In May, Yahoo announced that it was buying the blogging site tumblr. This lead to a huge amount of responses on the site, mainly expressing concerns over what changes Yahoo would make on the site, as most users saw the buy as more of a threat than a good change. As this change occurred, I began wondering about the reasons behind the sale, especially after the topics covered this past week in my economics class, where my professor kept stressing the image that economists focus on happiness, whereas finance specialists focus on money. This made me wonder if David Karp is turning tumblr into an “Economist” rather than a “Finance Specialist”, as he sold his site for $1.1bn, and was kept on as the CEO? Will tumblr change into a more-for-profit site, or will David Karp attempt to use his power as CEO to keep tumblr as a safe, happy space for its users?

An article was released today about the decline in positions filled in China at Foxconn, in the Financial Times. It detailed the change of Chinese no longer filling low-paid positions in poor work conditions. I found the whole concept rather interesting, as it follows the news of Kia and Hyundai hiring more people to be able to cut night shifts. Both shifts would foreshadow a drastic change in the South East Asian image of being filled with people who will do important work (for generally oversees companies) for very little pay. This means changes for Foxxcon, how many areas can they keep moving to until they run out of “cheap labour” locations?

Following the aftermath of the media hit taken by Sauder and the CUS as a result of the events in FROSH, the CUS has decided to donate a quarter of a million dollars. But with what money?  I was really confused when the CUS decided to decrease the CUS membership fee AFTER deciding to make such a great financial decision –one that will be paid off in a period of three years. Although the decision was made by the students in the voting polls, the decision regarding the CUS membership fee could have been tabled for another year. I find the decision of the CUS, and apparently of UBC to donate such a vast amount of money, to fund sex-abuse counseling, to be important, but lack the understanding as to where the money is coming from. What will this mean for us, as Sauder students, in the future? Will the CUS membership fee be increased in a year again?

As we all know, smartphones are something most people have, or want, making it a large market. The iPhone does especially well, followed by Google’s Android operating platform, which is in very many new phones, dominated by Samsung and followed by LG, following its release of the Nexus 4 phone.  However, it seems as though companies are following Apple in the sense that they want to own the system as well; to own both the interior and the exterior of the phones. Apple has its iOS system that it uses for its iPhones, Google bought Motorola and recently released its own phone, the Moto X, and now Microsoft is buying Nokia to gain smartphone ground with Windows phones. Samsung seems to be the only large company which isn’t seeking, at least yet, to have a unique operating platform for its successful Galaxy phones. But does it even need to? The success of the Galaxy phones would indicate a negative response, but how long will it be until Samsung gets tired of paying Google for its Android system-ware? Looking at the diminishing trend of phone companies, would another operating system even be a plausible challenge to take upon ones company?