Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/25/2013 -- We remain extremely optimistic about the performance of Ghana's economy in the coming years, on the back of domestic oil production. In line with this view, we expect per capita food and beverage consumption to grow strongly over our forecast period to 2017, boosted by rising incomes and wealth redistribution. However, the underdeveloped mass grocery (MGR) retail network will hamper faster uptake of premium goods, with the sector yet to attract foreign investment.
Coca-Cola to Continue Emerging Markets Push: In September 2012, US soft drinks major The Coca- Cola Company was reported by Ghana Web as stating that it will continue investing in emerging markets and strive to build sustainable societies in these countries as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative. The company is particularly interested in pursuing opportunities for growth in African countries such as Ghana, where it said it will continue to develop products that meet local demand.
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Guinness Ghana Breweries Ltd Launches New Product: In December 2012, Guinness Ghana Breweries Ltd (GGBL) introduced a new product on the market. The home-grown beer, Ruut Extra Premium Beer, is reportedly Ghana's first beer made out of cassava, which is widely grown in the country. According to the GGBL's statement quoted by the local press, 'Ruut Extra Premium Beer has been developed specifically to satisfy Ghanaian men looking for a premium local beer'. The project also supports the local market and economy, given that all ingredients are locally sourced.
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It began as a seemingly awkward Jack Nicholson introduction of the very long list on nominees, but the Best Picture denouement?at a very long Oscars ceremony on Sunday turned into a surprise appearance by Michelle Obama, via satellite from the Governors' Ball in Washington, D.C.?where earlier she had sat next to Chris Christie?to introduce and announce the winner,?Argo.?
Commercial future for Model GutPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Chapple andrew.chapple@ifr.ac.uk 44-016-032-51490 Norwich BioScience Institutes
The Dynamic Gastric Model, developed from years of research at the Institute of Food Research, has taken significant steps towards improving its commercial use by food and drug companies worldwide.
IFR and the technology management company Plant Bioscience Limited (PBL) have secured funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to further develop the Dynamic Gastric Model to validate and improve how well it simulates the release of nutrients or drugs in humans.
PBL has also signed an exclusive license agreement with Bioneer regarding use of the Dynamic Gastric Model (DGM). Bioneer has also acquired PBL's highly successful DGM contract research business (www.modelgut.com) which provides specialist DGM services to the pharmaceutical and food-related industries.
The DGM is based on 15 years of research at the Institute of Food Research, in partnership with PBL. It accurately simulates the physical and biochemical processes that occur within the human stomach. It is the world's first computer controlled, mechanical simulator of gastric digestion that works in real-time to process real chewed foods or meals and oral pharmaceutical or nutraceutical products.
The commercialisation of the model represents a significant achievement for IFR in developing research and making it commercially viable. It is an example of IFR's commitment to the translation of our science for the benefit of society and commerce.
IFR will continue to work with the DGM, as part of its core research into understanding the complex interaction between health, the food we eat and our gut. The new two-year project, with funding from the BBSRC's Super Follow on Fund scheme, is worth over 900k and will refine and improve models to ensure that IFR can continue its strategic research to determine how the nutritional quality and health benefits of the food we eat can be influenced by the way it is digested. This research at IFR in the future will continue to utilise the in vitro models which have been developed here including the DGM and the model colon.
The model will also be further developed to enable studies that would not be permitted in humans; for instance, the impact of taking drugs with alcohol, or the development of an infant formulation.
IFR's Professor Peter Wilde said: "We will clearly demonstrate how well the model simulates and predicts the availability of nutrients or drugs in humans, and to refine the model so that it can be more widely used, and therefore reduce the reliance on animal and human studies. This will significantly enhance the commercial and scientific potential of the model."
The license agreement for the Dynamic Gastric Model expands Bioneer's readily available services for pharmaceutical dosage form testing, drug discovery screening, bioequivalence assessment, and functional food analysis. The Model Gut services will be integrated into Bioneer's own service offering under the Bioneer:FARMA brand.
Professor Anette Mllertz, Head of Department at Bioneer:FARMA said: "The DGM takes our services to a highly advanced level. In combination with our existing digestion models, we can now conduct advanced analyses along the whole gastro-intestinal tract."
Martin Stocks, PBL Business Development Manager, said: "We are delighted to partner Bioneer:FARMA to take The Model Gut into an exciting new phase. The integration with Bioneer:FARMA will provide a wide array of complementary capabilities that will both expand and enable the unique capabilities of the Model Gut's technologies for determining the performance of ingested materials in the gastric and intestinal compartments."
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Commercial future for Model GutPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrew Chapple andrew.chapple@ifr.ac.uk 44-016-032-51490 Norwich BioScience Institutes
The Dynamic Gastric Model, developed from years of research at the Institute of Food Research, has taken significant steps towards improving its commercial use by food and drug companies worldwide.
IFR and the technology management company Plant Bioscience Limited (PBL) have secured funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to further develop the Dynamic Gastric Model to validate and improve how well it simulates the release of nutrients or drugs in humans.
PBL has also signed an exclusive license agreement with Bioneer regarding use of the Dynamic Gastric Model (DGM). Bioneer has also acquired PBL's highly successful DGM contract research business (www.modelgut.com) which provides specialist DGM services to the pharmaceutical and food-related industries.
The DGM is based on 15 years of research at the Institute of Food Research, in partnership with PBL. It accurately simulates the physical and biochemical processes that occur within the human stomach. It is the world's first computer controlled, mechanical simulator of gastric digestion that works in real-time to process real chewed foods or meals and oral pharmaceutical or nutraceutical products.
The commercialisation of the model represents a significant achievement for IFR in developing research and making it commercially viable. It is an example of IFR's commitment to the translation of our science for the benefit of society and commerce.
IFR will continue to work with the DGM, as part of its core research into understanding the complex interaction between health, the food we eat and our gut. The new two-year project, with funding from the BBSRC's Super Follow on Fund scheme, is worth over 900k and will refine and improve models to ensure that IFR can continue its strategic research to determine how the nutritional quality and health benefits of the food we eat can be influenced by the way it is digested. This research at IFR in the future will continue to utilise the in vitro models which have been developed here including the DGM and the model colon.
The model will also be further developed to enable studies that would not be permitted in humans; for instance, the impact of taking drugs with alcohol, or the development of an infant formulation.
IFR's Professor Peter Wilde said: "We will clearly demonstrate how well the model simulates and predicts the availability of nutrients or drugs in humans, and to refine the model so that it can be more widely used, and therefore reduce the reliance on animal and human studies. This will significantly enhance the commercial and scientific potential of the model."
The license agreement for the Dynamic Gastric Model expands Bioneer's readily available services for pharmaceutical dosage form testing, drug discovery screening, bioequivalence assessment, and functional food analysis. The Model Gut services will be integrated into Bioneer's own service offering under the Bioneer:FARMA brand.
Professor Anette Mllertz, Head of Department at Bioneer:FARMA said: "The DGM takes our services to a highly advanced level. In combination with our existing digestion models, we can now conduct advanced analyses along the whole gastro-intestinal tract."
Martin Stocks, PBL Business Development Manager, said: "We are delighted to partner Bioneer:FARMA to take The Model Gut into an exciting new phase. The integration with Bioneer:FARMA will provide a wide array of complementary capabilities that will both expand and enable the unique capabilities of the Model Gut's technologies for determining the performance of ingested materials in the gastric and intestinal compartments."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Samsung has stepped forward and officially announced the Galaxy Note 8.0. We've sen and heard enough leaks and rumors to know that we would be seeing an 8-inch version of the popular Note series, but tonights' news clears up al the speculation and replaces it with information direct from Seoul.
The Note 8.0 takes everything you love about the Note series, adds some great new features, and packages it all into a solid tablet form factor. The Note 8.0 will still be able to make phone calls in some countries, but the 8-inch screen puts this one squarely into the portable tablet genre. And that's a good thing. Users who didn't want a full-sized 10-inch tablet, but still wanted access to the great S Pen technology now have that option.
We've spent some time with the Note 8.0 on the eve of Mobile World Congress 2013, and have the answers to all your questions covered. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 will be available world wide (Europe, Korea, North America, S.E. Asia, S. W. Africa, the Middle East, China, Taiwan, and Latin America) in Q2. Keep an eye on Android Central for exact dates and pricing. The full press release, press photos, and a Chat-On video featuring the Note 8.0 are after the break.
Samsung girds for life after Apple | SouthCoastToday.com
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A man uses a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S III smartphone to record a video outside the Apple Inc. store on George Street in Sydney, Australia, last September. The end may be nigh in the relationship between Samsung and Apple.
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SEOUL, South Korea ? Samsung Electronics' reclusive chairman has long warned employees against complacency and obsolescence.
"Change everything except your wife and kids," Lee Kun-hee told them in 1993, charting a course that would turn a $2 billion maker of cheap TVs into the $200 billion giant it is today. Two decades on, his message remains the same: "Forget about the past and start anew," Lee exhorted employees in his New Year's address on Jan. 2. "We must search out new businesses that Samsung's survival depends on."
That commitment to disruption has served Lee well. Samsung's pioneering of flat-screen TVs crippled Tokyo-based Sony and Sharp. Its relentless focus on chips helped bankrupt Elpida Memory Inc. Nokia's 14-year dominance in phones fell last year. With Samsung now preparing to shed Apple as a customer as their rivalry intensifies, the Korean company's smartphones are already outselling the iPhone and its share of the market for tablet computers has doubled in a year.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of iPhones and iPads is already taking steps to distance itself from Samsung, according to a person familiar with Apple's thinking, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. Rivalry in smartphones and tablets, and lawsuits in which both insist the other is stealing ideas, are undermining the relationship, the person said.
Samsung has zoomed past Apple in the smartphone market that the U.S. company pioneered. Samsung's market share rose to 30.4 percent last year from 19.9 percent, while Apple's remained at about 19 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.
In tablet computers, the market Apple created with the iPad, Samsung doubled its market share in the fourth quarter, to 15 percent from 7.3 percent a year earlier, according to IDC. Apple's lead dipped to 44 percent from 52 percent.
Apple's purchases of chips, screens and other components now account for about 3 percent of Samsung's earnings per share, roughly half the level at the beginning of last year, said Marc C. Newman, whose team of Sanford C. Bernstein analysts published a 211-page study of the Korean company in September.
While Samsung is searching out new customers, Apple has expanded its list of suppliers, according to a statement from Apple as well as so-called tear-down reports in which analysts take gadgets apart to identify parts. Samsung's reliance on Google's Android operating system and more recent adoption of Microsoft's wireless software also strengthens its ties with Apple's two biggest U.S. rivals.
"Samsung is trying to get ready for a possible breakup with Apple," said Lee Jin-woo, who holds the South Korean company's stock in the $6.6 billion he helps oversee as a senior fund manager at KTB Asset Management in Seoul. "Samsung will make another big push into tablets, its multiple products driving sales of components and making up for any losses from Apple."
The struggle between the two will gauge not just their ability to reap the biggest gains from more than $400 billion in global sales of handheld wireless devices, it also tests two contrasting business models.
Where Apple is defined by a handful of products, Samsung sprawls across industries; where Apple outsources its manufacturing, Samsung's mastery of industrial processes is its biggest strength; where Apple seeks markets for its designs, Samsung designs for the market.
Disentangling from the relationship with Samsung will take time, said Newman, a senior analyst at Sanford in Hong Kong.
Apple needs Samsung's processors to avoid shortages of iPhone and iPads. Alternative suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. aren't able to meet demand and Samsung is withholding investment in new capacity.
"It may take a few more years before they're entirely separated from Samsung because it's a severe lock-in, extremely complicated," Newman said. "Samsung is a phenomenal manufacturer and even TSMC, which is also a phenomenal manufacturer, is going to have a lot of trouble to ramp up."
Innolux and AU Optronics, Taiwan's largest makers of liquid-crystal displays, were named among the iPhone maker's suppliers last month, according to an Apple statement.
Samsung's processor sales will continue to rise along with Apple's revenue this year at least, and in the meantime the Korean company is supplying more parts for its own phones and tablets as well as finding new customers, Newman said.
"Samsung makes the best-quality parts, and if Apple rules out Samsung, they have to make a compromise," said Baik Jae-yer, a fund manager at Korea Investment Trust, which holds a 2.7 percent stake in Samsung.
Jason Kim, a Samsung spokesman, declined to discuss any changes in the relationship with Apple.
Weaning Samsung away from its relationship with Apple is a task that will increasingly fall to Lee Jae-yong, the 44-year- old grandson of the company's founder. Lee, also known as J.Y. Lee, was named vice chairman in December, the clearest signal yet on the succession for his 71-year-old father. Educated at Seoul National University, Keio University in Japan and Harvard Business School, he has helped run the components business, which provides parts for Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com, Google and Dell, as well as Apple.
The younger Lee "has worked hard over the past 10 years and can have actual influence now," said Lim Hyung-kyu, who ran Samsung's chips, research and new business divisions in a 33- year career beginning in 1976 and remains an adviser to the company. In any event, Samsung has grown to the point it's no longer reliant on any one person: "There's no one giving orders in Samsung. Even the chairman doesn't give orders ? just broad guidelines."
Full-year net income may reach 30 trillion won ($27.4 billion) this year, according to the average estimate of 44 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That's a 142-fold increase from 1993, and would make Samsung the world's sixth-most profitable company, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Samsung last month reported net income for the fourth quarter jumped 76 percent, more than analysts had forecast. The company's shares fell 6 percent in the following two days after it said smartphone sales may slow as developed countries are saturated and cheaper Chinese manufacturers crowd out the bottom of the market.
The phone division now accounts for almost 70 percent of Samsung's operating profit. The company is also pushing forward on parts. On Jan. 10, it unveiled a new, faster processor ? chips that make other components work together. Samsung is focusing on integrated processors, memory chips and display screens to capture more of a smartphone and tablet market forecast to reach $416 billion this year.
"The only company that has logic, memory and display is Samsung," Woo Nam-sung, head of System LSI, the division making the Apple processors, said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month.
The company also said it was targeting a 50 percent jump in sales of home appliances such as fridges and washing machines over three years. Samsung's 43 percent hold over the global market for DRAM (dynamic random access memory) memory chips may also cease to be a drag as prices rebound this year, Sanford C. Bernstein said. A gauge of DRAM chip prices has jumped 24 percent this year.
"We love Samsung," said Olaf Rogge, London-based chief executive officer at Rogge Global Partners, which manages about $50 billion in bonds. They're "very well diversified. It's not Apple. Remember, one day, a company like Apple will go ex-growth. One day, everybody has this iPhone 4 or 5."
That day may be arriving. As Samsung's fortunes waxed, Apple's have waned.
Even though 51 out of 64 analysts recommend buying Apple's stock, with full-year earnings forecast to hit $46 billion, the most for any company, investors have dumped the shares. Since peaking in September, about $240 billion has been wiped from Apple's market value as it failed to keep pace with customer demand and on increased competition from rival operating systems ? particularly Google's Android.
Unlike Apple, Samsung isn't locked into any system ? including its own. That gives the Korean company insurance against missteps by Google and time to keep working at its own software designs.
"If they can be better at making software, of course, it'd be great, but it's like expecting one company to be able to control everything," said Baik. "Samsung relies on Google a lot now, but they can also build a relationship with Microsoft."
Google and Microsoft are also among companies entering the top end of the smart-device market, while faster growth in the middle of the range, where Apple hasn't been competing, has eroded its share.
A cheaper iPhone may be added to the iPad Mini Apple brought out last year, a person familiar with the plans told Bloomberg News last month. Apple CEO Tim Cook already reversed a vow by late founder Steve Jobs that the company wouldn't introduce a scaled-back and cut-price version of the iPad. By positioning the company at the peak of design, quality and price, Apple may have limited options to expand.
"We can only do a few things great," Cook said in an interview in December. "That's a part of our base principle: that we will only do a few things. And we'll only do things where we can make a significant contribution."
Samsung didn't seem so well-placed when the elder Lee inherited the family business in 1987. The company was four years into a gamble by his father and Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul to develop DRAM. The U.S. pioneers of the industry had just been overwhelmed with relentless investment in plant and technology by Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp.
Lee was "betting the company's future," recalled Lim. "It was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-Friday- Friday," he said. "We worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day."
Not only did Samsung survive, it became the biggest DRAM maker in less than 10 years and developed a taste for market domination: "We wanted to be number one in all our businesses," Lim said.
TVs were next: three-and-a-half decades after shipping its first black and white sets to Panama, Samsung passed Sony in 2005, and was growling at the heels of Helsinki-based Nokia in telephones.
And then came the iPhone. Apple's 2007 foray into smartphones made the once near-bankrupt maker of desktop and laptop computers an overnight threat in several new markets.
BlackBerry shares have slumped more than 80 percent as bankers ditched their once-totemic handsets; gamers shunned consoles, sending Super Mario creator Nintendo to a first annual loss last year; and demand for Microsoft's software was crushed in the stampede for Apple's integrated, connected and portable devices.
While Apple's phone was a boon for Samsung's components business, the device was a disaster for the company's mobile phones. Within two years, Apple was selling four times as many smartphones as Samsung.
The gulf between the iPhone and latest Samsung was a "crisis of design," managers at the Korean company's mobile division wrote in a February 2010 internal memo used by Apple at last year's trial. "Do you know how difficult the Omnia is to use?" the memo said. "It's better to not make anything at all than to make it in a laughable way."
Just four months later, Samsung released a new smartphone that a California jury in August last year ruled was too much like the iPhone, landing a $1 billion fine and possible import ban for infringing Apple patents. The companies returned to court Dec. 6: Apple seeking to broaden the judgment to cover more models; Samsung to have the case thrown out.
"What we would like, in a perfect world, is for everyone to invent their own stuff," Cook said in the interview.
Samsung Electronics has struggled to shake off the copycat tag that has dogged it since its foundation in 1969, when engineers ripped apart Sony TVs to learn how they were made. And while Samsung made the world's first MP3 phone in 1999, and followed that a year later with the first camera handset, it has remained an innovator of gadgets and industrial processes.
"They aren't the kind of company that makes products no one else can mimic," said Lim, the veteran. "Samsung has been making small, incremental improvements, but haven't been as successful with radical, big changes. But they're getting close."
About six miles from Apple's 1 Infinite Loop home, and a five-minute stroll from Google's sprawling campus in Mountain View, Samsung is building a 385,000-square foot (36,000-square meter) complex. When finished, it will house engineers to design mobile software, the company announced Sept. 19.
"We've seen their investment in software really spike," said Amit Pandey, CEO of Redwood City-based Zenprise Inc., which designs software to manage employees' mobile devices and works with Samsung.
Luring the best talent away from freewheeling West Coast startups or market leaders like Google may prove tricky in an industry where demand for skilled workers allows the picky to be pickier still.
"Mobile is super-hot. It's very easy to find work,'" said Leah Culver, a San Francisco-based software developer for Apple's iOS operating system and Android, used by Samsung. "I'd care more about what particular product I am working on."
Samsung represents a stepping stone on a career path, said Dave Howell, CEO of Avatron Software in Portland, Oregon. "I don't think of working for Samsung as a lifestyle, I think of it as a job," he said. "People go to Apple to retire."
That's not how it is back in South Korea, where the company is the most sought-after employer, according to a survey last year by SaraminHR, an online job-site operator.
About an hour's drive southeast of Seoul is Samsung's headquarters at Suwon, once a sprawling industrial complex churning out TVs and other household appliances. Factories have made way for pizzerias and ice-cream parlors, basketball courts and soccer pitches.
A 30-story center under construction will house 10,000 people working on networks and telecommunications, one of five new R&D units to open by 2015 at a cost of more than $3.6 billion. An industrial complex for new businesses ? part of a $20 billion search for the next drivers of growth ? will open in three years, and employ about 30,000 people. Samsung plows about 6 percent of revenue back into R&D, more than three times the rate at Apple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Globally, Samsung has more than 55,000 engineers and other researchers ? about a quarter of its workforce ? looking at robotics and semiconductors, or seeking new applications for advanced materials that may yield game-changing advances from batteries to medical scanners and displays. Apple's total headcount was 72,800, according to its latest annual report.
The South Korean company was granted 5,081 patents in the U.S. last year, the most after IBM Corp., a Jan. 10 report by IFI Claims Patent Services shows.
"Samsung in its back pocket has got an increasingly relevant portfolio of patents," Vlad Cara, a London-based analyst at Pacific Investment Management Co., said by email.
As their legal fight spills across the globe, some decisions are going against Apple: a Dutch court Jan. 16 ruled Samsung's Galaxy Tab products didn't infringe Apple's design rights. Apple last month lost a U.S. appeal to block sales of Samsung devices pending the result of its patent-infringement case. The U.S. company itself is fighting suits from Samsung, as well as other phone and software providers.
"Everybody's talking about the patent war," said Pruksa Iamthongthong, who holds Samsung preference shares at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore. "It's a game all these players are playing, and it'll continue to be there," she said. "It'll just speed up the product life cycle."
The aggressive legal tactics of Apple, Samsung and other technology companies reflect the need to monetize intellectual property before the erosive effects of emulation. History is littered with examples of innovators who failed to keep hold of their first-mover advantage, according to Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang, authors of "The Quest for Global Dominance."
While the Altair computer is regarded as the spark behind the personal computer industry, Jobs and fellow Apple founder Steve Wozniak took over the market just two years later when they began producing the first Macintosh PCs, the authors noted in a March article on the website of Paris-based Insead business school. By the early 1980s, IBM was the dominant player in an industry crowded with rivals that drove Apple close to failure by 1997.
Apple was "lucky enough to seize the moment of change successfully," said C.W. Chung, a Seoul-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Seoul. As for Samsung: "They haven't run their course, and they're still evolving."
One of J.Y. Lee's biggest challenges will be picking those businesses he wants to remain in. His father's success coincided with the decline of Japan Inc. Japanese chipmakers failed to react as Samsung began to outspend them, turning a $1 billion capital expenditure gap with nearest rival Hitachi in 2004 into a $15 billion chasm last year.
The scale of investment Samsung needs to stay in front of competition means it risks getting caught on the wrong side of the market. It also means the company has to keep expanding to offset the cost of depreciating fixed assets, said Kota Ezawa, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in Tokyo.
All the time, hungrier rivals are eyeing Samsung's patch ? and business model.
Huawei Technologies Co., the world's biggest seller of communications networks, is unveiling more phones and tablets. Based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Huawei was the sixth-biggest phone manufacturer in the world during the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to Bloomberg Industries data.
ZTE Corp., also Shenzhen based, is already the fourth- biggest phone manufacturer. Then there's Lenovo Group Ltd., poised to become the world's biggest computer manufacturer, surpassing Hewlett-Packard Co. Lenovo, the maker of Thinkpad laptops, is bringing out phones, tablets and TVs.
"Long term, they will become a bigger threat," said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo, which manages $300 million in assets. "So you have to keep running very fast."
Yang reported from Hong Kong, Krishnamoorthy from Singapore. Contributors: Olga Kharif in Portland, Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco and Ben Richardson in Hong Kong.
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A man uses a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S III smartphone to record a video outside the Apple Inc. store on George Street in Sydney, Australia, last September. The end may be nigh in the relationship between Samsung and Apple.
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SEOUL, South Korea ? Samsung Electronics' reclusive chairman has long warned employees against complacency and obsolescence.
"Change everything except your wife and kids," Lee Kun-hee told them in 1993, charting a course that would turn a $2 billion maker of cheap TVs into the $200 billion giant it is today. Two decades on, his message remains the same: "Forget about the past and start anew," Lee exhorted employees in his New Year's address on Jan. 2. "We must search out new businesses that Samsung's survival depends on."
That commitment to disruption has served Lee well. Samsung's pioneering of flat-screen TVs crippled Tokyo-based Sony and Sharp. Its relentless focus on chips helped bankrupt Elpida Memory Inc. Nokia's 14-year dominance in phones fell last year. With Samsung now preparing to shed Apple as a customer as their rivalry intensifies, the Korean company's smartphones are already outselling the iPhone and its share of the market for tablet computers has doubled in a year.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of iPhones and iPads is already taking steps to distance itself from Samsung, according to a person familiar with Apple's thinking, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. Rivalry in smartphones and tablets, and lawsuits in which both insist the other is stealing ideas, are undermining the relationship, the person said.
Samsung has zoomed past Apple in the smartphone market that the U.S. company pioneered. Samsung's market share rose to 30.4 percent last year from 19.9 percent, while Apple's remained at about 19 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.
In tablet computers, the market Apple created with the iPad, Samsung doubled its market share in the fourth quarter, to 15 percent from 7.3 percent a year earlier, according to IDC. Apple's lead dipped to 44 percent from 52 percent.
Apple's purchases of chips, screens and other components now account for about 3 percent of Samsung's earnings per share, roughly half the level at the beginning of last year, said Marc C. Newman, whose team of Sanford C. Bernstein analysts published a 211-page study of the Korean company in September.
While Samsung is searching out new customers, Apple has expanded its list of suppliers, according to a statement from Apple as well as so-called tear-down reports in which analysts take gadgets apart to identify parts. Samsung's reliance on Google's Android operating system and more recent adoption of Microsoft's wireless software also strengthens its ties with Apple's two biggest U.S. rivals.
"Samsung is trying to get ready for a possible breakup with Apple," said Lee Jin-woo, who holds the South Korean company's stock in the $6.6 billion he helps oversee as a senior fund manager at KTB Asset Management in Seoul. "Samsung will make another big push into tablets, its multiple products driving sales of components and making up for any losses from Apple."
The struggle between the two will gauge not just their ability to reap the biggest gains from more than $400 billion in global sales of handheld wireless devices, it also tests two contrasting business models.
Where Apple is defined by a handful of products, Samsung sprawls across industries; where Apple outsources its manufacturing, Samsung's mastery of industrial processes is its biggest strength; where Apple seeks markets for its designs, Samsung designs for the market.
Disentangling from the relationship with Samsung will take time, said Newman, a senior analyst at Sanford in Hong Kong.
Apple needs Samsung's processors to avoid shortages of iPhone and iPads. Alternative suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. aren't able to meet demand and Samsung is withholding investment in new capacity.
"It may take a few more years before they're entirely separated from Samsung because it's a severe lock-in, extremely complicated," Newman said. "Samsung is a phenomenal manufacturer and even TSMC, which is also a phenomenal manufacturer, is going to have a lot of trouble to ramp up."
Innolux and AU Optronics, Taiwan's largest makers of liquid-crystal displays, were named among the iPhone maker's suppliers last month, according to an Apple statement.
Samsung's processor sales will continue to rise along with Apple's revenue this year at least, and in the meantime the Korean company is supplying more parts for its own phones and tablets as well as finding new customers, Newman said.
"Samsung makes the best-quality parts, and if Apple rules out Samsung, they have to make a compromise," said Baik Jae-yer, a fund manager at Korea Investment Trust, which holds a 2.7 percent stake in Samsung.
Jason Kim, a Samsung spokesman, declined to discuss any changes in the relationship with Apple.
Weaning Samsung away from its relationship with Apple is a task that will increasingly fall to Lee Jae-yong, the 44-year- old grandson of the company's founder. Lee, also known as J.Y. Lee, was named vice chairman in December, the clearest signal yet on the succession for his 71-year-old father. Educated at Seoul National University, Keio University in Japan and Harvard Business School, he has helped run the components business, which provides parts for Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com, Google and Dell, as well as Apple.
The younger Lee "has worked hard over the past 10 years and can have actual influence now," said Lim Hyung-kyu, who ran Samsung's chips, research and new business divisions in a 33- year career beginning in 1976 and remains an adviser to the company. In any event, Samsung has grown to the point it's no longer reliant on any one person: "There's no one giving orders in Samsung. Even the chairman doesn't give orders ? just broad guidelines."
Full-year net income may reach 30 trillion won ($27.4 billion) this year, according to the average estimate of 44 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That's a 142-fold increase from 1993, and would make Samsung the world's sixth-most profitable company, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Samsung last month reported net income for the fourth quarter jumped 76 percent, more than analysts had forecast. The company's shares fell 6 percent in the following two days after it said smartphone sales may slow as developed countries are saturated and cheaper Chinese manufacturers crowd out the bottom of the market.
The phone division now accounts for almost 70 percent of Samsung's operating profit. The company is also pushing forward on parts. On Jan. 10, it unveiled a new, faster processor ? chips that make other components work together. Samsung is focusing on integrated processors, memory chips and display screens to capture more of a smartphone and tablet market forecast to reach $416 billion this year.
"The only company that has logic, memory and display is Samsung," Woo Nam-sung, head of System LSI, the division making the Apple processors, said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month.
The company also said it was targeting a 50 percent jump in sales of home appliances such as fridges and washing machines over three years. Samsung's 43 percent hold over the global market for DRAM (dynamic random access memory) memory chips may also cease to be a drag as prices rebound this year, Sanford C. Bernstein said. A gauge of DRAM chip prices has jumped 24 percent this year.
"We love Samsung," said Olaf Rogge, London-based chief executive officer at Rogge Global Partners, which manages about $50 billion in bonds. They're "very well diversified. It's not Apple. Remember, one day, a company like Apple will go ex-growth. One day, everybody has this iPhone 4 or 5."
That day may be arriving. As Samsung's fortunes waxed, Apple's have waned.
Even though 51 out of 64 analysts recommend buying Apple's stock, with full-year earnings forecast to hit $46 billion, the most for any company, investors have dumped the shares. Since peaking in September, about $240 billion has been wiped from Apple's market value as it failed to keep pace with customer demand and on increased competition from rival operating systems ? particularly Google's Android.
Unlike Apple, Samsung isn't locked into any system ? including its own. That gives the Korean company insurance against missteps by Google and time to keep working at its own software designs.
"If they can be better at making software, of course, it'd be great, but it's like expecting one company to be able to control everything," said Baik. "Samsung relies on Google a lot now, but they can also build a relationship with Microsoft."
Google and Microsoft are also among companies entering the top end of the smart-device market, while faster growth in the middle of the range, where Apple hasn't been competing, has eroded its share.
A cheaper iPhone may be added to the iPad Mini Apple brought out last year, a person familiar with the plans told Bloomberg News last month. Apple CEO Tim Cook already reversed a vow by late founder Steve Jobs that the company wouldn't introduce a scaled-back and cut-price version of the iPad. By positioning the company at the peak of design, quality and price, Apple may have limited options to expand.
"We can only do a few things great," Cook said in an interview in December. "That's a part of our base principle: that we will only do a few things. And we'll only do things where we can make a significant contribution."
Samsung didn't seem so well-placed when the elder Lee inherited the family business in 1987. The company was four years into a gamble by his father and Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul to develop DRAM. The U.S. pioneers of the industry had just been overwhelmed with relentless investment in plant and technology by Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp.
Lee was "betting the company's future," recalled Lim. "It was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-Friday- Friday," he said. "We worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day."
Not only did Samsung survive, it became the biggest DRAM maker in less than 10 years and developed a taste for market domination: "We wanted to be number one in all our businesses," Lim said.
TVs were next: three-and-a-half decades after shipping its first black and white sets to Panama, Samsung passed Sony in 2005, and was growling at the heels of Helsinki-based Nokia in telephones.
And then came the iPhone. Apple's 2007 foray into smartphones made the once near-bankrupt maker of desktop and laptop computers an overnight threat in several new markets.
BlackBerry shares have slumped more than 80 percent as bankers ditched their once-totemic handsets; gamers shunned consoles, sending Super Mario creator Nintendo to a first annual loss last year; and demand for Microsoft's software was crushed in the stampede for Apple's integrated, connected and portable devices.
While Apple's phone was a boon for Samsung's components business, the device was a disaster for the company's mobile phones. Within two years, Apple was selling four times as many smartphones as Samsung.
The gulf between the iPhone and latest Samsung was a "crisis of design," managers at the Korean company's mobile division wrote in a February 2010 internal memo used by Apple at last year's trial. "Do you know how difficult the Omnia is to use?" the memo said. "It's better to not make anything at all than to make it in a laughable way."
Just four months later, Samsung released a new smartphone that a California jury in August last year ruled was too much like the iPhone, landing a $1 billion fine and possible import ban for infringing Apple patents. The companies returned to court Dec. 6: Apple seeking to broaden the judgment to cover more models; Samsung to have the case thrown out.
"What we would like, in a perfect world, is for everyone to invent their own stuff," Cook said in the interview.
Samsung Electronics has struggled to shake off the copycat tag that has dogged it since its foundation in 1969, when engineers ripped apart Sony TVs to learn how they were made. And while Samsung made the world's first MP3 phone in 1999, and followed that a year later with the first camera handset, it has remained an innovator of gadgets and industrial processes.
"They aren't the kind of company that makes products no one else can mimic," said Lim, the veteran. "Samsung has been making small, incremental improvements, but haven't been as successful with radical, big changes. But they're getting close."
About six miles from Apple's 1 Infinite Loop home, and a five-minute stroll from Google's sprawling campus in Mountain View, Samsung is building a 385,000-square foot (36,000-square meter) complex. When finished, it will house engineers to design mobile software, the company announced Sept. 19.
"We've seen their investment in software really spike," said Amit Pandey, CEO of Redwood City-based Zenprise Inc., which designs software to manage employees' mobile devices and works with Samsung.
Luring the best talent away from freewheeling West Coast startups or market leaders like Google may prove tricky in an industry where demand for skilled workers allows the picky to be pickier still.
"Mobile is super-hot. It's very easy to find work,'" said Leah Culver, a San Francisco-based software developer for Apple's iOS operating system and Android, used by Samsung. "I'd care more about what particular product I am working on."
Samsung represents a stepping stone on a career path, said Dave Howell, CEO of Avatron Software in Portland, Oregon. "I don't think of working for Samsung as a lifestyle, I think of it as a job," he said. "People go to Apple to retire."
That's not how it is back in South Korea, where the company is the most sought-after employer, according to a survey last year by SaraminHR, an online job-site operator.
About an hour's drive southeast of Seoul is Samsung's headquarters at Suwon, once a sprawling industrial complex churning out TVs and other household appliances. Factories have made way for pizzerias and ice-cream parlors, basketball courts and soccer pitches.
A 30-story center under construction will house 10,000 people working on networks and telecommunications, one of five new R&D units to open by 2015 at a cost of more than $3.6 billion. An industrial complex for new businesses ? part of a $20 billion search for the next drivers of growth ? will open in three years, and employ about 30,000 people. Samsung plows about 6 percent of revenue back into R&D, more than three times the rate at Apple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Globally, Samsung has more than 55,000 engineers and other researchers ? about a quarter of its workforce ? looking at robotics and semiconductors, or seeking new applications for advanced materials that may yield game-changing advances from batteries to medical scanners and displays. Apple's total headcount was 72,800, according to its latest annual report.
The South Korean company was granted 5,081 patents in the U.S. last year, the most after IBM Corp., a Jan. 10 report by IFI Claims Patent Services shows.
"Samsung in its back pocket has got an increasingly relevant portfolio of patents," Vlad Cara, a London-based analyst at Pacific Investment Management Co., said by email.
As their legal fight spills across the globe, some decisions are going against Apple: a Dutch court Jan. 16 ruled Samsung's Galaxy Tab products didn't infringe Apple's design rights. Apple last month lost a U.S. appeal to block sales of Samsung devices pending the result of its patent-infringement case. The U.S. company itself is fighting suits from Samsung, as well as other phone and software providers.
"Everybody's talking about the patent war," said Pruksa Iamthongthong, who holds Samsung preference shares at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore. "It's a game all these players are playing, and it'll continue to be there," she said. "It'll just speed up the product life cycle."
The aggressive legal tactics of Apple, Samsung and other technology companies reflect the need to monetize intellectual property before the erosive effects of emulation. History is littered with examples of innovators who failed to keep hold of their first-mover advantage, according to Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang, authors of "The Quest for Global Dominance."
While the Altair computer is regarded as the spark behind the personal computer industry, Jobs and fellow Apple founder Steve Wozniak took over the market just two years later when they began producing the first Macintosh PCs, the authors noted in a March article on the website of Paris-based Insead business school. By the early 1980s, IBM was the dominant player in an industry crowded with rivals that drove Apple close to failure by 1997.
Apple was "lucky enough to seize the moment of change successfully," said C.W. Chung, a Seoul-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Seoul. As for Samsung: "They haven't run their course, and they're still evolving."
One of J.Y. Lee's biggest challenges will be picking those businesses he wants to remain in. His father's success coincided with the decline of Japan Inc. Japanese chipmakers failed to react as Samsung began to outspend them, turning a $1 billion capital expenditure gap with nearest rival Hitachi in 2004 into a $15 billion chasm last year.
The scale of investment Samsung needs to stay in front of competition means it risks getting caught on the wrong side of the market. It also means the company has to keep expanding to offset the cost of depreciating fixed assets, said Kota Ezawa, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in Tokyo.
All the time, hungrier rivals are eyeing Samsung's patch ? and business model.
Huawei Technologies Co., the world's biggest seller of communications networks, is unveiling more phones and tablets. Based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Huawei was the sixth-biggest phone manufacturer in the world during the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to Bloomberg Industries data.
ZTE Corp., also Shenzhen based, is already the fourth- biggest phone manufacturer. Then there's Lenovo Group Ltd., poised to become the world's biggest computer manufacturer, surpassing Hewlett-Packard Co. Lenovo, the maker of Thinkpad laptops, is bringing out phones, tablets and TVs.
"Long term, they will become a bigger threat," said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo, which manages $300 million in assets. "So you have to keep running very fast."
Yang reported from Hong Kong, Krishnamoorthy from Singapore. Contributors: Olga Kharif in Portland, Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco and Ben Richardson in Hong Kong.
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NEW YORK (AP) ? At the height of Superstorm Sandy, city residents watching seawater pour into the subway system couldn't help but wonder: What will become of all the rats?
Four months later, that's still a mystery.
And experts aren't so sure about stories of hoards of displaced rodents fleeing the flood zone and taking up residence in buildings that were previously rat-free.
TV stations and newspapers have been rife with reports about rats infesting parked cars and fleeing the East River waterfront for the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights and exterminators enjoying a boom in business.
For some city officials, the last straw came a week ago when a rodent problem forced a two-day closure of Magnolia Bakery, a Manhattan landmark often credited with starting a national cupcake craze. Within days, a city councilwoman floated a proposal to create a $500,000 emergency rat mitigation program for storm-impacted neighborhoods.
But the city's health department, which collects reams of data about the rat population and maps infestations looking for trends, said rodent complaints actually had declined since the late October storm, which was spawned when Hurricane Sandy merged with two other weather systems.
"The Health Department conducted extensive inspections in flood zones after Hurricane Sandy, provided guidance to home owners and baited the area. But we did not see an increase in the rat population," the agency said in a statement. "Large storms can flush out rats, but they also drown many rats, and the net effect of large storms is often a decrease in the rat population."
The number of rodent-related citations issued by health inspectors has dropped as well.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's subway system, the nation's largest, also dismissed tales of rats being stirred up by Sandy.
"We noticed no unusual rat activity or rodent activity in the wake of the storm," agency spokesman Charles Seaton said.
He also said that when water was pumped out of flooded tunnels and stations, there weren't large numbers of rat carcasses left behind.
The idea of a mass rat migration drew ridicule from Richard Reynolds, who leads a group of dog owners who conduct urban rat hunts.
"What happened to the rats? Nothing! We're finding rats right where we've always found them," he said. "I think this whole idea that there has been some kind of major relocation of rats is just good news media fodder."
He noted, as did other experts, that Norwegian rats, the species found in New York, are known for being especially strong swimmers.
"I have seen them dive over 70 feet, swim 500 yards, give me the finger and head for the hills," he said. "Hurricane Sandy is not going to affect these critters."
Hard scientific data, though, is still largely lacking, and there is plenty of room for debate.
Retired pest control expert Dale Kaukeinen, who spent 30 years in the extermination business, said his first instinct was that Sandy probably decimated the rodent population in some neighborhoods. But he said he couldn't rule out the possibility that displaced rats had moved into new territory.
"They are adaptable. They can swim. They can move distances," he said, citing radio telemetry studies showing that rats can move several miles if displaced by environmental conditions.
Also, because rats live in a world of smell, their former homes might have been rendered unfamiliar by a flood, he said, even if the buildings, parks or tunnels they had been living in suffered little permanent damage.
"To a rat, it wouldn't look the same, it wouldn't smell the same," he said.
Jessica Lappin, the councilwoman who proposed the emergency extermination program for flood-damaged neighborhoods, said she was skeptical when she first started hearing stories about rat infestations since the storm but has come to believe the problem is real.
"We are used to seeing rats. But it definitely seemed to be getting worse," Lappin said.
She noted that even though the health department's citywide rat complaint numbers show no increase, there has been a rise in select Manhattan neighborhoods near where flooding occurred.
Those neighborhoods include the West Village, where mice first turned up in a basement storage area at Magnolia Bakery in the weeks after the storm, company spokeswoman Sara Gramling said Thursday. The bakery was cited by city health inspectors in January, then was closed down Feb. 14 after a follow-up inspection. It reopened two days later, with lines even longer than usual.
Gramling said she was sure the storm was a factor in the infestation, although she noted that there is also a large construction project taking place down the block.
"At the building, and in the West Village, there has been an influx across the board," she said. "We don't feel like it's an isolated incident. Clearly there is a trend."
Thomas King, a manager at M&M Pest Control, an extermination business based in Chinatown, said his company's rat calls are up 20 percent to 30 percent since the storm.
Recent media coverage of the supposed rat scamper caused by Sandy has focused on Brooklyn Heights, a historic district perched on a hill above the East River. But the neighborhood's rat problem is hardly new. Nearly every year has brought a new newspaper story about rats in the neighborhood, usually linked to trash left by visitors to the Brooklyn Promenade, the neighborhood's elevated esplanade.
The Brooklyn Heights Association, a civic group, did get some reports after the storm about new rat burrows being dug in gardens along the Promenade, but city park officials took quick action, and there have not been any complaints since.
So the mystery remains.
At least one notable rat population perished for sure: 7,000 lab rats and mice at a New York University research facility died when the building flooded during the storm.
Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax watches workouts during spring training baseball in Phoenix, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax watches workouts during spring training baseball in Phoenix, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax signs autographs during spring training baseball in Phoenix, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, left, talks with pitcher Chris Capuano during spring training baseball in Phoenix, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax signs autographs during spring training baseball in Phoenix, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) ? Sandy Koufax hadn't worn a major league uniform for more than two decades until the Dodgers got him back in blue this spring.
The beloved left-hander is in camp with Los Angeles as a special instructor, doling out advice and experience to young players who haven't forgotten his singular achievements during an all-too-brief career.
During a rare interview, the 77-year-old Koufax says he doesn't know why so many people think he's reclusive and shy. He's grateful simply to talk pitching with the Dodgers, saying it might be the only thing he's ever been good at.
Manager Don Mattingly says the three-time Cy Young Award winner is just one of the guys during spring, although he read a list of Koufax's accomplishments to the team just to make sure everybody knew.
In a new study out Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control, the vaccine proved effective just over half of the time. And among seniors who are 65 years old and older, one of the most vulnerable populations, the vaccine only offered nine percent protection. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.
By Allison Linn, TODAY
That nasty flu season appears to have taken a toll on our productivity as well as our health.
More American workers called in sick in January than during any month in nearly five years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said this week.
Nearly 2.9 million full-time workers only worked part-time during the week in which they were surveyed because of illness, injury or medical appointment, the BLS said. Also,?more than 1.2 million people were off work for the whole week they were surveyed because they were sick, the BLS said.
That?s the highest level of people calling in sick since February?2008, when 1.3 million people missed a full week of work and 3.3 million full-time workers only worked part-time because of illness.
The BLS noted that more people typically call in sick during the winter months, when seasonal illnesses such as cold and the flu are common. But this year appears to have been especially hard on Americans, and on workers.
The flu season got off to an early and aggressive start, but the good news is that it appears to have peaked in late January, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Still, experts warn that the flu could continue to circulate for months.
In addition, other bugs, such as common colds and the stomach flu, can keep workers from heading into the office.
For many workers, getting sick can literally be costly. There is no federal requirement that companies provide paid sick leave, although companies who are subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act requires unpaid sick leave.
About 66 percent of workers have access to paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Full-time workers are much more likely than part-time workers to have paid sick leave, according to the BLS.
The National Weather Service has now confirmed that 12 tornadoes touched down in East Texas on Monday.
The tornadoes touched down in the following locations:
- Seven miles southeast of Kilgore - Nine miles east southeast of Kilgore - Nine miles west of Tatum - 11 miles east northeast of New Summerfield - Six miles northwest of Mount Enterprise (EF1) 90 MPH - Four miles north northeast of Beckville - Four miles north northeast of Mount Enterprise - Nine miles north of Carthage - Five miles east northeast of Mount Enterprise - 10 miles north northeast of Carthage - Nine miles northeast of Carthage - Seven miles north northwest of Garrison (EF1) 90 MPH
10?of these tornadoes were EF0s on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Winds in these tornadoes were between 70 and 75 MPH. The other 2 are indicated above.
"We saw several pictures on KLTV's website. None of the pictures we saw had the tornado on the ground, but due to some of the trees it could have been on the ground, but we just couldn't see it. Of course our radar were indicating that could definitely be the case," said Meteorologist Brandi Richardson with the National Weather Service.
So, Richardson and her co-worker packed their radar data and headed out early to survey the damage.
"It kind of helps us go back and do a little post-mortem analysis of what we saw and how we did and how we did on our warnings," Richardson explained.
They came to the conclusion that at least?three tornadoes touched down. One of them in an East Texans' front yard near Beckville.
"This is the most severe that we've seen. Just a few limbs and trees snapped here and there. Very, very light damage. Looks like a very weak EF0. That's what we've seen so far. We're not to the end of the track yet, but that's what we've seen so far," Richardson said.
Richardson said when she saw this storm coming she had a few personal warnings to send out.
No injuries were reported and the damage surveyed from Monday's tornadoes did not leave any major damage.
The National Weather Service said the surveying they do will help East Texans when it comes to working with their insurance companies.
Google has developed the first touchscreen laptops powered by its Chrome OS to be sold later this year, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing ?people familiar with the matter,? as it tries to challenge Microsoft?s?Windows system.
Oddly, the Chrome devices also would compete with those powered by Google's other operating system, Android, which has swept the smartphone and tablet market, making Google a force in mobile-device software.
Both Chrome and Android spring from Linux, an open-source operating system, and Google has said it is comfortable with competing systems that help boost key services like its Web-search engine and YouTube.
It's unclear when the Chrome touchscreen laptops will go on sale and what hardware manufacturer is working with Google to build them. A Google spokeswoman declined comment to the Journal.
Samsung has been among the manufacturers building Chrome laptops. Google sold nearly 100,000 $199 and $249 Chromebooks in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of last year.
Cherly Tunt (Judy Greer) is glared at after saying something invariably brilliant.
Courtesy of FX Networks.
In?Slate?s Archer TV Club, Jeremy Stahl will IM each week with a different fan of the FX spy comedy. This week he chats with?Slate editorial assistant Emma Roller.
Jeremy Stahl: Thank you very much for joining me this week, Emma!
Emma Roller: Hey! I'm excited to pop my Slate TV Club cherry talking about Archer. Gurp gork!
Stahl: Was ?gurp gork? also hello? I can?t remember.
Roller:? I'm not sure, but I'm definitely going to start using ?gurp gork? as a stand-in for awkward pauses in conversation.
Stahl: So many great potential meanings?jokes-wise there was a lot going on this week. As far as the plot was concerned, though, it was pretty straightforward. Archer gets Cyril and Ray stuck in the desert because of his reckless driving, then he makes their situation more dire by getting his taint bitten by a Caspian cobra, which leads to a hallucinated memory sequence about how two femme fatales ruined his life: the first by seducing and then shooting him when he was just a star lacrosse recruit in prep school, the second by being a neglectful mother. And finally, there was the big, perfectly executed non-reveal about his father. What did you think of the flashback stuff?
Roller: I liked the snakebite-induced, It's A Wonderful Life-esque jaunt with "cut-rate James Mason." Between the running flashback this episode and Archer's fugue state in the first episode, it seems like Adam Reed is playing around a lot with Archer's mental state this season. There have also been a lot of hallucinations, whether it's Cheryl tripping balls and hallucinating an ostrich or Archer hallucinating alligators in the desert.
Stahl: I, too, was going to note the similarities to the first episode. I generally like it when shows do weird stuff to get inside of characters' heads, so these two episodes have been the season's big winners for me. Exploring Archer?s emotional trauma is ripe territory. The fact that his subconscious, in the guise of a ?50s movie star, has to force Sterling Archer to examine his true self when he says he?d rather not is a wonderful play on an old trope. Also, there?s a great element here of the show knowingly saying to us, ?what Archer really wants be dammed, the viewer wants to see him emotionally tortured.? As for the callback to Carol?s ostrich hallucination, I think that might simply have been the writers and animators recycling an amazing sight gag.
What do you think of Carol, by the way? She might be my favorite character on the show.
Roller: I love Carol. She?d maybe be my favorite character, too, if I didn't love Jessica Walter so damn much. I think her character gets at something that I can really appreciate, which is the tendency for some women to downplay how smart they are by assimilating into the role of "the ditz." One amazing example is when she informs Malory of the name of the Turkmenistan ruler's pet dog, Gurp Gork, then immediately acts shocked that she knew something useful. Another is when she absolutely reams out Lana later in the episode, then pauses and says, "Ohmygod, was I talking?" Not to get too into third-wave feminist theory, but I think the way she's written is brilliantly subversive in a way that's a lot more subtle than, say, Lana's butch persona.
Stahl:?I love Carol for the same reason but have a different interpretation of the character. I kind of think she is actually that insane and oblivious. I don't read this vapidity as her being a ditz, but more as her being delusional and psychotic, while at the same time exceptionally intelligent and lucid. That heartbreaking psychoanalysis of Lana is not the first time she has come up with a very smart assessment of an Archer?character?s psychological makeup. But I kind of figured that she probably doesn't have any clue where all of her great insights come from. Her mind is probably just addled by either drugs or mental illness. This week she really didn?t remember how she knew about Gurp Gork and she really did think that broadside on Lana was an internal monologue, just like last week she really did internalize the idea of opposite day.
This off-the-wall craziness is what makes her such a perfect Archer character. Krieger would also be in the running for the most mentally disturbed (and funniest) person at ISIS, but because he fits into a very stereotypical mad scientist trope, he seems less compelling. I can kind of buy your interpretation, though, in that maybe Carol?s psychosis is just a brilliant mask. But I don?t think she actually believes anyone is buying her as a ditz?rather they think of her, rightfully, as a lunatic.
Roller: Good point?and being intelligent doesn't necessarily preclude you from also being completely psychotic. The case might actually be the opposite. Anyway, I'm going to go back to watching YouTube videos and pretending to work. Ohmygod, did I say that out loud?
Stahl:?Pretending to work is the best. Luckily, it?s not long until Gurp Gork. Thanks again for chatting with me, Emma! And TGIGG!
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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