noam's blog.a.lish

Israel is officially 60 years old today. The last couple of years have been tough but Independence day is always a day of optimism, a day where the Israeli people remember what they went through to become an independent state and what challenges await.

Sunset over The tower of David in Jerusalem

A tiny country with endless talent, constant turmoil, and a full history celebrates today. Happy birthday!

Google Israel

Sure there have been a lot of posts about this deal, and now that I have time I read most of them. It doesn't surprise me that Google looks at this deal as "good for competition" and it doesn't surprise me much that Yahoo! top exec's rushed to agree on this deal due to the implications of giving up their "baby" (search). That said, out of all the articles I've read about this deal this following post has my favorite take on things:

Here's what I think of this deal - it stinks. Microsoft isn't marrying Yahoo, they're just getting her pregnant, setting her up in a nice apartment and telling her not to talk to any other guys.

Forget the flowerly language about how this deal "strengthens Yahoo's competitive position" (Yahoo press release) or "is good for competition" (Google blog post). Both are flat out lies. The deal crushes any notion of a competitive search advertising market and turns Yahoo's search and search marketing efforts into the undead.

Bottom Line

Yahoo has pissed off shareholders and a looming meeting - they can't ignore reality much longer. And reality says Yahoo's future is bleak. They continue to lose market share, they have serious brain drain and morale has never been lower.

I can't help but wonder what the digital advertising playing field would have looked like had Yahoo! taken the (first offered - they had the opportunity to buy DoubleClick before Google or Microsoft were even involved) DoubleClick Deal. Would that have given them the boost they needed? Would that have forced Google to compete against Microsoft in a bidding war to acquire Yahoo! ? Or, perhaps most realistically, would that have created a more even digital advertising war between the, then 3 now 2, major players in the industry.

I couldn't be happier to see my team back in the finals after a hiatus of 4 years (that year was harsh as they lost to Detroit in 5). The Lakers made a couple of great decisions this year in trading for Pau Gasol and getting veteran point guard Derek Fisher (D-Fish). With Kobe receiving his first MVP award he has a chance to do what only Michael Jordan did... win MVP, win the NBA Championship, and win a gold medal at the 2008 Olympic games. I'll be happy with the first two...

A very senior exec at my office mentioned he might take me to a Celtics vs. Lakers game if it happened... let's keep our fingers crossed... and Michael, if you're reading this, start making some phone calls!

Watch out Bar, Miri is right behind you... The 25 year old model from Tel Aviv is one of many up and coming Israeli models. She finds men who cook very sexy... good luck.

A little something for JK.

It has finally happened. Mr. Bryant has been recognized as the most valuable player in the NBA after 12 long years. Kobe holds 3 titles as a Laker has been elected to every All-NBA Team from 1999 till last year, has been featured in the last ten NBA All-Star games, 7-time All-Defensive Selection, 2-time NBA All-Star MVP, 2-time NBA Scoring Champion, 1997 NBA Slam Dunk Champion and 1996 Naismith Prep Player of the Year. This guy is a basketball god and he now holds the most prestigious individual award the NBA can award (playoff MVP is a close second) and he is leading his team to the Western conference finals.

I have been a die hard Laker fan since the early days of Kareem and Magic. The Lakers dominated the Western Conference this year and are dominating in the post season. I think Kobe deserves this title and I hope he will lead the Lakers to another championship!!

I love playoff time, 40 games in 40 nights!! Kobe is killing Utah right now in game 2 and the crowd has not stopped cheering loudly since the end of the regular season.... "M.V.P. M.V.P." they got what they wanted... now it's Kobe's turn to deliver.

Hancock is Will Smith's new movie scheduled to be release July 2nd, 2008. The official site is here. I am a big Will Smith fan and I think this movie has some potential.

Can't wait for LOST tonight!!!

After some speculation that Israel's air force (IAF) had bombed Syria in September of last year (2007) the New York Times post some more concrete evidence that IAF did, in fact, bomb Syria and that the target was a partly constructed nuclear reactor. This comes 26 years after Operation Opera which was a surprise Israeli air strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

Israel’s air attack was directed against what Israeli and American intelligence analysts had judged to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor. The Syrians vigorously denied the atomic claim.

Before the attack, satellite imagery showed a tall, square building there measuring about 150 feet long per side.

After the attack, the Syrians wiped the area clean, with some analysis calling the speed of the cleanup a tacit admission of guilt. The barren site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.

... As a signer to an agreement with the atomic agency, Syria is obligated to report the construction of a nuclear reactor to international inspectors. Nuclear reactors can make plutonium for the core of atom bombs, and therefore secretive work on reactors is usually interpreted as military in nature.

Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that what Israel destroyed was a largely empty military warehouse. ...

There are so many articles talking about this now that's it's hard to understand what really happened there. IMO if Syria was bombed by IAF and they didn't retaliate immediately then they are kind of pleading guilty... but that's just me.

I thought I heard about this last week but I was truly surprised when, of all people, my mom told me she read about Google wanting to buy Skype (the VOIP specialists). Skype, which was bought by eBay for $4.1 Billion back in 2005 wasn't able to provide that financial push that eBay was looking for, I guess Google has bigger plans. The article on The Motley Fool also talks about a rumor that Google is looking at Expedia as well.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Wall Street hearsay has turned to Google's acquisitive pursuits. The company's move to bow out of the spectrum bidding war frees up billions in greenbacks that would otherwise have been spoken for. The potential Microhoo pairing is fodder for gossipers to dream up retaliatory responses on Google's behalf.

I'll concede that Google pairing up with Skype makes perfect sense. Google has more to gain from a Skype deal than eBay ever did. Google has taken baby steps into the voice chat space, and taking the fast-growing yet poorly monetized Skype off eBay's hands would probably result in cheers from the Google and eBay shareholder camps.

I guess we won't be the new guys for much longer ;)

Another video in the I'm Fucking template. I thought it was funny. Obviously not as great as this one or this one, but still worth the watch. Which one did you like the most?

In other news, I went for it. I got the MacBook Pro... we'll see how this pans out in the future.

I can not wait for this... I'll be first in line, also I would be happy to get rid of my shitty provider...

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney claims to have heard "from sources in Asia" that Apple has placed a 10 million unit order for 3G iPhones, according to an interview by the iPod Observer. This order for 10 million 3G iPhones would reportedly be above and beyond the original 10 million Apple had planned to sell of the initial version of the iPhone in 2008.

This timeframe could be consistent with recent Page 2 rumors that the 3G iPhone would be coming "in a few months." Multiple reports have claimed that the 3G iPhone would be released in 2008. '3G' is the next generation mobile data technology that allows for much faster internet access on mobile phones. The iPhone currently uses EDGE (2.5G) technology.

Do you iPhone yet??

I unsubscribed from the engadget feed a long time ago. The reason was mainly that they just spam my reader and, just like on my DVR, I hate long queues of unread/unwatched "stuff" that could potentially be of interest. Other than that the content and writing are pretty shitty... not that I'm a Pulitzer prize winner or anything. Anyway, I'm excited that the 2.0 firmware is on the horizon simply because I hope this upgrade will unleash the 3G iPhone that I'm waiting to get. I really think the iPhone is the perfect gadget and I can't wait to get it. The rumors are that it will be officially released in June.

• Exchange is so on! Changes are pushed over the network, but over WiFi it does check-ins, so it's not as instantaneous.
• There's a new button in the calendar, but we don't know what it is and can't make it do anything.
• The App Store is there, of course, but doesn't do anything yet (except error out that it can't connect).
• Wondering when Apple will make good on its agreement to license Cisco technology? Well, the branded Cisco VPN screen has definitely been added to the VPN settings. We couldn't really test this one, but assume it works as advertised. We don't yet know if it supports SecurID or other hardware token authenticators.
• You can now order your preferred WiFi networks.
• In addition to having a new sideways scientific mode(!), the basic calculator now does commas and has new, useful functions for the math nerds;
• By far our favorite new feature is multi-select in mail, though. Now when you hit edit you can select as many messages as you want and delete or move them as a group. Friggin' finally. Now where's that two-pane client?

Check out the image gallery here.

p.s. Yeah the scientific calculator is nice ;)

It's final. DoubleClick is officially a part of Google. The terms are unconditional and I'm ready for my stock options.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) won unconditional approval from the European Commission on Tuesday to buy rival Web advertiser DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, despite objections from rivals and privacy advocates.

"The Commission's in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment," the Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said in a statement.

Let the bistro flood gates open...

UPDATE here are a couple more links that are covering the hottest news in internet history: