“Solera Holdings posts fiscal 4Q profit - Boston Globe” plus 4 more

Solera Holdings posts fiscal 4Q profit - Boston Globe
CTC trains new breed of auto mechanic - Frederick News-Post
AI Interview with Martin Reber, CEO of SVOX AG - Automotive Industries Online
Atlantic Automotive Requests Extended Tax Breaks In Benton Harbor - WSJM
UPDATE 1-Recticel swings to profit in H1, beats forecasts - Reuters

Solera Holdings posts fiscal 4Q profit - Boston Globe

Posted: 27 Aug 2009 04:56 PM PDT

For the full fiscal year, Solera's profit climbed to $57.8 million, or 85 cents per share, compared with $598,000, or a penny per share, in fiscal 2008.

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CTC trains new breed of auto mechanic - Frederick News-Post

Posted: 27 Aug 2009 11:01 PM PDT

With apologies to Oldsmobile -- wait, Oldsmobiles aren't even made anymore -- today's automotive tech classes are not your grandfather's auto shop classes.

The days of points, plugs and condenser tuneups are long gone. Auto technicians are a high-tech bunch who use computers to diagnose auto illnesses. And modern vehicles have on-board computers that have replaced many mechanical systems.

To keep up with the ever-changing modern automobile, automotive repair classes have changed drastically, and so has the image of a mechanic.

"Twenty years ago, a kid who liked tinkering on cars in his backyard could come here, take classes and get a job," Greg Solberg, principal of Frederick County's Career and Technology Center, said last week. "Today, it's hard to get even an entry-level job without ASE certifications."

The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence awards the automotive industry's benchmark certification.

Juniors and seniors enrolled in Frederick County public high schools can apply for admission to any of CTC's 24 programs.

The automotive program has room for 72 students each year, with automotive instructors Richard Smith and Gary Wilfong sharing teaching duties.

The school system has made a large financial investment in the program over the last seven years or so, Wilfong said.

"The students have the latest tools and equipment here," he said. "The county has been very gracious and has spent a lot of money to get this place up to date."

First-year students concentrate on automotive fundamentals, steering and suspension, and brake systems, according to Wilfong.

"They become familiar with the car's basics, and learn about hand tools and safety," he said. "The second year, most of the focus is on electrical components and electronic systems and engine performance."

In the second year, students progress from basic engine operation through a car's many different systems, Wilfong said.

At the end of the two-year program, qualified students receive the ASE Student Achievement certification.

"A mechanic has to have two years of hands-on experience to sit for the ASE test, and our graduates get one of those years here," Wilfong said. "Our kids only have to work one year to be eligible for ASE certification."

Wilfong said he and Smith stress the importance of certification for several reasons.

"Certification determines pay levels in many cases, and also determines hireability," Wilfong said. "But from an educator's point of view, more than that, it points to a level of commitment on the part of the students, a level of determination."

CTC has had the best passing rate on ASE student tests in Maryland for the last two years. Wilfong said that success attests to the quality of both the students and the instructional program at CTC.

The school's automotive graduates are working in car dealerships and independent repair shops, for fleet service companies, and on heavy equipment and recreational and sport vehicles like motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles.

"And we have articulation agreements with many postsecondary institutions," Wilfong said. The kids earn college credits for the work they do here.

The program has had its stars over the years, and also attracts a couple of females each year.

"The program is open to everyone," Wilfong said. "Every year, when we talk to middle school students, I make sure I tell the girls it can be for them, too."

The instructor said he likes to tell his kids at the beginning of every year that CTC has the best automotive program in the country.

"They look at me and say 'yeah,'" Wilfong said. "But I tell them that's how we feel about it and that's how they should feel about it."

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AI Interview with Martin Reber, CEO of SVOX AG - Automotive Industries Online

Posted: 27 Aug 2009 11:01 PM PDT

Issue: Sep 2009

AI Interview with Martin Reber, CEO of SVOX AG

Imagine a world where you could communicate with any device as if it were a person

by Steve Barclay

Imagine a world where you could communicate with any device as if it were a person. Tell your car what music you want to hear in the morning and ask for it to be changed by evening. And this after you have told your car where you want it to go while at the same time, getting your car-phone to dial your grocery store for the family's daily needs. Much of this is already reality and the rest could soon follow if Swiss company SVOX AG has its way. SVOX is the world leader of embedded speech solutions for the automotive and mobile devices markets. It is deeply committed to a world where humans can talk to any device with flexible and open speech dialog being an important component of a multi-modal user interface.

For the automotive industry, SVOX solutions are used for devices such as infotainment systems and hands-free car kits. In these devices, speech is used to enable turn-by-turn directions, command and control functionality, music track selection, hands-free dialing and similar actions. SVOX mobile solutions are for handsets, smartphones, portable navigation and other mobile devices and there speech is used for device control, SMS and email reading, caller name announcement and so on.

SVOX is a university spin-off founded in 2000 – it was started by a group of researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Today, the company is a fast-growing privately-held company headquartered in Switzerland and with offices in Germany and the USA. Its clientele include names such as Audi, BMW, Asahi Kasei, Continental
Ferrari, HarmanBecker, Hyundai, Mercedes- Benz, Nissan, Nokia, Peugeot, Porsche, Renault, Volkswagen and Xanavi.

The company offers Speech Recognition (ASR), Speech Output (TTS) as well as complete Speech Dialog solutions. The company's ASR product is tailored for embedded use and allows customers to enable reliable and accurate ASR in their automotive and mobile products. SVOX' ASR products are offered in numerous language choices to enable a global reach for the products. "Available in a wide variety of footprints and configurations, SVOX Speech Recognition solutions can scale from simple mobile phones to powerful in-dash car infotainment systems – all using the same, uniform base technology. Porting to various embedded environments is straightforward thanks to a platform-independent, modular architecture," says the company.

SVOX Automotive Text-to-Speech solutions, Polyglot Natural, are tailored for noisy car environments. The company says that its TTS systems are characterized by natural and clear sound as well as a unique polyglot capability – the same voice can speak multiple languages like a native speaker. Currently, SVOX' TTS systems are offered in 24 languages and 35 voices. "Customers can use SVOX embedded TTS technology to enable speech in a variety of devices. Examples include mobile handsets, smartphones, personal navigation devices, hands-free kits and in-dash car infotainment, among others. Excellent portability and scalability are ensured due to a design that takes into account constraints inherent to embedded environments," says SVOX.

Then there is SVOX speech dialog development tool SpeechCreate. This product was created after getting inputs from car manufacturers and automotive Tier-1 suppliers. This resulted in SpeechCreate being an easy to use tool to create recording-like prompts using TTS. The SpeechCreate software can be licensed so users can create their own prompts.

Automotive Industries spoke to Martin Reber, CEO of SVOX AG.

AI: In the beginning of the year SVOX has acquired speech processing unit of Siemens AG. Could you shed light on the rationale behind this acquisition?

Our goal was to make SVOX a one-stop destination for embedded speech. While company's roots are in speech output (TTS), the acquisition has enabled us to offer a complete range of speech solutions – speech recognition (ASR), speech output (TTS) and speech dialog. The ASR technology we have acquired is proven and mature; it has been deployed in several car products, and constant improvements are making the system even more successful.

AI: Recently SVOX speech solution has become a part of Android mobile phone platform. Do you see Android and similar platforms becoming relevant for the automotive industry as well?

SVOX Pico text-to-speech solution is indeed part of the newest release of the Android platform. This solution is unique in the market for it offers a very attractive trade-off between low footprint and highly intelligible speech output. At SVOX we observe that the trend for open and often open-source software platform is spreading also to the automotive industry, with initiatives like Continental's AutoLinQ and GENIVI being good examples. We see it as a part of bigger "convergence" trend, where the line between mobile devices and in-car telematics is increasing blurring. At SVOX, we ready to work with all this new players to speech-enable their platforms.

AI: Tell us a little about Microsoft and SVOX' speech technology solutions for the automotive industry.

SVOX focus is firmly on embedded speech and solutions we offer are highly portable and platform-independent. Since Microsoft Auto platform is clearly a success, with Ford Sync shipments already exceeding 1mln units, SVOX made it a priority to optimize its offering for this platform. SVOX Automotive suite, a benchmark for quality in embedded speech, is a complete (TTS and ASR) solution available to all OEMs and Tier Ones using the platform. The suite allows customers differentiate themselves by making their Microsoft Auto-based in-car products more intuitive to use and thus more attractive to consumers.

AI: What are some of the new automotive solutions SVOX is working on?

At SVOX we are always looking at new things, striving to make speech solutions even more intuitive and easy to use. Vast experience in executing high-profile speech projects with our customers puts us in a unique position to innovate. The next "big thing" in speech user interfaces is flexible dialog – a solution that allows the user to communicate with the car as if it were a human being. For example, a user may ask "I would like to read something in the evening," and the system will ask back "Would you like to download a book or visit a book store?" The dialog will then continue until the task is accomplished.
Plenty of challenges need to be overcome to make this vision a reality, and SVOX is at the forefront of these developments. We are collaborating with leading OEMs and TierOnes to bring flexible dialog to the market already in the nearest future.

AI: How global has SVOX' reach been so far – and how do you hope to further expand your company's reach?

SVOX business is global by nature – we have about 25 languages in our portfolio and our clients are major international OEMs and Tier Ones. We currently have offices in Switzerland, Germany and the USA and the team is truly international: there are more than 15 nationalities among our 100 employees. For SVOX, the most obvious next step would be expanding in other major regions, for example Asia.

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Atlantic Automotive Requests Extended Tax Breaks In Benton Harbor - WSJM

Posted: 27 Aug 2009 03:23 PM PDT

Posted: Thursday, 27 August 2009 8:30PM

Atlantic Automotive Requests Extended Tax Breaks In Benton Harbor

Andrew Green Reporting

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UPDATE 1-Recticel swings to profit in H1, beats forecasts - Reuters

Posted: 28 Aug 2009 12:27 AM PDT

* H1 2009 sales 632.6 mln eur vs forecast 638 mln

* H1 2009 EBITDA 47.0 mln eur vs forecast 29 mln

* H1 profit 7.9 mln euros vs forecast 8.5 mln eur loss

* Shares up 0.2 pct

BRUSSELS, August 28 (Reuters) - Belgian foam maker Recticel (RECT.BR) on Friday said it swung to profit in the first half of 2009, easily beating market expectations, though it gave a cautious outlook.

Citing "good resistance" to the downturn, Recticel said all its units excepts Automotive booked a better core profit compared with a dismal second half of 2008. The company makes about a quarter of its sales to the depressed auto sector.

"The uncertainty over the economy remains, especially in the automotive sector. The impact of possible future chemical raw material price increases makes a forecast extremely difficult," it warned.

"The earnings after taxes of 2009 should improve compared to those of 2008," added Recticel.

So far it has taken drastic measures to survive the slump, including scaling back investments and overall costs, 363 job cuts and terminating nearly all temporary labor.

Despite a 23 percent drop in sales from the year before, Recticel said it booked a net profit of 7.9 million euros for the first half, while an average forecast of analysts polled by Reuters predicted a net loss of 8.5 million euros. Recticel said core profit, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in at 47 million euros, versus an average forecast of 29 million euros. In the second half of 2008, Recticel booked a loss of 12.9 million euros.

Recticel, which makes interior trims for cars as well as bedding and mattresses and is at the mercy of raw material prices, said lower demand for some of its products was partially offset by higher market prices.

It said while automotive and flexible foams sales fell off in the first six months of 2009, its bedding and insulation business lines each achieved slight growth.

At 0709 GMT, Recticel's stock was up 0.2 percent at 5.06 euros per share.

(Reporting by Anne Jolis and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Erica Billingham)