http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/05/jason_vuic_yugo_book Q&A: Why the Iconic Yugo Isn’t Just a Punchline By Keith Barry May 10, 2010 Jason Vuic used to be an ordinary guy. He toiled in relative anonymity, teaching modern European and world history at Bridgewater College in Virginia, never dreaming that a 30-year-old car could make him a celebrity. Then he wrote a book about the Yugo. Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History chronicles the introduction of a Communist-made subcompact into the middle of Ronald Reagan’s America and how a little car had a big impact on the American psyche. We picked up a copy, assuming it would be a light read for a long train ride. Instead we found a fascinating and rigorously researched history that was more fun than a night’s worth of Yugo jokes. Inextricably tied to the history of the Yugo is its importer, colorful entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin. Before Yugo, Bricklin’s achievement included importing the downright lousy Subaru 360 to America, going down with the ship at a chain of hardware stores, trying (and failing) to build an all-new sports car and importing Fiat convertibles in the early ’80s. When Bricklin brought the tiny Yugoslav hatchback to America in 1984, it became a runaway success. Ads blanketed nightly newscasts and popular magazines while dealerships had long waiting lists. But six years later Bricklin’s big plan was a memory after he’d been fired. The little car disappeared from dealerships soon after. What happened? Vuic argues Bricklin’s venture never had enough capital and, together with the Yugoslav factory, could not adapt to competition from newcomers like the Hyundai Excel. (Another bad automotive joke.) But what Vuic finds most fascinating is how a sub-par car remains a cultural touchstone. Naturally, we had to give Jason Vuic a call. We caught up with him at home, where he gave us a half hour of his time. Coincidentally, that’s about how long it takes a Yugo to get from 0 to 60. Wired.com: How did a respected academic end up spending valuable time writing a book about the Yugo, of all things? Jason Vuic: I’m an American of Yugoslav descent, and I’ve been interested since I was a kid in those rare moments Yugoslavia entered the American consciousness. I remember when [President Josep Broz] Tito died. I remember the Sarajevo Olympics. I remember when Vlade Divac replaced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And I also remembered the Yugo. I’m not a car guy, though I love cars like most Americans. [The Yugo] was something that every single American knew about. I’d say I study Yugoslavia, and people would say, “Do you drive a Yugo? Do they still drive Yugos?” “This car always had some sort of power. It was iconic for whatever reason. So one day I just looked it up and I found there was little (information) on it.” Wired.com: Did the former Yugo executives answer the phone when you called? Aren’t they in the Witness Protection Program now? Vuic: When they did say they’d talk, they’d talk a lot. These people have careers now, so a number of people wouldn’t speak to me. I’d say most of the Yugo guys — the Americans, the executives — most of them were proud. I knew there’d be some flak for my title, “the worst car in history.” The reason I wrote that is that’s what Americans think. Most Americans who are Gen-X and older believe that the Yugo is the worst car in history. It’s on Car Talk, it’s on NPR, it’s on the cover of a book called Crap Cars, it’s in jokes. The Yugo wasn’t a very good car and it was a sales catastrophe. So (company executives) wanted to go out of their way to tell me that it wasn’t the worst car ever. And I agree. But it’s the myth I’m talking about. It’s a bad car, but I’m writing about why it is we hate this car so much. The (executives) who talked to me were really adamant about saying the press was unfair, Consumer Reports was unfair. Most (executives) really didn’t want, and didn’t like, when I called it the worst car in history. They had positive memories. The Yugoslavs, the workers, never really understood what was happening. They made the car, they shipped the car to America. In general, people didn’t get what was happening with the Yugo and they certainly didn’t get it when the Yugo started to go south. The workers knew when the line started to slow down, but they were shipping 30,000 or 40,000 cars a year. And they didn’t know what to make of [Yugo America founder Malcolm] Bricklin and the Americans (and) the Communists dealing with the arch-capitalist Bricklin. Wired.com: How did serial entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin get along with the Communist factory managers? Vuic: There are no entrepreneurs in Communist countries. Bricklin was an arch-capitalist. The people in the upper echelons in Yugoslavia don’t have fond memories of Bricklin, but people who worked with him in America really loved him. They said “Go easy on Malcolm” and I tried to be fair. Wired.com: Do you think Bricklin believed in the car? Vuic: I do. I think Bricklin believed in all his ventures. I’ve studied a lot of his career, and I don’t see him as a con man. I never felt he was socking away money for a rainy day in any of his ventures. I found Bricklin literally going down with the ship. Think of Enron. Those guys weren’t going down with any ship. Bricklin (also) went down with the Bricklin SV1 in Canada. He went bankrupt, full on. What motivates Bricklin is the chase, that entrepreneurial chase. When Yugo was failing, his accountant went out to find investors. They found a group of investors and Bricklin was going to make $5 million — but he was angry because he didn’t want to leave. I think if Bricklin was wanting the Yugo to go down or go out, he would have left. Wired.com: What does he think of the book? Vuic: From what I understand he’s not too happy with it, but I haven’t heard from him directly. I think I was very fair, and I certainly rely on what’s public record (for the information in the book). Wired.com: How did the Communist versus capitalist angle play into the Yugo’s downfall? Vuic: I think [Yugo America was] overextended and undercapitalized from day one. I think that was the big problem. They had to sell a lot of cars to break even (and) sales dried up because the product wasn’t that good. In Yugoslavia, that was a problem too. It wasn’t a war, it wasn’t ethnic infighting, none of that. The Communist factory couldn’t afford new models, they were also very slow to change their quality issues, very slow to do what Yugo [America] wanted. They did a lot of things like (that). When they were building this new car, a “Hyundai-fighter,” they called it the “Florida” without even asking Yugo America what they thought of the name. There were some talented car men at Zastava [the Yugoslav factory that produced the Yugo], but they were always limited by these political people at the top of the factory who knew nothing about cars. It was very poor quality control because they had no domestic competitors. What Bricklin was asking for wasn’t an appliance, it was a consumer good. They weren’t able to make it sexy, they weren’t able to make it sleek or neat or into a status symbol or something that young people wanted. And if you think about the ’80s, maybe it was asking a lot. The Big Three were having trouble making things young people wanted. Wired.com: Will there ever be another Yugo? Vuic: I wonder if we’re going to see another Yugo again. Can people distribute cars like that? I doubt it. If the Tata Nano comes, its not the Yugo. It’s with Tata’s money. It might have some of the same issues, with the initial Nano-mania, but I don’t think there’s any room anymore for you and me to get together and get together $20 million, or $40 million, and bring over a car. People ask, “Is the Chevy Aveo the new Yugo? Is the Toyota Yaris the new Yugo?” There are no more Yugos.” Wired.com: What’s your favorite Yugo joke? Vuic: I love, “Yo mama drives a Yugo.” It’s just so conclusive, like, “Your mom wears army boots.” I find that hilarious. I find it amazing there are so many Yugo jokes out there. What’s interesting to me is why was this car so wildly reviled? Most Americans never saw one, never drove one, never knew someone who owned one. But it’s something that shows the best practices and worst practices. Obviously the Yugo did something right because the press was amazing. *** http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592423,00.html The Pill: 50 Years Later Friday, May 07, 2010 This mother’s day, the pill that promised worry-free sex and total sexual control for women celebrates its 50th birthday. A world without "the pill" is unimaginable to many young women, and they might be surprised to learn that U.S. officials announcing approval of the world's first oral contraceptive were uncomfortable at the time. Before the Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive on May 9, 1960, the only other birth control options were the diaphragm, condoms, the rhythm method, and in extreme cases, sterilization. Those were the more commonly used methods. More unorthodox solutions included vinegar sponges, olive oil, and even bleach. The first form of the birth control pill, Enovid, revolutionized contraception and most argue it jump-started the sexual revolution. Elissa Stein, co-author of “Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation,” told FoxNews.com that the pill started the beginning of a long-term cultural experiment. “Birth control pills gave women control over their bodies in a way that was unimaginable before. Sexual freedom exploded as the fear of pregnancy was wiped away,” she said. But it had very dangerous side effects, like life-threatening blood clots and heart attacks. When it was first released, the dosage of the pill was unknowingly 10 times higher than it needed to be, and as a result, 11 women died and 100 more suffered from blood clots. Today, the pill is the most popular form of contraception, with approximately 12 million American women taking it. Eighty percent of women will use the pill at some point during their reproductive years. In 2008, American women spent over $3.5 billion on birth control pills. The market for the pill is ever thriving — exploding from one pill brand to more than 40 different brands. Today, we have Yaz, Yasmin, Seasonale, Seasonique and Lybrel — all with slightly different packaging, formulations and selling points. Lybrel is the first pill designed to eliminate menstrual periods entirely, although gynecologists say any generic brand can do the same thing if you skip the placebo and take the active pill every day. Originally, the pill was intended only for contraception, but has since been proven to cut the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer, make periods lighter, and clear up acne. “Manageable menstruation and more moderate cycles were added bonuses to millions who chose the chemical path,” Stein said. “It gives women the ability to exert control over her own body, to make the decision whether or not she wants to be pregnant, to regulate her cycles and symptoms.” The hope in 1960 when the pill was released was that it would allow all pregnancies to be planned. Fifty years later, almost half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended, and nearly half of those end in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which compiles data on abortions.As soon as the pill went on the market in 1960, married women were clamoring for it. And within two years of its approval, more than a million women were taking it. Stein said that even though many women had started using oral contraception, that didn’t mean it was socially acceptable yet. “When the pill first went on sale, it was illegal to practice birth control in some parts of the country. It took a Supreme Court decision in 1965 to strike that down. The court had to take a stand again in 1972, when they declared unmarried woman were entitled to purchase contraceptives,” Stein said. Another change over the past 50 years is advertising. Women now in their 20s have been exposed to ads for the pill for most of their lives. The first magazine ads for the pill ran in 1992. Now, TV ads show smiling women liberated by the ability to limit or even eliminate their menstrual periods. "The future of birth control is not pills at all," said Dr. Lisa Perriera, 34, of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland. Female doctors use intrauterine devices (IUDs) twice as frequently as the general population of women, and many recommend it to their patients. "The best birth control is easy to use, highly effective at preventing pregnancy and has few side effects," Perriera said. "The methods that fit those criteria best are IUDs and implants. I think that's where birth control is going." “Fifty years later, the pill has made birth control a significant part of our culture and a far easier conversation to have than it ever had been,” Stein said. The next step that some are hoping for a breakthrough in: Male birth control. An oral drug called miglustat worked in mice, but not in men. Researchers are recruiting men for studies of a hormonal gel to suppress sperm production. Andrea Tone, a history professor at Montreal's McGill University and author of "Devices and Desires: A History of Contraception in America," said she thinks there is still some social doubt about a male birth control pill. "The question is will a single company decide to take this to market, to get FDA clearance, a very expensive undertaking, when it's hard to predict how commercially viable a male pill would be," Tone said. After all these years, a male equivalent to the birth control pill is still five to seven years away. Even then, the likelihood is that women will still prefer their forms of contraception. “Women at the same time feel a little bit nervous entrusting men to take a pill or be on a patch," Tone said. The Associated Press contributed to this article. *** http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10109254.stm Microsoft's two-pronged strategy for Office 2010 Wednesday, 12 May 2010 Tim Weber Business editor, BBC News website Office is first and foremost corporate software There is only one thing more important to Microsoft than the success of its new Windows 7 operating system, and that's the success of Office 2010, the latest version of its suite of productivity software. For Microsoft, Office is the real cash cow. Except in years when Microsoft launches a new operating system, it is Office that generates most of the firm's profits through corporate licensing deals. But a lot has changed since the last launch of the US software giant's office software package - with Word for text processing, Outlook for e-mail, Powerpoint for presentations, and corporate mainstay Excel for spreadsheets (plus a range of other applications). Who needs documents? Microsoft Office goes online For starters, people are using computers differently. Companies now have to provide for a highly mobile and dispersed workforce; consumers, meanwhile, live their digital lives less through e-mail and more through social networks. Companies also still worry about the economy; spending on information technology is recovering, but slowly. Microsoft now has competition, most notably from old rival Google with its range of free (for consumers) or cheap (for companies) online applications. These days "it is very hard to sell an office suite to consumers", says Sheri McLeish, an analyst with technology consulting firm Forrester. Most have some version of Office on their computer, she says, and for everybody else "there is a huge choice of free alternatives". "The influence of Google" on the consumer market, she says, "means that Microsoft is not as dominant anymore." Finally, consumers have "less of a need to engage with documents". E-mail and Word documents are losing their importance as more people communicate via social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, and these "are not documents-based", says Ms McLeish. The online counterstrike Microsoft, however, has a cunning plan. While the full version of Office is still a chunky and pricey piece of software, soon all Office applications will be available through the web. Even better, for consumers they will be free. Microsoft is playing to the strength of its global reach. "Microsoft Office Web Apps" will be available to more than 500 million people using free Windows Live services such as Hotmail, online storage Skydrive and Live Messenger. Another boost: under the name Docs.com, the service will be available to all users of Facebook, one of the world's most popular social networking sites. Microsoft's biggest weapon, though, argues Forrester's Sheri McLeish is "familiarity", which "can not be underestimated". Most people just know how to use Office - although that's true only to a point. With Office 2007, Microsoft introduced a new top-level navigation, a so-called ribbon of commands relevant in the context of what you were working on. What seemed like a good idea turned out to be a major irritation for most. Microsoft has not given up on the concept, though, and rolled out the ribbon across all Office applications, including their online versions. After plenty of refinements, "we are seeing less and less negative feedback on the ribbon," says Per-Olof Schroeder of Microsoft's Office division. High fidelity Microsoft also hopes to win on quality of service. Yes, Office web apps won't be as powerful as the real applications installed on a computer but they will be better than those offered by rivals, the company claims. Many browser-based applications struggle to maintain the formatting of original documents. Microsoft, in contrast, promises "high fidelity" editing and viewing, including an online "player" for Powerpoint presentations on computers that don't have this resource-intensive software. But why is Microsoft giving away all this for free? Company executives are shy to answer, but the explanation is obvious: Office 2010 is the ultimate freemium deal - where some basic services are offered for free, while power users are happy to pay a premium. And the power users are corporate clients. The enterprise play Microsoft has taken a page out of Apple's play-book, says Ms McLeish. There is a new generation of computer users growing up. Giving them Office web apps for free makes them familiar with Microsoft products, and "when they enter the workforce, they will want something they are familiar with". Office 2010 is using Microsoft's Ribbon navigation throughout It also works for existing users. "The way people work is changing," says Mr Schroeder. "They are working more and more from everywhere... home and the workspace are merging. "That's how we position Office 2010, regardless of how you access it, on your PC or through you browser... you have high-fidelity viewing and a very good user interface," says Mr Schroeder. Microsoft's lynchpin is its Sharepoint software, which allows people to share and collaborate on documents. The software, an integral part of the Office 2010 package, is "going like gangbusters," reports Ms McLeish. A third of big enterprises plan to upgrade to Sharepoint 2010 within a year, and that in turn will drive the corporate success of the Office 2010, says Forrester. While "for the broad masses it's going to be a slow transition" to the new Office suite, "for businesses, I'm bullish for the product," she says. Into the cloud Of course, Sharepoint is not the only collaboration tool around. Plenty of companies - including Google - offer applications, tools and databases online. It's called "cloud computing", but even here Microsoft has the advantage that companies still live overwhelmingly in a Microsoft world. "The cloud story is coming together for Microsoft, and Office 2010 is a key part of that," says Per-Olof Schroeder. And while most consumers will be perfectly happy with the limited features of Docs.com, Mr Schroeder predicts that companies will find themselves in "a lot of scenarios that require much more advanced capabilities" - in other words a fully paid-up version of Office 2010. The software So does Microsoft meet its online/offline promises? Docs.com is still in "beta", an invitation-only service with plenty of software bugs. The user interface has a clear, clean look that will make most Office users feel at home. The workflow - where to click, in which order - still needs improving. But Microsoft is clearly very close to delivering a strong challenger to Google Docs, especially when Docs.com is combined with Skydrive, Microsoft's free 25 Gigabyte online storage service. The Office 2010 software itself runs faster than its predecessor and sports many clever improvements (my favourite: a meeting invitation sent to Outlook automatically shows whether it can fit in the diary or not). But Office is still very much a corporate product. Microsoft must hope that its web apps are compelling enough to have future generations clamouring for the Microsoft experience at work. *** http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100510/tod-starving-yogi-astounds-indian-scient-451ab4f.html 'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists Monday, May 10, 2010 Rajesh Joshi An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period. Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television. During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet. "We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is." The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute. The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters. "(Jani's) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), said in a statement. Jani has since returned to his village near Ambaji in northern Gujarat where he will resume his routine of yoga and meditation. He says that he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers. During the 15-day observation, which ended on Thursday, the doctors took scans of Jani's organs, brain, and blood vessels, as well as doing tests on his heart, lungs and memory capacity. "The reports were all in the pre-determined safety range through the observation period," Shah told reporters at a press conference last week. Other results from DNA analysis, molecular biological studies and tests on his hormones, enzymes, energy metabolism and genes will take months to come through. "If Jani does not derive energy from food and water, he must be doing that from energy sources around him, sunlight being one," said Shah. "As medical practitioners we cannot shut our eyes to possibilities, to a source of energy other than calories."