The "paperwhite" backlighting on the latest Kindles is killer. I checked out the latest Nooks and they just aren't up to par as far as an even backlight is concerned.

The only multi-tasking ability I wish they would add (back) to the Kindle is the MP3 player/audio. I hate having to use a second device to listen to music while I'm reading and I miss the option of having an audio-book play while I'm cooking or such.

Ask the employers what skills they really value in an employee, and they'll be all the soft skills. I'm sure well written code ranks far higher than any technology buzz-word. We had a night on this at our IEEE Com-Sec meetings.

What I get out of this article is that it's the older employees fault for not training in new tech on their own time. God forbid a technology company invest in their employees on the company dime and company time. This is the disconnect of the tech industry, and increasingly other modern industries. The churn-and-burn mentality of the HR and accounting departments. Why train someone who's getting paid a bunch of money when you can simply replace them with someone who can check that requirement box for less money. Not to mention the fact that employee churn keeps the HR department busy and important looking.

More than the cost of the phone, is the personal identity smart-phones carry. That could include credit card info, id's, passwords and logins, personal photos, and the list goes on...

Property thefts just don't matter to police, unless you're Apple and lose a prototype at the bar, in which case they'll send a SWAT team to storm the perp's home.

I would bet that Tesla is looking to sell their cars in Apple stores, much like Nest did with their fancy thermostats. Apple has the infrastructure in place to get broad coverage to the right demographic for Tesla.
This would really make sense with Tesla's stated expansion into selling in China. it could also provide a non-direct-sales/dealership-network like the old school car makers are suing Tesla to adopt.
I'm guessing if it happens, there'll also be an ipad replacing the regular big display in the center console.

Too early to detect sarcasm... Paypal wasn't an Ebay innovation, that's like thanking AOL for for Winamp.
Really, in what market is Ebay still a rival of Amazon ? Ebay's CEO was probably just trying trolling in the hopes of drumming up any possible publicity.

Best news I've heard from a local employer in years !
Now to see if it's not too late to save the company after he's driven off so many of their top, talented people.

2 + 2 = 5, 1984

Hard to get rid of a guy who's fired or run-off all his potential replacements.

The big omission I noticed in the article was any mention of changes to the annual review process. Their current curved review approach does no encourage cooperation between employees, much less between divisions. The one-team approach needs to be supported from the bottom up, not just dictated from the top down.

Agreed.
There is a huge difference between expressing your political views and making threats. Saying you plan to start a revolution and start chopping off heads is crazy and dangerous.

If we're going to discuss government overreach in suppressing free speech, I'm sure there are many more legitimate examples. Hop over to the ACLU.org for plenty of real issues to get worked up over. http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/standing-rights-students-free-expression

I don't know about niche needs. I know my use of a hud for motorcycle turn by turn directions would be niche, but I'm pretty sure Google's intentions are anything but. By convincing people to record and upload more data from more personal places, they're looking to greatly expand their data mining. I don't know about "don't be evil", I think their new moto is "just don't be obvious".

+1
Last thing I want to do is interact with anyone wearing google glasses. In a normal social enviroment, they're like the uber-bluetooth headsets for the uber-douchbag ... but as a HUD for my motorcycle, with my speed, a little direction arrow before turns, the last 30 seconds of video catching the twit running me off the road (or worse)... That I would like to see built into my helmet.

I keep getting suckered into this articles just to see if the failing PC market has finally forced them to pull their heads out of their *sses and reinstate the desktop by default and the start button...

Maybe I'd better luck wishing for some higher res displays as standard on notebooks... How is it that cell phones need 1080p displays, but for doing real work, 1366x768 is supposed to be great ?!

Nice and concise.
I hate ethanol, it's a massive drain on our water tables and a drain on the economy. More personally, I'm sick of having my car run like crap and getting 20-25% lower gas mileage than when I get the ethanol free stuff (check out http://pure-gas.org/ ) and it really messes up my motorcycle. The gas goes bad in half the time, fouls the oil, and eats up the rubber lines and gaskets.

If the government wants to prop up alternative energy production, it should be going into the electrical infrastructure and actual clean energy research and production.

If you go by machine time, 99% +/- 1% of my printing at home is with PLA on an Ultimaker.

I just spend the long weekend shopping for a new laptop for my wife. Overpaying for the 'features' that will make her happy is a bit like having your fingernails ripped out, but it's still less painful than spending the next 4-5 years listening to how crappy her laptop is.

First time I've ever bought a Sony, and if you spend the extra $30 to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, they'll let you select a clean install without any crapware. I'll be throwing an SSD in anyhow, so I saved the $30, but I think it's a fair compromise on the crapware front. Sony was the only company offering a sub-$1000 notebook with a touchscreen resolution greater than 1366x768. I think that's a bigger travesty than the crapware issue. It takes 15 minutes (not including updates) to install Windows (with an SSD and a quick thumbdrive), but you're never going to fix a cheap screen !