Word: makers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
JUDGMENT AWARDED. To RICHARD BOEKEN, 56, steadfast two-pack-a-day Marlboro smoker for 40 years, found to have lung cancer in 1999; more than $3 billion in damages from cigarette maker Philip Morris; in Los Angeles. Boeken's lawyer accused Philip Morris of pushing smoking as "cool" despite its addictiveness, which he measured by recounting that his client had quashed addictions to heroin and alcohol, but couldn't quit smoking...
When Daimler-Benz, the maker of Mercedes, took over Chrysler three years ago, it argued that globalization demanded not just speed but also size. Selling dozens of models in every price range, the reasoning went, was the only way a car company could afford the huge investments necessary to incorporate the latest technologies. That meant that if you were a small independent, you would have to merge--or face the Darwinian consequences. So Daimler coupled with Chrysler, Renault bought Nissan, Ford scooped up Volvo, and everybody mused that it was just a matter of time before the biggies gobbled...
...that keeping pace with tech advances will break an indie carmaker's bank. One reason: parts suppliers have become powerful arbiters of success, as more auto companies outsource R. and D. of their components. Traditionally, Mercedes would develop a new antiskid technology in conjunction with a high-end component maker like Germany's Robert Bosch. Then, after Mercedes had made a splash by being the first to sell cars with the new technology, it would allow Bosch to sell the technology elsewhere. Now the suppliers are driving the process. Says Flynn: "BMW is going to get a shot...
...dramatic instincts. Abbas Kiarostami, who won Cannes' highest prize in 1997 for The Taste of Cherry, was invited by the Uganda Women's Efforts to Save Orphans (uweso) to tour their aids-ravaged country for 10 days. The resulting documentary, A.B.C Africa, may not be what either the film maker or his hosts had in mind. Apparently realizing that the devastation was too great to make sense of, Kiarostami takes shot after shot of bereft kids, most of them singing, nearly all of them smiling. After a while, alas, this approach looks like exploitation - a minstrel show starring dying children...
Also at the teething stage is a project involving 50 families in Ballerup, a sleepy little Danish town not far from Copenhagen. Here, E2Home, a joint venture of mobile-phone maker Ericsson and appliances giant Electrolux, has equipped each family with Electrolux's much-publicized Screenfridge, an appliance I saw last fall at another demo home, in Ericsson's Stockholm compound. The engineers there thought it was the coolest thing in the world - a fridge with a full-fledged computer built into its door, with a large screen and an Internet connection. I recall being very skeptical. Who surfs...