Nissan wants to make dinged up iPhone cases a thing of the past, as they have just announced the Nissan Scratch Shield iPhone Case, billed as “the world’s first self-healing iPhone case.”

“Self-healing” means that when you scratch your case, it will automatically fix the blemish. Easy as that. This works because “the outer ‘paint’ is made from polyrotaxane, which means that when damage occurs to the coating in the form of a fine scratch, the chemical structure is able to react to change back to its original shape and fill the gap.”

The healing process will take anywhere from an hour to a week, depending on the size of the scratch. This paint technology was originally developed back in 2005, and is currently in use in Nissan automobiles like the Murano, 370Z and X-Trail, as well as some Infiniti models.

The Scratch Shield case touts other beneficial features, as Nissan says the flexible, tight-fitting case sports a tactile gel-like surface as opposed to a glossy surface – which cuts down on scratches in the first place and provides a better grip.

So when can you get your hands on one? According to Nissan, hopefully later this year. The first batch of prototypes is going through beta testing with a select group of consumers. If all goes according to plan, you could have your self-healing case before the end of 2012.

This isn’t the first time this scratch technology has been used outside of automobiles:

“We’re really excited about the possibilities provided by this technology, said Bob Laishley, Overseas Program Director Business Development for Nissan in Europe. “In Japan, we’ve already linked up with world-leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo to allow them to use the Scratch Shield technology on its Style Series N-03B mobile phones, and we think this technology has real scope beyond the automotive world. We’re passionate about innovations that get people excited, and that means not being restricted to one industry or genre.”

For anyone whose iPhone case takes a beating on a regular basis, it’s a no-brainer that they might want to at least give this new case a look.

[Images Courtesy JapanTrends]

And so far, only readers of Gizmodo and Engadget are treated to a correction.

Every publication, no matter how careful, makes mistakes. It’s part of the business. Traditionally, newspapers like to bury them a few pages in, placing corrections in a bottom corner somewhere.

But at least they’re there. This incident, though, is more of a case of piggybacking gone awry. Not that piggybacking isn’t standard fare in the news industry. It is, and it happens with the best of publications. Compare these two articles, for instance.

See, happens all the time.

Credit for unraveling the Nissan paint mystery goes to Darius at YoungGoGetter.com, who painstakingly traced the "news" back to its origin after receiving comment from Nissan that they’d only heard of the new technology.

Sure enough, it was one misinterpreted and slightly altered sentence at NextEnergyNews that started it all:

This revolutionary new paramagnetic paint is a technical wonder and is viewed by Nissan and other auto companies as an amazing innovation that would draw huge traffic to dealerships and will make it easier for consumers to get the exact option level they want on a car without the sacrifice of their favorite color.

Which, by the time it reached Wired, became:

Nissan Developing Color-Changing Auto Paint

With similar so-far uncorrected variations at Daily Tech and MobileMag.com.

But what’s most humorous about Darius’s investigative blogging is the publications’ use of the same image of a Nissan car with only the colors altered. Your choice: black, white and red; black and red; silver and black; or green and black.

More time was spent fiddling with the image than actually researching the blog posts, it appears.

So what’s the moral to this humorous tale? Darius nails it:

Bloggers and readers should do more to research the facts and original sources before jumping to the publish button. How else will we establish blogging as a credible, journalistic endeavor?

Yes, indeed. The salty, veteran journalists out there are laughing their butts off.

The site will be called N-Square and will connect up to 50,000 of the company’s 180,000 employees globally. Users will be able to create online profiles, blogs, online communities, discussion groups and share data files.

Simon Sproule, the Nissan executive overseeing N-Square says it will provide employees with a way to avoid bureaucratic channels and create new partnerships. "If you want to talk to your boss or your boss’s boss or your boss’s boss’s boss, you set up meetings, you ‘cc’ everyone, you lay out an agenda, maybe even have a pre-meeting to discuss the topic," Sproule told BusinessWeek. "There’s an enormous amount of time spent just to get to talk to somebody."

Sproule says the inspiration for N-Square came from visiting IBM’s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y. where he saw IBM’s Web based software that allowed employees to share ideas. Sproule believes the social networking site will be worth it because it will connect employees with others who can provide expertise so they can do a better job.

The site could also make employees feel more connected to their jobs. "What we know from research is that one of the primary reasons people stay at the same company is that they’re well tied into the social fabric of the place," says McKinsey & Co. consultant Leigh Weiss. "Companies will often lose top performers because they aren’t sufficiently mentored or connected."

Nissan/Yahoo Live Sets Move To MTV

As we noted when “Live Sets” first began, the series is a pretty big deal – artists such as Tony Bennett, Velvet Revolver, and Avril Lavigne have performed.  And the New York Post states that the sets have received over 10 million views.  The Post’s Brian Garrity indicates that things will really get started in just a few days, however.

“The deal with MTV kicks off Sept. 17,” he reports.  “MHD will air a new 30-minute episode each month for the next nine months.

“While Web sites are no stranger to adapting TV shows and movies for online viewing, the Yahoo!-MTV alliance reverses the standard content pecking order,” Garrity continues.  “It also represents a further thawing of the relationship between the two companies, who have traditionally competed for eyeballs of music fans online, most notably in the streaming of music videos.”

In all of this, Nissan’s name doesn’t get mentioned a lot.  But the series’s full title is “Nissan Live Sets,” after all, and viewers can probably expect to see a fair amount of advertising and product placement.

Live Sets will feature some very high-profile artists, including Tony Bennett, Incubus, and Christina Aguilera. Other musicians will be announced as the series progresses, and their performances may be far from run-of-the-mill. The series will allow them “to have creative control of their music by encouraging talent to explore diverse projects such as B-side songs, covers of their favorite songs and duets,” according to the press release.

The performances may also take place in a somewhat unconventional format, allowing “fans to interact with talent through the studio audience by integrating a live Q&A with the audience into the performance.” Another “unconventional” aspect of Live Sets may be less welcome – viewers can expect to see a stage featuring “branded interactive product displays and advertising.”

Specific concerts may tie in to specific vehicles, as well. “Aguilera’s concert will promote the Sentra,” reports an Adweek article, and “upcoming sets by Incubus and Tony Bennett may promote the Altima or other models.” Personally, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the companies will see fit to promote the 350Z or upcoming GT-R.

Dave Goldberg, VP and GM of Yahoo Music, sounded as if they would be try to be accommodating. “This innovative partnership with Nissan further enables Yahoo! Music to build an online community where artists can enhance user experience through live performances and interaction with fans,” he stated in the press release.

The Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo Music website is available here.

—
Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Yahoo has introduced an oddly named but equally compelling shopping suggestion site known as Yahoo Shoposphere. The shoposphere, is, on the surface, a wish-list you can share with eighty million of your closest friends.

The environment is organized around Pick Lists, virtual shopping lists made up by the registered users. One such list is, Gifts for a New Zealand Sports Fan . Another is the helpful Ultimate Travel Bag . Once made, lists can be shared with friends and family and displayed on the Shoposphere website.

The shoposphere also works around the Yahoo Shopping search engine with products listed in its database made available in the search results.

Naturally, it is also a space merchants can list items for sale. For instance, Jay presents his list of Nissan 350Z/300ZX Aftermarket Parts as a guide to finding such parts.

The shoposphere is a cool shopping application that really could make the Holiday season simpler for many people, especially for long-distance gift giving.

One important critique though. The name. It hurts the fingers to type it.

Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel – 250-385-1190 Toll Free – 877-385-5526 Fax – 250-385-1198

In the first nine months, net consolidated revenue rose 13.5%, compared with the same period in the previous year, to 6.099 trillion yen (US $56.22 billion, euro 45.69 billion) due to robust sales in the U.S. and a continuous improvement in European operations.

Nissan’s operating profit from April to December totaled 612.1 billion yen (US $5.64 billion, euro 4.59 billion), up 2.1% from the same period last year, while its operating profit margin came to 10.0%. Ordinary profit amounted to 611.9 billion yen (US $5.64 billion, euro 4.58 billion), up 3.9%. Net income after tax totaled 373.0 billion yen (US $3.44 billion, euro 2.79 billion), an increase of 2.7% compared with last year.

The nine-month results include the 50% proportional consolidation of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., Nissan’s joint venture in China, and the full consolidation of Siam Nissan Automobile Co., Ltd., its sales and manufacturing company in Thailand.

Globally, Nissan sold a total of 2,412,000 vehicles in the first nine months, an increase of 10.3% compared with the previous year, building on new products launched in fiscal year 2003, as well as new products released mainly in the second half of fiscal year 2004.

In the third quarter alone, Nissan’s net consolidated revenue advanced 14.9%, compared with the same period in the previous year, to 2.092 trillion yen (US $19.28 billion, euro 15.67 billion).

The company’s operating profit in the October-to-December quarter totaled 208.7 billion yen (US $1.92 billion, euro 1.56 billion), up 5.1% from the same period a year ago, while its operating profit margin came to 10.0%. Ordinary profit amounted to 210.6 billion yen (US $1.94 billion, euro 1.58 billion), up 6.0%. Net income after tax totaled 134.2 billion yen (US $1.24 billion, euro 1.01 billion), an increase of 6.9%.

Nissan sold a total of 816,000 vehicles worldwide in the third quarter, up 13.4% compared with the prior year.

Nissan is maintaining its forecast for the fiscal year, although the company faces a continued challenging environment characterized by higher incentives, higher commodity prices, raw material shortages and higher interest rates. Nissan has forecast full fiscal year net revenue of 8.176 trillion yen, operating profit of 860 billion yen, ordinary profit of 846 billion yen and net profit of 510 billion yen. The forecast is based on exchange rates of 105 yen/dollar and 125 yen/euro.

WebProNews | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.

According to Scotsman.com,

The new model is described a part-people carrier, part-hatchback and will be built at Sunderland as part of an investment package worth 223 million, including 5 million of Government aid.

The new model, based on the Qashqai concept car, will go into production in December next year and be on sale at the beginning of 2007.

Nissan will be manufacturing 130,000 of the new model cars per year at the factory which will increase its yearly output to 400,000 cars.

WebProNews | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.

Jason “the entomologist” Dowdell explored the cause of the bug and wondered “could it be that Google is cacheing specific queries, and keeping those highlighted results in it’s resultset and then reparsing the urls and applying the highlighting again?”

However, that didn’t “explain why we don’t see the same results in the title of the site because highlighting is applied there as well as in the main description of the result.”

Jason reported on Airgin that Google fixed the buggy results of a c++b search.

Thanks for the follow up, Jason!

Jason also discovered the nissan armada headrest monitor bug. The “nahm” bug still exists.

Garrett French is the editor of iEntry’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.

Discuss this bug in WebProWorld.

I sent the bug over to Jason Dowdell, who writes the airgin blog, and caught the nissan armada headrest monitor bug.

He dug into the error and found that it occurs when there is a letter “C” followed by more than one space and the letter “B.”

The actual cause of the bug is a bit more difficult to pin down however. Jason offered these speculations:

Could it be that Google is cacheing specific queries, and keeping those highlighted results in it’s resultset and then reparsing the urls and applying the highlighting again?

Not sure but it’s possible. But that doesn’t explain why we don’t see the same results in the title of the site because highlighting is applied there as well as in the main description of the result.

Also, why is it that reversing the order of the keyphrase causes this bug to arise?

He told his buddy at Google about the problem (as he told him about the other bugs he’s found lately) and maybe someday we’ll learn the truth.

Thanks Jason, for investigating this Google bug. Check out this bug he found too.

Garrett French is the editor of iEntry’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.