Daily Archives: February 16, 2012


My first piece for Motor Trend!

My first piece for Motor Trend!

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iOnRoad: Collision Alerts? There's an App for That – Motor Trend
The iOnRoad app — it's called an augmented reality app, not a safety system — is designed to provide alerts that enable drivers to focus on operating the car safely. Read on to learn more on the iOn…

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Venture capital investing is never for the faint of heart, it's often really… 6

Venture capital investing is never for the faint of heart, it's often really more about gambling than actual investing, especially for early rounds.

The risks inherent in this sort of investing in the technology field are multiplied by several orders of magnitude when you are getting mixed up with a startup in the auto industry.

Building cars in any significant volume is one of most capital intensive business in the world. And that's after you've spent hundreds of millions of dollars just to develop a product.

One of the standard bits of boiler plate in any investment prospective is something to the effect that "past performance is no guarantee of future success."

In the car business it should probably be something along the lines of "past performance of other automakers means that this venture will more than likely fail." Thousands of auto brands have come and gone over the last 125 years, and anyone putting money into a startup with big performance promises based on amazing new technology should probably be prepared up front to say goodbye to their cash.

#venturecapital #fiskerkarma #fiskerautomotive

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Irate Investor Sues Fisker: A Little Lesson In Venture Capital
This is the week when driving impressions of the 2012 Fisker Karma have started to appear, as Fisker invites in waves of automotive journalists for a half-day of driving in and around Los Angeles. (We…

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The sign speaks for itself 2

The sign speaks for itself

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This Is The Worst School Zone Sign In History
School zones serve an obvious and important role in pedestrian safety because no one wants to hit a kid. Zone enforcement usually lasts a few hundred feet over a large chunk of time in the morning and…

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I've started working on new book/web project on freedom in technology and communications…

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

I've started working on new book/web project on freedom in technology and communications — a user's guide on how to have it, and why you need it.

I'm doing this because of my alarm at a long-running trend, capped by Apple's announcement today about its next operating system, which it will start selling in mid-2012. By naming a key feature of the new OS "Gatekeeper," Apple has done everyone a favor by being totally transparent about where it's taking its users: into a controlled environment like the iOS.

This only confirms my earlier decision that OS X 10.6.x is my last Apple operating system, which means that my current Mac laptop is my last Mac, since Apple configures new hardware to only run with its latest operating systems.

I don't want to be controlled. And I suspect there are enough other people who will be interested in knowing how they can move out of the proprietary systems (Web-based as well as personal device) orbit.

I'll be creating a new site for this project, and will post it soon.

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My friend +Alex Nunez went to the New York Toy Fair earlier this week and one of…

My friend +Alex Nunez went to the New York Toy Fair earlier this week and one of the items he stumbled across was the Soda Geyser Car. It's an evolution of the concept behind mentos and pop fountains to create a toy for kids. Just don't let them play with it indoors. It could get expensive pretty quickly too.

#cars #toys

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This is not a good sign for the Tesla Model S 6

I was one of the first handful of journalists to get to drive the Roadster back in January 2008 http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/28/abg-first-drive-hitting-the-road-in-the-tesla-roadster/

While the car was a blast to drive, it exhibited a number of flaws which in combination with the economic collapse later that year, no doubt caused to fall well short of its sales targets.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long had a contentious relationship with the media and it looks like he doesn't want to risk any bad reviews ahead of delivering cars to customers. Hopefully the Model S will live up to expectations, but I have a feeling a lot of people will be surprised at their actual out the door cost and range once they hit the streets.

#teslamotors #ev #electricvehicles

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Tesla not to let journalists test Model S before start of deliveries
Tesla Motors held its fourth quarter and full-year financial results conference call, as well as an extensive Q&A session last night with investors and journalists – revealing an aspect of the Mod…

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