Bono Buys a Piece of Palm

Well, not personally … but still … the private equity firm Elevation Partners LP today bought a 25% stake in Palm, and Bono is one of the 5 partners. This deal happened after all the earlier speculation that Motorola or Nokia were going to acquire Palm.

The recapitalization plan will see Elevation take a 25% equity stake in Palm, valuing the company at $8.50 per share, a premium of around 16% compared with the stock’s performance over the past 10 trading days. Elevation is a $1.9 billion private equity firm, and one of its five partners is Bono, the lead singer of Irish rock band U2. The investment in Palm is by far the largest the firm has made. Source: ComputerWorld

Now, don’t get any ideas about most people’s panning of the Foleo a few days ago after it was introduced having anything to do with this. However, it is notable that Jon Rubenstein, former head of Apple’s iPod division will become executive chairman of Palm’s board, as well as heading up product development. This could be the start of a much brighter future for Palm.

Hugo Chavez Planning His Own PC

I’m sure you’ve heard of the OLPC program, One Laptop Per Child. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s controversial leader wants to produce his own computer, which he will then distribute throughout Latin and South America for little or no cost.

The PCs would be part of Chávez’s strategy of winning friends in the region through gifts paid for through Venezuela’s oil industry. Cuba, Bolivia and other nations have all been recipients of gifts from Chávez. The PCs would likely cost little or could even be given away. Venezuela has been contacting companies in Asia about the project, said sources. Source: News.com

Controversial is probably an understatement for Chavez. Some would even call him comical. But if this works out and helps people, should we criticize? I’ll stay out of that discussion. At any rate, we’re most likely not looking at a potential threat to HP here …

China to Enforce Universal Cell Phone Charger

I’m sure many of you are annoyed by the sheer number of various chargers / adapters you have to use. My Bluetooth headset has one, my cell phone has another, my last cell phone had yet another, my wife’s cell phone, her iPod, and on and on. It’s annoying as well as wasteful. China is taking steps to enforce one charger for all phones designed after June 14th of this year.

All cell phones designed after June 14 must adopt the universal charger interface, based on USB, otherwise they will not be approved for sale in China, according to the Ministry of Information Industry, which is responsible for enforcing the rule.

The goal is to reduce the number of chargers that are thrown away each year because of cell phone upgrades. Nearly 100 million cell phones are replaced every year in China, according to MII. Source: EE Times

I love the idea, but some manufacturers may not … as pointed out in the article this might force them to design different chargers just for China (though I’m not sure why they would just use the China charger all over … unless, of course, other countries mandate their own … which would be a nightmare). It’s also unclear if the “based on USB” charger is mini-USB or yet another new standard. Finally, just because you use the same adapter doesn’t mean the charger itself is the same. I know of at least a few that use mini-USB as the adapter but you can’t swap the actual chargers between them. Hopefully this won’t be the case.

Buy It Now! — iPhone Sold on eBay for $800 (now, about that bridge …)

You may recall my post in late March about eBayers and iPhones … at that time I was willing to sell them a bridge, but now … since we know the iPhone is due out late this month, this isn’t so bad. But wait, the seller said, “this phone is ready to ship”. Eh?

An eBay auction for a brand spanking new Apple iPhone has just ended for $800 dollars. The phone was put on the auction block on May 27th at 11:59 AM PDT and was quickly bought at 3:20 PM for the $800 “Buy it Now” price. Source: TG Daily

Sorry, TG Daily, it appears since you posted your story the auction was pulled. First (as they noted), $800 seems low for something that would be in such high demand. AND, though TG Daily seemed to think the seller was legit because he had a positive feedback of 11, I would say … no way. I would only buy from a seller with an 11 feedback, 100% positive or no, if it was a) an inexpensive item, b) not something hot like this. 11 feedback can be easily faked. Seems like not just the buyer, but TG Daily was scammed.