News Of The Day 5/19/2011

Still some Sony Sob Stories, LinkedIn does great, some economic news that may surprise you, e-books outstrip physical books at Amazon, and some thought-provoking new investments. It's a full plate of geek job news today!

Your Sad Sony Round-Up:
Sony fixed an exploit in their PSN password reset page. I got nothing.

Sony hopes the Playstation store is back by May 24th.

Economics:
A look at mortgage delinquencies by state for those of you following the housing mess . . . like me (I can't be the only one, can I?)

Jucy graphs, discussion of taxes and innovation? Richard Florida looks at the question that business taxes affect investment and finds that . . . they really don't. This is not surprising as taxes are just one variable, but this is pretty telling.

Geek Law:
AT&T is in a lawsuit over
overcharging iPhone users.

Anime and Manga:
Digital Manga adds titles to the Kobo. For my money the Kobo is probably the ideal platform for e-comics right now, so this comes as no surprise. Your move, Amazon . . .

Media:
Seth Godin on the future of the Library that reflects a lot of the changes in the nature of technology and information. Worth reading, and an example that Godin is on another roll lately.

Movies:
'Neuromancer' goes to pre-production. I'm curious to see how this goes, as Neuromancer defined so much about cyberpunk, an actual film may seem oddly unoriginal by now. If it does work, I can see older science fiction with name recognition be a potential place for studios to raid concepts.

Publishing:
Liberty media makes an offer for Barnes and Noble – wait, what? Yep. An offer of that much for B&N. Liberty has their fingers in some good properties, so it might just work – and maybe make a full anti-Amazon or media powerhouse? Stay tuned!

MUST READ: e-books outsell hardcover and paperbacks combined at Amazon.

Social Media:
OK, The LinkedIn IPO launched and went pretty high. Paul Kedrosky has some thoughts worth reading. A lot of good points – and I expect a dogpile eventually IPO-wise (with mixed results). More here.

Technology:
Interesting – Symantec spend $390 million on a discovery/e-archiving company. Sounds like someone wants to further expand their business, maybe into recovery and diagnostics? Worth watching – and maybe polishing some resumes for Symantec.

Something to be aware of: Voice Recognition software company Nuance plays hardball – suing and acquiring. Why is this news? Well they do important software, and voice recognition is going to be much bigger in the future of mobile tech. They may get to write some of the rules – or make themselves a target.

Video:
VuClip raises $8 million. They do mobile video focusing on transcoding. Sounds like you should watch them or send them a resume since they're big on mobile.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: So will the Kobo get more attention with Digital Manga on it?

– Steven Savage

I Have a Job, They Don’t: Visiting TIme

I'm big on relocation – having moved across a country to do it – and because let's face it, economic opportunities (and the recovery) aren't uniform across the nation – or a state, or the world.  Sometimes you have to do it – now more than ever.

Of course is a location right for you – or for, say, a friend or family member looking to move there?  the best way to go is to A) know someone there, and B) visit them.

You see where this is going.

However, if you don't see it, here's something I advise – and have done.  Find that person engaged in a job search, and put them up for a short time (say a week or two) to scout the area you live out.

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Go Farther: Media Cons

I hear the term "Media Con" be used more and more lately to refer to those cons that are just, well . . . everything.  You know a con may have started as SF, or fantasy, or anime but after awhile it's about many media in all but name.  Comic cons are certainly evolving into "geek media", and there's cons dedicated to broad media interests, or broad but specific slices (such as pulp fiction, etc.).

So in my roundup of the way cons can go farther, of course I had to speculate on what the more general/media conventions can do for career events.  This includes those cons that were always general media or evolving that way.

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