What difference do any of those make when the phone is locked down so you can't get to either of them? Also, why is there a $1,500 cost to get started with BREW? [ref]
The network operators treat their networks like toll roads, except that it's more like highway robbery with a slimy layer of PR that states that all this is "for your protection". I call shenanigans. Verizon has an especially bad reputation here.
I wonder, why not instead work with an open specification, with sane rules for mis-behavior (malware, network abuse, etc.) and compete on services rather than lack thereof.
Yuck! I cringe whenever someone uses that word. Perhaps because lately I feel very much offended that a lot of 'Information' out there is in fact nothing more than a subtle (or increasingly not-so-subtle) attempt at Marketing.
Please enough already - no more of this Hollywood style, flashy, 'make believe' stuff with specious vocabulary. There is a certain spark in the Human psyche that gets lit whenever a person truly gains comprehension or insight into something they did not know before. Especially with Children, in my humble opinion, what's need is to light that little flame. 'Edutainment' makes it seem like it's a bitter pill that must be sugar coated with oodles of artificial sweeteners to be palatable.
I say, leave them kids alone. Let them discover the joys of the Earth without the myopic view of Google Earth and look for the Stars in the night sky... rather than on a computer screen. Teach them well those basics that our ancestors took so long to truly comprehend, preferably with a pencil and paper.
Sure, this is concerning to me because of how long all these chemicals survive and re-enter the water supply. Perhaps, this isn't even new News (fish on birth control -see here), but what concerns me is what about the other stuff that we introduce into our food/water supplies that is at higher concentrations? e.g., bovine hormones.
Sometimes it's better to spend your money on what your own staff can do instead of just assuming that an outside vendor will automatically develop something better. For some reason, too many executives undervalue the abilities of their own people and hire big names like Boeing for many times what it would have cost to develop better systems in house.
I was quite taken by the above quote - I work for a big corporation and the story is the same here. (grossly simplified, here goes...) Much of our work is being outsourced to so called 'lower cost centers' in India/China/Poland etc. and we end up playing the role of Integrator. Except that the responsibility for when things go wrong, (or don't line up as they were agreed to), comes down to us. We have to make it work, or we lose our jobs. If we complain too loudly, we lose our jobs. Meanwhile, the so-called low cost centers wise up that they really don't have any motivation to do a better quality job... so they do the absolute minimum they can to get away from it... knowing that the absolute authority for the work remains at the highest levels of management, who are happy when the M$ Project sheet says "India/ChinaSoft delivered software on time" (never mind that it did not work). They get their bonus and life goes on.
This has been going on for sometime - there used to be a time when any issue would have a clear line into the responsible people/team. I recall having worked with HP like that many moons ago. Now, it's next to impossible and that pride and responsibility associated with having a job well done is mostly lost.
Yet, I suspect that there are still good companies out there, who are trying to do the right thing, but they are constantly under siege from those who lie about true cost, deliverable dates, quality and such. The sad part is that there is no accountability at the top - so that when things don't work out, repeat offenders are taken to task... at a minimum, don't give them $210 million 'severance' packages!
One of the hardest areas to address when going Multi-thread (for multi-core support) is the legacy source code, that just works... and management wants to make 'multi-thread capable' so as to preserve the 'equity' in that application.
It's perhaps too simple to say that starting with a blank slate, designing for MT capable applications isn't that hard. When you have to deal with 10-15 years of (legacy) crusty code and unrealistic expectations of zero-risk but max-gain, then you have a different problem to solve and without realizing the truth in your fiction, such generalizations can be seriously misleading!
Giving a guy who is about to dump a few billion dollars into your nation "a taste of their own medicine" is by far the stupidest idea I can possibly think of.
What exactly does the above statement mean? Does it assume that it's okay for a person to be given extra privileges because of their... financial status? Or does it imply that it is required to treat someone nice just because they may be of financial benefit?
I don't wholely disagree with you - Nigeria, as other people have posted, remains a lawless and corrupt place so there may be more that meets the eye. Plus, it's not just them, many immigration policies extend welcomes only to the rich. I just, vehemently, disagree with the premise of that statement.
I second that... I develop applications on Linux in a commercial environment that is pretty sensitive to scheduler changes. Scheduling priority and what not, I understand the technical reasons, but to the army of project manglers surrounding me, it's just an excuse to point to the constant "varability" of the Linux kernel that causes them much churn. Unexpected side-effects, context switching issues... the proposition is very difficult to defend when staying with the "current" scheduler results in custom mods that they are scared of, and going with the latest put at risk, many 'system' applications to unforseen side-effects.
The article is a bit self-limiting because it pertains only to IT related innovation. Yet, some of the points raise may just as well be extended to other technology domains.
My experience says that for the vast majority of companies, business finances overwhelm every other facet of the business. And that is not at all unexpected - if you want to remain alive, you have to watch where your money goes and comes from. However, going beyond this conventional logic, I've also noticed that even well established companies, with deep pockets, never seem to get out of that logic at all. Sadly, the motivation isn't to spend today to incubate for tomorrow, but more like, use today and re-package the same stuff for tomorrow so that the upfront cost may be saved and the lust for instant gratification (by the CEO, Investors etc.) may be satiated. The business focused organization deals strictly on numbers and innovates by mergers and acquisitions.
I'm not sure I agree with their definition of 'innovation' (again perhaps they refer to a strictly IT perspective which I don't claim to understand). True innovation takes time, determination and a vision. While money may condense time and allow for a more determined effort, vision requires initiative. (read: sticking your neck out because of a true passionate desire to realize your idea). Most business types don't want to risk their lucrative careers/bonuses on that - so in comes the bureaucracy to sustain this 'incremental' model. No surprise that most large companies/governments/entities suffer from bureaucracies that destroy initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines.
Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
Yep, I concur. In today's world there's the whole Intellectual Property bit of things that needs to be addressed. So a hidden 'trade secret' is a better choice than a publicly declared patent which has a statue of limitations on it.
Lastly, and some may argue more importantly, the business case for recouping the investment. The numbers have to work out (Admittedly, I'm simplifying the issue drastically). Most smart companies won't let their innovation cannibalize on their 'legacy' technology.
Well, at least you knew who and where the information was leaked.
In my case, I got a letter from my credit card saying that a merchant whom I had transacted with, was the source of a breach. No more information on when this occurred, who the merchant was, how many people were impacted or how long they knew of the situation, before they informed me. Instead, the Credit Card company re-issued me a new credit card, at 'my request' prior to me doing or asking for anything.
The letter in fact was so unsettling, it was written to evoke a feeling that I had somehow reported fradulent activity... I called the company and spent 45 minutes before realizing that there was one of me and a seemingly unending supply of pod-people who kept repeating the same line to me. I obtained my own credit report a few weeks after and guess what, the aforementioned account was "closed at the customer's request".
The outrage in me continues, and I wonder what kind of risk I'm exposed to, but I don't know what to do against an army of droid? May be a letter will do some good? How much time should I invest in all of this without the faintest glimmer that anything will happen?
I second your thoughts on higher penalties. With credit cards being an increasing singular means of carrying out transactions, I would certainly modify my business behaviors with people who are not careful with my information!
Does this book supply any HW recommendations? For me that has been one of the stumbling blocks... what architecture, what device, how much memory etc. to get going.
I've seen a lot of embedded developer kits but I don't know where to start as none really list what kind of OS they'll support.
Why can't a computer turn on and off in an instant just like a TV?
Well, first off, the comparison between a TV and a Computer is misleading. TVs for the most part, remain nothing more that big Audio Video amplifiers. If I could post a block diagram, you'd have the receiving section (UHF/VHF etc), the audio and video amplifiers with a little bit of tuning capabilities etc, and the presentation (the screen, audio output etc.) There's not much going on in terms of what the device needs to know to be able to boot.
Fast forward to the newer TVs with a lot of digital "intelligent" boxes in them and you can already start to see bootstrapping time.
Computers (circa80s and so on) have almost always required a lot of time to discover their environment, whether it be the associated hardware to discovering the network they're on.
Nonetheless, the question is a good one. Why not? Part of the reason is that in making devices modular, one incurs a certain need to exchange data to make the device work. The interfaces (e.g., CPU to Video card or CPU to hard disk) continue to remain slow... so at boot up time, there is considerable time taken to repeat these very same actions each time. The second reason has to deal with the operating systems we got out there - Why must they control every aspect of the hardware beneath them? Why couldn't it just be a set of modules where they can send a unified data stream and have the device deal with it. This rant ranges from the IO buffering required for some devices to the management of actual devices for consuming data by the OS. I'm appalled everytime I see how many queues get involved in just sending data in and out of a modern OS.
I'll readily grant that this is just an off the cuff reply - many here have given equally good reasons and the topic deserves much more careful study. Just my humble 2 cents.
why such a draconian proposal would be made in the first place? Isn't it just a ploy to scare people into "look what could've happened" to "we are your saviors, we understand the little guy" - I call shenanigans. When citizens are called "consumers" and big business threatens the ordinary little guy by LAW, something is seriously messed up. Think of it, when was the last time you read a headline that did not involve a big corporation/lobby influencing a government to do something that runs completely opposite of what the role of a government is. Why does the little guy get so jacked everytime!
Is not 90% (and I'm being generous to the telemarketers) of their most annoying behavior already known? Whatever happened to professionalism and service orientation, never mind, basic civility?
Is this going to be just a meter for the telemarketer to approximate how much BS the other person will take?
email address? Why an email address? (rhetorical question of course)
I always refuse to give my email (airlines sooner or later use it for spam) and if I have to, I always give: diespamdie@127.0.0.1. Does this mean I'm screwed?
In addition to many good points, the reality is that once a company achieves a certain reputation and a product (which is doing reasonably well.. even in appearance), then *everything* becomes a 'business case'. It is for that reason that so-called 'Leadership' comes from getting as much revenue as possible out of the said product... Engineering types are usually kept out of the loop - because typically they see through all this BS. Sad part is that most of them, especially the technically and intellectually capable Engineers ones don't engage themselves to the next level - so the business types implicitely take over control - then begins a long cycle of reaching SEI levels and process where as the real money, innovation and most of all, creativity, which fueled all the initial success is lost.
No, no I think you may be correct. After all, DRM is just the software approximation of a wife. She knows all what you do, where you do and you have to keep her happy:)
Well said! Introvert/Extrovert...bah! Either case, careful people chose their words carefully. What may be perceived as 'fast talk' may in fact be exactly what is required to get a so-called 'snap decision', as one of my friends puts it, 'an old Jedi mind-trick'.
It varies on the situation as well, most people clam up when faced with superior authority (perceived or otherwise). Others will cut conversations, speaker in a louder voice, thicker accent, incorrect vocabulary, etc. all in an attempt to get their goal accomplished.
Much more to be said here, but that is the basic gist...
Well, having worked in the subscriber (aka cellphone/mobile) side of things, the way this works is pretty bad:
1. Buy cell phones at a loss from companies like Sony, Qualcomm etc. 2. 'Incentivize' consumers to buy them for 'free' e.g., a $300 phone for $30 with a 3 yr contract. 3. ??? 4. Profit!
See, when operators like Sprint, Verizon, etc buy them at a loss (step 1), they get a nice *big* deduction on their Taxes. Next, (step 2), who is to say that the original $300 prices is a real price any more? Whatever they can shake down from an unsuspecting consumer who has just been led to believe he's got such a great deal is well, pure profit. I believe it is generally accounted for as a 'service fee'. The contract is there to make you a true 'user' - strange how that term once referred to drug addicts but now everyone is a user...but I digress...
That is why operators hate to see you get unlocked gsm phones - that is why they will try to charge you by hook or crook for any and all services on that phone. I believe it Japan, they charge by the byte!
Proprietary cables (where standardized ones would do just fine), telling people they can't load anything on their phone without downloading it from the operator etc.. these are just tricks of the game.
At some point, all 'commodotized' services become a matter of who has how deep of pockets to rip the vast 'informed illiterate' masses.
Yep - the silly thing is that despite all the negative publicity, no one wants to ask how this 'helps' the artist and how it *never* helped anyone but Sony. This is another clusterf*ck brought to you by Sony. I suspect we still have a ways to go with this one.
Well, IMHO, the vast majority of these so-called 'Ads' are nothing more than attempts at sleazy ways to farm more information. Some do it explicitely, some implicitely. Some more annoyingly than others...
But if I were to say the one thing that annoys me the most is that these Ads, often hold up the page from being loaded itself. Mr. DoubleClick, atdmt.com, pointroll.com, mediaplex.com... the list is unending. Intrusive, like others have mentioned here is one thing. But if you down right get in the way, you're going to get blocked forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Yuck! I cringe whenever someone uses that word. Perhaps because lately I feel very much offended that a lot of 'Information' out there is in fact nothing more than a subtle (or increasingly not-so-subtle) attempt at Marketing.
... rather than on a computer screen. Teach them well those basics that our ancestors took so long to truly comprehend, preferably with a pencil and paper.
Please enough already - no more of this Hollywood style, flashy, 'make believe' stuff with specious vocabulary. There is a certain spark in the Human psyche that gets lit whenever a person truly gains comprehension or insight into something they did not know before. Especially with Children, in my humble opinion, what's need is to light that little flame. 'Edutainment' makes it seem like it's a bitter pill that must be sugar coated with oodles of artificial sweeteners to be palatable.
I say, leave them kids alone. Let them discover the joys of the Earth without the myopic view of Google Earth and look for the Stars in the night sky
Sure, this is concerning to me because of how long all these chemicals survive and re-enter the water supply. Perhaps, this isn't even new News (fish on birth control -see here), but what concerns me is what about the other stuff that we introduce into our food/water supplies that is at higher concentrations? e.g., bovine hormones.
I was quite taken by the above quote - I work for a big corporation and the story is the same here. (grossly simplified, here goes...) Much of our work is being outsourced to so called 'lower cost centers' in India/China/Poland etc. and we end up playing the role of Integrator. Except that the responsibility for when things go wrong, (or don't line up as they were agreed to), comes down to us. We have to make it work, or we lose our jobs. If we complain too loudly, we lose our jobs. Meanwhile, the so-called low cost centers wise up that they really don't have any motivation to do a better quality job... so they do the absolute minimum they can to get away from it... knowing that the absolute authority for the work remains at the highest levels of management, who are happy when the M$ Project sheet says "India/ChinaSoft delivered software on time" (never mind that it did not work). They get their bonus and life goes on.
This has been going on for sometime - there used to be a time when any issue would have a clear line into the responsible people/team. I recall having worked with HP like that many moons ago. Now, it's next to impossible and that pride and responsibility associated with having a job well done is mostly lost.
Yet, I suspect that there are still good companies out there, who are trying to do the right thing, but they are constantly under siege from those who lie about true cost, deliverable dates, quality and such. The sad part is that there is no accountability at the top - so that when things don't work out, repeat offenders are taken to task... at a minimum, don't give them $210 million 'severance' packages!
LOL - though, I will make a brief comment:
One of the hardest areas to address when going Multi-thread (for multi-core support) is the legacy source code, that just works... and management wants to make 'multi-thread capable' so as to preserve the 'equity' in that application.
It's perhaps too simple to say that starting with a blank slate, designing for MT capable applications isn't that hard. When you have to deal with 10-15 years of (legacy) crusty code and unrealistic expectations of zero-risk but max-gain, then you have a different problem to solve and without realizing the truth in your fiction, such generalizations can be seriously misleading!
What exactly does the above statement mean? Does it assume that it's okay for a person to be given extra privileges because of their ... financial status? Or does it imply that it is required to treat someone nice just because they may be of financial benefit?
I don't wholely disagree with you - Nigeria, as other people have posted, remains a lawless and corrupt place so there may be more that meets the eye. Plus, it's not just them, many immigration policies extend welcomes only to the rich. I just, vehemently, disagree with the premise of that statement.
I second that... I develop applications on Linux in a commercial environment that is pretty sensitive to scheduler changes. Scheduling priority and what not, I understand the technical reasons, but to the army of project manglers surrounding me, it's just an excuse to point to the constant "varability" of the Linux kernel that causes them much churn. Unexpected side-effects, context switching issues... the proposition is very difficult to defend when staying with the "current" scheduler results in custom mods that they are scared of, and going with the latest put at risk, many 'system' applications to unforseen side-effects.
I wish there was better choice here.
The article is a bit self-limiting because it pertains only to IT related innovation. Yet, some of the points raise may just as well be extended to other technology domains.
My experience says that for the vast majority of companies, business finances overwhelm every other facet of the business. And that is not at all unexpected - if you want to remain alive, you have to watch where your money goes and comes from. However, going beyond this conventional logic, I've also noticed that even well established companies, with deep pockets, never seem to get out of that logic at all. Sadly, the motivation isn't to spend today to incubate for tomorrow, but more like, use today and re-package the same stuff for tomorrow so that the upfront cost may be saved and the lust for instant gratification (by the CEO, Investors etc.) may be satiated. The business focused organization deals strictly on numbers and innovates by mergers and acquisitions.
I'm not sure I agree with their definition of 'innovation' (again perhaps they refer to a strictly IT perspective which I don't claim to understand). True innovation takes time, determination and a vision. While money may condense time and allow for a more determined effort, vision requires initiative. (read: sticking your neck out because of a true passionate desire to realize your idea). Most business types don't want to risk their lucrative careers/bonuses on that - so in comes the bureaucracy to sustain this 'incremental' model. No surprise that most large companies/governments/entities suffer from bureaucracies that destroy initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines.
Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
Yep, I concur. In today's world there's the whole Intellectual Property bit of things that needs to be addressed. So a hidden 'trade secret' is a better choice than a publicly declared patent which has a statue of limitations on it.
Lastly, and some may argue more importantly, the business case for recouping the investment. The numbers have to work out (Admittedly, I'm simplifying the issue drastically). Most smart companies won't let their innovation cannibalize on their 'legacy' technology.
Well, at least you knew who and where the information was leaked.
In my case, I got a letter from my credit card saying that a merchant whom I had transacted with, was the source of a breach. No more information on when this occurred, who the merchant was, how many people were impacted or how long they knew of the situation, before they informed me. Instead, the Credit Card company re-issued me a new credit card, at 'my request' prior to me doing or asking for anything.
The letter in fact was so unsettling, it was written to evoke a feeling that I had somehow reported fradulent activity... I called the company and spent 45 minutes before realizing that there was one of me and a seemingly unending supply of pod-people who kept repeating the same line to me. I obtained my own credit report a few weeks after and guess what, the aforementioned account was "closed at the customer's request".
The outrage in me continues, and I wonder what kind of risk I'm exposed to, but I don't know what to do against an army of droid? May be a letter will do some good? How much time should I invest in all of this without the faintest glimmer that anything will happen?
I second your thoughts on higher penalties. With credit cards being an increasing singular means of carrying out transactions, I would certainly modify my business behaviors with people who are not careful with my information!
Does this book supply any HW recommendations? For me that has been one of the stumbling blocks... what architecture, what device, how much memory etc. to get going.
I've seen a lot of embedded developer kits but I don't know where to start as none really list what kind of OS they'll support.
Any suggestions on HW would be welcome!
Well, first off, the comparison between a TV and a Computer is misleading. TVs for the most part, remain nothing more that big Audio Video amplifiers. If I could post a block diagram, you'd have the receiving section (UHF/VHF etc), the audio and video amplifiers with a little bit of tuning capabilities etc, and the presentation (the screen, audio output etc.) There's not much going on in terms of what the device needs to know to be able to boot.
Fast forward to the newer TVs with a lot of digital "intelligent" boxes in them and you can already start to see bootstrapping time.
Computers (circa80s and so on) have almost always required a lot of time to discover their environment, whether it be the associated hardware to discovering the network they're on.
Nonetheless, the question is a good one. Why not? Part of the reason is that in making devices modular, one incurs a certain need to exchange data to make the device work. The interfaces (e.g., CPU to Video card or CPU to hard disk) continue to remain slow... so at boot up time, there is considerable time taken to repeat these very same actions each time. The second reason has to deal with the operating systems we got out there - Why must they control every aspect of the hardware beneath them? Why couldn't it just be a set of modules where they can send a unified data stream and have the device deal with it. This rant ranges from the IO buffering required for some devices to the management of actual devices for consuming data by the OS. I'm appalled everytime I see how many queues get involved in just sending data in and out of a modern OS.I'll readily grant that this is just an off the cuff reply - many here have given equally good reasons and the topic deserves much more careful study. Just my humble 2 cents.
Cheers!
why such a draconian proposal would be made in the first place? Isn't it just a ploy to scare people into "look what could've happened" to "we are your saviors, we understand the little guy" - I call shenanigans. When citizens are called "consumers" and big business threatens the ordinary little guy by LAW, something is seriously messed up. Think of it, when was the last time you read a headline that did not involve a big corporation/lobby influencing a government to do something that runs completely opposite of what the role of a government is. Why does the little guy get so jacked everytime!
... would anyone need such a device?
Is not 90% (and I'm being generous to the telemarketers) of their most annoying behavior already known? Whatever happened to professionalism and service orientation, never mind, basic civility?
Is this going to be just a meter for the telemarketer to approximate how much BS the other person will take?
ChilyWily
email address? Why an email address? (rhetorical question of course)
I always refuse to give my email (airlines sooner or later use it for spam) and if I have to, I always give: diespamdie@127.0.0.1. Does this mean I'm screwed?
I want these motherfucking bacteria off this motherfucking uranium.
Why is the popularity waning?
Ask yourself this;
- Would you like to be called '21st century techies'?
- Who is on the other side?
yuck.
In addition to many good points, the reality is that once a company achieves a certain reputation and a product (which is doing reasonably well.. even in appearance), then *everything* becomes a 'business case'. It is for that reason that so-called 'Leadership' comes from getting as much revenue as possible out of the said product... Engineering types are usually kept out of the loop - because typically they see through all this BS. Sad part is that most of them, especially the technically and intellectually capable Engineers ones don't engage themselves to the next level - so the business types implicitely take over control - then begins a long cycle of reaching SEI levels and process where as the real money, innovation and most of all, creativity, which fueled all the initial success is lost.
bleh.
No, no I think you may be correct. After all, DRM is just the software approximation of a wife. She knows all what you do, where you do and you have to keep her happy :)
ChilyWily
(all in jest, I love you, Dear..NO CARRIER
Well said! Introvert/Extrovert...bah! Either case, careful people chose their words carefully. What may be perceived as 'fast talk' may in fact be exactly what is required to get a so-called 'snap decision', as one of my friends puts it, 'an old Jedi mind-trick'.
It varies on the situation as well, most people clam up when faced with superior authority (perceived or otherwise). Others will cut conversations, speaker in a louder voice, thicker accent, incorrect vocabulary, etc. all in an attempt to get their goal accomplished.
Much more to be said here, but that is the basic gist...
ChilyWilyWell, having worked in the subscriber (aka cellphone/mobile) side of things, the way this works is pretty bad:
1. Buy cell phones at a loss from companies like Sony, Qualcomm etc.
2. 'Incentivize' consumers to buy them for 'free' e.g., a $300 phone for $30 with a 3 yr contract.
3. ???
4. Profit!
See, when operators like Sprint, Verizon, etc buy them at a loss (step 1), they get a nice *big* deduction on their Taxes. Next, (step 2), who is to say that the original $300 prices is a real price any more? Whatever they can shake down from an unsuspecting consumer who has just been led to believe he's got such a great deal is well, pure profit. I believe it is generally accounted for as a 'service fee'. The contract is there to make you a true 'user' - strange how that term once referred to drug addicts but now everyone is a user...but I digress...
That is why operators hate to see you get unlocked gsm phones - that is why they will try to charge you by hook or crook for any and all services on that phone. I believe it Japan, they charge by the byte!
Proprietary cables (where standardized ones would do just fine), telling people they can't load anything on their phone without downloading it from the operator etc.. these are just tricks of the game.
At some point, all 'commodotized' services become a matter of who has how deep of pockets to rip the vast 'informed illiterate' masses.
Yep - the silly thing is that despite all the negative publicity, no one wants to ask how this 'helps' the artist and how it *never* helped anyone but Sony. This is another clusterf*ck brought to you by Sony. I suspect we still have a ways to go with this one.
Well, IMHO, the vast majority of these so-called 'Ads' are nothing more than attempts at sleazy ways to farm more information. Some do it explicitely, some implicitely. Some more annoyingly than others...
But if I were to say the one thing that annoys me the most is that these Ads, often hold up the page from being loaded itself. Mr. DoubleClick, atdmt.com, pointroll.com, mediaplex.com... the list is unending. Intrusive, like others have mentioned here is one thing. But if you down right get in the way, you're going to get blocked forever.
Yes, but only if you're in Region 1.
So not to be too off topic but why such a condescending & derogatory name? 'Geek Squad'?
Rise of support services? Wasn't that what they called it the last time around when it was 'call centers'. I wonder how long this will last.