http://allthingsd.com/?p=324182
Chalk up a win for tech industry talent seekers.
In a bipartisan vote reached on Thursday evening, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that aims to radically overhaul much of current U.S. immigration policy, which could ultimately increase the number of highly skilled tech industry workers allowed visas to work inside of the United States.
The bill, which passed through the Committee by a vote of 13 to 5, is now headed to the floor for debate, where it is expected to be deliberated upon through the summer.
It is, in particular, the first small victory for FWD.us, the political action group formed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and supported by a veritable cadre of tech-industry luminaries such as LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and famed venture capitalist John Doerr.
To be sure, Zuckerberg’s group far from the only lobbyist group aiming for immigration policy reform in Washington. But in Silicon Valley as of late, it is perhaps the most prominent.
“With its 13-5 vote to support comprehensive immigration reform, the Senate Judiciary Committee has taken another crucial step forward to growing a knowledge economy,” Joe Green, FWD.us founder and president, said in a statement to AllThingsD. “This comprehensive bipartisan legislation contains the key principles we support, and its passage is another important step in the right direction.”
“It’s clear that the momentum continues to build in favor of commonsense immigration legislation – and FWD.us will continue to advocate for comprehensive, bipartisan reform that will attract innovators, build prosperous neighborhoods with strong families and good jobs, and ensure the U.S. continues to lead the world in the growth of the knowledge economy,” Green said.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
In a grand mission statement published on the editorial page of the Washington Post when FWD.us launched, Zuckerberg reasoned the need for his group was to create change in areas like education, long-term economic issues and, most of all, immigration issues.
“We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants,” Zuckerberg wrote in the Post article. “And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world.”
Since launching the group in April, FWD.us has spent its money lobbying aggressively for immigration reform in particular, backing lawmakers who have expressed support for changes in the current legislation.
Though not all of of the group’s supporters were comfortable with FWD.us’ lobbying tactics. After it came out earlier this month that FWD.us had bankrolled ads for immigration reform-friendly legislators who also supported controversial environmental policies like Arctic oil drilling and the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, FWD.us lost two high-profile supporters; Tesla CEO and green energy proponent Elon Musk withdrew support, along with Yammer founder David Sacks.
The immigration policy changes FWD.us is pushing for, in particular, would ultimately benefit many high-tech companies who want better access to recruiting foreign engineering talent, much of which is currently restricted by the number of H1-B Visas granted to foreign workers on an annual basis.
“This is about jobs. Period,” Michael Beckerman, President and CEO of the Internet Association, told AllThingsD in a statement. “A high skilled workforce helps Internet companies grow here at home and hire more Americans. For each worker an Internet company hires under an H1-B visa program, they are able to bring on as many as 12 American workers…This is a win for the knowledge economy and we look forward to this process moving forward.”
The legislation was held up in the Senate Judiciary Committee until Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Schumer, (D-VT and D-NY, respectively) agreed with dissenting members of the committee to hold off on adding an amendment to the bill which would have allowed certain provisions for gay couples.
Senator Leahy told The New York Times he withheld his amendment “with a heavy heart.”
The efforts of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT.) in particular were instrumental in including a last-minute amendment which would benefit the tech industry. His amendment, which The Times said was agreed upon late in the deliberations, would increase the minimum number of high-tech H1-B visas allowed annually.
The office of Senator Hatch did not immediately respond to a telephone request for comment.
“Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Leahy and a bipartisan group of eight Senators, the legislation that passed the Judiciary Committee with a strong bipartisan vote is largely consistent with the principles of commonsense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system,” President Barack Obama said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/windows-v
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324187
Q:
The only hesitation I have about switching to the Mac concerns Quicken. I have used that program on Windows for over 20 years. All the reviews on the Mac version are less than favorable.
If I install Windows on the Mac, would I still be able to run my current Quicken program?
A:
Yes. When you install Windows on a Mac, using Apple’s Boot Camp utility, the Mac is turned into a full-fledged Windows computer, whenever you choose. So Quicken—or any Windows program—should work fine.
If you install Windows in a virtual machine program, such as Parallels, you should also be able to run your Quicken software.
Q:
When I am using Google Chrome on my computer, there is no icon for printing on the page. What do I do?
A:
Click on the icon at the upper right that looks like a stack of short lines. It opens a menu of options that includes one labeled “Print… .” Click on that and you should be able to print.
Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/apple-tax-b
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324180
Apple Inc.’s real tax bill isn’t as big as the one it reports to its investors.
Among the findings of an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are figures that show Apple’s reported taxes substantially exceed the sum it actually pays the U.S. Treasury.
One factor: Apple uses a conservative approach to accounting for taxes on its overseas earnings. It has been setting aside billions of dollars a year in provisions against possible taxes on income that it earned abroad. But those taxes wouldn’t be due until Apple brought the funds home to the U.S., something Chief Executive Tim Cook said he has no intention of doing.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/the-kids-l
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324132
Flickr/Ei Katsumata
Most of those claims have been anecdotal. The most prevalent voice came from Josh Miller — co-founder of competing social startup Branch — whose argument hinged mostly around the behavioral habits of his teenage sister. Despite a lack of hard evidence, this somehow reinforced just how passe Facebook supposedly is.
Alas, as of Tuesday, we now have a study to bolster the claims. Teens are expressing “waning enthusiasm” for Facebook, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center. Teens, according to the study, are tired of all the “drama,” the stress of managing their online reputation on the network, and are “annoyed when their Facebook friends share inane details.”
Contrast that waning enthusiasm with an increase in teen Twitter signups over the past two years. Nearly a quarter of online teens use the microblogging service, according to the study. Fascinating, considering the “inane details” Facebook complaint; it wasn’t so long ago that many dismissed Twitter as “the service for letting people know what you had for breakfast.”
As the report states, teens took some time to warm up to Twitter, a service that was first colonized by adults. Today, however, “teens are now migrating to Twitter in growing numbers, often as a supplement to their Facebook use.”
It’s worth noting that while Twitter may be increasing in popularity with the kids, it’s not necessarily at the expense of Facebook in terms of user activity (at least, not yet).
Indeed, the teens queried in the study aren’t leaving Facebook. Rather, they feel burdened by it, a necessity of existing online in the 21st century. “While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives,” the report stated, “it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own.”
Perhaps that’s why Facebook Home — the fully Facebook-ed version of an Android phone — doesn’t seem to be taking off. Or maybe that’s why Poke — Facebook’s Snapchat clone aimed squarely at the teen audience– was dead in the water just weeks after launch. Perhaps, at least with teens, Facebook isn’t desirable as every part of our connected experience, but rather as relegated to one part of it: Our identity.
Which, admittedly, isn’t the end of the world for the social giant. Facebook wants to be an online directory of people, making it possible to look up profiles as you would thumb through a phone book of yesteryear. And with Facebook Connect, you can take that online identity across the Web to sign in to any number of commenting systems, applications and partner sites.
Still, losing mindshare and desirability from the young audience today isn’t good for the long term. Today’s kids will be tomorrow’s adults, folks with jobs and a willingness to buy the things they see in the Facebook ads served to them.
Teen or not, Facebook wants you to be delighted to visit its site, not obligated. Perhaps the company can spur that feeling in teens again someday — drama not included.
Image courtesy of Flickr/Ei Katsumata
You can have a lot of fun making music, but getting a good recording and arrangement of your song requires some work and knowledge. Last week we set up a home recording studio
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We love hackintoshes—the OS X-compatible computers you build yourself—but finding a compatible build requires some effort. Hackintosh master tonymacx86 offers up the latest working builds so you know the machine you'll build will work.
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Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!
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http://allthingsd.com/20130521/intuit-q3-e
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324147
Intuit Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 12 percent as the company attracted more online customers for its small business services.
For the current quarter, the company expects adjusted per-share earnings of three cents to seven cents on revenue of $702 million to $727 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting per-share earnings of 11 cents on $727 million in revenue.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/hands-off-t
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324090
Ah, the “hands-off” promise. When a highly publicized acquisition weds an insular startup to a giant media company, the giant media company’s vow to leave the insular startup untouched is inevitable.
The “hands-off” promise is both necessary to make and impossible to keep.
I remember hearing the promise from Jim Bankoff, who engineered AOL’s acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. in the fall of 2005, at a Weblogs retreat in New York. (Bankoff is currently CEO of Vox Media.) He meant it, and Weblogs was indeed given a long leash. Jason Calacanis, Brian Alvey and Judith Meskill operated the blog network as before the acquisition, with better technology infrastructure and a better hiring budget.
I was editorial director of Weblogs, and eventually took over business ownership of the unit after the founders left the company. For four post-honeymoon years in that position I had a close-up view of how multiple stakeholders in a large parent company systematically and necessarily break the well-intended “hands-off” promise. Even on a long leash, the startup plays a sometimes ferocious defensive game to maintain cultural and brand integrity.
David Karp will continue to own Tumblr within Yahoo, but he will not be the only owner. Marissa Mayer will be co-owner. Mayer was already — in the same hour as the obligatory “hands-off” covenant — outlining possible changes. Other departmental executives will surface in Tumblr stakeholder roles, especially sales, business development, legal and the editorial team of Yahoo’s main portal. Putting Tumblr into Yahoo is like throwing a boulder into a lake, and many executives will be accountable for maximizing the ripples. They are all co-owners.
Mayer specifically addressed the branding concern, promising that Yahoo would not slap its mark on Tumblr pages. That’s a no-brainer, although Yahoo has fallen into the trap of over-valuing its brand in past acquisitions, notably Flickr. But some degree of co-branding is inevitable, probably immediately, if Yahoo wants to capture comScore recognition of Tumblr’s traffic.
And it surely does. Major Internet properties, and their advertisers, are acutely aware of comScore positioning. At AOL, within minutes of comScore’s release of its monthly traffic report, I watched that thing rip through the company like a viral meme. In March of this year, Yahoo’s total U.S. traffic (that’s the filter most companies and their advertisers look at) put the company in the No. 2 spot, trailing Google by a mere one million unique visitors. That same month, Tumblr was credited with 29 million uniques. A certain post-acquisition bet is that Yahoo will do what it takes to vault over Google into the top slot.
And it takes co-branding. ComScore requires some mark of affiliation to acknowledge and report the traffic roll-up from an independently branded property to its parent entity. That’s why you see AOL’s logo in the footers of Engadget and TechCrunch, two sites where AOL’s mark hardly contributes brand charisma.
ComScore roll-up branding doesn’t really damage a professionally-produced editorial site. But there is greater sensitivity in a UGC (User Generated Content) destination where there is huge overlap of those who consume the content and those who produce it. The uproar among Tumblr bloggers over the acquisition is the first sign that the engine of Tumblr’s success does not want any affiliation with corporate overlords.
Speaking of UGC, it represents all sorts of trouble that will bring new influences to bear within Yahoo. Advertisers do not like appearing next to UGC. They don’t even like comments on pro sites, never mind the roiling swirl of unregulated blogs. Yahoo will create a monetization plan (Mayer is already leaking ideas and aspirations), and the company’s board and executive committee will synchronize Tumblr’s revenue potential with the drumbeat of quarterly reporting. Forecasts, operating budgets, timetables and deliverables will seep into the sales organization like wine into carpet. In meeting after meeting between sales and content, sanctity around Tumblr’s exemption from business as usual will be chipped away. To a category sales director, “hands-off” means not meeting a revenue deliverable, and getting a reduced annual bonus.
Advertising on Tumblr blogs is easy to predict, although who knows when. Run-of-service campaigns are clearly impossible for brand advertisers, and would be even without the heavy load of Tumblr porn blogs. The ability to produce specially-carved campaigns will have to be built into the publishing system, if it isn’t already. That slippery slope leads to possible special arrangements with highly-trafficked blogs, and a possibility of editorial management to some degree.
Enter the lawyer stakeholders. Yahoo’s legal stance for Tumblr will be based on “safe harbor,” a protection in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that applies to UGC platforms whose owners do not exercise control of the content. Safe harbor is punctured like a balloon with the first bit of content oversight. If that happens, every legal complaint brought over publication of copyrighted media becomes Yahoo’s liability for damages, even if the infringing media is removed. (With safe harbor protection, Yahoo only needs to remove the source of a legal complaint.)
Online advertising is a buyer’s market in which advertisers often dictate terms and conditions. Tumblr will be caught in the tectonic grinding of conflicting interests. Tumblr’s founding principles demand freedom. Yahoo’s business requires revenue from the hordes of Tumblr users. The legal wing values safety above everything. The next quarterly always looms, and the questioning for years will be about Tumblr’s income, just as with AOL’s Patch and other daunting monetization projects.
Let’s not forget about synergy, the great M&A buzzword that informs all discussions leading up to the big purchase. Any company with many moving parts must consider how a major acquisition is going to play nicely with its other brands, technologies and cultures. An acquisition that brings a substantial audience with it is eventually going to be asked (which is to say, required) to share that traffic. If synergy is a dominant pre-acquisition buzzword in large content companies, recirculation is the post-acquisition mandate.
From this essential business goal comes a creeping incremental destruction of purity. The first sign might be a modest, inconspicuous footer on Tumblr blogs with softly-hued links to other Yahoo properties. Giving away that inch could result, a year later, in dreaded “related links” modules in the sidebar. From there it is a bold and victorious leap to universal headers with full co-branding and drop-down promos for Yahoo’s Mail and News enterprises.
I’m being cynical, and these are not explicit predictions. The honeymoon period is characterized by respect and caution. Weblogs brought completely new DNA into the AOL organism. Tumblr is likewise fresh air — loaded with a young demographic — for Yahoo. But Yahoo also has experience with social content (Delicious and Flickr), and Mayer is certainly determined to chart a better roadmap for Tumblr on her watch.
But the pressure will be on, sooner or later. Many jobs are a little more at risk when a company has spent over a billion dollars, and Tumblr will start showing the smudges of many fingerprints. It might all work out well. Nearly all of AOL’s most successful content destinations were acquired. (Others, like Bebo, were catastrophic, and the high burn rate to maintain Patch is controversial.) Tumblr could be Yahoo’s most successful bet, despite the many hands that will inevitably be laid upon it.
Brad Hill is the former VP of Audience Development at AOL, and former General Manager of Weblogs, Inc.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/espn-cutt
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324122
ESPN was in the process of laying off a few hundred workers on Tuesday, a sign that the hugely profitable sports cable-TV powerhouse is responding to the rising fees it pays to air games as well as other changes in the media industry.
ESPN said some of the job cuts are coming through attrition, or unfilled open positions, and didn’t disclose the precise number or types of workers who are being let go. ESPN, which operates several cable channels in addition to its flagship, has about 7,000 employees.
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324098
Shashi Seth, former top product exec at Yahoo, has joined the Tribune Company as president of Tribune Digital Ventures, according to sources.
He will be reporting to CEO Peter Liguori and based in Silicon Valley, apparently to set up a brand new digital arm of the Chicago-based media company.
Sources said TDV would seek to invest in, buy and partner with innovative startups, not unlike the Comcast Ventures unit of the cable giant, which is run by Amy Banse.
Seth ran a wide variety of product groups for Yahoo — the last as SVP of its Connections division — and left in January, some months after new CEO Marissa Mayer took over.
Seth had been in charge of a swath of key products at Yahoo including Yahoo Mail, the Flickr photo-sharing service and many others.
Previous to Yahoo, Seth also worked at Google and AOL.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/xbox-one-d
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324049
After the glitzy unveiling of the Xbox One this morning in Redmond, Microsoft dove into the technical details that it says make the new console a worthy successor to the Xbox 360.
The short version of the pitch: The One is not an iteration; it’s a complete media overhaul.
“When you look at people who are watching media today … it’s a very dynamic world,” development director Boyd Multerer said during a panel discussion by Xbox team members. “We realized we had a real problem.”
Panelists described the console as starting from a “blank slate,” since the rise of both laptops and mobile devices as people’s preferred computing hardware happened after the Xbox 360 launched in 2005. Multerer said the company chose to start over rather than bank on the more advanced hardware in the Xbox One to carry it forward.
The biggest software-side change, as noted earlier, is the ability to use your voice to launch apps in tandem with one another (for example, to make a Skype call while you’re watching a movie). In other words, the Xbox One is competing with the “second screen” of phones or tablets by trying to give viewers the ability to multitask on their TV screens.
Basically, the One’s operating system is split into two sections: One resource-heavy partition for games, aimed at giving developers a predictable amount of power, and another partition running constantly in the background that can juggle multiple side apps for a “long period of time,” Multerer said.
Fellow panelist and Microsoft CVP Todd Holmdahl described the connected motion sensor, Kinect, as “completely redesigned from the ground up.” He said it has a 60 percent better field of view and the ability to detect much smaller objects, like fingers, which should make motion controls more accurate.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/apple-say
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324065
Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com
That was the gist of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Tuesday: Apple is a good corporate citizen that pays all taxes due.
“We pay all the taxes we owe. Every single dollar,” Cook said during a Tuesday morning hearing. “We not only comply with the laws but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.”
No gimmicks, just standard U.S. tax code which, according to the Senate panel’s investigation, allowed Apple to pay little or no corporate taxes on at least $74 billion in profits over the past four years.
And to be clear, that’s not illegal. Indeed, the Senate investigation into Apple’s practices found no evidence that the company did anything but comply with tax law. This, despite the fact that investigators also found that three of Apple’s subsidiaries in Ireland claim to have no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country, and one of them that reported $30 billion in income over the past four years and didn’t file an income tax return for any of it.
Extraordinary, right? But those Irish subsidiaries? They’re authorized by U.S. law. They comply with all U.S. tax regulations. And they’re audited by the IRS. Which says far more about our flawed corporate tax system than Apple’s alleged abuse of it. Given the opportunity to shelter overseas profits from U.S. taxes, what company wouldn’t take it?
As Martin Sullivan, chief economist at nonprofit Tax Analysts, told the Washington Post, “[Apple] would be stupid not to do it. It’s the loopholes in the U.S. tax laws that makes this all possible. All their competitors are doing it.”
If that’s the case, maybe the Senate’s time is better spent overhauling the U.S. tax policy that has allowed Apple and other companies to legally minimize their tax liability in the first place. If what Apple was called before the Senate for doing isn’t illegal, isn’t the big policy question today simply whether it should be allowed to do it in the future?
Back in March, Best Buy and Target upped their game and decided to start matching the prices from online retailers such as Amazon. That's a pretty sweet deal overall, you should know about the caveats before you rush to your local store in hopes of a deal.
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The best Android phones represent a powerhouse combination of features, specs, and all-around user experience. Last week we asked you to tell us which ones you thought were the best
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Next to paying for a roof over your head and keeping the lights on, a cell phone bill (and device that comes with it) is probably at the top of your list as a “necessary” monthly expense. Whether you just have a cell phone plan for yourself or you’re paying for the entire family, you’re probably one of the 82% of Americans paying for the privilege to talk, text, and surf the web wherever you want, whenever you want.
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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/fu
Shooting for a simple and elegant look, chrisbanks2 created this great-looking home screen that turns your apps into items on a shelf and widgets into posters on a wall.
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Last year, we had invites
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If you're the one that friends and family call when there's a computer problem, you know the level of frustration that can bring. If you're the one that gets to configure the computer for them in the first place, you can at least attempt to minimize future problems. But it's not always a clear path. Have any advice for a fellow reader?
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Your skin shouldn't look like a package of pork cracklins after spending the day outdoors; that's why we invented sunscreen. However, there's a right way and a wrong way to slather on your protection—screw it up and you could get burned.
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In this week's MacGyver Challenge, we asked you to hack something using paper clips
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Windows: Libraries are a great feature of Windows 7 and up that allow you to pool several folders in one place. Librarian improves on the concept by allowing you to manage those collections more easily.
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I'm an embarrassingly slow driver, but I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to take part in a two-day race driving class at the Performance Driving Center at Sonoma Raceway and, while it didn't turn me into Mario Andretti, I'd like to pass on some of what I learned to any other rank but hopeful amateurs.
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http://allthingsd.com/?p=324007
Because we know how much Yahoo’s top execs value our input, the crack AllThingsD team spent at least seven or eight minutes yesterday coming up with some new names for the marriage of Yahoo and Tumblr.
As you must know by now, the staid Silicon Valley Internet giant scooped up the sassy New York blogging site for $1.1 billion this week, with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer continuing in her busy quest to inject some don’t-look-at-the-growth-numbers, jazz-hands excitement into the moribund company’s DNA.
Which is where ATD steps in by suggesting some new monikers for the latest effort — kind of like giving the deal a little Brangelina nicknaming glamor.
And, by the way, if this purchase ends badly — as many other Yahoo acquisitions have, such as that of photo-sharing site Flickr — perhaps the best name might be: Fumblr. (Thanks, Arnie Gullov-Singh!)
Until then, take the poll below and enjoy:
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323916
What’s interesting and potentially quite damaging about a New York City ruling this week against an Airbnb host is that it shows that the law may disapprove of one of the most innocuous kinds of peer-to-peer home-sharing: Renting out your bedroom to make a little extra money when you’re traveling.
While some kinds of Airbnb stays are much more controversial — for instance, someone who rents an apartment but doesn’t live there and posts the entire thing on Airbnb for rentals, without the landlord’s knowledge or approval – the host in question, Nigel Warren, was pretty much exemplary by Airbnb’s standards.
According to Warren’s testimony, he rented out his bedroom while he was out of town, he had only hosted on Airbnb three times, and his roommate continued to occupy the apartment while the guests visited (though the judge said he would have been happier if the roommate and the guests interacted, and if the guests visited the roommate’s bedroom as well, which seems like an odd quibble).
The ruling applies to the part of Airbnb’s business that the company saw as entirely unimpeachable. And even if the company can get it reversed, it will surely have a chilling effect on potential hosts who don’t want to be taken to court and fined.
As part of a larger statement indicating that it will likely try to help an appeal, Airbnb said, “[T]his decision makes it even more critical that New York law be clarified to make sure regular New Yorkers can occasionally rent out their own homes … 87 percent of Airbnb hosts in New York list just a home they live in — they are average New Yorkers trying to make ends meet, not illegal hotels.”
However, Airbnb is not a party in the case, and it was not assisting with or paying for Warren’s legal defense, so it’s unclear what the company’s standing is. The company is arguing that a 2010 New York law that limits illegal hotels should not apply to “regular people.”
Warren (well, actually his landlord, but Warren took responsibility) has been ordered to pay $2,400 in fines, and the case and context are well described in this CNET article. It appears that the main reason Warren was singled out was because after a complaint was filed, an inspector ran into his guests in the hallway.
Warren told CNET, “I like what Airbnb does, and I don’t want this ruling to stand in the way of what I think is, overall, a great startup.”
Meanwhile, Airbnb does not expect to change its practices as a result of the ruling, as its hosts are responsible for complying with local laws. In the past month, the company added an additional pop-up message during its host sign-up process that helps educate them about what exactly those laws are.
The pop-up memo doesn’t give any sort of explicit region-by-region legal advice, but it says in part:
“Some cities have laws that restrict your ability to host paying guests for short periods. … Local governments vary greatly in how they enforce these laws. Penalties may include fines or other enforcement. These rules can be confusing.”
Here’s the NYC ruling:
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/best-buy-p
http://allthingsd.com/?p=324029
Best Buy Co. ramped up cost-cutting during its fiscal first quarter as its retail revenue continued to slide. Online sales improved, however.
The Richfield, Minn., company reported another quarterly loss driven by weaker sales in its European business, which it recently shed. The company last month sold the rest of its stake in Best Buy Europe back to Carphone Warehouse Group PLC for about $775 million to help shore up its profitability.
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323987
Online payment processor PayPal said Tuesday that it is expanding a test partnership with Jamba Juice to let PayPal app users order and pay from their phones ahead of pick-up. Of course, plenty of retailers, from Chipotle to Five Guys, allow customers to order and pay ahead of time from their own apps using traditional payment methods. PayPal also said that RadioShack will be the latest retailer to accept PayPal as a payment method in stores.
Correction: The initial version of this item incorrectly said the program would be rolled out nationwide. It will be expanded to a limited number of outlets over the year.
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323973
While it isn’t going into detail about its plans for a new devices unit, Intel has tapped a leader whose expertise goes well beyond chips.
Mike Bell, who has been co-leading Intel’s mobile chip business, has experience building mobile devices and platforms from his days at Palm and, before that, Apple. (Bell was a speaker at our recent D: Dive Into Mobile conference.)
The new group will look at emerging technologies and product trends, including ultra-mobile products, Intel said. The move is part of a broader series of organizational changes being made by the company’s new CEO, Brian Krzanich.
“The group will be tasked with turning cool technology and business model innovations into products that shape and lead markets,” the chipmaker said in a statement to AllThingsD.
Word of the unit’s creation was reported earlier Tuesday by Reuters.
As for the mobile chip unit, it will be run by Hermann Eul, who had been co-leading it with Bell. Eul joined Intel as part of the chipmaker’s Infineon acquisition.
Intel has struggled to crack the market for the main processor inside modern smartphones, with Qualcomm, Nvidia, MediaTek, Broadcom and other ARM-based processors dominating.
While Intel has focused much of its efforts so far around Android, it has also been a big backer of several mobile Linux projects over the years.
Here’s the video of Bell’s interview at D: Dive Into Mobile:
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323913
We’ve touched on this before, but it’s worth repeating: Your phones and tablets are amazing multimedia devices. But just because they’re mobile doesn’t mean you’re using them on the go.
Here’s the latest reminder, via the broadband usage report Sandvine put out earlier this month. The Internet services company said that mobile devices now account for 20 percent of traffic on home broadband networks. That’s up from 9 percent a year ago.
If you own an iPhone or an Android tablet or whatever, you know exactly why this is: You spend a lot of time with these things on the couch or at the kitchen table or wherever. (Remember how Steve Jobs demoed the iPad, after all — on that comfy leather chair.)
And a lot of that time you are watching or listening to something — Sandvine says that 25 percent of all audio and video data sent to mobile devices now happens at home.
Here’s Sandvine’s breakdown of entertainment traffic to mobile devices at home. Missing from the chart are two interesting Apple factoids: Sandvine says that the iPad accounts for more home traffic than any other device, at more than 10 percent; and it says that if you added up all of Apple’s devices (iPads, iPhones, Macs, etc.), the company ends up with more than 45 percent of home broadband usage.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/and-micro
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323923
Microsoft’s new gaming and media console will be called Xbox One and will launch “later this year,” the company announced at an event on its campus in Redmond, Wash., this morning.
The event, Xbox: A New Generation Revealed, began with a video message from Microsoft employees, celebrities and Xbox players. “For the first time, you and your TV are going to have a relationship,” one of the employees said in the video.
“Today, we put you at the center of a new generation in the living room,” interactive entertainment president Don Mattrick said in a welcome address.
“The living room has changed radically over the last eight years,” Mattrick said. “To continue to lead, we must provide compelling answers to new questions.”
The device is a sleek black box that sits horizontally on the table, with a Kinect mounted on top; the accompanying game controller is also black. However, marketing CVP Yusuf Mehdi demoed voice and hand-gesture controls, directed at the Kinect attached to the Xbox, that are intended to replace remotes.
Users will turn the console on with their voices by saying “Xbox on.” When they say things like “Xbox, movies,” “Xbox, game” or “Xbox, TV,” the console launches the appropriate media service.
The short version: “Games, music, movies, web, and now, Skype and live TV.” As predicted, this is an uber-device for the living room, not a games-focused console.
Mehdi also demoed the ability to open multiple services simultaneously. While watching the first Star Trek movie, he received a Skype call from a coworker and opened Internet Explorer to look for tickets to the new sequel.
The motion-sensing Kinect will be bundled with the Xbox One, and now understands human motion better — including what it looks like when humans balance — and has the ability to use heartbeat data.
More than 300,000 servers will power the new Xbox Live experience on Xbox One. A built-in DVR lets players record and rediscover videos of their gameplay. And a few specs: 8 gigabytes system memory, 500 GB hard drive, a Blu-Ray drive, HDMI in/out and USB 3.0.
Nearly half an hour into the talk, games finally took center stage, by way of EA Sports’ Andrew Wilson, who announced “revolutionary” versions of the company’s pro sports games, powered by a new engine called “EA Sports Ignite.” Then, Microsoft Studios’ Phil Spencer said his studio will be releasing 15 exclusive games for Xbox One in its first quarter, eight of which are new franchises.
Xbox Entertainment Studios’ Nancy Tellem then took the stage to talk about how TV on Xbox will be more immersive and social. “Xbox is about to become the next watercooler,” she said. A live-action Halo TV series, produced by Steven Spielberg, will be coming to Xbox.
A partnership between Xbox and the NFL will integrate live game broadcasts with fantasy football. That multi-service feature Mehdi demoed will show fantasy scores auto-updating as the game on the field evolves.
The “one more thing” (if such a phrase is not verboten at a Microsoft event) is that the downloadable content for Call of Duty: Ghosts will come to Xbox One first.
Microsoft said more information about the Xbox One would be released at the industry conference E3 next month.
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323917
The acting head of the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday that she wants to work to protect rural carriers and consumers while making sure that efforts to increase available spectrum remain on track.
Mignon Clyburn said healthy competition is key to continued innovation.
“We have taken a light regulatory approach, but have touched when necessary,” Mignon said, speaking at the opening of the CTIA 2013 show in Las Vegas.
The most notable of those touches, of course, was the agency’s opposition to AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile USA. The agency has since approved other combinations, including Verizon’s partnership with the cable companies, and T-Mobile USA’s acquisition of MetroPCS.
Clyburn had some specific words of praise for smaller, regional carriers that she said provide excellent customer service and help connect rural America.
Speaking in her first week as acting chair, Clyburn said that an incentive spectrum auction remains on track, with rules to be issued this year and the bidding itself to take place next year.
“The agency is doing a lot of creative things to make more spectrum available,” said Clyburn, who will hold the post until confirmation of her successor, Tom Wheeler.
Dr. Anita Borg revolutionized the way we think about technology and worked to dismantle the barriers that keep women and minorities from entering the computing and technology fields. In her lifetime, Anita founded the Institute for Women and Technology (now The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology), began an online community called Systers for technical women, and co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. We’re proud to honor her memory through the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, established in 2004.Today we’d like to recognize and congratulate the 30 Google Anita Borg Memorial scholars and the 30 Google Anita Borg Memorial finalists for 2013. The scholars, who attend universities in the United States and Canada, will join the annual Google Scholars’ Retreat this summer in New York City, where they will have the opportunity to attend tech talks on Google products, network with other scholars and Googlers, participate in developmental activities and sessions, and attend social activities. This year, the scholars will also have the opportunity to participate in a scholars’ edition of 24HoursOfGood, a hackathon in partnership with local non-profit organizations who work on education and STEM initiatives to make progress against a technical problem that is critical to their organization’s success.
Find out more (PDF) about our winners, including the institutions they attend. Soon we’ll select the Anita Borg scholars from our programs around the world. For more information on all our scholarships, visit the Google Scholarships site.
Posted by Azusa Liu, Student Development Programs Specialist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SeattleBu
http://seattlebubble.com/blog/?p=26525
It’s time for another installment of Real Actual Listing Photos. Once a month (or so) I round up some of the most bizarre listing photos from around the Seattle area and post them here, with brief excerpts from the real actual listing description, and probably a bit of snarky commentary.
As usual, you should check out Looney Listing for similar content throughout the month from across the USA.
The idea for this series stems from the ongoing forum thread Detrimental Listing Photos. If you’ve got a nomination for a listing photo that should appear here, drop me a line.
No particular theme this month. Just enjoy a collection of odd listing photos submitted by readers and found by yours truly.
Enough explanation. Let’s get to the photos! Click the photo to view the Real Actual Listing.
“Nice Home in a great location & neighborhood”</p>
Not that we’re going to show you any of that. All you get to see is this one blurry photo.
“Views of Mountain and Puget Sound possible if a second floor was added.”</p>
I can’t believe they didn’t mention this awesome basement “bedroom” in the description.
“Enjoy sunny summer days on the deck.”</p>
Enjoy dark winter days on the toilet.
“This would make a large owner occupant home with a business or a great investment.”</p>
His and hers toilets? That’s an… interesting “feature.”
“Expansive and bright home”</p>
Bonus “feature”: Kitchen doubles as the laundry room, apparently! Found by Peter.
“Great home for a first time home buyer or investment property. .!”</p>
I just love it when the sellers can’t even be bothered to undertake the bare minimum amount of cleaning. Really? You couldn’t even clear the dining table?
Let me know if you have an idea for a future “Real Actual Listing Photos” theme, and be sure to check out Looney Listing for listing photo amusement throughout the month.
The post Real Actual Listing Photos: Interesting “Features” Edition appeared first on Seattle Bubble.
Want to work from home but face a tough boss? Make it harder for him or her to say no to your work-from-home request with a letter of recommendation to use during your negotiation.
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The quality and comfort of your office chair affects your health and productivity. With so many options, though, picking the right one for you isn't easy. This graphic from Office Chairs Unlimited can help.
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The web becomes more and more capable each day, finding ways to replace what you do on your desktop. In the very near future you'll talk to your web apps, enjoy complex animation without the drain of Flash, and maybe even plug in your guitar. These features and more already exist, and they're coming to the broad internet this year.
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It's been eight years and nine days since Microsoft showed the world the Xbox 360 on May 12th, 2005. Today, we see what's next. The Xbox One.
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Chrome 27 is out of beta and available for download now. The biggest benefit: It'll load pages 5% faster. Learn more here. [via The Next Web]
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Saving enough for a comfortable retirement is one of the most important—and challenging—financial tasks we all have to do. A recent study suggests that you can dramatically improve your odds of success if you just use an online calculator to find out how much you need to be saving.
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Android (4.0+): EasilyDo, the proactive personal assistant, launched for iOS a few months ago
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There are some Chromebooks with awesome hardware out there, like the beautiful Chromebook Pixel
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http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/arch
On an internal mailing list about home maintenance and ownership, somebody asked:
I have a handful of items that I need to get rid of and probably should not toss into the regular garbage. Any thoughts?
- Older TV — 32″
- Propane tanks (full)
- Lighter fluid
- Carpet glue adhesive
- Lawn fertilizer
The best reply was an unhelpful one.
You've pretty much got all the components you need to build a bomb. Why dispose of them?
http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2013/0
The winners are:
- Linda Akerman, from Korsholm, Finland
- Stig Edvartsen, from Lillehammer, Norway
Many thanks to all the participants!
http://martinfowler.com/articles/dipInTh
Brett’s article on the Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) and how it works in practice has been a popular read on this site (over 24,000 views since it was published at the beginning of the month). Brett has now expanded the article with two more examples from his delivery experience: questioning requirements and handling time.
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/0050
From a letter (6 III 1909) of Innokenty Annensky (classicist, poet, and much-loved teacher) to Max Voloshin:
But do many understand what the word is among us? [...] You know, recently, even among us, oh! how many there are who fuss over the word and are even prepared to speak about its cult. But they do not understand that the most frightening and powerful word — the most enigmatic — is perhaps just the everyday word.(Russian below the cut, from here.) On December 13, 1909, Annensky died from a heart attack at the Tsarskoe Selo railway station on his way home from work; Natalia Murray writes (The Unsung Hero of the Russian Avant-Garde: The Life and Times of Nikolay Punin, p. 14): "It was almost certainly triggered by discovering the non-inclusion of his poems in the first issue of one of the most fashionable journals of the time, Apollon." You can care too much about the word.
http://allthingsd.com/20130521/about-me-d
http://allthingsd.com/?p=323723
About.me, the Web identity service, announced a paid premium version of its product on Tuesday. For $4 a month, users can display their About.me page on a personal Web domain, remove the About.me branding from their page, access Google Analytics for their page, and jump to the front of the line on customer support issues.
