What companies hold patents on white LED bulb technology and stands to benefit the most from it.?

Q) California, Canada and now Europe are passing laws to prohibit the sale of energy wasting incandescent light bulbs by as early as 2012. The new LED lightbulbs which are just starting to appear typically have lives of 600,000 hours and use much less energy than the the incandescents. It is estimated that lighting accounts for up to 20% of the electrical energy used in the US. It is hoped that by legistlating this technology it will speed it's adoption. Does anyone know what companies hold patents on this technology and stands to benefit the most from it. I would like to invest if their stock is not already through the roof.

A) I don't know, but have you tried checking wikipedia?

I thought LED Christmas lights were to be on sale but where?

Q) I thought I saw or heard this last year but haven't seen any around. It seems that, if made well, they would last a long time without all the problems of standard lights. Also, wouldn't the energy used be far less and the lights be far cooler in operation? LED technology is mature and they are cheap too. Seems like a great idea, so where are they?

A) maybe the white house bought them all- supposedly that's what is on their tree.

timeframe of point of sale? when did it start?

Q) Describe the early time frame in which the target point of sale first began to be discussed as a potential technology that might become important in the future as the technology matured. Summarize the major characteristics of the IT, motivations for its use, etc. that led proponents to suggest that it would become a major factor in our technological future. Identify the major concerns or obstacles that led early skeptics to doubt the proponents’ claims.

A) Point of sale. To some extent there has always been data collection at point of sale, but in the old days with simple cash registers it was difficult to track what individual items were being bought and sold making inventory a more complicated and repeated task. Initial point of sales didn't help inventory control very much since the amounts were being recorded automatically but not the items. The real break through came with bar coding because the sale amount and the change of inventory were both recorded in real time.

Florida Technology/Digital Law?

Q) I have a question about digital law. I have a back-up of certain data from the company where I used to work, lead information(more specifically, sales prospects contact info), which is held on a server in another state. I have not called these prospects, or sold these prospects information to any other company. My boss has accused me of stealing this information, and is trying to prosecute me, is this a valid case?

A) If you did not have authorization to take or retain the data, you may have a problem which could lead to either civil or criminal liability. However, without more detail, it's impossible to be certain. You should consult an attorney in your area and give him or her the full details, including how and when you obtained the information.

Question regarding Non-Compete Agreement validity if I went through a 3rd party?

Q) I used to work for a company in IL here, we'll call it Company A... A sales technology company focusing on health insurance leads & mortgage leads. I however, during my 2 years there, was 100% working on a completely different project. The owners had a deal with a real estate company(Company B) to take care of all things internet/web-related for the RE company; and I basically headed up the team, so I basically ran the RE agency's ecommerce. I have a non-compete agreement signed w/ Company A saying I cannot compete with a competitor, etc. for 2 years... But it says nothing about Company B. I no longer work for A & B. Company B CEO(my direct report & boss the whole time) many times has mentioned that I must never try to compete with them, and if I were to then that would be a huge deal in his eyes and I know he would probably pursue it legally. Q: Can I work -directly- for another real estate agency in the same city doing the exact same thing? Can they do anything about it I don't know if they were just using it as a scare tactic or what but here's something else: The work I did for Company B(real estate company) was very focused on specifically real estate in my city. What I'm saying is, if I had a non-compete with Company B then they would, with EASE, be able to enforce it versus the position I'm trying to get(at another real estate agency) because it's the exact same work...

A) I don't think B has any case against you - you're just doing website maintenance - that work is too general to put into a non-comp - which you never signed for B

Give me your opinion insights and summary or how you understand this..?

A) Reality check. The philippines has good sound laws but corrupt political influences always delay the implementation of these laws. By the time these laws are enforced, they become so obsolete that another law must be passed (just like the politicians who regularly pass gas - i.e. fart through their mouth).

Do any of you collect obsolete or dated technology for the fun of it?

Q) ...and if so, what kind(s) of things do you collect like that? Do you use them as well? For fun, I have a couple of cool and colorful dial Telephones that I use in spare rooms, and a old 8 track player and some tapes I use to amuse friends, and a old Atari game system I play for kicks because of it's primitive look and a huge LED watch. All of this stuff is courtesy of garage sales, and I dont spend too much as the cheap price is part of the fun! Anybody else collect the occasional obsolete tech item for amusment purposes?

A) I have mostly obsolete computers. My collection consists of an Atari 800XL which I've had since I was about 8, along with the cassette drive and Atari 1050 5-1/4" disk drive, but I also got the Indus GT disk drive too! You know back in the day, that meant money when it came to floppy drives. It was the quietest, fastest floppy drive on the market! The only thing you could do better with the Atari was to sink about $1000 into the 8Mb hard drive! Back to the collection, Commodore 64 w/2 drives, Commodore 128, TRS-80 model 100 LCD laptop, Digital VT-100 dumb terminal, OSI (Ohio Scientific) Challenger III with two 8" disk drives, an Atari 2600 game console, original Nintendo, 2nd gen Sega Genesis, Dreamcast and an 8-track player. I wouldn't mind picking up a decent Laserdisk player, either. You ever hear of Selectavision before? They were like records that had movies on them! Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelectaVision I still use the Atari 800XL to play games on, and I write some cheesy music using the 4 channel sound with it too. The 2600 gets some play as well. The Commodores are collecting dust and the same with the dumb terminal. The TRS-80 model 100 gets used a lot actually. I used it, and the Atari to connect to the internet via a dialup modem in a shell connection. I got on IRC into some chat rooms with it, too! The TRS-80 model 100 is really useful since it works great as a portable dumb terminal and outlasts my laptops on battery life since it'll run off of AA batteries and the display isn't backlit. I knew someday someone else out there would appreciate my "junk" collection!

plz comment on the following.?

Q) N R Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and chairman of the board, Infosys Technologies, delivered a pre-commencement lecture at the New York University (Stern School of Business) on May 9. It is a scintillating speech, Murthy speaks about the lessons he learnt from his life and career. We present it for our readers: Dean Cooley, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, and, most importantly, the graduating class of 2007, it is a great privilege to speak at your commencement ceremonies. I thank Dean Cooley and Prof Marti Subrahmanyam for their kind invitation. I am exhilarated to be part of such a joyous occasion. Congratulations to you, the class of 2007, on completing an important milestone in your life journey. After some thought, I have decided to share with you some of my life lessons. I learned these lessons in the context of my early career struggles, a life lived under the influence of sometimes unplanned events which were the crucibles that tempered my character and reshaped my future. I would like first to share some of these key life events with you, in the hope that these may help you understand my struggles and how chance events and unplanned encounters with influential persons shaped my life and career. Later, I will share the deeper life lessons that I have learned. My sincere hope is that this sharing will help you see your own trials and tribulations for the hidden blessings they can be. The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur, in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university. He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science. Friends, when I look back today at that pivotal meeting, I marvel at how one role model can alter for the better the future of a young student. This experience taught me that valuable advice can sometimes come from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors. The next event that left an indelible mark on me occurred in 1974. The location: Nis, a border town between former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, and Bulgaria. I was hitchhiking from Paris back to Mysore, India, my home town. By the time a kind driver dropped me at Nis railway station at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, the restaurant was closed. So was the bank the next morning, and I could not eat because I had no local money. I slept on the railway platform until 8.30 pm in the night when the Sofia Express pulled in. The only passengers in my compartment were a girl and a boy. I struck a conversation in French with the young girl. She talked about the travails of living in an iron curtain country, until we were roughly interrupted by some policemen who, I later gathered, were summoned by the young man who thought we were criticising the communist government of Bulgaria. The girl was led away; my backpack and sleeping bag were confiscated. I was dragged along the platform into a small 8x8 foot room with a cold stone floor and a hole in one corner by way of toilet facilities. I was held in that bitterly cold room without food or water for over 72 hours. I had lost all hope of ever seeing the outside world again, when the door opened. I was again dragged out unceremoniously, locked up in the guard's compartment on a departing freight train and told that I would be released 20 hours later upon reaching Istanbul. The guard's final words still ring in my ears -- "You are from a friendly country called India and that is why we are letting you go!" The journey to Istanbul was lonely, and I was starving. This long, lonely, cold journey forced me to deeply rethink my convictions about Communism. Early on a dark Thursday morning, after being hungry for 108 hours, I was purged of any last vestiges of affinity for the Left. I concluded that entrepreneurship, resulting in large-scale job creation, was the only viable mechanism for eradicating poverty in societies. Deep in my heart, I always thank the Bulgarian guards for transforming me from a confused Leftist into a determined, compassionate capitalist! Inevitably, this sequence of events led to the eventual founding of Infosys in 1981. While these first two events were rather fortuitous, the next two, both concerning the Infosys journey, were more planned and profoundly influenced my career trajectory. On a chilly Saturday morning in winter 1990, five of the seven founders of Infosys met in our small office in a leafy Bangalore suburb. The decision at hand was the possible sale of Infosys for the enticing sum of $1 million. After nine years of toil in the then business-unfriendly India, we were quite happy at the prospect of seeing at least some money. I let my younger colleagues talk about their future plans. Discussions about the travails of our journey thus far and our future challenges went on for about four hours. I had not yet spoken a word. Finally, it was my turn. I spoke about our journey from a small Mumbai apartment in 1981 that had been beset with many challenges, but also of how I believed we were at the darkest hour before the dawn. I then took an audacious step. If they were all bent upon selling the company, I said, I would buy out all my colleagues, though I did not have a cent in my pocket. There was a stunned silence in the room. My colleagues wondered aloud about my foolhardiness. But I remained silent. However, after an hour of my arguments, my colleagues changed their minds to my way of thinking. I urged them that if we wanted to create a great company, we should be optimistic and confident. They have more than lived up to their promise of that day. In the seventeen years since that day, Infosys has grown to revenues in excess of $3.0 billion, a net income of more than $800 million and a market capitalisation of more than $28 billion, 28,000 times richer than the offer of $1 million on that day. In the process, Infosys has created more than 70,000 well-paying jobs, 2,000-plus dollar-millionaires and 20,000-plus rupee millionaires. A final story: On a hot summer morning in 1995, a Fortune-10 corporation had sequestered all their Indian software vendors, including Infosys, in different rooms at the Taj Residency hotel in Bangalore so that the vendors could not communicate with one another. This customer's propensity for tough negotiations was well-known. Our team was very nervous. First of all, with revenues of only around $5 million, we were minnows compared to the customer. Second, this customer contributed fully 25% of our revenues. The loss of this business would potentially devastate our recently-listed company. Third, the customer's negotiation style was very aggressive. The customer team would go from room to room, get the best terms out of each vendor and then pit one vendor against the other. This went on for several rounds. Our various arguments why a fair price -- one that allowed us to invest in good people, R&D, infrastructure, technology and training -- was actually in their interest failed to cut any ice with the customer. By 5 p.m. on the last day, we had to make a decision right on the spot whether to accept the customer's terms or to walk out. All eyes were on me as I mulled over the decision. I closed my eyes, and reflected upon our journey until then. Through many a tough call, we had always thought about the long-term interests of Infosys. I communicated clearly to the customer team that we could not accept their terms, since it could well lead us to letting them down later. But I promised a smooth, professional transition to a vendor of customer's choice. This was a turning point for Infosys. Subsequently, we created a Risk Mitigation Council which ensured that we would never again depend too much on any one client, technology, country, application area or key employee. The crisis was a blessing in disguise. Today, Infosys has a sound de-risking strategy that has stabilised its revenues and profits. I want to share with you, next, the life lessons these events have taught me. 1. I will begin with the importance of learning from experience. It is less important, I believe, where you start. It is more important how and what you learn. If the quality of the learning is high, the development gradient is steep, and, given time, you can find yourself in a previously unattainable place. I believe the Infosys story is living proof of this. Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions. 2. A second theme concerns the power of chance events. As I think across a wide variety of settings in my life, I am struck by the incredible role played by the interplay of chance events with intentional choices. While the turning points themselves are indeed often fortuitous, how we respond to them is anything but so. It is this very quality of how we respond systematically to chance events that is crucial. 3. Of course, the mindset one works with is also quite critical. As recent work by the psychologist, Carol Dweck, has shown, it matters greatly whether one believes in ability as inherent or that it can be developed. Put simply, the former view, a fixed mindset, creates a tendency to avoid challenges, to ignore useful negative feedback and leads such people to plateau early and not achieve their full potential. The latter view, a growth mindset, leads to a tendency to embrace challenges, to learn from criticism and such people reach ever higher levels of achievement (Krakovsky, 2007: page 48). 4. The fourth theme is a cornerstone of the Indian spiritual tradition: self-knowledge. Indeed, the highest form of knowledge, it is said, is self-knowledge. I believe this greater awareness and knowledge of oneself is what ultimately helps develop a more grounded belief in oneself, courage, determination, and, above all, humility, all qualities which enable one to wear one's success with dignity and grace. Based on my life experiences, I can assert that it is this belief in learning from experience, a growth mindset, the power of chance events, and self-reflection that have helped me grow to the present. Back in the 1960s, the odds of my being in front of you today would have been zero. Yet here I stand before you! With every successive step, the odds kept changing in my favour, and it is these life lessons that made all the difference. My young friends, I would like to end with some words of advice. Do you believe that your future is pre-ordained, and is already set? Or, do you believe that your future is yet to be written and that it will depend upon the sometimes fortuitous events? Do you believe that these events can provide turning points to which you will respond with your energy and enthusiasm? Do you believe that you will learn from these events and that you will reflect on your setbacks? Do you believe that you will examine your successes with even greater care? I hope you believe that the future will be shaped by several turning points with great learning opportunities. In fact, this is the path I have walked to much advantage. A final word: When, one day, you have made your mark on the world, remember that, in the ultimate analysis, we are all mere temporary custodians of the wealth we generate, whether it be financial, intellectual, or emotional. The best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate. I believe that we have all at some time eaten the fruit from trees that we did not plant. In the fullness of time, when it is our turn to give, it behooves us in turn to plant gardens that we may never eat the fruit of, which will largely benefit generations to come. I believe this is our sacred responsibility, one that I hope you will shoulder in time. Thank you for your patience. Go forth and embrace your future with open arms, and pursue enthusiastically your own life journey of discovery!

A) Very inspirational. I am going through a rough patch at the moment and the speach is exactly what I needed. The major lesson that I learned is that the man clearly does not take credit for himself for the role that the group played in the success that the company achieved. Although he was a major contributor to its success, he shows humility and with that wisdom. This is crealy a turning point for me as he did many decades ago when he went to the library to read up on the suggested papers. His philosophy is similar to mine. I too believe am a custodian, only when I achieve my goals.

Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a give your opinion:?

Q) http://www.mises.org/story/1396

A) Very good article you directed me to. I do have to agree with the author of it, Rockwell. If you really want to find an answer you your lead off question, read the book "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout. You will understand the mind of those in power. I direct you to this book because Mr. Rockwell has his list of 10 lies. Lie #2 is well suited for the book I have suggested. The book is going to cost about $20.00 or less. Last but not least, if you have a desire to understand how the economy works read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G.Edward Griffin. I leave you with 2 quotes, not of my own. If the American people really knew how the economy works, there would be a revolution before breakfast. = Henry Ford Democracy is 2 wolfs and a sheep voting on whats for lunch. Benjamin Franklin

Business Consultant IBM Global job Vs Cisco Pre Sales job?

Q) Helllo guys I come from Pakistan and i've been offered job from 2 different segments of IT Technology Industry. Option 1 > Business Consultant IBM Global where i will be working on client sites understanding and mapping IBM offerings to their needs.I'll be required to travel nationwide ( Pakistan) and Middle East.I'll will be required to integrate,configure test trouble shoot write a business case.I believe in the long term i'll become a domain expert in a specific industry i take this route Option 2 > Cisco Pre Sales for the only Cisco Silver Partner in the country where i'll be required to master cisco products along with MS product maybe other vendor products as well eat the technical docs do technical presentations to clients.This role in my opnion can lead me to CCIE. IBM is offering a good package comperatively but i believe money is not everything So what do you guys think. I need feedback ASAP. Tha

A) I vote for Option 1: travel more money If you don't like to travel, then Option 2