Hyundai unveils the future of personal mobility, because walking doesn’t cut it

By Alex Lloyd | Motoramic – Tue, Apr 9, 2013 11:07 AM EDT

Despite modern advancements in sneaker technology, walking remains a slow way to go. Running, however, achieves acceptable velocity, but even with a smoothie made by Lance Armstrong, we tire quickly. The Segway never truly caught on for those not on government payrolls and, let’s face it, skateboards went out of fashion shortly after the first "Back to the Future."

Hyundai decided it’s time to change all this, and at the Seoul Motor Show, its engineers unveiled a moveable egg concept that promises speeds faster than a Segway, and a strange helmet that makes you look far cooler than any skateboarder could ever dream.

The egg is entitled the E4U – standing for Egg, Evolution, Electricity and Eco-friendliness. The result of an annual invention contest among Hyundai engineers in South Korea, the odd-egg was designed as a potential future of personal mobility: It can travel up to speeds just shy of 20 mph, weighs 176 lbs. (sounds mobile to me), and boasts a 24V battery attached to a 500W electric motor.

The steering appears to be controlled somewhat akin to the Segway, with an abundance of tilting, pivoting, and other unnatural behaviors required to induce motion.

According to tech site Nikkei Tech-On, who witnessed a demonstration in Seoul, the E4U stands on semispherical balls. The driver (rider?) must tilt the egg to move, but it appears to be in a rather counterintuitive way: you move forward by putting weight on your left foot, backwards by transferring the weight to your right foot, and left and right by tilting backwards and forwards respectively. Tech-Onmentioned the driver stated, “Without some practice, it does not move in the desired direction.”

Hyundai make a point of emphasizing the streamlined stance of the E4U, because, you know, aerodynamics play a large role at speeds as high as 18 mph. Perhaps the best feature is the helmet, however. It appears to be your regular bicycle helmet with a clear plastic screen draped over the driver’s face; presumably to prevent bug splatter while maximizing operator shame.

While I appreciate the sentiment in trying to make personal mobility easier, I can’t imagine nipping to the shops aboard an E4U; my legs may be inferior to the propulsion generated by the world’s largest egg, but the humility of wearing that helmet would be too much to bear. What was wrong with the bicycle, again?

Lessons from the List of Most Valuable Companies

By Allan Roth | CBS MoneyWatch – Mon, Apr 8, 2013 11:17 AM EDT

RELATED QUOTES

Symbol	Price	Change
AAPL	423.35	-2.86
XOM	89.19	0.59

You've probably heard that two corporate heavyweights, Apple (AAPL) and ExxonMobil (XOM), are fighting for the distinction of being the most valuable company on the planet. That made me curious about who the top ten are, and what lessons could be learned.

To determine the top ten, I used market capitalization to measure the value of the companies. That's simply a matter of multiplying the number of shares they have outstanding by the price of their stock, and here they are:

Courtesy CBS MoneyWatch

It turns out that the top ten produced some interesting statistics:

• Their combined value is over $2.1 trillion, or about 12 percent of the U.S. national debt.
• Nine are based in the United States while one is based in China.
• Apple and ExxonMobil have large leads on the others.
• Four are tech, three energy, and one each are retail, diversified, and a holding company.

Will Apple or ExxonMobil still be number one at the end of the decade? Will one of the next eight take over? Perhaps the new champ won't even be a top ten today.

I went back to the beginning of 2000, when Microsoft and GE were fighting for the top slot and Apple wasn't a contender. Hard as it is to imagine now, you may not have even heard of Google at that time. In fact, half of today's top ten weren't in the top ten back then.  Further, Intel was number seven on the charts in 1999 -- today, it barely breaks the top 50 at #48.

The lesson here is that the future is very uncertain. For those who might want to put all their eggs in one of these corporate heavy hitter's' basket, it's important to consider that some of these top ten will fall from grace by the end of the decade, and other companies we've barely heard of today will become household names.

Which ones do I bet on? All of them. By owning a total U.S. and total international index fund, I know I'm going to own tomorrow's top ten.

Warning: Smoking Is Hazardous to Your Employment

By Leslie Kwoh | The Wall Street Journal – 22 hours ago

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• Yahoo! Finance/Getty Images -

Companies aren't just singling out overweight employees. Staffers who smoke are under fire too.

In small but growing numbers, employers in recent years have been refusing to hire smokers, arguing that coaxing tobacco users to quit with free cessation programs or cash incentives hasn't worked. Some medical experts back the bans, saying the end result of reducing smoking is worth it. But other health-care experts say the policy crosses an ethical line by singling out poorer and less educated groups who, federal data shows, smoke more often.

In all, about four out of 10 employers reward or penalize employees based on tobacco use. But hiring bans, which are legal in 21 states, are gaining traction, with about 4% adopting the policy and an additional 2% planning to do so next year, according to a recent study by the National Business Group on Health and consulting firm Towers Watson (TW). Most firms simply ask job candidates if they smoke, but a few require candidates to take urine tests to be screened for nicotine, as part of a broader drug test.

To date, along with some casinos, the bans have been most commonly followed by health-care employers, including Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System and Baylor Health Care System, based in Dallas. Not surprisingly, that has prompted a debate within the medical community. Two groups of health researchers, for example, wrote dueling articles on the topic that were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine after the University of Pennsylvania Health System recently said it would no longer hire smokers starting this July.

Ezekiel Emanuel, who co-wrote one of the papers, argues that the practice discriminates against poorer and less-educated populations, where smoking is more prevalent. Rates are also higher for those who live below the federal poverty line and who have received less than a high school education.

"It's unethical," says Mr. Emanuel, chair of medical ethics and health policy at UPenn's Perelman School of Medicine. Employers' main motivation isn't employee health, he says, but "to get the smoker off their health bill and pass on the costs to someone else." (A spokeswoman for the school says the new policy isn't intended to be "discriminatory in any way" and is just aimed at reducing smoking.)

But proponents say employers have given other methods a fair shake and need a tougher approach. David Asch, who co-wrote the academic paper in support of the ban, says that with hiring bans, smokers face a social consequence that is potentially more painful than nicotine withdrawal. "We've tried a lot of things to quit smoking," says Mr. Asch, a professor of health care management at UPenn's Wharton business school.

To be sure, employers say they have tried gentler measures, only to have poor results. At Cleveland Clinic, which imposed a hiring ban on smokers in 2007, CEO Delos "Toby" Cosgrove says he first tried banning smoking on the property and offering free cessation treatment—but that as long as the company continued to hire smokers, it was like "a doctor smoking a cigarette and telling you to stop smoking," he says. After the initial skepticism, he says, "I've gotten a lot of thanks for this, actually."