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New York, NY –  The bed bug epidemic which has plagued the city for nearly a decade finally appears to be waning.

2011 was the first year since the launch of the city’s 311 system that the number of bed bug-related complaints and city-issued violations dropped, according to new numbers obtained by DNAinfo.

The numbers suggest that after years of panic about infestations taking over everything from apartment buildings to movie theaters and high-end hotels, property owners have gotten the upper hand.

“I think the problem did not expand at the level that people had expected and anticipated,” said George Shea, a partner at Bed Bug Super Dogs, which uses trained pooches to sniff out the blood-sucking critters.

Shea said that calls are down 40 to 50 percent versus late 2010 and early 2011, when he would receive hundreds of calls a day.

The number of bed bugs reported to 311 dropped for the first time since the system was launched. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images – FILE)

“I think what’s happening is a lot of the hype has disappeared,” he said.

According to city numbers, 311 complaints about bed bugs in Manhattan dropped last year from 2,649 in 2010 to 2,361 in 2011 — a change of nearly 11 percent.

The drop comes after years of steady increases, which saw the numbers soar from just 103 complaints in 2003 to 2,553 in 2009 — an increase of more than 2,000 percent.

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Violations issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which follows up on all 311 bed bug-related calls, also dropped for the first time last year, with 649 violations issued in Manhattan in 2011, versus 846 in 2010.

There were just 17 bed bug violations issued in 2004.

HPD spokesman Eric Bederman said that, while it’s too early to say for certain that the tide has turned, the city has ramped up efforts to inform the public about bed bugs Windows 7 Serial, which he said is one of the best weapons to combat their spread.

People are more vigilant and there is more and better information available about how to prevent and deal with infestations, he said, citing efforts like the city’s online bed bug portal Where to buy windows 7 key, which has extensive information about how to recognize and treat infestations.

The city also implemented new rules in 2011, which includes efforts like forcing owners to inspect and treat nearby units if bed bugs are found and forcing repeat offenders to provide written verification that infestations have been properly treated.

But bed bug experts caution that the numbers may not tell the whole story because of changes in New Yorkers’ approach to the bugs.

While people may have previously panicked, turning to 311 when they suspected an infestation, today people are much more likely to turn to private exterminators or their landlords for help.

Landlords have also become more adept at dealing with the problem, with plans in place to provide immediate intervention instead of letting the problem fester, experts said.

“Before, a lot of the landlords didn’t deal with the problem,” said Jeffrey Eisenberg, founder of Manhattan-based extermination company Pest Away and author of “The Bed Bug Survival Guide.”

“Now, they do deal with it so people don’t have to call 311 to report their landlords.”

Eisenberg said that, unlike Shea, he hasn’t seen any decline in the number of bed bugs he’s treating, and still gets more than 100 calls a day.

“Bed bugs are still extremely active,” he said. “It hasn’t slowed down at all [even though] people think it has.”

Still, the numbers show that there are still significant geographical differences, with certain neighborhoods still feeling most of the bite.

While just a six complaints were logged with 311 from Downtown’s Community District 1, Central Harlem’s District 10 logged a skin-crawling 542.

In general, Northern Manhattan neighborhoods fared worse than others, with 451 complaints logged in Washington Heights and Inwood’s Community District 12, 249 in East Harlem’s Community District 11, and 341 in West Harlem’s Community District 10.

The city’s West Side has also been hard-hit, with 187 complaints in Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen and 183 on the Upper West Side — about equal to Murray Hill and the Upper East Side combined.

But Eisenberg said that one of the reasons for the differences is not that bed bugs are more prominent uptown, but that residents in higher-income neighborhoods are less likely to reach out to the city — either because they live in more expensive buildings with the resources to treat problems quickly or are more willing to drop hundreds of dollars to hire pricey private exterminators.

Those who own their own apartments are also less likely to file complaints, he said.

The proliferation of new exterminators that have entered the market also may give the appearance that there are fewer complaints, he said.

Others, including Louis Sorkin, an entomologist at Entsult Associates, said that while many residents are more informed, there are others who are still clueless about bed bugs, letting the problem fester for years.

“There are also those infestations in which the people don’t want anyone to know Exchange Server Key, so they don’t say much at all, don’t report it and unfortunately try some of their own remedies that usually fail,” he said.

Content provided as courtesy by DNAinfo.com

WASHINGTON — A Sikh advocacy group launched a free mobile application Monday that allows travelers to complain immediately to the government if they feel they have been treated unfairly by airport screeners.

Launched at midnight by the Sikh Coalition, the FlyRights app had fielded two complaints by 10 a.m. Monday.

The first complaint came from a woman who said she felt mistreated after she disclosed to a screener that she was carrying breast milk. A man who is Sikh filed the second complaint replica watches, saying he was subjected to extra security even though he had not set off any alarms. The woman’s complaint was based on gender and the man’s on religion, said coalition program director Amardeep Singh.

Singh said the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration were notified of the app before its launch. The agencies agreed to allow the app to use the agencies’ system for submitting the complaints.

TSA said in a statement that it does not profile passengers on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion and is continually working with communities, including the Sikh Coalition, “to help us understand unique passenger concerns.” The agency said it supports “efforts to gather passenger feedback about the screening process.”

The app, available for iPhone and Android phones, was conceived in response to complaints from Sikhs in the United States, who since the Sept. 11, 2001 replica watches, terrorist attacks are routinely subjected to additional inspection, Singh said. Some are made to remove their turbans, which Sikhs wear for religious reasons, Singh said.

The app is intended for everyone who feels they are racially profiled or subjected to other unfair treatment. It also is intended to provide better data on how often such incidents occur.

After completing screening, a person can go to the app and click on the “report” button. The app will automatically fill in the person’s name, phone number and email address. The app asks questions such as race and name of airport, as well as the basis of the complaint, such as religion or gender. It has “submit” and “share” buttons to post that a complaint was filed on social media. The app also contains information on rights of passengers and TSA procedures.

The Sikh Coalition gets hundreds of complaints of unfair treatment and profiling, Singh said. By contrast, he said, the Department of Homeland Security said in its last report to Congress on civil rights and civil liberties that 11 people in the United States submitted complaints in the first six months of 2011.

“My hope is that this app will exponentially increase the number of complaints filed with the TSA, flood the system so they get that this is a problem. For too long the Transportation Security Administration has been able to tell Congress this is not an issue, nobody’s complaining,” Singh said.

Passengers can ask to speak to supervisors or customer support managers at an airport, contact the TSA Contact Center, submit feedback through “Talk-to-TSA” online or file a civil rights complaint through its website, the agency said.

Prabhjit Singh, a motivational speaker, said he has been profiled 30 times, starting in February 2007 when he was taking an early morning flight from BWI to Alabama. In that incident, he was told he had to go through a mandatory pat-down of his turban, even though he had not set off the detector. But after asking for information on the TSA policy, a supervisor told him he could not fly.

“Out of those 30 incidents, I have not yet been able to take myself and write down all the information I needed to and been able to convey that to the Sikh Coalition. This app will allow me to do that,” said Prabhjit Singh, who is not related to Amardeep Singh.

“When I sat down on that airplane, after that experience replica watches, I looked around at everybody else … and I thought, they did not have to go through what I had to go through to get on this airplane,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The new lead investigator at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s watchdog office has been placed on administrative leave after he talked openly about wanting to carry a concealed firearm at work and some employees complained he was a physical threat, according to people familiar with the matter.

David Weber, who joined the SEC only a few months ago as the new assistant inspector general for investigations, was placed on leave Tuesday after internal security personnel revoked his SEC identification and banned him from entering SEC headquarters in Washington D.C., these people said.

Chris Mead, an attorney for Weber, said his client is being wrongfully retaliated against. He added he was also dismayed that efforts to invoke a lawful process to carry a firearm could be called a “threat.”

Weber complained earlier this year to SEC commissioners about alleged misconduct in the inspector general’s office, the sources said. His complaint came to light in news reports earlier this week.

“The timing doesn’t make any sense because he was not considered threatening until people had a motive for retaliating against him,” Mead said. “A chronology of events will reveal that any allegations against my client are not only false, but are unlawful retaliation against an employee who did the right thing.”

The events are the latest sign of turmoil in the SEC’s Office of Inspector General, which polices any waste, fraud and abuse at the agency. The office came under scrutiny shortly before then inspector general David Kotz left in January after questions were raised about Kotz’s hard-hitting tactics and ethical behavior. [ID:nL1E8CHBQA] Kotz has denied any wrongdoing.

Now, AT-RISK, a security consulting firm Cheap Tattoo Machine, has been tapped to review the complaints about Weber’s conduct, the sources said.

The firm’s investigators are interviewing employees inside the watchdog office about their interactions with Weber, the sources added.

Weber came to the SEC from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, where he was a supervisory counsel in charge of banking enforcement. He joined the SEC in January, just before Kotz departed to work for a private investigations firm.

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Among the complaints by SEC staff about Weber are that he openly spoke about wanting to carry a concealed firearm inside the SEC’s headquarters building in Washington, the sources said.

He also solicited investigators inside the office to participate in special training so they could become eligible for a concealed weapons permit and brought a bullet-proof vest into work, the sources said.

John Nester, an SEC spokesman Tattoo Gun Needles, declined to comment about Weber.

Earlier this week, Nester said the agency received a complaint from an individual about possible misconduct by current and former inspector general’s office employees.

He declined to provide any details, saying the SEC was hiring an outside investigator.

He also said the matter had been referred to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, or CIGIE, a government council that monitors the work of 73 inspectors.

Kotz Tattoo Machine Parts, who now works as a managing director at the private investigative firm Gryphon Strategies, said he does not believe any allegations were actually ever made about him and he said CIGIE had already decided that Weber’s accusations had no merit.

He called Weber’s accusations “completely and utterly ludicrous and untrue.”

“I have learned that allegations about the SEC OIG were considered by the Integrity Committee and determined to be not worthy of investigation and dismissed entirely. I was not advised at any point that any allegations were made about me or that the Integrity Committee was reviewing any allegations about me,” he said in an e-mail.

He added that no one within his prior office was ever aware of such allegations. He said the source of them was “questionable” and that he had “almost no contact” with Weber during the brief time their tenures overlapped.

In addition to previously working at the FDIC, Weber also worked as a Special Counsel for Enforcement at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and before that, a law clerk for a U.S. district court judge in New York.

The SEC’s five commissioners are currently searching for a new inspector general. The inspector general will be in charge of overseeing all of the office’s operations, including audits and investigations. Weber’s job is to oversee the investigative arm of the office.

(Editing by Martin Howell and Andre Grenon)

Regulatory News

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

If there’s one thing the co-founders of YouTube don’t need, it’s money (Chad Hurley and Steve Chen each made an estimated $300-plus million from selling to Google). But, in the form of their new company, AVOS Systems Tattoo Inks, they do seem to see the value in plugging into the venture capital system — and back into the Google system in particular — by accepting a Series A investment today from Google Ventures Rotary Tattoo Machine, NEA, Madrone Capital and Innovation Works.

On the VC side, the deal is obviously more about the team than about its current products. AVOS has been working on the challenge of reinvigorating Delicious, which it bought from Yahoo Professional Tattoo Machine, and now is planning an upcoming digital magazine called Zeen.

AVOS said that Alex Kinnier of NEA, and Gideon Yu — who is now president of the San Francisco 49ers and was formerly at Khosla Ventures, YouTube and Facebook — would be joining its board.

Citrus Lane, which offers subscribers a monthly care package aimed at mothers and babies, has raised $5.1 million in a first round of funding.

Investors participating in the round include GGV Capital and Greylock Partners. The Mountain View, Calif., company said it will use the money to expand and hire additional employees.

Business models like Citrus Lane’s are getting pretty popular. Members sign up for a monthly subscription and get a package of products in the mail based on a particular theme.

My colleague Lauren Goode recently wrote about how Birchbox.com was branching out from sending beauty products to women to sending grooming products and consumer-tech gadgets for men. And, there are plenty of apparel companies that are also trying out the model, including Shoedazzle.

Citrus Lane’s box costs $25 a month, and offers two different versions — one for pregnant women and another for young children and parents. Contents include four to five items based on the child’s age — newborn to three years old — and include toys, snacks and other activities.

Citrus Lane Announces $5.1 Million Series A Funding from GGV Capital and Greylock Partners

Helps Parents Discover ‘Best Of’ Products For Little Ones

Mountain View, CA (April 25, 2012) – Citrus Lane (www.citruslane.com), a subscription e-commerce site that is focused on getting useful, developmentally appropriate and delightful products to young families, today announced that it has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding from GGV Capital and Greylock Partners. The company will use the funds to continue to expand its business and add critical new hires.

Each month, Citrus Lane members receive a care package of four to five “best of” products based on their child’s age for $25 per month. Citrus Lane curates its recommendations from partner brands such as Green Toys, Weleda Buy DKNY Clothing, Zoli and Episencial.

All products are vetted by real moms. Citrus Lane also provides members with monthly editorial tips and insights and an active, vocal Facebook community of moms.

Founders Mauria Finley and Claire Hough are former executives of companies such as eBay, PayPal and NexTag that defined the first generation of Internet commerce companies. Citrus Lane combines a new generation of ecommerce with a social experience to provide a vibrant online community as well as a distribution platform for its partner brands.

“We’re building a company that helps moms – and dads – discover the best products for their babies and toddlers with the help of a trusted resource,” said Mauria Finley, founder and CEO of Citrus Lane. “We’re thrilled to have the support of Greylock and GGV Capital – they understood our business from the start and will be important partners as Citrus Lane continues to grow.”

Citrus Lane raised a seed round of financing in March 2011 and shipped its first boxes in July 2011.

“Citrus Lane is all about customer engagement. Build-and-grow models like Citrus Lane that focus on great service and consistent, long-term
word-of-mouth growth create the best opportunity for sustained growth,” said Jeff Richards, Partner Buy Christian Audigier Clothes, GGV Capital and new Citrus Lane board member. “We’re excited to be working with the company and look forward to working with them as they become the leader in subscription commerce.”

Barack Obama addresses the Turkish Grand National Assembly

Even before President Barack Obama set off on his visit to Turkey this week, there were the usual voices urging him to dilute the principled position that he has so far taken on the Armenian genocide. April is the month in which the Armenian diaspora commemorates the bloody initiation, in 1915 Tattoo Supplies, of the Ottoman Empire’s campaign to erase its Armenian population. The marking of the occasion takes two forms: Armenian Remembrance Day, on April 24, and the annual attempt to persuade Congress to name that day as one that abandons weasel wording and officially calls the episode by its right name, which is the word I used above.

Genocide had not been coined in 1915, but the U.S. ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, employed a term that was in some ways more graphic. In his urgent reports to the State Department, conveying on-the-spot dispatches from his consuls, especially in the provinces of Van and Harput, he described the systematic slaughter of the Armenians as “race murder.” A vast archive of evidence exists to support this claim. But every year, the deniers and euphemists set to work again, and there are usually enough military-industrial votes to tip the scale in favor of our Turkish client. (Of late, Turkey’s opportunist military alliance with Israel has also been good for a few shame-faced Jewish votes as well.)

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President Obama comes to this issue with an unusually clear and unambivalent record. In 2006, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled for employing the word genocide. Then-Sen. Obama wrote a letter of complaint to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, deploring the State Department’s cowardice and roundly stating that the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 “is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” On the campaign trail last year, he amplified this position, saying that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”

For any who might entertain doubt on this score Tattoo Supplies, I would recommend two recent books of exceptional interest and scholarship that both add a good deal of depth and texture to this drama. The first is Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, by Grigoris Balakian, and the second is Rebel Land: Travels Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples, a contemporary account by Christopher de Bellaigue. In addition, we have just learned of shattering corroborative evidence from within the archives of the Turkish state. The Ottoman politician who began the campaign of deportation and extermination, Talat Pasha, left enormous documentation behind him. His family has now given the papers to a Turkish author named Murat Bardakci, who has published a book with the somewhat dry title The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha. One of these “remaining documents” is a cold estimate that during the years 1915 and 1916 alone, a total of 972,000 Armenians simply vanished from the officially kept records of population. (See Sabrina Tavernise’s report in the New York Times of March 8, 2009.)

There are those who try to say that the Armenian catastrophe was a regrettable byproduct of the fog of war and of imperial collapse, and this might be partly true of the many more Armenians who were slaughtered at the war’s end and after the implosion of Ottomanism. But this is an archive maintained by the government of the day and its chief anti-Armenian politician, and it records in the very early days of World War I a population decline from 1,256,000 to 284,157. It is very seldom that a regime in its private correspondence confirms almost to an exactitude the claims of its victims.

So what will the deniers say now? The usual routine has been to insinuate that if Congress votes to assert the historic truth, then Turkey will inconvenience the NATO alliance by making trouble on the Iraqi border, denying the use of bases to the U.S. Air Force, or in other unspecified ways. This same kind of unchecked arrogance was on view at the NATO summit last weekend, where the Ankara government had the nerve to try to hold up the appointment of a serious Danish politician, Anders Rasmussen, as the next secretary-general of the alliance, on the grounds that as Denmark’s prime minister he had refused to censor Danish newspapers to Muslim satisfaction! It is now being hinted that if either President Obama or the Congress goes ahead with the endorsement of the genocide resolution, Turkey will prove uncooperative on a range of issues, including the normalization of the frontier between Turkey and Armenia and the transit of oil and gas pipelines across the Caucasus.

When the question is phrased in this thuggish way, it can be slyly suggested that Armenia’s own best interests are served by joining in the agreement to muddy and distort its own history. Yet how could any state, or any people, agree to abolish their pride and dignity in this way? And the question is not only for Armenians, who are economically hard-pressed by the Turkish closure of the common border. It is for the Turks, whose bravest cultural spokesmen and writers take genuine risks to break the taboo on discussion of the Armenian question. And it is also for Americans, who, having elected a supposedly brave new president, are being told that he—and our Congress too—must agree to collude in a gigantic historical lie. A lie, furthermore, that courageous U.S. diplomacy helped to expose in the first place. This falsification has already gone on long enough and has been justified for reasons of state. It is, among other things, precisely “for reasons of state,” in other words for the clear and vital announcement that we can’t be bought or intimidated, that April 24, 2009, should become remembered as the date when we affirmed the truth and accepted, as truth-telling does, all the consequences.

Update: In my last column, it seems I may have done an injustice to the government and people of Canada in the matter of George Galloway’s canceled visit to that country. For elucidation, please consult the following blog post.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Timeslead with the news the papers have been previewing all weekend: The U.S. government officially took control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday. In basic terms, this means that the government now has control over the companies that fund around two-thirds of all new home mortgages. Or, as the LAT succinctly summarizes: “Washington’s move means the federal government will directly back the great majority of the nation’s home mortgages.” And if the magnitude of that fact is still not clear, the papers all make sure to emphasize that this is A Big Deal. The NYT calls it “a seismic event” and the Wall Street Journal characterizes it as the “most dramatic market intervention in years.”

USA Todayfronts the Fannie and Freddie news but leads with a new poll taken over the weekend that shows John McCain got a big bounce from the Republican Convention. He now leads Barack Obama by 50 percent to 46 percent, a marked turnaround. Among likely voters, McCain leads 54 percent to 44 percent. The huge 19-point advantage that Obama had on handling the economy has virtually disappeared, and Republicans are also much more enthusiastic about voting than before the convention. Experts are quick to warn that post-convention bounces are often fleeting. “It is really surprising how quickly convention memories fade,” one political scientist said. The WSJ leads its world-wide newsbox with Hurricane Ike killing dozens in Haiti as Cuba rushed to evacuate those in the path of the Category 3 storm. The hurricane is expected to reach the Gulf Coast this week.

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When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the government’s takeover of Fannie and Freddie yesterday, he described it as the only viable option to deal with the current crisis. “Failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe,” Paulson said. The plan put the two companies under the management control of their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and their chief executives were summarily fired. The government will receive $1 billion of preferred shares in each company and the Treasury is committed to providing as much as $100 billion to each company to cope with any shortage of capital. In exchange for its help, the government would also get the right to buy up to 80 percent of the companies for a nominal fee.

In what the LAT calls “perhaps the most unexpected aspect of its rescue effort,” the government also announced that the Treasury would buy at least $5 billion of new mortgage-backed securities issued by the two companies. This could help restore confidence and even bring down the interest rates for some home mortgages. The companies could then expand to ease the pain of the credit crunch until the end of 2009 Christian Audigier Clothing sale, at which point Paulson said he wants the companies to shrink dramatically by reducing their mortgage holdings by 10 percent a year. Of course, that’s all likely to change Buy Marc Jacobs Dresses, depending on the makeup of the next administration and Congress, and some were already speaking up against plans to shrink the mortgage giants dramatically.

“There is no guarantee that the takeover will work,” declares the WP, “and it comes at a potentially massive cost to taxpayers.”

So how much will all this cost? No one knows, and estimates are hard to come by (yesterday, the NYT explained that it’s unlikely the Treasury will release an estimate on such a huge bailout before the presidential elections). If, as many predict, problems in the mortgage market continue and foreclosures rise, it could add up to “an expensive tab Replica Herve Leger gown,” notes USAT. The NYT points out that the Congressional Budget Office said two months ago it might cost $25 billion, but many think the final figure will be significantly higher. And the Post says the $29-billion rescue of Bear Stearns could seem like chump change once this is all over. But, on the upside, if the companies return to profitability, the government would be first in line to get its money back.

Existing shareholders are likely to incur huge losses, while the plan protects holders of the companies’ debt. These bondholders Herve leger strapless sale, which include mutual funds, foreign central banks, and government investment funds, are “the biggest winners” (WP) since their investment has the explicit backing of the U.S. government. Asian investors cheered the news Replica White Herve leger, and markets rallied at the opening bell today. Most politicians Discount Marc Jacobs Dresses, including the two running for president, expressed their support for the plan.

The NYT and WSJ both front deeply reported blow-by-blow accounts of how the decision to take over Fannie and Freddie was made in marathon 18-hour days that led officials to realize they really had no other choice. The NYT emphasizes that when Congress awarded Paulson the power to bail out the mortgage giants if necessary, he never intended to use it. “But he quickly learned that getting those powers made their execution inevitable,” says the NYT. Paulson began telling his friends that he “felt like a dog who’d caught a bus and didn’t know what to do with it.” Investors became nervous about putting money in the company without knowing the Treasury’s plans, and fears that foreign governments would stop buying the companies’ debt began to grow.

The WSJ highlights that until last month, Treasury officials thought that if they had to intervene, it would be through an equity investment. It was only in the middle of August that officials began to realize that wouldn’t be enough and, on Friday, Paulson told the companies they either agreed to a takeover or one would be forced on them. The NYT says that Fannie’s chief executive pleaded with Paulson to save the company since it was in better shape than Freddie, but Paulson refused. He shouldn’t feel too bad, though. The NYT reports that the head of Fannie Mae could collect  a $9.3 million exit package, while the chief executive of Freddie Mac could get at least $14.1 million. That is, of course, on top of the millions they’ve already earned while running the companies so spectacularly for a few years.

How did we get here? The NYT says that the “downfall of Fannie and Freddie stems from a series of miscalculations and deferred decisions, both by their executives and government officials.” First, the companies expanded rapidly and ignored risks and then they failed to raise enough rainy-day capital while lawmakers just stood by and watched.

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Volkswagen Up! concept – Click above for high-res image gallery

Fiat’s recent introduction of the two-cylinder TwinAir engine in the 500 has not swayed Volkswagen to reconsider placing a two-piston mill in its own Up city car. If anything Buy Karen Millen Dresses, Fiat’s TwinAir debut has convinced VW that two-cylinder engines are simply too costly and complicated to develop.

VW actively pursues engine downsizing DKNY Clothing sale, witnessed by its use of three-cylinder gasoline engines and sub-2.0-liter diesel mills but Cheap DKNY Dresses, according to the company’s research and development chief Cheap Karen Millen Dresses, Ulrich Hackenburg, downsizing is nearing the limits and dropping the cylinder count to just two is not in the automaker’s near-term plans.

Hackenberg told Autocar that further downsizing is not practical, framing it:
Improvements can now only be made in performance and economy, not in making the engines any smaller. Instead, the Up will make use of three-cylinder engines that will really advance the technology and make strong use of it. VW technical boss, Michael Hinz, added that even three-cylinder engines can be challenging to develop, stating:
I’ve seen two-cylinder cars running Replica Christian Audigier Clothes, but from a production point of view it’d be very hard. Even three-cylinder engines are very expensive as they’re not as smooth or refined as we’d like. But we’re not going to abandon them.
If Fiat can produce a two-cylinder engine, then other automakers could, too. However, VW displays no immediate interest in tackling the complicated development of a two-pot engine, instead electing to stick with motors packing three pistons or more.

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[Source: Autocar]

click above image to view more pics of this perfect C6R replica
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This streetable Corvette parked outside of the convention center at SEMA had us doing a double take. It looks so much like the real thing that we half expected to see Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta signing autographs next to the car. The Corvette C6R replica is spot on with a carbon fiber front spoiler Karen Millen Dresses sale, rear wing Herve Leger v neck sale, all the right stickers and even the factory drivers’ names of the #4 car above the door. It’s probably one of the biggest cop magnets ever Emilio Pucci Dresses sale, but driving this thing around on the street would be worth a ticket or two.

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Lamborghini LM002 – Click above for high-res image gallery
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Few rumors have been as pervasive over the years as the rebirth of the Lamborghini LM002. Originally designed for military applications Fake Seiko Watches, the Countach-powered LM002 blended Sant’Agata’s background in tractors with the exotic supercars for which they’re now known. Ever since Discount Replica Versace Watches, reports of a follow-up have ebbed and flowed Aigner Replica Watches, resurfacing once again on an Audi/Porsche platform.

Like the upcoming Porsche Cajun Fake Alain Silberstein Watches, the project codenamed LM00X is reportedly based on the Audi Q5 platform. The LM00X could retain the Cajun’s three-door body-style, infused with Lamborghini styling and the lightweight construction themes spearheaded by the Sesto Elemento concept. Word has it that the new twin-turbo V8 being developed for the Audi S7 and Bentley Continental would find its way into the Lambo crossover’s engine bay Best place to buy Replica Seiko Watches, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Raging Bull’s own V10 on offer, tipped to arrive as soon as 2012.

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[Source: Auto Express]