Thanks to TheWeek.com/cartoons for this reminder of how I am off the spot. For the past decade, my politics and science websites of choice beyond the big influencers [NY Times, Washington Post The Guardian, BBC and CNN] have been an eclectic and everchanging mix. Incoming has been Wired, MIT Technology Review, NPR, and RottenTomatoes. Constants are Politico, …
The US Job Creators are doing critical things very right by many Business standards. First and foremost, US Job Creators are making big , yes record profits. As seen in this chart for 2012. US Job Creators profits reached a new record level as a 11.3% of the total output of the economy: US Corporate …
Two years ago, Takethe5th did a story on how Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the Microsoft Minions did a 20 year continuous shafting of Web Developers. Well, in the Web World times change at a Back-to-the-Future pace. Now Apple under CEO Tim Cook has taken over the shit-on-you toilet and is shafting all those Web Designers …
In the past week, Takethe5th has been describing the incoming Jobs Tsunami in which AI and massive processing capabilities now take over a large chunk of white collar as well as blue collar jobs. Well here is a conference by Silicon Valley Guru Tim O’Reilly called the Next Economy which confirms the pervasive nature of …
Dietrich Schmitz in Google Plus raised the issue of the continuing decline in labor participation rates in the US. He said US media were ignoring the issue and that it is serious – since 2000, 27 million Americans have left the Labour Force. In fact, one just begins to see signs that the media is …
These are some of the data about the acceptance of article written by robot journalists. The gist of the paper is that Robot Journalists provide more trustworthy, reliable and provoked the following reaction on Google Plus. Ron Miller, a writer on IT trends noted “Am I about to be disrupted by robots? Possibly, but while …
Now this reviewer does not like to gloat but it is always a nice to see how far ahead of the Major Media Pack one can be. First the NYTimes and now Marketwatch, more than a year late, have “seen the opportunity and lead” that Windows 8 has in 2-in-1 or convertible laptops/tablets and with …
At Last, Major Media Catch-up to the Windows 8 Convertible Advantage Read More »
The Good news for Apple is very Good indeed. Apple has a deal with China Mobile for selling Apple iPhones.Given that China Mobile has huge market share this should significantly impact Apple iPhone sales in China. However, the bottom line details are still a little murky depending on the contract. What is most remarkable is …
Windows 8.1 is here and this is what Windows 8.0 should have been. Like its lead in tablets and mobile phones in the the late 1990’s and 2000’s, Microsoft may be squandering in the expanded world of mobile computing a great overall Windows OS lead and new version strategy to a flawed execution. Meanwhile all …
Reuters started the ball rolling earlier this week saying 3 of the top 20 Microsoft shareholders raised the question of whether Bill Gates should be replaced as Chairman of Microsoft. Now Bill’s 5% holding of Microsoft stock is the largest but the 3 dissident shareholders have a combined holding that is slightly larger. And because …
Definitely see the 1 year later 2014 update to this report. This Google+ Post is a picture that captures the essence of the continuing story about Microsoft and the Web. This slide is very telling because it reveals once again and summarizes neatly Redmond’s attitude to the Web for nearly 20 years. Remember Bill Gates …
It is amazing that the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones allows the Opinions on Marketwatch to swing so far to the left. Or perhaps it is a sop to compensate for the rigid conservatism of the WSJ editorial page. Whatever, the case, Al Lewis today is right on Denmark with his note about the …
Bamboo Stylus works with only 5 Win8 PCs This reviewer has been praising Windows 8 for being the first PC Client OS vendor to bring full touchscreen operations to their OS . It started with Windows 7 getting partial support and then Windows 8 with full touchscreen capabilities. Now as Web devloper who does …
Sunday’s readers were treated to a NYTimes Editorial Board Grand Pontification. The news that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas, have hit 400 parts per million for the first time in millions of years increases the pressure on President Obama to deliver on his pledges to limit this country’s greenhouse …
In the Coursera class Behavioral Economics taught by Duke Professor Dan Ariely, all the students had to write a mid-term essay in which they described the ideas of Behavioral Economics and how the methods of the discipline could be used to solve an economic problem. Despite the fact, that most of the methods in the …
An Essay for the Coursera Class: Behavioral Economics Read More »
I have been taking Coursera’s Irrational Behaviour taught by Duke Professor Dan Ariely. The course concentrates on individual decision making and how decision methods depart from traditional rational and economic utility models. There are compelling experimental and neuroscience proofs that a)individuals use different model or methods of decision making depending on circumstances[ the Kahneman and Tversky fast …
The NYTimes had a recent story, The Infinite Pool of Executive Pay. It is a little hit and miss. The report comes down on the increase of 18.7% percent in corporate perks. But then we also learn that overall median pay for the top 100 CEOs increased by just 2.8%. However, I had a devil …
Maybe not the writing, but the following graphics will create no great cheer in Redmond. Look at the Trends for Microsoft languages based on the Tiobe Index First, Apple’s Objective C is surging in popularity. But of greater concern is the peaking of C# and Visual Basic. Python is now more popular than VB. But …
Tom Wolfe’s book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is about PR and Spokespersons who seemingly can turn any criticism to the advantage of their client. But “flak catcher” had a second nuanced meaning – those who bore the brunt of public scorn diverting attention away from client and upon themselves. As well, attention …
Samsung Galaxy S4 – announcement at NYC Radio City Music Hall The GOP has done it, the major Banks, and now Samsung with its Galaxy S4 announcement – all have tarnished if not badly their Brands. And done so almost in a blink of an eye given the months and years of assiduous work it …
How To Ruin Your Brand: The Samsung Galaxy S4 Unpacking Event Read More »
This is hardly a statement to make about a leading computing brand when one has recently praised its new and crucial Windows 8 OS. But right after the launch of Windows 8, CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed Steven Sinofsky who had helped Redmond: a)make Microsoft Office a continuing breadwinner despite the assault from Google Docs, Zoho, and …
David Einhorn, the tiny $7Billion Hedge Fund manager, has tweaked the nose of computing’s Goliath, Apple. Since a week Thursday, David has shocked the US business world with his direct, loud, and “uncivil’ attack on Apple’s huge cash hoard of nearly $130Billion. And Apple’s cash hoard islikely getting bigger on a growth rate of 10%per quarter for the …
The Economists’s Intelligence Unit sponsored today a free webinar on Superfast Broadband with telecom equipment provider Huawei. The instant grade for the webinar is Mushy and not because of the delivery. On 3Mbs Rogers Cable in Canada, the reception was on the whole quite good – maybe 4-6 dropouts, but to my surprise no loss …
Grading the Economist’s Superfast Broadband Webinar Read More »
Samsung leads the Smartphone Market in the US taking over from Apple. But Samsung has leading or near leading positions in the appliances, TV, compact camera, and other electronic device markets. They, not GE nor Phillips nor Sony are currently the first innovators in bring the Moores Law powered electronic chip revolution to consumer products. …
How + Why Samsung Leads Innovation in Electronic Devices Read More »
Each quarter the Kellogg School of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business do a survey of more than 1,000 American households examining the trust in US Financial institutions. The latest results for June 2012 are labelled Too Big To Trust. The Stock Market has the lowest confidence level at 15% …
Shark Week was last week and I am not talking about the GOP Convention. But Financial Shark Week is being resurrected this week in the Wall Street Journal and the NYTimes. It started with Andrew Ross Sorkin noting in the Dealbook section of the NYTimes, that Facebook’s IPO-Initial Public Offering of stock was priced too …
Windows 8 has received some very bad notices from diverse sources – John Dvorak at Marketwatch and a PC Gamer Tim Edwards among others are some of the salient ones. Despite these nay sayers ye Editor is very optimistic about the success of Windows 8. I think the nay-sayers are protesting too much about the learning curve for …
There is a superb free course available from Coursera and the University of Pennsylvania on Health Policy and the Affordable Care Act. Dr Ezekiel Emanuel who is an Onclogist is a great speaker in this free Coursera program and he starts off by providing a clear chart of the fundamental problem facing healthcare in the United …
Fundamental Problem in US Health Care:The Course Read More »
The free online courses available from Coursera [Stanford, Princeton, University of California at Berkley, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvannia] have broken the ice on online college courses. Now MIT has had a program for the past 5 years called OpenCourseWare which made course materials from more than 2,000 classes available free online. Typical MIT …
This Ted talk by Don Tapscott on the fundamental attributes of Openness is illuminating: Don waxes highly hopeful about an Open Future. But there are stark counter-examples right now. Spain,much of Southern Europe and the MidEast have 40% or much higher youth unemployment. The crux of the problem is also covered in the lecture. Note …
Google is making its new Nexus Q Media Streamer in the USA. Its a medium sized commitment and it could go wrong because the price is on the high end for media devices despite some of the new features – see a review here. But the significance is not small as noted in the NYTimes and …
The Big 3 in Consumer Computing for the next 3-8 years have declared themselves. With Microsoft and Google now committing to hardware as well as software they have joined Apple as all-in in Consumer Computing. In effect the Apple Model, compete in any and all hardware and software segments while holding the critical OS keys …
