Microsoft Surface Is Doing Well, Finally!

(11/30/2014) The new blockbuster stock might be Microsoft (MSFT) in next five years again because Microsoft is selling pretty good. It's a bad news for many PC brands since they may become the contract manufacturers for Microsoft Surface in the future. Is Surface a great product? It may not be that good, but Microsoft has a huge user base and the potential of 'upgrade' is sweet enough for Microsoft.

The Dark Side of Academic Research -- "Get me off your fucking mailing list"

(11/25/2014) Can you believe that an 'academic' research paper "Get me off your fucking mailing list" is accepted by International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology? It is not published yet, but it has been "accepted" and the review comments is "excellent." The reason this "excellent" article is not published because the authors have to pay $150 for publication. 

This is the dark side of the academic. Under the pressure of research publication, some professors who are not productive anymore have a different way to get their paper published. These journals are called "pay-for-publication" journals. The higher education academicians know the existence of pay-for-publication journals. Probably all college professors are continuously spammed by these pseudo journals as well as some pseudo academic conferences. That is the pest of our academic lives. 

A flow chart of "Get me off your fucking mailing list." In my perspective, it is terribly done and makes no sense at all.

I would say this is the residual plot of "Get me off your fucking mailing list"

(12/11/2014) It seems that some academicians enjoy teasing these pay-for-publication journals. Another scientist just have a paper written by "Margaret Simpson and her equally fictional friend Edna Krabappel, along with someone by the name of Kim Jong Fun," and have it accepted by Computational Intelligence and Electronic Systems and the Aperito Journal of NanoScience Technology.

Twitter Mistake by Twitter's CEO? That's Embarrassing!

(11/25/2014) Do you sometimes have a fat finger like Twitter's CFO? That is why I don't use social media that much. I wonder whether Twitter will design a "think twice" button before its users 'tweet' by accident?

Robot Kivas May Replace Warehouse Workers

(11/20/2014) Recent years, Amazon had several labor troubles in their fulfillment centers in the US and Germany. In the long run, robots are definitely more attractive for big retailers like Amazon or Walmart. This is a news about Robot Kivas working in the warehouse of Amazon. They are not doing the picking jobs. Instead, they move inventories around on racks to get closer to the pickers such that the pickers can save their time from walking all day long.

As technology progresses, one day maybe the picker's job will be replaced by Kiva too.



(12/1/2014) Amazon just announced that they will release 15,000 Kivas in the warehouses for their pickers.  One worker says that their picking productivity is two to three time more than before and it will save 20% of operating cost. Yes, it also says that it will not eliminate current jobs; but, in another words, it means they don't need to hire as many pickers as before.

High Tech Entrepreneurs and Common Sense

(11/18/2014) Another PR failure from a high-tech executive?

Cite from the source above: "BuzzFeed said, came from Emil Michael, Uber's senior vice president for business, during a private dinner in New York last week. He later said he believed the conversation was off the record, according to the social news and entertainment website."

Yes, he can spend $1 million on journalists. He forgot they have pens, tons of them and the internet share is free... So many high-tech entrepreneurs really need to take some "common sense" classes.

Here is another "No common sense" PR failure from this group of elite:

Microsoft CEO Nadella's comment about equal-pay and gender income gap:

Laundry Pod Need A New Look

(11/10/2014) When laundry pod was launched, I wondered why these detergent makers want to make cleaning stuff so visually appealing? To stimulate consumer's compulsive purchasing? If it appeal to adult shoppers, then its colorful outlook resembles beautiful and tasteful candies to children. According to the news, tens of thousands of toddlers were sent to hospital because mistaking laundry pods as candies. When will detergent manufacturers admit this product design eventually is a mistake and change its packaging?

If you were a toddler, can you tell which one is poisonous?

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German Publsiher Axel Speringer's Deal with Google

(11/7/2014) For many content publishers, google's dominance in the search engine market is too big to compete or even negotiate. Google's search engine and news site are known for indexing online contents without 'paying' the publisher. As German's court ruled that "publishers can prohibit search engines and similar services from using their news articles beyond headlines" and Axel Springer did just that. In the last several weeks, they did not allow google to run snippets to grasps their content and Google complied. Google stopped showing some contents from its search engine and news site. The result is a disaster to Axel Springer: "traffic flowing from clicks on Google search results had fallen by 40 percent and traffic delivered via Google News had plummeted by 80 percent in the past two weeks."

Springer caved in. They allow Google to index their content in snippet and show their content online when users search by keywords. However, Springer is not happy at all. They hope "lawmakers, courts and competition regulators would take action to curb its (Google's) powers."

Spain just passed a new copyright law saying "post links to news articles or excerpts from them will have to pay a fee to the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies." If Germany cannot even fight with Google, do you think Spain will eventually win this battle?

Axel Springer's example reflects the dilemma many traditional publishers are facing. More and more access content through the Internet via a search engine like Google (or others if they can be competitive). The publishers pay the salaries for the journalist and have huge overhead running publishing business. Google have ad revenue from user's every search; the publisher's content has to compete with other contents on the display order of search result. Blocking Google or other search engine is just shooting one's own feet.

Axel Springer: "I have no choice. Shutting Google's snippet, we will be out of the market."

(12/11/2014) Who will win in the dispute of Spain's new copyright tax? Google or Spain? Google's reaction is shutting down its news website that use news sources coming from Spanish publishers. It will seriously decrease the website traffic for these publishers if they don't allow Google to list their articles 'free' on Google News. What is fairness in this dispute?

Who Still Buys and Owns Music?

(11/3/2014) Apple's iTune and Amazon's online music see biggest fall in sales of digital music download, while digital streaming services is going up . Well, most readers probably are not surprised? Who are still buying and own music in the digital streaming era? Limited to my flash memory size, I may not have all musics in one device. So, why do I have to remember to load my digital music download into devices to the places that I want to listen to (in the car, on the public transportation, work out, biking...)? For the convenience, consumer prefer to listen to music anywhere they want, so monthly subscription (or free membership) is foreseeably becoming the main stream in the future.

But I am surprised to see the differences of digital sales download in different countries (Japan vs. Sweden) and among different genres (country music fans still buy more music than the fan of other genres).

Not only in digital music, Amazon (and Apple) may have another problem: people don't buy books (especially the textbooks) anymore. They now just want to rent. Just today, country singer Taylor Swift announced that her new album will not be available on Spotify for streaming. Spotify posted a blog talking about this breakup.

Spotify begged in this blog "PS – Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there’s more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It’s a love story, baby, just say, Yes." Spotify made two playlists as below.