Steve Jobs admits to “hormone imbalance”

The Apple leader puts a stop to rumours surrounding his health, with late spring marked as a date for a full recovery.

By Asavin Wattanajantra, 5 Jan 2009 at 15:09

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has moved to stop rumours of him being on his “deathbed”, with a personal message revealing the state of his health in the past year.

Fears about Jobs’ health were sparked after it was revealed that he was not going to deliver his traditional yearly speech at Macworld, with Philip Schiller of worldwide product marketing taking his place.

The letter released today revealed that it was only recently that Jobs has found out the reason why he has been losing weight throughout 2008.

Jobs said: “My doctors think they have found the cause - a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for the problem was said to be simple and straightforward, with Jobs already beginning treatment. It is expected that Jobs will return to his proper weight and regain body mass by late spring.

Jobs said that he would continue as chief executive throughout the recovery, ending the letter with: “I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.”

The Apple Board of Directors said that the company was glad to have Jobs as its leader, adding that he had the company's full support.

It said: “If there ever comes a day when Steve wants to retire or for other reasons cannot continue to fulfil his duties as Apple’s chief executive, you will know it.

"Apple is very lucky to have Steve as its leader and CEO, and he deserves our complete and unwavering support during his recuperation. He most certainly has that from Apple and its Board."

source : www.itpro.co.uk

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Summarizing the Death Throes of 2008 Part. 1

by John C. Dvorak

You can be certain that everyone will blame the economy for the horrible end-of-year retail sales of tech products. But perhaps they should blame tech itself for doing so little to excite the public. Even Steve Jobs is bailing out of the Macworld keynote; as far as I can tell, he's got nothing exciting to show.


Tech is the tail that wags the economic dog, in case you haven't noticed. When something big is going on in tech—such as dotcom mania in the late 1990s—then everything heats up. Right now there's virtually nothing going on in tech except minutiae. Let's examine the problem.



First of all, the newest technologies have not been well promoted. Promotion has always been the key to tech. For example, name the top ten new technologies that were developed last year. Better yet, just name five. Nothing?

Why can't you name them? It's probably because they weren't reported except in EE Times and a few scattered Web sites. Whose fault is that? Well, in the olden days, you could probably blame the media for not doing its job, but those days are over. The media has been decimated, and informational sources are now so incredibly scattered that it's impossible for the media to do its job without help from industry.

And industry has dropped the ball. It's not helping anyone.

The media is trying to keep up. The PCMag.com home page is cluttered with information and reviews. But out of the smoke screen of information you still cannot tell me the five most interesting technologies that developed or emerged last year.

What's missing is the buzz that used to be generated, mainly utilizing a complex mechanism that no longer exists due to neglect—the computer magazine.

Source : http://www.pcmag.com

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