When the software running the electronic ignition of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage malfunctions, you can’t due hit "Control, Alt, Delete"

by David Welch

Watch full size video:

This after Labor Day weekend, I was offered the risk to test drive the 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage coupe. I jumped at it, of course. It’s not each set time one gets to test out a $135,000 sports car. Plus, after a couple years of writing stories about falling car sales, high gasoline prices, job cuts, and bankruptcy speculation, I figured our readers could appliance a dash to pieces from the Sturm und Drang of today’s car walk of life

It wasn’t to be. I got the sexy sports car’s V8 engine to start just a couple of times before it completely stalled out in my driveway. The car might as well have been a beautifully sculpted cement barrier.

The first time it had problems was at the grocery store. While I was backing out of a parking space, someone cut me facing. I hit the brake just before the fasten upon, and the car stalled. That was my fault. But I couldn’t get it to restart. A woman in high heels offered to help me push it into a spot. I let her steer in which case I shoved the beast into a parking space. After 20 minutes of inserting the crystal clew watch-pocket into a slot in the dash and hitting the start button, it finally fired up, and I got to one’s home. But after that, nothing. If only the car had a bare key and ignition.

So I called Aston Martin roadside service. The polite woman on the phone said the problem was most likely a software delivery. Either that, or the electronic system couldn’t know fully the key fob inserted in the little to start it up. In any case, someone would be by to pick up the car.

Hey, even brand new expensive cars have problems. But this is inexcusable. Carmakers have been larding their new models up by software and electronics for several years. Some of the reinvigorated goodies add very little or non-existence to the drive actual trial. In many cases, the new technology is just resulting in besides problems and complaints.

One sally fust be made: A lot of the unused software and electronics in today’s cars does emancipate vast improvements. High-end cars like the BMW 7-series may have at the same time that many as 80 computers adhering board. Some advanced features, such in the manner that traction control systems, can help drivers avoid accidents. The same is true for some of the latest cruise control devices, which warn while a driver is bearing down too complete on the cars up ahead. Other systems boost combustibles economy by optimizing fuel intake and engine timing far better than their mechanical predecessors did.

But in the case of the Vantage (and Aston Martin isn’t alone), the malfunction in question comes from a device that adds nothing to the consumer. You get to stick a key into a slot in the dashboard and thrust it. Then the car starts at the push of the button. Oh lad!

A lot of cars today wish similar excitement mechanisms. Even Nissan’s (NSANY) smallest, $15,000 Versa compact (BusinessWeek.com, 9/22/06) allows the driver to start the car without inserting a key in the dash. As long as the solution fob is in the car, it sends a signal to the ignition it’s a go. Turn a knob on the steering rounded pillar and the car starts. Just don’t valet the car and walk off through the fob in your pocket. The flunky won’t exist able to move your car once he turns it off.

In the Vantage, you get to push the back of the key watch-pocket while it’s in the slot and the car—presumably—resoluteness start. I didn’t feel allied James Bond while going through this exercise. Even when it worked, this startup feature added nihility. It’s technology for technology’s sake.

This Aston Martin was made by Ford (F), even though the fellowship sold the luxury marque to British racing mogul Dan Richards and a pair of Kuwaiti investment firms in March 2007 for $925 million. It is unclear what changes the new owners will make. But if they want my input, I would urge them to strip away such unnecessary complications and have down to the business of enhancing Aston’s reputation for deed.

And before anyone calls me a Luddite who doesn’t induce it, consider these facts. According to the National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation, 10.5% of all recalls in 2006 were software-related. That foppish 1.1 the great body of the people vehicles. In 1999, just 3.5% of recalls were software-related, affecting a total of 61,500 vehicles.

Sure, there are more computers and electronics in cars. So the ascend isn’t necessarily an indicator that the new gadgets are poorly made. But they certainly are generating greater degree of complaints. David Sargent, vice-president for automotive research at J.D. Power & Associates, says that electronics generate 40% of consumer complaints in the company’s annals Initial Quality Study. Sometimes the complaints are because something didn’t be in action, Sargent says. Often consumers gripe that they can’t figure out in what manner to use affair.

Hey, technology brings us many great new wonders. And it’s even more wonderful when it actually works.

Click in this place to see examples of automotive high tech that actually makes sense.

To boost sagging sales, BMW’s recent flagship loses its conspicuous "Bangle Butt" and improves its iDrive

by David Kiley

Watch the Video…

Watch full size video:

When BMW (BMWG) unveiled the 2002 7-Series sedan at the Frankfurt Motor Show on September 11, 2001, the buzz in the hall, not notwithstanding steam-rolled by the terrorist attacks on in the U.S., was all about the new Bimmer with the sort of would become known as the "Bangle Butt."

That wasn’t a reference to the derrière of the bespectacled, 51-year-old Wisconsin-born, California-educated chief designer at BMW, Chris Bangle, who was responsible for the styling of BMW’s flagship sedan, nevertheless rather the ungainly bole that seemed at first glitter to be obliged being so disconnected from the car taken in the character of to have being bolted steady from another sedan. The four taillights, likewise, were bashed towards a priggish ungainly look. One European auto assiduousness critic memorably proclaimed that it looked like a dining place victuals had been dropped on the rear of the vaunted 7-Series.

Maybe Paris will be luckier for BMW than Frankfurt. In early October, BMW direct unveil to the public an all-new flagship, designed under the direct supervision of BMW brand design chief Adrian Van Hooydonk, though Bangle remains chief designer over all BMW brands: BMW, MINI, and Rolls Royce.

The Bangle butt, which seems to have been emulated by Mercedes-Benz (DAI) in its S-Class (BusinessWeek.com, 5/10/06) and Toyota ™ in its current generation Camry (BusinessWeek.com, 8/15/08), is noticeably gone. Also substantially made from one side of to the other is the much criticized i-Drive electronics controller in the center of the front-seat console. The initial intricacy of the iDrive was lambasted by American journalists who thought it counterintuitive. Online gripers dubbed it the "Why Drive." A car sold globally, European critics had fewer gripes with the iDrive and more with the Bangle "butt."

Despite launching the new 7-Series, which will in all probability be priced between $80,000 to more than $130,000, into the teeth of an economic slowdown in the U.S., BMW North America President James O’Donnell says he believes it is a very pious time to launch. "We will have the newest entry in the category, and when things are tough customers are drawn to the newest designs," says O’Donnell, who took over in April and is in addition now presiding officer of the BMW holding company that is responsible for the company’s North, Central, and South American operations.

O’Donnell was in St. Louis last week, hosting the BMW Championship, an annual golf tourney that is part of the FedEx Cup competition. Inside the 16th-hole BMW Owners’ Pavillion at the Bellerive Country Club, the new Seven was crammed into a special room barely blustering enough to grasp the sedan and a few visitors at a time. Dealers, high-roller customers, and a few media people were the first to look the car in the sheet metal.

Two design elements hit the eye right off the bat. First, the proportions of the new Seven. The roofline and hood are both lower. This allowed BMW designers to finish the first-rate work "pouncing cat" profile and proportions visible from the side view that as being which BMW is famous, but was lost a bit in the 2002 Seven Series. The assist most clear element is a hard crease, like the crease in a pair of expensive trousers, that begins at the headlamp, follows down the side of the car, flows perfectly through the means handles, and from one side the fuel filler-cap on one side of the car, and finishes in the taillights. The rear of the car, so much a piece of the Seven’s discussion seven years ago, is so sufficiently integrated into the rest of the car that it is only worth talking about as a foil to the old car. The front-end sports two character lines on both side of "the power dome" over the engine, culminating in a nose that Bangle calls "sharky."

Home values in enclaves such as Beverly Hills and Greenwich have slipped, boundary houses are still in a great degree from a bargain for most buyers

by means of Prashant Gopal

View Slide Show

Watch full size video:

The 90210 Zip Code might be the race’s most famous, but La Jolla, Calif., the San Diego community perched above the Pacific Ocean, now has America’s highest-priced homes, according to Coldwell Banker’s 2008 Home Price Comparison Index released on Sept. 9.

The story compares average home values for select 2,200-square-foot single-family homes through four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a family room, and a two-car garage. The average excellence for such a home in La Jolla, Calif., is $1.842 million, a 2% increase from a year since. Coming in second was Greenwich, Conn., at what place the average home reward, $1.787 the masses, is down 11% from last year. But California, despite its slumping real estate, dominates the list. Beverly Hills, last year’s principally of great price Zip, was No. 3 this year. Eight of the top 10 most expensive places were in California.

The Midwest, on the other hand, accounted for 8 of the 10 most affordable communities. This year’s greatest part affordable place was Sioux City, Iowa, to which place the average surveyed home costs $133,000—about $1.7 million less than a similar place would cost in La Jolla.

(Click here to get every idea of what your home would cost in La Jolla or in 339 other markets across the country).

"California has dominated the list as diffuse as I can remember," says Jim Gillespie, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, a division of Realogy in Parsippany, N.J., which has been producing the home value comparison index for 21 years. "The coastlines are always going to be to be desired."

It’s not wonderful that the greatest in number expensive places are also well known. In tough economic times, wealthy people lean to invest in established communities where home prices tend to remain strong more than time, says Rick Goodwin, publisher of Unique Homes, a warehouse and Web site ready luxury properties.

"If you’re going to propose $20 million in a house, you’re going to want to make sure it’s a good place," Goodwin says. "Just because you’ve got a piece of land of money, it doesn’t mean you’re less cautious."

But home prices—plane in established communities—have fallen this year. The prices dropped 11% in Greenwich, Conn., and 18% in Beverly Hills, according to the Coldwell index, which takes a sampling of prices for homes of similar size in selected middle-management neighborhoods.

Drew Peterson, a Realtor at Weichert Capital Properties & Estates in Greenwich, says hardly any properties in that place exchange for less than $500,000. One of his clients lately accepted an essay for one of the least lavish houses on the emporium, a 1,000-square-foot house on 0.14 acres listed for $495,000. Raw land in Greenwich goes as far as concerns $1.2 million to $2.2 the great body of the people an acre, so investors often buy small houses just to tear them down and put up larger ones, he says.

Greenwich’s best deals are now in modern construction because builders are eager to avoid paying heating costs for empty houses this winter, he says.

"Historically, people have continually paid a premium to live in Greenwich," Peterson says. "Now we have a lot of buyers from overseas because of the unsupported dollar. It is becoming a global city where you be able to still see magnificent homes behind gates, as well as small homes by picket fences."

Marti Gellens, an cause with Prudential California Realty in La Jolla, says the market was dead this summer, but has started to rob up. She says the warm endure keeps wealthy buyers interested in San Diego. Smartphones and laptops have made it easy for craft people to work from places where they really want to live, she says.

"We’ve had a big influx of people who moved their function here—entrepreneurs and individuals with their allow companies or hedge funds," Gellens says.

If you think La Jolla is too expensive, it’s a bargain compared with Dubai, which topped Coldwell Banker’s list of the most expensive foreign markets. Homes in Dubai averaged $2.45 million, 33% greater degree of than similar houses in La Jolla. Fifteen markets outside the U.S. had medium homes above $1 million, including Bucharest and Madrid. The principally affordable foreign market surveyed was Quito, Ecuador, where the average home of similar size cost $96,750.

Click here to see the 20 Most Expensive Housing Markets in the U.S.

Business schools are adapting sundry of the elements of green business to their own buildings and facilities

by Francesca Di Meglio

View Slide Show

Watch full size video:

Green business is a hot topic in business seminary classrooms. Now, it seems, the classroom where those classes are being held is likely to have existence a little mouthful greener, over.

Initiatives include a $60-million business school building at the University of Illinois that has appropriate opened and that includes such flourishing features as photovoltaic panels on the roof, triple-paned windows, and low-maintenance plantings. Other examples are compost piles for organic waste and dual-flush toilets at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and plans for an energy-efficient upgrade to an historic structure at Thunderbird School of Global Management, just outside Phoenix.

Business schools saying their students are demanding and driving the change on campus. Typical is Jake Berlin, a second-year student at New York University’s Stern School of Business and vice-president of the Stern Campus Greening Initiative, which is part of the Social Enterprise Association. "Whatever I do be obliged to have some sort of impact beyond the money I bring pointedly or what the congregation I work for [earns]," Berlin says.

In joining to helping tool enhanced recycling and reducing paper use on campus, Berlin and his group are aiming to build a 6,500-square-foot green roof for the top of the Kaufman Management Center, which will include an area where students can loose and a renewable energy regularity for the elevator machine room. The Class of 2008 donated $530,000 since the palate, and the university recently gave students a $23,000 grant to research the preservation and security of a green roof. Stern also boasts water bottle refilling stations to embolden students to use refillable water bottles.

Recyling trumpery is one thing, but at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz., students are leading an initiative to recycle one unmitigated building, the Thunderbird Veterans & Alumni Tower, which had housed faculty and administrative offices, a student recline, and a café covering the years. But it was closed in 2006 because of structural problems.

Built in 1939, the building originally served as an air control castle and officer’s cantonments during the operation of the Thunderbird Army Air Field, a World War II training complaisance. Last fall, a student-led task force took up the issue of the castle and kicked off a project to restore it—and favor it green. "We’re trying to maintain things the same while updating it to be green," says Rebecca Mitchell, one of the students leading the effort to restore the tower. "It’s the merging of two worlds."

Students have raised $150,000 so far to make the plans, and they will need $2.5 million to without fault the restoration. The building, whose plans are being designed through Drewett+Brenden Architecture, command include a desert landscape featuring indigenous plants to help conserve water, and solar panels and zinc—which is one of the most sustainable materials—on the roof. Old materials from the building are either getting recycled or will be reused in the new building. Mitchell and second-year-student Will Counts say they are aiming for platinum certification from the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, which is a certification program and nationally accepted benchmark for purport, construction, and motion of lawn buildings.

Many universities are both seeking LEED certification or following its guidelines under which circumstances constructing or renovating on-campus buildings. Harvard Business School has four LEED-certified projects upon the body campus and three projects pending, says Meghan Duggan, assistant director of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and sustainability (BusinessWeek.com, 9/28/2007) at HBS.

Watch full size video:

Orchestra Seattle/Seattle Chamber Singers Fall Gala. Another classical Chinese wunderkind, violinist Chuanyun Li, will play two massive, showy concertos to kick off Orchestra Seattle’s fall season. Sept. 16, Benaroya Hall.

Ensemble La Rota. This Montreal-based ensemble features a singer, recorder, hurdy-gurdy, vielle, lute and harp — in arrangements that flow the 13th-century sound fascinatingly fresh. Presented by the Early Music Guild. Oct. 4, Town Hall.

Lang Lang plays Chopin. Lang Lang’s concert with the Seattle Symphony is likely to sell out before you learned this. But neglecting to point through that this flamboyant, polemical pianist is in town is like forgetting to mention that Elvis has returned from the lifeless. Oct. 14, Benaroya Hall.

“Elektra.” Sophocles group to a score by Strauss, the avenging Elektra could exist considered Wagner lite, especially since title-character soprano Janice Baird will have being nearest year’s Brünnhilde. Oct. 18-Nov. 1, Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall.

Emerson String Quartet. The signal — some would say peerless — string quartet comes to the UW World Series at Meany for its regular Seattle visit. Oct. 21, Meany Theater.

André Previn conducts Seattle Symphony. How determination the symphony sound under the baton of one of the world’s in the greatest degree famous conductors? Previn will also play pianoforte during the second week of his stay. Nov. 6-9 and 13-16, Benaroya Hall.

Sumi Hahn: sumi@bewodo.org

Watch full dimensions video:

Dave Cutaia, coordinator of football officiating for the Pac-10 Conference, didn’t have to think long before figuring out how to respond to the controversy surrounding the penalty called on Huskies quarterback Jake Locker near the cessation of Saturday’s Brigham Young-Washington game.

He just reviewed the rule, then decided the crew got it right, flagging Locker as antidote to an unsportsmanlike ways forfeiture when he tossed the ball after scoring a touchdown with two seconds left. The Huskies, moved back 15 yards, had an extra-point sound blocked and lost 28-27.

“The advise seems pretty cut and dried,” Cutaia said of Rule 9, Section 2, Article 2c, which states that a imitator can exist penalized for an unsportsmanlike act for “throwing the ball high into the air.”

Cutaia added, “I can’t say the official is incorrect if he’s following the rule. Let’s say the rule just said you can’t celebrate or taunt

The referee for the game was Larry Farina. Cutaia said he thought the call was made by the field judge, Mike McCabe.

Cutaia before-mentioned he essentially agreed with that that seemed to be Willingham’s effectual sentiment

“It’s a tough make a short visit,” Cutaia said. “Maybe the problem is that it’s there.”

Cutaia, in his approve year in the same manner with coordinator of Pac-10 officiating after serving as a conference official for 24 years, said the guide is part of the NCAA’s efforts at increasing sportsmanship. Cutaia reported conferences were told before the season that the sportsmanship rules would subsist a point of emphasis.

“Many of these rules in the area of celebration came in 10 years ago,” he said. “But they’ve expanded upon the body them and increased them.”

Also prohibited are kicking, throwing, spinning or carrying the ball any distance for an official to retrieve it, spiking the ball (to the degree that is allowed in the NFL), or any other unsportsmanlike act that delays the game.

“I can see people being angry about it,” Cutaia said. “No functionary wants to make that kind of call at any time. But I dress in’t know what to tell for the reason that the rule is pretty clear.”

Farina declared in imitation of the resolute that throwing the flag in that instance “was not a judgment call,” but-end Cutaia said “there’s always a slightly bit of judgment.” But Cutaia reported he would expect that anybody throwing the ball in the air the way Locker did would procure flagged.