Showing posts with label Arizona State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona State. Show all posts
Monday, July 2, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Google reveals pint-sized Nexus 7 tablet for just $199
Today at Google I/O 2012, the company revealed its new device — a 7-inch Nexus tablet running Android's newest operating system flavor, 4.1 Jelly Bean. The pint-sized slate was manufactured by Asus, known for making other Android tablets including the Transformer and the Transformer Prime.
The device has a 1280 x 800-pixel high-definition display, made with reading and watching videos in mind. It has a speedy Tegra 3 with a quad-core processor under the hood, front-facing camera for video chat, 9 hours of video playback — compared to the iPad's 10-hour playback life — and 300 hours of standby battery time. The tablet weighs 340 grams, which is about as much as a paperback.
It features tighter integration with Google Play, with content being front and center, similar to how the Amazon Kindle Fire functions. Due to this, Google Play now has a new 3D magazine app with s tablet-optimized articles that renders well on the Nexus 7's screen.
Nexus 7 will also be the first device that ships with Chrome as its native browser — Chrome, despite being Google's browser, hasn't been available on Android until a beta version of it was introduced for Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Google has also overhauled Google Maps with additional information and review features which can predict which restaurants you'll likely enjoy. Offline maps will also be a hotly sought-after feature, and now that Apple and Microsoft are touting similar features, it's an important bullet point to have.
Preorders for the teensy Google Nexus 7 tablet begins today. You can order the new tablet from the Google Play store with two price tiers — $199 for the 8GB model and 16GB version — making it a true Kindle Fire competitor. It will start shipping in mid July. The Kindle Fire lands at a similar price point, but with its apps governed largely by what Amazon declares suitable for its shop, the Nexus 7 will have everything the Fire has, and then some. Despite similar hardware specs — screen size, screen resolution, etc — the Nexus will offer a much more genuine Android experience from a software standpoint.
Google is clearly making a play for potential iPad customers with this sleek, streamlined device, and with a price tag of less than half of the base model Apple tablet, the company may have a real shot at success. $499 gets you a 16GB iPad with a 9.7-inch Retina display, but if ultra-sharp screen resolution and a few more gigs of storage aren't a big deal, the 7-inch Nexus slate will be much easier on your pocketbook.
Of course, it's unclear how Microsoft's Surface device will shake up the consumer tablet market. With a physical keyboard and Windows 8-esque software design, it seems like Android and iOS devotees will already have their minds made up between the iPad and the Nexus 7.
This article originally appeared on Tecca
Monday, June 11, 2012
Promoter refuses Pacquiao-Bradley rematch, wants investigation into scoring controversy
LAS VEGAS – Promoter Bob Arum was still fuming about the split-decision verdict that went against Manny Pacquiao on Saturday and said there would be no rematch with Timothy Bradley unless Nevada attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto launches an investigation.
Bradley, a 4-1 underdog, upset Pacquiao in one of the most controversial outcomes in years to take the World Boxing Organization welterweight title.
All three judges scored it 115-113, with Duane Ford and C.J. Ross seeing it in favor of Bradley and Jerry Roth siding with Pacquiao.
The rematch that Bradley thought he would get may be on hold, at least for a while, however. Arum, whose company promotes both fighters, said his feeling that Pacquiao had won a wide decision had not changed a day later.
But because of the outcry among the fans and media, many of whom accused Arum of somehow rigging the outcome, the veteran promoter said he would demand an investigation.
"I want to investigate whether there was any undue influence, whether the [Nevada Athletic Commission] gave any particular instruction and how they came to this conclusion," said Arum, who at the post-fight news conference was adamant the result was a mistake but not the result of any chicanery. "But the whole sport is in an uproar. People are going crazy.
"If this was a subjective view that each of [the judges] honestly held, OK. I would still disagree, but then we're off the hook in terms of there being no conspiracy. But there needs to be an independent investigation because it strains credulity that an event everybody saw as so one-sided one way all three judges saw it as close. It strains credulity."
Ford spoke by telephone to Yahoo! Sports on Sunday. He said the criticism is a part of the job he accepts, but said those criticizing the outcome are almost certainly not familiar with the way fights are judged.
"If this were 'American Idol', without a doubt, Manny Pacquiao would have won," Ford said. "But it was not. I gave an honest opinion. I had Pacquiao up 4-2, I think, at the end of six rounds. I thought he hurt Bradley a couple of times early in the fight. But when the bell rang to end that round, it was over and what happens in one round doesn't carry over to the next round. They're separate units.
"In the second half of the fight, Pacquiao picked off a lot of punches to the head, but Bradley landed some hard body shots. That hurt Pacquiao. I don't mean it hurt him in the sense of it physically hurting him, but in terms of scoring and piling up points. Bradley did an excellent job standing his ground as a boxer. Remember, it's a boxing match and Bradley demonstrated his ability to box expertly."
Bradley has been harshly criticized by many who believe Pacquiao won, but the fact that Bradley won the fight with two badly injured feet should say something about his tenacity.
And the bout might suggest that Pacquiao is declining more than previously thought. If he had trouble with a fighter who had two injured feet and needed a wheelchair to attend the post-fight news conference, how difficult would it have been for him had his opponent been completely mobile?
Bradley injured his left foot in the second round when he pivoted. His manager, Cameron Dunkin, said an examination late Saturday revealed torn ligaments that will keep him off it for several weeks to a month.
He said the X-ray did not show a fracture, but doctors ordered an MRI on Monday in Palm Springs, Calif.
"They said that just because the X-ray did not show a fracture didn't mean there isn't one," Dunkin said. "He has a lot of pain on the top of the foot and there are 700 bones in there. Some of them are so small. The doctor said the only way to tell if there is a fracture is to do an MRI."
He said there was no serious injury to the right foot, which was far more swollen than the left.
"The right was just kind of rolled and it was basically a twisted foot that was pretty swollen," Dunkin said.
Dunkin also said he was fine if Arum chose not to arrange a rematch. He said Top Rank promotes Bradley and owes him a fight. If it chose not to make a rematch with Pacquiao, it would have to book a different fight for Bradley.
Juan Manuel Marquez, who lost a controversial decision to Pacquiao on Nov. 12 in the same arena, was in attendance Saturday, Top Rank president Todd duBoef said, because the company was planning to make Pacquiao-Marquez IV in the event of a Pacquiao win.
That changed in light of the outcome, and Pacquiao said he wanted a rematch. Ultimately, Arum will likely accede to Pacquiao's wishes.
Pacquiao's next fight almost certainly will not be in Las Vegas after the uproar over Saturday's fight. Ford, though, said it is unfair for those who don't know the scoring criteria and who weren't focusing intently on the fight to bash the judges.
"In pro boxing, you look for damage, and if the punches are equal and the damage is equal, you are looking for effective aggression, and that does not necessarily mean the guy going forward," Ford said. "Effective aggression can be a guy going back. And then you look at ring generalship, and that's all about control.
"When you score a fight of that magnitude, you know the criticism comes with the job. But unless you are totally focused on that scoring zone for three minutes, it's impossible to score the fight correctly. I know you can't do it talking into a microphone. It was a close fight in my mind that could have gone either way. The result was nothing more than three judges giving an honest opinion, and nothing other than that."
Arum told media at ringside that Dunkin had scored it 116-112 for Pacquiao, but Dunkin angrily denied that Sunday. Dunkin said he had it 115-113 in favor of Bradley.
He said he understands the uproar, but said most of it is because of Pacquiao's huge popularity.
"If they're fighting on a street and we're just scoring the fight, the whole fight, I can see you thinking maybe Pacquiao won it," Dunkin said. "But when you score it round by round, I think it's very reasonable to believe Bradley won."
Monday, May 14, 2012
Facebook Goes Public Today... Check Out How Much Its Worth!!!!
NEW YORK (AP) — He famously wears a hoodie, jeans and sneakers, and he was born the year Apple introduced the Macintosh. But Mark Zuckerberg is no boy-CEO.
Facebook's chief executive turned 28 on Monday, setting in motion the social network's biggest week ever. The company is expected to start selling stock to the public for the first time and begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday. The IPO could value Facebook at nearly $100 billion, making it worth more than such iconic companies as Disney, Ford and Kraft Foods.
At 28, Zuckerberg is exactly half the age of the average S&P 500 CEO, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. With eight years on the job, he's logged more time as leader than the average CEO, whose tenure is a little more than seven years, according to Spencer Stuart. Even so, the pressures of running a public company will undoubtedly take some getting used to. Once Facebook begins selling stock, Zuckerberg will be expected to please a host of new stakeholders, including Wall Street investment firms, hedge funds and pension funds who will pressure him to keep the company growing.
Young as he may seem —especially in that hooded sweatshirt—Zuckerberg will be about the same age as Michael Dell and older than Steve Jobs when those two took their companies, Dell Inc. and Apple Inc., public. In his years as Facebook's CEO he's met world leaders, rode a bull in Vietnam while on vacation, started learning Mandarin Chinese and as a personal challenge, wore a tie for the better part of a year.
Facebook, of course, got its start in Zuckerberg's messy Harvard dorm room in early 2004. Known as Thefacebook.com back in those days, the site was created to help Harvard students — and later other college students — connect with one another online. The scrappy website later grew to include high-schoolers, then anyone else with an Internet connection. Today more than 900 million people log in at least once a month, making Facebook the world's definitive social network.
All along, Zuckerberg has shown a maturity beyond his years. As the site grew rapidly and caught the eye of big media and rival Internet companies, Zuckerberg consistently rebuffed mouth-watering buyout offers, including from Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.
"Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services," wrote Zuckerberg in his letter to prospective shareholders. "And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits."
People who've observed Zuckerberg closely say his age is an asset. His is the generation that grew up with social networking, with computers all around them and the Internet as something that's always existed. Many of his employees are younger than him, as are a lot of the up-and-coming technology entrepreneurs with whom he competes.
"I don't think you could build a company like this if you were an old guy like me," says David Kirkpatrick, a 59-year-old author who chronicled the company's early history in "The Facebook Effect". Kirkpatrick, who is also founder of Techonomy, a media company that hosts conferences on the relationship between technology and economy and social progress, first met Zuckerberg six years ago. He says he was impressed with his vision, even then. "It's the willingness to take risks, the willingness to abide by a very contemporary vision ... I don't think that he's too young. I think most CEOs are too old."
Zuckerberg, who lives in Palo Alto, Calif. with his girlfriend and a white Hungarian Puli dog named Beast, has matured as a leader with the help of experienced mentors. One of his closest advisors is Sheryl Sandberg, who he hired away from Google in 2008. Zuckerberg, known for sometimes-awkward public appearances, realized that the razor-sharp, people-savvy advertising executive complements his own shortcomings. Sandberg is Zuckerberg's No. 2, the chief operating officer who oversees advertising and often serves as Facebook's smiling, public face. Then there's Donald Graham, the 66-year-old CEO and chairman of The Washington Post Co., who serves as a mentor toZuckerberg and holds a seat on Facebook's board of directors.
Rebecca Lieb, analyst at the Altimeter Group, says Zuckerberg has assembled a team of "truly exceptional lieutenants." David Ebersman, Facebook's chief financial officer, who hails from biotech firm Genentech, is another example. Zuckerberg hired him in 2009, saying that Ebersman's previous job, helping to scale the finance organization of the fast-growing biotech company "will be important to Facebook."
He was right. Facebook's revenue grew from $777 million in 2009 to $3.7 billion last year. In the first quarter of 2012 it was more than $1 billion.
Obviously, Zuckerberg still has a lot to learn. As part of Facebook's pre-IPO "roadshow" last week, Zuckerberg visited several venerable East Coast financial institutions wearing his signature hoodie. While Silicon Valley insiders defend his fashion choice, others saw it as a sign of immaturity. Was it, as some speculated, a sign of a rebellious 20-something acting out? For Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, Zuckerberg's attitude and attire symbolizes "a level of aloofness to stakeholders."
"He seems very customer focused and very employee focused. I am not sure he cares about anyone else... If he's going to go public, he has to answer to shareholders," Pachter says. "That's why Google hired Eric Schmidt. That's why Steve Jobs was ultimately forced out of Apple."
Jobs, in fact, was another Silicon Valley luminary who had Zuckerberg's ear. He was 25 in 1980 when Apple went public. He was ousted five years later after clashing with John Sculley, the former Pepsico executive Apple hired as chief executive. Jobs famously returned to lead Apple in 1997 and the company has thrived since.
Not much is known about the relationship Jobs and Zuckerberg shared, but Jobs reportedly told his biographer Walter Isaacson: "We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don't see anybody other than Facebook out there. Just Facebook, They are dominating this. I admire Mark Zuckerberg . . . for not selling out, for wanting to make a company. I admire that a lot."
When Jobs died last October, Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page, "Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you."
Jon Burgstone, professor at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that Zuckerberg will need to keep his perspective and continue developing.
"He has already become one of the world's most famous people, and also the richest," he says. "He walks into a room and you can feel people's excitement and the rush to be near him. He's already had time to learn how to deal with such fame and fortune, but now it's advancing to an entirely new level. How will he handle it, emotionally and professionally?"
Lieb marvels at the life Zuckerberg has led so far. Imagine being in your 20s, a self-made billionaire, your life the subject of a Hollywood movie. "It's a lifetime and the guy isn't 30 yet," says Lieb.
He's made big mistakes, especially with regard to users' privacy. One example is Beacon, Facebook's misguided advertising product that broadcast user's activities on outside websites without their consent. Still, he took steps to correct them. On blog posts about Facebook's privacy blunders, he's admitted the company has made mistakes. His 2007 post about Beacon showed his straightforward, methodical thinking:
" We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users. I'd like to discuss what we have learned and how we have improved Beacon," he wrote five years ago. Facebook shut down Beacon two years later.
Zuckerberg has done well for himself so far, but he'll be pulled in many directions once Facebook is public.
"There is going to be a tremendous amount of scrutiny on this company," Lieb says. "Who really is qualified" to carry such a weight?
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
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