"TiVo becomes the latest Silicon Valley company to resort to laying employees off as it “manages through the challenges presented by a difficult economic climate,” as well as what it, perhaps euphemistically refers to as “a rapidly evolving retail consumer market.”
Perhaps “devolving” would be the more appropriate verb choice. Or does TiVo know something about other changes in consumer habits, in addition to the evidently growing consumer fad of, well, consuming less." - Chris White
Do layoffs mean you maybe hired more full-timers than you should have? Perhaps the time is right for us all to become consultants. - Daniel J. Pritchett
Don't they need someone to deliver pizzas? - Mona N.
Daniel: TiVo's headcount has remained pretty steady over time. There are a lot of companies more deserving of the 'you hired too quickly and now you pay the price' snark than TiVo is. This is a sad day for TiVo and many of my friends who work there. - Kevin Fox
I ♡ TiVo. We have two, including a Series 1 and an HD. They pioneered this market and should have gotten much bigger than they have. Great product. - Louis Gray
Louis, I feel the same way. There are just a handful of products / services that are in the same class as TiVo in my book. - Mike Doeff
The problem TiVo ran into (and WebTV also) was that the cable/satellite companies control everything. Once they partnered with companies with better UIs, they created internal projects to build their own DVRs, and then ended the partnerships. Getting a box from your provider became the default compared to getting a 3rd party product. It's an unfortunate reality of business that there are strategic issues beyond user experience that determine success. It's the primary reason we haven't seen an Apple DVR. - Chris White
"It shows how Africa (30,3 million km²) is larger than the combination of China (9,6 million km²), the US (9,4 million km²), Western Europe (4,9 million km²), India (3,2 million km²) and Argentina (2,8 million km²), three Scandinavian countries and the British Isles" - Paul Buchheit
via Bookmarklet
It's as big as all the countries of Africa combined! - Gabe
hotbed of innovation and manufacture within 30 years - Gregory Lent
Alex: spot on. lol reading these comments. A dash of pedantry, a little bit of bigotry, some serious lack of geographical knowledge: so much fun! :) - Mathieu Ayel
beg to differ somewhat with Gregory. It might become hotbed of innovation but not any time soon. Conflicts, political instability, lack of decent governance and underlying infrastructures and institutions will not allow it to resonate in a way to become a hotbed of innovation. In small pockets though, it happens even now, especially in countries like Kenya and Ghana in everything from innovative approaches to private education to inventing incredible devices for water cleaning. - Hayk
Moreover, the size and comparison of African continent with other continents and countries is little more than a nice figure illustrative of geography. - Hayk
30 years, hyak, things will move fast, but i know what you are saying, seems nearly hopeless, impossible .. but the world "vibration" will make it happen faster than is logical (my opinion) - Gregory Lent
Gregory, i did not mean logic. Living on this continent since 1.5 years and seeing their mentality and their potential, I believe that nothing short of dramatic consciousness change, to borrow your term, will turn people on this continent into economic machines of production. I generalize, apparently. - Hayk
me too :-) ... i really have nothing to base this on .. except two things .. the creativity they have with basically nothing, even bricks are rare sometimes .. the way they are doing the cellphone thing is a hopeful sign .. and the other is from african art, every culture made masks with some sort of design feature where the third eye is .. there is an innate plugged-in-ness there, so that when it gets a bit stable, it will flow .. and the gates foundation should only do education, malaria will then take - Gregory Lent
Also, Africa had this "misfortune" of being on top of all kinds of natural resources which became valued at one point or another. As it said in Blood Diamonds, "every time a precious resource is found on this continent,innocent people die, country is plundered." Pouring money only to sustain lives without any solid self-sustainable policies in education or infrastructure is sort of a band-aid. Tackling malaria is what appeals the most to inner sensitivities of Gates :) - Hayk
Africa is the cradle of our species.. says a lot about how out of touch we have become when we treat our birthplace with such distain. No wonder we're raping and pillaging everything we can. Makes you wonder if the attempts at keeping the African nations as undeveloped as possible is to turn the place into the next middle east when the rest of our resources have been spent. - alphaxion
Thinking economy is taking out limited resources is wrong... Economy is added value man made... Today wealth comes from service... picking was thousands years ago, agriculture hundreds and industry last 2 centuries... - jfayel
Natural resources have historically made countries very wealthy. - Gabe
After years of languishing on the margins of the Internet, the Semantic Web has matured to the point that some compelling apps are showing what it can do. At the current rate of advance, 2009 will be a banner year for an oft-ignored and given up on technology. - Dion Hinchcliffe
"I offered to their team to try one out for a few weeks alongside an iPod in a series of videos on my personal blog and give my honest feedback.
Never heard back." - drew olanoff
"A fantastic value! This place did a great job at feeding our party of 100+ for a reasonable price with high quality food. The food was available on time for pickup and some very friendly folks brought…" - David Weekly
