3 posts from 2009

An identity crisis, which made Yahoo, reach the Shakespearean proportions by late 2007, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs paid a visit to the company's Sunnyvale (Calif.) headquarters. Yahoo has to decide if it would focus foremost on media or on technology, Jobs told the small group of assembled executives, according to one executive who attended the meeting. Jobs made it clear which side he favored: "We are in Silicon Valley," Jobs said, according to the former exec.

If approved, Microsoft will be the in charge of Yahoo's search technology. With that, Yahoo would shelve a half-decade-long effort to rival Google in the lucrative market for search-related advertising and go further than ever to dismantle a culture of technological innovation, say engineers and former staffers.

True, Yahoo employs most of the engineers who work on products other than search, including e-mail, instant messaging, and mobile applications. But for many developers, search was by far the most competitive. Search is the rocket science stuff. Goss and other Yahoo alumni say that as Yahoo out sources search to Microsoft, a wave of top-tier engineers will likely depart, taking with them the inner geekiness that's fueled with much success over the years.

The number of soldiers killing themselves has soared to a record number in 2008. This number is so high that it is even to surpass the suicide number of the civilians. With the stress of war and long tours away from home are expected to be the cause for this.

In 2007, the number of army suicides was 115, higher ever since the army started counting in 1980. And in 2008, the number has jumped to 128 confirmed suicides; and 15 other need to be confirmed.

The major reasons behind these suicides are expected to be alcohol or drug abuse, poor job performance, or broken relationships. It was found that 65 percent of the suicides in 2007 were due to broken relationships.

The government is to approach the situation in different view. It is to hire more mental health doctors to help their soldiers and is about to sponsor a $50 million study on suicides.

After a big plunge in the profit, Intel has taken this major step to cut its processor prizes for 48 percent.

I don’t know if the rebate in prices has something to do with the poor results of Intel Corp’s fourth quarter, where profits were seen declined to 90 percent. But it announced that it is going to sell its microprocessors for much lower prices in order to comply with the recession.

The processors, which will be available for special prices, include Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Celeron, and even Pentium dual-core. The special cuts on prices were ranging from around 13 percent to a 48 percent.

The mobile Celeron 570 with a capacity of 2.00 GHz, which costs around $134, is now available for $70. There is also a set of Xeon processors, which received hefty cuts. For example, the X3370 processor with 3.00GHz capacity, which used to cost around $530 is now available at $316.