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These people use their home computers for the Web and email, for very simple word processing and maybe for the ambitious, spreadsheets for home accounts and hobbies.

True, but my experience is that most people have that one little program that they would never give up, it might be something for their hobby or just some silly cute thing, but if they can't find it on the app store they would be upset. Another thing is that simple word processing is almost always coupled with a printer, and that printer is rarely wireless enabled.

I don't think there's anything to stop them using an iPad for all that, especially with the keyboard addon.

That is already two addons, a USB adapter (if it supports printers) and the keyboard. Granted you wouldn't keep the printer attached all the time, but if you also need the adapter for your camera, then simply unplugging the printer can turn into a two step process. Worse, the keyboard destroys the "kick back in your comfy chair" aspect, if you want to write for any amount of time you are at your desk where you might as well use a full sized keyboard and the computer that will print without hunting for an adapter.

Of course Apple doesn't want to completely kill the market for Macs.I fully expect to see an iLife for iPad, that's just full of little hints that you could do more on a real Mac.

The cynic in me says that this is the reason Apple is fighting netbooks, they are small, cheap and can replace a computer for many people. If they make an expensive netbook no one will buy it, if they make a cheap one they might eat into Macbook and possibly Mini sales. On the other hand, if they consistently attack netbooks as a bad idea, and then release a better replacement that does what most people would want to do away from their main computer, but not quite enough to use it at your desk, they can charge quite more then for a comparable netbook (because netbooks are bad and this isn't one), but less then their laptops and desktops without eating into that market segment too much.

I suspect it's not a "real" computer not because of /. nerds, but because Apple doesn't want it to be one, we are just pointing this out.

This chart does not show much evidence that Microsoft is learning how to make successful products outside of its traditional franchises: desktop operating systems and desktop office applications.

They've failed at least twice with PDA/pocket type devices, at least once with mobile phones, at least once with portable music players (not quite sure whether PlaysForSure should be counted along with Zune).

Typically we see these stories when Microsoft is behind a competitor, but this time they are behind two: Apple, which has a solid phone success, and Google, which has all the buzz. They are behind these two companies despite having started before either of them, with Windows Mobile circa 2004... which in turn had the benefit of five major revisions of Windows CE, started in 1996 or something like that.

If Microsoft actually knew how to make a good telephone, they would have made one already.

Well, the XBox is still basically a money pit for Microsoft, and the PS3 is extremely profitable for Sony, so I'd say that the sales of PS3 are, in general, better than those the XBox, if not numerically larger.

Additionally, this is hardly relevant to anything I was actually talking about.

I'm not the only one saying google's privacy policy is one-sided ... and google now has a history of caving in to government requests, whether it's from the Pentagon of the Chinese.

They can solve all the PATRIOT ACT concerns by moving the rest of their servers (the majority are already outside the US) to countries that have more user-friendly data retention laws.

Of course the likelihood of that happening is nil, which means that the other alternative is for people to take matters into their own hands, and use anonymizing proxies or other search engines. Users need to adopt the same tacktics that unions did, target one search engine for a boycott until it gets to the point where the search engine starts to feel the pinch, and then starts lobbying the government to change PATRIOT. That law HAS to go.

BTW - Microsoft did exactly this - made a credible threat to pack up its bags and move everything except a few sales offices out of the US - to get Bush to stop the DoJ from doing the break-up into 3 or more units.

\ Heck, they're still making the same threats.

CEO Steve Ballmer has a message to Barack Obama: Start taxing overseas profits, and we'll offshore more of our jobs.

I want to see this picture, but with a scratched iPad in place of the netbook.

Finally, a reason for Mr. Goatse's years of stretching ...

I want to see this picture, but with a scratched iPad in place of the netbook.

Actually, prior to the March ship date Apple is planning to introduce new apparel - the iJean. Their design includes 10-inch cargo pockets that are only 1/2" deep - perfect for the iPad.

I want to see this picture, but with a scratched iPad in place of the netbook.

Just remember that there was a crowd cheering Ballmer.

Well, you know the reason they were so enthusiastic, don't you? Because if they weren't, they'd be fired.

Seriously though, stories about Ballmer show that he's nothing but a giant bully. Managers like that ensure that their most talented people move to better companies, leaving the company with nothing but the borderline-incompetent who have nowhere else to go. It's not hard to imagine that the people who would be in that audience would play along to prevent being targetted by the bully with the security squad around him.

Those childlike morons clapping their hands represent what I resent in Microsoft fans: unquestioning devotion.

I think you just described Apple fans too.. and they're far more numerous. :)

He reminds me of Marc Andreesen, back when Marc was that age.

Funny you should mention him....

Perhaps Second Life has simply been killed off by the far superior offering that is Sony's "Home".
 
...
 
...
 
...
 
... hahahahaha! :D

Had you going there, didn't I? Yeah, it's still awful.

Incidentally, though, it would seem that Sony's Home is also plagued by sex fiends. Maybe it is shaping up to become a worthy successor?

Geez, look who's been confirmed.

An Attorney General who thinks it's OK to pick a fundamental Constitutional right and strip it from individuals.

A tax cheat in charge of the IRS.

A CIO who was strangely the ONLY one in his entire department that wasn't corrupt.

What "draconian disclosure requirements" are you referring to? These are the guys who were CONFIRMED in office.

I clicked the link in the summary and I didn't find any pictures. So after a quick search I found this http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-private-photos-2009-12#with-girlfriend-priscilla-chan-from-her-album-moments-have-you-seen-a-sweeter-thing-today-probably-not-1 Enjoy!

* Further extortionist increases in cable content carriage fees
* The gradual conversion of cable into dumb pipes that just deliver Internet access and IP-video

FTFA:

Brian Roberts is thinking that he's sick to death of that bastard Bob Iger at Disney holding him up for higher carriage fees on ESPN, et al, every few years. And, before he bought NBC, Brian was sick to death of that bastard Jeff Zucker holding him up for higher fees on CNBC, et al. Etc. Now, in the future, if anyone does any holding up, Brian Roberts is: 1) going to cash in, too (because now he owns a lot of cable programming), and 2) going to have more leverage in telling Bob Iger, et al, to take a hike.

Here's where it gets really interesting:

Eventually, the current cable TV business is toast. There is NO WAY today's teenagers are going to be shelling out $150 a month to get 500 channels they don't watch when what they do watch is available for free over the Internet. Eventually, therefore, this whole "carriage fee" game is done--or at least radically changed. But it's going to take a while. At least 10 years. And all those future adults who are going to be watching TV for free over the Internet in 10 years are still going to need Internet access (or else how are they going to watch?). And Comcast is in a great position to keep providing it.

So there you have it. What could possibly go wrong with that?

I've been reading the WSJ for >30 years. It used to be the world's greatest newspaper, but since Murdoch took over it suffered a noticeable decline.

When they wrote a story, they used to interview people on all sides of the story, answer every obvious question, and wrap it up in a tight 1,500 or 2,000 words. Now they just interview a few people and wrap it up, even if the story has holes in it. They used to have editors who would review the stories and make sure they did everything right. Now they just let things slide.

Case in point: WSJ had a story a few days ago about how Wikipedia lost 50,000 editors, supposedly indicating a decline in Wikipedia. But: They didn't give the total number of editors. What good is a numerator without a denominator? (By one count, Wikipedia has 300,000 editors who edited >10 times.) But actually, Wikipedia has been modifying its pages with procedures like nofollow to discourage spammers. Does that 50,000 editors represent 50,000 editors who were discouraged and hassled by Wikipedia pettiness, as the story claimed? Or was it just 50,000 spammers who were successfully discouraged by new policies? The story doesn't find out. I pay $155 a year for my subscription and for that money, I expect to get a story that tells me. And I don't want to spend 5 minutes reading it and find out I've wasted my time.

Another story covered the closing of a prison in Michigan, because it finally hit them that the $40,000 a year it costs to keep a prisoner is coming out of their tax money. The WSJ did a lot of stories like that over the years, and they would always talk to one of the prisoners. This story didn't interview any of the prisoners. Is Michigan locking up people who are dangerous to society, or are they locking up shoplifters and drug dealers? The story didn't say.

Another bad development is that many of the columns in the WSJ are no longer written by journalists, but contracted out to business consultants, who are just promoting their own consultancies.

This is partially the result of layoffs http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/the-wall-street-journal-layoffs-memo-nws You can turn any great institution into a mediocre institution by cutting its budget sufficiently.

But I think the problem is the underlying philosophy. The WSJ used to be run by the Bancroft family, who loved great journalism more than they loved making money. Murdoch loves some things, but not great journalism.

Murdoch, listen to this: I'm willing to pay $155 a year for good information. That's what I pay for Science, the New Scientist, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others. I even paid $50 for the New York Times online. I'm not willing to pay $155 a year (which you just deducted from my credit card without my permission) for the same crap I can get anywhere else. You know how to win the race to the bottom, but you don't understand fair, balanced, quality American journalism, and you don't understand the Internet.

The free market is giving you a kick in the ass. Well deserved.

I realize the hax0rz was all the craze last week, but if you were paying attention to the news, it wasn't a hack, it was a leak disguised as a hack. Just one source, it was all over the news. Just thought I should bring you up to date in case a denier tries to use that against you.

If you have a single advertiser paying you $1,000 to advertise their product, how many developer accounts does that buy? What if you have a single advertiser paying you $10,000? What if you have 100 advertisers paying you $10,000?

That's a a pretty far-fetched "if" there. The iPhone platform isn't big enough for you to make that kind of money off advertising in any short period of time. Even most paid apps don't make that much money, according to http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/10/iphone-app-store-s-brutal-reality-get-viral-or-don-t-quit-your-day-job. That's talking about apps that make the developer close to a buck apiece.

When you're talking about ads delivered via an unknown ad network with low click-through rate, you would be lucky to fetch a hundredth of a cent per eyeball. Thus, if the average user deletes it after the fifth ad in too short a time period, then each user provides 5 hundredths of a cent. To cover the cost of your $100 sign-up, you'd have to get 200,000 people to download it. That's about one out of every 200 iPhone and iPod touch users on the planet downloading an app whose reviews all say "this app is nothing but an ad viewer". So unless you find some way to advertise it massively, you're not going to make money that way, and if you do advertise it massively just to sell ad hits from a couple of complete idiot sponsors, why not just skip the iPhone step and advertise those other company's products directly instead?

All of your criticisms seem to boil down to "If a whole bunch of protections break down to an almost comically infeasible extent and if Apple is severely corrupt, then bad things will happen." If all those things happen and this patent turns into a giant nightmare for consumers, then I will agree that the patent is bad. Until then, your arguments are pure speculation, and this is merely a patent with the potential to do good (providing a reliable revenue stream for free demos of real apps) or do harm (forcing lots of unsuspecting users to watch lots of ads and get nothing of value in return), no worse than any of the other software patents (which I consider to be harmful by definition, regardless of their subject).

You realise GS pretty much pwns the US government.

      And the stock market. After all, if they have a program that 'can' be used to 'manipulate the stock market', are we to take Goldman's multi-billion dollar a quarter profit making word of "oh, but HEAVENS NO, we're not manipulating the stock market, that would be illegal - perish the thought!" word for it? Arrest those programmers too.

I was more referring to the initial sale numbers which were reported as rather low by the media. I don't know about you but I never thought of Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/munster-china-iphone-sales-a-disappointment-2009-11 , and the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-iphone7-2009nov07,0,4313958.story someones blog, as opposed to, you know, like, real journalism.

The U.S. government, specifically Tim Geithner, also invested some $2.3 billion in a company destined for bankruptcy, CIT. The U.S. treasury was the lender of last resort and should have secured their investment by insuring they were the first to be repaid in event of bankruptcy, instead they didn't secure it at all so other less senior lenders get 70% back, the U.S. tax payer apparently got shafted out of the entire 2.3 billion.

Maybe in that case as in Halcyon's, since it was someone else's money they were blowing, they didn't really care... Halcyon bought the rights with money from a hedge fund, Pacificor in Santa Barbara.

A quote from the link on the CIT loan from a Law professor:

"Black believes the problem stems from regulators' fears that if the banks recognize a loss on the bad assets it will create a domino effect that will wipe out the entire financial system.

"If that's true we've got to get rid of capitalism," he warns, "because if we can't recognize losses in a capitalist system we have no future.""

If true it basically means Geithner squandered another $2.3 billion to reduce the losses of big Wall Street banks, one of CIT's big lenders is Goldman Sachs.

There were giant stacks of unsold Xbox 360s sitting in stores for months after the holidays because Microsoft has so overstuffed the retail channel

And your proof for this is to be found - where?

Alone among the three major videogame consoles, sales of the PS3 are down about 19% from November 2007, according to the latest stats from the NPD Group. Sony was only able to sell 378,000 PS3s this November, compared to 466,000 last year.

And the problem for Sony isn't the recession, it's the PS3. Microsoft put up respectable numbers with its Xbox 360, selling 836,000 units vs 777,000 in November 2007. And Nintendo's Wii continues to dominate the market, more than doubling sales from 981,000 to 2.04 million. Sony's PS3 A Sinking Ship: Sales Plummet [Dec 12, 2008]

In a deep recession, retailers keep their inventories of big-ticket items paper-thin.

Every square inch of floor space needs to be generating sales. Product is checked out the front door or it is trucked out the back. I

IBM may be able to as a legal maneuver remove all the Bios and promos made by this executive. However IBM's data retention and phone system logging is going to be hotly tested. Not much is done in IBM without some tracking system. Most the company phones have logs, all the emails are archived/retention for a few years. I think even the old Sametimes messages were also logged once long ago. It sounds like the US Justice Dept will have wiretaps as the big evidence.

Unfortunately IBM's polices on email retention may put at jeopardy the cache. I think it was 3-5 years worth. IBM learned not to keep a lot of communications after problems with anti-trust lawsuits. Law enforcement may face a mess if they need to go back into the mainframe system because only a few persons know that system outside IBM and internally that generation was being wiped out.

I will laugh out loud if IBM drags its feet in producing all the documents when this hits the courts as this is what it sells to customers at a high premium. IBM's legal legions are 2nd to none for litigation and maneuvering and the do not fear the US gov.

Anyhow it is trival as I think this guy got caught with his hand in the cookie jar when the US gov was fishing for bigger fish such as hedgefund managers who are suspected of funding terrorists.

I don't see Apple becoming the de-facto smartphone standard; I think they're going to remain stuck in the single digits worldwide.

Hummm.... 14% of the worldwide market share and 23% in the US is not single digits....

Perhaps you are thinking about the overall cellphone market share? In that case it is certainly in the single digits.

It's the most visible because it's the only one that gets advertised by the media

It's most visible because it was radically different from other platforms and single-handedly changed the market. Go ahead, show me 3D gaming on phones before the iPhone. For that matter, look at phone interfaces, capabilities, and internet usage on them before the iPhone. The iPhone raised the bar, and very little has caught up with it yet. State of the art used to be Windows Mobile 6 and PalmOS - yes, Palm OS. Windows Mobile has blown it ever since, LiMo never went anywhere, and Google Android and Palm Pre very likely would not have been developed if the iPhone hadn't radically changed the market. It gets recognition for that, and it's well-deserved.

sales figures show a different story

Really? It's at 23% in the US, and 14% worldwide. And it only came out two years ago, with its famously limited capabilities at the time.

Personally I'd much rather to see a future that continues with multiple companies (of which Apple can be one), with choice, and most importantly, compatible standards so that I can release an application that Just Works on all phones

Yeah, that worked out so well on Windows and the PC world. Multiple vendors never makes things Just Work - it's the antithesis of it. Protocol incompatibilities, inconsistent hardware support, no platform direction.

Look at Apple. For example, they want to support something like OpenCL. They make sure their hardware has the proper GPU's, the OS supports it, GrandCentral is created, the compiler toolchain adds blocks, and oh yeah, they've been working on LLVM/Clang for years. NONE of that happens when you have a heterogeneous environment and no one is coordinated. Apple wants to get rid of legacy ports and bus systems - so they do it. In two years, Apple abandoned floppies, SCSI, ADB, serial, NuBus, etc. Here we are over ten years later and PC's STILL have PS/2 ports and serial ports, right next to USB 3.0. Such progress.

Note that all phones can run so called "apps". Running applications on phones has been common on all but the most basic phones for at least 5 years, and note that the market of Java smartphones is estimated at two billion.

I'm sorry - you can't possibly compare Java Midlets to iPhone applications. Nice that it has two-billion phones. I'd bet that a fraction of a percent of those users have ever cared that it's there, and those that have used it (like I used to on my PalmOS Treo - KMaps and Opera Mini) can easily see what crap it is. Ugly, slow, non-native, battery-hungry, low-performance - that's Java on a phone, and one of the reasons it's not on the iPhone. Ditto for Flash, really.

Sadly, the only thing in your post that made any sense was that Apple should be more open. And it's "should", as in it would be nice. The market has shown that they certainly don't "need" to.

Maybe that should be the focus for kernel version 2.8 -- use 2.7 as a test bed for what can be safely thrown out or streamlined and 2.8 as the finished product. There's precedence for this, Apple just released OS 10.6 that only included minor "new" features but instead focused on streamlining and throwing out old code (in this case, the PPC software). As for their success at doing this, it's too soon to tell, but there are indications that it is turning out to be quite successful.

Steve Jobs is dying...

Aren't we all?

According to this link,
http://www.businessinsider.com/did-apple-lie-about-rejecting-google-voice-iphone-app-2009-9

"In a series of in-person meetings, phone calls and emails between July 5 and July 28, 2009, Apple and Google representative discussed the approval status of the Google Voice application that was submitted on June 2, 2009. The primary points of contact between the two companies were Alan Eustace, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering and Research and Phil Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. On July 7, Mr. Eustace and Mr. Schiller spoke over the phone. It was during this call that Mr. Schiller informed Mr. Eustace that Apple was rejecting the Google Voice application for the reasons described above."

It is interesting that a VP of R&D is talking to a VP of Mumbo Jumbo. Does it tell their respective corporate culture?

Sure, they're accurate. But they're not making much money.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/11/hulu-profitable-please

It's possible. In that case, by keeping the deals they make to different developers secret, they will have better negotiating power.

But this could also be more about Apple wanting control of what the media journalists, bloggers, and commenters on internet forums can say about Apple, their policies, and decisions. (E.g. the secrecy requirements may be "defensive" in nature, standard language they could use for all developer tools, possibly)

For example, if Google revealed certain information, it could result in the media publishing critical things about Apple.

Apple is very sensitive and aggressive in controlling their public image, and they are well known for their secrecy.

They are also well known for sending armies of lawyers at web sites or people revealing information they don't want puiblished, or that are excessively critical of them. Their tools include cease and decist letters, DMCA notices, threats to sue, and actual lawsuits....

Examples in recent years:

• Apple Computer ordered to pay more than $750k in attorney fees and court costs in a case that pitted the electronics giant against a group of online journalists who posted information about an unreleased Apple product on the Web.
• Apple Broke the law by lying about Steve Jobs' health
• Apple product failure results in gagging order
• Apple Lawyers set sights on new prey (after sending cease-and-decist letters to "Podcasting" websites over alleged dilution of the "iPod" mark)
• Apple Lawyers bully bloggers over iPhone skins
• Apple Lawyers Tried To Cover-Up Exploding iPod Stories,
• Microsoft Cows To Apple Lawyers, Changes 'Laptop Hunters' Ad
• Apple's lawyers shut down rumor site, 2 (Think Secret)
• Apple lawyers nix box pix
• Apple's lawyers attack everyone over iPhone icons - "Apple's lawyers also sent letters to journalists who simply reported on the fact that the skins were available."
• Apple's lawyers threaten fake Steve jobs (Parody site)
• Apple sued for threatening fan wiki - 2
• Apple sues Victoria School - over the use of a logo that is shaped like an Apple. [...] students are now afraid to give their teachers apples now because of the fruitâ(TM)s striking resemblance to the company logo.
• Apple Lawyers shutting down Iowa Bar's iPod Mondays
• Apple Cease-and-Decists Stupidity Leak
• A

It's possible. In that case, by keeping the deals they make to different developers secret, they will have better negotiating power.

But this could also be more about Apple wanting control of what the media journalists, bloggers, and commenters on internet forums can say about Apple, their policies, and decisions. (E.g. the secrecy requirements may be "defensive" in nature, standard language they could use for all developer tools, possibly)

For example, if Google revealed certain information, it could result in the media publishing critical things about Apple.

Apple is very sensitive and aggressive in controlling their public image, and they are well known for their secrecy.

They are also well known for sending armies of lawyers at web sites or people revealing information they don't want puiblished, or that are excessively critical of them. Their tools include cease and decist letters, DMCA notices, threats to sue, and actual lawsuits....

Examples in recent years:

• Apple Computer ordered to pay more than $750k in attorney fees and court costs in a case that pitted the electronics giant against a group of online journalists who posted information about an unreleased Apple product on the Web.
• Apple Broke the law by lying about Steve Jobs' health
• Apple product failure results in gagging order
• Apple Lawyers set sights on new prey (after sending cease-and-decist letters to "Podcasting" websites over alleged dilution of the "iPod" mark)
• Apple Lawyers bully bloggers over iPhone skins
• Apple Lawyers Tried To Cover-Up Exploding iPod Stories,
• Microsoft Cows To Apple Lawyers, Changes 'Laptop Hunters' Ad
• Apple's lawyers shut down rumor site, 2 (Think Secret)
• Apple lawyers nix box pix
• Apple's lawyers attack everyone over iPhone icons - "Apple's lawyers also sent letters to journalists who simply reported on the fact that the skins were available."
• Apple's lawyers threaten fake Steve jobs (Parody site)
• Apple sued for threatening fan wiki - 2
• Apple sues Victoria School - over the use of a logo that is shaped like an Apple. [...] students are now afraid to give their teachers apples now because of the fruitâ(TM)s striking resemblance to the company logo.
• Apple Lawyers shutting down Iowa Bar's iPod Mondays
• Apple Cease-and-Decists Stupidity Leak
• A

Google's Chrome ads. Pretty damn good too.

Not surprising. Vivek Kundra is also a convicted shoplifter that had to be chased down and apprehended in the parking lot by store security.

you can't be serious. an XML authoring tool? there were tons of such tools a decade ago.

Please understand my point of view. I'm not saying that this is right nor wrong. If you ask me software patents are one of the most worthless products of mankind. However in the current system I don't see why some should be allowed to file suit, and other not. I don't see why MS should be allowed to hold ridiculous patents and others shouldn't. So don't try to convince me that such patents are idiotic, for you are only preaching to the choir. However I don't see any other way to have this changed other than if the situation would become so absurd that the corporations themselves push for removal of software patents, or at least a serious reform of it. Corporates are very easy to figure out you see: if it means profit, they want it. As long as software patents mean profit no corporation is going to push for a reform, so the only way to have this reform is to play by their own rules and change that simple fact, by making patenting a source of loss.

Google can now use On2 codecs such as VP8 in YouTube, for free. No more royalties. But the royalties are not that expensive so this isn't likely a big deal for them. (Google could save more money by using smarter settings on their H.264 encoder.)

Do you think Google will seriously try to make money by selling codecs? I don't. $100 million is small change to Google, and if that's all it cost to buy On2, then the On2 revenue stream must be trivial by Google's standards.

So, Google won't save much money and won't make much money by buying On2. I think they are up to something else.

What I think is more interesting is the possibility that Google will give On2's latest technology to the Theora guys. Just as Sun started giving away OpenOffice.org after buying StarOffice, it's likely that Google will give away some or all of the On2 technology.

Despite being based on technology that is nearly a decade old, Theora is already fairly competitive for web video. (Theora is better than H.263, which has actually been used for years, so it's difficult to argue that Theora is not usable for web video.) Now imagine that Theora gets the best technology bits from a modern On2 codec, and integrates those, such that Theora really is as good as H.264, or even better.

Now imagine that this improved Theora is bundled with Google Chrome and Firefox, bundled with Android, and bundled with Google Chrome OS. Within a few years, Theora could become firmly established everywhere as a baseline standard that anyone can use.

Google likes things that make it easier for Google's customers to use Google's services. They like their customers not being locked into proprietary technologies not owned by Google. It will be impossible for Google to take the market away from H.264, but it is very possible that they could make sure their customers can always easily access their services.

Note that this scenario utterly depends on the new Theora being free software. Google could try to sell a proprietary On2 codec and gain a significant market share; well, if they try it, all I can say is "good luck with that." It's hard to push out an established standard; to do it, you need to be significantly better, not just a little bit better. Better technology, with Google behind it, completely free (and with no need to even keep track of how many codecs you ship out) might succeed.

steveha

Grrr.

I read it in my local paper about five months ago that CC, TW, and Cox are losing subscribers, because customers are watching shows online for free instead of paying. Therefore they want to lock-up their cable programming (USA, TNT, SyFy, et cetera) behind a wall that only subscribers can bypass. Perhaps if you read YOUR local paper once-in-a-while (or tried google) then you'd already know about it instead of accusing me of making-up lies.

Anyway here's the best article I could find: http://newteevee.com/2009/07/14/first-broadcaster-to-join-comcasts-ondemand-online-cbs/ And another: http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-companies-ganging-up-on-hulu-2009-2

So say goodbye to being able to watch Monk or Kyle XY or Eureka or Closer or Deadliest Catches online. Only subscribers will have access to these cable shows.

Just outsource all the work to Google and sneak out for a round of golf!

"while MS users largely resent MS" Where the hell did you get this idea?

Oh gee I don't know, maybe here, here, and here, as well as many real-life office conversations?

Man, I've lowered my standard for the kinds of people I respond to. Usually the ad hominems that include "learn to", "obviously", "think about it", etc. are precisely where I walk away from the conversation. The problem with this one is that otherwise reasonable people get excited enough that they step away from the rules of polite debate. I'll respond to you despite the "you are confused" vitriol. But honestly, my patience with these is wearing thin despite the fact that I am willing to give some leeway for the emotionally charged nature of this topic.

I didn't say that it was the rates or CRA. I said that the inflation was caused by lowered rates. And that is indisputable. Again, the rates were kept so artificially low that the government was (for a brief period of time) forced to lend at a loss. What the CRA did was make sure that the excess capital was soaked up by the housing industry and that the inflation would occur in that industry and not effect the rest of the economy. http://www.businessinsider.com/sorry-folks-the-cra-really-did-require-crap-lending-standards-2009-6 outlines the premise. And the Q&A afterwards address a number of one-variable arguments that this assertion causes.

As for "turd bricks" comment, "ticking bombs" is more appropriate, but more to the point, I have no problems with putting people who work for the rating agencies in jails for a very, very long time. They seem to be guilty of fraud. So does Kramer & Co., but it looks like the fraudsters are the ones who are not called out at all. I did mention in some of the previous comments that I think the current mood is the opposite of what is right -- ignore the fraud and punish the greed. While greed is perfectly fine if its moderated by strong punishment for fraud.

Except that's exactly what main-stream economists are saying is what needs to be done.

Yes, those would be the geniuses who not only failed to predict the collapse, but are prescribing precisely the same failed policies that didn't work for the USA in the 1930s or Japan in the 1980s. Hell, Krugman actually advocated a housing bubble to avoid the effects of the internet bubble. The so-called "mainstream economists" of today are like the mainstream of the medical profession in the 1700s, when they routinely bled a patient to death to try to treat tuberculosis or pneumonia.

Go and read up on Ludwig Von Mises' theory of the business cycle. What the government is doing now is precisely the worst thing they can do; they're interfering with the necessary liquidation of failed businesses and reallocation of resources to productive uses. This current crisis could be over as quickly as the crash of 1920, or it could get turned into a decades-long depression like the crash of 1929 did. So far, Obama and the congress are following the Hoover-Roosevelt playbook exactly.

-jcr

It's interesting that the Wall Street Journal would publish a story trying to discourage individuals from making money on the Internet.

Not only would they publish such an article, the WSJ actually faces the digital convesrion conundrum under Murdoch.
What they point out is that in the world of blogging, much like iTunes app store publishing a creator faces perfect competition. Facing an industry with 0 economic profit, differentiation and other services are needed for economic profitability. That's why selling of merchandise, or other value added services is important for creating a viable blogging business.
This isn't just for the individual, it's for anybody getting involved in the blogging world. Corporations have the advanatage of leveraging their existing trademark, or as we often see spending millions of dollars to buy an already popular blog. Ultimately they face the same problems of selling something other than their blog to pull of a real profit.

If you where them wouldn't you do the same?
They are on a war footing, apparently we keep fooling ourselves into thinking everyone wants to play nice.
We also fool ourselves that they need us. Well news for those reading, They don't.
There is a reason they laughted at Geithner

"For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem," Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute. The U.S. economy will "continually see a problem -- potentially with Google" because it already "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising," she said. link

So, a 90% market share is a non-issue while 76% market share is a big problem. Clicking on another website is a shedload easier than installing a different operating system (especially when most retailers will make you pay for Windows even if you don't want it). Not to mention the contrast of how each company has dealt with competitors since reaching a commanding share of their respective domains.

Google does need to be watched, but saying that Microsoft is a non-issue is unacceptable in my book. They will "f'ing kill Google" (or any other tech company) if they get the chance, and getting an opponent into antitrust issues while they run free is exactly the opportunity they would want.

Unfortunately, badly managed companies go bankrupt.

Unless they are investment banks, insurance companies or auto companies with their hands so far up Washington's bipartisan butt that they can get the sock-puppets to rape the taxpayer for them.

This is the face of National Socialism, as created by Bush and continued by Obama: some companies in some industries are deemed to be too important to the Reich to fail, and markets are trampled for the sake of keeping them alive.

Meanwhile, companies that are just as badly run in other industries are allowed to die off. That provides a huge incentive to every company in the country to suck up to the government as closely as possible. It's a ticket to virtual immortality.

3DRealms should have claimed it was vital for national security that DNF be released. It probably wouldn't have worked, but who would have thought that anyone would have even considered bailing out newspapers, even theoretically?

The ??? used to be selling the attention you generate on your free service to advertisers. Google AdSense being the most profitable one for many. But it seems like the attention economy is coming to an end, or at least the potential has been greatly reduced.

Twitter doesn't include ads in their tweets or even on their website. According to this Create a Revenue Model for Twitter contest they don't generate any revenue.

Twitter isn't worth anything right now other than what investors would like to get back if they sell. I can't think of any way that their customer base could financially benefit any other company. The folks at Twitter seem to be in the same boat since they haven't been able to generate any significant revenue from their users.

Yes. Because nothing will boost readership like each newspaper requiring it's own custom $300 reader that doesn't work for any of the other newspapers or books.

I'm surprised nobody has rebutted that yet with this: Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

Also, it's entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that one day, everyone will own a device capable of comfortably and conveniently reading e-books. Maybe it'll have an e-ink display, maybe it'll be some crazy mashup between a netbook and a cell phone, but it'll probably happen. As today's e-book readers become more mainstream, I think we'll start to see some competition happen. Eventually, manufacturers will market their products not just on how many books you can buy but how many different formats the reader can open. Publishers wishing to reach the largest audience will release their books in open formats to reach the largest user base possible.

I mean, assuming they don't follow in the footsteps of the RIAA and MPAA and just start suing their customers because their old business model of pushing physical products went away.

ECMA, you mean the Oooopen XML ISO fast-track scam machine "ECMA International".

Why don't they publish the specification on their servers down in Redmond instead? Do the standard developers have a girl friend in Geneva? Or do they think it is more fun with free beer parties with Mozilla?

And finally, what has the current hugging to do with what goes on in Brussels?

BOOKS ARE CHEAP and they do not NEED an electronic delivery mechanism! I don't quite understand why on earth a product like the Kindle needs to exist.

Books might be cheap, newspapers however aren't. Also lets not forget that books aren't exactly cheap in terms of weight, carrying a dozen books around is not much fun, carrying a single kindle around is much easier.

I'm still trying to figure that out. It does not exceed the specs for the MBA especially in price which is what Microsoft's new ad campaign is all about.

I guess if you need a MBA form-factor that runs Windows this is your thing. I'd much prefer to run Windows virtually in the MBA though.

As seen Apr. 9, 2009, 6:30 AM on http://www.businessinsider.com/is-youtube-doomed-2009-4

According to a report by Credit Suisse, YouTube is on track to lose roughly $470 million in 2009. No matter Google's $116 billion market cap: a half-billion dollar loss on a single property, even one as large as YouTube, is a bitter pill to swallow...

Since the majority of Google's costs for the service are pure variable costs of bandwidth and storage, and since they've already reached the point at which no greater economies of scale remain, the costs of the business will continue to grow on a linear basis. Unfortunately, far more user-generated content than professional content makes its way onto the site, which means that while costs grow linearly, non-monetizable content is growing geometrically as compared against the monetizable content that YouTube really wants and needs to survive. This means less and less of YouTube's library will be revenue-contributing, while the costs of delivering that library will continue to grow.

If you really want to hurt Google, then post more and raise their costs. A boycott right now would actually help them balance the books and make it easier for them to justify continuing the service.

http://www.businessinsider.com/could-the-sun-destroy-the-earth-2009-3

Coronal Mass Ejection, a big enough one could wipe out all life on earth, and fry all the electronics.

Whoever has the rights in your country won't let Hulu run the shows in it because it cuts into their advertising.

As Hulu says:

"Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience."

It should be kept in mind that all distribution deals between producers and distributors include regions, and sometimes exclusive distribution deals preclude streaming in a region at all. Hulu has to compete with all other distributors to obtain content rights from producers. There are also political issues (such as the troubles with the UK Competition Commission). The US is one of the few countries in the world that does not regulate content based on country of origin (we prefer "adult content" regulation evidently).

It was recently announced that Johannes Larcher will be Hulu's new SVP in charge of procuring international rights.