Amanda Knox is facing yet another murder trial in Italy for a crime of which she was found innocent. The revival of the baseless charges against Knox, and the tabloid frenzy it will no doubt stoke, proceeds from a five-year-long judicial circus in Italy.
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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Based on last quarter’s global PC shipment numbers, Microsoft continues to feel pain in making the case for Windows is a viable tablet operating system. Theoretically, the dual-identity (Windows 8/RT) operating system has everything it needs to be a contender, but the promise is ahead of the reality on three interdependent fronts: chip-level hardware, legacy support, and app software.
For example, if x86 chips were more competitive with ARM processors from a performance-per-watt perspective, then Microsoft wouldn’t be as reliant on Metro-style apps for functionality. And if more developers were creating Metro-style apps, then consumers wouldn’t have to go to the legacy desktop mode as much to get things done. (Until the company releases a Metro-style Office, Microsoft really can’t wag its finger too much at third parties.)
In a recent SEC filing, it was discovered that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg will only be taking a $1 salary this year. He will also be rejecting any potential bonuses he may receive this year as well. While the SEC filing confirms that he will only be making a dollar this year, Zuckerberg first revealed he would be taking a dollar salary in Facebook’s IPO filing.
Last year, Zuckerberg made about half a million dollars, and with his bonus, he made about 3/4 of a million dollars. But Zuckerberg isn’t working pretty much for free for no reason. He has an incentive to do so. He currently holds 60 million stock options that are currently worth 6 cents a piece. By only being paid a buck, he has more incentive to work and build up Facebook’s financial value.
Many other CEOs have reduced their salaries to a single dollar before. While they only get a dollar in the form of a salary, they are rewarded in other ways, including bonuses and stock options. Steve Jobs reduced his salary to a dollar back when he rejoined Apple in 1998, but he received stock grants in return (which he stopped taking after 2003). Google’s Larry page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt all reduced their salaries to $1 back in 2005.
Other notable figures include Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Capital One’s Richard Fairbank, Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, Zynga’s Mark Pincus, and HP’s Meg Whitman. Most of these CEOs obtain bonuses or stock options (which could be exempt from a portion of payroll taxes). By being paid through stock options, its believed that these CEOs would increase their work performance, because how much they get paid is equal to how well their companies do.
[via Business Insider]
Mark Zuckerberg claims salary and bonus pay reduced to minimum is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Paul Krugman’s got it right when it comes to the economic crisis, says Paul Krugman.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist responded in a blog post Sunday to his countless critics who claim he’s choosing specific facts and ignoring others to make his case that budget-tightening policies are hurting economies around the world.
His comments come as debate rages in Washington and in Europe over whether slashing spending — which has led to high unemployment and slowed immediate economic growth in some places — is the best way to boost economies in the long term.
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WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Sunday refused to rule out the possibility of deploying American troops to Syria, while top Republican lawmakers called for increased U.S. intervention in the civil war there. The comments, made on various Sunday television programs, reflect an increased sense of urgency this week about the potential use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.
“I don’t think you want to ever rule it out,” McCaskill said of U.S. troop involvement in the Syrian conflict, which has claimed more than 70,000 lives over two years. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” McCaskill, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “We don’t want to [deploy U.S. troops] unless it’s absolutely necessary, [but] I don’t think you ever want to say absolutely not.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took a more cautionary tack on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Sunday that the FBI is investigating in the United States and overseas to determine whether the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing received training that helped them carry out the attack.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is charged with joining with his older brother, Tamerlan, who’s now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The bombs were triggered by a remote detonator of the kind used in remote-control toys, U.S. officials have said.
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Leighton Meester and Adam Brody keep low profiles as they leave the ArcLight Cinemas together on Saturday (April 27) in Los Angeles.
SAVAR, Bangladesh — A fire has broken out in the wreckage of the garment factory that collapsed last week in Bangladesh, with smoke pouring from the piles of shattered concrete and some rescue efforts forced to stop.
Officials say the fire broke out because of sparks generated as rescuers tried to cut through a steel rod to reach a survivor. Firefighters are trying to bring the fire under control.
Katie Couric appeared on “General Hospital,” but she didn’t just stop with the acting. On her talk show, “Katie,” Couric revealed she had a hand in coming up with her little storyline.
Couric played a sneaky journalist who made her way into the hospital under false pretenses. “I did actually help the writers come up with that storyline,” Couric said on her show. “Sleazy tabloid reporters actually sneak into hospitals.”
“General Hospital,” the only remaining soap opera on ABC, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
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Red Dead Revolver‘s dueling mode was one of the game’s unique features. It attempted to emulate the feeling of tension by making the player go through a timing-based mini game. But what if you could actually go through the motions of a duel itself? Wouldn’t that be more exciting and fun to play? That’s the idea behind Quick Draw, a multiplayer game that uses the much maligned PlayStation Move controller.
Quick Draw is currently being developed by Greenfly Studios. Greenfly’s Stephen Morris described the mechanics and history of Quick Draw at The Penny-Arcade Report. Unlike most videogames, Quick Draw doesn’t have you look at a monitor and control an avatar. Instead, you just use your body and the Move controller to target other players, which ideally makes it a fun party game. Quick Draw has three modes, but the goal in all of them is simple: be the one with the fastest trigger finger. As you’ll see in the video below, the winner is the one whose PS Move doesn’t glow red after the shootout.
Gotta love the sound effects! Greenfly Studios is working on releasing Quick Draw not just for the PlayStation but for PC and Mac as well. I wonder if Quick Draw can also include a two-player game mode where you gather a bunch of PS Move controllers in the middle of the floor, then at the count of three both opponents scramble to get a controller and shoot at each other. But the catch is that only one of the controllers has a “bullet” in it, so the players have to keep scrambling for the loaded controller, like a scene from a comedy action movie.
[via Greenfly Studios via The Penny-Arcade Report]
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