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Comment Re:Simple math (Score 1) 164

It's a little more complicated though:

The $350B is over 5 years, so assuming the same $100k base salary/person/year that's $10B.

Also, the "fully loaded cost" of an employee is often 2x base salary once benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc...), bonus, overhead (rent, equipment) are taken into account. So the cost to Apple for those 20,000 employees is likely around $20B total.

That's about 5.7%, not an insignificant amount, either in dollar or as fraction of the total spend. Of course, folks are free to debate whether the amount could/should be even higher....

Comment Re:Don't they have an fiber to the node cable netw (Score 0) 229

by cheesee (#45612955) Attached to: Australia's $44B Broadband Network May Settle For Fiber Near the Home

Living in suburban Adelaide I can tell you that Subscription TV via cable is nearly universal here. Cable internet used to be huge here but has been replaced by DSL services.

And everyone knows wired data transfer is dying (and not in a BSD way), both governments plans are a waste of money.
Biotech

Flatworms Defy Aging Through Cell Division Tricks 106

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the ail-hail-the-immortal-flatworm dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from The University of Nottingham have demonstrated how a species of flatworm overcomes the aging process to be potentially immortal. The discovery, published (abstract; full text PDF) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is part of a project funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and Medical Research Council and may shed light on the possibilities of alleviating aging and age-related characteristics in human cells." After finding the gene for telomerase synthesis in the worms, the researchers were able to observe that the worms "...dramatically increase the activity of this gene when they regenerate, allowing stem cells to maintain their telomeres as they divide to replace missing tissues."
Oracle

More Oracle Patents Declared Invalid 150

Posted by Soulskill from the quarterly-revenue-projections-dropping dept.
sfcrazy writes "The validity of another Oracle patent has become doubtful in the dispute with Google about the infringement of Java patents and copyrights on Android devices. The US Patent Office and Trademark Office (USPTO) has provisionally declared all 24 claims of patent number 6,125,447 as being invalid. The USPTO based its decision on a patent that had been used in another case. This patent was granted in 1994 – three years before Sun filed its Java patent application. The US patent office also considered two publications released in 1996 as evidence that Sun's described method for protecting applications via 'protection domains' was anticipated by 'prior art.'"
Games

Originality Vs. Established IP In Games 71

Posted by Soulskill from the where's-my-known-space-mmo dept.
Ten Ton Hammer has an article about the differences between developing a game based upon existing intellectual property and the creation of an entirely new story and setting. They make the point that while doing the former may result in an easier time building a fan base, those same fans will often be the hardest to please. "By creating a game based on a popular IP, the company in question has a huge responsibility to 'do it right.' Unfortunately, not everyone realizes the reality of one little secret — every single fan out there has a different idea of what 'right' is. ... Lord of the Rings is a perfect example. For a person that may be familiar with the movies and little else, it's a great game with an impressive amount of depth and attention to detail. For the mass of fanatical fans that have spent more time poring over every book Tolkien ever wrote than even Tolkien himself, any deviation from the lore of his world is paramount to sacrilege on the most horrific scale."
Earth

Spiraling Skyscraper Farms For a Future Manhattan 403

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the biomorphic-structures-are-made-of-people dept.
Mike writes "One of three finalists in this year's Evolo Skyscraper Competition, Eric Vergne's Dystopian Farm project envisions a future New York City interspersed with elegantly spiraling skyscraper farms. The biomorphic structures harness cutting-edge technology to provide the city with its own self-sustaining food source while dynamically altering the fabric of city life."
The Internet

Who Owns Application Delivery Meta-Data In the Cloud? 67

Posted by timothy from the semi-esoteric dept.
Random Feature writes "The Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF) is currently discussing cloud portability specifications. It seems crazy to define a standard before we even know who owns what in the cloud because you can only port what you own. For example, if you created a security or acceleration policy for your cloud computing-based app, is the policy yours or the provider's? Who owns meta-data in the cloud?" True portability between clouds seems to hang on the answer.
Games

What Spoils a Game For You? 214

Posted by Soulskill from the spoiling-a-good-story-is-grounds-for-a-whoopin dept.
MTV's Multiplayer Blog is running an interesting piece about what constitutes a spoiler in video games. The interactivity of a video games, argues the author, often makes it necessary to spoil or reveal at least general characteristics of a game during a review or other informative article. He says, "I believe that writing about games is overly careful. I believe that game scripts, game plots and game endings have been given a pass because critics tend to avoid them or address them with the most ginger touch. I'd at least like the discussion about spoilers to cease being so binary. There is room between avoiding mentioning a plot event and reporting its main details. There is value to addressing anything and everything that is most interesting in a game, and value in doing it with words that express meaning rather than those designed to mask it." So, what do you consider a spoiler for a video game, and how do they affect your enjoyment of the game?

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