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Enjoy! Compliments of: Le Triomphe, Montreal, scale 1:87 *************************************************** CITÉ NATURE, Montréal, scale 1:87 ********************************************** DOWNTOWN MONTRÉAL, scale 1:1000 Some buildings in green...maybe some day they will rise.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/07/new-york-cabbies-love-old-ford-crown-victoria-not-hybrids/1?csp=34

Ce fil est pour mettre des nouvelles sur l'industrie automobile au Canada (ventes, etc) Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2513062#ixzz0eQ4DFfuA It is indeed a little disappointing that the Big 3 aren't really profiting that much from Toyota's woes. Especially considering how good the product is these days (and how reliable American cars are!).

Luxury automakers smash August sales records in Canada By Nicolas Van Praet, Financial PostSeptember 6, 2009 When auto executives gathered at Pebble Beach in Carmel, Calif. this month to show off a bevy of new luxury car models, the mood was decidedly more downbeat than in previous years. Managers for Lamborghini and Lincoln decried the state of sales for their high-end cars, arguing that their well-heeled American buyers are fearful of flaunting their money with lavish purchases at a time when the United States is still gripped in financial scandals and climbing unemployment. “Keeping up with the Joneses is passé,” lamented Ford Motor Co.’s Mark Fields. Somebody forgot to tell that to Canadians. Amid the worst job market in 15 years, several luxury automakers smashed August sales records in Canada. Mercedes-Benz reported a 20% increase in sales and has sold 2,318 more vehicles this year than last. BMW and Lexus are also besting last year’s tally with double-digit percentage increases last month. Audi nearly doubled its sales in August over a year ago, and has sold 27% more vehicles this year. The country is in a recession and yet the luxury market is holding up. Meanwhile, sales of the most affordable vehicles, subcompacts, are down 26% through the first eight months. “It’s totally counter-intuitive,” said John White, chief executive of Volkswagen Group Canada, Inc., which comprises the Volkswagen and Audi brands. “It’s taken us a little bit by surprise. And the Audi division has had to turn around and ask [headquarters] for more cars because we didn’t think the demand would be as strong in a down market.” Mr. White’s read on the situation is that Canadians who believe they are secure in their jobs are pulling the trigger on buying middle-of-the-road luxury vehicles like the A4 sedan and BMW 3-Series, not the higher-end models. He said the luxury segment has become hyper-competitive as BMW and Mercedes “are out there as aggressive as you’ll see mainstream competitors,” offering deals that were unthinkable only a few years ago and making it easier for buyers to step into premium cars. Mercedes is offering lease deals such as $398 per month on its 2010 C250 car, based on an interest rate of 4.9% for 36 months. That’s on par with a similarly-equipped Honda Accord or Mazda6, according to the Automobile Protection Association. Roughly 40% of luxury vehicle sales transactions in Canada are leases, according to J.D. Power & Associates’ Power Information Network. One third of people pay cash while the rest take out a loan. Sales growth is particularly strong in one sub-segment of the premium market: compact luxury SUVs. Volvo, Mercedes and Audi have launched new vehicles into that category this year, which has helped boost sales volumes 66% over 2008 levels, said industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers. “We’re still a society that needs to carry stuff,” said J.D. Power analyst Geoff Helby in explaining why SUV models like the Volvo XC60 and Audi Q5 are clicking with buyers. “[People] are stepping away from the previous generation of minivans and big honking SUVs and they’re going into something smaller” without giving up luxury features. In the mind of the Canadian luxury buyer, downsizing is the compromise they’re making in the recession, Mr. Helby said. Mary Weil is proof. The media relations professional and her husband started looking around for a new vehicle earlier this year after the lease on a larger sports utility vehicle he drove expired, she recalls. They decided on a Mercedes GLK compact SUV. “The price point was surprisingly not that much higher than comparable vehicles.” In a Jan.15 analysis, Mr. DesRosiers predicted the luxury market in Canada overall will drop 5% this year. Automakers sold 131,436 luxury vehicles in 2008, a 3% decline over the year before. Financial Post nvanpraet@nationalpost.com

Video games: the next generation By Marc Cieslak Reporter, BBC Click The video games industry is obsessed with the phrase "next generation", but what does it actually mean? What can gamers expect from any game given that name? It would be easy to dismiss the next generation gaming experience as simply eye candy. Every single thing in the city can be grabbed, climbed on, jumped from Jade Raymond, Ubisoft producer The latest games all look great but the potential offered by the processing power of consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 does not end there. They also give developers a wealth of new gameplay possibilities. At Ubisoft's Montreal studio, a team of 300 designers, programmers and artists have spent four years developing Assassin's Creed, a next generation medieval action adventure. "A lot of people have heard the term 'next gen game' thrown around and so far what we've seen as far as next gen games mostly means better quality graphics," said Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond. "So you've seen in fighting games where boxers are up close, you get more detail on the facial animation. Or in car racing games it looks exactly like the car, and you get more shiny cars and the environments are more realistic. "But for me personally, next gen game had to mean new types of gameplay." Assassin's Creed is set during the Crusades and the action takes place in three huge cities. Each is populated with thousands of computer controlled characters. Players can take Altair, the character they control, anywhere in the city. "We made this rule and gave ourselves the challenge to try and make huge cities that are completely interactive, which means that every single thing in the city can be grabbed, climbed on, jumped from," said Ms Raymond. "Which means that we created tools to be able to recognise the 3D models and automatically generate interactive edges on everything." Lego blocks The gaming environment took so long to develop because everything that sticks out of a wall more than two inches can be an anchor point for Altair. Bumping into people affects the direction of the main character "Our challenge was to make it readable for the player as we're using games to see the level design ingredients or the game designer path," said creative director Patrice Desilets. "This time there is no path whatsoever." Vincent Pontbriand, Ubisoft associate producer, said: "In a regular, more linear, game what you would do is create game levels. In our case, since it involved cities in which you could travel anywhere, we quickly realised it was going to be impossible to customise the entire city that way, polygon by polygon. "So what we did was we created a bank of objects, what we call a Lego system, and this allowed us to produce the first templates for the cities quickly by adding and removing blocks. "Then we were able to do the same things with objects and eventually with the characters and the population itself." While larger environments that allow the player more freedom are certainly a bonus, there is still more to be done before a game can earn that next gen title. Background characters Probably one of the biggest challenges facing games is to make computer controlled characters more lifelike. This is where the hardware buried inside the latest consoles proves so useful. "The tendency in technology is to move towards multi-core, multi CPU type of machines," explained AI programmer Matthieu Mazerolles. "What this means is instead of having just one processing unit you literally have several, sometimes up to a dozen all within the same box. More than 200 models were used as the templates for characters "What this allows us to do is to take all of the calculations, which are highly complex, that go into making the AI seem alive, and distribute these across many different processors." Said Ms Raymond: "We worked on this whole kind of physics systems for when you bump into people and push them out of the way, so that tactile thing really felt real. "So bumping into a group of people will make you fall over, running full force into a small woman will knock her over." One of the tools the company has worked on is something which generates crowds of diverse people. "For NPCs we have hundreds and hundreds of different looking characters, that were the templates we used to create our initial models," said Mr Pontbriand. "But then we created our own technology to take those templates, cut them down into pieces and then, with the technology, added the ability to randomise between skin colour, clothes, hair colour. "We ended up with a multiplying factor, so these sketches that became models ended up producing thousands of different variations in game." 'A player's story' Increased production values, emotional involvement, environments that have more bearing on the world - could all of these elements help shift games from what many perceive to be a marginalised ghetto into the mainstream? "As an entertainment medium, games are really just scratching the surface," said Ms Raymond. "I think we are at where we were with film when we made the transition from silent films to films that were telling a story with sound and dialogue. "We are just at the point of discovering what we can do with interactivity and what's an interactive story where you are creating a story for players, but it really has to become the player's story." Said Mr Desilets: "I strongly believe the more we go on with next gen the less we will see video game rules apparent, they will be more and more hidden and the experience will be a lot more immersive because you won't see the video game rules that only gamers really like."