Wiper, no wiping!

Forbes magazine printed its list of the billionaires in the year 2013. Royal family members and dictators were not included. Two-hundred and ten new billionaires reached that zenith since 2012. Worldwide there are 1,426 billionaires with a record net worth of $5.4 trillion — up from $4.6 trillion in 2012. Bill Gates is the richest American billionaire and second-most wealthy in the world, with a net worth of $67 billion. That is up $6 billion in one year. As of 2008 there were 10 million people around the globe who were classified as U.S. dollar millionaires. The number in the U.S. as of 2012 was 5,231,000. Realise that mathematically a million is one thousand thousands and a billion is one thousand millions. Bill Gates’ haul is 67 thousand thousand thousand dollar bills. The United States has a population of 316-plus million people. About two-thirds of that total are adults (age 18 and older). That would be about 212 million adults. If we separate the American millionaires from that total, it would leave 206 million American adults who are not millionaires. Let’s pretend Bill Gates was to magnanimously give all 206 million adult American non-millionaires a million each. As a percentage of his one year’s income, that would amount to 3.4 percent. As a percentage of his total wealth, that would represent only 0.3 percent. It could happen, but rich people being who they are, I wouldn't count on it. What is happening, however, is that a German security company has uncovered a bug in the new iPhone's software that it said enables hackers to overcome a safeguard allowing users to remotely wipe stolen or lost phones. Berlin's Security Research Labs, known as SRL, said yesterday that the vulnerability could potentially give criminals time to break into the Apple phones, gain complete control of data, access email accounts, and then potentially take over the user's bank accounts. The research firm also said it has figured out an easier way to crack the iPhone fingerprint scanner than has been demonstrated thus far. It published a video demonstrating the newly discovered flaws on its website.