The Wii U uses less than half the power of the Xbox 360 and the PS3

Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii prided itself for being a super energy-efficient console that ran nearly silent and sipped very little electricity. And although Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360 was originally a loud monster with a penchant for Red-Ring-of-Death-ing itself, the amount of power it consumed was never as much as Sony’s (SNE) launch PlayStation 3, which used more power than a refrigerator. Eurogamer took it upon itself to pit the Wii U against the Xbox 360 S and new super slim PS3 and concluded that Nintendo’s new console “draws so little power in comparison to its rivals that its tiny casing still feels cool to the touch during intense gaming.” Most impressive is that the Wii U maintains its low-wattage while fitting in a chassis that’s smaller than both the Xbox 360 and PS3.

According to Eurogamer’s tests, the Wii U draws only 32 watts of power during gameplay of games that are as graphically intensive as the 360 and PS3, with both consoles using 118% and 139$ % more power, respectively.

To achieve such “green” levels, Nintendo clocks the Wii U’s CPU to 1.24GHz and “uses far fewer transistors than the competition.” While there are still some mysteries as to how the hardware remains cool, Eurogamer also discovered that the AMD-built GPU increases performance by “40 per cent per square millimetre of silicon – another big leap in efficiency.”

Most disappointing in Eurogamer’s analysis is that they weren’t able to get the Wii U’s wattage to spike more than 33 watts, suggesting that the console can’t be over-clocked in the future to pump out more polygons.

If you’re still on the fence on which console you should buy or play games on, the Wii U looks to be the one that’ll keep your electric bill nice and low.

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Mother of News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch dies at 103

MELBOURNE/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, matriarch of the Murdoch media empire and mother of News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, was both an inspiration and outspoken critic of her tumultuous family and balm to some of its excesses.

A philanthropist and tireless charity worker regarded for years in her homeland as a national treasure, Murdoch died on Wednesday night at her sprawling home outside Melbourne, a city she loved for its genteel culture, aged 103.

Murdoch was a uniting force in both the community and within her family, where she would often voice concerns to her publisher son over his brand of journalism, including racy exclusives on celebrities and partisan stance on politics.

“We don’t always see eye-to-eye or agree, but we do respect each other’s opinions and I think that’s important,” she told Australian television ahead of her 100th birthday in 2009.

“I think the kind of journalism and the tremendous invasion of people’s privacy, I don’t approve of that,” she said.

Murdoch’s death comes at the end of a tumultuous year for News Corp, with the company under attack over phone hacking in Britain and amid tensions among those in line to one day replace Rupert Murdoch at the head of the company.

Harold Mitchell, a major figure in Australia‘s advertising industry who has done charity work alongside Murdoch, said Dame Elisabeth was deeply respected by her family and the community.

“I always found she was a great force in binding together many parts of the community and all people within her influence, and I’m sure she had that same affect on her family,” Mitchell told Reuters.

Equal to the zeal with which the Murdoch publishing empire has defended its news gathering methods, the far-flung Murdoch clan have also worked hard to mask their own differences, including rivalries between Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, and sons James and Lachlan, over the company’s leadership and direction.

Elisabeth, 44, a prominent television businesswoman, had been critical of her brother James’s stubbornness during the phone hacking scandal, the New Yorker magazine reported this month, while Lachlan always bristled over his father’s close supervision and left News Corp in 2005.

“He moved to Australia, and although he remains on the News Corp board, he has busied himself with his own media investments. James, the youngest, became the new heir, but he has always resented that Lachlan was their father’s favorite,” the magazine said.

FAMILY FOCUS

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, with her forthright but graceful criticism and focus on family, was always able to draw warring family members back together, including after Rupert Murdoch’s much publicized divorce of Anna Murdoch and marriage to Wendi Deng in 1999.

Murdoch, who would have been 104 in January, is survived by 77 direct descendants, including three children Anne Kantor, Janet Calvert-Jones and Rupert. Her fourth and eldest child, Helen Handbury, died in 2004.

“Throughout her life, our mother demonstrated the very best qualities of true public service,” Rupert said in a statement issued by News Ltd, the Australian arm of News Corp.

“Her energy and personal commitment made our country a more hopeful place and she will be missed by many.”

Murdoch, 82, remained close to his mother despite leading a global media empire that required him to split his time between Australia, Asia, Britain, New York, and Los Angeles, among other places.

A young Melbourne socialite, Murdoch was 19 when she married Rupert’s father, Keith, in 1928. When Keith Murdoch died in 1952, Rupert took over his father’s newspaper business and set about turning it into a global media empire.

Elisabeth Murdoch was a prominent philanthropist, serving on and forming numerous institutes that promoted medical research, the arts and social welfare, and she was a supporter of more than 100 charities and organizations.

Her work earned her civil honours in both her native Australia and Britain, and she was made a Dame in 1963 for her work with a Melbourne hospital.

She believed that charity work involved being involved with people, and was more than just giving money.

She also decried the world’s obsession with materialism and wealth at the expense of personal relationships.

“I think it’s become a rather materialistic age, that worries me. Money seems to be so enormously important and I don’t think wealth creates happiness,” she told a television interviewer.

“I think it’s personal relationships which matter. And I think there’s just a bit too much materialism and it’s not good for the young.”

While her son remains a divisive figure, Elisabeth Murdoch was widely admired in Australia and her death attracted tributes from across the political divide.

“Her example of kindness, humility and grace was constant. She was not only generous, she led others to generosity,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said as she offered condolences to the Murdoch family.

(Reporting by Adam Kerlin in New York and James Grubel and Rob Taylor in Canberra; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Health workers march in Spain’s capital against cuts, reforms

MADRID (Reuters) – Thousands of health workers, on strike since last month, marched on Sunday in Madrid to protest against budget cuts and plans from the Spanish capital’s regional government to privatize the management of public hospitals and medical centers.

It was the third time doctors, nurses and health workers have rallied since the local authorities put forward a plan in October to place six hospitals and dozens of medical practices under private management. The plan also calls for patients to be charged a fee of 1 euro for prescriptions.

Workers launched an indefinite strike last month against the plan, which has not been endorsed by the centre-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Health workers in the capital are striking Monday-Thursday each week and seeing patients only on Fridays, while also responding to emergencies.

Spain’s 17 autonomous regions control health and education policies and spending. They have all had to implement steep cuts this year as the country struggles to meet tough European Union-agreed deficit targets.

Dressed in white scrubs, the protesters shouted slogans such as “Health is not for sale” and “Health 100 percent public, no to privatizations”.

“Of course, privatization can be reversed. Actually the question is not if it can be reversed, because privatization should never have a future,” said Luis Alvarez, an unemployed man from Madrid attending the demonstration.

Belen Padilla, a doctor at Madrid’s hospital Gregorio Maranon, said one million citizens had already signed a petition rejecting the plan.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by Peter Graff)

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India’s Strange Obsession With Hitler

All that remains of the sign above the Hitler clothing store in Ahmedabad, India, is the swastika that used to dot its “i.” Citing cultural insensitivity, the municipality tore it down on Oct. 30 after the store’s owners refused to change it. Rajesh Shah, a co-owner of the shop, which opened in August, is flummoxed. “We are popular because of the name,” he says. “Our customers were not upset about the name. They said, ‘Don’t change it.’ Ahmedabadis like the name because they know Hitler [has not done] anything harmful to India.”

Lacking the sting of anti-Semitism but troubling nonetheless, the Hitler brand is gaining strength in India. Mein Kampf is a bestseller, and bossy people are often nicknamed Hitler on television and in movies.

In 2006 a cafe called Hitler’s Cross opened in Mumbai; in 2011 a pool hall named Hitler’s Den opened nearby in Nagpur. Owners of both say Hitler was a draw; the names were changed in the face of criticism from Jewish groups. (In Ahmedabad, store owner Shah says that only foreigners complained.)

Hero Hitler in Love, a Punjabi comedy about a man with an explosive temper, and the Hindi film Gandhi to Hitler, a sympathetic portrait of the dictator’s last days (Gandhi once wrote to the Führer), came out last year. A soap opera, Hitler Didi—or “big sister Hitler”—is a hit. Bal Thackeray, the leader of a far-right Hindu party who recently died, professed admiration for Hitler.

Unlike in some parts of Europe such as Russia and Austria, where Mein Kampf has been embraced by the extreme right, Hitler’s popularity in India is not the result of anti-Semitism, says Navras Jaat Aafreedi, a professor of social sciences at Gautam Buddha University in New Delhi. He says it stems from a dearth of European history classes in schools. To the extent that German history is taught, he says, it’s in the context of “the view that had Hitler not weakened the British Empire by the Second World War, the British would have never voluntarily left India.” The country’s Jewish community—some 5,300 people—is one of a few in the world to have never been persecuted by their countrymen, he says.

Solomon Sopher, president of the Baghdadi Jewish community in Mumbai, agrees: “We have never been persecuted by any caste or creed. Not even by the Muslims.” He adds that Indians are prone to “hero worship” of strong military leaders. “Lack of examples of strong leadership in India leads the Indian youth to admire Hitler,” explains Aafreedi.

That may explain why Mein Kampf, the dictator’s memoir, sells briskly in Mumbai and is printed by at least 13 publishers in India, according to Economic & Political Weekly. Mein Kampf is also becoming a must-read for some business schools applicants. “Each year, when I sit for admission interviews, there [are] books that are mentioned as favorite reads” by applicants, says Uma Narain, a professor at S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research. “This year, many referred to Mein Kampf.” While Narain says she wouldn’t dream of teaching Mein Kampf, she can understand the lure of “the autobiographical account and political ideology of a charismatic man who supposedly got things done.”

Although Shah says the Hitler clothing store’s name was apolitical, he says the controversy has been good for business. He is petitioning the courts to reverse the decision to take the name down. “We’re going to fight for the name ‘Hitler,’ ” he says.

The bottom line: The popularity of Hitler is rising in India, reflecting the national attraction to strong leaders.

Shaftel is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.

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EU leaders in Norway to pick up Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — European Union leaders on Sunday hailed the achievements of the 27-nation bloc, but acknowledged they need more integration and authority to solve problems, including its worst financial crisis, as they arrived in Norway to pick up this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Conceding that the EU lacked sufficient powers to stop the devastating 1992-95 Bosnia war, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the absence of such authority at the time is “one of the most powerful arguments for a stronger European Union.”

Barroso spoke to reporters with EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and the president of the EU Parliament, Martin Schulz, in Oslo, where the three leaders were to receive this year’s award, granted to the European Union for fostering peace on a continent ravaged by war.

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland will present the prize, worth $ 1.2 million, at a ceremony in Oslo City Hall, followed by a banquet at the Grand Hotel, against a backdrop of demonstrations in this EU-skeptic country that has twice rejected joining the union.

About 20 European government leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, will be joining the ceremonies. They will be celebrating far away from the EU’s financial woes in a prosperous, oil-rich nation of 5 million on the outskirts of Europe that voted in 1972 and 1994 in referendums to stay out of the union.

The decision to award the prize to the EU has sparked harsh criticism, including from three peace laureates — South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina — who have demanded the prize money not be paid out this year. They say the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security.

The leader of Britain’s Independence Party, Nigel Farage, in a statement described rewarding the EU as “a ridiculous act which blows the reputation of the Nobel prize committee to smithereens.”

Hundreds of people demonstrated against this year’s prize winners in a peaceful torch-lit protest that meandered through the dark city streets to Parliament, including Tomas Magnusson from the International Peace Bureau, the 1910 prize winner.

“This is totally against the idea of Alfred Nobel who wanted disarmament,” he said, accusing the Nobel committee of being “too close to the power” elite.

Dimitris Kodelas, a Greek lawmaker from the main opposition Radical Left party, or Syriza, said a humanitarian crisis in his country and EU policies could cause major rifts in Europe. He thought it was a joke when he heard the peace prize was awarded to the EU. “It challenges even our logic and it is also insulting,” he said.

The EU is being granted the prize as it grapples with a debt crisis that has stirred deep tensions between north and south, caused soaring unemployment and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest austerity measures.

It is also threatening the euro — the common currency used by 17 of its members — and even the structure of the union itself, and is fuelling extremist movements such as Golden Dawn in Greece, which opponents brand as neo-Nazi.

Barroso acknowledged that the current crisis showed the union was “not fully equipped to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.”

“We do not have all the instruments for a true and genuine economic union … so we need to complete our economic and monetary union,” he said, adding that the new measures, including on a banking and fiscal union, would be agreed on in coming weeks.

He stressed that despite the crisis all steps taken had been toward “more, not less integration.”

Van Rompuy was optimistic saying that EU would come out of the crisis stronger than before. “We want Europe to become again a symbol of hope,” he said.

The EU says it will donate the prize money to projects that help children in conflict zones and will double it with EU funds.

The European Union grew from the conviction that ever-closer economic ties would ensure century-old enemies like Germany and France never turned on each other again, starting with the creation in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community, declared as “a first step in the federation of Europe.”

In 60 years it has grown into a 27-nation bloc with a population of 500 million, with other nations eagerly waiting to join, even as its unity is being threatened by the financial woes.

While there have never been wars inside EU territory, the confederation has not been able to prevent European wars outside its borders. When the deadly Balkans wars erupted in the 1990s, the EU was unable by itself to stop them. It was only with the help of the United States and after over 100,000 lives were lost in Bosnia was peace eventually restored there, and several years later, to Kosovo.

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Apple, Samsung face off in court again

SAN JOSE (Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics squared off again in court on Thursday, as the iPhone maker prepares to convince a U.S. district judge to ban sales of a number of the Korean company’s devices and defend a $ 1.05 billion jury award.

Apple scored a sweeping legal victory in August at the conclusion of its landmark case against its arch-foe, when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded it $ 1.05 billion in damages.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh is expected to address a range of issues at the hearing, which began Thursday afternoon. They include setting aside any of the jury’s findings on liability, juror misconduct, and the requested injunction.

Twenty four of Samsung’s smartphones were found to have infringed on Apple’s patents, while two of Samsung’s tablets were cleared of similar allegations.

Koh began by questioning the basis for some of the damages awarded by the jury, putting Apple’s lawyers on the defensive.

“I don’t see how you can evaluate the aggregate verdict without looking at the pieces,” Koh said.

Samsung’s lawyers argued the ruling against it should be “reverse engineered” to be sure the $ 1.05 billion was legally arrived at by the jury, while Apple said the ruling should stand as is.

FIERCEST RIVAL

Samsung is Apple’s fiercest global business rival, and their battle for consumers’ allegiance is shaping the landscape of the smartphone and tablet industry, and has claimed several high-profile victims including Nokia.

While most of the devices facing injunction are older and, in some cases, out of the market, such injunctions have been key for companies trying to increase their leverage in courtroom patent fights.

In October, a U.S. appeals court overturned a pretrial sales ban against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dealing a setback to Apple’s battle against Google Inc’s increasingly popular mobile software.

Some analysts say Apple’s willingness to license patents to HTC could convince Koh it does not need the injunction, as the two companies could arrive at a licensing deal.

Apple is also attempting to add more than $ 500 million to the $ 1 billion judgment because the jury found Samsung willfully infringed on its patents.

Samsung, for its part, wants the verdict overturned, saying the foreman of the jury in the trial did not disclose that he was once embroiled in litigation with Seagate Technology, a company that Samsung invested in.

Both Apple and Samsung have filed separate lawsuits covering newer products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose and is set for trial in 2014.

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta)

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New Whitney Houston book recalls singer’s musical magic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A new book on Whitney Houston by her early producer seeks to tell the story of the rise to stardom of the pop diva who died nine months ago.

Emmy and Grammy-winning producer Narada Michael Walden, who produced many of Houston‘s early hits, like “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” appeared at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on Wednesday to discuss the book and perform some of the songs he collaborated on.

“Her death was so shocking and sudden that I wanted to create something to keep alive the beautiful aspects of her life. The media was lashing out on the addiction and ignoring her musical genius,” Walden told Reuters.

Since she drowned in a bathtub on February 11 after taking cocaine, Houston‘s music and life have generated a TV tribute with Jennifer Hudson, Usher and others, a greatest hits CD, a coffee table book of photos and a TV reality show starring family members.

Walden’s book “Whitney Houston: The Voice, the Music, the Inspiration,” co-written with Richard Buskin, describes how Walden first met the singer when she was 13 and accompanied her mother to the studio. Walden was working on a record with her mom, soul and gospel singer Cissy Houston.

Walden said he all but forgot the young pretty girl until he got a call from Arista records in 1984, while working on an Aretha Franklin record, and was told to “make the time” to work on Houston‘s debut album.

Walden said Janet Jackson‘s management turned down the chance to record “How Will I Know” and that he rewrote it to make it catchier for Houston, who with her five-octave vocal range, recorded the 1985 No.1 song in only one take.

“The first take was the keeper. Instead of laboring on it for the better part of a day or even longer, we were done in a matter of minutes,” he said, noting Houston always worked fast.

Walden, who also produced for Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Barbra Streisand, collaborated with Houston on “So Emotional,” “One Moment in Time” and “I’m Every Woman” from the film, “The Bodyguard.”

Walden and Houston went in different directions by the late 1990s, but he would see her at the annual pre-Grammy party hosted by her long-time mentor, record industry mogul Clive Davis.

At the 2011 Davis party, Houston sat with her daughter, Bobbi Kristina – then 17 – who exclaimed she wanted to sing and work with Walden. “But Whitney gave me a look that said ‘Slow down. I’ve been down that road….and I’m not sure I want to curse her with that’,” he said.

Walden said he would now welcome the opportunity to work with Houston‘s daughter, who has become a fixture of gossip blogs and tabloids.

“If she wants to, I’d love to produce her and keep alive the professional image of her mother and focus on the positive,” he said.

(Reporting By Susan Zeidler, editing by Jill Serjeant and Andrew Hay)

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Booze, smokes on agenda for quirky gov’t group

BELTSVILLE, Md. (AP) — Deep in a secure laboratory just outside Washington sits the federal government‘s heaviest smoker.

It is a half-ton hulk of a machine, all brushed aluminum and gasping smoke holes, like a retrofit of equipment used on an Industrial Revolution production line. It can smoke 20 cigarettes at once and conclude which are unsafe because they are counterfeit and which are unsafe merely because they are cigarettes.

Down the hall, a chemist tests shiny flecks from a bottle of Goldschlager, the spicy cinnamon schnapps, to make sure they’re real gold. A government agent was sent out to stores to buy it and hundreds of other alcoholic drinks randomly chosen for analysis.

Back at headquarters in downtown Washington, a staffer prepares for a meeting of the Tequila Working Group — a committee created to mollify Mexico and keep bulk tequila flowing north across the border.

These are the proud scientists, rule-makers and trade ambassadors of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, one of the federal government’s least-known and most peculiar corners.

The bureau, known as TTB, collects taxes on booze and smokes and tells the companies that produce them how to do business — from approving beer can labels to deciding how much air a gin bottle can contain between lid and liquor.

It decides which valleys in Oregon and California can slap their names on wine labels, what grapes can go into wine and which new alcoholic drinks are safe to import.

The bureau is one example of the specialized government offices threatened by Washington’s current zeal for cost-cutting. Obama administration officials weighed eliminating it during the fiscal stalemate of 2011, according to news reports at the time. Its officials were called to the White House budget office to justify their existence — or risk having their duties split between the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration.

The White House ultimately left the bureau’s $ 100 million budget in place for this year — perhaps because it spends far less money to collect each tax dollar than its counterpart, the IRS. But officials there remain hyper-aware of their vulnerability as Republicans and Democrats look to squeeze savings from unlikely places.

If they look closely, the belt-tighteners will discover an agency whose responsibilities often appear to conflict — a regulator that protects its industry from rules it deems unfair, a tax collector that sometimes cuts its companies a break.

Some of its decisions are open to negotiation. A tequila-like liquor with a scorpion floating in it made scientists balk until the producer convinced them that the scorpions are farm-raised and non-toxic.

In other words, this may be the only federal agency that responds favorably to receiving scorpion candy in the mail — an edible tool for persuading scientists that the arthropods were fit for human consumption.

If labs, rules and taxes weren’t enough for the bureau’s 500-odd employees, they also have law enforcement authority. TTB investigators can send people to jail for things like removing alcohol from the production line and reselling it before it has been taxed by authorities.

With all these responsibilities, it’s no surprise the agency’s priorities sometimes clash. The bureau gives companies a wide berth on some rules and taxes, officials and experts say, mainly because of its small size and history of collaborating with business. It has granted millions in tax givebacks because of concerns that companies will sue and tie up government resources.

“Because we’re regulated by such a friendly agency, and because enforcement isn’t huge, there’s a level of non-compliance that’s sort of acceptable,” says Rachel Dumas Rey, president of Compli, a California company that helps wineries comply with Treasury policy.

Agency officials say they use scant resources where they can make the most difference, generally on the biggest producers or companies where there is an indication of wrongdoing.

Yet last July, the bureau slashed a tax bill for the multinational agribusiness conglomerate Cargill from $ 839,370 to $ 63,000. Cargill failed to report or pay taxes on about 23,000 gallons of nearly pure industrial alcohol that leaked from a rail car, violating several U.S. laws, according to documents on the bureau’s website.

Since 2010, under similar deals with alcohol and tobacco companies, the agency has forgiven more than $ 25.4 million; the total amount is unclear because some public documents do not list the size of the tax bill or penalty that is being reduced. Nine companies persuaded the agency to slash their bills by more than 95 percent, including Procter & Gamble’s Olay subsidiary, which uses alcohol in its skin care products.

Tom Hogue, a spokesman for the bureau and former explosives inspector, says it only agrees to reduce companies’ tax bills “if we are satisfied that the (remaining) penalty is commensurate with the violation and is sufficient to deter future illegal conduct.” In cases where settlements are granted, Hogue says, “they allow us to use our resources to counter non-compliance, instead of tying them up in court.”

When the alcohol and tobacco bureau was split from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it held on to the former agency’s tax collection duties, including for firearms and ammunition. It’s still the government’s third-biggest revenue collector, after the IRS and Customs and Border Protection. It took in $ 23.5 billion in federal taxes on alcohol, tobacco, weapons and ammo in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2011, the most recent data available. That amounts to $ 468 for every dollar the agency spent collecting taxes — more than twice the IRS’ ratio, officials note.

The bureau also works with government trade officials to protect and expand international markets for American alcohol and tobacco. Its expertise is crucial in negotiating with Europeans about wine labeling, or standing up to countries that refuse to recognize American “straight bourbon” for what the government says it is: corn whiskey stored in charred new oak containers for at least two years.

In this role, the agency has come to the rescue over the years of whiskey lovers in China, Colombia and Brazil. Those countries’ governments tried to ban booze containing too much fusel alcohol, the pungent byproduct of fermentation that gives some whiskey its spicy, solvent-like aroma. Working through international trade groups, armed with data from TTB scientists, U.S. officials spent years convincing them to reverse their policies and allow the importation of whiskey that meets American standards. That was a win for American alcohol producers.

Sometimes, to protect U.S. producers, the bureau erects trade barriers of its own. Under a proposal by the bureau last spring, anything labeled Pisco must have originated in Chile and Peru. (Pisco is a South American grape brandy whose signature cocktail, the Pisco Sour, is so celebrated that it has its own official Peruvian holiday.)

Aspiring Pisco producers in Bolivia, in the U.S. government’s eyes, can take a hike.

This is no accident: It’s the result of a trade agreement that compels Chile and Peru, in exchange for the Pisco rule, to make sure any bourbon sold there is from the U.S. and meets this country’s standards.

—

The U.S. is the only nation with an alcohol regulator based in its Treasury Department. Treasury was the federal government’s monitor of products seen as sinful or illicit even before Prohibition began in 1919.

When the government first tried to crack down on cocaine and heroin in 1914, it did so by enacting steep taxes. For a time, marijuana also was controlled by imposing taxes so high, it was hoped, that people might lose interest.

After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the government tried to keep a handle on the alcohol industry by writing production standards for alcohol directly into the tax code. That’s where wine’s alcohol content is limited to 24 percent.

The government uses taxes to control social phenomena, explains Bill Foster, who ran the bureau’s headquarters before retiring this summer.

“Tobacco and alcohol are two of those commodities,” Foster says.

The taxes are collected directly from producers and manufacturers, which pass those costs along to consumers. Liquor producers generally pay a flat rate of $ 13.50 per proof gallon — a gallon of liquid that is one-half alcohol by volume. Small cigars and cigarettes are taxed at a rate of $ 50.33 per 1,000 sticks.

—

The current Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau was split from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 2003. ATF was moved to the Justice Department, where it focuses on firearms, explosives and violent crime.

Officials who regulate and tax alcohol and tobacco remained at Treasury, where they continue to ensure that wine doesn’t contain pesticides and absinthe is free of thujone, the psychoactive ingredient — now banned — that gave it its hallucinogenic reputation.

That’s how Dr. Abdul Mabud found himself overseeing 26 chemists at a lab in Beltsville, Md., that tests hundreds of bottles, cigarettes and perfumes every year.

One afternoon, Mabud holds aloft a jar of pure, clear alcohol containing a coiled king cobra, its hood flared and forked tongue extended. Surrounding it are smaller green snakes that appear to be biting each other’s tails.

The snake liquor was submitted for consideration as an import from east Asia, where snakes are believed to increase virility.

“With that much snake in there, it’s probably not a beverage,” Mabud says, explaining why the shelves of America’s liquor stores and supermarkets are free of giant, gin-soaked snakes.

Mabud traces his lab’s history to 1886, when Congress passed steep taxes on margarine — at the time, an upstart competitor to the nation’s dairy products. The 1886 law aimed to prevent crooked margarine-pushers from selling their product as butter. Treasury’s first food-quality lab was set up to preserve butter’s integrity.

Today, the bureau owns some of the most sophisticated equipment available, including the smoking machine, which can be set to inhale in at least three ways, depending on how long and hard the smoker being simulated prefers to puff: light, medium and Canadian. The last one is when the perforations around the cigarette’s filter are blocked and the machine takes bigger, more frequent puffs. It was invented by the Canadian government, and does not necessarily reflect the actual smoking habits of Canadians, says Dawit Bezabeh, chief of the bureau’s tobacco lab.

“That’s the worst-case scenario,” he says.

—

Officials are less chatty about a third agency priority: The diplomatically sensitive work of promoting the international alcohol and tobacco trade.

The bureau helps strike deals with other countries that have liquor industries, like the one with Peru and Chile over Pisco. The idea is to protect U.S. alcohol and tobacco producers from unfair competition. Jim Beam’s prices might be easily undercut, for example, if an overseas firm was allowed to label something as bourbon even though it was aged in a cask that is neither charred nor oak nor new.

That’s how the Tequila Working Group was born. Citing safety concerns, Mexico had threatened to stop exporting bulk tequila — a commodity that supports 500 U.S. bottling jobs. After the bureau agreed in 2006 to regular meetings with Mexico’s tequila industry, Mexico backed down. The jobs were saved.

Until the early 2000s, the U.S. negotiated wine-making standards as part of a European wine trade group. As the American wine industry blossomed, officials began to believe that the group was favoring European wineries, for example, by refusing to endorse American agricultural methods. Every member of the group had veto power, and France was willing to use it.

The U.S. escaped Europe’s dominance by joining with other oenological up-and-comers like Australia, Argentina, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa to form the World Wine Trade Group. The group encourages countries to accept each other’s wine-making methods.

—

Its complicated history helps explain why the bureau looks and acts different from most government offices. As a tax-collecting agency, it wants to see its industries thrive. As a consumer-protection outfit tasked with keeping antifreeze-spiked wine off the market, the bureau must rein in dangerous, sloppy practices by industry members.

If other government agencies ran that way, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would be promoting U.S. baby crib makers at the same time it evaluated their products as potential death traps.

“There’s some peril with that kind of approach,” says Jeff Bumgarner, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Minnesota who studies the history of federal law enforcement. “The trade part of your mission is one of support and standing up the industries, and the tax collection part and the regulatory part and the compliance part is one of holding those industries in check.”

That basic conflict leaves the U.S. government with an alcohol regulator that recently hosted industry executives at conferences to educate them about the bureau’s rules and encourage “voluntary compliance,” then months later raided a Native American reservation that was suspected of harboring cigarette tax evaders.

Critics say the bureau’s close relationship with industry makes it less likely to take a hard line against violators.

Foster sees it another way. He says agents and officials like him are more effective overseers of the industry because they started out working on the distillery floor, measuring batches of liquor and handing producers their tax bills.

“It gave us all a significant understanding of how the industry operates and what their challenges were,” he says.

Agency officials say they are making the most of limited resources, and doing better than most federal departments. And their workload is increasing steadily. The alcohol and tobacco bureau is responsible, for example, for approving every label to be used on an alcohol product in the U.S. As the number of microbrewers and microdistilleries explodes, the work of reviewing those labels is becoming a heavier lift.

The bureau now regulates more than 56,000 companies, an increase of 27 percent since 2007. In that time, its core budget rose only 8 percent.

—

Like any government office, the agency has had its share of hiccups. Agawam grapes were known on U.S. wine labels as Agwam grapes until the bureau corrected its spelling error in rules published last year.

Vintners with leftover Agwam labels were given until October to stop using them.

___

Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tim Cook’s Freshman Year

Prior to his death on Oct. 5, 2011, Steve Jobs made sure that the elevation of Tim Cook—his longtime head of operations and trusted deputy—to Apple chief executive officer would be drama-free. “He goes, ‘I never want you to ask what I would have done,’” recalls Cook. “‘Just do what’s right.’ He was very clear.” In Cook’s first 16 months on the job, Apple has released next-generation iPhones and iPads and seen its stock price rise 43 percent. Though it hasn’t yet expanded into new product categories (still no Apple TV set), the company has changed in significant ways, largely because of Cook’s calm and steady influence. In his most wide-ranging interview as CEO, Cook explains how Apple works now, talks about the perception that he’s “robotic,” and announces the return of Apple manufacturing to the U.S.

 
Bloomberg Businessweek: How has Apple changed since Oct. 5, 2011?
The first thing to realize is that all the things that have made Apple (AAPL) so special are the same as they have always been. That doesn’t mean that Apple is the same. Apple has changed every day since I have been here. But the DNA of the company, the thing that makes our heart beat, is a maniacal focus on making the best products in the world. Not good products, or a lot of products, but the absolute best products in the world.

In creating these great products we focus on enriching people’s lives—a higher cause for the product. These are the macro things that drive the company. They haven’t changed. They’re not changing. I will not witness or permit those changes because that’s what makes the company so special.

There are lots of little things that change, and there will be lots of little things that change over the next year and the years thereafter. We decided being more transparent about some things is great—not that we were not transparent at all before, but we’ve stepped it up in places where we think we can make a bigger difference, where we want people to copy us. So there are things that are different, but the most important thing by far is, the fiber of the place is the same.

The decisions that you’re alluding to—more transparency into the supply chain, doing corporate matches for employees’ charitable donations—were those things that you’d thought, “You know, I want to bring that to the culture. I can’t wait to introduce them.” How did those inflection points come up?
My own personal philosophy on giving is best stated in a [John F.] Kennedy quote, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I have always believed this. Always. I think that Apple and Apple’s employees have done enormous good and can do even more. One of the things that we have done is match our employees’ charitable contributions, where they select who they want to give to. So it’s not some corporate committee deciding, but it’s our 80,000 employees deciding what they want to do, and then we match it.

You know, it’s clearly something I wanted to do, yes. But others wanted to do it, too. Our transparency in supplier responsibility is an example of recognizing that the more transparent we are, the bigger difference we would make. We want to be as innovative with supply responsibility as we are with our products. That’s a high bar. The more transparent we are, the more it’s in the public space. The more it’s in the public space, the more other companies will decide to do something similar. And the more everybody does it, the better everything gets.

It’s a recognition that we need to be supersecretive in one part about our products and our road maps. But there are other areas where we will be completely transparent so we can make the biggest difference. That’s kind of the way we look at it.

You were CEO on an interim basis twice before. How is the experience of being permanent CEO different from those two stints?
There were actually three times. There was Steve’s first surgery back in ’04. Then a medical leave for half a year and then ’11. Not that there wasn’t public focus on those, but that public focus tended to be quick, and then it sort of flipped back to Steve. This has been different. This, you know. (Pause.) This has been different. So I have had to adjust to that. I’m a private person, so that’s been a bit of a surprise for me, not something I would have predicted. Maybe I should have.

Rex Tillerson is the CEO of Exxon (XOM), which is at any given moment the second-most valuable company in the world. I’m guessing 10 percent of our readers know who he is. I’m guessing less than 1 percent could spot him on sight. By virtue of Steve Jobs and his legacy and by virtue of Apple living in everyone’s pocket, you’re famous. I mean, really, globally famous.
I don’t feel famous. You know, I lead a simple life. My life is incredibly simple. But what’s changed is that, yeah, people recognize me. They may think, “I have seen him before. You know, the CEO of Apple” or whatever. And so it has been a bit of adjustment for me, because for years I had the privilege of being anonymous. There is a great privilege in that if you’re a private person. So it’s a bit different. I love Apple deeply, and I’m having the time of my life. Obviously, if I could rewind the clock, Steve would still be here. He was a dear friend—much more than a boss. But I love being CEO of Apple. I love it. It’s just something I have to, and continue to, adjust to. If you have some ideas there of how I can do it better, I would love to hear it. (Laughs.)

Would you describe yourself as a shy person? If so, what would you tell a shy person about how to go about not just being a public face, but also being a source of inspiration for 80,000 employees?
Would I describe myself as being shy? (Pause.) No, I wouldn’t say I’m shy. I don’t think a shy person would stand on a stage and give a presentation or do communications meetings with numerous people and this sort of thing. But I’m not a person that puts value in being recognized. This doesn’t drive me. I am driven by great work and seeing people do incredible things and having a part in that. So it’s more of a feeling inside that drives me, not a public recognition that drives me. Maybe that makes me a bit different.

You mentioned the Exxon CEO. It’s interesting to me—and I think this is a privilege for Apple—just like we’re sitting down at this table today, I get e-mails all day long, hundreds, thousands per day from customers who are talking like you and I are talking, almost like I’ve gone over to their home and I am having dinner with them. They care so deeply about Apple they want to suggest this or that or say, “Hey, I didn’t like this,” or, “I really love this,” or tell me that FaceTime has changed their lives. I received an e-mail just today where a customer was able to talk to their mother who lives thousands of miles away and is suffering from cancer, and they couldn’t see her any other way.

But the point is they care so much they take the time to say something. It’s not a letter like you might think is written to a CEO. It’s not this formal kind of stuff. It’s like you and I are having a discussion, and we’ve known each other for 20 years, and I want to tell you what I really think. I love it. I don’t know if there’s another company on earth this happens with. It’s just not people from the U.S. These are people from all over the world. I look at it, and I go, “This is a privilege.”

Is there another company in the world where their customers care so much they do this? I don’t think there is. Other companies I’ve worked at, you might get a letter every six months, and it was, you know, “I want my money back,” or something sort of terse. There was no emotion in it. So I think this is really something incredible.

It’s one of the things that I knew about Apple even back 15 years ago when I was in the interview process with Steve. Apple was this company going through all of these hard times. Customers got angry with Apple and would yell and scream—but they would keep buying. If they got mad at Compaq they would just buy from Dell (DELL). There was no emotion there. It was a transaction.

Headline from April 6, 1998, when Apple dropped the Newton

With Apple, my first day at work I crossed a picket line to get in the building! There was a picket line of customers who were protesting, because Steve had decided to kill the Newton device. And it was because they cared so deeply about it. And I thought, “This is amazing.” I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was walking to the lift that day and thinking, “Oh my God, my life is different.” It was so great. It was so great. You know, I have been involved in hundreds of new product announcements, hundreds of product withdrawals. At one of the companies I worked at, not to mention any names, we’d put [new products] in the lobby. We’d get on the employee intercom system and say, “Come look at them,” and nobody came. They didn’t even care.

So I think you’re right. I don’t know the gentleman from Exxon. But I think the likelihood that’s going on there is zero. I’ve talked to many other CEOs who look at me like I have three heads when I talk about getting hundreds or thousands of customer e-mails in a day. It’s a privilege. It’s like you’re sitting at the kitchen table. You’re a part of the family. And we have to continue to honor that.

You seem to be an enormously responsible person. Is that accurate?
I love the company. A significant part of my life is Apple. Maybe some people would say it’s all of my life. I would say it’s a significant part. And you know, I feel both a love for it [and] I feel a responsibility. I think this company is a jewel. I think it’s the most incredible company in the world, and so I want to throw all of myself into doing everything I can do to make sure that it achieves its highest, highest potential.

Auburn University Special Collections and Archives Dept.Cook in 1979, his freshman year at Auburn University

Nothing hardens faster than the details of a CEO’s bio. Every story about you mentions the following: You’re a Southern gentleman. An Auburn football fan. Always early to work, always the last one to leave. None of it is negative, but do you recognize yourself in those descriptions or do you find yourself a little bit distorted? If so, would you like to correct a few things?
I think when you start reading about yourself, it’s almost—it’s like a caricature. It begins to sound like someone else. That’s probably a better question to ask people that really know me vs. me. I hate talking about me. You know, it’s not something I do well or do a lot. I generally avoid it.

But I would say that the person you read about is robotic. There are some good things about that, perhaps. (Laughs.) Discipline comes to mind. But it sounds like there is just no emotion. People that know me, I don’t think they would say that. I certainly am not a fist-pounder. That isn’t my style. But that and emotion are two different things. One is just a way of expressing it, basically. So, anyway.

How many products does Apple have now?
Well, we have few. You could almost place every product that we [make] on this table. I mean, if you really look at it, we have four iPods. We have two main iPhones. We have two iPads, and we have a few Macs. That’s it. And we argue and debate like crazy about what we’re going to do, because we know that we can only do a few things great. That means not doing a bunch of things that would be really good and really fun.

That’s a part of our base principle, that we will only do a few things. And we’ll only do things where we can make a significant contribution. I don’t mean financially. I mean some significant contribution to the society at large. You know, we want to really enrich people’s lives at the end of the day, not just make money. Making money might be a byproduct, but it’s not our North Star.

How does that calculus work when you’re considering product refinements vs. new product lines?
The way we look at things is we will argue and debate about what to do with both existing products and new product lines. And when we get an idea that’s great enough, we put all of our energy into executing that. We’re fortunate. We find ourselves in two markets right now that are extremely fast-growing and extremely large—that’s the phone space and the tablet space. The PC space is also large, but the market itself isn’t growing. However, our share of it is relatively low, so there’s a lot of headroom for us.

The MP3 market has shrunk. It’s shrinking because people are listening to music on their phones, but it’s still big. We sold 35 million iPods last year, and we love music. I still use a dedicated music player in the gym every day, and I think many people do. Clearly they do with what we’re selling.

So each of those product lines has a great future by themselves, but obviously we also talk about what else we can do. We always have. And we’ll argue, debate, and collaborate. And I mean argue and debate in the greatest sense of the words because they—you know, I never wanted to remove that. It’s a great culture. And it’s clear that we can do more. At the right time, we’ll keep disrupting and keep discovering new things that people didn’t know they wanted.

I’m not going to ask you about an Apple TV, because I know you’re not going to say if it exists or when it’s coming. But what I do want to know is—there must be enormous pressure, both on you and on your teams, to continue to create breakthroughs. How does that affect you?
There’s more pressure that comes from within than from the outside. Our customers have an incredibly high bar for us. We have an even higher bar for ourselves. So we want to do great work, and yeah, people are always talking about what we may do next and when it might happen, but honestly we’re driven much more internally by great people who want to do great work. As I look around the table at the executive team, arguably, at least in my opinion, we have the best designer in the world, the top silicon expert in the world, the best operational executive in the world, and the best leaders in marketing, software, hardware, and services. These are people that have very high standards that are driven to do things beyond what other people have thought. And I think it’s that ambition and that desire and that thrust for excellence that make creating new things even more likely.

Let me drill down on this one more time.
Please. Go ahead.

Even superheroes brood, right? Even people with superpowers who are used to doing miraculous stuff—I’m putting myself in their shoes and imagining that the masses are out there giving Apple love because you’ve created behavior-altering technology. I would imagine that would get to people at Apple once in a while, and that it’s partly your job to figure out a way to say to them, “Trust the process. Trust us.”
Two things. One, I wouldn’t call it a process. Creativity is not a process, right? It’s people who care enough to keep thinking about something until they find the simplest way to do it. They keep thinking about something until they find the best way to do it. It’s caring enough to call the person who works over in this other area, because you think the two of you can do something fantastic that hasn’t been thought of before. It’s providing an environment where that feeds off each other and grows.

So just to be clear, I wouldn’t call that a process. Creativity and innovation are something you can’t flowchart out. Some things you can, and we do, and we’re very disciplined in those areas. But creativity isn’t one of those. A lot of companies have innovation departments, and this is always a sign that something is wrong when you have a VP of innovation or something. You know, put a for-sale sign on the door. (Laughs.)

Everybody in our company is responsible to be innovative, whether they’re doing operational work or product work or customer service work. So in terms of the pressure, all of us put a great deal of pressure on ourselves. And yes, part of my job is to be a cheerleader, and getting people to stop for a moment and think about everything that’s been done.

I mean, just take this year. You know, take the last 60 days: iPhone 5, whole new iPods, including a new iPod touch and iPod nano, a fourth-generation iPad, the new iPad mini, a to-die-for MacBook Pro that’s the best Mac we’ve ever done. And so you look at all this, and you go, “Oh my God. How could one company do all of this?” And it’s not like we have that many people. As a matter of fact, that’s a secret. You know, small teams do amazing things together.

All of the people around the table have been there for a while, and they’ve lived through different cycles. So they have a maturity, but they still have their boldness. They’re still ready to burn the bridge. And this is great. Because there is no other company like that anymore. I mean, no company would have done what we did this year. Think about it. We changed the vast majority of our iPhone in a day. We didn’t kind of—you know, change a little bit here or there. IPad, we changed the entire lineup in a day. The most successful product in consumer electronics history, and we change it all in a day and go with an iPad mini and a fourth-generation iPad. Who else is doing this? Eighty percent of our revenues are from products that didn’t exist 60 days ago. Is there any other company that would do that?

But as a technology consumer and user, and a heavy one, I’m always interested in the new. So unlike, say, P&G (PG), where there’s a dependability factor, a lot of your brand is “Here comes something new. We’re going to change your behavior again.”
This is the reason we exist. This is the reason we keep working, and it’s the reason people want to work at Apple.

David Paul Morris/BloombergForstall was senior vice president of iPhone software until Cook relieved him of his duties on Oct. 30

In the past few weeks you replaced two members of your senior executive team, mobile software head Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett. How did those moves make Apple better, which is a polite way of saying, what was wrong?
The key in the change that you’re referencing is my deep belief that collaboration is essential for innovation—and I didn’t just start believing that. I’ve always believed that. It’s always been a core belief at Apple. Steve very deeply believed this.

So the changes—it’s not a matter of going from no collaboration to collaboration. We have an enormous level of collaboration in Apple, but it’s a matter of taking it to another level. You look at what we are great at. There are many things. But the one thing we do, which I think no one else does, is integrate hardware, software, and services in such a way that most consumers begin to not differentiate anymore. They just care that the experience is fantastic.

So how do we keep doing that and keep taking it to an even higher level? You have to be an A-plus at collaboration. And so the changes that we made get us to a whole new level of collaboration. We’ve got services all in one place, and the guy that’s running that has incredible skills in services, has an incredible track record, and I’m confident will do fantastic things.

Jony [Ive, senior vice president of industrial design], who I think has the best taste of anyone in the world and the best design skills, now has responsibility for the human interface. I mean, look at our products. (Cook reaches for his iPhone.) The face of this is the software, right? And the face of this iPad is the software. So it’s saying, Jony has done a remarkable job leading our hardware design, so let’s also have Jony responsible for the software and the look and feel of the software, not the underlying architecture and so forth, but the look and feel.

I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that has a better taste than he does. So I think he’s very special. He’s an original. We also placed Bob [Mansfield, senior vice president of technologies] in a position where he leads all of silicon and takes over all of the wireless stuff in the company. We had grown fairly quickly, and we had different wireless groups. We’ve got some really cool ideas, some very ambitious plans in this area. And so it places him leading all of that. Arguably there’s no finer engineering manager in the world. He is in a class by himself.

And Craig [Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering] is unbelievable. We don’t subscribe to the vision that the OS for iPhones and iPads should be the same as Mac. As you know, iOS and Mac OS are built on the same base. And Craig has always managed the common elements. And so this is a logical extension. Customers want iOS and Mac OS X to work together seamlessly, not to be the same, but to work together seamlessly.

These moves take collaboration to a whole different level. We already were—to use an industry phrase that I don’t like—best of breed. But it takes us to a whole new level. So that’s what it’s all about. I know there has been a lot written on that, but that’s really what’s behind it.

What’s your relationship like with Jony Ive? What bonds you to him?
I love Jony. He’s an incredible guy, and I have a massive amount of respect for him. What bonds us? We both love Apple. We both want Apple to do great things. We both subscribe to the same principles. We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe in collaboration. We both view Apple as here to make the best products in the world. So our values are the same.

And whether you ask me about “Tim and Jony” or “Jony and Bob” or whatever, my answer would be the same. If you look at the top 100 people at Apple, you’re going to find very different people, very different personalities, very different styles. We’re not a Chiclet company. We don’t put people through a machine where they come out and talk the same, look the same, think the same. We really value diversity with a capital D.

We want diversity of thought. We want diversity of style. We want people to be themselves. It’s this great thing about Apple. You don’t have to be somebody else. You don’t have to put on a face when you go to work and be something different. But the thing that ties us all is we’re brought together by values. We want to do the right thing. We want to be honest and straightforward. We admit when we’re wrong and have the courage to change.

And there can’t be politics. I despise politics. There is no room for it in a company. My life is going to be way too short to deal with that. No bureaucracy. We want this fast-moving, agile company where there are no politics, no agendas.

When you do that, things become pretty simple. You don’t have all of these distractions. You don’t have all of these things that companies generally worry about. You don’t have silos built up where everybody is trying to optimize their silo and figuring out how to grab turf and all of these things. It makes all of our jobs easier so we’re freed up to focus on the things that truly matter.

You know, I’ve got experience with other companies. Apple’s a jewel. It’s a privilege to be in an environment like that. I have seen the results of things not being like that. It’s no fun. It sucks the life out of you, and so I guard that. There is nothing I won’t do to guard that. Let me just put it like that.

How do you interact with design? You don’t have meetings. You don’t have a formal process. Do you just wander down, and you and Jony look at stuff?
I wouldn’t say we don’t have meetings. I wouldn’t go that far. I’m talking about how the kernels of ideas are born. We want ideas coming from all of our 80,000 people, not five or three. A much smaller number of people have to decide and edit and move forward, but you want ideas coming from everywhere. You want people to explore. So that’s what I was talking about before.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesCook, Ive, and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl at the iPhone 5 launch on Sept. 12

We have an executive team meeting. It’s every Monday at 9 a.m. Religiously, all of us are in that meeting. We spend four hours together. We talk about everything in the company that’s important—everything. We go through every product that’s shipping, how it’s doing. We go through every new product that’s on the road map—what’s going on, how the teams are doing, and any key issues there are. We might argue and debate current issues. We might argue and debate future road maps. We may get to a point where we say, “You know, this one we’ve got to go off site and really brainstorm about it in a bigger way.” By keeping that cadence and being religious about it—people don’t travel during that time; everyone is there, and they’re not delegating—it makes the company run a lot smoother. You don’t get out of sync because you’re constantly coming together.

Now that’s just one thing. Here’s another example. Every Wednesday we’re meeting with product divisions. So a subset of the [executive team] will meet with the Mac division and spend several hours going through Mac. The following Wednesday we’ll spend several hours going through iPhone, and then we’ll go tick-tock, tick-tock again. And so you have meetings like this not just for yourself, although it’s critical for yourself, but you do it because it helps the company run.

Do you get walking-around time?
Yeah, and it’s critical. And it’s not just not walking around on campus. We have a lot of stores. So I’ll walk around our stores. You can learn a tremendous amount in a store. I get a lot of e-mails and so forth, but it’s a different dimension when you’re in a store and talking to customers face to face. You get the vibe of the place.

Not allowing yourself to become insular is very important—maybe the most important thing, I think, as a CEO. Now fortunately, I think it would be really hard for a CEO of Apple to become insular, but maybe it could happen. I don’t know. But between customers and employees and the press, you get a lot of feedback. The bigger thing is processing and deciding what to put in the distraction category vs. where the nuggets are.

How is Apple’s tablet strategy different from Samsung’s or Amazon’s (AMZN) or Microsoft’s (MSFT)?
Again, if you look at our North Star, we’re focused on making the best products, so ours is very product-centric. We care about every detail. We’re also marrying hardware, software, and services. If you think about Android, it’s more like the Windows PC model. The operating system comes from company A. Company B is doing some integration work, and maybe the services come from yet somewhere else. I think we know the kind of customer experience that produces.

In fact, there are all these tablets that have come out—there were a lot of tablets that came out last year as well—and the usage of them appears to be very low. Certainly the data that I’m seeing suggests—and this is all third-party data—that over 90 percent of the Web-browsing traffic from tablets are from iPad. You may have seen the data over the weekend from IBM (IBM) that was Black Friday sales that showed the iPad was used in more e-commerce transactions than any other device. And that’s more than all Android devices combined, tablets and smartphones.

Since these statistics do not correlate with unit sales, it suggests to me that the iPad user experience is so far above the competition. The iPad has become a part of their lives, instead of a product that they buy and place in a drawer. And so the advantage for us in having some competition is the more products that are out there, the more attention a category gets. The more attention the category gets, the more people that are in the buying and consideration process. I think that’s actually good for us.

Have you played with the Surface or Galaxy?
I have, yes. Both of those—and some others. What I see, for me, is that some of these are confusing, multiple OSs with multiple UIs [user interfaces]. They steer away from simplicity. We think the customer wants all the clutter removed. We want the customer to be at the center of everything. I think when you start toggling back and forth between OSs and UIs, etc., I don’t think that’s what customers are looking for. I think that customers want tablet-optimized apps. You know, we have 275,000-plus apps that have been optimized for the tablet. If you just stretch out a smartphone app on a tablet, it’s an awful experience. It’s not what customers want. I think it’s another reason that usage is so low on these other tablets.

I don’t doubt that there will be units sold in other tablets. It’s happening today. It will happen in the future. But what I strongly believe is that many people that are doing so might feel good initially if they pay a low price, but will bring it home and start to use it, and they’re no longer satisfied. That good feeling is gone. And those people don’t repeat purchases.

Let me give you an example of this. I was thinking about this the other day. Look at netbooks. Many people thought netbooks were the coolest thing ever. Many companies hyped them. In fact, the sales boomed, and then what happened? They crashed, because they were awful! They were flimsy products with crappy, cramped keyboards. They were underpowered. They were just awful.

So we never went into that category. We never put any time into it. A great product doesn’t mean an expensive product. It means a fair price. The iPad mini is all the way down to $ 329. This isn’t an expensive product. So when we can do great products and achieve a great price, we feel great. But what we wouldn’t do is say, “We’ve got to have something for this price, and then let’s see what we can do for it.” That’s not how we think. We think about the product and making a great product that we want to use. When we can do that and achieve another price point, that’s great. But our customers have a high expectation, and we’re not going to try to pass off something—we would never do that. That’s not how we think.

It strikes me that Apple Maps was a very rare instance of Apple thinking about corporate strategy before thinking about the customer experience. Is that fair?
No. No, it’s not how I would characterize it. I would characterize—well, let me back up for a minute. The reason we did Maps is we looked at this, and we said, “What does the customer want? What would be great for the customer?” We wanted to provide the customer turn-by-turn directions. We wanted to provide the customer voice integration. We wanted to provide the customer flyover. And so we had a list of things that we thought would be a great customer experience, and we couldn’t do it any other way than to do it ourselves.

We set on a course some years ago and began to do that. So it wasn’t a matter of saying, “Strategically it’s important that we not work with company X.” We set out to give the customer something to provide a better experience. And the truth is it didn’t live up to our expectations. We screwed up.

So what are we doing? We’re putting all of our energy into making it right. And we have already had several software updates. We’ve got a huge plan to make it even better. It will get better and better over time. But it wasn’t a matter that we … decided strategy over customers. We screwed up. That’s the fact.

Samsung is one of your biggest suppliers. They’re also one of your biggest competitors and an opponent in litigation. Is that awkward?
Life is a complex thing sometimes, and yes, it’s awkward. It is awkward. I hate litigation. I absolutely hate it. For us, this is about values. What we would like, in a perfect world, is for everyone to invent their own stuff. We love competition. But we want people to have their own ideas and invent their own stuff. So after lots of trying, we felt we had no other choice. We tried every other avenue, and so we’ll see what happens in the future.

You know the Lee family at Samsung. Does it affect how you interact with them? How do you defuse that when you have to talk as partners?
We can separate in our minds the different portions of their company. They’re a big company and have different divisions and so forth. So that’s kind of how I try to think about it.

I’m not saying this is the same, but for years we have worked with people who we also compete with. I mean, Microsoft is an example. They provide Office, and so they’re a developer-partner, but they’re also a competitor. Intel (INTC) is a partner on the Mac, but they are obviously trying to get into the mobile business. So it’s not different for us. It’s not unique. It’s not the first time where we have competed and cooperated. This is something that we get up every day doing. The thing that is different is the added litigation burden. I hope this works out over time.

You’ve done a lot of work to add transparency to the manufacturing process, in particular to the conditions of people who are working on Apple products. You’ve known Terry Gou at Foxconn for 20 years.
A long time.

When you asked him to change some things, what specifically did you ask him to change and how receptive was he?
I found him to be very receptive. We had been in the auditing mode for some time and publishing annual reports and working very hard to correct things that we found, and so forth. We’re still doing tremendous auditing, but in addition to that we’ve enlisted the Fair Labor Association to provide additional audits. They bring expertise of looking at different industries. It’s total transparency. They publish their own results and so forth. We’re the only technology company that’s doing that. Terry agreed to open his facilities to our auditors and the FLA auditors. It was a requirement from us, but he agreed.

Foxconn: ReutersCook visiting the iPhone production line at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou technology park in March 2012

If you look at our website, we’re publishing working hours for almost a million people across our supply chain. Nobody else is doing this. We are very much managing this at a micro level. And you know, maybe as important as that, we are training workers on their rights. We have trained 2 million people, and we’ve brought college courses to the factories where people can begin to earn their degrees.

So we’re doing a number of things that I think are really great, really different, and industry-leading. I think no one is looking at this as deeply as we are or going as deep in the supply chain. We’re back to the mines. We’re going all the way, not just at the first layer. And in addition to that, we’ve chosen to be incredibly transparent with it. I invite everyone to copy us.

I understand there are Apple employees staying in the dorms at these factories.
We have executives that have stayed in dorms. It’s not unusual. Honestly, this wasn’t to see what life was like in a dorm. It was that we worked so closely with these manufacturing partners and in the manufacturing plants [that] it’s convenient to do. And actually several of our people wind up doing that.

In addition, we have hundreds of people that reside in China in the plants on a full-time basis that are helping with manufacturing and working on manufacturing process and so forth. The truth is we couldn’t innovate at the speed we do if we viewed manufacturing as this disconnected thing. It’s integrated. So it’s a part of our process.

You said you now track down to the mines. What’s left in the supply chain that’s unknowable?
There are always things that are unknowable. I think that anyone that thinks they have it all down is not looking hard enough, not looking deep enough, or not raising the bar. From our point of view, we don’t want to find zero issues. If we’re finding zero issues, our bar is in the wrong place. So we begin to raise the bar to find issues, and we keep doing this. If you’re doing that, you’re always finding something. That’s the way we look at it.

It sort of goes back to that Kennedy point I made with regard to our matching contributions. We have been given a lot. We earned it, but we have a responsibility to leave the world a better place.

You were instrumental in getting Apple out of the manufacturing business. What would it take to get Apple back to building things and, specifically, back to building things in the U.S.?
It’s not known well that the engine for the iPhone and iPad is made in the U.S., and many of these are also exported—the engine, the processor. The glass is made in Kentucky. And next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac. We’ve been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We’re really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it’s broader because we wanted to do something more substantial. So we’ll literally invest over $ 100 million. This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people, and we’ll be investing our money.

On that subject, it’s 2012. You’re a multinational. What are the obligations of an American company to be patriotic, and what do you think that means in a globalized era?
(Pause.) That’s a really good question. I do feel we have a responsibility to create jobs. I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job, but I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs. I think we have a responsibility to give back to the communities, to pick ways that we can do that … and not just in the U.S., but abroad as well. I think we have the responsibility to make great products that we can recycle and that are environmentally friendly. I think we have a responsibility to make products that have a greater good in them.

That’s the one that is most important of all, because a cigarette company could give back things and environmentally dispose of their product or something like that. But we want to provide a product that changes people’s lives in some way. We spend a lot of energy focusing on education. We created iBooks Author and gave it away for free. We wanted to reinvent the textbook and reinvent the classroom and try to really go a long way to solving the student engagement problem. It doesn’t solve every problem in education, but it solves a very important one, right?

And so I think we do have a responsibility for all these things. I’ve never thought a company’s measurement of job creation should be limited to the number of employees working directly for them. That’s a very old-time way of measuring. Our iOS platform allows developers to work as entrepreneurs and sell their applications to a worldwide market that didn’t exist previously. The mobile software industry was nascent before the iPhone. Now you’ve got hundreds of thousands of developers out there.

Unlike other companies—at least I know of no other large companies—almost all of our R&D is sitting in California. It’s a part of our model. We do this because it’s important for people to run into each other and discuss ideas and collaborate. We’re building a multibillion-dollar headquarters to house them in what we think will be the center of creativity. We’re building a campus in Austin for people in Texas. We’re building three data centers—adding to the one we have in Maiden [N.C.] and establishing new sites in Oregon and in Nevada.

So jobs can come in many different ways. I think if you fairly look at it—we’ve had this estimated by other parties—we’ve created about 600,000 jobs in the U.S. They all don’t work for Apple. We’re part of a global economy. Over 60 percent of our sales are outside the United States. So we have a responsibility to others as well. But this is our home market, and I take all of those very seriously—jobs, education, giving back, the environment.

Not many people know that Apple has a hedge fund, Braeburn Capital.
I wouldn’t call it a hedge fund.

How would you describe it?
It’s an entity that manages Apple’s cash. So I wouldn’t call it a hedge fund because—at least the way I think of a hedge fund, it’s—if you look at [Braeburn's] investments you would find the most conservative investments known to man in there. (Laughs.)

And from what I hear about the returns …
That’s intentional. We don’t view ourselves as an investment bank or a mutual fund with an aggressive charter. The goal is capital preservation. I have to say, in the last several years that has not been an easy task. I think the guys have done a remarkable job in this.

How often do you check in on it?
I don’t get into the decision to invest in this municipal or this corporate bond or this T-bill or anything like that. We have a treasury department and a chief financial officer that’s fantastic, and they do those things. I was obviously involved heavily in the decision to distribute some of the cash but not the investment in bonds and so forth.

One of the few negative things said about you is that you’re not a product guy. You’re a logical guy. You’re a systems guy. You have an engineering background. Given that you’re a product company, does that cut you? Is that something you would refute?
I think people should decide how they want to describe me themselves. But I’ll tell you what I do. Whether there’s something that I think I know really well or I don’t know at all—and there’s a huge range there—I always enlist other people, because the people around the table are phenomenal people. And I’ve always found even when I thought I knew the most that there was something more that could be added and make it even better.

I’ve never felt that I had to know it all, do it all, any of those things. I think you could have an S on your chest and a cape on your back and not be able to do all those things. I know of no one that can do all that. Maybe there are, but I’m not. So I rely on a lot of people for a lot of different things.

What’s the role of intuition in your job?
It’s critical. It’s extremely critical. The most important things in life, whether they’re personal or professional, are decided on intuition. I think you can have a lot of information and data feeding that intuition. You can do a lot of analysis. You can do lots of things that are quantitative in nature. But at the end of it, the things that are most important are always gut calls. And I think that’s just not true for me, but for many, many people. I don’t think it’s unique.

An anecdote that’s now part of your biography is that Steve Jobs told you, “Don’t think what I would do.” Is that true, and if so, can you tell the story?
Yeah, sure. One weekend he called me, and he said, “I’d like to talk to you.” This was in summer of ’11.

I said, “Fine. When?”

In typical Steve fashion he said, “Now.”

“Great. I’ll be right over.” (Laughs.)

Win McNamee/Reuters/LandovJobs and Cook in May 2001 at the opening of Apple’s first retail stores

So I go over to his house, and—I still remember how he started this discussion. He said, “There has never been a professional transition at the CEO level in Apple.” He said, “Our company has done a lot of great things, but has never done this one.” The last guy is always fired, and then somebody new comes in. And he goes, “I want there to be a professional CEO transition, and I have decided, and I am recommending to the board that you be the CEO, and I’m going to be the chairman.”

Of course, we had talked about me being a successor before, so it wasn’t the first time I had heard that, but the conversation occurred at a period of time when I felt Steve was getting better, and I think he felt this way as well. So from that point of view, I was a little surprised. I asked again, “Are you sure?” He said, “Yes.” I would go, “Are you sure,” and he said, “Yes. Don’t ask me anymore.”

So we started talking about what it meant. Again, this is when I am thinking, and I’m certain he’s thinking, that this is going to go on for a long, long period where he’s the chairman and I am CEO. So I’m trying to understand—how does he see this working? He had obviously thought very deeply about it.

And as a part of this, I asked him about different scenarios to understand how he wanted to be involved as chairman. He said, “I want to make this clear. I saw what happened when Walt Disney passed away. People looked around, and they kept asking what Walt would have done.” He goes, “The business was paralyzed, and people just sat around in meetings and talked about what Walt would have done.” He goes, “I never want you to ask what I would have done. Just do what’s right.” He was very clear.

He was making this point, and he says, “I hope you listen to my input if I want to input on something.” I said, “Of course.” (Laughs.) But he was so clear, and I have to tell you that it’s probably removed a tremendous burden from me that would have been there otherwise. And he repeated this much closer to his passing. I think in the second instance, I think he did that because he knew it would lift a burden. It was his way of making sure Apple would not be burdened by the past.

More so than any person I ever met in my life, he had the ability to change his mind, much more so than anyone I’ve ever met. He could be so sold on a certain direction and in a nanosecond (Cook snaps his fingers) have a completely different view. (Laughs.) I thought in the early days, “Wow, this is strange.” Then I realized how much of a gift it was. So many people, particularly, I think, CEOs and top executives, they get so planted in their old ideas, and they refuse or don’t have the courage to admit that they’re now wrong. Maybe the most underappreciated thing about Steve was that he had the courage to change his mind. And you know—it’s a talent. It’s a talent. So, anyway.

Do you miss him?
I do, every day. He was a friend, and it’s—I guess the external view of that is that he’s a boss, but when you work with someone for that long, for me anyway, the relationship is really important. You know? I don’t want to work with people I don’t like. Life is too short. So you do become friends. Life has too few friends.

Tyrangiel is editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and an executive editor of Bloomberg News.

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