There is certainly lots to debate about corporate sponsorship of education and sponsored editorial content, in print and online. We have these debates all the time here at MAKE. And I’m sure educational organizations have equally tough choices to make in terms of getting the funding for great educational programs, money that companies are all too happy to provide, for a branding opportunity. It’s a dance, it can get awkward, but it can also be done right (we believe), it can be a win for everybody involved.
You had to know those freebie WP7 devices for Microsoft employees would come with a few strings attached. We imagined the Redmond brain trust was aiming for some word-of-mouth popularization along with a boost in team morale and proactivity, but as it turns out, things are a little more codified than that. TechFlash has what it claims to be the internal memo announcing the free Windows Phone 7 handsets — from mobile chief Andy Lees, who hasn’t been having the best of times lately — which sets out Redmond’s expectation that employees should “evangelize” the product at every opportunity, while also setting aside some spare time before launch to develop apps (but, you know, only if they really want to). The idea, clearly, is to harness Microsoft’s massive talent pool to try and get a headstart on populating the Marketplace with compelling content; we’re just not too sure the “spare time” bit is going to go over quite as well as the “free smartphone” part. Either way, you’ll find the full email from Andy at the source.
Sharp inflation for a variety of Chinese commodities is leading many in China to suspect investment speculation as the underlying cause, rather than simple consumption demand.
When commodity prices are volatile, farmers become traders:
This harvest season, Cao decided to wait for higher prices. And thanks to a wave of speculation and farm commodity-flipping in China’s agricultural market, his waiting game was likely to pay off.
“The price of new wheat this year has risen to 1.04 yuan per half kilogram,” said Cao, who plows the land in Hebei Province’s Zhengding County. “It was only a little more than 0.8 yuan last year, and it will likely go higher in coming days.”
Sure, 85.3 percent of your best buds are kickin’ it in Cozumel right now, but a few bright minds at California State University, Long Beach have been toiling around the clock in those dreaded summer sessions in order to help create the five-pack you see pictured here. In order to give its already colorful My Passport Essential line a long overdue refresh, Western Digital has now added a handful of limited edition 500GB models with rather stylish exteriors. Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave are the prints to choose from, and all five can be snapped up for a window of time at Best Buy or via WD directly. As for specs? You know the drill — USB 2.0 powered, 256-bit hardware encryption and a two-year warranty. Take your pick for $119.99, dude.
Continue reading WD tosses out high-fashion 500GB My Passport Essential drives, props to the LBC
It’s now wonder Australia’s economy is doing so well right now.
The nation’s export prices just spiked, in Q2, by the highest amount ever recorded.
Roland Randall @ TD Securities:
The export price index increased 16.1%/qtr in the June quarter, up from 3.8%/qtr for the prior period.
This is the biggest rise on record (since 1974), outpacing the 15.9%/qtr increase recorded in December 2008, the peak of the last terms-of-trade boom.
The year-on-year rate has turned positive, with export prices rising by 7.1%/yr. This will explode in coming quarters as we move into the period where the base effect is GFC affected.
Filed under: Coupe, Videos, Porsche
Click above to view the video after the jump
We didn’t make it out to this year’s Spectre 341 Challenge as time just wasn’t on our side. Fortunately, we can live vicariously through a few of the participants, including Automobile scribe Ezra Dyer.
If you’re not familiar with the event, it has roots dating back to the early seventies, when then-president of the Ferrari Owners Club of Southern California, Hans Tanner, organized a hill climb up Nevada Highway 341.
Filed under: Concept Cars, Coupe, Performance, Ferrari, Design/Style, Racing
Ferrari 458 GT by Jon Sibal – Click above for high-res image
Brace yourself for big ol’ dose of sexy. Ferrari hasn’t exactly made a secret that this is the last year for the F430 GT in the American Le Mans Series. With its days numbered, more than a few souls have begun meditating on what will come next for the Prancing Horse’s ALMS teams. Most have settled on the notion that the new 458 Italia will make its way to the paddock in race guise, resulting in a 458 GT. Fortunately for us, one of those contemplative souls just happens to be the design guru Jon Sibal.
While they’ve been available in Chromium (and Chromium OS) for quite some time, side tabs only made the jump to Google Chrome in yesterday’s update. If you’ve got a nice, big widescreen monitor on your desktop and you want to shift your tabs from the top to the left edge of your browser, here’s how to do it.
Like so many new Chrome features, side tabs are hidden behind a command line flag: –enable-vertical-tabs. As always, if you need help figuring out how to add a flag, have a look at our how-to post! Once you’ve done that, simply right slick on your tab bar and choose use side tabs.
Over at the Chromium blog, there’s some good news for Chrome fans… Which is simultaneously bad news for those of you who already think they’re getting a little silly with the version numbers. Starting now, Google plans to push a new stable version of Chrome every six weeks.
Yes, you read that correctly. Six weeks.