New Pavilion KL - who will suffer?

Looking at the Pavilion KL, Its quite a monster of a building. Huge and the potential is awesome. You will be able to experience the shopping standards comparable to Tokyo's Ginza and New York's`s 5th Avenue.

Pavilion Kuala Lumpur in the heart of one of Asia’s greatest cities, beats a new pulse. Vibrant, dynamic and energising, it inspires your every sense with its choices in fashion, food and urban leisure. With over 450 retail shops spread across 7 levels offering some of the world’s most renowned brand names, you will be spoilt for choice.

I’d say at the end of the day, the Pavilion will be able to take over the glorious of Suria KLCC landed in Bukit Bintang. I also believe the mall that will truly suffer with the opening of Pavilion is Suria KLCC. The stores in the Pavilion are very similar to those found in KLCC and 1 Utama - a mix of high street and high end brands.

The interior is still partly complete so there is a lot of renovation still on going and many stores are yet to be opened. I do not believe it will affect Starhill Gallery because that caters more to patrons of high end and luxury products. Lot 10 and Sungei Wang Plaza cater more to the mid-range crowd so they too will have their customers.

Berjaya Times Square which is more or less within the vicinity will be affected for sure because many stores found in there are in Pavilion too. The only thing Berjaya Times Square has going for them is the fact of the Imbi monorail stop right on its doorstep.

Obama phone call unsecured; verizon responsibility

Verizon has apparently quietly fired the employees who couldn't resist the temptation of peeking at the President-elect's cellular records, according to several news reports.

Verizon had to take this action, after it had verified the breach. Any IT manager will quickly acknowledge that with access comes responsibility for respecting a client's privacy, no matter how tempting.

The news broke last week that curious workers had checked out account information for a now-closed account that belonged to Barack Obama. Carrier Verizon suspended several employees pending an investigation and quickly issued a statement declaring its commitment to customer privacy.

Verizon's appropriate reaction benefits even we mere mortals who supply personnel at phone companies, banks, and utility services with personal data that, if abused, could result in financial loss and major headaches untangling identity theft. To some extent, we just have to trust that these folk are acting as professionals.

Every once in awhile we hear of some that succumb to temptation, such as IRS employees who sneak a look at a Hollywood celebrity's tax return. Passport records are also apparently a draw.

But the Verizon incident underscores the privacy and security concerns that are the reasons it may be hard for Obama to keep his omnipresent BlackBerry after January 20. However, every CEO has security issues; one consultant suggests it can be done. Finding a way would also enable Obama to keep the technological tools he relies on, and help him keep grounded with continuing connection to his broader community.

But back to Verizon: For the cellular carrier the situation was a matter of essential business ethics, not to mention PR. Even if you're not the president-elect, will you feel less comfortable about the confidentiality of your calling record? We consumers agree to user licensing provisions when we contract with services; we expect them to hold up their end as well -- and act quickly, as Verizon did, when someone represnting such a service slips. It's time for some refresher training -- and probably not just at Verizon.

New 250GB SSD by Samsung

Samsung said it has begun producing previously announced SSDs with 256 GB storage capacity. The new drives are also substantially faster than Samsung’s previous SSDs.

The 256 GB drives in production at this time are unlikely to hit retail, but will go to system vendors instead. Samsung declined to comment on the pricing of these new drives - which would be interesting to know since we know that Intel charges $595 for its 80 GB models and some PC vendors resell those drives for at least $700.

deal fail ; microsoft need to go on...

Steven A. Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, told shareholders on Wednesday that the company was no longer interested in acquiring Yahoo, setting off a 21 percent decline in Yahoo’s share price.

“We’ve moved on,” Mr. Ballmer said.

He reiterated that a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo in the Internet search market was an “an interesting possibility.” There are currently no talks about such an agreement, he said.

Mr. Ballmer’s stance may force Yahoo’s next chief executive to find another way to revive the company’s profit, which declined in 10 of the last 11 quarters as sales growth stalled. Yahoo’s chief executive, Jerry Yang, who spurned Microsoft bids of as much as $47.5 billion this year, announced plans two days ago to step down.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., fell $2.41, or 21 percent, to $9.14 a share. The shares, down 61 percent this year, are trading at their lowest price since February 2003. The shares rose 12 percent the day after Mr. Yang announced his decision as investors bet that Microsoft would reopen talks.

Microsoft offered as much as $33 a share for Yahoo in an effort to increase its share of Internet searches and close the gap with Google in online advertising.

Stock in Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., fell $1.33, or 6.8 percent, to close at $18.29 a share. Mr. Yang, who will step down when his replacement is found, has said he is open to new talks.