Read it and comment away.

[ Via CNN ]

By David Goldman, staff writerSeptember 1, 2010: 3:41 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A hot new smartphone can be Incredible, Vibrant, Epic or just “eh,” but no matter how it stacks up, it’s a safe bet that it will start selling at $199.

On the four major wireless networks — Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T, Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile — there are 13 smartphones priced at $199 with a two-year contract. There are no phone models with a higher starting price (add-ons like more memory can increase the price tag), and there are more smartphones selling at $199 than at any other single price point.

But spending $199 doesn’t guarantee you a top-of-the-line phone. On AT&T’s (T, Fortune 500) network, $199 will buy an iPhone 4, the best-selling smartphone of all time. But you’ll need to fork over the same amount for a BlackBerry Bold 9700, a nine-month-old phone that lacks a touch screen.

It will also cost you $199 to get an HTC Tilt 2, which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 — an operating system so out of date that Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is set to completely abandon it in the next few months.

So what’s so special about $199?

“The obvious answer is that $199 is a magic price point for smartphone volume,” said George Appling, partner at consulting firm Booz & Co. “The not-so-obvious reason is that carriers are not charging customers what they pay.”

In other words, wireless carriers pay significantly more for smartphones than you do. In exchange for your signature on an expensive two-year contract, they’ll offer you the smartphone for less than it costs them but as much as they think you’ll pay for it — and right now, that’s $199 across the board. Buy an unsubsidized iPhone 4 straight from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and you’ll pay $599 for the 16 GB phone that AT&T sells for $199 with a two-year contract.

Smartphones generally cost carriers around $500 per unit. Volume deals and other negotiations with manufacturers can shave down that price tag, but the hotter the phone, the more a carrier will pay to buy it.

But that’s just the start of their calculations of what a phone “costs.”

0:00 /2:18The Motorola Droid 2 is unleashed

Phones that tend to eat up more bandwidth — hello iPhone! — add to the carrier’s overhead. Put together the upfront cost of the phone and the back-end cost to service it, and you’re left with the phone’s profit margin. For a model with really tight margins, the carrier might find itself essentially forced to charge more upfront than it otherwise would — it can’t discount the purchase price and still scrape out a profit. That sometimes leads to inferior phones, like the BlackBerry Bold, carrying the same price tag as more advanced rivals, like BlackBerry’s Torch.

It wasn’t always that way. Before the age of tricked-out smartphones with expensive touch screens and processors, cell phones were much cheaper to manufacture. That gave wireless companies more leeway to compete on cost, and prior to the iPhone’s mid-2007 release, phones had a wide variety of price tags.

But as phones got more expensive, a tiering of prices developed. Even the iPhone couldn’t hold the high ground: Initially priced at $599 — yes, even with a two-year contract — the phone plunged to $399 just two months after its debut. By 2008, it had settled into the $199 groove.

If you don’t need the latest and greatest, you can certainly score a gadget for less. Older, less exciting smartphones like the LG Ally, Palm Pre and Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) Devour go for $149, or even $99.

But you won’t find many phones priced outside those $50 tier increments.

“There’s no $189 price point any more because operators don’t want to suggest that one phone is a little better or a little worse than another at the same tier,” said Charles Golvin, analyst at Forrester Research. “Carriers are looking for simplicity, even if that doesn’t reflect their margins.”

So will any carrier try to shake up the market and sell a cutting-edge phone for less? Don’t hold your breath.

“No price war is going to happen,” Appling said. “If Verizon got the iPhone tomorrow, it would probably sell for $199. They’re already in a $300 hole when they add a customer, so they’ll be extraordinarily hesitant to make that worse.”

That’s not to say the wireless carriers are getting a bad deal. They’re happy to take the initial hit in exchange for a data plan that costs subscribers an extra $30 or so a month on their bill. And smartphone users tend to stick with their networks longer than low-end phone users, according to Soumen Ganguly, principal at Altman Vilandrie & Co. That makes them dream customers: They pay more and churn less.

The $199 price point has another perk for carriers. We’re in the midst of a smartphone innovation boom, with companies pumping out new top-of-the-line phones every few months with better screens, memory and features. When those new phones are offered at the same price point older models once were, they seem like a steal in comparison. That draws new customers into the market — and inspires those with aging phones to trade up and lock themselves into a fresh contract.

“There will always be a next big phone coming out in two months that will justify the $199 price,” Ganguly said. “Manufacturers are innovating faster than the willingness of carriers to compete on price.”

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This comes to you via WSJ:

Wall Street bonuses may come early this year.

With the specter of higher taxes looming in 2011 and banks still reeling from last year’s U.K. bonus tax, executives at some financial-services companies are considering whether to pay year-end bonuses, traditionally doled out starting in January, sooner.

Managing directors at Credit Suisse Group in London learned last Wednesday that they would receive a late-summer reward that will restore at least some of the money they sacrificed last year when the bank cut payouts in response to the one-time U.K. bonus tax.

The bank will pay a midyear bonus on Sept. 1 …

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This conversation is a recording of the live show on TORi with Nalamotu Chakravarthy. Topics of the conversation included: the motivation for writing his book, Telangana issue, the August 2nd attack on him by Telangana separatists, and Srikrishna Committee.

Contents of this four part podcast:

Part 1 – Conversation by Mohan and Chakravarthy

Part 1 – Callers: Arun, Tirumal, Hanumantha Reddy

Part 3 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Part 4 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Date of broadcast: August 22, 2010

Audio Language: Mostly Telugu

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1. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 3 of 4
2. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 2 of 4
3. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 1 of 4

Contents of this four part podcast:

Part 1 – Conversation by Mohan and Chakravarthy

Part 1 – Callers: Arun, Tirumal, Hanumantha Reddy

Part 3 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Part 4 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Date of broadcast: August 22, 2010

Audio Language: Mostly Telugu

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2. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 1 of 4
3. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 4 of 4

Contents of this four part podcast:

Part 1 – Conversation by Mohan and Chakravarthy

Part 1 – Callers: Arun, Tirumal, Hanumantha Reddy

Part 3 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Part 4 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Date of broadcast: August 22, 2010

Audio Language: Mostly Telugu

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2. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 1 of 4
3. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 4 of 4

This conversation is a recording of the live show on TORi with Nalamotu Chakravarthy. Topics of the conversation included: the motivation for writing his book, Telangana issue, the August 2nd attack on him by Telangana separatists, and Srikrishna Committee.

Contents of this four part podcast:

Part 1 – Conversation by Mohan and Chakravarthy

Part 1 – Callers: Arun, Tirumal, Hanumantha Reddy

Part 3 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Part 4 – Callers: Sumanth, Ramana, Saradhi

Date of broadcast: August 22, 2010

Audio Language: Mostly Telugu

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2. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 2 of 4
3. Conversation with Chakravarthy: ‘mana Telugu thalli’ Book and Telangana 4 of 4

Osmania University was founded by the Nizam Nawab on principles of Muslim brotherhood. But the real backdrop was hatred towards Hindus. In the early 1900s, on religious occasions Hindu students were not even allowed to gather on campus. The only worship allowed by Hindu students was in their own hostel rooms. (Today, this culture is still in practice in most Islamic Republics). In essence, Hindus were second class citizens on OU campus in those days.

When Vandemataram movement was in full swing, the VC banned uttering the word ‘Vandemataram’ on campus. They even put some people in jail for violating this ban – one among them was our own former prime minister, Sri PV Narasimharao.

Despite this checkered past – in the late 60s OU alumni was one of the most elite in the nation. In fact, at one point three sitting CMs were OU alumni.

Fast forward to early 1970s – students who were from the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema region were mobbed, beaten and threatened to death by the then Telangana separatists. A lot of students and employees from the two regions were expatriated to colleges and positions in the other regions. Talk about being second-class citizens in their own state.

Thugs and goondas have populated the ranks for student roster in the 70s. Anecdotal stories of  several students taking examinations with a knife display were in circulation. All this raucous led to several employers having a footnote in their job announcements in papers: “Candidates from the Osmania University need not apply.”

Now the history is repeating itself. Thuggery and hate is back in full-force at OU. And this is all done at the behest of JAC!!! [From TeluguOne]

హైదరాబాద్: ఉస్మానియా విశ్వవిద్యాలయంలో జరుగుతున్న బి.ఇడి. స్పాట్ వాల్యూయేషన్‌ను ఉస్మానియా జె.ఎ.సి. అడ్డుకున్నది. కొందరు అధ్యాపకులను విద్యార్థులు తరిమికొట్టారు. అధ్యాపకుల చేతిలో ఉన్న పేపర్లను కూడా వారు లాక్కున్నారు. అంతటితో సీమాంధ్ర అధ్యాపకులు భయంతో అటు ఇటు పరుగులు తీశారు.
ఈ దాడి గురించి గవర్నర్ నరసింహన్ అసలు ఏమి జరిగిందని వైస్ ఛాన్సలర్ వాకబు చేసి తెలుసుకున్నారు. సీమాంధ్ర అధ్యాపకులు తక్షణం వెనుకకు వెళ్లాలని జె.ఎ.సి. కోరింది. ఆంధ్ర ప్రాంత అధ్యాపకులతో పేపర్లు దిద్దించరాదంటూ ఉస్మానియా జె.ఎ.సి. నినాదాలు కూడా చేసింది. సీమాంధ్ర అధ్యాపకులు తెలంగాణా విద్యార్థుల మనోభావాలను దెబ్బ తీశారని జె.ఎ.సి. నాయకులు ఆరోపించారు. సీమాంధ్ర అధ్యాపకులు ఈ నెల 30 వ తేదీలోగా వెనుదిరిగి వెళ్లాలని జె.ఎ.సి. కోరింది. వారిని వెనుకకు పంపించకపోతే ఉద్యమాన్ని తీవ్రం చేస్తామని ఉస్మానియా జె.ఎ.సి. హెచ్చరించింది.

స్థానిక అధ్యాపకులతోనే పేపర్లు దిద్దించాలని, లేకపోతే తెలంగాణా విద్యార్ధులకు అన్యాయం జరుగుతుందని జె.ఎ.సి. ఆరోపించింది. అధ్యాపకులపై జరిగిన దాడిని సమైక్యాంధ్ర టీచర్స్ సమాఖ్య ఖండించింది. అధ్యాపకులకు తెలంగాణా అని, సీమాంధ్ర అనీ వివక్ష ఉండదని వారు వివరించారు. పేపర్లు దిద్దే విషయంలో డీ కోడింగు జరుగుతుంది కాబట్టి ఏ పేపరు ఎవరిది అన్నది ఎవరికీ తెలియదని, అటువంటప్పుడు సీమాంధ్ర అధ్యాపకులు తెలంగాణా విద్యార్ధులకు అన్యాయం ఎలా చేస్తారని వారు ప్రశ్నించారు. ఇప్పటివరకూ అన్నదమ్ముల్లా విడిపోదామంటున్న తెలంగాణా ఉద్యమ నాయకులు ఇప్పుడు అధ్యాపకులపై జె.ఎ.సి. దాడి చేయడాన్ని ఎలా సమర్ధించుకుంటారని వారు ప్రశ్నించారు. ఒక అధ్యాపకుడై ఉండి జె.ఎ.సి. నాయకుడు ప్రొఫెసర్ కోదండరామ్ తోటి అధ్యాపకులపై దాడి జరుగుతుంటే ఏం చేస్తున్నారని, ఆయన తక్షణం తన పదవికి రాజీనామా చేయాలని వారు కోరారు.

Excuse me, if this is not an act of terrorism, what  is?

In essence, now the students, faculty and staff from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema are not only second-class citizens on OU campus, but are also target of hate!

I am wondering aloud if good ole days of “candidates from OU need not apply” will be back!

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Get Caller ID from Your Computer

Let’s say you’ve got a landline set up with Google Voice and you don’t want to pay for caller ID. Or you just spend a lot of time staring at your computer. If you’re logged into Gmail, and someone rings up your Google Voice number, you can see who’s calling on your computer without digging your phone out of your pocket.

Transfer Calls to (and from) Your Computer to Save Cellphone Minutes

Assuming you’ve already added your Gmail Chat account as a number that can be reached through Google Voice (which also assumes you’ve signed up for Google Voice), you can transfer calls from your phone to your computer to save cellphone minutes. Here’s how it works:

1) If you’re logged into your Google account, go to theGoogle Voice phone settings page. At the bottom, you should see a new option for Google Chat (like in the image). Make sure it’s checked.

2) Now, when you’re in the midst of a call on your cellphone—let’s say you were talking to someone in the car, and now you’re home—just hit the * (asterisk) on your phone’s number pad to send the call to another Google Voice phone. If your Gmail account is open, your inbox should start ringing. Pick up in Gmail and hangup your cellphone.

The opposite works, as well—i.e., transferring calls out from Gmail to your cellphone. Oh, and remember: If you’ve got a decent Bluetooth headset, you should also be able to stay relatively mobile, even if you’re talking from your computer.

Find Your Misplaced Phone

Misplace your cellphone under a pile of clothes or deep in your couch cushions? If you left your ringer on but don’t have another phone on hand, just log into Gmail, dial your cellphone number, and follow the faint sound of ringing.

Use It for a Quick-and-Dirty Speakerphone for Group Calls

Google Voice is already pretty good at setting up conference calls (demonstrated in the video above). Now that you can call from your computer, you’ve also got a quick-and-dirty speakerphone perfect for the group of people sitting around a table on your coast.

Make a Quick Followup Call in Response to an Email

This is less of an “amazing new thing” than a nice, practical side effect of having one more thing integrated with your inbox. Say you get an email from a colleague. You want to send a quick followup, but it’s going to be a lot more appropriate talking than typing a reply. Dial the person up in Gmail and talk it out without disrupting your workflow.

Secretly Record Calls

Google Voice has handy recording function, but whenever you enable it (hit 4 to start and finish recording), Google Voice announces “This call is now being recorded.” Prefer to record a conversation surreptitiously? Calling from Gmail puts the audio on your computer, where you can use any number of tools to record your system audio on-the-sly. (For example, despite what I thought at the time, Whitson later told me he wasn’t aware I was recording the call in the video above.) File this under the know-your-state-laws category.

Prank Time

Speaking of neat things you can do now that your computer hardware is accessible for both inputs and outputs, consider this: If you set your onboard system audio as your default input device rather than a microphone, you can, say, play the caller a little song. That’s maybe a little boring. On the other hand, it’s even easier to navigate to your favorite prank call soundboard and have a little fun.

Make Free Calls Anywhere You’ve Got Free Wi-Fi

Your mileage may vary on this one, but anywhere you’ve got your laptop and free Wi-Fi—like, say, any Starbucks in the U.S.—you can fire up a free phone call to anyone in the U.S. or Canada and chat away. There’s a good chance that many free Wi-Fi hotspots don’t provide you with enough bandwidth to make high enough quality calls, but if you’re desperate to save on minutes (or just don’t have a phone handy), it’s worth a try.

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One reason why America is ahead of the other countries is “Testing”. While all the countries are only fiddling these on fake targets, America is testing these drones in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan i.e. on real life war scenarios. Just give perspective, Pakistan alone provided a nice test bed for Americans since 2004 .

And guess what will happen if America tests an unmanned vehicle inside the country. ITS A MESS. A SCARY MESS.
US Navy said they lost control of an unmanned 30 foot helicopter looking aerial vehicle. The drone entered into the restricted air space, and was within 40 miles the capital. Imagine the situation in the control room

[To quote Gizmodo]

“The Times says that “the Navy did not describe the scene inside the ground control station as operators sought to re-establish communication with the drone,” but I’ll bet they were all like “oh shit oh shit oh shit.”"

Read the article from via NYT and don’t forget to comment.

WASHINGTON — The skies over the nation’s capital are crowded with presidential aircraft, military flyovers and the Delta shuttle, but this month a strange new bird was briefly among them: a United States Navy drone that wandered into the restricted airspace around Washington before operators could stop it.

The Fire Scout, about 31 feet long and 10 feet high, is a surveillance aircraft that can take off from Navy warships. In April, a Fire Scout was part of a drug arrest in the waters off Central America. According to the Navy, the Fire Scout relayed video of a suspicious fishing vessel to the Coast Guard and law enforcement officials, who moved in and seized 60 kilos of cocaine.

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There is nothing better than comedy, a well delivered comedy to drive a strong point across. It applies to one of my pet topics: Focus on the fraud perpetrated by the for-profit colleges in US. In last night’s episode of Colbert Report, Stephen reinforces my arguments against the outfits who soak students with excessive debt for worthless pieces of paper as ‘degree.’ Stephen makes a connection that I could not make earlier – a connection between Goldman Sachs and the for-profit education

If you are in the market for a degree from College Inc., this is a must watch video.

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What is a rubber-band economy? Imagine the rubber material to be hard cash (currency in circulation) – notes, coins etc outside the central banks and the vaults of depositary institutions.

Stretching it would mean that you have expanded credit. More stretch means more credit. More and more stretch – to the point that it breaks, that is the financial crisis in 2008!  A run on the banks is nothing but the rush to cash, like rubber-band retreating to its material state. Then they grabbed the broken ends quickly, tied them with a knot. Will it work?

This is a good analogy. If you care to know what is happening in the US economy in relatively simpler language – listen to this conversation between me and Sumanth.

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If you are into internet in any which way, you have a vested interest in the future shape of internet. In fact, the very fact that you are reading this article means that internet is in your life. Then, you cannot ignore the discussion and the policy on Net Neutrality.

What is this net neutrality? Well, leave it to our resident geek Bhanu Prakash. This 12 min conversation is well worth your time.

Broadcast date on TORi: Aug 20, 2010

Audio language: Telugu

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ఎవరో ఇద్దరు సహా నటీమణులు మరియు ఇంకొక విదేశి వనిత ఒక అపార్ట్మెంట్ లో విటులతో వుంటే, మన పోలీసులు దాడి చేసి పట్టుకున్నారు. ఇది వార్త. ఇప్పటికి రెండు రోజులు, ఇంకా ఈ బ్రేకింగ్ న్యూస్ విరుగుతనే వుంది.

ఏమిరా పరమాత్మా, ఈ పరీస్తితి? అంత ఇంట్రెస్ట్ లేకుంటే చూడడం మానెయ్యండి అనొద్దు, ఆ వాదన నిలువదు.

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3. చిన్ననాటి తీపి గురుతులు. రండి, సరదాగా నవ్వుకుందాము.

I don’t need to write much – just watch this ABC news undercover video and see confirmation of whatever I have been saying for a couple of years. These guys at Universities of Fraud are worse than vultures. Look at the bold-faced lies by the senior official at the university. [This comes to you via Huffington Post]

Following the recent revelation that for-profit college recruiters often use deceptive tactics when reaching out to potential students, ABC News decided to go undercover and see if that was still the case at the University of Phoenix.

Short answer: Yes.

A University of Phoenix recruiter guaranteed an undercover producer that, after completing a bachelor’s of science of education program at the school, he would be able to find a job as a teacher in New York or Texas. Additional research by ABC proved otherwise.

University of Phoenix President William Pepicello responded to the sting: “Can we do better? Absolutely.”

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