eBay to sell Skype – values it at $2.75 billion

Online auction site eBay purchased internet telephony service Skype for about $4.1 billion in 2005. Today, the company has announced it will sell Skype for about $2 billion. eBay will keep a 35% stake in the company, which values Skype at about $2.75 billion.

Sure, on paper that means that eBay is taking a loss, but honestly, it’s still probably a good deal, because as far as anyone can tell, eBay never really figured out what to do with Skype anyway.

Once upon a time there was talking about integrating Skype’s VoIP service into the auction site to make communication between buyers and sellers easier. But really, who wants to call a comic book collector halfway around the world to ask questions about that $2.75 first edition Spider-Man #1 comic?

While a number of companies, including Google and Skype’s founders, were said to have been interested, it looks like the buyer is an investment group. The deal is expected to go through before the end of the year.

Update: You can read Skype CEO Josh Silverman’s brief comments on the deal in the official Skype blog post.

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Big Brother & The further loss of civil liberties

Thinking about taking your laptop across the border for your next trip up north or down south? News hitting the wires today indicates that you might want to re-think that plan, unless you feel like being separated from your precious gadgets. Apparently, border agents have given themselves the right to seize any piece of electronics equipment they feel like, even if they don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, and they can keep your toys for as long as they like.

This rule extends to your cell phone, Kindle, MP3 player, or any other information storing device you’ve taken along for the trip (even paper!). Agents can also make copies of any (or all) of your data to share with any other Federal agency — though they promise to delete it when they’re through. It was just over a month ago that everyone was up in arms about laptop searching at borders, and now this? We certainly hope that this particular infringement of our digital liberties won’t last long for long.

[Via: Switched]

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The Cell phone bandit / idiot

A 20 – 25 year old male decided that it was a good day to rob a local Alabama bank. The thing is, he didn’t bother to get off his cell phone in the process.

Did he succeed? Why of course he did! We just wonder what in the h*ll was so important that he couldn’t be bothered to get off his phone.  Btw, who robs a bank these days?

It’s just too bad that survival of the fittest no longer applies to our technologically savvy world!

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HD-DVD receiving the final blow, tomorrow

Tuesday February 19th, 2008 is a dark day for HD-DVD early adopters. Toshiba is slated to make a public announcement disclosing the discontinuation of HD-DVD. Hardware sales will cease and the media will meet it’s doom in March. Toshiba will be pulling it’s hardware from store shelves; including personal computer drives. Toshiba will be losing hundreds of millions in the decision but in the end it’s us early adopters that are getting the axe.

Can you get a refund? Not bloody likely. As an early adopter you should already know that it’s usually a lose lose situation once the head-honchos have made a choice such as this.

What will you be doing with your useless and truly disappointing piece of High-Def hardware and media?

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Paramount following the likes of Warner

Supposedly, Paramount will be following Warner in the move to Blu-Ray. The Financial Times is reporting that Paramount (who is already part of the HD-DVD camp) will be using an “escape” clause to leave HD-DVD behind and jump on with Blu-Ray.

Paramount has been exclusive to HD-DVD for only 4 months. This looks to be paving the way for a fast and painful death of the format. Unlike the slow and drawn out one we were all expecting.

Now this may come as bad news to anyone who has recently picked up a HD-DVD player or the add-on drive for the 360, but in the long run it’s better for all of us if this is true. Let’s end these format wars already and move on to downloadable content! We all know that’s where we’re going anyway.

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Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

From Dickipedia – A Wiki of Dicks

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer, college dropout, Internet entrepreneur and a dick.In 2004, he created the social networking website Facebook, becoming a celebrity to college students nationwide. Since that time, Zuckerberg has been on the fast track toward dickhood, culminating in his achieving full-fledged dick status in late 2007, though many argue that he has actually been a dick the entire time.

Youth

Mark Zuckerberg grew up in Westchester County, New York, with the most hilariously stereotypical name of anyone to have ever grown up there. He spent his formative years learning computers and cultivating a personal look known as “ugly Shia LaBeouf.”

In the grand dick tradition that has been passed on for hundreds of years, Zuckerberg attended both Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University, a combination which boasts a 97.5% total-dick graduation rate towards advanced degrees in “General Entitlement” as well as “Being an Asshole.”

Harvard

While at Harvard, Zuckerberg, hoping to boost his dick status, joined a fraternity. It is unclear whether the fact that it was a Jewish fraternity makes this decision more or less dickish. His first web project was called “Coursematch,” which allowed users to stalk other people in their classes. He soon combined his computer knowledge with his newfound frat lifestyle by founding “Facemash,” a Harvard version of the “Hot or Not” photograph rating website. (Outside observers have noted that a more appropriate name for such a Web site at Harvard University would have been simply: “Not.”)

Read more

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999 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Worst

Facebook is the worst but no matter how much I don’t like it, I can’t help but check it every day.  I did a little survey at my break this morning and these were the most commonly cited reasons why Facebook is the worst:

9.  It is the world’s most deadly Time Burglar

It is a scientifically proven fact that you can’t spend less than 3 hours at a time checking your wall, your superwall, your gifts, your free gifts, your superpokes, your Schrute Bucks, your graffiti area, and all this information for all your friends and even people you have never met.  If I do a quick calculation here, that means that at every possible moment in time someone is creeping on your profile, 24/7.  Um, ew.

9.  Everyne knows all your business, all the time.

Even those little applications you add steal your personal info.  It seems like you give up the right to that information when you make an account.  To make it worst, those people you left in elementary school keep trying to reconnect.  The ones you wanted to stay in touch with you still talk to, and the ones you were never friends with in the first place want to rekindle the friendship that never existed.  It gets real creepy when someone asks you about something posted on your profile before you have even had a chance to see it yourself!

9.  The fact that you hate it does nothing to help you delete your profile.

I must admit I have tried deleting my profile before, but I keep encountering this hardware problem whereby I can not press the mouse button on that particular screen.  Is it the fact that I don’t want to lose contact with people, don’t want to be able to creep my friends, or just don’t want to have to call them that is preventing me from pressing DELETE?

I don’t know, but the one thing I do know is that Facebook is the worst.  I know, I will post this on my profile and everyone will know how I feel!!

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