Wires Crossed #97 – August 24

Jobs Makes Promise He Can’t Keep?
This goes under the “believe it or not” category. A former ‘confident’ and ‘close advisor’ of former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, claims he was promised a job for life by the late co-founder of the company. Wayne Goodrich says that although the company says it got rid of him in December 2011 for business reasons, he believes it’s more to do with them having to pay him out restricted stock he says he was promised. Although Goodrich claims the job-for-life promise was made in 2005, sceptics says the offer was never made, or that such as offer no longer merits consideration.

Microsoft Gets Money Back From Facebook Investment
Just over five years ago Microsoft invested $240 million in a fledgling social networking site called Facebook. This gave the software giant a 1.6 percent stake in the company, but more importantly, gave Mark Zuckerberg’s start up the kind of legitimacy that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs only dream of. Fast forward to 2012, and it has been reported that Microsoft has offloaded 20 percent of those shares not long after Facebook went public, giving it a $249 million windfall. Not only is that a $9 million profit, but they still have 80 per cent of their shares in the company. Of course, we won’t mention that the share price has almost halved since then, but hey, Microsoft can’t complain.

LG’s Battery Powered TV
When we first read about this we did a double take. According to a report from a Nigerian television website, LG has released a battery-powered television in the Nigerian marketplace. The company believes that there is a market for the unit due to the unreliable nature of the Nigerian power grid, which is prone to frequent blackouts. What we would love to know (if this isn’t a hoax) is the battery life of such a television set. According to the article, the battery will last about as long as a football match, which is not long at all. It also comes with an in-built surge protector. We’re sceptical to say the least.

Facebook Lawsuit HitsThe Skids
A deal that would see Facebook users get little or no money over the company’s Sponsored Stories program has hit the skids after a US Federal judge put the brakes on the deal. It seems that the big winners in the outcome would be the lawyers, and not the plaintiffs. At its most basic, these Sponsored Stories ads turn the act of pressing the ‘like’ button for a product or service that is on the site into an endorsement. Adults cannot opt out of the service, but that is not the main issue. How monies distributed from the program is, and it appears the lawyers representing plaintiffs who are set to get a payout from Facebook over using these endorsements are set to get the biggest payout.  Judge Richard Seeborg, from San Francisco, who is hearing the case, doesn’t think this fair. Neither do a lot of the smaller plaintiffs in the case. Watch this space.