One of the downsides of outsourcing manufacturing to China is that you’re a day’s trip away or more from your home USA base just to see what’s going on in the boardroom. The other yet bigger downside is that you’re handing your technology to a country known for stealing intellectual property.

The PC industry has been through this before. It was only a decade ago that US firms such as Gateway, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard were dominant players in PCs, now they’ve since been replaced by Chinese firms Lenovo and Asus. These competitors now dominating the industry were built from outsourcing to China since we gave them the knowledge and technology on a silver platter to knock-off.

Samsung is the latest example of this since it builds many of the key components for the iPhone and iPad. Therefore, its no coincidence that Samsung is able to build similar quality products that are now Apple’s competition. Now, word is that China based Foxconn is building a smartphone for Amazon.

I think Apple sees the writing on the wall although it may be too late for Apple to begin moving production to the U.S. to avoid what awaits them in about five years from all the technology they exported to a den of thieves known as The People’s Republic Of China.

President Barack Obama endorsing sweeping gun restrictions in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, prices for handgun magazines are surging on EBay (EBAY) and semi-automatic rifles are sold out at many Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) locations.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday that it would continue to sell guns, including rifles like the one used at Newtown, where 26 people, most of them children, were killed on Dec. 14. By contrast, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS)suspended sales of similar guns at its more than 500 stores.

Searches of five kinds of semi-automatic rifles on Wal- Mart’s website showed them to be out of stock at stores in five states, including Pennsylvania, Kansas and Alabama. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell guns online, instead asking customers to input a zip code to see if their local store carries a specific weapon.

“We remain dedicated to the safe and responsible sale of firearms in areas of the country where they are sold,” David Tovar, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, said yesterday. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

Wal-Mart has about 10 modern sporting rifles, the gun industry’s term for firearms that look like an M-16 military rifle, listed on its website. The retailer removed a description and picture of the Bushmaster AR-15, which was the model used in Newtown, after the shootings.

In 2006, Wal-Mart reduced the number and variety of guns it offered in stores, and replaced them with more upscale products such as exercise equipment. It then reintroduced firearms to many stores in April 2011 as part of strategy to add merchandise back to shelves and revive sales growth at its Wal-Mart locations in the U.S.

Gun Revenue

The move may have helped as U.S. Wal-Mart stores posted their first gain in same-store sales in more than two years in October 2011. Wal-Mart doesn’t disclose how many guns it sells, though at an analysts’ meeting in October it said gun revenue gained 76 percent in the first half of this fiscal year. The chain advertised a Sig Sauer M400 as one of its Black Friday doorbusters last month, offering the rifle for $50 off at $867.

Cabela’s Inc., an outdoor retailer that also sells guns, didn’t return several calls seeking comment on whether it planned to change its firearm policies. Hunting equipment, which includes firearms, made up 41 percent of Cabela’s sales in 2011, according to a company filing. The retailer doesn’t provide sales data for just guns.

Prices Tripling

On EBay Inc.’s auction website, shoppers have recently bid up gun magazines. The current bid for four Glock handgun magazines, ammunition for one of the guns used at Newtown, is $118.37 compared with $45 on the day before the shooting. The bid for seven Glock magazines hit $201 on Dec. 17 from $71.01 before the massacre.

Gun buyers have flooded other firearms retailers too. The Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, racked up more than $1 million in sales yesterday for the best single-day performance since the store opened in 1959, according to Justin Anderson, director of online sales. At the top of shoppers’ lists was the Bushmaster AR-15, the model of rifle used at Newtown that sells for as much as $4,000 and had almost sold out, he said.

Revenue at one of the largest U.S. gun stores surpassed even the spike just after Obama was elected president in 2008, Anderson said in a telephone interview. Sales weren’t as robust when Obama was re-elected last month because the president hadn’t backed major new gun laws, he said.

Concrete Proposals

Today, Obama said his administration would come up with “concrete proposals” by next month to curb gun violence.

Speculation over stricter gun laws will continue to boost sales, Anderson said yesterday.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm for the gun industry,” he said. “When these things happen, even though it’s sad, it does pick up sales.”

Wal-Mart has received some pressure to curb gun sales in the past. That continued this week when Lauren Buglino, a fourth-grade teacher from the Bronx, created an online petition on Change.org exhorting the retailer to stop selling rifles like the one used at Newtown. It had more than 57,000 supporters today.

Wal-Mart entered into an agreement in 2008 with the Mayors Against Illegal Guns that included video recording of purchases and the use of databases to identify people who have bought guns recovered in crimes.

When Wal-Mart added guns to stores in 2011, Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston criticized it for trying to increase the number of guns on the streets, according to the Boston Herald.

Source Bloomberg

Some day in the not too distant future, you’ll be able to order a wedding dress on your tablet and feel the fabric and the veil just by touching the screen.

When you feel an object, your brain registers the series of vibrations on your skin as being smooth, rough, sharp, etc. Computer sensors are becoming sophisticated enough to do that too.

Within the next five years, vibrators within smartphones will be precise enough that they could be designed to mimic the vibrations experienced when your fingers touch a particular surface. Even though you’ll just be touching glass, it will feel like you’re touching whatever object is displayed on the screen.

“We’re not talking about fuzzy screens,” said Bernie Meyerson, IBM’s vice president of innovation. “You’re not going to have to dry clean your Samsung.”

In some ways, computers are already simulating touch — albeit in a crude form. When you’re driving a car in a video game, the controller vibrates when the car starts to veer off the road. It may not feel precisely like a steering wheel’s vibrations when you hit gravel, but within five years, that technology is expected to become even more lifelike.

IBM’s researchers are working on just that — creating applications for the retail and healthcare sectors that use haptic, infrared or pressure-sensitive technologies to simulate touch.

One vital fact to keep in mind regarding software to increase image size is they function more effectively when the original is of “borderline acceptable quality” to begin with.  This is fact when using software from firms like Alien Skin or the image resizing filters of my program UltraSeps which is engineered for t-shirt screen printing.

Many seem to think these software packages can take a miniscule 3″, 72 dpi graphic lifted from a website to generate a pristine 15″ 300 dpi image, ready for print production when that’s simply not the case. I run into this everyday and need to explain the dynamics of up-sampling to end-users.

Lets use a sign printer as an example, he’s probably using it up-sample images for large format printing. I would imagine his originals aren’t small website graphics and are probably somewhat acceptable as a full size t-shirt graphic for example (12″x12″ at 300 dpi) when factoring in physical dimension and resolution. Therefore, when up-sizing for large format such as a vehicle wrap, they work since this type of output is at lower resolution, well below 300 dpi as its viewed from a distance.

Although this won’t sound incredibly scientific — up-sampling, re-sizing, whatever works well “at times” and some files are more forgiving than others. Its not an exact science.

Note:  The up-sampling filters included with my product UltraSeps is engineered for t-shirt graphics and is not intended for print production such as commercial magazine printing.

I originally wrote this piece for another blog I published during 2010.

Lately within an economy that remains somewhat weak with challenged employment, most publicly traded companies have reported solid earnings and have guided profit forecasts somewhat higher, especially the technology sector. This phenomena is out of sync with what’s occurring on main street and on a global basis.

Its not as though the consumer is banging down the doors to spend, is it? Businesses aren’t suddenly bleeding their wallets to increase capital expenditures, are they? Could it be banks lending again with reckless abandon? No, I think not. Is it possible that technology is getting to the level where enterprises can do more with fewer warm bodies collecting a paycheck thus boosting their bottom line?  Yes…could be!

Although not an absolute, it is having an impact and is never discussed or even pondered within mainstream media. Face facts, where we once had an army of welders at an automobile plant, we now have several fast robots. At offices that once required a team of clerks and assistants, we now have wicked computers doing all that filing, sorting, billing and such. Oh, did I forget to account for a massive decline in domestic manufacturing? Let’s not discard that little tidbit. I could go on and on but I think you get the drift.

Mind boggling advances in technology have been taking place while the population of the USA has exploded over the past 30 years from 225 million to 305 million and these numbers don’t account for the millions of people in the country illegally. So it stands to reason that if technology is allowing many tasks to be completed with 10 people that once required 50, and all during the time population has increased and manufacturing has decreased, we’ll eventually get to the point where jobs, (at least worthwhile employment) can prove difficult to secure. Yes, a theory albeit a good one.

The next 10 years will be interesting unless we can all figure out a way to make a living texting one another, updating our Facebook account and posting to Twitter.

Apple’s efforts to be granted patents in Russia for the design of its iPad has been rejected.  Finally somebody gets it right!   Russia’s Chamber for Patent Disputes, which handles decisions made by the Russian Patent Department, rejected Apple’s attempt to score a patent on the iPad’s basic design, claiming that the features Apple wished to patent are not original nor inventive and deserving of a design patent. Apple’s bad luck, or more likely, lack of political influence in Russia stands in stark contrast to its habitual victories in the American patent office, where it was recently granted a patent on the same “innovative” design aspects.

Apple had actually tried to argue that rounded corners, a flat surface, and slightly round button under the screen were “innovative distinctive features” meant to distance itself from competitors!.” The iPad maker had initially filed its design patent application two years ago, only to have it rejected by the Russian Patent Office in April of this year.

In rejecting Apple’s move for an appeal, the Chamber for Patent Disputes said that Apple’s design was “traditional for modern communication devices, manufactured by different vendors.” The specific aspects of Apple’s design, it said, were “inconspicuous differences in dimensions, screen size, and buttons layout” and were “not essential distinction criteria.”

The most amazing snippet here is that Apple really does hold a patent for rounded corners, a flat surface and a rounded bottom in the USA.  I also remember reading they were granted a patent for a rectangular shaped object.  Maybe I should apply for a patent on a perfectly round object and start suing everyone who makes a ball?

A Windows Lovers Guide:  “”Top Reasons To Return My iPad”

1- The edges are too smooth and curvy. It also feels too fragile and slippery and I’m afraid I’ll drop it. Somewhat more squarish edges would be better.

2- It has a lot of apps, but doesn’t have the one that I need, use and rely upon all day….Microsoft Office.

3- I can’t watch flash videos which is a major suck factor. Yes, HTML5 is the new big thing, but most of the internet still uses Adobe Flash for video viewing and that’s a fact, jack.

4- No expandable storage!  What’s up with that?  Much unlike the new Microsoft Surface, which has a microSD slot for expandable storage.

5- No USB ports!  Also unlike the Microsoft Surface. I can’t connect it to things such as printers which is very frustrating.

6- No Live Tiles. I have to actually open an app to view something as basic as the temperature. Holy Cow!!! The Surface has Live Tiles which update in real-time that I can see immediately. Why doesn’t innovative and inventive Apple have this?

So sure,  the iPad is nice.  But the Microsoft Surface is much more functional and can actually operate like a real computer or a tablet. The iPad can’t come remotely close to matching that.  Who woulda thunk it?

Signed,
Bill Gates

Sony, once the king of electronics which recently announced that it would lay off 2,000 employees by the end of this year, has unveiled the VAIO tablet PC with a 20-inch screen, weighing in at a bone breaking 11 pounds. The “mobile desktop” to use the term lightly employs Windows 8, although the fact that it contains only two hours of battery power puts an extreme limit on its portability.

Advertised as a computer for the whole family to use, the base model is priced at almost $900 which is big money when compared to smaller tablets like Apple’s$399 iPad 2 (and soon to be $399 iPad 3) along with the yet to be proven Microsoft’s$499 Surface Tablet.

Sony isn’t using the VAIO tablet to compete in the crowded tablet market; they’re trying to create a new market. This unconventional move also lies in stark contrast to Google’s slender, 10-inch tablet to be announced at its Android event later this month.

At such a high price and weak in functionality, it seems unlikely that Sony will be able to market the monstrous tabletop PC as a legitimate alternative to a desktop system. At a certain point,  bigger just isn’t better, its just bigger.  Sony should gave made the tablet a shade of green and used the moniker “Green Giant”.