RWW: The Future of Tech

"“A logical conclusion is that the iPhone is not good for wireless carriers,” Nomura Securities analyst Mike McCormack told Money. “When we look at the direct and indirect economics that Apple has managed to extract from the carriers, the carrier-level value destruction is quite evident.” The site notes that Verizon Wireless’s EBITDA service margin has dropped from an average of 46.4% per quarter to 42.2% since the carrier added the iPhone to its lineup one year ago." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

Her talks have gone viral. On YouTube, videos of her speeches have been viewed more than 200,000 times. Some have been included in syllabuses at the Stanford and Harvard business schools. Put simply, she exudes that certain something that seems to leave many people, particularly young women, a bit star-struck. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

She has arguably made an equally big mark with her frequent speeches to women, which are a call to draw more women to technology, and to Facebook. She personally recruited Lori Goler, its head of human resources, and Katie Mitic, its head of platform and mobile marketing. Ms. Sandberg’s role in keeping such employees has been even more crucial. - Mitchell Tsai

"it looks like Microsoft's been working mighty hard to please those that just love using a pen and paper with Windows 8, offering a revamped metro-style handwriting interface in the consumer preview." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"Google’s platform still has one key advantage: it’s attracting more mobile data newbies. New research from the NPD Group shows that 57 percent of first-time smartphone buyers last quarter chose Android handsets, while only 34 percent of new buyers purchased an iPhone." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"It can show us a list of all the open tabs and their memory usage sans JS for now, as per the above screenshot. If you expand the tab capsules, you get to see the list of all the inner windows/iframes that live in the hierarchy of that page." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"A new update installation method allows Firefox to install an update while the browser is running. This means that the update can be installed immediately after it is downloaded. A restart of the browser is still required to apply the update but, using the new method, the application of the update will happen very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that you shouldn’t even notice it. The new version of Firefox will then launch with no delay as the update procedure has already taken place." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

Claims its DNS network wasn't breached, but mum on whether SSL certificates were compromised - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

"Government, military officials to get Android phones capable of sharing secret documents The phones will run a modified version of Google's Android software, sources say Contractor: Google "more cooperative" than Apple working with government on phones" - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"According to a new mobile app monitoring startup called Crittercism, iOS apps are crashing at a greater rate than your favorite Android apps." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"Wilson said he was surprised to learn recently that his two college-age daughters, who had grown up during Facebook's early years, are actually infrequent Facebook users. Instead, they're using other social-networking sites, such as Instagram and Foursquare." - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

One evening while he was having dinner with his teenage son, he noticed that his son took a picture of his meal and posted it on Instagram. Wilson asked him why he didn't post this particular photo to Facebook. And his son said he didn't think his 2,000 Facebook friends would appreciate the post. But he said his much smaller group of Instagram followers, who all post pictures of what they eat and where they go, would be interested in the photo. - Mitchell Tsai

"Apple's attempt to secure a preliminary ban on Samsung's Galaxy 10.1N and Galaxy Nexus in Germany has apparently failed. A regional court in Munich gave Apple's motion to block sales of Samsung's tablet and smartphone the big thumbs down Thursday." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"While sitting at the Crunchies last night something became quite apparent: almost all the big guys — even the ones who were stubborn about it — are currently available on Android." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

She is Facebook's 42-year-old Chief Operating Officer. According to the S-1 filing, Sandberg has 1,899,986 shares of Facebook common stock. She also holds 39,321,041 options and restricted stock units which haven't yet vested. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

Oprah would still be the wealthiest self-made woman with a net worth of $2.7 billion. But Sandberg could nudge out Meg Whitman, who is worth an estimated $1.3 billion. - Mitchell Tsai

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Harvard '91 MBA '95. From 1996 to 2001, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton. - Mitchell Tsai

Norbert Wiener, authored an influential book entitled “Cybernetics.” Mr. Wiener separated human responses to new challenges into two types: ontogenetic and phylogenetic. Ontogenetic activities are organized and carried out through centrally designed institutions to shape the development of society. The phylogenetic response, on the other hand, is evolutionary. It is analogous to the way bacteria behave in mutual interaction without organizational oversight. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

The easy scalability of the Internet makes it perhaps the most powerful phylogenetic invasion of the body politic in recent times. Bill Davidow, in his book, “Overconnected: the Promise and Threat of the Internet,” talks about how the Internet’s “hyper-connection” can spread “contagions” like pandemics. The Internet is not an unmitigated force for good. It can also do harm to human society. - Mitchell Tsai

(1) It is extremely profitable. In 2011, it brought in revenues of $3.7bn and had an operating income (the profit after you subtract day-to-day costs, but before taxes) of $1.7bn. Its net income for that year was $1bn - giving it a 27% net margin. For comparison, most physical businesses have net margins of between 5% - 10%. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

The company's research and development expenses ballooned last year to $114 million in 2011 from $9 million in 2010, primarily due to growth in employee head count and equity compensation. Facebook's costs and expenses are going up faster than revenue. It employs 3,200 as of December, up from 2,172 a year earlier. - Mitchell Tsai

So far, enthusiasm for the idea has reportedly generated modest annual profits for Facebook of around $1bn, or just over $1 per user per year. Mr Zuckerberg will need to exploit – or “monetise” in Silicon Valley jargon – his users much more effectively to justify the up to $100bn valuation the first tranche of shares is expected to confer on them. - Mitchell Tsai

Some even believe that the deal — which even with reports of a scaled-back valuation of below $100 billion — would be one of the largest tech IPOs to date and could rival the 1995 offering of Netscape in importance. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

Netscape also set the trend for the young, unprofitable Internet company going public. It was only 16 months old, unprofitable, and had 250 employees at the time of its IPO. - Mitchell Tsai

"Summary: Twitter said today that it will begin censoring tweets, if required by law, on a country-by-country basis. Europeans and Americans, however, will most likely be affected." - Jim from Bookmarklet

eesh - Prosey BUTTONS!

"Apple, the computer giant whose sleek products have become a mainstay of modern life, is dealing with a public relations disaster and the threat of calls for a boycott of its iPhones and iPads. The company's public image took a dive after revelations about working conditions in the factories of some of its network of Chinese suppliers." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

In 1982, MPAA head Jack Valenti warned that these little tapes would brutally murder his industry. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

"In an era when the wealthiest are society’s pariahs, the Microsoft founder has become the people’s plutocrat. Although some diseases, such as malaria, remain rife, his charitable foundation and his lobbying have borne results. In the past year, not a single citizen in India contracted polio." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"The Daily had a chance to check out a pair of prototypes incorporating Kinect sensors over the last few days. The devices, which at first glance appear to be Asus netbooks running Windows 8, feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be. At the bottom of the display is a set of what appear to be LEDs. A source at Microsoft has confirmed that the devices are indeed official prototypes of laptops featuring a Kinect sensor. In terms of functionality, there are hundreds of different ways that motion control could be leveraged in a portable. Gaming has the most obvious applications, but a Kinect-enabled laptop could also toggle between programs with the wave of a hand, or media controls could be tweaked with the wag of a finger. What’s more, motion-controlled portables could offer a new way for disabled individuals to interact with their devices." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"Yes, AT&T customers, you read that correctly. Because AT&T can't get more spectrum, and because it pursued an ill-advised and destructive method for pursuing more spectrum, it has to raise your prices. Do you feel that on your face? That's AT&T spitting on it. By that point in that call, and I must point out that I was only about 10 minutes in, I felt like banging my head against the wall because it would have been less painful. Customers should not pay for your mistakes, AT&T, nor should they pay for ineffective politicians who care more about about disagreeing than they do about getting something done." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"According to app store analytics researcher Distimo, developers who put their iPhone and iPad apps on sale in Apple's App Store see a significant jump in revenue, as do Android developers using the Android Market." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, manufacturers shipped 10.5 million Android-based tablets in the fourth quarter of 2011, good for 39.1% of all tablets shipped in the quarter." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet