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Comment Re:Don't they have an fiber to the node cable netw (Score 1) 229

I used to live with an Optus cable technician and the Telstra and Optus networks are not Fibre to the Home. They are Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial networks, so fibre to a node point and then coaxial to the homes that node services, with only a few nodes per suburb. It's still better than ADSL but the copper component still limits the overall speeds.

Submission + - Silly Rabbit, Kickstarter is for Tech Billionaires! 3

theodp writes: A few weeks ago, the NY Times examined whether it was ethical for actor Zach Braff to use Kickstarter to ask the public to finance his movie. But that's nothing compared to the chutzpah of billionaire-backed Planetary Ventures, which GeekWire notes is making a plea for $2M in Kickstarter funds for an ARKYD 'public' space telescope (Kickstarter pitch). 'Alien planets are out there and Planetary Resources needs your help to find them,' the company explained as it announced its crowdfunding goal. Hey, you didn't expect Planetary Ventures investors like Larry Page (net worth $23 B), Eric Schmidt ($8.2 B), Ross Perot Jr. ($1.4 B), K. Ram Shriram ($1.65 B), and Charles Simonyi ($1 B) to foot the bill, did you? Isn't it enough that they've agreed to allow $10,000+ Kickstarter donors to mingle with them at two future events? So, is this another example of what Dylan Gadino calls Kickstarter abuse?

Comment Re:Ouya (Score 1) 156

You just have to take Miyamoto's words to heart - a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is bad forever.

I'll counter with Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever

Comment Re:Samsung's visibility (Score 3, Informative) 239

I looked at the numbers that were used for those graphs and it's incredibly misleading. It cherry picks data to make it look like Samsung has a vastly higher marketing expenditure than other companies. The comparisons are also against companies that are really only in a few markets vs the nine that Samsung Electronics are involved in.
Based on the 2011 annual reports.
- Samsung lists $2.9 billion for advertising expenses and $4.5 billion on Sales promotion expenses. (total $7.4 billion)
- Coca Cola lists $3.2 billion for advertising expenses and $5.8 billion for Promotions and Marketing programs (total $9 billion)
- While Apple list $0.93 billion for advertising expenses, that is the only expense they give a value for in their SG&A of $7.6 billion which includes retail costs, marketing, professional services, advertising and "other".

All that data shows is that everyone else hides their actual marketing expenditure better.
Businesses

Submission + - UC Davis Study Concludes H-1B Workers neither Best nor Brightest (informationweek.com)

CowboyRobot writes: "American companies are demanding more H-1B visas to ensure access to the best and brightest workforce, and outside the U.S. are similar claims of an IT worker shortage. Last month, European Commission VP Neelie Kroes bemoaned the growing digital skills gap that threatens European competitiveness. But a new study finds that imported IT talent is often less talented than U.S. workers. Critics of the H-1B program see it as a way for companies to keep IT wages low, to discriminate against experienced U.S. workers and to avoid labor law obligations. In his examination of the presumed correlation between talent and salary, researcher Norman Matloff observes that Microsoft has been exaggerating how much it pays foreign workers. Citing past claims by the company that it pays foreign workers "$100,000 a year to start," Matloff says the data shows that only 18% of workers with software engineering titles sponsored for green cards by Microsoft between 2006 and 2011 had salaries at or above $100,000."

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