News Update: Google's Sergey Brin: Facebook and Apple a threat to Internet freedom

In an interview with the Guardian, google co-founder Sergey Brin warned that the "open" Internet is in danger from very powerful forces, including Facebook and Apple.
"I am more worried than I have been in the past ... it's scary," he said
Brin identified the significant threats to the open Internet as repressive governments trying to control access to the Internet, entertainment industry crackdowns on piracy and so-called "wall gardens" that maintain more strict control over what can be done on their technology platforms, citing Facebook and Apple.
He said that Facebook and Apple are stifling innovation and risk Balkanizing the Web, and went as far as to say that search engine would never have come into existence if Facebook were dominant.
"you must play by their rules, which are really restrictive. the kind of environment that we collected google in, the reason that we were able to build up a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules that will stifle innovation."
Of course, there is some self-interest and sour grapes in Brin's assessment. He would like to make all of the information inside Facebook and Apple apps accessible to search engine's google. A more open Web is certainly rather good for the world but it is also very good for search engine's bottom line. And, search engine's main hard work at social networking, search engine+, has a long way to travel to catch Facebook, which has more that four times the number of users and continues to gain momentum, including its recent purchase of the mobile photograph-sharing application, Instagram. In addition, Apple, which has ridden it is proprietary approach to become the most priceless company in our time, is search engine's main competitor in the smartphone and tablet arena, another area critical to search engine's business acomplishment.
Brin also complained about Facebook making it difficult for users to move their data to other services, presumably search engine+. "Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for multiple years," he said.
Brin's comments on his chief competitors may be the start of an escalating war of words and science as the giant colonizers of the Web continue their competitive quests for dominance. Keep in mind what the Web's inventor Tim Berners-Lee has said:
A related danger is that one social-networking site--or one search engine or one browser--gets so big that it becomes a monopoly, which tends to limit innovation. As has been the case since the Web began, continued grassroots innovation may be the best check and balance against any one company or government that tries to undermine universality.

XBOX 360 GAME REVIEW: The Witcher 2

The Witcher 2 is not a normal video game, and it is not a normal fantasy. It subverts the old high-fantasy stereotypes even as it employs them. The elves that you'll meet in Temeria aren't charming, ethereal forest-dwellers, they are guerrilla insurgents raining death on humans from the trees. The dwarves, typically cheerful, hard-working sorts, live in a city of worn rock that runs off the fumes of their former industriousness while its current inhabitants drink, joke and fornicate. the many different kingdoms are in the on the precipice of war, led by despotic kings who play their personal vendettas out on the battlefields at the expense of their armies' lives.

Excellent Reviews

And who are you, amongst all this? You're Geralt of Rivia, a stoic and distinctly un-heroic monster hunter with a few memory problems and a faintly inexplicable way with the ladies. Though sworn to impartiality on matters of the state, he is drawn into this advanced political maelstrom by a series of regicides that brand him a criminal and pull him back into his own, forgotten past. The Witcher 2 is a game for adults, and not just because of all the sex and violence. It expects you to be intelligent and interested, to care about the political machinations, racial tensions and complex history of its world. Plenty of games shield you from their lore, afraid that it may scare you off. The Witcher 2 drops you right in the thick of it, and expects you to deal with it.

Since its release on PC in May last year, the Witcher 2 has been drawing envious glances from console owners. The Enhanced Edition for Xbox 360 includes around four hours of new gameplay and an interface redesigned for consoles, with everything else intact. Impressively, CD Projekt RED has managed to port the whole experience over to six-year-old Xbox 360 hardware with only a minimum of technical compromises. If you've got access to a consultant quality PC, it is fairly self-evident that's the version you should plump for, but Xbox 360 owners needn't feel short-changed by this rather competent port.

Underpinning The Witcher 2's ambitious fantasy is a sword- and magic-based combat system that is one of the best around, delivering challenge and flexibility alongside the straightforwardly violent finishing moves and lethal strikes that are the backbone of all good melee combat. Dipping into stylish slow-motion to select spells, bombs and traps from a radial menu, you chip away at groups of enemies through plans and intelligent positioning rather than simply hacking through them with silver or steel. Spells ignite, confuse or trap your foes, where oils and enhancements change the properties of your blades.

Getting used to the layout of these myriad functions on the 360 pad takes a good hour. in the beginning your fingers are forced into unnatural positions when you try to bring up the radial menu and keep your targeting reticule locked onto a dangerous enemy at identical time, but soon such difficulties are behind you. The Witcher 2 has absolutely no control problems on Xbox, but it does still suffer from a lack of clarity in menu-heavy activities like crafting and alchemy. a very detailed in-game journal offers a refresher on everything you could need to know about the characters, locations and recent events, but there are some elements of the actual gameplay that could be better explained.

For one, it is useful to realize that running away is occassionally a better concept than trying to stand and fight. Combat is challenging, and reliant on good preparation; taking the extra time to craft bombs, traps and potions that will help you in specific battles often pays dividends.

The Witcher 2 is full of excellently-designed quests, from the grand machinations of its central plot to side-quests that deal in ghost stories, missing persons and humorous mysteries. Spend time in taverns and get into a fist-fights or gambling debt, and you might find Geralt led into something bigger. Investigating a single murder might uncover a long trail of cause and effect. These well-written diversions mean that Geralt never feels like an errand boy, and the choices that you make – minor and major –affect the course of the narrative in a way that feels natural and organic. You're never told to choose between good and evil, filling some invisible morality meter. Instead it feels like what you're doing in fact means something.

it is in the cities that the contrast between The Witcher 2 and other, cleaner, more aspirational and austere fantasies is most apparent. Games occassionally create places full of marble palaces and gorgeous architecture, wide streets and bustling town centres. These, meanwhile, are ramshackle, grimy places where the tension between humans and non-humans constantly threatens to bubble up into mob violence. As a witcher – a mutated human, essentially – Geralt finds himself somewhere between these two racial camps, and many of the decisions that you make over the course of the game feed into a much bigger racial conflict that goes utterly current monarchs and recent resentments and sometimes feels like it is etched into the very stone that the cities are built from. The Witcher 2's history and lore is built into its world and geography as effectively as it is written into characters' dialogue.

Next to the PC version, one of the most technically accomplished games around, this Xbox version can't aid but look a little compromised, even if it is amongst the best-looking games on the console. The lighting and colours aren't as dynamic, and fog usually encroaches on your view of the brilliant outdoors. there's also occasional stuttering, frame-rate drops and texture pop-in, all of which are greatly improved by installing the game to the Xbox's hard drive. These things don't undermine The Witcher 2, but they do serve as a reminder that PC players are playing a slightly better version of this great game.

CLOSING COMMENTS
In every compelling way, The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360 is identical subversive and note worthy fantasy that it was on the PC. There are some minor technical and graphical blemishes, but they don’t detract from what is one of the best RPGs of recent years, and the extra content adds value. This is an ambitious and absorbing game that’s not just superficially “adult”, but genuinely mature.

News Update: Steve Jobs movie starring Kutcher to focus on CEO's early years

The planned biopic starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs will cover the Apple co-founder's early years, the film's producer said in an interview.
The independent movie, which has been given the unfortunate working title of "Jobs: Get Inspired," will focus on Jobs' life from 1971 to 2000, Mark Hulme told Neowin glossy publication. The rookie producer said work on the movie's wording note, which is based on widely available information very than a book, began when Jobs announced his retirement last August.
Kutcher was chosen for the role based on this physical resemblance to the late Apple executive during his younger years, Hulme said.
"When Ashton read the script he was immediately attracted to the project," Hulme said. "He is a Steve Jobs and Apple fan, and is technologically experience, as well, so he recognized the historical importance of Steve Jobs and the possibilities of the project."
in addition to Kutcher, the film's producers are trying to cast "some exciting actors" to portray key figures in Jobs' early years (Steve Wozniak, John Scully, Mike Markkula, and Daniel Kottke), although Hulme declined to identify who they might be.
The movie, which was announced on April 1, is scheduled to get going filming in May in Los Angeles, with theatrical release expected in the fourth quarter this year.

News Update: Best Buy releases list of stores to close this year

Best Buy has released a billing of the stores it will close in the U.S. this year.
The big-box retailer is closing 50 stores and compensating employees based on business partner service after its fiscal fourth-quarter sales fell short of expectations. Like other brick-and-mortar businesses, Best Buy has been feeling the heat from web presence marketing juggernaut Amazon.
Here's Best Buy's statement, followed by the tally of stores:


RICHFIELD, Minn. - April 14, 2012 - Best Buy announced plans March 29, 2012 to close 50 U.S. stores as part of a number of key initiatives for this year. To date, we have closed two stores this year (one in Kansas City, Mo., and one in Scottsdale, Ariz.), plus have notified five Twin Cities stores and one San Antonio store that they will close later this year. 


This morning, we have confirmed the remaining 42 store locations that will close. A complete listing of store locations can be found at the end of this statement. Employees of these 42 stores have been notified this morning. 


This was not an easy decision to make. We chose these stores carefully, and are working to ensure the impact to our employees will be as minimal as possible, while serving all customers in a convenient and satisfying way. But we also recognize the impact this news has on the people who deserve respect for the contributions they have made to our business. 


We will be working to help these employees find other positions inside Best Buy. If they don't find new positions, or if they choose not to work at a alternative location, a transition including severance packages will be available. 


Three of these 42 locations remain open today, Saturday; the rest of the affected stores are closed today, and will reopen Sunday, April 15. clients currently doing business with these stores are being contacted today. 


We expect most of these stores will permanently close by May 12. Three additional locations are expected to permanently close later this summer. 2 


Best Buy continues to have additional retail store locations - big boxes and standalone Best Buy mobile stores - for clients to choose from in these affected locations. 


More broadly, our previously announced retail store actions are intended to increase points of presence, while decreasing overall square footage, for increased flexibility - including key store remodels with a new Connected Store format, while continuing to build out the acomplished Best Buy mobile tiny format stores throughout the U.S. We will continue to share details of such actions as the year progresses. We are committed to making it easier for business colleagues to shop with us, whenever and wherever they want.

News Update: The new TV show from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to air April 17

The new TV show from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to air April 17 on the RT network and be released online identical day, according to WikiLeaks.

"The World tomorrow"  will feature Assange interviewing "an eclectic range of guests, who are stamping their mark on the future: politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists, and visionaries," the document-dump site said in an online announcement at worldtomorrow.wikileaks.org. WikiLeaks said a dozen 26-minute episodes of the program have been completed.

The organization said the programs and transcripts will be made available online and that "arrangements are currently being made with other licensees to publish longer edits of the series." It said "other networks" would eventually offer the show.

RT, formerly Russia Today, is a global multilingual TV news network based in the Russian Federation and funded by the state. The Moscow Times has said of it: "For some, Russia Today is a mouthpiece that spreads Kremlin propaganda around the world. For others, the state-bankrolled channel is a vital voice that offers alternative political viewpoints in an ocean of media monotony." And Slate has called it "Russia's answer to Fox News and MSNBC."

WikiLeaks said RT is the show's first licensee and had nothing to do with its production. The show, it said, is being produced by Assange-founded Quick Roll Productions in partnership with Dartmouth Films, a U.K.-based producer of independent films. it's being distributed by Journeyman pictures.

WikiLeaks incurred the wrath of the U.S. government by posting a vast respository of classified and sensitive documents from military and diplomatic sources. A U.S. soldier, Bradley Manning, has been charged with supplying a large portion of that haul to Assange and WikiLeaks.
Separately, Assange, who has been living in the U.K. under bail, is awaiting extradition to Sweden on charges that he sexually assaulted two women in 2010, charges that he has vehemently denied.

In November, Assange lost an initial appeal to avoid extradition but is now waiting for his case to be heard by the ultimate Court.

News Update: Apple's iconic earbuds may be in line for a unibody tweak

Apple dislikes seams in things. This obsession led it to the point where it spent an estimated $6.6 million on a remodel of its Fifth Avenue store in New York to cut the number of glass layers it was using in its exterior cubic entrance from 90 down to 15.

Now another iconic Apple-made item could be in line for a seamless makeover: the company's earbuds.
In a patent app published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and picked up by Apple Insider, Apple has laid out a plan for ultrasonically welded, unibody headphones.
Before jumping to the conclusion that Apple is ditching its iconic white for aluminum, the design involves joining together several pieces of plastic. That's accomplished with ultrasonic welding, a technique that melts together just the contact points to make a firm bond. This is as opposed to using a liquid, or structural adhesive. By comparison, Apple implies that the ultrasonic method would lead to a more "aesthetically pleasing" and "seamless" device.

This is not the first such mention of ultrasonic as a means of bonding materials in a patent application from Apple. One published last month by the USPTO involved bonding plastic to metal, a process that is more advanced than doing plastic to plastic given the difference in melting points between the two materials. Apple's solution in that case was to add texture to the metal, allowing for the plastic to melt in, and bond with the natural grooves.

Since 2008 Apple has made efforts to make its computers and mobile devices using so-called "unibody" construction techniques, a form of manufacturing that takes a single material and cuts away room for circuitry, batteries, and other components. The end result is a structure that can be thinner, lighter, and stronger than some traditional, multi-piece designs. Earlier this week, the company was rumored to be using that technique in the production of its next iPhone, which is expected in the fall.

News Update: Stock split keeps Google's destiny in hands of co-founders

Since google went public in 2004, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have been wedded to the idea that management ought to be able to decide what's right for the company without needing to sacrifice future opportunities to satisfy near-term demands from Wall Street.
That philosophy was on display as search engine disclosed strategy for a 2 for 1 split, which would still preserve their control over the company with the issuance of a new class of non-voting capital stock.
In a note published along with the company's Q2 earnings,Page and Brin returned to that theme, cautioning that were they to fail their voting power, it would undercut their long-term aspirations for search engine.

"We have put our hearts into google and hope to do so for many more years to come," they wrote. "So we need to ensure that our corporate structure can sustain these efforts and our desire to improve the world."

Pointing to projects like Chrome and YouTube, which necessary time and investment to reach fruition, the co-founders said they were able to protect against unnamed "outside pressures," which presumably might have intruded to short-circuit google's longer-range development planning.
google will issue a new class of stock that won't include voting power. Current search engine stockholders will receive one share of new Class C stock for each company share that they already own. But future stock grants to employees will be of the non-voting variety. Ditto for employees of enteprise outfits that google might buy in the future. The net effect will be to ensure that google's existing shareholders -- particularly its founders -- retain their current voting power.

Related Story:

search engine earnings strong for 1st quarter
Larry Page: google+ is the 'social spine'
search engine had 252.7 million shares of Class A stock and 69.5 million shares of Class B stock outstanding as of its March 31, 2011, filing with the Securities and Exchange. Class B shares translate into 10 votes apiece. That's a big benefit for Brin and Page who owned approximately 27 million Class B shares, or about 29 percent of the total voting power at search engine, as of the end of March. Another 9 million Class B shares were held by executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who has about 10 percent of the total voting power.
Will it be enough to entice future investors? Too early to say, but multiple of the initial reviews pointed out the obvious flaw in the argument. Matthew Ingram described the several-voting share structure as "an insult to public investors and the market." Chris Ziegler offered that the "maneuver seeks to grip on search engine's destiny by putting shares without any voting power into the public domain."
The stock split announcement was made in conjunction with the company's first-quarter earnings of $2.89 billion, or $8.75 a share, on revenue of $8.14 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs. Including traffic acquisition costs search engine revenue for the quarter was $10.65 billion. Non-GAAP earnings came in at $10.08 a share. Wall Street expected search engine to report first-quarter earnings of $9.65 a share on revenue of $8.15 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs.

NEWS UPDATE: DOJ Most Likely To Lose Suit Against Apple

The U.S. Justice Department's legal pursuit of Apple for alleged e-book price fixing stretches the boundaries of antitrust law and is promised to end in defeat.
That's what happened in 1982, when an embarrassed Justice Department admitted its antitrust lawsuit against IBM was "without merit" and abandoned the case. And in 2001, a federal appeals court nixed the Justice Department's ambitious attempt to rewrite antitrust law by carving Microsoft into two separate companies.
"it's a harder case against Apple than the publishers," says Geoffrey Manne, who teaches antitrust law at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon and runs the International Center for Law and Economics. (See CNET's list of related articles and an explanation of e-book economics.)
One reason lies in the Justice Department's 36-page complaint, which recounts how publishers met over breakfast in a London hotel and dinners at Manhattan's posh Picholine restaurant, which boasts a "Best of Award of excellence" from Wine Spectator glossy publication. The key point is that Apple wasn't present.
The Department of Justice "has a far better case against the publishers than Apple," says Dominick Armentano, professor emeritus of economics at the college of Hartford and author of Antitrust and Monopoly who's now affiliated with the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. "If the CEOs of the many different publishers got together in hotel rooms to discuss prices, they are sunk" and might as well settle, he says.
Richard Epstein, the prolific legal student and professor of law at New York college, goes further. Epstein argues in an essay published yesterday that there are "difficulties" with the Justice Department's case against publishers as well: "It will take some time to hear the whole story, but the betting here is that this lawsuit is a mistake."
During a press conference yesterday in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Eric Holder accused the associations named as defendants of concocting a "conspiracy."
But even Holder's version of events didn't accuse the publishers of agreeing on specific prices. If they agreed on anything, it was on a business model -- namely, that the so-called "agency model" that Apple's iBookstore offered was better than Amazon.com's wholesale model.
Both Apple and the publishers benefit from a series of U.S. superb Court precedents since the 1970s, which the Justice Department would probably like to undo. In the 1979 BMI vs. CBS case, the court ruled that "not all arrangements among actual or possibilities competitors that have an impact on price are per se violations." And in a 2007 case, the court said that manufacturers can enforce minimum retail prices, which is one aspect of what publishers are accused of doing with e-books.
News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS, which publishes CNET) have agreed to settle the lawsuit. Apple has chosen to litigate, along with Pearson's Penguin Group and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck's Macmillan Publishers.
DOJ sides with the 'monopoly' e-bookseller
Making the government's pursuit of Apple unusual is that the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker doesn't even enjoy a commanding market share in e-books. Amazon.com does.
Amazon remains the world's largest e-book retailer, boasting a market share of as much as 90 percent as of 2010. That market power is what alarmed book publishers, who inked a deal with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to sell their e-books on the new iPad just days before he announced it that January.
"Strengthening a new competitor against an incumbent hardly sounds like a terrible outcome for consumers," says Manne, the antitrust lecturer. The Consumer Electronics Association added in a statement sent to reporters over the last 24 hours: "Our ambiguous antitrust laws are now being used to take on a new market entrant of just over 2 years as if they have the market power to set prices."
Macmillan Chief Executive John Sargent, who did not settle and denies any wrongdoing, said in a letter in the last day or two that he couldn't accept the Justice Department's proposal because it would hand Amazon too much power: "After careful consideration, we came to the conclusion that the terms could have allowed Amazon to recover the monopoly position it had been building before our switch to the agency model."
Scott Turow, president of the Authors Guild, was more critical. He argued in an open letter last month that Amazon's pricing was designed to put traditional bookstores out of business, and said the agency model is helping to reduce Amazon's chokehold on e-books by fostering competition. He wrote:
 Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open... 2 years after the agency model came to bookselling, Amazon is losing its chokehold on the e-book market: its share has fallen from about 90% to roughly 60%... Brick-and-mortar bookstores are commencing to compete through their partnership with google, so loyal business friends can buy e-books from them at the same price as they would from Amazon. Direct-selling authors have also benefited, as Amazon more than doubled its royalty rates in the face of competition... The irony bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition to be sure to save the appearance of competition.
An Amazon spokesman told CNET yesterday: "This is a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books."
There might, of course, be an e-mail equivalent of a smoking gun that eventually surfaces, quite like those quips from Microsoft executives in the 1990s that indelicately referred to cutting off Netscape's "air supply" and were introduced as evidence in the Justice Department's antitrust case.
But that hasn't happened yet. "I'm not saying that Apple can smile and walk away from this," says Joseph Bauer, a professor of law at the university of Notre Dame. "it's just that the government will have to show that Apple had some kind of involvement in the original arrangement."

Written By: Shannon Martin, founder ThisTrailerSucks.Com

News Update: Sony SmartWatch will put Android Power on YOUR Wrist!

Have you ever wanted a watch that can communicate with your Android phone? Sony sure hopes so.

Sony today launched its SmartWatch, a timepiece for the wrist that allows owners to read text messages, social updates and e-mail, manage calls, and control music. The SmartWatch connects to an Android phone via Bluetooth to be sure to deliver its functionality and capture what Sony calls "Android power."
The SmartWatch might be useful for those who don't want to continuously pull their smartphone out of their pocket, but it certainly won't win a fashion contest. The device's strap is rubber and comes in several hues, including white, pink, mint, and blue. However, the black strap comes standard, while the additional colors must be purchased separately. Sitting atop the strap is the watch's touchscreen OLED display measuring 1.3-inches. To alert users to an event or an inbound call, the timepiece vibrates.

Sony announced the SmartWatch at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The company said at the time that the watch would work with Android phones from Sony, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and others. Sony says the handset can run four days on a single charge and is both dust and splash proof.
This isn't Sony's first foray into the watch business. Back in 2010, the company launched LiveView, another watch that interacted with Android phones. Although it floundered after launch, the device is still for sale on Amazon for $54.99.

Sony's SmartWatch is available now for $149.99 on the company's internet market and in its stores. Sony says that it will "soon" announce availability at other retailers

Written By: Shannon Martin, founder of ThisTrailerSucks.Com

NEWS UPDATE: FACE-BOOKS UPCOMING IPO

It is not supposed to play out this way -- particularly for a company on the verge of one of the biggest IPOs in history.

Yet Mark Zuckerberg, 27, and standing atop the Internet world, has been quietly thumbing his multibillion dollar nose at the Wall Street process every step of the way -- and there is not a thing America's outlay titans can do about it.

First there was the meeting last month for financial analysts in which Zuckerberg was a surprising no show. Instead, he let his top people -- including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman -- play host to the suits from New York. Zuckerberg wasn't even asked to fly to NYC on his private jet. The three-hour meeting was held at Facebook's sprawling headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. He apparently had more important things to do.
Good to be the king. Even better to be emperor.

Next came reports that Zuckderberg up and coming to skip the IPO roadshow entirely. That's the one where the CEO suits up and travels around to big institutional investors to boast about the company. It was bad enough for the bankers that Facebook negotiated a bargain rate -- paying the underwriters 1.1% versus the typical 3% to 7 percent to arrange the IPO -- but now the CEO won't even come along for the ride.

Now we learn that Facebook's $1 billion purchase of the photo-sharing app Instagram came as a "surprise" to its bankers, including the lead advisers at Morgan Stanley. Skipping a boring meeting is perhaps understandable, but you'd think Zuckerberg would want go on the roadshow and give the guys charged with drumming up interest in the stock a heads-up that a $1 billion acquisition is in the works, especially since the stock is expected to initialize trading later this month or in May.
As one longtime Silicon Valley VC remarked to me about Zuckerberg's behavior: "Not if you are emperor."

And as resident emperor (at least in the social network world), Zuckerberg is doing things his way because he can. And why not since no one is suggesting that his attitude will dampen interest in Facebook's offering. Which is obviously why the brass on Wall Street are putting up with it. The deal itself, which still needs clearance from the SEC, is expected to raise as much as $10 billion for Facebook and value the company at around $100 billion.

There has long been a divide between Silicon Valley titans and Wall Street. Steve Jobs grudgingly dealt with Wall Street, although the kingdom he created is now the envy of every public company on the planet. google CEO Larry Page gave investors just a few minutes on his first call when he took over as CEO last year, replacing Eric Schmidt.

In some ways, Zuckerberg is following in that tradition; it's not like he rushed to go public. in fact, Zuckerberg fought it. The move eventually came because Facebook over and over bumped up against an SEC rule -- now rewritten as part of the JOBS Act -- that said any private company with more than five hundred "shareholders of record" must adhere to the same financial discloser requirements as public companies.

Peter Thiel, who was Facebook's first outside investor and currently sits on the board, could even be encouraging Zuckerberg to snub the Street's formalities. Thiel, after all, has derided Wall Street for its inability to comprehend Silicon Valley. "There continues to be a certain antipathy by Wall Street banks toward Silicon Valley businesses where they don't quite believe it's real," he told the Financial Times after LinkedIn's stock doubled on its first day, indicating that the banks did a bad job pricing the deal.
While that perceived disconnect might encourage some tech CEOs to work harder to make sure his bankers comprehend the value of the company, Zuckerberg apparently doesn't have those concerns. Or, more likely, he's comfortable leaving that job up to Sandberg and Ebersman and honestly feels his time is better spent worrying about the product and strategy.

"This is why he hired a COO," said another capitalist venturer. "The problem is the rest of the world expects a CEO to deal with these kinds of issues."

The sheer hype of this deal will likely mean that, barring something exceptionally bizarre, big investors will clamor to get a piece of it. it is hard to imagine many potential investors saying no because they want to talk to Zuckerberg.

Eventually, though, the pressure is on Facebook to perform financially, and that might require some face time with Wall Street. The company is set up in such as way that Zuckerberg retains an strange amount of control. He owns about 28 percent of the stock and 57% of its class B shares, giving him outsized voting power. That also gives him outsized responsibility. Will it also lead to a backlash with pubic investors if and when Facebook stumbles?

We'll learn the answer the first time Facebook has a lousy quarter.

Written By: Shannon Martin, founder ThisTailerSucks.Com

Cell Phone Review: Motorola Droid Razr Maxx (Verizon)

The Great: Regardless of any beefed-up battery pack, the actual Motorolla Droid Razr Maxx has a slim, attractive, and durable layout with the same stunning display, 1.2GHz dual-core model, and fast Verizon 4G/LTE info rates as its precursor. That keeps effective multimedia system grinds and tight security measures. 

The Not So Great: For such an superior smart phone, the hazy commitment of a future Google android os 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is discouraging. Furthermore,although any stronger battery is great, it will still not be user-removable. Individuals with small fingers will find it difficult to take apart this particular phone's extensive frame, and the 8-megapixel digital digicam is actually pretty unimpressive . 

The bottom line: This phone demonstrates that affective Google android os superphone can continue to be thin and have a  marathon-worthy battery. If you can stay without having an Ice Cream Sandwich and have big hands, the Maxx is extremely attractive.


Written By: Shannon Martin, ThisTrailerSucks.Com