While scale models from Detroit?s automakers offer significant historic glimpses into the automobile development process and seldom come up for public auction, they rarely warrant headlines by themselves. Exceptions can be made, however, particularly for models that represent the last physical evidence of a lost concept car and that come from the fertile mind of one of Detroit?s leading designers ? as is the case with this model of the Ford Gyron concept car that will head to auction later this year.
In 1956, Alex Tremulis, then head of Ford?s Advanced Studio, conceived of the two-wheeled, gyroscopically stabilized, delta-shaped Gyron as ?a genuine breakthrough that would influence all future car design,? according to Jim and Cheryl Farrell, writing in their book Ford Design Department Concepts and Showcars, 1932-1961. ?He told anyone who would listen that he thought his idea represented the ultimate in aerodynamic design (an overarching philosophy of Tremulis?s throughout his career). Ford Motor Co., on the other hand, thought of the Gyron as a two-passenger showcar only, and never as a predictor of what was to come on production Fords.?
Nevertheless, work began in earnest on the Gyron in 1959, with designers McKinley Thompson, Syd Mead, Bill Dayton, and John Najjar contributing to the final shape of the concept car. Tremulis intended for the Gyron to be fully functional, but after getting a $60,000 quote for a two-foot-diameter gyroscope and figuring it would cost another $75,000 to complete the Gyron as a functioning car (totaling more than $1 million in today?s money), he and Najjar decided to use two outrigger wheels to keep the concept car upright. Electric motors powered the full-size fiberglass concept car to a maximum speed of 5 MPH, and Dayton?s interior featured a center-mounted dial that controlled both speed and direction, theoretically allowing either of the two passengers to drive the car. Ford debuted the Gyron at the New York International Auto Show on April 1, 1961, then the following month moved it to the Ford Rotunda in Dearborn, where it remained until the November 1962 fire that destroyed it and the Rotunda.
According to Wright Auctions, which will handle the sale of the Gyron model, the model made it into the hands of Joe Oros, at the time the head of the Ford design studio. Oros then held on to it until March 2012, when he sold it to the current owner. The model ? which measures 21-1/2 inches long, 11-3/4 inches wide, and 7-1/4 inches tall ? will be among the lots in Wright?s Important Design Auction, scheduled for December 13 at Wright?s Chicago location. For more information, visit Wright20.com.
Sydney, Australia, September 27, 2012 ?(PR.com)? To better attend to the wide-ranging needs of many clients and partners, MYOB has invested heavily in upping the ante with its support and product/service information channels.
The technology company today launches 24?7 access to its local client support team for its business division?s SME products, reveals a significant update to the MYOB website and celebrates the unveiling of a new-look community forum.
Unlike many of its accounting solution competitors, MYOB already provides real-time technical support via phone, email, community forum, live chat and social media. As per the current support program, this is free for Cover and subscription clients and available on a pay-per-request basis for other clients. 20,000 MYOB professional partners ? accountants, book keepers, developers, certified consultants, retailers and resellers ? also attend to client needs all around Australia.
CEO Tim Reed says, ?As we move further into the cloud space with our business solutions, we?re driving innovation throughout our customer service channels to match. It?s a really important step for us to provide a greater range of more accessible, immediate support to those who rely on MYOB.
?We recognise business owners work beyond nine to five and look to us to support that, so we?ve been working towards 24 hours a day, seven days a week client service for some time. I?m delighted to say we?ve hired and trained a significant number of people to accommodate this and are recruiting more. They?ll deliver quality real-time around-the-clock support via phone, email and the web, from Melbourne and Christchurch.
?We?ve also invested in refreshing our website?s look, feel and information architecture. Extensive client-centred research, analysis and design drove the redevelopment of our homepage and product recommendation system. The result is a much more client-focused communication channel that is built with clients? needs considered first. And there is more to come ? the second half of this project will be completed just before we release our new AccountRight Live accounting solution to market.
?Our community forum has been redeveloped too, with its design modernised and restructured to better meet visitors? needs. One important change is the inclusion of an ?Ideas Exchange? ? a dedicated platform for clients and partners to submit product ideas and receive feedback from our product development team. We soft launched this one month ago and the response is terrific.?
For MYOB information, research results, business tips, discussions, client service and more visit http://myob.com.au, http://myob.com.au/blog and www.twitter.com/MYOBteam.
For further comment or other information please contact: Kristy Sheppard, MYOB Manager ? Public Relations P: 02 9089 9068 / M: 0407 450 860 / E: Kristy.Sheppard@myob.com
About MYOB Established in 1991, MYOB is now Australia?s largest business management software provider. Its 50+ products and services have been employed by more than one million businesses in Australia and New Zealand. MYOB serves businesses of all ages, types and sizes, delivering solutions that simplify accounting, payroll, client management, websites and much more. With a network of more than 20,000 accountants and other professional partners, it provides the support and tools that help make business life easier. Today, MYOB is extending its solutions online and delivering innovation through cloud computing, enabling clients to make smarter connections with their business partners and customers: http://myob.com.au/smarterconnections.
Contact Information: MYOB Ltd Angely Grecia 61 2 9089 9071 Contact via Email myob.com
Click here to read the full story: MYOB Extends Client Support to 24/7 and Revamps Online Presence
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Not that much time has passed since AT&T announced it was bringing Zuckerberg's social network right to your U-verse-equipped TV, and now those with an iOS device are in for yet another treat. The Rethink Possible company just outed its new Easy Remote application for Apple's mobile operating system, with the main feature being a Watson-powered one that lets U-verse users control their system via voice -- you know, things like picking a show to watch or even flipping through channels. That's not it, however, the app also brings other tidbits such as one-touch access to closed captioning and gesture-based commands. Unfortunately, AT&T's Easy Remote app is only available for iOS at the moment, though we can't imagine it'll be too long before the carrier launches one for folks on a different ecosystem. Either way, you can get a quick glimpse of the application right after the break, where a pretty edifying video awaits.
The Wind In the Willows by Kenneth Grahame should be required reading for everyone. It is all about courtesy, respect, kindness, consideration, and civility toward those who are unlike us.
Images of 300 million old insects revealedPublic release date: 25-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Cochlin daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk 44-161-275-8387 University of Manchester
Writing in the journal PLoS One, the scientists have used a high resolution form of CT scanning to reconstruct two 305-million year old juvenile insects. Without the pioneering approach to imaging, these tiny insects which are three-dimensional holes in a rock would have been impossible to study.
By placing the fossils in a CT scanner, and taking over 3,000 X-rays from different angles, the scientists were able to create 2,000 slices showing the fossil in cross section.
From these slices the researchers created 3D digital reconstructions of the fossils. This process allows them to learn more about the lifestyle, biology and diet of the insects, one of which is similar to a modern day cockroach, and glimpse fascinating insights about how both were adapted for survival.
One of the insects reconstructed by the scientists is characterised by a large number of sharp spines. It is a new species and genus which does not exist today.
The other is an early predecessor of one of the great survivors of the insect world, the cockroach, and is one of the best preserved examples of this age ever seen by insect palaeontologists. Researchers suspect from its well preserved mouthparts that it survived by eating rotting litter from the forest floor.
Both are members of a group called the Polyneoptera which includes roaches, mantises, crickets, grasshoppers and earwigs. But analysing the exact relationships of the insects will be difficult for the researchers, led by Dr Russell Garwood of the University of Manchester's School of Materials, as insects have a habit of dramatically changing appearance as they develop.
Dr Garwood said: "The most dramatic change is seen in insects like butterflies, which change from a larva, to chrysalis, to adult. But relatively few people look to the fossils try and work out how such a life cycle may have evolved.
"We are hoping that work like this will allow us to better understand the biology and development of these early insects, and how major innovations may have come about.
"Around this time a number of early 'amphibians' were insectivores they lived by eating a lot of insects. The spiney creature was a sitting duck, as it couldn't fly, so the spines probably made it less palatable. It is bizarre as far as we're aware, quite unlike any members of the Polyneoptera alive today."
"The roach nymph is much like modern day cockroaches although it isn't a 'true' cockroach, as it may well predate the split between true cockroaches and their sister group, the mantises."
"This is very much a first step, and I'll be spending the next few years looking at other fossil insects to build on this work.
Professor Philip Withers, co-author on the paper, added: "I am very excited by our fossil work which is providing unique information in 3D."
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Images of 300 million old insects revealedPublic release date: 25-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Cochlin daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk 44-161-275-8387 University of Manchester
Writing in the journal PLoS One, the scientists have used a high resolution form of CT scanning to reconstruct two 305-million year old juvenile insects. Without the pioneering approach to imaging, these tiny insects which are three-dimensional holes in a rock would have been impossible to study.
By placing the fossils in a CT scanner, and taking over 3,000 X-rays from different angles, the scientists were able to create 2,000 slices showing the fossil in cross section.
From these slices the researchers created 3D digital reconstructions of the fossils. This process allows them to learn more about the lifestyle, biology and diet of the insects, one of which is similar to a modern day cockroach, and glimpse fascinating insights about how both were adapted for survival.
One of the insects reconstructed by the scientists is characterised by a large number of sharp spines. It is a new species and genus which does not exist today.
The other is an early predecessor of one of the great survivors of the insect world, the cockroach, and is one of the best preserved examples of this age ever seen by insect palaeontologists. Researchers suspect from its well preserved mouthparts that it survived by eating rotting litter from the forest floor.
Both are members of a group called the Polyneoptera which includes roaches, mantises, crickets, grasshoppers and earwigs. But analysing the exact relationships of the insects will be difficult for the researchers, led by Dr Russell Garwood of the University of Manchester's School of Materials, as insects have a habit of dramatically changing appearance as they develop.
Dr Garwood said: "The most dramatic change is seen in insects like butterflies, which change from a larva, to chrysalis, to adult. But relatively few people look to the fossils try and work out how such a life cycle may have evolved.
"We are hoping that work like this will allow us to better understand the biology and development of these early insects, and how major innovations may have come about.
"Around this time a number of early 'amphibians' were insectivores they lived by eating a lot of insects. The spiney creature was a sitting duck, as it couldn't fly, so the spines probably made it less palatable. It is bizarre as far as we're aware, quite unlike any members of the Polyneoptera alive today."
"The roach nymph is much like modern day cockroaches although it isn't a 'true' cockroach, as it may well predate the split between true cockroaches and their sister group, the mantises."
"This is very much a first step, and I'll be spending the next few years looking at other fossil insects to build on this work.
Professor Philip Withers, co-author on the paper, added: "I am very excited by our fossil work which is providing unique information in 3D."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
FORTUNE -- Adrian Fenty, the former Washington, D.C. mayor known for his education reform strategy, has joined venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as a special advisor.
It's a part-time position, but Fenty says that it could be the precursor to a new career. "What I'm really interested in is big solutions to problems, whether it be in education of elsewhere," Fenty says. "I think that what firms like Andreessen Horowitz are also trying to address."
Fenty came to national prominence after winning the mayor's office in 2006,by wresting control of the D.C. public schools from the local school board. He then named?Michelle Rhee to the new position of schools chancellor, and supported a radical reform strategy that met with fierce opposition from teachers unions.
The moves appear to have helped improve student test scores, but didn't help Fenty hold onto his job. He would lose the Democratic primary in 2010 to city councilor Vincent Gray, and declined the opportunity to run as a Republican (Fenty won the GOP primary via write-in votes). Nationally, the loss was viewed as a rebuke to Fenty and Rhee's education moves -- although locally the story has become how members of Gray's campaign staff illegally supported a minor candidate whose only role seemed to be to attack Fenty.
Since then, Fenty has insisted that he has no future plans to run for electoral office. Instead, he's spent his time on the speaking circuit, teaching at?Oberlin College and advising several education technology companies.
He says that he met Marc Andreessen earlier this year at an event for a California nonprofit called College Track, where Fenty serves on the board. The two hit it off, with Fenty eventually agreeing to become Andreessen Horowitz's second special advisor. The first is former u.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who joined last year.
Margit Wennmachers, a partner with Andreessen Horowitz, says that the firm's experience with Summers has "made us want to double-down" on special advisors.
Expect Fenty to focus most of his time on ed-tech companies, including existing Andreessen Horowitz investments like digital textbook maker Kno. He also will provide advice on dealing with local governments -- a good compliment to the federal bureaucracy know-how of Summers.
One thing Fenty seems unable to do, however, is to convince Marc Andreessen to support President Obama in November. "I'm probably the number one person who will buck people in my own party, so I don't see myself changing Marc's mind on that, " he says, in reference to his education battles (and his support for similar efforts by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker).
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Public release date: 25-Sep-2012
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