The end of an internet era has come with the resignation of Jerry Yang, the 43-year-old co-founder of Yahoo, from his position on the company’s board after 16 years.
Yang’s reign as chief executive, between June 2007 and January 2009, included the disastrous decision – from Yahoo shareholders’ point of view – to reject a $44.6bn (£29.1bn) takeover offer from Microsoft in February 2008, which priced the company at a 50% premium on its share price at the time.
Yang’s rejection was based on internal forecasts that suggested that Yahoo would grow to become worth far more than Steve Ballmer’s offer — which turned out to be completely wrong, a fact that was exposed by the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, followed by a downturn that has exposed Yahoo to increasing pressure from competitors such as Facebook and Twitter.
High-efficiency thermoelectric materials could lead to new types of cooling systems, and new ways to scavenge waste heat for electricity. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, have now developed an easy, inexpensive process to make such materials. The materials made by the RPI team already perform as well as those on the market, and the new process, which involves zapping chemicals in a microwave oven, offers room for improvement. “We haven’t even optimized the process yet,” says Ganpati Ramanath, a materials science and engineering professor at RPI. “We’re confident that we can increase the efficiency further.”
Can DHL Crowdsource Package Delivery?
What if package delivery could be crowdsourced?
That’s the question DHL is going to test out shortly. Based on a program created by the students at the University of Potsdam’s HPI School of Design Thinking, it takes advantage of the increasing ubiquity of location aware smartphones to tap people who are already commuting through the routes a package needs to take.
Full Story: Triple Pundit
On Tuesday, Google announced something called Search, plus Your World (SPYW). It marked a startling transformation of the company’s flagship product, Google Search, into an amplifier of social content. Google’s critics — as well as some folks generally well-intentioned towards Google — have complained that the social content it amplifies is primarily Google’s own product, Google+.
If you haven’t noticed that Google+ pages are increasingly becoming a part of Google search results, you may have noticed Google and Twitter’s increasingly public spat about it. Twitter argues that by promoting Google+ in search results, Google isn’t providing the most relevant social results….
Spanish banking giant BBVA is switching its 110,000 staff to use Google’s range of enterprise software. The deal is the biggest that the search giant has signed with one company for its cloud-computing services, where software is offered as a service via the internet. The bank told the BBC it will use Google’s tools only for internal communication
Slick video mashup of previous MS keynotes from CES…easily the most innovative thing we are likely to see this year from Redmond!
Today, at the 2012 International CES, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, proclaimed a new era of entertainment by placing TV at the center of the home ecosystem and breaking down boundaries between connected devices. Samsung Electronics President Boo-Keun Yoon unveiled the future of Smart TV on the CES press conference stage, explaining the TV’s role in bringing family members together in front of a large, central screen after spending the day apart on individual devices. President Yoon’s vision is flanked by three driving philosophies for a Smarter Life: Smart Interaction, Smart Content, and Smart Evolution?all of which arm consumers with the future of Smart TV technology, today.
The first technologies have been unveiled at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Waterproof smartphone coatings, diet-aiding armbands and a social network that warns drivers of the latest police speed-traps were all on show. Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer will present his company’s last keynote at the three-day event. The firm’s pullout has led several attendees to speculate if the trade show will be a smaller event in future.
Great to see the OLPC chaps delivering on that tablet they’ve been talking about for so long.
More than 50 new tablet computers are expected to debut at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. But only one is meant for people in the poorest regions of the world, and comes with a hand crank as an accessory. Known as the XO 3.0, the rugged green and white device has an eight-inch screen and was designed by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, which in 2008 launched the XO laptop, a device for people who are normally far from the minds of most computing companies. At a press preview held before the official opening of CES on Tuesday, OLPC’s chief technology officer, Edward McNierney, told Technology Review that the new device could be used by children as young as five. (via A Hand-Cranked Tablet Unveiled at CES - Technology Review)
Psychologist Thomas Hills explains the evolutionary trade-offs in increasing intelligence
tech blog and random thought space for a tired and pissed off techgeek
