Flying whales by military or commercial airplanes?

by marlin harms

Stray grey whale navigates the North-West Passage
[Via All Today's News - Sightline Daily]

Conventional wisdom has it that grey whales have been extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for more than 200 years, and the species survives only in the north Pacific. That was the case until last weekend, when a 13-metre-long grey whale was spotted cruising off the coast of Israel.

[More]

This report makes it much more obvious that the route taken by the gray whale, as I suggested yesterday, was via the Northwest Passage. But then it ends with this:

The discovery of a Pacific grey whale so far from home may revive calls to reintroduce the species to European waters. In 2005, Owen Nevin and Andrew Ramsey of the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK, proposed airlifting grey whales from the population in the eastern Pacific to the Irish Sea (PDF).

Conservationists at the time questioned whether the animals would survive in the Atlantic. That question, at least, seems to have been answered.

Now I think it would be really cool if we could repopulate the Atlantic Ocean with gray whales from the Pacific. First, we have to make sure that this one can survive in the Mediterranean Sea and perhaps make it back up to the Arctic.

Of course, how to move them over? Could we live capture some and house them in transport planes as they are moved to the Atlantic? I doubt that would work. Perhaps we could lure them along the Northwest passage? That would make for great TV.

Or perhaps we should be really nice to the current resident in the atlantic. Give it lots of food and loving. Then when it heads back to the Artic, make sure it meets up with more grays. Then maybe it’ll tell all its friends about the great new place it found and more will follow it.

That would actually be the most natural way of doing this.

Any effect on android sales?

by Andrew Mason

Verizon advertising partner rumored to be working on iPhone campaign
[Via AppleInsider]

Rumors of a Verizon iPhone arriving this summer continue to surface, with CrunchGear claiming Landor Associates, which handles Verizon’s branding, is working an advertising campaign regarding Apple’s next-generation handset.

[More]

Yes this is just a rumor and there are some aspects of Verizon’s current cell phone network that make the appearance of a Verizon iPhone unlikely.

But we have had all sorts of news lately about Android-based cell phones outselling the iPhone. This is mainly from increasing market share, not really revenue, as Verizon has been having lots of “Buy one get one free” specials for smartphones.

The cell phone companies are falling into the same trap as computer companies. They are tied to a company for the operating system of the phone. And that company may not have the same business plan as the phone companies. Microsoft’s windows effectively made PCs into commodities. “Why should I spend an extra for a Dell when I can get this one for $200 cheaper?”

The enduser may not care much at all whether it is an HTC, a Motorola or a Nokia because there is really no way to differentiate the different phones. They all run the same operating system after all. Cosmetic changes can be made but then that has to be explained to the consumer. Explaining why the name brand is more expensive than the no-name version is not an easy thing to do.

So what happens to android sales if the iPhone is also available from Verizon? The cell phone companies might have to give them all away for free in order to keep market share. But the revenues will likely drop.

This works well for Google because their model is not based on the price of phones or really much revenue at all. They want to get as many people using their software as possible in order to keep their ad-driven business model going.

So, for Google to win, it must have Android almost everywhere, just as Microsoft needed its operating everywhere to succeed. Google’s plan works better for the computing environment today that Microsoft’s but any business plan that really requires total domination of the marketplace to really succeed will come up against antitrust provisions eventually, with unknown results.

I’ve discussed this before. Apple’s business model does not depend on market domination and, in fact, actually seems to work against that. It has spent 30 years saying we cost more but we are easier to use. They no longer really need to advertise that.

In fact, when something like the iPhone is available for $99 or less they might have to do some advertising showing how price comparable they are, not just feature comparable.