Virgin America has named one of its airline fleet after Apple co-founder, the late Steve Jobs. In addition, the company added a popular Jobs quote, "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" on the side of the plane, an Airbus A320.
"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" was mentioned by Jobs during his famous 2005 commencement address at Stanford University noting that it was originally used on the final issue of The Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970's. Jobs said:
"It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: 'Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.' It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you."
A Virgin America spokesperson explained that the name was chosen as part of an internal plane naming competition.
Virgin America is the sole San Francisco Bay Area-based airline. It ha 2,200 employees, and is based in Burlingame. The plane, with identification number N845VA, first flew last fall, and has reportedly been seen on the Orlando to SFO route.
On Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, at 6:35 a.m. EST, former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno died of complications of lung cancer. But on Saturday, the day before, a Tweet issued by Onward State, an online news organization that serves Penn State's students, faculty, staff, alumni, and along with State College, Pa. became another example of how unconfirmed Internet reports can lead to false assumptions.
Onward State Tweeted that Joe Paterno had died, but on Saturday, not Sunday. As if that weren't bad enough, the story was then picked up by major media, including CBSSports.com, which ran a photo of Joe Paterno with a caption that said that the former Penn State head coach had lost "his battle with lung cancer at 85."
While Paterno did lose his battle just the next day, the incident shows the risks of taking unconfirmed Web reports and trying to "be first" with them. It's the same thing that Onward State admitted being guilty of, saying in an apologetic post that "In this day and age, getting it first often conflicts with getting it right, but our intention was never to fall into that chasm. All I can do now is promise that in the future, we will exercise caution, restraint, and humility."
The managing editor of Onward State, Devon Edwards, has resigned over the incident.
Meanwhile, CBSSports.com admitted their mistake as well, also apologizing and saying the error "was the result of a failure to verify the original report. CBSSports.com holds itself to high journalistic standards, and in this circumstance tonight, we fell well short of those expectations."
It is not the first time that a faux Internet took the world by storm. In 2008, a CNN iReport (iReporters submit stories that are not fact-checked or verified) said that then Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack. Apple stock plummeted as a result; Jobs did not have a heart attack that day, but eventually did pass away in 2011 as a result of complications from pancreatic cancer.
Meanwhile, false report aside Joe Paterno died on Sunday morning, Jan. 22, 2012 at the age of 85. While he had an impressive legacy, including the record for most Division 1 college football victories (409), his legacy will be forever tainted by the still-ongoing Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.
Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant coach, has been indicted for numerous counts of child sex abuse with boys. Although prior to Sandusky's arrest, Paterno was revered in college football, he was accused of inaction, or lack of sufficient action, when it came to a report from then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary who told Paterno that he had witnessed Sandusky in the showers with a boy.
Only days after the indictment was handed down, Paterno was fired by Penn State's board of trustees.
And now, nine weeks after his final game on Nov. 5, Joe Paterno is gone. Some felt he would coach forever. Others felt that once he was fired, his time would not be long, although none were aware of his lung cancer at the time.
Still, those who made the latter statement were aware how much the Penn State job meant to Paterno. He passed up numerous chances to coach at other places, including the pros. Perhaps those who felt he would not survive long after his firing were not far off.
Reports such as SACOM's from May of 2011 have shown us of the stresses, low wages, and unsafe conditions of plants such as those used for manufacturing iDevices and other electronics. Yet, on the surface, a New York Times reports seems to point to more than just cheap labor as being the reason just about everything is manufacturered overseas.
They're right too; it seems like far more than just cheap labor; it seems more like virtual slave labor, and we don't mean "virtual reality."
The New York Times article is titled "How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work." A few of the points made for Apple using China, and not the U.S.:
Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
When Apple redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, [...] A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. “The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” [We would modify that statement. As a corporation, their only obligation is to increase shareholder value. That means dismissing the 99 percent, and enhancing the 1 percent. In the long run, when "peak oil" hits with full force, globalization will prove unsustainable and localization will be forced onto people --- globally.]
“They [Foxconn] could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”
[In a small section of the article, the NYT made Apple into an Occupier's target, with just one sentence, and details to back it up (emphasis ours).] As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived.
[More Occupier material.] “Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.” [Interestingly enough, a cynic would say this just proves that companies are human, as Citizens United said. They're greedy and selfish, just as humans are.]
“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”
Despite what the article says, the bottom line is still --- the bottom line. Claims are that the people in China are more nimble, quicker to adjust when things change. There's a reason for that.
Put 200,000+ people into a "dormitory," and that's the obvious reason for the flexibility. Need to wake the grunts up because something has changed? It's easy when they are all in their dorms, not living at home.
Easy to hire people? Of course it is. Even at the low Foxconn wage, it's a good wage for a Chinese worker.
Do you think those Foxconn workers grab onto the job because they love it? The Foxconn suicides of 2010 belie that possibility.
Consider also what we know to be true: the CEO of Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai believes his employees are "animals," and --- we're sure --- treats them that way.
The fact that the Chinese government is a Communist one, and doesn't really care all that much about labor and environmental laws, and it's obvious. It's still all about the money, no matter what anyone tries to say.
Steve Wozniak may have co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs, but when it comes to Android, the two radically diverged opinion-wise. Jobs felt Android was a "stolen product," and Wozniak is always among the first to land a new Android version.
But now Wozniak has gone so far as to be labeled a heretic. He's said that "I wish it [the iPhone] did all the things my Android does, I really do."
This isn't to say Woz doesn't love the iPhone; he does. In fact, he said, "My primary phone is the iPhone. I love the beauty of it." However, Woz carries both iPhone and Android and appreciates the strengths of both.
His big gripe (right now) is Siri. It used to work, he said, a lot better than now. Let's not forget that Siri uses Apple's servers to generate its answers, and its still beta, so there could be a lot of improvements.
Wozniak said, "I used to ask Siri, 'What are the five biggest lakes in California?' and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, 'What are the prime numbers greater than 87?' and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.
"I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me. I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”
He's also seeing poor iPhone battery life, but that's something that quite a few end users have been complaining about since the iPhone 4S and iOS 5. So he's just seeing a general problem.
As you might have noted above, Woz also loves the GPS navigation on Android phones, which has always been a plus of those devices. As a techie, he's not dissuaded by the more technical aspects of Android.
While there are quite a few great things about Android, we would agree with many: iPhone is built so that Grandma could use it, and Android such that Grandma could use it only if she were programming language pioneer Grace Hopper (COBOL). There is great power there, but if you want something that just works (but also is restricted to only a few different designs) we'd recommend iPhone, ourself.
"The people I recommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it's so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don't want to use them. The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here's a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do."
It took less than two weeks, and the company that had advertised a rather realistic foot-tall Steve Jobs action figure has taken it off the market. The figure had been advertised at the website of In Icons for $99 plus shipping, and had been scheduled to ship in February.
On Sunday, Tandy Cheung, head of the company behind the action figure, In Icons, posted the following on its site:
"I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that the original intention for creating the figurine was driven by a fan’s admiration of Steve. We respect copyright and trade mark rights and therefore indicated on our site that we were not providing any Mac, iPhone and iPad models with the figurine. Further, we haven't used any Apple related brands. Unfortunately we have received immense pressure from the lawyers of Apple and Steve Jobs family.
"Regardless of the pressure, I am still Steve’s fan, I fully respect Steve, and his family, and it is definitely not my wish or intention that they be upset. Though we still believe that we have not overstepped any legal boundaries, we have decided to completely stop the offer, production and sale of the Steve Jobs figurine out of our heartfelt sensitivity to the feelings of the Jobs family."
Moreover, the Hong Kong businessman In Icons added a personal twist to an explanation about the creation of the Steve Jobs action figure. He added that:
"Four years ago, I created a single figurine of Steve which I placed on my desk next to my Mac. I decided to share this memento with the rest of his fans as a commemoration to Steve. The figurine, especially his facial features, was adjusted countless times to achieve his likeness in my memory. I strove to perfect the figurine with the spirit of Steve Jobs because only this will properly reflect my respect and admiration of him."
It had been noted previously that "personality rights" are not governed by federal law, and many states do not have statutes permitting those rights to survive past a person's death. Thus, with the death of Steve Jobs, it was thought that In Icons could, if it wanted to, release the action figure in many states in America, and in other jurisdictions as well.
Although In Icons has decided to end its action figure "line," there are still plenty of Steve Jobs actions figures on eBay. These don't have the level of accuracy of the In Icons version, however, which was supposed to ship with two pairs of glasses, three pairs of hands, one black turtleneck, one pair of blue jeans, one black leather belt, one wood and metal chair, one pair of black socks and sneakers, two apples (one with a bite), and one piece of a "ONE MORE THING” hard backdrop.
We already expected this event, and we also expected the typical "at least one week" lead time, and we got it: Apple has scheduled an event for Jan. 19. As we expected, the event will focus on education.
Apple says the event will be about education and will take place on January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum. The event begins at 10:00 a.m. ET. Apple likes to start things at 10 a.m., and apparently it doesn't matter if it's Eastern, Central, and Pacific.
While vague in its description, according to an anonymous source close to Apple, the event will not feature any new devices, but instead focus on a new push by Apple into the e-textbook business.
In the Steve Jobs official biography, which came out in October, the late former Apple CEO told biographer Walter Isaacson that he wanted to "transform" the textbook market by hiring prominent textbook authors to create e-textbooks for the iPad.
It's something that it was once felt Amazon.com's Kindle DX would achieve. In Jobs' case, he added that he felt Apple would be able to avoid state textbook certification processes by making them free.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is not netting a near-$400m annual salary, despite reports supposedly detailing the chief exec’s bulging paycheck, as the top-tier benefits are contingent on him staying with the company for a decade. Speculation as to Cook’s financial position began yesterday, with an AP report citing the restricted Apple stock the company’s board approved as part of his taking the role Steve Jobs vacated last year. However, subsequent reports failed to recognize when, exactly, Cook could expect to see any cash.
There was speculation running rampant on Monday that newly minted Apple CEO Tim Cook was making 378 million times as much as the late Steve Jobs in the same position, but it turns out it was all just a big mistake.
On the other hand, in 2011 Cook did make $900,017 times as much as Steve Jobs typically made in a year. Jobs was famous for taking only $1 as his Apple CEO salary. Naturally, most of his wealth came from his Apple stock, so taking only $1 didn't really affect him adversely.
Meanwhile, Tim Cook took home a salary of $900,017, contributed $14,700 to his 401(k) account, and paid life-insurance premiums worth $1,820. That was his income, but what screwed up the calculations of many are the 1 million shares of restricted stock options we reported he received, back in August of 2011.
Those shares are worthless right now. Half of them vest in 2016, five years after the initial grant. The other half will vest in 2021. We have no doubt that Cook will be around if he wants to be, so this is just an insurance policy to make sure he stays around.
Since the shares must vest, they don't account for any 2011 income --- or 2012, 2013, 2014, or 2015.
It looks like Apple won't be able to stop the Steve Jobs doll from being sold after all. As we theorized earlier, with the death of Steve Jobs, the threats that Apple can make become toothless in many U.S. states, though not all of them.
It turns out, in fact, that although celebrities do control the rights to the use of their images, those rights generally apply only to the living. Image rights typically do not survive after death, although there are a number of states in which they do, including California, home of Apple's HQ.
That's right, there is not federal law about "personality rights." Instead, those rights are governed on a state level, and it turns out there are only 16 states where "personality rights" exist past the grave. Those are California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. Of those, Indiana is the most stringent: "personality rights" last 100 years after a person's death.
There are more details in this article here. It appears, by the way, that residents of Germany and Argentina, perhaps other countries, too, will also be unable to partake of a Steve Jobs action figure.
The Steve Jobs action figure is being pre-sold by the website In Icons for $99 plus shipping. It has also appeared on eBay where it was pre-sold by someone with a surname suspiciously similar to the chief of In Icons, for $135 plus $28 shipping.
You can see a slideshow with more images of the action figure here.
As we expected, Apple has responded quickly to reports of a new Steve Jobs action figure for sale. The $99 12-inch tall figure was put on sale earlier this week, with deliveries scheduled for February.
Naturally, Apple has issued legal threats against In Icons, a Chinese company. The company still has the figure for sale, at this time, for $99 sans shipping, and at least one completed third-party auction has taken place on eBay, for $135 plus $28 shipping. Just as with In Icons sale, it's a pre-order, and one would assume there's no guarantee the figure will ever be delivered, what with Apple's lawyers involved.
Actually, it's unclear that the auction was "really" a third party. In Icons chief is Tandy Cheung; the sale was by Tony Cheung.
Tandy Cheung has already said he would not cow down to Apple, saying "Apple can do anything they like. I will not stop, we already started production."
The reason he is not afraid, Cheung said, is because Steve Jobs is a celebrity, not a product. He added, "Steve Jobs is not an actor, he's just a celebrity... There is no copyright protection for a normal person. Steve Jobs is not a product... so I don't think Apple has the copyright of him."
However, it's true that celebrities have a right to control how their images are used. There was such a "discussion" when, after Barack Obama was elected president, Ty tried to release "Marvelous Malia" and "Sweet Sasha" dolls. On the other hand, this is neither the late Steve Jobs ... or perhaps his family ... protesting, but Apple. It's possible that unless Jobs' family protests, Cheung may be correct.
While at least one auction has completed with the new In Icons action figure, all the other auctions we currently see on eBay are the M.I.C. Gadget ones from 2010. Apple successfully blocked sales of those.
You can see a slideshow with more images of the action figure here.
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