Clipmarks | Victoria Barret's clips

Apple Ditches Baby Shaker, Phew

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:19:01 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Apple ditches baby shaker iPhone app.

Apple has apparently rethought its decision to allow an iPhone application that allows you to shake a baby to death to quiet its crying.

Apple apparently pulled the app sometime Wednesday afternoon after blogs and sites such as TechCrunch and Cnet caught on to the story. It's hard to believe that this got through the iPhone app certification process in the first place.

Tags: apple, iphone

Somebody Missed the Math in San Francisco

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:17:03 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: San Francisco cuts street cleaning to save on costs, only to find the tickets from those sweeps more than covered the cost.

Clip Source: www.sfgate.com

(04-22) 19:42 PDT -- When city officials cut street sweeping in more than 20 neighborhoods in August to save cash, they knew that the change would lead to a loss in revenue from parking tickets.

Street-sweeping tickets, at $50 a pop, dropped 26 percent on the affected routes from October to December, compared with the previous year, according to city figures.

If that trend continues, the transit agency will be out more than $3.8 million per year in exchange for just $1 million in savings for the Department of Public Works.

Tags: san francisco, city, budget, cost-cutting

All-Time High Defaults in California

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:13:28 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: The housing crisis is far from over, as default notices sky-rocketed in the first few months of this year. San Francisco and Los Angeles were hit the hardest.

Clip Source: www.dqnews.com

La Jolla, CA.--Lenders filed a record number of mortgage default notices against California homeowners during the first three months of this year, the result of the recession and of lenders playing catch-up after a temporary lull in foreclosure activity, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 135,431 default notices were sent out during the January- to-March period. That was up 80.0 percent from 75,230 for the prior quarter and up 19.0 percent from 113,809 in first quarter 2008, according to MDA DataQuick.

Last quarter's total was an all-time high for any quarter in DataQuick's statistics, which for defaults go back to 1992.

Many, if not most, of the loans made in 2006 are owned and/or serviced by lending institutions other than those that made the loans (mortgages are often sold off after the initial lender originates the loan, and are often serviced by a different entity). Many of the originating lending institutions no longer exist.

Tags: mortgage, housing, real estate

Dear Steve Jobs, Stop This

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:12:46 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: A new app for the iPhone goes too far.

Clip Source: news.cnet.com

If you needed any further proof that Apple's App Store approval process is horrifyingly out of whack, consider one of the latest additions to the App Store: Baby Shaker.

A company called Sikalosoft is currently selling a $0.99 iPhone application called Baby Shaker, as of Monday. The object of Baby Shaker is to stop the incessant crying of an infant pictured on screen by violently shaking the iPhone, at which point two red "x" marks appear over the baby's eyes. "See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!" reads the sales pitch for Baby Shaker.

Tags: iphone, app store, baby shaker

"Prime" Ain't What It Used To Be

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:08:19 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Those nice prime borrowers are getting hit hard. Delinquencies were up 50% last month, and yet the after-shock of the U.S.'s rising unemployment rate has yet to really kick in...

Clip Source: www.ritholtz.com

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage delinquencies among the most creditworthy homeowners rose 50 percent in a month as borrowers said drops in income or too much debt caused them to fall behind, according to data from federal regulators . . .

Of all borrowers who ended up in default, 34 percent told Fannie and Freddie they were earning less money, about 20 percent cited excessive debt as a reason for missing mortgage payments, and 8.1 percent blamed unemployment, FHFA said.”

Tags: mortgage, fannie mae, freddie mac, housing, unemployment

The Latest Lunacy from San Francisco

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:25:48 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: City supervisor Ross Mirkarimi wants San Francisco to become your drug dealer.

Clip Source: www.sfgate.com

San Francisco would be the first city in the nation to sell and distribute medical marijuana under legislation proposed Tuesday by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.

Mirkarimi, who spearheaded legislation more than three years ago to regulate the city's proliferating medical marijuana dispensaries, asked the city attorney to craft a measure that would create a pilot program for medical cannabis sales.

Federal authorities in San Francisco, who have clashed with local officials over federal prosecution of medical marijuana sellers, seemed caught off guard by the proposal. A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Agency said only that federal law has not changed, while U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello said the proposal was too vague to comment on.

He noted that a municipality taking over the distribution of medical marijuana doesn't solve the problem that the drug is still illegal under U.S. law.

Tags: san francisco, marijuana, medical

Why Americans Will Buy SUVs Again

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:53:05 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Small cars may save gas, but they could cost lives.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In a report prepared for release on Tuesday, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said that crash dummies in all three models tested — the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Smart Fortwo — fared poorly in the collisions. By contrast, the midsize models into which they crashed fared well or acceptably. Both the minicars and midsize cars were traveling 40 miles per hour, so the crash occurs at 80 m.p.h.

When the institute crashed the Smart into the Mercedes C-Class sedan, the Smart, which weighs half as much as the sedan, went airborne and spun around one and a half times.

Tags: auto, cars, suvs, fuel efficiency

Silicon Valley Gets Stung

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:39:29 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Job losses in techland jumped earlier this year, as the recession made its way from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Will these jobs return? Or did many end up overseas, permanently?

Clip Source: www.mercurynews.com

Tech accounted for 21 percent of all lost jobs in the first two months of the year, for instance, compared to 13.6 percent of all lost jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007

And more than two-thirds of the 7,112 layoffs scheduled during the first quarter were from high-tech companies, according to notices filed by companies with the EDD.

Tags: employment, silicon valley, engineers

Microsoft's Challenge: Convert the Followers

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:42:03 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Even Microsoft's own employees aren't taking to its search technology -- that is, unless they get paid to (via CashBack). Ad campaigns won't help much. Microsoft's upcoming search release might.

Clip Source: news.cnet.com

At a company meeting about a year ago, one Microsoft worker recalls hearing that four-fifths of the company's search traffic was going to Google. Although he uses Live Search personally, the worker, who asked not to be named, said plenty of his co-workers still use Google.

Among its full-time U.S. workers, Microsoft says that, for February, Live Search and Google had roughly equal share, at around 48 percent apiece, with little search traffic going to Yahoo or any of the other search players.

Mehdi said that Microsoft has won some internal support for specific products, such as its Live Search Cashback feature, which gives people a rebate on certain products purchased through its search engine.

For starters, the company is reportedly planning a $100 million ad campaign to accompany a mid-year release of the product. Beyond that, Microsoft has been paying heavily to make its search engine the default on new computers and devices, including deals with Dell and Lenovo.

Tags: microsoft, search, google, yahoo

We Pay You To Buy Our Cars

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:14:52 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Demand for cars would be drastically lower if it weren't for very generous financing by auto-makers. But a larger point here: governments are picking the winners and losers in the auto industry. Toyota gets aid for financing purchases; of course Honda gets in line.

Clip Source: www.bloomberg.com

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp.’s finance arm borrowed an undisclosed amount from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation in the first quarter to finance U.S. car sales as private investors demanded up to 50 percent more interest for the company’s debt.

Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, is offering near- record incentives to lure consumers as demand plunges. The company posted better-than-expected sales in the U.S. last month in part because it increased incentives per vehicle by 88 percent from a year ago, according to Edmunds.com.

Tags: auto, toyota, vendor-financing, honda, bailout

New Car? Thank You Taxpayer!

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:30:18 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Let me get this straight... taxpayers are keeping GM afloat. And now GM is keeping its customers afloat... with taxpayer dollars. Huh?

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Just hours later, GM weighed in with its own plan, which provides payment protection for the first 24 months of ownership. If a buyer loses his income, the company will make up to nine months' worth of payments for up to $500 a month. GM will also help protect the retail value of a new vehicle at trade-in time for a customer's next GM vehicle.

Tags: detroit, bailout, auto, gm, ford

You Can't Call This A Depression

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:22:15 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: By key metrics, we are far from the woes of the 1930s.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Tags: recession, depression, economy, unemployment

Wal-Mart Gets in the Software Business

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:28:45 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Wal-Mart is now up against Microsoft, which also wants new customers in doctors' offices.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software.

The Sam’s Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000 for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to $6,500 a year, the company estimates.

Wal-Mart says it had explored the opportunity in health information technology long before the presidential election. About 200,000 health care providers, mostly doctors, are among Sam Club’s 47 million members.

Only about 17 percent of the nation’s physicians are using computerized patient records

Tags: digital health records, wal-mart, microsoft, healthcare

Sorry, China

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:03:44 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: Economic woes here are hurting China.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The United States imported 17.4 percent less from China in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year

Tags: trade, china, imports

CFOs Give Obama's Healthcare Plan: Thumbs Down

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:47:38 GMT

clipped by: Victoria Barret
clipper's remarks: We're spending hundreds of billions to take our economy into recovery. Yet businesses don't seem to see the pay-off.

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

Chief financial officers at U.S. companies expect the recession to persist for another 14 months as they expressed record pessimism and anticipate weaker results this year, according to a quarterly survey released Wednesday.

Finally, 53% of CFOs say their companies would be worse off with a national health care system, compared to only 19% who say their businesses would be better off. –Mike Barris

The latest results of the Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook are especially gloomy, with more than two-thirds of the respondents saying they felt “more pessimistic” about the economy during the last quarter.

Tags: stimulus, universal health care, cfos, economic recovery