Google CEO Eric Schmidt Resigns From Apple Board

Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, has resigned from the board of Apple, the company said in a statement.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

The way I see it, he got shown the door by Jobs. Back in May, Schmidt said he had no plans to resign from Apple’s board. (Take our poll below the fold)


Over the last few days, as the Google Voice apps fiasco has taken on a life of its own, I have been busy pointing out that this battle was between Apple and Google.

I believe that AT&T has become a piñata in the high-stakes war being waged by Apple and Google. Why do we believe that these two companies are not in competition with each other? Is it because Eric Schmidt sits on the Apple board? This battle between Google and Apple is going to get very ugly — as it should. Both companies have pinned their futures on smartphones.

Jobs’ statement and Schmidt’s exit from the board all but confirms it. The matter might have come to a head over the FCC’s investigation into the Google Voice Apps fiasco. I am not ready to rule out that “given Google’s increasing presence in Washington as a lobbying superpower, one can’t rule out Google’s silent hand in this investigation.”

The way I see it, Apple should take these hostilities one step further: Kick out Google Maps from the core of its service and replace it with Yahoo Maps. And as for search, there is this thing called Bing… (Hat tip, The Wall Street Journal.)

A History Of The Ipod Mini

Yes, the ipod mini said its goodbye to the technology market last September 7, 2005. It seems only proper to pay our respects to this whimsical gadget that once put a smile on our face. When the iPod mini was released on February 20, 2004, many were delighted. Being the smaller version of Apple Computer's iPod first generation portable audio player, it's variety in color (though still somewhat limited to five colors: silver, gold, pink, blue, and green) appealed to a much broader market. The ipod mini operated with both Macintosh and Windows PCs.
The iPod mini's feature was the click wheel, where four buttons were located above the wheel. To use one of the buttons, a user had to push the wheel edge inward over one of the labels. The click wheel is now used in the fourth and fifth generation iPods as well as in the iPod nano. Above the wheel was the monochrome display that gave the menus or information of the currently selected track. The new generation of ipods now has a colored screen display.

The iPod mini made use of the ultra-thin Compact Flash Microdrive hard drives. The first-generation mini models only had to content itself to a 4GB hard drive. The second-generation mini models were then available in 4GB and 6GB memory size. The iPod mini 4 GB is capable of storing 1,000 songs while the iPod mini 6GB stored 1, 500 songs.

Later the drive size was laser engraved on the case to distinguish between the two minis. Near the end of the iPod mini's life, Apple laser etched two lines of 32 characters on top of the reverse side on the mini free of charge. Such a feature would originally cost more money. However, Apple seemed sentimental enough and the gesture was a sign of respect for the mini's impeding demise.

The battery life of its first generation iPod mini was 8 hours that led to some argument on its short duration. This problem was solved with the second-generation models that claimed a battery life of 18 hours.

Unfortunately, the 2nd generation had no FireWire cable or an AC power adapter, a compromise made by Apple to reduce the retail prices of the new iPod minis. The iPod mini also had a dock connector provided on the bottom for a connection to the computer (Hi-Speed USB or FireWire). The battery was charged during its connection. On the top it was a headphone jack, a hold switch, and remote port for other accessories.

Like the larger iPod, the iPod mini supported a host of file formats like MP3, WAV, AIFF and MP4. It maintained it's flawless integration with the iTunes Music Store and the files being downloaded there. Software-wise, the iPod mini was as reliable as the original iPod units.

The appeal of the iPod mini is it's compact and colorful design. And the accessories that come with it are there to enhance the iPod mini's sound quality and functions. It is true that some of the accessories are expensive but aren't all the iPod gadgets expensive too?

Besides if there was something good to be said about the iPod mini, it's the option it gave the consumers when getting a digital audio player. The Ipod mini competed directly with players like Creative's Zen Micro and the Digital Networks Rio Carbon. The smaller display was one line shorter than the previous models, thus limiting its on-screen track information display to title and artist only, taking the album information off.

The original price for the first generation iPod mini was around $249 for the 4GB memory size. The second-generation lowered the price to $199 and kept the 4GB model. An increased-capacity 6GB mini model sold for $249.

As the Ipod family began to expand, the Ipod mini was laid to rest when Apple launched the introduction of the iPod nano. The iPod mini was no more and stopped its production. Though it seems the iPod mini only stayed for a while, its influence as the pioneer of the click wheel will always be remembered.

7 benefits of email marketing?

Most recent survey shows the following statistics of Email Marketing Around the world.

1. Email Is Popular

Email is consistently rated as the most popular and most used application on the internet. Indeed, some people only use email and do not browse the internet at all!

Email is the preferred primary means of business communication (ahead of telephone and postal mail).

42% of business users check their business email while on holiday.
53% of business users check their email six or more times during the working day.
34% of internet users check their email continuously throughout the day.
96% of internet users' main reason for being online is email.

There are over 450 million email boxes worldwide, with the number rapidly increasing.

Email marketing will become a $9.4 billion business by 2006.
(Source: Forrester Research, and Jupiter Communications)

2. Save Time and Money

No printing, no postage, no mail house charges.

Traditional direct mail costs between £1 and £3 per recipient and can take over a month to complete. With email, the cost can be reduced to pennies per recipient and completed in hours.

It takes far less time to create and send an email compared to a traditional direct mail campaign.

Overall, the return on investment of opt-in email is 40 times greater than direct mail.

3. Increased Sales

It's not unusual for email campaigns to get 5%-15% response rates.

The response rate of opt-in email is 50 times greater than banner ads and 5 times greater than direct mail.

4. Instant Results

Minutes after sending out your email campaign you can start seeing responses and orders. And you can time your campaigns to arrive on the best day of the week or month for maximum response.

Instead of waiting weeks for responses and test results, you'll have them in hours.

80% of responses to an email campaign will occur within 3 days (traditional direct mail takes weeks).

5. Measurable Results

Email campaigns are fully trackable, with up to the minute statistics. You can easily test which message generates the best response and alter your campaign accordingly.

6. Quick To Create

You could knock out an email in an hour or two as opposed to weeks in the "offline" world.

In addition, you can even make money from your newsletter itself by selling ad space or by using a paid subscription model. See "Making Money From Your Newsletter" later.

7. Personalisation and Targeting

Email allows your message to be personalised. Instead of "Dear Customer" you can address the recipient as "Dear Rachel" and send offers targeted to their preferences.

Finally most Internet Marketers and fortune 500 companies are begining to look at different ways of creating a email marketing and campaign budget because they believe its one of the media that still keep that personal touch with clients apart from social networking sites like facebook

How do you erase the Iphone Virus called 'Worm'?

With the recent Iphone Virus widespread This is the first iPhone virus that we're aware of and If successfully unleashed, it would be a major blow to Apple, but you can protect your self now before you loss your Iphone

You Can fix it by taking it to At&t right away and show them all the texts the Iphone Virus normally send. Im sure their aware of the virus so by reporting it to them it will justify that u didnt really rack up all those messages yourself and they should be able to put an end to it by maybe wiping the phone clean and restarting it.

One of the ways you can protect your iphone from contacting this Iphone Virus text messages and hackers is by not trusting any of those pop-up ads saying that you've won a free iPhone or a free iPod and stuff like that. It all seems like a really big scam to me. They ask for you personal information...and who knows what they'll do with your info. So watch out and be careful.

Secondly

iPhone's run OS X 10.5.

It's the 100% opposite of windows. Mac's hardly get virus's and neither does the phone.

Your safe. If the phone is not out in your area, but you have a GSM carrier buy an unlocked unit. Or look for an iClone Phone. Search CECT P168+

Microsoft, Yahoo team up to ding Google with Bing

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. has finally roped Yahoo Inc. into an Internet search partnership, capping a convoluted pursuit that dragged on for years and setting the stage for them to make a joint assault against the dominance of Google Inc.

The 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet's second-largest search engine audience, beefing up the software maker's arsenal as it tries to better confront Google, which is by far the leader in online search and advertising.

Microsoft didn't have to give Yahoo an upfront payment to make it happen, as many Yahoo investors had been counting on ever since Microsoft dangled $1 billion last summer in an attempt to forge a search partnership then.

Google tried to stop Yahoo from falling into Microsoft's camp. Last year it formed its own proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo, only to be forced to retreat from that alliance after U.S. antitrust officials threatened to sue.

Now the extended reach Microsoft is gaining will let it introduce its recently upgraded search engine, called Bing, to more people. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker believes Bing is just as good, if not better, than Google's search engine. Taking over search responsibilities on Yahoo's popular site gives Microsoft a better chance to convert Web surfers who had been using Google by force of habit.

"Microsoft and Yahoo know there's so much more that search could be," said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. "This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search."

Even with Yahoo's help, Microsoft has its work cut out.

The Rest of the new be found on Microsoft, Yahoo team up to ding Google with Bing

TwitViewer.net Is A Scam, Stay Away To Keep Your Password Safe

With the on going swagger of "Want to know who visits your Twitter profile? Sounds potentially interesting, and it’s the premise of TwitViewer.net, a site that is being shared by thousands of Twitter users this afternoon with the message “Want to know whos stalking you on Twitter?”

Unfortunately, it appears that TwitViewer may be a phishing scam, or at the least, is probably not doing what it promises. Upon entering your credentials, it does show you a list of users that supposedly visited your profile – but it seems likely this is simply fake, as a dummy account we created just to test the app showed 200 recent visitors seconds after registering. The app also automatically tweets out the “want to know whos stalking you?” message (and yes, the message itself is spelled wrong).

We currently don’t know if your password is in danger but both we and Twitter suggest that you change your password immediately, if you entered it on the TwitViewer.net website.

Also the website automatically tweets “want to know whos stalking you?” when you enter your username and password without even asking for your permission.

We strongly recommend to stay away from this website !