Amazon aims to compete with FedEx and UPS in the logistics and shipping industry. That’s what analysts told CNBC after Amazon Air recently expanded to 50 planes and announced it will open a $1.5 billion air hub in Northern Kentucky in 2021. Amazon is handling up to 26% of its own shipping, meaning FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service are losing a portion of Amazon’s business. FedEx says it’s not worried, but Morgan Stanley reports the major shippers have already lost 2% revenue to Amazon Air. (Published on Feb 16, 2019 )
Published on May 9, 2019 A business empire needs decisive leadership, but also a steady hand. For over 40 years, Charlie Munger has been the latter for Berkshire Hathaway. As Berkshire’s Vice Chairman, the 95-year-old Munger is Warren Buffett’s right-hand man. He’s also an investing legend in his own right. Munger ran a firm in the 1960s and ’70s that scored returns of over 24% per year. He’s here to talk about how to make investment decisions and life choices that help secure prosperity and longevity.
Charlie Munger Berkshire Hathaway. Published on May 9, 2019 Influencers with Andy Serwer
Tipping points we will reach by 2030. From driverless cars to robotic workers
Many emerging technologies that you hear about today will reach a tipping point by 2025, according to a recent report from The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society.
1 trillion sensors will be connected to the internet by 2022.
21 technology tipping points we will reach by 2030
1 90% of the population will have unlimited and free data storage by 2018.
2 The first robotic pharmacist will arrive in the US 2021.
3 1 trillion sensors will be connected to the internet by 2022.
4 10% of the world’s population will be wearing clothes connected to the internet by 2022.
5 The first 3D-printed car will be in production by 2022.
6 The first implantable mobile phone will become commercially available in 2025.
7 The first government to replace its census with big-data technologies by 2023.
8 10% of reading glasses will be connected to the internet by 2023.
9 80% of people on earth will have a digital presence online by 2023.
10 A government will collect taxes for the first time via blockchain 2023.
11 90% of the global population will have a supercomputer in their pocket by 2023.
12 Access to the Internet will become a basic right by 2024.
13 The first transplant of a 3D-printed liver will occur 2024.
14 More than 50% of Internet traffic to homes will be from appliances and device by 2024.
15 5% of consumer products will be 3D-printed.
16 30% of corporate audits will be performed by artificial intelligence 2025.
17 Globally, more trips will be made using car sharing programs than privately owned cars by 2025.
18 Driverless cars will account for 10% of all cars in the US.
19 The first AI machine will join a corporate board of directors 2026.
20 The first city with more than 50,000 people and no traffic lights will come into existence by 2026.
21 10% of global gross domestic product will be stored using blockchain technology 2027.
As blockchain technology take off, more money will be stored using the technology.
According to the report, the total worth of Bitcoin in the blockchain is around $20 billion, or about 0.025% of global GDP of around $80 trillion. By 2027, about 10% of the global GDP will be stored using blockchain.
Jobs Died: October 5, 2011 Steve Jobs Three stories :
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
# About Connecting the Dots…Again, you cannot connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking back…
# About Love and Loss… You got to find what you love….
# About Death… Death is the destination we all share… Death is very likely the single best invention of life… Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition…
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged STANFORD graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.
Peeling potatoes has long been considered a chore in the Army reserved for a Soldier who had screwed up. For an amputee who has just regained use of his second hand, however, a task like peeling carrots takes on a unique magic.
Mr. Fred Downs is a Veteran of the Vietnam War who lost his left arm to a landmine. He helped DARPA test out the DEKA Arm System and offered valuable feedback on how to refine it to best serve amputees. The arm was developed under DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.
On May 9, 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the DEKA Arm, meaning that the developer, DEKA Integrated Solutions, can now pursue manufacturing and commercial opportunities to bring the arm to market.
This milestone represents just part of DARPA’s commitment to standing by and enabling Service members.
The largest transaction ever completed in Bitcoin, the virtual currency that approximates cash on the internet, was for $1 millionworth of computer hardware. That’s impressive for a currency that’s only been around since 2009, but Jack Sommer hopes to top it — by a lot. The casino owner-turned-developer is selling his 25,000-square foot Las Vegas mansion for $7.85 million, and he’s willing to accept the whole sumin Bitcoin.
“It’s very volatile, and of course… there is a lot of speculation,” Sommer says, referring to the wild price swings that have made some traders rich. “But there seems to be a growing amount of trade and commerce involving Bitcoin as well. So it gives me the confidence that we can accept it as a viable currency.”
Two of Sommers’ seven children have been investing in Bitcoin since around 2010, the very early days of the experimental currency. They convinced their father that the fundamentals were sound even though the currency jumped from around $20 in early 2013 to more than $1,000 by the end of the year. “My kids started picking them up at $5 and then they went to over $1,000 and they were making all this money,” Sommer’s wife Laura says. “What makes gold valuable? What makes a diamond valuable? What makes anything valuable? It’s what people want.”
“WHAT MAKES ANYTHING VALUABLE? IT’S WHAT PEOPLE WANT.”
Bitcoin is not backed by any nation; its exact origins are unknown. Some governments have passively sanctioned it, others have stayed silent, and China hasbanned its use. Bitcoin is also far from mature. It’s designed to have a total supply of 21 million bitcoins, but only about half of those have entered circulation so far.
There is also the matter of the transaction itself. The Bitcoin protocol is designed so that anyone can transfer any number of bitcoins to another person directly, without any third parties or fees — it’d be like handing over a suitcase with $7.85 million in cash. That won’t fly with a large real estate transaction — taxes and brokers’ fees must be paid in dollars and there is normally a 30-day escrow period, an eternity in the volatile Bitcoin market.
In order to accommodate the oddball currency, Sommer expects he would write a contract denominated in US dollars with reference to the equivalent amount in Bitcoin as well as a minimum and maximum range in order to hedge against wild price changes. Other than that, it wouldn’t be much different than accepting euro or yen for the house.
THE GESTURE IS A BIT OF A STUNT
The gesture is a bit of a marketing stunt — since advertising the Bitcoin angle, the Sommers have been swamped with interest from media and, to a lesser degree, potential buyers. They have had some Bitcoiners “sniffing around,” including one who was interested in paying in a mix of currencies, which the Sommers are perfectly happy with. “It could be a blend,” Jack says. “Part cash, part bit. Why not?”
Sommer is bullish on Bitcoin, but he’s also cautious. “I intend to eliminate the risks to the greatest extent possible,” he says. Keeping that much money in Bitcoin would be too risky because of the chance of government interference or a market crash, so Sommer plans to convert the majority of the sum into dollars and keep perhaps $100,000 or more in Bitcoin for speculative purposes.
“It’s actually good that not that many people know about it, because that means there are many more people who are going to know about it,” Sommer says. “I think that it is graduating to become a trend. And hopefully it will sustain itself — at least until we sell the house.”
It all started with Georg Lucas; he had a problem …he being the genius that he was……I bought into that dream both sort of spiritually and financially and together we started Pixar in 1986
My model of business is The Beatles. You know they were 4 very talented guys who balanced each other… And the song was greater.. The total was greater than the sum of parts. I see business that way too. It’s really always a team…with the Beatles when they were together they did truly brilliant innovative work…And when they split up they did good work, but it was never the same ; and I see business that way too, it’s really always a team.
Q. to Steve: As a person what´s your biggest strength ? Steve: I have been very lucky in meeting incredibly talented people and uh…and and hanging out with them and so that’s been my greatest strength. Q. to Steve: And what is your biggest weakness ? Steve: You know I think all of us need to be on guard against arrogance which uh… which knocks at the door whenever you’re successful.
Have you lived through that ? Steve:
Oh Sure ! As you may know I was basically fired from Apple when I was thirty and uh…and was invited to come back twelve years later so… that was “the difficult” when it happened but maybe the best thing that ever happened to me?!
There would´nt have been a Pixar if that hadn’t happened and uh... so you move on. Life goes on and you learn from it. I like working with people. Where you have a chance to uh… in a very small way… influence how things go. Influence the way people look at you. I still believe that the computer business is in it´s infancy… that there’s a tremendous amount of innovation.. it´s gonna be coming out. I’m optimistic; as to The Future Computer Business.
Pixar Animation Studios, or simply Pixar (/ˈpɪksɑr/, stylized PIXAR), is an American computer animationfilm studio based in Emeryville, California. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder
No, it’s not an early April Fool’s joke. Google just announced the Chromebook Pixel, a high-end Chrome OS-powered laptop that starts at a whopping $1,299.
The Chromebook Pixel is no hardware slouch, but though it’s priced similarly to the MacBook Air and high-end PCs, it can only run web applications. Chrome OS is basically Google’s attempt to build an entire operating system out of its Chrome web browser.
The Pixel sports a 12.85-inch touchscreen, a sharp 2,560 by 1,700 resolution, 4GB of RAM, and it also comes with 32GB and 64GB SSD storage options. The Pixel’s screen harkens back to laptops of yore, with its 3:2 ratio display, which is taller than the more popular widescreen displays. It’s powered by a dual-core 1.8-gigahertz Core i5 processor, and it also comes with 1 terabyte of free cloud storage. There’s also an LTE-equipped model for $1,449.
Just like Google’s ill-fated Nexus Q, the Chromebook Pixel seems to be a beautiful piece of hardware built with nobody in mind. I can’t imagine any consumer would prefer an expensive laptop with limited capabilities over a shiny new MacBook Air, or buying a cheaper Windows 8 Ultrabook and having money left over for a tablet. There’s no value proposition with the Chromebook Pixel; it’s just a severely limited machine with a baffling price.
So far, Google and its hardware partners have focused on low-end Chrome OS laptops. Acer’s most recent model starts at $199, and Samsung’s starts at $249. HP’s recently announced Chromebook starts at $330, a price I called ridiculous at the time. I probably would have gone easier on HP’s model had I known that Google was seriously working on a crazy expensive Chromebook.
Design-wise, the Chromebook Pixel clearly seems inspired by the MacBook Air and similar Ultrabooks. Its metal case seems simple and attractive, though I’m only judging based on pictures. The Pixel is only .64-inches thick and weighs 3.3 pounds.
But beauty isn’t enough to overcome the fact that the Pixel is just too crazy for anyone but rich eccentrics. It’s nice to see that a high-end Chromebook is possible, but Google hasn’t given us any reason to justify why it needs to be this expensive.
Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is yet again worried about Apple’s future.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Wozniak expressed concern that Apple might not be considered the “cool” computing system for too much longer. “We used to have these ads, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC, and the Mac was always the cool guy. And ouch, it’s painful, because we kind of are losing that,” he said.
But Wozniak, who no longer works for Apple, has often vocal about his opinions regarding the company’s direction. In 2012, Wozniak said that he was worried about Apple’s cloud storage ventures. “I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years.” Wozniak also told TechCrunch last year that he was worried that Microsoft might be innovating inmore interesting ways than Apple.
Hope is not completely lost, since Wozniak believes that “Apple is really good at setting a standard with a new device,” and the company “still has its halo in that regard.” Read the entire Bloomberg News report to get all the details — or crawl down the rabbit hole with this YouTube compilation of “Mac vs. PC” ads:
Steve Wozniak: The Evolution of Computer Technology 4 : 40 min.
Published on Jan 7, 2013
Steve Wozniak, or Woz as he is known, was a co-founder of Apple along with the late Steve Jobs. He contemplates future technological breakthroughs that can help solve some of the world’s problems from personalized medicine to the production of energy.
Billionaire’s party boat on a daring mission to honour heroic British warship sunk by Hitler: Microsoft’s Paul Allen is sending his £125m yacht to salvage bell from HMS Hood
Paul Allen´s yacht OCTOPUS left REYKJAVIK 22.8. 2012
The £125 million craft is now en route with its 60-man crew (said to include several ex-U.S. Navy SEALs) to a remote stretch of the sea between Greenland and Iceland.
There, she will send down her own deep-water submersible on a remarkable operation to honour one of Britain’s greatest ever warships HMS Hood.
