I recently came across a Yahoo Finance article about Intel’s $1.45 Billion fine in Europe. In it was this:

“The fine against the world’s biggest chip maker represents a huge victory for Intel’s Silicon Valley rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., or AMD, the No. 2 supplier of microprocessors to PC makers.”

Let’s contemplate what this “victory” really means.

Intel invests its resources into some of the best and brightest minds in the world. Intel applies itself, and as Capitalism Magazine recognizes “a market for computer chips would not exist at all if Intel did not invent, develop, and constantly innovate the chips that become the brains of computers.” Anyone in the industry can recognize the effect Intel has had on the landscape. To my mind AMD should be thanking Intel for the amazing marketplace, and opportunity, that their pioneering efforts have created.

Instead AMD submits Intel to the looting European Union by suing Intel and lobbying regulators for the past 5 years. The result: the EU is stealing $1.45 billion from Intel. Money that Intel won by selling it’s innovations to consumers who freely paid for them.

Why is all this happening? Neelie Kroes, the EU Competition Commissioner, said “Intel did not compete fairly, frustrating innovation and reducing consumer welfare in the process.” These “unfair” tactics include offering rebates to big customers, a common practice of any business wishing to entice more. The EU requests of Intel were so vague that they left Intel “mystified” about what it should change.

But the real kicker in all of this is what AMD has done to itself and to all who value freedom. Instead of fighting the looters alongside Intel, as it should have done, it feed them to lions. AMD has helped to usher in a dystopian Atlas Shrugged style world in which the best and brightest among us must work for free so the looting masses can feast on their efforts.

I wonder, what will Dirk Meyer, AMD’s Chief Executive who said this decision was “an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market,” be saying when the looters come after him?

• Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Record-euro106-billion-EU-apf-15225753.html
• Capitalism Magazine: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5564

It seems that Amazon has listened to their customers’ feedback. They created a great microsite, kindle.amazon.com, for managing your Kindle’s notes and highlights. On this site you can:

1. View a list of all books you purchased from Amazon.com for your Kindle
2. Review all notes and highlights for books purchased from Amazon. Note that you will not see notes for content that you have added manually via usb :(
3. Rate all of your books
4. See user comments and other details

Here is the email announcing the microsite:

Our customers have told us that they love being able to add highlights and notes to their Kindle books. We want to make it possible for you to access your highlights and notes directly from a Web browser too. So we’ve released http://kindle.amazon.com, an online tool that enables you to do just that.

To try it out, go to http://kindle.amazon.com, sign in with your Amazon account, and simply select one of your books where you have added highlights or notes.

We hope you enjoy this new feature. If you have feedback please send it to us at amazonkindle-feedback@amazon.com.

The Amazon Kindle Team

Here’s a few screenshots of the site:

A microsite for the Amazon Kindle that shows all your notes and highlights

Detail of a book's notes and highlights in the Amazon Kindle microsite

Amazon notes that if the site is missing notes or highlights that you know you have made then do the following on your Kindle:

These are the highlights or notes that you added to this book. If you added highlights or notes and you don’t see them here, then do the following:

If you have a Kindle (1st Generation) then from your Home screen choose MENU and select “Check for New Items”.

If you have a Kindle (2nd Generation) then from your Home screen choose MENU and select “Sync & Check for Items”.

Yesterday Steve Balmer made an interesting claim that Linux is a bigger competitor than Apple. I would not have guessed that, but his pretty graph illustrates the proof.

Steve Balmer shows us that unlicensed Windows and Linux are their two biggest competitors