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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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“Independent” Reviews Controlled by Banks: Suppressed Findings of Harm to Foreclosed Homeowners
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 10:58 AM EST
We were supposedly independent contractors, but we worked directly under bank and lenders authority and supervision. Any findings we made were quality controlled by the bank. Any findings we made came directly under the scrutiny of the bank. Any arguments over our findings, and whether they should be changed or not could and often did result in termination from the program without cause or warning and we had no recourse because we were contractors.

[...]

When the questions was asked “how is a borrower going to know if a specific law or statute was violated since they are not trained in the law” the answer was that we only address what the borrower specifically complained about. The problem was that usually a borrower only had a feeling they got shafted somehow, but did not specifically know how. The complaint form also didn’t mention to the borrower that they had to be specific about issues of law. The form only asked generic questions about what happened. Now it was very evident that we were there as window dressing and not the compassionate heroes we thought we were.

Those were only the general issues that were causing friction. The sham was becoming more and more evident in the details.

Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Matt Taibbi: "Secret and Lies of the Bailout"
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 02:03 PM EST
The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come

[...]

The public has been lied to so shamelessly and so often in the course of the past four years that the failure to tell the truth to the general populace has become a kind of baked-in, official feature of the financial rescue. Money wasn't the only thing the government gave Wall Street – it also conferred the right to hide the truth from the rest of us. And it was all done in the name of helping regular people and creating jobs. "It is," says former bailout Inspector General Neil Barofsky, "the ultimate bait-and-switch."

The bailout deceptions came early, late and in between. There were lies told in the first moments of their inception, and others still being told four years later. The lies, in fact, were the most important mechanisms of the bailout.

Rolling Stone

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

SemiAccurate Suggest that Apple is blocking 20nm Chip supplies for Android
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 03:56 PM EST

The article is actually about why Nvidious is using 28nm for their Kepler GPU. What is more interesting is why, and it's implications for the rest of the industry.

SemiA ccurate

Do I believe their take on things? Yes, I do. I've seen the same thing done many times. If you can't compete on value, poke a stick between your competitors spokes, and wreck their ability to compete.

It may not be nice, but look how much money Microsoft made doing it.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Android portable and other device suggestion (feature)
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 09:48 AM EST
Why not Android Jelly Bean on all devices (as that would be
faster)...? Maybe due to Jelly Bean lacking the USB feature
that is needed by many? Don't know?

All the Android devices (with HDMI) should have:

-One, is the wireless keyboard purchase option (USB, I
suggest Logitec k400 with wireless Touch Keyboard with
"touch pad" for use on couch with device hooked up via HDMI
to TV).

-The other I suggest is a "tested, wireless camera for
"living Room or other Video using Skype or Jitsi (when Jitsi
becomes Android, that should be soon). Camera should have
mount for on top of TV or Monitor.

Extra - The only other thing that no one has done yet, is to
PUSH the TV thru the Android device, so that when in-bound
Skype or Jitsi call come in, that it auto-pops up in the
corner allowing MUTE of TV and take the video call as voice
first, then allow turn on of video (for privacy reasons).

An ability to take a non-smart TV and convert it to a VOIP
intergrated Smart TV (with automatic VOIP call
filtering/override of "inscreen TV video), now, that would
be really really interesting).

Note, any user of any Android device, should look at testing
out "AirDroid" app from the Market (free) to move files "to
and from" PCs and their favorite Android Devices.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Windows Next Gen Reboot is an Epic Fail
Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 12:03 PM EST

At this point, though the numbers aren't in for 4th Quarter results covering holiday sales, we can be pretty sure that Nokia did not have a merry Christmas with their Windows 8 phone. There was that survey of device activations on Christmas Day where the WinPhone didn't even get an honourable mention. Before that substantial evidence Windows Phone, hyped up to provide "a third option" will be lucky to have taken 6th place by sales in 2012 (about 2%) Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates December 21, 2012

Now we also have indications that sales of the other important component of Window Next Gen Reboot, Windows 8 tablets and laptops are also depressed...

Windows 8 is selling slowly. More slowly than Windows 7 at launch, and more slowly than Windows 7 a year ago. "The launch of Windows 8...did little to boost holiday sales or improve the yearlong Windows notebook sales decline," NPD said. More specifically, Windows laptop "holiday unit sales" were down 11 percent year-to-year, the market researcher said.

A insightful comment on that blog by poster "brians" concludes "Windows 8 is what Microsoft (and Intel) wants, not what the consumer wants."...

Windows 8 is not simply off to a slow start, consumers have flat out rejected it. You can see this on Amazon's Top 100 list and I've seen it myself monitoring various retailers throughout the holiday season. I wrote this up in my personal blog

Right after Windows 8 release, you could see lots of people in Best Buy looking at Windows 8, as the holiday season progressed, no one looked any more. They want to get their tasks done, not learn a new paradigm.

Second, you assume people actually WANT touch on a laptop. Who wants to do their word processing/spreadsheets through a smeared screen? And unlike with tablets, the use of a capacitive stylus really isn't practical with a laptop. Many of the nicer, lighter, touch ultrabooks move every time you touch their screen. For standard PC tasks, just what does touch give you?

Third, netbooks were underpowered [] because Intel and Microsoft forced the OEMs to use substandard chips and substandard software. OEMs realized that consumers wanted cheaper, light-weight laptops, but Intel and Microsoft tried to protect their profit margins. Netbooks did not ruin the Windows laptop market, the Windows laptop market failed to meet customer's needs. The best selling laptop on Amazon throughout the holiday season was a $249 Samsung ARM-based Chromebook. I am writing this message from one of these. This Chromebook unequivocally proves that a decent sub-$400 laptop, with NO FAN, nice trackpad, decent screen, etc is perfectly possible.

Fourth, when you talked about Apple tablet pricing and Microsoft needing to find a place between Apple and Android, there are some things you should know. Having watched Amazon's top 100 throughout the holidays, the average price of Android tablets was sub-$300, possibly sub-$200. New 4th gen iPads were not selling very well, it was iPad 2s and iPad minis that were the ones selling in the top 40. The point here is that people want _inexpensive_ devices that do what they need. No new Windows 8 machine of any sort comes close to meeting those needs in a reasonable price range. You acknowledged to some extent the pricing problem, but I'm arguing that Microsoft and Intel needs to do a fundamental realignment with what the consumer wants.

Microsoft envied Apple's profit margins and absolute control over the ecosystem, control they themselves had lost due to a series of antitrust actions. They wanted that back. They wanted to profit from the entire ecosystem, and most of all they wanted lucrative margins. They came up with a stunning vision, an entirely new UI and the totally locked- down WART (Windows on ARM) system. We are now seeing the unraveling of Microsoft's entire next generation strategy. What was stunning about their vision was how well it was geared to Microsoft's needs - not to the needs of the consumer.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

3 stories that caught my eye + bonus
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 12:59 PM EST
California man says he can drive in carpool lane with corporation papers - NBC

Dotcom files against US government, accuses FBI of dodgy dealing - NBR

Banana Republic Justice: Behind the Scenes of the Pirate Bay Trial - Falkvinge

bonus

how to be funny without being shocking - Reddit

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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