アップルがエクソンモービルをわずかに超えて、アメリカ１位の規模に。
Apple briefly passes Exxon as largest U.S. company
On Tuesday August 9, 2011, 2:18 pm
By Poornima Gupta and Rodrigo Campos
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc briefly edged past Exxon Mobil Corp to become the most valuable company in the United States after days of volatile stock market action.
The technology giant's market value rose on Tuesday to $341.5 billion, just above Exxon's $341.4 billion, even though the oil major's annual revenue is four times that of Apple's.
Exxon quickly regained the No. 1 spot as its shares rose and Apple's shed some of their gains, with stocks globally remaining volatile because of soft economic data and the downgrading of the United States' sovereign credit on Friday.
At 1:50 p.m. EDT Exxon's market cap was $339.3 billion while Apple's dipped to $338.8 billion.
Tuesday's move by Apple, which ended Exxon Mobil's run of more than five years at the top, capped a remarkable turnaround for a company that once teetered on the brink before Apple's Steve Jobs returned to resuscitate the company he co-founded.
Thirteen years ago, some analysts said Apple's value consisted of real estate holdings and cash on hand.
Apple joined, albeit briefly, a small group of companies that have held the top spot in the S&P 500, including General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft Corp and AT&T, according to Standard & Poor's Index Analytics
Since July 1, Apple's market capitalization has risen by more than $20 billion, fueled by optimism that a new version of its best-selling iPhone will lead to a monstrous second half of 2011.
Exxon's market cap, on the other hand, has slipped nearly $60 billion in the same period due to volatile crude oil prices.
Men walk past an advertisement for Apple's iPad2 in front of an electronic shop in Tokyo May 5, 2011. S REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
(Additional reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
米郵政省の赤字とダウンサイジング
Postal Service considers cutting 120,000 jobs
As losses reach $8B or more again this year, Postal Service considers cutting 120,000 jobs
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press, On Thursday August 11, 2011, 6:32 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs.
Facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, the agency also wants to pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers and set up its own benefit systems.
Congressional approval would be needed for either step, and both could be expected to face severe opposition from postal unions which have contracts that ban layoffs.
The post office has cut 110,000 jobs over the last four years and is currently engaged in eliminating 7,500 administrative staff. In its 2010 annual report, the agency said it had 583,908 career employees.
The loss of mail to the Internet and the decline in advertising caused by the recession have rocked the agency.
Postal officials have said they will be unable to make a $5.5 billion payment to cover future employee health care costs due Sept. 30. It is the only federal agency required to make such a payment but, because of the complex way government finances are counted, eliminating it would make the federal budget deficit appear $5.5 billion larger.
If Congress doesn't act and current losses continue, the post office will be unable to make that payment at the end of September because it will have reached its borrowing limit and simply won't have the cash to do so, the agency said earlier.
In that event, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said, "Our intent is to continue to deliver the mail, pay our employees and pay our suppliers."
Postal officials have sought congressional assistance repeatedly over the last few years, including requests to be allowed to end Saturday mail delivery, and several bills have been proposed, but none has been acted on.
In addition the post office recently said it is considering closing 3,653 post offices, stations and other facilities, about one-10th of its offices around the country, in an effort to save money. Offices under consideration for closing are largely rural with little traffic.
And in June the post office suspended contributions to its employees' pension fund, which it said was overfunded.
In its 2010 annual report the post office reported a loss of more than $8 billion on revenues of $67 billion and expenses of $75 billion.
And even while total mail volume fell from 202 billion items to 170 billion from 2008 to 2010 the number of places the agency has to deliver mail increased by 1.7 million as Americans built new homes, offices and businesses.
The latest cutback plans were first reported by The Washington Post, which said a notice to employees informing them of its proposals stated: "Financial crisis calls for significant actions, we will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit prefunding costs imposed by Congress."
I hope this deal never gets through. AT&T is pricy and its customer service is aweful. AT&T is only the choice I have on the west coast for land line. T-mobile is only the choice for a cell phone if you don't want to deal with AT&T.
*****
U.S. Moves to Block AT&T Merger with T-Mobile
DEALBOOK, On Wednesday August 31, 2011, 10:56 am EDT
The Justice Department filed a complaint on Wednesday to block AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile, a deal that would create the largest carrier in the country and reshape the industry.
The complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, said that T-Mobile "places important competitive pressure on its three larger rivals, particularly in terms of pricing, a critically important aspect of competition." The complaint also highlighted T-Mobile's high speed network and its innovations in technology.
"AT&T's elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market," the complaint said. "Thus, unless this acquisition is enjoined, customers of mobile wireless telecommunications services likely will face higher prices, less product variety and innovation, and poorer quality services due to reduced incentives to invest than would exist absent the merger."
Shares of AT&T dropped nearly 4 percent on the news, to less than $29. Deutsche Telekom shares fell 5 percent in trading in Frankfurt.
Ever since AT&T announced plans to buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in March, the deal has proved controversial. Lawmakers, consumer advocates, and rivals have voiced opposition to the merger, saying it would significantly reduce competition. The deal would have left just three major players: AT&T, Verizon and the significantly smaller Sprint Nextel.
"Sprint urges the United States government to block this anti-competitive acquisition," Vonya McCann, Sprint's senior vice president for government affairs, said back in March. "This transaction will harm consumers and harm competition at a time when this country can least afford it."
AT&T has moved to drum up support for the deal of late. On Wednesday, it announced plans to bring 5,000 call-center jobs back to the United States.
"Does this shore up an issue that people have?" Randall Stephenson, AT&T's chief executive, said in an interview on Tuesday. "Sure, I hope it does."
ゴールドか環境保護か？ アメリカでの全国的論争に
Alaska voters weighing in: salmon vs. gold
Voters in rural Alaska weighing in on initiative that pits salmon against vast mineral mine
Becky Bohrer, Associated Press,
On Sunday October 2, 2011, 11:02 am
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- The battle over a copper and gold mine near one of the world's premiere fisheries is headed to the ballot.
The vote has turned a normally sleepy local election into a national environmental debate.
Voters in southwest Alaska's Lake and Peninsula Borough are deciding whether to ban large-scale resource extraction activity, including mining, that would destroy or degrade salmon habitat. The measure is aimed at Pebble Mine, the world-class gold-and-copper prospect near the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
The debate surrounding Pebble has attracted the attention of chefs, Robert Redford and big-name jewelers who have vowed not to sell any gold coming from the project
But Tuesday's vote will almost certainly not be the last word on how -- or whether -- the mine gets built.
Many government retirees also get public paychecks ダラス・テキサス州
Thousands of government retirees across country return to work to collect public paychecks
Danny Robbins, Tammy Webber and Peter Jackson, Associated Press, On Saturday October 1, 2011, 12:16 pm EDT
DALLAS (AP) -- Double-dipping -- the well-established practice of public workers collecting government pensions and salaries at the same time -- has become a hot topic for lawmakers struggling with strained budgets.
Even as some states have begun curbing the practice, a review by The Associated Press found tens of thousands of state and public school employees drawing government salaries along with their pensions. In five states alone -- California, New York, Texas, Florida and Michigan -- at least 66,000 government retirees also receive taxpayer-funded paychecks.
One is engineer Maury Roos, who retired from the California Department of Water Resources with an annual pension of more than $113,000. He returned part-time within weeks.
Roos says he uses the extra money to go to engineering conferences and the state gets an experienced engineer.
お悔やみを兼ねた、スティーブ・ジョブの偉業を褒め称える記事。ロックフェラー、ヘンリー・フォード、サム・ウォートン（ウォールマート）と実業界の巨人として並べている。
Steve Jobs Earned His Place in the American Business Pantheon
By Daniel Gross
Wed, Oct 5, 2011, 9:26pm EDT
PostsWebsiteEmailBy Daniel Gross | Contrary Indicator – 59 minutes ago
Steve Jobs, who died on Wednesday, was a singular figure in American business history. He will go in the pantheon of great American entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators, alongside John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton.
Jobs didn't invent computer technology, or the cell phone, or the notion of digitizing music. But he invented methods, business models, and devices that turned each into significantly larger cultural and economic phenomena.
To a degree, one might look back on the arc of Jobs's career and conclude that he simply rode a series of technological waves. But Jobs, and the company he led, rode the waves while pushing back against them.
In an industry frequently hostile to design, Jobs's Apple banked on it. In an industry in which products simply got cheaper every year and everything tends toward a commodity, Apple's products were able to command a premium. And in an age of pinched consumer spending, millions of people were eager — even desperate — to shell out for the latest version of the iPod, the iPad, or the iPhone.
In an era frequently characterized by executive greed and massive pay for significant underperformance, Jobs worked for a dollar a year. At a time when many founding CEOs step down when they hit their late 40s and early 50s to chase other pursuits (a la Bill Gates), Jobs stuck with it. In an era in which many experts fretted about the ability of America's economy to thrive and innovate, Apple grew into a major exporter. Apple now represents American brands, the way McDonald's and IBM and Coca-Cola once did.
In an era in which equity values stagnated, Apple's stock thrived. The performance of the company's stock, which is now worth $322 billion, up from a few billion in 2003, is one of the great examples of value creation in modern history.
It's difficult to put a tag on what it is precisely that Jobs did. He didn't create a fundamentally new business structure, the way John D. Rockefeller did with the vertical integration of Standard Oil. He didn't democratize a product that had only been available to the very rich, as Henry Ford did with the Model T. And he didn't fundamentally alter the distribution, logistics, and production systems the way that Sam Walton did with Wal-Mart. Under Jobs, Apple simply created a bunch of really cool products that people decided they needed to have. And have again. While Apple had brilliant ads, and while Jobs was an excellent salesperson, Apple's rabid, evangelizing fans have been the most effective marketing tool. When it comes to clothes, or shoes, or cars, my kids, 13 and 9, are largely indifferent to brands. When it was time for them to get their own computer, it had to be a Mac.
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There are three basic business stories: the rise, the fall, and then the comeback. Jobs provided a vivid example of each. He started Apple Computer in the 1970s out of the proverbial garage with Steve Wozniak, only to be pushed after the company had gained scale. Returning to helm the company in 1997, he led a comeback that was, in many ways, far more impressive than the original rise.
Yes, Steve Jobs got rich in the past decade. But he didn't so at the expense of his shareholders. In fact, they grew rich along with him. And Apple didn't prosper at the expense of partners. The walled-garden approach of iTunes and the Apps store goes went against the grain of the notion that everything online should be free. But it was, at root, a courageous act. And it served as a kind of affirmation for content producers. And perhaps that's why he got such good press.
Several industries in the past decade found themselves essentially powerless in the face of the internet and the advent of digital technology. But Jobs and Apple invented devices and business models that encouraged people to pay: for music, for television shows and movies, for books, and for applications. By continuing to roll out new products, Apple has really expanded the playing field for content creators. It's much more compelling to watch a movie on an iPad than it is on an iPod.
The highest form of charity is helping somebody find a job or a means to support themselves. Just so, one might argue that the highest form of business is creating a profitable enterprise that allows and encourages other people to innovate and find means to support themselves. Apple has done that time and again. Yes, the publishing and music industries have griped over payment terms. But Apple is allowing individuals and companies to reach truly massive audiences at a relatively low cost. It has rescued some markets, revived others, and created entirely new ones.
This century is only a decade old. But it's a safe bet that in 2099, when analysts and historians are looking back, Steve Jobs will be remembered as one of the giants of 21st century business.
Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance
スティーブン・ジョブの生涯
Steven P. Jobs, 1955-2011
Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age
Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple, has died at 56.
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: October 5, 2011 The New York Times
(Page 1 of 5)
Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56.
The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage. A friend of the family said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with the disease, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment, introducing new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.
He underwent surgery in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”
By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.
Tributes to Mr. Jobs flowed quickly on Wednesday evening, in formal statements and in the flow of social networks, with President Obama, technology industry leaders and legions of Apple fans weighing in.
“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it’s been an insanely great honor,” said Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder. “I will miss Steve immensely.”
A Twitter user named Matt Galligan wrote: “R.I.P. Steve Jobs. You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.”
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Eight years after founding Apple, Mr. Jobs led the team that designed the Macintosh computer, a breakthrough in making personal computers easier to use. After a 12-year separation from the company, prompted by a bitter falling-out with his chief executive, John Sculley, he returned in 1997 to oversee the creation of one innovative digital device after another — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. These transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications.
During his years outside Apple, he bought a tiny computer graphics spinoff from the director George Lucas and built a team of computer scientists, artists and animators that became Pixar Animation Studios.
Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide.
Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.
It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty.
“He was the most passionate leader one could hope for, a motivating force without parallel,” wrote Steven Levy, author of the 1994 book “Insanely Great,” which chronicles the creation of the Mac. “Tom Sawyer could have picked up tricks from Steve Jobs.”
“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.”
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Mr. Jobs was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes, for example, before approving the third, and began shipping it in June 2007.
To his understanding of technology he brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, ”the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there.”
After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.
Decades later he flew around the world in his own corporate jet, but he maintained emotional ties to the period in which he grew up. He often felt like an outsider in the corporate world, he said. When discussing the Silicon Valley’s lasting contributions to humanity, he mentioned in the same breath the invention of the microchip and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” a 1960s counterculture publication.
Apple’s very name reflected his unconventionality. In an era when engineers and hobbyists tended to describe their machines with model numbers, he chose the name of a fruit, supposedly because of his dietary habits at the time.
Coming on the scene just as computing began to move beyond the walls of research laboratories and corporations in the 1970s, Mr. Jobs saw that computing was becoming personal — that it could do more than crunch numbers and solve scientific and business problems — and that it could even be a force for social and economic change. And at a time when hobbyist computers were boxy wooden affairs with metal chassis, he designed the Apple II as a sleek, low-slung plastic package intended for the den or the kitchen. He was offering not just products but a digital lifestyle.
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He put much stock in the notion of “taste,” a word he used frequently. It was a sensibility that shone in products that looked like works of art and delighted users. Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.”
Regis McKenna, a longtime Silicon Valley marketing executive to whom Mr. Jobs turned in the late 1970s to help shape the Apple brand, said Mr. Jobs’s genius lay in his ability to simplify complex, highly engineered products, “to strip away the excess layers of business, design and innovation until only the simple, elegant reality remained.”
Mr. Jobs’s own research and intuition, not focus groups, were his guide. When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”
Early Interests
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, and surrendered for adoption by his biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.
The elder Mr. Jobs, who worked in finance and real estate before returning to his original trade as a machinist, moved his family down the San Francisco Peninsula to Mountain View and then to Los Altos in the 1960s.
Mr. Jobs developed an early interest in electronics. He was mentored by a neighbor, an electronics hobbyist, who built Heathkit do-it-yourself electronics projects. He was brash from an early age. As an eighth grader, after discovering that a crucial part was missing from a frequency counter he was assembling, he telephoned William Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Hewlett spoke with the boy for 20 minutes, prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern.
Mr. Jobs met Mr. Wozniak while attending Homestead High School in neighboring Cupertino. The two took an introductory electronics class there.
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The spark that ignited their partnership was provided by Mr. Wozniak’s mother. Mr. Wozniak had graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, when she sent him an article from the October 1971 issue of Esquire magazine. The article, “Secrets of the Little Blue Box,” by Ron Rosenbaum, detailed an underground hobbyist culture of young men known as phone phreaks who were illicitly exploring the nation’s phone system.
Mr. Wozniak shared the article with Mr. Jobs, and the two set out to track down an elusive figure identified in the article as Captain Crunch. The man had taken the name from his discovery that a whistle that came in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal was tuned to a frequency that made it possible to make free long-distance calls simply by blowing the whistle next to a phone handset.
Captain Crunch was John Draper, a former Air Force electronic technician, and finding him took several weeks. Learning that the two young hobbyists were searching for him, Mr. Draper had arranged to come to Mr. Wozniak’s Berkeley dormitory room. Mr. Jobs, who was still in high school, had traveled to Berkeley for the meeting. When Mr. Draper arrived, he entered the room saying simply, “It is I!”
Based on information they gleaned from Mr. Draper, Mr. Wozniak and Mr. Jobs later collaborated on building and selling blue boxes, devices that were widely used for making free — and illegal — phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the effort.
After enrolling at Reed College in 1972, Mr. Jobs left after one semester, but remained in Portland for another 18 months auditing classes. In a commencement address given at Stanford in 2005, he said he had decided to leave college because it was consuming all of his parents’ savings.
Leaving school, however, also freed his curiosity to follow his interests. “I didn’t have a dorm room,” he said in his Stanford speech, “so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”
5-10
He returned to Silicon Valley in 1974 and took a job there as a technician at Atari, the video game manufacturer. Still searching for his calling, he left after several months and traveled to India with a college friend, Daniel Kottke, who would later become an early Apple employee. Mr. Jobs returned to Atari that fall. In 1975, he and Mr. Wozniak, then working as an engineer at H.P., began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group that met at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, Calif. Personal computing had been pioneered at research laboratories adjacent to Stanford, and it was spreading to the outside world.
“What I remember is how intense he looked,” said Lee Felsenstein, a computer designer who was a Homebrew member. “He was everywhere, and he seemed to be trying to hear everything people had to say.”
Mr. Wozniak designed the original Apple I computer simply to show it off to his friends at the Homebrew. It was Mr. Jobs who had the inspiration that it could be a commercial product.
In early 1976, he and Mr. Wozniak, using their own money, began Apple with an initial investment of $1,300; they later gained the backing of a former Intel executive, A. C. Markkula, who lent them $250,000. Mr. Wozniak would be the technical half and Mr. Jobs the marketing half of the original Apple I Computer. Starting out in the Jobs family garage in Los Altos, they moved the company to a small office in Cupertino shortly thereafter.
In April 1977, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak introduced Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. It created a sensation. Faced with a gaggle of small and large competitors in the emerging computer market, Apple, with its Apple II, had figured out a way to straddle the business and consumer markets by building a computer that could be customized for specific applications.
Sales skyrocketed, from $2 million in 1977 to $600 million in 1981, the year the company went public. By 1983 Apple was in the Fortune 500. No company had ever joined the list so quickly.
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The Apple III, introduced in May 1980, was intended to dominate the desktop computer market. I.B.M. would not introduce its original personal computer until 1981. But the Apple III had a host of technical problems, and Mr. Jobs shifted his focus to a new and ultimately short-lived project, an office workstation computer code-named Lisa.
By then Mr. Jobs had made his much-chronicled 1979 visit to Xerox’s research center in Palo Alto, where he saw the Alto, an experimental personal computer system that foreshadowed modern desktop computing. The Alto, controlled by a mouse pointing device, was one of the first computers to employ a graphical video display, which presented the user with a view of documents and programs, adopting the metaphor of an office desktop.
“It was one of those sort of apocalyptic moments,” Mr. Jobs said of his visit in a 1995 oral history interview for the Smithsonian Institution. “I remember within 10 minutes of seeing the graphical user interface stuff, just knowing that every computer would work this way someday. It was so obvious once you saw it. It didn’t require tremendous intellect. It was so clear.”
In 1981 he joined a small group of Apple engineers pursuing a separate project, a lower-cost system code-named Macintosh. The machine was introduced in January 1984 and trumpeted during the Super Bowl telecast by a 60-second commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, that linked I.B.M., then the dominant PC maker, with Orwell’s Big Brother.
A year earlier Mr. Jobs had lured Mr. Sculley to Apple to be its chief executive. A former Pepsi-Cola chief executive, Mr. Sculley was impressed by Mr. Jobs’s pitch: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
He went on to help Mr. Jobs introduce a number of new computer models, including an advanced version of the Apple II and later the Lisa and Macintosh desktop computers. Through them Mr. Jobs popularized the graphical user interface, which, based on a mouse pointing device, would become the standard way to control computers.
But when the Lisa failed commercially and early Macintosh sales proved disappointing, the two men became estranged and a power struggle ensued, and Mr. Jobs lost control of the Lisa project. The board ultimately stripped him of his operational role, taking control of the Lisa project away from him, and 1,200 Apple employees were laid off. He left Apple in 1985.
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“I don’t wear the right kind of pants to run this company,” he told a small gathering of Apple employees before he left, according to a member of the original Macintosh development team. He was barefoot as he spoke, and wearing blue jeans.
That September he announced a new venture, NeXT Inc. The aim was to build a workstation computer for the higher-education market. The next year, the Texas industrialist H. Ross Perot invested $20 million in the effort. But it did not achieve Mr. Jobs’s goals.
Mr. Jobs also established a personal philanthropic foundation after leaving Apple but soon had a change of heart, deciding instead to spend much of his fortune — $10 million — on acquiring Pixar, a struggling graphics supercomputing company owned by the filmmaker George Lucas.
The purchase was a significant gamble; there was little market at the time for computer-animated movies. But that changed in 1995, when the company, with Walt Disney Pictures, released “Toy Story.” That film’s box-office receipts ultimately reached $362 million, and when Pixar went public in a record-breaking offering, Mr. Jobs emerged a billionaire. In 2006, the Walt Disney Company agreed to purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion. The sale made Mr. Jobs Disney’s largest single shareholder, with about 7 percent of the company’s stock.
His personal life also became more public. He had a number of well-publicized romantic relationships, including one with the folk singer Joan Baez, before marrying Laurene Powell. In 1996, his sister Mona Simpson, a novelist, threw a spotlight on her relationship with Mr. Jobs in the novel “A Regular Guy.” The two did not meet until they were adults. The novel centered on a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who bore a close resemblance to Mr. Jobs. It was not an entirely flattering portrait. Mr. Jobs said about a quarter of it was accurate.
“We’re family,” he said of Ms. Simpson in an interview with The New York Times Magazine. “She’s one of my best friends in the world. I call her and talk to her every couple of days.”
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His wife and Ms. Simpson survive him, as do his three children with Ms. Powell, his daughters Eve Jobs and Erin Sienna Jobs and a son, Reed; another daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, from a relationship with Chrisann Brennan; and another sister, Patti Jobs.
Return to Apple
Eventually, Mr. Jobs refocused NeXT from the education to the business market and dropped the hardware part of the company, deciding to sell just an operating system. Although NeXT never became a significant computer industry player, it had a huge impact: a young programmer, Tim Berners-Lee, used a NeXT machine to develop the first version of the World Wide Web at the Swiss physics research center CERN in 1990.
In 1996, after unsuccessful efforts to develop next-generation operating systems, Apple, with Gilbert Amelio now in command, acquired NeXT for $430 million. The next year, Mr. Jobs returned to Apple as an adviser. He became chief executive again in 2000.
Shortly after returning, Mr. Jobs publicly ended Apple’s long feud with its archrival Microsoft, which agreed to continue developing its Office software for the Macintosh and invested $150 million in Apple.
Once in control of Apple again, Mr. Jobs set out to reshape the consumer electronics industry. He pushed the company into the digital music business, introducing first iTunes and then the iPod MP3 player. The music arm grew rapidly, reaching almost 50 percent of the company’s revenue by June 2008.
In 2005, Mr. Jobs announced that he would end Apple’s business relationship with I.B.M. and Motorola and build Macintosh computers based on Intel microprocessors.
His fight with cancer was now publicly known. Apple had announced in 2004 that Mr. Jobs had a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer and that he had undergone successful surgery. Four years later, questions about his health returned when he appeared at a company event looking gaunt. Afterward, he said he had suffered from a “common bug.” Privately, he said his cancer surgery had created digestive problems but insisted they were not life-threatening.
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Apple began selling the iPhone in June 2007. Mr. Jobs’s goal was to sell 10 million of the handsets in 2008, equivalent to 1 percent of the global cellphone market. The company sold 11.6 million.
Although smartphones were already commonplace, the iPhone dispensed with a stylus and pioneered a touch-screen interface that quickly set the standard for the mobile computing market. Rolled out with much anticipation and fanfare, iPhone rocketed to popularity; by the end of 2010 the company had sold almost 90 million units.
Although Mr. Jobs took just a nominal $1 salary when he returned to Apple, his compensation became the source of a Silicon Valley scandal in 2006 over the backdating of millions of shares of stock options. But after a company investigation and one by the Securities and Exchange Commission, he was found not to have benefited financially from the backdating and no charges were brought.
The episode did little to taint Mr. Jobs’s standing in the business and technology world. As the gravity of his illness became known, and particularly after he announced he was stepping down, he was increasingly hailed for his genius and true achievement: his ability to blend product design and business market innovation by integrating consumer-oriented software, microelectronic components, industrial design and new business strategies in a way that has not been matched.
If he had a motto, it may have come from “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which he said had deeply influenced him as a young man. The book, he said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005, ends with the admonition “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
“I have always wished that for myself,” he said.
++++
Steve Lohr contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 7, 2011
An earlier version of this obituary misstated the year in which NeXT shifted its focus from the education to the business market as 1986.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 7, 2011
An obituary on Thursday about Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, misidentified, in some editions and at one point, the city in California where he went to high school. It is Cupertino, not Los Altos.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 6, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: STEVEN P. JOBS, 1955-2011; Redefined the Digital Age As the Visionary of Apple.
10-10
死間近のスティーブン・ジョブズと周りの様子
With Time Running Short, Jobs Managed His Farewells
CHARLES DUHIGG, On Thursday October 6, 2011, 9:25 pm EDT, The New York Times
Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, Calif., called an old friend’s home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time.
In February, Steven P. Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began.
The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Mr. Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller.
Some asked if they might try again tomorrow.
Sorry, she replied. He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left.
Mr. Jobs spent his final weeks — as he had spent most of his life — in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, a preventive health advocate, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants, Jin Sho in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues including the venture capitalist John Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger. He offered Apple’s executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope.
But, mostly, he spent time with his wife and children — who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, in addition to their grief, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man.
“Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs’s home — a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood — was surrounded by security guards. His driveway’s gate was flanked by two black S.U.V.’s.
On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the S.U.V.’s were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed.
“Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve,” said one acquaintance who, in Mr. Jobs’s final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. “He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples’ expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies.
“But once you’re gone, you belong to the world.”
1-2
Mr. Jobs’s biographer, Mr. Isaacson, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote Thursday in an essay on Time.com. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”
Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Mr. Jobs’s heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Mr. Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple, perhaps surprising given that he is best known for the computer company he founded.
Mr. Jobs’s emphasis on secrecy, say acquaintances, led him to shy away from large public donations. At one point, Mr. Jobs was asked by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates to give a majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside a number of prominent executives like Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett. But Mr. Jobs declined, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s decision.
Now that Mr. Jobs is gone, many people expect that attention will focus on his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has largely avoided the spotlight, but is expected to oversee Mr. Jobs’s fortune. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mrs. Powell Jobs worked in investment banking before founding a natural foods company. She then founded College Track, a program that pairs disadvantaged students with mentors who help them earn college degrees. That has led to some speculation in the philanthropic community that any large charitable contributions might go to education, though no one outside Mr. Jobs’s inner circle is thought to know of the plans.
Mr. Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford.
In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs became even more dedicated to such sentiments. “Steve’s concerns these last few weeks were for people who depended on him: the people who worked for him at Apple and his four children and his wife,” said Mona Simpson, Mr. Jobs’s sister. “His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would have to leave us.”
As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Mr. Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards.
He turned down the offers. On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple’s offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Mr. Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out.
“He was very human,” Dr. Ornish said. “He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That’s what made him so great.”
Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman, Quentin Hardy, Claire Cain Miller and Evelyn M. Rusli.
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US States With the Most Millionaires 2011
by Paul Toscano
Friday, October 28, 2011
Each year, Phoenix Marketing International analyzes national data on millionaire households to reveal which U.S. states attract the most high-income families. This information is being published first on CNBC.com.
The overall number of millionaire households in the U.S. has increased nationwide for the second time in two years. In 2011, there were 5.94 million millionaire households, compared with 5.56 million households a year earlier, an increase of approximately 6.8 percent. Nearly every U.S. state saw an increase in its total number of millionaires, adding thousands of households to millionaire status, according to the new numbers from Phoenix Marketing.
The study defines millionaire households as those with $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets (excluding sponsored retirement plans and real estate). Overall, 5.08 percent of U.S. households claim millionaire status, up from last year but still short of the 2007 high of 5.25 percent.
David Thompson, managing director of Phoenix Marketing, notes that "this is the closest it's ever been between the top two states," adding that "all of the top 10 states increased their millionaire ratios during the past year, which underscores that the richest states keep getting richer."
In past reports, Thompson has noted that "small states with large concentrations of highly educated professionals and business owners are key ingredients to growing wealth," and that states with a large proportion of millionaires tend to share these characteristics.
So, which states are home to the most millionaires?
1-3
7. Virginia
Percentage of households: 6.26%
Millionaire households: 195,006
Total households: 3,113,444
Percentage in 2010: 5.94%
Millionaire households: 180,638
Percentage in 2009: 5.51%
Millionaire households: 166,596
8. New Hampshire
Percentage of households: 6.06%
Millionaire households: 31,159
Total households: 514,053
Percentage in 2010: 5.79%
Millionaire households: 29,790
Percentage in 2009: 5.34%
Millionaire households: 27,562
9. California
Percentage of households: 6.01%
Millionaire households: 750,686
Total households: 12,487,377
Percentage in 2010: 5.66%
Millionaire households: 716,316
Percentage in 2009: 5.28%
Millionaire households: 662,735
10. District of Columbia
Percentage of households: 5.88%
Millionaire households: 15,603
Total households: 265,558
Percentage in 2010: 5.53%
Millionaire households: 14,533
Percentage in 2009: 5.00%
Millionaire households: 13,028
読者のコメント
Yahoo! User 4 hours ago
Investible Assets? So, I can borrow $1M and invest it and I'm a millionaire? (assets=liabilities+equity or equity=assets-liabilities) Would love to see where this data is coming from. The press is a major culprit in every mess we get into. Most of what I read these days is hogwash and this is just more of it. Be skeptical of everything you read and try to understand the motivation of the writer(s).
3-3
コダックが倒産
Kodak files for bankruptcy, secures $950 million lifeline
Reuters – 27 minutes ago
(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.
The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
The loan and bankruptcy protection from U.S. trade creditors may give Kodak the time it needs to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, the key to its remaining value, and to reshape its business while continuing to pay its 17,000 workers.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak," Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement.
"Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company," he added.
At end September, the group had total assets of $5.1 billion and liabilities of $6.75 billion.
Kodak said it and its U.S. subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Non-U.S. subsidiaries were not covered by the filing and would continue to honor all obligations to their suppliers, it added.
Kodak once dominated its industry and its film was the subject of a popular Paul Simon song, but it failed to embrace more modern technologies quickly enough, such as the digital camera -- ironically, a product it even invented.
Its downfall hit its Rust Belt hometown of Rochester, New York, with employment there falling to about 7,000 from more than 60,000 in Kodak's heyday.
Its market value has sunk to below $150 million from $31 billion 15 years ago.
In recent years, Chief Executive Perez has steered Kodak's focus more toward consumer and commercial printers.
But that failed to restore annual profitability, something Kodak has not seen since 2007, or arrest a cash drain that has made it difficult for Kodak to meet its substantial pension and other benefits obligations to its workers and retirees.
Perez said bankruptcy protection would enable Kodak to continue to work to maximize the value of its technology assets, such as digital-imaging patents it says are used in virtually every modern digital camera, smartphone and tablet. The company has also built up patented printing technology.
Kodak said it was being advised by investment bank Lazard Ltd, which has been helping Kodak look for a buyer for its digital patents.
Other advisers included business-turnaround specialist FTI Consulting Inc, whose vice chairman, Dominic DiNapoli, would serve as chief restructuring officer for Kodak, supporting existing management.
In the last few years, Kodak has used extensive litigation with rivals such as Apple Inc, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd and Taiwan's HTC Corp over those patents as a means to try to generate revenue. Those patents may now be sold through the bankruptcy process.
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George Eastman, a high school dropout from upstate New York, founded Kodak in 1880, and began to make photographic plates. To get his business going, he splurged on a second-hand engine for $125.
Within eight years, the Kodak name had been trademarked, and the company had introduced the hand-held camera as well as roll-up film, where it became the dominant producer.
Eastman also introduced the "Wage Dividend" in which the company would pay bonuses to employees based on results.
Nearly a century after Kodak's founding, the astronaut Neil Armstrong used a Kodak camera the size of a shoebox to take pictures as he became in 1969 the first man to walk on the moon.
Those pictures arguably had more viewers than the 80 films that have won Best Picture Oscars and were shot on Kodak film.
Six years after Armstrong's walk, and not long after Simon told his mama not to take his Kodachrome away, Kodak invented the digital camera.
The size of a toaster, it was too big for the pockets of amateur photographers, whose pockets now are stuffed with digital offerings from the likes of Canon, Casio and Nikon.
But rather than develop the digital camera, Kodak put it on the back-burner and spent years watching rivals take market share that it would never reclaim.
In 1994, Kodak spun off a chemicals business, Eastman Chemical Co, which proved to be more successful.
Kodak's final downfall in the eyes of investors began in September when it unexpectedly withdrew $160 million from a credit line, raising worries of a cash shortage. It ended September with $862 million of cash.
PENSIONS IN FOCUS
In its bankruptcy, Kodak could try to restructure its debts, or perhaps sell all or some of its assets, including the patent portfolio and various businesses.
It is unclear how Kodak will address its pension obligations, many of which were built up decades ago when U.S. manufacturers offered more generous retirement and medical benefits than they do now. Many retirees hail from Britain where Kodak has been manufacturing since 1891.
The company had promised to inject $800 million over the next decade into its UK pension fund. It now remains unclear how that country's pension regulator might seek to preserve some or all of the company's obligations to British pensioners.
(Reporting by Nick Brown, Caroline Humer and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
2-2
Failure due to pompous attitude and inability to re-invent itself.
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I remember when all the typewriter companies went under. I can't wait for all the companies that manufacture for the 'war machine' go under, due to human beings 'changing their ways'...
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Just another sign of the decline of America. GM, Chrysler, Kodak, Fannie Mae, AIG, Kmart, Circuit City, Bethlehem Steel. All bankrupt in the last 15 years or so. Kind of sad.
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it's all because of few short sighted idiots who couldn't compete with tech era and brought the company down. Shame!!!
セリン・デオンやマライヤ・カレイとよく並び称されるホイットニー・ヒュウストン。世界を代表する３大歌手の一角の死には悲しいものがある。
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48歳のホイットニー・ヒューストン、ビバリーズヒルズホテルで死す。
Award-winning singer Whitney Houston dies at age 48
By Bob Tourtellotte
Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:04pm EST
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Grammy-winning singer and actress Whitney Houston, one of the most talented performers of her generation who lived a turbulent personal life and admitted drug use, died on Saturday in a Beverly Hills hotel room. She was 48.
A Beverly Hills police officer told reporters they were called to the Beverly Hilton, in Los Angeles, at around 3:20 p.m. PST and that emergency personnel found Houston's body in a fourth-floor room, and she was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.
"She has been positively identified by friends and family (who) were with her at the hotel, and next of kin have already been notified," Lieutenant Mark Rosen told reporters.
Police said there were no obvious signs of criminal intent at the scene and her death is under investigation.
Houston was in Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards, the music industry's biggest honors program that will take place on Sunday night. She died hours before she was expected to perform at record producer Clive Davis's annual pre-Grammy party on Saturday, which is held at the Beverly Hilton
Houston, inspired by soul singers in her New Jersey family, including mother Cissy Houston and cousins Dionne Warwick and the late Dee Dee Warwick, as well as her godmother Aretha Franklin, became one of the most celebrated female singers of all time, taking multiple Emmy, Grammy and Billboard Music awards.
STELLAR CAREER, PERSONAL TROUBLES
Her popularity soared in the 1980s and 1990s with consecutive No. 1 hits including the smash single "I Will Always Love You," from the soundtrack of the feature film "The Bodyguard," in which she starred.
She also appeared in "Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996)."
By the early 1990s, Houston had become the queen of pop music, achieving great critical and commercial acclaim, but her personal life was becoming troubled. In 1992 she married singer Bobby Brown, who had a bad-boy reputation, and during their 14 years together had a tumultuous relationship fueled by drugs.
In 2000, she and Brown were stopped at an airport in Hawaii and security guards discovered marijuana in their luggage.
The pair also starred in reality TV series, "Being Bobby Brown," which painted an often unflattering portrait of the pair.
The last 10 years of Houston's life were dominated by drug use, rumors of relapses and trips to rehab. In a 2002 TV interview, she admitted using marijuana, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs.
She launched a comeback tour in 2009 and in April 2010 she called media reports she was using drugs again "ridiculous." In May 2011, Houston enrolled in a drug and alcohol rehab program.
Reactions came pouring in from fans and friends in the music industry.
"I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney's passing," legendary music producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. "... I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly."
Neil Portnow, chief executive of the Recording Academy that gives out the Grammys, called her "one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades."
Pop star Rihanna posted on Twitter "No words, just tears," and rapper Nicki Minaj tweeted "Jesus Christ, not Whitney Houston. Greatest of all time."
(Additional reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Florida teen's slaying spotlights phantom gun effect
By Sharon Begley
NEW YORK | Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:08pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - As the investigation continues into last month's fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, psychology researchers can point to one aspect of the tragedy: how easy it is to "see" that someone is holding a gun when he is not.
In the latest research, scientists found that simply holding a gun, as George Zimmerman was when he confronted Martin in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, has an effect.
"The mere act of holding a gun makes it more likely that you will perceive an object as a gun," said James Brockmole, associate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame and co-author of an upcoming paper on that phenomenon.
"Does that mean that if the neighborhood watch captain had not been armed he would have perceived the situation differently? It's impossible to say that about any specific situation, but our research shows it is certainly a possibility."
Martin was walking from a convenience store and had put up his hooded sweatshirt when Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white man, saw him. According to 911 calls the police released last week, Zimmerman followed the teen in his SUV.
"This guy looks like he's up to no good or on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about," Zimmerman told the 911 operator. "He's here now just looking at all the houses. . . . He's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands."
Martin's lawyer said the 17-year-old was on his cellphone with his girlfriend as the incident unfolded, telling her that he was being followed. She encouraged him to run. The case will go before a grand jury beginning April 10.
Recognizing objects is not a simple matter of vision, said Brockmole. Instead, emotions, beliefs, and expectations can all affect the ability to accurately identify objects, numerous lab experiments have found.
Perhaps the most notorious real-world example of that was the 1999 killing Amidou Diallo in New York City: the 23-year-old Guinean immigrant was shot 41 times by police officers who perceived him as brandishing a gun. Standing in a dark doorway, Diallo was in fact showing them his wallet. In that case, said Brockmole, "racial stereotypes and beliefs about criminality may have caused the police to see a gun" that wasn't there.
But something else was at play in the Diallo case: the police were holding guns. That caused Brockmole and a colleague, assistant professor of psychology Jessica Witt of Purdue University, to ask whether "the mere act of wielding firearms have biased the officers to misperceive Diallo's actions," as they put it in a paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
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Brockmole's team ran five experiments with 220 participants. In each, the volunteers held either a foam ball or a firearm (a Wii gun - a type of gun used in videogames - or a disabled carbon-dioxide-powered BB pistol) while images flashed by on a monitor.
Each image, lasting less than a second, showed a person holding a gun or an innocuous object such as a shoe, soda can, or cell phone. The person in the image was either black or white, bare-headed or wearing a black ski mask. In one variation, the participant did not hold a gun, but one was conspicuously placed in the lab.
The mere presence of a gun nearby did not influence how likely people were to mistake a shoe or other innocent object for a gun. But holding a gun was, the scientists report in the upcoming paper.
"We got a substantial effect," said Witt. "Holding a firearm makes you more likely to see innocuous objects as guns."
That result fit with other studies showing that "people's perception of their ability to act influences their perception of the world," Witt said.
For instance, she has found that when someone holds a long stick, objects seem closer - apparently because people think their ability to reach the object means it is nearby. People with broader shoulders perceive doorways as narrower than smaller people do, strong hitters see a softball as larger than poor hitters do, skilled golf putters perceive the hole as larger than poor duffers do, and out-of-reach objects look closer when people can hit them with a laser pointer.
"The perception system and the motor system evolved together," Witt said. "They share circuitry, so it makes sense that one would affect the other."
Whether that effect - holding a gun making someone more likely to "see" a gun - played any role in Sanford is impossible to say. But the proliferation of right-to-carry and concealed-carry gun laws makes that mistake more likely, say scientists. It might not even be necessary to have the gun in one's hand.
"It's all about intention," Witt said. "If you can feel the weapon on your hip and intend to use it, my prediction is that the perceptual bias would be just as great. Based on our other research, the anticipation of using an object is just as powerful an influence on perception."
Added Brockmole, "They say that when you hold a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That doesn't seem so harmless when you think about what happens when a person holds a gun."
(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Paul Simao)
2-2
Police Reveal George Zimmerman’s Side of the Trayvon Martin Shooting
The neighborhood watch volunteer, who is now widely reviled, says he was attacked by the teenager and was injured in the confrontation with him.
By Madison Gray | March 26, 2012 |
Police have released accounts of the confrontation between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman on the night the unarmed 17-year-old was shot to death. The details differ profoundly from those put forth by his family’s attorney and place Martin as the aggressor rather than Zimmerman, who has claimed self-defense.
The Orlando Sentinel reported Monday that the story given by Zimmerman to Sanford, Fla., police was that Martin struck him, knocking him to the ground, then slammed his head into the sidewalk repeatedly. Police also say witness accounts back up what Zimmerman told them, which contradict earlier stories of Martin being stalked, then killed by the 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer.
According to Zimmerman, he was on his way to the grocery store when he saw Martin walking through the gated community, The Retreat at Twin Lakes. He called police and reported that he saw a suspicious person, a black male, who was acting strangely and thought he might be on drugs. Recordings of the conversation between Zimmerman and the dispatcher verify this, although it had not been initially released.
(VIDEO: TIME’s Exclusive Interview with Trayvon Martin’s Parents)
Zimmerman got out of his vehicle to follow Martin on foot, though a dispatcher told him that was not necessary. After that, police say it is unclear what exactly happened, but Zimmerman said he no longer saw Martin and was returning back to the vehicle when the teen approached him and they exchanged words. Martin, he said, then struck him, knocked him down and began banging his head on the ground.
At some point, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest at close range.
Zimmerman’s attorney, Craig Sooner, told ABC News that Zimmerman had a broken nose and an injury to the back of his head. Witnesses, according to the Sentinel, say they saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, punching him and heard him crying for help. Others, who live near where the shooting took place and placed 911 calls, have said it was Martin who cried for help, and say Zimmerman was straddling him, hands pressed against his back.
(PHOTOS: Trayvon Martin’s Death Sparks Outrage, Mourning)
Phone records obtained by Martin’s family lawyer Benjamin Crump suggest the teen was on his cell phone with his girlfriend when he told her he was being followed by Zimmerman. He told her he would walk faster, but not run. Then the phone went dead, according to Crump.
Police say when they arrived, they found Zimmerman with the injuries. He refused medical treatment, but sought it the next day.
The case continues to bring a nationwide outcry, with many demanding that Zimmerman be arrested and insisting that Sanford police were negligent in their duties. Chief Bill Lee, who has temporarily stepped down from his position, has said his department did not have evidence that the shooting was not in self defense.
Special Prosecutor Angela Corey is determining whether to arrest Zimmerman, drop the case or send it to a grand jury which is set to convene on April 10.
韓国系による銃を使った学校での他殺事件は知る限りにおいて２つ目。２００７年４月１６日、Seung-Hui Choが教室や廊下にいるバージニアテック（工科大学）の３２名の教員を含む多数の学生を無差別射殺し２５名に怪我を負わせた事件。アメリカの歴史上記録を塗り替えるほどの犠牲者の多さで驚愕させた。韓国系アメリカ人がアジア系を代表してテレビ・映画によく出てくる。ロスのコリアンタウンが膨らんでいることや、リトル東京まで韓国系が進出していることから、それだけ移民が多いということなのだろうか。
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Oakland college shooting: Troubling portrait of suspect emerges
April 3, 2012 | 4:53 pm
A troubled portrait of the man who police say gunned down seven students at a small Oakland college is emerging a day after one of California’s most deadly rampages.
One L. Goh, 43, moved to Oakland from Virginia in recent years after accruing a number of small infractions and misdemeanors on the East Coast. Once in Oakland, Goh spent about a year working with his father, Young Ko, at a Korean Market in Daly City. Ko had been living nearby in an Oakland-area Christian senior housing complex that accommodates about equal parts Korean, Chinese and other residents.
Acquaintances there said Goh’s father was a humble man who worked hard as a stock boy at a Korean Market in Daly City. They said Ko rarely received visits from his children, including Goh.
"I never saw him with a friend, he was mostly alone," said Park, a 70-year-old Korean resident who asked that only his last name be used.
Goh butted heads with co-workers at the market and left barely a year into the job, a worker at the store's meat counter told The Times. Goh eventually took another job delivering rice around the Bay Area, but the worker said that job also didn't last long, and soon Goh was unemployed.
When Goh’s father, now in his 70s, saw an ad for the nursing program at Oikos University, he suggested that his son enroll.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Goh brought a string of debts with him to the Bay Area and had even been evicted from one apartment complex while in Virginia. Ko paid his son's tuition through his market job, the co-worker said.
But Goh was expelled from Oikos, school officials say. The Associated Press reports that the nursing student had been teased by peers about his English skills during his tenure at the school, and police say his dismissal left Goh seeking revenge on the university and one specific female administrator.
The AP reported that Goh’s mother and brother both died in 2011, and he was still reeling from the loss when he was expelled from the university.
Ko was at his workplace when he was notified of the shooting at Oikos and abruptly left, the co-worker said. The worker declined to give his name.
Goh had taken a woman hostage at the school, then moved into a classroom and lined students against the wall, picking off seven women one by one.
“He has not shown any signs of remorse,” Oakland police spokeswoman Johanna Watson told The Times Tuesday morning.
Goh would fire more shots outside the classroom, and use his semiautomatic handgun to kill a man to commandeer his car, police said. At one point, Goh drove to an Oakland estuary that feeds into the San Leandro Bay and dumped the weapon, authorities say.
About two hours after the shooting, police say Goh arrived at a Safeway store in nearby Alameda and called his father. Ko then called police.
Goh remains in police custody, and the case is expected to be turned over to the district attorney’s office on Wednesday.
The attack will go down as among California's worst shooting rampages. Last year, a gunman opened fire at a Seal Beach hair salon, killing nine people. In 1984, James Huberty killed 21 people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro. In 1976, a former Marine opened fire at the Cal State Fullerton library, killing seven people.
--Victoria Kim in Oakland and Matt Stevens in Los Angeles
Police: Accused Oakland gunman targeted administrator, classmates
By Laird Harrison
OAKLAND, California | Tue Apr 3, 2012 7:55pm EDT
OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - A former student accused of killing seven people and wounding three others in a shooting rampage at a small Christian college in Oakland was gunning for a school administrator and classmates who he felt had treated him unfairly, police said on Tuesday.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said that 43-year-old One Goh, expelled from Oikos University for "anger management" issues, has been cooperative since being taken into custody after Monday's shootings but "not particularly remorseful."
"We know that he came here with the intent of locating an administrator and she was not here," Jordan said at a news conference. "He then went through the entire building systematically and randomly shooting victims."
Oikos serves about 100 students in a single building and has links to the Korean-American Christian community. Goh is Korean-American. Prosecutors were expected to file charges against him on Wednesday.
The attack at Oikos was the deadliest shooting rampage at a U.S. college since a student at Virginia Tech University gunned down 32 people in April 2007.
Jordan said the dead in Oakland included six women and a man, ranging in age from 21 to 40, who came from Korea, Nigeria, Nepal and the Philippines. Six were students and one was a secretary.
Police searched on Tuesday for the gun in the shootings, using boats and a robot to plumb an estuary leading into nearby San Leandro Bay. Jordan said ballistics evidence showed the weapon was a semi-automatic pistol.
The three wounded victims were released from an Oakland hospital by mid-morning on Tuesday.
'VERY CHAOTIC'
Jordan said Goh had been expelled from the school two months ago for "behavioral problems and anger management" issues, but he was not aware of any particular incident that led to his removal.
"We've learned that the suspect was upset with the administration at the school," Jordan told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview.
"He was also upset that students ... in the past when he attended the school, mistreated him, disrespected him and things of that nature," he told the program. "We've learned this was a very chaotic, calculated and determined gentleman that came there with specific intent to kill people."
Witnesses said Goh returned to the college on Monday morning, entered a reception area and opened fire. He then walked into one of two classes in session, telling former classmates to line up and that he was going to kill them.
Goh surrendered at a Safeway grocery store several miles away.
The rampage appeared to follow a period of tumult for Goh.
A U.S. Army spokesman said that Goh's brother, Staff Sergeant Su Wan Ko, was killed in a car crash in Virginia in March 2011. Local news accounts at the time said he died after smashing into a boulder that had fallen onto the highway.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Goh's mother died about a year ago. Adding to his troubles, Goh had been involved in a dispute with the owners of an apartment in Virginia who had evicted him and claimed he owed back rent, court records showed.
Oikos, which offers programs in theology, nursing, music and Asian medicine, describes itself on its website as having been started to provide the "highest standard education with Christian value and inspiration."
(Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Dan Burns; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb, Deborah Zabarenko, Malathi Nayak and Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Will Dunham)
Lottery winner on welfare: Michigan woman now faces fraud charges
Amanda Clayton holds her $1-million lottery check. Authorities say that despite the windfall, she continued collecting public assistance. (Associated Press / April 17, 2012)
By Rene Lynch
April 17, 2012, 2:50 p.m. LATimes
Do you remember the case of Amanda Clayton? She's the Michigan woman who made headlines last month when it was revealed that she'd won $1 million in the state lottery -- and kept collecting welfare.
Well, that alleged double-dipping has cost her: Clayton was arrested Monday on fraud charges and spent the night in the slammer before being arraigned Tuesday morning. She pleaded not guilty to charges that she improperly collected more than $5,475 in food stamps and public medical benefits over an eight-month period, according to the Associated Press.
Michigan taxpayers were particularly outraged because of Clayton's seeming sense of entitlement. Detroit-area TV station Local 4 -- which broke the story -- caught up with Clayton as she was packing up her belongings from one home to move to another home. (She'd bought the new abode -- along with a new car -- using cash from her lottery winnings.)
Clayton explained to the reporter that she deserved the public assistance. After all, she was a single mom without a job: "I feel that it's OK because, I mean, I have no income, and I have bills to pay. I have two houses."
Famous last words.
Public outrage led to the welfare-fraud investigation that led to Clayton's arrest. That outrage also fueled the passage of a bill that triggers an alert to the state's Department of Human Services, which oversees public assistance, whenever a state resident wins more than $1,000 in the state lottery.
Clayton won $1 million on the state's "Make Me Rich!" television show. She chose to take a lump sum upfront, which amounted to $735,000 before taxes.
Clayton's defense attorney, Stanley Wise, told Local 4 that he planned to fight the charges.
最近のアメリカの若者の体たらくな仕事振りをみて心配する記事。
Too Busy for A Summer Job? Why America’s Youth Lacks Basic Work Skills
Many young adults have no clue how to function at the bottom of a hierarchy.
By Erika Christakis | May 1, 2012 |
Do today’s kids make terrible entry-level workers? That’s a question much on employers’ minds as graduation season kicks off and young adults begin their first full-time jobs. We’ve all heard the stories: assistants who won’t “assist,” new workers who can’t set an alarm, employees who can’t grasp institutional hierarchies.
Bosses who toiled in the pre-Self Esteem Era salt mines have little patience for these upstarts. A popular advice columnist had some choice words last week for a young employee who dismissively waved her sandwich at a superior requesting back-up during a critical meeting; the young woman explained that she was on her lunch break and was merely “setting boundaries” with a “disrespectful colleague who sorely needs them.” Moreover, she noted, being “errand girl” wasn’t in her job description.
It’s easy to laugh off these anecdotes, but there are some complex reasons for the lack of familiarity with work norms. For one thing, many twenty-something adults have never held a menial summer job, once considered training wheels for adult life in the American middle class.
It was once common to see teenagers mowing lawns, waiting tables, digging ditches, and bagging groceries for modest wages in the long summer months. Summer employment was a social equalizer, allowing both affluent and financially strapped teenagers to gain a foothold on adulthood, learning the virtues of hard work, respect and teamwork in a relatively low-stakes atmosphere. But youth employment has declined precipitously over the years and young people are losing a chance to develop these important life skills in the process.
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In 2010, the latest year for which numbers are available, less than half of the nation’s youth (16–24) were employed during the month of July, traditionally the peak of summer employment, the lowest percentage since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting data in 1948 and almost 20 percentage points lower than the peak in 1989. There’s little indication of that number improving. Teenagers and twentysomethings are the least skilled and most expendable members of the work force, so it’s not surprising that they would be edged out in a recession by more reliable full-time workers such as senior citizens, immigrants, and other adults who need those jobs.
But other long-term factors are at play. Life is more competitive than ever before, and kids—or perhaps their parents—worry about wasting time on jobs that won’t yield career dividends. On Harvard’s campus, where I work, students feel crushing pressure to build their resumes the instant they arrive, eschewing unskilled summer jobs for unpaid internships with non-profit organizations, political campaigns and research labs. Others spend the summer studying foreign languages or preparing for grueling graduate admissions exams.
The same pattern is found at the secondary school level, where teen employment has been on a downward trend since 2000. Tougher graduation standards have created a three-fold increase in summer school attendance over the last 20 years. And students feel the need to pad their college applications with unique life experiences as the admissions process has grown more selective. High schools also now routinely require public service — surely a good thing — that can further limit the available hours to work for pay.
Many of these social changes are a sign of a healthy, and upwardly mobile, society. But there’s a problem when more than 50% of the nation’s young workforce has never held a basic, paying job. We may be postponing their entry into adulthood. One paradox of contemporary life is that the lengthening of adolescence has not better prepared young people for what comes next. Despite unprecedented technological and cultural sophistication, this generation’s 20-year-olds lack some of the ‘soft’ skills that are necessary to move up the professional ladder: perseverance, humility, flexibility and commitment.
In the end, though, it’s their elders who are responsible, and we shouldn’t demonize young people for our own failings. Most graduates embarking on their first job are eager to perform well and desperately need the income. It’s grown-ups, not teenagers, who have honed the values, expectations and opportunities from which our nation’s youth develop their work habits. If we want a more respectful and industrious workforce, we need to do a better job creating one.
Erika Christakis, M.P.H., M.Ed., is a Harvard College administrator who blogs at ErikaChristakis.com. The views expressed are solely her own.
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アメリカの教師と生徒の関係是正
Teachers, no more friending your students in New York City
Pic=Nkomo Morris, a teacher at Brooklyn's Art and Media High School, works on her classroom computer last month in New York. Morris, who teaches English and journalism, said she has about 50 current and former students as Facebook friends. (Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press / May 1, 2012)
New York City teachers will have to resist hitting the "Add Friend" button on their students' Facebook pages.
Thanks to a new list of guidelines released by the Education Department on Tuesday, public school teachers may no longer contact students through personal pages on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper said that while the new employee guidelines don't ban teachers from using social media, they should only communicate to their students through pages set up for classroom use or via professional accounts.
Professional pages are those devoted to "classroom business like homework and study guides," the New York Times said. And teachers must get a supervisor's permission before setting up such pages; parents will also have to sigh a consent form before their children can participate.
The measures were put in place in light of increasing concerns about teacher-student conduct. Often, inappropriate relationships involve or begin on social media sites, a department investigator told the paper.
What do you think? Are the city's measures overboard or necessary?
アメリカの多元的な社会が求めるリーダー格とは。
Column: Prizes for diversity give hope for future
By Yolanda Young
As a nation, we are becoming increasingly diverse, but racial tensions seem to be on the rise, particularly among young people.
Hopes for a post-racial era are quickly forgotten when you read about two black teenagers accused of setting a 13-year-old white boy on fire in Kansas City, Mo. Or about white students at Gloucester (Mass.) High School being investigated for racist tweets directed at a black Washington Capitals hockey player, Joel Ward.
Such vile acts make me wonder whether today's youth are retreating into xenophobia. So I was greatly relieved to read about this year's winners and honorees of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, which recognizes high school students who work in their schools and communities to advance inclusiveness. Their efforts give us hope that these future leaders in diversity will negate the bad acts of a few.
Take Yousif Hanna, who came to the U.S. from Iraq. After entering Boston College High School in 2009, Hanna managed, with a limited grasp of English, to earn top grades and forge bonds with three other diverse students: Frankie Davis, who is Dominican and Irish Italian; Haitian immigrant Varnel Antoine; and Chinese-American Kevin Dong. Princeton credited them with breaking stereotypes and forging friendships that transcend race, and ethnicity.
Michael Wattendorf was elected the first white president of the Black Student Union at Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia. He won the award for creating a mentorship program to encourage an interest in math and science among black elementary and middle school students.
The most hopeful signs of these awards are that winners often continue to promote the cause of diversity. In 2004, Zainep Mahmoud was among the first-prize winners. As a high school sophomore, she wrote a play, Unforgettable, about the tragic consequences of harassment and assaults against those of Arab descent in the wake of Sept. 11. Mahmoud continued her diversity efforts as a leader of Dartmouth's Afro-American Society, while also mentoring students. She later was hired by Google, in part for her leadership skills, and is now attending Wharton Business School, where she is an officer of the African American MBA Association.
Although racial differences will probably always be with us, the Princeton Prizes give us hope for the future and the powers of inclusiveness.
Yolanda Young is the founder of www.onbeingablacklawyer.com.
