Tech Companies Undergo Rapid Expansion

Recently two major names in the tech industry have made massive acquisitions, both GameStop and Texas Instruments bought out competitors. TI purchased National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in an all cash transaction. This purchase was made to increase the output of the analog products that TI produces, these sales are expected to be 50% of their overall income over the next year. This is because TI will now sell over 12,000 analog products ranging from calculators to microchips in cellphones. With this buyout TI will further cement its place as the leader in its current market.

 In the news for GameStop, is the acquisition of Spawn Labs and Impulse. Spawn labs, a streaming technology company, and Impulse, a digital distribution company/program (an alternative to Steam). These major additions to GameStop now mean that not only will GameStop be selling and shipping games, they will be hosting just as many digital downloads and even producing some games. This will drastically increase GameStop's total income for the rest of the companies existence. With the dawn of the digital age this is a great move, by putting the company not only in one market, but three simply overnight.

Over the weekend hackers gained access to email address information that a Dallas Based company called Epsilon had access to. They provide an email service for such companies as: Chase, Citi, Best Buy, Walgreens, Kroger and many others.

The email addresses will most likely be used to try and solicit personal information from the receiver. Information like login passwords so that the sender can gain access to the real account.

The economic ramifications from this could be tremendous. First the cost of internal investigations within each company, the investigations that will be done by law enforcement, then if people really give out their information and people gain access to bank accounts and social security numbers, the identity theft percentage will skyrocket.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the estimated losses for domestic companies affected by cyber crime is $67.2 billion annually. The targeted firms also suffer in the stock market days after an attack with shareholder losses of 1 percent to 5 percent. Percentages like these might seem small, but for the average company on the New York Stock Exchange, it can translate to $50 to $200 million in shareholder losses. This is where company losses begin to affect the consumer, causing a bleed-through effect to all levels of the economy.

IBM Nanoparticle used for Medicine

According to CNET, technology has made advances to the point where nanotechnology or rather nanoparticles can be used to destroy bacterias that end up killing thousands of people each year. But the final product is not ready for real widespread application as of right now, but the ability to do so is definitely a possibility.

IBM is leading these kinds of studies on technology and the human body. There is a "superbug" called MRSA, a super infectious bacteria, that kills thousands each year. Modern medicine has had a hard time combating this bacteria. According to them their biodegradable nanoparticle can search out and destroy alien cells such as MRSA bacteria. For sure this will create more jobs for people if nanotechnology can truly take off like this. There is probably many ways to use nanotechnology through medicine. I'm not truly sure how nanotechnology is produced but I'm sure there is production and programming involved. Which will in turn create more jobs for people. That's one of the big things we need right now to help get this recovery going which is more jobs.

BlackBerry Removing DUI Checkpoint Apps

First off I'm not too sure why an app like this was even allowed to make it past the filter on BlackBerry's app store. This app basically allows people to report DUI checkpoints, speed cameras, etc. to each other using a GPS feature to show exact locations, allowing people to avoid these areas. You would think someone might say "Hey this might be a problem because it lets drunk drivers and speeders avoid things that could correct their behavior and prevent them front injuring someone." Apparently no one thought this was a problem and so some of the apps have been allowed to get up to 10 million users. It took senators writing to BlackBerry for these apps to get any attention at all, however, luckily BlackBerry has responded by already having some apps removed with promises of looking into the others that fit the same niche. I don't want to be an advocate for these types of apps because they should probably be illegal, but they aren't which means they are protected free speech. You have to wonder how the creators of these apps feel when one day they find out they are no longer making money off an app they created because government officials decided it wasn't protected by free speech. This could definitely hurt BlackBerry's already minuscule appstore because creators could end up feeling like this could happen to them so they might become hesitant to release their apps to BlackBerry. This would probably hurt BlackBerry severely and could cause them to start on a downward spiral where they may end up being purchased by one of the bigger companies, like T-Mobile. This would make the market even smaller, especially for smart phones, which would just hurt everyone in the long run and could cause the government to step in and put regulations in place within the cellular phone industry.

Traveling Wave Reactor

TerraPower’s traveling wave reactor (TWR) will offer a path to zero-emission, proliferation-resistant energy thatproduces significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional nuclear reactors. After an initial start-up with a small amount of low-enriched material, this innovative reactor design can run for decades on depleted uranium – currently a waste byproduct of the enrichment process. An established fleet of TWRs could operate without enrichment or reprocessing for millennia. TerraPower has explored the advanced physics of this concept in detail with 21st-century computational tools and is moving forward with the overall plant design.

Out of all the destruction and devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan something that could be beneficial to our current use of nuclear power. In light of the current situation with the half melted down reactor many companies and even some governments have begun to push for new ways to create nuclear power or at least better ways to store the waste and make a safer reactor. The company TerraPower has created something they call the Traveling Wave Reactor, which you can read more about above and on their website. This reactors purpose is to use spent or depleted fuel rods to generate even more energy. At current companies have to pay large amounts of money to store, and ensure that the spent fuel rods produced by the reactors they run are well contained to prevent radio-active fallout from impacting the area around the storage sites. Now that we have a use for this nuclear trash and we do not have to store it, it will save the companies refining and using enriched uranium a large amount of money each year. This savings translates into the ability for energy prices to be lowered. With the reduced cost to produce it and the larger amount being produced, the supply goes up with a almost unchanged demand. With a higher supply it is guarantee that the cost will drop saving the consumers money. With more money in their pockets, the consumer will be more willing to go out and spend some money, stimulating the economy and helping out road to recovery.