Green Notes

Consumer Report did not recommend iPhone 4 when it launched back in June 2010 and later in February 2011 on Verizon. Now that iPhone 4S has exactly the same casing and antenna location, Consumer Report will not recommend iPhone 4S again.

iPhone 4S - edited image from Apple website

iPhone 4 - image from Consumer Report

Rejecting the best selling smartphone in the world for 2 years straight is a heavy mistake but I’m sure the editors have no other choice.

As reported by Nadia Damouni of Reuters, the recently bankrupted Nortel’s patents were put on auction bid among tech giants, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Intel and other companies. It turns out that Google and Intel lost the patent bid to Apple, Microsoft and other companies. There are suggestions going around the net that Google actually won strategically because it forces the winners to pay more than what analysts expected.

I think this sort of thinking is incorrect. The winning bid pays 4.5 billion dollars for the patents. This sum of money is distributed among the winning consortium. To make the comparison simple(and factually incorrect), assume that Apple pays the entire 4.5 billion dollars for the patents. How much is 4.5 billion to Apple?

Apple made 6 billion dollars profit in the most recent quarter. Apple could pay the entire bid with the money it made last quarter and still have change to increase its current cash holding of 65.8 billion dollars.

Did Google win or lose the bid?

Same data, different chart. Middle class earns the most income or the richest earns the most income?

Actually, statistics do not lie. The numbers are correct. They can’t lie to a pair of trained eyes. But most people who are not trained in statistics will be lured into the false story of what the chart creator wants to tell.

Most of us use Google’s products. They range from Google search and Gmail to Google Docs. Google Chrome is also  one of the leading internet browsers, market share surpassing even Apple’s Safari.

Google is well loved because it provides many useful free services that are reliable and dependable. However, despite Google being a provider of free technological services, it is an advertising company at its core.

Google uses its Google search to place advertisements. Companies that wish to place advertisements in Google’s search result can pay a fee for the adwords. This would be fine as advertising can be a business model for any legitimate business, Google included.

However, Google recently is settling a US Department of Justice criminal investigation. Google left aside a $500 million fund to resolve this criminal charge. The charge that DOJ brought against Google is that Google knowlngly accepted advertising revenues from online pharmacies that violated U.S. laws.

Another recent case on Skyhook suing Google for forcing Motorola to drop Skyhook’s wifi positioning so that its Droid phones can use Google Map as it sole positioning system. The article mentioned that Skyhook was set to deliver on Droid until the very last minute when Android’s head Andy Rubin forced Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha to drop Skyhook or it would lose its license to ship Android on its Droid. This is what a monopoly would do, as there are no alternate competing mobile OS that can be license (Windows Phone 7 is still immature, but can certainly provide THE alternate mobile OS if Microsoft is up to task. But it seems unlikely as of today).

Google’s products are indispensable. I use Gmail and Google search. I do not use Google’s chrome, though I know many people who love Chrome more than Safari, probably because Safari is from Apple, so it must be bad? What I know is that both uses Webkit rendering engine, which was open sourced by Apple. At its core, there isn’t much differences between the two browsers. Both are light and fast. Hence there is no pulling factors for me to switch to Chrome.

I will continue use Google’s products because some of them like Gmail and Google Map are excellent. I would also recommend their products and services to other people who need to use these services. However, just because Google provide free services does not make Google holier than those who charge fees for premium services. However, always be aware of what you are into. Google’s corporate mantra “Don’t be evil” is foul. The most dangerous man in the Silicon Valley said so.