Magid: Facebook's new offices may herald a trend

As I sat down to write my "2012 tech predictions" column, I recalled a visit last week to Facebook's new offices in Menlo Park, which may herald a business trend in the new year and beyond.

What impressed me -- besides the cafeteria and fabulous employee gym to work off all that free food -- is how the company is allowing workers to organize their own work and meeting space. In a sense, the offices are a bit like the company's flagship social network.

Facebook provides the infrastructure to make things happen, but doesn't dictate exactly where and when.

That's up to the "users." And when it comes to collaboration, the atmosphere is both open and social.

It might be stretching the analogy to suggest that Facebook employees are encouraged to "share" by default.

But they don't generally work in cubicles and even the executives don't have walled-off offices. Instead, as you walk through the various buildings on the campus that used to house Sun Microsystems, you see lots of spaces where people can sit -- or stand -- to do their work or conduct their meetings.

There are glass-enclosed conference rooms, including some that still have the Sun logo on the glass -- one of the few reminders of the campus' former occupant.

But there are plenty of other "spaces" to work, including small and large tables and spaces under stairways where workers can stand

up to take a call or read an email on their phone or tablet or conduct an impromptu meeting with fellow employees.

The Facebook campus is very much a work in progress.

There are still plenty of hard-hat-only areas where construction workers are erecting bridges between buildings, turning paved areas into grassy outdoor gathering places and otherwise sprucing up and modernizing the facilities.

Unlike the Googleplex in Mountain View, it doesn't yet have that college campus-like feeling. I'm told that at least one outdoor area will eventually resemble downtown Palo Alto -- the scene of Facebook's original office.

What Facebook and Google (GOOG) offices do have in common is that sense of openness and the constant mixture of work and play.

It's become a Silicon Valley tradition to offer on-site distractions, ranging from foosball tables to volleyball courts, and to give employees maximum flexibility as to how they use their time.

There is a rush hour at these companies when many employees arrive in the morning and leave in the early evening.

But there are plenty of people working long and odd hours because -- as any aware manager should know -- creativity doesn't always strike between 9 and 5. And, by offering food, exercise and other amenities, companies like Google and Facebook encourage employees to hang around.

Sure, I've seen Google employees "waste time" by playing impromptu soccer games on the company's parklike lawns. But when the game's over, they're back at work within minutes and -- who knows -- there may very well be some creative work getting done in their heads as they play.

I'm a firm believer that flexibility can lead to creativity and productivity. I started writing this column at 5:30 on a Thursday morning because that's when I'm at my best when it comes to conjuring up ideas. And -- truth be told -- it's also a few hours before my deadline. Procrastination aside, that rush to produce before an impending deadline forces me to focus and -- in my humble opinion -- improves my writing.

I have an office at home, which I use a lot, but at the moment, I'm plopped in front of my kitchen table. I sometimes write from a local coffee shop and I've been known to start, finish and file a column on a cross-country flight, thanks to Gogo Inflight that provides Wi-Fi service on Virgin America, American, Delta and some other airlines.

Being able to access the Internet from 35,000 feet takes cloud computing to a whole new level.

The technology that makes this all possible is not only getting better, but getting even more portable.

When I visit Silicon Valley companies, I often notice employees walking around with their laptops and, increasingly, tablets. It's not uncommon to see a Googler or Facebook staffer walking down a hall and peeking at an open MacBook or ThinkPad to consult the cloud-based company calendar to find out what meeting room they're headed for.

And when they arrive, there are plenty of electrical outlets to power laptops.

There are even preinstalled power adapters for the most popular laptops. I've seen a few people carrying iPads or Android tablets and I expect that trend to grow over time.

Unlike a notebook PC, a tablet works great when you're standing up walking between meetings.

So my optimistic prediction for 2012 is that we're going to see some fundamental changes in the way companies organize their employees work environment.

Work will become more flexible, more adaptable and, for companies that implement it correctly, more profitable.

Contact Larry Magid at larry@larrymagid.com. Listen for his technology chats on KCBS-AM (740) weekdays at 3:50 p.m.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19640733?source=rss

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US auto industry looks ahead to another good year (AP)

DETROIT ? After hitting a 30-year low in 2009, U.S. auto sales are poised for a second straight year of growth in 2012 ? the result of easier credit, low interest rates and pent-up demand for cars and trucks created by the Great Recession.

The sales forecast bodes well for the industry's continued recovery and for the broader American economy.

Just two years ago, Detroit automakers were in peril. Car sales plunged as unemployment soared, and loans became harder to get. Chrysler and General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection. Ford avoided bankruptcy only by borrowing billions.

Now credit is more available, interest rates are low and Americans need to replace old cars and trucks they kept during and after the downturn. Millions of drivers in their teens and 20s are expected to buy vehicles, too. That could mean more jobs, more factory shifts and overall growth.

Vince Powell, a retiree from Winfield, Pa., recently traded in his wife's 7-year-old Chrysler 300 luxury sedan for a 2011 model. The old car had 145,000 miles on it, but it was the deal he got that most attracted him: a low interest rate (2.7 percent per year), a six-year loan term and a big discount off the $31,900 sticker price.

"I'm getting a $300 per month payment," he said just before closing the sale at Beaver Motors in Beaver Springs, Pa., near Harrisburg. "I've never had a new car for 300 bucks a month."

In their effort to survive, all three automakers downsized and positioned themselves to turn profits ? even if sales remained depressed. Now that sales are rising, the outlook has brightened considerably.

Automakers report U.S. sales for 2011 on Wednesday. When final figures are calculated, sales of new cars and trucks are expected to reach 12.7 million, up from 11.5 million in 2010 and 10.4 million in 2009, the worst year since 1982.

In 2012, they could climb as high as 13.8 million, close to what experts consider a healthy market ? around 14 million.

December sales could reach an annual rate of 13.4 million, which would make it the second-strongest month of the year. Only November was better. Auto website Edmunds.com forecasts a 37 percent rise in sales at Chrysler Group LLC in December, thanks to new and revamped products such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV and the Chrysler 200 midsize sedan.

Carmakers have announced plans to crank up factories and add thousands of jobs. Last January, Ford said it would hire 7,000 workers over the next two years. During the summer, GM said it would add 2,500 at the Detroit factory that makes the Chevrolet Volt electric car. Volkswagen hired 2,000 for a new plant in Tennessee, and Honda added 1,000 in Indiana. The industry will add 167,000 jobs by 2015, a 28 percent increase over current levels, predicts The Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

During the summer, the auto industry was adding jobs at a faster pace than airplane manufacturers, shipbuilders, health care providers and the federal government. It kept adding jobs even when the national unemployment rate rose above 9 percent, Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. debt for the first time and the stock market tumbled.

Government estimates show Americans spent roughly $40 billion more on new cars and trucks in 2011 than in 2009. Based on annualized figures from the first quarter of 2011, new-car spending totaled $206 billion, or 1.3 percent of the gross domestic product, Commerce Department data shows. That compares with $166 billion in 2009, about 1.2 percent of the country's economy.

And the momentum in auto sales is likely to continue because people need to replace aging cars, said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for LMC Automotive, an automotive consulting company in Troy, Mich. The average American car is now 11 years old.

U.S. auto sales peaked at 17 million in 2005, when Detroit's automakers were much bigger and overproduced cars that they were forced to discount heavily. Sales could eventually reach that level again around 2018, said Schuster, because of 70 million so-called millennials born between 1981 and 2000 who need to set up households and buy cars.

Other trends emerged in 2011. Many people bought smaller vehicles as gas prices hit a record average of $3.53 per gallon. Fuel-efficient compact cars, which have been vastly improved by automakers, are likely to unseat the midsize sedan as America's favorite passenger car for the first time in 20 years.

At the other extreme, pickups rebounded as businesses started to replace older trucks. Sales for the year were expected to rise 11 percent, and Ford's F-Series will remain the country's top-selling model, a title it has held for more than three decades.

For much of the year, U.S.-based automakers took advantage of Japanese car shortages to increase sales, especially in the compact car segment normally dominated by the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. Japanese companies ran short of popular models after an earthquake and tsunami disrupted production in Japan in March.

Ford, GM and Chrysler saw their combined share of the U.S. market rise by 200,000 cars and trucks between the end of 2010 and November, 2011. The Detroit Three's market share rose from 45.1 percent last year to 47 percent through November of last year. At the same time, Honda's share fell 1.6 percentage points to 9 percent, while Toyota's dropped 2.5 percentage points to 12.7 percent.

Schuster expects Japanese carmakers to take back some of the sales they lost.

Geoff Pohanka, who runs a chain of car dealers in the Washington area, said his December has been strong, thanks especially to the restocking of cars at his Honda and Toyota showrooms. He predicts Japanese car companies will offer incentives to regain lost sales.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120102/ap_on_re_us/us_auto_sales_preview

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1. JNET: Business Networking for the Jewish Community

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First Thursday of EVERY Month

6:30-9:00 PM

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Doors open at 6:30PM and meeting starts at 7:00PM.

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Yearly dues are $65 and include two holiday parties/mixers, free attendance at ALL branch meetings and the opportunity to speak for 10 minutes at one meeting per year.? www.jewishbusinessnetworking.org

Source: http://www.everyjew.com/xn/detail/3062011%3AEvent%3A59124

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Pope's Mexico itinerary leaves out capital

(AP)? MEXICO CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI will head to the Catholic-rich state of Guanajuato in his first visit to Mexico in March, and skip the country's heavily populated capital.

The Mexican Episcopal Conference says Benedict will arrive on March 23 in the city of Leon where President Felipe Calderon will welcome him.

The organization said in a Sunday statement that Benedict also plans to greet worshippers in the city of Guanajuato.

He will officiate a Mass in the city of Silao beneath a hill where a 67-foot statue of Jesus Christ stands.

The pope will return to Leon to address bishops from Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean before heading to Cuba on March 26.

The Vatican had said Benedict would avoid Mexico City because of its high altitude although it's the country's biggest city.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/eL3tv159ALM/

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Video: As Siberian permafrost melts, methane seeps out

>>> the unusually warm weather this winter has people talking. but what if warmer weather itself could set off a catastrophic chain reaction releasing a massive cloud of dangerous greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? those gases have been frozen in the arctic for thousands of years, locked just underground in places like siberia. nbc's jim maceda traveled to one of the most remote spots on earth to find out more.

>> reporter: there is a ticking bomb in this vast remote land and sergei zimoff might be the man to disarm it. the russian geophysicist came tracking the call of the wild but after a while realized he was standing on a powder keg with vast amounts of highly flammable methane seeping from the earth below. more gas made since the industrial revolution . some a 500 billion tons. where is it all coming from? permafrost. for thousands of years it's trapped the carbon rich soil, a compost of ice age plant and animal remains. but global warming is melting the permafrost and exposing the soil. one result, bones of woolly mammoths and other animals once buried deep now cover this like a giant graveyard.

>> there are hundreds more like them all over the shore here.

>> reporter: as it melts the permafrost leaves behind scenes of utter destruction.

>> it's a huge bomb. it's a catastrophe for climate, for global agriculture.

>> reporter: u.s. scientists are taking notice. adam wolf, a princeton biologist who's worked in siberia said it could threaten the planet.

>> where the warming is so extreme that it's hard for us to really fathom.

>> reporter: unless this works. zimoff calls it his ploois seen park which sounds absurd. why not go back in time and recreate the very conditions that existed on the woolly mammoth . zimoff bought this land, shift herds of animals, bison and reindeer. with a four ton truck like a mammoth he knocked down trees and grasslands reappeared. the herds ate the grass and trampled the cold snow into the ground. temperatures fell and at least in this park the permafrost is now stable. science 101.

>> some say why not? it's the best idea.

>> can the experiment be scaled up to stop the bomb?

>> is it possible with proper investment? absolutely.

>> reporter: zimoff admits he's a wilderness nut who never set out to save civilization but it might work out that way.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45829669/

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Yemeni president's son leads crackdown on officers

(AP)? SANAA, Yemen ? The son of Yemen's outgoing president is leading a crackdown to purge the Republican Guard, which he commands, of any rebellious officers found to be siding with anti-government protesters, a military official said Saturday.

The Republican Guard is a pillar of the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the attempts to ensure it remains loyal point to an effort to keep the regime from unraveling in the wake of a deal for Saleh to transfer power after 33 years as president.

His son, Ahmed, has had dozens of members of the powerful military force arrested so far, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Republican Guard has helped Saleh maintain power despite 10 months of protests, intense international pressure and an assassination attempt in June that forced him to leave the country for medical treatment in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The Guard, one of the best trained elements of Yemen's military, has not suffered a high number of defections like some other military units whose soldiers and commanders left to join the protest movement.

But with more frequent and serious acts of rebellion breaking out in other parts of the security services, the Guard's commanders are moving to prevent their ranks from doing the same.

The official said Ahmed warned at a Guard meeting over the past week against "copying" the actions of others. They are searching units, barracks, and have banned the use of cell phones inside the camp, the official said.

"We will not permit copying here. Force will be the way to deal with any protest," the official quoted Saleh's son as saying.

Some renegade units in other parts of the military have even locked their commanders out of military installations and demanded the removal of officers accused of corruption or involvement in the deadly crackdown on protesters.

In a significant concession, the defense minister ordered the removal of a longtime Saleh confident within the armed forces, Ali al-Shater, known as one of the regime's strongmen. Protests by subordinates accused al-Shater of corruption and using his connections with the president to illegally amass wealth.

Another sweep in search of rebellious soldiers took place within the ranks of the Central Security forces, led by Saleh's nephew, Yahia, according to a Central Security official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of the security measures.

Hundreds of men in military uniform marched on Saturday through the southern city of Taiz, a center of the uprising, calling for trials of top commanders over the killings of unarmed protesters in the regime's crackdown

Labor protests have also swept Yemen since Saleh signed the power transfer deal last month. The deal, brokered by Yemen's neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, grants him immunity from prosecution in return for stepping down.

He transferred power to his vice president and said he will leave the country and travel to the United States, though Washington has yet to say if he would be granted a visa.

The pact has failed to end street protests, however, because many still want to see Saleh stand trial.

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters held demonstrations in the capital city of Sanaa and in several other cities and vowed to stop Saleh from leaving the country.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/5Ek63cZjjyk/

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Kin to honor Alcatraz escapees with trip to The Rock

By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

Bank robbers John and Clarence?Anglin made multiple escape attempts from lesser prisons after their 1958 conviction. So they were sent to the ultimate lockup of the day:?Alcatraz.

On June 11, 1962, the brothers escaped with another man. Did they drown or are they still?on the run today?

This summer for the 50th anniversary of their?escape,?Marie Anglin Widner -- sister to Clarence and John -- along with her sons are planning a trip to San Francisco to visit the famed prison, where they will honor their escapee kin,?NBC/ABC station WALB?of Albany, Ga.,?reported on its website.

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?John and Clarence?Anglin robbed a bank in Columbia, Ala., with toy guns in 1958. A few days later, they were captured in Cincinnati and sentenced to long prison terms. Their escape attempts eventually landed them at Alcatraz.

"The only reason they put them in Alcatraz was because they could not keep them anywhere else they put them," Widner, of Lee County, Ga., told WALB. "They kept getting away."

At Alcatraz, the brothers met Frank Morris, the mastermind of the operation, which involved elaborate digging and handcrafted?dummies and life rafts. Authorities believed the men probably drowned in the cold,?turbulent waters around Alcatraz.

But not?Widner, who?told WALB that?her brothers did not die during the escape. "We know they are OK," she said.

If the brothers survived the swim, they would be the only people to successfully escape The Rock. They would be in their 80s today.

Widner's sons David and Ken recall FBI visits to the house and bugged phone lines. They told WALB that the feds?stopped by just months ago.

The family is hoping to persuade the government to return some of the brothers' items.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

?This?article includes reporting from NBCBayArea.com and msnbc.com staff.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/29/9810124-family-to-honor-alcatraz-escapees-with-a-trip-back-to-the-rock

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