Looking at the computer I am writing the article on, and the MacBook Air right next to me, and my iPhone and my iPad I realize there are cameras on all of them. When I first got a laptop with a camera, my neice would Skype me and show me all around the house. The picture was blurry, the audio intermittent, but it was getting closer to the Jetsons video phone.

Last year network marketing behemoth ACN, introduced a video phone for all of it’s reps and members. Honestly it didn’t make sense. I have one with my MacBook already don’t I?

The next phase is about to boom, and this may be the one that works. Video Conference systems used to run upwards of $50,000 when I owned a tech company that installed them. Honestly we didn’t like installing them because they just weren’t profitable enough. It was what we did to keep the job.

Today there are a couple of really good solutions for cameras that just sit on your tv in the living room. For under $3000, you can have better quality video calls than we could deliver 10 years ago for $50,000. The increase in bandwidth has been a big factor. Simply put, more speed is a better picture and cleaner sound.

Facetime on the iApple stuff is cool and I think it still requires WiFi. I don’t know and honestly don’t care because Skype works fine on all of my devices and I don’t care what they have at the other end. I’ll keep using skype as long as it costs me less than $3 a month.

I pay the $3 so I can have a phone number and communicate with the rest of the world that hasn’t caught up. In the next three years video calling is expected to grow nearly 10 times its current usage. That is why the carriers, like AT&T and Verizon are scrambling to collect spectrum. Spectrum = Bandwidth, Bandwith = Happy customers.

Who ever thought the connection would be the important thing.

Video Calling From Your Living Room

There are nearly a dozen different video calling tools, and as of now they all use the same algorithm, but don’t let the databases communicate. When you can use Facetime to call a google user and conference in an AOL user and a Skype user. Then it will be big.

Chat on the big screen anyone?

According to Strategy Analytics, a market watcher, world tablet shipments topped 26.8m units in the last three months of 2011 – 66.9m in the year as a whole – giving Apple a reduced share of 57.6 per cent, down from 68.2 per cent in Q4 2010.

Of course, back then there was very little in the way of competition. Now, rather more vendors are pushing fondleslabs. You can see that not only in Android’s rising market share – up from 29.0 per cent in Q4 2010 to 39.1 per cent in Q4 2011 – but also Microsoft’s growing share.

Windows didn’t trouble the scorer in the fourth quarter of 2010, but a year on and it was to be found in 1.5 per cent of the tablets that shipped in the three-month period. Microsoft is banking that Windows 8 will boost its tablet market share considerably.

It’s worth re-iterating that Apple’s iOS is backed by one vendor. Android and Windows have the support of a number of major suppliers. So while Apple shipped 15.4m tablets in Q4 2011, the 10.5m Android alternatives were supplied by Samsung, Asus, Acer, Amazon and more.

More at RegHardware

Netflix is a perfect example.  They were high flying in the $300 zone and made one public change that resulted in 800,000 subscribers canceling their Netflix accounts.  The markets reacted and the stock nose dived.  No body looked at the long term outlook for the technology, the company or the deals they had in place.

The smart buyers were standing in Best Buy, Costco or Wal Mart, buying new TV’s and seeing the Netflix red button staring them in the face from its comfortable position on the remote.  We upgraded two TV’s this year, both have a Netflix button, only one has a Yahoo! button.  I don’t see Amazon or Redbox anywhere on the remote.

Here we are not even two quarters later and the stock chart looks like the half pipe I should be out skiing right now.  As the stock passes through $125, there isn’t anything that has changed from the fundamentals when the company was at $300.

Watching the charts the last couple of days, there were some major stock dumps.  Oddly enough there were plenty of buyers who think $125 isn’t the top and the stock price barely flinched.

Normally I don’t condone this type of trading since Netflix is still not paying a dividend or making oodles and oodles of money, but is it gambling when all of the black remotes on the roulette wheel have a little red button in them?  It just looks to me like the bet should be red for a while.

Is NetFlix a Bargain at $78 (Now $125) or was it overpriced at $304

Solar Panels aren't just for Beach Houses

Also as pointed out in the this video, the pay back period for a solar power system is much faster when the electricity is used in an electric car to replace gasoline in an internal combustion engine car.  This is because an electric car is five times more efficient than an internal combustion  engine car.  This is explained in the  Photovoltaic Solar Energy and Electric Vehicles versus Internal-Combustion-Engine Vehicles paper.

About one-third of all cruise vacations are arranged during the so-called wave season from January to March, said Sharon Zackfia, an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago.

Costa Concordia Capsized

“They’re the most profitable bookings,” Zackfia said in an interview. “Presumably most people now are booking for the key summer season, which is when the cruise lines make the bulk of their money.”

Europe accounted for about 38 percent of Carnival’s revenue in fiscal 2010, the last full year for which geographic results are available. Its Genoa-based Costa Crociere unit is the continent’s largest cruise line based on passengers and ship capacity, according to Miami-based Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise operator with brands including Cunard and Princess Cruises.

More from Bloomberg…

More From UK SUN…  All of the best photos are here….

Netflix officers knew the company faced higher license fees from its content providers before announcing on Sept. 15 that it had lost 1 million subscribers after price increases, according to the complaint filed today in federal court in San Francisco.

“While Netflix stock was inflated partially by Netflix buying back its own stock, company insiders were selling 388,661 shares of their own Netflix stock for proceeds of $90.2 million,” according to the complaint.

Read the Full Story at Bloomberg

Need more range?  Don’t fret, according to the EPA the new Nissan Leaf can go 73 miles.  Do you still think that isn’t enough?  If you need range, diesel is the clear winner in any size vehicle.  Mostly because they have bigger gas tanks, the big question is can electric get there and when?

Looking at alternative fuel vehicles, especially here on the West Coast, not too many things make sense. I am very loosely calling diesel an alternative fuel since so few cars use it, and biodiesel and gdiesel are genuine alternatives in limited supply.

My wife has a 2008 Diesel we had to buy in Texas because in 2008 almost nobody could make the new diesel smog requirements in California.  We didn’t cheat, we were living there at the time.

The 2009 and newer diesel cars  require expensive additions of blue urea every time you change the oil because there isn’t enough gDiesel yet.  What is more amazing is how much that blue stuff costs.  My neighbor with an Audi Q7 TDI tells me the blue stuff as we are calling it,  is running him over $200 a month.   Worse, he can’t find it anywhere but the dealer.  Personally I would be tempted to use blue powerade and see what happens.

More recently we took the diesel to Lake Tahoe.  Since there wasn’t any snow we took the long way.  478 miles door to door.  At first the fact that we had over a quarter of a tank of diesel left looked good, but the higher price of diesel made it more expensive than driving a gas powered version.  We looked for BioDiesel, but couldn’t find any in Reno and by the time we found the gDiesel in Reno, we had already filled up elsewhere.

Maybe someday diesel will make more sense in California, but right now, we don’t have the efficiencies of the European models so when you add in  the higher cost of diesel fuel, and now the blue urea requirements make diesel less than ideal.

Electric clearly wouldn’t have made it either.  We didn’t see one electric charging station until we hit Reno.

So what is the answer?  Randy Jackson of SunPoweredEVs.com thinks it is the new batteries.  The Tesla  Roadster has a claimed range of 244 miles but many owners report 150 or so being the realistic limit.  Still that is double the Nissan Leaf, and good enough to make it from Los Angeles to San Diego.  Almost enough to make it to Las Vegas.

The Tesla S is said to have a one way range of 300 miles.  So let’s say it realistically only hits 250.  That is still pretty good for most people in a day.  Unless you are going more than half way up the California Coast or taking a fun run to Las Vegas, 250 miles is pretty good.

Randy Jackson sent out this note today about a recent leap in battery technology, the lithium-air invented by our friends at IBM:

As batteries get smaller and lighter, electric cars can go further on each charge. It’s estimated the Tesla Roadster could go 1200 miles per charge if its lithium-ion battery was replaced with a lithium-air battery of the same size and weight. The range of an electric car is primarily determined by the capacity of the battery. A good rule of thumb is 4 times the usable kWh capacity of a battery equals the maximum range. For example, a 10 kWh battery in a Volt takes the car about 40 miles, a 24 kWh battery in a Nissan Leaf takes the car about 100 miles, and 53 kWh in a Tesla Roadster takes the car about 240 miles (a little more than 4 times 53 kWh because the Tesla is smaller and lighter than the other cars).

One difference between gasoline cars and an electric cars is how often the car is refueled, or in the case of an electric car, recharged. A typical gas car is refueled once a week, however, a typical electric car is recharged everyday, usually at night while the owner is home. Since it takes minutes to refuel a gas car standing outside in the elements and only seconds to plug in an electric car each night in the relative comfort of a garage, it’s very convenient to recharge everyday. It’s much the same as charging your cell phone, plug it in each night and it’s ready the next morning to use for the day. This means an electric car starts out each day with the capability to be driven its maximum range without recharging, and will be “topped off” by charging each night.

Randy really does drive a Tesla Roadster, and better yet, he put solar panels on his coastal home in order to charge it.

Mitsubishi MiEV

If you have two cars in your house, maybe the next one should be electric for popping around town.  No more gas stations, just plug it in.  Keep the other car for those cold and foggy mornings that you decide to run to Vegas, Phoenix or even Reno.  At least until the new batteries come out that is.

Happy EV Motoring…….

Davey's Locker - Boat Parade Ready

Here is an excerpt from the full story that can be found on the Yahoo! Travel site:

For more than a century, Newport Beach’s “Christmas Boat Parade” has delighted spectators with a “Christmas-sea” feeling all its own. A fine flotilla of some 200 vibrantly decorated vessels, from multimillion-dollar yachts right down to simple canoes, glides through Newport Harbor as holiday music and costumed carolers fill the air with melodious merrymaking. The brilliant boat parade (it’s the oldest one in the country) attracts close to a million viewers; it’s held nightly from December 14 through December 18 and lasts about 2.5 hours – show up on the closing night for a fireworks finale. Viewing areas for the beaming 14-mile boat route are on the public beaches and establishments bordering the Balboa Peninsula, the Fun Zone amusement area (where you can hear live commentary from Captain Mike Whitehead, the official voice of the parade), and Balboa Island.

What’s more, many harbor-front homeowners and businesses participate in the annual “Ring of Lights” contest, showcasing their own elaborate holiday displays, while providing a striking backdrop to the boat parade (free; www.christmasboatparade.com). Well worth a detour, the historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside (set less than 50 miles away) is the setting for an extravagant showing of more than 3.6 million holiday lights in its “Festival of Lights” event; expect 400-plus animated figures, live reindeer, and even snow machine-produced flurries – come on opening night for a fireworks display, to boot (November 25-January 8; free; www.festivaloflightsca.com).

About Newport Beach, California

Newport Beach is a chic seaside community that sits along nine miles of spectacular California coastline between Los Angeles and San Diego. With breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, and home to the #1 Resort in the United States, Newport Beach is renowned for its clean beaches, year-round Mediterranean climate, casually sophisticated atmosphere, and family-friendly environment. Newport Beach boasts one of the largest small yacht harbors in the world, setting it apart from any other California coastal destination. It is also home to the nation’s oldest, and critically acclaimed Christmas Boat Parade which helped Newport Beach rank #2 Holiday Light Displays in the country by Yahoo! Travel and USA TODAY.  For additional information and a Newport Beach Visitor Guide, go to www.visitnewportbeach.com or call (800) 94-COAST.

New BJ's in Anaheim Hills

The new Fort Worth, Texas BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse is located at the intersection of Hulen St. and I-20 as the latest addition to Hulen Mall. The restaurant is approximately 8,500 square feet, contains seating for approximately 265 guests, and features BJ’s extensive menu including BJ’s signature deep-dish pizza, award-winning handcrafted beer and famous Pizookie(R) dessert. BJ’s highly detailed, contemporary decor and unique video statement, including BJ’s 103″ plasma display as well as several high-definition flat panel televisions, creates a high energy, fun and family-friendly dining environment for everyone to enjoy. Hours of operation are from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight Sunday through Thursday, and 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

The new BJ’s restaurant in Anaheim Hills, California is the Company’s new, smaller footprint BJ’s Grill(TM) restaurant that is initially intended to serve as a live research and development restaurant. BJ’s Grill(TM) contains approximately 4,600 interior square feet, seats approximately 140 guests and features many of BJ’s most popular menu items including BJ’s signature deep-dish pizza, award-winning handcrafted beer and famous Pizookie(R) dessert. BJ’s Grill(TM) also features an exhibition kitchen, a more contemporary design and decor package, different menus for lunch and dinner and a more personalized guest service model based on new point-of-sale technology driven by handheld tablets. In addition, the new restaurant features BJ’s signature video statement, including a 103″ plasma display and other high-definition flat panel televisions that create a high energy, fun and family-friendly dining environment for everyone to enjoy. Hours of operation are from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight Sunday through Thursday, and 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

“With these two openings, we are pleased to successfully complete our targeted expansion goal for 2011, “said Jerry Deitchle, Chairman and CEO. “Our Fort Worth and Anaheim Hills restaurants represent our 12th and 13th new restaurants for this year. Our Fort Worth, Texas restaurant represents our ninth restaurant in the Dallas/Fort Worth market and our 24th restaurant in Texas, where we have achieved some of our strongest comparable restaurant sales results during the past several years. Our new BJ’s Grill(TM) in Anaheim Hills, California is a smaller location in our home court market of Southern California that will initially serve as a live research and development restaurant for the Company. We currently intend to gradually apply the successful R&D efforts from this restaurant to our larger-format Brewhouse restaurants over time.

“BJ’s is looking forward to another successful year of expansion during 2012,” continued Deitchle. “We currently plan to open as many as 15 new restaurants next year, and we also plan to relocate one older restaurant to a new location that can accommodate a larger, more productive facility. We continue to believe that BJ’s will be one of just a few publicly-held casual dining restaurant companies that plans to achieve double-digit capacity growth during 2012 in terms of total restaurant operating weeks.” Investors are reminded that the actual number and timing of new restaurant openings for any given period is subject to a number of factors outside of the Company’s control, including weather conditions and factors under the control of landlords, contractors and regulatory/licensing authorities

BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. currently owns and operates 115 casual dining restaurants under the BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery(R), BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse(R), BJ’s Pizza & Grill(R) and BJ’s Grill(TM) brand names. BJ’s restaurants offer an innovative and broad menu featuring award-winning, signature deep-dish pizza complemented with generously portioned salads, appetizers, sandwiches, soups, pastas, entrees and desserts. Quality, flavor, value, moderate prices and sincere service remain distinct attributes of the BJ’s experience. The Company operates several microbreweries in addition to using qualified contract brewers to produce and distribute BJ’s critically acclaimed proprietary handcrafted beers throughout the chain. The Company’s restaurants are located in California (56), Texas (24), Arizona (6), Colorado (4), Oregon (2), Nevada (5), Florida (8), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (2), Kentucky (1), Indiana (1), Louisiana (1) and Washington (2). Visit BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. on the Web at http://www.bjsrestaurants.com.

Certain statements in the preceding paragraphs and all other statements that are not purely historical constitute “forward-looking” statements for purposes of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Such statements include, but are not limited to, those regarding expected comparable restaurant sales growth in future periods, those regarding the effect of new sales-building initiatives, future guest traffic, as well as those regarding the number of restaurants expected to be opened in future periods and the timing and location of such openings. These “forward-looking” statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results to be materially different from those projected or anticipated. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to: (i) the effect of credit and equity market disruptions on our ability to finance our continued expansion on acceptable terms, (ii) our ability to manage an increasing number of new restaurant openings, (iii) construction delays, (iv) labor shortages, (v) minimum wage increases, (vi) food quality and health concerns, (vii) factors that impact California, where 56 of our current 115 restaurants are located, (viii) restaurant and brewery industry competition, (ix) impact of certain brewery business considerations, including without limitation, dependence upon suppliers, third party contractors and related hazards, (x) consumer spending trends in general for casual dining occasions, (xi) potential uninsured losses and liabilities, (xii) fluctuating commodity costs and availability of food in general and certain raw materials related to the brewing of our handcrafted beers and energy, (xiii) trademark and service-mark risks, (xiv) government regulations, (xv) licensing costs, (xvi) beer and liquor regulations, (xvii) loss of key personnel, (xviii) inability to secure acceptable sites, (xix) limitations on insurance coverage, (xx) legal proceedings, (xxi) other general economic and regulatory conditions and requirements, (xxii) the success of our key sales-building and related operational initiatives and (xxiii) numerous other matters discussed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. The “forward-looking” statements contained in this press release are based on current assumptions and expectations and BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update or alter its “forward-looking” statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information, please contact Greg Levin of BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. at (714) 500-2400.

This news release was distributed by GlobeNewswire

SOURCE: BJ’s Restaurants, Inc.
CONTACT: BJ’s Restaurants, Inc.
(714) 500-2400

Ed’s Note: BJ’s is just one of many Billion Dollar companies that started right here in the SoCal Beach zone.

See the Model S Chassis in Newport Beach

The displays highlight the innovative components that make up Model S’ drivetrain including the motor, battery pack, front suspension assembly, and rear drive unit. The tour is part of Tesla’s strategy to introduce the public to the advantages of electric vehicles. Visitors to Tesla’s Newport Fashion Island showroom can see and touch the building blocks of Model S while learning about them through interactive touchscreen experiences.

Equipped with Tesla’s advanced electric powertrain, Model S provides instant torque and smooth acceleration from 0-60 in less than six seconds. The aluminum body is engineered for superior handling, safety and efficiency. With the most energy dense battery pack in the industry, and best-in-class aerodynamics, Model S has the longest range of any electric car in the world, up to 300 miles on a single charge.

The components on display demonstrate the superiority and efficiency of Tesla’s electric vehicle architecture. Customers will be able to see how Model S’ flat, lithium-ion cell battery improves rigidity and handling, how the rear drive unit is efficiently designed for maximum power, and how the lack of an internal combustion engine makes Model S stronger and safer.

“Tesla stores are designed to let people explore and learn about Tesla’s technology for themselves,” said VP of Sales and Ownership Experience George Blankenship. “You’ll never see a ‘Don’t Touch’ sign in a Tesla store. We want everyone — from kindergartners to grandparents — to come in and see for themselves why driving electric is the future.”

The Model S components are just one pillar of Tesla’s mission to reinvent the way people buy cars. Breaking from the traditional dealership model, Tesla stores entice, inform and engage prospective customers with innovative touch-screen interfaces, knowledgeable product specialists, and a virtual design studio where they can customize their own premium Model S sedans.

ABOUT TESLA

Tesla’s goal is to accelerate the world’s transition to electric mobility with a full range of increasingly affordable electric cars. Palo Alto, California-based Tesla designs and manufactures EVs and EV powertrain components. Tesla has delivered more than 2,000 Roadsters, the world’s first electric sports car, to customers worldwide. Model S, the first premium sedan to be built from the ground up as an electric vehicle, goes on the market in mid-2012.

Ed’s Note: I went and looked at this car on New Years Day, the central display is an incredible piece of technology for a car.  Not having a motor or a gas tank really changes the layout of the car and it is worth seeing.  If you are looking at an Infiniti, Lexus or even and E class, the Tesla Model S should be on your list.  I just want to know when the Roadster will get a cup holder?