The Next War With Apps and GPS

In the days before Elie was called to Operation Pillar of Defense, he showed me an iPhone application he had found on the Internet. It was called “Color Red” – the same name used to indicate an incoming missile. And what it did – was alert you that a missile had been fired from Gaza and tell you how many seconds you had before impact. It even had a stop watch which you could start and then time yourself as you ran. Sick humor…

Elie called a short while ago – he found another application – it’s called, “The Next War” and what it does is tell you where the nearest bomb shelter is – based on your location as identified by GPS. Wonderful. He thought it was hysterical. He was particularly amused that according to this application, the nearest bomb shelter to where he was – working as a security guard in the mall in Maale Adumim – is a 40 minute drive to the southern part of Jerusalem (ignoring the bomb shelter that is in the mall in Maale Adumim and every other bomb shelter between us and Jerusalem). There was a link to report additional bomb shelters.We've had a lot of people asking where we had our make your own bobblehead made.Welcome to Find the right laser Engraver or laser marking machine .

What does it say about us that we create programs to measure how fast we can run and where we can seek shelter? I actually think it shows how well we are adapting. No, I really doubt that either of these applications would be used in a real war. Who has time to pull out your phone, open the application and then consult it as you run for the 15 seconds to one minute it takes for the missile to arrive?

Although we haven't been able to get behind the wheel of a new 2013 Ram HD, we believe the new exhaust brake, called Smart Brake, on the newly up-rated Cummins turbodiesel is worth a closer look.

The new exhaust brake still uses the same sliding-nozzle turbine design, but now it's controlled by a more sophisticated software mapping program that effectively allows for three different settings. They're all controlled by a single button on the lower switch panel of the new center stack on all 2013 Ram HD models. We're hopeful Ram will at some point move the important activation button to a more prominent location because it looks like it might be somewhat difficult to find, buried along two rows of switches. Naturally, some packages will have fewer buttons than others, but it would make more sense to have this switch on the stickshift or column shifter.

As we understand it, the setup still uses a single button (with the carryover icon designating its purpose) that will first activate an Auto mode. This fully taps into the various engine and truck sensors around the vehicle (and trailer sensors where applicable) to determine the best and safest way to handle the identified overall weight, given the driver inputs and speeds.Shop for bobblehead dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office.

In the On setting,Manufactures and supplies laser marker equipment. engaged by hitting the button a second time, the exhaust brake and correlating software essentially go into a more aggressive mapping configuration where the system is quicker to engage and more comfortable slowing the truck and trailer to lower speeds. This means faster computations and exhaust brake adjustments to better keep the loads and overall speeds reduced (think of it as analogous to shifting your transmission from regular Drive to Tow/Haul).

As you might have anticipated, the third position for the new "two-step" exhaust brake is the Off position. Of course, the exhaust brake is only offered when Ram HDs are equipped with the Cummins 6.7-liter inline-six-cylinder engine but we should note that the new 2013 Ram 3500 models have the 5.7-liter Hemi as an option — and, of course, will not offer exhaust brake capability.

A bungled IPO left Facebook's relationship with Wall Street strained. But Facebook’s courtship with the entertainment industry seemed to be on solid ground, until recently. Last fall, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg railed against SOPA, the now-defunct entertainment industry-backed legislation designed to strengthen copyright laws. Zuckerburg then doubled-down, altering Facebook’s news feed algorithm. The change required film and TV studios to make more ad buys on Facebook, and now executives aren't sure the ads are worth the money.

On the front lines of California’s current "War of the Roses" is Facebook's Hollywood liason Kay Madati, who sat down with Paresh Dave to discuss the evolving relationship with the entertainment industry.

Based out of Facebook's office in Playa Vista, Madati leads a team that helps entertainment companies promote shows and films on Facebook. He's also serving this spring as the Media, Economics and Entrepreneurship Executive-in-Residence at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Madati: The reality is, amongst your friends, it’s already happening. It’s just the entire world can’t see that conversation. You and your 230 friends are probably updating, real-time in and around the show, posting moments, even going to the Golden Globes page and posting a picture. If you have no access to see that, you don’t believe it’s happening on the platform.

We’re the largest watercooler in the world. People on a regular basis leverage the platform to do what they do in the offline spaces, to talk to the people they care about, to follow the people and brands that influence them. And I don’t think that kind of behavior goes away. I think that kind of behavior is accelerating,wind turbine if you believe Zuck’s law, which kind of says people share twice as much information every year, year over year. I think you’re going to see more of this discovery of information through your friends.

The business model’s a little bit different. A television network is very interested in inviting eyeballs to actually watch on television. Netflix or Hulu+ is more interested in acquiring more subscribers, (and) not as concerned about appointment viewing or how much you watch.

I imagine the goals there are to surface the fact that I’m using this service on Facebook with my friends, so that they might actually go and subscribe. It’s actually a heavier lift than saying, ‘This is on tonight, go and turn on your television.’ This one requires you to put in your credit card information. I wasn’t a Netflix user until 200 of my friends kept posting about Downton Abbey, and Netflix was the only that had season one and season two, so I joined. In the last 30 days, it’s changed a lot of things in my house.

...Even though they're dealing with entertainment content, Netflix wouldn’t fall under my responsibility day-to-day. We’re much much more interested in helping traditional business models leverage new ways to drive engagement and awareness for their content and drive back to their core monetization platform.