Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Major media publisher admits it is “afraid of Google” | Ars Technica

  • Google is not only the largest search engine in the world, but the largest video platform, the largest browser, and the most used e-mail service and mobile operating system.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Daily Report: Google's Results Disappoint as Ads Are Less Profitable - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com

  • Alexander the Great is said to have wept because he ran out of kingdoms to conquer. Google is eager to avoid such a miserable fate
  • Google is unleashing its vast cash hoard on robotics, artificial intelligence, smart thermostats and, just this week, high-altitude drone satellites.

• 86M Full-Time Private-Sector Workers Sustain 148M Benefit Takers | CNS News

  • Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.
  • The Census Bureau also estimates the size of the benefit-receiving population.
  • The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• App-etite for Destruction? Android and iOS Are Killing The Web - Forbes

  • mobile is taking over from the desktop. On top of that, the amount of time on mobile is increasingly spent inside of apps, not the web browser
  • Mobile is the future. What wins mobile, wins the Internet. Right now, apps are winning and the web is losing … This will hurt long-term innovation … Apps have a rich-get-richer dynamic that favors the status quo
  • Once you build a good app, users will overwhelmingly prefer it to whatever mobile website you might offer, which will then cause you to spend your development resources on that app

• Philip Morris A Staple Play Despite S&P 500 Performance | Benzinga

  • Firms such as 22nd Century Group, which alters the biological make-up of tobacco plants, may be targets of interest for Philip Morris through product licensing rights for the company to purchase and control.

• New FCC rulemaking could set up a spectrum superhighway -- FCW

  • a plan to create a massive, sharable, dynamic spectrum superhighway to support Wi-Fi and other broadband applications is on the horizon, with consequences for federal agencies that have spectrum holdings.
  • The new order would supplant the existing method of moving spectrum from the public to the private sector. Currently, agencies are compensated for the cost of relocating operations to new frequencies, but there are no major incentives to push agencies to vacate spectrum

• U.S.: Attorney General Holder Expected to Answer Questions About Federal Marijuana Policy at Tuesday Hearing | Hemp News

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• 3 Worries for Citrix Systems in 2014 (CTXS)

  • Microsoft is believed to be working on a desktop-as-a-service product, titled Mohoro, that could be released around the middle of 2014. It isn't clear how this will influence Microsoft and Citrix's traditionally close working relationship

• Wearables: one-third of consumers abandoning devices | Technology | theguardian.com

  • strengthened by research from Endeavour Partners in the US, which found that one-third of American consumers who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. What's more, while one in 10 American adults own some form of activity tracker, half of them no longer use it.
  • What does that presage for wearables? It may be that they are presently so primitive that it's no surprise that people give them up: they're too big, haven't discovered the killer app that we want out of them, and have battery life that is too limited.

• RIP, the server. It's time to breathe the air of cloud connection - Tech News and Analysis

  • The era of the on-premise server is clearly behind us, with the cusp of change literally on our calendars.

     

    In just the past week, we’ve seen significant server-shedding events and announcements from Google, Box and Amazon Web Services. Even Microsoft finally seems to get it: enabling people to work from anywhere is more important than keeping them leashed to a platform going nowhere.

• 10 Reasons The Future Doesn't Include Your Job - StartupBros

  • This shift will ultimately steady itself, but in the meantime – you better start out-human-ing the machines. You need to create a platform. You need to serve others in the way computers can’t. You need to use the leverage being created by these computers.

• microCapClub

  • “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” —Max Lucado

• The Tech Bubble's Silver Lining: Cheap Services for Everyone - NYTimes.com

  • Thanks to the high hopes and deep pockets of tech investors, a host of high-profile tech firms are now offering incredible business and consumer services at impossibly low prices. The trend is playing out across a range of industries, including business I.T. services, communications, media, payments, local delivery and e-commerce. And because these start-ups are exerting pricing pressure on established market players, even customers who don’t use their services might benefit from their rise.
  • So as long as you don’t make the mistake of investing in dubious tech dreams, you may be able to ride out the bubble to some pretty great swag

• Bitcoin Tax Ruling - Credit Slips

  • the IRS Bitcoin ruling is that for a currency--or any payment system--to work, its units must be completely fungible.  One reason dollars work really well as a currency is that one $20 bill is entirely fungible with another $20 bill.  This means that when I pay, I don't have to make a decision about which $20 bill to use
  • The IRS ruled that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are property, not currency.  This means that they are subject to capital gains taxation.  And that means that Bitcoins are not fungible.  The price at which a particular Bitcoin was acquired (and this is traceable) determines the capital gains on that particular Bitcoin when spent.
  • If I spend Bitcoin A, which I bought at $10, but is now worth $400, I’ve got a very different tax treatment than if I spend Bitcoin B, which I bought at $390.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.