Technology News
Articles 51 - 60 of most recent articles
Oil prices: Warning of 20p a litre rise for petrol
Motorists are facing further pain after a warning yesterday that the latest surge in crude oil prices to record highs could add another 20p to a litre at the pumps within weeks. The forecast, from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), came as new figures showed car sales falling in the face of high fuel prices and collapsing consumer confidence. Fuel prices set yet another record yesterday at the pumps, rising to an average of 119p for unleaded petrol and 132.4p for diesel, according to the IAM Motoring Trust, which monitors pump prices daily. Further rises are also on their way. IAM's technical director, Tim Shallcross, said the surge in oil prices in recent days to fresh records above $146 a barrel had yet to feed through to the pumps. "If crude prices stay around their current level, we could well see another 20p on a litre over the coming month," he said. Crude prices retreated by around a dollar a barrel yesterday but were still just under $145 a barrel, with many predicting they will soon push above $150. Shallcross said that petrol retailers had not passed on the full cost of the 100% rise in crude prices over the 12 months to the end of June. If they had, he said, unleaded would already be at 140p a litre on average and diesel 150p. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that car sales totalled 209,000 last month, a fall of 6.1% from May - the steepest decline so far this year. Private (non-fleet) sales suffered much worse, tumbling by 12%. "We are now seeing concerns about rising fuel bills and household costs dampening consumer confidence, leading to slower demand for new cars," said Paul Everitt, the SMMT chief executive. He said the sharp fall meant that sales which had been doing well in the spring, had moved back into line with the SMMT's forecast that sales would continue to slow and total around 2.35m cars this year. The rising price of fuel had encouraged people to change to smaller cars. "Cost pressures, environmental concerns and technological advances have ensured consumers have taken the choice of buying more efficient vehicles, and record numbers of cars are now in the lowest CO2 vehicle excise duty bands. The share of cars in the A band has increased more than tenfold in the past year," said Everitt. Band A cars, however, still account for only 0.13% of the new car market because there are so few cars available that emit less than 100g of CO2 per kilometre. The SMMT figures showed big increases in band B and C sales, but falls in bands D to G, which include cars with higher emissions. The SMMT figures showed diesel cars continued to grow in popularity in spite of the widening divergence in price between petrol and diesel. It said this was because its greater economy and lower CO2 emissions and tax bands outweighed the pump price disadvantage. Diesel cars accounted for almost 43% of the market last month. Despite environmental concerns, sales of alternatively fuelled vehicles such as the G-Wizz electric car decreased for the second successive month - down 6.7% to 1,447 vehicles.
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:09 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Motorists are facing further pain after a warning yesterday that the latest surge in crude oil prices to record highs could add another 20p to a litre at the pumps within weeks. The forecast, from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), came as new figures showed car sales falling in the face of high fuel prices and collapsing consumer confidence. Fuel prices set yet another record yesterday at the pumps, rising to an average of 119p for unleaded petrol and 132.4p for diesel, according to the IAM Motoring Trust, which monitors pump prices daily. Further rises are also on their way. IAM's technical director, Tim Shallcross, said the surge in oil prices in recent days to fresh records above $146 a barrel had yet to feed through to the pumps. "If crude prices stay around their current level, we could well see another 20p on a litre over the coming month," he said. Crude prices retreated by around a dollar a barrel yesterday but were still just under $145 a barrel, with many predicting they will soon push above $150. Shallcross said that petrol retailers had not passed on the full cost of the 100% rise in crude prices over the 12 months to the end of June. If they had, he said, unleaded would already be at 140p a litre on average and diesel 150p. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that car sales totalled 209,000 last month, a fall of 6.1% from May - the steepest decline so far this year. Private (non-fleet) sales suffered much worse, tumbling by 12%. "We are now seeing concerns about rising fuel bills and household costs dampening consumer confidence, leading to slower demand for new cars," said Paul Everitt, the SMMT chief executive. He said the sharp fall meant that sales which had been doing well in the spring, had moved back into line with the SMMT's forecast that sales would continue to slow and total around 2.35m cars this year. The rising price of fuel had encouraged people to change to smaller cars. "Cost pressures, environmental concerns and technological advances have ensured consumers have taken the choice of buying more efficient vehicles, and record numbers of cars are now in the lowest CO2 vehicle excise duty bands. The share of cars in the A band has increased more than tenfold in the past year," said Everitt. Band A cars, however, still account for only 0.13% of the new car market because there are so few cars available that emit less than 100g of CO2 per kilometre. The SMMT figures showed big increases in band B and C sales, but falls in bands D to G, which include cars with higher emissions. The SMMT figures showed diesel cars continued to grow in popularity in spite of the widening divergence in price between petrol and diesel. It said this was because its greater economy and lower CO2 emissions and tax bands outweighed the pump price disadvantage. Diesel cars accounted for almost 43% of the market last month. Despite environmental concerns, sales of alternatively fuelled vehicles such as the G-Wizz electric car decreased for the second successive month - down 6.7% to 1,447 vehicles.
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:09 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
On the road with Sam Wollaston: Ford KugaFord Kuga, Ford Kuga, sounds familiar ... Got it! Sounds a bit like Ford Cougar. Phonetically identical, in fact. That's not very imaginative; they couldn't think of a new name for their new car, so they just took an old name, of a car they used to make, and spelled it differently. What next? The Kapree? The Ford Korteena? I preferred it in the olden days when Ford just named their cars after bad magazines for chaps: Escort, Fiesta - a car that still exists, come to think of it - so why couldn't they just carry on? Ford Penthouse, Ford Asian Babes... But they didn't, and this is the Kuga, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Anyway, it's a 4x4 (Ford Big Ones?), so that's a big boo to begin with. Did no one tell them that it is no longer socially acceptable to drive a 4x4 unless you live on a Welsh hill farm? I give them the finger (4x4s, not the Welsh), which is, after all, what they are doing to our dear planet. In order to avoid hypocrisy, I had to adjust the rearview and wing mirrors, and give myself the finger throughout my test drive. Got a few funny looks. Ford would argue that the Kuga isn't totally sticking its finger up at the planet. At the moment it's available only with a two-litre turbo diesel engine, does around 44 miles to the gallon and pumps out 169g per kilometre - not brilliant, but better than other 4x4s. But what's the point of that? People will still think you're evil, they won't let you out, and they'll give you the finger. I will, anyway. It's like walking around with a sign saying "paedo" round your neck, when you're not one at all. Or only slightly a paedo. It's quite pleasant inside. My "Titanium" model has a bit of leather round the place, you can do clever things with the seats and I managed to switch on the radio simply by shouting "radio" in the direction of the dashboard (cars are becoming more like dogs, have you noticed?). To drive, the Kuga is perfectly nice. It certainly isn't exciting, but modern diesels have a bit more poke then they used to. It's crisper round the corners (hey, I'm getting into this motoring journalism!) than other 4x4s. Because I'm a proper motoring journalist (actually, because Simon the photographer asked me to), I decided to test out its off-road capabilities by driving it on to a Sussex beach. The shingle was softer than we'd anticipated, but we just made it up and down a shingly hill, and then drove it through some big puddles to celebrate. Not that it matters a jot how it behaves off-road, because none of them will ever go there. Which brings me back to my main point about this car: what, exactly, is its point? Why not get a Ford Focus with the same engine instead? You'll be going along the road a few inches lower down, but that means it's even more crisp round the corners. You will also be richer - not just because you'll have spent less on the car itself, but also because you'll be filling up less often and paying £50 less for road tax. You'll be a little less ungreen, and you'll get to wherever you're going quicker, not just because the same engine will make a lighter car go quicker, but because people might let you out. And, obviously, you won't get the finger wherever you go, which is always nice, especially if there are children in the car with you. Price £22,495 Top speed 112mph Acceleration 0-60 in 10.7 seconds Average consumption 44.1mpg CO2 emissions 169g/km Eco rating 5/10 At the wheel Gillian Taylforth Bound for Backcountry. Not. In a word Why?
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Giles Foden, Dork talk: LG 'Secret' KF750Astonishing how things can pass one by. There was I thinking that Black Label is a whisky when in fact it's a series of phones. The new LG "Secret" KF750 (free on contract, dependent on tariff: lgmobile.com, 0870 873 5454) is one of a line of LG mobiles dubbed Black Label, previously featuring the "Chocolate" and the "Shine". Ah yes, chocolate. Another bell going off there ... is it Ghirardelli's Black Label chocolate sauce, or just Black Magic misremembered? Something semiotic is going down, in any case. More or less everything about the Secret is sleek, black and sexy. Unpacking it, you feel as if you're engaging in a hotel-room tryst with a mysterious, elegantly dressed stranger. The thing is so erotically charged, it should have been called the LG Secrete. Marketing job done, then? Well, not quite. The comparators bear examination. What a fine nip is Johnny Walker Black Label - acclaimed masterpiece of blending, favourite of Winston Churchill, "at once powerful, intense and unassailably elegant" as the company's literature puts it. Experts agree. "Very few malts can match this for complexity," says Jim Murray, author of Classic Blended Scotch (1999). "This is the Savoy, the Everest, of deluxe whiskies." Ghirardelli products, meanwhile, deliver "moments of timeless pleasure", being crafted to achieve "the perfect chocolate intensity". Its website shows a woman in the throes of chocolate ecstasy: such open-mouthed, shut-eyed rapture not seen since Bernini's statue of St Theresa. The commercial language of the LG Secret borrows from chocolate, whisky and luxury goods rhetoric in general: "Boasting style that lasts, the LG Secret has been specifically developed to satisfy the refined tastes of trendsetters who desire a sophisticatedly designed, yet durable handset. Following the success of its predecessors... this third model from the LG Black Label Series is as feature rich as it is stylish." Like the pleasure induced by Ghirardelli chocolate, the Secret's features are presented as timeless: a carbon fibre and tempered glass casing ("timeless style"); a five megapixel camera and the ability to take video at 120 frames a second ("timeless memories"); multimedia functions including music, photos, games, documents and FM radio ("timeless entertainment"). Alas, there is no eBook reader function, with which time-exempt users might catch up on Latin proverbs. Like memento mori, say, or carpe diem. The LG Secret has many top specifications. But its principal innovation - the combination of a slide-out keypad with a glass touchpad - simply does not work very well. The touchpad is a sort of halogen hob (between the screen proper and the keypad), rather than a full, iPhone-style touchscreen. It seems like intermediate technology to me. This is confirmed by the constant need to use an old-fashioned metal return/action button that rises like Uluru out of the glass. The maker of the Secret is Korean-based LG Electronics which, according to its representative, has recently overtaken Sony Ericsson as the fourth biggest handset manufacturer in the world. I am sure they're all super fellows down at LG HQ (they sponsor Fulham FC), but others are not yet convinced. Technology site unwiredview.com has accused another LG phone on the horizon, the LG Dare, of being an "iPhone knock-off". Who'll dare say that when BlackBerry's touchscreen device, the BlackBerry Thunder, comes out? I couldn't possibly comment on any of this, but another semiotic bell has just tinkled. It's Carling Black Label, of course, now reduced to plain Carling for snappier cross-bar ordering. LG should be careful with whom it mixes: when Carling Black Label was first sold in Britain in 1954 (by the inestimable Carling Kuntz Ltd) and prior to that in North America, the Black Label signalled not deluxe but economy. · Stephen Fry returns later this month.
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Bobbie Johnson, Gadget clinic: Apple Mac SatNav, Freeview
I recently bought a TomTom satnav that claimed to be compatible with Apples. In reality, it's limited: I had a total crash, and the company's advice is to find someone with a PC to correct the problem. Do you know of any satnav systems that are totally compatible with Apple Macs? Many people have found they are unable to update satnav units or fix bugs because they aren't truly Mac-friendly. A year or so ago, there would have been little option but to suck it up, but you are in luck: Garmin has bought up a small company called MotionBased, which makes Apple-compatible systems - go to garmin.com/macosx for more details. I have a pre-Scart TV that I'd like to connect to a Freeview box. Is there any way of linking old and new? Older sets don't have the same connectors as new ones, but there are several easy fixes. You could buy a Freeview receiver with an in-built aerial output - Switchhelp.co.uk recommends the £39.99 TVonics MFR 200. Or you could run your Freeview through another box that has an older aerial connector, such as a video recorder. If all that fails, buy an RF modulator - this will convert one signal to another - for around £25 from any high street electronics shop.
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
I recently bought a TomTom satnav that claimed to be compatible with Apples. In reality, it's limited: I had a total crash, and the company's advice is to find someone with a PC to correct the problem. Do you know of any satnav systems that are totally compatible with Apple Macs? Many people have found they are unable to update satnav units or fix bugs because they aren't truly Mac-friendly. A year or so ago, there would have been little option but to suck it up, but you are in luck: Garmin has bought up a small company called MotionBased, which makes Apple-compatible systems - go to garmin.com/macosx for more details. I have a pre-Scart TV that I'd like to connect to a Freeview box. Is there any way of linking old and new? Older sets don't have the same connectors as new ones, but there are several easy fixes. You could buy a Freeview receiver with an in-built aerial output - Switchhelp.co.uk recommends the £39.99 TVonics MFR 200. Or you could run your Freeview through another box that has an older aerial connector, such as a video recorder. If all that fails, buy an RF modulator - this will convert one signal to another - for around £25 from any high street electronics shop.
The Guardian – Jul 4, 2008 11:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
2 teens attacked in town mocked in YouTube videos
DOVER, N.Y. (AP) -- Two teenagers who drove to Oniontown after a series of YouTube videos portrayed the hamlet as a run-down, backwoods dump were pelted with rocks by an angry group of young residents, authorities said....
AP – Jul 4, 2008 10:44 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
DOVER, N.Y. (AP) -- Two teenagers who drove to Oniontown after a series of YouTube videos portrayed the hamlet as a run-down, backwoods dump were pelted with rocks by an angry group of young residents, authorities said....
AP – Jul 4, 2008 10:44 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Canadians skirt the law to view American TV programs in the Web, study says
MONTREAL - Canadians are turning on, tuning in and watching traditional TV shows on the Internet often using underground ways to access American programming, says a new study.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 10:09 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
MONTREAL - Canadians are turning on, tuning in and watching traditional TV shows on the Internet often using underground ways to access American programming, says a new study.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 10:09 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Ask.com closes Dictionary.com deal
CNET - Ask.com, the fourth-ranked search engine, has completed its acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.
Yahoo! – Jul 4, 2008 9:52 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
CNET - Ask.com, the fourth-ranked search engine, has completed its acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.
Yahoo! – Jul 4, 2008 9:52 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
The Medium: File-Sharing Fetish
Eclectic video-sharing that doesn’t succumb to the porn imperative.
New York Times – Jul 4, 2008 9:48 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Eclectic video-sharing that doesn’t succumb to the porn imperative.
New York Times – Jul 4, 2008 9:48 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Fibre Internet adds more subscribers worldwide than cable: report
NEW YORK - For the first time, more people around the world are signing up for fibre-optic broadband service than for cable Internet service, according to a British research firm.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 9:39 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
NEW YORK - For the first time, more people around the world are signing up for fibre-optic broadband service than for cable Internet service, according to a British research firm.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 9:39 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
Adobe tool to improve search engines' view of Flash video
NEW YORK - Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 9:37 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
NEW YORK - Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format.
Canoe.ca – Jul 4, 2008 9:37 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
