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Regionally Encoded Toner Cartridges 'to Serve Customers Better'
sandbagger writes: The latest attempt to create artificial scarcity comes from Xerox, according to the editors at TechDirt, who cite German sources: "Xerox uses region coding on their toner cartridges AND locks the printer to the first type used. So if you use a North America cartridge you can't use the cheaper Eastern Europe cartridges. The printer's display doesn't show this, nor does the hotline know about it. When c't reached out to Xerox, the marketing drone claimed, this was done to serve the customer better..."
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When companies are so blatant about wanting to overcharge their customers, it makes it real easy to identify them and remove the bad companies from our approved vendor list.
I've been in the copier/printer/fax/computer business for over 30 years. Region locking things has been going on for about that long. It first started with designing a tab, prong or other plastic part, to prevent a cartridge from working. Savin, some Lanier, Ricoh boxes are the same, but their cartridges won't fit. Toshiba, some lanier, Kyocera boxes are the same, but their toner won't fit. They use to do it with the above mentioned "break away" tabs (if you knew what to change), but that wasn't good enough, so they put a different drive gear coupling on the rear. But that wasn't good enough. Now a lot of them have either a CRM chip, or an RFID chip on the back of the cartridge that gets close enough to the one in the machine to read it. If they don't match, it won't work. In the "olden" days of dry toner copier, they did this to prevent a person from refilling the toner cartridges. With the color copiers/printers, the particle sizes have reached such a small size, and, the temperature melting points are becoming so small, that if you vary the toner or carrier just a very small amount, it makes a mess and can destroy some components. The DRM on cartridges is a PITA because if you slap a genuine new one in, and it doesn't read, it creates a service call. Sometimes, you can go in and tell it to look for the cartridge again, but if that doesn't work, you have to reject the cartridge and RMA it back to the company.
Epson seems to be inching into the right direction: http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...
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Yep. Pricing for airlines seems to be a follows:
Far-in-advance purchases, airline hasn't decided 100% to have the flight yet. Prices are a little higher because early demand can dictate whether or not the flight even occurs or not. If the supply (ie, the flight) is not guaranteed, then the burden falls on demand.
Once enough tickets are booked to make the flight likely, the airline now wants to sell as many seats as possible, so prices drop as supply now outstrips demand. The airline knows about how much per-seat it costs to fly the plane both occuppied and empty, so it's in their interest to sell seats even sometimes at a loss if it is less of a loss than flying without passengers, and based on past performance they can attempt to balance that number.
As the plane approaches capacity the airlines start adjusting the nature of supply and demand. They know that last-minute passengers are unlikely to purchase expensive first-class seats regardless of a lack of availablity of coach seats, so if the first-class cabin is empty or mostly empty they'll upgrade frequent flyers so that their less-expensive coach seats can now be priced at a high but not impossibly-high price for last-minute fares.
When you fly the same route a lot, you learn how that route is priced throughout the year and how the various flights on that route fill. We've found the most common flight we use about six times a year makes sense to book 8 to 6 weeks out from flying, depending on what holidays are around then and if there are any other large-travel days like the start or end of college.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Yeah, we did that to ensure that we can gouge as much as possible. You see, international trade and benefiting from cheap labor abroad is only good if we can profit from it, not when it cuts into our profits."
Seriously? Did you expect him to tell you the truth? C'mon, be reasonable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"The cost of operating a plane does not significantly change based on passenger demand."
Airlines don't fly a plane. They fly fleets of planes. Increasing ticket prices on fuller flights is one way of balancing demand.
You're free to start your own airline if you think you have a better way to do it profitably.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Perhaps, but it's a choice by printer companies to save money and simplify maintenance. It'd be a bit like if lawnmowers had a combined sump/oil filter that came pre-filled with oil. Nice, simple, and quick to replace. But perhaps the filter lasts longer than the oil, or vice versa.
In a big printer, like a car or riding lawnmower, having them be separate makes sense. Diesel Trucks(and I'm not talking pickups here), often have different maintenance intervals for their filters and oil. For that matter, they'll often TEST their oil to make sure it's still good, because testing makes financial sense when you're looking at a 40 quart oil change vs a 5 quart one. In many cases they'll replace the oil filter only, pour in a new quart of oil to replace the oil lost in the filter, and keep on going.
When it comes to cartridges, there's 'usually' 1-3 components. Toner, drum, and waste toner storage. The problem you can get with remanufactured ones is if the toner (2k pages) is put into a heavily recycled cartridge without also replacing the drum (~40k pages) and emptying the waste toner.
I don't read AC A human right
The cost of operating a plane does not significantly change based on passenger demand.
No, but expanding capacity is indeed hugely expensive. Once you've filled every seat on a plane, costs become a lot more linear. If there's 'huge demand', first you trade up to a larger airplane, but this isn't generally cost effective for 1 more passenger, but going from a 20 seat commuter to a 30 seat one with 1 seat empty will be cost effective. Or a 150 seat 100% full craft to a 90% full 200 seat one.
After you're flying a bigger plane, you then look at 2 flights. But extra planes are expensive. Then, once you've filled the airport up, your next step is more runways, terminals, and all that, which is hugely expensive.
Increasing prices during high demand periods helps pay for the capacity that's only demanded during that period, it's very much NOT pure price gouging. By charging more during those periods, people like me who doesn't care about the holiday period that much will pick non-holiday periods to fly, evening out demand. By charging less during low demand periods, they get value-seekers flying during those periods, again, evening out demand, allowing steadier use of their aircraft and personnel. Beyond standard tricks like ensuring 'every' aircraft possible is flying during high demand periods, as opposed to being in maintenance, for example.
Why do airlines charge more for last minute tickets? Because they cost the airlines more. In order to even offer the service, they can't overbook flights as much, you often have to take inefficient routing, and they can't anticipate those sales. It's like dinners that are $25 pre-order, $30 at the door. Why the extra $5? Because pre-ordered tickets are a known factor - they know how many are showing up, so they have supplies for that. They have to guess at how many people will just show up, so that can mean wasted food, thus the higher charge - and don't forget the factor that they want you to pre-order.
Oh yeah, and if you're buying last minute at the airport you're GOING to show up, they can't apply the 'might not show up but we get to keep your money' discount.
I don't read AC A human right
what is the c*t magazine everybody keeps speaking of? I know plenty of c*ts, but none who work at a magazine.
It's not c*t, it's "c't", Which is somebody's clever way of extremely abbreviating Computerteknic. More formally, and translated to English, Magazine for Computer Technics. A venerable German tech publication, despite the brevity.
http://www.heise.de/ct/
Where in the motherfucking hell do you find anything about "federal power" preventing you from hacking
This law does exist, regardless of whether you know about it or not. I think it's called Anti-circumvention millenium.... here you go
That's funny!
See, most of their customers, including their largest customers, are very likely to be unaffected by the change as they're not buying off-brand or foreign toner cartridges. (Possibly due to service contracts or vendor related issues.) Smaller companies are stuck for years with expensive equipment; even if they're upset, that anger will fade (or the person in-change of that decision long replaced) by the time they upgrade. Worse, if Xerox is successful, and region locking turns out to make sense financially, others will follow suit quickly.
In short, the market *can't* fix this.
If Xerox drops this initiative, it's because the cost of implementing region locking starts to exceed the projected losses from resold cartridges. It's not going to come from consumer rebellion, as the free market fanatics would have you believe, as consumers in this case are almost universally either powerless or apathetic.
Required reading for internet skeptics