Record Profits for Tottenham Hotspurs

logo: totalfootball.ru

English Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur posted a record full-year pretax profit, boosted by a player trading profit of 56.5 million pounds ($94.13 million). Tottenham registered record pre-tax profits of £33.4million in the year ending June 30, 2009. The figure was up from £3million on the same period last year, and was built on profits from player sales of £56.5million, with the likes of Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane leaving the club in that time, although the latter re-signed in January. However, profit from operations excluding player trading and before restructuring and depreciation charges fell 31 percent to 24.1 million pounds. Spurs finished in eighth place in the Premier League in the 2008/09 season and reached the final of the Carling Cup. They currently stand fourth in the Premier League's 2009/10 season. "We have made significant progress in delivering on our long-term vision for the club," says Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy said in a statement on www.tottenhamhotspur.com. "We have always had three key priorities and you will have heard them oft repeated - investment in the first team, a new training centre and an increased capacity state-of the-art new stadium.
"We have assembled what we believe to be one of the most talented squads we have had during our time in the Premier League, the ground is being turned and pitches laid for the new training centre at Bulls Cross in Enfield and we have submitted a planning application for a stunning new stadium on a site next to our existing stadium," he says.

EMI wins suit against Bluebeat.com

In this early month, the recording company EMI angry to the one US song download website named Bluebeat.com, comforcing the website to stop selling Beatles songs without permission. Via their lawyer, EMI sued Bluebeat.com that provided the legend band The Beatles download services only 25 cents. According to TG Daily on Saturday November 11 2009, EMI said that Bluebeat.com have no authority to sale The Beatles songs and contents. Meanwhile Bluebeat.com lawyer claimed that they website not offered original songs from The Beatles but only “psychoacoustic simulations' material. Bluebeat.com lawyer mentioned that ‘psychoacoustic simulations' is a new technique to produce song likes the original version, but only in specific things, including copyrights protection. "It appears BlueBeat is arguing that they are substantially altering The Beatles material, but if the copyrighted material is the source, you are still in violation of copyright," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. That's the perspective under U.S. copyright law. But in other parts of the world copyright law is not as strict. Enderle pointed to a case in Eastern Europe involving a Harry Potter book that was rewritten using different characters. In court, the defendant's case held up because the book was substantially altered. But in the end, Judge John Walker in Los Angeles District Court ordered that Bluebeat.com to stopped sale of song singing by EMI artists. EMI won an injunction against BlueBeat.com.

AIDA - Affective Intelligent Driving Agent

photo: today-reviews.com

Slowly but sure, vehicle goes to the future when driver almost doesn’t need it anymore. Some technologies in big number will used to controlled vehicle and in the end directed to controlled vehicle without driver to destination. At this time, application of the technology was in level to known driver when feel tired. The AIDA project (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent), a collaboration between Volkswagen of America and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SENSEable City Lab and Personal Robots Group of Media Lab), is a platform comprising of a personal robot and an intelligent navigation system that aims to bring an innovative driving experience. We envision a navigation system that mimics the friendly expertise of a driving companion who is familiar with both the driver and the city. Instead of focusing solely on determining routes to a specified waypoint, our system utilizes analysis of driver behavior in order to identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve.
“With the ubiquity of sensors and mobile computers, information about our surroundings is ever abundant. AIDA embodies a new effort to make sense of these great amounts of data, harnessing our personal electronic devices as tools for behavioral support,” comments professor Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab. “In developing AIDA we asked ourselves how we could design a system that would offer the same kind of guidance as an informed and friendly companion.”
To identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve, AIDA analyses the driver’s mobility patterns, keeping track of common routes and destinations. AIDA draws on an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating real-time event information and knowledge of environmental conditions, as well as commercial activity, tourist attractions, and residential areas. Someday car will be like Knight Raider (television serial in 80s starring by David Hasselhoff), we can talk with robot during our journey.
“When it merges knowledge about the city with an understanding of the driver’s priorities and needs, AIDA can make important inferences,” explains Assaf Biderman, associate director of the SENSEable City Lab. “Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location. Soon afterwards the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas," says Biderman. “AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior.”

Oasis of the Sea

photo:dailymail.co.uk

The biggest cruiser in this century, The Oasis of The Sea, five times bigger than Titanic, will begin sailing on Sunday (November 1st, 2009) from Denmark to New York. This luxurious floating hotel has 2,700 rooms, encompass 220,000 gross tons and carry 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crews. It’s fantastic. This ship owned by Royal Caribbean International and built by STX Finland took six years and cost US$ 1.5 billion. This ship have small golf field, ice arena, open air theater with more 750 seats. Also have indoor theater with loaded capacity till 1,300 seats. It measures a staggering 16 decks high, or 65 meter (213 feet) above the waterline, and measures 1,180ft long and 154 ft wide.

Ship Highlights
7 distinctly designed neighborhoods including:
Vitality at Sea Spa and Fitness
solo and couple massage suites
youth spa
complete hair and makeup services
158 state-of-the-art cardio and resistance machines
pilates, kickboxing, yoga and spinning classes
Vitality Café
Pool and Sports Zone
H2O Zone aqua park for kids
4 pools and 10 whirlpools
tranquil poolside Solarium area
2 Flowriders®, sports courts, mini-golf and Zip line
Solarium Bistro, Wipe Out Café and Bar
Entertainment Place
Casino Royale
Studio B, featuring ice shows
Opal Theater - 1,380-seat venue
Blaze Nightclub, Jazz on 4, Comedy Live
Dazzles, featuring musical spectacles ranging from big band to disco
Youth Zone
Play - open gym and activity area
Adventure Ocean Theater and Science Lab
The Workshop - includes activities such as jewelry making & scrapbooking
Royal Babies & Royal Tots - nursery service
Teen Areas including Fuel disco, The Living Room lounge, the Back Deck and more

ITRI paper-thin flexible loudspeaker won Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards

photo: allproducts.com

The Wall Street Journal announced the winners of its 2009 global Technology Innovation Awards on September 14. Taiwan’s ITRI, which paper-thin flexible loudspeaker (fleXpeaker) technology project was supported by Ministry of Economic Affairs, won in the consumer-electronics category. ITRI stood out from over 500 first rate competitors across the world, beating internationally-reputed conglomerates including HP, Livescribe, Motorola, etc. and carried back the grand award.

This is the first time Taiwan’s technology won recognition in research and development from the Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal points out “Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, or ITRI, won in the consumer-electronics category for its work developing a paper-thin, flexible speaker. Researchers at ITRI, devised a way to create arrays of tiny speaker that can be combined to produce high-fidelity speaker systems of almost any size. Because the FleXpeaker is lightweight and consumes little power, it could be attractive for use in cellphones or in car sound systems. Other possible applications include giant banners that could be used to deliver public-service announcements in train stations or advertising messages in shopping malls. ITRI is seeking to license the technology or create a spinoff company to commercialize the product.”

The Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards has all along been highly acclaimed internationally. Since its commencement in 2001, this year is its 9th annual award and there have been numerous competitors every year. At this annual award, 16 judges came from various nations from across the world including reputed research institutes of various fields, joint venture companies and experts and scholars of reputed enterprises. The award not only stresses innovation of technology itself, but also application and commercialization and market potential which are indices of extreme importance for the examination board. Like the low-price automobile of India’s Tata Motors selected by Wall Street Journal and widely acclaimed on the market 2 years later after its debut.

ITRI President Dr. Johnsee Lee says, “ITRI commenced with R&D of the paper-thin flexible loudspeaker in 2006 through the team led by General Director Dr. Yi-Jen Chan in Electronic & Optoelectronic Research Laboratories. Presently, ITRI has applied for 45 global patents for its 17 projects. Applications for this technology are rather extensive and with enormous industry potential. Aside from currently using in family stereo automobile hi-fi equipment, it can also be used in earphone or for industrial anti-noise purpose. The papers of this technology have been published at the largest display exhibition in the world—the US Display Consortium (USDC), the Society For Information Display (SID), and also adopted by the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America in 2009.”

The paper-thin flexible loudspeaker utilized paper and metal layer as the material and printing for production. It will pioneer a new era in speakers and the electronic sound industry. Aside from upgrading traditional speaker industry, it can be extended to the revolutionary Memo card, thin-sheet MP3 innovative applications, and can be integrated into energy-saving buildings, electric vehicle, entertainment and medical application. Coupled with the needs of humanized, mobilized and personalized for daily living, it will also bring along with new type of technology products. In recent years, ITRI has successively been affirmed internationally for its innovative R&D and application capability.

The Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards is the third international award won by ITRI in 2009. Earlier this year, ITRI also won the R&D 100 awards for its high safety STOBA lithium battery. The innovative material STOBA can effectively enhance the safety of the lithium battery and massively reduced of the explosion rate of lithium battery. It is the only technology in the world which fundamentally resolved safety of the lithium battery from the material end. Furthermore, this year’s international industrial design award—the Red Dot Best Design Award was also won by the innovative application Portable Broadcast developed from the paper-thin flexible loudspeaker (refer to the attached photo). Now the same technology has won the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards.

source: itri.org.tw

Flexspeaker

photo: xataka.com

Thin speakers seem to be a focus of development this year with Warwick University already unveiling their ultra-thin, flexible speakers called Flat, Flexible Loudspeaker (FFL). Now researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan have created a speaker inside a sheet of paper they are calling Flexspeaker.
ITRI are already well into development of flexible display technology, but they have also turned their attention to ultra-thin speakers that are easy and cheap to produce at any scale. The speaker is made by layering thin electrodes and a prepolarized diaphragm between two thin sheets of paper. Their technology allows a speaker to look and act just like a piece of paper. You can flex, roll, and even fold the sheet and it will still work as a speaker. ITRI already have plans to use the speakers in new cars and to show-off how easily they can scale these devices a three-storey banner will be hung up at a Taipei show next year producing audio for all to hear. The one shortfall is the frequencies of sound it can handle meaning a subwoofer is required to achieve lower frequencies.
At the moment a special adapter is required to plug a music player into the speaker, but ITRI are creating a way for an MP3 player to just clip on to the poster and a wireless solution is also in development. ITRI hope that they can get their speakers inside movie posters, but also see them as a great solution for installing inside LCD displays. The initial goal is for 8.5-inch by 11-inch sheets that cost about $20, but the hope is to produce whole rolls of the stuff in the not too distant future, which will then be liberally applied to the exteriors of movie theaters, the interiors of automobiles, and the sides of the thinnest of thin-panel TVs. An effective range of 500Hz to 20KHz leaves an awful lot of lower frequencies lacking, but perhaps someone will invent a paper subwoofer one of these days. Manufacturing will eventually be done by producing the speakers on a roll therefore lowering the costs even further.

Icelanders Queue for Last Big Mac

photo: punny.org

Thousands of Icelanders lined up at McDonald's restaurants to order their last Big Macs before the US fast-food chain abandons the crisis-hit island at midnight on Saturday due to soaring costs. The world's largest fast-food company said earlier this week that all three of its restaurants in Iceland , operated by franchisee Jon Ogmundsson, would shut down October 31.
The outlets have been packed since the announcement, with lines at one restaurant on the east side of the city backing up out the door and onto the street. At lunchtime on Friday the outlet's parking lot was full and staff inside were working furiously to keep up with the soaring demand.
"It's my last chance for a while to have a real Big Mac," Siggi, a 28-year old salesman waiting in line, told Reuters.
"With the economy as it is, I won't be travelling abroad any time soon," he added. "It's not that I'm a big fan of McDonald's, but a Big Mac now and then adds to variety."
Ogmundsson, who will continue running the restaurants under a different name after taking down the golden arches, said he had even run out of Big Macs for a few hours on Thursday.
"Sales have not just gone up," Ogmundsson was quoted saying in the local media. "It's gone turbo."
Ogmundsson said he managed to catch up with the surge in demand and had been selling about 10,000 burgers a day - more than ever before. Iceland has been reeling from the effects of the financial crisis since October 2008, when its banks collapsed in the space of a week under the weight of billions of dollars in debt. The fall of the banks sapped confidence in Iceland's economy and sent its currency, the crown, into freefall.
McDonald's said the crown's weakness was part of the reason for its withdrawal, along with the high cost of importing food from abroad. McDonald's said it would not seek to come back to Iceland. In a nearby stationary store, Thora Sigurdardottir, a 35-year old nursing assistant, said she had no intention of going for a final McDonald's meal.
"Good riddance," she said.