Archive for the 'Corporate America' category

GM buying back Volts

Dec 02 2011 Published by under Cars, Corporate America, Dumb Americans

So GM is offering to loan all 5000 Volt owners a non-Volt auto while the Volt battery problem is researched. OR GM will by back your Volt.  Plus GM will recall and fix all 5000 Volts when the problem is found and a fix is determined.  Sounds like GM is taking no chance on screwing up customer relations for the Volt.

Why is GM doing all this…read on.

It is amazing that people are concerned about the volt catching file SEVEN DAYS  after side impact crash testing.  The Vold is not starting to burn during the crash, or seven seconds after the crash or even seven minutes  after the crash. The fire starts seven days after the crash.

Mind you that when a normal gas engine car is tested all the gas is removed form the test car. The all electric battery cars are tested with fully charges battery packs and there are NO fires during the actual crash test.  To date there has also been on Volts catching fire in real file auto crashes.  GM is notified, by the On-Star computer whne a Volt is envolved in a crash. As a precaution GM is sending out team to drain the Volts battery with in 48 hours of  being notified by On-Star of a crash.

So the big question is why all the concern. A Gasoline powered car can explode and burn on crash impact. In fact there are over 200,000 fiery crashes every year.  Where is the out cry of who dangerous a car is caring around 10 to 50 gallons of flammable liquid?

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Netflix Un-truths

Sep 20 2011 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America


Reed Hastings the CEO of Netflix posted a video on YouTube on 9/18 to apologize and clarify the changes he is makeing to Netflix.  The big change he announced, in the video, is the splitting of Netflix into two companies. One for streaming called Netflix and a new company for the DVD by mail business to be called Qwikster.

Reed apologized over and over for not communicating  this change, in business strategy, effectively to the current subscriber base. Reed only makes a small mention that splitting of the company will cause a cost increase.

The cost increases  announment was made over two month ago. So if you think about it Reed must have been thinking about the changes for  2 or 3 month before that. I would think a company of this size would do some planning before making shuch a bold change as splitting the company.

So when  you look at the new Qwikster website (9/20/11 screen shot above) and only see a one page website announcing the new site is comming soon? You start to wonder how much planning has gone in to the YouTube video and the decision to split Netflix. After four months of time you think there would be a real site for the Qwikster business. Why would Reed make this huge change and not have the web site ready.

Makes you think he is backpedaling in the video to recover from a bad decesion to raise subscription rates so soon again. The price hike  has caused a loss of over a million subscribers.

Not only are subscribers unhappy, look at Wall Street,  the stock price is down to $143 from an all time high of $286 just (last month Aug 2011). That is a 50% loss in value in a month.

Reed better do a lot better then he did in his apology video or that subscriber base and stock price will continue to erode!

Or was the split done to position Netflix for Amazon to purchase Netflix?

 

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Generic Top Level Domain Names gTLD

Jun 23 2011 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America, Geek stuff

 

ICANN has recently approved the new Generic Top Level Domain Names or gTLD. So how will this change the internet.

1. First thing that came to mind was better security for banks. A bank or finical institution can buy the gTLD and every thing that do can be tied to that gTLD. The user would not need to worry about phishing. there would be on confusion one what domain the e-mail or query is coming from. The only question are the Banks and financial institution willing to fork out $185k fork the security feature.

2. It will make things easier to find and shorter URLs. For example if Google were to buy the top level domain Google. You could access the different Google products by using URLs like. search.Google or Gmail.Google or Maps.Google.

3. The generic Top Level Domain will really help cites and geographic regions group there content or even create a revenue stream by selling domain name.  Example MannsTheater.Hollywood.

4. Other groups could also benefits like Plastic surgeons you could domai name like drBrown.PlasticSurgery or Dr.headman.PlasticSurgery.

These are just a few way that the new gTLD name might change the what we use the internet

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20,000 Nissian Leaf sold

Oct 01 2010 Published by under Cars, Corporate America, Geek stuff

The Nissian Leaf, the All electric car, has not even shipped yet and the entire first year production is SOLD OUT. Nissian has stopped taking asseveration on the Nissian Leafs web site. A month or so ago you could get a reservation, but only after you had a special electrical survey of your house to make sure that the Leaf could be charged at your home.

Nissian claims that the overwhelming demand, for the Nissian Leaf, far exceeds their expectations.  Problem is anyone wanting a new Nissian Leaf will need to wait until for the 2012 model next year.

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Chevy Volt pricing

Jul 27 2010 Published by under Cars, Changing scene, Corporate America, Future things, Uncategorized

Well today is the day Chevy announced the pricing on the new Volt.  If you have been living under a rock, the Volt is Chevy answer to the electric car. It is not a true ALL electric since it has an on-board gas driven generator. So Chevy called it a “extender Range” electric vehicle. I guess you need the generator as the Volt has one of the worst range numbers in it’s field. There are several other ALL electric cars that bost a 100 mile range, like the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla S.

So now that pricing has been announced you can order you new Chevy Volt at selected Chevy dealers. Yo can find thoughs special dealers here. The volt will first be available is selected markets like California and New York and the rolled out the the other areas. The list price with out any rebates starts at $41,000 and will be in showrooms in November 2010.

It have been a long wait since the GM EV1 was pulled form the public. There have been lots of manufactures discussing products in this field. In late 2010 and 2011 we will starts see several electric cars on the highway. Is going to be and exciting time. We will see it the wait was worth it. So get you solar PV panels installed and start driving fossil fuel free!

 

 

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Airlines charge passengers by their weight

Apr 30 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America

weighing_inIt seams like every week the airlines a adding new fees on top of the normal ticket price.  At first they were small charges, like charging to buy a ticket, or change a ticket. Then they started charging for heavy baggage. Now the trend is to charge for checked baggage. There is talk in the industry that the airlines might start charging for Carry-on bags.

But what I think is coming is a day where the airlines start charge for passengers tickets by weight. After all a big heavy person takes up more room in the airplanes cabin. Airline fuel consumption is determined by weight. The heaver a plane is the more fuel it will burn. Air freight prices are determined by size and weight of the package. The larger a package is the more it cost to ship it by air. Same goes for weight, the packages can be small, but if it is heavy it cost more to ship.

So do not be supprised that  some day, in the future, you are asked to stand on a scale at the airline ticket counter so the ticket agent can determin the cost of your ticket.

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Google Real-Time Search

Dec 07 2009 Published by under Corporate America, Google

RealTimeWeb

Google announces “Real Time Search”. What is it, results as they happen. Today the Real-Time Search results display results from Twitter and general sources. Google is still working on additional feeds form Facebook and MySpace.

Getting a feed from MySpace raises the question is Goolgle paying for these feeds.  Google did not answere the question, Danny Sullivan tried to come at the question in several direction. One wonders, in the wake of the fight over paying for news feed over that last few weeks, if money is exchanging hands.

This new feature “Real -Time Search” results display as a scrolling window on the main page or by using the option column you can change the whole page in to real time web search results.

Google has a video about the new ‘Real-Time Search” results:

or you can read the Google Blog about “real-Time Search” results.

How is Real Time Search done? Real-Time Search indexes a Billion pages a day. Yep thats a B for BILLION. And with in seconds analyzes the results for relevance and decides if the results should be used.  With in seconds the result is available on Google. Google had to develop doezons of new technologyed to get Real-Time search to work, see diagram below.

How2_Real_Time

So now the questions are:

1.   How will this change the Web?

2.   What is your strategy to leverage this new technology?

3.  What is relevant for “Real-Time” ?

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Blu-ray Disk Push Blu-ray Techonlogy

Nov 17 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Geek stuff

I_believeI do not get it! You already bought the Blu-ray player. You bought or rented a Blu-ray disk. You bought the high definition television to watch your Blu-ray disks. You are knowledgeable about high definition. After all you own all this Blu-ray hardware and software. Yet when you pop in the Blu-ray disk into your Blu-ray player  there is a 30 to 60 second commercial about how great Blu-ray is.

Well, ya I know Blu-ray is great, you already sold me on the Blu-ray technology. Otherwise how would I be viewing the Blu-ray disk. So why are the studios putting these Blu-ray commercials on a Blu-ray disk?  Beats me!

It has got to be the dumbest strategy I have ever seen. It is like preaching to the choir, we already believe  in the Blu-ray technology. So why the commercial? I just do not get it?

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Better TV with Widgets?

Oct 08 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America

tv_widgets[1]

To solve the question, that was asked earlier this year “Who Decides What IPTV You Watch?” the industry has responded with the TV Widget. TV widgets allow you, the consumer, to break free from the iron fist of TV manufactures deciding what internet content you watch on your TV.

Several TV manufactures including LG, Samsung, Sony and soon to be Visio have introduced flat panel televisions that have Yahoo Widgets. Yahoo Widgets is a set of software that connects your TV to the internet and presents information kind of like an iPhone. The information comes from the internet but the user experience is not the normal personal computer browser model.

Visio has taken the Yahoo Widgets one step further. Not to be tied to Yahoo and Yahoos release schedule, Visio developed their own widget platform for Visio televisions. Visio developed there own platform using Adobe Flash. So it will be a very open platform. It will also support Yahoo’s Widgets, so you get the best of both worlds.

Visio is planning on releasing a SDK or software developer’s kit, so any one can develop a Widget for the Visio television. You could even develop a custom home automation interface or a interactive Game, the sky it the limit.

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Who Decides What IPTV You Watch?

Sep 05 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Geek stuff

Are only certain Networks channels displayed on your television set because the television manufacture has done a deal with that network?No, you get all the network channels that are broadcasted in your area.

So then why are Television manufactures making deals with internet video streaming sites and only displaying the ones they get paid too? It would be like Mitsubishi making a deal with NBC and CBS only. And since they do not have a deal with ABC you cannot receive ABC on the Mitsubishi Television. We would all thing that was nuts.

Will that is exactly what is taking place in today’s market. Television manufactures are only allowing streaming services that they cut deals with. No deal, no access through the television.

If the smarts are in a TV to receive, for example, Netflix, then the TV is smart enough to receive others. True the software for streaming is not standardized today BUT it should be. Manufactures should not be controlling what Internet Streaming sites work or do not work on a given television.

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