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Funny add I just saw on Netscapes homepage:
I had to share this:
At the top of Netscapes homepage, there's an add trailer for ABC News (of course a Disney-thing, right?...)
It reads:
"ABC NEWS NOW
Click here to find out how to get up-to-the-minute Campaign trail coverage.
Introducing a groundbreaking way to get video news"
Hello... Anybody home at ABC?... Campaign trail coverage?... It's the 9th of November, folks!... It's all over!
What campaign are you ABC folks covering?... "Vote for Bush, last week"?...
This is ridiculous!
But then...: This is soooo Disney... Isn't it?...
Hah!
KD
"To play Wantobe's music embeded sound in your Ihub settings must be off"
Check
"Click suppressed sound link in the Ibox"
Huh?
What's "the Ibox"?
How do I find a "suppressed sound link"?
KD
From ONEBGG, I'm asked for username and ID. I tried to just click OK, but no music loaded... (On the country music board)
KD
That is to say: The message "Cannot open the file. Verify that the path and filename are correct and try again " I get from all postings by Harem Sheik. I don't get it from the few other posts - from those, I get nothing... no sound and no message... Except from your last one...
KD
... But otherwise, I get the message, now: "Cannot open the file. Verify that the path and filename are correct and try again"...
KD
HEY!...
I just went to the board and clicked on your latest post (The one called Movie Midid Trivia)... And suddenly, there was sound... A quiet little instrumental piano ballad...
KD
Well, I went into Tools and in "My Settings" set the "Sound for new message notification" to Monty Python. Now, whenever I click on "My Settings", the Eric Idle voiced "Message for you, Sir" sounds.
Otherwise, I never hear a thing from IHub...
KD
Internet Explorer
Back at you, Dave
I visited your music board. I can't hear a thing... Is that a Mac thing? Anything I can do about it? (I'm sitting here with an old beat up iBook running OS 9.1)
KD
Yoh, Dave
Pretty busy, but that's life...
-Was sortof on my way to Sweden for a tenured position at Gothenburg University. But with a divorce and an ex who didn't fancy to move to Sweden and me not fancying leaving my son behind, I'm building up to a staff position here at McGill University - running a smallish proteomics center that is about to start up. They want to bestove on me the title of 'manager', which I loathe... Not a title that belongs in a university setting if you ask me...
Otherwise, I can't complain... Except about growing older... Monday is my 40th... ugh...
I remember not being bothered by 30 at all, but 40... That means looking ahead to 50... hmmmm...
No ice hockey, this winter... That sucks, big time!
We've just lost our Baseball team to DC and there's no ice hockey... I'm running out of excuses to not work, which leaves me in the lab until long into the night and I'd sort of visioned that as being a thing of the past! -But there you go...
It's getting cold in Montreal. Winter's approaching.
I'm charming the idea of taking a holiday in early February, when it's minus 30. Two weeks to Cuba (something one can do, when living in Canada) to send e-mails home to the lab, every day, saying something to the order of "It's 78F, here... 75, with the wind chill... Have to go... Boat's about to leave... Man, snorkling is so hard! What one must do to earn the self-imposed right to a glass full of Rum and a Salsa with da ladies... Too bad they're not blond... DoubleBuy would hate this place..."
Well, enjoy your Thanksgiving! We've had ours, already, here in Canada.
Best,
KD
Hey, Meme:
Well, somebody just suggested a solution, joining the 'Blue' part of the Divided States of America with Canada and get that divorce over and done with... I mean... You obviously don't love each other anymore, right?...
Anyway, here goes:
-------------------------------------------
The Divided States: a modest proposal
By Gwynne Dyer
LOOKING at that extraordinary electoral map of the United States with all the liberal, quiche-eating, Kerry-supporting states of the north-east and the west coast coloured Democratic blue while the “heartland” and the south were solid Republican red, the solution to the problem suddenly occurred to me. “Blueland” should join Canada.
It is getting harder and harder for the two tribes of Americans to understand or even tolerate each other. Once again, as in 2000, the country is divided with almost mathematical precision into two halves, one of which adores President George W. Bush while the other literally loathes him. And it goes far deeper than mere personalities or even the old left-right split; the clash now is about social norms and fundamental values on which few are willing to compromise.
Opinions on the foreign issues that seemed to dominate the election - the war in Iraq and the “war on terror” - just mapped onto that existing cultural division. People who go to church regularly and oppose abortion and gay marriage were also far more likely to believe that US troops had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein had somehow sponsored the terrorists of 9/11, so they voted for Mr Bush. People who don’t, didn’t.
“Irreconcilable” is the word that springs to mind. Two separate populations have evolved in the United States, and they are increasingly unhappy even about living together. One sub-species, homo canadiensis, thinks medicare is a good idea, would rather send peace-keepers than bombers, and longs for the wimpy, wispy liberalism enjoyed by their Canadian neighbours to the north. The other breed, homo iraniensis, prefers the full-blooded religious certainties and the militant political slogans - “Death to...(fill in the blank)” - that play such a large and fulfilling part in Iranian public life.
It is sheer cruelty to force these two populations to go on living together, especially since US political life has lost its centre and now pits these two irreconcilable opposites directly against each other in a winner-takes-all election every four years. Since the pseudo-Iranians slightly outnumber the proto-Canadians, the obvious solution is for the latter group actually to go to Canada - and indeed, I have lost count of the number of American friends who have told me that if George W. Bush wins again, they are going to move to Canada.
There are problems with this solution, however. A mass migration northwards would leave large chunks of the United States virtually empty, and the parts of Canada where people can live in any comfort are pretty full already. Besides, the winters up there really are fairly severe, and I’m not sure that Californians would be up to it. And then, looking at the two-colour map of the electoral outcome, the solution hit me. You don’t have to move the people; just move the border.
It would all join up just fine: the parts of the US inhabited by homo canadiensis all lie along the Canadian border or next to other states that do (although the blue bit dangles down a long, long way in the case of the Washington-Oregon-California strip fondly known as the Left Coast). True, the United States would lose its whole Pacific coast, but we could probably arrange for an American free port in, say, Tijuana. And lots of Canadians could move to a warmer clime without actually having to leave their country.
At the global level, everybody else would be quite happy with a bigger Canada and a smaller United States. That smaller US would have to pull in its horns a bit, as it would no longer have the resources to maintain military bases in every single country on the planet, but it would retain enough resources to invade a country every year or so, so it wouldn’t suffer too badly from withdrawal symptoms. And the new Canadians would be free to have abortions, enter into gay marriages, do stem-cell research and engage in all other wickednesses that flourish in that bastion of corrupt and Godless liberalism. They could even speak French, if they wanted to.
No solution is perfect: there would be limp-wristed liberals trapped in the United States and God-fearing rednecks who suddenly found themselves in Canada, so some degree of population exchange would be necessary. It’s even possible that a few right-wing bits of Canada – parts of Alberta, for example - might prefer to join the United States. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and think how happy everybody will be when they are living exclusively among like-minded people.
Are the lights still on?...
RE: What's in it for COMCAST?
In a nutshell, what's in it is this:
DIS is a good target. Financially, they're safe - command-wise, they're in disarray.
If you'd ever plan for a quick kill on a lucrative pray, now is it!
Eisner has hurt Disney, but they're more wounded on the soul than on their livelihood. This is the best opportunity to make use of their internal weakness. It could be 25 years before a similar opportunity arrises, again.
Comcast does the right thing, from a business strategic point of view.
That is not to say that Disney should bow and accept, nor that a sell is in their interest. But you can't blame Comcast for trying...
KD
...As if we didn't already suspect it...
http://www.jp.dk/bagside/artikel:aiid=2233250:img=0/
Early start for super fast W-LAN
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/artikel:aid=2197030/
(translated)
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), responsible for the recognition of the wireless 802.11 standards, expects to be ready with the new 802.11n standard in 2005.
But the company Broadcom will already in the second half if this year be ready with so-called pre-standard equipment. 802.11n allows data transmission of around 100 MB per second.
The three existing standards, 802.11b runs 11MB and 802.11a and -g promised 55MB per second, but have not fully delivered the promised speed. 802.11n should do that.
Broadcom was also first with chips for the 802.11g-standard.
I second your words to Aloha, Meme!
Much as I and my son likes to watch "Finding Nemo" and other Pixar animations, together, something is missing from them - something that can only be generated on a drawing board...
The figures lack that *wink*...
I can't put words to it, exactly, but they are not "human"...
I guess the best way I can describe it is by the difference between hand-blown glass and machine-blown glass (if any of you have actually had a hand-blown glass in your hand...)
...Life doesn't mirror itself in something machine made... It isn't "organic"...
... No, I give up! I can't explain it... I just feel it... It has some sort of "sterility" over it...
KD
Hi Meme - Long time!...
Well, the idea of starting something on our membrane yeast two-hybrid, hit a lot of snags...
Long story, but the Ph.D. student who had worked out the setup, had his documantation in a complete mess. So much so, that two others had to work for most of two years to get the system back to where we thought it was, two years ago.
System, now thoroughly documented, works well, but the biotech hype is not what it once was... Raising venture capital in a market where 90% of all biotech startups are on the verge of collaps, isn't easy...
I guess the short version of this is: We're not planning anything at the moment.
Research is going well.
Putting the last touch on work on a native 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis system to be used in analysing protein-protein interactions in a whole-proteome level. Hope to send out the manuscript in late winter. It should open some eyes... I believe I have, compared to other published native electrophoresis techniques, increased the resolution around 50 fold... It's been a lot of exiting work.
Have a students working for me, now.
That's very exiting!
Not too long ago, I was the one being supervised and provided with projects.
Now, I make up the projects and supervise the students.
I believe she is on the verge of having publishable material ready. Getting to that point is something one thinks will never happen, untill it actually happens.
I kind of fancy the thought of becomming senior author on a publication. It's one of those career milestones that are always somewhere out of sight in a haze, somewhere... untill you suddenly realize you're there... And THEN it really hits you... somebody is having success, working on an idea YOU thought up... Very satisfying feeling, I have to say...
She is one outstanding girl and I can't remember having seen a student with such a flair for research, since.... me...(LOL!)
Yes - science is very international, isn't it?
My student is from Hong Kong...
Hope you've had a splendid holiday and are ready to tackle the new year, head on.
Good luck for your company.
Bristol Meyers is on the list I mentioned and so it should be. DoubleBuy wanted a list of 10, so I gave him that (+ a few of the big and profitable biotechs like Genentech and Amgen)
KD
Aloha - good to see you. Tough and trying year to be a Disney holder. I hope for you guys that fewer problems will be brewing for you in the new year.
Having mostly a sentimental connection to the mouse, I hate the thought that that very mouse was well and truely retired on almost his 75 birthday, with the closing of Disney animation.
I tend to compare it to a scenario in which GE drops its last electrical appliance product and focusses entirely on its growing banking and insurance business: -Nothing wrong with the business, but it wouldn't be General Electrics, anymore...
For GE, that's a hypothetical situation, anyway. For Disney, I feel it is not...
All the best
Hope the vacation did you good!
KD
DB:
What you'd want to target, are the ones with many patents - not the generic drug producers.
I'm sure there are lists, somewhere, over which companies spend the most money on research (= most patents as a rule of thumb).
Here's a list of some of the absolute biggest ones:
Pfizer
Merck
Eli Lilly
Bristol Meyers Squibb (leading provider of anticancer drugs)
Novartis
Glaxo
Astra Zeneca
Roche
Schering-Plough
Amgen
Genentech
Biogen-Idec
Those would be what I'd stick with (and they include a couple of "small" speculative, but highly interesting co's in the biotech field).
Notice that I left out Procter and Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and other big "generic" producers.
KD
Re: DB
If the following can be taken as correct:
"Pharmaceutical companies are the biggest winners under the new plan. Demand for drugs will rise, as our already overmedicated seniors will be happy to pass the cost off onto younger taxpayers. Large drug makers will become virtual partners with government, lobbying to make sure their drugs are part of the new system. Those drugs will continue to cost much more in the U.S. than foreign countries, despite efforts in the new bill to change federal rules prohibiting reimportation of drugs.
The Department of Health and Human Services secretary already stated that he will never approve reimportation. Combine this lack of price competition with lengthy patents and protectionist FDA rules, and you have a perfect prescription for record pharmaceutical profits. The pharmaceutical industry reportedly spent $135 million in recent months lobbying for the new Medicare bill. This speaks volumes about how seriously they viewed the stakes involved."
Then I'd say that there is no need to go for specialized drug companies. Go for the biggest ones.
Large companies have proportionally more patents covering them and thus, they'd gain just as much from this as small ones.
So why take the inherent risks that goes with selecting small, if you get the same bonus by buying big and secure?
Shopping list should therefore include Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Glaxo and Astra Zeneca.
I could think of more - how many do you want?
You may also find a pharmaceutical stock fond with a diversified basket. There are several of them, but I'm not intimately familiar with the American fond market and can't recommend...
KD
Merry Christmas and best wishes for a peaceful new year to everybody from me, too.
KD
"Do you have any ideas on which Pharms"
If true that price settings have been totally de-regulated, bet would be on chemotherapy producers.
People will pay anything to live - cynical as it may sound.
I'll have a deeper look at it and report back as to which companies it would involve.
KD
(OT) In the words of Eagles:
My personal reflections after a year when the Nasdaq has shown itself from the more friendly side...
Flame rises, but it soon descents
Empty pages in a frozen pen
You're not quite lovers and you're not quite friends
After the thrill is gone
- Guess the thing with blue eyes is that you can only loose them once...
Maybe I need "a 14 year vacation" to let Hell freeze over, too...
KD
Same dances in the same old shoes
You get to careful with the steps you choose
You don't care about winning but you don't wanna loose
After the thrill is gone, boy
-After the thrill is gone
(Can't ever get tired of Eagles songs)
So much for Saddam...
I guess Bush' old arch enemies (Dow Jones and Nasdaq) expressed what they thought of it all (both down).
I guess Saddam's influence on the world ceased long ago, anyway.
Now, bin Laden... THAT would be a the fish to catch (you know - "then one that got away"... at least, so far).
As for markets: It's a bit premature to say, but both Nasdaq and DJIA seems to be peaking and may make a technical retreat to test the 200EMA.
That said - there's considerably more optimism to be found in company forecasts, these days. Big Q is: How much have they been factored in, already?
Oh - and this:
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/breaking/breakingnewsarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20031215&ID=....
Now THAT...!!
Sympathy for Halliburton runs deep, eh?
The prodigal son still gets his share from daddio...
KD
"Golden Future" says Vodaphone
http://www.jp.dk/erhverv/artikel:aid=2159918/
The 3G platform will revolutionize our use of mobile communication over the next 5-10 years, states Arun Sarin - the new boss of British Vodaphone.
London:
Arun Sarin, the new boss of the british mobile giant Vodaphone, sees a golden future ahead of him, in which all of us - powered by superfast broad connections - will use our mobile phones much more than today.
While the telecom industry as a whole, elbows its way out of 3 years dramatic crises, its the gain of more and more connected minutes from cable phones that occupies the Vodaphone boss more than anything else.
While some in the sector hesitates, Arun Sarin is fully confident that the expensively bought 3G technology as a platform will revolutionize the use of mobile communication over the next 5-10 years.
With a broad spectrum of multimedia services - delivered on a new generation of mobile phones with a speed we know from our broadband connections - we will soon be convinced to spend more money at companies like Vodaphone, Sarin predicted last week at a meeting with the foreign press union.
He still considers the market for mobile communication as underdeveloped. There's 1.3 billion mobile customers in the world - about the same number as of cable phones - but mobile phones take only on fifth of the total speaking minutes and that's not enough, according to Arun Sarin.
That said, he states, we should not forget that the mobile business has come a long way in relatively few years.
3G in waiting position
The whole telecommunications sector has grown explosively - global revenue is estimated at $ 1.4 trillion, this year - and the mobile share of that market increases year after year.
But challenges for the mobile companies in the coming year will be to convince customers to use their mobile phones for more than verbal communication, as it is in data traffic the potential for revenue is the largest.
Vodaphones ambition is that 20% of the companies service revenue is to come from data transmission such as mail messages and pictures. Today, this share is 15.5%.
The last couple of years crises in the telecom market is a collusion of several factors. From the dotcom bubble collapse and the generally falling stockmarkets to the astronomical investments that the tele-companies have made in fixed and mobile networks, based on expectations for demand that were unsupported.
The result has been a long line of bancrupcies, drastically worsened results and rapid decline in stock prices on a broad scale.
Tele-companies are estimated to have used $150 billion just to buy the needed licences to be allowed to run the new 3G networks. But the new platform has not developed as fast and as comprehensively as previously expected.
Arun Sarin estimates that it will be a gradual shift from 2G to 3G, rather than a "Big Bang", but he says Vodaphone still commits itself 100% to the new platform.
The company itself has postponed its grand marketing of 3G until next autumn. According to Arun Sarin, Vodaphone will unveil a giant marketing campaign for its 3G services in September/October 2004.
"We will not advertise our 3G services until we are sure the technology is in place and the new phones are ready. It is all about giving our customers all the right reasons to shift to 3G, rather than dragging them into it" says Sarin.
125 mio. customers
Vodaphone has, so far, invested $8 billion in 3G technology, apart from the billions spent on the necessary licences. It is now Sarins job to convert that into a success.
At the same time, he must ensure the continued rationalization of Vodaphone and make sure Vodaphone is placed most favorably towards the high growth end of the market.
The company, however, has already come far under Sarin's predecessor, Sir Christopher Gent, who through fusions and takeovers in the late 1990ies made Vodaphone the worlds largest mobile phone company - one of the worlds largest companies in general - with 125 million customers and a yearly revenue of $40 billion and ownerships distributing to 26 countries.
21 year old Vodaphone fused in 1999 with American Airtouch and combined their activities in the USA in 2000 with Bell Atlantic in the new company Verizon, which today is is America's largest mobile operator. Same year, Vodaphone was almost doubled in size through the takeover of German Mannesman.
Consolidation is not necessarily over for Vodaphone. Sarin does not hide his wish to take full control over Verizon in the US and SFR, the French mobile company, owned together with Vivendi. In both cases, Vodaphones minority position is of 44%
Sarin was applauded when he, a couple of weeks ago, presented his first full results as boss, announced an increase in net gain and issued a plan to initiate share buy-back for more than $4 billion.
In Sarin's first result - the half-year ending at the end of September, revenue had increased by 13% and net gain before tax by 26% to 5.4 billion pound. In the meantime, the company gained 5.7 million new customers.
Those, invested in Vodaphone will now be hoping that Sarin has set a precedence for the results he, at the helm, will present in the future.
Re: DickMN
I saw the news on Disney's own ABC channel, tonight, and it was gruesome...
Man, when a company starts fighting like that in the management... Think of the bad PR...
Roy Disney - son of co-founder Roy Disney Sr. - in reality kicked out on a technicality for being critical of the CEO he helped in 20 yeaqrs ago...
Roy Disney, who was the advocate for traditional values of America's No 1 "traditional values" company, kicked out (de facto) by an Eisner who just fired the company's last animated film makers (including the active poster, Anim8ted on yon Infoseek/Go board...) leaving animated film production entirely in the hands of affiliated Pixar (which Disney does not even have control over) and their computers...
I don't know what to say...
Mickey just turned 75... Walt resently turned 100 and they have the thing in common that they're both cryopreserved... Neither are animated, anymore...
KD
Re: Fox News really need to lighten up
Ha hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
It will not be lost on me that Matt Groening is actually Canadian!...
So what can you expect from somebody who by birth (alas - default) is guilty of association with Osama bin Laden... If W has it (and as you know, you're not really patriotic if you don't agree with W da maaaan!)
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/patriot.html
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/twoyear.html
Agreed, DB.
I think Nokia, Ericsson and others, have shot themselves in the foot on this.
A lot of hot air for 3 years or more about Bluetooth and 3G, all in the holy name of compatibility.... and then, they've tried to shut the door on the worlds most widespread operating system...
That's an unstable situation and once the foot is in the door, that door isn't going to be forced wide open - they'll rip the door right off and make cigar boxes of it...
MSFT shares still have a lot of future potential, as far as I'm conserned.
During the techmarket nuclear winter, MSFT has made strategic acquisitions in B2B software and will come out dominating this market segment totally (In particular with the takeover of Navision. Loosers= Oracle and SAP)
On the wireless phone/computer interphazing (Larry Ellisons brainchild, if he ever had any), MSFT is about to take that market like an octopus preys a crab. (Loosers= Oracle, Nokia and Ericsson).
This is going to be interesting to follow, over the next couple of years...
Where does QCOM stand in all this?... I'd guess you might have a take on that...
KD
Orange launches yet another Microsoft phone
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/ncom:aid=2108076/
(translated)
The phone company Orange has launched the third in a row of Microsoft based SPV mobile phones. But contrary to the two previous ones, which were mobile phones with pda capabilities, the new SPV 2020 is a pda with build-in mobile phone.
By its looks, the new phone appears as a handheld computer. It is equipped with a 65,000 color resolution touch-screen and operated with a pen. The system, running it, is Microsoft Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition - a modified version that also runs other hand-helds like HP's Ipaq. Phone Edition contains, as the name implies, software to make phone calls etc.
It also supports all the known pda functions, like Explorer, Outlook, Word, Excel and Messenger. SPV has, furthermore, a built-in VGA camera and can communicate with other wireless devices, like a headset, via Bluetooth.
The phone is - like other SPV-phones - produced by the Taiwan company HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), the producer, also of HP's Ipaq.
KD
Cheap Supercomputer, based on standard components
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/ncom:aid=2106150/
(translated)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the USA has bought 1.100 ordinary Mac-computers and connected them in a supercomputer-cluster, named "Big Mac". It is expected as the worlds third fastest supercomputer at Supercomputing Conference in Phoenix, Nov. 18th.
With its 2.200 PowerPC970 processors and a price of 5 million dollars, Big Mac is way ahead of the momentary third placed - a supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore research center.
Supercomputers in the top class, normally costs between 100 og 200 million dollars, but the Virginia-university has managed to scrink costs by using cheap components, for sale in any computer shop.
Big Mac was built in a month and already has a capacity of 9.6 TeraFlops, but is still way from its teoretical max of 17.6 TeraFlops.
For comparison, the worlds fastest supercomputer, the Japanese Earth Simulator comes at a price of 200 million dollars, a capacity of 35.8 TeraFlops, while the American Asci Q holds second place with 13.88 Tera Flops.
KD
I think that rocks!...
...I have no other excuse for bringing this story...
Fired for revealing Mac's at Microsoft!
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/artikel:aid=2096092/
(Translated)
Microsoft are Grand users of Apple computers. But it is reason for firing to inform the world about computers with other operating system than MSFTs own.
-As Michael Hanscom learned the hard way when he put pictures on his homepage of three small piles of computers from Apple, unloaded in front of the American Microsoft printing office where Hansson now no longer works.
The pictures of the new PowerMac G5 computers were put on the internet, where they were seen by a Microsoft employee. He was subsequently dismissed.
Anyone who wants to look closer at the case can click their way in on Hanscom's homepage at: http://www.michaelhanscom.com.
Aloha Re: NMPS
For microcaps that mostly fly under the radar, it is easy to dwindle, pricewise - and NMPS has done that.
Today, it got favorable mention in Wall Street Journal, as a company that may get a serum based prostate cancer marker to trial/market, next year (in competition with Correlogic, who also work on serum cancer markers - but not the same as NMPS').
Favorable mention, of course, brings it back on the radar, for a while. Whether it can succeed in staying on radars, until a serum based prostate- (or colon- or breast cancer-) marker maa be ready, remains to be seen.
If NMPS can't, then today was a flash in a pan. If NMPS can, one analyst put a target price on this stock, a year ago, at $20...
If you want to play it, know that microcaps are somewhat more reliable than pennystocks, but they're still risky.
Be further adviced that patience is needed for microcaps. There can be half years between news of any significant content...
For a biotech microcap, the one thing that speaks in NMPS' favor, is that it already has some modest revenue from one cancer screen on the market. And whereas that's not enough to keep them in financial balance, it does contribute to it and the product keeps doing better each quarter.
If NMPS could hit success with one of it's three blood based cancer screens under development (they're working, as I mentioned, on breast, colon and prostate cancer tests from simple blood samples), then you can be fairly sure of a 10 fold return at the current price (and also more than that, IMO).
If they fail, they'll slowly waste away and you could loose all, if you hold on...
Disclosure: I do not currently hold shares in it, but I keep a close watch on it and may buy, one day...
KD
Bluetooth has wind at its back
(Translated)
Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) reprots record sale of Bluetooth products in Q3. For the first time, the sale of Bluetooth products has passed 1 mio units per week
The technology can now be found in anything from mobile phones and headsets to pda's, mp3 players, pc's and cars.
"Bluetooth has passed an important milestone in its development. A stabile specification and millions of installed units, proves that the technology is a success" Michale Wall, a market analyst from Frost & Sullivan, coments.
Compared to wireless technologies like WLAN, the bandwith and reach is limited, but the producers have focussed on doing whatever possible to make it easy to install Bluetooth networks.
Bluetooth SIG informs that car producers Accura, Audi, DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Lexus all ahev announced plans to build in Bluetooth technology in their cars. GM and BMW already have Bluetooth equipped cars on the market.
Partners in Bluetooth SIG are Agere, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba.
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/ncom:aid=2093656/
KD
Logitech with Bluetooth mouse
http://www.jp.dk/itogc:aid=2050412/
A very brief translated summary:
The Bluetooth radio transmitter that serves as connection and charger to the new mouse, can communicate not just with the mouse, but with all Bluetooth units within reach, converting the PC to a de facto Bluetooth Hub.
Recognizing that connecting everything can be difficult, Logitech has opened a web page to help Bluetooth users achieve this:
www.logitech.com/bluetooth/howto
KD
IBM: 'Grid' not hot air
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/ncom:aid=2038452/
Shortened version, translated.
Contrary to statements by Carly Fiorina and the consulting company Gartner, IBM dismisses any notion of Grid not being ready for the world market.
IBM insist that they already have 100 customers for the Grid technology and have resently gotten 10 more - including T-Systems, a division of Deutche Telecom as well as IN2P3 of France, NLI Research Institute and Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
IBM is to deliver Grid-technology to Morgan Stanley and Hewitt Associates.
The promis behind the technology is an increased use of existing IT systems by increasing use of existing IT systems, by making it possible to spread 'heavy' computing over hundreds of servers at the same time.
Oracle has announced that it will have a Grid based version of its database software on the market by the end of the year.
Oracle is also heckling IBM for their system, which demands heavy consulting from IBM Global Service.
IBM has answered by claiming that Oracles Grid products are little more than the company's Cluster-technology in a new wrapping...
KD
Saw it, Dick. Apparently a popular move...
I still buy into Larry Ellisons idea of wireless computer access through relatively small devices. ("Have a powerful computer and have access to your data when actually sitting at it. Have a workstation (i.e. computationally much larger, faster and what have you...) and access/control it, wireless, and you have access to your data and can work with them, anywhere, anytime, 24/7")
Teaming up MOT and MSFT could be their first step in that direction...
Larry may get competition from a side he did not expect, when he said what he said, above (which was in a context of ridiculing MSFT for not being 'up to date' on that trendy idea og his...)
In the meantime, I've seen (again on the Danish on-line newspaper) that the next generation Intel chips to come out will be 802.11 (Wi-Fi/WLAN) compatible - that is, with all the Wi-Fi standards, including the g-standard...
http://www.jp.dk/itogc/ncom:aid=2026080/
(Sorry - not in the mood to translate...)
Interesting times...
Over
KD
DickMN
I haven't followed up on it, myself. Motorola may not have benefitted from this, short term. But if I had Nokia shares, I'd probably watch this, closely.
I would not want to do battle with Microsoft for anything in this world,,,
KD
"Microsoft and Motorola attacks Nokia's position"
(From the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in my translation)
"Microsoft and Motorola will now enter an alliance to break Nokia's dominance on the market for mobile phones
The two IT giants will go public, Monday, to announce a strategic alliance that could mean a loss of market share to Nokia, on the attractive market of mobile phones
The collaboration is based on Motorola producing a series of phones and pocket computers based on Microsofts mobile phone system. The first of such phones will be available for sale in Denmark by fourth quarter, Motorola promises.
The so-called Smartphones can be used to read e-mails, enter the internet and check the calender. For that, Microsoft and Motorola expect that a great share of the buisness customers will relatively quickly adapt the new phones.
Quest to weaken Nokia
"Our analyses show that the persons who have a smartphone, use the phone far more than the more traditional mobile phone owners. They do that because they have greater versatility" Bjørn Conquist, the Nordic marketing boss of Microsoft, says.
Increased use leads to higher revenue for the hard pressed mobile operators, who have vested interests in promoting new advanced phones to their customers.
"We believe it will be an asset that a phone with Microsoft software can immediately communicate with several of a buisness' IT systems" Bjørn Conquist explains.
Microsoft has built in mobile phone access as standard in all future versions of the mail system "Exchange" which is the most used amongst companies anywhere in the world.
At the same time, some of the largest mobile operators have said they want to weaken Nokia's strong position.
"Vodaphone and Orange have both announced that they want to reduce Nokia's dominance on the terminal part. They'll do that by favoring other phone products on Nokia's expence" explains John Strand, the mobile phone analyst and director of Strand Consult.
When the new phone will go on sale by the start of October, it will happen first in tight collaboration with Orange in the UK and AT&T in the USA.
Threat against Nokia
Motorola also does nothing to hide that it is Nokia that is in their cross hairs.
"For Motorola, it is Nokia that is the strongest competitor. Collaborating with Microsoft will be a powerful weapon in the competition with Nokia" says Jakob Cederquist, regional Information officer at Motorola
According to John Strand of Strand Consult, the new collaboration is a very serious threat to Nokia.
"On sight, Nokia could end up as the mobile markets answer to Apple or Wordperfect. Nokia's market share will stagnate and possibly fall in the coming couple of years" John Strand says.
On the world market, Nokia has a market share of 36%, while Motorola has a share of approximately 15%.
It was not possible to get a comment from Nokia.
http://www.jp.dk/itogc:aid=2013084/
(link will outdate within 24 hours)
With gas prices of these times, that's gonna cost you BIGTIME... (a somewhat sneaky LOL)
KD
Back at you on 'Private', Dick (eom)