Monthly Archives: October 2014

Amazon recently launched the Fire TV Stick, a streaming media dongle that closely resembles Google’s Chromecast. The device offers the same media streaming and game-playing abilities as Amazon’s Fire TV set-top box, and costs $39, compared to the $99 Fire TV and $35 Chromecast.

Launching a cheap media stick certainly makes sense given the rising popularity of Chromecast, Roku, and Apple TV, but is it too late to enter this saturated market?

Releasing just a week before Black Friday, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is available for pre-order right now for $39. Amazon hasn’t announced global availability, but we’ve reached out and will update with new information as it comes. As a special perk for current Amazon Prime subscribers, you can pre-order the Fire TV Stick for a cool $20 for the next two days.

While similar to Chromecast and the Roku Streaming Stick, the Amazon Fire TV Stick tries to set itself apart in a few ways. It is compatibility with the Amazon Fire TV game controller is nice, opening up a selection of over 200 games to download. Of course, that requires the $40 standalone cost of the controller.

The unemployment rate is always the effective statics that may reflect some social problem and help government to adjust their policy and improve the economic atmosphere. I started to notice the unemployment rate since the 2008, the world-wise economics recession, which erupted in U.S., many countries is under the bad influence of the recession and even now some of these countries can’t get rid of these bad consequence.

U.S. job growth slowed a bit in July 2014 and the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose, pointing to slack in the labor market that could give the Federal Reserve room to keep interest rates low for a while.

Although job growth was below expectations, July marked the sixth straight month employment expanded by more than 200,000, a signal of strength last seen in 1997. In addition, data for May and June was revised to show 15,000 more jobs created than previously reported.

The one tenth of a percentage point increase in the unemployment rate to 6.2 percent came as more people entered the labor market, an indication of confidence in job prospects.

Reply to: “US unemployment rate falls to 5.9%; but wage growth disappoints – business live”

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2014/oct/03/chinese-service-sector-ireland-eurozone-us-non-farm-payroll-live

Citation:

“Unemployment in the United States.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_States>.

“United States Unemployment Rate 1948-2014 | Data | Chart | Calendar.” United States Unemployment Rate. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014. <http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate>.

First nation

The relationship between first nation in Canada and Canadian government is always complicated and important. As an international student, I am not familiar with the first nation in Canada. I try to gather all the information I get and generate my own opinion to this problem. The First Nations are the various aboriginal people in Canada. There are currently over 630 recognized First nation governments or brands  spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The total population is nearly 700,000 people.

I find out that the Canadian government pay a lot of attention on this issue and publish some laws to “protect” the aboriginal people in Canada. It seems like that government offers aboriginal people some priority to live but it is actually the specialization. Government actually controls the almost aboriginal people’s life, like resources and land. The Indian Act also aimed to reduce the aboriginal people, but because they get some privilege like the tax exemption, some of them don’t want to lose the Indian status.

Many aboriginal people have two contradictory opinions about the Indian Act. They dislike that they’ve been controlled and specialization. But they may not choose to give up their status’s protections.

Samsung Electronics Co. the world’s largest smartphone maker，is heading for its roughest quarter in years amid rising competition from Apple Inc.

Samsung is fighting to retain its dominance after Apple introduced bigger-screen iPhones began selling its low-cost devices in more overseas markets. Samsung moved up the release date for its Galaxy Note 4 smartphone to the end of September, meaning device sales will aid third-quarter results. Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have screens of 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches, respectively, compared with 4 inches for previous models, and are comparable to the size of Samsung’s devices. Apple said it sold a record number of the new models during their debut weekend last month.

Samsung will start global sales of its 5.6-inch Note Edge in the fourth quarter, the company has said. The Edge allows users to read messages, news and stock tickers from an angle by extending the display down the side of the phone.

While the introduction of new smartphones aimed at low- to mid-range markets may help retain market share, it will take the release in 2015 of Samsung’s next marquee device, such as a successor to Galaxy S5.

Recapturing growth would be helped by ensuring Samsung innovates with new technologies that are hard for rivals to imitate, such as the wraparound screen on the Note Edge and the bendable screens it has been working on. To reverse the current tide, the company should bring out the Galaxy S6 with flexible screens.”

Citation

“Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Sept. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.%2C_Ltd.>.

“Apple IPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5.” Phone Arena. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2014. <http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Apple-iPhone-6-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id3798>.

“The Great Smartphone War: Apple vs. Samsung.” Vanity Fair. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2014. <http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent-war>.

Monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. In many jurisdictions, competition laws restrict monopolies. Holding a dominant position or a monopoly of a market is often not illegal in itself, however certain categories of behavior can be considered abusive and therefore incurs legal sanctions when business is dominant.

Due to the lack of competitive pressure and force to development with the lack of effective oversight external constraints, the monopoly industries often can’t make the customers satisfied and violate market rules or consumer rights. Meanwhile, monopoly enterprises obtain excessive profits through monopoly, thus they may stay in their comfortable region instead of expanding their business or improving their whole industry. The price fixing and decisions in the monopoly industries are generally made the entire society to pay the cost. Generally these industries are closely related to public utilities, such as telecommunications, postal services, water, electricity, gas, rail, air and so on. Because these industries penetrated into all aspects of society, so the price of services in these industries will be related to the level of the cost of the whole society. The overall efficiency of these industries directly related to the ability of other industries to participate in international competition.

Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Heineken, Volvo, Barclays Bank and many other world-renowned companies have been investigated and fined by the European Union. By the way, the world’s top ten anti-monopoly price tickets are out of the EU. For example, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Bank and other three banks are alleged manipulation of interest rates with ticketing a € 1.71 billion in fines by the European Commission, the highest record of such antitrust fines.

Citation:

“Monopoly.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Sept. 2014. Web. 05 Oct. 2014.

       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly>.

“European Union Competition Law.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 05 Oct. 2014.        <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law>.

“European Union Microsoft Competition Case.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Aug. 2014. Web. 05 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case>.

“$1.4bn EU Monopoly Fine Based on Mistakes: Intel.” The Economic Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2014. <http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2009-09-15/news/28404620_1_intel-amd-advanced-micro-devices>.