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Business software maker BMC Software Inc, whose anemic growth has been a source of frustration for its largest shareholder, said it would be taken private by a group led by Bain Capital and Golden Gate Capital for about $6.9 billion, Reuters reported.

(Reuters) – Business software maker

Elliott Management, which owns 9.6 percent of BMC and had been pushing for a sale for more than a year, had argued that BMC’s management was neglecting the huge opportunity to expand into the fast-growing cloud computing market.

“Going private will be very positive for them because it will enable them to make the changes that were necessary, that were much difficult when you are a public company,” Lazard Capital Markets analyst Joel Fishbein said.

BMC has some catching up to do in a market now dominated by Salesforce.com Inc and where Oracle Corp, SAP AG and Microsoft Corp are investing heavily.

BMC’s revenue is expected to have grown just 3 percent in the year ended March 31 to $2.23 billion, after growth of just 5 percent the previous year. BMC reports fourth-quarter results on Tuesday.

Elliott, Paul Singer’s activist hedge fund, succeeded in adding two directors to BMC’s board last year after a proxy battle.

The offer price of $46.25 per share represents a premium of less than 2 percent to BMC’s Friday close of $45.42.

The stock has risen 4.5 percent since March 21, when Reuters reported that private equity groups were looking to buy the company.

BMC shares were trading at $45.50, up 8 cents, by midday on the Nasdaq.

BMC has two main divisions. The enterprise services management business manages networks, databases and storage and brings in nearly two-thirds of total revenue, but has stagnated over the years.

The mainframe services management unit, which helps automate data center operations, has grown slowly but is a cash cow that could help the new owners maximize profits.

The private equity group also includes GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, part of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and Insight Venture Partners, a New York investment firm that focuses on software and internet businesses.

“I think they will streamline the business, focus on the higher growth areas, either divest or spin off some of the unproductive businesses,” Fishbein said, adding that he expects it will take 12-18 months to “right-size” the business.

Under the sale agreement, Houston-based BMC has a “go-shop” provision that allows it to seek alternative proposals within 30 days. Analysts said it was unlikely BMC would get better offers.

BMC, which also competes with CA Inc and Compuware Corp, said the deal is expected to close later this year. Credit Suisse, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays have agreed to provide debt financing for the deal.

Morgan Stanley & Co LLC and BofA Merrill Lynch were financial advisers to BMC, while Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was legal counsel.

Qatalyst Partners, Credit Suisse, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays served as financial advisers to the buyers, while Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel.

Sidley Austin LLP was legal adviser to GIC and Willkie Farr & Gallager LLP was legal adviser for Insight Venture Partners.

The post BMC to Go Private in $6.9 billion Deal Led by Bain, Golden Gate appeared first on peHUB.

Are you upgrading to a BlackBerry Q10 in the near future?

Perhaps you’ve already got one and you want to learn more about your new device?

If so, make sure you watch some of the BlackBerry Q10 How To Demo playlist available in the BlackBerryHelp YouTube channel. In addition to these demos, you can open up the Help app on your BlackBerry for more content that can help you master the various features and functions found on your BlackBerry Q10.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Tip: Using a BlackBerry Z10? Check out the Blackberry Z10 How To Demos to learn more!

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help blog »

Mario Machado, a broadcast news reporter, who also played the part of a reporter in Scarface, Robocop, Rocky III, and Brian’s song, died on Saturday at a convalescent facility in West Hills, Los Angeles.

Machado was an eight-time Emmy award winner, and in 1970, became the first Chinese-American on-air TV news reporter and anchor in LA, an possibly in the U.S.

He was so good at his job that the movie industry couldn’t get enough of using him as a reporter. He appeared in all three Robocop films as anchor Casey Wong. Here’s a compilation of Robocop news reports:

Machado was seventy-eight years old. According to a statement from his daughter, he died from complications of pneumonia, and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

He was born in Shanghai in 1935, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He became a U.S. citizen in 1965.

He got is start in the reporting business at local Los Angeles news stations like KCBS and KNXT. He also hosted medical investigation show Medix.

In addition to his Emmy awards, he won the Howard Blakeslee Award, San Francisco’s Interceptor Award, and was even named honorary mayor of Granada Hills for eight years. He was also named LA Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. In 1983, Mayor Benjamin Norton proclaimed December 4, Mario Machado Day.

Maybe this is just news to me, but IBM has a SQL-on-Hadoop product in the works called Big SQL. The company announced the technology preview version in March (well under my radar and, from what I’ve seen, nearly everyone else’s radar), and is offering up a cloud-based demo environment for a select group of early users.

As a refresher, the big difference between SQL on Hadoop and the Hadoop connectors that were popular a couple years ago is that SQL-on-Hadoop products query the data where it resides — in HDFS or HBase — rather than pulling it into a relational database environment to analyze it. We have been talking for months about the emergence of a large SQL-on-Hadoop market, but IBM’s name was conspicuously absent from that discussion. The company has Hadoop software called BigInsights and lots of SQL expertise, so it only made sense that IBM would get into the game at some point.

Details on Big SQL are still pretty sparse save for a few high-level blog posts and an instructional video (embedded below), but it looks to take the standard approach, as Cloudera is doing with Impala, of enabling access through traditional tools via JDBC and ODBC drivers.

Ultimately, I think the advent of big data will enable some new types of querying techniques quite a bit different than the SQL queries we’ve come to know and love over the past couple decades. But SQL is still the language du jour and might never go away, so there’s a lot of value to be had if people can put their SQL skills to work on data stored inside Hadoop or other environments, and if companies can work toward a nirvana where all the data is stored in a single place rather than across database environments.

That IBM got this message and got into the game isn’t surprising at all, but it is important. Lots of large companies buy IBM’s software.  If it wants them to follow it into the world of big data and Hadoop, it has to give them the tools they need to use it.

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PRO’s: Outstanding performance, extreme all-weather versatility, spacious enough for a family of 5.

CON’s: Peculiar styling, high price tag.

FINAL THOUGHT: An amazing SUV/crossover that may well be one of the fastest and most versatile vehicles that BMW has ever produced.

If you’re not sure whether the 2013 BMW X6 M is a car, truck or crossover, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone. You see this things got an identity crises, a bad one, and because of that consumers have been perplex by the X6 since its debut in 2008. I just spent a week with BMW’s X6 M and I can tell you this, I still have no idea what the hell it is, but I fell in love with it, and hot damn if it isn’t a riot of a performance vehicle.

Right off the bat you’ll notice the X6 M is different. It looks like nothing else on the road, runs a massive wheel and tire combo (front 275/40/20 rear 315/35/20), has enough grunt to flat-out embarrass most performance cars and is equipped with huge 15.6-inch front brake rotors that would stop a 747 that’s coming in for a landing. It’s also got more technology than the space shuttle, does an equally good job of defying gravity, yet, is just as home at a track day as it is hauling groceries home from the market.

When I took possession of the X6 M the first thing I did was look at the monroney (window sticker). The price, as optioned, was a whopping $100,895.00. That’s a big number, but one that, after romping on this thing, is really not that crazy. Think about it like this.

Here’s a vehicle that packs a 4.4-liter Twin-Turbo V-8 under the hood that makes 550 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque. It runs to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds, is electronically limited to 155 mph and has a personality that’s part Vegas stripper and part housewife.

The Vegas stripper part will obviously excite and entertain you, while the housewife portion will let one lead a proper upstanding life. For instance, there’s comfortable seating for 5 adults (the front seats are OUTSTANDING), plenty of room for luggage, it’s all-weather capable thanks to BMW’s all-wheel drive system and with every safety feature known to man, is probably the best place to be if something were to go wrong. Now granted fuel economy sucks at 12 city/17 hwy, but thanks to a large 22.4 gallon fuel tank, you’re still able to run around 300 miles between fill-ups.

Here’s some additional food for thought. Last year I ran a BMW X5 M in the One Lap of America. A vehicle that from a mechanical standpoint, is essentially identical. The race itself is a 3500 mile run around the United States that includes running on 8 racetracks in 7 days. It’s without a doubt the most grueling rally style event held in the U.S., and if you and your car make it, then be proud, very proud.

I drove that thing as hard as I would any performance car, and not only did it do well, but it exceeded my wildest expectations. I ran 152 mph down the back straight at Road America, was lifting two wheels off the ground at Hallet Raceway and hauling luggage for four adults over the 400-600 mile transit legs. In short, I was astonished at how good it was.

That experience also helped me justify the $100k price tag, the same one that’s on this X6 M. And while the majority of owners will never partake in an event like One Lap with their X6 M, the fact you can in a vehicle like this is mind-boggling.

I still can’t help but wonder though – why did BMW produce this thing when they already had such a great SUV with the X5 M? It just doesn’t make much sense to me. However, they do say that variety is the spice of life, and if that’s truly the case than rest assured that this 2013 BMW X6 M is hot enough to satisfy every one of your automotive needs.

TheGamerChick has shared a series of Star Wars commercials/infommercials, giving us a glimpse of what television advertising could be like in a galaxy far, far away.

Pretty funny.

And don’t forget to check out Darth Vader’s recent at bat.

[via Neatorama]

Good news for Xbox fans: Microsoft has decided to not commit commercial suicide by forcing gamers to have an Internet connection just to play games. Ars Technica has got hold of an internal Microsoft email to Xbox engineers outlining “a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection” and instructing the engineers to make those functions “‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status.” The email goes on to say that the new Xbox should be designed for “playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game” without an Internet connection. Rumors that Microsoft would require an online connection for single-player games gained fuel recently when former Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth told critics of an always-online console to “deal with it” because “every device now is ‘always on.’”

Note-taking is a common activity in our lives. Unless you’ve got the memory of an elephant, you need to write down the important information you inevitably encounter.

Of course, the ‘note-taking’ software category is pretty much crowded nowadays and choosing an app really comes down to your tastes. What change could another note-taking app bring that the well-establ… (read more)

Is your Google Play Store “My Apps” section filled with too many spur of the moment apps that you will never download ever again? This can make it a royal pain finding those previously downloaded apps that you actually care about. Thankfully Google made it really easy to remove those unwanted apps which will make things a lot more manageable.

The process is pretty painless, but may take some time depending on how many apps you have in the list. I was able to get rid of 429 unused apps in about 15 minutes and my list of apps looks a heck of a lot cleaner now. So without hesitation hit the break below to check out our quick guide to cleaning up your previous Play Store acquisitions.

1 – Open up the Play Store.

2 – Be it on screen or physical button hit the Menu button and go to My apps.

3 – Swipe over to the right and go from INSTALLED to ALL.

4 – Here’s the kicker: Press and hold onto an app listed. It will highlight that app and you will see a checkmark at the top left along with “1 selected” and an “X” at the top right.

5 – Start tapping the apps that you want gone and number of selected apps will go up. Note: You won’t be able to select any apps that are currently installed.

6 – Once you have selected all the apps that you want deleted, hit the X in the top right corner, and tap OK to remove all of them.

You can also remove apps one by one by tapping the “X” that is to the right of every app listed (or circle with a line through it in older versions of the Play Store), but it’s not as efficient since you have to tap OK again for each app you want to remove.

While it may not be as simple as having a purchased apps tab, it will at least gives us a chance to clean those purchased and free apps up a bit. Maybe someday we’ll get that purchased tab back, but until then this may just be the next best thing.

Come comment on this article: How to remove apps from the Google Play Store ‘My Apps’ list

Lauryn Hill, the Grammy-winning singer formerly with The Fugees, will be sentenced today on three charges of tax evasion.

The 37-year old was charged last summer with evading taxes on the $1.8 million she earned between 2005 and 2007, and the courts say she still owes a substantial amount. She’s signed a recording deal with Sony recently and just made a song available on iTunes, but if she can’t pay up and the judge decides to forgo the probation her attorney is going for, she could do up to three years of prison time.

Hill is rarely seen publicly anymore and is something of a rare bird on the music scene. She’s battled depression and a painful breakup from Rohan Marley, the father of her five children, and has been out of the spotlight for several years now. She does own several companies, however, which may help with her money problems: Creations Music Inc., Boogie Tours Inc., L.H. Productions 2001 Inc,. and Studio 22 Inc.

This weekend, we opened up the Style section of The New York Times to see a very familiar face — renegade gardener Ron Finley, whose talk “A guerilla gardener in South Central LA” now has more than 900,000 views. In the article, Finley describes what he calls “the TED effect” — the slew of interest that his electric talk at TED2013 has brought from celebrities, television shows and companies with collaboration ideas. Finley’s down-to-earth response?

“All the attention in the world won’t do my dishes,” he tells the paper.

Meanwhile, Malcolm London — the 20-year-old poet who will appear in Tuesday night’s TED Talks Education special on PBS — was interviewed in The Chicago Tribune this weekend. “On Tuesday night, if you tune into PBS’ one-hour special ‘TED Talks Education,’ you’ll see host John Legend and an array of prominent speakers, including Bill Gates, giving impassioned talks about ways to reinvent education,” the article reads. “You’ll also see Chicago’s Malcolm Xavier London performing a spoken-word poem about the racial and class tensions he experienced as a double honors student growing up in the tough Austin neighborhood while attending the more well-to-do Lincoln Park High School.”

The article asks London tough questions about his low GPA in high school and the fact that, while he’s teaching poetry, he hasn’t yet gone to college. He tells the paper that his high school performance was, in a way, a protest.

“I would leave my neighborhood and go to school, and I was seeing how divided the city was,” London says. “I felt whatever I was learning in class, wasn’t teaching me why people on the West Side were dying every day … I knew that four years later I’d be able to get into a distinguished college, but school wasn’t teaching me how to survive or better my community, and I wanted to change where I came from.”

Also in the news: TED-Ed was just named one of TIME magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2013.”

After the amazing success of our New York Pitch-Off in February, we thought it would be fun to bring the energy and excitement of a mini-Disrupt to more cities across the country. We’re pleased to announced the 2013 Meetups + Pitch-Offs will begin in Austin on May 30 at Stage On Sixth in downtown Austin from 6pm to 10pm. You can buy tickets now!

Then, throughout the year, we’re holding meetups with pitch-offs in Seattle, San Diego, and Boston.

Each meetup is traditionally a crowded mishmash of networking, hustling and, well, drinking, so 21 and older only, please. This year, after the roaring success of our first pitch-off, each meetup will feature a rapid fire pitch-off and a few brief on-stage discussions for TechCrunch TV.

You can sign up for the Pitch-Off here and buy a $5 ticket that entitles you to booze and other goodness. Sponsors can buy tables here (and we definitely need your support to make this a rocking event.)

The pitch-off is a way to get your startup in front of TC judges as well as a few local judges from the area. Our goal is to pick three winners. Third place gets one ticket to Disrupt SF, second place gets two tickets, and the winner gets a spot in Startup Alley. Everyone who pitches will be considered for the Startup Battlefield as well.

Participants interested in competing in the pitch-off will have 60 seconds to explain why their startup is awesome. PowerPoint presentations are not allowed. These products must currently be in stealth or private beta, and they must be ready to launch at Disrupt in September.

Our sponsors help make meetups happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here [email protected].

Nobody would deny that the world has become more complex during the past decades. With digitization, the interconnectivity between people and things has jumped by leaps and bounds. Dense networks now define the technical, social, and economic landscape.

I remember well when the idea of applying complexity science to management was first being eagerly discussed in the 1990s. By then, for example, scholars at the University of St. Gallen had developed a management model based on systems thinking. Popular literature propagated the ideas of complexity theory — in particular, the notion of the “butterfly effect” by which a small event in a remote part of the world (like the flap of a butterfly’s wings) could trigger a chain of events that would add up to a disruptive change in the larger system (such as a hurricane). Managers’ eyes were opened to the reality that organizations are not just complicated but complex.

Why did this interest and work in complexity not lead to major changes in management practices? There are, I think, a few major reasons that it didn’t — and that also suggest that the overdue change might now finally take place.

Complexity wasn’t a convenient reality given managers’ desire for control. The promise of applying complexity science to business has undoubtedly been held up by managers’ reluctance to see the world as it is. Where complexity exists, managers have always created models and mechanisms that wish it away. It is much easier to make decisions with fewer variables and a straightforward understanding of cause-and-effect. Here, the shareholder value philosophy, which determines so much of how our corporations operate these days, is the perfect example. Placing a rigid priority on maximizing shareholder returns makes things clear for decision-makers and relieves them of considering difficult tradeoffs. Of course we know that constantly dialing down expenses and investments to boost short-term margins inevitably damages the long-term health of the company. It takes a complexity approach to keep competing values and priorities and the effects of decisions on all of them in view — and not just for management, but equally for investors, analysts, and regulators.

Technology was not yet powerful enough to capture much complexity. When systems thinkers and theorists turned their attention to economies and organizations in the 1980s and 90s, the tools simply did not exist to model their workings at a level that would yield practical insight. Now, the exponential increase in computing power and the progress in mathematics and statistics have propelled us into a new era. With the ability to draw on data bases and map networks at scales that were unthinkable before, we can hope to understand communication flows through large organizations, and the impact of disturbances and managerial interventions on these flows.

The prospect of non-human decision-making is unnerving. More recently, with the surge of computer processing power, another nagging concern has formed in some people’s minds. Does the fact that massive computing power is required for systems-level comprehension mean that the interpretation of information, sense-making, and learning will become “extra-human” activities? Will the computer take over the role of the knowledge worker? Will we soon reach a tipping point when human brainpower is obsolete? Some technophiles (many of them inspired by Ray Kurzweil’s ideas) respond to questions like this with a resounding yes. Yet for most of us it is a disturbing thought, because we have seen so many of the models designed to predict the future state of complex systems (from economies to climates) fall short of accuracy, to say the least.

The eager futurists talking about machines taking over evaluation of situations and decision-making have set back their own cause, as others see them ignoring an essential fact: sense-making is always informed by values. The idea that we might look for value judgments from algorithms is just badly flawed. But fortunately, the recognition is growing that, while computers can provide us with enormous extensions of our storage and processing capacity, they must and will remain only inputs to human brains, where the ultimate evaluation and deliberation must continue to take place. Think of the brain as our own “complexity processor” and itself our most complex organ: It helps us to address complex issues and yet come up with seemingly simple solutions. Those are made possible when we unconsciously see through the myriad of information elements that are stored in our brain as raw material to build meaningful patterns, or the famous “big picture” that humans can develop best.

The recognition of complexity is at its core a view of the world that that makes us more humble and more open. It is the awareness that too often our interventions will not achieve what we wanted and we will be shocked by unintended consequences. (The fact that, following the creation of the Cap-and-Trade Carbon Emission Scheme as a clever new artificial market, more coal is being burned in Europe than before is a mind-boggling example.) At the same time, it is the acknowledgement that simplistic “can do” thinking and linear approaches in organizations and markets, which are by definition complex, won’t be sufficient. And it is the prod to us to better understand why.

There has been no watershed event to make it true that managers will apply complexity science to their work today, whereas they could not, or would not, yesterday. Rather, there has been a gradual change in mindset, pushed along by the increasingly evident damage of narrow, simplistic thinking. The toolkit that allows us to understand the dynamics of large systems has continued to evolve. And the reassuring truth has been reasserted that, on top of the logic of algorithms, human values and judgment are essential.

Managers, I think, should now get ready to face the full complexity of their organizations and economic environments and, if not control them, learn how to intervene with deliberate, positive effect. Embracing complexity will not make their jobs easier, but it is a recognition of reality, and an idea whose time has come.

This post introduces a series of perspectives leading up to the fifth annual Global Drucker Forum in November 2013 in Vienna, Austria. For more on the theme of the event, Managing Complexity, and information on how to attend, see the Forum’s website.

Law firm Sidley Austin, which is headquartered in New York, has hired Gregory Salathé as a partner in its Singapore office. Salathé is now  a member of the firm’s M&A practice, and will reside in Singapore after a transition period in Tokyo. He was most recently a partner at the law firm Morgan Lewis, where he was a co-managing partner of the firm’s Tokyo office.

PRESS RELEASE:

Sidley Austin LLP has announced that Gregory Salathé joined the firm as a partner earlier this week. He is a member of the firm’s M&A practice and will reside in its Singapore office after a transition period in Tokyo.

Mr. Salathé focuses on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, with particular strength in representing private equity and hedge funds in their downstream investments. He has represented global investment funds and multinational corporations in connection with their investments across Asia, as well as Asian companies investing in the U.S. and Europe. Recently, he has been involved in several significant transactions on behalf of large private equity funds. Mr. Salathé has been resident in Japan for over ten years and will continue to be actively involved with Japan-related matters.

“Greg has extensive experience representing clients in Asia-related cross-border M&A transactions and understands exceptionally well the myriad issues that private equity and hedge funds face when they make downstream investments in the region,” said Thomas Albrecht, Managing Partner, Asia Pacific. “That experience makes him a valuable addition to our practice. His appointment, together with that of investment funds partner Han Ming Ho, who will also join our Singapore office, significantly enhances our ability to advise our funds clients in the region on their most important legal matters including formation, regulatory compliance, downstream acquisitions and other corporate transactions.”
“There are significant M&A opportunities throughout the Asia Pacific region, particularly in Southeast Asia, and Singapore is a natural hub for the expansion of our M&A practice,” said Matthew Sheridan, partner and co-head of Sidley’s International Corporate Finance Practice in Asia. “The growth of our Singapore office reflects the increasing importance of Southeast Asia to our clients, and Greg will bring a strong record of successful M&A and investment deal making in a number of industries.”

Sidley’s Singapore office, established in 1982, was the firm’s first office in the Asia Pacific region. Sidley is one of only four firms to have been granted the QFLP license on February 19, 2013 by Singapore’s Ministry of Law, bringing the total number of QFLP firms to ten. As part of its planned expansion following the issuance of the QFLP license, Sidley announced last month that Han Ming Ho will join its Singapore office.
Sidley has had a presence in Asia Pacific for over 30 years and is one of few U.S. law firms to have maintained on-the-ground capabilities in this region for more than three decades. With approximately 160 legal professionals in Asia Pacific resident in six offices — Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo — and a global presence of nearly 1,750 lawyers in 18 offices worldwide, Sidley has built a reputation as a premier legal advisor for global businesses and financial institutions.

To stay up-to-date with the latest Sidley news, please follow us on Twitter at @SidleyNewsroom.

For purposes of the New York State Bar rules, this press release may be considered Attorney Advertising and our headquarters are Sidley Austin LLP, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019, 212.839.5300; One South Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60603, 312.853.7000; and 1501 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, 202.736.8000.

The post Law Firm Sidley Austin Brings Aboard Gregory Salathé in Singapore appeared first on peHUB.

Lil Wayne has never been one to mince words, but this time it’s getting him into trouble and jeopardizing a lucrative endorsement deal.

The rapper was featured on the Future song “Karate Chop”–which was released a few months ago–with the controversial lyrics “Beat that p***y up like Emmett Till”. Emmett Till was a 14-year old African American boy who was beaten and murdered in 1955 after he allegedly flirted with a white woman; the brutality he endured before his death caused public outcry during the peak of tensions during the civil rights movement. Needless to say, when the Mamie Till Mobley Foundation–named after his late mother–heard about the song a backlash ensued. The outcry has led to Mountain Dew dropping Wayne from a sponsorship deal.

“We do not plan any additional work with Lil Wayne moving forward,” the company said in the statement. “His offensive reference to a revered civil rights icon does not reflect the values of our brand.”

“Back in February, when I first heard the lyrics, I was in utter shock, disappointment and sadness,” said Airickca Gordon-Taylor, director of the foundation. “Just as Mamie Till Mobley didn’t endure the pain of losing Emmett Till alone, many people have stood in solidarity with our family, even if it wasn’t the most popular stand to take. The road less traveled is surely not the easiest but standing for your principles provides the endurance needed to fight for human and civil rights. This decision was monumental, we commend Mountain Dew for taking action towards better social responsibility, and now I finally feel that we can exhale and focus on our beloved Mamie Till Mobley’s charge… Let’s get on with the business of positive thinking and living.”

Wayne responded to the family’s statement with one of his own, apologizing for causing offense.

“As a recording artist, I have always been interested in word play,” he said. “My lyrics often reference people, places, and events in my music, as well as the music that I create for or alongside other artists. …It has come to my attention that lyrics from my contribution to a fellow artist’s song has deeply offended your family. As a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain that your family has had to endure.”

Apple’s outflow of capital over the last five months is staggering. It makes sense, however, when you think of how many shares are institutionally owned, and owned by non-retail shareholders. Why not take some profits from Apple’s meteoric rise over the past couple years? Why not sell some shares before the new year (2013) when the capital gains tax rate is going up by 25%? And yes, Apple’s margins have slowly come down, and the breakneck growth of the largest company in the world has changed pace. Yet, Apple’s fundamentals have not changed. Apple is still the most innovative company in the technology space and it has the most talent, with the best hardware, the best software, and the best ecosystem in the world.

Continue reading…

The city of Oslo turns so much of its trash into energy, that it actually imports garbage into the city to heat and light many of its buildings. While the process is far less common in the U.S., the city of Glendale, Arizona could be an unexpected trash power leader, if it gets a planned garbage-to-energy plant built by Spanish engineering company Abengoa.

On Monday Abengoa said it plans to build a $110 million factory in Glendale that will turn city garbage into electricity. Chicago-based power company Vieste Energy will own the planned factory, and Abengoa will build it and run it for 30 years. Construction will take 20 months, and create 50 jobs, says Abengoa. When fully built, the factory is supposed to be able to gasify 180,000 tons of garbage per year, produce 350 tons of gas per day, and create 15 MW of electricity.

This type of factory planned for Glendale gasifies many types of waste, not just organic waste, but also plastics. In contrast, other biogas plants built sporadically around the U.S. — most commonly at landfills and water treatment facilities — put organic waste into bioreactors, which captures the gas that is produced as the organic materials decompose.

Combusting and gasifying city trash into energy is a process that has been around for decades. But modern plants now meet strict emissions standards and have many filters to catch any potential pollutants. Next-generation garbage-to-energy plants also use sophisticated sensors and computing to sort the trash into usable and unusable parts.

In Europe these types of new plants are popular. A New York Times article back in 2010 noted that there were 400 of these plants in Europe, with Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands leading the continent. But in the U.S. there are very few of these new and modern plants, and only a handful of older, aging plants. Back in 2010 there were no new waste to energy plants planned for the U.S., and there were only 87 of these plants that were all built more than 15 years ago.

The Glendale waste to energy plant, which has been under discussion for at least a year in the city, would reportedly be built 30 feet below ground level, and have a 50-foot stack visible by passersby. The plant is planned for the north end of the Glendale Municipal Landfill.

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