I've been with this beta since the first invites were sent out and have never experienced a lag. But then again, I stopped using it for voice since it's redundant when using a cell phone. I still lose minutes with or without it. Free text messaging with archive seems to be the best feature, as transcribing hasn't worked for me in a while and when it did, it didn't work very well.
Or they could just think the site is legit. I am guilty of running one of these sites back in '05 (iptelev.com). I could remember the flood of DMCA notices I would get every week. Although, I had a credo: Any movie in theaters in the US, UK, AU, FR, SP, JP, or HK won't be in the library. Basically, if it's not on DVD, you won't find it at my site. A lot of my customers were users of other sites (SaltWaterChimp.com for example) that streamed television shows on the Shoutcast channels. I did try to broker a deal with individual studios to stream their content on a pay-per-view basis (and succeeded with Lionsgate), but most of the studios wanted too much and way too many restrictions (DRM, USA only, expirations, quality restrictions, minimum price, etc). I was only charging $5 & $7 for my stream and on-demand access respectfully, with about 300 customers sustained and about 20 new customers a month. After talks fell through, I decided it was too risky to continue the service and shut down all the servers, issuing refunds to customers that either just signed up, or were in the middle of that month. I had servers in the US, Canada, UK, France, and working on one in Asia.
The cost to run my services at the price I was asking for wouldn't have been sustainable if I had a full fledge staff. Plus, cloud computing like Amazon's EC2 didn't exist (or I wasn't aware), so I had to build my own network. I had a lot of fun doing it, but I wouldn't start the service again unless I had deals worked out before hand. Complying with so many DMCA notices was time consuming and annoying. Plus, as I've aged (I was barely 18), I've learned that my services were causing harm to those studios. Although most of my subscribers were a little technologically advance (they found the shoutcast tv streams), there were a few who genuinely thought the service was 100% legit and they weren't doing anything wrong.
I started the service because there weren't any services out there at the time that were providing recent DVD quality movies at a decent price and without the need to download a large file to your computer. Vudu had just started and MovieLink just sucked. I didn't know about venture capital or even much about business (I had just started college) to seek funding for my service.
To stay on topic, people who are buying these illegal services, often times don't know that they're illegal. Every on-demand movie provider except Hulu requires you to install some arcane software to collect data on you and to control the DRM, so installing additional software to view media seems normal.
True, but any changes to NBC's broadcast line in an attempt to purposely hurt competitors will see swift action from the Justice Department, FTC, and/or the FCC. Comcast acquisitions, failed or successful, have been focused on increasing their sports lineup. Comcast may be able to use that leverage to push satellite providers, but local affiliates and other cable companies where Comcast doesn't operate (Cox, Time Warner, AT&T, slew of IPTV providers) would incidentally be hurt; resulting in damaging the consumers' choices. A consumer can choose an IPTV provider, satellite, or Comcast were Comcast exist, but you can't choose Comcast if they don't operate in your area and have decided to take existing entertainment networks private. Plus, Comcast would have an interest in keeping those channels on other networks as it's a win-win situation if they can get Comcast or not.
Hulu wouldn't be harmed too much either as it's a joint venture with other providers. Comcast customers might actually benefit from the acquisition if Comcast decides to integrate Hulu with their DVRs.
The worst I can see from this merger is Comcast upping the fees for their channels to other network providers. And if they raise those fees too high, those providers will simply drop the networks (I've seen this happen before with Time Warner). Not enough eyeballs means less advertising dollars and lower revenue. A vicious cycle and indications of poor business decisions.
This is partially true for Natural Monopolies (e.g. electrical companies), but not so much when there's competition. NBC's biggest competition is the web. Hulu is probably their most valuable asset for viewer retention, but because they didn't have the balls to go in it alone, they have to share their earnings with Disney, Turner/Time Warner, and others.
NBC's content is not out of touch with their viewers (excluding the NBC broadcast network), it's their delivery system that's out of touch. The future most likely has TVs that are connected to the internet and movies/shows/video content is moving to an on-demand model that goes with the viewer (e.g. mobile phones), not static. The big media fought tooth and nail against their content on the internet; however, Hulu is proof that people are willing to sit through a few ads and watch video legitimately than download it off some file sharing site/protocol. CBS is the only network that wants to go against the current and it's why they're shows are the most pirated. Movies will forever remain a problem because of the way Big Media is persistent on distributing content internationally. But I would still prefer to pay a flat fee per month for all I could eat (netflix), or a small fee for instant gratification (Amazon On-Demand, Red Box). I refuse to pay $5 to return a movie within one day by 6:00 PM at a location out of the way. Theatrical releases are different. I go to theatrical releases because I don't have a 70 foot screen at home and a surround sound system that kicks like a theater, but I do have $10 to spare for that experience. Even then it's on movies I think will entertain me. Avatar was the last movie I saw without knowing what I was in for and viewing any trailer, glad that turned out great for my eyes.
Put an ARM processor in it and Toshiba's got something here. Forget DSXL, try DS XXXL. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if this makes its way into netbooks.
I apologize in advance for the following spelling/grammatical errors:
Examples of this are the calculator Should be: An example of this is the calculator.... [I removed the other examples to conserve space]
We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, and then an iPhone, then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But know we've Should be: We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, then an iPhone, and then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But now we've...
Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or LOL. Should be: Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or (less than sign) LOL. [Slashdot stripped the less than sign out.]
My question to ask: Are we helping the average consumer or hurting them by dumbing down their software/hardware? Most of the frequent readers of Slashdot are quite intelligent, regardless of their fanboy-ism to whatever platform. But if we keep dumbing down devices to match the intelligence of the average American, are we doing more harm by encouraging their inability to process complex situations? It just makes me think of the Idiocracy movie (ignoring the complexities of the props that make up the world their stuck in) and our notion that whatever is the shiniest or whomever spends the most on advertising or makes the product the least complex becomes the standard. Examples of this are the calculator. The calculator can be a very beneficial tool when needing to complete complex calculations in a short time period. However, when we begin to use the calculator for simple arithmetic, aren't we encouraging stupidity? It's like the housing market crash or the accounting scandals of the late 90's early 2000's. People don't understand that handing out a bunch of loans to people who can't afford them will hurt the system in the long run. Those who did understand this (Goldman Sachs) took out credit default swaps on the same loans they just repackaged and sold to average consumers. In the Enron, et al. scandals you have similar stories. The average consumer should know that 200% growth year over year for five years is not likely. Instead, the stock price was bigger and we didn't have a calculator to find out at what growth rate nor how much money was tied up into one asset. Then when things go wrong, we blame everyone but ourselves. At least most of the liquidity problems in the banking system were behind closed doors, but banks continually hashed out bad debt and increased their leverage to the shutdown point; again, no calculator available to understand reserve ratios.
I get it, the iOS platform is about simplicity and getting things to work together (with the exception of sharing data between programs, apparently) without knowing the technical background. But if we remove the ability for people to educate themselves about the technical background, then any problem, regardless of human error or not, is the devices/company's fault. My iPhone won't turn on. Apple must make a terrible device if it can't last forever. Have you tried charging it or did you assume that energy must be magic because you didn't pay attention is science class to know that electrical energy is converted into heat and light to make the device work? It's the same question people are asking with text messaging shorthand replacing the English language. Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or LOL.
I'm not saying that the average American should know the basics of quantum mechanics (or a transistor for that matter) before they use any device with a microprocessor, but if we build devices for the stupid, are we encouraging the stupid? Why not build devices for the masses that at least transitions people into more complex thinking? We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, and then an iPhone, then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But know we've got at least three devices that need to be recycled or disposed of properly without harming the very planet we're on.
This isn't a rant, but serious questions that I think you/.'s can help me understand. For the sake of the argument, disregard economic reasoning because that can cause an entirely new debate that can get off the topic at hand.
"...Just make a regulation that all fees for this service must be itemised from this list...."
They are itemized. Doesn't help the confusion though.
"... Oh and if they are really bad, then the government can actually force a monopolic or duopolic service provider to provide fixed services to fixed regions at fixed costs with fixed service quality levels. I don't know if that has ever been done in US. but it has been done elsewhere...."
This was tried in the 90's after AT&T (the largest telco at time) was forced to separate and compete with each other; although, this didn't work as they Baby Bells simply stayed in their area. The only exception of course was Southwestern Bell turned SBC turned AT&T after buying the baby bells back (Pacbell and Ameritech). We also tried forcing the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) to sell their wire line dial tones to competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) at fixed prices. The regulation was removed after the whole Numbering Resource Optimization was passed to harvest phone numbers or face running out. Once that provision was removed, ILECs around the country raised their prices and forced a lot of CLECs out of business. Anti-competitive I know, but no one seemed to care as cell phones were taking over.
"...Another alternative is simply for the government to provide their own baseline service, such as city wide WiFi and have the private sector compete to provide something better than that if they want to stay in business...."
History has proven that the government tends to not play fair for the private sector to really compete against them. Examples: USPS delivers all mail in the US. There are plenty of ways to send a letter across the US: UPS, FedEX, DHL to name a few. It cost about 50 cents to send a letter across the country (factoring the envelope). It takes about 3-10 business days for the letter to arrive at its destination. The recipient must provide a mail box to receive the letter at their expense. The only company allowed to place items in this box is the USPS by Federal law. Anyone else must leave their letters and packages at the front door or provide another box at the recipients expense.
Another example: Social Security was started to provide a pension for workers that would be managed by the Federal government until the age of retirement. 401ks and IRAs serve the same purpose. Neither are truly guaranteed. How is this anti-competitive? I can choose not to pay the 401k, I am forced to pay into Social Security, even though it probably won't exist by the time I retire (bad management by the pension managers).
Wow! You're over reacting dude. First off, I know what those fees are, which ones are legit and which ones are to help keep the bottom line in the black.
I was simply joking you pompous ass. I worked for AT&T for 6 years as a sales supervisor. From there, a local CLEC (Newroads Telecom). The "unknown to anyone" remark is the countless explanations I would have to give to our customers who wanted to know why all the taxes and fees amounted to almost 25% of their actual usage fees.
Most of the protections awarded to CLECs and consumers alike have been undone and were only beneficial for about ten years. Now, they're just wasted pieces of paper (thanks largely to my former employer).
Now the facts, work in the telecommunications industry (PBX makers don't count) or at a legal publications provider, such as Wolters Kluwer, like I have before you try to deduce my arguments. Most of these laws are either full of loop holes or outdated. The rest the average consumer doesn't care about anyway and why we have attorneys and judges to interpret them.
Your ignorance for assuming someone is trolling without knowing anything about the person discuss me. You know what they say, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.
Now telcos will have an excuse to raise the prices on their broadband to "comply" with regulations. Now our broadband bills will have all those annoying and "unknown to anyone what they're for" fees.
Wouldn't someone aiming for a media center just shoot for an Apple TV and avoid the 205% markup? If they're going through the trouble to setup a media center with a Mac, odds are they know how to use media center software other than Front Row. I say skip the extra dough and just install full OS X on an Apple TV and get the hardware mpeg decoder. The graphics capabilities of those 320M's suck anyway and I'm sure the VRAM will be shared with the RAM anyway so new Windows gaming is out of the question too.
On the other hand, this could make a good iOS development platform if you're already using Windows or Linux for something else (like real gaming not 2005 gaming). Or you could use it to replace an outdated PC from the early 2000s that grandma is clinging to because she loves Windows ME.
Does anyone know if this code still works on Facebook? I've tried four browsers and I'm beginning to think it was removed to make room to expose more private data.
You haven't actually done ANY research on Enron or you would know that Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, et el. all had one thing in common: Arthur Andersen. Had the accounting firm that was responsible for proper audits of public companies been doing their jobs, Enron would have never been able to hide all their debt in Special Purpose Entities. David Duncan lost his spine and failed to do his job (which he tried to hide the evidence of) bringing down his employer with him. What SOX should have addressed was conflicts of interest by consulting services and financial audits spewing from the same companies. Instead, it decided to plug in the hole with bureaucracy of financial recording of irrelevant data that the average investor isn't going to ask for anyway. I don't care how you got in the black, all I care about is that you're in the black and when I can expect my dividend.
Furthermore, market value is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed. Only transferred. Enron's, and other public companies, market values were just transferred to a few from the masses. The same way Goldman Sachs was one of the few that actually profited from the banking collapse.
North Korean soldiers have been spotted in a failed attempt to invade South Korea. The North's soldiers were all carrying Coke bottles with the Coke logo scribbled out and the words "Super Drink" written in crayon on the side. There were no Southern casualties.
Money or credits held by a bank (that's an accounting word debits/credits, etc) are recognized as an official representation for the exchange of goods and services by an authoritative body (e.g. the government). Unless there is an authoritative body that is willing to convert virtual goods into an official form (i.e. currency), the ones and zeros in a database will remain ones and zeros. A purchaser of virtual goods simply made a one way transaction with a company to exchange currency for bits and bytes. Furthermore, a bank can't pull additional ones and zeros out of thin air to reproduce lost/stolen funds. The rules of accounting (assets = liabilities + equity) and basic mathematics dictate the inability to pull additional ones and zeros from the air to recover lost currency. In case of a bank, an increase in liabilities (e.g. your deposit) has to be retrieved from the banks assets (I Know, this seems backwards but that's why they call it crediting your account for deposits and debiting your account for withdrawals.)
A stock certificate or share of a company is a different story. Stocks are the right to assets, future profits and liabilities of an organization. The sale of a stock is the one way exchange of currency for that right. The price is determined either speculatively on the open market, by a board of directors, or by the present value of all future dividends. The physical certificate is merely proof that you are entitled to those profits/liabilities. In a virtual world, your purchased furniture holds no value and at any time can be removed by the owners of the servers. A stock certificate can't simply be cancelled at the whim of the corporation, and the only terms of service you agree to is what is held by your local laws (state law for US citizens).
This is why this story is laughable. Since the virtual furniture can be reproduced at any time without incurring loss (other than a few electrons), there really is no loss at all. Phishing for the account information on the other hand may violate laws depending on your location.
Yes and no. Microsoft is a software company. Sure they've branched out to other things, but they still primarily sell software, and even it's focused on the enterprise, something Apple can't get close with. As long as Microsoft reigns supreme with their desktops, XBox to directX APIs, and love for the enterprise to have control over their devices and assets (and not the other way around), Apple can sell all the mobile devices to consumers they want. The article is about the Apple ecosystem, and it's the same problem people have with their PCs: the investment is too high to walk away. Why go to a Mac that is too underpowered to play my DX10 games? Why go to a Windows tablet/phone that can't play any of those new, cool apps I bought for my Apple device? See the problem?
"..and after the initial setup syncing and updates are mostly automatic...''
Yep, so when iTunes sees a song on your device that's not in iTunes, you must have meant to delete it everywhere. Even placing one song (and God forbid one app) on you device means losing all others songs (or apps).
"...If you were to use a Mac most of the updates etc. are done for you..."
I know it's been a while, but I believe system update was still optional and annoying. And maybe I never got it to work properly, but I don't remember it being automatic from first boot.
"...This is why Apple make it in the consumer market - the whole concept of "buy only our products" works..."
But Apple still can't convey the millions of iPod owners to lay down more cash for an Apple computer; and if you took away AT&T's subsidizing, the iphone would be too expensive too. Buy only our products mantra is great, but if you buy them, be prepared to choose crackers or Top Ramen for dinner. This is the problem w/ your idea, not everyone can afford Apple's products.
"..something that only apple, as a hardware company, are currently able to achieve because they write the software for their own hardware..."
This is hilarious. Look at all that open source software Apple was so kind to write from scratch and give away years before Next or OS X hit the market.
"..Now if only they had a decent server, I'd think about getting one.."
This is the icing on the cake. All of their products are so great, yet their servers, based on the same hardware and software, aren't good enough. Even though their servers are just glorified FreeBSD/Solaris systems w/o the server background experience.
Steam demonstrated that cutting half the price and most of the distribution cost will result in more profit. It's not like they cut half the price and mailed you a DVD. A download from Steam's servers may cost them $0.10 (including bandwidth, server use, electricity, engineer's, etc.) while a publisher that chooses to sell the game at Wal-Mart is forced to have at least 1 million hard copies in inventory (meaning inventory cost for holding), shipping to a distribution center, call centers for support, activation servers, plus the cost of the physical medium and associated manuals/paperwork.
The problem that media companies in general are having is transitioning from this dirt-old distribution system to a digital distribution system. Even game consoles are beginning to favor digital distribution over shipping tons of optical disc. The large media industry and their mafia/cartel "organizations" still haven't caught on that no one wants to buy your crappy DVDs that get one scratch and can cause frustration and impossible playback (all xbox360 games), when you can buy the game/movie off the net, make as many backups as you like, and never see another CD cleaner solution again.
I would say that it's a great time to enter the media industry and distribute your content online. There are so many distribution channels out there that those who enter the market now, may become the market leaders in 5-7 years. Want your movie on mobile devices but where people will pay for it, there's an app you can create for that. Need video promotion, YouTube, DailyMotion, Vemeo, Facebook. Want to hit TVs, Wiis/Playstation/XBOX/iTunes/Amazon etc. Want to NOT piss your new customers off after the purchase, any purchase one place == free dowload on any other device.
There, I solved the Big Media problem in 8 lines.
Slashdot Mirror
What about Canada and Mexico?
I've been with this beta since the first invites were sent out and have never experienced a lag. But then again, I stopped using it for voice since it's redundant when using a cell phone. I still lose minutes with or without it. Free text messaging with archive seems to be the best feature, as transcribing hasn't worked for me in a while and when it did, it didn't work very well.
Or they could just think the site is legit. I am guilty of running one of these sites back in '05 (iptelev.com). I could remember the flood of DMCA notices I would get every week. Although, I had a credo: Any movie in theaters in the US, UK, AU, FR, SP, JP, or HK won't be in the library. Basically, if it's not on DVD, you won't find it at my site. A lot of my customers were users of other sites (SaltWaterChimp.com for example) that streamed television shows on the Shoutcast channels. I did try to broker a deal with individual studios to stream their content on a pay-per-view basis (and succeeded with Lionsgate), but most of the studios wanted too much and way too many restrictions (DRM, USA only, expirations, quality restrictions, minimum price, etc). I was only charging $5 & $7 for my stream and on-demand access respectfully, with about 300 customers sustained and about 20 new customers a month. After talks fell through, I decided it was too risky to continue the service and shut down all the servers, issuing refunds to customers that either just signed up, or were in the middle of that month. I had servers in the US, Canada, UK, France, and working on one in Asia.
The cost to run my services at the price I was asking for wouldn't have been sustainable if I had a full fledge staff. Plus, cloud computing like Amazon's EC2 didn't exist (or I wasn't aware), so I had to build my own network. I had a lot of fun doing it, but I wouldn't start the service again unless I had deals worked out before hand. Complying with so many DMCA notices was time consuming and annoying. Plus, as I've aged (I was barely 18), I've learned that my services were causing harm to those studios. Although most of my subscribers were a little technologically advance (they found the shoutcast tv streams), there were a few who genuinely thought the service was 100% legit and they weren't doing anything wrong.
I started the service because there weren't any services out there at the time that were providing recent DVD quality movies at a decent price and without the need to download a large file to your computer. Vudu had just started and MovieLink just sucked. I didn't know about venture capital or even much about business (I had just started college) to seek funding for my service.
To stay on topic, people who are buying these illegal services, often times don't know that they're illegal. Every on-demand movie provider except Hulu requires you to install some arcane software to collect data on you and to control the DRM, so installing additional software to view media seems normal.
True, but any changes to NBC's broadcast line in an attempt to purposely hurt competitors will see swift action from the Justice Department, FTC, and/or the FCC. Comcast acquisitions, failed or successful, have been focused on increasing their sports lineup. Comcast may be able to use that leverage to push satellite providers, but local affiliates and other cable companies where Comcast doesn't operate (Cox, Time Warner, AT&T, slew of IPTV providers) would incidentally be hurt; resulting in damaging the consumers' choices. A consumer can choose an IPTV provider, satellite, or Comcast were Comcast exist, but you can't choose Comcast if they don't operate in your area and have decided to take existing entertainment networks private. Plus, Comcast would have an interest in keeping those channels on other networks as it's a win-win situation if they can get Comcast or not.
Hulu wouldn't be harmed too much either as it's a joint venture with other providers. Comcast customers might actually benefit from the acquisition if Comcast decides to integrate Hulu with their DVRs.
The worst I can see from this merger is Comcast upping the fees for their channels to other network providers. And if they raise those fees too high, those providers will simply drop the networks (I've seen this happen before with Time Warner). Not enough eyeballs means less advertising dollars and lower revenue. A vicious cycle and indications of poor business decisions.
This is partially true for Natural Monopolies (e.g. electrical companies), but not so much when there's competition. NBC's biggest competition is the web. Hulu is probably their most valuable asset for viewer retention, but because they didn't have the balls to go in it alone, they have to share their earnings with Disney, Turner/Time Warner, and others.
NBC's content is not out of touch with their viewers (excluding the NBC broadcast network), it's their delivery system that's out of touch. The future most likely has TVs that are connected to the internet and movies/shows/video content is moving to an on-demand model that goes with the viewer (e.g. mobile phones), not static. The big media fought tooth and nail against their content on the internet; however, Hulu is proof that people are willing to sit through a few ads and watch video legitimately than download it off some file sharing site/protocol. CBS is the only network that wants to go against the current and it's why they're shows are the most pirated. Movies will forever remain a problem because of the way Big Media is persistent on distributing content internationally. But I would still prefer to pay a flat fee per month for all I could eat (netflix), or a small fee for instant gratification (Amazon On-Demand, Red Box). I refuse to pay $5 to return a movie within one day by 6:00 PM at a location out of the way. Theatrical releases are different. I go to theatrical releases because I don't have a 70 foot screen at home and a surround sound system that kicks like a theater, but I do have $10 to spare for that experience. Even then it's on movies I think will entertain me. Avatar was the last movie I saw without knowing what I was in for and viewing any trailer, glad that turned out great for my eyes.
Why such the fuss? You can load Android on the device:
http://www.android-x86.org/
http://code.google.com/p/live-android/ (older)
Hell, dual boot Windows and Android if you like.
Put an ARM processor in it and Toshiba's got something here. Forget DSXL, try DS XXXL. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if this makes its way into netbooks.
At least you care enough to let me know that you don't care.
I apologize in advance for the following spelling/grammatical errors:
Examples of this are the calculator
Should be: An example of this is the calculator....
[I removed the other examples to conserve space]
We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, and then an iPhone, then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But know we've
Should be: We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, then an iPhone, and then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But now we've...
Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or LOL.
Should be: Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or (less than sign) LOL.
[Slashdot stripped the less than sign out.]
My question to ask: Are we helping the average consumer or hurting them by dumbing down their software/hardware? Most of the frequent readers of Slashdot are quite intelligent, regardless of their fanboy-ism to whatever platform. But if we keep dumbing down devices to match the intelligence of the average American, are we doing more harm by encouraging their inability to process complex situations? It just makes me think of the Idiocracy movie (ignoring the complexities of the props that make up the world their stuck in) and our notion that whatever is the shiniest or whomever spends the most on advertising or makes the product the least complex becomes the standard. Examples of this are the calculator. The calculator can be a very beneficial tool when needing to complete complex calculations in a short time period. However, when we begin to use the calculator for simple arithmetic, aren't we encouraging stupidity? It's like the housing market crash or the accounting scandals of the late 90's early 2000's. People don't understand that handing out a bunch of loans to people who can't afford them will hurt the system in the long run. Those who did understand this (Goldman Sachs) took out credit default swaps on the same loans they just repackaged and sold to average consumers. In the Enron, et al. scandals you have similar stories. The average consumer should know that 200% growth year over year for five years is not likely. Instead, the stock price was bigger and we didn't have a calculator to find out at what growth rate nor how much money was tied up into one asset. Then when things go wrong, we blame everyone but ourselves. At least most of the liquidity problems in the banking system were behind closed doors, but banks continually hashed out bad debt and increased their leverage to the shutdown point; again, no calculator available to understand reserve ratios.
I get it, the iOS platform is about simplicity and getting things to work together (with the exception of sharing data between programs, apparently) without knowing the technical background. But if we remove the ability for people to educate themselves about the technical background, then any problem, regardless of human error or not, is the devices/company's fault. My iPhone won't turn on. Apple must make a terrible device if it can't last forever. Have you tried charging it or did you assume that energy must be magic because you didn't pay attention is science class to know that electrical energy is converted into heat and light to make the device work? It's the same question people are asking with text messaging shorthand replacing the English language. Soon evrythng will be notn but acros & bad grammr to fit 180 lttrs or LOL.
I'm not saying that the average American should know the basics of quantum mechanics (or a transistor for that matter) before they use any device with a microprocessor, but if we build devices for the stupid, are we encouraging the stupid? Why not build devices for the masses that at least transitions people into more complex thinking? We can sort of do this if we buy a simple cell phone, then a feature/messaging phone, and then an iPhone, then an/a Android/Blackberry/WM phone. But know we've got at least three devices that need to be recycled or disposed of properly without harming the very planet we're on.
This isn't a rant, but serious questions that I think you /.'s can help me understand. For the sake of the argument, disregard economic reasoning because that can cause an entirely new debate that can get off the topic at hand.
Rich. :-)
"...Just make a regulation that all fees for this service must be itemised from this list...."
They are itemized. Doesn't help the confusion though.
"... Oh and if they are really bad, then the government can actually force a monopolic or duopolic service provider to provide fixed services to fixed regions at fixed costs with fixed service quality levels. I don't know if that has ever been done in US. but it has been done elsewhere...."
This was tried in the 90's after AT&T (the largest telco at time) was forced to separate and compete with each other; although, this didn't work as they Baby Bells simply stayed in their area. The only exception of course was Southwestern Bell turned SBC turned AT&T after buying the baby bells back (Pacbell and Ameritech). We also tried forcing the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) to sell their wire line dial tones to competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) at fixed prices. The regulation was removed after the whole Numbering Resource Optimization was passed to harvest phone numbers or face running out. Once that provision was removed, ILECs around the country raised their prices and forced a lot of CLECs out of business. Anti-competitive I know, but no one seemed to care as cell phones were taking over.
"...Another alternative is simply for the government to provide their own baseline service, such as city wide WiFi and have the private sector compete to provide something better than that if they want to stay in business...."
History has proven that the government tends to not play fair for the private sector to really compete against them. Examples: USPS delivers all mail in the US. There are plenty of ways to send a letter across the US: UPS, FedEX, DHL to name a few. It cost about 50 cents to send a letter across the country (factoring the envelope). It takes about 3-10 business days for the letter to arrive at its destination. The recipient must provide a mail box to receive the letter at their expense. The only company allowed to place items in this box is the USPS by Federal law. Anyone else must leave their letters and packages at the front door or provide another box at the recipients expense.
Another example: Social Security was started to provide a pension for workers that would be managed by the Federal government until the age of retirement. 401ks and IRAs serve the same purpose. Neither are truly guaranteed. How is this anti-competitive? I can choose not to pay the 401k, I am forced to pay into Social Security, even though it probably won't exist by the time I retire (bad management by the pension managers).
Wow! You're over reacting dude. First off, I know what those fees are, which ones are legit and which ones are to help keep the bottom line in the black.
I was simply joking you pompous ass. I worked for AT&T for 6 years as a sales supervisor. From there, a local CLEC (Newroads Telecom). The "unknown to anyone" remark is the countless explanations I would have to give to our customers who wanted to know why all the taxes and fees amounted to almost 25% of their actual usage fees.
Most of the protections awarded to CLECs and consumers alike have been undone and were only beneficial for about ten years. Now, they're just wasted pieces of paper (thanks largely to my former employer).
Now the facts, work in the telecommunications industry (PBX makers don't count) or at a legal publications provider, such as Wolters Kluwer, like I have before you try to deduce my arguments. Most of these laws are either full of loop holes or outdated. The rest the average consumer doesn't care about anyway and why we have attorneys and judges to interpret them.
Your ignorance for assuming someone is trolling without knowing anything about the person discuss me. You know what they say, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.
Now telcos will have an excuse to raise the prices on their broadband to "comply" with regulations. Now our broadband bills will have all those annoying and "unknown to anyone what they're for" fees.
First fee: internet portability compliance fee.
Wouldn't someone aiming for a media center just shoot for an Apple TV and avoid the 205% markup? If they're going through the trouble to setup a media center with a Mac, odds are they know how to use media center software other than Front Row. I say skip the extra dough and just install full OS X on an Apple TV and get the hardware mpeg decoder. The graphics capabilities of those 320M's suck anyway and I'm sure the VRAM will be shared with the RAM anyway so new Windows gaming is out of the question too.
On the other hand, this could make a good iOS development platform if you're already using Windows or Linux for something else (like real gaming not 2005 gaming). Or you could use it to replace an outdated PC from the early 2000s that grandma is clinging to because she loves Windows ME.
Foot meet mouth.
Where are the funny mod points when you need them.
Does anyone know if this code still works on Facebook? I've tried four browsers and I'm beginning to think it was removed to make room to expose more private data.
You haven't actually done ANY research on Enron or you would know that Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, et el. all had one thing in common: Arthur Andersen. Had the accounting firm that was responsible for proper audits of public companies been doing their jobs, Enron would have never been able to hide all their debt in Special Purpose Entities. David Duncan lost his spine and failed to do his job (which he tried to hide the evidence of) bringing down his employer with him. What SOX should have addressed was conflicts of interest by consulting services and financial audits spewing from the same companies. Instead, it decided to plug in the hole with bureaucracy of financial recording of irrelevant data that the average investor isn't going to ask for anyway. I don't care how you got in the black, all I care about is that you're in the black and when I can expect my dividend.
Furthermore, market value is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed. Only transferred. Enron's, and other public companies, market values were just transferred to a few from the masses. The same way Goldman Sachs was one of the few that actually profited from the banking collapse.
North Korean soldiers have been spotted in a failed attempt to invade South Korea. The North's soldiers were all carrying Coke bottles with the Coke logo scribbled out and the words "Super Drink" written in crayon on the side. There were no Southern casualties.
It took the article that long to be modded up enough for the /. editors to see it.
"...How about the money in your bank account..."
Money or credits held by a bank (that's an accounting word debits/credits, etc) are recognized as an official representation for the exchange of goods and services by an authoritative body (e.g. the government). Unless there is an authoritative body that is willing to convert virtual goods into an official form (i.e. currency), the ones and zeros in a database will remain ones and zeros. A purchaser of virtual goods simply made a one way transaction with a company to exchange currency for bits and bytes. Furthermore, a bank can't pull additional ones and zeros out of thin air to reproduce lost/stolen funds. The rules of accounting (assets = liabilities + equity) and basic mathematics dictate the inability to pull additional ones and zeros from the air to recover lost currency. In case of a bank, an increase in liabilities (e.g. your deposit) has to be retrieved from the banks assets (I Know, this seems backwards but that's why they call it crediting your account for deposits and debiting your account for withdrawals.)
A stock certificate or share of a company is a different story. Stocks are the right to assets, future profits and liabilities of an organization. The sale of a stock is the one way exchange of currency for that right. The price is determined either speculatively on the open market, by a board of directors, or by the present value of all future dividends. The physical certificate is merely proof that you are entitled to those profits/liabilities. In a virtual world, your purchased furniture holds no value and at any time can be removed by the owners of the servers. A stock certificate can't simply be cancelled at the whim of the corporation, and the only terms of service you agree to is what is held by your local laws (state law for US citizens).
This is why this story is laughable. Since the virtual furniture can be reproduced at any time without incurring loss (other than a few electrons), there really is no loss at all. Phishing for the account information on the other hand may violate laws depending on your location.
"... Microsoft never really got this...."
Yes and no. Microsoft is a software company. Sure they've branched out to other things, but they still primarily sell software, and even it's focused on the enterprise, something Apple can't get close with. As long as Microsoft reigns supreme with their desktops, XBox to directX APIs, and love for the enterprise to have control over their devices and assets (and not the other way around), Apple can sell all the mobile devices to consumers they want. The article is about the Apple ecosystem, and it's the same problem people have with their PCs: the investment is too high to walk away. Why go to a Mac that is too underpowered to play my DX10 games? Why go to a Windows tablet/phone that can't play any of those new, cool apps I bought for my Apple device? See the problem?
"..and after the initial setup syncing and updates are mostly automatic...''
Yep, so when iTunes sees a song on your device that's not in iTunes, you must have meant to delete it everywhere. Even placing one song (and God forbid one app) on you device means losing all others songs (or apps).
"...If you were to use a Mac most of the updates etc. are done for you..."
I know it's been a while, but I believe system update was still optional and annoying. And maybe I never got it to work properly, but I don't remember it being automatic from first boot.
"...This is why Apple make it in the consumer market - the whole concept of "buy only our products" works..."
But Apple still can't convey the millions of iPod owners to lay down more cash for an Apple computer; and if you took away AT&T's subsidizing, the iphone would be too expensive too. Buy only our products mantra is great, but if you buy them, be prepared to choose crackers or Top Ramen for dinner. This is the problem w/ your idea, not everyone can afford Apple's products.
"..something that only apple, as a hardware company, are currently able to achieve because they write the software for their own hardware..."
This is hilarious. Look at all that open source software Apple was so kind to write from scratch and give away years before Next or OS X hit the market.
"..Now if only they had a decent server, I'd think about getting one.."
This is the icing on the cake. All of their products are so great, yet their servers, based on the same hardware and software, aren't good enough. Even though their servers are just glorified FreeBSD/Solaris systems w/o the server background experience.
Steam demonstrated that cutting half the price and most of the distribution cost will result in more profit. It's not like they cut half the price and mailed you a DVD. A download from Steam's servers may cost them $0.10 (including bandwidth, server use, electricity, engineer's, etc.) while a publisher that chooses to sell the game at Wal-Mart is forced to have at least 1 million hard copies in inventory (meaning inventory cost for holding), shipping to a distribution center, call centers for support, activation servers, plus the cost of the physical medium and associated manuals/paperwork. The problem that media companies in general are having is transitioning from this dirt-old distribution system to a digital distribution system. Even game consoles are beginning to favor digital distribution over shipping tons of optical disc. The large media industry and their mafia/cartel "organizations" still haven't caught on that no one wants to buy your crappy DVDs that get one scratch and can cause frustration and impossible playback (all xbox360 games), when you can buy the game/movie off the net, make as many backups as you like, and never see another CD cleaner solution again. I would say that it's a great time to enter the media industry and distribute your content online. There are so many distribution channels out there that those who enter the market now, may become the market leaders in 5-7 years. Want your movie on mobile devices but where people will pay for it, there's an app you can create for that. Need video promotion, YouTube, DailyMotion, Vemeo, Facebook. Want to hit TVs, Wiis/Playstation/XBOX/iTunes/Amazon etc. Want to NOT piss your new customers off after the purchase, any purchase one place == free dowload on any other device. There, I solved the Big Media problem in 8 lines.