In the semiconductor business, it's just technology and costs; in consumer, technology helps, but it's also the appeal to consumers, which is a nebulous thing." |
Think about that. HP is getting rid of the "nebulous thing" and keeping the "technology and cost" part. Even HP-haters would probably agree that it can compete on technology and cost. |
I've seen this a million times and wondered how folks got hired. Yep. It’s a big problem, especially now. There’s a boom on. I get harassing emails from recruiters every day. Everyone’s desperate to hire developers…but developers are not fungible. A great coder can easily be 50 times more productive than a mediocre one, while bad ones ultimately have negative productivity. Hiring one is a terrible mistake for any organization; for a startup, it can be a catastrophic company-killer. So how can it happen so often? |
Like many of the hangovers that haunt modern software engineering, this is ultimately mostly Microsoft’s fault.2 Back when they were the evil empire where everyone secretly wanted to work, they were famous for their “brain-teaser” interview questions – Why are manhole covers round? – and, of course, they asked new university graduates about computer science theory; “Write me a binary search.” |
veryone wanted to be like Microsoft, even Google, until everyone wanted to be like Google (until recently); and so that interview meme persisted Read more at techcrunch.com |
I think this is an especially striking example of a bad patent decision by the EDTX. It only shows just how bad the U.S. patent system has become that such a ridiculous suit could ever be taken seriously never mind actually winning. Google should appeal this case and, unlike other recent software patent cases, such as Microsoft vs. i4i, I’d expect the anti-patent side to win. |
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The company spent more than $6,600 lobbying California officials to kill a proposed Social Networking Privacy Act, which would impose civil penalties on social networks displaying home addresses and phone numbers of users under 18 years old, according to disclosures filed with the California secretary of State.
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"We were concerned the unintended consequences would be the incentive for minors to be deceptive about their age and, in so doing, lose the many protections in place (to) protect their personal information," Enough Is Enough President Donna Rice Hughes said. Facebook supports online safety legislation, including a bill from former state senator George Runner, R-Antelope Valley, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes says.
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I'd venture to say that many times automakers are spending so much time on the bells and whistles that they do nothing to improve on the design of the car itself.  Are automakers weighing down promising new vehicles by piling on too much in features and functionality? A smartphone dock and an amplifier might be better than complex in-car entertainment and navigation systems, one observer argues. |
“Today’s cars that have grown and swelled to obscene proportions, burdened by once simple solutions to simple problems that bumped up against other solutions to other problems and in turn created new problems. Heavier cars need bigger motors to keep them going as fast, which means bigger wheels and tires, bigger brakes, bigger fuel tanks… more weight to haul around. So the cycle continues, spiraling out of control.”
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“Each time I go to CES I see more and more impressive infotainment and telematics systems and as ever I can’t wait to see what’s next. But, I also can’t help thinking the companies making these systems are wasting their time. It’s time for the car’s entertainment and navigation systems to be deleted. Smartphones do all that and more, with a cleaner, more user-friendly interface. Delete the stereo, delete the navigation system, delete the in-car cellular antenna, get rid of all that. Replace it with a simple smartphone dock and an amplifier. It’s more weight saved, and less space taken up by a tangle of wires under the dash.”
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I don't know how successful nickeling and diming will be as passengers get more fed up. Although the possibility of paying those fees w/ the ticket is better than the a la carte way they do it now. American and other big, old-school airlines got hammered in the past decade by competition from low-cost carriers, among other factors. So to make money, they're relying more and more on fees for everything from checked baggage to onboard wi-fi, Quinby told me. |
Getting direct access to passengers who are shopping for airfares would allow American to pitch those extra goodies in a targeted way — the same way Amazon recommends products based on your previous purchases. |
So, in American's ideal world, when you were shopping for fares on Orbitz, say, you'd see not only price and schedule info, but also targeted details about the other stuff you could buy as part of the flight. |
American wants to cut out a layer of middle men, gather more information about who's buying tickets, and make a push to sell more extras — onboard wi-fi, say, or more legroom. |
The airline wants to cut out a group of companies called Global Distribution Systems. They take flight data from almost all major airlines, and pass it on to travel agents and online travel sites. They also take booking information from travel agents and and sites, and pass it back to the airlines. |
This is funny. Though, it does make me wonder how a small company could go after trademark infringement in other countries. Let's be honest: you can never get enough of Angry Birds, but for those wandering around Guangzhou, China, you might be able to get your fix at this arcade booth. Like the game itself, there's an actual slingshot for firing your enraged fowls at a bunch of plush doll piggies, except there are no special abilities like explosion or splitting -- maybe the next version will take care of that, unless Rovio Mobile decides it's game over for these guys. |
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