The $100 computer and the $2500 car are the hottest products on the planet today. Neither one is yet a reality, but the intense interest in developing these mass produced items for potentially a billion new customers in Asia, Africa, and South America is driving a mega battle in electronics and autos. Video of $100 Computer A few years ago, the personal computer push built the Microsoft and Intel fortunes. But in 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, of MIT, postulated that the $100 dollar computer was doable and set out to build the market and design the product. In the Nov. 24,…
Author: Noah Graff
I recently made a trip to downtown San Francisco and discovered a new approach to fast food that seems to be prospering — the soup and oatmeal take-out restaurant. Take-out Soup Restaurant Review This is limited menu to the extreme. One location was an eight foot wide hole in the wall. Oatmeal was served until 10:00 a.m. and then replaced by soup. The soups rotated daily. When they run out of one, that particular variety was finished for the day. The other soup outlet had a dozen tables, more staff, longer hours, but also stuck to the oatmeal and soup…
The immigration pickle we are in is supposedly being debated in the preprimary beanbag in Iowa and New Hampshire. But all I’m hearing is lowest denominator crap about keeping out nasty Mexicans. Lost in the mush mongering is the diminishing magnetism of America to the best and brightest in the world who are getting the fuzzy message that they are welcome to come as tourists or students but if they expect to stay for a career they’ll have to beat a system that is rigged against the honest and successful would-be immigrant. I have witnessed this messed up system first…
Two decades ago, a cashmere sweater was a soft symbol of wealth and status warn by pipe smoking duffers at the club. Eventually women also wanted to wear the wool from the shaggy goat. The boosted demand beyond the capability of shepherds filled in the production shortfall. But the sharp folk in Bentonville Arkansas who run Wal-Mart believed that cashmere was not the exclusive wool for the rich, and decided cashmere sweaters should be brought to the masses. It was the perfect Christmas present. They asked the disintermediating question, “Why not sell a $49 cashmere women’s sweater, or a $39…
I see the Feds bagged some more bad dudes relating to the machining world. Zimmer, DePuy, Smith & Nephew, and Biomet owe $311 million in fines to the Federal Government to settle criminal and civil penalties stemming from kickbacks paid to surgeons doing orthopedic implant procedures. That’s a lot of bone screws. Zimmer Holdings alone is taking a $169 million write-off in the coming financial quarter. Stryker of Kalamazoo flipped for the prosecution to seal the deal in this case. Ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft will get in on the gravy train by being appointed the governance monitor for Zimmer. I…
Two young men still at the top of their games copped pleas on August 27, 2007. They will both be going to Federal Prison despite their fabulous wealth and instant name recognition. They gambled their freedom and careers with bizarre acts of recklessness abetted by cronies without the strength to say no to them. Gene Haas, the unlikely billionaire of American machine tools, and Michael Vick, the quarterback who redefined the position in the NFL, both saw their freedom slip away when their associates flipped to the prosecution. Even the shrewdest legal talent money could buy couldn’t keep them out…
The Gene Haas tax evasion trial is projected to begin in September. It has been stalled by continuances, but both sides evidently want it to happen now. Denis Dupuis who was Gene’s top deputy was indicted with him. Dupuis has made a deal with the Feds to testify for the prosecution. The Haas Automation company has attempted to distance itself from Gene’s travail and appears to be going strong. My dire predictions about the possible impact of the case on the Haas business have proved wrong to his point. My understanding is that Gene Haas still owns the Haas Automation…
I hear that Sprint has notified 1,000 of its customers that they are being terminated by the cell phone service provider. Sprint will get some momentary snickering PR, but frankly, I am sympathetic to the idea of dumping the nags. I believe that not all customers are worth the aggravation. A demanding but intrinsically fair client is a good thing because he or she forces you to raise your game, but some people just “drey your kop” (Yiddish for “play with your head”). Life is too short to diddle with such time wasters. The chronic malcontent customer is always worthy…
The labor shortage of skilled machinists is not a singular phenomenon. Heavy equipment operators who maneuver excavators, dozers, and cranes are also scarce. Power Equipment of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is doing something about it in its area. The company contributed $600,000 worth of Kubota machinery to Chattanooga State University to equip operator courses, according to Larry Moon of the company. He says that the classes have been oversubscribed every time they have been offered. This is a smart move for Power Equipment, which has several branches in the state. On the machine tool front, Haas Automation has been the most aggressive…
Several issues ago in Today’s Machining World, Robert Strauss wrote an in-depth story about Conserve School and its unusual relationship with steel distributing agent, Central Steel and Wire, of Chicago. James Lowenstine, son of the founder of the company, left this centi-million dollar estate to build an environmentalist’s dream of a prep school in rural Northern Wisconsin. The Trust which funded the school was endowed with Lowenstine’s stock in Central Steel, a beautifully run company doing $750 million a year in sales. Several board members of Central Steel also sat on the Conserve School’s Trust board. A clause in the…