Here's How US Allies Could Shoot Down Missiles From North Korea

Things are heated on the Korean peninsula, and while there's plenty of talk from the North about launching a "cutting edge strike" on the United States, their missile capabilities are mostly limited to attacks against U.S. forces in South Korea or Japan.

But were they to actually launch missiles, America and its allies are far from defenseless.

South Korea and Japan currently have the Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target system, better known as the PATRIOT. It's a highly mobile system that can be set up in under one hour.

First designed for an anti-aircraft role in the late 1970s, the Patriot was later modified to defend against ballistic missiles. With a radar that can pick up threats more than 60 miles away and armed with a high-explosive warhead, it's designed to launch missiles that detonate and produce shrapnel when it gets close to a threat, according to PBS.

The PATRIOT system was used extensively during the first Gulf War against Iraqi SCUD missiles, with varying degrees of success. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, they worked extremely well.

From a report of the Defense Science Board:

All nine enemy tactical ballistic missiles that threatened areas designated for Patriot defense were engaged. Eight of these engagements were observed by enough other sensors to conservatively declare them successes; the ninth engagement is judged to be a probable success. None of the attacking tactical ballistic missiles caused any damage or loss of life to the coalition forces.

Here's how it works:

The land-based PATRIOT system will soon be joined by U.S. ships en route to the area, the USS John McCain and the USS Decatur. Both are Aegis-class warships, meaning they're capable of intercepting and destroying ballistic missiles "above the atmosphere during the midcourse phase of a hostile ballistic missile's flight."

The holistic anti-North Korean missile system will also be bolstered soon by the deployment of another missile defense system to Guam, the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD).

SEE ALSO: Defense Secretary Calls North Korea Clear And Present Danger — US Set To Deploy Missile Defense To Guam >

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Why Did Andy Rubin Get Demoted? Here's The Most Surprising Gossip We've Heard

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced that Andy Rubin, the inventor of Google's Android smartphone operating system, was stepping down.

In a blog post, Google CEO Larry Page said that an executive named Sundar Pichai would take Rubin's place.

It was a shock. 

Rubin created Android as a startup, sold it to Google, and then managed a team that got the OS installed on hundreds of millions of smartphones worldwide.

It was his baby.

Why was he getting pushed aside?

Was it because of his infamous, Steve Jobs-like temper?

The week after the news came out, we spent a few days in the Bay Area, talking with ex-Googlers and other plugged-in sources.

We asked each of them about Rubin's sudden demotion. 

Here's one explanation from one ex-Googler that we found particularly compelling.

Rubin didn't get the boot because he's a tyrant with Google employees. 

Don't be confused.

All of the sources we gossiped with say Rubin does have a reputation for being ornery, nitpicky, and unhappy in a sometimes poisonous way.

But Rubin has always been difficult to work with, and it never cost him his job before.

Likewise, Google's very successful revenue boss, Nikesh Arora, has a reputation with former colleagues as being someone who will "stab you in the face" — and he doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

What we heard is that Larry Page doesn't mind employing gruff types ... so long as they serve his purpose.

Page must have decided that the way Rubin was running Android no longer served his purpose, and that an Android run by Sundar Pichai would.

So the question becomes: What does Pichai bring to Android that Rubin does not?

Android is just a means to an end

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Andy Rubin viewed Android's most successful partner, Samsung, as a potential threat.

Why?: Samsung could grow so popular with consumers, that it could eventually re-write Android's code in an entirely customized way, and stop calling it Android altogether.

The report said Rubin told a room full of Google executives that Google-owned phone-maker Motorola was a hedge against Samsung growing too powerful.

Rubin's comments indicated a view of Android as something to preserve and protect.

Our source believes that Larry Page isn't nearly so worried about Android itself. This source says that Page views it as a means to an end.

He says Page views Google as "a cloud services company," built on cornerstone products like Search, Maps, Mail, and YouTube.

He says Page views Android as a way for Google to partner with hardware-makers to make these services more available to consumers.

As a side benefit, Android has made it so that the world of smartphones is not dominated by a single player: Apple.

In this context, the promotion of Pichai makes more sense.

Pichai established himself at Google running the team that convinced computer-makers to pre-install the Google Toolbar.

Our source says that at the highest levels of Google, it is believed that Pichai's success establishing those partnerships played a crucial role in exposing Google search to consumers, and making it a part of their daily routine.

Now, according to this speculation, Page is asking Pichai to pull off the same trick again: Make new Google services a part of consumers' daily lives by having hardware-makers install software access points to those services. 

If those "software access points" are called Android, fine.

If they are called Samsung OS; that's fine too.

But what about Motorola?

Some people say that Google bought Motorola in order to copy Apple's business model. 

If that were true, that would contradict the theory that Android is just a means to an end for Page.

But our speculating ex-Googler has a good answer for this. He notes that Page didn't put an executive with product-building experience in charge of Motorola; he gave the gig to Dennis Woodside, a former McKinsey consultant from Google's sales organization.

Our source believes Google bought Motorola for the reason it's stated over and over: patents.

He believes that Page put Woodside in charge because he wants to optimize Motorola's core competency: hardware technology development.

Our source believes Page wants Motorola to focus on better, longer-lasting batteries and faster chips, with the goal of pushing the entire phone-making industry forward.

Why?

So that Google's cloud-based services run better and can do more things on all kinds of mobile devices.

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Here's What The Babies From 'Baby Geniuses' Look Like Today

Leo, Myles, and Gerry Fitzgerald all shared the role of twins Sly and Whit in the 1999 movie "Baby Geniuses."

Now, the Fitzgerald brothers are incredible hockey players and all three of them committed to Bemidji State University to play hockey starting in the 2014-2015 season. The triplets have dominated as the top three leading scorers on their junior hockey club team, the Victoria Grizzlies (via Deadspin).

Here are Myles and Gerry golfing with some friends (they are the shorter guys of the group):

You can see Leo's photo here >

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STOCKS MAKE BIG COMEBACK: Here's What You Need To Know (DIA, SPY, QQQ)

Markets opened deep in the red with the Dow down by as much as 120 points.  But stocks slowly ground higher.

First the scoreboard:

Dow: 14,526, -33.5 pts, -0.2 percent
S&P 500: 1,562, -0.9 pts, -0.0 percent
NASDAQ: 3,256, +4.0 pts, +0.1 percent

And now the top stories:

• In case you haven't been following, the S&P 500 is just a handful of points away from its all-time high of 1,565.
• The U.S. markets actually began the day deep in the red.  Much of the bad news was coming out of Europe where Italy is in disarray and Cyprus makes plans to reopen its banks tomorrow.
• For the next seven days, Cypriot bank account holders will not be able to cash any checks, however they will be welcome to make deposits. Also, all card transactions will be capped at 5,000 euros.  These capital controls are intended to prevent a run on the banks, which would be devastating for the very financial system that Europe is trying to preserve.
• "The Troika have managed to exponentially increase concerns on how safe retail deposits are in the eurozone," wrote Societe Generale strategist Albert Edwards. "It matters not that the final Cypriot bailout plan did not touch smaller savers unlike the original proposal of a 6¾% tax (haircut) for ALL deposits under 100,000 in ALL banks (including foreign bank subsidiaries). The fact that this plan was originally sanctioned, despite deposit insurance, will have shaken small saver confidence to the bone. It certainly has shaken my confidence."
• In the U.S., pending home sales fell by 0.4 percent in February, which was a bit worse than the 0.3 percent expected by economists.
• Still, the overall trend in the U.S. housing market continues to be as strong as ever.  Anecdotal evidence suggests some local markets may be getting a bit too hot for comfort.  "People are fighting other people," said Jeff Gundlach of the Southern California housing market. "It's almost the same type of environment I remember from the late 1980s."
• Don't Miss: At A Conference In Dubai, David Kotok Gave This Presentation On The Precarious State Of Global Monetary Policy >

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