LOTD for December 29

A year ago, Google had about 50% of web searches…and now they are at 60%:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/digitaldownload/search/e3i1e47a06a6a095f0048144b540ed144ce

Nintendo is just dominating the Japan market–with the top 9 selling games in Japan, with Wii sales 5x PS3 sales, and with Wii sales 35x Xbox 360 sales!
http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=730

When it is in stock, Amazon sells 17 Nintendo Wiis per second!
http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/26/amazon-target-update-markets-equity-cx_af_1226markets13.html?partner=yahootix

Great job by the Letterman people to get a deal with the Writers’ Guild:
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20071229/D8TQU5F80.html

LOTD for December 26

JTRS is no longer a program in trouble and got its entire $853 mil budget request from Congress:
http://rfdesign.com/news/jtrs-rennaissance-sdr-funds-transfusion-1226/

I can’t believe that a tiger got out of its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo and killed one man and mauled 2 others:
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20071226/D8TP5R6G0.html

Congratulations to my Mom for winning this contest! Free trip to Vegas and $500 cash! I even got a mention in the paper for going to the Sugar Bowl…
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071226/SPORTS04/712260394/1049/SPORTS04

LOTD for December 21

Two stillbirths in North Carolina led to a food warning–pregnant women are being told to not eat too much cold cuts and soft cheeses because of a bacterium (Listeria):
http://www.physorg.com/news117379144.html

China gained access to US spy operations via an outsourced Chinese-language translation service in Hawaii. This let China know who the US was planning to eavesdrop on and what the US learned, so they could plant misinformation:
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071221/NATION/676409066/1001

Texas has an interesting disaster plan. In the case of an evacuation needed due to a hurricane or some other disaster, they will do criminal background checks before anyone is let on an evacuation bus:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5380868.html

Stanford’s nanowire battery holds 10 times the charge of existing ones (thank you for Eric for the link!)
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html?view=print

Remember how the helicopter carrying Santa was shot at by drug traffickers in Brazil? This lego designer has an answer for that:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1542112

LOTD for December 20

Sprint’s former CEO is now going to be the President of the University of Missouri system, the first Missouri system President in years without a background in higher education:
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/411149.html

Cisco bought Navini to get into the WiMAX market…and they are focusing their WiMAX efforts on the developing world, not markets like the US:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/14/Cisco-WiMax-focus-is-in-developing-world_1.html?source=NLC-WIRELESS&cgd=2007-12-20

Article on the 700 MHz spectrum bidders:
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/31996-1.html?topic=homeland

Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! paid $31.5 mil to settle accusations on how they promoted illegal gambling:
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1962590520071219?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

Teen girls blog more than teen boys, teen boys post more videos than teen girls:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9835715-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

LOTD for December 19

Drug traffickers in Brazil opened fire on a helicopter piloted by a man dressed as Santa who was going to a children’s party! The Santa survived…and took a car to deliver the presents to the party:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071218/od_nm/brazil_santa1_dc

Spokesman for the Japanese government declares that UFOs exist and now there is a debate over what Japan should do if/when the UFOs are discovered:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7150156.stm

iRobot got a $286 mil IDIQ contract from the Army:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=5258

The backstory on this contract is that the Army initially awarded the contract to Robotic FX…but it turns out that the Robotic FX guy stole iRobot’s trade secrets:
http://www.xconomy.com/2007/11/02/saying-aheds-destruction-of-evidence-profoundly-undermines-his-credibility-judge-issues-narrow-injunction-against-robotic-fx-much-of-record-sealed/

Interesting story about how a Blackwater person shot the New York Times’ dog in Iraq:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1819755220071218?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

But the Blackwater guy claimed the next day that the New York Times’ dog attacked him and he was just defending himself…and he has the bite marks to prove it!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eason-jordan/exposed-the-new-york_b_77427.html

This is a classic example of wasteful military spending…it would be funny if it wasn’t $514 mil wasted!
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/12/doing-the-math.html

There are a LOT of bidders for the upcoming 700 MHz auction:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119803481281138657.html?mod=telecommunications_primary_hs

Story on Honda’s interesting humanoid robot:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/12/hondas_asimo_ro.html?source=NLC-REALITYCHECK&cgd=2007-12-19

50,000 people in Taiwan are creating a Christmas tree by the light of their cell phones, flashlights, and colored sticks:
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2007/12/018393.htm

Wearing a pink bikini got this soldier a day in jail:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2007-12-18T150049Z_01_N18467132_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIKINI-ODD.xml

LOTD for December 18

By the way, if anyone reading this has Dish Network service, you can call them up and ask for Cinemax for ONE CENT per year for 2 years! The fine print is that you cannot have had Cinemax for the last 6 months and you have to sign up for autopay and paperless billing. Since we already had autopay and paperless billing, a quick phone call got us Cinemax for 2 years (including the High-Def channel!) for two pennies.

2007 was the first year that US households spent more on cell phone service than on landline phone service:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/18/technology/cell_phone.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes

More than 2 trillion text messages are expected to be sent next year!
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2007/12/018385.htm

UCSD graduate student designed “Gizmo”, a robotic device that can save lives by collecting and transmitting in real time the data that emergency personnel (firefighters, police, etc.) need:
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/2007/12/10_gizmo.asp

The latest lawsuit against Vonage (this time from Nortel) may end up being more than Vonage can take:
http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=42388&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10

Fortune magazine has an interesting feature on the 101 dumbest moments in business:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0712/gallery.101_dumbest.fortune/index.html

Instead of sharing a channel, both Noggin and N will get their own channels starting in 2008:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686270

LOTD for December 17

Congress passed a bill to ban gang members from being in the military…it is NOT forbidden now and apparently there have been problems by having active gang members in the military:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58462&archive=true

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/army_gangmembership_071210w/

Deal by David Letterman could help rapidly end the writers’ strike that is shutting down Hollywood:
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Television_44/The_writers_strike_may_be_over_sooner.asp

Instead of trying to settle the strike, Leno and Conan will cross the picket lines on January 2:
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Wga-Strike-Watch/Nbcs-Writer-Late/800029458

I can’t believe that the lady on Survivor lied about her employer firing her from her job! She got the Survivor head person to write her a check for $50k because she said that she was fired from her lunch lady job because she went on Survivor!
http://www.douglas.k12.ma.us/

Chinese scientists made a breakthrough in quantum communications:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=5243

The Silver Lake and Elysian resevoirs had to be shut down and drained due to contamination:
http://www.dailynews.com/santaclarita/ci_7724029

The iPhone is expected to be the major target for hackers in 2008:
http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=100005SH4DVW

This analyst thinks that Sprint and Clearwire will get back together soon:
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=141300

Qualcomm just bought Softmax…Softmax is actually located in the building where I interviewed at my previous company! That was the address for the company when I was hired…
http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/qualcomm-acquires-softmax?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

In 2002, only 22% of people in the US googled themselves…that is up to 47% now:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Personal-Internet-Searches.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Programmers are having problems keeping up with the faster processors coming out now:

Coke, Pepsi, and Budweiser are all going to aluminum bottles:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686044

Looks like the Wii is one of the hardest things to find this Christmas…just like last year. Amazing that the sales last month were even more than the sales last December for the Wii! I guess they always sell out, so the key is that they make more now:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071214/news_1n14wii.html

Forbes has an article about how Wii sales are amazing:
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2007/12/14/nintendo-microsoft-closer-markets-equity-cx_er_ra_1214markets38.html?feed=rss_popstories

I cannot believe that this window washer fell 47 stories and LIVED:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12162007/news/regionalnews/legend_of_the_fall_214155.htm

LOTD for December 14

HP is now using solar and wind power for its facilities in the US and Ireland. Its San Diego location will generate 1 Megawatts:
http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=42363&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10

Google is launching “knol” as a direct competitor to Wikipedia:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article3050784.ece

Google’s wireless head is quitting to become an angel investor:

Google’s wireless chief, Sacca, leaves to become angel investor

Cisco is going to close its $330 mil purchase of Navini (the company my PhD advisor started) in a few days and will use Navini’s products to go after WiMAX business:
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE00740E18002573B000571F5F.html?ex=1355202000&en=7cf7290120ea484d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Rupert Murdoch gave an interesting interview–says we are in a recession, took shots at Hilary and the Financial Times and much more:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3ia105b0763cdad9fd2dd0e00cacb7fb4f

All 3 game systems (Wii, XBox, PS3) did well in November:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1325925720071214?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

This 22-year-old living at home with his parents signed up with a $10 unlimited data plan…he was shocked when his bill came out to $65,000! He asked them if his bill was correct…and they checked and RAISED his bill to $85,000!
http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=42373&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10

LOTD for December 13

An early warning system for earthquakes is being tested in California–such systems already exist in Japan and Europe. The computer predictions are so good that false alarms are rare:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=shake-rattle-and-respond-early-earthquake-warning-system

Wow, Rudy Guiliani got $30 mil in one year for lobbying for one company (data mining company Seisint):
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1694093-1,00.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004833.php

I do not understand why the House is looking to require the Department of Defense to study global warming…aren’t other agencies more appropriate for that?
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/12/global-warming.html#more

Sprint is changing the way that it charges fees…probably prompted by the class action lawsuit filed against it where it seemed to make people think that certain fees were taxes from the government (using the word “Federal” leaves that impressino), but all of it actually went to Sprint:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Sprint-Modifies-Their-Unfees-90143

Sprint paid $57.5 mil to settle a class action lawsuit for how they combined their wireline and wireless stocks:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071212/sprint_nextel_settlement.html?.v=1

Palm is having trouble with their sales and will be laying off a significant portion of their workforce:
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9833263-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Marvell’s most recent addition to their board of directors was added 7 weeks ago…and that guy quit last week:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/techsemis/10394281.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Earthlink is WAY over budget for its Philly WiFi network and won’t say when it will be finished:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20071211_Wireless_internet_services_uncertain_for_city.html

Denver has the first airport to get 11n coverage:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/denver-international-airport-becomes-first-airport-deploy-high-speed-802-11n-wireless?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Denver had its airport WiFi network change from a pay system to a free (advertiser-supported) system, and without even advertising the fact that it was free it found a 10x increase in the use of the airport WiFi system. Meru Network provides the APs:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/10/Denver-airport-goes-on-Wi-Fi_1.html?source=NLC-WIRELESS&cgd=2007-12-13

The municipal WiFi network in Tempe has only 500 subscribers but someone wants to buy it:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/11/Tempe-Wi-Fi-network-on-the-block_1.html?source=NLC-WIRELESS&cgd=2007-12-13

Forbes has a long article about celebrities and their cell phones…and found that a surprisingly small number of celebrities use the iPhone:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/12/11/britney-spears-cellphone-technology-wireless-cx_ew_1211cell.html?feed=rss_technology

Analyst report says that Apple is coming out with 2 new iPhones, with the 3G version coming out in the 2nd half of next year:
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9833134-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

A student at Frostburg State was playing the online game Call of Duty 4 and made a comment about shooting up the school…and now could face 2 years in prison for what he said during the game:
http://insidecharmcity.com/2007/12/12/mmorpg-threat-shuts-down-schools/

LOTD for December 12

Interesting that 200 buoys in the Pacific Ocean can provide 50 megawatts of electricity via wave power!
http://rfdesign.com/military_defense_electronics/news/lead-story/power_from_sea_1212/index.html

Sprint is going to be soft-launching its WiMAX service in Chicago and the DC area. Only Sprint employees can use it and only in big cities:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/12/sprints_xohm_wi.html

It is intersting that 13.6% of Americans are cell phone-only, with no wired telephone service. It is also interesting that binge drinkers are twice as likely to be wireless only and smokers are more likely to be wireless only:
http://rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071211/FREE/71211009/1008

Penthouse just spent $500 mil to buy a group of social networking websites:

In 2004, 70% of all e-mail was spam…in 2007, we are now up to 95% of all e-mail being spam:
http://blogs.cnet.com/8300-13505_1-16.html?authorId=9728254&tag=author