that paladins smelled like vanilla
FIGHTER: Leather, musk, blood, and steel. MAGE: All mystique and thrumming power: gurjum balsam, Sumatran dragons blood resin, olibanum, galangal, oleo gum resin, and frankincense.
Consumers paid an average price of $3. 81 a gallon nationwide on Friday according to the travel group AAA.
Manufacturing has been a key driver of economic growth since the recession ended. That continued last month, even with supply chain disruptions stemming from the crisis in Japan.
or Verizon service for a cheaper carrier; or, customizing the iphone with 3-D screens, bouncing icons or funkier fonts.
then unlocks#them so customers can switch wireless carriers. I was getting five to 10 customers a week
Toyota recently offered a free program on Cydias store, promoting the companys Scion sedan. Once installed, the car is displayed on the background of the iphone home screen,
and the iphone icons are refashioned to look like the emblem on the front grill. Toyota was also the first major corporation to offer an ad to the jailbreaking site, www. modmyi. com,
whose traffic and revenue have doubled since 2010. Weve seen expansion across the board. The Toyota ad and theme, to me, meant there was a turning of the tides
and that jailbreaking is becoming more mainstream,##said Kyle Matthews, the co-owner of Modmyi. com. The industry just keeps increasing;
there are even repair stores that will jailbreak for you.##Apple and AT&T have been trying to crack down on the booming black market.
Matthews said Apple pressed Toyota to remove the theme and the ad this past week,
Not acting is not an option because the life histories of these flying, nocturnal mammals#characterised by long generation times and low reproductive rates#mean that population recovery is unlikely for decades or even centuries,
preferring to hide in peoples personal belongings and in cars. The bugs probably got to the USA in the late 1990s by hitchhiking in container ships from Asia.
They have wings and can fly far,##Leskey says. The wild population is increasing and moving from state to state#Hoelmer says.
Push a cart down a supermarket aisle, and youll pass a kaleidoscope of color. The use of artificial dyes by foodmakers is up by half since 1990,
Mobile phone carriers, banks, credit card issuers, payment networks and technology companies are all vying to control these wallets.
You have banks competing with carriers competing with Apple and Google, and its pretty much a goat rodeo until someone sorts it out.#
as well as Apple and the mobile carriers, which want to collect fees through their control of the phones themselves.
They have to install terminals that accept mobile payments. Consumer advocates meanwhile, said they were concerned that a mobile system would bring higher fees
#Visa and Mastercard now dominate the major tracks that shuttle credit card and debit payments between banks and retailers.
Mobile carriers may demand that the card issuers pay them something akin to rent, or reach some other agreement,
product manager for Wells fargos card services and consumer lending, adding that the banking industrys past conversations with mobile carriers had not been fruitful
The mobile carriers frustration with the banks some analysts said, was the impetus behind a joint venture by Verizon, AT&T,
and sees it as an opportunity to expand in the United states. Referring to the carriers 200 million customers, Amer Sajed,
#The banks and credit card issuers, meanwhile, have found a way to temporarily avoid working with the cellphone carriers.
And in Japan, people have been swiping phones at convenience stores and bus stations for several years. Other global markets may have a single dominant mobile carrier
or a small number of banks, or a strong central bank,#said Beth Robertson, director of payments research at Javelin Strategy and Research.
and deforestation, said study leader David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State university. Hughes and colleagues made the discovery after noticing a wide diversity of fungal growths emerging from ant victims,
according to the March 2 study in the journal PLOS ONE. It is tempting to speculate that each species of fungus has its own ant species that it is adapted best to attack#
Hughes said. This potentially means thousands of zombie fungi in tropical forests across the globe await discovery,
Hughes said. Other fungus species develop explosive spores on infected ants bodies. When other ants come near the cadavers,
and parasites, study author Hughes noted. That means the fungi are locked often into one type of host#specialization that might spell doom for fungi species as host species die out.
fungi help keep nature working smoothly, Hughes added. They may be less cuddly than pandas#but for the overall health of the planet,
Hughes plans to remedy that#nd expects to find many more zombie fungus species in the forests of Brazil.
Non-sugary drinks in travel mugs: Sugary drinks, like juice and pop, are going to be very sticky
Alternatively, travel mugs are a great way to avoid nasty spills. All in all, the best foods are ones you can eat with utensils
and emotional status. Red Bulls effects are appreciated throughout the world by top athletes, busy professionals, active students and drivers on long journeys,#the website claims.
#Two decades ago#after large companies like Alaska airlines, Union pacific and Turner Broadcasting adopted such policies#29 states and the District of columbia passed laws, with the strong backing of the tobacco
and participating in risky hobbies like motorcycle riding. The head of the Cleveland Clinic was praised both
Barry realized he couldnt find his car...Nothing says gross supermarket#quite like kiwi fruit with hairy backs...
Many people rely on the river systems as a mode of transportation and connection to other people,
wireless carriers, and the armies of developers who build applications like games and productivity tools.
#In the future, Your Car May be made of Mushrooms Video games have long been using mushrooms as a source for power, energy and advancement.
In the future, mushrooms may be as common in cars as they are on pizza. Believe it or not,
scientists who are trying to find more sustainable ways to build car parts believe the answers may be found in things such as mushroom roots.
#which aired on Wednesday 2/2, focuses on the new discoveries that scientists such as Deborah Mielewski, the technical leader of plastics research at Ford motor Co.,
Mielewski says Ford has been working to find a way to reduce the use of petroleum plastics since 2000,
and Ford decided to jump on the green trend with some success. Currently, as much as 10 percent of car parts that are made typically from petroleum plastics can now be made from soy-based polyurethane foams or bioplastic.#
#In fact, the 2011 Ford fiesta uses bioplastic not only in soft foam seats but also for hard plastic surfaces like the dashboard.
New york times science writer David Pogue, who is hosting the show, drove one of the Fiestas with foam made from soy beans
and they are wrapped in vinyl like other car seats.##Mielewski said that the current soy-based polyurethane foam used in the Fiesta had to match up with all the specs that the old foam did,
#Green plastics are a growing part of the car market, and Mielewski says it may be possible to actually grow car parts.
She says scientists at Ford are experimenting by mixing some mushroom roots together with other plant matter, like wheat straw,
and putting the mixture into a mold shaped like a car part. The mushroom car parts are a ways off from being introduced into cars,
but Pogue believes they will not only change how parts are manufactured, but also style as well. LINK Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati swfobject. embedswf (http://www. youtube. com/v/5b6ab7kovha&
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but Watson doesnt believe hostility is directed at the plane overhead. In other photographs of uncontacted people that Ive seen
and arrows pointed at the plane, or firing at the plane. That clearly denotes hostility,
#she said. In this picture, they appear to be isolated an people, looking up with curiosity.##Threatened by Illegal Logging Thackara
textile rolls and food-processing equipment, says he can barely find machinists who know how to handle manual machines.
When he does said, he, they have a job making $20 an hour, with health care and pension.#
#Sometimes, Armey trains unskilled people, a decision that he bases on the vibe he gets
One left the firm to be a truck driver. But the other is now an assistant foreman.
of which can travel and pollinate plants as far as five miles away. So a farmer who has been making a concerted effort to steer clear of GMOS in his fields can very easily be contaminated.
How far has traveled it? What are the growing practices?##Harvestmark is being used by more than 200 companies,
adding that bird populations around the lake are threatened also by flights from the nearby airport in Isparta.
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#Is Eating Insects the Answer to Reducing our Food Footprint? Flickr user avlxyz tries an insect at Chiang Mai bazaar Hungry for a grasshopper taco?
The Wild Kitchens menu#$100 per person (B. Y. O. B.)on two packed consecutive nights#was inspired by a recent trip to France by Iso Rabins
He has taped segments for two coming Travel Channel programs, Bizarre Foods#and The Wild Within,#where he prepared roadkill raccoon.#(
So what if you could sample that cashmere coat from your cell phone before adding it to your shopping cart?
Texture data fed into a machine s piezoelectric drivers can re-create vibrations and temperature on a touch screen can simulate that feel,
Some of this capability is available now in rudimentary form in computer games where the controller shakes to indicate an on-screen car collision. 2. Seeing the forest,
if a cell phone caller is in a car with an engine running at 2, 000 rpm,
if the driver is stuck in traffic or moving smoothly,#Meyerson said. By embedding sensors in flood prone areas,
but is better for them. 5. A nose that knows Breath analysis can do drunk more than keep drivers off the road.
riding bikes, from running water etc. There is early traction there. Los angeles is testing advanced flywheel technology as a way to reap wasted energy from braking trains
and re-apply it when trains accelerate. And Pavegen is building sidewalk tiles designed to capture energy from walking pedestrians.
As for mind-reading headsets that measure our brain activity and recognize our facial expressions: Um, no, don t think so.
IBM also predicted real-time speech translation now exemplified by products like Samsung s Galaxy speech translation.
Meyerson admits to some less successful calls#especially one about hydrogen-powered vehicles#but he s pretty happy overall with IBM s effort.
They sold one of their cars, gave some possessions to relatives and sold others in a yard sale, rented out their six-bedroom house
as varied as developers and U. P. S. drivers. That number rose 39 percent in less than a year.
and fresh produce can grow right next to grocery stores, potentially reducing transportation costs, carbon dioxide emissions and risk of spoilage.
Food grown closer to where consumers buy lowers transportation costs. That can help offset the higher cost of growing food organically.
and bought a three-bedroom house and a 1951 Chevrolet. One day in 1976, Moraitis felt short of breath.
And when a town discovers that a reputation for centenarians draws tourists, who s going to question it?
Its reputation as a health destination dates back 25 centuries, when Greeks traveled to the island to soak in the hot springs near Therma.
In the 17th century, Joseph Georgirenes the bishop of Ikaria, described its residents as proud people who slept on the ground.
and a 98-year-old woman who ran a small hotel and played poker for money on the weekend.
On a trip the year before, I visited a slate-roofed house built into the slope at the top of a hill.
I drove a Chevrolet. But I was always in a hurry.##When she and her family moved to Ikaria
Someone involved in tourism, for example, might also be a painter or an electrician or have a store.
walk through the airport or buy cough medicine without being routed through a gantlet of candy bars, salty snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages.
Despite the island s relative isolation, its tortuous roads and the fierce independence of its inhabitants, the American food culture, among other forces, is beginning to take root in Ikaria.
We feel we are already traveling down the path to our idea of Successful#.#Our Patent for Dragon Juice is going along nicely,
so they can concentrate on the historical tourism aspect of the property, Charity says. The oldest member of the 11th generation, 50-year-old Charles Hill Carter III, still makes his home on the main property in a brick house that was completed in 1738,
Even produce grown organically can be tainted by pesticides wafting over from a neighboring field or during processing and transport.
The argument that organic produce is more nutritious has never been major driver#in why people choose to pay more,
A new wave of robots, far more adept than those now commonly used by automakers and other heavy manufacturers, are replacing workers around the world in both manufacturing and distribution.
even though rising labor and transportation costs in Asia and fears of intellectual property theft are now bringing some work back to the West.
For example, Boeing s wide-body commercial jets are riveted now automatically by giant machines that move rapidly and precisely over the skin of the planes.
the company said it struggles to find enough workers to make its new 787 aircraft. Rather, the machines offer significant increases in precision and are safer for workers.
#said Frans van Houten, Philips s chief executive. The window of opportunity to bring manufacturing back is before that happens.#
The next generation of robots for manufacturing will be more flexible and easier to train. Witness the factory of Tesla Motors,
which recently began manufacturing the Tesla S, a luxury sedan, in Fremont, Calif.,on the edge of Silicon valley.
#It still houses a dingy, unused Toyota corolla assembly line on which an army of workers once turned out half a million cars annually.
As many as eight robots perform a ballet around each vehicle as it stops at each station along the line for just five minutes.
Ultimately as many as 83 cars a day#roughly 20,000 are planned for the first year#will be produced at the factory.
When the company adds a sport utility vehicle next year, it will be built on the same assembly line,
Hyundai and Beijing Motors recently completed a mammoth factory outside Beijing that can produce a million vehicles a year using more robots
and darting electric vehicles as workers with headsets are directed to cases of food by a computer that speaks to them in four languages.
They watch over a four-story cage with different levels holding 168 rover#robots the size of go-carts.
Each rover is connected wirelessly to a central computer and on command will race along an aisle until it reaches its destination#a case of food to retrieve
or the spot to drop one off for storage. The robot gathers a box by extending two-foot-long metal fingers from its side
Then a forklift operator summoned by the computer moves the cube to a truck for shipment.
assembly work that requires tactile feedback like placing fiberglass panels inside airplanes, boats or cars;
and unload its trucks. The workers can move one box every six seconds on average. But each box can weigh more than 130 pounds,
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