Mariners in the Far East
The Japanese love technology, and they love the Seattle Mariners. Now, Amazon.com and Major League Baseball are using technology to pump up the teams presence in Japan.
Amazon last week launched the Seattle Mariners Store at its Japanese site, complete with products, CDs, videos and DVDs, all related to the Mariners, who own the best record in baseball. Of special interest at the site—all of which is in Japanese—are items related to two Japanese players starring for the team, outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki.
In addition, MLB.com last week launched live Japanese audio Webcasts of Mariners home games.
Coders Will Vie Head-To-Head
So you think youre a top-rate programmer? Starting next month, you can see how you fare against your peers.
TopCoder, a company that hosts weekly programming competitions on its Web site, will hold its Invitational Programming Tournament this fall, which brings with it $250,000 in prize money, including $100,000 for the winner. The tournament, which begins Sept. 12, will bring together 256 of the highest-ranked TopCoder members. A series of online elimination rounds will whittle the field to 16, who will compete for the final prize money Nov. 2-3 at Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Connecticut.
Competitors will be asked to write solutions to algorithmic problems in either C++ or Java and will be judged on speed, accuracy and the ability to write code under pressure.
Google Names Schmidt CEO
Eric Schmidts move from Novell to Google is complete. In March, Schmidt, while still CEO at Novell, was appointed chairman of Googles board of directors. Last week, Schmidt was named CEO of the popular search site, soon after leaving the same post at Novell.
Schmidt remains chairman of Novells board.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were named presidents of products and technology, respectively.