Bloomberg News reports that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has threatened to start a proxy war for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and to drop its offer price if it does not get a response from its board. CNNMoney reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has set a three-week deadline for a response from Yahoo! Microsoft is making noises about cutting its $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo!, arguing that the U.S. economic slowdown has hurt Yahoo!’s business.
Microsoft offered Yahoo! $31 a share on January 31st — 62% above its price the day before — and Yahoo! rejected the offer on February 11. Meanwhile, Yahoo! and Microsoft have lost share in the U.S. search market while Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has gained share. Specifically, Yahoo!’s share fell from 22.2% in January to 21.6% in February while Microsoft ’s dropped from 9.8% to 9.6%. Google’s rose to 59.2% from 58.5% in January.
Yahoo! appears to be deluding itself that a stand-alone strategy will boost its stock price. On March 18, Yahoo! argued that its second place position in Web search, its operations in Asia, and the potential cost savings of the deal show it’s worth more than Microsoft’s offer. Yahoo said then that sales will climb at least 19% in each of the next two years and that growth would be higher than analysts anticipated.
One Two Three Movie Review Did you ever see the comedy serial Office Office, yeah the same comedy serial who consecutively won the award for best comedy sitcom year after year. What happens when the person behind Office Office comes out with his first directorial debut movie. You expect a blast, but then Ashwani Dhir’s One Two Three not […]
Absolut Absolut Quartet ad, shot by Laurent Seroussi and designed by TBWA.
Jeff did it again. We followed his adventures right after he won the competition. Now he completed the proposal and currently exhibits his spectacular robotic work at the service of Visionary alcoholism. Music and vodka works in pair and this time beautiful mechanics come into play. Jeff Liebermann and Dan Paluska worked together on Absolut Quartet.
Closeup of some of the 100 custom electronics boards fabricated, one for every note.
Absolut Quartet, a commission for the Absolut Visionaries project, is a music making machine like no other. The audience becomes part of the performance, while watching something that appears impossible. You can log in to ABSOLUTMACHINES.COM for a chance to interact with the machine. You will enter a 4-8 second theme, and the machine will generate, in real-time, a unique musical piece based on the input melody you have provided.
The marimba shooting mechanisms and closeup of the wine players. Photo by Sesse Lind.
You will see this melody played by three instruments. The main instrument is a ballistic marimba, which launches rubber balls roughly 2m into the air, precisely aimed to bounce off of 42 chromatic wooden keys. The second instrument is an array of 35 custom-tuned wine glasses, played by robotic fingers. Finally, an array of 9 ethnic percussion instruments rounds out the ensemble.
After hitting a one-year high of $747.24 in November, the stock hit a one-year low of $412.11 in March. GOOG opened this morning at $457.01. So far today the stock has hit a low of $456.20 and a high of $471.99. As of 12:45, GOOG is trading at $470.01, up $14.89 (3.2%). The chart for GOOG looks bearish but improving slightly, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.
Himesh from Sangeet to Sangeeta The nasal tone composer cum singer cum actor along with his newly acquired silky hair is also flaunting something else- his newfound friend Sangeeta Ghosh (only friendship-lets wait and watch). Himesh was snapped dining with Sangeeta at a suburban nightspot. Himesh has completely transformed himself for his role in Karrz. He has lost all that […]
You probably won’t win any nutrition awards for this meal (its painfully whitish-tan color reminds us that there aren’t many rich nutrients hidden in the dish), but no matter - it’s still a delicious dinner choice for meat eaters and veggies alike.
The recipe does call for anchovy filets, so simply omit those if you’re a vegetarian (unfortunately, though, anchovies are known to produce a certain je ne se quoi in foods that is hard to reproduce). But there’s nothing wrong with a simple pasta and cauliflower dish, too.
One of the keys to this recipe is the roasted cauliflower - you cook them until they’re just browned, which is sure to bring out their best flavor. And don’t forget the parmesan cheese at the end for an added salty kick.
We take hair seriously here. So I’m thinking about getting a haircut, and am looking for a good place to get it done. I know you don’t care but who’s driving this boat? That’s right. Mr. Stevenson. I’ll go up and ask him to slow down and in the mean time you can look at this. This […]
So I’m thinking about getting a haircut, and am looking for a good place to get it done.
I know you don’t care but who’s driving this boat? That’s right. Mr. Stevenson. I’ll go up and ask him to slow down and in the mean time you can look at this. This is where I won’t be going for my haircut.
I know that hairstylists take hair very seriously and heck, it’s their job to do so. They go to school, they work hard, they study. And it must be frustrating when a client argues with them over their work. But shooting someone?
Shooting someone in the back? Over hair? Hair?
WAIT! I THINK I LOVE IT NOW THAT I SEE IT MORE AND YOUR GUN. DON’T SHOOT.
A woman is getting her hair cut, dislikes it, argues with the hairstylist. The hairstylist goes and fetches a gun, fires a warning shot, then shoots the woman in the back as she quickly tries to exit!
“You don’t like my styling, huh?! WELL HOW DO YOU LIKE MY STYLE NOW?? Kind of dumb to think about your hair with HOLES IN YOUR BACK! MUAHAHAHA! HAAIIR.”
The woman, by the way, is being treated for “non-fatal” injuries sustained so that’s good. So. My advice to everyone is to go ahead and learn to cut your own hair. That way if you get into an argument with your stylist and shoot yourself…well…it’ll be a little less…completely terrifying.
Since, you know. You’d be crazy, but by yourself in your house. Not in public. Providing a service. Oh man I don’t want to get a bad haircut, and now I might get a bad haircut and a hole in my spine.
It’s apparently saving the full, official announcement until Monday, but Nokia just dropped word on its N-Gage blog that the final version of its new N-Gage gaming service / application is now live and ready for your taking. To take advantage of that right now, however, you’ll need an N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, or N95 8GB handset, although Nokia says that support for additional N-Gage compatible devices is “coming soon,” including the N73, N93, and N93i. If that doesn’t preclude you, you can download the application straight to your device from Nokia’s mobile site (n-gage.mobi/d), or you can hit up the link below to download it the old fashioned way.
Recycle your equipment! The power of digital technology fundamentally transforms our lives. Materiality is being technically extended. The digital offers another variety of artifacts that impact remembrance. While expanding our experience, some things also get lost along the path to de-materialization.
For the contextual area of my general exams I research on the attachments to physical, digital and virtual objects. I explore the psychological trade-off between what we call virtual and tangible “attachments”: I focus on people’s attachments to things, and through things, their relations to people (virtual and digital).
I investigate the journey of the physical and digital object being appropriated, collected, hacked, transformed, possessed and shared on virtual environments and communities. I review the hacker’ skills in appropriating objects by transforming it: the Nintendo Wii becomes an umbrella with a map to provide real time directions while on the walk. The Roomba becomes a robotic dog, Guitar Heroe becomes Guitaraoke Revolution a learning system!
With the industrial revolution we lost our ability to intervene on the design of our objects. Even if the old paradigm of mass production has been thrown away, dixit Pine, I believe that Mass Customization only allows few parameters in a product to be customized. There is no appropriation of the object as in the artisan-customer relationship. That is what came to mind while I was repairing my old mac, I had so much fun opening the machine, looking for tutorial and guides, ordering missing parts just to give a life to this machine.
A bit of nostalgia maybe, but recycling and reusing laptop parts, computer parts, and any objects in general would not only be good for the environment but also recreate this sense of ownership through creative use and appropriation. That is why I am so fascinated by hackers, custom car designers and also collectors. Everything could be recycled, reused, repaired, reinvented and investigated!
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