As written here before, I love cool advertisements and commercials, hereby come cool car commercials: Triple C rating

European Elegance: Audi RS6 2008 - “Gymnastics” TV commercial

American Power: Michael Bay’s Commercial Chevy Cars Carrier

An oldy, but a goody: Every boys dream > Porsche

If you have a favorite, please do share!

This week I had the honour to become a coach on this amazing website for entrepreneurs:

www.efactor.com

If you are an entrepreneur or are looking for finance opportunities to become an entrepreneur, make sure to sign up. The site is a true international platform with web 2.0 applications that wants to connect entrepreneurs.

If you have any questions or want me to send you an invite, drop me a line!

This week I saw this billboard at Schiphol Airport:

Does ING really think that all the information you need is ALON…?

A very interesting documentary about Jews in the Middle East, called: “The Forgotten Refugees”.

In 1945, there were up to one million Jews living in the Middle East and North Africa outside the Palestine Mandate - many living in communities dating back more than three millennia. Today, there only remain several thousand.

Who are these Jews?  What precipitated their mass-exodus in the 20th century?  Where did they go?  And why don’t we know their stories?

As I have written before, I love cool ads, hereby I want to share some with you:

1. WHO SAYS BUSES AREN’T COOL?

Quit Smoking

Dogs Love Buses

Say Cheese!

No Smint, No Kiss!

Jaws travels by bus

EyeBus

Buses love DJ

AAAAUUUUWWWW!

2. CoolBags
Shop-a-Rope

Hang-a-Bag

I’ve got a headache!

Don’t mess with me!

Kiddie Bag

3. HotCups
Lips at work

Starbucks Teeth

This week I have been tagged by my (digital) friend, Harry Bishop, from Canada (http://www.harrybishop.ca). It wasn’t clear to me exactly what it meant, but if you read the rules, it is a rather fun concept. I renamed it: “The Blog Game”.

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules;
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself;
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names;
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged; and,
5. E-mail your tagger, the link to your post.

When I got tagged, I had no idea what to share, so I am going to share 8 random facts that pop-in to my head:

1. You might have guested what my passions are (looking at my blog and career choice), but I have a virus! I am mad about watches/mechanical movements/watchmaking. That is the reason I initiated the blog WatchFreaks couple of months ago. From the start we received positive feedback and the group of visitors grows steadily every day.

2. If people need to guess where I was born, looking at my name, the largest chance is that people will say Israel. Although my roots go back to the Jerusalem of King David, I am born and raised in Amsterdam (The Netherlands, Europe), where I still reside.

3. Talking about names, almost everybody gets confused about my double family name: Ben Joseph. Most people think Ben is my middle name. My family name means Son of Joseph in Hebrew. So, my complete family name is BEN JOSEPH and first name is: Alon, which means “Royal Oak” (yes, like the watch).

4. A lot of people question me about the meaning of the slogan of my blog: “Strong as a Tree”… If you paid attention at fact #3, my name is also used for a tree: an Oak

5. My favorite dish/food is: Almost anything that comes of a BBQ! Especially a good juicy steak.

6. My direct circle of friends know that I love quotes, so hereby one of my favorites, an oldy, but a goody by C.G. Jung: “Show me a sane man, and I will cure him for you!”.

7. My favorite (dream) car: Lancia Flaminia Zagato Supersport.

8. Last, but certainly not least, a question that is asked many times: My favorite watch. That I currently own, the IWC Portuguese Chrono Rattrapante. My dream watch: F.P. Journe Tourbillon Souverain.

I hope that you enjoyed my scribbles. Now I am tagging to following people that I think have something interesting to share:

1. Natalie Shell of Think Talk Walk- My friend that was one of the first persons in my direct group of friends with a dynamic blog.

2. Guilda Moussazadeh of Funfair - The first member in my family that started blogging.

3. Robert-Jan Broer of Fratello Watches - My partner-in-crime on WatchFreaksBlog.com.

4. Tom Mulraney of The Watch Lounge - My Australian (digital) WatchFriend.

5. Suzan Fluitman of ONLuxury - The Dutch Online Luxury Guru.

6. Schelly Talalay Dardashti of Tracing the Tribe - The expert on Jewish Genealogy.

7. Doron Krant - My buddy who doesn’t blog yet, but urgently needs to. He always finds the newest info/FunStuff & shares the coolest things with all his online contacts. He already owns the domain: Krantee.com (keep posted)!

8. Steve Fritsche of SteveFritsche.com - My Photography Friend, who doesn’t have a blog yet, but now that I have tagged him, he needs to!

For all the people that don’t have a blog yet, I advise them to logon to www.wordpress.com and get a free account. You can be blogging within 5 minutes!

I love cool adverts, especially commercials made on film. I will never forget when BMW launched the BMW Movies website in 2001 and had independent (famous) movie directors create short movies where a BMW car is the main character. Unfortunately, the website is off line, but you can find may of them on YouTube, one of my favorites is “Star” directed by Guy Ritchie, and starring a BMW M5, Madonna (Yes, Guy Ritchie’s wife) and Clive Owen:

But also make sure to check out: “The Devil“, featuring James Brown and Clive Owen, made in 2002 and “The Hostage” directed by John Woo (also made Hollywood blockbuster “Face/Off”).

A book that made an impression on me is “The Tipping Point” by Malcom Gladwell and I believe that the directors of the folling amazing commercials also read this book:

New Ford Focus - “Beautifully Arranged”

New Honda Accord - “The Cog”

Guiness Beer - “Tipping Point”

What is your favorite commercial displayed here? Mine “The Cog”, but I find the Ford advertisement very elegant and fun. Last, but not least, the Guiness advertisement is also very breath taking! If you have any favorites, please do share

This company takes cars people already love and electrifies them.

Click to see more pictures

At a cost of $35,000, the all-electric smart car will be more than twice the price of the recently Americanized gasoline version.

Walk into a Wal-Mart in the not-too-distant future and among the thousands of products for sale will be an electric car. It will not be a remote control car, a golf cart or a little scooter to help granny cruise the aisles. The battery-powered automobile will look every bit like a MINI Cooper. This is because it will be a MINI Cooper, just with a powerful electric motor under the hood and a stack of lithium batteries where the gas tank used to be.

The company responsible for transforming the already-efficient MINI into a zero-emissions electric vehicle (EV) is Hybrid Technologies. At its factory in Mooresville, North Carolina, engineers pull the internal combustion guts from cars such as the Chrysler Crossfire, PT Cruiser, smart fortwo, and the MINI, endowing them with advanced electric powerplants. While several other well-funded startups are racing to build electric cars from scratch, Hybrid Technologies has taken a different line of attack, converting already popular models to battery power.

To Richard Griffiths, the founder and prolific spokesman for Hybrid Technologies, the goal is not to try and sell people on the idea of an electric vehicle, but rather to show them how much fun they can have in electric versions of their favorite cars. Griffiths wants people to start thinking of battery power as a kind of high-end option, like a convertible top or a navigation system.

“You’ll find that whatever great looking vehicle is launched next year, more than likely we’ll begin production on that vehicle,” Griffiths explains. At $65,000 for the MINI, electric power makes for one hefty option. But the appeal is undeniable, as actor George Clooney and singer James Blunt are enthusiastic drivers of Hybrid Technologies conversions.

Power to the People — Who Can Afford It
Hybrid Technologies plans to make 2008 the year that its cars become available to consumers — first through Wal-Mart and then directly. When the all-electric smart car hits the market it will cost $35,000, more than twice the price of the recently Americanized gasoline version. For the time being there is no shortage of customers. NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Military all buy alternative-fueled vehicles for their fleets (part of a Congressional mandate from the Clinton years) and have purchased EVs from Hybrid Technologies.

Working with the military is also a natural fit. Hybrid Technologies started out five years ago helping the military with watercraft and submarine power systems and now provides electric PT Cruisers for base transportation. Griffiths won’t hint at what other sort of projects Hybrid Technologies is building for the military, except to say that since EVs are almost silent they lend themselves to clandestine applications.

The Factory in Reverse
The Hybrid Technologies plant in Mooresville, North Carolina, looks much the way any auto factory should look. Except here, almost as many motors are being pulled out of cars as are being put in. Hybrid Technologies and smart share a core relationship, so for its electric version of the fortwo, Hybrid Technologies obtains what are called “gliders” — intact cars without engines or gas tanks.

For cars such as the Crossfire and PT Cruiser, the motor and other systems are stripped out and sold back to the automaker or others. By building off existing models, Hybrid Technologies gets to focus on the critical part of any electric car — the battery system.

Letting carmakers foot the bill for crash testing is another welcome advantage. The smart fortwo, with its steel safety cell, has been approved by the USDOT. Nevertheless, Hybrid Technologies is working with the Canadian government to crash test fully electric Smart cars for further validation. “At the end of the day,” says Griffiths, “you can keep a fairly large portion of the vehicle consistent with the original OEM, which does allow us a lot more freedom to put our money into the technology as opposed to into the design.”

Paving the Way
Not since General Motors leased out the now-legendary EV1 ten years ago has a large automaker put an all-electric car on the road. With electric cars predominantly in the territory of government contracts and industrious do-it-yourselfers, Hybrid Technologies exists in the gap between the big guns and the hobbyists.

According to Griffiths, automakers are biding their time and waiting for the dust to settle before making big moves toward alternative energies. Companies like his may be paving the way, with Toyota and General Motors poised to swoop in when the public decides its alternative car of choice. In the meantime, Hybrid Technologies is busy developing a product it hopes is “bulletproof.” Noting that reliability is paramount in building confidence in these new electric vehicles, Griffiths adds, “You get one shot at it.”

Jacob Gordon is a freelance writer, a blogger for TreeHugger.com, and producer of TreeHugger Radio. He can be reached at jacob@treehugger.com.

An Israeli developed modular mobile phone has been introduced today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, with manufacturer modu claiming to have the world’s smallest and lightest mobile phone, weighing in at a featherweight 1.5 ounces.

modu’s unique selling point is that the phone can be upgraded in a modular fashion, with users being able to add on ‘jackets’ such as a camera, GPS or a larger screen.

Plug in to car stereos and other devices The 2.5G GSM phone can also be plugged into other devices such as Blaupunkt car stereos or Dect internet and home phones.

modu was set up in 2007 by leading technology innovator and entrepreneur Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB Flash Drive.

“It’s a unique concept not seen in the market or in major brands today,” said Modu’s Itay Sherman.

Mr Sherman added: “When you want to change your phone it can be expensive, because a phone is a complex device. But if you just want to change the look, the design or a feature like a camera then Modu is much simpler.”

A disruptive concept SanDisk CEO, Eli Harari, said: “modu is a disruptive concept in the well established mobile market. The modu proposition is unique and compelling to consumers, mobile network operators and consumer electronics companies alike.”

(Article written by Adam Hartley)

Click here for more info about Modu.