Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts

Fear the Chemistry of Lithium Batteries!

Phones explode because lithium operates by chemical action.
Let's not kid ourselves here: The iPad has had battery "explosions" just as much, if not more than Samsung. It is just that Samsung is more outspoken about issues. Apple believes that if it ignores a problem it will go away. I would like to see the real statistics on all phones.
Phone exploding
Batteries operate by chemical action. What you learned at school was that chemicals are dangerous. The unexpected sometimes happens. Lithium has the capacity to store a lot of energy. This pent-up power is always looking for a way out of its container.

Though the incidents of phones catching fire is very low, the mere thought of something exploding in your pocket is frightening. Lithium batteries are notoriously unstable. They have caused fires on aircraft. Thankfully, no one has yet been killed.

We do not have any alternative to lithium batteries. They are the most efficient and can be made very small. Consumers do not want to go back to nicad or, heaven forbid, alkaline batteries.
 
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PHONE GRENADES
nicad, chemical, action, reaction, batteries, phone, samsung, apple, iphone, power

Inquiry Into Tax Dodge by Tech Giants is a Lie Fest

It amazes me how people can blatantly lie, and continue to lie, when everyone else knows the truth. There is a Senate inquiry in Australia into big companies, mainly tech giants, avoiding tax that is owed to this country. Mr King, the head of Apple Australia strongly denies that the company is reducing its tax payments through questionable methods. Fair "crack in the door mate" we all know what is really going on. Is Ireland involved in these methods?
Tony King head of Apple Australia
Apple and Google are the major companies targeted by the inquiry. Britain is planning to regulate to make them pay what is due there. Other countries are watching to see what Britain does. Of course, the easiest way to get money out of the tech megaliths is to introduce a revenue tax irrespective of profit, because it is profit that is being skimmed off subsidiaries by head office for non-existent services.

The Australian Tax Office wants its pound of flesh from internationals as it does from locals. Last year Apple paid $80m in tax from profit of $250m. Revenue was $6 billion. While this is a tax rate of 32 per cent, the profit margin of only 4.17 percent is highly suspect. Apple charges a fixed rate of 30 per cent on all app revenue in its App Store. Furthermore, it has huge income from sales of its own merchandise for which the profit margin is not widely known.

Mr King said that Apple would willingly enter into an agreement with the ATO. By saying this he clearly believes that he can choose not to follow Australian law. Apple's tax rate of 32 per cent seems reasonable at first glance when compared to Google Australia's rate of 15 percent. However, Google's profit margin of 13 per cent is more realistic.

Lastly, Mr King of Apple said that Australian app developers had made a fortune out of new apps.  He fails to mention the gargantuan amount made by Apple from these.  The guaranteed 30 per cent on all downloads is a money grab by any definition considering Apple has set this rate itself and it can easily raise it at any time, even for apps already available.
Technology by Ty Buchanan
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Teaching Compuuter Coding in Schools Could be Redundant

There is so much pressure on children to learn coding. Governments keep pumping money into new schemes. However, this could all be a waste of money. Remember when governments invested all that money into providing PCs to schools. Then the laptop came along and they had to change to making the new tech available. After this came tablets followed by large mobile phones. Chasing new technological developments is a fool's game.
Most parents don't want government money. They want to choose what their children "need" at at school. Years ago the Mac was pushed as the "must have" to do drawing work. It was encouraged for what is now called Graphics in school. It used to be called technical drawing or drafting. Schools adopted Autocad for Windows and Macs were redundant. Furthermore, PCs were the machine of choice in most schools for class work and at university
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There are many kinds of computer languages. Specializing in one leaves you in a corridor with no way out. Software programs are out there that get rid of the need for coding knowledge. Once written developers are only needed for maintenance. Any Tom, Dick or Mary can use the "What You See Is What You Get" programs.

Personally, I believe that the future does not lie in creating a population of coders. Really good entrepreneurial managers will always be needed. Coders need to be employed by someone else. Probably in a business started by an entrepreneur. The real problem is the lack of understanding in Maths. Let this go too far and you will have no coders and no entrepreneurs.
Science by Ty Buchanan
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The Computer Market Has Changed for PCs, Phones and Tablets

IBM is leaving the hardware computer market. Maturity in the market has meant demand for PCs has levelled off. Businesses still need them, but the ordinary consumer already has an old version gathering dust.

When a person needs to search the Internet he/she uses his, now large, mobile phone or tablet. It should be noted that the tablet market has tapered off as well. Just about anyone who wants one already has it. Cheap clones on sale in supermarkets has reduced profit margins significantly. Even the giant mobile phone maker Samsung has announced that it has had a bad year.

Apple is losing out to Android and its days of premium pricing are coming to an end. Unless it comes out with useful new ideas its sales will fall. It definitely needs to look into the crystal ball. Unfortunately, a crystal ball cannot be found.

Giants of recent decades have been bought out by rivals and shut down. Making what was in demand in the past is a losers game. Let's face it - some of the ideas taken on by Google are utterly stupid. Drones to deliver pizzas is an example. How can drones be allowed to fly about in populated places. Google will have injuries and law suits from everywhere.

Cloud computing may help IBM in the short term. If they want to stay relevant they will need something else. There are too many free cloud offerings out there for server profits to stay high.  It is not feasible for all companies to be in the large data market.

Apple has to have a rethink and Microsoft has to wean users off Windows 7. Unless Threshold, Microsoft's version 9, offers something new and special users will remain stuck to the old system and profits will fall. Apple gives its operating system away for free. How much longer can Microsoft charge for their's?
Technology by Ty Buchanan
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The Rumor App "Secret" is Spreading Across the English Speaking World

Rumor mongering is on its way to the tech world. An app initially established in the US is being rolled out in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. The app called "Secret" allows people to spread rumours, innuendo, their feeling about things, and accusations about the behavior of innocent people - anonymously. Of course praise can be offered, but is will probably be praise with a small "p".

Apple has offered the app for some time. Google is about to launch it as well. Apparently, there is a voracious appetite for the app in the US. The opinions will be kept among your friend list. However, it is commonplace now for users to accept absolutely anyone who asks to be a new friend.

The app contains a weird option. A warning pops up telling people that the view they are about to make could be defamatory. This is laughable. Users generally ignore such warnings and turn them off. Lives will be destroyed by this app and legal cases will emerge everywhere. Freedom allows people to give their views but not at the expense of innocent victims.

Apple has a small market place. Google is huge. If this app becomes mainstream like Facebook and Twitter, it will change societies across the world, making telling lies the thing to do. A lot of suffering will be caused by this.

Something is going on in the Google Play Store. The company is doing something to regulate apps. Why have all the BBC apps been removed by the store? The BBC has a strong impact internationally, yet all its app are no longer available. Only a few third party UK audio and video apps are left. Perhaps these will be removed soon.

Getting back to the main issue: in the US 75 per cent of Secret's users return regularly to the same topic. This is frightening. Rumors will not only be established they will modified and distorted as just about everyone comes on board. This will make WikiLeaks look like child's play - there is no onus on proof.

Users in the US have become addicted to Secret. A staggering 90 per cent return to the same conversation, opening the app up to ten times a day. Gossiping over the garden fence has returned in a new way to the current age - seemingly in a nasty way.
Internet by Ty Buchanan

Cheapy Tablet Market Explosion

Australians are buying cheap tablets at a record rate. Just about every major store is selling a low-cost tablet. People are not worrying about completely new brands and are snapping them up. The computers do the basics. 'This is all users seem to want. A spare lying around the house is always useful.

Established companies like Intel are taking notice. They are about to launch a "cheapy" into the booming market. Sales of all types of tablets doubled last year in Australia. Apple seems to be ignoring the trend keeping its prices high. This could prove very costly in the long run. You just cannot ignore a change in purchasing. The market has changed with people moving away from major brands. They have realized that tablets are much the same.

Making tablets is new for Intel. It is moving with the times and rightly so. Intel does not intend to manufacture in the US. It is consulting with Chinese companies. It knows a quality chip in integral for even cheapies to work well and it has the skills to design a fast chip.

It is designing a product for each price range, a good idea if it is to become the major manufacturer. That is its goal. The Bay Trail chip is 64-bit. This will offer real power as new applications is made for the system. The market is growing and buyers are expecting more features in a low-priced product.
Tablets by Ty Buchanan
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Banks Under Threat From the Internet

The Internet has disrupted the security of ordinary money. The economic system controlled by the banks for centuries is now under threat. Bitcoin is an example of new money. Its mere presence in feared by the banks. Money, or at least its value, depends on people having faith that it can easily be exchanged for different goods.

In Germany before WWII security in money was severely challenged. There was rampant inflation, so much so that people had to push barrow loads of  cash to a shop to get a loaf of bread.

New money is everywhere: PayPal has taken the banking world by storm. These bank-like services are being offered by Google, Apple and eBay. To get Followers on Twitter, many sites are offering seeds. Though the websites deny trading for followers, this is exactly what it is.

Google's Wallet is really a bank service. Smartphones can be swiped in store terminals to buy goods. The problem is most money does not really exist it is just recorded in books as they used to say. Now it is data stored on computers. The money supply is no longer controlled by central banks.

The question is - Will banks go the same way as traditional shopping centers and newspapers? It is possible!
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Conservation
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Where Is the Internet Going?

There isn't much doubt that mobile devices will soon outnumber the fixed PC. It is surprising that it has taken so long. People are tripping over each other to make pre-orders on the iPhone. There will probably be a rush for Microsoft's new offerings. In recent years Google's Android products have been racing forward, generally at the expense of Microsoft, not Apple.

Web developers are slowly making a change as well. Old "easy" website building is a thing of the past. It seems websites have to provide a "traditional" PC type website and have another built-in for mobile devices. There must be an automatic link in the main website so that only the smaller site is sent to mobiles. Though many users have said they prefer looking at traditional sites with a small handheld, even though it means moving around a page to see all the info, download times are just too long for this to continue.

HTML5 was envisaged to make it easier for developers, standardizing code. The opposite has happened. Infighting has occurred between the Internet powers that be in the US and developers choosing to go their own way. They don't like to hear that their good ideas have been dropped by the controlling body. Up to six web architectures are doing the rounds on mobiles. This makes writing apps so complex that it rules out simple web building by the home web builder. New web building software will have to be capable in so many areas. This will make the software program download huge - and expensive.

The Internet is moving inevitably forward. Data cloud services have made smaller devices possible. Storing things actually on a mobile is no longer necessary. We will have to wait and see if the new fixed system RT from Microsoft is broadly accepted. How many customers will buy something that will only run Microsoft software fixed at the time of purchase? The market could get angry.
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Internet
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