Slashdot Mirror

Apple sues Motorola claiming their Android phones violate patents

Microsoft sues Barnes and Nobles over Android Patent violations in the Nook

Microsoft Sues Motorola for Android patent issues

Oracle is suing Google and if they win, want all revenue from Android to be given to them along with an injunction forbidding sales of all Android phones etc.

I couldn't find anything about Sony suing over Android, but they are suing LG over "Sony Technology" but the details aren't out so maybe that's over Android.

There are MANY more examples than this (such as Microsoft's suit against HTC a while ago) but to say that "None of these companies are harassing people for using Android" is just fallacious. They are. You may return now to your regularly scheduled rant.

Apple IOS devices are being outsold better than two to one by android.

Umm...no. The reality is almost the exact opposite of your claim. Devices powered by iOS --iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad-- are in fact outselling Android devices by 59% (37.9 million to 23.8 million). The summary also makes the same claim, that "Android is surging past iOS in marketshare", but it's as wrong as you are. Android-powered smartphones are outselling iOS-powered smartphones, but that's collectively; no single manufacturer even comes close to Apple. The iPhone is far and away the best-selling smartphone on the market.

Android proponents (I won't be disrespectful and call them "fanboys") and lazy journalists love to point out the fact that Android is outselling iPhone, but that's disingenuous; they're comparing a platform to a single device. In both platform-to-platform and device-to-device comparisons, Apple is still wa-aay ahead of the competition. At the end of 2010, Android had the largest smartphone market share at 33.3%, Nokia was second with 31%, and Apple third with 16.2% of the global market. Apple's smartphone market share translates to 4.2% of the total market for all mobile phones, and yet Apple is reaping 51% of the total profits of the entire mobile industry. And they're doing it with variations of a single device. That fact certainly gives the lie to the claims that the iPhone is "dead in the water". If these jaw-dropping numbers demonstrate that Apple is "getting desperate", as you claim, then I'm sure their competitors would love a big helping of the desperation they're imbibing.

Apple haters may have their reasons for disliking Apple, but they need to make a reasoned case if they hope to be taken seriously. Blithe disregard for the facts, and trumpeting bizarre assertions as fact, despite all evidence to the contrary, certainly doesn't help their cause. It only lumps them into the same category of fruit loop as the "birthers".

Yes, both Apple and Microsoft are anti-choice and act in anti-competitive manners. This is nothing new, nor will anyone step in to stop it.

http://gigaom.com/video/google-forces-roku-to-take-down-its-youtube-channel/

http://www.webpronews.com/skyhook-wireless-sues-google-2010-09

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/google_clamps_down_on_android_partners/

http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-tried-to-get-google-to-hide-his-political-donation-in-search-results-2011-4?op=1

Assuming this is an accurate count of online subscriptions (and not an artificially inflated count since all paper subscriptions are also online subscriptions), the next question is to wonder how many of those are inherited from their e-reader circulation ... As of April 2010, the New York Times had 90,934 e-reader subscriptions (which was about twice the number from the previous year). If they doubled from 2009 to 2010 and then only attracted an extra 10% by 2011, I wouldn't call that much of a success.

What I want to know is how much of that 50% is from hardware sales and what is from app store revenue.

Not that much. See here.

-jcr

Doh. I just had a post and accidentally clicked a link in the preview. Sigh.

Here are some charts. Most of Apple's profit comes from the iPhone of late. Without it, it looks like its profits would have been much lower.

Here's a slightly dated Windows one. Office and Windows, you're right. On the whole, I'd say iOS products are more of a luxury item (and have more competition?) than Windows and Office.

Of course, if either one stagnates, then either company is in trouble :) Not sure how Windows 7 has improved or deteriorated MS's profits from the Windows line. It doesn't look like the iPad has made a *huge* impact on Apple, at least not to the same extent the iPhone did. There's rising competition for iOS products from Android products, now, I think... but I'm not sure any major significant OS competition is there yet (aside from OS X, which has not been growing very quickly...)

PS WTF Japan, you're only NOW starting to use robots help fix the reactor???

Why bother, when genpatsu gypsies are so much cheaper?

I was thinking more along the lines of a function-generator. The amount of current isn't the only factor here -- there's also frequency and waveform to take into account. And what about polarity? Also, how to do pick where to pass the current through? We should probably ask this guy.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/11/windows-app-store/

(With all that investment in Microsoft Research, why does Microsoft copy others, particularly Apple, so much???)

Because MS doesn't really innovate. You can't come up with new ideas when you are mostly concerned with catching up to Apple. They had been #1 for so long that it didn't matter if they did something new, as they were the only game in town for many peolpe. Look at the Zune; same basic form factor as the iPod. Same can be said for most of the smart phones out there, that look just like the iPhone. And now with all the tablet stuff going on, people don't realize that Apple made the iPad before the iPhone, but didn't think there was a market for it yet. And true, Apple didn't invent the tablet or smart phone, but they are good at coming up with great implementations.

"Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee just delivered a fantastic, wide ranging interview on CNBC about the state of tech."

http://www.businessinsider.com/roger-mcnamee-on-cnbc-2011-4#ixzz1JYfHqHse

"We're in a cycle where Windows will become irrelevant. For the first time Windows is below 50% of all internet connected devices, so "we're going to free up $100 billion in revenue over the next few years per year. As Windows goes down, Apple rises, thanks to iPad."

Unfortunately, there is no set price for our elected officials; we all know they are each sold to the highest bidder. Even google does not have enough money to get more than a few minutes of time from small handful.

As proof, here is what congress really thinks of google: As a shakedown target.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-reason-dc-wants-to-hold-google-hearings-2011-3

Yeah, its totally ripping of Chrome

Microsoft never tried to hide that their offering wasn't certified yet, they're just a vendor calling out their competitor for lying to the client (the government).

Except that it is and was certified, according to the GSA (which issues the certifications).

The GSA has declared that Google's product does have FISMA certification so (at least on this point) they are not lying.

The GSA themselves have declared that Google's product is indeed FISMA certified ( http://gcn.com/articles/2011/04/14/google-fires-back-on-fisma-certification.aspx and http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-microsoft-you-owe-google-an-apology-2011-4) so Google's original argument that the Department of the Interior did not give Google fair consideration when selecting their vendor as Microsoft did not have FISMA certification is still valid. From what I understand, all this does is put more egg on Microsoft's face (along with the officials involved in vendor selection at the Department of the Interior).

This article shows the decline of music sales - from a peak of around $17 billion or $71/year per capita in 1999 to around $8 billion or $26/year per capita in 2009.
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

Now, of course, the "music industry" isn't just recorded music. It's also concerts, and those have been rising, right? Yes, but certainly not enough to makeup for the shortfall. According to this paper (http://www.nber.org/papers/w16507.pdf), the number of concerts in the US in 2002 was 22,033, an average of 2,459.34 tickets sold per concert at an average price of $36.02. That adds up to $1,950,449,292. That's $1.95 billion dollars. In order to makeup for the shortfall in record sales, concert revenues would need to be topping $12 billion, which I highly doubt.

Sales of recorded music in the year 1999: over $17 billion/year. Sales of recorded music in 2008: around $8 billion/year. It's been dropping fast, and by 2008, sales were less than half of what they were 9 years earlier. Sure, you might be able to argue that there "never been proven that the internet has had ANY negative effects" - as in "you can't prove that it was the internet, as opposed to 'everyone decided to stop buying music and spend money on other things", but I think the trends are a little more than suggestive. I'd be willing to bet that the last two or three years have also seen a decline - how do I know? My amazing crystal ball.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/the-death-of-the-music-industry/

Oh, hey, I found an updated chart, with numbers upto 2010 and adjustments for inflation and population. When adjusted for inflation and population growth, you can see that recorded music peaked around 1999 with $71/year per capita, and now it's down to $26/year per capita. Another interesting fact: Napster was released in June 1999. Coincidence?
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

The Sarah Palin hacker did less than this, and he was sentenced to hard time:



How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked Into Rival ConnectU In 2004
Mar. 5, 2010
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-connectu-2010-3

...At one point, Mark appears to have exploited a flaw in ConnectU's account verification process to create a fake Cameron Winklevoss account with a fake Harvard.edu email address.

In this new, fake profile, he listed Cameron's height as 7'4", his hair color as "Ayran Blond," and his eye color as "Sky Blue." He listed Cameron's "language" as "WASP-y."

Next, Mark appears to have logged into the accounts of some ConnectU users and changed their privacy settings to invisible. The idea here was apparently to make it harder for people to find friends on ConnectU, thus reducing its utility. Eventually, Mark appears to have gone a step further, deactivating about 20 ConnectU accounts entirely...

Yes, I agree. I did not see that Ceglia sold $200,000 worth of pellets and did not deliver. Google to the rescue http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ceglia-allegany-pellets-sued-2010-7. That certainly shows him in a different light and might indeed help the judges

A pilot was sucked out the cockpit when the windshield blew out. Only his legs remained inside. How about studying real examples for data instead of speculating what might happen.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jet-pilot-sucked-out-2011-4
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/what-to-do-when-your-pilot-gets-sucked-out-the-plane-window/236860/

Note the lame post-facto "sorta apology" to the readers.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/how-will-japan-earthquake-affect-apples-ipad-supply-chain/9763

Authorâ(TM)s Note: A number of readers have complained that this article is insensitive to the pain and suffering of the Japanese people. Please accept my sincere apology. I have friends and former colleagues in Japan and I offered them my prayers for their safety and recovery last night. I have been to Japan and have a respect for its traditions and people. The devastation from the quake is terrible.

At the same time, my editorial mission here is to look at Apple, its products and markets. If that appears callous, I ask your forbearance. Some of the comments in the story were made several months ago, so please keep that context in mind.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gene-munster-apple-supply-demand-2011-3

Apple's supply chain is likely temporarily going to be affected by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster writes today, but demand for Apple products is stronger than ever, he says, and that should ultimately drive shares higher.

Hilarious phrasing here, "not much impact - more worried about the impact in the next quarter":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12782566

"In the short term, there won't be much impact," said chief executive Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo. "We are more worried about the impact in the next quarter."

No shit? Employee absences common?
http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=774&doc_id=205416&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

Getting raw materials supplied and distributed remains a challenge in Japan. Disruptions to the country's transportation systems have made employee absences common. Interruptions in Japan's electricity supply have hindered maintenance of sensitive processes such as semiconductor lithography. Because of the setbacks, Apple delayed iPad2 shipments by one week from the original March 25 launch to allow it to catch up with production, given the shortfall in Japan-sourced parts.

But don't worry. Apple's supply chain is very robust and you'll be able to get your iPrick in time for Christmas.
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/thestreet-apple-supply-chain-japan-supply/4/4/2011/id/33755

Apple's (AAPL) supply chain remains robust, according to analyst firm Canaccord Genuity.

"While we believe supply could be tight for the industry due to Japan, we believe Apple is leveraging its dominant market position and will fare much better than competitors," wrote Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley in a note Monday. "We believe suppliers will likely provide Apple with preferential supply, as Apple is often the largest customer for many suppliers."

What I don't see enough discussion about is the bioaccumulative effect.

For catch-up: fat-soluble toxins can accumulate in the bodies of organisms such that at every step of the food chain, the concentration is multiplied. It's not just a single species accreting the toxin, but what happens when its predators are eating from this concentrated source. Any links up the food chain up to the apex predator are going to have a multiplied effect, which is why a seemingly insignificant amount of mercury pollution versus the ocean's volume has made tuna consumption a point of caution.

We are seeing radiation levels that could be a bit of a concern and the Fukushima situation is still not under control. And are some of the compounds it's emitting bioaccumulative? Yes, Cesium 137 for example, and that has a half-life of 30 years. And the first thing you should do is move your consumption as far down the food chain as possible. Even if you don't plan to go vegan, learn Indian cooking or a low-meat cuisine, because the less animal product you're consuming, the better.

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11482657
http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/2bioma95.html
http://science.jrank.org/pages/854/Bioaccumulation.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-rainwater-radiation-181-times-above-us-drinking-water-standard-2011-4

And what are you basing your battery life estimation? I've read a review that says the PlayBook has terrible battery life and that it was delayed due to this. Of course we could both speculate all we want since the device hasn't been released. Also how do you know it is incredible to use unless you have access to one? Additionally QNX is reliable and stable but I haven't seen is that it is designed for mobile which is more focused on power efficiency.

Here is the evidence:

Thanks, Fool-slashcode!
I can't wait to add "Subtractionally" to our company's annoying lingo list.

The buzzword-ridden documents they put out couldn't possibly make any less sense as it is.

I wouldn't call MS efforts outside Windows and Office bloated. I would call them failures though.

Smartphones - when did MS call them a fad, and what "ton of additional bloat" is there in the Windows phones? From what I've seen, they're more streamlined then the competition (note that streamlining isn't always good).

No MS has always downplayed their competitors. I seem to remember a certain CEO saying that the iPhone would never sell. Four years later, MS smartphone shares are rapidly dwindling while the iPhone has eaten their lunch. Also MS never saw the direct competitor Android became.

Music players - outside of Slashdot, who ever called the iPod a lame fad? What bloat was there in the Zune?

After 5 years of effort and less than 1% of the marketshare, MS finally killed the Zune. I'd call that a rather large failure, though.

Tablet PCs - just got started, so who's to say if they're going to add bloat when/if they enter the market?

That's rather revisionist history. MS has been trying to push tablets since 2001. They've failed to sell them in large numbers. The MS Tablet was bloated. All MS did was try to shove a desktop OS onto a smaller form factor. They switched out a mouse for a stylus. Then they called it done. Apple releases their version and in 9 months outsells what MS did in 9 years.

Game consoles - never called a fad, no "bloat" when they entered, and now they're a dominant player in the market.

While MS has finally gotten a good marketshare, they paid for it with years of debt. If Xbox was a separate company, they would have had to file for bankruptcy and close shop by now.

Search Engine - definitely never called a fad, and not really bloated. You could make an argument that their short-lived "enhanced Wikipedia pages" feature was bloat, but that's about it.

After years and years of struggle, Bing might show a small dent in Google's number. Might.

I have to politely disagree. Nobody ever amassed money in the millions of dollars by being stupid, or we would all be rich. On top of that, the economic crash you mention is from 2007 and everyone still investing today already trimmed their goals, learned their lessons and started over. So why has Facebook continued to make money? I think you're mistaking investors for purely commercial ad revenue --one is asking for a stake of profits, while the other simply pays X euros, gets what they want and bail out next month if things look risky. There are no angel-seed-investor contracts for them, because they don't care about facebook as much as they want ad sales and user data.

Keeping that in mind...

Most investors who's money's at Facebook likely tought like you do, and skipped any serious investigation because surely those who came before them did it, right?

Before anyone signs an agreement for a single cent to go to facebook, serious investigation takes place. Even Google's startup was nothing more than a very risky ad business model that everyone "serious" denied them at first. Eventually someone gave them 100k and others followed suit. where you're going to put money than

Bad things will happen and luck has a role at startup times. But Facebook stopped being a startup half a decade ago. That means that it's not investors so much as well-informed paying customers. And with all the money they're throwing at Facebook, you can be sure they pay their private analysts to run 'credit reports' and stay on top of their game to jump on whatever the next successful looking revenue source well before the other well-informed giants do. If bubbles happen --well, there's always risk funds, insurance, and sadly, the newborn expectation of 'too big to fail' and taxpayer bailouts.

This is quite possibly the stupidest drivel I have ever read, and obviously he's an amateur programmer.

Ted Dziuba is a co-founder of Milo.com, which just sold to eBay for $75 million.

I'm guessing your leet Web skills brought in more than that last year, which is why you feel comfortable calling him an "amateur."

So, he's now a RICH idiot. Your point being?

Ted Dziuba is a co-founder of Milo.com, which just sold to eBay for $75 million.

I'm guessing your leet Web skills brought in more than that last year, which is why you feel comfortable calling him an "amateur."

Founder != Professional Developer.

This is quite possibly the stupidest drivel I have ever read, and obviously he's an amateur programmer.

Ted Dziuba is a co-founder of Milo.com, which just sold to eBay for $75 million.

I'm guessing your leet Web skills brought in more than that last year, which is why you feel comfortable calling him an "amateur."

Except the ones that do, by default, on the largest carrier in the USA.

Carriers don't default to Google's search on Android because it's Android. They do it because they think it's what their customers want, and/or Google pays them the most money. That can change overnight, and Android and Chrome (being open source) could not even lean against that wind, let alone stop it entirely.

They're just doing this so they can claim that it runs tons of apps.

Are these the words of a cynical, Android-hating, iPhone-loving twit? No, they are words of RIM's CEO.

"You've got the volume of the handset apps, so if you're looking for the tonnage of apps, or some kind of long tail stuff, you've got it. At the end of the day, people are going to want performance. You're just not going to get things like gaming and multimedia, you're not going to get the speed going through a VM interface."

Also note that it's only 2.3 (phone) apps, not 3.0 (tablet) apps.

I bet you're the type of person who if I were to tell to "Have a nice day", you could "read between the lines" that I actually said that I hope your everyone in your immediate family gets AIDS and that you should go skydive naked into a field full of cacti.

There's a difference between "reading between the lines" and "making shit up to justify [your] viewpoint".

And in case you want some evidence:

http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-fox-news-memo-reveals-news-division-told-to-echo-gop-talking-point-2010-12

The article is overwhelmingly shortsighed. Some of the people(just Indians, forget about Europeans who contributed so much) who would have been not been able to do what they did:

Don't forget a bunch of companies that have Indian CEOs and have had them as CEO and founders. Hotmail founder was India born...
Co-Founder of Sun.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla
Motorola CEO: http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/8/motorola-cellphone-ceo-sanjay-jha
Father of Pentium chip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Dham

A small incomplete list from Wiki:
Ajit Hutheesing : Founder, Chairman and CEO of International Capital Partners Inc
Ali Pabrai : Entrepreneur
Amar Bose : Founder of Bose Corporation
Sashi Reddi : Founder CEO, AppLabs (World's #1 Software Testing company)
Arjun Gupta : Silicon Valley venture capitalist
Ashwin Navin : Co-Founder and President of BitTorrent, Inc.
Bharat Desai : Founder of Syntel
Gagan Palrecha : Entrepreneur
Gurbaksh Chahal : Internet Entrepreneurs
Mukesh Chatter : Businessman
Lakireddy Bali Reddy : Landlord, restaurant owner,owns more than 1000 apartments in California
M.R. Rangaswami : Founder of Sand Hill Group and Corporate Eco Forum
Murugan Pal : Founder and CTO of SpikeSource
Narendra Patni: Founder of Patni Computer Systems
Naveen Jain : Founder of InfoSpace and Intelius
Pradeep Sindhu : Co-Founder and CTO of Juniper Networks
Preetish Nijhawan : Co-Founder of Akamai Technologies.
Ram Shriram : Co-Founder of Junglee.com and board member at Google
Rohini Srihari : Founder of Cymfony and Janya
Sameer Parekh : Founder of C2Net
Sanjiv Sidhu : Founder of i2 Technologies
Somen Banerjee: Founder of Chippendales
Suhas Patil: Founder of Cirrus Logic
Vivek Ranadive : Founder, Chairman and CEO of TIBCO Software
Vinod Gupta : Founder and Chairman of InfoUSA Inc.
Vinod Khosla : Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Venture Capitalist
Ajay Bhatt : Co-Inventor of the USB. Chief Client Platform Architect at Intel
Ajit Varki : Physician-scientist
Amit Singhal : Google Fellow, the designation the company reserves for its elite master engineers in the area of "ranking algorithm".
Anil Dash : Blogger and technologist
Raj Reddy : Founder of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, winner of the Turing Award.
Arun Netravali : Scientist. Former President of Bell Labs. Former CTO of Lucent. A pioneer of digital technology including HDTV and MPEG4.
Arvind Rajaraman : Theoretical physicist and string theorist
Satya N. Atluri : Aerospace and mechanics
C. Kumar N. Patel : Developed the carbon dioxide laser, used as a cutting tool in surgery and industry.
Khem Shahani : Microbiologist who conducted pioneer research on probiotics, he discovered the DDS-1 strain of Lactobacillus acidophilus
Deepak Pandya : Neuroanatomist
Arjun Makhijani : Electrical and nuclear engineer who is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
George Sudarshan : Physicist, author - first to propose the existence of Tachyon
Kalpana Chawla : Female NASA Space Shuttle astronaut, and space shuttle mission specialist
Krishna Bharat : Principal Scientist at Google - Famous for creating Google News.
Jogesh Pati : Theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Krishan Sabnani : Engineer and Senior Vice President of the Networking Research Laboratory at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs in New Jersey
Mahadev Satyanarayanan : Computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Pioneered research in mobile and pervasive computing
Mani Lal Bhaumik : Contributor excimer laser technology.
Narinder Singh Kapany : Engineer, called the "Father of Fiber Optics".
Noshir Gowadia : Design engineer
Om Malik : Technology journalist and blogger
Pramod Khargonek

What you don't seem to understand is that I speculate with the information that I have access too. I'm not willing to invent boogy-men; I was at some point this past week genuinely worried for my two little kids, although I live on the very opposite part of the planet.

I find this very sad. You've been told all your life that nuclear power is dangerous - life-threatening, planet-threatening dangerous - and you've swallowed this propaganda (yes, that's what it is) without question to the point where you start worrying about your kids halfway across the globe from a nuclear accident (that incidentally is yet to produce any deaths from radiation).

Open your eyes, please. You don't seem averse to do a bit of googling, so google for "energy production deaths" and read a few of the links. You'll see that nuclear power production has a historical death toll of four hundreths of a death per TWh, far lower than any other form of power production - solar, wind and hydro included. It really is the safest form of power production there is - and we can make it even safer. Google again for "pebble-bed reactor" and "molten salt reactor" and realize that these forms of nuclear reactors are passively safe - if the plant in Japan had been one of these types nothing would have happened at all.

Finally, some reading about nuclear fuel. The uranium/plutonium fuel used in today's reactors are only used about 5%, that's one of the reasons the "waste" fuel is so hard to handle. Thorium, on the other hand, as used in a liquid fuel thorium reactor, uses almost 100% of the fuel, leaving very little waste at all. Read about this on energyfromthorium.com. Thorium has two more wonderful properties when used as nuclear reactor fuel - it's dirt cheap (really, it's a byproduct from rare earth mineral mines and so cheap they have to give it away) and one of the byproducts of burning it in a reactor is uranium-233, an isotope that is very rare and that can be used in cancer treatments. It is also abundant, far more so than uranium and plutonium. The Thorium produced in a year at one single rare earth mineral mine (about 5000 tons) could cover the whole world's energy needs for that year - if only there were enough reactors to burn it.

So please as a first request, since you sound to you have some insight on the subject, answer clearly this. My understanding of a plausible scenario, based on my limited grasp of the intrisics of nuclear plant, not necessarily nuclear energy, is that a major radiation leak on Fukushima site could have forced the company to evacuate and abandon the plant to its fate. Then a leak in a spent fuel pool could have emptied it, at which point a zirconium fire could have started (I dismiss re-criticallity as little plausible). At least it appeared that some people either at TEPCO or at the US government were worried about that. So in that very case, with all the zirconium going up in smoke, or maybe another bad scenario that according to you was possible at some point: what kind of radioactive cloud would have formed? How far would have it spread? How many people would have been seriously affected? What could the consequences have been?

Worst case scenario is pretty much what we've seen at Fukushima. A Richter 9+ earthquake, a 30ft tsunami, no power for the cooling systems and unknown or failed integrity of the different containment structures.

But it's not that we have a dearth of speculation on what could happen; google "fukushima worst case scenario" and read a bit.

Here's what John Beddington (UK government chief scientific officer) says:

In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not s

As I said in some other posts, two are known dead. Five reactors at two plants may be losing containment. You can see the explosion at 1:22 in this video. That's the outer containment being blown off a nuclear reactor, so if the inner steel containment is breached, the worst will happen. And it looks like that's going to happen, though it's not reported to have happened yet.

There's a time for blame assessment, for dispassionate analysis of the costs and benefits, for discussion of how modern technologies are better than the technologies afforded these plants from the dark ages of fission. Today is not that time. Today is for expressing regret for the loss of life, the pain and suffering of those affected, to rally what support we may. Today would be a good day to express hope that all five reactors don't go up.

Also, some backup planning would be good. Prevailing winds and ocean currents take the output from this particular location in Japan past Hawaii and then curve back for another tour of Southeast Asia. On a bad day for the US though, the winds and currents tend a bit further north, and deposit their gifts on the West coast of the US, falling as rain in the Sierra Nevada range and the Rockies. If you're downwind of this thing now would be a good time to review your knowledge of the physical effects of radiation exposure. On a bad day I'm downwind from this thing and that matters to me personally, no matter what my opinion of nuclear energy is. Generally I'm for it, but today would be a bad day to hit me up for support for it because this event could, in the worst case, decrease the lifespan of my children.

Now, do you really want to argue about this here and now, or maybe wait a bit and see if the worst case didn't happen?

For video of this incident, the explosion is at 1:22

In fairness to Gates, he's willingly given away something like $39 /billion/ dollars of his own money through philanthropic and charity efforts. Even as a stockholder in MS, I doubt he cares much about $1.2 million. But there were probably some chairs thrown in Ballmer's office...

Elop has already sold all his MS stock, and bought 150k Nokia shares.

There's speculation that some Wikileaks were a contributing factor ("So, while unemployment and inflation were the underlying causes of the revolution, this WikiLeak may have been the spark that turned the public, and the government, against itself."), but I don't see any evidence that the Tunisian protests were a direct result of Wikileaks.

This is a pretty good graph on where we're heading, the CD is dying and digital is taking over. The iTunes Store is looking to be the Wal-Mart of digital downloads and the big 5 the manufacturers being squeezed to the lowest possible margins. That's not a future they saw coming and are trying desperately to back out of.

Might want to look at this before you use that chart as a reference again.

Except that there's only one department store, and the stock was on the shelf there a few milliseconds ago but now you have to go to the special order department and pay extra for it because someone's pulling it all right as you reach out to pick it up.

Real market makers hold stocks that are rarely wanted so that they can have volatility. some HFT shops brag about holding stocks for 11 seconds. There was already a buyer and a seller, which is all the volatility the market needed, and if these high frequency traders disappeared tomorrow, the market won't even flinch.

>> There are certain advantages to having sealed, fixed memory

> Can you actually name any that are relevant?

The fact that there are several kinds of popular removable solid-state media in the world and will likely be more in the future? The fact that it costs money, takes up space, and has mass? The fact that it's one more place for grime to creep in, unless it is covered with a crappy little door which would also add cost, weight, thickness, and be one more thing that might break? ALL design is compromise. Besides, how would the space it be handled? If you have multiple storage partitions then you have to worry about what goes where and running out of space on one or the other. Unless you're in Android, which dictates what can go where on your removable storage... or Windows, which creates a pool from the two devices, thus negating about 90% of the benefits of using "removable" storage. A card reader is not a magical device with no downsides.

Everyone in the world (or, at least, on Slashdot) says "Ooh, it'd be perfect if it just had..."--STOP. That is not what the iPad is for. Apple wanted to make a stripped-down device and in nine months, fifteen MILLION people have said "wow, that's a great idea."

Attention world: APPLE HAS TO MAKE SOME DECISIONS. They can NOT please all the people all the time. If they tried, the iPad would be a laptop: several pounds and many ports. THAT'S NOT WHAT IT'S FOR. Yes, it has limitations. Accept them. You want an SD card reader. Someone else wants CF or Memory Stick or (God forbid) Smart Media. So they stick in a 6-in-1 reader. Great. Now, everyone who NEVER EVER wanted to stick a card in there is paying for something they don't need and it's heavier and thicker.

Join us next week when we go to a BMW forum and complain that the Z3 doesn't have as much room as a station wagon.

You want a tablet with a card reader? Fine, go buy one. Tablet PCs have been around since 2001. And they've sold almost as many in 10 years as Apple has in nine months. And yet here you are, thinking you have valuable advice for Steve and Jony and Phil. Do I need to explain in detail why they won't listen to you, me, or anyone else here? Look at this graph and see if you can figure out why. Hint: fifteen million x $499 = 7.485 BILLION dollars.

Also, this may come as a shock to the "less space than a Nomad" crowd, but sometimes, 16 GB is enough! I bought a 4 GB iPhone and never filled it. Due to AT&T's exclusivity I was able to sell it a year later for enough to buy an 8 GB 3G and I never filled it. Due to AT&T's exclusivity I was able to sell the 3G a year later for enough to buy a 16 GB 3GS and I never filled it. Due to AT&T's exclusivity I was able to sell the 3GS a year later for enough to buy a 32 GB iPhone 4 (the first time I ever sprung for the upgrade) and I have not yet filled it. I have never had the desire to stick an SD card in any of them for any reason.

Maybe you can go by a Xoom. I think it does everything you want and it's just $170 more than a comparable 3G iPad. Then you can start saving money with your $50 SD cards. Or, if you DON'T NEED cellular networking, then it's $300 -- a mere sixty percent -- more. Hey, why don't you go to a Motorola site and ask why they don't make a cheap WiFi-only Xoom? Oh, right, because in your world, every device should have every feature and everyone should pay for it.

I'm not saying the iPad is perfect. I don't own one and I don't plan to get one on 3/11. But Apple is doing quite well with it, thankyouverymuch, and Abe Lincoln knew 150 years ago that you can't please all the people all the time. Why anyone expects them to be all things to all people is beyond me.

>> USB port

It's not a computer. Buy a laptop

>> wireless syncing

Learn to read: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-more-wires-sync-content-from-computer-to-ipad-2-wirelessly-2011-3

>> lower price

Are you high? The iPad is already way cheaper than any competing device. A device with comparable specs, the Xoom is far more expensive.

I thought this was a rather good explanation of what's happening in the music (i.e. recording) industry:

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

In summary (with some of my own thoughts): Digital sales are replacing CD sales, but people tend to buy individual songs now, not whole albums, and the industry spent so long fighting digital distribution instead of properly planning for it and figuring out ways to make it more useful for customers (and profitable for them), that they by and large killed their own market.

How is this news for nerds? More like News for Office Drones!

The "office drone" is worth $6 billion each quarter to Microsoft.

You mght want to think about what that means when you are trying to develop and promote an alternative office suite or an integrated office system.

That means that consumers spent more than $1 billion on Office last quarter. According to investor relations director Bill Koefoed, a lot of those sales are upgrades in place from Office 2003, but consumers are also buying Office 2010 when they buy new PCs -- or upgrading from the free Starter Edition that comes with many new computers.

Businesses are still the main customer for Office, however, and they spent nearly $4.6 billion on it and related products during the quarter.

Office Saves Microsoft's Bacon For The Second Straight Quarter

It still remains to be seen whether Android will be able to contribute significantly to the company's revenue growth.

um...where have you been?

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-revenue-2010-8

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2010/10/googles-android-starts-paying-for-itself-via-ad-revenues/

its 2011 now, and google own the worlds dominant smartphone platform...are you with us or what?

Actually I give us another 10 years tops before we reenact what is happening in Egypt and the rich either find a way to pull a tiananmen square or do their own reenactment of the fall of Saigon.

For a look at how badly the government has worked against the people you might want read this but I warn you it ain't a pretty picture. The numbers simply aren't sustainable, and never in our history has the gap between the rich and the poor been so wide. What is the answer our great leaders give us? "Get more education!" and crush yourself with ever increasing amounts of debt for that same said education while being expected to compete with those like India who pay 1/20th what we do for a degree.

Frankly it doesn't matter if you are black or white, left or right, if you aren't one of the top 1% then your government is against you. We have millions out of work, millions more living hand to mouth, and every single day those numbers continue to grow. Honestly I'll be amazed if we last another decade because what we have right now is a powderkeg and it wouldn't take much of an orator to give us our own Uncle Joe or crazy Austrian. I already know many that would happily go communist or totalitarian if it meant "bread and jobs" and not having to worry about being outsourced or losing their homes. As the people lose any faith and belief in the government all it takes is a spark, and the revolving door like TFA illustrates just shows to the people the pointlessness of participation.

All it will take is a single voice to stir the masses and light the fuse, and as we have seen from the Russian revolution to Mao, from the crazy Austrian to the current middle east on fire, you can't fuck over the people forever sooner or later they WILL turn on you the only question is when. looking out my window at the boarded up homes and closed down shops I'm voting on sooner rather than later. The numbers simply aren't sustainable and you can't keep the masses placated with bread and circuses when there is no roof over their heads or money to buy the bread.

The only reason we have lasted this long is the government willing to add ever more debt to keep things afloat, but as we are seeing with the states eventually that fails as well. It simply isn't sustainable and the greed from the top will be their own downfall. It reminds me of the classic quote by Lenin: "The capitalist will gladly sell you the rope to hang him with" and their unending unrepentant greed destroying the middle class and leaving the poor living like animals is perfect proof of that. Maybe democracy will always fail in this manner, as the rich become so powerful they tilt the laws farther and farther in their favor until it collapses like a Ponzi scheme. Because to these old eyes short of following the example of Egypt I really don't see any coming back, the rich are just too powerful now.

Considering the simultaneous growth of the stock market, increasing concentration of wealth and increasing poverty and unemployment, particularly the long-term unemployed since Day One of the Bush, Jr. administration, I'd be shocked if a front or two hadn't opened against small IT outfits, in this ongoing class war initiated by the over-privileged directors of global corporations.

Had this happened on Bush's watch, he'd be excoriated (and deservedly so). But Obama? Not at all.

No political fallout at all. None.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4d5c75d8cadcbbc41b160000/steve-jobs-sick.jpg

There's also a sensationalist headline over here:

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/02/17/steve-jobs-may-have-just-six-weeks-to-live-receiving-treatment/

The Daily Mail spoke to Dr Jerome Spunberg, a certified Oncologist, who said: âoeMr Jobs is most likely getting outpatient chemotherapy at Stanford because the cancer has recurred.â

Another consultant, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a physician with over fourty years experience, said: âoeHe is terminal. What you are seeing is extreme muscle wasting from calorie depravation, most likely caused by cancer. He has no muscle left in his buttocks, which is the last place to go. He definitely appears to be in the terminal stages of his life from these photos. I would be surprised if he weighed more than 130lb.â

The National Enquirer, who initially reported the news today (to be published tomorrow), talked to critical-care physician Dr. Samuel Jacobson, who said, âoeJudging from the photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks.â That said, given the reliability of The National Enquirer, waiting for further news before jumping to conclusions is advised.

Weâ(TM)ve done a little digging into Dr. Samuel Jacobson. Jacobson appears to be a Florida based pulmonologist (breathing doctor) â" not Oncologist. Which would naturally make you wonder just how qualified he is to diagnose someone via a photo, especially outside of his speciality.