WebSite Reviews - What others are saying about our site:
var s = document.createElement('script');
s.type = 'text/javascript';
s.async = true;
s.src = 'http://site-connect.net/widget~reviews';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);
var s = document.createElement('script');
s.type = 'text/javascript';
s.async = true;
s.src = 'http://site-connect.net/site~pageinfo2';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);
Link Exchange
United States taxpayers make large interest payments to the top four technology firms for the $163 billion in US government debt the companies own and shelter in tax-free offshore accounts.
United States taxpayers make large interest payments to the top four technology firms for the $163 billion in US government debt the companies own and shelter in tax-free offshore accounts.
Apple, Cisco Systems, Google, and Microsoft legally hold $124 billion in US Treasury securities and $39 billion in US government agency debt in accounts overseas, allowing them to avoid the 35 percent (maximum) corporate tax rate in the United States, according to Securities & Exchange Commission reports.
Together, the companies would be the 14th biggest overseas holder of Treasury securities, just ahead of countries like Norway, Singapore, and India. Read the rest of this entry »
In their new book, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending (Simon & Schuster), Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton (professors at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School, respectively), offer five key principles to help us get more happiness out of the money we spend — principles which also help companies create happier employees and customers.
Most people know they can benefit from expert help to make more money. But oddly enough, they’re quite sure they already know how to spend their money to reap the most happiness. As a result, they follow their intuitions, using their money to buy things they think will make them happy, from televisions to cars to houses.
What’s the problem with this approach? A decade of research demonstrates that people’s intuitions about how to turn money into happiness are misguided at best and dead-wrong at worst. Those televisions, cars, and houses? They have almost no impact on our happiness.
The good news is that we now know what kind of spending does enhance our happiness–insight that’s valuable to consumers and companies alike. Here are the top five ways to turn money into happiness according to Dunn and Norton: Read the rest of this entry »
Concern about the clout of the internet giants is growing. But antitrust watchdogs should tread carefully
THE four giants of the internet age—Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon—are extraordinary creatures. Never before has the world seen firms grow so fast or spread their tentacles so widely. Apple has become a colossus of capitalism, accounting for 4.3% of the value of the S&P 500 and 1.1% of the global equity market. Some 425m people now use its iTunes online store, whose virtual shelves are packed to the gills with music and other digital content. Google, meanwhile, is the undisputed global leader in search and online advertising. Its Android software powers three-quarters of the smartphones being shipped. Amazon dominates the online-retail and e-book markets in many countries; less well known is its behind-the-scenes power in cloud computing. As for Facebook, if the social network’s one billion users were a country, it would be the world’s third largest.
The digital revolution these giants have helped foment has brought huge benefits to consumers and businesses, and promoted free speech and the spread of democracy along the way. Yet they provoke fear as well as wonder. Their size and speed can, if left unchecked, be used to choke off competition. That is why they are attracting close scrutiny from regulators. Read the rest of this entry »
A jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages on Friday after finding that Samsung infringed a series of its patents on smartphones and tablet computers.
After just three days of deliberations, far fewer than were expected in such a complex case, a nine-person jury sided with Apple on most of its allegations against Samsung. These included allegations that various Samsung products violated Apple patents covering the “bounce back” effect when a user scrolls to the end of a list, and the pinch-to-zoom gesture that users make when they want to magnify an image on their screens. Samsung was also found to have infringed Apple patents covering the physical design of the iPhone.
The jury added some sting to the verdict by finding in favor of Apple across the board in a countersuit by Samsung. The jury awarded Samsung, which had asked for more than $422 million from Apple for allegedly violating its patents, no damages.
While Apple received far less than the $2.5 billion it had asked for in the trial, lawyers said there was little question which side won. “This is a huge victory for Apple,” said Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University. Read the rest of this entry »
FILE-In this Friday, March 16, 2012, photo, Apple employees welcome hundreds of customers in front of the Apple store at a shopping mall in Oberhausen, western Germany, as the new iPad goes on sale at the Apple store. On Monday, Aug. 20, 2012, Apple set a new record for the most valuable company at $621 billion, beating Microsoft’s 1999 high. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is the world’s most valuable company, ever.
On Monday, its surging stock propelled the company’s value to $623 billion, beating the record for market capitalization set by Microsoft Corp. in the heady days of the Internet boom.
Apple’s stock has hit new highs recently because of optimism around what is believed to be the impending launch of the iPhone 5, and possibly a smaller, cheaper iPad.
Apple Inc. has been the world’s most valuable company since the end of last year. It’s now worth 53 percent more than No. 2 Exxon Mobil Corp. Read the rest of this entry »
Thankfully, I’ve never been in a perfect storm. I have seen a movie about it, but the worst storms I’ve encountered were of the lightning, thunder and torrential downpour variety when I attended college in the Midwest. I came pretty close to a tornado once, but it missed us by 20 miles. There are various ways of describing a perfect storm, but it usually refers to a confluence of multiple types of weather conditions converging to create a “perfect storm” that has a huge impact on anyone in the storm’s path.
This fall, the tech market will have a perfect storm of its own, as three major technologies and industry forces converge to deliver a whole host of new products for consumers.
This could be either a very good thing or a bad thing, depending who you are. Techies will have dozens of new technologies to buy that enhance their digital lifestyles, and to them this will be a good thing. But for mainstream consumers, so many new products and gadgets will be coming out at the same time that they’ll have almost too many choices to deal with. In many cases, this could cause a lot of confusion.
The first major products that will have a big influence on the market will be the next generation of low-cost Android tablets. This will be led by Google, which is expected to jump directly into the tablet market with a 7-inch tablet of its own. We hear that it will be an Android tablet with the most recent version of Android (known as Jelly Bean), and that it will most likely be priced around $199 to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire. But I have heard that it could be priced as low as $179 as well. Google could announce this tablet as early as its development conference in late June. Read the rest of this entry »
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor takes notes at the start of the judgement hearing of his trial on charge of arming Sierra Leone’s rebels who paid him in “blood diamonds,” on April 26, 2012 at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, based in Leidschendam outside The Hague
Life For Death? – The five-year trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, accused of 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offenses, is finally coming to a close in The Hague on Thursday, with a possible life sentence for the ousted leader. The Guardian,live-blogging the verdict from the tribunal, noted that Taylor is “clearly listening with care,” as it is read out. And judges found Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes during the Sierra Leone civil war.
New Front in Drone War – The White House expanded the authority of the Pentagon and CIA to carry out drone strikes in Yemen, which is widely believed to be a safe haven for al-Qaeda operatives, the New York Timesreports. U.S. Defense Secretary LeonPanetta has defended the strategy, the Guardiansays, but international legal experts argue that drone strikes amount to execution of suspects before trial, making them illegal – especially when carried out in Yemen where the U.S. is not engaged in war.
Questioning Misogyny – Following the fierce debate over its cover story, “Why Do They Hate Us?“ which casts Arab societies as deeply misogynistic, Foreign Policyshares critiques and commentary from six Muslim observers, including the senior editor of the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English-language website. Also chiming in is The Atlantic’s Max Fisher, who argues that while misogyny is a problem in Arab countries, it’s not a distinctively Arab problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Be simple, nobody will touch you. That is the only way to be safe and not to be under pressure. Everywhere they are targeted who are highlighted, because with them they can have something with them. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
YouTube will imminently launch a movie-on-demand service charging users to stream mainstream Hollywood movies off the world’s largest video sharing site, TheWrap has learned.
The new service means a full-bore challenge to Apple’s iTunes service – currently the most powerful player in paid video streaming — and a welcome new revenue stream for Hollywood as home entertainment revenues continue their steep decline.
The service may start as early as this week or next, and is expected to be announced soon by YouTube.
Major studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal have licensed their movies for the new service, as have numerous independent studios, including Lionsgate and the library-rich Kino Lorber, according to movie executives with knowledge of the deals in place.
YouTube has been laboring to bring all the major Hollywood studios on board before announcing it, according to one executive involved in the deal. But so far Paramount, Fox and Disney have declined to join.
(Update 7:37 p.m. PST) YouTube, which had earlier declined to comment for the story, issued a statement after this story was published, pointing out that it has rented movies for a year, while declining to comment on the broader initiative it is about to launch with the major studios on board. Read the rest of this entry »
Nepal - the country of the Buddha and the Mt. Everest 