Fed policymakers last week cut a key interest rate for the second time in two months, but disappointed Wall Street by discouraging expectations that it would follow with further rate-cuts.

Bernanke said he and his colleagues believe economic activity will “slow noticeably in the fourth quarter” compared to the 3.9 percent pace of the third quarter. In his prepared remarks to the JEC, Bernanke said,

Growth was seen as remaining sluggish during the first part of next year, then strengthening as the effects of tighter credit and the housing correction begin to wane.

Many economists believe the economy’s maximum point of danger of falling into a recession will occur in the early part of next year.

A variety of problems from the steepest housing downturn in more than two decades to a severe credit crunch, surging oil prices and a falling dollar have roiled Wall Street in recent days, triggering big plunges in stock prices.

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Airbus said on Tuesday it expects at least 290 plane orders from the Dubai Air Show, raking in some $85 billion in announcements this week. Airbus S.A.S. is the civil aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS N.V. (European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company), a pan-European aerospace concern. Based at Toulouse, France with significant operations in other European states, Airbus produces around half of the world’s jet airliners, with most of the rest built by rival Boeing Commercial Airplanes, though the precise share varies every year.

Both Airbus and Boeing companies expect a record year, but Airbus says its orders at Dubai have helped push it ahead of Boeing. On Tuesday, Airbus added a $2 billion order with Yemen’s Yemenia for 10 A350 XWB planes and one for 8 single-aisle A320s from Pakistan’s Airblue worth about $520 million.

“We’re having a record year, Boeing is having a record year.It looks like quite the record show. It’s 290 orders, over half of which are firm. The others will be firm within 30 days,” said Airbus sales boss John Leahy.

The show, which ends on Thursday, has already dwarfed the total of $21 billion in new business announced when last held in 2005 and has put Dubai among the world’s biggest aerospace events alongside shows in Paris and in Farnborough, England. Sales figures are in list prices which conceal discounts that are an industry norm, but the sheer number of aircraft involved for both companies indicates 2007 will be their busiest year ever.

Airbus said the intake at Dubai had boosted it above Boeing this week in their battle for annual orders, a race Boeing won in 2006 for the first time in six years. At the end of September, Boeing was leading 903 to 854. High crude oil prices are helping sales of new more fuel efficient models such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

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Software that sifts through data to tease out things like a customer’s buying habits or a corporation’s inefficiencies is hardly new. Cognos itself was founded in 1969. Cognos 8 BI, which was launched in September 2005, combines the features of several previous products: ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, Noticecast, and Data Manager (formerly Decision Stream).

Cognos 8 BI has won numerous awards including the eWEEK Excellence Award in Analytics and Reporting, the LOTUS ADVISOR “Editor’s Choice” Award, and TechTarget’s SearchCRM.com 2005 Product of the Year. In 2007, Cognos was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean’s magazine, one of only a handful of software development companies to receive this honor.

But many analysts anticipate that the business intelligence software market is about to enter a period of significant demand from companies and government agencies. ‘I.B.M. had nothing in this area,’ said Colleen Graham, research director at Gartner, a technology consulting firm. ‘I.B.M. had to do something. But because it didn’t move fast enough, it paid a premium.’

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‘We are obviously disappointed,’ Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, said in a statement. Saying the company would work with the commission, he added, ‘We seek to avoid further delays that might put us at a disadvantage in competing fully against Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others whose acquisitions in the highly competitive online advertising market have already been approved.’

DoubleClick is a company that develops and provides Internet ad serving services. Its clients include agencies, marketers (Universal McCann Interactive, AKQA etc.) and publishers who service customers like Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L’Oreal, Palm, Inc., Visa USA, Nike, Carlsberg among others.

Google announced on April 14, 2007 that it came to a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. The closing of the deal remains uncertain as several companies, including Yahoo, AT&T and Microsoft, have encouraged regulators to examine the deal.

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I was quite impressed with this concept. How often do you think in your lifetime about getting an eye test? What are the odds of you going out to get a new pair of glasses if you deem the old ones still OK?

The above ‘eye exam’ is actually a leaflet advertising an optometrist’s service. It tells the ‘contacts’ that several months ago they had made an appointment and asks them if they are satisfied with their sight. As a result of this ‘mandatory exam’, people reading the leaflet automatically took the eye test, 12% of the contacts fixed up appointments. An ingenious way to advertise. Wot think?

Agency - Proximity BBDO (Belgium)

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Trivia - More than 20 million baby animals are slaughtered for the manufacture of luxury goods.

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Now that you have probably seen the video let me tell you that I was happy with the concept but I still think a woman would have done a better job. Be it anything, women sell it best. The video ‘How We Met’ is about how a young man and woman met and it fades out into an ad for a Samsung G800.
The Viral Factory reports that it’s earned 31 YouTube honors and has been labeled favorite 9,646 times.
The ad is for a G800 mobile phone, a new Samsung offering. For the geeks, it has features like a 5 megapixel camera, 2.4 inch QVGA display, Bluetooth, Xenon flash, expandable memory via microSDHC, and Triband GSM with HSDPA.
All in all a good concept, a painstaking ad which could have been done better if the ‘ballpoint’ was on a woman.

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What could possibly be left for sponsors to make do into adspaces. HANDS! Hands showcasing rings and other accessories were common but now another idea has been given shape. They are calling it Handvertising. ‘Handvertisers’ or people who will have your ad stamped on the back of their hand, will freely roam around places of entertainment giving you publicity.

Could be an expensive excercise. Especially considering that the first batch of handvertisers will be Californians. Yup, a company by the name of Handvertising USA has been incorporated. Area of operation California - USA.

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