- Apple is convinced that there is a middle market between the laptop and the smartphone. A portable device that can be your word processor, e-mail client, media player, and internet browser, that you intereact with everywhere you go.
- Apple believes that the way we interact with traditional media (newspapers, magazines, and books) has changed forever, and the iPad is the vehicle for that change.
- Apple believes that touch interfaces are the future and the success of the iPhone has given them the ability to expand that belief into a fully functional computer that is an all encompassing mobile device.
- Starting the price at $499 is a genius move that puts pressure on everyone from netbook makers, to Kindle producers, to smartphone providers. Every segment of the technological world has to compete with a suite of Apple products.
Glassdoor.com has released their list of the top 25 oddball interview questions from 2009.
Thousands of individuals submit the questions they were asked during the interview process and Glassdoor narrows down to the most "oddball" of the bunch. Here were some of my favorites:
- What was your best McGuyver moment? (Schlumberger)
- If you were a brick in a wall which brick would you be and why? (Nestle)
- What should it cost to rent Central Park for commercial purposes? (Bain & C0)
- If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? (Apple)
- How would you measure 9 minutes using only a 4 minute and 7 minute hourglass? (Bank of America)
- How would you sell me eggnog in Florida in the summer? (Expedia)
- If you saw someone steal a quarter. Would you report it? (Amazon)
Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade, according to a government-financed survey — dismal news for a nation that needs more linguists to conduct its global business and diplomacy.
But another contrary trend has educators and policy makers abuzz: a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese.
Some schools are paying for Chinese classes on their own, but hundreds are getting some help. The Chinese government is sending teachers from China to schools all over the world — and paying part of their salaries.
No one keeps an exact count, but rough calculations based on the government’s survey suggest that perhaps 1,600 American public and private schools are teaching Chinese, up from 300 or so a decade ago. And the numbers are growing exponentially.
New York State is known as the nation's financial capital, yet nearly one in 10 of its residents do not have a checking or savings account.
And while Texas is densely populated with banks, nearly a quarter of households in the Dallas-Forth Worth area have gone to a pawn shop or check cashing company recently to carry out a simple financial transaction.
Those were just a few of the findings of a new government survey released Wednesday on Americans' access to basic banking services.
Perhaps one of the biggest revelations of the study was that approximately 7.7% of all U.S. households, or 17 million Americans, were considered "unbanked," meaning they did not have any sort of a checking or savings account.
The most common reason cited, according to the study, was a lack of funds. More than a third of those considered "unbanked" said they did not have enough cash to warrant having a bank account.
In fact, nearly 20% of all U.S. households earning $30,000 or less per year did not have a bank account.
The recession has turned us into a people who brunch. Brunch's good fortune -- brunch traffic is up 8.2% for the year -- compared with the rest of the meal occasions has been the one saving grace in an otherwise miserable year for the restaurant industry. Traffic was down 1% for breakfast, 2% for lunch and 4% for dinner.
An unidentified Canadian real estate company was the winning bidder for the Silverdome at $583,000, snatching it up for a mere fraction of its original value.
The company plans to refurbish the Silverdome into a stadium for men's Major League Soccer and women's professional soccer teams, said the auctioneer. While the stadium was the former home of the National Football League's Detroit Lions, it also played host to some of the World Cup games in 1994.
The 80,000-seat Silverdome was the biggest stadium in the National Football League when it was built in 1975 for $55.7 million.
The stadium, which sits on a 127-acre plot, is also the former home of the National Basketball Association's Detroit Pistons.
The stadium reached its football zenith in 1982 as the site of Super Bowl XVI, when San Francisco's 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Silverdome has also served as a music venue for some of the hottest acts in show business, including Michael Jackson, Madonna and Elvis. Another high profile visitor, Pope John Paul II, once delivered Mass from the field.
But the Silverdome's biggest event was Wrestle Mania III in 1987, when 93,000 fans packed into the stadium to watch Hulk Hogan body-slam Andre the Giant. That was the biggest turnout ever for an indoor sports event.
Despite its rich history, the stadium has seen little use since 2002, when the Lions concluded their last season there.
In what no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time, Slovak officials decided to test airport security in Slovakia on Saturday by concealing plastic explosives in eight suitcases and waiting to see what happened next.
Here’s what happened next: airport security workers intercepted seven of the suitcases but failed to detect 96 grams of the plastic explosive RDX loaded into one bag, which belonged to a Slovak electrician who lives in Ireland and had no idea his luggage had been tampered with. The man boarded his flight to Dublin, retrieved his bag and went home to his apartment.
The man then unpacked but, The Irish Times reports, “the explosives had been concealed so well that he did not find them.”
Three days later, on Tuesday, it apparently occurred to someone in Slovakia that the fact that one of the explosive-packed bags had gone missing was a problem and Slovakian airport authorities contacted their counterparts in Dublin to ask for help.
On Tuesday morning, the Irish Army’s bomb squad paid a visit to the apartment of the Slovak electrician in Dublin and secured the explosives.
According to a Canadian Press report, the man was detained for several hours by the Irish police who said they “initially were led to believe the man might be a terrorist.” The man was released after Slovak officials made it clear that they had been responsible for planting the explosives. Politicians in Ireland are calling for a full inquiry into exactly what happened in Slovakia and some details of the incident are not yet clear.
Irish authorities said that Slovakia’s interior minister had been in touch to convey “his government’s profound regret for this incident."
The Boston Globe recently ranked the top 10 news stories of the past decade:
10) Mapping of the human genome After 13 years and just under $3 billion, government-sponsored scientists successfully mapped the human genome in 2003, identifying human genetic variations that may be the key to treating disease.
9) The rise of Google and new media In 2000, Google became the world’s largest search engine and its name became a verb. The rise of social networking sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter soon followed.
8) Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, devastating New Orleans and, as the levees failed and the darkened city flooded, plunging the city into a period of civil disorder that shocked America.
7) Death of John Paul II; selection of Pope Benedict Pope John Paul II reinvented the papacy during his 26-year reign, visiting more than 120 countries and reaching out to the world’s religious leaders as an advocate for human rights and religious tolerance.
6) The 2000 election Americans learned the hard way that every vote counts when a tight presidential race and confusion over Florida’s election results spawned five weeks of ballot recounts that ended with a Supreme Court ruling in 2000 and the inauguration of President George W. Bush.
5) The ascension of China China’s steady economic growth throughout the decade and resurgence as world finance leader was punctuated by the summer 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, even as some protested the event due to the country’s human rights abuses. China now holds $800 billion in US debt.
4) The War in Afghanistan In the wake of 9/11, Congress authorized the use of force against Al Qaeda and the search for Osama bin Laden.
3) The War in Iraq The war has so far cost more than 4,000 American lives and proved to be politically damaging for Republicans as well as Democrats.
2) The Election of Barack Obama President Obama’s election as the first African-American president of the United States removed one of the most symbolic racial barriers in the country while reflecting the nation’s deep desire for change after eight years of George W. Bush in the White House.
1) Septemeber 11th The attacks by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, claimed 2,752 lives and brought home to American soil large-scale terrorism.
1) The 2010 mid-term elections will offer little change to the makeup of Congress. Although some believe that the Republicans will grab a massive number of seats, I think that when the dust settles, things will be little changed.
2) The trade in gold is crowded and seems eerily familiar to the bullishness surrounding crude oil in late 2007 when it was trading at $147 a barrel. Everyone has an opinion on gold, and most of the opinions are bullish. I believe that long term gold is a great trade, but I don't think 2010 is the year. In the precious metals space, silver, copper, platinum and other precious metals will outperform gold, but nothing will soar like most are expecting. The better place to be if you want commodity exposure is agricultural products like corn and wheat. Global food demand should lead to an upward bias in prices.
3) The unemployment rate will continue to hover around 10% in 2010. Although some economists are forecasting a significant improvement in the employment landscape, I don't see this occurring. Things won't get much worse, but I don't think things get much better.
4) Apple will release its tablet computer in early 2010 and it will truly revolutionize the landscape in technology. Microsoft will attempt to shift the media's focus to Windows 7 and Project Natal for the XBOX, but Apple will continue to take market share and media attention away from Microsoft. Before the end of the year multiple companies with release products with striking resemblance to the Apple tablet, resembling the smartphone trend following the release of the iPhone.
5) The potential legalization of Marijuana will become one of the most hotly debated issues of 2010. Fiscal budget deficits will require that state legislators consider all options to increase revenue. Multiple states will pass legislation that either legalizes small does or decriminalizes possession.
6) Amazon which is riding high with the success of the Kindle eReader will encounter a difficult 2010 as the consumer closes their wallets and the Kindle faces stiff competition from the Barnes and Noble Nook, the Sony eReader, and the Apple Tablet.
7) Twitter was the social media darling of 2009. I do not believe 2010 will be as kind to the the site of the tweet. Whether from increased competition or from the lack of a sustainable revenue model, I do not believe the site will have a successful year and will spend much less time in the news. The business of tweeting may be the future, I'm just not sure Twitter is the company that will make it profitable.
8) The recent rally in the stock market has many thinking that the worst has passed and the good times are here to stay. I believe that we are in for trouble in 2010 in the form of a consumer who stays in savings mode, a commercial real estate market teetering on the edge, and a government support system that cannot continue indefinitely. I believe the market will fall 5% for the year with many violent swings. The best place to invest will be large cap companies who generate a good portion of their sales abroad (McDonald's, Coke, ect.).
9) The United States will become soccer crazy during the summer. I'm envisioning Michael Phelps like hysteria towards our national soccer team during the World Cup in South Africa. It will start to become clear that soccer has a place among the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB in the eyes of American fans.
10) 2010 will be the year of 3D. More movies will be released in 3D and at-home-TV sets will begin to hit store shelves that are capable of handling 3D content. This will mark the start of a long term trend in media programming.
Please use the comments section to add your own predictions or to comment on mine. Thank you again for all your comments and support. Happy New Year!
