Barnes & Noble, Microsoft ink $300M deal on e-reading | Microsoft - CNET News

First, Microsoft made a big investment in a failing Nokia in order to create a hardware platform for its new Windows mobile operating system. Now, $300 Million invested in the Nook business of a shaky Barnes and Noble, while its book business flounders in the wake of ebooks and digital content. All this to fuel an ecosystem for Windows 8. This new operating system/content consumption platform is Microsoft's big bet to counter Apple, Google and Amazon. Microsoft needs a hardware and content play in order to be competitive.

The next shoe to drop may well be some advanced hardware from Google via its recent purchase of Motorola. I presume that Microsoft has acquired or is obtaining the licensing it needs for video form Hollwood.

With these four titans rumbling in the digital forest, the battle will be huge and all the competition will be good for consumers. The days of dead-tree books are inevitably winding down

 "The companies announced today that Microsoft has invested $300 million into a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, known as Newco until the company can come up with a name. The $300 million investment will give Microsoft a 17.6 percent equity stake in the firm. Barnes and Noble, which assumed a $1.7 billion valuation on the subsidiary, will retain 82.4 percent ownership."

Will the Trend Continue?

An interesting factoid chart showing life expectancy and death rates over time from two major diseases, cancer and heart problems.

Capitalizing on the sequencing of the human genome and the rapid development of biotechnology and gene therapy may lead to effective personalized medicine which can be used to prolong life.

(Hat tip to Fidelity Investments for the chart)

A fundamental question arises as to whether we have an economy, a society and a culture that can afford the luxury of long life. Need to ponder this one some more.

Carol's latest Wooliedale

I liked this Lion and Lamb so much, I decided to post it here as well as at Wooliedales.com and on the Wooliedales Etc. Facebook page.

www.wooliedales.com

Google's Gdrive Cloud Storage is Here

I have been using Google Docs 'forever' and am a big fan.  I t meets almost all my cloud drive needs.  I occasionally use dropbox with non-Google users. For me Google Drive is merely frosting on the cake because it is built around Docs and does not mess with the basic Docs functions.

Thanks to PCWorld for the following comparison chart for the primary cloud drive providers.

The FED has Few Tools to Fight Inflation or Stimulate the Economy

Thanks to Steven Hansen at Seeking Alpha for this straightforward analysis of The Fed's policy and what seems a long future of near-zero interest rates. Disturbingly, the FED has few tools in the kit to control inflation or stimulate growth.

Meanwhile, Congress dithers as their unsustainable spending binge creates huge deficits and debt that will bury the country. What a sad commentary on our government and society. We need to turn this around, not for the benefit of the "1%," but for the future of the Republic.

A vote for Obama and his policies in November is a vote against the country's prosperous future and a general reduction in our standard of living.

"...Reading between the lines - the Fed is not seeing economic traction anytime soon. Consider that USA monetary policy is based on gold standard conventions which becomes less and less effective as government debt grows. Further modern day monetary policy for a major currency is effected[sic] by leakage and actions by other currencies.
The Fed cannot allow interest rates to raise when:

• the servicing costs of government debt would strangle the economy; or,

• if the government goes on an austerity program, which will contract the economy, and loose monetary policy must prevail to try to mitigate a shrinking economy; or,

• the stalemate in Washington is not allowing long term solutions as the debt continues to grow. Under this circumstance, the Fed must accommodate the lack of leadership for fiscal policy.

In short, the USA is between a rock and a hard place - as it is almost certain that rising interest rates would apply abnormally large brakes on the economy. Realistically, there is little difference between 0% and 0.5%, so politically based monetary policy movements are possible.
Yet, there are too many parallels with Japan (mainly debt plus demographics) to believe the USA can escape economic doldrums without a major shift to a less of a gold standard approach to monetary policy.
In the meantime, unless you are in the 1% - prepare for a less affluent future. In the olden days (pre-New Normal), your plan for retirement was based on less risky bonds for income and cashing out the old hacienda so that one could make lifestyle decisions. For those already retired, and the boomers - time to look for Plan B as shown on the below chart which shows real return on 10 year treasuries."
(click to enlarge)

America's Crisis of Character - WSJ.com

Noonan has put her finger on it: America's character is changing in lots of ways and news about episodes of degradation is spread widely by the media and the internet only accelerates the overall decline. Crass and wrong behavior is feeding our perception and the reality that America is on the wrong track.

When political and other 'leaders' pander to voting blocs rather than set high standards of behavior and character, we have the evidence that america is losing the high ground.

"People in politics talk about the right track/wrong track numbers as an indicator of public mood. This week Gallup had a poll showing only 24% of Americans feel we're on the right track as a nation. That's a historic low. Political professionals tend, understandably, to think it's all about the economy—unemployment, foreclosures, we're going in the wrong direction. I've long thought that public dissatisfaction is about more than the economy, that it's also about our culture, or rather the flat, brute, highly sexualized thing we call our culture..."

Handy Dandy Guide to Europe's Economies

(Found on Barry Ritholz's website. Go here for other neat charts)

Microsoft Inks Its Biggest Cloud Deal Yet: 7.5M Students And Teachers In India | TechCrunch

In America we are often too parochial to recognize the impact of an American company's success in foreign lands. This is a very big deal for Microsoft. Seven and a half million users...wow! Hope it's profitable.


The cloud reigns!

 "Microsoft has announced that it has signed its largest-ever cloud services deal, an agreement with the All India Council for Technical Education to deploy Microsoft’s Live@edu service to some 10,000 technical colleges in the country, covering 7.5 million users."

"To give an idea of the relative size of the AICTE deal compared to others Microsoft has signed, one of its more recent deals was with the Kentucky Department of Education covering 700,000 users. In all, there are around 22 million people using Microsoft’s Live@edu service, meaning that this newest deal in India represents about one-third of all of Microsoft’s cloud/education business."

Caine's Arcade

Enjoy a bit of childhood happiness!

Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.
A 9 year old boy - who built an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad's used auto part store - is about to have the best day of his life.

Help Caine's Scholarship Fund:
http://cainesarcade.com

Caine's Arcade Online:
http://facebook.com/cainesarcade
http://twitter.com/cainesarcade

Credits:
Directed by Nirvan
http://twitter.com/nirvan

Gas Glut Rejiggers Industry - WSJ.com

A cost curve such as shown below will disrupt the energy business as the WSJ story describes. Coal is being displaced by natural gas as a primary fuel for baseload electricity generation. With so much natural gas supply coming on line, electricity costs are coming down and greenhouse gas emissions should also be coming down because natural gas burns cleaner (less CO2) than coal. The laws of economics work!

Even here in Vermont where our natural gas comes form Canada via Vermont Gas, Tom Evslin and partners have created a new company to take advantage of these low prices. NG Advantage hopes to compress the gas at a central location and truck it to large fuel users in northern NH, VT and NY not reached by pipelines at a price lower than their present fuel.