Items tagged with job
A disturbing stream of reports have been circulating concerning employers demanding the Facebook passwords of potential employees before hiring them. Aside from the fact that such a demand is a gross breach of privacy and frankly opens those employers up to legal liability for all sorts of reasons, it’s just a crappy thing to do. The job market is tough, and plenty of desperate job seekers would do, say, or sign just about anything to land a job, and apparently some employers know that and are taking advantage of their leverage. We know--it’s easy to become indignant upon reading this and boldly claiming that you’d rather starve to death than give up your Facebook password as...
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So, what's Microsoft up to? Isn't that a question that you'd love an answer to! Rumblings have been all over the place lately, with "Ventura" targeted as a replacement for the Zune, a future Windows Phone 7 update possibly pushed out, and now, lots of new hardware development jobs. Microsoft has just listed a handful of Xbox-related job listings on LinkedIn, and one has to wonder: why would you hire a load of Xbox engineers when the 360 has been around for a good while, and is pretty seasoned as-is? Well, what is a new Xbox is coming? The new listings have some very interesting language in them. Things like "responsible for defining and delivering next generation console architectures." That...
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Finally, your Twitter skills might come in handy.Teimlo, a British mobile phone content provider, wants to hire a marketer. But here's the catch: Job applications are being accepted only via text message (OK, so that's 160 characters instead of Twitter's 140, but think how much more verbose you can be with those extra 20 characters). Text to JOB.The qualifications:If you are qualified, sassy, good with words, dynamite at events, Adobe compatible, have working knowledge of mobile and social media, and are a determined multi-tasker and networker we want to hear from you. You can only send one text. Your message will be acknowledged, so you'll know they got it. Then, if you make it to the shortlist...
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Can you spell "SEC investigation?" There is definitely going to be one after this. A post at CNN's new social news site, iReport, resulted in Apple stock plummeting this morning, when it was rumored that Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack. iReport allows users to post unvetted stories, which then --- after vetting, may be posted to the iReport page on CNN.com. This story obviously didn't make it there, and has since been taken down.Interestingly, this user has never submitted a story previously. And the time of the story posting, 6 AM PDT, was obviously very suspicious. The story read:Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering...
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If you had read a Bloomberg story that floated across the wires at 4:27 PM yesterday, your heart might have stopped, and you might have rushed to sell your Apple stock. But no, it was all a mistake, and quickly retracted. The retraction was rather terse, though, saying only "An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted."The lengthy file contains not only a preliminary obituary for the iconic Apple chief, but also a list of suggested contacts for a more extensive story--Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and early Apple...
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It was a little, tiny, tiny addendum at the end of a WSJ article, but it was there: in an interview with the WSJ, Steve Jobs confirmed that the suspected iPhone "kill switch" does indeed exist. Of course, for investors, talk of the App Store downloads are probably more exciting, and Jobs detailed that as well:If sales stay at the current pace, Apple stands to reap at least $360 million a year in new revenue from the App Store, Mr. Jobs said. "This thing's going to crest a half a billion, soon," he added. "Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time.""I've never seen anything like this in my career for software," he said.60 million downloads? Of course,...
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Since last Tuesday, we've sat on the sidelines as others have questioned Apple's openness about Steve Jobs and discussed the terse answer Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO gave to Ben Reitzes (Lehman Brothers) when asked about Steve Jobs' health. "Ben, Steve loves Apple. He serves as the CEO at the pleasure of Apple's board and has no plans to leave Apple. Steve’s health is a private matter."We'll admit, at first, we thought, sure, it really is a private matter. But to be honest, we'll also admit right off the bat, some of us here at HH own AAPL stock as well. So we have a financial interest in the "health" of Apple stock. While, of course, the price drop between the announcement of the iPhone...
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Fake Steve Jobs, AKA Daniel Lyons, who was outed last year by the New York Times when his book was about to launch (hard to keep hiding under those circumstances), has decided to leave his real job with Forbes for a new real job with Newsweek.Forbes editor Dan Lyons, best known to most of you as Fake Steve Jobs, is leaving his employer after a 10-year run and jumping to Newsweek, where he'll take tech columnist Steve Levy's old slot. No word on whether Dan will continue to write FSJ once he starts his new gig: Newsweek says Dan will bring FSJ with him. Dan owns the rights to FSJ himself, so he should be able keep cranking them out if he wants to. But we also know he's itching to do some non-FSJ...
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Comcast has taken a lot of heat for limiting their customer's P2P traffic based on vague references to traffic overload concerns. They confused and angered many of their customers by offering "unlimited" bandwith that was limited, and added a bit of insult to injury by never revealing what the ceiling on traffic actually was. Broadband Reports interviewed someone inside Comcast who says the company is poised to make explicit the limits on downloading -- and charging for exceeding that limit. Looks like P2P Comcast users are going on a 250 GB a month diet."The intent appears to be to go after the people who consistently download far more than the typical user without hurting those who may have...
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I don't know which I dread accidentally clicking on more: A PDF link (Adobe) or a Quicktime video (Apple). But unless you live under a rock, you're looking at Flash video every day on the Internet. Steve Jobs doesn't seem to be; he's publicly announced that Flash is unsuitable for the iPhone in any of its current iterations. Adobe countered that if your smartphone doesn't play Flash video, it's a pretty dumb smartphone. Rather than support Flash, Apple requires that video be delivered in a particular file format. As a result, even though Google's YouTube has agreed to go along with Apple, only a fraction of Web video is playable on the iPhone. Flash is used to display the majority of online...
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Garmin's backing into the cellphone business in a big way. They've already got the GPS navigation thing down pat, so why not add voice, websurfing, MP3 playback, a camera, and a touchscreen to their devices, and save customers from lugging two, three or four items around instead of one? Meet the Nuvifone.The Nuvifone includes two features relatively new to Garmin navigation — a “where am I” button that tells the user the nearest address, intersection and nearby emergency facilities, and another that can be used to find a lost car in large parking lots.Beyond navigation, the Nuvifone offers features that have become common in smartphones, such as text messaging and e-mail, as well as some...
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In their biggest reduction in employee base since the dot com bust, Yahoo is planning to cut 1000 jobs in an effort to streamline their operations.“The Sunnyvale-based company announced the upcoming 7 percent reduction in its 14,300-employee work force during a Tuesday conference call to review a 23 percent decline in its fourth-quarter profit.”There's no word on exactly which area(s) of the company might be losing employees, but we'll keep you posted as we receive more information....
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There is an unwritten law of the tech world that states as MacWorld approaches industry buzz increases exponentially. As MacWorld is almost upon us, we're forced to wonder whether or not Steve Jobs has enough up his sleeve to outdo the announcements made in MW '07.“At last year's trade show, Apple Inc.'s charismatic CEO hurtled into the cell phone industry with the iPhone, jettisoned the word "computer" from the Macintosh maker's name and launched the Apple TV set-top box.Since then, Apple's stock has doubled, its computers' market share has grown and consumers have continued their love affair with iPod media players.”If all Apple has this year is an upgraded iPhone, a new AppleTV, and...
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Just kidding. But his box spring is probably made from gold bars. Maybe not. But one thing's for sure: Apple is swimming in cash. $15 billion in cash, to be precise. You'd have to be crazy to think that won't grow a lot with Christmas right around the corner. Unlike companies like Microsoft, Apple doesn't pay a dividend to their stockholders, so their big profit margins leave mounds of cash in their vaults. What to do with it? If the past is any guide, Jobs & Co. could very well use some of the money to swallow smaller companies. In 2001 Apple bought education software company PowerSchool; in 2002 it went on a binge and snapped up audio production company Emagic, video effects company...
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The digital grassy knoll set's collective head is about to explode. Apple is collecting iPhone usage data, linked to the user's specific personal information. Apple gathers that personal information when you sign up for an iPhone, and may be doing something or nothing with it after associating it with your usage data. People's opinions on this seem to depend on the ratio of Apple fanboy to paranoid privacy nut you are. If you're 100% both, this is bad news:From this information, Apple could build a profile on users. Where they travel, where they spend their free time, where they work, where they invest their money, what they browse, etc etc. Obviously most users would like to...
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Though we now know the identity of the fake Steve Jobs who kept us entertained with his blog, and thus the mystery is over, the story is not. The author of “oPtion$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs”, Dan Lyons, is planning on going on tour.Before you ask, we'll answer for you: Yes, the fake Steve Jobs is going on a real book tour.“Lyons is not planning extensive travels elsewhere, however. Da Capo told him it was too late for a big tour — and, Lyons lamented, the book might bomb outside of Silicon Valley. Lyons' isn't even hopeful about his hometown of Boston."Being too insiderish — it's my biggest concern," Lyons told The Associated Press. "Maybe it's one of those things where if I had a...
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Researchers at SecureWorks have found a massive cache of sensitive data from over 46,000 victims of a Prg Trojan variant. What's odd about this particular case is that not only did they find lots of private data, but where the data came from. “Experts at the Atlanta-based security company said the information includes bank and credit card account numbers, social security numbers and passwords. The victims were infected—and in numerous cases re-infected—by ads on popular, online job sites, including Monster.com during the past three months.” The fact that the virus was getting around via a top-tier job hunting site, such as Monster.com, is quite disturbing. What's even more disturbing is...
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While Gordon Gekko (from the movie Wall Street) might have argued that greed is good, excessive amounts of it aren’t always conducive to effective business relationships.Enter Steve Jobs and Sony CEO Howard Stringer. Both of them are running corporations that sell music, and it appears that friction has developed as a result. Jobs called record label execs greedy, Stringer responded that Jobs was a greedy and a hypocrite: “Stringer made the comment in response to Jobs' own comments on record industry executives being greedy over the price of music downloads. Moderator Anderson Cooper tried to change the subject, but Diller interjected, repeating the Sony CEO's comments. When Cooper went back...
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At the peak of the dot-com boom (June of 2000), the unemployment rate for the computer industry was 2.3 %. Right now, it is even lower at 2.1%, which certainly comes as a green light to engineers and computer scientists. This year’s cohort of computer science and engineering students can expect an advantage in an industry that has grown steadily for the past four years. In fact, the unemployment rate for recent tech graduates has dropped to about 2%. "Things are particularly bright for software engineers, whose unemployment rate was down to 0.9 percent last quarter, compared to 1.9 percent during the same period in 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.""In total of tech jobs we’re...
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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Those two names are icons in our industry and have been referred to as anything from nearly symbiotic to oil and water. So what happens when the two of them sit down in the same room for a conference? A mutual admiration society is formed: "Both opened their portion of the event by praising each other's work. Jobs quickly centered on Gates' central role in the early computer industry as the first to build a company solely around software, rather than depending on customized hardware. "That was huge," Jobs said. "Bill was really focused on software." Gates returned the favor by centering on Apple's achievements instead of his own, centering on the company's populist...
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Technology Review has a fascinating analysis of the institutional attitude at Apple that generates products that win awards for design and become industry icons. It seems to begin and end with Steve Jobs' absolute commitment to sleek design and limited, intuitive functionality. One direct result of that sharpened focus is Apple's unique ability to create simple products. Though the idea of a simple high-tech device seems counterintuitive (why not offer more functionality if you can?), it's worked for Apple. "The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics," says Norman, "is keeping features out." Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and...
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DailyTech is reporting that Circuit City is cutting back its workforce by about 3400 "overpaid" workers. Employees terminated in these cutbacks will get four weeks severance pay plus they can reapply for their old jobs at a lower wage after 10 weeks. Hopefully this won't have a negative impact on the level of customer service. "Hot on the heels of the announcement that CompUSA and Tweeter are closing 126 and 53 stores respectively is word that Circuit City is firing 3,400 employees and bringing in lower-cost workers to fill their roles. The company says that the move is aimed to help realign its cost and expense structure." If you've been considering applying for...
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