<p>That’s pretty much it. Then again, that’s a lot of what Apple’s laptops did a while back and people ate it up.</p>
<p>I haven’t tried any of the subway picture dealies. Still haven’t made the plunge into getting a smartphone. I remember also seeing a “digital library” that worked on the same idea. QR codes were printed on the spine of the books.</p>
<p>There’s also looking to be a new set of competition among companies for who can process monetary transactions. I know PayPal, American Express, Google, and Apple are at least a few of the players in the game for an alternative to using debit/credit cards at the store. To me the convenience is like that Tap & Go feature they added to cards. Generally it took me longer to notice & remember than to just swipe my card like normal.</p>
<p>RacinReaver, I gambled, I mean invested in two companies that I thought were going to do well as we moved toward a different way to process monetary transactions. They have been horrible investments. I guess I bet on the wrong horses. </p>
<p>I have not done tap and go. I guess I am not an early adapter. :)</p>
<p>I don’t buy that much stuff anymore, but I do eat, and eat in restaurants. </p>
<p>I talked to somebody who works in a grocery store and I asked him if the self checkout stands have caused layoffs. He said, “No”.</p>
<p>I hope that the new techologies, which look great, aren’t going to eliminate too many jobs.</p>
<p>I have a feeling you are going to get a smartphone before me. :)</p>
<p>The second-generation Ultrabooks which go on sale October 26 with Windows 8 are either flippable (you can wrap the screen to the other side to make a tablet) or you can take the screen part off the keyboard/trackpad and have a tablet to go. The downside is that they will still weight a pound or more above current tablets, cost more, and be thicker.</p>
<p>Haswell is Intel’s chip coming out in 2013. It will greatly improve on the amount of power that it uses.</p>
<p>I don’t think any of them are really good bets at the moment. One of my favorite features of recent times is the ability for vending machines to take credit cards. So much easier to impulse buy a soda when I don’t have to carry change around for the rest of the day afterwards. I also remember vending machines in undergrad that worked by calling a cell phone #. That seems like a technology that would have really caught on if not for smart phones taking off shortly afterwards.</p>
<p>I’m getting a PhD in Materials Science. My lab invented a material and series of processes (a few of whose patents I’m on!) that may or may not have been licensed by a large fruit company. ;)</p>
<p>RacinReaver, now you tell me these stocks are not good bets. Where were you 18 months ago?</p>
<p>Somebody on Fast Money recommended the stocks I bought weeks after I bought them. It’s always nice for somebody on tv to agree with your investment ideas. Not profitable. Just nice.</p>
<p>" My lab invented a material and series of processes (a few of whose patents I’m on!) that may or may not have been licensed by a large fruit company. </p>
<p>That is very cool.</p>
<p>Doct, You know I agree with you. I still remember Jack bragging about one of his companies being able to operate, with the same revenues, with one third fewer employees. And then minutes later, complaining that not enough jobs are being created. What is the clinical term for that kind of thinking? I like d…kh…d. :)</p>
<p>I just can’t listen to Welch and cannot for the life of me figure out how he ever got where he did. His voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Still, I don’t trust any of them, including the BLS, the Fed, anyone in congress or residing on in the 1600th block of Pennsylvania Ave. Or, for that matter, anyone in too big to fail institutions, or anyone who “bundles” whatever funds for whichever group. I don’t. but, I’m not partisan. I just don’t trust any of them and neither should you.</p>
<p>I only came on here,though, to post that the workers in China are striking on Apple, and I really hope, soon, this means that the manufacturing renaissance will begin in the US. for our kid’s generation.</p>
<p>Jack Welch lost my ear when he was caught cheating on his wife with that reporter from PBS.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there’s a conspiracy theory in the employment report - if you dig into the details, you’ll see what happened.</p>
<p>As I mentioned yesterday, 600K of the new jobs were part-time jobs. We have a thread in this forum on a person working three part-time jobs and asking about how to save for retirement. One of the excellent suggestions was to trade two part-time jobs for a full-time job with benefits. Those are harder to come by in many areas because employers know that there are a lot of people willing to take anything including stringing multiple part-time jobs together without benefits or be on-call so that it is very hard to take a part-time job as you have to be ready to come in after a phone call.</p>
<p>As has been reported, the problem with the recovery is the quality of jobs. Middle-wage jobs have been lost being replaced by low-wage jobs.</p>
<p>I think that I mentioned that I closed out my AAPL position yesterday. I am thinking of closing all of my tech positions next week (Tuesday, because Monday is a religious holiday).</p>
<p>On Apple, I believe that Taiwan Semi is going to be building a fab for Apple so that Apple can dump Samsung as a CPU supplier. Samsung’s Apple plant is in Austin, TX. It would be really nice if Taiwan Semi could build the new fab in the US. Having a competitor as your supplier allows them to see technically what you are doing. I think that Apple having their suppliers in China has allowed a lot of technology transfer which has greatly benefitted China.</p>
<p>There are articles around indicating that Foxconn may invest heavily into automation so that they need far fewer workers to build smartphones. The R&D work will take at least a year on that but it might be possible to do this in the US. That’s why there’s still a fair amount of manufacturing in the US. High-tech manufacturing requiring operators that are computer literate, that can do some design work, and know how to operate high-tech machinary keep labor costs low, and quality high.</p>
<p>In a reuter’s report, foxconn is denying that there is a strike. Its hard for me to believe that China would let a strike continue for any length of time.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, it is hard to trust anyone, but not all policies are created equal. Some policies help or cause more harm than others. That is how I look at it.</p>
<p>Also, some people are more dishonest than others.</p>
<p>Wall Streeters are a pretty dishonest bunch.</p>
<p>Did you see the clip on dishonesty? I think xiggi posted the link.</p>
<p>^^True. It is also depressing to think that it takes a foreign strike to bring back jobs to the US. I am assuming they are striking to protest working conditions and poor wage. Labor force in the US has to be so desperate to work in those conditions.</p>
<p>I’ve read that Foxconn employs a very large security force and that they deal with problems with employees and that they can be brutal. So doing a strike could be difficult.</p>
<p>Intel has 0.2% of the smartphone CPU market by units sold. That’s definitely on the disappointing side given the amount of resources that they have put into it. 2013 had better be a lot better.</p>
<p>I know some people prefer to get their information from writers, rather than traders. :)</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>"After all, high-frequency trading has been genuinely wonderful for small investors like you and me. We might not be particularly clever, but when we put in an order to buy this or sell that, the order gets filled immediately. We pay almost nothing in trading costs — just a few pounds, normally. And we get the very best price in the market:
something called NBBO, for “national best bid/offer”. If you look at all the prices being quoted on all of the stock exchanges in the country, we get the lowest price of all if we’re buying, and the highest price of all if we’re selling.</p>
<p>That wasn’t true ten years ago. …"</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind getting rid of hft. What are we going to replace it with?</p>
<p>Somebody mentioned this technology earlier.</p>
<p>If this comes to fruition, it is going to change society. Scarcity issues. Patent laws. Employmemt. Who profits? Many changes. An economy that is no longer based on material value. </p>
<p>“Would you be willing to give up Tyranny? How about Human Suffering? I’m willing to bet you’d think Death would be something you’re willing to do without, no? Disease, physical handicaps, starvation, poverty… those would likely be things you’d want to give up too, right?”</p>
I still remember Jack bragging about one of his companies being able to operate, with the same revenues, with one third fewer employees. And then minutes later, complaining that not enough jobs are being created. What is the clinical term for that kind of thinking?