Where Mobile Payments Meets Life

Me and a couple of my really cool friends are into mobile payments (I'm not alone!). So, when we have life crises that we need to talk about we often revert to where we are most comfortable. It's the best way for us to express our emotions. Well, not actually, but we tried to imagine what it would be like if that really was how do conducted ourselves in life... and I thought ensued was pretty funny. They even suggested that I should make a new blog that would be "Ms Cleo meets mobile payments"...Some excerpts:

J:  no no

tomorrow is fine

also I need to ask your opinion on some stuff

not mobile payments related

me:  oh ok

are you sure?

becuse i do have an opinion on that

im sure.

 J:  ha

it would be funny if you turned it into mobile payments

"So I'm really having a hard time with my life. I don't know what to do."

"Well J...merchants didn't know what to do when they couldn't afford a credit card processor."

"Then square came along."

 Sent at 12:10 AM on Thursday

 me:  lol

i am totally going to do that

 J:  "Ninny. I don't know what to do. I'm totally in love with this girl, but she is married and has a kid."

"You know what that sounds like?"

"Paypal"

"Ebay was in love with PayPal although PayPal was already tied to other systems, but Ebay did what it thought was right and married PayPal."

 Sent at 12:14 AM on Thursday

 me:  lol

omg

ISIS

"sometimes shit just doesnt work out in the beginning, but then, you know, you keep the right partners around you and before you know it, well-- it still maybe wont work out, but you'll feel better"

 Sent at 12:16 AM on Thursday

 J:  haha

I'm going to email this convo to [our other friends]

 

 And finally our response from our friends was:

 

"I'm trying to make a better life for me and my kid but the past keeps coming back to haunt me. How do I move on?"

"You know P, when I have those dark moments and I need direction, I always think - what would Google Wallet do? Would they partner with a couple banks to try out their product in the mass-market, or would they make it an Android-exclusive service that's more focused on helping you manage your loyalty cards than replacing the plastic in your wallet? If you think about it like that, life makes a lot sense."

"Um...ok."

 

I don't know if this is there way of telling me I'm heartless, or if they're just excited that I'm nerdy like them. Regardless, I am constantly reminded about how lucky I am to have people like this in my life.

The High Tech Industry Is On Fire!

Alibaba. I have admired you from afar for many years now, and never have I felt closer to you than when I visited your booth at the MAGIC fashion conference in Las Vegas earlier this year (although, to be fair, you might want to train your sales people a little bit better because they weren't able to explain to me how the ordering process worked if there were multiple shipments to various locations but under one company, just sayin'.) and now, lo and behold, you have returned my affections! You're thinking about doing an IPO to raise $15-20B, which is no small chunk of change. Should I be scared though? What are you going to do with all that money? I have some loyalties to PayPal, so please don't hedge them out with your digital payments system. I do like though, that you're boosting up Yahoo since they have a large stake in you. So thanks for that. You're really going to be a game-changer-- outsourcing for products and materials will never be the same :)

Here's the requisite "Apple is going into mobile payments" post.

But speaking of Apple, Apple just split their stock which means that they're below the threshold to be included in the DOW. This could be awesome.

But not so awesome? Apparently there was a case awhile ago between a bunch of big tech firms alleging that they were conspiring to regulate hiring between them to drive down wages. Although they've admitted to instating no-hire rules between them, their argument is that it wasn't to drive down wages.  I actually believe this because I feel like they have more to gain by simply respecting each other and not poaching talent than driving down wages. I mean, wages have exploded over the past few years and I don't really see that stopping any time soon, so even if that was their intent, they've failed.

Amazon is still disappointing shareholders, but shareholders are still bullish for some reason. They did hit the diminished forecasts released by analysts, but their international sales are only growing by 18% and with the increase in their prime package, it's hard to say what will happen to their profitability in the future...My gut tells me that they will need to continue raising their prices in order to cover the (pretty luxurious) services that their customers have grown accustomed to. That means higher prime (already done), higher percentages for merchants (done a little bit, to some backlash, but I would expect for it to happen more often and with higher percentages) and a bigger push on their digital streaming stuff (already happening). The real question will come when the merchants aren't willing to pay and the consumers aren't willing to pay. If they're driving away their business by increasing prices, will they still be considered the world's most customer-centric company? Will they still be able to be profitable when they don't have the support of their customers?

What Is the Future of Net Neutrality?

A million signatures for something that isn't even proposed yet? Say what you will about Americans being apathetic political people, but when it comes to the threat of them taking away our internet, it's over! I don't care who we elect to be leader of the free world, but if I can't stream old episodes of Doug, then I refuse to live in this country. It might sound crazy, but the debate over net neutrality are heating up. According to the New York Times article, "Defending the Open Internet", the internet is essentially up for grabs-- should it regulated as an utility? Something that is almost like a public commodity like electricity or indoor plumbing? Should companies like Netflix be able to pay to make their transmission into viewers homes faster? If they're willing to pay for it, then it should be allowed, argue some. On the other hand, shouldn't internet be equal for all? But their livelihood (providing entertainment to people as quickly as possible) is critically dependent on the speed of the internet!

My guess? The FCC will let them do it, but the cost will be high to begin with. As they begin to agree on how to create and define the pricing tiers, the elite companies will pay the exorbitant amounts, and the little guys (non-Netflix) will begin to be pushed out. It will also be harder for two guys to start something in the garage (as the founder of Digg has pointed out) but this simply means the big guys will have more incentive to fund the little guys, which decreases creativity, but increases the burden on the larger corporations.

Bitcoin Has Started a Conversation That Is Long Overdue

Bitcoin mining, the process of solving problems for bitcoins, was always a slow-moving and low-gain system. It turns out that the "bitcoin-rush" is slowing even faster than we originally expected and that mining is increasingly becoming less profitable (especially when you factor in the money that people pay to buy "mining equipment").  But this shouldn't really be a surprise, considering that Bitcoin is setting itself up as a new form of currency.

I mean, we know that money is and probably always be a big focal point of any news system. People like money, we kind of need it to buy things that we want in a consistent way, and any time something new comes along that might disrupt what we normally expect to be the "normal" course of events, we really don't like that and we tend to question and analyze every little facet of it until we are content. The same thing happened with the mobile payments/mobile banking boom that happened in the early 2010-2012s, yet, we know that the US is not really into the mobile options afforded to us (at least compared to other countries). In fact, even some emerging economies, such as China, are not really excited about the mobile payments revolution. For the US, it's really an adoption and standardization issue-- if it was easy to use and consistent enough (from the user perspective and the merchant perspective) so that it was accessible, then it would gain more popularity than it has. But we live in an era of Google wallets, fabled Apple wallets, ISIS, PayPal, LevelUp and just about a million other private, white label options for mobile payments. The standardization is just not there yet.

On the other hand, China is putting a stop to the whole money thing because they realize that many of the biggest mobile payment firms (such as Alibaba and its payments arm Alipay) are responsible for moving a lot of that hard-earned Chinese currency abroad.

But we should really thank Bitcoin (intro to Bitcoin here) and all the mobile channels for bringing this to the forefront of the discussion. A discussion about money is long overdue! So let's start that conversation. Money as a thing will always have some commonalities: it's usually relatively rare (shells, gold, etc.), it gets increasingly rare as it gets adopted, it's usually something physical, something easily divisible, and something that is seen as valuable by multiple people. Bitcoin, according to these requirements is different because the physicality of it is based on a couple lines of code. The world's response to this very big difference will ultimately determine the success of Bitcoin in the long run.

Trolling for the Common Nerd

Ahhh....the internet. It's kind of a magical place because of the sheer amount of emotions that it can inspire. It can bring up the awkwardness of having friends ask you to help them fill out their online dating profiles (which, I'm happy to do, but I'm going to be honest and you might not want to let everyone on the internet know just how much you like tea because apparently that's not sexy enough nowadays-- also, do you like long walks on the beach? Do you really like "staying up to date on the news"? Do you? Really? No seriously, really? Because what I really want to write about is why I love you as a friend, and that includes how impressed I am by your collection of Terry Pratchett books). It can bring the excitement of finding that perfect tee that asks you to "Ask about my zombie disguise". It can bring hope, like when I lurk in the archives of Humans of New York. It's helped me find a job, it's taught me how to paint my house without getting paint on the inside of my shirt (true story) and I've used it to fact-check pretty much everything (no, seriously like everything, from financial regulation status to how old Catherine Zeta Jones is to the drinking age in India) so it has arguably made me smarter.

No, but really the internet would not be complete without people trolling. If I were to define it, trolling is basically just being an ass on the internet. Wikipedia (see what I did there?) defines it as,

"In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,^[1] by posting inflammatory,^[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally^[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response^[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion^"

 And I have seen some damn-fine examples of trolling this week.

First up, an innocent Bloombergian who argues that school-sponsored loans might be a good option for students.Which, honestly, is not that crazy of an idea, but does kind of miss the point about how not all schools are created equal, this still doesn't fix the underlying problem of why higher education is increasingly economically discriminatory and how the types of things students are learning at these "prestigious" schools aren't really preparing them for the job market. So then of course, people speared the guy. Digitally.

Second of all, and this is probably kind of niche because I really like reading SeekingAlpha though I know most people don't even know what that is probably, I read this awesome opinion analysis titled "Kill the Microsoft Tablet". In which, the author summarized his argument by saying, "1.) The Apple iPad sets the pace for the tablet market, 2.) Releasing office for iPad literally renders the Surface obsolete and 3.) Microsoft may unlock shareholder value after killing the Surface tablet line". Okay, I am an Apple fan, so I understand where this guy is coming from. I'm not saying he's wrong, but it could be a dramatic oversimplification. But his dedication to his Apple products (which I strongly support) and his disregard for other benefits of using a Surface tablet is... awesome.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the power of social media (and how it can even lead some people to getting fired for remarks they thought were private) and the effect that the internet has had on the communication styles between (not of) people nowadays, but I think the advent of "trolling" and the sheer popularity of it cannot be undermined. The internet is truly turning into not only a channel of communication, but a type of communication all in itself. It says something when you decide to broadcast your feelings on the internet through articles or, hell, even blog posts-- it implies a lot when you slam someone through social media and the repercussions are probably much farther-reaching than we can even imagine. As someone who currently works in a small startup, I don't think it's crazy to say that, now more than ever, it almost depends more on how you say things than what you're saying. Particularly when working with younger people, who are used to multi-channeling all the time, there's a lot to be considered before pressing "Send". Do you want the nonchalant implications of a text? The presence that comes with a phone call? Do you want to convey the BAU-ness of an email? Or do you want to whip out the big guns and do it in person? IRL is still the preferable method because of the relationship ties that can be built but too much of that and (particularly younger) workers I've noticed get burnt out-- they don't quite know what to do in an in-person meeting, unsure of quite how to behave or if it's proper (from an etiquette perspective) to multi-task while you're talking (as they would be if you were having this conversation over email). So use it wisely. Don't be an IRL troll.

Why Technology Is Awesome: Part 184

I feel like the daily deluge of information from newspapers (always digital (except for the WSJ), sometimes important things, depending on which one I've been reading), internet (omg cute cat pictures and more videos of otters doing adorable things? Yes please.) and magazines (always in paper, wtf is wrong with me?). But every now and then I get really excited about all the interesting things that I'm reading. And every now and then I get really excited because instead of reading about terrible things (gunmen killing innocent people, the unemployed people trying to get by) I find some truly inspirational things in the news that assures me that other, more positive things are still happening. Which reminds me not to be depressed about the way that society is going. So I got that going for me...

• We're trying to help the environment. As a society, we're moving toward meatless meat according to The NY Times, which is interesting (I watched a TedTalk about the upside of moving from meat (cows, chickens, pigs) to insects (that's right) as an alternative form of protein since it takes an inordinate amount of (increasingly) scarce water to produce even a pound of meat. Meatless sales have hit $550M market volume, which is impressive. Additionally, a lot of the new players are not only trying to move away from meat, but to make something that's actually better than meat by taking out saturated fats and lowering total fats. Maybe we won't end up like the fat people wheeling around in Wall-E after all...
• What. The. Hell. People. So Brendan Eich contributed $1,000 to Proposition 8 (anti-gay rights). When this was found out, some two weeks into his new tenure as the CEO of Mozilla Firefox (yup, that Firefox) people went on rampage. OkCupid put up a landing page that asked users to switch browsers if they tried to access using Firefox, developers clamored for him to rescind his donation and bloggers lit it up like New Years Eve. I can see one side of this-- it's actually no one's business who he decides to donate money to in his personal life. It's actually kind of an infringement of his privacy for people to be going through his personal affairs like that. However, on the other hand, you are a public figure Brendan Eich. If you really want to donate, make your donations anonymous. Particularly if it's a hot-button issue. Particularly if you live in California, a traditionally more liberal state. Particularly if you're located in Silicon Valley, where your reaction to Proposition 8 is almost a foregone conclusion. I mean hell, even my mom doesn't support Proposition 8. I'm not saying you can't do whatever you want in your private life, but please, for the love of, take precautions to make sure that you do them privately. If you did, you wouldn't have needed to step down
• Amazon announced the Amazon Fire TV, which will be $99 and will be there move to basically put a cash register in every person's living room. This isn't a surprise. I feel like the TV craze has been going on for awhile now and although Apple entered to small amounts of excitement, all the buzz after the CE show in Vegas that focused on the amounts that could be made through the TV from people at home (my generation's version of the home shopping network, pretty much) pretty clearly shows us what the future holds. Strangely, Bezos wasn't on hand for the announcement (very different from the era of Steve Jobs-esque announcements). However, TV as a cash register won't be successful until access is easy (that means integration from multiple sources, much like what any, say, PS3 does now, except better), content is deep and varied (that means sports-- c'mon Amazon, you know your demographic. At least get your offerings up to the number of sports options that are available on Roku) and it's got to be affordable. So they got that going for them
• Rumors continue to circulate about Apple moving toward mobile payments. Passbook and a given group of established customers that are used to the user interface already through iTunes make a convincing argument

And finally... I forgot that Dita Von Teese existed. I also love that she was married to Marilyn Manson. Don't ask me why, but I was Googling her the other day because I kind of forgot she was a thing, and I stumbled on a bunch of her quotes. They made me laugh. I posted my fave up above. Though I like to imagine her saying, "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world... and there's still going to be somebody that just fucking hates peaches." (insert shrug)

Top 3 Reasons Why I Think Our Society Has Reached Its Peak

 

1. We have been actively searching for the "God particle" and we also have the appropriate expectations that we are probably overhyping this whole thing
2. We actively tried to deport Justin Bieber from the US back to Canada
3. And this app is a real thing. Want to wake up to the smell and sounds of bacon without actually getting up and making bacon or having any bacon? (Also known as, want to wake up hungry forever?) No one does! But here is an app for it

Mobile Payments Newest 5 Decisions

So maybe the mobile payments game isn't all over yet. A lot of news recently seems to indicate that a lot of the major card issuers are getting back into the game of mobile payments. That doesn't mean that the road ahead is clear though-- now they're wondering the nitty-gritty of the problems.

1. Visa wants to enable mobile payments and move them to the cloud. They're building on their existing PayWave technology, and are also extending the Visa Ready Program in order to support merchants to enable payment options in the cloud. The cloud offers a new turn in the mobile payments game-- for years people have worried about the balance of the security in the cloud vs. the flexibility and scalability of hosting things in the cloud. It seems like that tide is finally turning in favor of the flexibility and scalability of hosting in the cloud, and Visa is making strong strides in that direction. 
2. Partnerships have also begun to dominate. Visa and MasterCard are realizing that having a partner can help with the scaling needs to get them to the tipping point of adoption. Moreover, they're throwing their weight solely behind Android 4.4 and are firmly in support of their tap and pay technology
3. Partnerships do not have to be "like with like" either. Visa and MasterCard, two of the largest issuers in America have teamed up, sure, but we're also seeing more partnerships across specialties. Samsung, a hardware provider, has recently found a worthy partner in PayPal, whose origin comes from software. Partnerships like these allow both parties to leverage the strengths of the other to produce a stronger overall solution. Although rumors claim that these two are also in talks with Apple, nothing can be confirmed
4. Instant usability is a requirement. Loop Payments recently unveiled a key fob that leverages existing POS terminals to allow consumers to use mobile payments with a consolidated "wallet" of payment methods. The fob only works when connected to a user's iPhone, thereby inherently providing another layer of interconnectivity and potentially security into the process
5. The battle between Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and NFC (Near Field Communications) continues. Although they both have their pros and cons, choosing the wrong one could pen a potential player from adoption. This risk undoubtedly has a lot of potential players sitting on the sidelines to see what ultimately shakes out and what the industry decides to go with. In short, nothing much has changed in the last two years

Things I Learned Recently... Part Purple 2.7

• Apparently the new health care law is having a lot of unintended consequences considering some people are finding it as an opportunity to quit their jobs because they no longer need to be employed to get healthcare
• Don't know how I feel about this one. On one hand, good for you for being a little more empowered and taking charge of your life. On the other hand, you either could have done this earlier and I'm scared that lazy people will use this as an excuse to leave their jobs with limited penalty
• So Satya Nadella is Microsoft CEO now 
• He's a Booth alum. Big props. Apparently, some Indians are seeing this actually as a negative reflection on their culture as it highlights how so many people are moving away from India and becoming more successful abroad, which highlights the brain drain that is currently occurring in their country
•  Dartmouth has experienced low application rates this year. They guess its because of some of the bad publicity they've received regarding sexual assault/hazing on their campus
• They say they're working on it, and they're building new centers to combat any negative occurrences on campus, but I don't know if a new center is going to fix all of their problems
• So Ali Baba is killin' it. They were just valued at $153B after surging sales, and is probably what's really propping up Yahoo (a main shareholder)
• As a B2B sourcing portal between Asia and...everywhere else, this isn't surprising anyone. Expect their valuation to keep going up and their IPO price (supposedly later this year) to be ridiculous
• Apparently inequality is kind of unavoidable
• Some scientists set up an experiment awhile ago where everyone starts with equal talent and equal wealth. Setting up incentives to protect the non-wealthy actually resulted in an aggregated wealth disparity

• Sao Paulo, facing a drought, just figured out its largest water supply may run dry in 45 days
• So, I'm not a scientist, but I don't think that's good. It's compounded because much of the petrochemical refinery that happens requires a lot of water, which could result in extreme difficulties
• Technologist and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that, contrary to the popular belief of nerds everywhere, technology will simply allow humans to be the best versions of themselves
• Not only will we have the benefits of gene selection, but we'll also be healthier thanks to tiny blood-cell-sized nanobots, better monitoring of our everyday health and be more productive

Tech Giants-- Making Money (or Not), Hating on Each Other, etc.

 

I haven't caught up on my news in awhile. I've just been all over the place. I have a couple of questions and/or thoughts:

• Why isn't Amazon making money yet? Any article that starts off by saying, "Amazon’s third quarter followed a familiar script: it sold vast quantities of things, lost money while doing so, and investors were delighted." is never a good sign. It has 100 fulfillment centers, two more to come, they've expanded their services into several new ventures-- but are they heading the right direction? I've got a new theory that, similar to the way there were certain banks that were "too big to fail", there are tech companies who are that way too. Amazon I think might be beginning to fall into that category. They'll probably never go under, but they might not ever make a ton of money either
• Microsoft is definitively at a cross roads.  Go the business route for the stability? Chase after individual consumers for the hype and potentially higher margins? Hardware? Software? So many decisions...
• I knew it. I knew there was something bad about working at Google. Though I gotta say, "I work with too many awesome people" is weak sauce. I'm looking at you, guy.
• I love Jeff Koons, but I had no idea he designed the new ARTPOP cover for Lady Gaga. Upon further reflection, it totally makes sense. Even though ARTPOP isn't doing well. Sad face.
• It was only a matter of time before the big names in Tech (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.) began to turn on each other. Therefore: Microsoft's new campaign (complete with swag!) that's anti-Google
• I can't believe it's possible that a whole town can't have cell phones. But I guess looking for life in outer space is a worthy cause. This is a real thing people.

Fancy SV-ers Ruining It for the Rest of Us

You know what I'm sick of? Those hot-shot folks in Silicon Valley-- riding their candy whips, sippin' on the 'Cardi and upgrading to their iPhone 5S-es (I always have to check when I type that--- I'm constantly terrified that I typed "iPhone 5 asses") like gangstas do.

How dare they try to save the news industry by investing their ungodly amounts of money in dying news channels? (Though I guess some of it is well-deserved since they're...you know...making things that no one has ever tried before.) Trying to innovate by putting desktop-power chips in phones and forcing progress across the board?

But the real fear should probably focus on the Seattle area. Bezos is on a tear right now. He's on the news investing thing, he's making a ton of revenue (though no profit yet).

I just remember that the young professionals in Silicon Valley were the dreamers-- the independent, free-thinking spirits who dreamt big and did big things. As Silicon Valley grows, it seems like there's a distinct change in the atmosphere-- people are more obsessed with the "see and be seen", the dreaming has been tied up in red tape, and it's become increasingly clear that nothing is for free any more (real estate in San Francisco? Fughedaboutit. Three words: Google Bus Pinatas.)

Going back to Silicon Valley in a few months will be a huge change for me, and I wonder how I will adapt. Here's the list I have so far:

1. Denial-- just refuse to believe I'm spending $2K+ per month for 600 square feet
2. Bargaining-- see if maybe my office will let me sleep under my desk
3. Anger-- I feel like this is where most of my time will be spent

How I Feel Nowadays

Barack Obama Broke the Internet

 

So, in case you missed it (because who doesn't love up-to-the-minute updates about the healthcare?) Healthcare.gov launched recently and Barack Obama (by the way, have you ever Googled "Obamacare"?  It's scary-- see one of my favorites above).

Apparently there's been mixed results in terms of how effective the healthcare.gov website has been, from some people saying that 130K people have signed up for healthcare, to people saying that unique visitors declined from 15M to 4M in the first two weeks due to poor website performance.  The real numbers are probably lower than that, even though some states are definitely farther ahead than others. Obama has been quoted saying that "nobody's madder than me" about the failures of the website. I do like this article from BusinessWeek though about the allocation of money to develop this site. The site cost $394M, of which, $88M went to a Canadian development firm called CGI. However, it seems wrong to blame it all on the developers. Anyone who has ever worked with the government can attest that most of the repositories, data sources and tools are laughably outdated and impossible to work with.

Overall, it seems like it was just a failure in expectation setting. After weeks of folks claiming that this was going to modernize healthcare and the high price tag, having glitchy back end systems are a huge let down-- especially for an administration that, at first glance, seemed to truly understand technology and how to connect people in effective ways. I have no doubt that they have an inordinate amount of people working on it now, but it may be too little too late.

INTC and More Money for Me

Some people are Intel haters... For fear of vertical integration or just falling behind (re: Sandy Bridge or Cyclone) but I still see a bright spot for Intel. In business school we often read about the rise and falls of companies in their respective industries, and, almost like morbid stock analysts, we actually kind of cheer when a company falls from grace (when Apple's stock price dipped earlier this summer, I can't tell you how many people gleefully informed me that this was "the beginning of the end" to which I responded that the stock price is still in the hundreds.. as in, more than one hundred). But why are we so mean? Is it really even mean-ness? I think it's more the fact that when companies fail, it just makes for good reading fodder later.

Someone at HBS will write a fun back story for us about a business school student who suddenly thought about some underlying, fundamental problem. His name will be something generic, like Chad, and these ideas will suddenly come to him. His professors or connections will magically be able to offer time and resources, and he'll learn that what he learns in class at business school is applicable after all!

But I digress. Intel has always been known to be buttoned up-- pretty up tight-- the khakis and blue shirt uniform in a hoodies and jeans-type world. Their two-in-a-box leadership pitted two specialist leaders together in a partnership to guide their teams toward goals. They lead by challenging. It's a far cry from the meditation rooms at Google's office. Regardless of whether you agree with their leadership style, no one can argue that they don't know chips.They're good at it. They've done it for a long time. A lot of the industry still depends on them. They have been slow to adopt the new ways of thinking that have been pushed forward with the mobile generation.

They're going to be successful because, honestly, they're so big that they have a lot of gas left. If they don't introduce their Broadwell chips to some amazing reviews/innovations (this means no more delays), then they'll eventually run out of gas. But they're really cheap right now, and I can foresee an uptick when they finally introduce their new chips. In the long run? They're probably a sell. They don't have a ton going for them and they're not diversified. BUT they have the resources to innovate. Time will tell if they decide to capitalize on their current resources.

College Costs Rise by 500% in US Since 1985

Can someone please explain this chart to me? As someone who just got hit hard with my most recent tuition bill, this seems kind of unfair.

Granted, I'm sure there's 18 different ways that this data has been tampered with and therefore this isn't as accurate as it should be because we decided to cut and filter the crap out of this data, but regardless, something needs to be done.

With unemployment levels not seen since the 1990s and the continuing rise of globalization, the world is a smarter, more efficient and more diverse place. This makes us more innovative, but it also inherently leads to more competitive positions to fill. Although people try to comfort me in saying that greater efficiency does not necessarily mean fewer jobs, it's a hard thing to believe when you're trying to pay off all of that student debt.

Nokia's Next New Thing

So. It's finally happened. After back-to-back years of loss, Nokia has decided to let itself be acquired by Microsoft. According to the terms of the deal, Microsoft gets Nokia's phone business, Qualcomm and other key IP licenses. Microsoft licenses Nokia's patents for all Microsoft products as well as the ability to use Nokia HERE broadly in its products. Nokia retains NSN, HERE, its CTO office and its patent portfolio.

Reading Nokia's earnings reports is a sad, sad thing to do (more accessible presentation here). Losses each quarter, and being particularly hit hard in its mobile devices due to slimming margins means that there is little relief coming for this company. However, contrary to the market (Microsoft stock fell this morning upon opening while Nokia's soared), I've been big on Nokia. For nothing else, because it's clear that its patent portfolio could be its golden goose to get itself out of this mess. Nokia probably will not last for much longer as the Nokia that we know it as today, but between its geo-centric capabilities (HERE) and its highly innovative technologies focusing on its camera (Lumia 1020 supposedly has the best phone camera in the world), Nokia should get acquired by a bigger entity, and Microsoft is the perfect candidate.

From Microsoft's perspective, they've instantly bought their way into the location-based game, and now could potentially rival Google in the future with mapping and geo-centric data on its users. Additionally, with all of the hype coming around regarding the photographic qualities that a smart phone gives its users (augmented reality, personal digital assistants, entertainment, bar code scanning, geo-centric streaming data, object recognition for mobile shopping, mobile payments), don't be surprised if Microsoft parlays the excellent camera as something more utilitarian....perhaps even as a rival to Google Glass. Officially, in Microsoft's official M&A announcement/call/related presentation, they seem pretty tight lipped on their plans, however, the growth and popularity of their new windows phone bodes well for their new relationship. Microsoft did explicitly call out that they're looking at "a family of devices with integrated services" with a specific call-out to geospatial. Particularly if Microsoft can parlay it into their existing portfolio of Xbox (entertainment) and Skype (communication), this "geospatial" play could really work out well for both them and Nokia.