Barter or charity: California seeks free IT security services
California’s state Department of Motor Vehicles issued a request for quotation with unusual terms: requesting bidders to supply free work.
Could Fake Steve Jobs Go to Jail?
Online impersonators could be fined up to $1,000 and/or up to one year in jail according to California Senate Bill 1411, which Governor Schwarzenegger has just signed into law. The new law is meant to protect victims of cyberbullying, malicious impersonation – says Senator Joe Simitian, the Bill’s author on his homepage: “E-personation,” said Simitian, [...]
Only in California: Electronic License Plates May Turn Your Car Into a Billboard
Here’s proof that Governments’ creativity in finding new revenue sources is unlimited, reports The Merc: The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19 billion deficit. The device [...]
Marin County sues Deloitte: Alleges fraud on SAP project
In a important case, Marin County, California filed a complaint against Deloitte Consulting for its role in an over-budget SAP implementation.
Smart Meters: PG&E Lost What Little Credibility They Still Had
This one sentence sums it up: After months of denying any technical problems with its SmartMeter program, PG&E publicly detailed a range of glitches Monday affecting tens of thousands of the digital meters. [From PG&E details technical problems with SmartMeters - San Jose Mercury News] This is the first time that PG&E has publicly acknowledged [...]
Did Toyota’s Lean Supply Chain Go Bad?
There’s been a lot of finger pointing in the press recently when it comes to Toyota?s suddenly accelerating escapades, which seemed to downshift into third gear with the accelerator floored (even to the point of a made-for-media car chase and forensi…
People Putting an Extra 50k Miles Or More On Their Cars
Read this an it immediately resonated with me. According to a study by Auto MD, which is owned by the US Auto Parts Network, Inc. (i.e. people who have a vested interest in making parts for used cars) 77% of people are, on average, planning on driving their current cars at least 50,000 miles more [...]
Laser Week
News on lasers of all sizes hitting targets of all sizes… let’s start small – hey, small is beautiful, after all. Besides, this is one laser you could own at a reasonable size one day. Small Gun, Lots of Small Targets Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold currently runs aptly named Intellectual Ventures. At TED (not [...]
SF Looks to Unleash Entrepreneurs, Maybe
Image by azizk via Flickr This is the message that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is sending: “This legislation is trying to eliminate from the books the complete, unnecessary nickeling-and-diming of our business entrepreneurs during our worst economic recession since the Great Depression,” Chiu said. [From S.F.'s bid to wipe out some extra business [...]
Tuesday Link Roundup
- The Merc takes a look at the diminished luster of stock options for compensation. There’s two things here, the first being that between AMT and option accounting rule changes the attractiveness of options for employees and employers has taken a big hit. Most people in Silicon Valley, and the tech industry more broadly, understand [...]
