Ford is planning to show off three celebrity co-designed vehicles at the New York International Auto Show, which opens to the public next week. Although no specific pricing information is available yet, each model is expected to be “high price and limited production.” Ford is hoping the special vehicles will generate excitement about the troubled brand.

One co-design is from famed auto racer Carroll Shelby, who worked on a modified 2008 Mustang that is better known as the Ford Shelby GT500KR. The vehicle is expected to get 540 horsepower out of a 5.4 liter V8 engine.

The 2008 F-150 also gets a celebrity makeover with a version styled by Chip Foose, who’s known for TLC show “Overhaulin.’” The Foose edition truck will have Ford’s highest horsepower rating since their 2004 Lightning edition.

Car aficionados who also happen to be music enthusiasts may be more into the Funkmaster Flex edition of the 2008 Expedition. Funkmaster Flex, a hip hop DJ, designed the SUV with a two-tone paint job, pinstriping and special chrome insignia.

Flex told USA Today:

“Customization is not a car that parks by itself. I don’t need that,” he said at the preview, disparaging the high-tech, high-price Lexus LS 460 sedan with self-parking technology.

It won’t be the last association between Flex and Ford. This spring, Ford will sponsor a reality TV series on ESPN2 called “Car Wars With Funkmaster Flex.”

“Waste time watching other people waste time” is the slogan of Internet reality show Justin.tv. After being live for just a week and a half, it’s already attracting tens of thousands of viewers who tune in to follow 23-year-old Justin Kan and his friends who created the site.

Kan is coining the word “lifecasting” when he refers to the site that chronicles his life in San Francisco 24 hours a day. Online viewers see footage from a camera Kan keeps strapped to his head all day except when he’s sleeping. The site also allows viewers to talk in chat rooms where they offer prompts and suggestions for Kan and his friends.

When I tuned in earlier, Justin was buying a newspaper and riding an elevator to return to the crew’s home base, a messy bachelor pad that has a Bawls energy drink poster on one wall. That poster is there for more than just its decorative value, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The business model centers on product placement. Already corporate sponsors are lining up to plug their products alongside Zipcar rentals and Bawls energy drink, both of which have posters on the walls of Justin.tv’s headquarters in North Beach.

The longterm goal for the show is to expand it to other cities and include other “characters,” according to Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, which provided the startup money for the project. Graham continues:

Ultimately, their plan is to have hundreds of people with these cameras. Each would be a channel; viewers would watch whichever was most interesting at that time. With hundreds of people, there would always be something interesting. So why would anyone even switch on their TV?

Paper or plastic? This question could become obsolete in San Francisco and at a growing number of stores. 

San Francisco is on its way to becoming the first U.S. city to outlaw the use of plastic shopping bags. Yesterday, the city’s Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that would give large grocery stores six months to phase out the bags and chain pharmacies a year to do so. Those stores will be able to offer compostable bags that are made of corn starch or recyclable paper

The ordinance still needs the mayor’s signature to take effect but he is expected to approve the measure. 

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi called the petroleum-based plastic bags “a relic of the past.” Mirkarimi and others tried unsuccessfully two years ago to levy a 17-cent tax on plastic bags. 

According to San Francisco’s director of the Department of the Environment Jared Blumenfeld, it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to make 100 million plastic bags. In San Francisco alone, approximately 180 million plastic bags are used annually. 

Other countries, including Ireland and Bangladesh, have already banned or levied taxes on plastic bags. Some stores have also started programs to discourage the use of plastic bags. Sweden-based Ikea announced recently that it would start charging shoppers five cents for each plastic bag they use.

According to the Los Angeles Times, one in 5 U.S. households depends on rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna to watch TV. Without converter boxes, most of their sets will go blank on February 18, 2009—the day that federal law requires broadcast stations to turn off analog signals and transmit only in digital.

The shift is being hailed as broadcast television’s most dramatic upgrade since it bloomed to color from black and white half a century ago. The technology gives free TV viewers vastly sharper pictures and enables networks such as ABC and PBS to offer a wider range of channels.

But a recent poll found that 61% of people who rely on broadcast TV aren’t aware of the pending shift to digital, a move that will require a new converter box.

Concerned that households without cable or satellite service tend to have lower incomes, the Commerce Department plans to give most anyone who applies a $40 coupon to buy a no-frills converter box — limited to two per household. The department has budgeted nearly $1.5 billion, enough for about 34 million converters.

Associated Press reports that Burger King is reforming some of its purchasing habits and food processing machanisms in response to pressure from animal rights activists.

Burger King also said it will start getting two percent of its eggs from hens that are not confined to small cages. That percentage should more than double by the end of 2007.

Hoping to pressure suppliers and increase availability, Burger King has told egg suppliers that it will look favorably on cage-free eggs when making purchasing decisions.

Burger King will also give purchasing preference to poultry suppliers that use or switch to “controlled atmosphere stunning,” which animal rights groups consider the most humane way to slaughter poultry.

In 2002, BK was the first fast food restaurant to embrace the Veggie Burger and roll it out nationwide.

Californians appear willing to pay $4,000 more for used gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles that have state-issued carpool stickers than for hybrids that don’t, according to a sampling of prices by Kelley Blue Book for USA TODAY.

The stickers allow low-polluting hybrids to use less-crowded, faster-moving carpool lanes, even if the driver is alone in the car.

The state quit issuing stickers to hybrids last month after hitting a self-imposed cap of 85,000. Those already issued are valid through 2011 and stay with the car when it’s sold, benefiting subsequent owners.

AOL got Ted Leo to help them with a funny self-promo spot for their new programming offer, The DL.

[via Done Waiting]

Vice Magazine’s Saturday night afterparty in Austin was cut short when part of the balcony at the Elk’s club collapsed. Thankfully, no one was injured in the melee. Yet performaces by Les Savy Fav, Black Lips and others were brought to a halt and the building cleared of partiers.

Now some dude is selling pieces of the fallen balcony on eBay. I guess that’s rock and roll.

Cincinnati-based internet radio station, WOXY, did a really smart thing last week during SXSW. They invited a bunch of bands to “a secret location” in East Austin for live performance “Lounge Act sessions.”

Jessica Martins, lead singer of Via Audio

One of the bands that dropped by the WOXY makeshift studio is Via Audio, a group of Berklee College of Music grads now living in NYC. Via Audio also opened Saturday’s Camel showcase at The Blind Pig Pub on 6th Street (a BFG Communications production).

To listen to Via Audio’s in studio performance and interview, click here.

I went to a panel at noon today called, “A Field Guide to Indie Labels.” Panelists included Gerard Cosloy of Matador Records; Gourmet Délice of Blow The Fuse Records; Glenn Dicker of Redeye Distribution/Yep Roc Records; Robb Nansel of Saddle Creek Records; Roger Shepherd of Flying Nun Records; Cameron Strang of New West Records and Robert Vickers of Proxy Media.

Robb Nansel of Saddle Creek Records

The panelists spoke about operational issues involved with running a label, working with bands, finding distribution deals and the impact of digital distribution on their bottom lines.

Robb Nansel of Saddle Creek was incredibly humble, especially given that his label is home to indie darling Bright Eyes. He said, “We started the label organically ten years ago. We were in bands and couldn’t get signed, so we did it ourselves to document the scene in Omaha.”

Cameron Strang of New West Records said, “We put out records we like, but we don’t get to put our all the records we like. There are always internal constraints at the label.”

Gourmet Délice of Blow The Fuse Records said, “If the band isn’t good live, I’m not going to work with them.” Picking up on that theme, Robert Vickers of Proxy Media said, “If a band can tour, that’s a promotion in itself.”

Addresssing the new media reality and the idea that labels need to move from being a record company to a music company today, Gerard Cosloy of Matador Records said, “We need to get people excited about PURCHASING music, in whatever format. People have different relationships to buying music. Not everybody grew up doing it the way we did.”