Cairn confirms Greenland oil find
• Cairn says well has found gas and oil-bearing sands in Arctic
• Greenpeace ship already in area protesting against drilling
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 August 2010 09.06 BST
- Article history
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has already been in confrontation with a Danish warship enforcing a 500-metre exclusion zone around Cairn Energy's wells Photograph: Will Rose/AFP/Getty Images
Cairn Energy has confirmed that it has discovered gas and oil-bearing sands off the coast of Greenland in a move that will heighten fears of environmental campaigners that the Arctic is set to become the scene of the world's last great dash for oil.
Greenpeace's ship Esperanza is already in the area, protesting against the actions of Cairn Energy, the first company permitted to drill for oil in the sensitive environment. Earlier this week it was challenged by a Danish warship whose captain is enforcing a 500-metre exclusion zone around the two wells.
Environmental campaigners fear that drilling in the previously untouched Arctic area raises the risk of an environmental disaster on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil industry, however, will welcome Cairn Energy's announcement as confirming their suspicions that the Arctic harbours one of the world's last remaining major reserves of oil.
In a statement accompanying its half-year results, Cairn Energy said one of its two exploration wells in Baffin Bay, which is of a similar scale to the North Sea, has found "gas in thin sands" which "is indicative of an active hydrocarbon system". The well in question – T8-1 – has not yet reached its target depth. Cairn Energy has plans for four wells in its current drilling programme. The company is also carrying out 10,000 kilometres-worth of seismic surveying.
"I am encouraged that we have early indications of a working hydrocarbon system with our first well in Greenland," said chief executive Sir Bill Gammell, "confirming our belief in the exploration potential. We look forward to assessing the results of the remainder of the 2010 drilling programme."
Cairn announced the discovery alongside news that revenues in the six months to end June rose 311% to $333m (£216m) and the company swung from a $15m loss last year to a profit of $94m.
Cairn last week announced plans to sell its 51% stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Resources for £5bn in order to help fund its exploration in Greenland. Three Indian government-owned firms, however, are reported to be interested in making rival offers for the stake.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Cairn confirms Greenland oil find | Business | guardian.co.uk
Revealed: how vitamin D can protect us from cancer - Science, News - The Independent
Revealed: how vitamin D can protect us from cancer
Scientists discover how substance controls actions of genes
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Vitamin D protects the body against a range of serious illnesses by binding to the DNA of the body's cells and directly controlling the genes implicated in diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and cancer, a study suggests.
It is the first time that scientists have found direct evidence to suggest that the "sunshine vitamin", which is made by the skin in the presence of sunlight, directly controls a network of genes linked with a wide variety of serious disorders.
Although previous studies have linked vitamin D deficiency with a growing list of illnesses, especially the autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type-1 diabetes, until now scientists have not been able to show how it could trigger so many different disorders.
The latest study suggests a possible mechanism by showing that vitamin D binds directly to parts of the human genome that house the genes known to be linked with these serious autoimmune disorders, which result from a person's immune system attacking the body's own tissues.
"A surprisingly large number of genes that have been highlighted by gene-associated studies in autoimmunity and cancer seem to be regulated by vitamin D," said Professor George Ebers, a clinical neurologist at the Radcliffe hospital in Oxford.
"This is indirect, but intriguing evidence that vitamin D will prove to be a major player in the key gene-environment interactions that expose us to diseases," Professor Ebers said.
It is estimated that a billion people in the world could be suffering from deficiencies in vitamin D, which can be ingested in the diet in small amounts but is primarily produced by the skin when exposed to direct sunlight, so the findings could have major health implications for people living in northern latitudes with low levels of sunlight.
The researchers, funded by the Wellcome Trust, analysed human cells that had been stimulated by the active form of vitamin D. They found that the vitamin D receptor protein bonded to a total of 2,776 sites along the DNA of the genome. They also found that the vitamin had a significant effect on altering the activity of 229 genes located near to these sites.
"We screened the whole genome and found all the sites where vitamin D binds. The evidence is now quite solid that not only is there binding but we've been able to show that it actually affects the functioning of the gene. It's not just sticking to that region, it's actually altering gene expression," Professor Ebers said.
"We show there's an excess of genes that are associated with a bunch of autoimmune conditions that seem to have the vitamin D regulation feature. I don't think we can say [this is] cause and effect, but it's not a coincidence. It is clearly not there by chance. There's a very substantial bias among these genes that have been highlighted as playing a role in these autoimmune conditions, and that have turned out to be regulated by vitamin D," he explained.
If the study, published in the journal Genome Research, is supported by further research it could explain why vitamin D plays such an important role in a wide spectrum of diseases and why people who are native to northern latitudes have over many generations evolved a white skin, which absorbs sunlight more efficiently than darker skin.
"Vitamin D status is potentially one of the most powerful selective pressures on the genome in relatively recent times. Our study appears to support this interpretation and it may be we have not had enough time to make all the adaptations we have needed to cope with our northern circumstances," Professor Ebers said.
Sreeram Ramagopalan, of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University, said the findings suggest vitamin D supplements may be important. "Vitamin D supplements during pregnancy and the early years could have a beneficial effect on a child's health in later life," he said.
Three ways to get your fix
*Vitamin D is produced naturally by the skin but only in the presence of sunlight. Sunshine contains ultraviolet light B (UVB) which converts a ubiquitious precursor substance in the skin, called 7-dehydrocholesterol, into vitamin D3. This can then be converted by the liver and kidneys into the biologically active form of vitamin D.
The vitamin is also present in relatively high amounts in fish and shellfish, and in lower amounts in eggs and dairy produce. By far the easiest and best way of delivering enough vitamin D to the body is to expose unprotected skin to direct sunlight for a few minutes each day. But light-skinned people are advised not to burn their skin.
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enlargeWednesday, August 25, 2010
Free Phonecall Integration on Its Way to Gmail?
Free Phonecall Integration on Its Way to Gmail?
Tech news site CNET reports that Google is testing voice calling directly inside Gmail, with free calls to the U.S. and Canada and very cheap international calls. Google hasn't confirmed anything, but CNET's screenshots (like the one above) look pretty convincing. The article also says its unclear whether the new feature would act as an extension of Google Voice (the popular one-number-to-rule-them-all service) or as a completely separate entity. The meaty part:
The user interfaces appear the same—for example, the same icons are used to label missed calls or placed calls—but Google Voice is not a VoIP service. Users of the new chat/phone call service aren't required to have a Google Voice account, and calls placed to U.S. or Canadian numbers will be free, with discounts on international calls as compared to standard rates.
Either way, all we can say is, "Yes, please." [CNET]
Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.
How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It) | Copyblogger
How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online
(And Make Money Doing It)by · 47 Comments
Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these.
Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money.
Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money.
Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task.
Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did.
How to make “not getting paid” pay off
I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike.
See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company).
To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing.
Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into.
It works like this:
Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff.
Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing.
Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients.
- Information products? Yep.
- Software and services of all kinds? Yep.
- Hats? Maybe.
Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot.
Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything.
This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course.
I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?”
Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy
And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google.
When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment.
You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free.
About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is apparently a writer or something and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions. If you’d like personal help on getting paid to write for free, he’s got you covered.
iWon News - Court: Calif. preacher can sue ABC for defamation
Court: Calif. preacher can sue ABC for defamation
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By PAUL ELIASAug 24, 5:53 PM (ET)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a televangelist's defamation lawsuit claiming ABC's "20/20" news program used a fictionalized sermon portraying himself as a wealthy braggart out of context.
A trial court judge had earlier tossed out the lawsuit filed by the Rev. Frederick Price, ruling that the video apparently showing the founder of the Crenshaw Christian Center boast about his wealth didn't leave the audience with the wrong impression of the preacher: Price is wealthy and he does boast, going as far as calling himself a "prophet of prosperity."
But the problem for ABC is that the clip of Price it aired was actually a sermon on greed in which the preacher slips into the role of a fictional character who is wealthy but unhappy.
"I live in a 25-room mansion," television viewers saw Price preach. "I have my own $6 million yacht. I have my own private jet, and I have my own helicopter, and I have seven luxury automobiles."
Because none of that was true but was presented as fact, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the trial court to reconsider the lawsuit and determine whether Price suffered any harm to his reputation because of the clip.
Court records show that Price owns an 8,000 square-foot house worth $4.6 million, drives a Rolls Royce, wears an $8,500 watch and travels the world in a Gulfstream jet owned by the church, which he describes as a $40 million operation.
The appeals court noted that many defamation and libel lawsuits prompted by erroneous reporting are dismissed because the subject matter, taken as a whole, turns out to be "substantially true" and doesn't portray the subject falsely. But the analysis changes dramatically when a subject's direct quotations are altered, the appeals court said.
Altering a quote or airing the Price clip out of context automatically makes the passage false, the court said. The "20/20" report said Price was boasting about his wealth, when in fact he was delivering a sermon on greed and did not mention his personal wealth.
The court said there is nothing "substantially true" about the claim made by "20/20."
"Where the published quotation contains a material alteration of the meaning conveyed by the speaker, the published quotation is false," Judge Mary Schroeder wrote for panel. "Here, the context in which Price's words were presented materially changed the words' meaning."
ABC later apologized on-air for using the clip out of context.
ABC senior vice president Jeffrey W. Schneider said the Walt Disney Co.-owned network would prevail in the trial court.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Genetic Modified Foods and Senate Bill S510
Genetic Modified Foods - Senate Bill S510
If you are what you eat, we are all in deep trouble. What constitutes healthy food is a debate that can encompass different viewpoints. In spite of this, control of the food chain is a concern that crosses all ideological perspectives. The most essential of all human rights is the effective ability of access and ingestion of nutrients that are necessary to sustain life. Forced feeding of toxicants, as the only foodstuff available to the masses, is a true crime against humanity. Withholding safe food from the public allows for the gluttony of elites. These masters of the universe immunize themselves by hording nontoxic provisions as they ride a black horse. The Apocalypse of a food crisis is not an accident. The GMO designer cuisine is meant to supply a poisonous menu, until the final collective culling of the herd, is ready for the planet.Some background on the nature of our current food system is useful. View two separate videos by the same title Food, Inc and Food, Inc.
Food, Inc
Food, Inc.
Watch the full episode. See more NOW on PBS.
Genetically Modified Organisms are really a brave new world. The practice of patenting laboratory biological genetics provides sustenance for the horror of a Frankenstein village. Rady Ananda warns, "In the US, GMOs were secretly foisted on the public in the mid-1990s, and only now is the US Supreme Court addressing the scourge. In June, the high court upheld partial deregulation of GM alfalfa, which permits limited planting while the USDA prepares an Environmental Impact Statement. Natural and organic alfalfa supply is threatened by the very real potential of GM contamination. This would destroy the organic meat and dairy industry".Why should folks care about organic agriculture when we live in an age of chemical wonders? The Glyphosate ingredient in Roundup is a miracle remedy for those nasty weeds. So what’s the big deal? F. William Engdahl thinks there is a sinister link to the magic seeds in his book,
"Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, GMO crops and patented seeds were developed in the 1970’s with significant financial support from the pro-eugenics Rockefeller Foundation, by what were essentially chemical companies—Monsanto Chemicals, DuPont and Dow Chemicals. All three were involved in the scandal of the highly toxic Agent Orange used in Vietnam, as well as Dioxin in the 1970’s, and lied to cover up the true damage to its own employees as well as to civilian and military populations exposed.
Their patented GMO seeds were seen as a clever way to force increased purchase of their agricultural chemicals such as Roundup. Farmers must sign a legal contract with Monsanto in which it stipulates that only Monsanto Roundup pesticide may be used. Farmers are thus trapped both in buying new seeds from Monsanto each harvest and buying the toxic glyphosate".
Neil Foster in GM ‘Foods’ Now Legal, goes much further.WOW, this begins to look like these captivating seeds are meant for certain groups, while the elites take great pains to protect their own digestive systems. If one was a conspiracy nut, you might think there is an "end of the world" plan aimed at the marginal consuming feeders that pollute the atmosphere with their excess CO2 discharges. It sure is reassuring that preparations are under way to harbor a renewal kick-start if these GMO seeds mutate into neuter germination mode. The cold storage hibernation of a "Doomsday Seed Vault" must be the insurance that protects any good farmer who plows their back forty."The likes of Monsanto can well afford to take on any government in a legal challenge because they have more than enough resources to do so whereas governments, particularly in the current and what will be increasingly dire financial circumstances, will have no possibility of stopping these masters of genocide getting their evil ways.
Let’s be clear here, GM foods modify YOU! They have been PROVEN to cause numerous non-fatal and FATAL diseases including various forms of CANCER and of course the favourite effect on human beings of these perpetrators of eugenics – STERILITY!
I doubt people reading this are aware of the FACT that even the staff at Monsanto’s own factories refuse to eat their own products. It is also a fact that the British Parliament, The US Congress, The German Parliament and I’m sure the EU Parliament and others DO NOT eat this garbage."
"In Svalbard, the future world’s most secure seed repository will be guarded by the policemen of the GMO Green Revolution--the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, Syngenta, DuPont and CGIAR. Plant breeders and researchers are the major users of gene banks. Today’s largest plant breeders are Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow Chemical, the global plant-patenting GMO giants. Since early in 2007 Monsanto holds world patent rights together with the United States Government for plant so-called ‘Terminator’ or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). Terminator is an ominous technology by which a patented commercial seed commits ‘suicide’ after one harvest. Control by private seed companies is total".
Don’t worry, food is cheap and only the most backward starve in a world of plenty. Don’t give it a second thought, "suicide seeds" can be hedged with a Goldman Sachs derivative. Have faith, science will keep the food wagon rolling with genetic modification and nanotechnology. "Artificial meat grown in vats may be needed if the 9 billion people expected to be alive in 2050 are to be adequately fed without destroying the earth, some of the world's leading scientists report today". See, seeds are not necessary when you can grow Filet Mignon in a test tube.
Monsanto The Genetic Conspiracy
FoodWars Police Raid Organic Foods NWO Mafia Codex Alimentarius Depopulation Agenda Transdehumanism
If you still have doubts, these two YouTube’s will charm your pallet and calm your stomach - Monsanto The Genetic Conspiracy and FoodWars Police Raid Organic Foods NWO Mafia Codex Alimentarius Depopulation Agenda Transdehumanism.Looks like folks need to clear off their "green thumbs" and start their own victory gardens. In the global gulag, common sense solutions usually meet with preemptive resistance. You can depend on the overseers to interject a government paradigm to keep their hand in the corporate agriculture friendly environment. The summary of S. 510: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, ensures that a factory "Animal Farm" is on the horizon for your local area.
Food Freedom warns about the consequences from this bill.1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency.
2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security.
3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.”
4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food.
5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security.
6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals.
7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.
8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy.
9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs.
10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control.The final conclusion: “It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review”.
Who benefits from such legislation? How can this kind of government intrusion advance and protect a reliable and safe food supply?The answer to the first question is obvious. Natural Solutions Foundation provides the argument. "The Uber-Cartel, Big Pharma, Big Agribiz, Big Chema, Big Biotech and Big Medica, which are all the same industry, at base, is planning to take away the right of speech questioning or criticizing GMO food in India, just as the FDA has tried so hard to take away our right to know what food and food components can do for us, gagging free speech. What happens in one country will be globalized rapidly. Devious and dangerous laws and regulations are typically enacted in a vulnerable country, then quickly globalized rapidly to "HARMonize" through the WTO, WHO, UN and other unelected non-representational bodies whose policies are set by the Uber-Cartel, not by us".The second query is even clearer. S. 510 will destroy farming, our most basic of all endeavors. Begging government for crumbs is your future unless you defy such a blatant attack on your human right to feed yourself. Isn’t this the ultimate non-partisan united undertaking imaginable? Only a crazed elite committed to killing off the masses could defend a GMO malnourishment system.
SARTRE – August 22, 2010
“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.”
Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower
iWon News - Recession hits smart-phone makers in the chips
By PETER SVENSSON
NEW YORK (AP) - The seemingly recession-proof smart phone is suffering from a side effect of the rough economy: Manufacturers simply can't build enough of the gadgets because chip-makers that rolled back production last year are now scrambling to play catch-up.
The chip shortage means Apple Inc.'s rivals are having trouble making enough phones to compete with the iPhone, a problem expected to persist through the holidays. It's also affecting wireless carriers, some of which are seeing delays in improving their networks, and it could even raise computer prices.
There isn't an across-the-board shortage of chips, but rather problems with certain components here and there. If just one of the 20 to 30 critical chips that go into a smart phone is unavailable, the whole production line screeches to a halt.
Sprint Nextel Corp., for instance, couldn't satisfy demand for HTC Corp.'s EVO 4G, the first phone to use a faster "4G" network, in parts of the country. Motorola Inc. said shortages of a wide range of chips, from memory to camera sensors to touch-screen controllers, are contributing to problems supplying enough of the new Droid X phones to Verizon Wireless. The carrier's online store reports a two-week wait for shipping orders.
The chips that go into smart phones compete for production capacity with other chips at the gigantic factories run by contract manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp. Makers of a vast array of electronics, from TVs to data center switches, also depend on the factories.
The chip-making industry had a tough start to 2009. February sales were only $14.2 billion, down 30 percent from the year before, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
Although sales sprang back later in the year, manufacturers were spooked and reined in investment in chip factories. Capital spending plunged 41 percent to $25.9 billion in 2009, after dropping 31 percent the year before, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Total chip production capacity shrank.
Now the factories are having trouble scaling up production fast enough. The chip factories, or "foundries," are running at 96 percent capacity, up from 56 percent at the depth of the recession, according to the SIA.
"The semiconductor guys are really continuing to operate on all cylinders," said Linley Gwennap, president of research firm The Linley Group.
Gartner predicts worldwide investment in the chip industry zooming 84 percent this year to $47.5 billion. That forecast is up from March, when it looked for a 56 percent increase.
While investment is recovering, it takes months to set up new production lines and upgrade existing ones. That's why executives see shortages lasting until next year. Gwennap also sees caution in the industry because the global economic recovery is starting to look quite tentative.
"Even where companies are facing shortages, they're saying 'Nah, I'm not sure I want to invest right now, because demand could turn down any minute.' That makes for a very difficult environment," he said. "In normal times, companies would be hiring, investing in more equipment and factories and trying to increase supply, but these aren't normal times."
Though consumers may have to wait for new phones, they're unlikely to notice price increases. Phone prices are heavily subsidized by carriers, and competition in the industry means it's likely someone in the supply chain will absorb higher prices for the chips.
However, research firm iSuppli warns that prices for PCs could rise this year because of short supplies of memory chips. The prices for these commodity chips are highly volatile. Smaller memory-chip manufacturers need to replace factory equipment, and tool suppliers are struggling to keep up, iSuppli said.
Makers of computer and phone networking equipment were the first to report problems this spring. They continue to face constraints, which means trouble for U.S. wireless carriers that are struggling to increase network capacity to cope with data traffic from the iPhone and other smart phones.
Alcatel-Lucent and LM Ericsson AB, the two largest makers of equipment for U.S. phone companies, have both reported problems making deliveries. They're both suppliers to AT&T Inc., which has complained that it can't beef up its wireless data network as fast as it would like, as it's trying to deal with traffic from the iPhone.
Computer networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. is also feeling the pinch and expects problems to continue through the year.
"We continue to see challenges in procurement of components this quarter," Cisco CEO John Chambers said recently. "Supplier lead times now appear to have stabilized, but are still longer than we would like."
Apple is an exception. Although the company can't keep the iPad and iPhone 4 in stock, it blames that on demand outstripping assembly line capacity, not on problems procuring the right chips.
That may be partly "dumb luck" on Apple's part, Gwennap said, but it could also be a case of it being "good to be the king."
"As a chip supplier, you're going to service your best customers first," he said. "If my choice is to try to make Apple happy or some smaller customer of mine, I might take all of my supply and give it to Apple."
---
AP Business Writer Annie Huang in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.