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The mobile space sometimes seems to generate more rumors than other segments, and a big one has surfaced recently with far-reaching ramifications should it come to fruition. The London Evening Standard reported that Apple is considering a bid to acquire ARM Holdings. ARM is the tech company inside many mobile products — Apple licenses it for the iPad as a matter of fact. Just about every Android-based tablet and top smartphone on the market uses ARM technology. Should Apple buy ARM it would push the entire mobile space, Android in particular, into utter chaos.

I’m not sure the anti-trust folks would like Apple to absorb ARM, but it’s not clear if that would be the case. ARM has stiff competition, so it’s not a given that Apple would be unfairly stifling anything by the acquisition. Should Apple grab ARM, it might be in the company’s best interest to stop licensing ARM technology to others. That would set things into a free fall, particularly in the smartphone space as ARM technology is inside most superphones produced currently.

Apple definitely has plenty of cash laying around, more than enough to buy ARM. I believe it would be a great business move on Apple’s part to do so, even though as a consumer I likely wouldn’t like the results. What do you think? Should Apple buy ARM?

Related research from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Marketing Handsets in the Superphone Era

Use money to raise bar on suicide prevention, not deterrence

Editor, The Times:

When I heard that Seattle would be spending $4.5 million on a suicide-prevention barrier fence, I was aghast [“Work on Aurora Bridge to occur mostly at night,” NWWednesday, April 21].

Not only is this is a waste of money, it is not likely to be effective in the way that the city is hoping. I do not think that anyone desperate enough to take his or her own life could be deterred by something as simple as a metal fence. It could even be seen as one more painful barrier.

If Seattle is so desperate to throw a few million dollars around, I have a few suggestions where it can spend it instead.

Suicidal people would benefit more if we invested in mental-health care and suicide-prevention programs. Putting up a fence will not stop anyone from committing suicide. These people need personal help, not a metal substitute.

It is very sad when someone chooses death over life; I do not think that the solution is in this barrier. There are other ways to lead people from the ledge of the Aurora Bridge. They may not be the easiest ones, but choosing what is right should be what matters the most.

— Andra Amador, Lake Forest Park

State jumping into unnecessary, costly project

Folks in Seattle seem to think the Aurora Bridge needs a fence around it, apparently to protect people who will just find some other way to commit suicide.

The state wants to spend a fortune on new cables for a floating bridge that could be destroyed in four more years.

Some other government brainstorm is blowing $90,000 to count grizzly bears.

And I keep hearing about other financial fiascos. Most of them seem to be the result of federal money that comes with many strings attached. Locals have to spend it on preordained, stupid projects, or they do not get the money. I know this is simple-minded thinking, but why couldn’t the federal government just leave out money here, where we have a chance of spending it on something we actually need?

— David Alvar, Edmonds

Here’s the latest in dead president fashion:

And more detail from the link:

The Treasury Department unveiled what it calls “the next generation one hundred,” a redesigned $100 bank note to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The new $100 notes will be available on Feb.10, 2011.

The old bills will continue to be accepted until they wear out.

The familiar portrait of Benjamin Franklin remains in the usual spot. But a historical reference to the quill used by the Founding Fathers appears superimposed over phrases of the Declaration of Independence and a 3-D security ribbon crossing the center capture attention. The images on the ribbon move as the bill is tilted. It’s all designed to thwart attempted fakes.

Hard of hearing, steering clear of bike trails

The Times reported an 83-year-old Renton woman died after being hit by a bicyclist on the Cedar River Trail [“Woman, 83, dies after bike hits her,” NWTuesday, April 20].

I am surprised this does not happen more often. Most bicyclists do not realize that older folks often lose their hearing in one or both ears. When bikers yell “on your left,” it may not be heard or understood. Partial deafness could distort directional sound.

This elderly woman could have thought she was moving out of the way instead of into the path of the bikers. I am 78 and also hard of hearing; I had to quit using the Burke-Gilman Trail and the Sammamish Valley Trail because I feel it is too dangerous, as most bikers ride at high speeds. They are upon me, just as I hear them coming. I had several close calls before I decided that bikes and walkers do not mix.

— Wendy Walsh, Woodinville

Like cyclists, pedestrians should get passing clearance

The bike bullies are getting away with killing pedestrians [“Cyclist not faulted for fatal accident,” NWWednesday, April 21].

They relentlessly promote a 3-foot passing clearance for motorists to pass them — despite the requirement of drivers, which includes bicyclists, to maintain a straight line of travel on our roads. They want this so bicyclists could swerve about to avoid potholes, or even fall and not get hit by a car.

But on the trails, a pedestrian may not “step” into the path of a bicyclist without the punishment of death. What is normal pedestrian behavior where dogs, children and elderly pedestrians walk and do not drive? It is completely normal for them to “step” around.

The fact that the bike bullies demand special treatment for themselves on the roads so they do not have to follow the rules, then demand that pedestrians be held to the standard on trails that the bike bullies refuse to follow on the roads is just outrageous.

Let them civilize themselves and learn to pass safely. If you run into and kill an 83-year-old lady on the trail, then you know you passed too closely and too quickly. Require them to pass at a pedestrian pace on our pedestrian facilities and with sufficient clearance — how about the 3 feet they are demanding for themselves on the streets?

— David Smith, Seattle

On your left: Did cyclists give proper warning to elderly woman?

I too cycle and am also an avid walker, and I asked myself these questions. Did the cyclists notify her either by loud voice or shrill bell to let her know they were passing? How fast were they going and why were both passing at the same time?

My experience of late is that most of the time, cyclists do not notify me of their approach when I am on my bike, as well as when I am walking. I no longer walk the Burke-Gilman Trail because of the speed of many of those cyclists.

More people are biking now and I see that many of them need instruction in sharing the road with walkers, cars and other cyclists. Am I wrong to think the pedestrian always has the right of way, or is it only with cars?

— Mary Beth MacCauley, Vashon

While on wheels, keep a watchful eye

Although the cyclist was not charged or ticketed, the accident could likely have been avoided by using courtesy and common sense.

If someone is on the bike path ahead of you, slow down significantly as you approach. Pass in single file if there is more than one cyclist, call out loudly how many bicycles will be passing on the left and give the pedestrian as wide a berth as possible.

If the person is elderly or a child, slow down to a crawl. The elderly could be hard of hearing, get startled and lose their balance; they could become confused as to which side you are passing on and step into your path, as did the woman in this accident.

If you are riding slowly, you will have time to stop. Children are impulsive and unpredictable, teens and young adults may not hear you if they listening to music, talking on a cellphone, or texting, and a person of any age could be deaf.

Lastly, expect the other party to do the unexpected, whether he or she is walking, bicycling or driving a car. My children are alive today because I did not trust a fast-moving car to stop at a stop sign; the driver sped through without so much as a tap on its brakes.

— Janalee Roy, Tacoma

Make some noise for bike bells

I am 83 years old and often walk the Cedar River Trail with my husband, who is 85 and does not hear well. I have been very concerned for some years that one of us would suffer the same consequences as the 83-year-old woman who died after a bike hit her.

Bikes make very little noise on some surfaces and some bikers fail to call out that they are coming up on you. One little stumble or misstep by a walker and injuries could occur.

I did recreational biking in Switzerland and was required to have a license and a bell for my bike. For years now, I have felt a bell or horn would be a great advantage to both biker and hiker. Only once has a biker had a bell he used. I hope the biking community considers the suggestion for a bell for the safety of us all.

— Betty Culbert, Maple Valley

State needs to be efficient before it can raise more taxes

In his column, “Taking that big first step,” [NWWednesday, April 20], Danny Westneat cites Joe Decuir’s idea of economic patriotism and going first, initiating contribution of more in taxes.

I consider myself patriotic, and I pose this question: How about government going first, by living within its means and proving it is at peak efficiency through adopting performance audits of government agencies?

We could even start with a pilot project right here, at home with our very own state government. Let’s start by implementing all of State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s 602 audit recommendations, since he claims that they will save 10 percent across the board.

Should Sonntag be right, with a $31 billion budget, we could have saved $3.1 billion in the last biennium. That might have kept the Democrat-controlled Legislature out of a special session and lawmakers from raising new taxes, let alone their 20 percent increase in the business and occupation tax on service industry businesses from 1.5 to 1.8 percent.

Smart choices and sacrifice would be truly patriotic. Then once we are at peak efficiency and we still need more revenue, we can talk.

— Justin Kawabori, Redmond

Six bank regulation policies. Four reform themes. Three rhetorical hedges. Two “failure of responsibility” scolds. One “false choice” rejected. What do you get when you add it all up? An important, if predictable, financial regulation address.

President Obama’s banking reform speech in New York City today was a bit like an opening lecture for Financial Reform 101: low on fiery rhetoric, high on professorial platitudes, and more wide-ranging than deep. (Read it here.)

For those counting at home, the president named six major policies: resolution authority to wind down failed banks; a bank tax; the “Volcker Rule” to shrink large banks; derivatives reform; a consumer protection agency; and new shareholder powers. He grouped these policies under four large themes: protecting banks from themselves; protecting consumers from banks; shining light into the shadow banking industry; and giving investors say on executives’ pay.

But it’s noteworthy that not all of the policies he mentioned are actually in the bill. For example, he calls for a bank tax to cover the losses from TARP (even thought the losses in TARP aren’t from Wall Street banks). Sen. Chuck Schumer is running around Washington trying to drum up support for such a tax, but it is not in the bills. Ditto for the details of the Volcker Rule, which would attempt to limit banks’ risk-taking. Bank regulators are instructed in the bill to determine how to implement the Volcker Rule, says Doug Elliott of the Brookings Institution, but we don’t know what those rules will look like.

The president stayed true to his rhetorical roots by hedging his criticisms of Wall Street with vague praise for banks. “I believe in the power of the free market,” he assured his audience. “There is a legitimate role for these financial instruments in our economy,” he said of complex derivatives. The public might not have a lot of sympathy for the suits in the Financial District. But the president just isn’t comfortable serving a plate of vegetables without a little comfort food, even if Americans consider his audience of bankers to be quasi-demonic.

Two more notes on rhetoric: the “failure of responsibility” theme at the beginning of the speech is classic Obama, and it recalls his inaugural address, “A New Era of Responsibility.” I want to point to this in particular: “We do not have to choose between markets unfettered by even modest
protections against crisis, and markets stymied by onerous rules that
suppress enterprise and innovation. That’s a false choice.” Obama does this all the time: he presents two caricatures of each side’s argument, and rejects them both. It’s clever, but sometimes unsophisticated. This is like telling somebody considering a diet, “You don’t have to choose between starving yourself by gluing your mouth shut and eating like a French goose on the morning of its slaughter.” Well of course not. Those are horrible choices! Everybody would agree that a sensible diet is somewhere between starvation and binging. Too often, the options in Obama’s false choices are, well, false.

At the end of the speech, Obama’s conciliatory instincts get in the way of reality. Obama said: “Ultimately, there is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or we fall together as one nation.” But there is a dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. You could name that line “exponentially growing profitability.” Over the last two decades, financial sector profits have dramatically outpaced non-financial sector profits. Wall Street’s spectacular success did not translate into Main Street’s spectacular success. Instead, financial companies gobbled up 40 percent of total US profits. But when Wall Street falls, America falls. That’s the hazard — moral and economic — at the heart of financial reform.

Hey, all you Sprint Premiere customers out there: Your favorite carrier’s looking to give away 10 — count ’em, 10! — Evo 4G phones, four tips to either Maui, Chicago, Las Vegas or Houston (coincidentally, four cities with 4G), and $4,000 in cash. And it’s all in the name of launching the biggest Android phone yet, as well as the first one sporting WiMax. You have to already be a premiere customer, so common folk need not apply, apparently. Be sure to check out all the official rules and what-not. [Sprint] Thanks, everyone, for sending this in.

La Marzocco‘s iPhone app is pure espresso machine porn, with photos and specs of its current productions—the Mistral is one of the most gorgeous machines ever produced. It’s like a free coffee nerd boner. [iTunes via ShotZombies] More »

Nuclear power is not ‘green’

The Special to The Times op-ed “Next-generation nukes for a clean-energy future” [Opinion, April 20] was completely one-sided. Nuclear power is not “green.”

The mining and enriching of nuclear fuel is highly energy-intensive and when this cost is factored in, nuclear power produces a carbon equivalent approaching that of natural gas.

Uranium mining in Canada has left behind 200 million tons of radioactive tailings, fine as flour, which blow in the wind and flow downstream. Typically 5 percent of energy production from a nuclear plant is expended containing and cooling nuclear reactions.

A new reactor typically costs $4 billion and cost overruns are common. It has taken from eight to 24 years to complete nuclear power plants in the United States. The same billions spent to build solar arrays, windmills, microbial fermenters, tidal and wave farms, as well as many other alternative technologies could yield results more quickly and supply all the power we need.

Each nuclear power plant and storage site is an obvious terrorist target. If the United States builds hundreds of nuclear plants, other countries would build thousands. Perfect security is impossible to achieve.

The technology involved in building nuclear power plants is a steppingstone to the technology for building nuclear weapons. If the United States had not encouraged Iran to build nuclear power plants in the 1950s, perhaps Iran would not be building nuclear weapons now. Promoting nuclear energy as a worldwide solution to energy needs is like giving children loaded guns to play with.

Each nuclear power plant is bankrupt from the day it is built —the energy produced over its 40-year life can never cover the cost of storing nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years.

— James Robert Deal, Lynnwood

Dieter and Keith talk up the latest Palm news and rumors.

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Thanks to everybody for writing and calling in!

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Bank of America and Ticketmaster have been within 10 votes of one another for like, 24 hours now, which is just unprecedented in the history of this contest. As of this post, they are exactly tied. So here’s what we’re going to do. At midnight in the central time zone, we are going to close the poll.

That’s right, you have until midnight central to vote. After that, whoever wins, even if it’s by one vote, will win. If it is exactly tied we will enter an overtime period of one hour in which a new, tie-breaker poll will be posted. If it is still tied after that, we will hire some hockey players and hold a shoot out. No, that’s a lie. We won’t do that, even a little bit.

If you’d like to vote and break up the tie, please, please do so.

EETimes has acquired a internal Samsung document which shows ARM’s roadmap for the next few years, which includes ARM chips not just for smartphones but also netbooks.

The full roadmap include:

2010

• Taurus, 1 GHz Cortex-A8 (single core)

2011

• Mercury, 600 MHz Cortex-A5 (single core)
• Orion, 800 MHz Cortex-A9 (dual core)
• Pegasus, 1 GHz Cortex-A9 (single core)
• Hercules, 1 Ghz Cortex-A9 (dual core)

2012/13

• Venus, 600 MHz Cortex-A5 (dual core)
• Draco, 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 (dual core)
• Aquila, 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 (quad core)

Its likely the Quad-core chips are destined more for netbooks and tablets running mobile OS’s than your next smartphone. Hopefully Apple will not steal the company away and keep all the good stuff for itself.

Read more at Slashgear and Neowin here.

A fellow in the UK was recently sentenced to 12 months in the clink after using a broom handle to heist a bag of burger buns from his local Burger King.

With a deadly broom handle at the ready, the master criminal talked his way into a then-closed BK and, say the local police, threatened a staff member “he would hit him with the broom handle unless he stayed still… Fearing he would be hurt, the member of staff complied, at which point [the robber] snatched a nearby bag of burger buns and fled.”

The absolute inanity of the theft wasn’t lost on the police:

Why he felt the need to intimidate and threaten someone to that extent simply for a bag of burger buns is beyond comprehension and we welcome the one year prison sentence handed down to him.

The robber entered guilty pleas to charges of robbery, possession of an offensive weapon, and obstructing police.

Croydon Burger King bun robber jailed [Croydon Guardian]

Over the past two years, Lady Gaga has risen from virtual obscurity to become one of the biggest pop stars of the past decade, but according to salacious new scoop from London’s Now Magazine, the singer is suffering from such low self-esteem she wants to go under the knife to rid herself on her insecurities.

“She’s desperately unhappy but keeps talking about having thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery,” one nervous tipster divulges. “She really thinks that could fix everything. She’s in a really bad way right now. She puts up such a guard that no-one ever really knows what she’s feeling. She thinks she looks too manly and spends hours looking at herself.”

The insider adds: “She’s thinking about a whole host of cosmetic procedures, including a nose job, cheek implants, boob job and thigh and bum lift. She’s completely preoccupied with overhauling her looks….Everyone’s worried about her and is begging her to take a break and get some perspective and work on her self-confidence.”

What can we do on Earth Day to help the planet? Change our lives.

I have read articles from and communicated with many leading environmental bloggers in the past week or so about Earth Day. As many are right and eagerly ready to say, Earth Day is not enough, not anymore. Today should still be Earth Day, perhaps, but it should also be the beginning of Earth Week, Earth Month and Earth Year. And Earth Year should be an annual thing.

It is great to make a little more effort to be green on this day.

And as I wrote over on Green Living Ideas recently, it can be a New Year’s Day kind of holiday, a holiday where we can examine our lives and see where we can improve, where we need to improve, and where we are determined to improve, for the long-term (not this single day of the year). It can be more useful in that way than any other way, I think.

(more…)

Will there be exciting news? Could be? We’ll be there live if there is. Will there be a chance for developers to learn how to do awesome stuff on webOS? Definitely, and we’ll be there to watch the magic.

More importantly, will there be a chance for developers to get on camera, show us their apps, and get featured on PreCentral? Yes, yes there will be just that chance. Keep an eye out for the guy with silver glasses hiding behind a videocamera, he wants to talk to you.

Not going to be at Palm Developer Day? Stay tuned – PreCentral loves you too.

Luca di Montezemolo has stepped down as the chairman of Fiat and he is to be replaced by 34-year-old John Elkann. Montezemolo will however continue to function as the president of Ferrari and he declined any reports of joining the Italian Politics or even forming an individual party, insisting that he will always be on the Fiat board and he will never stop heading Ferrari. Montezemolo also mentioned that he is still in favor of major teams such as Ferrari and McLaren being allowed three cars in the Grand Prix circuit. Another one of his desires is to see Rossi competing in the F1 after he wins the MotoGP for the umpteenth time this season.

El nuevo 1.6 TDI de Volkswagen promete dar un rendimiento muy importante a la marca. En este caso es el nuevo Volkswagen BlueMotion el que se beneficia de este nuevo motor más eficiente: tan sólo 3,8 litros a los 100 kilómetros y menos de 100 de CO2 a los 100 kilómetros, todo un logro.

Además las prestaciones deportivas que ofrece son similares, alcanzando los 190 kilómetros hora y los 100 km/h en sólo 11 segundos, nada mal para un coche de calle. 99 gramos de CO2, 3,8 litros a los 100 y un par motor de 250 Nm para lanzarlo a 190 kilómetros hora, todo ello a un precio recomendado de 21.140 €.

Adaptaciones aerodinámicas y tecnológicas son las causantes de esta mejora en el rendimiento del motor del coche. Incorpora recuperación automática de energía de frenado, recargando la batería al frenar y el Start& Stop, que para el motor al estar en un semáforo y lo arranca al pisar el embrague. Una suspensión rebajada, llantas de 15″ y unos neumáticos de baja resistencia a la rodadura complementan las mejoras.

Para el exterior los cambios estéticos para identificar el modelo BlueMotion incluyen un spoiler trasero pintado del color de la carrocería y un parachoques delantero deportivo. Un tapizado exclusivo Scout y el color exclusivo Azul Glaciar, junto con un equipamiento que incluye el paquete Advance Plus con Climatronic Bi-Zona, lunas tintadas y Tempomat completan este modelo de Golf.

Fuente | Volkswagen

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