Pierre Noujeim's Blog

Who would have ever thought destroying candy would be so addicting?

With over 150 billion games played King’s Candy Crush has been the number one most popular game since its release over one year ago. It has topped iTune’s charts as the top grossing app and nets King earnings of $633,000 per day adding up to $230 million annually. This hip game is so addictive 78% of american users admit to playing Candy Crush even while watching TV as if they’re not already stimulated enough.

I personally have tried the game and don’t see what everyone else seems to. The game is vibrant and colorful but offers nothing unique to set itself apart from other available games, in my humble opinion. Although I do not see the point of this app, cheers to King for the creation of the number one grossing app on iTunes managing to accomplish what so many try to in their lifetime.

UCLA student Sy Stokes publicly voices his opinion in an eye-opening video about the age-old debate and topic of racial discrimination. Although no one can admit that racial discrimination is still happening, other than those who are unfortunately the targets of it, it is still alive in our society.

As I have given this topic a fair amount of thought recently I realized the only way we have any reason to discriminate based on race is because of history. No one can deny there was a time when white men held African Americans as slaves. It is a fact that cannot be erased from history. My opinion is that it should be. Although it may seem controversial, in order to help our society advance in future generations we need to erase any reason for there to be a gap between people based on skin colour. If we were not educated about the past and how unfairly treated African Americans were, there would be no reason for younger generations to think of themselves any differently solely based on skin colour.

Feel free to comment your opinions as I would love to carry on this conversation.

Much criticism towards the father of 5 and 7 year old sons known as the strongest brothers in the world has been received due to the strict training regime he has introduced into his son’s lives. The full video may be found here.

Although there are multiple studies showing the negative effects of training sessions such as those conducted by the brothers at such a young age, that seems like a much healthier lifestyle than most North American families have decided to integrate into their homes. In 2010 more than one-third of adolescents and children were either overweight or obese. Given the choice between a child who can raise him or herself into a human flagpole and a child who cannot I would go with the first choice 10 times out of 10. The importance of physical fitness has not been stressed enough in society and the ability to put on pound after pound of meaningless body fat has become far too easy.

The original blog post states the father’s and mother’s views on the matter and how the father mainly promotes his sons’ two hour training session each morning in order to surpass all records and turn his boys into the strongest men alive.

In response to Thomas Campbell’s blog post regarding mainly the annual release of brand new Call of Duty games and his questioning of the reasoning behind customers purchasing each game “as early as humanly possible” I would like to add my two cents on the matter being a (somewhat seasoned) gamer myself.

The question as to why people purchase the new iPhone as soon as it comes out or why they can’t wait to jump on the next Call of Duty craze goes much deeper than the technical additions to each new addition.

The reason everyone can’t wait to get their hands on either of these new products or even any new trending product boils down to the unconscious need we all have for change. Although these new products may seem like they haven’t changed much if at all, the blind consumers will take any excuse they can get to justify purchasing the next big item. Change combined with not wanting to be left behind fuels consumers to purchase things any rational 3rd party would view as ridiculous. With this in mind, my hat goes off to those who have successfully created a need for products we never knew we would have.

In response to Paula Bieler’s blog post highlighting the shocking numbers the Blackberry Messaging App received I would like to highlight one of her points being “this recent success… brings hope to the company.” Although the BBM app did score incredible results, does this really mean there’s still hope for the company? My opinion is that all the introduction of this app has done is completely eliminate possibly the only aspect of Blackberry that has kept itself apart from its competitors. What reasoning is there for anyone to purchase a Blackberry over an iPhone other than to stay connected through BBM? iPhones dominate functionality wise in every case however the exclusivity of BBM was the only thing holding Blackberry users back from converting. Now that this messaging service has been made available on iPhone it seems as if Blackberry has finally risen its white flag and conceded defeat.

RIP Blackberry you will (not?) be missed.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/paulabieler/2013/11/03/blackberry-demand-exceeds-10-million/

A regular Dairy Queen employee managed to turn $20 into a national story netting him a call from Warren Buffet himself thanking him for the act of kindness and for being a role model to workers everywhere.

Joey Prusak witnessed a visually impaired man drop $20 and after refusing service to the woman who did not give the money back, Prusak proceeded to give the man $20 out of his own wallet. Another customer witnessed this huge act of kindness and wrote DQ an email which has then been circulating the internet non-stop.

This act shows that contrary to popular belief, good business isn’t all about aiming to net the highest profit and stabbing as many people in the back as you can along the way. Prusak has been offered countless jobs and been left exorbitant amounts of tips simply for this act of kindness. This shows that acts of kindness do not go unnoticed and will come back to you one way or another. If you still believe in the traditional way of making it in today’s businesses this article may change your mind.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-20-act-of-kindness-that-earned-dairy-queen-employee-widespread-praise-1.1462865

Although it looks friendly who really knows that this guys is going to be capable of? At the rate new technologies are being created it may not be long until we have little guys like him that are doing everything we’re too lazy to do ourselves.

The great Steve Jobs created something no one thought they needed. However now you can’t go 2 minutes without seeing, hearing about, or reaching for your own Apple product. One of their most popular products is the iPhone. Although with the release of the iPhone 5s recently, Apple has shown that innovation may not be the priority on their list anymore. Each successive iPhone has barely been an improvement upon the last and yet apple somehow managed to sell 4.8 million phones in the month of September alone.

News of Apple reportedly being said to buy a 3D sensing company shows huge room for innovation for the upcoming apple products. 3D cameras, 3D holograms and who knows what else may not be too far looking forward.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2013/11/17/the-next-big-apple-disruption-3d-cameras-are-coming-to-a-phone-or-tablet-near-you/

Techno logic advances are starting to scare me. The latest being the ability to print in 3D.

On one hand this new technology is extremely revolutionary and provides inventors and innovators the ability to bring product ideas only available on paper to life in a 3D model of the product. A car company for example, no longer needs to mold and create an entire car for product testing but can now scale it down and with over 100 building ingredients, the newest 3D printers can create an exact replica of the intended car. Clearly this innovation poses obvious advantages to many people.

Keeping its benefits in mind, there have already been cases of people using the 3D printers to create and sell their own line of products. There are many cases of people producing fully functional guns or gun parts from these printers. This means companies making 3D printers need to put some sort of device that allows them to detect when pieces are being created that could pose potential harm.

A company value of over $3 billion dollars from nothing just two years ago must be some kinda of record. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy co-founded one of the most popular instant messaging services, Snapchat.

I personally see no benefit to the app and find the services it provides nearly useless. But apparently there are millions of others out there who would disagree with me; cumulatively sending and receiving over 350 million ‘snaps’ everyday.

The young founders denied Facebook’s latest offer of $3 billion as they believe a much higher offer is not too far away. Seeing as the company is only two years old I can’t disagree with that decision. Seeing as how Twitter is over seven years old and is now valued at $25 billion, Snapchat made the right decision in turning down Facebook’s offer.

For a company with no business model and no sales Snapchat is looking very good as of now however need to come up with a plan to generate income soon before they become another messaging app trying to keep their heads above water.