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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 39
Volume 15, Issue 39 Atari Online News, Etc. October 4, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1539 10/04/13
~ Gates, Ballmer BOD Run ~ People Are Talking! ~ Instagram To Allow Ads
~ Microsoft Gets Appeal! ~ Secret "Silk Road" Bust ~ Win 8.1 Pre-orders!
~ Tampered iPads Taken! ~ Revenge Porn Outlawed! ~ Dell Buys Back Dell!
~ ~ Cook Is Not Next Jobs! ~
-* Adobe Source Code Is Stolen! *-
-* Suspected Anonymous Hackers Indicted *-
-* Gamblers Betting on Twitter IPO Valuation! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The summer has officially been over for a couple of weeks now; and it
seems that the news has started to slow down quite a bit - like the
changing of the seasons. Ater a plethora of news last week in our
"double" issue, this week's issue seems devoid of news. In fact, I
could not find anything interesting to include in this week's gaming
section, other than some comments by Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell,
regarding Apple's Tim Cook. So, although the amount of news articles
this week might be sparse, they're interesting! Let's get to it!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Gamblers Not Waiting for Twitter IPO To Bet on Valuation
Though Twitter's first day on the stock market is probably still months
away, a handful of international gamblers aren't waiting for the official
debut and are already laying bets on how much the social media site will
be worth.
Initial public offering experts are floating a market capitalization for
Twitter of around $10 billion, but bettors on the Irish gambling site
Paddy Power give the shortest odds to it closing with a market cap 50
percent to 100 percent above that.
On Friday, odds stood at 6-to-4 of Twitter ending its first day on the
public market with total value of between $15 billion and $20 billion.
By contrast, Facebook Inc. closed with a market cap of $81 billion on its
first day.
To be sure, the volume and value of the bets remains small, with just a
few dozen gamblers outside the United States wagering more than 800 euros
on Twitter's first day market cap and how much its IPO will raise. But
the action, which got underway about a month ago, does point to the
growing buzz around Twitter since it announced its IPO last month.
The site can only take bets from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Australia
after a crackdown by regulators put a damper on U.S. residents betting on
the outcomes of everything from presidential elections to the name of the
baby of Britain's Prince William and Kate.
Intrade.com, another online betting parlor that catered to U.S. bettors
shut down in July due to financial irregularities.
Paddy Power has more than 4,000 employees, including researchers who dug
deep before giving logical parameters for Twitter's first day value,
said Féilim Mac An Iomaire, public relations manager for Paddy Power.
Gamblers can choose between five market cap ranges for Twitter.
Currently the longest odds, at 9-to-1, are that Twitter would be worth
less than $10 billion, while the odds it will be worth $10 billion to
$14.9 billion or more than $25 billion both stand at 7-to-2. Odds for
the range of $20 billion to $24.9 billion currently come in at 15-to-8.
The Paddy Power crowd apparently is not alone in its eagerness to get
into the Twitter trade.
On Friday, traders mistook the shares of a defunct home entertainment
system retailer named "Tweeter," which once traded under the symbol
Twitter has filed to use, "TWTR," for the real Twitter, sending its
nearly worthless shares soaring. The mix-up led to more than 14.3
million shares of Tweeter to be traded, with the stock gaining nearly
600 percent - to 5 cents a piece.
US Indicts 13 Suspected Anonymous Hackers for WikiLeaks Revenge Attacks
A federal grand jury this week indicted 13 members of the "hacktivist"
group Anonymous on charges of orchestrating a series of cyber attacks
across the globe. As Reuters reports, the 13 suspects were allegedly
involved with Anonymous' "Operation Payback" scheme, originally launched
in 2010 as retaliation for the shutdown of the Pirate Bay file sharing
site. The operation also included distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks against credit card companies and financial institutions that
refused to process payments for WikiLeaks, in the wake of the
secret-spilling organization's publication of 250,000 classified US
diplomatic cables (an incident known as "Cablegate").
The names of the 13 suspects have not been released, though they live in
13 different US states and range in age from 21 to 65. A grand jury in
Alexandria, Virginia indicted them Thursday on charges of conspiring to
intentionally damage protected computers. According to the indictment,
the group launched attacks from September 2010 to January 2011, using
software known as Low Orbit Ion Cannon to carry out their DDoS attacks.
Companies affected by the attack include Bank of America, Visa, and
MasterCard, as well as the Library of Congress, US Copyright Office, and
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
A British court last year convicted four members of Anonymous on charges
of conspiring to attack major financial sites and trade organizations as
part of Operation Payback. According to the court, their attacks cost
British music trade groups an estimated $5.6 million.
Adobe Says Source Code, Customer Data Stolen by Hackers
Adobe Systems Inc said on Thursday that hackers had stolen source code to
some of its most popular software and data about millions of its
customers.
Security experts worry about the theft of source code because close review
of the programs can lead to the discovery of new flaws that can be used to
launch hard-to-detect attacks against all users of that software.
The hackers took source code for Adobe Acrobat, which is used to create
electronic documents in the PDF format, as well as ColdFusion and
ColdFusion Builder, used to create Internet applications, Adobe said.
Adobe Chief Security Officer Brad Arkin said the company had been
investigating the breach since its discovery two weeks ago and that it had
no evidence of any attacks based on the theft. "Based on our findings to
date, we are not aware of any specific increased risk to customers as a
result of this incident," Arkin wrote on an Adobe blog.
Arkin said hackers also took information on 2.9 million Adobe customers,
including their names, user identification numbers and encrypted passwords
and payment card numbers. He said the attacks may be related.
The company said it was resetting passwords for affected customers
worldwide and warning people to change any passwords reused at other
sites. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's computer incident
response team on Thursday warned that Adobe customers should be on the
alert for fraud.
Adobe said it was working with banks and federal law enforcement to
mitigate intrusions on customer accounts and to pursue those responsible.
The company said it had been helped by cybersecurity journalist Brian
Krebs and security expert Alex Holden, who found a cache of Adobe code
while probing attacks at three major U.S. data providers.
Krebs wrote on his blog, KrebsonSecurity.com, on Thursday that the two men
discovered the code while investigating breaches at Dun & Bradstreet Corp,
Altegrity Inc's Kroll Background America Inc and Reed Elsevier's
LexisNexis Inc.
He said the Adobe code was on a server that he believed was used by those
who hacked into LexisNexis and the others. The hackers offered Social
Security numbers, credit report information and other highly sensitive
data for sale over the Internet and had access inside the companies'
websites through hacked computers, Krebs said.
In a 10-Q filing on Thursday, Adobe referred to the recent attacks in one
paragraph. "We do not believe that the attacks will have a material
adverse impact on our business or financial results," it said. "It is
possible, nevertheless, that this incident could have various adverse
effects."
Appeals Court Revives Microsoft Claim Against Google
A federal appeals court on Thursday instructed the U.S. International
Trade Commission to reconsider a ruling that gave Google Inc a victory
over Microsoft Corp in a patent dispute.
Acting on an appeal by Microsoft, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit found that the ITC erred in its reasoning when it found
that the Google unit Motorola Mobility did not infringe a Microsoft
graphical interface patent.
After a critical discussion of the ITC judge's reasoning, the appeals
court said: "This conclusion requires reversal of the 133 patent
non-infringement judgment."
But it also said it agreed with the ITC that Motorola Mobility had
successfully changed its smartphones so they no longer infringed the
patent.
It also found the ITC was correct in ruling that Motorola Mobility, which
was acquired by Google during the legal fight, did not infringe three
other patents.
The dispute is one of dozens globally between various smartphone makers.
Google's Android system has become the top-selling smartphone operating
system, ahead of mobile systems by Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry Ltd and
others.
In the original case, the ITC found in May 2012 that Motorola Mobility
infringed a patent for meeting-scheduling technology but did not infringe
several other Microsoft patents. An order was issued banning infringing
mobile phones from the marketplace.
Motorola Mobility says it removed the infringing software from its phones.
Microsoft disagrees, and has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, accusing the agency of failing to properly enforce the
ITC order.
Microsoft said it was happy with the appeals court decision.
"We're pleased the court determined Google unfairly uses Microsoft
technology," said David Howard, corporate vice president and deputy
general counsel. "Google is free to license our inventions, but we're
equally pleased if Google makes product adjustments to avoid using them."
A Motorola Mobility spokesman also saw good news in the appeals court
decision. "Today's favorable opinion confirms our position that our
products don't infringe the Microsoft patents," said spokesman Matt
Kallman.
U.S. courts continue to work during the shutdown of the federal government
but the ITC is largely shut down.
The case at the ITC was No. 337-744. At the Federal Circuit, the case is
No. 2012-1445, -1535.
California Man Charged in Black Market Drug Scheme
FBI agents found him in the science fiction section of a small branch of
the San Francisco public library, chatting online.
The man known as Dread Pirate Roberts 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht
was on his personal laptop Tuesday afternoon, authorities said, talking
about the vast black market bazaar that is believed to have brokered more
than $1 billion in transactions for illegal drugs and services.
When a half-dozen FBI agents burst into the library in a quiet,
blue-collar neighborhood, they abruptly ended Ulbricht's conversation
with a cooperating witness, pinned the Austin, Texas, native to a
floor-to-ceiling window and then took him off to jail, law enforcement
and library spokeswomen said.
Ulbricht was later charged in criminal complaints in federal courts in
New York and Maryland. He's accused of making millions of dollars
operating the secret Silk Road website and of a failed murder-for-hire
scheme, all while living anonymously with two roommates whom he paid
$1,000 to rent a room in a modest neighborhood.
Federal authorities shut down the website.
Ulbricht has not entered pleas to any of his charges. His federal public
defender in San Francisco declined to comment Wednesday. Ulbricht is due
back in San Francisco federal court Friday morning to discuss bail and his
transfer to New York, where the bulk of the charges have been filed.
He is charged in New York with being the mastermind of Silk Road, where
users could browse anonymously through nearly 13,000 listings under
categories like "Cannabis," ''Psychedelics" and "Stimulants."
Ulbricht also is charged in Maryland with ordering first the torture, and
then the murder, of an employee from an undercover agent. He feared the
employee would expose his alias as Dread Pirate Roberts, a fictional
character. Court records say he wired the agent $80,000 after he was shown
staged photos of the employee's faked torture.
His arrest culminated a two-year-investigation that painstakingly followed
a small trail of computer crumbs Ulbricht carelessly left for the FBI to
find, according to court documents.
Ulbricht first came to the attention of federal agents in 2011 when they
figured out he was "altoid," someone who they say was marketing Silk Road
on other drug-related websites the FBI was watching. In October 2011,
"altoid" posted an advertisement for a computer expert with experience in
Bitcoin, an electronic currency, and gave an email address.
From there, investigators began to monitor Ulbricht's online behavior
closely, according to the court records. Investigators said Ulbricht was
living within 500 feet of a San Francisco Internet cafe on June 3, 2013,
when someone "logged into a server used to administer the Silk Road
website."
Court documents show investigators slowly connected Ulbricht to Silk Road
by monitoring his email and picking up on some slipups, including using
his real name to ask a programmers' website a highly technical question
about connecting to secret sites like Silk Road.
His final mistake, according to the court papers, was ordering fake
identification documents from a Silk Road vendor from Canada. One of the
nine documents was a California driver's license with Ulbricht's
photograph, birthdate but a different name. The package was intercepted
at the border during a routine U.S. Customs search.
On July 26, Homeland Security investigators visited Ulbricht at his San
Francisco residence. He "generally refused to answer questions," the
agents said.
The investigators left that day without arresting Ulbricht, who holds a
bachelor's of science degree in physics from the University of Texas at
Dallas and a master's degree from Penn State University.
They returned Tuesday and arrested him at the library. He faces the
prospect of life in prison if convicted of all the charges.
The Silk Road website protected users with an encryption technique called
"onion routing," which is designed to make it "practically impossible to
physically locate the computers hosting or accessing websites on the
network," court papers said. One listing for heroin promised buyers "all
rock, no powder, vacuum sealed and stealth shipping," and had a community
forum below where one person commented, "Quality is superb."
The defendant announced in a website forum in 2012 that to avoid confusion
he needed to change his Silk Road username, according to court papers
released Wednesday. He wrote, "drum roll please ... my new name is: Dread
Pirate Roberts," an apparent reference to a swashbuckling character in
"The Princess Bride," the 1987 comedy film based on a novel of the same
name.
As of July, there were nearly 1 million registered users of the site from
the United States, Germany, Russia, Australia and elsewhere around the
globe, the court papers said. The site generated an estimated $1.2 billion
since it started in 2011 and collected $80 million by charging 8 to
15 percent commission on each sale, they said.
Gates, Ballmer Seek Re-election to Microsoft Board
Chairman Bill Gates and retiring Chief Executive Steve Ballmer are
standing for re-election to Microsoft Corp's board of directors, despite
recent moves by some investors to reduce their influence, according to
the software company's annual proxy filing made public on Thursday.
Ballmer and Gates, both 57, have been the target of activist investors who
believe Microsoft needs new leadership to transform itself and compete
with mobile-savvy rivals such as Apple Inc and Google Inc.
Ballmer announced his plan to retire within 12 months in August, but there
is no sign Gates will relinquish his role or leave the board of the
company he co-founded with Paul Allen 38 years ago.
This week, Reuters reported that three of Microsoft's top 20 investors
have lobbied the board to press for Gates to step down, believing he
stands in the way of fundamental change at the company. The company
declined comment.
It is highly likely both Gates and Ballmer will be re-elected by
shareholders at the annual meeting on November 19.
Microsoft has not yet named a successor to Ballmer and is in the midst of
a search it said could take until next August. Ballmer is set to stay on
as CEO until a successor is appointed, but Microsoft has not said whether
Ballmer will remain a board director after that.
On the board or not, however, Ballmer made it clear in a meeting with Wall
Street analysts last month that he plans to remain engaged as a major
investor.
According to the proxy filing, Gates remains the company's largest
individual shareholder, with a 4.5 percent stake, followed by Ballmer with
4 percent. Ballmer will eclipse Gates as the largest individual
shareholder next spring if Gates continues to sell 20 million shares a
quarter, as he has for most of the last decade.
The filing made no mention of Mason Morfit, president of activist
shareholder ValueAct Capital Management, who was offered a board seat by
Microsoft in August.
Morfit is expected to take up that offer and will likely be appointed to
the board after Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting, people familiar
with the matter said.
Ballmer, who faced years of investor criticism during his 13-year tenure,
received a smaller bonus for fiscal0 2013, his last full year as CEO.
He received a $550,000 bonus, on top of his $697,500 salary, which was
79 percent of what Microsoft called his "target" bonus and 11 percent
less than his $620,000 bonus the year before.
The board's evaluation of Ballmer recognized the company's record $78
billion revenue last fiscal year, but faulted Ballmer for the decline in
profit from its Windows unit and the poor reception of Microsoft's
Surface RT tablet, which resulted in a $900 million charge for unsold
inventory.
Instagram To Start Allowing Ads in Photo Feeds
The legions of people who use Instagram will start to see advertising in
their photo sharing feed in the next couple of months.
The popular photo-based social network, snapped up by Facebook Inc, will
roll out advertising in the United States in a bid to become a
"sustainable business," Instagram said in a blog post on Thursday.
Instagram acknowledged the transition would be delicate since its 150
million users are not used to ads peppering photo streams of family and
vacations, and might be alienated by the effort.
"Seeing photos and videos from brands you don't follow will be new, so
we'll start slow," the blog post said.
"If you see an ad you don't like, you'll be able to hide it and provide
feedback about what didn't feel right. We're relying on your input to
help us continually improve the Instagram experience."
Instagram is the latest social media network to turn to advertising to
capitalize on its millions of users. Advertisers are projected to spend
close to $10 billion on social network ads worldwide this year, according
to research firm eMarketer.
Worldwide spending on mobile advertising, which could fit nicely with
Instagram since people use the app on the go, is forecast by eMarketer to
reach $8.8 billion this year.
When Facebook acquired Instagram last year, it paid an eye-popping $1
billion in cash for the app-maker, which had scant revenue.
Facebook too has been ramping up its efforts to seize more ad dollars
especially those earmarked for smartphones and other mobile devices.
Windows 8.1 Now Available to Pre-order for $119 Ahead of October 18th Debut
Microsoft is now taking pre-orders for Windows 8.1. While the update is
free for Windows 8 users, those looking to upgrade or install the OS on
old hardware will need to buy a copy. Microsoft is now accepting
pre-orders on Windows 8.1 for $119 and Windows 8.1 Pro for $199. Both
versions are DVD copies and will be released on October 18th. Both prices
are identical to existing upgrade costs today.
The software maker is taking a slightly different approach to Windows
8.1 upgrades. Although there's no promotional upgrade pricing, Microsoft
is supplying users with a full copy of Windows 8.1 to use as an upgrade
or clean install on hardware and virtual machines. Windows 8.1 will be
available in stores on October 18th, and online as an upgrade for
Windows 8 on October 17th. Microsoft plans to distribute it to existing
users using the Windows Store.
Michael Dell Buys Back PC Company He Founded in $24.8 Billion Deal
Michael Dell has the won the battle for control of the computer company
that he created, after shareholders backed his $24.8bn (£15.7bn) offer
to take Dell private and revive the struggling business away from the
incessant pressure of Wall Street.
The vote clears the way for the huge buyout, in which Dell is working
with private equity partners Silver Lake after seeing off a challenge
from activist investor Carl Icahn.
The move comes as traditional PC companies struggle to make money in a
market that is rapidly shrinking, with the latest forecasts showing that
PC sales will be overtaken by tablets for the first time in the final
quarter of this year.
Research group IDC said tablets will outsell all PCs in the three months
to Christmas, and by 2015 they will regularly outsell PCs as consumers'
tastes shift towards the more mobile format.
"We are forecasting 84.1m tablets will be shipped in the fourth quarter
of 2013, compared to 83.1m PCs," said an IDC spokesman.
The abruptness of the shift modern tablets only went on sale with the
launch of Apple's iPad in April 2010 has caught a number of traditional
PC companies, including Dell, flatfooted and with no viable strategy in
the fast-growing mobile market.
By 2017, says IDC, 87% of devices connected to the internet will be
tablets and smartphones, relegating PCs from their former position as the
main means of getting online.
Speaking after the Dell vote, Francisco Jeronimo, IDC's smartphones
analyst, said the wider market shift will "kill many old companies and
create new leaders".
PC makers such as Dell have struggled with limited profits for years. But
as consumers, who made up half of PC buyers, have shifted spending to
tablets and smartphones, the industry has suffered falls in sales which
are squeezing small and large players alike.
Michael Dell, who founded the company from a college dorm room in 1984,
has fought for months to convince investors his offer is the best option
for the company's future. Icahn ended his challenge after deciding it was
"impossible to win".
Dell has been forced into a buyout after 25 years on the stock market
because the PC market is dwindling so rapidly. The company reported a 72%
slump in quarterly earnings last month as it cut prices and prepared an
attack on the market for supplying big "enterprise" businesses.
The iPad was rapidly followed by more tablets, from companies including
Samsung, Amazon and Google. After years when PC sales growth was regularly
between 10% and 20%, it has gone into reverse for the past five quarters,
and IDC forecasts a drop of nearly 10% this year.
Other companies besides Dell have been hit due to the lack of a successful
tablet strategy. Taiwan's Acer, one of the five biggest PC makers, has
seen profits collapse since 2011, and revenues have shrunk for five
quarters in a row. HP, which bought Palm for $1bn but wrote off its
TouchPad tablet in August 2011 after less than two months, is also
struggling to make a profit from PCs.
Michael Dell argues that the company needs to go private so it can
restructure to cope with the new computing landscape away from the
quarterly pressures of Wall Street, and focus as IBM does on providing its
storage, servers and services to public organisations and large companies.
Dell first proposed the buyout in private discussions in June 2012. It was
announced on 5 February at $13.65 per share. Rival bidder Blackstone
raised that to $14.25 in March, and Icahn offered $15 soon afterwards.
Dell finally offered $13.75 per share.
A vote on the buyout had been postponed three times as Michael Dell and
the company's board scrambled to garner enough votes in favour. But last
month Dell raised his offer price, tacked on a special-dividend
sweetener, and got the board to change voting rules so that abstentions
no longer count against him turning the tide in his favour.
A change of over two months in the deadline for proxy votes may also have
brought backing from hedge funds that bought shares for short-term gain
and were likely to support a buyout.
Los Angeles School Districts Take Tampered iPads Away From Students
The ambitious plan to get an iPad in more than 30,000 Los Angeles
students' hands hit another snag.
Workers at the Los Angeles United School District (LAUSD) have started
confiscating iPads that bypassed the devices' security measures,
according to the Los Angeles Times. The tampered iPads could access
unauthorized websites and apps, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Pandora.
The school-issued iPads were installed with their own security software
that prevented students from getting access to anything but the preloaded
educational software. However, students at several different schools
discovered a work around within hours after students received their
iPads.
Sarah Bradshaw, the chief of staff for District 5 of the LAUSD, said that
there were signs that the iPad program was going to be a rough ride.
"We could see this thing coming," she told ABC News. "So much of this has
been rushed and so ill thought out."
Despite the presence of 340 hackers spread among three LA schools, some
students took to heart that the iPad should be kept strictly for school
work and not for personal use.
"We did sign a contract that we shouldn't modify it, so I'm going to
follow it if I signed it," Ramon Uribe, a senior at Theodore Roosevelt
High School, told ABC station KABC-TV in Los Angeles. "I sure do not
deserve my borrowed iPad to be taken away."
According to an Apple press release back in June, the Los Angeles School
Board of Education committed $30 million to purchasing new iPads for its
students.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said that it
was the first phase of a major initiative to get an iPad to every student
across 47 different schools.
"Education is in Apple's DNA," he said.
Though the schools have requested that the iPads be returned to them,
the students may get a second chance.
"There's a reason why students did this," said Ron Chandler, the chief
information officer with the LAUSD. "We have to have a conversation about
what is the appropriate place and maybe we need to relax our requirements
a little."
Atari Founder: Tim Cook Isn't Ihe 'Next Steve Jobs'
Apple's new CEO is no Steve Jobs, says Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell,
who first met Jobs when his company employed him in 1974 as a $5-an-hour
developer.
"If I were to choose somebody to run international manufacturing and
processing and keep the wheels on the bus, Tim Cook is about as good as
anybody can get," said Bushnell.
"But I just feel like somebody needs to stick a little bit of dynamite
under his left cheek."
Bushnell is author of the new book, "Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to
Find, Keep and Nurture Talent." He spoke to CNN about his former
employee's legacy - just days before the second anniversary of Jobs'
death on October 5, 2011 - and what it will take for a new tech visionary
to emerge today.
Apple decline: What would Steve Jobs do?
To be sure, Apple continues to succeed. Its new iPhone 5S models sold
more than 9 million units in their first weekend, and the company has
earned praise for overhauling its iOS mobile operating system.
But Bushnell, who also founded the Chuck E. Cheese's pizza franchise,
said profits today aren't the same, or even as important, as success
tomorrow.
"I have a feeling - and this is a funny thing that happens with people
who are very buttoned down - that (Cook) probably thinks he's innovating,
when in fact it's just micro-evolution," he said. "They were able to
build (the new iPhones) cheaper, which is something I would expect Tim
Cook to do.
"But the market cap of Apple is underpinned by its innovation margin,"
Bushnell said, which he believes "has a shelf life of maybe three to five
years. Then, all of a sudden, the followers have matched you feature by
feature."
Nolan Bushnell is called the \
Nolan Bushnell is called the "father of video games" by some for his role
in founding Atari.
Bushnell is more impressed with Google's approach, which focuses on
testing new products and ideas even when some might fail. It may lead to
some clunkers, but it's also produced things like a self-driving car and
the Google Glass connected headset. Bushnell says Google Glass might not
be a huge seller, but it represents a big step toward creating the
technology of the future.
"I use some Apple products and like them," he said. "But I lately have
been spending much more time in the Google-sphere than the Apple-sphere."
Bushnell reflected on his memories of Steve Jobs, who at 19 showed up in
sandals at Atari and demanded an interview, and shared his thoughts on
the future of innovation.
On hiring the unconventional Jobs
"Understand that we at Atari at the time thought of ourselves as being
quite counterculture. We were really young and somewhat arrogant and we
really felt that we could rewrite the rules in an absolute way. We took
the attitude of hiring for intensity or passion. That really worked for
us. We felt that we could train anybody that had the passion and fire in
their belly. Steve - actually both Steves (referring to Jobs' longtime
friend and collaborator Steve Wozniak) - had passion that was a very
different passion, but it was passion. ... Jobs loved kind of seeing the
world as it could be, as opposed to what it is. That was an important
thing about what our ethic was."
On why he didn't invest early in Apple
"I didn't think that Steve would be a good chief executive and I didn't
have the time to do it. I've often thought one of the unsung heroes was
actually (early investor and second Apple CEO) Mike Markkula, who actually
provided the adult supervision for the first few years, which I think was
really important. If I'd invested and Markkula hadn't been there, the
outcome could have been very different."
On 'celebrating failure'
"I don't strive for failure. But what you want to do is strive for
appropriate risk. One of the ways you can thwart appropriate risk is by
making the penalties for failure high. It's a little bit like the Catholic
church and their idea of forgiveness and absolution and all that. Most
employees who are really good employees, if they screw up, they feel
really bad about it. What you want to do is you want to give them
absolution."
"I defy you to find somebody who's known as an innovator or visionary who
hasn't had multiple failures. It's really about doing. It's really about
... being a prime mover that allows you to become a visionary. It's an
uncharted path, and when you're on an uncharted path you end up in a cul
de sac every once in a while. That doesn't mean that your overall
direction isn't correct. You just have to back up and maybe move a little
bit more to the right this time, or to the left."
On corporate culture
"A good company basically says, 'We don't care what you do. We don't care
how you do it. You're going to be judged on your outcomes, period. Nothing
else matters.' When Atari started in Silicon Valley, then Apple, we were
the first and only places where engineers didn't come to work in a coat
and tie. So guys who are wearing shorts and T-shirts and flip-flops to
work now need to say thank you very much."
"From a corporate standpoint, think about the difference between the way
you think about Google and the way you think about Hewlett Packard. At
the outset - eight years ago, five years ago - Hewlett Packard had
significantly more resources that they could have been innovating with
than Google did. Google has the one cash cow (search), but they are
planting seeds for their future that I think are extraordinary."
On napping at work
"Think of your body as your innovation instrument. It turns out that all
kinds of cognitive functions are increased in the afternoon with just a
20-minute nap. (NASA studies showed) a 15 to 30% increase in cognitive
ability after a 20-minute nap. It's just silly to not do that."
On finding the next Jobs
"I think there are thousands of them out there. I think the main issue is
going to be, are they going to be allowed to perform? Remember, Steve was
at an integral point where he was product maven and had control of
tremendous amounts of resources at his fingertips. A lot of the Steve
Jobses out there don't have that control, don't have those resources at
their disposal. They have to be given them. When I hear a company say
'We'll vote on that' or 'We'll get consensus,' you know that they're
going to be mediocre. True innovation has no consistency. Nobody sees it
until it's done."
California Outlaws 'Revenge Porn' in First-of-its-kind Legislation
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-of-its-kind state law
criminalizing what has become known as revenge porn, the distribution of
private, explicit photos of other people on the Internet, usually by
ex-lovers or spouses, to humiliate them.
The measure, which passed both houses of the Democratic-led state
legislature almost unanimously last month, makes it a misdemeanor for
individuals to take and then circulate without consent such images online
with the intent to harass or annoy.
A conviction is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine
for a first offense.
Signed into law late on Tuesday, the measure goes into effect
immediately. It takes aim at an increasingly prevalent act of betrayal
that typically occurs when a person posts nude images of a former
romantic partner online as a way of exacting revenge after a breakup.
The images often end up proliferating on dozens of revenge porn websites
that specialize in publishing such pictures, some of which charge the
subjects fees to remove the offending material. The only other recourse
victims have had was to pursue the perpetrators in civil court.
"Until now, there was no tool for law enforcement to protect victims,"
said the legislation's chief sponsor, state Senator Anthony Cannella, a
Republican from the Central Valley town of Ceres. "Too many have had
their lives upended because of an action of another that they trusted."
California law already made it a crime to take sexually explicit photos
or video images of another person without his or her consent or knowledge.
The new statute extends the same misdemeanor classification to anyone who
takes nude pictures of another person under the mutual understanding that
those images are to remain private but subsequently distributes the
images without permission to cause serious emotional distress.
New Jersey has an older law that allows criminal prosecution of such
behavior, but that measure was passed as a cyberbullying statute not
specifically aimed at revenge porn itself, said Cannella's spokesman,
Jeff Macedo.
The phenomenon has become so widespread that it was recently featured as
a story line on the popular HBO series "The Newsroom," in which one of
the main characters, Sloan Sabbith, played by Olivia Munn, falls prey to
an act of revenge porn by an ex-boyfriend.
A leading activist for criminalizing the practice is Holly Jacobs, a
victim herself who launched a website called endrevengeporn.org to lobby
for greater sanctions against revenge porn and to offer assistance to
other victims.
Describing her ordeal on her website, Jacobs recounts that a former
boyfriend began posting explicit photos and video of her on the Internet
after their breakup in 2009, along with her full name, email address,
job title and specifics about where she worked and her PhD program in
psychology.
"For three years damage control was a full-time job," she wrote,
recounting that police and FBI were of no help, and that an Internet
specialist she hired to get the material removed proved fruitless.
In an interview with NBC News, Jacobs called the new California law "an
encouraging first step." But she said it fails to criminalize the
distribution of self-taken photos, or "selfies," that were shared
willingly with spouses or partners but later posted online without the
subject's consent.
The new statute also does not target revenge porn sites. Operators of
such websites, and their users, are generally immune from liability for
the content furnished to those sites by others under the 1996 federal
Communications Decency Act.
=~=~=~=
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