Facebook went public today – trading on the NASDAQ for the first time under the Stock ticker FB and while the social network company priced its IPO at $38 a share, it actually opened at around $42. So what does this mean?
Now that Intel has released their new Ivy Bridge chipset, Apple is set to refresh their laptop and desktop computers and the chatter is that this will happen in June – at WWDC 2012. That should bring a smile to people that have been waiting to upgrade, especially those waiting for new iMacs as it’s been about 370+ days since the last major refresh.
Yahoo C.E.O. Scott Thomson is in some hot agua over falsely claiming that he has a Computer Science Degree and it looks like his argument, claiming it was just an “inadvertent error” doesn’t look like it’s working.
Queensland billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has unveiled his plans to build the Titanic II to add to his tourism portfolio. Mr Palmer said his new company Blue Star Line Pty Ltd had commissioned the state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to build a near replica of the ill-fated Titanic. The cost is unknown…
When Jimmy talks to the UNC audience about student loans, he decides a slow jam with President Obama and The Roots is appropriate…
Right on the heels of a massive blow-out Q2 earnings call, Apple today announced the dates for WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The annual conference will start June 11th and run through the 15th – get your tickets today because last year it sold out the first day tickets were available. Additianlly, Apple has added a new “Student Scholarship” program for young app developers:
Apple announced its Q2 2012 earnings after the market closed on tuesday and while investors have been nervously chatting about Cupertino’s falling stock price, Apple had another record breaking quarter. Oh, by record breaking, I mean they essentially have $110 billion in short term assets and cash – $12.4 billion more than they had the previous quarter. Let’s get to the specifics:
Microsoft built an empire off of Windows and with every version released, came the mind boggling question: “Do I want Windows Xp Starter Edition, Xp Tablet PC Edition, Xp Media Center Edition, Xp Home Edition or Xp Professional Edition?” For Windows Vista, the choice was between 6 possible versions for X86 machines and the same was true for Windows 7 – not to mention different price points and requirements.
When you talk to people about online privacy – most of the time, they fall into three different camps: 1) the “I don’t really care – I have nothing to hide” – 2) the “Oh really, I didn’t know” – 3) and the “I know, I use a vpn, proxy servers and privacy mode on Firefox.” My main concern is the people that fall into the 2nd group because, like most anything, if you don’t know….you usually don’t care.
Online Privacy: The term is very broad and includes issues concerning your private personal information, browser history, surfing habits, purchases, digital footprint and much much more. Now, if someone was to ask you for your personal information (full name, age,sex,address,etc) in real life (in person), you might not be so inclined to just hand it over – but what if it’s being taken online, without your direct knowledge? Would this bother you?
You know how Japan is often times ahead of the rest of the world with all things tech and social, well….they just did it again. Kirin, Japan’s brewing giant has just invented a soft-serve frozen beer foam, that can be placed on top of a pint of beer – keeping it cold for up to 30 minutes. Yes, you heard that right – frozen beer foam to keep beer cold! (See video after the break)
Today, the DOJ (Department of Justice) filed a lawsuit in the New York district court against Apple, Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Penguin for e-book price fixing - so reports Bloomberg. The DOJ has issues with the way Apple and publishers have adopted the “Agency Model” which allows the publishers to set book pricing, in turn Apple gets 30%. This is different than the way Amazon sells books, which is the “Wholesale Model” - in which publishers sell books to Amazon wholesale and then Amazon sets book pricing – often times selling books at a loss.
In a massive policy change, it looks like AT&T will start unlocking off contract iPhones, so that they can be used on other carriers (frequency permitting). In a press release, AT&T said that:
…Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee…
Apparently, mounting pressure from customers about AT&T’s ridiculous and long standing position on not-unlocking iPhones and possibly Tim Cook, has lead Ma’Bell to change her mind. Keep in mind, that you’ll have to be in good standing with AT&T and off contract, so just ended your relationship with AT&T. Hope this is true.
Source: Engadget
nTelos, a US regional carrier operating in: “Virginia, West Virginia, and portions of Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, and North Carolina. nTelos Wireless began acquiring PCS spectrum in western Virginia and West Virginia in 1995 and began operations in Virginia in 1997 and in West Virginia in 1998…” operating on PCS CDMA network, has just got the iPhone (iPhone 4 & iPhone 4S).
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane brings his boundary-pushing brand of humor to the big screen for the first time as writer, director and voice star of Ted. In the live action/CG-animated comedy, he tells the story of John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg), a grown man who must deal with the cherished teddy bear who came to life as the result of a childhood wish…and has refused to leave his side ever since…
Sounds good – looks good. Find out more on the official website (click here) and TED’s official YouTube channel.
Jeff Sneider (Variety Magazine) reported on Sunday that Ashton Kutcher (Punk’d) has been cast to play Steve Jobs in an upcoming rendition of the Apple co-founder’s life. Keep in mind that Sunday was April Fools day, so anything is possible regarding the story but even the Hollywood Reporter got in on the story – maybe they’re also in on the joke.
Regardless, here is how I personally feel about Kutcher playing Jobs – no disrespect to the “Dude, Where’s My Car!” and “Killers” star but:
If you’re a producer and you cast Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs – You blew it!
Source: AppleInsider – Source: Twitter
For all of you waiting patently for new iMacs or MacPros or Macbook Pros or even the MacBook Airs – looks like your wait is coming to an end. CPU World has posted specs and release dates for Intel’s upcoming Ivy Bridge chipset - from the look of things, last week of April is the due date. Specifically, the iMac and MacPro lines for Apple are in dire need of a refresh, as it’s been 330 days and 640 days respectively, since they last got new hardware. (MacRumors Buying Guide)
National Geographic and James Cameron have released the first footage of what was seen deep inside the Mariana Trench – a crevasse 7 times larger than the Grand Canyon. While we don’t see anything terribly exciting in the video, I compare it like going to Mars – we know not a lot is going on but the actual trip is the real adventure. More to come….
Tracking your kids school attendance has never been easier, especially if you live in Brazil. An initial pilot program in Vitoria da Conquista has been tracking 20,000 students in 25 different schools – all by a single wearable microchip sewn into each student’s clothing. A corresponding system at each school can detect if a student has been attending or not and is even capable of sending an SMS to partent – notifying them of their kid’s attendance. Apparently the program is so affective, the city of Vitoria da Conquista wants to expand it to cover all 43,000 students – playing hooky just got a lot less fun in Brazil.
Source: TheVerge
How much does it cost to run an optical cable from Japan to England – across the arctic? Well, it looks like we’ll find out this summer, as an army of ice-breaking ships and cable laying ships embark on the massive arctic project. As it stands now, there will be three different cable run, zig-zagging the Northwest Passage, arctic and northern pacific – all adding up to an estimated cost of $1.5 Billion.
…All three cables are being laid for the same reasons: Redundancy and speed. As it stands, it takes roughly 230 milliseconds for a packet to go from London to Tokyo; the new cables will reduce this by 30% to 170ms. This speed-up will be gained by virtue of a much shorter run: Currently, packets from the UK to Japan either have to traverse Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, US, and Pacific, both routes racking up around 15,000 miles in the process. It’s only 10,000 miles (16,000km) across the Arctic Ocean, and you don’t have to mess around with any land crossings, either…
Surprisingly, this is a project that has been in the works for some time but the recent massive melt-off of arctic ice (due to global weather conditions or man) has opened a window, from August to October, for the ships to work ice free. Link it up!
Source: ExtremeTech
Those crazy Google Map cars have been almost everywhere but apparently ”Almost” isn’t good enough for Google and today, they’ve announced “Tour of the Amazon River.” You heard right, Google has filmed the amazon! For World Forest Day, Google has made the images of the lower Amazon basin public and part of its great maps project – you can check out the project here.
In August 2011, a few members of our Brazil and U.S. Street View and Google Earth Outreach teams were invited to the Amazon Basin to collect ground-level images of the rivers, forest and communities in the Rio Negro Reserve. On, March 21, 2012 on World Forest Day, we made those images available through the Street View feature on Google Maps….
We ended up collecting imagery of the Rio Negro, an Amazon Forest trail, and five river communities. You can take your time and explore all the images in the gallery above. Or, for those who would like a guided tour at a quicker pace, take a Google Earth tour on the river, in the forest, or in the Tumbira community. Together with FAS, we’re thrilled to help everyone from researchers and scientists to armchair explorers around the world learn more about Amazon, and better understand how local communities there are working to preserve this unique environment for future generations….
Often, Google gets labeled as a beta project company – creating countless services but never really refining them. I truly believe that Google’s ambitious mapping project is not only ground breaking, successful and revolutionary but without the cash/size of Google, no one would have stepped up for such a massive undertaking. Bravo to you sir.
Source: Google
During today’s Apple investor conference call, C.E.O. Tim Cook was quoted as saying that Apple set: “a new single-day record” for iPad sales/activations but no specific numbers were released. Hours later, GSM carrier AT&T released this statment:
On Friday, March 16, AT&T set a new single-day record for its iPad sales and activations, demonstrating robust demand for the new iPad on the nation’s largest 4G network, covering nearly 250 million people.
Again, no specifics but if they beat iPad 1 or iPad 2 single day records, we’re looking at numbers between 500,000 to 1.3 million units (small window, I know). Additionally, from what we’ve heard, the New iPad is still available for in-store pickup and from third party vendors like Walmart – so no long lines for people still wanting one, even though online order shipments have slipped to 2-3 weeks. No word from Verizon on the issue but it’s still early in the day.
Source: Marketwatch
Apple has issued a press release and Tim Cook (C.E.O.) is taking a conference call this morning, announcing that Apple will start paying its stock holders a dividend of $2.65/share (starting in fiscal Q4) and a stock buy back program that will go into effect sometime in September 2012. The long running joke was that Apple’s cash wasn’t burning a hole in its pockets but over the last 2-3 years, investors started making noise about possible dividends – afterall, Apple has been sitting on close to $100 Billion in cash/short term assets.
We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You’ll see more of all of these in the future,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program…
The 2012 advert by the Guardian newspaper where the 3 little pigs are arrested for boiling up the big bad wolf and cause controversy and the public to explode via media attention and social sharing.