Exactly, these are even free from my mobile operator and all work independently. Technically the different sim cards have different numbers, but they all work under same "number"/contract. I have one for my phone, one for my 3G usb plugin and one just as a backup:)
"So $499 for 16GB of iPad," Jobs explained. "That's our base model. 32GB is $599, 64GB is $799. 3G models cost an extra $130. $629, 729, and 829 with 3G."
That's still ridiculous price increase for merely getting 3G. What I also would like to know if it supports fallback to gprs in case 3G isn't available, as is usually outside cities.
Exactly. Apparently this one costs $499. And it doesn't even have 3G (afraid of Nokia's patents?). Thats a major letdown for me, as I have cheap unlimited 3g and it would be perfect with a thing like this.
And the device is completely closed down like iPhone - if you want apps, you need to buy them from App Store.
I was waiting for the announcement, but meh. Not for me. I'll just wait for Courier.
I compared between IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Both IE and Firefox were completely unique even with the user agent because of the.NET versions there. Opera and Chrome were quite genetic.
Plugins were also completely unique and really easy to detect in any other browser than IE8. Interestingly IE's plugin list was really small and not at all so unique. IE's top "warning" bar asked me if I want to run specific plugins (probably to detect them). System fonts were completely unique and looks like easy to detect.
Remember that this is info that for example Google gets all over the internet via Analytics - they don't even need those tracking cookies because your browser leaves so much unique data behind it that it doesn't matter. And so does every website owner.
Another thing people usually forget about when clearing cookies is that Flash has cookies too and they don't clear along. When have you last time cleared them? Probably never. You can use BleachBit" to clear those along with other software, history and temp data.
I couldn't find out how much eBay pays currently as they have changed their affiliate model, but Amazon offers up to 20% with game downloads, 15% with endless products and up to 8.5% with general products (I suspect Bing can easily qualify for the highest rates). Before eBay used to pay 50%-75% from their income per sale, so I think it's in the same ranges. Some other affiliate commissions can go up to 30-50%, so Microsoft could actually be making extra revenue with the Cashback program.
And that Ubuntu users are actually supporting Microsoft. There is definitely irony in this story, but it's the other way around than what everyone thinks.
And if you would had read the complete article, you would know they answered what you said. Here's a paste for your convenience
UPDATE (and nerd alert): a lot of smart people have been questioning the accuracy of our 90% estimate, and with good reason, it’s a very rough estimate and the measurements are flawed. so we did some more digging to see if we might have missed the mark by a significant amount. here’s what we found: based on the number of unique IPs and unique player IDs, we found that on average, there are 1.3 unique IP addresses per player (there is 1 player id for each profile created on any installation that submits scores to our server) 76% of players have contacted the server from 1 IP 13% from 2 IPs 5% from 3 IPs 3% from 4 IPs 1% from 5 IPs 1% from 6 IPs 1% from more than 6 this tells us that the dynamic IP issue is a relatively small factor in this calculation we also looked at how many players IDs were created (rather than used) from each IP address. given that the vast majority of player IDs are associated with only a single IP, this is a fairly accurate measure of how many profiles the average user created. on average, a player has 1.15 profiles per installation.
when we take the total number of player IDs (which is smaller than the number of unique IPs from which leaderboard entries came) and divide it by 1.15 (the average number of profiles per installation) the number of estimated unique installations drops by about 35% as compared to the estimate based on unique IPs. let us further say that the average user installs the game on 1.25 computers with different IPs (i.e. not behind the same router), which i think is a high estimate. that lowers the estimated unique installations by another 20%. after factoring both of these in, the piracy rate would still be 82%, and we should keep in mind that this number doesn’t include those who never opted to submit scores to the leaderboard (it’s an option that’s off by default). so while it’s possible that the actual piracy rate is lower than 90%, it’s unlikely that it’s significantly lower. 2d boy hopes this satisfies the more rigorous number crunchers out there:)
oh, and yes, these numbers are exclusive of the demo those scores are submitted to a different server entirely.
One can only consume so much entertainment. If you feel entertained by the "bad" company's product, you probably don't have time or need to buy the other product by the "good" company.
They didn't calculate it based on torrent sites, but by copies of games that submitted high scores to top lists (opt-in option, stupid pirates). Here is their article about it, here slashdot coverage.
Also, that 500 seeders, 300 leechers is just one torrent, not combined total.
first, and most importantly, how we came up with this number: the game allows players to have their high scores reported to our server (it’s an optional checkbox). we record each score and the IP from which it came. we divided the total number of sales we had from all sources by the total number of unique IPs in our database, and came up with about 0.1. that’s how we came up with 90%.
it’s just an estimate though there are factors that we couldn’t account for that would make the actual piracy rate lower than our estimate: some people install the game on more than one machine most people have dynamic IP addresses that change from time to time
there are also factors that would make the actual piracy rate higher than our estimate: more than one installation behind the same router/firewall (would be common in an office environment) not everyone opts to have their scores submitted
for simplicity’s sake, we just assumed those would balance out. so take take the 90% as a rough estimate.
I'm not saying they all will be converted to paying customers, obviously that would never work. But lets be honest here, there are also many people who pirate it just because they can. Any person with a job has disposable income - they just need to prioritize it. Now they're just pirating the games for free because they can.
Google toolbar, analytics, ad sense, double click, chrome... My love for Google is diminishing faster than the DOW in 2008.
Google has always been about datamining and advertising and you're always been losing your privacy to them. It's just now that people are starting to get it. And now Larry & Sergey are selling their shares and other more business oriented people will get more saying on the company. Even if Google wasn't being so intrusive before (and it kind of was), being a publicly traded company you never know what happens with your data in future.
And if one uses Bing Cashback, one is being paid by Microsoft to use Ubuntu and giving them money to shop online using it, perhaps to buy a Linux-friendly netbook and the cycle continues.
Actually, in neither case is Microsoft actually paying anything.
With Bing Cashback, what users are paid are covered by affiliate commissions send to Microsoft from the participating sites. With paying Ubuntu, Yahoo/Microsoft is actually paying Ubuntu a share from ad clicks.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
Slashdot Mirror
Disable javascript globally and enable it for sites you like and need it. Most of the unique info is sent by it.
Oh right, 130$ extra. Wait, it's unlocked.
And what does this have to do anything? Any device I buy is unlocked.
It's unlocked, which means it's unsubsidized. The 3G data plan is pretty cheap.
I live in Europe so I dont need to worry about that anyway - I buy devices and mobile contracts differently.
And yes the 3G data plan is pretty cheap, 9e/month for 1mbit unlimited.
I do understand why Apple went for iPad name, but maybe they should had think a little bit more about it.
Exactly, these are even free from my mobile operator and all work independently. Technically the different sim cards have different numbers, but they all work under same "number"/contract. I have one for my phone, one for my 3G usb plugin and one just as a backup :)
Yeah summary mislead me.
"So $499 for 16GB of iPad," Jobs explained. "That's our base model. 32GB is $599, 64GB is $799. 3G models cost an extra $130. $629, 729, and 829 with 3G."
$130 extra for 3G. Geez.
That's still ridiculous price increase for merely getting 3G. What I also would like to know if it supports fallback to gprs in case 3G isn't available, as is usually outside cities.
Nope.
Wi-fi versions are $499, $599, $699 for 16/32/64GB versions, respectively.
3G versions are $629, $729, $829, respectively.
$120 for 3G? Now just.. wtf? And does it even have both then, or is it either one that you choose?
3G is for outside. Wifi is for inside use. ffs.
Exactly. Apparently this one costs $499. And it doesn't even have 3G (afraid of Nokia's patents?). Thats a major letdown for me, as I have cheap unlimited 3g and it would be perfect with a thing like this.
And the device is completely closed down like iPhone - if you want apps, you need to buy them from App Store.
I was waiting for the announcement, but meh. Not for me. I'll just wait for Courier.
One extra thing I noticed also. If you disable javascript they weren't able to get any other info than user agent and http_accept strings.
So NoScript is good to use. Also in Opera you can do this by disabling global javascript and enabling it on per site basis.
I compared between IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Both IE and Firefox were completely unique even with the user agent because of the .NET versions there. Opera and Chrome were quite genetic.
Plugins were also completely unique and really easy to detect in any other browser than IE8. Interestingly IE's plugin list was really small and not at all so unique. IE's top "warning" bar asked me if I want to run specific plugins (probably to detect them). System fonts were completely unique and looks like easy to detect.
Remember that this is info that for example Google gets all over the internet via Analytics - they don't even need those tracking cookies because your browser leaves so much unique data behind it that it doesn't matter. And so does every website owner.
Another thing people usually forget about when clearing cookies is that Flash has cookies too and they don't clear along. When have you last time cleared them? Probably never. You can use BleachBit" to clear those along with other software, history and temp data.
I couldn't find out how much eBay pays currently as they have changed their affiliate model, but Amazon offers up to 20% with game downloads, 15% with endless products and up to 8.5% with general products (I suspect Bing can easily qualify for the highest rates). Before eBay used to pay 50%-75% from their income per sale, so I think it's in the same ranges. Some other affiliate commissions can go up to 30-50%, so Microsoft could actually be making extra revenue with the Cashback program.
Don't worry, they're just on a holiday and going back soon.
This means 5,768,000 users will have to change their setting, meaning nearly TWO MONTHS (66.8 days) of lost time overall.
And creating a new big budget computer game takes 2433 YEARS* (876 000 days) of development time overall.
What is your point?
(*assuming a normal big budget size game development time of 3 years with a team of 100 people)
And that Ubuntu users are actually supporting Microsoft. There is definitely irony in this story, but it's the other way around than what everyone thinks.
And if you would had read the complete article, you would know they answered what you said. Here's a paste for your convenience
UPDATE (and nerd alert): a lot of smart people have been questioning the accuracy of our 90% estimate, and with good reason, it’s a very rough estimate and the measurements are flawed. so we did some more digging to see if we might have missed the mark by a significant amount. here’s what we found:
based on the number of unique IPs and unique player IDs, we found that on average, there are 1.3 unique IP addresses per player (there is 1 player id for each profile created on any installation that submits scores to our server)
76% of players have contacted the server from 1 IP
13% from 2 IPs
5% from 3 IPs
3% from 4 IPs
1% from 5 IPs
1% from 6 IPs
1% from more than 6
this tells us that the dynamic IP issue is a relatively small factor in this calculation
we also looked at how many players IDs were created (rather than used) from each IP address. given that the vast majority of player IDs are associated with only a single IP, this is a fairly accurate measure of how many profiles the average user created. on average, a player has 1.15 profiles per installation.
when we take the total number of player IDs (which is smaller than the number of unique IPs from which leaderboard entries came) and divide it by 1.15 (the average number of profiles per installation) the number of estimated unique installations drops by about 35% as compared to the estimate based on unique IPs. let us further say that the average user installs the game on 1.25 computers with different IPs (i.e. not behind the same router), which i think is a high estimate. that lowers the estimated unique installations by another 20%. after factoring both of these in, the piracy rate would still be 82%, and we should keep in mind that this number doesn’t include those who never opted to submit scores to the leaderboard (it’s an option that’s off by default). so while it’s possible that the actual piracy rate is lower than 90%, it’s unlikely that it’s significantly lower. 2d boy hopes this satisfies the more rigorous number crunchers out there :)
oh, and yes, these numbers are exclusive of the demo those scores are submitted to a different server entirely.
One can only consume so much entertainment. If you feel entertained by the "bad" company's product, you probably don't have time or need to buy the other product by the "good" company.
Its the stupid questions day on slashdot or what?
They didn't calculate it based on torrent sites, but by copies of games that submitted high scores to top lists (opt-in option, stupid pirates). Here is their article about it, here slashdot coverage.
Also, that 500 seeders, 300 leechers is just one torrent, not combined total.
It was covered on Slashdot too. Here's their article about it
first, and most importantly, how we came up with this number: the game allows players to have their high scores reported to our server (it’s an optional checkbox). we record each score and the IP from which it came. we divided the total number of sales we had from all sources by the total number of unique IPs in our database, and came up with about 0.1. that’s how we came up with 90%.
it’s just an estimate though there are factors that we couldn’t account for that would make the actual piracy rate lower than our estimate:
some people install the game on more than one machine
most people have dynamic IP addresses that change from time to time
there are also factors that would make the actual piracy rate higher than our estimate:
more than one installation behind the same router/firewall (would be common in an office environment)
not everyone opts to have their scores submitted
for simplicity’s sake, we just assumed those would balance out. so take take the 90% as a rough estimate.
I'm not saying they all will be converted to paying customers, obviously that would never work. But lets be honest here, there are also many people who pirate it just because they can. Any person with a job has disposable income - they just need to prioritize it. Now they're just pirating the games for free because they can.
"Yes, it does work! Just click the 'temporary disable Google toolbar for this window', and restart your browser for the changes to take effect!"
Google toolbar, analytics, ad sense, double click, chrome... My love for Google is diminishing faster than the DOW in 2008.
Google has always been about datamining and advertising and you're always been losing your privacy to them. It's just now that people are starting to get it. And now Larry & Sergey are selling their shares and other more business oriented people will get more saying on the company. Even if Google wasn't being so intrusive before (and it kind of was), being a publicly traded company you never know what happens with your data in future.
That's why there are class-action suits. Also, you are suing the ex-directors, not the bankrupt company.
Exactly. But that's why its good to order games online - then you can return them in 14 days for whatever reason.
And if one uses Bing Cashback, one is being paid by Microsoft to use Ubuntu and giving them money to shop online using it, perhaps to buy a Linux-friendly netbook and the cycle continues.
Actually, in neither case is Microsoft actually paying anything.
With Bing Cashback, what users are paid are covered by affiliate commissions send to Microsoft from the participating sites.
With paying Ubuntu, Yahoo/Microsoft is actually paying Ubuntu a share from ad clicks.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.