Believe it or not, Phoenix Jones is part of a real-life crime fighting superhero brigade named The Rain City Superheroes, and he kicks criminals’ asses at night. Check it out:
Apparently, he’s been doing this for the past 9 months, which incidentally coincide almost exactly with the release date of Kick-Ass. Simple Coincidence? I think not.
Apple has become the second company in the world worth more than $300 billion. Meanwhile, less formal estimates put Facebook at $50 billion.
It was only last May that Apple overtook Microsoft, with a market capitalization of $221 billion. That figure represents a company’s current stock price, multiplied by the number of stocks in the company. In effect it’s the paper value of the company and the amount it would theoretically cost to take it over completely. (In effect, somebody offering to buy the whole thing, or Apple stockholders all deciding spontaneously that they wanted to sell, would likely distort the stock price.)
The company hit a new milestone when stock markets opened for 2011: at a stock price of $329.60, it’s new valuation is $302.56 billion.
The only real target left — and bear in mind that this is simply paper value, rather than the hard cash of revenues and profits — is to overtake current number one Exxon Mobil at $368 billion, which would either mean the oil giant slipping, or Apple getting a hair over $400 a share. That’s about a 20% further rise, which is a bit of a stretch but could be possible if the company either has some great revenue figures, or if any of the big product announcements this year strike a chord with investors.
Meanwhile Facebook has been valued at $50 billion, though that’s even more of a paper estimate. The logic behind the figure is simply that a report state that Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor have paid a combined $500 million for one percent of the company. Of course, that means the entire valuation is based on a single transaction, so it’s far beyond pinch of salt territory.
Ironically there was said to have been a rule of thumb in the dotcom boom of the late 90s/early 2000s of valuing tech firms at 25 times their annual revenue. The report of the Goldman Sachs deal puts Facebook’s revenue at $2 billion, which works out bang on the money. (Then again, it may not be a coincidence, but rather that Facebook and Goldman Sachs used this method to come up with a “fair price.”)
But while the headlines are about how Facebook now has a higher value than eBay or Time Warner, the real story appears to be that financial regulators are asking whether such stock deals — which will likely see the shares passed on to Goldman Sachs clients — have effectively created the type of market in Facebook stock that is meant to be restricted to Wall Street and other regulated exchanges.
“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
– Hello Kitty Hannibal Lecter
[Source: Monsterami]
[Source]
By Derek Clark
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
If you’ ve read any science fiction or watched any sci-fi shows lately, then chances are you’re familiar with the concept of the ‘singularity’. If not, then you should probably stop reading this article and go finish knitting that sweater for your grandson.
Singularity refers to a theory that technological progress will continue to speed up and that we will develop super smart toasters that will speed up the progress even more causing them to invent even smarter toasters and… well, you see where this is going – world toaster domination.
The concept was first discussed by statistician I.J. Good who, in 1965, said that if machines became intelligent, they would rapidly improve themselves and outstrip man. He called it the ‘intelligence explosion’ . But it was scientist and author Vernor Vinge who coined the phrase ‘singularity’ for his 1993 essay, ‘The Coming Technological Singularity’ (apparently, revising his previous title of ‘Robots Gonna Fuck You Up, Bitch!’ ). The idea was intended as an analogy to a gravitational singularity – as the laws of physics become unrecognizable near a black hole, so too would human society when a technological singularity occurred. Though originally meant to refer to the ‘intelligence explosion’ , the term singularity has since been used to describe other big theoretical leaps, such as nanotechnology and Lady Gaga’s gender.
Here are a few more impending singularities that I feel you should be made aware of…
The Hipster Singularity – when the swelling aura of smug self-righteousness causes vintage clothing to become self-aware and rise up and smother their PBR-drinking, indie band-listening owners.
The NASCAR Singularity – when NASCAR race cars inevitably develop better English skills than their fans and explain to them the problems of inbreeding, thus ending the propagation of their species.
The Jobs Singularity – when Apple devices become so desirable and expensive that everyone will be forced to donate their livers to Steve Jobs to obtain one. Unfortunately, they’ll only enjoy it for about three days before keeling over. Oh, but what a three days!
The Jersey Shore Singularity – when a giant globular creature known as a ‘Snookie’ rises like Cthulhu from the ever-mounting, primordial ooze of self-tanning lotion coating the Jersey Shore to devour all Guido-kind.
The Facebook Singularity – when millions of people become aware at the exact same moment that Facebook is actually just a sadder form of scrapbooking and all join a suicide pact where they ‘like’ each other to death on Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday.
The Ironic Zombie Singularity – when average people suddenly snap and start eating all the annoying zombie fans. Because seriously, enough already.
Whether you like it or not, the singularity is coming for you in one form or another. If you need me, I’ll be huddled in the corner, nervously knitting sweaters for the robot apocalypse.
[Cylon Toaster Picture Source: Io9]
[Via]
There are just two days to go until the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and it looks as if the geeky gadgets will keep on coming.
The most notable area for product launches at this year’s event looks certain to be the latest batch of “iPad killer” tablet devices (mainly running Google’s Android platform), though there will also likely be headlines when Verizon unveils its first smartphones compatible with the ultra-high speed LTE (4G in all but official specification) networks that are currently only available through PC cards.
There are plenty of other goodies set to go on display though. Here’s some of the ones that we’ve already heard about.
Microsoft is planning to unveil a set-top box that runs a customized edition of Windows and uses the Media Center interface. It will combine streaming from a PC with online content. And yes, it does sound like a “me too” response to Apple TV and Google TV.
Netflix will apparently announce that it is now so huge (it makes up 20% of all peak-time download traffic in the US) that it’s persuaded most of the leading manufacturers to begin including a giant red Netflix button on remote controls for Blu-ray players and TV sets with internet capabilities.
ASUS will demonstrate a motion control system for PCs that uses the same 3D capture technology licensed to Microsoft for Kinect. It’ll be mainly focused for web browsing when watching a large screen TV hooked up to a PC, but could be used in online gaming as well.
Lexar is offering a frankly terrifying 128GB SD memory card. It’s hard to decide what’s the more frightening prospect if you manage to lose or damage the card: the loss of a stupendous amount of data in one go, or the fact that you’d be writing off a $700 investment.
HDTV manufacturer Vizio will be showing off sets that include built-in access to a range of applications, most notably OnLive, a streaming PC gaming service that includes high-profile games such as Assassin’s Creed II and Batman: Arkham Asylym on three day ($5-7) and five day ($7-9) rentals, or unlimited access for around $20-30.