Tech Geeks Light Up the Dorm Building
August 30, 2008
… all to the theme of our beloved Nightrider. Oh, how I love technology, let me count the ways - in big colored lights.
Technology Students Mess with Dormitory Lights - Celebrity bloopers here
Wired: Microhoo is dead
June 12, 2008
The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is seriously, totally dead.
After more than four months of drama and intrigue, Yahoo said talks with Microsoft about a possible merger have “concluded.”
The final straw may have been a June 8 meeting, in which Microsoft explicitly said it has no interest in pursuing an acquisition of the company, even at the previous price range suggested.
And a partial deal — under which Microsoft would buy Yahoo’s search business — just wouldn’t cut it, according to the official Yahoo statement.
“With respect to an acquisition of Yahoo!’s search business alone that Microsoft had proposed, Yahoo!’s Board of Directors has determined, after careful evaluation, that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company’s view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders,” a company statement said.
Microsoft reiterated that it has no interest in outright acquiring Yahoo, but it says it has offered an “alternative transaction,” for which the door is still open.
“In the weeks since Microsoft withdrew its offer to acquire Yahoo!, the two companies have continued to discuss an alternative transaction that Microsoft believes would have delivered in excess of $33 per share to the Yahoo! shareholders . . . As stated on May 3rd and reiterated on May 18th Microsoft was not interested in rebidding for all of Yahoo!. Our alternative transaction remains available for discussion,” an official Microsoft statement said.
Still, Yahoo pursued its own “alternative transaction:” Just hours after it announced it had “concluded” talks with Microsoft, it announced plans for a long-term agreement with Google, under which Google adswill be displayed alongside Yahoo search results. Financial terms were not disclosed.
We have to imagine that Carl Icahn is quietly weeping over a pile of Yahoo stock certificates about now. The corporate raider spent up to a couple billion dollars buying a position in Yahoo, on the bet that he could get the two companies back at the negotiating table and make a bundle after the deal was sealed.
But this afternoon, there was a bloody sell off of Yahoo shares – the stock fell more than $3, or 12 percent, when last we checked, while Microsoft shares were up more than a buck, or roughly 4 percent.
How much lower could the stock go? Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown thinks $24 per share is a fair valuation for Yahoo, based on the assumption that it remains independent.
Well, the concept of Microhoo is dead. Google will remain the dominant Internet company for the foreseeable future.
-Kolametal
Facebook to redesign profiles
May 23, 2008
According to PC World, Facebook is going to push ahead with a major redesign and renovations to the profile set up on the social networking site. The main idea behind the redesign is to reduce profile clutter. I applaud this decision 100%, because as a Facebook user, I have been noticing a trend of too many applications on numerous profiles. From the PC World article: “The redesign will attempt to unclutter the profiles by redistributing their components to different tabs. Current plans call for four main tabs — for the activity feed, basic member information, photos and applications. Members will be able to add more application tabs. In addition, the activity feed tab will feature a new authoring control panel, called the Publisher Box, for creating and posting content. Meanwhile, the profile will have at the top a new horizontal navigation line with drop-down menus for its core features. ”
Sounds good to me. One of the things that made me appreciate Facebook over MySpace was the fact that profiles were actually somewhat organized. Recently, the thousands of applications on Facebook have run a little wild. This new addition of “tabs” will hopefully improve all of this.
-Kolametal
