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Pop star Michael Jackson died today (26th June 2009) in his home in Los Angeles. Emergency medical teams were called to the troubled singers Beverly Hills home at midday Thursday after staff found him not breathing.

Despite all efforts to resuscitate him, the singer succumbed and doctors at the UCLA Medical Center pronounced him dead two hours later. He is believed to have suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. Jackson had a widely publicized history of health problems and issues throughout his life.

Television footage followed the body as it was flown from the UCLA Medical Center to the LA County Coroner’s office. A post-mortem is expected to be undertaken on Friday.

Despite having been out of the charts for many years, Jackson had a fanatical fan base that were still loyal to him. He was planning a series of comeback concerts beginning on 13 July in the UK, then moving over to the US. There were some concerns over his health when four of those dates were postponed, but the promoters insisted the dates were changed merely so the staging would work out better.

Friends of Michael were quick to offer words. Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini said: “I always doubted that he would have been able to go through that schedule, those concerts. It seemed to be too much of a demand on the unhealthy body of a 50 year old.

“I’m wondering that, as we find out details of his death, if perhaps the stress of preparing for those dates was a factor in his collapse.

“It was wishful thinking that at this stage of his life he could be Michael Jackson again.”

Uri Geller, a close friend of the star, told the BBC it was “very, very sad”.

Tributes from the world of movies and music have started coming in from a wide spectrum of celebrities including Lisa Marie Presley, Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Fans are already gathered in increasing numbers outside Jackson Berverly Hills home and at the Medical Center where his body was first pronounced dead. A candlelight vigil is planned to mourn the passing of the star.

Born Michael Joseph Jackson in 1958 he began his singing career with the Jackson Five. He then went on to huge fame as a solo artist with iconic numbers such as Thriller, Bad and Billie Jean. The album Thriller, released in 1982 is still the biggest selling album of all time, having sold over 65 million copies worldwide.

Although seemingly attracting controversy since leaving the mainstream, Jackson has always maintained a looming presence in the pop world. Arrested in 2003 for allegedly molesting a young teenage boy and found not guilty, then all of the widely publicized money troubles, and we won’t even mention the balcony incident in Germany.

Despite this Jackson commanded a fanbase like no other and his comeback tour sold out in no time at all. It is with sincere hope that history is kinder to Michael Jackson that life was.

With the underwhelming response to the old SC 350 and 430 the luxury car maker is trying again with the IS C. The old SC is out as far as Toyota are concerned, preferring to replace it completely than throw good money after bad.

The Lexus IS is a sexy looking car, there is no doubt about it. Now imagine that sleek sedan, but with the roof sawn off and you have the IS C. It has the same front profile as the sedan but things change as soon as you step around the side. The open top three door looks the business. A neat combination of sporty and luxury in one package.

The tri-fold roof has been brought over from the SC and upgraded to fit the new chassis. It folds down and away in 20 seconds, which is a good few seconds faster than the old SC could ever manage, and is on par with many other fixed roof convertibles out there.

Officially the car is a four seater, you are only ever going to be able to fit children or midgets in the back as the rear seats have had to be moved forward to make room for the roof.

The cabin is still a nice place to be. The seats are comfortable and supportive and the leg room in the front at least is more than adequate. The interior has been updated rather than revolutionized. There is a new voice activated system for non essential functions like seat heating, air conditioning and voice dialling which is a nice touch if you pay for the ‘tech package’. It also includes Bluetooth audio streaming and hands free calling.

Once on the road it was hard to tell the difference in handling between the IS C and the IS. The handling is remarkably similar with the convertible feeling just as stiff as the sedan. The car does feel a bit heavier though, which it probably is if it is actually as stiff as the IS.

The V6 of the IS 350 is a 3.5 liter 306hp engine that seems to prefer cruising rather than being driven on the edge. The smaller 250 is a 2.5 liter 204hp V6 that feels sluggish and needs to be worked hard to do anything exciting. Braking is taken care of by floating callipers on the 250 and massive four pot callipers and oversized discs in the 350. The suspension handles the ride well, and as already mentioned the car felt slightly heavier, with the 350 it was only really round the corners that it was really noticeable.

If your thing is boulevard cruising then the IS C is definitely something to consider. If you want a drop top, back road racer then I would stick to the BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxster S, both world leaders in the roadster market. It looks as good with the roof up as it does down so you can enjoy this car whatever the weather.

At a briefing yesterday, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled the UK National Security Strategy, and for the first time ever, it included a strategy for combating cyber crime.

The plan is to create a centrally controlled agency called the Office of Cyber Security. This office will liaise with industry and law enforcement agencies and co-ordinate research and investigate laws and ethics with regard to online or ‘cybercrime’. At the same time another arm called the Cyber Security Operation Centre, based at GCHQ in Cheltenham, England will take a more active role. GCHQ is the UK’s intelligence gathering headquarters, which is home to most of the analysts and technicians that make intelligence gathering possible.

The Cyber Security Operation Centre or CSOC will start small with only twenty or thirty staff and will begin collating information and evidence on what kind of attacks can be expected now and in the future. In the longer term the team will develop methods and strategies that will combat these kinds of attacks. Part of the remit of CSOC is to actively prevent criminals and terrorists attacking Britain’s online infrastructure. Not only to protect the government but business too. At least ninety percent of UK bank transactions happen online, and although the banks have their own cyber crime teams, they welcome the national scheme. Especially if the CSOC have been given the freedom to actively seek out and take down people who present a risk to the UK. This active component is what everybody is talking about. Unlike traditional law enforcement they aren’t going to wait until something happens before investigating. They are going to be proactive and assess probabilities as well as existing scenarios.

Under this proactive guise investigators will be actively seeking wrongdoers and will have the technology and authority to do something about it. Although the words ‘Denial of service attacks’ were mentioned the spokesman wouldn’t comment on whether that was COSC defending against them or using them offensively.

The team will be made up of a mixture of civil servants from the Ministry of Defence, MI5 and the police. They will also be recruiting leading security specialists from around the world to add badly needed skills to the operation.

When asked this morning about the new elements of the UK National Security Strategy, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said;

“Just as in the 19th century we had to secure the seas for our national safety and prosperity, and the 20th century we had to secure the air, in the 21st century we also have to secure our position in cyber space in order to give people and businesses the confidence they need to operate safely there.”

Although the new strategy is welcomed by everyone, some business analysts have wondered aloud why it has taken so long. After all the internet has been around commercially for almost fifteen years, and only now are the government catching up with the outside world. Nevertheless they welcome the move cautiously, waiting to see if it bears fruit before offering full support.

The World Bank raised its 2009 economic growth forecast for China from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent due to its stimulus-driven investment boom but cautioned Thursday it was too soon to say a sustained recovery was on the way.

Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus program will “strongly support growth,” the bank said in a quarterly report. The plan calls for shielding China from the global slump by pumping money into the economy through higher spending on public works.

However, trade and private investment will remain weak, consumption will slow and a full-fledged recovery has to wait for the global economy and demand for exports to rebound, the Washington-based lender said.

“Growth in China should remain respectable this year and next, although it is too early to say a robust, sustained recovery is on the way,” Ardo Hansson, the bank’s lead economist for China, said in a statement.

China’s economy grew 6.1 percent in the first quarter from the same time last year, the strongest rate of any major country but below the government’s 2009 target of 8 percent and far from 2007′s explosive 13 percent.

Thursday was the first time the bank has raised its outlook for China since November, when it slashed its 2009 forecast from 9.2 percent to 7.5 percent. The bank cut that again in March to 6.5 percent.

The bank predicted growth in 2010 would rise to 7.7 percent.

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Beijing’s stimulus plan will account for up to 6 percentage points of this year’s expansion — or the bulk of growth this year, it said.

The government spending has boosted Chinese investment in factories, real estate and other fixed assets by 32.9 percent in the first five months of the year.

Still, the bank cautioned there was a limit to how much China could buck global trends through stimulus spending while exports are weak. It warned that domestic consumption would slow despite the stimulus.

“There are limits to how much and how long China’s growth can diverge from global growth based on government-influenced spending,” the bank report said. “Market-based investment is likely to continue to lag for a while.”

May retail sales rose 15.2 percent from a year earlier, but the growth rate is falling, indicating Beijing has yet to spur a rebound in private spending.

May exports plunged by a record 26.4 percent from the same month of 2008. The contraction in exports this year will be so severe that it will drag down overall growth, the World Bank said. The collapse in trade threw millions of migrants out of work and it is unclear how many found new jobs on stimulus-funded projects.

The World Bank says it estimates each percentage point of lost growth in China’s non-agricultural gross domestic product growth means 5.4 million fewer jobs. There are no comprehensive data on China’s employment.

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On the Net:

World Bank

Federal Debt Approaches 100% of GDP

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Even when The End of the American Century went to press in early 2008, the U.S. federal debt was reaching alarming levels, and was a central element of my forecasts of U.S. economic decline. At that point, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget projected the gross federal debt to expand to $10.6 trillion by 2009, constituting 72% of GDP.

Since then, the federal red ink has become a tidal wave. The OMB now expects the debt at the end of this year to be $12.7 trillion, and to expand to over $15 trillion by 2011, which would then be (at 97% of GDP) almost as large as the entire economy (see chart).

David Leonhardt of the New York Times, one of the few economists to have been tracking and raising concerns about the deficits, writes that erasing the deficits “will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.” In his article “Sea of Red Ink” in the June 10 issue, he reports on a New York Times analysis of the composition of the debt accumulation over the last decade, “with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II.”

The analysis finds that the growth in the federal debt since 2001 comes from four main sources. The first, the business cycle (especially the 2001 recession and the current downturn) is the largest component, accounting for 37%. Another 33% of the recent debt comes from legislation signed by President Bush, including his tax cuts. Another 20% derives from President Obama’s continuation of several Bush policies, including spending on the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailouts. Only about 10% comes from new Obama policies, including the stimulus bill, and news spending on health care, education, energy and other areas.

Leonhardt sees little hope that the Obama administration can reduce or eliminate the deficits with “pay-as-you-go” government spending plans. The solution, he writes, “is no mystery” and involves inevitable tax increases and government spending cuts. These are political tinderboxes, of course, and pose a huge challenge to President Obama’s leadership skills.

by Sarah Lacy on June 14, 2009

KIGALI, RWANDA– As I’ve mentioned before I like my entrepreneurs risk-taking and a little crazy. Earlier this week on TechTicker, we ran an interview with a guy who fits that bill: Shai Agassi.

In some ways, Agassi is even more ambitious than Elon Musk—you know, the guy who builds rockets and $100,000 electric sports cars. Agassi wants to re-engineer the entire auto and oil infrastructure with electric cars, charging stations, battery replacement stations (staring robots who actually change the battery for you) and sophisticated software to keep it all running—one country at a time. His company is called Better Place, and while some have accused Agassi of being an egomaniac, I give him huge props for walking away from one of the most powerful jobs in the tech world to start a new company that was this hard to pull off.

I last interviewed Agassi several years ago on stage when he was at SAP, and I was covering the oh-so-sexy enterprise software beat for BusinessWeek. If memory serves, we were good-naturedly sparring about whether Oracle’s acquisition strategy would work. (I’d argue I was right.) But I have to say, I like this Shai better. He made his name as an intense and gifted entrepreneur who wasn’t afraid to take risk and sometimes people like that are wasted inside big organizations, even if they have the top job. Agassi seemed inspired and unleashed compared to his SAP days. There’s more about Better Place itself and Agassi’s plan here.

But at the end of the third segment (embedded below), Agassi said something that’s been sticking in my head ever since: America has to start making things or the economy won’t work. He argues you don’t have a country with just a service economy to support it. I’m starting to fear that he’s right, especially spending time last month in China and this week in central Africa, both places where manufacturing and consumer goods industries are being built fresh and in incredibly innovative ways. It’s a bit like what you kept hearing after the dot com bust: When things turn south it’s good to have hard assets to fall back on.

Trust me, as I sit on a terrace in a landlocked African nation that has to import almost everything to great expense, America doesn’t want to get in the pure-consumer, non-producer game. And while some argue the intellectual work—ala thinking up the idea or doing the hard core engineering—is higher margin, it’s absurd and arrogant to think we’ve got a lock on the people who can do that kind of thinking.

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This is clearly the biggest concern in the rust belt where thousands of manufacturing job are at risk. But if Agassi is right, Silicon Valley is in trouble too, because we hardly make anything anymore. Look at the semiconductor business: Most start-ups for the last ten years have been so-called “fabless” chip companies. And how many gadgets are made here? The great age of networking and telecom rollouts are over—instead monopolies are upping revenues by “metering” our broadband not rolling out a newer, faster infrastructure. Even outsourcing low-level software development to Balkan states contributes to this. It’s a win-win for now, but long-term emerging markets benefit more than we do.

Tech got in this situation for two reasons: technology advanced quickly enough we could outsource all the assembly and VCs liked it that way because it’s cheap. But there’s more than enough cash flowing around this Valley to fund a few risky, expensive manufacturing plays. Here’s what I’d like to see America start making again. Leave your ideas in the comments.

1. Better consumer devices. For decades VCs have shied away from consumer devices given the manufacturing and consumer marketing costs. Sure there are loads of duds out there to support that point. But whether they’re entirely made in the US or not, haven’t the iPhone, the Flip, the Kindle, the Jawbone and others proven a good device that does something well still has a future coming out of the Valley? Increasingly, people will pay up for brilliant device execution even if it only does one thing well, even if it’s not necessarily a new category.

2. Cars. Yep, we’re doing it already but it largely hasn’t been funded by the Valley. Musk invested $70 million of his own money and Agassi’s cash mostly came from Israelis. Props to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for funding Tesla competitor Fisker. But now that these pioneers have proven there’s a viable market here, the US establishment whether it’s the Valley top brass, DC lawmakers or Detroit need to get behind it in action, not words. Although President Barack Obama has been careful to say the government won’t dictate strategy for the car companies we now own, Agassi thinks America should take the opportunity to push on electric manufacturing hard. After all, we do own them. Why not get something out of it? (More on that in the video below too.)

3. Medicine. What ever happened to the biotech boom? The promise from decoding the genome? The rhetoric that the Valley was going to give birth to dozens of Genentechs? I’ll tell you what: VCs got into the habit of selling promising pre-clinical research to big pharma early and often. There’s no more company building in biotech, and that’s a shame. I get that drug discovery is hard and expensive, but we need the innovation, real science and jobs if you ask me. There’s also the side benefit of screwing with the big pharma oligopolies. And saving lives is generally a good thing for the country.

4. Electric planes that go really fast. Ok, it sounds even crazier than rockets or electric cars, but every time I board a creaky old Boeing jet for a 10-hour-plus international flight, I can’t stop thinking about Musk’s idea for an electric plane that’s supersonic and lands vertically. I don’t even know if that’s feasible, but I’m ready to retire my much-beloved noise-reduction headset if it is. If anyone would like to build a teleportation device I’ll sign up for a beta tester on that one too. I don’t care if there’s a risk that my organs will arrive on the outside of my body, I’m so over 20-to-30 hour flights on planes older than I am.