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John Arnold, Hedge Fund Manager And Former Enron Trader, Retires At 38 Years Old With $3.5 Billion
Most of us would feel lucky to have the means to retire at 38. Now imagine retiring at that ripe old age with $3.5 billion in the bank. That's the true story of former star Enron trader John Arnold, who most recently worked as a hedge fund manager.
When the sun goes down many developing countries rely upon dangerous kerosene lamps, which emit hazardous fumes and generate 190 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Seeking an eco-friendly alternative to this trend, four Harvard engineering students developed the Soccket – a soccer ball that generates and stores electricity during play. Soccer is found in just about every African country, so the energy-generating ball has great potential to encourage healthy activity while producing clean electricity to light up the night . <a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/Inhabitat/energy;article=articlename;kw=content1;sz=300x250;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" ><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/Inhabitat/energy;article=articlename;kw=content1;sz=300x250;ord=123456789?" border="0" alt="" /></a>
Energy Generating Soccer Ball Brings Clean Power to Off-Grid Areas
Technology 2.0
Marilyn Monroe Hologram: Late Actress Is Among Celebrities Who May Be Digitally Resurrected
The hologram trend continues to trudge along, with each week bringing news of plans for another late celebrity's digital resurrection. This week: Marilyn Monroe. THR reports Monroe (who would have turned 86 Friday) is the center of an upcoming show with the working title "Virtual Marilyn Live -- A Musical Celebration of the Birth of the Pop Icon" (hopefully that will change). She's not the only one: Usher will dance with fan holograms during his upcoming June 11th concert, which will be streamed live on YouTube. That event is part of a series which pairs musicians with luminaries in film (the most recent, and notable, of these performances was the Gary Oldman-directed Jack White concert).
Supporting Technology Hubs in Africa
En Français As part of our mission in Africa to make the internet more relevant and useful, we are partnering with tech hubs. Our goal is to enable tech hubs by providing them with technical content, business tools, infrastructure upgrades, so that they can support increasing demand from developers and start-ups. Whether an established tech hub like iHub (Kenya) , or a brand new hub such as KINU (Tanzania) , these partners are the technology leaders in their community and a logical home for Google communities such our Google Developer Groups and Google Business Groups .
Microsoft is about to concede that Apple may be onto something. On Monday, Microsoft is expected to introduce a tablet computer of its own design that runs a new version of its Windows operating system, according to people with knowledge of Microsoft’s plans who declined to be identified discussing confidential matters. It is the first time in the company’s 37-year history that it will offer a computer of its own creation. The device is aimed squarely at Apple’s blockbuster , which has begun to threaten Microsoft’s hegemony in the computer business. Microsoft’s move is another example of how Apple has demonstrated that the most effective way to create easy-to-use consumer gadgets is by building the whole package — upending the longstanding practice in the technology industry of companies’ devoting their energies to either hardware or software.
Microsoft Is Expected to Introduce a Tablet
Apple Sold 5 Million New iPhones in First Weekend
By IAN SHERR And DREW FITZGERALD Apple Inc. AAPL +1.84% said initial supplies of its new iPhone 5 sold out, achieving a first-weekend sales record but failing to meet demand for the hotly anticipated handset. The total of more than five million units purchased during the first three days in stores compares with four million iPhone 4S units sold during that device's premiere weekend last year. Some analysts had expected Apple to sell eight million or more of the new smartphones over the weekend. "Demand for iPhone 5 has been incredible, and we are working hard to get an iPhone 5 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible," said Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, in prepared remarks.
Before Lucas Buick cofounded Synthetic, the company that created popular iPhone app Hipstamatic, he was employed as a graphic designer at a trade magazine — a post, he says, he ultimately decided to leave in pursuit of more creative freedom. On Thursday, Buick is reentering the magazine business on his own terms, launching a free monthly iPad magazine called Snap. The title, edited by longtime music blogger and Synthetic social media manager Katie Carroll, is compromised of eight sections and three feature stories based on a monthly theme.
Hipstamatic Founders Launch Monthly iPad Magazine
Solar to dye for: The colored windows at left in a government building in Seoul, South Korea, generate power using technology from Australian dye-based solar developer Dyesol. Easy-to-make solar cells that capture light with dyes have garnered an impressive string of scientific awards, including the Millennium Technology Prize in 2010. Yet they’ve had little commercial impact since their invention in 1988. A novel design reported by Northwestern University researchers last week could change that, delivering a device that eliminates the dye-sensitized solar cell’s inherent liability: its leak-prone and corrosive liquid electrolyte. Unlike thin-film and silicon panels, dye-based panels can be produced in cheap roll-to-roll processes akin to printing.
Cheap Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Moves toward Commercialization
Apple Is Said to Discuss an Investment in Twitter
While Apple has been hugely successful in selling phones and tablets, it has little traction in social networking, which has become a major engine of activity on the Web and on mobile devices. Social media are increasingly influencing how people spend their time and money — an important consideration for Apple, which also sells applications, games, music and movies. Apple has considered an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one that could value Twitter at more than $10 billion, up from an $8.4 billion valuation last year, these people said. They declined to be named because the discussions were private. There is no guarantee that the two companies, which are not in negotiations at the moment, will come to an agreement.
Why Microsoft Is Being Left in the Dust
Alex Goldfayn’s new book is called Evangelist Marketing: What Apple Amazon and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn’t). He is CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute, a marketing consultancy with clients that include T-Mobile, TiVo, and Logitech. Follow him @alexgoldfayn .
A man who was in command of a botnet of some 30 million computers worldwide has been sentenced to four years jail in Armenia. According to prosecutors, Georg Avanesov was earning 100,000 Euros (£80,000 or $125,000) a month from his Bredolab botnet business, renting out access to the compromised computers to criminals who wanted to send out spam, and spread malware and fake anti-virus attacks. The criminal income allowed the hacker to live a pretty lavish lifestyle by all reports, as he jetted off to the Seychelles with his attractive girlfriend and fancied himself as a DJ. At its peak, it is estimated that Avanesov's botnet was spewing out over 3 billion infected emails every day. Avanesov's comeuppance began in October 2010, when Dutch police announced that they had wrestled control of 143 Bredolab botnet command & control servers , and were using it to display a warning to infected computer users.
Bredolab: Jail for man who masterminded botnet of 30 million computers
Google Launches 'Search As You Type' Pilot Program for Merchants
Google has rolled out a pilot program in which advertisers can display relevant search items before a consumer has finished typing a query. Called "Search as You Type," the initiative is aimed at AdWords advertisers. Google has so far partnered with two brands — Hasbro and Lowe's — for the program. In the example below, someone starting to search "transformers" on Hasbro's site will see various Transformer products. Google is providing Search As You Type for free for the first 25 million searches annually. After that, licensing fees kick in.Spotify Apps Find You a Date Based on Your Music Tastes
Two new apps have been launched on Spotify that aim to match you with potential dates based on what music you like. Fellody and Tastebuds.fm both integrate seamlessly with the popular music streaming service, scanning your music library to find your favorite artists, the songs you listen to the most, and your collection of playlists, to find other users with similar picks. You are then shown the profiles of the people who share the same taste, so you can see what you have in common.<img src="http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/applestore.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1" alt="applestore" title="applestore"/> How high can Apple soar? The tech juggernaut is closing in on $500 per share, a dramatic psychological threshold that underscores the company’s stunning performance over the last decade. How massive has Apple become? It’s now worth more by market capitalization than Google and Microsoft combined.
Apple Now Worth More Than Microsoft, Google Combined
For industry people who keep up with the daily technology news cycle of incremental feature updates , startup launches , and seed funding stories, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture of how tech has changed how the world operates. So sometimes, it’s fun to just step back and realize how crazy something that’s happening today would seem to someone who time-traveled from, say, 100 years ago — or even how improbable it would seem to yourself just five years back. To wit: People are now signing $100 million contracts not with a pen, but with a finger. And it’s not because they’re signing in blood. It’s because they’re using an iPad.
Know What’s Crazy? People Are Signing $100 Million NBA Contracts On An iPad
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