Scientific and technological breakthroughs can take years to develop, but when they leave the lab and enter the world at large, word spreads quickly. Here’s a look at the advances you’ll be hearing about in the coming year.
The $33K 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid
Dan Nell takes a drive in the new Toyota Camry Hybrid:
Like a Trojan horse, Camry sneaks gas-saving radicalism into a trusted American staple.
By certain lights, the 2007 Camry Hybrid is not particularly revolutionary. Here we have a nicely equipped, 3,637-pound, five-passenger sedan with 192 horsepower, costing about $30,000 (final pricing has yet to be confirmed). Styling reminds me of the old Merle Travis song: So round, so firm, so fully packed. The ride and handling are straight-up Pink Floyd: comfortably numb.
Search Firms Surveyed on Privacy
Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills:
To find out what kind of information the four major search companies retain about their users, CNET News.com surveyed America Online, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
We asked the same seven questions of each company. Their answers are reproduced below, with the responses sorted by the companies’ names in alphabetical order.
L’Ensemble Portique Performs Next Friday Evening
February 10, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Trinity Lutheran Church
1904 Winnebago Street, Madison, WI
They kindly offer some mp3’s here, along with the opportunity to purchase some cd’s.
The Last Telegram
AP:
For more than 150 years, messages of joy, sorrow and success came in signature yellow envelopes hand delivered by a courier. Now the Western Union telegram is officially a thing of the past.
Small Dairyman Shakes Up Milk Industry
The milk fight, which is being watched in the industry from coast to coast, started because Mr. Hettinga runs a rare hybrid operation. Most dairy businesses either only produce milk, or only process it. He does both. As a result, he falls into a protected class that isn’t bound by an arcane system of Depression-era federal rules. Under it, milk processors selling into specific geographical areas, which cover most of the country, must all pay into that area’s pool for subsidizing milk prices. But so-called producer-distributors have always been exempt.
The Role of Civil Disobedience Today
Students examine civil disobedience’s history and explore whether it is a viable form of protest in today’s world
The End of the Internet?
The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Fed’s Bies Warns on Mortgage & Real Estate Lending
Regulators are concerned about heavy commercial real estate exposures and risky mortgage lending practices at U.S. banks, Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Bies said on Thursday.
“There are certain rapidly growing business lines in banking operations that are placing pressures on risk-management systems,” Bies told a financial services industry conference as she outlined guidance regulators have issued on commercial real estate and so-called nontraditional mortgage lending.
In discussing the guidance on exotic mortgage products, such as interest-only loans, Bies repeated that government regulators were concerned risk-management practices had not kept pace with the risks that these widely available loan products could present.
Interview with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly
In the first installment of our new segment “Conversations from the Corner Office,” Kai talks with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly about building a corporate culture, and why the customer isn’t necessarily always right.
Southwest continues to have a market cap greater than all of the other airlines, combined. Perhaps, one day, they will serve Madison.