Bird’s Eye View

WHOA!

Intel settled with AMD to settle a legal battle over what AMD says are sketchy sales tactics. Despite the announcement of the settlement, Intel still has to deal with the antitrust charges filed by AMD to several governments.

The biggest of these is in Europe. Regulators fined Intel a record $1.45 billion over what they say was “bullying” PC makers into using Intel chips over AMD. European regulators are aware of the settlement, but, they also say it doesn’t mean Intel doesn’t have to comply with the European antitrust law.

AMD charges that Intel has used threats and financial incentives to keep AMD’s market share from rising above 20%. AMD has quoted a manager from Toshiba as saying the incentives from Intel are “like cocaine.” Similar statements have been made by reps from Gateway Computer Corp.

Intel has defended its actions, saying they are legitimate and that they benefit consumers.

AMD’s stock rose $1.19, a whopping 22%, to $6.51. Intel dropped 6 cents to $19.78.

Intel is still facing other legal issues in Korea, where a lawsuit was filed in New York by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. This filing has prompted investigation into the allegations by none other than the US Federal Trade Commission.

Read the full story here.

This is really cool.

The Unabridged Version

The guy who did this must have had a lot of time on his hands. Or maybe he just likes to look at statistical data and show people what it translates to. Either way, it is really cool.

According to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), America ranks 28th in the world in internet connection speeds. Who is leading the pack? South Korea is. And with a whopping 20.4 mbps! That’s 4 times faster than the US average - 5.1 mbps :(  Next in line is Japan with 15.8, Sweden with 12.8 and the Netherlands with 11.0 mbps.

In a recent study, it was found that the average US download speed only increased by nine-tenths of a megabit per second for 2008 - 2009. Booooo.

18% of people who took a speed test reported download speeds below 768 kilobits per second - can’t even be called basic. Tisk tisk.

Things aren’t all bad, especially if you live in the northeastern corner of the US.

Ok, when I have done a search for myself in Google, I couldn’t tell you where I am in the rankings. But on a whim, since I know that Acesse is starting to produce some excellent results, I checked my name. Lo and behold I am on page 11! Big whoop some of you may say. Let me bask in my moment of glory! I care not what you think! I had no idea that there were so many Jonathan Neil’s out there. They are pretty successful guys it seems like - it’s a shame that I am going to knock them out of their spots soon! I sound pretty narcissistic, but who cares! I’m on page 11 of Acesse!! Cue The Jefferson’s theme music…

I may be one of those “ineffective bloggers” that so many people write about. They get upset because you don’t post every day, or pictures don’t show up or your links don’t work. Geez. In my defense, I am pretty busy. I am sure that anyone would agree that when your done with work and your head is cloudy with the days happenings, you just want to relax - not look at another computer screen. Let alone try to write about something. Anyways, I was just thinking about something I have heard Steve say over and over again. And that’s that so many people are “scattered” when it comes to their business. To be honest, I think we are all a little scattered no matter what it comes to! Are you an advertising person, or a juice person? Are you selling real estate help or legal help? Are you doing all of these? Focus, lazer beam focus.

Came across this story on one of my favorite websites. This has probably gone by mostly unnoticed by much of the worlds population. Here is the caption:

Eight major undersea Internet communication cables cut in 2008: We most definitely do live in interesting times

We certainly do…check out the story here.

This brings to mind some questions. How did it happen is the first. Aren’t these cables located on the ocean floor? Were they cut close to the shore? What were they cut by? Why stop the Internet? If you look at the diagram, you can see that it is no small task. 2 layers of braided steel cable. Conspiracy theorists are going to have a hay day with this one. Especially since industry experts say that, on average, 1 cable per year is accidentally severed.

Who is attempting to stop the flow of information and why? Are they attempting to stop the flow to or from these places? Both?