Will we all be using Chrome OS in 3 years

In computer-land, three years is forever, and in that period of time, I expect that Chrome OS will be all over the enterprise, consumer spaces, schools, and SMBs. In fact, I expect that it will be ubiquitous in the way that Linux and Java are: we don’t even know we’re using them on our phones, in our TVs, in our DVRs…everywhere. Here’s 5 reasons why.
- http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/5-reasons-everyone-will-be-using-chrome-os-in-3-years/3649?tag=main%3Bcarousel


nope.


if anything that the failure of linux to capture the desktop is people are lazy as and changing anything is unlikely.

Tablet penetration is NOT 29%

Reading through the Mary Meeker report this morning.
I’m sorry but slide 12 has to be wrong.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/95259089?access_key=key-mv1qbwlvykk5cacr6a7

I know we live in an echo chamber but walk down the street here in NY (I said street…not that hallway of your office!!!) and ask 10 ordinary people if they own a tablet or ereader and the number will be less than 3. This myth keeps getting reported but if NYC cant come up with 30% then I guarantee you Akron Ohio wont have the numbers to counter the shortage here in NYC.

Get out of the echo chamber people….its a big world out there.

Have you noticed less posts in your Facebook timeline?

Hey facebook......can you please explain to me how i can see ALL of the content in my timeline and not just those that pay your ransom fee.


If i cant get the content from you about what my firends are posting then i'll go elsewhere but hiding it liek it never happened and filtering it is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!

Lottery Math

Dont know why i did this but i noticed that Powerball is up to $94m for the jackpot and had to work out some of the lottery math.

So as you can see here are the odds on winning with fixed prizes for everything except for the jackpot which increases each week if no one wins.

So if you were to take $2000 and play 1,000 games at $2 each
- you would most likely win $138 based on all possible combinations for percentages under 1,000 games (however not guaranteed).

Interestingly the numbers get more interesting when you include the percentages for slim chance in the 4+1 and 5 balls in that the ROI doubles to $361 however most likely you wont win this kind of ROI at only 1,000 chances.

At the current jackpot the ROI on your $2000 spent is only $897 its not until the jackpot gets to $285m that you get an even return of $2,000 (though most likely you will lose money......)

To get to a $285m jackpot you would need to have no winner for 10 weeks and before that it's all gravy for the powerball folks with odds stacked way in their favor (though as the jackpot prize goes up people go crazy eg with the $450m jackpot a few months ago where it went up $80m in a single week) so its not a flat increase in the odds over 10 straight weeks.

Instagram

Seriously it has to be said, using Instagram is like shooting with a SLR and then going back to Polaroid...oooh look at me I'm a hipster....

WTF people?

Forget what the street says, buy Facebook NOW

I'm sure Facebook were planning to turn this feature on eventually anyway but because they have gotten off to such a rocky start listing on the NASDAQ the word has probably come down from upon high to start cranking up the revenues now.

Forget what the street says, buy Facebook NOW. I bet you they are going to want to hit it out of the park in this first Qtr with their "new" revenue streams.

I just noticed the following "subtle" analytics appear on the various LiveFanChat facebook pages I run this afternoon (we have about 20 of them for our various sites ), its currently not available on all of them (about 8 so far) and it takes about 30-60 mins for the first stats to appear after making a post but appear to update regularly after that as more people view the posts.

I'm sure they have a whole stack of these style "money making" plans set up and ready to roll and while we are all talking about how mobile ads might or might not make money in 5-10 years from now, for the next Qtr Facebook are going to be turning the screws on brands who use to shock the street into getting "used" to their sky high valuation.

Cheers,

Dean

just found this article with a better description/graphics - http://socialfresh.com/facebook-promoted-posts-go-live/

VOYAGER HITS NEW REGION AT SOLAR SYSTEM EDGE

Too cool. (lol pun not intended)
- http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new_region.html
Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out...

Happy Friday Music - "Cold Chisel - When The War Is Over"

Happy Friday everyone. Some new tracks in the Mood Music box.

Listening to the Chisel making me feel all nostalgic :) -make sure to turn this one up LOUD.

Aereo going to court.....duh duh duhm (cant wait to see the outcome)

Good article in FastCompany today about the upcoming court case for Aereo

http://www.fastcompany.com/1838490/a-tv-platform-so-disruptive-everyones-suing-it
We chat with Chet Kanojia of Aereo, the new TV-where-and-when-you-want-it service that has a few legal troubles. Could Aereo finally disrupt the loathed cable bundle--and TV altogether?



Will be interesting to see how this shakes out and if Barry Dillers/IAC investment in the "legal fees" for this startup was worth it.

If they win this will be the biggest ruling in the TV industry since the Cablevision remote DVR ruling.

As a matter of interest i looked up to see if  TVCatchup (UK) and http://www.mytvr.com.au/ (Aus) were still running and it looks like they are.

Anyone want to predict which "cable channel" will be the first one to break ranks and deliver a service directly the the Aereo headend for inclusion in the paid subscription?


Cheers,
Dean

PBS: The West and the Rest

Just watched - http://www.pbs.org/wnet/civilization-west-and-rest

Was one of the best 2 hours I’ve seen on tv forever. Interesting to note at the end that it was funded by Peter Thiel amongst others.

NY Times review of the tv show here

Lots of lessons for founders in studying the rise and fall of empires.

Just noticed he has a book covering this in more detail, just ordered a copy from Amazon


 
Cheers,
Dean

Google using QR codes for 2 factor authentication

http://qrmedia.us/google-uses-qr-codes-for-login-key/

Google’s newest QR Code is the key to secure logins on public computers!

Dumb, its just a sms initiation QR code they are displaying.
Google could have easily just have achieved it by sending sms to a users mobile phone and needing you to reply to login, at least then they wouldn't have the issue of someone faking your handset DID number when sending the inbound sms.
Eg with their method i can fake your handset number and google would be none the wiser that i'm authorising my pc to log into your gmail account.
If google used outbound sms even if i cloned your handset the handset user would still receive a copy of the sms alerting you to a probably hack.

Chinese online ecommerce market

WOW

http://mashable.com/2012/05/20/ecommerce-china/
"China has an estimated 193 million online shoppers, Alibaba-owned Taobao, is estimated to account for half of all packages shipped in China".


Can this be real?

Fight it out online in the court of public opinion " Fair and Square "

lol love this use of YouTube - the internet..... the great leveler :)

Who needs a tv platform like Ellen has when you have YouTube and a video camera.

Branding Firm Appeals to Ellen in JC Penney Dustup

JC Penney's fair-and-square mantra doesn't extend to its vendors, according to a disgruntled branding firm.

Hudson & Broad, a New York-based visual merchandising and branding firm, is suing the retailer for $40 million, alleging "breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets." But, not content to let the disagreement play out in court, Hudson & Broad is appealing to JC Penney's famous spokeswoman, Ellen DeGeneres.

In a video posted on YouTube, Hudson & Broad President James Maharg asks for Ms. DeGeneres' support. (The video boasted 132 views as of this afternoon.)




So what do you think? how long before JC Penny comes to a confidential agreement?

1500 aussies visit New York every day

Everyone seems to want a bite of the Big Apple
AUSTRALIANS are pouring into New York at a rate of almost 1500 a day and are the Big Apple's third-biggest overseas spenders, spurred on by the favourable exchange rate and new work opportunities.

Figures show 800,000 Australians travelled to the United States last year, 17 per cent more than the previous year and more than double the number in 2004, making it our third most popular overseas destination, behind New Zealand and Indonesia.


and yet they still cant fill the E3 visa quota each year ever....what does that say about living here versus visiting :)

Buffett zigs when they zag

any thoughts on this?



- http://www2.wrbl.com/news/2012/may/17/billionare-warren-buffett-buys-media-general-newsp-ar-3811030
"Keepers"-- that’s what business tycoon Warren Buffet calls the 63 local newspapers he just bought for $ 142 million from WRBL’s parent company, Media General.


Media General announced Thursday that it has signed agreements with Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. to sell nearly all of its newspapers and secure new financing

Twitter "Tailored Suggestions"

Wow when did this start?

" Twitter About Tailored Suggestions " - https://support.twitter.com/articles/20169421#

I'm not sure people understand the ramifications of this, basically any website you go to where signing in via Twitter is an option they are going to be tracking you and how often you visit etc.

Is this the kind of service you want Twitter providing? (it just appeared pre-checked in my Twitter "Settings page" today).

Amanda Palmer tickets

Sweet    :)

Saverin ...again

This is getting out of control

http://www.businessinsider.com/banned-from-the-usa-billionaire-facebook-cofounder-could-be-barred-from-america-after-renouncing-citizenship-2012-5

The number of people running offshore trusts or investment vehicles is pretty common, the fact that this one made the IT tech press and the reaction from the PAYE readers is surprising, dont they know they've been screwed for years?

Why is this such a surprise to them? Dont they read the press about GE paying 0 taxes last year etc?

Population comparisons

I was watching #CNBC tonight (was watching Trash Inc ) when they commented on Bejing having a population of 17m (wikipedia says 19m) curious i googled the population of Manhattan 1.5m and New York City 8.1m...you need to go up to population of New York State 19.4m in order to equal Beijings 40kl x 100kl city population.

wow.

boilerplate legalese

lol the irony about Sail copying Squares user agreement

...in an article http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/16/verifone-sail-rips-off-square/ copying pretty much another article   http://gigaom.com/2012/05/16/verifones-sail-caught-copying-rival-squares-user-agreement adding pretty much little or no additional value.

Personally i think it makes total sense for boiler plate legalese.

Wil Wheaton should STFU

http://gigaom.com/broadband/wil-wheaton-net-neutrality-bittorrent
Actor, author and celebrity geek Wil Wheaton is pleading with ISPs not to degrade or downright block BitTorrent traffic



Sorry but last time i checked Wil Wheaton was not a studio and wasn’t funding (nor profiting apart from acting contract) on the financial success failure to return ROI on the costs of creating a movie/series with him in it.


So basically what i'm saying is Wil Wheaton should STFU

2004 was just yesterday....

Its your birthday

via Hilary Mason from bitly

http://thedailyviz.com/2012/05/12/how-common-is-your-birthday


 


I've often wondered about this would have been cooler with a percentage option to show the percentage for that day of the year.

Now what i really want to know is if it is a direct opposite for the southern hemisphere (the winter reference)

Quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement blows my mind - http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/05/11/1830216/chinese-physicists-achieve-quantum-teleportation-over-60-miles

No matter how much i read about it i just cant get over how freaky this is.

Whats interesting here is that by extending the photon pairing to 100k's you now reach the magic number where a satellite can beam information to a receiver on the ground without fear of interception.....

If you want to read more on how this works check out;

- http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/quantum-cryptology6.htm
and then
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/spooky-action-distance.html

Singapore and capital gains tax

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/11/facebook-co-founder-renounces-citizenship-to-dodge-tax-on-ipo-billions/

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who made billions off the world’s most popular social network, stands to rake in about $3.84 billion from his 4 percent share of Facebook, Bloomberg reported.

Saverin will have to pay millions in taxes on the money he makes -- so he chose instead to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

The Brazilian born Internet entrepreneur’s name turned up on an April 30 list published quarterly by the Internal Revenue Service of people who have chose to expatriate. Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Saverin, told Bloomberg the move was “practical.”


“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” said Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Saverin, in an e-mailed statement.



People seem to be getting bent out of shape over Eduardo Saverin this week even though he's been living in Singapore for sometime. I dont think people realise until he has a liquidity event (eg sells the shares) he doesnt have to pay taxes anyway (eg Steve Jobs never did......and then he died).


The bigger issue for Eduardo is the "Heart Taxation Act" which basically means he cant sell them for 10 years or he has to pay an "mark to market" percentage when expatriating, of course he has far smarter accountants working for him so what i expect he will do is borrow on margin against a a percentage of his shares (eg 50% of their market value) and put these in trust for 10 years until they can be sold on the market.

If you haven't heard of the Heart Taxation act you should cllick here -> http://blog.collins.net.pr/2008/10/heart-taxation-act-drives-away-green.html

StuxNet break down

In case anyone is interested, here's a pretty good talk about Stuxnet and the mechanisms/payloads/etc. by Cary Nachenberg from Symantec. Scary stuff or time to give up on any reality of security - you decide.

Aust government gets double dutched by Google

Lol

Google has revealed it expects to pay just $74,000 in corporate income tax for the 2011 calendar year in Australia, off claimed local revenues of $201 million

http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/03/google-australia-1bn-in-revenue-74k-in-tax


Putting it into perspective, google paid more in fines to the Aust govt for illegal practices etc than they did in tax.

Why i will always love RSS

Came across this article this morning - cant stress how much i agree with this.
- http://www.jefclaes.be/2012/05/why-i-will-always-love-rss.html

BTW I've talked about Netvibes before and cant recommend them enough as a RSS reader, if you want to see what i'm reading via RSS (or suggest some other feeds back) you can download my OPML feed from here http://www.Collins.net.pr/deancollins.opml

Visiting Australia :)

lol - http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/t8g2l/going_to_australia/






they forgot to mention Cassowarys :)
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA58sS3x2Oo&feature=youtu.be&t=15s

OzLog

Wow when did Australia become the police state?

- http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/04/govt-seeks-substantial-boost-to-surveillance-powers
"Government is also interested in establishing an offence which would allow Australians to be charged with failing to assist in decrypting encrypted communications."

Women, Welch Clash at Forum

I’m probably going to cop flack over this post but sorry but it has to be said I cant agree with this comment more, imagine if I took 5 years off to go surfing around the world then came back to work only to complain I was 5 years behind my peers who had continued on with their career progression.



Women, Welch Clash at Forum
….." Instead, "there are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences." Step out of the arena to raise kids, and don't be surprised if the promotion passes you by”.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303877604577382321364803912.html

( try this google link if you aren’t a subscriber)

 
Cheers,
Dean

LinkedIn buys SlideShare

WOW! my mind is being blown no one cares about revenue models or profitability anymore

"LinkedIn buys Slideshare$120m" - http://read.bi/IJMtHf

You'd have to FUCKING KILL me to stop me from WINNING

Randomly stumbled across this today. Love it.

You'd have to FUCKING KILL me to stop me from WINNING

from taintedshade on 8tracks.

BTW 8tracks sucks...just realised you cant "rewind" or listen to a track again....

here is where the Al Pacino track i wanted you to hear came from - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyiohbbM51g&feature=player_embedded