Well you can expect less technically minded parents to put in a credit card for a 99 cent game. And then expect to have the password protect against unauthorized purchases. Problem with iOS is that if the parent enters the password to install a free game like this Smurf game, the password is cached for some time. If the kid immediately plays the game, they can make in-app purchases *without* the password.
The problem isn't credit card paranoia. Good for your wife that she doesn't have to tie a credit card in - I don't care!! It's the lack of secure defaults, and making it too easy for these scams to exist, not evil credit cards.
Typical credit card acceptance costs 15-30 cents per transaction. Micro transactions are a different way of handling debits to allow you to be profitable for sales under $1.00 (or whatever price point makes taking credit cards unfeasible or instantly unprofitable in the particular industry). You can't charge 30 cents for a service directly via credit card and expect to make a reasonable profit without making changes to the card processing fees themselves.
You have to tie a credit card to the iTunes account to install a 99 cent game. A password is required to install a free game. In-App purchases use the same password (as do paid apps).
In-App purchases from Apple in iOS are incredibly convenient, but they are definitely the fault here. The same password that you have to give your kid to install free apps is the same password needed to authorize the in-app purchase.
Which probably just means you need to have correct reverse DNS set for the static IP address. The ISP should help with that too. Yes, there are large databases of IP addresses that are part of modem pools. But if the reverse DNS for your IP isn't mail.mydomain.com and is instead something like adsl-99-67-123-53.dsl.covlil.sbcglobal.net, you're going to have delivery problems.
I agree that there needs to be reform, but I disagree that video compression algorithms shouldn't be patentable. The patent terms just need to be realistic with regard to how fast the industry moves. Not 15 years or something.
I use Flashblock for that reason. Flash only gets turned on for videos, and then the tab gets closed or reloaded (to re-block) when I'm done watching. You have to mod the FlashBlock config file to install it under the beta, but that's not hard.
I would be totally fine with all web standards going on hold for 2 or 3 years, and just getting out stable versions of the major browsers. Unfortunately, all anyone ever talks about are new features - and not speed and stability. I prefer Firefox, but it looks like Chrome's winning that war.
Didn't expect to find that. I switched to Chrome today because of this. Turns out that I had Greasemonkey installed for some unknown reason and I didn't even know it. On the other hand, just typing in this comment box spikes my CPU usage on Chrome to 75+%. That might just be the new design.
If they abolish "major releases" as we know them, and start doing point releases only, then you might as well call them major releases. They introduce so many bugs with each new version, that I think this is a step in the right direction.
Fewer features in each major release should mean more time spent fixing bugs. Would hope so, anyway. Firefox 4 beta 10 uses 100% of my CPU almost constantly (on Mac OS X 10.6) and I have no idea what new "feature" is responsible for this.
Newer Wii games require firmware updates. The updates are included on the disc - no Internet connection required. Now, by "required," that only means by design. A jailbroken Wii plays these games just fine with an older firmware version.
It's the people that believe that the "free market" will sort it out, but by free they mean they expect all consumers to agree with them and boycott companies who do things like this.
The truth is, people will buy the crap that's shoveled on to them. Doesn't matter if it was made with near-slave labor wages in China in a factory with no safety regulations, and the product falls apart in 3 years. If it's $3 cheaper, that's a win in the U.S.
For those, I prefer using my MythTV / Emulation computer that's hooked to my TV. Wireless controller with the PS2 dual shock design, and works perfectly for SNES and PlayStation. The buttons are nearly in the right place for Sega Genesis. I also hate the N64 controller, so I love it for that too.
I have all that set up, but I play my emulated Nintendo games on the Wii. It's just too much of an authentic experience to pass up.
I agree with that, but the Wii Remote on a jailbroken Wii is perfect for playing emulated classic Nintendo games. For most of the other consoles, it's not even a good fit unless you buy their wacky controller with a cord that plugs into the remote.
I can't imagine buying the games online. On the other hand, Super Mario Bros. 3 is cheaper on the Wii online store than it is to buy a used NES cartridge.
Slashdot Mirror
Well you can expect less technically minded parents to put in a credit card for a 99 cent game. And then expect to have the password protect against unauthorized purchases. Problem with iOS is that if the parent enters the password to install a free game like this Smurf game, the password is cached for some time. If the kid immediately plays the game, they can make in-app purchases *without* the password.
The problem isn't credit card paranoia. Good for your wife that she doesn't have to tie a credit card in - I don't care!! It's the lack of secure defaults, and making it too easy for these scams to exist, not evil credit cards.
And that a real wagon full of berries is probably about the same price or cheaper.
Typical credit card acceptance costs 15-30 cents per transaction. Micro transactions are a different way of handling debits to allow you to be profitable for sales under $1.00 (or whatever price point makes taking credit cards unfeasible or instantly unprofitable in the particular industry). You can't charge 30 cents for a service directly via credit card and expect to make a reasonable profit without making changes to the card processing fees themselves.
Because when you were a kid, you had to bring actual physical cash to the comic book store to buy that stuff.
Yes, that and the fact that you have a physical comic book that you can keep for a lifetime and/or sell.
You have to tie a credit card to the iTunes account to install a 99 cent game. A password is required to install a free game. In-App purchases use the same password (as do paid apps).
In-App purchases from Apple in iOS are incredibly convenient, but they are definitely the fault here. The same password that you have to give your kid to install free apps is the same password needed to authorize the in-app purchase.
In this case, nothing of real value would have been sold. Certainly the owners wouldn't be losing anything other than potential revenue.
Which probably just means you need to have correct reverse DNS set for the static IP address. The ISP should help with that too. Yes, there are large databases of IP addresses that are part of modem pools. But if the reverse DNS for your IP isn't mail.mydomain.com and is instead something like adsl-99-67-123-53.dsl.covlil.sbcglobal.net, you're going to have delivery problems.
It's not the math itself, it's the particular implementation of it.
I agree that there needs to be reform, but I disagree that video compression algorithms shouldn't be patentable. The patent terms just need to be realistic with regard to how fast the industry moves. Not 15 years or something.
Umm....what? MPEG-2 can't stream any decent video at an Internet-friendly bandwidth. DVD isn't even HD and it takes 6 megabits to look halfway decent.
I use Flashblock for that reason. Flash only gets turned on for videos, and then the tab gets closed or reloaded (to re-block) when I'm done watching. You have to mod the FlashBlock config file to install it under the beta, but that's not hard.
I would be totally fine with all web standards going on hold for 2 or 3 years, and just getting out stable versions of the major browsers. Unfortunately, all anyone ever talks about are new features - and not speed and stability. I prefer Firefox, but it looks like Chrome's winning that war.
Not very smart threading - maxes out one of my cores, leaves the others untouched.
Didn't expect to find that. I switched to Chrome today because of this. Turns out that I had Greasemonkey installed for some unknown reason and I didn't even know it. On the other hand, just typing in this comment box spikes my CPU usage on Chrome to 75+%. That might just be the new design.
If they abolish "major releases" as we know them, and start doing point releases only, then you might as well call them major releases. They introduce so many bugs with each new version, that I think this is a step in the right direction.
Fewer features in each major release should mean more time spent fixing bugs. Would hope so, anyway. Firefox 4 beta 10 uses 100% of my CPU almost constantly (on Mac OS X 10.6) and I have no idea what new "feature" is responsible for this.
If you have the pinhole camera, why do you need to be there too?
Newer Wii games require firmware updates. The updates are included on the disc - no Internet connection required. Now, by "required," that only means by design. A jailbroken Wii plays these games just fine with an older firmware version.
It's the people that believe that the "free market" will sort it out, but by free they mean they expect all consumers to agree with them and boycott companies who do things like this.
The truth is, people will buy the crap that's shoveled on to them. Doesn't matter if it was made with near-slave labor wages in China in a factory with no safety regulations, and the product falls apart in 3 years. If it's $3 cheaper, that's a win in the U.S.
For those, I prefer using my MythTV / Emulation computer that's hooked to my TV. Wireless controller with the PS2 dual shock design, and works perfectly for SNES and PlayStation. The buttons are nearly in the right place for Sega Genesis. I also hate the N64 controller, so I love it for that too.
I have all that set up, but I play my emulated Nintendo games on the Wii. It's just too much of an authentic experience to pass up.
You must not be a Netflix subscriber, then.
I agree with that, but the Wii Remote on a jailbroken Wii is perfect for playing emulated classic Nintendo games. For most of the other consoles, it's not even a good fit unless you buy their wacky controller with a cord that plugs into the remote.
I can't imagine buying the games online. On the other hand, Super Mario Bros. 3 is cheaper on the Wii online store than it is to buy a used NES cartridge.
Sustained, in this sense, would probably simply be not having to down to a lower quality stream.
I'm thinking that's just the max encoded bitrate they have available for streaming.