South Koreans will soon join the millions of others worldwide as its government on Wednesday approved the sale of the iPhone there.(Credit: Apple)For years, the Korea Communications Commission used technical rules to stifle competition, allowing homegrown companies like Samsung and LG to take over the market, according to a Wall Street Journal report.With an estimated 93 percent of South Korea’s population subscribing to a mobile service, Apple should be able to overcome one of the biggest barriers to smartphone success in South Korea–applications. Apple has been able to entice developers worldwide to build apps for the iPhone, with 75,000 apps…
Business
South Korea welcomes the iPhone
Business
Google Plans New Mirror For Cheaper Solar Power
Google Inc is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more.”We’ve been looking at very unusual materials for the mirrors both for the reflective surface as well as the substrate that the mirror is mounted on,” the company’s green energy czar Bill Weihl told Reuters GlobalClimate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.Google, known for its Internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest…
Business
Bharti, MTN reach pact on $24-bn deal
Bharti Airtel Ltd (BHARTIARTL.BO : 414.65 -7.2), India’s biggest mobile-phone company, and South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd have reached a $24-billion preliminary agreement to buy each other’s shares, the first step in a planned merger, three people familiar with the matter said. Bharti sweetened its bid to buy 49% of MTN by increasing the cash portion of its $14-billion offer, the people said, asking not to be identified before an announcement later this month. MTN, Africa’s biggest wireless company, and its shareholders are poised to acquire 33% of Bharti for about $10 billion, they said. In a note issued late…
Business
SAP exec: Business ByDesign will be smash success
A top SAP executive said Wednesday that the vendor’s Business ByDesign on-demand ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite for SMBs will take “the world by storm” one day, but declined to reveal when a long-anticipated broader release will occur. SAP initially announced the suite in late 2007, and predicted it would generate US$1 billion in revenue by 2010. But it subsequently limited the rollout to a handful of markets while working to make sure the SaaS (software as a service) application will be profitable enough at scale. In remarks at the Citigroup Global Technology Conference in New York Wednesday, SAP executive…
Business
Swedish Exchange Keelhauls Would-Be Pirate Bay Buyer
Global Gaming Factory X, the company that in June said it planned to buy beleaguered file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, has been delisted from the Swedish smallcap stock exchange Aktietorget. The Swedish Shareholders’ Association claims GGF mislead the market by overstating the commitment of its investors. GGF says it’s still prepared to buy The Pirate Bay even if its investors jump ship.The would-be buyer of Swedish file-sharing Web site The Pirate Bay has been kicked out of the smallcap stock exchange Aktietorget for misleading the market, the Swedish trading platform said Wednesday. <script language=’JavaScript1.1′ src=”http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3382.ectnews.comOX2364/B3854875.5;abr=!ie;sz=160×600;ord=12527572247015?” type=”text/javascript”><!–//<![CDATA[ //]]>//–></script> <noscript> <a href=”http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N3382.ectnews.comOX2364/B3854875.5;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=160×600;ord=12527572247015?”>…
Facebook
New Reports Suggests Tuesday And Wednesday Are Best Days To Post On Facebook
A new report published yesterday suggests that Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to post status updates on Facebook. The reason is that click through rates are dramatically higher on those two days. It’s not surprising considering that this is a trend found around the web in traditional publishing channels. If you do a press release, the best days have traditionally been Monday through Wednesday as those are the days that most people read the news.
What was somewhat surprising was the substantial drop off in click through starting on Thursday. Content published on Thursday receives half the clicks…
Facebook
How To Attract 3,000 Fans in 30 Days
I previously wrote about the launch of a series on “How to Attract 3,000 Fans in 30 Days”. Almost 1,000 people registered for the program but it ended up taking much longer to create the content than I had thought it would. Thankfully I have now completed the guide and starting this week, I will begin posting the full series. While this series will be published on the site, there will be numerous ways to access the content including a downloadable e-book as well as a new course that I’ll be offering through New Media School.
So what does the…
Finance
U.S. Mortgage
U.S. Mortgage Requests Jump Down as Refinancing Loses Steam
By Julie Haviv. NEW YORK, July 29 (Reuters) – U.S. mortgage requests dropped for the first time in four weeks, caused by a decreasing in need for home refinancing loans because interest rates climbed, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.
Requests for loan to purchase a home, a basic pointer of sales, were flat. Lack of interest for buy loans does not bode well for the hard-hit U.S. housing market, which otherwise has been showing signs of stabilization.
The U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association supposed it seasonally adjusted index of…
Facebook
Facebook To Add Multi-Country Support For Advertisements
Want to target a single ad at both the United States and Iraq? While that may not be something you want to accomplish, it’s something you’ll soon be able to do. On Wednesday a revised version of my Facebook demographics tracking script started acting funny and after a little bit of poking around I realized that Facebook has revised their ad location field to let users manually enter countries rather than select them from a drop-down as previously was the case.
While the current iteration of the ad creation interface doesn’t allow for multi-country tracking, it appears that it will…
Cisco Systems
My Tentative CiscoLive Schedule
Monday
1:00 PM-3:00 PM
BRKCRT-2201
Moscone W2011 CCVP Prep: Cisco IP Telephony Essentials
3:30 PM-5:30 PM
BRKCRT-1963
Moscone W2008 CCVP:Mobility Features in Cisco Unified Communications Manager version 6 and 7
Tuesday
7:30 AM-9:30 AM
BRKCRT-1280
Moscone W2002 CCSP: Securing Networks with ASA Advanced (SNAA) Technical Introduction
10:00 AM-11:30 AM
(Conference Event) GENKEY-5501
Hall D Opening Keynote and Welcome Address with John Chambers
12:00 PM-2:00 PM
BRKRST-3035
Moscone W3001 Advanced Enterprise Campus Design: Virtual Switching System (VSS)
[ Related Technology Demo: Catalyst Switching Management ]
4:00 PM-6:00 PM
BRKRST-3468
Moscone W2011 Cisco Catalyst Virtual Switching System (VSS)
[ Related Technology Demo:…
Cisco Systems
Its CiscoLive time!
Hello everyone.
I am here in San Francisco getting ready for CiscoLive. I’ll be presenting at 2 of the breakout sessions on SNAA, which is part of the CCSP. My sessions are Tuesday and Wednesday morning (BRKCRT-1280).
If you are in town for the show make sure you stop by the Ascolta booth (1040) and say hello.
If you couldn’t make it this year please let me know if there is anything I should keep my eyes out for, technology that is a must learn, any booths that are a must visit, or anyone that I should meet while I’m …
Cisco Systems
Free CCNA Technical Introduction for CCNA Candidates
If the Widget below does not allow you to register simply leave a comment with your email (nobody but me will see it) and I will manually enroll you.
In the near future I will be releasing a CCNA Mentoring Program designed to assist CCNA candidates in obtaining the CCNA Certification. As an introduction to the program I will be holding a free CCNA Technical Introduction online this Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 5pm PST. the embedded widget will allow you to register.
Again, this is designed for those working on the CCNA. I realize many of you that follow…
