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Comment The money AT&T didn't make from Bell Labs (Score 2, Interesting) 552

It's incredible how successful other companies were at commercializing the amazing basic discoveries or inventions that came out of Bell Labs (transistor, laser, Unix, etc. etc. etc.), and somehow AT&T never was all that successful at commercializing these discoveries, and ended up spinning off Bell Labs and selling out to SBC.

Bell Labs held many, many patents from all this basic research, that ultimately weren't nearly as profitable as the inventions that used them. Lessons for those who insist that IP rights are key to innovation.

Comment A-380 halfway there (Score 4, Interesting) 146

The Airbus A-380 gets roughly 100 passenger-miles per gallon, cruising substantially faster and further. Surely with only enough fuel for a short 100 mile flight, no cargo, you could cram twice as many people in it, and easily get your 200 passenger-miles per gallon. Of course, chartering one, might cost more than the prize is worth...

Comment Incompetence led to their downfall? (Score 3, Insightful) 358

What I don't understand is why I, and so many others, got so many calls. I must have received over 30. If these crooks were in business for two years, and made over a billion calls, they were clearly calling everyone they could reach in the US multiple times. Isn't there some point where they hit diminishing returns? TFA says their mantra was "hang up; next" (perl?), that is to not try to convert anyone who sounded remotely skeptical. But if they give up on the sale two second in, why call that same person back, again and again? Had they not called back people they rejected, I suspect that people would be nearly so upset with them, and the FTC wouldn't have gone after them.

Comment At least third marriage (Score 1) 141

Remember how three years ago Intel sold off the XScale division, to get out of the embedded space, and focus on servers and desktops? (Look it up) I bet some new vice president decided that they needed to get back into this business, knowing nothing about the reasons they sold off XScale. This reminds me of GM dumping the EV1 electric car, and ten years later, starting from scratch on the Volt.

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