TEPCO: Paying displaced residents … but cutting our workforce

50k the number of households near Fukushima eligible for payments from TEPCO
¥1M the amount that could be offered to each household — roughy $12,000 total
¥50B the amount that would be offered based on that assessment —around $600 million source

» Raising money by cutting jobs? While Company President Masataka Shimizu didn’t speculate on what the final amount might be, he did point out a possible way to pay for said payments to local residents. They’re looking at cutting jobs to streamline operations and pay the people affected by the accident. “We must pursue rationalization that regards nothing as sacred,” he said. “We will make utmost efforts to raise funds.” Now, maybe we’re wrong here, but doesn’t it seem weird to cut employees after a massive disaster that had at least some root in safety issues?

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Like online poker? Well, you won’t like this story. A bunch of executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker just got charged with money laundering and bank fraud, and their sites had to shut down. Above is what Full Tilt Poker‘s front page currently looks like. This is alarming — nearly a million unique visitors went to that site in March. While AbsolutePoker.com is still up as of this writing, PokerStars has a similar message. Sucks to be a gambler. source

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one Despite the fact that the one thing the BlackBerry does better than any other mobile device is e-mail, the Playbook doesn’t allow you to use e-mail unless you’re tethered to a BlackBerry phone. Wait, what?
two The device reportedly has very few native apps — not even obvious ones like Facebook or Twitter. Or calendar apps. RIM says it’ll get Android apps at some point, but why didn’t they have it ready for launch?
three And that “not ready for launch” thing gets at the heart of the problem — the product seems rushed because updates keep coming. It makes it seem like they almost missed a major opportunity. source

» Getting a tad too defensive: One of Research in Motion’s main men, co-CEO Jim Balsillie, used this sentence of utter nonsense in defending his company’s inexplicable decision to avoid allowing e-mail over wi-fi on the Playbook: “I don’t think people realize the threat matrix to your own personal information and your PCs and a lot of different smartphone architectures is a lot greater than people realize.” What? “Threat matrix”? Really? That’s BS.

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Sir Robert Laird Borden gets a plastic makeover: Do we need any more proof that paper’s a dying medium? Last month the Bank Of Canada announced details about their polymer-based $100 bills, which offer more security due to the basic fact that plastic is harder to counterfeit than paper. The first ones roll off out of the mint in November, and the $50 bill will change over in 2012. “Canada’s new bank notes will have innovative security features that are easy to verify,” said the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney. “The leading-edge technology in these notes will expand the frontiers of bank note security.” And on top of all this, the money is safer from the elements than paper. Are there any disadvantages to making bills out of plastic? (Above: Samples of paper $100 bills, via Bank Of Canada’s Flickr page. | EDIT: Oshea-green points out that Australia led the way with plastic money of their own starting in 1988. Every bill they’ve made since 1996 has been polymer-based.) source

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Doing what Google needs to do to be a fast-growing dominant company in five years means sacrificing some of the bottom line this year and next (and maybe forever). It also means spending less time kowtowing to Wall Street and more time focusing on products and users. In his first few weeks on the job, Larry Page is doing exactly that. And if Wall Street doesn’t like it, whatever.
Business Insider’s Henry Blodget • Offering a spirited defense of Larry Page and Google, which just felt investor rage over a quarter that didn’t meet their expectations. We’re with Henry. They’re already making more money than God, so why give them crap over not making every penny they can, and trying to think long-term? source

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Say what you want about CBS’ Mark Knoller, but he gets stories. The dude may have a massive beard, but that beard is probably large enough to fit a high-quality tape recorder into. Which is why the White House correspondent was able to pretty much beat everyone else to a pretty killer Obama story this morning. (With audio!) See, Obama thought he was talking to donors. But he had an hot mic on that was accidentally pumping audio from the closed-door fundraiser into the press room, and Knoller caught it. Including the audio. While Obama said fairly harsh things about the White House IT department, like “We are like 30 years behind – we can’t get our phones to work,” the stuff he said about the budget situation and Paul Ryan had the strongest impact:

On health care “I said (to Republicans), ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. … You think we’re stupid?'”
On Planned Parenthood He reportedly told Boehner and his staff, regarding the controversial riders: “Put it in a separate bill. We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.”
On Paul Ryan “… the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill …” source

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15 Apr 2011 22:11