slice of koh

While I was wandering on the internet and checking on my investment portfolio, I noticed that Google added “Google Domestic Trends” to the left sidebar in the Google Finance page.  Upon opening the sidebar, I became incredibly fascinated by the charts.  They track queries related to key search terms by category and indexed to January 1, 2004.  You can overlay stocks or major indices like the Nasdaq or Dow over these trends. Behold the power of Google mining billions of people’s worth of search data.  My favorite categories are “Investing” and “Unemployment.”  Five years from now, people will look back on this in awe.

It’s surely turning into a brawl.  Intel is introducing another entry into the somewhat crowded mobile OS market.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fi_LXmAbdc[/youtube]

In theory, it looks pretty cool.  I would love to play with it.  Maybe I should get a netbook so I can try this.

Video game software sales must be hurting if retail stores are willing to offer these deals.  Below are the top two deals.  Thanks to slickdeals and CAG on consolidating.

Toys R Us, in stores only, has the game + $20 gift card + action figure for $60.

Alternatively, Amazon has the game +$10 future video game purchase credit for $51.  It includes free shipping and no tax for most states.

Considering there are tons of maps that I would play, this game seems to be a fairly good deal, especially on its first day.

Gizmodo posted the video for Charlie Rose’s interview with Dan Hesse.  You have to give Dan Hesse credit.  Any executive will do anything to make his or her company look superior to competitors.  A smart executive understands the playing field, recognizes his or her company’s strengths and weaknesses, and will craft a strategy to compete.  Sprint has been in a downward spiral for awhile, but Dan Hesse seems to have a pretty good strategy in place for Sprint’s comeback. Below are some memorable quotes and comments:

“We’re getting ready to launch a couple new Android devices.” – One is HTC Hero, but what are the other ones?  Not only will Sprint launch a lower cost WebOS phone, Pixi, but Sprint is diversifying its portfolio to give the consumers a great selection of smartphones to use on its network.  Does anyone remember when Sprint actually had a cool selection of phones to choose from?  I don’t.

“In 20 / 20 hindsight, it was, yes… the premium that Sprint paid for Nextel was too much.” – Applaud Dan Hesse for recognizing the stupid merger.  There aren’t many corporate executives who’ll admit to management mistakes.  Even fewer will admit to M&A mistakes, especially those that made headlines.

“The biggest impediment to mobile growth is you got processors are getting a lot faster, screens are getting sharper, they use more and more power, and battery technology is not moving very fast… That’s the one breakthrough that the industry needs. It needs battery breakthroughs.” To me, this is one of the biggest issues with touchscreen smartphones.  My G1 dies after 6 hours with moderate usage.  That’s pretty inexcusable, as I’m often out and about for at least 12 hours per day.  With all these hardware improvement designed to eat less battery juice, why do manufacturers not see the beauty of making a better battery rather than trying to make its hardware more power-efficient?  Maybe someone should develop a touchscreen with built-in solar panels, so my phone could be charged with only sunlight.  A smartphone with a big touchscreen and fast processor will be useless if the battery dies in 2 hours.

After this interview, my respect for Dan Hesse has increased significantly.  He truly does understand the business and taking the right steps to make Sprint a viable contender once more.  Is it too little too late?  We’ll see for sure once Q3 and Q4 earnings come out for Sprint.

So it’s not bad as the $850+ being offered across the pond.  Nokia USA now has N900 on pre-order for $649.   It has the coveted 1700mhz T-Mobile 3G band, so now I hopefully won’t have to agonize over the the sub-optimal performance and features of my current Android device.  N97 was also running Maemo, but it was not pretty.  I do hope the Nokia folks figured this one out with better hardware and software. It would be nice for Nokia to get their groove back in the smartphone wars.  Whatever happened to the Nokia of 4 years ago?  I do have high hopes as I may re-up my T-Mobile contract to get my hands on this piece of hardware.