Servers aren’t cheap and neither is bandwidth. After all Facebook hosts well over 40 billion photos. The social network is looking for $100 million in debt financing for server costs according to BusinessWeek. Facebook has been shopping for credit from companies such as Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC). BAC is Facebook’s primary commercial bank right now. And as you are all aware, BAC received about $25 billion in federal bailout from the government. A Facebook representative stated that this is the normal course of business.
“Facebook always seeks to keep its costs of capital as low as possible, particularly in these uncertain economic times,” the company released in a statement to BusinessWeek.
Facebook lost additional credit from TriplePoint Capital. TriplePoint is a venture lending firm based in California. TriplePoint may offer Facebook more credit in the future. Facebook CFO Gideon Yu has already found a way for the company to raise $500 million in debt and equity from various companies.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is laying off a couple hundred of people in sales and marketing. Google wrote about the lay off on the Google blog.
“When companies grow that quickly it’s almost impossible to get everything right—and we certainly didn’t. In some areas we’ve created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process,” wrote Omid Kordestani, Senior VP of Global Sales and Business Development at Google. “We will give each person time to try and find another position at Google, as well as outplacement support, and provide severance packages for those who leave the company.”
In December 2007, Google’s stock price was about $714. But now it trades at $353.29 so that isn’t helping at all. Google’s market cap has been above a steady $100 billion fortunately. Google competitor Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is trading at about $13.35 per share and has a market cap of $18.6 billion. Google has about 20,000 employees so they’ll be seeing about a 1% drop in employee count.
“Melissa” was the first virus that spread through e-mail. It was created by David Smith who was 31 in 1999 when he built it. The virus turned 10 years old today and it caused about $80 million in damages and infected one million PCs.
The subject line of the virus was “Here is that document you asked for … don’t show anyone else;-)” and it contained an infected file called LIST.doc. The document contained passwords to 80 pornographic websites. The virus spread through Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2003, Outlook 97, and Outlook 98.
There were about four variations of the virus. Smith was sentenced 20 months in prison and was charged $5,000. Smith was also told to stay clear of computer networks and the Internet without court authorization.
One of my most favorite hobbies in the summer is playing basketball and listening to music on a boombox. One of the reasons why the iPod really took off was because of the whole ecosystem built around it. Spalding has built a basketball hoop where you can connect an iPod directly to it. The audio system made for the iPod has 30 watts of sounds through two 3″ ear-level speakers and a 5″ subwoofer on the base of the hoop.
The speakers are weather-resistant and ithas a suspension cradle. No info on when and where you can buy the iHoop yet, but expect to shell out about $1,300 when it becomes available.
The Snow Hotel in Kemi, Finland has guest rooms and and decorations made out of ice. A 41 degree temperature keeps the walls and floor frozen. Its like you are staying in an oversized igloo and going eskimo-style on your stay there.
The hotel has single and double rooms. It also has rooms for groups and for couples on a honeymoon. The rooms range from about $176-$420 per night. The snowy rooms have thermal sleeping bags and shuttles.
Near the Snow Hotel is a Snow Chapel if any snow men and snow women feel like getting married in freezing temperatures. Personally I prefer the beach, but some people are more cold-blooded than I am (pun intended!).
If you want to check it out, do it soon. The snow is starting to melt at a rapid pace!
TechEBlog has found out there is a Japanese gamer and model named Haruna Anno that loves Mario so much that she could play it and beat the level without even looking. If you’re a male gamer, this should be your kind of woman. Basically she is able to play and not look at the screen by listening to the music and playing by ear. Check out the video above.
The owner of ShotThen.com put together (see comment #1) Tugboat put together a hip hop medley using 8-bit audio. It sounds like that these songs should belong in an NES game. Think about playing the first Super Mario game while listening to an 8 bit beat of Jay-z, Lil’ Jon, Kanye, etc.
Below is a full track list of the medley, I promise you will not be disappointed:
Jay-Z — Dirt Off Your Shoulders
T.I — What You Know
Chamillionaire — Ridin’
Ludacris — What’s Ya Fantasy
Bonecrusher — Neva Scared
Twista & Kanye — Overnight Celebrity
Ludacris — Move Bitch
Lil’ Jon — Get Low
Kanye — Gold Digger
Dubai World is a real estate development company that is working with MGM in building an $8.6 billion CityCenter complex on the strip in Las Vegas. Earlier this week it was announced that Dubai World is suing its partner MGM Mirage about concerns that teh company will not be able to afford it. This affects the viability of the project.
Infinity World, a subsidiary of Dubai World filed the lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court. Currently MGM Mirage has over $13 billion in debt and there is a rumor that the MGM Grand in Detroit, Michigan is up for sale.
”What we are attempting to do is complete this project,” stated Dubai World group general counsel George Dalton. He added that the lawsuit is ”a very regrettable step,” but the company had no choice.
The CityCenter was reported to be a 67 acre development project. The CityCenter would include six towers, a casino, several boutique hotels, condos, entertainment, and a retail mall.
The MGM Mirage lost about $1.15 billion in 4Q 2008, but that was the first that the MGM Mirage had in 2008.
Popular
