http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11772222/foxconn-automation-robots-apple-sa...

Foxconn cuts 60,000 factory jobs and replaces them with robots

Automation is fast becoming a reality for workers of many of the world's biggest corporations, which are finding the falling costs of purchasing robots and programming those robots to be more attractive than retaining human labor. In the US, the debate is playing out in the form of a $15 an hour minimum wage, with former McDonald's USA CEO Ed Rensi saying, "It’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries."

Overseas, in factories owned by Taiwan-based corporations like Foxconn, the process is accelerating even faster. Proponents of automation say the jobs that will be eliminated first are those that make human workers miserable and that, in the longterm, more valuable positions will open up as more machines replace humans. Notably for Foxconn, which has been mired in controversy for its factory conditions and high rate of worker suicides, robots also present a way to remedy poor public perception without necessarily improving the quality of life of its employees.

However, economists fear the short-term fallout from automation may be a devastating loss of jobs and economic instability. A report, conducted by Deloitte and Oxford University, predict as many as 35 percent of jobs will be automated over the next two decades. An even more telling forecast was made by researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne in their 2013 paper "The Future of Employment," in which they predicted about 50 percent of jobs will disappear over the next four to five decades.

We will live to see this elimination of most of what we used to call "jobs".   They just won't be there any more.

http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/16/04/7885499/why-apple...



Why Apple Could Layoff Between 25,000 And 30,000 Of 115,000 Employees By End Of Year

Apple, coming off of a very good year is laying off people right and left -- Apple sees a very poor year coming with multiple countries have economic woes which will affect Apple very strongly.

Apple Inc.
AAPL 0.94%
has recently been laying off around 100 contract and full-time recruiters, but Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry believes this is just the tip of the iceberg for Apple layoffs. Chowdhry estimates that Apple will cut between 25,000 and 30,000 of its 115,000 employees by the end of 2016.

The sophistication required to NOT walk face first into a bear trap is not something everyone has. Think of the millions of dollars a big company could lose if they couldn't see far enough down the road to be able to project falling sales and adjust their production before sales even fall.
The guy selling lawnmowers down the road needs to see what the local economy is doing, but the international scene might not be something that he needs to understand to avoid losses.

These are big businesses with good "prior knowledge" and they are all girding for a worldwide recession.

Recessions suck, so I am simply glad that my favorite sorts of motorcycle trip costs relatively little money.

Maybe we plan a Recession Special trip and cook over a campfire somewhere nice.

http://liliputing.com/2016/09/android-x86-releases-early-build-nougat-desktop...



Google and Intel may not be doing much work to make sure that Android can run on devices with Intel processors anymore…  but the Android-x86 project continues to release new builds of Android for computers with Intel and AMD chips.

The software is based on Google’s Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, and it’s still a work in progress. But some of Nougat’s key features, such as split-screen, multi-window mode works, allowing you to interact with two apps on the screen at once.

Both Intel and Google have dropped all efforts to run Android on those funky Microsoft'd current generation Intel chipsets.   Instead, relatively new, powerful Media Tek processors and Qualcomm processors are filling these niches instead.  The Open Source x86 Project and several of the Android as a laptop groups have stepped forward to fill the "low end laptop" gap using repurposed older Intel processors.

"Phone on a PC" hits the back burner at Google, especially seeing that Continuum was a really big flop at Wintel with NOBODY buying their whuppie super duper Win 10 PC phones -- at all.   Nobody wanted them.

The Andromium Superbook Project (Android phones driving a laptop dock) sold out 3x over however, and is in actual real public "sell it as a product" mode in Asia as we speak.  

http://www.xda-developers.com/andromiums-99-superbook-converts-your-android-s...

Jide as Android Laptops are doing well also.   Asia likes the idea of "Phone as a PC" and the idea of "Android Laptops".

So, these may be viable Asian niche products that will be filled by a few small Asian companies, until it takes off on its own in some major fashion with one of the major Asian phone suppliers as a "standard feature" backed up with a stock docking station.    Then it might have some impact in America.

Google will continue to build the abilities into the Nougat and into later OS's so anyone can do it, so perhaps indeed someone in Asia will continue to do it with Android.

That is the Google Alphabet way now, support a good disruptive idea for a bit then let it float or sink on its own merit.

As a "recession product" it makes sense though, so I kinda doubt it will die out on us .....


   

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3093972/android/pokemon-go-no-go-the-latest-ch...

Pokemon Go no-go: hot new game won't work on Intel Atom-powered phones or Windows phones

   Hey, would Wintel lie to you for much ???

Wintel has stopped all efforts to get Android to run on their devices, which means phones from early last year suddenly can't run popular apps like Pokemon Go.   This will curtail future sales of Intel processors in any of the very few mobile uses where they still exist.

If an app you want is outside the walled garden, fuggetaboutit.

Pokemon Go also won't run on Windows phones, though that's due to Niantic's decision not to support that particular OS at the moment.

The issue arises as Intel pulls back from the smartphone chip market, after failing to catch up with ARM, whose processor designs are in most handsets. Atom chips for mobile devices are already being phased out.

Meanwhile, Dell has stopped selling its Android-based Venue devices that ran on Intel chips. It also won't deliver Android OS upgrades to its existing Venue tablet users.

If you have an Android tablet or smartphone with an Intel Atom chip, things may not get better. Other issues will likely arise with as the number of apps and OS upgrades for Android on Intel Atom decline. Device makers usually work on Android upgrades with Intel, which is scaling back Android development.

There may be exceptions. While Dell has suspended OS updates, Asus has said it will deliver upgrades to Android 6.0 for its Zenfone 2 handsets. But it's not known whether devices will get upgrades to Android 7.0, code-named Nougat.

As it exits the mobile phone market, Intel is also moving away from slate-style tablets, which are experiencing a decline in shipments. Intel will focus on 2-in-1 devices, which can be used as either laptops or tablets.

Intel is still offering a tablet chip code-named Cherry Trail, but the successor to that chip will be Pentium and Celeron chips code-named Apollo Lake, which will be aimed more at PCs and 2-in-1s.

The wholesale changes in Intel's mobile strategy came after the chip maker in April said it would lay off 12,000 people. It is now focusing on areas like connectivity, IoT and data center technologies.

Fuchsia would be a BRAND NEW code base complete rewrite of the mobile OS systems, using brand new programming language tools that "scale up" much better than the old tools used to build Android.


Does that mean the kindle will be replaced?

Microsoft just ran back the date when think they will finally hit their billion mark -- past 2018 is what they are saying now.

It was all BS anyway.  We do NOT know how many Win 10 conversions there really were, but what we do know is that you can start the real Win 10 count clock to running when the Enterprise level conversion is completed next year.   Then you can see MS shrink very cleanly after they have ALL their surviving eggs stacked neatly in one easy to count basket.

By then Win 10 will likely just be Windows and part and parcel of Windows 365 and will only provided on a scheduled monthly / quarterly fee arrangement which pays for keeping the entire Walled Garden updated which will be the only way MS will sell their software any more.

MS is betting their whole company that their walled garden in total is 1) competitive and 2) desirable.   I think they are actually being seen right now as Buggy as Shite and Somewhat Obnoxious, but my take really doesn't count as I am not in the Garden at all (except for a very few Steam games).

Business is now buying more Chromebooks for data entry drone workers, as they can utilize them on a Company Wifi Intra-net under the strict control of their IT department, issuing them to employees who are provided a Company login that they must then use to get the machines to lite up.  

If the Company Chromebook leaves the company's Wifi zone (company premises), it becomes a locked down brick that constantly pings back its current location as if stolen.   This is actually improved security over MS products, and the IT Department has to work a lot less to maintain these Chromebooks vs the more expensive Wintel equipment.

I am looking forward to the third quarter sales reports coming out soon, as the post freebie Win 10 results should start to ring through some by then and we will see what good 'ol pay-me Win 10 is really doing .....   MS marketing lies and exaggerations will continue I am sure (or more dead silence if the news is bad like it has been) but now the MS info will be countered by the Stat Counter type folks who have access to purer, less biased sources of world wide data.

Google is busy talking to and listening to Big Business while MS is busy jerking them around and overcharging them for everything.   Go MS, go .....