Filed under: Products and services, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) wants to have about 10% of its dealerships in the U.S. become known as environmentally friendly within about three years, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal.

Seeing as Toyota just sold its one millionth hybrid Prius this month, the automaker appears to be taking the lead in getting green autos to the consumers who are now feverishly clamoring for them. In other words, $4 gas is not sitting well with many Americans.

But Toyota isn’t just speaking vehicle sales when it notifies the market that it wants “green” dealerships. The automaker has its own prototype store designs that include geothermal heating systems and recycled vehicle wash water that set it apart in terms of overall operation while it sells those Corollas and hybrid Priuses.

This is the wave of the future — provide a green dealership to service customers in an energy-efficient way while they purchase that 40 MPG hybrid car from you. Save money and energy from the sale process, in addition to providing an efficient mode of transportation to the customer. Sounds like a win-win on both sides, and Toyota seems to concur. See what the automaker has to state below.

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ScienceDaily is reporting that the self-healing materials are being used in some new aircraft designs. We covered several self-healing systems in the past months, but it is nice to see it starting to find practical applications. “This simple but ingenious technique, similar to the bruising and bleeding/healing processes we see after we cut ourselves, has been developed by aerospace engineers at Bristol University, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It has potential to be applied wherever fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are used. These lightweight, high-performance materials are proving increasingly popular not only in aircraft but also in car, wind turbine and even spacecraft manufacture. The new self-repair system could therefore have an impact in all these fields.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fallen Andy noted a Physorg story that states “Engineers and applied physicists from Harvard University have demonstrated the first room-temperature electrically-pumped semiconductor source of coherent Terahertz (THz) radiation, also known as T-rays. The breakthrough in laser technology, based upon commercially available nanotechnology, has the potential to become a standard Terahertz source to support applications ranging from security screening to chemical sensing.” What did you do at the office this day honey? Oh, I just demonstrated the first room-temperature electrically-pumped semiconductor source of coherent Terahertz radiation. How was your day dear?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Market matters, Lowe’s Cos (LOW), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Economic data, Housing

Stock futures were mixed early Friday morning with the Nasdaq futures higher, given a boost by a new deal being discussed between Microsoft and Yahoo! Blue chip stock futures were lower after a new forecast the economy will weaken further and unemployment will rise.

U.S. stocks ended Friday little changed after consumer confidence data disappointed Wall Street again and high oil prices dampened the mood. For the week, though all the major indexes posted gains. The Dow industrials rose 1.9% for the week despite being down 0.05% Friday, the S&P 500 rose 2.7% for the week, helped by a 0.13% rise Friday, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.4%, including a 0.19% decline Friday.

At 10:00 a.m. EDT, April leading indicators, a lagging broad, general, indicator of economic activity, is expected to show minimal increase.
However, a survey was released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics giving their collective outlook on the U.S. economy. While, according to the survey economists believe the worst of the housing slump and the credit crunch might come to an end this year, a majority of economists now believe the economy is in a recession or on the brink of a recession and therefore they forecast further weakening of the economy and unemployment to continue to rise.

Once again this morning investors’ attention will turn to Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) as the former is once again trying to team up with the latter to challenge World wide web search and advertising leader Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). While the companies haven’t disclosed any specifics, it appears that at this point the renewed speaks don’t include another attempt to take over Yahoo. YHOO shares are up marginally in premarket trading.

Still in deal news, the Wall Street Journal reported that after failing to get the support of a majority of the company’s shareholders for a deal and after the previous deadline has expired Friday, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) is apt to again extend the deadline for its hostile tender offer to acquire Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ: TTWO).

Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) shares are down over 3% in premarket trading after the home improvement retailer said its profit fell 17.9% and sales fell 8.4% as it faces a challenging sales environment amid a national housing slump. Lowe’s 41 cents earnings per share is actually about the 40 cents estimated by analysts.

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Filed under: Products and services, Apple Inc (AAPL)

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), the world’s most iconic brand that just can’t do wrong at the moment, opened its largest retail store recently in Boston. What’s astounding is that it was conceived eight years ago, before the iPod even existed and before Apple made its march back into the limelight as the premier maker of portable consumer electronics.

The store, originally planned to be a single story, now has a three-story layout, with the first floor displaying the Mac laptops and desktops which are the company’s bread and butter. Make no mistake: the iPod’s halo effect that so many journalists have written about for years now is causing Mac sales to soar.

Add the iPhone into the mix and Mac sales are being pumped up even more. Just what Apple CEO Steve Jobs wanted, and it’s happening. The new Boston location, arguably Apple’s flagship retail store, can accommodate up to 1,000 customers per day. It’s a green store too, with vegetation growing on the roof and a rainwater recycling system to boot. Yes, Apple’s New York City store might be more architecturally innovative, but it doesn’t have the size of the new Boston location. And, Apple won’t have a problem keeping the new location filled with eager customers.

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Filed under: Products and services, McDonald’s (MCD)

McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) chief executive cry baby Jim Skinner told attendees at the National Restaurant Association’s annual convention that the increasing popularity of state regulations requiring fast food chains to disclose calories counts are “redundant and flawed” and referred to the activists pushing for these measures as “CAVE people - Citizens Against Virtually Everything.”

With all due respect to Mr. Skinner, he couldn’t be more wrong or disingenuous.

Posting calorie counts on menus will give consumers greater and more convenient to nutritional information than they’ve ever had before. The reason McDonald’s opposes these laws is that they know that if people knew what they were eating, many would eat less and save some of the money for the respirator.

The fact that Mr. Skinner is so worried about these laws that cities including New York have adopted demonstrates that they aren’t redundant. If they were, there would be nothing to worry about!

It’s a shame when the CEO of one of America’s largest companies takes a stand against providing consumers with more information in a more convenient format.

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bfwebster writes “A story in the New York Times reports that Japan, a country that rebuilt itself as a technological power after World War II, now faces an increasing shortage of college graduates with degrees in science and engineering. Says the article: ‘By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here’s already short nearly half a million engineers.’ The article goes on to point out that the overall trend of waning interest in science and technology has been going on for ‘almost two decades’ and that the shortage is made worse by the traditional reluctance of Japanese companies to hire and use foreign workers. The US has had a similar trend for quite some time: ‘Undergraduate engineering enrollment declined through most of the 1980s and 1990s, rose from 2000 through 2003, and declined slightly in recent years.’”

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