America’s Most Profitable company per employee makes your phone work—and it’s not Apple

By Christopher Mims

What InterDigital makes: an illustration from its patent for "Data transfer between wireless devices." United States Patent and Trademark Office

 

You’d be forgiven for not recognizing the name InterDigital, despite the fact that it has been around since 1972 and developed many of the technologies that are critical to our increasingly mobile, wireless world. As a result, per employee, InterDigital is the most profitable company in the US, with a net income of $937,255 per worker, according to Bloomberg’s just-released visual compendium of data. And the only thing InterDigital produces is designs for new technology—and the occasional lawsuit.

But whatever you do, don’t call InterDigital a patent troll—CEO William Merritt hates that term. And it’s admittedly not a fair label for InterDigital, in contrast to firms that merely buy up patents in order to then sue other people over them. Like ARM, the Cambridge, UK-based company that designs the chips that are in practically every mobile device on the planet, InterDigital does not manufacture anything itself. Yet the company employs more than 200 engineers who have collectively helped InterDigital amass a trove of patents that could be worth billions. InterDigital also creates working prototypes of all of its technologies, in order to demonstrate them to industry partners like Alcatel-Lucent, who later incorporate them into their products.

InterDigital isn’t shy about both licensing the technology it develops and selling it outright. In 2012, InterDigital sold 1,700 patents to Intel for $375 million, which led InterDigital’s stock to surge 27% in a single day as the markets speculated that the rest of the company’s patent portfolio might be equally valuable. In 2011, the company’s stock shot up 70% when its leaders announced the company would be for sale, and rumors circulated that Apple and Google would bid on it, in an attempt to lock up InterDigital’s intellectual property. (InterDigital’s attempt to sell itself ended in January 2012, when the company opted to license its IP instead.)

Using that patent portfolio in court cases appears to be as important to InterDigital as licensing its technology to mobile companies—you might call it the carrot (develop new wireless standards and technology) and stick (sue anyone who violates your intellectual property) approach to innovation. Presently, InterDigital is suing Nokia, Huawei and ZTE for violation of its patents, seeking a ban on import of their products. However, the company’s case may have weakened, and its stock has declined, after another patent case—this one by Samsung against Apple—came to naught when president Barack Obama vetoed an import ban on older Apple products.

InterDigital’s job pages reflect the company’s dual nature. They include openings for both hardware engineers and patent managers. While the company has yet to sell itself, its per-employee revenue suggests that the only thing more profitable than either inventing or suing is doing both at the same time.

In Mizoram, A PRISM Of Hope Against Corruption

By Prasanta Mazumdar 

Almost 7 decades ago, Mumbai's fishermen took up arms for Independence; now Mizo youth wage their battle — for freedom from corruption.

When some young Mizos formed ‘PRISM’ seeking freedom for all from corruption, many thought they were only wasting their time and energy.

Seven years down the line, the Peoples’ Right to Information and Development Implementing Society of Mizoram (Prism) today stands out amidst groups spearheading the fight against corruption. It has made people to believe that no one, how powerful he or she could be, can escape the long hand of law.

By using the Right to Information, Prism pinned down the corrupt, due to which 62 government employees lost their jobs, one was jailed and five placed under suspension.
Today, Prism has grown enough to be a nemesis of corrupt government officials and politicians.

“Prism started its humble journey in 2006 when some like-minded youth came together to discuss issues such as corruption in government establishments, failure of the system at all levels, deprivation of the poor and needy, etc,” said Prism president Vanlalruata.

Initially, he said, Prism was entirely dependent on the RTI  in their crusade against corruption. But soon, it hit upon the unique idea of “eiru thlan bawm”, which is a kind of secret public balloting to zero in on the corrupt.

Vanlalruata explained: “It’s very simple. Prism encourages people to write the names of individuals, who they believe are corrupt, with specific charges. Papers containing the names are then dropped inside ‘eiru bawm’ (corruption ballot box) installed in Aizawl.”

When the boxes are opened at a public meeting, charges against the individuals are scrutinised for veracity and processed for filing of FIR. Alongside, the RTI is used to extract more information about those named by people as corrupt.

“Corruption is a serious problem in Mizoram. Nothing impedes development like corruption. We believe the ‘eiru thlan bawm’ model would help curb the menace significantly,” said Vanlalruata.

Prism does everything possible to help people get justice and basic human rights. At the various seminars which it organises, people are made aware of their rights. As a result, today they are not afraid of raising their voice against injustice. “What inspires us most is to see people starting to believe that even the mighty and powers-that-be are not above law,” added Vanlalruata.

Mizoram-HPC-D Talks Fail

Mizoram Govt beefs up security

Aizawl, Aug 15 : The talks between the Mizoram government and the militant Hmar Peoples Convention (Democratic) fell through today, bringing the six-month-long suspension of operations with the group to an end.

The government upgraded security in the state after the talks failed.

“Since we could not agree on anything, it means that the suspension of operations with the HPC (D) is not likely to be extended,” Lalbiakzama, joint secretary in the home department, told The Telegraph after the talks ended this evening.

The agreement, whereby the state government agreed to suspend operations against the HPC (D) for six months, came to an end on July 31.

Lalbiakzama said there were several issues but they failed to come to an agreement on any one, leaving little room for further negotiations. However, the ultimate decision will be made by the higher authorities, he added.

Today’s parleys were scheduled to give the two parties one more chance to reach a resolution after the July 18 meeting impasse.

The HPC (D) wants recognition for the Hmar community as a “tribe with autonomy” in the three states of Assam, Manipur and Mizoram. It wants the areas in northeastern Mizoram, bordering Manipur, to be notified as an autonomous council under the Sixth Schedule.

The HPC (D) had walked out of the memorandum of settlement signed between the state government and the HPC on July 27, 1994, alleging that some of its major clauses remained unimplemented. The HPC (D) said the Sinlung Hills Development Council, which was created under the MoU, had become nothing but a political instrument.

Since then the HPC (D) has been waging an armed struggle for creation of an Hmar autonomous council in Mizoram.

Many people have died in the struggle since 1994, including fratricidal killings among splinter groups.

The campaign is going on at a slower pace in Manipur and Assam.

Observers said the HPC (D)’s struggle is more a case of political expression of a marginalised population rather than based on real ethnic differences as Hmars are part and parcel of the Mizo or Zo group of tribes with slight variations.

The Mizoram government delegation was led by local area development secretary B. Lalhmingthanga. The other delegates, besides Lalbiakzama, were superintendent of police, CID (special branch), Ramthlengliana, additional deputy commissioner of Aizawl district, Lalchungnunga, deputy secretary (home), Lalhriatpuia, OSD (home), David H. Lalthangliana and inspector (interpretor) Laltanpuia Sailo.

The HPC (D) delegation comprised its working chairman L.T. Hmar, as well as members Lalchhanhima, Lalthalien, Joseph R. Hmar, Lalmuanpuia Punte, Rohringa and Lalremruata Varte.

Junk Band Boomarang Wants To Work with Vishal Dadlani

‘Aizawl’, ‘Mizoram’ are not names that one would be familiar with unless you’re a fan of home-grown blues and rock music. Boomarang, a four member band from Aizawl, Mizoram in the north eastern region of  India, has come a long way since covering angst ridden American band Rage Against the Machine’s numbers and playing their first gigs (including the Great Indian Rock- GIR) in 2007.

Today the quartet, which plays ‘JUNK’ rock (a blend of Jazz, Funk and Punk music), and considered one of the country’s best rock outfits, is on the verge of hitting big time. Their single ‘Home’ from Luke Kenny’s ‘Rise of the Zombies’ has been well-received. Radioandmusic.com caught up with vocalist Atea for a free-wheeling chat about the band, their philosophy and healthy disregard for Bollywood music.

Excerpts:
A little about the genesis of your band- members/ music influences and style
We are a four-member band- PB Lianmawia (Atea) on vocals, Lalruatliana Hangsing (Boom) on the guitar, Joshua Zoramliana who plays bass and  Rosangliana (R.S.)  on the drums.
We first started out covering Rage Against The Machine at a small gig in our home town, Aizawl, back in 2005. What was thought to be just a bunch of guys jamming some of their favorite covers quickly discovered their potential as a band. We started out writing and playing our own music and soon won several competitions and awards.

Our sound is a mixture of some of the greatest elements of music ranging from Jazz to Punk, Blues to Metal, Reggae to Funk, etc. called, “JUNK” since it’s basically a blend of Jazz, Funk and Punk. Anyone who loves music can always relate to the unique diversity in the sound of Boomarang.

How has the going been since Boomarang came into being?
We first launched an EP called, ‘Rhythm Of A Revolution’ back in 2005. We had released some few special edition CDs for some promotional uses. Our first album (a self titled album which we always wanted to launch ever since the band started) is expected to come out soon this year.

We always thought that we're doing this band on part-times but we never really had time to do anything else. Ever since we played GIR 2007 in Delhi, gigs and shows never really stopped coming. We're not that busy a band, but we have been traveling reasonably often. So, I guess Boomarang can be considered as a full-time band.

Fast Forward to 2013:  How was your experience working in  ‘Rise of the Zombies’? Is this your first project with a film?

We were stunned to learn that one of our latest songs, ‘Home’ was picked for a film by Luke Kenny. ‘Rise of the Zombie’ is a very interesting film; it is fresh, original and very different from any of the Indian films ever made. We were always hoping for a film like this to come out. We are truly honored to be a part of this project.

Zombie is our second project with a film, our song ‘Stellar’ was also used in a South Indian film, a couple of years ago.

What was the brief for the background music/ song- Rise of the Zombies?
Luke Kenny is always taking steps towards promoting independent Indian films and music. The band had met Luke a couple of gigs before 'Rise of the Zombie' was made. He had seen and heard us play a couple of times and I guess he liked the song from those events. Our part of the project was simple: Home was a song we've already written and we were asked to put the song in the film.

Do you think the Indian audience is more open/receptive to independent music- beyond Bollywood music?
We are not a very big fan of the whole Bollywood scene, so we don't have much of an idea, but it is kind of obvious the majority of the Indian audience is inclined towards Bollywood music.
The North east has strong musical roots, it is usually limited to the region. Do you think there is a need to expand the region’s musical reach to a larger audience?

The North east has a rich taste in both Western music and original roots as well. We need some means to reach a larger audience.

How open would artists be to incorporate ‘Indian’ sounds and styles?
A Fusion of Indian Classical Music with some Western Electro/Funk/Rock etc. is always very classy and interesting. But the typical Bollywood style of pop flavored, dance with lame English lyrics is always a failure.

Any similar projects in the pipeline?
No film projects are currently in our list. But our long awaited ‘First Album’ is soon to come out.

Given a chance, would your band be game to compose/ perform a Bollywood item song? Any artist/ composer you’d like to work with?

If we were to cover a Bollywood song in Bollywood style the answer is a Big NO!
If we were asked to write/compose a song for a Bollywood movie in our own style, the answer is YES! Pentagram's Vishal (Dadlani) would be very interesting to work with.

Inside Walls That Talk

By UDHADITYA BHATTACHARYA



Writer Aruni Kashyap talks about his debut novel, and the burden of representing Assam

In a Ted Talk delivered in 2009, the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie talked about “the danger of a single story”. “Show a people as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become,” she said. Everyone is susceptible to the single story. The mainland understanding of Assam and the rest of North-East, ridden with stereotypes, is reflective of this. If there is a corrective to the danger of a single story, it lies in narrating many more stories. Aruni Kashyap’s debut novel “The House with a Thousand Stories” takes its name from the experience of joint families, where one is constantly surrounded by stories. But it is tempting to read it in light of Adichie’s statement.

The novel, set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is narrated by its protagonist Pablo over two visits, first for a funeral and then a wedding, to his ancestral family house in Mayong in rural Assam. The shadow of insurgency hangs over these rituals like a lurid rumour. On these visits he discovers many things, about his forbidding aunt, secretive cousin and himself. Excerpts from an e-mail interview:

Can you talk about the origins of your novel? It seems to have been anticipated in a poem you wrote earlier, which also talks about an L-shaped house with a thousand novels.

Actually, The House With a Thousand Stories was born from a short story. I wanted to write a story about a seventeen-year-old boy called Pablo who would visit his ancestral village to attend his aunt’s wedding and fall in love; I'd titled the story 'Country Wedding', a horrible title, if you ask me now...

After I wrote about 10,000 words, I realised it deserved to be a novel, not a short story, not a novella. This decision created a new challenge for me because I had a different ending in mind for the purpose of a short story and since I can’t write fiction without knowing the closure, I had to halt the writing for many weeks until the closure arrived. After that it was very easy because everything sort of happened on its own. I just had to turn up at my desk every morning. As if Pablo stood by me and dictated the whole book to me. I am just Pablo’s stenographer.

How did you go about creating the character of Pablo? Why did you call him that and why was it necessary for him to belong to urban Assam?

I wish I could explain why Pablo is called ‘Pablo’ and why he belongs to Guwahati, not Jokaisuk. When I ‘saw’ this young, seventeen-year-old Lee Cooper jeans-clad boy standing in front of me, eager to tell me about his doomed first love, he started telling me the story only after I called him by the right name. I called him Dhonti, he didn’t turn back. I called him Noyonmoni, he remained quite. But when I called him Pablo, he turned to face me with a smile on his face. There are many things in writing that are beyond your control. All you need to do is turn up at your desk and let it happen. Also, Pablo’s parents are west-facing. They speak in English at home, his mother wants him to enroll for his undergraduate in the United States, so on. It was natural that they wouldn’t name him Pitambor or Tonkeshwor.

You have talked about how in the past your writing tended to carry footnotes and glossaries. When and why did you decide to do away with them?

Since I write in English also, and come from a state that finds little representation in the rest of India, I am expected to take up the burden of ‘representing’ various things in my fiction. Recently, some people told me that I should have provided more details about the history of the Assam-India conflict in my book so that people who read the book learn about it. It charmed me, but at the same time, I am very sure that I don’t want my fiction to be Assam History 101. I tried to educate people through my fiction and poetry when I was younger and very immature but I have learnt that the purpose of fiction is not to teach history, politics, geography.

Which writers have you been influenced by?

Toni Morrison is the writer I have learnt the most from. I read Beloved again and again before writing this novel to learn its structure, and whenever I reached a block, I would open any page of Song of Solomon, Jazz or Sula. Indira Goswami, Amitav Ghosh, Nadine Gordimer, Garcia Marquez, William Faulkner, Ashapurna Devi are some other writers who taught me many things.

An Illegal Mountain Constructed Atop a 26-Story Residential Building in Beijing

While most property and homeowners might be lucky to erect a small fence, add a new wall, or plant a few trees without applying for a permit or checking local zoning laws, things in Bejing are apparently quite different. For the last six years an eccentric doctor built a sprawling mountain villa on the roof above his top-floor flat in this 26-story residential building, all without asking permission of residents or local authorities. The enormous addition covers the entire 1000-square-metre roof and was built using artificial rocks but with real trees and grass.

It only took six years of complaints from neighbors who suffered from the noise and vibrations of heavy construction machinery, water leaks, and other disturbances to finally get the attention of authorities who recently gave the man 15 days to remove the mountain or else it will face forcible removal.

Read more over on the South China Morning Post. (via dezeen)

How to win a tennis match without touching the ball

Fabio Fognini had a meltdown for the ages in Cincinnati.

By Chris Chase

Radek Stepanek faced off against Fabio Fognini in a first-round match at the Western & Southern Open and won the final game of the match without having to touch the ball, thanks to his fiery Italian opponent’s inability to land a serve, hit a serve without stepping over the line or react to his inability to hit a serve by angrily hitting a ball high into the stands.

Watch as Fognini hits two double faults, gets a code violation for ball abuse, which brought upon a point penalty since it was his second of the match, engages in an argument with the chair umpire for said point penalty and, in his grand finale, commits two consecutive foot faults on triple match point. The only thing he didn’t do was threaten to stuff a ball down the throat of the linesperson who called the foot fault.

Games like this often occur (well, not like this — but similar style meltdowns), but usually when the match is out of hand. Fognini had dropped the first set, yes, but he was on serve in the second and could have easily taken that set to force a decisive third. But, hey, sometimes you just have to hit a ball into an empty upper deck to make your point.

Local Burmese Chin Refugees Launch Clothing Line

The Chin Collection

The Chin Collection is a new fair trade children’s clothing line handmade by Burmese refugees in Midland.

By Ragini Venkatasubban


Flared pants, colorful skirts and tiny onesies hung on racks Sunday evening at the First Presbyterian Church as shoppers milled around, contemplating their purchases. It looked like a regular launch party for a new children's clothing line -- with one big difference.

The clothes were all part of the Chin Collection, a custom children's clothing line handcrafted by Burmese refugee women living in Midland. The four seamstresses who produced the collection escaped from their native Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in the face of religious and ethnic persecution and came to the U.S. as refugees, moving to Midland because of the abundance of jobs.
But once they settled in Midland, depression and isolation often set in, said Carrie McKean, founder of Scarlet Threads, the organization that houses the Chin Collection. The refugees received little or no support to help them process their painful memories of Myanmar and assimilate to the U.S. They worked long hours in stores such as H-E-B and Wal-Mart, thrust into a new country where many didn't even know the language.

The women needed a supplemental income and marketable skills, but most of all, they needed a way to belong to the community, McKean said. Thus launched the Chin Collection, a custom children's clothing line designed by Midlander Mellie Jordan and handmade by Du, Aye, Tum and Dawt -- four women belonging to the Chin ethnic group of Myanmar.

The four seamstresses produced the entire collection in the past three months, McKean said. Two of them had been seamstresses in Myanmar, but on old, foot-powered sewing machines, because of the lack of electricity in their villages. Midlander Lori Blong taught them how to use electric sewing machines -- and taught the other two to sew for the first time.

Dawt, who came to the U.S. in 2011, said she didn't know how to sew, but Blong made it easy to learn.

"When I start, I feel very hard," she said. "But after one day, I feel very easy."

Blong said communication was rough at first, but the sewing gave the women a break between their jobs at H-E-B and Wal-Mart, helping them build relationships with Midlanders and assimilate to the community.

The collection includes clothes for newborns to size 6, ranging from $20-$30 per piece. Jordan said they hope to employ more Burmese seamstresses and release a new collection every season.

More than making clothes, however, McKean said Scarlet Threads' purpose is to help the Burmese adjust to life in Midland. The Chin ethnic group is predominantly Christian and faced religious persecution from the Buddhist government in addition to the ongoing political turmoil in Myanmar.

Though the situation in Myanmar has now improved, there are plenty of refugees in Midland who still need help, McKean said.

When Dawt first came to Midland, she said she felt it was "boring," but after becoming involved with the Chin Collection, she said she feels "very happy."

Those interested in the Chin Collection or helping the Burmese refugees can email chincollection@scarletthreads.org.

Source: mywesttexas.com