Could it be that Toyota's PR crisis is actually a crisis of older folks improperly slamming on the pedals, and not some mysterious manufacturing glitch?
Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
For years, McConnell has wanted the NSA (the ultra-secretive government spy agency responsible for listening in on other countries and for defending classified government computer systems) to take the lead in guarding all government and private networks. Not surprisingly, the contractor he works for has massive, secret contracts with the NSA in that very area. In fact, the company, owned by the shadowy Carlyle Group, is reported to pull in $5 billion a year in government contracts, many of them Top Secret.
via TechDirt - While Beyonce and Taylor Swift may have outshone Lady Gaga at the Grammy's, it doesn't change the fact that Gaga has become quite a music industry sensation. But similar to what we saw with Mariah Carey, the details behind Lady Gaga's business model success shows how even today's superstars are embracing more nuanced business models that make use of free music and focus on selling unique scarcities. When it comes to free music, apparently that's been a huge part of Gaga getting attention:
In fact, much of Gaga's audience got her music for free, and legally. They have listened to free streams--by the hundreds of millions--on YouTube and the other online services that Gaga currently leads, according to research firm BigChampagne. On MySpace, Gaga has had 321.5 million plays. By contrast, singer Susan Boyle tallied only 133,000 plays, despite scoring the No. 2 selling album of 2009.
And while she has been able to sell music, she's also making a ton of money from live gigs and corporate deals, including Polaroid and Estee Lauder -- which are examples of Gaga selling the attention of her fans, as well as some tangible goods (such as makeup, similar to Mariah Carey).
Again, nothing about this is revolutionary at all. But it again shows that even today's megastars are figuring out how that just selling music isn't the only way to make money these days, and, in fact, having the music available for free can often be quite helpful in getting even more attention in ways that aid the other parts of the business model.
In the never-ending world of global scare tactics to manipulate the sheeple into government having complete control of their lives comes the latest tactic: cyberwarfare.
The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday. International Telecommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war.
