15 May 2012
Yahoo reboots: New board members, interim CEO
Yahoo became embroiled in the résumé flap when activist shareholder Third Point, which holds a 5.8% stake, disputed Thompson's résumé. Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb said the résumé inaccurately claimed Thompson held a degree in computer science, calling into question the Yahoo CEO as well as hiring committee head Patti Hart. Yahoo acknowledged the inaccuracy and bowed to pressure from Third Point to review the matter.
The fallout comes as Third Point had increased demands for Thompson's removal and a board makeover. Under the shake-up, Yahoo has relented to Loeb's demands for placement of Third Point members on the Yahoo board. Third Point board nominees Loeb, Harry Wilson and Michael Wolfwill join Yahoo's board, effective Wednesday.
Non-executive chairman Roy Bostock, along with Hart, VJ Joshi, Arthur Kern, Gary Wilsonand Thompson, all agreed to step down from the board immediately.
"The board believes in the strength of the company's business and assets, and in the opportunities before us," Amoroso said in a statement.
The résumé flap is the latest black eye for Yahoo, which has been under pressure from shareholders to reshape itself amid a withering assault from Google and Facebook.
"It's very damaging, and speaks so negatively to the (vetting process)," says Adam Hanft, an expert in management and brand strategy. "(Thompson) was hired for strategy, branding and marketing — not computer science."
The January hiring of Thompson, the highly successful CEO of eBay's PayPal unit, was Yahoo's latest stab at a turnaround. But his padded credentials raised questions about his integrity and the Internet pioneer's hiring and vetting process.
Thompson's hasty exit complicates a restructuring plan he put into place that includes 2,000 layoffs. It's just the latest in a series of missteps and stumbles in the past few years highlighted by multiple CEOs, executive defections, reorganizations and questions about deals with tech partners Microsoft and Alibaba.
For Levinsohn, it all adds up to inheriting a wayward ship with a reconstituted board and uncertain future. "Who in their right mind would take this job, and this board?" longtime tech analyst Jonathan Yarmis says. "We should have fun and answer that question: 'Who's crazy enough?' "
Yahoo confirms CEO is out after resume scandal
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is out after it was found he padded his resume with an embellished college degree, ending his term at the company after just four months.
Yahoo confirmed Thompson "has left the company" in a statement posted late Sunday, after two news reports. Tech blog AllThingsD was the first to report the news, and the New York Times followed up with its own article.
Yahoo media chief Ross Levinsohn will be named interim CEO, the company said. Levinsohn had earlier been rumored as a successor to Carol Bartz, who was fired from Yahoo by phone in September. Instead, Thompson took the CEO role in January.
Thompson's resume scandal ignited just over a week ago, when activist shareholder group Third Pointalleged that Thompson lied about details of his college degree.
The saga took an even more dramatic twist Monday morning, when theWall Street Journal reported that Thompson has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. His decision to step down from Yahoo was "in part influenced" by the recent diagnosis, the newspaper said.
New board members: Dan Loeb, the CEO of Third Point, has a long history of launching proxy fights -- and Yahoo was the latest company in his crosshairs. Third Point owns about 5.8% of Yahoo, and is the largest outside shareholder. In February, Third Point filed paperwork proposing four new Yahoo board members, including Loeb himself.
At first, Yahoo didn't want to play ball. But Third Point scored a coup by finding and exposing Thompson's padded resume.
Now, Yahoo has settled with Loeb to end the proxy fight. On Sunday, Yahoo and Third Point released a joint statement explaining the terms.
Yahoo will add three of Third Point's proposed nominees to the board: Loeb himself; Harry Wilson, the CEO of corporate restructuring and turnaround firm Maeva; and Michael Wolf, CEO of media consulting company Activate.
The fourth Third Point-proposed nominee, former NBC Universal CEO Jeffrey Zucker, said in the companies' statement that he removed himself from consideration in order to more easily broker a settlement.
Loeb said in the statement Sunday that he, Wilson and Wolf are "committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo's significant potential and value."
In addition, Yahoo said Sunday that it named Fred Amoroso, an existing board member, as chairman. The chairman position had been in play since a February board shakeup that wiped out most of Yahoo's previous directors.
In an internal Yahoo e-mail obtained by CNN's Dan Simon, interim CEO Levinsohn acknowledged the "very bumpy road we've traveled."
But, he said, Sunday's announcements "lay to rest the unfortunate and serious distractions surrounding our senior leadership and the composition of our Board going forward."
Levinsohn closed the e-mail by saying Yahoo will "go on the offensive starting today."
Representatives from both Yahoo and Third Point declined to comment beyond the joint statement.
False statements: Thompson's published Yahoo bios -- including the one in the company's latest annual report, a legal document that CEOs must personally swear are truthful -- have claimed that he holds a bachelor's degree in both accounting and computer science from Stonehill College. His degree is actually in accounting only.
Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) called the mistake an "inadvertent error." The board said this week that it had hired outside counsel to conduct a review of the false statement. Soon after, the director who led Yahoo's CEO search committee, Patti Hart, announced that she would step down at the end of her current term.
False statements about Thompson's degree stretch beyond his time at Yahoo, which began in January. References to a "computer science" degree also appeared in his online biographical information on PayPal's website when Thompson was president of the eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) subsidiary.
Thompson's degree information is listed accurately in eBay's regulatory filings and in the bio featured in filings for F5 (FFIV), where he serves as a director. In both cases, the companies state: "Mr. Thompson holds a B.S. in Accounting from Stonehill College," with no reference to a computer science degree.
But the false statement about his degree appeared in Yahoo's latest annual report filed to the SEC: "Mr. Thompson holds a Bachelor's degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College."
Those errant three words could mean big trouble for Thompson and Yahoo. CEOs are required to personally certify that their company's SEC filings are accurate.
Gas Pipeline Hacks
The US Department of Homeland Security announced that gas pipelines have been targeted by hackers. This raised the fears over the safety of infrastructure.
The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) has recently highlighted a series of cyber attacks targeting natural gas pipeline sector corporations. They analyzed the malware related to the hacker attacks and discovered that it has identified the attacks as a part of a single campaign which is believed to be ongoing since last December.
Spear-phishing cyber attacks have targeted employees within companies, but some of the individuals targeted have been “tightly focused” apparently. The hackers conducted their attacks by sending emails which seemed to have been sent from a trusted member of the company they worked for.
ICS-CERT has already issued a warning to highlight the danger represented by cyber attacks on infrastructure. However, the information being made publicly available is very limited. The outfit claims that it’s currently “working aggressively” with targeted companies to fend off threats and to prevent re-infection. Meanwhile, they didn’t provide any source of motive of the intrusions.
Nowadays, cyber attacks on critical infrastructure are a growing concern, especially in the wake of the Stuxnet worm which threatened nuclear power stations in Iran. Indeed, a lot of power companies are actually open to attacks like spear phishing because of having low levels of security infrastructure in place. On the other hand, other corporations in the space have complex security solutions able to resist very determined attackers.
However, some of the industry observers believe that the seriousness in the cases might be overstated, and it isn’t only critical infrastructure on the receiving end of attacks, but attacks like Stuxnet will inevitably cause concern.
Last time in the United Stated, an incident originally labeled “a cyber attack on critical infrastructure from Russia” months later turned out to be an authorized action taken by a person on holiday in the US. Sometimes, correlating incidents taken against important companies, including viruses, spear phishing and hacker attacks, called “sophisticated hacker attacks” may appear a dangerous ploy, because these networks mostly have the same level of incidents and abuse as any other industry.
14 May 2012
The Church of Kopimism Married First Couple
Sweden has approved the Church of Kopimism as an official religion this year. Since then, there were a lot of enthusiasts and believers attracted to the religion from across the world. Now the first couple decided to be married by the Church of Kopimism.
In today’s virtual reality, where file-sharing has become one of the most popular online activities, it was common for users to think of making it a rather serious matter. One of them was Isaac Gerson, a philosophy student who started the Church of Kopimism in the country. However, he probably did not expect that much success at the moment. Within the past few months, this innovative spiritual belief has spread from the United States to Estonia, with the church’s followers believing that file-sharing is actually sacred and shouldn’t be restricted or constrained by legislation.
However, a church isn’t true without its first wedding, and so a stage hosted the once in a lifetime event with a Romanian woman and her Italian man, who both said “yes” and became wife and husband. The Church of Kopimism announced that they were very happy that day, that love is all about sharing, and so a married couple would share everything with each other.
As with any matrimony, a Kopimism marriage is also following some rules, allowing the couple to share their love with others, if others do not steal it. At the same time, the most important rule is “to copy and remix” themselves. In other words, they can copy and remix their DNA-cells and create a new human being, which is actually the spirit of Kopimism. The church calls to feel the love, share that information and copy all of its holiness. Hopefully, the newlywed couple will have a happy and full life together.
In today’s virtual reality, where file-sharing has become one of the most popular online activities, it was common for users to think of making it a rather serious matter. One of them was Isaac Gerson, a philosophy student who started the Church of Kopimism in the country. However, he probably did not expect that much success at the moment. Within the past few months, this innovative spiritual belief has spread from the United States to Estonia, with the church’s followers believing that file-sharing is actually sacred and shouldn’t be restricted or constrained by legislation.
However, a church isn’t true without its first wedding, and so a stage hosted the once in a lifetime event with a Romanian woman and her Italian man, who both said “yes” and became wife and husband. The Church of Kopimism announced that they were very happy that day, that love is all about sharing, and so a married couple would share everything with each other.
As with any matrimony, a Kopimism marriage is also following some rules, allowing the couple to share their love with others, if others do not steal it. At the same time, the most important rule is “to copy and remix” themselves. In other words, they can copy and remix their DNA-cells and create a new human being, which is actually the spirit of Kopimism. The church calls to feel the love, share that information and copy all of its holiness. Hopefully, the newlywed couple will have a happy and full life together.
UK Will See 30% Increase in Piracy
One of the leading British law firms has published a report saying that around 30% of the file-sharers in the country admit that they are going to pirate more films, music, games, and e-books within the next year. Meanwhile, the same report says that 34%-36% of people who pay for their music and video will continue to purchase more.
Wiggin, one of the largest UK’s law firms, has published its 2012 Digital Entertainment Survey, which polled 2.500 citizens of the country and revealed quite interesting statistics. Its first part covered consumers’ entertainment activities, such as watching TV, listening to music or reading e-books. The results of the study showed that it wasn’t until the 34th position out of 40 when an illegal activity appears.
Moreover, 6% of respondents explained that they download films or TV shows from linking and hosting sites, and 5% admitted they download video content from regular file-sharing websites. As for the illegal music downloads, only 5% of people confirmed they did it, and 4% admitted to have downloaded e-books.
According to the study, file-sharing is mostly popular with male youth. 14% of 15-to-19-year-old men said they have downloaded films and TV-shows via file-sharing services, compared to 2% of women.
As the audience mature, the percentage drops, and it is only 1% for both men and women of 45 or older. The researchers point out that people who are already downloading from illegal sources aren’t likely to stop from their activities. Of people admitting about their file-sharing habits, 29% confirmed they would keep downloading more e-books, while 28% promised to download more games and software. The same number of respondents admitted they will continue downloading music content.
On the other hand, there’s a positive trend on the legal side of the issue. For example, of those already streaming ad-supported music, 27% promised do more within the next 12 months. In addition, 36% music enthusiasts already paying for a streaming subscription confirmed they would keep consuming more music in the future.
Finally, the survey also asked out the issue of regulating online content, and around 40% of respondents disagreed with the notion that the web should be regulated the same way as TV. However, a total of 58% said that it should.
Wiggin, one of the largest UK’s law firms, has published its 2012 Digital Entertainment Survey, which polled 2.500 citizens of the country and revealed quite interesting statistics. Its first part covered consumers’ entertainment activities, such as watching TV, listening to music or reading e-books. The results of the study showed that it wasn’t until the 34th position out of 40 when an illegal activity appears.
Moreover, 6% of respondents explained that they download films or TV shows from linking and hosting sites, and 5% admitted they download video content from regular file-sharing websites. As for the illegal music downloads, only 5% of people confirmed they did it, and 4% admitted to have downloaded e-books.
According to the study, file-sharing is mostly popular with male youth. 14% of 15-to-19-year-old men said they have downloaded films and TV-shows via file-sharing services, compared to 2% of women.
As the audience mature, the percentage drops, and it is only 1% for both men and women of 45 or older. The researchers point out that people who are already downloading from illegal sources aren’t likely to stop from their activities. Of people admitting about their file-sharing habits, 29% confirmed they would keep downloading more e-books, while 28% promised to download more games and software. The same number of respondents admitted they will continue downloading music content.
On the other hand, there’s a positive trend on the legal side of the issue. For example, of those already streaming ad-supported music, 27% promised do more within the next 12 months. In addition, 36% music enthusiasts already paying for a streaming subscription confirmed they would keep consuming more music in the future.
Finally, the survey also asked out the issue of regulating online content, and around 40% of respondents disagreed with the notion that the web should be regulated the same way as TV. However, a total of 58% said that it should.
Donate Organs with Facebook
It seems that Facebook isn’t content with just harvesting information, and is currently looking into harvesting your organs. For real.
Actually, it’s not that fatal. Mark Zuckerberg is just planning to enable an option for Internet users to register as an organ donor via his social network. Thus far it seems to be entirely optional, and the experts failed to get alerted to anything in the Terms and Conditions about signing away access to your kidneys.
The NHS' Blood and Transplant wing informs that around 10,000 people in the United Kingdom are waiting for a new organ. The thing is that although having an organ donor card means your ex vitals are legally up for grabs, in case of your family being too distraught at the idea the hospitals won’t proceed. However, the NHS believes that if you make it completely clear that you want your organs donated, your family is much more likely to consent.
The NHS told the press that only 50% of registered organ donors informed their families about their intention to donate their organs after death – and so the new registration process will be another way to bring in donations.
According to the NHS Blood and Transplant group’s director, Sally Johnson, Facebook could become a great way to get users talking about turning their bodies into carveries after they croak. Sally Johnson explained that the group really needs more people to sign up, so the Facebook campaign is a really exciting new way to make it as quick and easy as it only could be.
The largest social network in the world hopes to start such schemes in many other regions, but thus far it only has plans in the United States, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Google Failed to Reduce Search Dependence
The world-wide known search engine Google had a 5-year plan intended to reduce its dependence on search revenue to 65% by next year. Which, apparently, didn’t work right. According to the local media reports, this figure appeared in the paperwork related to the Google vs. Oracle trial and showed that in fact Google was off its targets by many miles. The plan saw the company receiving over 35% of its 2013 revenue from outside its search operation. That’s what Google wanted to reach back in 2010.
It seems that Internet commerce and an initiative to bring Google services to TV were on the list of things Google was going to shift to. After the experts saw the paper, they most likely laughed and assumed that Google TV and commerce ambitions didn’t really happen. According to Herman Leung, Susquehanna Financial Group analyst, two years ago Google was a little more aggressive than it is now.
Actually, the projections for the company’s different businesses were part of a presentation to Google’s board of directors two years ago. The search giant tried to convince American District Judge William Alsup to keep the papers secret, saying they were commercially sensitive. At the same time, making the company look silly over failing to meet its goals doesn’t count as “commercially sensitive” to the judge. Jim Prosser, a spokesman for the company, claimed that the papers didn’t represent current thinking about its business operations, but he forgot to say why it was so important to have this data suppressed.
The paper also reveals how Google sees an emerging threat from cooperation between the largest social network in the world, Facebook, and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Google was worried that Facebook-Bing users might bypass it. Meanwhile, its own YouTube business was estimated to generate $5 billion by 2013, due to a $3 billion contribution from its own TV project, which actually never happened.
It seems that Internet commerce and an initiative to bring Google services to TV were on the list of things Google was going to shift to. After the experts saw the paper, they most likely laughed and assumed that Google TV and commerce ambitions didn’t really happen. According to Herman Leung, Susquehanna Financial Group analyst, two years ago Google was a little more aggressive than it is now.
Actually, the projections for the company’s different businesses were part of a presentation to Google’s board of directors two years ago. The search giant tried to convince American District Judge William Alsup to keep the papers secret, saying they were commercially sensitive. At the same time, making the company look silly over failing to meet its goals doesn’t count as “commercially sensitive” to the judge. Jim Prosser, a spokesman for the company, claimed that the papers didn’t represent current thinking about its business operations, but he forgot to say why it was so important to have this data suppressed.
The paper also reveals how Google sees an emerging threat from cooperation between the largest social network in the world, Facebook, and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Google was worried that Facebook-Bing users might bypass it. Meanwhile, its own YouTube business was estimated to generate $5 billion by 2013, due to a $3 billion contribution from its own TV project, which actually never happened.
13 May 2012
২০ বছর পূর্ণ করলো এসএমএস
চলতি বছরেই মোবাইলের মাধ্যমে কোনো ইন্টারনেট সংযোগ ছাড়াই লিখিত যোগাযোগের সবচেয়ে জনপ্রিয় মাধ্যম টেক্সট মেসেজিং বা এসএমএস-এর ২০ বছর পূর্ণ হয়েছে। খবর গার্ডিয়ান-এর।সূত্র জানিয়েছে, বিশ্বের তিনভাগের দুইভাগ মানুষেরই রয়েছে এই এসএমএস, যার পূর্ণরূপ হচ্ছে শর্ট মেসেজ সার্ভিস বা টেক্সট মেসেজিং-এর সুবিধা। অর্থাৎ, প্রায় ৪০০ কোটি মানুষ এই এসএমএস সেবা উপভোগ করেন। এই বিপুল পরিমাণ মানুষের প্রযুক্তিটি ব্যবহারের অন্যতম কারণ হচ্ছে, সবচেয়ে কমদামের নড়বড়ে মোবাইল ফোনেও এসএমএস-এর সুবিধা থাকে।
গার্ডিয়ান দাবি করেছে, প্রযুক্তির স্বর্গরাজ্য সিলিকন ভ্যালিতে এ পর্যন্ত যতো প্রযুক্তির উদ্ভব হয়েছে, এসএমএস-এর কাছে সেগুলো কিছুই না। তার চেয়ে মজার বিষয় হলো, এসএমএস-এর উদ্ভাবনও সিলিকন ভ্যালিতে নয়। ১৯৮২ সালে ইউরোপিয়ান টেলিফোনি কনফারেন্সে জিএসএম প্রযুক্তি চালুর সিদ্ধান্ত নেয়া হয়। এ জন্য প্যারিসে কিছু ইঞ্জিনিয়ারকেও নিয়োগ দেয়া হয় সে সময়।
এর পাঁচ বছর পর ১৩টি ইউরোপীয় দেশ, মোবাইল ফোন যোগাযোগের জন্য জিএসএম প্রযুক্তিকে সাধারণ মোবাইল টেলিফোন সিস্টেম হিসেবে চালু করতে এক চুক্তিপত্রে স্বাক্ষর করে। প্রথম জিএসএম প্রযুক্তির নেটওয়ার্কে ফোন কলটি করেন ১৯৯১ সালে তৎকালীন ফিনিশ প্রধানমন্ত্রী। পরবর্তীতে প্রথম জিএসএম প্রযুক্তির মোবাইল ফোন বিক্রির জন্য অনুমোদিত হয় ১৯৯২ সালে। ধীরে ধীরে এটি বিশ্বব্যাপী মোবাইল ফোন যোগাযোগের সর্ববৃহৎ নেটওয়ার্ক হিসেবে গড়ে ওঠে।
জিএসএম প্রযুক্তি তৈরির সময়ই এসএমএস-এর ধারণার উদ্ভব এবং টেলিফোন সিগনালের মধ্য দিয়ে বার্তা পাঠানোর জন্য প্রযুক্তিটি তৈরি হয়। এর একমাত্র সীমাবদ্ধতা থাকে এই যে, এটি ১৬০টি অক্ষর বা বর্ণের বেশি ডেটা ধারণ করতে পারে না। তবে এই সীমাবদ্ধতা থাকলেও সাম্প্রতিক সময়ে এসএমএস টেক্সট মেসেজিং যোগাযোগের অন্যতম জনপ্রিয় মাধ্যম বলেই জানিয়েছে গার্ডিয়ান।
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)