Archive for January 25th, 2008
Like2Byte writes “CNN is reporting that a US Marine that lost both his legs in Iraq is now able to walk again by using bluetooth technology to coordinate his leg movement. The two legs communicate to keep the man in motion. ‘ […] Personal chips in each leg send signals to motors in the artificial joints so the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion. Bleill’s set of prosthetics [legs] have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it’s doing, how it’s moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example.’”
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Like2Byte writes “CNN is reporting that a US Marine that lost both his legs in Iraq is now able to walk again by using bluetooth technology to coordinate his leg movement. The two legs communicate to keep the man in motion. ‘ […] Personal chips in each leg send signals to motors in the artificial joints so the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion. Bleill’s set of prosthetics [legs] have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it’s doing, how it’s moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example.’”
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ScienceDaily is reporting that a new form of endoscope developed at the University of Washington is more like swallowing a pill than the typical “massive” cable. The pill, complete with a 1.4 mm wide tether, contains a single optical fiber for illumination and six fibers for collecting light. “Once swallowed, an electric current flowing through the UW endoscope causes the fiber to bounce back and forth so that its lone electronic eye sees the whole scene, one pixel at a time. At the same time the fiber spins and its tip projects red, green and blue laser light. The image processing then combines all this information to create a two-dimensional color picture.”
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Filed under: Forecasts, Products and services, Industry, Consumer experience, China, Japan, Personal finance
 Asian manufacturers, especially those in China and Japan, are beginning to feel the pinch from weak purchasing power here in the United Says. A report in the New York Times highlights some of the attitudes and adjustments which shall be guiding world industrial output going through this year and into 2009. Prudent cuts are being made by Asian manufacturers across the board to offset costs, while demand growth is in decline.
It’s not all doom and gloom however, depending on how you look at it. Chinese economists are actually feeling a bit of a relief from the slowdown in the face of their own inflationary pressures and indications are that merchandise inventories aren’t yet getting bloated. This means that while industrial output might be cooling in the near term, available manufacturing capacity should remain relatively flush while the banks figure out the details of stinging money supply issues.
The hardest hit manufacturers seem to be in the low margin, high output operations. Textile manufacturers are feeling the brunt of the sluggishness first. What does it mean in the long term when shoe and t-shirt manufacturers might not be finding ready market for their goods and how will this translate moving upward into the higher end markets?
I see some things potentially happening here, which might bode well for the North American manufacturing block. First, low margin manufacturers shall probably enter into price wars later this year in an attempt to coral for themselves pieces of a waning market. The good news in the event of this happening is that consumers shall win if importers pass price reductions on down the line and the majority of these price wars will take place between manufacturers beyond our own shores.
At this point, your assignment may be as simple as paying down your debts, saving a significant portion of your income and not fearing the idea of buying your own home. Asian manufacturing interests shall continue to see contracting growth for the near future but you shouldn’t fear that either. I don’t think this particular situation is either good or bad. I think it’s both inevitable and necessary.
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Filed under: Forecasts, Products and services, Industry, Consumer experience, China, Japan, Personal finance
Asian manufacturers, especially those in China and Japan, are beginning to feel the pinch from weak purchasing power here in the United Says. A report in the New York Times highlights some of the attitudes and adjustments which shall be guiding world industrial output going through this year and into 2009. Prudent cuts are being made by Asian manufacturers across the board to offset costs, while demand growth is in decline.
It’s not all doom and gloom however, depending on how you look at it. Chinese economists are actually feeling a bit of a relief from the slowdown in the face of their own inflationary pressures and indications are that merchandise inventories aren’t yet getting bloated. This means that while industrial output might be cooling in the near term, available manufacturing capacity should remain relatively flush while the banks figure out the details of stinging money supply issues.
The hardest hit manufacturers seem to be in the low margin, high output operations. Textile manufacturers are feeling the brunt of the sluggishness first. What does it mean in the long term when shoe and t-shirt manufacturers might not be finding ready market for their goods and how will this translate moving upward into the higher end markets?
I see some things potentially happening here, which may bode well for the North American manufacturing block. First, low margin manufacturers shall probably enter into price wars later this year in an attempt to coral for themselves pieces of a waning market. The good news in the event of this happening is that consumers shall win if importers pass price reductions on down the line and the majority of these price wars will take place between manufacturers beyond our own shores.
At this point, your assignment might be as easy as paying down your debts, saving a significant portion of your income and not fearing the idea of buying your own home. Asian manufacturing interests shall continue to see contracting growth for the near future but you shouldn’t fear that either. I don’t think this particular situation is either good or bad. I think it’s both inevitable and necessary.
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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Products and services, Apple Inc (AAPL), Caterpillar (CAT), Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Amgen Inc (AMGN), Harley-Davidson (HOG), Honeywell Intl (HON)
 Before the bell: Making it three in a row? Futures point to a higher open
Amgen Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) said on Thursday that fourth-quarter profit edged higher. The cost cut measure the world’s largest biotechnology company by sales has taken helped it post a quarterly net profit of $835 million, or 76 cents per share, compared with a profit of $833 million, or 71 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding items, Amgen earned $1.00 per share, topping analysts’ average expectations by 3 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates. More importantly, though was Amgen’s sales of the red blood cell booster Aranesp — seen as its most important product — which easily beat analysts expectation. Shares are up almost 3.5% in premarket trading.
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) had just reported, saying its fourth-quarter earnings rose 11% to $975 million, or $1.50 per share on strong international growth, which offset weakness in the domestic market. Revenue rose 10% to $12.14 billion. Analysts were expecting a profit of $1.50 per share on revenue of $11.79 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial. Revenue outlook for 2008 was slightly below expectations. Stock is up 0.77% in premarket trading.
Honywell Internationl Inc. (NYSE: HON), also reported late Thursday, saying that fourth-quarter net income rose 18% to $689 million, or 91 cents per share, inline with analyst estimates. All its four business segments experienced growth. Fourth-quarter sales were up 12% to $9.3 billion. HON shares are up 1.4% in premarket trading.
Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) inched past Wall Street’s estimates Thursday. Sun’s net income leaped 95%, rising to $260 million, or 31 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 30. That was a penny higher than the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Sales inched up from last year’s $2.57 billion to $3.61 billion this quarter, slightly higher than the $3.59 billion Wall Street was expecting. While content with the results, investors still worry about the competition and the server and software maker’s ability to prosper. Shares were up 1.43% in premarket trading.
Harley Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG) said Friday its fourth-quarter profit tumbled 26.3% to $186.1 million, or 78 cents per share,due to slumping U.S. motorcycle sales amid a weakening economy. Revenue dropped 7.7% to $1.39 billion. Analysts had expected a profit of 82 cents per share on revenue of $1.34 billion.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares seem to be in a recovery mood finally, indicating up 1.6% in premarket trading to $137.77. The new MacBook Air remains the talk of the town (or the blogosphere), this time Engadget. Engadget tested several Apple machines and found that MacBook Air is the slowest Apple machine on the block.
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Posted by: in Politics News
murdocj writes “You can take off those tinfoil hats, because the recount results of the NH Primary are in, and the hand count matches the machine count. Everyone can now move on to the conspiracy around the Texas flying saucer. In fact, only 40% of the vote was recounted (that’s all that Dennis Kucinich was willing to pay for), but that 40% shows that the machine and hand counts match up nicely. As was pointed out when this ’story’ broke, areas that have machine counting tend to have different demographics than hand-counted areas, and thus a difference in voting patterns.”
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Posted by: admin in Today News
Open-source housing for those in need - CNET News.com
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Posted by: in Politics News
As_I_Please alerts us to the fact that a 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in DoS attacks against various Estonian political and governmental websites last May. The situation was notable because it escalated tensions between Estonia and Russia when the latter was accused of initiating the ‘cyber-attack’. Quoting: “The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations.”
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Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically altered mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired: “Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists state would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years.”
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