Apple

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Big name tech companies are coming under the microscope in Australia for their price gouging activities:

Apple and Microsoft will be among technology companies asked to explain to Parliament why Australians pay much more for music and game downloads from iTunes, for example, than overseas customers.

Federal Labor politicians are hoping the publicity generated by calling the companies to account for their pricing policies will result in prices dropping.

The Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, has signed off on the parliamentary inquiry, which will also consider pricing of software and other IT-related material and could have big implications for businesses.

”There is evidence to suggest that the innovative use of technology is not always matched with innovative new business models in the case of products and services distributed online,” Mr Conroy said in a letter to Sydney MP Ed Husic.

”I agree that Australian businesses and households should have access to IT software and hardware that is fairly priced relative to other jurisdictions … the global digital economy is likely to make it increasingly difficult to sustain business models that are based on a geographic carve-up of markets.”

The terms of reference for the inquiry are being finalised by Mr Conroy but it will begin later this year and be conducted by the House of Representatives standing committee on infrastructure and communications.

It is ridiculous that territorial arrangements still exist for most products, especially in the technology area. However the problem is not confined solely to that area.

Take sporting goods….You can buy a pair of Irish Setter boots from Cabelas for $119 USD, the same pair of boots here will set you back $475 USD. The problem is that the distributors and agents are marking up and then the retailers are marking up meaning that the consumer is getting tucked. Ultimately though the retailer is getting tucked because people just go an buy online.

ᔥ Data Center Knowledge

Recently in New Zealand Greenpeace was busted lying after a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. Now in the US they have been caught lying again:

Apple says it will use 20 megawatts of power at full capacity in its North Carolina data center, about one-fifth the amount estimated by Greenpeace in a report that is sharply critical of Apple and other data center operators for relying upon “dirty” energy sources to power their cloud computing operations.

Apple’s statement raises questions about the credibility of the estimates in the Greenpeace report, and illustrates the difficulty of seeking to estimate data center power usage – a detail that many companies are unwilling to disclose on their own.

Greenpeace has estimated that Apple will use 100 megawatts of power at the facility in Maiden, North Carolina. Greenpeace’s Gary Cook used that estimate to downplay the significance of Apple’s substantial investment in on-site renewable power in Maiden, which includes a 20 megawatt solar array and a  biogas-powered fuel cell with a 5 megawatt capacity.

“While much has been made of this announcement, it will cover only 10 percent of their total generation for the data center,” Greenpeace said in its report, How Clean is Your Cloud?, which has received widespread media attention today. But Apple says that isn’t the case at all.

“Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60% of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation which will each be the largest of their kind in the country,” Apple said in a statement. “We believe this industry-leading project will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100% renewable energy.”

Greenpeace has also assumed that Apple would use coal-sourced power in its Prineville, Oregon data center and factored that assumption into its Clean Energy Index ranking of 15.3 for Apple, far below the scores given to Facebook (36.4), Google (39.4) and Yahoo (56.4).

Apple would clearly receive a much higher score if Greenpeace used a 20 megawatt base to evaluate its coal-sourced power.  In effect, the current score whacks Apple for 80 megawatts of “dirty” power that it’s not using.

Greenpeace, like Trevor Mallard, never let the truth get in the way of a good lie.

iPad 3 vs Assault Rifle and Shotgun:

The guys from Rooster Teeth make a holiday horror video based on Siri.

Chris Keall wasn’t sure who to vote for in Epsom, so he asked Siri:

Siri asked: Should I vote for Paul Goldsmith? from Chris Keall on Vimeo.

Once again Labour Policy not properly costed ?

Labour yet another poorly thought out or costed policy. This time it was to 30 bored kids on a field in Hamilton, forced to sit their by their union hack teachers all getting the news about laptops for kids.

Nice sounding policy but I have a few questions. The answers will probably need Labour to form an expert panel since they don’t seem to have them.

I have worked in IT for many years. The hardware (laptop is this case) is often the cheapest part, but what about software?

Is Labour committing to pour taxpayer dollars into Microsoft or Apple’s prodigious cash coffers?

What about open source?

Maintenance is always a huge cost, and average life of any laptop is three years tops, is this a commitment long term?

Who funds upgrades?

What about middle class ? Miss out again ?

Up to what decile school would be supplied?

What about hidden costs, would kids be allowed to take these laptops home ?

If so there are obvious problems with that plan. After their flat screen TV and Sky decoder the laptop will be the most valuable item in the house.

Are we going to see a massive glut of state funded laptops appearing on Trademe? Imagine the chaos in class…”I lost it miss, honest”

If they are not allowed to go home then Labour has made schools more attractive for burglars with 30+ laptops per classroom.

Who will fund the necessary increase in security?

Will they still end up on Trademe after the thieves have been?

Lots of questions, not many answers.

Now that Steve Jobs has died some of his thoughts are being released through his biographer:

The Apple chief also criticised America’s uncompetitive education system, which he said was “crippled by union work rules.” He said Mr Obama should have schools open until 6pm, 11 months a year.

This sis something the government should look at. It would save millions in in childcare costs for parents, and teachers are paid a salary anyway so there is no extra cost in extending the hours of school.

A tribute video to Steve Jobs made entirely from sounds from Apple products and Steve Jobs own voice from his 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Every instrument, including drums, has been sampled from a Mac product, tuned by ear, and replayed in the context of the song.

In Australia there has been an injunction placed on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 because of a lawsuit between Samsung and Apple. It hasn’t stopped the punters however:

“If we could ask one question of Justice Bennett in the wake of her decision it would be this: does she really believe, in a global consumer economy, that there is any practical value in an Australian court slapping an injunction on a mass-market consumer product that is, in any event, widely available for purchase online?”

The only people affected by the injunction are the bricks and mortar retailers. Once again though it shows why legislators just don’t get it when it comes to technology versus the law.