Hybrid cars safer ? and more dangerous

Hybrid cars: Occupants have fewer injuries in crashes than passengers in conventional cars, new study says. But hybrid cars cause more pedestrian accidents.

Hybrid?cars?are safer ? or more dangerous ? depending on whether you are behind the wheel or walking across a street, according to a study released Thursday.

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Occupants in?hybrid?vehicles suffer fewer injuries in crashes than those who are involved in accidents in conventional?cars, said the Highway Loss Data Institute, an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

But the same study also found that?hybrids, which tend to be quieter ? cause more pedestrian accidents than their nonhybrid counterparts.

The findings were unveiled as automakers rolled out dozens of new?hybrids?at the L.A. Auto Show, which opens to the public Friday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

BMW showcased its i8 plug-in?hybrid?and i3 all-electric concept?cars?designed to combine the efficiency of a commuter with the exhilaration of a sports?car. The i3 will have the distinction of being the first premium electric vehicle to come to market in 2013.

The i8 plug-in?hybrid, scheduled to follow one year later, can travel about 20 miles on electric power alone. Together, the engine and motor can reach a top speed of 155 miles per hour and make 390 horsepower. BMW anticipates that the?car?will get 78 miles per gallon.

The i3, also wrapped in lightweight carbon fiber, will be able to travel up to 100 miles on a charge and reach top speeds of 93 miles per hour.

Volvo also said it plans to add a diesel-electric?hybrid?to its lineup. Further details on its four-cylinder and diesel-electric plans will be announced at the North American International Auto Show in January in Detroit.

The study by the highway safety research group suggests that the weight of?hybrids?contributed to the 27 percent decrease in bodily injuries for those riding in the vehicles.

Batteries and other components add to the curb weight of?hybrid?cars, making them heavier than the gas-only version of the same?car.

A?hybrid?Honda Accord sedan can weigh 480 pounds more than a conventional Accord. Larger vehicles absorb impacts better than smaller ones, the study said.

At the L.A. Auto Show, automakers said that driver behavior might play a bigger role in crashes and injuries.

"The (hybrid) driver is typically not as aggressive," said David Lee, a Toyota representative who specializes in knowledge of the Prius models.

"Because they are more concerned about maximizing fuel economy and making sure that they are getting every mile out of the gallon," said Joseph Telmo, a Toyota representative who works directly with the Camry brand.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/4zn15TfhiK8/Hybrid-cars-safer-and-more-dangerous

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Engadget Distro Issue 13 takes on Stephen Elop, the Kindle Fire and Lenovo's Ultrabook

This week's issue of everyone's favorite weekly magazine (we checked, it's legit), Engadget Distro, brings with it our very first Q&A, and what better subject to start things off than Mr. Stephen Elop? Sitting down with our own man in charge, Nokia's CEO gets candid about leading the outfit's restructuring, Lumia's launch on American soil and the death of MeeGo. As if he wasn't busy enough trotting the globe to meet with international businessmen, Tim also took time out of his busy schedule to bring you his review of both the Kindle Fire and the Galaxy Tab 8.9. We've also got our review of the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Lenovo's take on the Ultrabook, the IdeaPad U300s, another installment of In Real Life and Ross Rubin take on the tablet wars. So don't just sit there, get to downloading!

Continue reading Engadget Distro Issue 13 takes on Stephen Elop, the Kindle Fire and Lenovo's Ultrabook

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House hearing scheduled for insider trading bill (reuters)

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When banks buy insurance for you... Watch out! | MyFDL

By Douglas Heller

Does your bank charge you extra on your monthly car or mortgage loan payments for insurance that the bank bought? Do you even know if it?s happening?

Most people insure their homes and cars, but banks sometimes buy an additional policy without asking the owner, adding the costs to the monthly car or home loan payment.

Sometimes the charge is legit, and sometimes it?s not. Homeowners in or near flood zones may be especially at risk of having overpriced and unnecessary insurance policies forced on them. Homeowners who pay their own insurance through an escrow account directly to the bank may also be at extra risk.

If your monthly car or home payment was increased by the bank for excess property insurance, read on.

And if what?s described below happened to you, we?d like to hear from you at our consumer complaints page.

In theory, lenders only purchase insurance on your property if you fail to buy any or enough coverage for the home or car or if your insurance lapses for some reason. And, in theory, it?s a reasonable enough action to guard the value of properties for which banks make loans. In practice, however, it can be a scam of outrageous proportions (as consumer columnist Dave Lieber recently wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

We?ve seen some complaints recently, for example, about people with SunTrust Bank mortgages who are forced to pay for excess coverage, including flood insurance they don?t need.

Here?s how it works:

Mortgage lenders and banks require that homeowners and drivers carry insurance for their home or car in order to get a loan, so if there?s damage to the property, the insurance will cover the cost of repair or replacement. If your insurance on the property lapses or is determined to be insufficient, the bank can go out and buy insurance for the property and charge it to you through your loan, without asking your permission. This is called ?force-placed? insurance. The bank has a right to do this but some banks are going too far.

We?ve heard about schemes in which lenders buy very expensive and excessive insurance on a homeowner?s property and then charge it to the customer. The bank sometimes gets a kickback from the insurer for placing the coverage. What takes the practice to rip-off level is that the coverage is often superfluous because the homeowner already has enough insurance.

A typical scenario involves a family living in or near a flood zone. They have a homeowners policy with a major insurance company, and a separate National Flood Insurance Program flood policy. Then, out of the blue, the family gets a notice from the mortgage company that they need to buy more insurance. Next, before anyone at the bank has managed to explain why the increase is necessary, they?ll see a large increase in their monthly mortgage payment for additional ? and unnecessary ? homeowners insurance and more flood insurance.

In some cases, the bank-ordered insurance is backdated, so the homeowner or driver must pay for flood insurance or, in another scenario, hurricane coverage for several prior months even though there were no floods or hurricanes during those months.

Customers who make their insurance payments through an escrow account controlled by the bank may fall victim to another trick. The bank misses a payment to your insurance company, and your insurance is cancelled. Then the bank goes out to its own insurer and ?force places? you into that much more expensive policy.

Insurance companies and banks both benefit from this scam.

Insurance companies win because they sell these policies at very high premiums. My colleague at the Center for Economic Justice, Birny Birnbaum, told a Congressional Committee (pdf) this summer that insurers sold about $5.5 billion worth of force-placed insurance in 2010 almost quadrupling what was sold in 2004. They often are providing coverage that is totally unnecessary, and for which they?ll never have to pay a claim because the original coverage was sufficient. It?s like getting paid to mow the lawn of someone who lives in an apartment.

Banks win because the force placed insurance often comes with a kickback from these expensive insurers, many of which are considered ?non-standard? based overseas or otherwise less regulated than mainstream insurers. Sometimes, we believe, the banks win not by getting kickbacks but by force placing overpriced insurance with their own affiliate insurance companies.

Customers lose because they are buying coverage that they don?t need at a premium that is excessive, even if they did need it.

If, after reading all this, you think you?ve been charged for home or auto insurance you don?t need and shouldn?t have to pay for, please contact us at our complaint page or send us an email at complaints@consumerwatchdog.org.

Source: http://my.firedoglake.com/consumerwatchdog/2011/11/17/when-banks-buy-insurance-for-you-watch-out/

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Apple’s iTunes Match Legitimizes Music Piracy—Because Piracy No Longer Matters

I still remember plugging a friend?s first-gen iPod into my Mac, eager to download his entire music collection to my computer. The guy had all these albums I wanted; we both saw that an iPod was really just a mobile hard drive with buttons. Copying all this music would be a cinch.

But I couldn?t. As we and many other early adopters found out, Apple had blocked iPod owners from dragging and dropping music from a friend?s iPod onto your computer, so there was no apparent way to move his 5 GB of music onto my desktop. Apple knew how all of us would try to use the iPod, and tacitly responded: "We know that we could make stealing music easy for you, but we won?t."

I bought an iPod a few days later. Then I, and many others, found another way to get music for free.

Fast-forward 10 years to the present, and, despite the hand-wringing of the record industry over piracy, people actually pay for music again. Digital music will be a respectable $6.3 billion market this year, a market that owes much of its success to the runaway success of Apple?s iTunes store and its ability to convince people to buy music online. Yet, with iTunes Match?a new feature in the newest version of iTunes, released this week?Apple seems to be turning its back on the legal electronic music industry that it helped to build.

What gives?

How iTunes Match Works

First, you flip a switch in iTunes and your iPhone. Then the software pairs up your personal library with that of the iTunes Store in the cloud, from where it will stream every song on your device. ITunes Match syncs everything, whether you downloaded it from iTunes, Amazon, or even an unscrupulous torrent. If you have tracks that Apple doesn?t carry, they will be automatically uploaded to the cloud so you can stream them at will.

It costs $25 a year, and for that price Apple essentially will legitimize any pirated music up to a huge limit of 25,000 tracks. In that sense, it?s the MP3 equivalent of money laundering.

At first glance, Match takes the exact opposite approach of the two newest buzzed-about streaming services, Spotify and Rdio. Both offer all-you-can-eat mobile music for about $10 per month. (On PCs, the streaming is free.) While that means you can listen to almost anything, you own nothing. So neither Spotify nor Rdio is fundamentally different from Zune Pass or Rhapsody, beyond a bit more social-network integration. They?re both just a prelicensed music subscription. But then again, neither Spotify nor Rdio is really that different from iTunes Match.

Ultimately, all of these services, even Apple?s clandestine-seeming Match, offer users the same benefits and limitations: Stream whatever you want! But if you aren?t buying a subscription, you get no streaming music. I might not own the Rolling Stones? Hot Rocks, but I can stream it with a subscription on Spotify, much the way I can "pirate" it and stream it with a subscription on Match. One option makes me feel like I?m dodging the RIAA in bullet time, but other than that, I?m still listening to the same rendition of Gimme Shelter on repeat.

ITunes Match just feels different, especially with the option to upload stolen music and have Apple stream it back to you anywhere in the world. It?s like Hertz saying you can hotwire any car on the lot and they won?t press charges, so long as you sign that rental agreement.

Selling Pirates Their Plunder

And that?s the brilliance. Yes, on the surface Match is just a streaming service that competes with the other streaming services. But it means that, just as Apple was the first to successfully sell digital music to the mainstream, it?ll be the first to penetrate what the RIAA calls a $12.5 billion piracy market. Charging just $25 a year, Apple won?t exactly be raking in profit on songs that you stole?its take would be a fraction of what the company makes selling you a 99-cent iTunes Store song that you then "own." But fundamentally, it means Apple is going to sell pirates their own plunder.

If nothing else, Match is a symbol of the major music-mentality shift. No one will be buying hundreds of albums anymore, but we?ll definitely rent them on an ongoing basis. And if the music industry has convinced us all to rent rather than own, does it even need to bother with piracy worries? Ten years after Apple tried every means to forbid me from moving tracks from a friend?s iPod to my Mac, iTunes Match is letting pirates back into the fold, and it even allows me to split my Match account with friends if I decide to share my Apple ID.

Maybe times have changed that much. Or maybe I?ve just forgotten what it?s like to be a rebel.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/apples-itunes-match-legitimizes-music-piracy-because-piracy-no-longer-matters-6562084?src=rss

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China spacecraft returns to Earth after docking test (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? An unmanned Chinese spacecraft returned to Earth successfully on Thursday after more than two weeks in orbit, marking a pivotal moment for the rising power's plans to secure a long-term manned foothold in space.

The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft touched down in northern China's Inner Mongolia region after a fiery return to Earth, a live broadcast on Chinese television showed.

The spacecraft's return is the latest show of China's growing prowess in space, alongside its growing military and diplomatic influence, at a time when budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.

The spacecraft was part of China's first docking exercise on November 3, when it joined the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1 module about 340 km (210 miles) above Earth.

The unmanned Tiangong module, which is 10.5 meters (35 feet) long, launched on September 29, is part of China's exploratory preparations for a space lab.

China aims to have a fully fledged space station by about 2020.

However, it is still far from catching up with the established space superpowers: the United States and Russia.

Russia, the United States and other countries jointly operate the 400-tonne International Space Station, to which China does not belong.

But the United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017, and Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority.

China launched its first manned space mission in 2003 when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited Earth 14 times. It launched its second moon orbiter last year after becoming only the third country to send its astronauts walking in space outside their orbiting craft, in 2008.

China also plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover in 2012. Scientists have raised the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by robert Birsel)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111117/sc_nm/us_china_space

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Princess Nancy, tutti-frutti Michele and Anita Hill: Does Cain have a woman problem? (Star Tribune)

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