Archive for January 15th, 2008
Filed under: Computers, MySpace
 MySpace takes a lot of heat for not doing enough to protect the younger members of its site. The site has repeatedly worked with governments to ban sexual offenders, but those efforts have always been reactive to external pressure and bad PR. Now the site is being a little more proactive, announcing a number of measures to help ensure the safety of under-age members.
This includes a number of enhancements to the site, including the ability for parents to list the e-mail addresses of their children and prevent them from creating profiles, automatically marking under-age profiles as “private,” and responding within 72-hours to any reports of inappropriate content on the site. The company hopes these measures will help to keep kids safe and, of course, keep angry parents off of their backs. But, we can’t help but think these measures will be easy to subvert or abuse.
It would be a funny joke to list all your friends’ e-mail addresses as your children and prevent them from using them to sign up on the site (assuming you have any friends who aren’t already on there), but the bigger problem is that there’s no way to prevent your kids from going to Hotmail or Gmail and getting another disposable e-mail account to sign up with. And there’s still nothing preventing them from lying about their age to make a public profile.
Ultimately these changes are positive steps that should help to protect some of the untold thousands of underage MySpace users, but we believe that those who really want to will keep on finding ways around them.
From CNN
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Posted by: in Celebrity news
Mischa Barton has hired top publicist Howard Bragman to represent her as she battles negative stories following her recent arrest for driving under the influence.
Bragman’s last high-profile client was former ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star Isaiah Washington, who hired the PR during his gay-slur controversy last year.
Barton, 21, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, possessing marijuana and driving without a license in Los Angeles at Christmas.
She was released on bail and now awaits sentencing.
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Filed under: Computers, eBay
The facility with which you can advertise what you have for sale, whether by eBay or Craigslist, also means you’re under scrutiny from the public at large and local authorities. Case in point: a woman in Ontario, Calif., who tried to sell the fixtures and other installed items from her historic home was found out via her Craigslist ads and is now barred from her home by city officials concerned for the integrity of the home.
The woman claims nothing of historic value was up for sale, but the city disagreed, and got a Superior Court judge to block her access to the home.
We’re withholding judgement, though. It seems as though the homeowner has fallen on hard times, as this story ties into the unfortunate larger one of mortgage payments skyrocketing after adjustable rates kicked up in the new year. Her claim? The fixtures and other items were only things she installed herself, since buying the home in 2003.
It’s a national craze, scouring the basement, garage and yard for eBay-able items. There’s even the almost mythic story of the guy who was able to trade up a red paper clip (eventually) to a house.
Next time you’re thinking of hocking your goods, do a little thinking first. Ask yourself the basic questions, including “is it legal?” Unless, of course, you want us to write about you. In that case, set up a blog and let us link to you. We’re always looking for a juicy story.
From San Bernardino County Sun.
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Filed under: Cell Phones, Green Tech
Yesterday, the New York Times Magazine ran a fairly comprehensive piece on the life cycle and environmental impact of mobile phones. The story detailed how many phones are reused, how many others are broken down and “mined” for useful metals such as silver and gold, and how still others - most others, in fact - end up in heaps of discarded electronics, left to leach often dangerous ingredients into the earth, water supply, kids’ blood streams, etc.
Some businesses and watchdog groups are doing their darnedest to offset this problem, or at least delay the inevitable discarding of the dead phone, but the report overall is a sobering one.
The main point raised: Despite our love affair and attachment to our mobile phones, we still use, discard and then buy new ones at an alarming rate, with little regard for the environmental impact.
Such eco-carelessness isn’t limited to mobile phones and e-waste is not a new issue to the consumer electronics industry. But while mobile phones are small compared to old CRT TVs and computer monitors, they are in use everywhere. In some African nations, where landlines are difficult to build and maintain, mobile phones are the only way for someone to have reliable communications.
As the reporter notes, “There is no heaven for cellphones.”
From The New York Times.
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Filed under: Audio/Video, TV
Kids do the darnedest things sometimes. Take the 14-year-old from Lodz, Poland, who hacked a television remote control to manipulate his city’s tram system, thereby derailing four trams, and injuring 12 people. Little rapscallion, what can you do?
Apparently charge him with endangering public safety and drag him before a juvenile court. Or at least that’s what the court in Lodz did in the case of its teenage resident, who managed figure out how to interfere with the infrared pulses that control the tram system’s switches.
In effect, the boy modified a television remote and turned the city’s public transportation system in to his own personal Lionel set — is that brilliant, or just plain wrong?
From Boing Boing
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Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Bad news, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Citigroup Inc. (C), Tiffany and Co (TIF), Economic data, DJIA
 Sometimes, the market works in mysterious ways. This isn’t one of those days.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 234 points to 12,543.95 after Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) posted a record $10 billion loss, retail sales were weaker than expected, and oil prices declined, dragging down energy stocks. The Nasdaq Composite Index, fell 58.70 to 2,419.60 and the S&P 500 index dropped 32.10 to 1,384.15.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, veteran market pundit Laszlo Birinyi said, “There seems to be no end of bad news. Trying to bottom-fish may work when you’re out there angling, but I’m not sure it works with financial markets.”
Good point. Investors in volatile markets often forget that stocks, such as Citigroup, are cheap for a good reason. Trying to pick a bottom in this market is going to be difficult because there hasn’t been anything quite like the subprime mortgage meltdown.
The crisis is spreading like a rash to other parts of the economy. People who can’t pay their mortgages, can’t pay their credit card bills and car payments. Even rich people aren’t immune. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF), a purveyor of really expensive stuff, today cut its full-year profit outlook and reported a 2% decline in same-store sales during the holidays. Overall, retail sales had their weakest year since 2002.
Last year’s heroes are this year’s goats. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which could do no wrong last year, has plummeted almost 16% in the early innings of 2008. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is down 7.7% and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is off 4%. I’ll grant you that there was some profit taking by tech investors and there are worries about consumer spending, but have the wheels fallen off the bus already?
What’s it going to take to get this economy moving again? That’s the question on the minds of President Bush and the people who are vying to replace him. Bush wants to reduce income tax rates and eliminate taxes on dividends for individual investors. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is proposing a $75 billion stimulus package aimed at struggling homeowners and families, including an immediate $250 tax cut and a temporary $250 Social Security bonus. Hillary Clinton’s $70 billion plan includes emergency housing and heating assistance.
I wish I knew who had the right answer.
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Filed under: Forecasts, Good news, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), International Business Machines (IBM), Oracle Corp (ORCL)
With the news that IBM (NYSE: IBM) easily exceeded Wall Street estimates for the fourth quarter 2007, this raises the question of strength and visibility for the general technology space in 2008. IBM beat earnings estimates by 20 cents, reporting $2.80 earnings per share versus consensus of $2.60 per share. The weakness of the U.S. dollar contributed an extra $500 million of revenues when overseas revenues were translated back into U.S. currency. That is a stunning amount of “extra” revenues — it’s all very high margin.
The U.S. technology sector has enjoyed robust revenue and earnings growth through all of 2007. New product releases from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will help sustain its revenue and earnings profile for the next couple of years, as will Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). International revenues are as important and vital as ever for the technology sector to continue its thriving ways.
IBM indicated that India alone grew by 50% in 2007 from 2006. In 2006, India contributed $700 million in revenues while that number exceeded $1 billion in 2007. Cisco has stated that India and other emerging markets were growing north of 40% per year. No doubt, 2008 should yield the same massive year-over-year growth, as the emerging markets are all about expanding bandwidth and connecting with the rest of the world.
The technology sector will continue to provide exceptional returns for 2008. The new mega-leaders, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have yet to report their fourth-quarter numbers, but they should be exceptional and sustainable for 2008. Apple reported its September 30, 2007, quarterly revenues were comprised of over 40% from foreign sales. This number is not going to go down!!
The group is stable and strong. When Oracle reported its November 30, 2007, quarterly results, the same song was heard — international leading the way and sustainable.
If this market continues to act in a schizophrenic way — and it will as we hear all the major financials report their disastrous results in the next couple of weeks — you may be able to opportunistically buy some quality technology names at a discount price….
Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research and the author of Baby Boomer Investing…Where do we go from here?
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Filed under: Gaming
 We know, it’s far too easy to link gesture-based anything to the Wii these days, but the Reactrix WAVEscape actually does favor the console’s approach on most every level. Officially announced at CES, the system was devised by TYZX and Reactrix and is destined to lure susceptible civilians that pass by commercial displays. Essentially, the company hopes to create an “engaging advertising experience” (saywha?) by enabling consumers to interact with the ads by simply moving their arms / hands and having those motions recognized by an integrated “3D camera.” Regrettably, it seems as if this technology isn’t headed to the living room anytime soon, but that’s what your Wii is for, right?
[Via PCWorld, image courtesy of oryankim]
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