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Swedish court rejects Saab creditor-protection plea; Saab will appeal

A Swedish court on Thursday rejected an application by ailing carmaker Saab for protection from creditors to give it breathing space to solve a cash crisis and get funds from Chinese investors. The Vanersborg district court in western Sweden said in a statement on its Web site that there was no reason to believe a new creditor protection process, known as a reconstruction, would work. Saab said in a statement that it is disappointed with the ruling and will appeal the decision.

Volvo picks up Red Dot Design Award for new connectivity system

Volvo's Sensus Connected Touch connectivity system with the world's first voice-activated integrated Spotify connection has been awarded a 2013 Red Dot Design Award. The Sensus Connected Touch accessory turns the integrated 7-inch display into an infrared, beam-scanned touch screen that can be used even when wearing gloves. The system can be controlled using the touchscreen, the steering wheel or the center stack, while you can also voice-activate all music sources. Alain Visser, senior vice president of marketing, sales and customer service at Volvo, says, "The Red Dot Design Award confirms that this approach to an intuitive, human-centric user experience fulfils modern car owners' desire to remain constantly connected also when driving." The WiFi connection can be made using either a car-mounted 3G/4G-dongle or the driver's mobile phone, and the data is transferred by the WiFi between the phone and the Sensus Connected Touch.

CDN and GM launch new interactive competition for students in North America

Multiple internships on offer with CDN-GM Interactive Competition Car Design News is pleased to announce the launch of the Car Design News-GM interactive design competition, a collaboration with GM and our partners, Dassault Systèmes and Faurecia. Eight student winners will be awarded internships at GM's design studios in North America in 2012 as the principal prizes, whilst our partner, Faurecia, will be choosing its own additional winner and offering this student an internship at its studios in either the US, Europe or Asia.  The competition is open to students studying at college/university level in the USA and Canada, on any design course, and to former students who graduated from these courses within the period April 2010 to March 2011. Students display and update their ideas and work-in-progress on the competition's website, where the interactivity comes from the ability of observers to comment and suggest specific amendments, and from GM mentors who will publicly guide and support the students.