ImaginativePRO Blog

iLAB, JAPANESE iPHONE REPAIR WEBSITE, REVEALS LEAKED PHOTOS AND VIDEO OF NEW APPLE IPHONE 5 TO BE RELEASED SEPT 2012

Photos released July 29, 2012 by a Japanese iPhone repair website called iLab show a very plausible view of the next iPhone, now rumored to be unveiled and released on September 12 and September 21 respectively.  What gives these pictures a higher likelihood of authenticity than previous leaks and mockups is that, as a repair service provider, iLab has the connections to the full range of parts manufactures in the supply chain, and the motivation to be prepared for dealing with the inner working of the next model.

Assuming these photos show a unit assembled, as described, from leaked actual parts, it’s a bit of a let down. I realize that it’s hard to compete with the flights of imaginative fancy that Apple evangelists have been spinning, but the design of this model is conservative to a fault.  It seems to be an improvement from the iPhone 4S, and to feature a taller screen as has been predicted, but where is the “wow” factor?

These images surface just as Apple is going to court to try to take down Samsung on patent infringement charges.  I don’t think, however, that Samsung has achieved the position as the dominant smartphone manufacturer by being a copycat.  I think they are beating Apple through design innovation.

So even though Apple is in a secure position at the moment, knowing that there is pent up demand for the next iPhone, playing it safe may be missing an opportunity to take the design mojo back from Samsung, Google and even Microsoft.  This design won’t do that.

My concern is that this vision of the iPhone 5 will be attractive to business people and more conservative types—it will be the next Blackberry (and not the European street youth version). That’s fine, but I predict that the young and the trend-setting will go for the snappier-looking Android phones and some will find the Windows Phone attractive, as well.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, older folks will find the larger, brighter AMOLED screens of Samsung’s phones preferable as well, so Apple may get squeezed there also.

From a larger perspective, this is great for the industry and for consumers. More options means more spreading of smartphones to more kinds of people. Network effects will create the opportunity for new and improved services as smartphones approach ubiquity.

But for Apple, this is not good. It puts them at the flattening place in their power law curve of growth. And if their patents get curbed or struck down in the Samsung ruling (a coin toss at this point) they will not be able to tithe the other manufacturers into submission.

I realize that I am leaping to a lot of conclusions here. We don’t know if this is the actual design yet or, really, when it will be released. But all of the intelligence points to the details that these images support so we are at least in the ballpark. A home run, unfortunately, it is not.

Click Image To Enlarge

COMMENTARY:    If the above photos of the leaked parts of the new iPhone 5 are true, then the new iPhone 5 will be slightly slimmer than the current 4S, and has a bi-material back face that seems to be part metal part plastic--probably more resilient to drops and impacts than the 4S is with its prominent glass front and back pieces.  It looks like it has a bigger 4-inch screen, and the video shows why this is a great size:  It's just about possible to touch most of the screen with a single hand grip on the phone (try doing that on a 5-inch screen, and it'll be tricky). The base has room for the new-style small dock connector, but other than this it's familiar.

While these details are interesting, the design itself tells us something about Apple:  It's very much a design evolution, carefully thought out and seemingly incorporating lessons learned from earlier versions and the milled-metal chassis techniques Apple's been using on its iPads and Macs. It's also new and unusual looking, while being instantly recognizable as an iPhone--you're not going to mistake it for a rival's device. Court filings from the protracted Samsung case suggest this is a design whose origins are a concept device codenamed Purple that dates from 2005. Basically this is a classic Apple tactic, one that it's used on its other devices with great success--design, refine, then completely redesign...and repeat.

This phone is also going to shape the smartphone market the world over for the next year or two. Like it or not, because it was first the iPhone really is the gold standard in the new smartphone world...and more and more of us are ditching our dumbphones and adopting smartphones the world over. Think of the iPhone for 2012 as the phone equivalent of the MacBook Air--a super-slim mix of plastic and metal that represents the peak of slowly evolving laptop design, and one that's prompted a whole new class of portable computers that are designed to be curiously similar to it.

Having said this, the next evolution of the iPhone, in a year or so's time, may be radically different.  It just has to be--there are few new directions Apple can evolve the phone in that marry to its clean design philosophy of thinner, simpler, smarter.  So 2012's iPhone may be the peak of the device that debuted in 2007 and changed how we access the mobile Net and think about touchscreens, photography and casual gaming. It may even be the end of the iPhone's beginning.

Stock analysts expected Apple to sell more iPhones than the 26 million it did during its fiscal Q3 2012 (June 30, 2012), and punished the company's stock price as a result.  Apple explained that poor sales in financially damaged Europe and a slow down in sales ahead of the next iPhone were probably to blame.

That's a perfectly plausible explanation for not selling more iPhones, but Apple's failure to sell more phones is due to something else:   The average phone-buying citizen is now aware of Apple's yearly update cycle and is excited enough about the prospect of a new phone that they're holding off buying the current, very capable, highly applauded device for a period of up to five months. More and more, the iPhone is becoming a signature device for Apple that can influence millions of people's buying decisions.

As such, it's vital that they get the iPhone for 2012 absolutely right. It has to technically amaze, and sell like the blazes.  

The selling part is even more important than you might think, because recent statistics show that Apple makes around twice as much profit selling a single iPhone as it does from selling an iPad unit, and it sells many more iPhones than iPads (at least until the rumored iPad mini goes on sale at a lower price point). Part of this profitability comes from design efficiencies in Apple's production line process, part of it comes from carrier subsidies. The production efficiencies are important because they let Apple make twice as much money from a similar device than Nokia does from its flagship Lumia 900 device. The subsidies are important because carriers are desperate to sell the iPhone to their clients, tying them into long-term contracts where they can earn revenues from the high data consumption the iPhone promotes. Carrier subsidies may be slipping as this business model begins to get old, although Tim Cook made a point of arguing the opposite during Apple's earnings call.

It's being guessed that the iPhone for 2012 (iPhone 5? iPhone 6?) will sell so many units globally that it'll achieve 170 million units sold for fiscal year 2013--roughly one new iPhone sold for every two U.S. citizens. The iPhone drives over 50% of Apple's profits. The latest rumors say it'll be revealed September 12, so we don't have long to wait, at least. 

What will all that money let Apple do? It might let it launch a radically new device (like the long-fabled HDTV) or, more importantly, it could let Apple take a big risk, and launch a wearable computer that competes with Google's Project Glass, but bringing Apple's design cool and the iPhone halo effect with it. 

Courtesy of an article dated July 30, 2012 appearing in Forbes 

GOOD GRADES AT ANY COST: THE USE OF "GOOD GRADE PILLS" AMONG HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS REACHES EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS

He steered into the high school parking lot, clicked off the ignition and scanned the scraps of his recent weeks. Crinkled chip bags on the dashboard. Soda cups at his feet. And on the passenger seat, a rumpled SAT practice book whose owner had been told since fourth grade he was headed to the Ivy League. Pencils up in 20 minutes.

The boy exhaled. Before opening the car door, he recalled recently, he twisted open a capsule of orange powder and arranged it in a neat line on the armrest. He leaned over, closed one nostril and snorted it.

Throughout the parking lot, he said, eight of his friends did the same thing.

The drug was not cocaine or heroin, but Adderall, an amphetamine prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that the boy said he and his friends routinely shared to study late into the night, focus during tests and ultimately get the grades worthy of their prestigious high school in an affluent suburb of New York City. The drug did more than just jolt them awake for the 8 a.m. SAT; it gave them a tunnel focus tailor-made for the marathon of tests long known to make or break college applications.

The boy said.  

“Everyone in school either has a prescription or has a friend who does.”

At high schools across the United States, pressure over grades and competition for college admissions are encouraging students to abuse prescription stimulants, according to interviews with students, parents and doctors. Pills that have been a staple in some college and graduate school circles are going from rare to routine in many academically competitive high schools, where teenagers say they get them from friends, buy them from student dealers or fake symptoms to their parents and doctors to get prescriptions.

The use of these so-called "Good Grade Pills" that high school and college students are taking to improve their grades are fully analyzed in the following infographic; 

OnlineDegrees.org (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE) 

Of the more than 200 students, school officials, parents and others contacted for this article, about 40 agreed to share their experiences. Most students spoke on the condition that they be identified by only a first or middle name, or not at all, out of concern for their college prospects or their school systems’ reputations — and their own.

DeAnsin Parker, a New York psychologist who treats many adolescents from the affluent neighborhoods like the Upper East Side said.  

“It’s throughout all the private schools here.  It’s not as if there is one school where this is the culture. This is the culture.”

Observed Gary Boggs, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration,

“We’re seeing it all across the United States.”

The D.E.A. lists prescription stimulants like Adderall and Vyvanse (amphetamines) and Ritalin and Focalin (methylphenidates) as Class 2 controlled substances — the same as cocaine and morphine — because they rank among the most addictive substances that have a medical use. (By comparison, the long-abused anti-anxiety drug Valium is in the lower Class 4.) So they carry high legal risks, too, as few teenagers appreciate that merely giving a friend an Adderall or Vyvanse pill is the same as selling it and can be prosecuted as a felony.

While these medicines tend to calm people with A.D.H.D., those without the disorder find that just one pill can jolt them with the energy and focus to push through all-night homework binges and stay awake during exams afterward.  

William, a recent graduate of the Birch Wathen Lenox School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan said.

“It’s like it does your work for you.” 

[CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE] 

COMMENTARY:  This is the first time I had heard about these attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medications, or "good grade pills."   I can't believe that so many students, from affluent families are taking these dangerous pills just to ace their mid-term exam or write an A paper.  I thought that alcohol and illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine and meth were the drug of choice for affluent kids, but if you start combining the hard drugs with these "good grade pills," you have the ingredients for disaster.   

Courtesy of an infographic titled "The Good Grade Pill" by OnlineDegrees.org and an article dated June 9, 2012 appearing in The New York Times

SOCIAL MEDIA STOCKS GET HAMMERED, FACEBOOK, GROUPON AND ZYNGA COMBINED HAVE LOST $77 BILLION IN VALUE SINCE THEIR IPO'S

With the notable exception of LinkedIn, the first social media companies to go public have suffered a fairly disastrous debut, with investors apparently souring on Groupon, Zynga, and Facebook. The falling fortunes of all three social media stocks reflect widening skepticism about the viability of their business models -- extending, in at least some cases, to the efficacy of social media advertising.

Today’s big loser was Groupon, whose earnings results revealed disappointing sequential revenue growth in the second quarter -- up just 2% from the first quarter. At the time of writing, Groupon was trading at $5.53, down 27% from $7.56 when the market opened, and a whopping 72% from its IPO price of $20 back in November.

Although Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason pointed to economic woes in Europe as a contributing factor for slowing revenue growth, investors were probably more troubled by the 5% decline in billings across the board, suggesting that consumers or vendors (or both) may be experiencing “deal fatigue.” That wouldn’t be surprising, when you consider growing criticism of Groupon’s revenue-sharing structure by vendors, who may feel the paltry returns just aren’t worth it. By the same token, barriers to entry by other group-discount players remain low, meaning Groupon remains under constant threat.

Then there’s casual gaming giant Zynga, which was trading at $2.99 at the time of writing. That’s up 2% from $2.93 when the market opened -- but down 70% from its IPO price of $10. Much of the decline came following Zynga’s disappointing second-quarter earnings announcement on July 25 (leading the company to grant additional stock to employees who saw the value of their stakes tumble, in order to prevent a general exodus, according to Bloomberg). The earnings announcement was followed last week by the resignation of chief operating officer Andrew Schappert, who left on August 9 after a management shakeup reduced his responsibilities.

Zynga faces a number of threats and obstacles to further growth. Founder and CEO Mark Pincus said that changes implemented by Facebook, including policies intended to reduce SPAM-like messages, were making it harder to recruit new users for Zynga’s games. Like Groupon, Zynga is also operating in a marketplace with low barriers to entry, leaving it vulnerable to new competition, and faces the additional challenge of keeping gamers interested -- a real, chronic issue, as the steep decline in one-time favorites like Farmville suggests that casual games don’t foster long-term attachments like other video games. What’s more, many investors question Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPop, producer of Draw Something, which also saw a steep falloff in users. Finally, one big potential growth area for Zynga, mobile gaming, is more difficult to monetize through advertising or virtual goods sales.

Facebook, by far the biggest social media company to go public, was trading at $20.80 at the time of writing, down 3.7% from $21.41 when the market opened, and 45% from its IPO price of $38. Investors appear to be skeptical about Facebook’s ability to monetize mobile traffic, since, as noted above, it’s harder to deliver advertising to smaller mobile screens without disrupting the experience and annoying users. Doubts also persist about Facebook’s established, online advertising business, amplified by GM’s unceremonious dumping of Facebook just before the IPO, and more recent allegations that a large proportion of clicks on Facebook ads come from bots. 271 million more shares are becoming trade-able after a “lock-up” period ends on Thursday, but in the current environment, the new shares are likely to just put more downward pressure on the price.

The only winner in the group is LinkedIn, which was trading at $103.35 at the time of writing, more than double its original IPO price of $45. Although its net income declined in the latest quarter, this was due to capital investments to expand the company, and investors took a sanguine view. It’s worth noting that very little of LinkedIn’s revenue comes from advertising; instead it makes most of its money from premium memberships and services like corporate recruiting and headhunting.

COMMENTARY:   As you can clearly see from the following graph, which compares the stock prices of the leading social networks LinkedIn, Facebook, Groupon and Zynga, over the last year, only LinkedIn has performed well since August 15, 2011.  

Click Image To Enlarge

If you stop to analyze the above graph which compares the stock prices of the four key social networks:  Facebook, LinkedIn, Zynga and Groupon, both Main Street and Wall Street investors have been battered.

• LinkedIn - LinkedIn's closing stock price as of August 14, 2012 is $101.76, an increase of $7.51 or +7.97% from its IPO closing price of $94.25 on May 19, 2012.  LinkedIn's total market valuation on its IPO date was $8.91 billion.  Today it is valued $10.76 billion, an increase in value of $1.85 billion or +20.76%.  LinkedIn's P/E ratio was 873x earnings on August 14, 2012.  In a blog post dated May 23, 2011, I posted a 9-part series analyzing the LinkedIn IPO from every angle.  Like numerous stock and social media analysts, we all believed that LinkedIn was way over-valued, and for a while it really looked like this would be the case. LinkedIn's stock reached an all-time low of $59.07 on November 29, 2011, but it has rebounded since, reaching an all-time high of $117.03 on May 4, 2012.  However, LinkedIn's stock price pales by comparison to the stock prices of Facebook, Groupon and Zynga (see below), which have imploded.  
• Facebook - Facebook's closing stock price as of August 14, 2012 is $20.38, a decline of $17.62 or -46.37% from its IPO closing price of $38.00 on May 18, 2012.  Facebook's total market valuation on its IPO date was $103 billion.  Today it is only valued $43.66 billion, a decline in value of $59.34 billion or -57.61%.
• Groupon - Groupon's closing stock price as of August 14, 2012 is $5.48, a decline of $20.63 or -79.01% from its IPO closing price of $26.11 on November 5, 2011.  Groupon's total market valuation on its IPO date was $16.6 billion.  Today it is only valued $3.56 billion, a decline in value of $13.04 billion or -78.55%.
• Zynga - Zynga's closing stock price on August 14, 2012 is $3.02, a decline of $ or - from its IPO closing price of $9.50 ($9.40 after hours) on December 15, 2011.  Zynga's total market valuation on its IPO date was $6.9 billion.  Today it is only valued at $2.29 billion, a decline in value of $4.61 billion or -66.81%.

Courtesy of an article dated August 13, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications The Social Graf

HOW RISING WAGES IN CHINA, AND IMPROVEMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS, COULD MAKE APPLE BRING THE JOBS BACK HOME

 

Dexterous robots that can assemble high-tech electronics finally begin to come of age

When Apple comes home—and it will happen sooner than anyone, even Apple, would ever imagine—we’ll need to thank the triumvirate of rising wages overseas, automation and robots, especially robots.

Rising wages and automation alone might make Apple move to India or Africa, but not re-shore itself stateside. The robot, however, holds the automation key.

It takes five days and 325 steps to assemble an IPad

The 325 steps and five assembly days needed to bring an iPad to life are in the hands of 300,000 Chinese workers at Foxconn’s Longhua factory. It’s those 300,000 pairs of assembly hands that robots will replace.

Jamie Wang, a Taipei-based analyst for the research firm Gartner, sees lots of human hands going over to robots. A robot can be operated non-stop 160 hours a week, which would easily replace two to four workers. Such highly structured and predictable tasks are well suited to automation, he says. 

However, Wang stresses that such automation requires lots of infrastructure work just to get ready to install the robots. For Foxconn, it’ll be awhile, even if Terry Guo, chairman of Taiwan’s Hon Hai, still believes that his firm’s Foxconn division will soon have a million robots ready to take over. In fact, Gou may be waiting for a very long time for reasons that have nothing to do with technology.

Maintaining a harmonious society

David Wolf, a Beijing-based strategic communications and IT analyst, thinks he knows what may hold up robot adoption in many Chinese factories: worker harmony.  He says.  

“With the Chinese economy slowing down, it is politically inadvisable to talk too much about replacing people with robots.”

Creating jobs is many times more important for China than a great leap forward in efficiency. Wang Mengshu, deputy chief engineer at China Railway Tunnel Group, says that labor-saving equipment isn’t always used even when it’s available.  He says.  

“If all the new tunnels were built with the advanced equipment, that would trim the need for the employment of about six million migrant workers.  In certain fields we don’t want to have fast development in China, in order to solve the national employment problem.”

Harmony is the key. Mao Zedong promised his people freedom from foreign subjugation, the end of famine, universal education and jobs. He delivered on all of them, which the reigning Politburo won’t destabilize. No one wants Mengshu’s six million migrant workers howling about their pink slips.

The coming age of dexterous robots

With the U.S. as efficient as China, but doing it with 10% of China’s workforce, a window of opportunity is open for the U.S. to automate with robots, re-shore manufacturing and still make heady profits.

When Apple comes home it’ll be greeted by dexterous robots capable of assembling electronics. ABB’s Frida (see video below) and others of her ilk are great recent advances but are still bumblers when it comes to assembling small- and micro-scale electronic devices. However, the way forward—one that’s very nearby—shimmers in Frida’s reflection.

 

Vivek Wadhwa, writing in a recent article in Forbes, sees it all near at hand and ready to spring.

“Even if the Chinese automate their factories with AI-powered robots and manufacture 3D printers, it will no longer make sense to ship raw materials all the way to China to have them assembled into finished products and shipped back to the U.S. Manufacturing will once again become a local industry with products being manufactured near raw materials or markets.”

All thanks to legions of dexterous robots.

A treasure trove for the parts industry

There’s a gold mine there for millions of U.S jobs as well. During the five days and 325 steps that go into assembling an iPad, hundreds of parts are pushed into each iPad skeleton. For example, Samsung will sell Apple $12B in iPad parts in 2012. In addition, the workers wearing surgical masks at Foxconn also install parts from NAND, Toshiba, Elpida, Avago Technologies, Triquint Semiconductor, Fairchild, Qualcomm, Broadcom, ARM Holding, and LG Electronics. Some or all of these suppliers might also pack up their robots and move a bit closer to Apple’s U.S. manufacturing facilities.

Robots seem to be doing what the combined brainpower and political clout of the entire U.S Congress and two Presidents couldn’t do for America, namely, create jobs and initiate the greatest repatriation of manufacturing back to the U.S. in the country’s history.

Of course, many will not take such a re-shoring to America without their own plan to profit from such an exodus. The Financial Times sent their Sarah Mishkin to speak with engineers in Taipei who are trying to develop a new breed of robot that can handle the intricate operations of manufacturing high tech-products. Her video report:

 

COMMENTARY:    U.S. manufacturing is finally beginning to come home. GE, Boeing, Caterpillar, Ford, Master Lock and Coleman have moved operations back to domestic factories over the last two years, and more could join the trend.

One of the key reasons why U.S. manufacturers are returning home from China and other Far East countries is the robot.   A nimbler, smarter, modular, multi-tasking-capable generation of robots is on the rise and learning to do all sorts of new tricks principally in manufacturing and supply chains.

Robots are even getting quite adept at toiling side-by-side with their human makers, which has catapulted their kind from the obscurity of punching out automobiles and working in foundries to all sorts of human-robot interaction (HRI). Many of the new capabilities were on display at this year’s AUTOMATICA tradeshow in Munich, Germany, but even there only the tip of the iceberg of new- and next-gen robotics was exhibited. 

Of course, the robot has lots of help on its side. China’s GDP is expected to grow just over 8% this year, which is the slowest growth China has seen in years. A report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Made in America, Again: Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S., cites other mitigating factors like higher Chinese factory wages, soaring electricity costs, the increasing need to provide goods to a rising Chinese middle class, and the constraints of U.S. firms trying to coordinate operations thousands of miles from home. The report predicts that by 2015 certain kinds of production will be just as cheap in the U.S. as in China (cited were car parts, construction equipment and appliances).

U.S. Industrial Robotics Boom

According to new statistics released by the Robotic Industries Association (RIA), North American robotics companies sold more industrial robots in the second quarter of 2012 than any previous quarter in history.

• Q2 2012 vs Q2 2011 - A total of 5,556 robots valued at $403.1 million were sold to North American companies, a jump of 14% in units and 28% in dollars over the same quarter in 2011.  
• YTD Q2 2012 vs YTD Q2 2011 - Orders in the first half of 2012 totaled 10,652 robots valued at $747 million, increases of 20% in units and 29% in dollars over the same period last year.

Jeff Burnstein, President of RIA says.  

“Obviously, we’re thrilled about the great results so far this year.  The strong sales reflect increased demand for robotics in industries such as automotive, plastics & rubber, and metals.  However, as the economy slows, it’s not clear that these numbers will remain as strong heading forward.”

Industrial robotic orders by industry category were as follows:  

• Spot welding robots - used primarily in automotive solutions, jumped 68% in the first half of 2012.  
• Coating & dispensing - (+42%), 
• Arc welding - (+20%), 
• Assembly - (+19%).  
• Material removal orders - A smaller application area, rose 364 percent.

Automotive related orders accounted for 65% of units and 64% of dollars in the first half of 2012.  This represents sharp gains of 44% in units and 56% in dollars over the opening half of 2011.

Burnstein explained.  

“It’s great that the auto related numbers continue to post huge gains, but as we know, automotive industry purchases are cyclical.  However, we were disappointed to see non-automotive related orders fall eight percent in units and one percent in dollars in the first half of the year, with even sharper declines in the second quarter alone.”

RIA estimates that some 220,000 robots are now used in the United States, placing the US second only to Japan in robot use.

China Takes The Lead in Worldwide Industrial Robots

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), there will be an estimated 1.3 million industrial robots installed worldwide by the end of 2012.   Asian countries, led by China, will have an estimated 575,000 industrial robots installed by the end of 2012.   Asian countries are expected to continue to lead in the total number of industrial robots installed, reaching 700,000 industrial robots installed by the end of 2014.      

 Click Image To Enlarge

Foxconn International To Install One Million Industrial Robots

In a blog post dated October 15, 2011, Foxconn International, the exclusive Chinese manufacturer of Apple's iPhone and iPad, facing higher labor costs, overtime, worker lawsuits, and possible unionization, announced that it plans to install one million industrial robots by 2014.   Foxconn plans on installing 300,000 industrial robots by the end of 2012.   

If Hon Hai Precision, the parent of Foxconn International, goes through with its plan to install one million industrial robots, it is doing so in order to keep the Apple account over there and improve its profit margins, which have been cut paper thin by Apple's constant and brutal demands for lower prices to produce the iPhone and iPad.  In a blog post dated January 31, 2012,  I commented on Hon Hai Precision's profit margins when compared to Apple (see below graph).  

Click Image To Enlarge  

For the above reasons, I really question the wisdom of Apple transferring production of its magical devices from China or other Asian countries because Apple has it pretty good overseas.  For its part, Apple has been severely criticized for looking the other way or completely disregarding the industrial pollution on a massive scale, that its Chinese vendors have caused in China.  Apple was subsequently pressured to force its Chinese vendors to implement stringent pollution prevention measures.  If it were to transfer this production to the U.S. it would be required to comply with even tougher pollution prevention regulations, and I don't think it is willing to do this.  Apple would also be hit with some pretty hefty plant and equipment capital expenditures.  Furthermore, Apple has $40 billion in cash deposited in foreign banks, which are free of U.S. income taxes, and it would lose part of that tax benefit by moving jobs back to the U.S.  Not going to happen.  Tim Cook is too smart.  Apple's profits and stockholders come first over people and U.S. jobs.  There I said it.  Sue me if you disagree.   

Courtesy of an article dated August 11, 2012 appearing in Robotics Business Review and an article dated June 10, 2012 appearing in Robotics Business Review and an article dated July 26, 2012 appearing in Robotics Industry Association

LINKEDIN REPORTS Q2 2012 REVS OF $228 MILLION, UP 89% OVER 2011, BUT EARNINGS DOWN BY 37.8% DUE TO HIGHER COSTS

Professional networking site LinkedIn on Thursday said revenue surged 89% in the second quarter on strong gains in its hiring services business in particular.   Financial highlights were as follows:

• Total Revenue - $228 million, up from $121 million a year ago.
• U.S. revenue - $147 million -- or 65% of overall revenue. 
• International revenue - $81 million, or 35% of overall revenue.
• Net income - $2.8 million, down from $4.5 million for the year-earlier period, due to higher costs.  
• Net Income adjusted basis - LinkedIn reported a profit of $18 million. 
• Earnings per share - 16 cents per share.   Analysts expected LinkedIn to report a profit of 16 cents a share on revenue of nearly $216 million, according to a survey by FactSet Research.

With the rollout of its redesigned home page in July, LinkedIn said it's already seeing higher engagement among its 174 million members.

LinkedIn's revenues by source were as follows:  

• Hiring Solutions: Revenue totaled $121.6 million, up 107% compared to the second quarter of 2011. Hiring Solutions revenue proportion is going up. It’s now 53% of total revenue versus 48% in Q2 2011.
• Marketing Solutions: Revenue totaled $63.1 million, up 64% versus Q2 2011. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 28% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 32% in the second quarter of 2011.
• Premium Subscriptions: Revenue was $43.5 million, up 82% versus Q2 2011. Premium Subscriptions represented 19% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 20% of revenue in the second quarter of 2011, LinkedIn said.

The company said interactions, including status updates on the site, are now at all-time highs. LinkedIn is also seeing a strong response to the iPad app it unveiled in the second quarter, with more than half of page views coming from content-focused features, such as updates, news and groups.

Mobile in Q1 accounted for 22% of LinkedIn’s visitors, and with the introduction of LinkedIn’s iPad app, investors will be looking to see whether the company has been able to capitalize on that further. In the release, LinkedIn notes no numbers but does say the iPad app has been “received positively, and engagement trends are encouraging.” More than half of page views on the app are being generated by content-focused products such as updates, news and groups — meaning potentially more routes for monetizing on those down the line.

User engagement, as some have noted, is another focus. The company in May bought enterprise content sharing platform  SlideShare for $119 million, and just weeks ago it launched a redesign that is also geared to making the site a place where users would like to spend more time, with an enhanced LinkedIn Today story stream and more options for communicating with other LinkedIn members.

In June, the company began testing display ads in the iPad app, marking its first step toward monetizing its rapidly growing mobile audience. On the company earnings conference call Thursday, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said early response to the pilot program, involving advertisers such as Shell and Cisco, has been positive.

Weiner said LinkedIn is testing ads in its mobile phone properties and plans to eventually extend each of its business lines -- advertising, subscriptions, and hiring services -- to mobile. As of the first quarter, 22% of LinkedIn's traffic was coming from mobile, up from 8% a year ago.

COMMENTARY:  LinkedIn still depends entirely too much on the U.S. as a key source for the bulk (65%) of its revenues.  It has been very slow in expanding internationally, and this no doubt, accounts for its higher expenses, which have cut deeply into earnings.  If you review LinkedIn's revenues and earnings for the the last three quarters, you will find that in spite of higher revenues, earnings have declined dramatically.  LinkedIn has to find a way to manage and control its cost of acquiring new members, and monetizing those new members more effectively.   

Courtesy of an article dated August 2, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications OnlineMediaDaily and an article dated August 3, 2012 appearing in TechCrunch

 

HOW COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES HAVE TURNED TO SOCIAL MEDIA TO RECRUIT THE BRIGHTEST STUDENTS

 

Social media is not just a place for conducting conversations, engaging with others, and entertainment, but it's a useful tool used by employers to select new employees.   LinkedIn, the leading social network for professionals, provides employers with recruiting software to select the most qualified employees. LinkedIn is also a leading source for business-to-business marketing for lead generation.   Professionals use LinkedIn to connect with other members and prospective employers for both consulting, contracting and full-time work.   Colleges have quickly caught on to social media, and now use it to recruit and select the brightest students.   Here's how colleges have turned to social media and in their recruiting efforts.

Presented by: OnlineColleges.net 

Courtesy of an article dated August 9, 2012 appearing in OnlineColleges.net 

SINGAPORE'S WANDERLUST HOTEL MAKES A STATEMENT WITH ITS POP ART AND SURRELIST DESIGN CONCEPT

A concept hotel that doesn't look like German dungeon porn.

Normally, the thought of staying in a concept hotel makes us long for the simple splendors of Motel 6. We picture Santa-themed “love hotels” or places done up like a set from Interview with A Vampire-- and German dungeon porn. Sweet dreams!

But the new Wanderlust Hotel in Singapore -- which advertises its “concept” on its Web site -- isn't quite so self-serious. And it proves just how far the entire boutique hotel phenomenon has spread, while adapting to local tastes and whims.

Designed “to draw madcap voyagers and curious travelers,” it’s set up as a showcase for local designers. Each gets a floor and free agency to dress it any which way, whether in trompe l’oeil modern furniture (up top), glammy salon chairs or a wacked-out typewriter that would look right at home in Gulliver’s Travels (below). The whole thing’s so quirky and clashy and tacky, it seems like an anti-concept of sorts.

Which is a clever business tactic unto itself. Wanderlust Hotel is a property of the marketing company-turned-hotel group Design Hotels, which has turned the idea of boutique properties into a global enterprise. The company has more than 190 hotels around the world, each meticulously designed and entirely sui generis. Clearly, it recognizes that people like staying in playful theme hotels that aren’t mannered. More on Wanderlust below:

The lobby is fitted out like an industrial-chic barbershop. ByAsylum]:

Here, the art and design collective :phunk studio used an acid Pantone palette to paint rooms the color of famous songs.

COMMENTARY:  All I can say is WOW!!.  The Wanderlust Hotel is one crazy-ass hotel, nothing like I have ever seen before.  The fact that it is located in Singapore is even more surprising.  This hotel comes right out of a scene in the film "Beetlejuice".  I can visualize that crazy character running the reservation desk.  It's an expression of art, part Andy Warhol pop art and Salvadore Dali surrealism.  The hotel's design concept is completely unconventional, what I call hotel designer on an LSD trip, a mix of anything and everything, but surprisingly the design concept works.   Kids would go crazy in a hotel like this.   It's more of a playhouse than a hotel.

Courtesy of an article dated September 30, 2010 appearing in Fast Company Design  

 

TECHSHOP, A FULLY-EQUIPPED OPEN ACCESS WORKSHOP TO HELP ENTREPRENEURS BUILD PROTOTYPES AND MAKE THINGS

As a Web journalist, I don’t need many tools. Give me a laptop, a smartphone, and an Internet connection, and I’m basically a roving newsroom. But don’t ask me to make anything other than words: in my loft, the closest thing to a power tool is the kitchen blender. To build, say, a robot dog, I’d first have to spend thousands of dollars on design software and metalworking equipment.

Or at least, I would have until this week. Now there’s another option: I could just get a $100-per-month membership at TechShop, a craftsmen’s clubhouse that plans a “soft opening” of its new San Francisco location this weekend.  TechShop has almost every conceivable tool at the ready, from design workstations to computer-controlled looms, laser cutters, commercial-grade sewing machines, welding equipment, injection molding machines, an electronics lab, and a full woodworking shop. It’s a DIY enthusiast’s paradise.

Founded by Jim Newton, a former science advisor for the Discovery Channel cult favorite Mythbusters, TechShop has grand plans to expand Kinko’s-style to dozens of cities around the United States. But the former San Francisco Chronicle distribution warehouse that TechShop is renovating at 926 Howard Street is the company’s first big venture beyond its Menlo Park, CA, birthplace. (There’s a TechShop partner location in Raleigh-Durham, NC, but it’s not company-owned.) As such, the San Francisco opening a major test of the whole TechShop premise, which is that urban areas are bursting with creative people who want to make and sell stuff, but lack the necessary tools, training, and facilities.

“Our mission is to engage, enable, and empower people to build their dreams,” says TechShop’s CEO, Mark Hatch.

That may sound like marketing-speak, but Hatch is as earnest as they come. He’s a business development ninja who once ran the computer services business at Kinko’s and has studied the ideas of sociologists and new-economy gurus like Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class) and Joseph Pine (Mass Customization, The Experience Economy, Authenticity). He’s convinced that Americans have a deep-rooted urge to make things with their hands, and that with the right tools, a significant minority could turn their basement-shop hobbies into real businesses. Which is why he believes that there’s a place in every major city for a fully tricked-out machine shop that functions on the Gold’s Gym model—that is, charging a flat monthly fee in return for unlimited access to TechShop’s space and equipment.

 

Those membership terms aren’t just an administrative convenience—they’re the cornerstone of the company’s business model and marketing philosophy. At Kinko’s, says Hatch, “the fascinating story that was about the community that developed between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.” This was back in the 1990s, when hordes of desktop-publishing professionals and design students would descend on Kinko’s stores every night because they couldn’t afford a $1,000 copy of Quark or Photoshop or their own laser printers. They’d end up helping one another and, in more than a few cases, going into business together. “The problem was that we charged by the hour, so you were incentivized to leave,” says Hatch. “If you want to create a movement to change the world and really help drive innovation and creativity, you need a ‘third place,’ as Starbucks likes to 

 

describe itself.  TechShop is a truly third place for creatives. The all-you-can-eat pricing model encourages you to hang out. You have no idea who you’re going to run into, but I guarantee it’s going to be interesting.”

The 800 people who’ve joined TechShop’s Menlo Park shop, which opened in October 2006, apparently agree. And Hatch’s belief that many makers join TechShop in order to turn their avocations into vocations isn’t just a theory anymore. Real companies like Dodocase, a San Francisco-based maker of premium iPad cases, and Clustered Systems, which makes high-tech cooling systems for data centers, have used TechShop as their launchpad. (There’s more on each of these companies below and in my audio interview with Hatch and Newton—see page 4.)

 

That track record has won the company big fans at places like theKauffman Foundation, which spends millions each year on the search for better ways to promote entrepreneurship. “Lots of people have great ideas, but many can’t act on them, because they lack the tools, equipment, and knowledge to turn those ideas into marketable products,” says Carl Schramm, the foundation’s president and CEO. “TechShop is a place where idea people can literally build their dreams today, becoming tomorrow’s inventors and entrepreneurs.”

TechShop exists because Jim Newton, a lifelong tinkerer and inventor, wanted a world-class shop for his own projects. “I was on Mythbusters for a year, so I had access to their shops. [Then] I was teaching at the local college, showing people how to make combat robots, and I just taught that class that so I could get access to the machine shop…When I got done with that gig, I didn’t have access to a shop, and I thought about what is it going to take to build my own shop.”

Newton could have paid for a full shop by going into the prototype fabrication business, but he didn’t want to work on other people’s projects. That was when he hit on the gym-membership concept. “If you think about this as a health club, it’s exactly the same,” he says. “There are some nuances, like safety and training. But there are no hourly charges for the equipment, with rare exceptions like the 3D printer, where you have to pay for materials, and the water-jet cutter, which costs $1 a minute to cover materials and disposal of the slurry. Everything else, it’s come and use it as much as you want.”

What makes the whole membership concept plausible, according to Hatch, is the last two decades’ revolution in computer-aided design and manufacturing software, which can help users analyze virtual prototypes right down to the level of specific materials. If you’re building an engine and you’re trying to decide whether to use Alcoa aluminum or Nucor aluminum, for example, the newest Autodesk systems “will allow you to model how your engine will perform based on the different melt temperatures,” says Hatch. “The ability to do that on software that I can train you on and have you producing products within weeks is new to the world. Fifteen years ago, you would have needed a $15,000 computer and $10,000 in software and six months of training.”

NOTE:  TO READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE CLICK THE LINK LOCATED BELOW.

COMMENTARY:  An entrepreneur, inventor and friend of mine mentioned TechShop to me earlier this month.  I think TechShop is a great source for producing new invention prototypes and making all kinds of finished products.  

TechShop has several pricing packages for individuals, families and corporate users.  You can pay by the day or month   Prices range between $75.00 per month for students to as much as $3,500 per year for corporate users.  

TechShop provides additional services, including:

• 3D Printing 
• Personal training 
• Personal consulting
• Personal prototyping  

Rates for services are $95.00 per hour with a two-hour minimum.  There is also a $30.00 charge per hour for each additional attendee.   

TechShop also offers classes in Arts and Crafts (ART), CNC (CNC), Electronics (EEE), Fabrication (FAB), Laser Cutting (LAS), Technology (TEC), Textiles (TXL), and Woodworking (WOD).

Many entrepreneurs are strapped financially, and TechShop provides a complete DIY facility where they can go and learn how to make things, build prototypes and manufacture finished products.

TechShop has three locations that are open for business.  Two new locations are opening in Detroit, MI and San Jose, CA in 2011:

TechShop, Inc.
120 Independence Dr.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Phone: 1 (800) 640-1975
Email: [email protected]

TechShop Menlo Park is open 7 days a week 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnite.

 

TechShop SoMa, LLC
926 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Phone: (415) 263-916
Email: [email protected]

TechShop San Francisco is currently Open Noon to 10:00 PM 7 Days a Week during Phase 1 of their opening!

TechShop RDU
5905 Triangle Dr.
Raleigh, NC 27617

Phone: (919) 782-2344
Scott's Cell Phone (336) 460-7373
Email: [email protected]

TechShop, Inc. - COMING WINTER 2011
120 Independence Dr.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Toll Free: 1 (800) 640-1975
Email: [email protected]

TechShop, Inc. - COMING WINTER 2011
800 Republic Drive (in the process of leasing this space)
Dearborn, MI 
Toll Free:  Not Available
Email: [email protected] 

TechShop's motto is "Build Your Dreams Here," and this is a dream come true for craftsmen, do-it-yourselfer's, kids, designers, entrepreneurs and entire families.  

Courtesy of an article dated December 16, 2010 appearing in Xconomy

FRENCH DESIGNER GUILLAUME BOUVET INVENTS THE 'AZ DESK', A DESK THAT YOUR KIDS NEVER OUTGROW

Kids grow. Their belongings do not. Enter the AZ desk.

Kids grow. Their belongings do not. Which sucks for parents who could be spending dough on a hot new car college fund but instead have to buy new shoes, bedroom furniture, and the like every time their offspring sprouts a few inches.

AZ desk concept from guillaume bouvet on Vimeo.

Enter the AZ desk. Designed by Lyon-based Guillaume Bouvet, it includes a chair and writing surface that get taller as your child morphs from a shrimpy toddler to a full-blown adult. Even the writing surface “grows up,” converting from a kiddie-friendly chalkboard into an ergonomic table that could pass for something at mom or dad’s office.

Clever, right? Parents only need to buy one desk in 18 years, which means more money for, uh... college! Unfortunately, AZ is just a prototype. But Bouvet tells Co.Design that he plans to put the desk into production next year. We'll keep you updated.

Attracted to work with his own hands and with curiosity to discover the world, Guillaume Bouvet embarks on the ‘Tour de France’ of the Compagnons du Devoir at the age of 17. To become a craftsman, a cabinet maker.

Drawing his inspirations from travelling, from Scandinavian design culture and the incontrovertible book of Raymond Loewy « la laideur se vend mal », Guillaume Bouvet makes his first exploits as product designer at the side of Gilles Damon from Damon Design.

In close contact with the professionals who he discovers in books and visits in their workshops he confirms his desire for the conception of wooden furniture, ergonomic and adjustable. His special interest lays with flexible furniture for the young. From these encounters, his new ideas and building on his solid ‘savoir-faire’ develops “AZ Desk”, un new desk for kids growing up. It is going to be presented at the Exposition Internationale de Design, the DMY-Berlin in June 2011.

COMMENTARY:   The beauty of the AZ desk is its simplicity, transformability and functionality. Less is more.  Solves the problem of kids outgrowing their desks.

Courtesy of an article dated July 22, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

 

BOSCH & FJORD'S 21ST CENTURY SCHOOL ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF LEARNING AND CHILDREN'S SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Bosch & Fjord create a school that integrates cutting-edge thinking about how kids learn, and how teachers want to teach.

We are instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many keys that are struck by the nature that surrounds us and that often strike themselves. -- Denis Diderot

If form followed function in today’s schools, then there would be no need to change the current learning environment.

The current model that pervades today’s school design is based on an outdated 19th-century model -- what academics call age-specific grouping, contain and control, didactic instruction, prescribed knowledge, uniformed progression, fixed schedules, and standardized assessment through memorization. In walking into many of today’s schools, you are instantly transported to the familiar experience of the double-loaded corridor, self-contained boxes with minimal daylight, and giant, impersonal lecture halls.

Artists and architects Bosch & Fjord rejected this Victorian thinking in their design of Ordrup School. In their design for the school, Bosch & Fjord translate, in physical terms, how today’s children want to learn and how today’s teachers want to teach. The design team literally moved into the school and took the time to observe, record and analyze the dynamic human interactions and complex relationships of learning.

Inventing a new language to describe this new pattern of learning, Bosh and Fjord galvanized their design concept around three central themes: “peace and absorption,” “discussion and cooperation,” and “security and presence.” With these three central modes of learning, a diversity of education spaces for children unfolded—colorful “hot pods” for group discussion, organically shaped tables for group work and creative play, personalized learning “booths” for reflective work, and playful circular tubes for reading and contemplation. Bosh & Fjord recognized that we all learn very differently, and they transformed Ordrup School based on this conviction. The form of Ordrup School, albeit playful and beautiful, now follows the function.

COMMENTARY:  At Ordrup School in Gentofte, Denmark, Bosch & Fjord has rejected the traditional design of school interiors and instead created varied rooms with space for differentiated teaching and creative thinking. Based on the conviction that all people are different and have different ways of thinking and learning, Bosch & Fjord has created an all-encompassing and challenging design at Ordrup School. The design is based on three key concepts: 'peace & absorption', 'discussion & cooperation' and 'security & presence'. By sepa-rating the activities and creating varied rooms, Bosch & Fjord has created a space for diversity in both teaching and play where the learning situation can be optimised. 

I just love the Danish design style.  Very modern, sleek and high-tech.  The Danes are definitely on the leading edge when it comes to design of buildings, interiors and consumer products.  I was reviewing Bosch & Fjord's many architectural building and interior designs and I am very impressed.   The Ordrup School reflects this style throughout, and is definitely one cool kids school.  I like their three key design concepts.  The school is an environment not only for teaching, but a great model for social development and interaction.  You can just see that the kids love their school too.

Courtesy of an article dated November 23, 2010 appearing in Fast Company Design