Congratulations on only entering destinations that have existed for at least a year! Those of us living in "newer" portions of cities enjoy the constant joy of having our street "not exist" on Google Maps/Mapquest/wherever people are going now besides those.
That's really more the fault of Google than anyone else - Google's map updates are really slow since they started doing it themselves. When Google was paying Navteq or Tele-Atlas for the map data, it usually updates within 6 months (2 updates - they both do quarterly updates of map data)
I mean, Google still hasn't got my old house address in it. Something that was in every GPS update since 2010.
We mock Apple maps, but as long as Apple uses TomTom/TeleAtlas, at least the map data is updated fairly constantly.
I agree. If he violated any restricted airspace, bring in the FAA. A few dented buildings, a frightened bystander, and a broken drone? Call the cops and haul him away for reckless endangerment and destruction of property. Make him pay for being an idiot that way.
Technically, the airspace IS restricted - by FAA rules. Typically you're not allowed to fly anything below 1000' AGL in a populated area. And a city is definitely a populated area.
There's a reason the light RC aircraft you see sold in stores are marketed as "Park Flyers" - you may not need to fly them at an RC park, but you should be flying them in a less populated park.
Granted, the FAA is unlikely to prosecute hobbyists that don't endanger lives or property (they could, mind you, but probably won't), but be an idiot and they can come down.
In fact, hobbyists often have unofficial governing bodies for that reason - while every one participating doesn't have to be "licensed" by the body, the body exists to help keep the sport in good reputation by creating processes, procedures and regulations to ensure they can coexist with others who may not share the same love of the sport. And yes, they may also try to restrict people's ability to fly "complex" RC vehicles until they've shown the skill to do so (again, it's all voluntary).
RC hobbyists aren't dumb, they know it only takes a couple of idiots to screw them over, which is why they subject themselves to voluntary regulation. It's also a lot easier to do advocacy when you can prove you're on the up and up, and disavow anyone who flouts the rules.
Range right now is the big limiting factor towards electric car deployment. Gasoline and Hybrid cars get about 400 miles straight, that is about 8 hours of driving. Electric cars can barely get 100 miles, that is about 3 hours of drive time.
The Electric car is still good for most commutes, even mine which is rather long may still work, however it will be close to the limit. But that means people will need to buy 2 cars, one for distance, and 1 for commute. Environmentally it seems like a good plan however not to many people can afford 2 cars per person, or 2.5 cars for 2 people.
I hate to be in your car when you're driving 8 hours straight without a break. That's why the Tesla Supercharger network is so useful - it's broken a long trip up into reasonable lengths (3 hours is really the maximum for a family - between the need for bathroom breaks, leg stretching, etc).
Sure, the driver can do 8 hours with discipline, but the rest of the family gets fidgety, the legs start to cramp, etc and soon they'll be demanding that you stop. And if you do it at a supercharger, well, you stop for meals, snacks, a walk, and half an hour later, you have plenty of juice to make it to the next supercharger. (And no, a half hour really is the minimum length for a break when you include all the hassles of getting everyone out, to the bathroom, and then a nice little walk to get the legs going again).
Then again, Teslas get 280+ miles, the supercharger easily adds 200 miles during a half hour, etc, so you're good for 4-5 hours of driving.
And most families that can't afford two cars can't afford to go on long trips very often. In which case, you basically... rent a car. If your electric gets you through your day-to-day activities, then the occasional long distance family car trip means instead of paying two insurances and maintenance on the gas car you barely use, you just rent it for the time you need.
Which isn't a bad idea - a longer trip you may want to rent a larger vehicle to hold more stuff, and so everyone travels in comfort.
First, this article is stupid and made more dumber for reading it.
Secondly, people like to finance everything. You're just financing your phone. It just makes it a little more complicated that it's hidden in a monthly service. It's that simple. Doesn't need a story. Can we un-post this?
I know, there's plenty of ways to buy a smartphone off-contract.
Now, walk into a cellphone store and they probably won't sell you a phone off contract, even if it gives you the off-contract price. Even if you wave money in their faces.
However, Apple will happily sell you an iPhone off contract if you walk into an Apple store (and it'll be unlocked, to boot).
Or if you want Android, Google Play will sell you a Nexus 5 free of contracts. Just having to deal with the annoyance of Google Play's physical item shipping.
Though, Apple still has a small advantage in that you can walk into an Apple Store and walk out with a phone. Getting a Nexus 5 requires waiting a week or two for it to arrive. (As does Apple if you order online).
It's not wiretapping because you give consent to the scanning when you sign up for their FREE email account.
Works for one-party consent, but two-party, not so much.
Which was the basis of several lawsuits - basically if you're a sender, who doesn't agree to Google's ToS, are still bound by them by sending an email to a Google Mail user.
We used to joke about "Reading this comment means you pay me $10", but it's basically the same thing - suddenly doing something "normal" (like sending an email) can bind you legally to terms you never knew about, seen, or explicitly agreed to.
Why are there no civil engineering boot camps? I'm looking forward to driving over a bridge designed by someone who learned engineering on a boot camp. How could that possibly go wrong?
Because a programming boot camp does not teach a profession, it teaches a trade.
And there are plenty of "boot camps" for teaching trades - welding, plumbing, carpentry, etc. They won't make you accredited, but it means you can do light work at home, for example. Hell, Home Depot and many other companies offer them, often for free.
We need to realize that programming is a trade. We've known it all along, because we typically call programmers "code monkeys" - that's all they do - put bits of code one after the other.
There's also the engineering part, or rather the software professional. These people are the ones that take problems and generate solutions - designing the blocks that get handed to the programmers to implement. The software architects, the engineers, analysts, etc.
The real problem is language ambiguity - we call "computer programmers" when they really encompass a trade, a profession, and a science, when really it's the programmer that's the tradesman, the engineer the profession, and the scientist the science.
As someone who graded hundreds of essays while serving as a teaching assistant for a senior-level engineering ethics course, I have to say that I find your lack of integrity rather appalling. Your moral obligation to write the essay yourself is independent of the method they use for grading it. Just because someone else is doing a lousy job does not mean that you suddenly have a license to short-change them for what you're obligated to do.
I would guess that I graded around 300-400 essays during the three semesters I served as a TA, and that I probably averaged around 20 minutes per essay, since I was a strong believer in providing useful feedback over things the students could improve, even if they weren't necessarily incorrect. That said, other TAs spent as little as a minute or two per essay, and barely provided any feedback at all. Regardless of how much time the TAs did or didn't spend on the essays, however, the students had the same obligations, and rightfully so.
I think the real question is not integrity, but busywork. I mean, you know how many essays will have to be graded (anywhere from 10-1000, depending on the class). And one also knows how long it takes to grade an essay (probably 5-20 minutes, depending on length).
The problem because well, if you have 1000 students, then perhaps you shouldn't be giving them an essay every week that requires use of auto-graders in order to get marks. No, if it takes a couple of weeks for a gaggle of TAs to finish grading them, it means you don't give essays every week - you give them once a month at most. Because an auto-grader is just saying that you don't care enough about the assignment to bother even marking them. In which case, the sole purpose of the assignment is busywork.
That's what I object to - work for the sake of work. It may even boil down to respect - the student may have spent one to many hours on the essay, and you're basically giving them a mark based on a 2 second computer analysis. Not even bothering to read it - the student wrote the essay with the intent for it to be read by a human, and effectively, he's just getting it round-filed and a random number generated.
Especially if it's a forced-length essay - 10 pages about blah that won't be read by anyone due Friday.
Yes, it means that courses where essays are common would have to change their grading systems - though I haven't been to a class where the final exam wasn't the final determinator of your grade - fail the final you fail the course. Essays/assignments/etc., were often only worth 10% of the mark, tops (often 0% - yes, the class gave out optional homework. Though you can tell who did it and who didn't from the final exam marks).
I have no doubt these particular Malware problems will shrink as people get educated on these issues. But that doesn't mean that all Android Malware magically goes away, it just means that Android Malware morphs to something new and different.
So... Windows is now malware-free then? I mean, everyone now has anti-virus, anti-malware programs. Visiting sketchy websites prompts warnings from many browsers, including IE. Unsigned apps downloaded from the Internet pop up dialogs asking if you really trust them, etc.
And I would say for nearly 2 decades we've been hearing about how to protect yourself and your computer from malware.
By that logic, Windows SHOULD be malware-free by now... right?
Yes, that includes downloading oddball encrypted ZIP files, entering strange passwords, clicking through all dialogs that say "DO NOT RUN THIS FILE!!!!" etc. Hell, you can probably tell the user to rename the file to.exe and they'll do it as well even if it involves clicking through a million checkboxes (e.g., "Show filename extensions").
It's only a matter of time before malware Android apps spread through e-mails "from a friend".
What I've seen time and again from these reports over the last year is that it isn't about Android vs. iOS: it's about app stores. The Google Play store, for instance, has been the source of very few malware incidents (i.e. something like 2-3% of the total). Most of the malware hitting Android is coming from third-party stores that are of questionable trustworthiness. As always, users should be advised to only install software from sources they trust. If iOS allowed users to install from third-party stores without jailbreaking, we'd be seeing the same problems on iOS, regardless of their current marketshare or lack thereof (besides which, marketshare is a measure that shouldn't be used in isolation when assessing the worth of a platform's users to developers, including malware developers).
So, please, stop painting this as an iOS vs. Android thing. Regardless of platform, the users being affected by this stuff, in general, are those grabbing apps from untrustworthy sources. Focus your attention there.
The problem is, Google Play isn't available in a lot of places where Android is. Say China, for example.
China's especially touching because the Chinese app stores are complete rubbish - full of pirated apps and Trojans and other crap.
But even in North America or Europe, sticking with Google Play is limiting, because there are tons of legit app stores as well. Say, Humble Bundle or Amazon. But the problem is the checkbox is all or nothing - either you only use Google Play, or you allow everything.
The problem with "let the user decide" is it ignores the ultimate reality of security - Dancing Pigs. Basically a user cannot be trusted with their own security - they will always choose the least secure path if it gets them what they want. So if their friend shows them a new app they have to install manually, well, they'll do it.
Hell, even on iOS jailbroken users get broken into constantly. Because they install OpenSSH, usually because some HOWTO said to install it. There have been many iOS worms and Trojans that exploit the fact that if you can SSH into an iOS device, it's jailbroken so you can do many more things.
Perhaps the best solution is just rethink transportation, period.
Take Europe, for example. You can call the drivers there "crazy" because they run red lights, lane markings are a suggestion (you can easily fit 4 lanes of traffic in a marked 2-lane road), park practically anywhere and everywhere, etc., but then you realize - these drivers are *GOOD*.
I mean, in North America, parallel parking spots are huge - we leave huge gaps between cars. While in Europe, they leave only inches between vehicles. And you'd think down a single lane alleyway with cars parked on both sides that you'd have a bunch of cars with dings and dents, but no. The cars are generally pristine, and the drivers are quite good.
And they're texting and driving.
How? Easy. European drivers drive because they want to. Public transit means if you don't want to drive to commute, you don't.
In North America, the problem is that cities are laid out for cars, so you have to drive, even if you don't want to. And lots of people don't want to drive. Instead they want to be doing other things, so not only is the general skill level of drivers low, they're not interested in driving at all.
Hence the need to re-think transportation in North America because a good majority of people are doing something they don't want to do. In fact, it'll be better on all sides - if the disinterested drivers had usable alternate means of transport, it leaves the roads free for those who do want to drive, enhancing life for everyone concerned.
That's the fundamental problem. In Europe, they drive because they want to drive. In North America, everyone's forced to drive.
If you ask me, odds are 70% he was just using "Screen Size" as a proxy for "Resolution" in the first place, either because he doesn't know the difference, or (more likely) was talking down to the audience. In any case, it is one person's speculation about the future, nothing more.
Probably as a proxy.
Because even though mobile screens are having 1080p or 4K displays, chances are you aren't going to be able to see all those pixels - for the vast majority of users, a widescreen SD version would probably be more than adequate. So your "mobile phone" version would be SD and unless you hold it to your nose to watch it, you probably won't notice.
Then you can get the "tablet" version at 720p for a buck or two more.
Upgrade to the computer for the 1080p version, and for your living room, you'll get the 1080p or 4K version.
Because in the end, your phone's 5" screen, despite it having a 4K screen, probably won't need the 4K version.
And ultimately, how would you do chip and pin for online retail? You know, people that literally have to type their credit card number into a field? So indifferent to chip and pin, that is going to keep working. And I suspect that indifferent to chip and pin, somewhere in the target billing system there will be a list of credit card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes. A hacker gaining access to that database isn't going to care if the cards were chip and pin or not. Because by that point the data is prepared for processing. The only way chip and pin would be effective is if the security code were different for each transaction. That seems extremely unlikely but if you could some how pull that off then snagging the numbers might not get the thieves anything. Of course, how you'd get that to work with online retail is anyone's guess.
TLDR... I don't think chip and pin is going to accomplish anything and in so far as I understand the issue it wouldn't have stopped the breach at target in the first place. So i don't know why they're talking about it like its a solution to anything.
Chip & PIN was never for online retail - it's for regular meatspace retail. Online retail is, and always has, used the traditional Card Not Present transaction that mail order and telephone orders have always done. Or what regular online retail does right now. Even in Europe, which has had Chip and PIN for years now.
Nothing special. You're still vulnerable to getting your numbers stolen, but that's already taken care of right now through limited liability.
Target using Chip and PIN though is different - this is for their stores, not their online store. And Chip and PIN is such that the breach would be meaningless because Target wouldn't get the credit card details to be breached - the terminal talks to the bank over an encrypted link and all target gets is a transaction ID they can reference.
Most likely, Target saw it as an opportunity to upgrade their payment system to not store credit card numbers (which Chip and PIN doesn't need) at all, I mean, if you're going to upgrade your payment system, you might as well do the Chip and PIN upgrade as well since you will have to do it in a year or two anyhow. Get it over all at once rather than suffer through it now, and again later.
My guess: more businesses will be pushed towards PayPal, which will not use the extra verification, the PayPal fees amounting to a "security surcharge" / insurance policy for the extra risk of such unverifiable transactions.
That exists right now - it's called a "Card Not Present" transaction and the transaction fees ARE higher as a result. I believe Square charges like 3.5% instead of 2.5% for those kind of transactions. because of the increased risk.
Paypal fees mirror the credit card processing fees, so Paypal knows how to do Card Not Present transactions (and they do tons of verification as well that reduces their risk).
Except that you have no control over whether that book will remain on your Kindle. You just have to have faith that your books won't be revoked for $SomeRandomReason.
Why is it that the purveyor of walled gardens is the last to get in on this? Apple's never removed content from people's devices. Sure, they've removed content, but if you have a backup copy (on your PC, say), it remains perfectly usable, even installable on new devices. All content too - music, movies, TV shows, books, apps.
It seems every OTHER store that isn't "Evil Apple" has done the whole "Delete From Your Library" thing - Google Play, Amazon, Steam (yes, Steam has disabled and removed games from people's libraries).
Sure, Apple COULD follow them, but why is it in the 10+ years of DRM stuff being sold by Apple, everyone else decided they'd exercise the power. And most of the examples have been around for shorter periods of time than Apple's DRM offerings!
I'd find the book "rental" via Amazon/Kindle would be more palatable if the price were lower - $1 per novel would put it into the "ok, fine, it's just a rental" category (despite being more expensive than a library..). A cursory look finds kindle versions are 80-90% of the price of a dead tree version. That's not a sufficient discount to surrender control.
It turns out the vast majority of the price of a book is NOT in the printing or distribution. In fact, it's under 10% of the price is actually due to the deadtree nature of the book. All the rest of the money goes to the author, the editor, the indexer (if the book has an index), the person who makes the table of contents (if one exists), the typesetter, the artists (cover, etc), marketing and many other bits of work involved in publishing a book. In fact, the authors role is to deliver a manuscript, and everyone else's role is to fix that up into a book (authors are not expected to need to do tables, indicies, spelling, non-content art, etc).
Of course, for self-publishers, they have to do it all, which is why self-publishing pays more.
Except this box doesn't require monthly subscription to play online (both PS4/Xbone do) or visit youtube / use a web browser (Xbone).
Considering that you can find PSN and XBL cards for $50 on sale regularly, for $815, that means you can get a PS4 and have 8 years of online play, or a Xbone and 6 years of online for the same price.
In 6 years, I'm not sure if you're still wanting to be using this box for gaming, or if you've gave up and bought another $150 video card (3 more years for PSN/XBL) somewhere in the meantime.
Of course, it's a naÃve analysis, since it eliminates Steam sales, but there are sales on PSN/XBL as well, some or many of which can rival Steam on pricing. And with PC games costing $60, well, the console premium for a game just doesn't exist anymore.
Granted, though, Steam may have more frequent sales, though apparently that can be to negative effect as it means people using Steam refuse to pay full price, artificially depressing PC game sales.
Well it is a craft and requires practice. And programming requires practice as well. But it also requires a higher level of intelligence and problem solving. You can be an idiot and so long as you know how to put in bricks, if I say "Build wall here" you could do what you need. I've seen plenty of "programmers" who just lacked any sort of problem solving skills and ran into a wall (pun intended)
There are multiple levels of skill required. At the very most basic level, programming is just a trade, like a bricklayer. You tell the bricklayer to build a wall of bricks here to there and all that, and they execute it. Just like you can tell a programmer you need a function to do X and Y and go do it. (You may even specify that since there's a gap in the ground, what the bricklayer should do, just like you tell the programmer to use quicksort to arrange the array). You might refer to these sort of programmers as "codemonkeys" because they went to a "learn to program in java" type course.
Then there's skilled trades and professions above it. After all, one may need to choose the kind of brick to use, the arrangement, design, mortar, etc to meet requirements of the wall. Just like a software engineer might go and look at the problem and break it down - figuring out what algorithms, architectures and other stuff to use and directing the programmers below them to actually do it.
Then there's the scientists - computer scientists, material scientists, etc., who go and figure out how to make better bricks, etc.
Did you realize StatCounter is reporting figures for ALL iOS and Android devices?
Do you not think that might be just a LITTLE misleading as to what is going on with tablets???
I totally agree there is a huge wave of Android phones. I even have one. But the percentage of Android tablets compared to phones is incredibly small.
Actually, what's interesting is that iOS, despite being under 20% of smartphones and tablets, still accounts for way more than 20% (closer to 50%) of traffic. Even worse in tech-oriented circles where iOS traffic can be easily be double that of Android.
That's highly unusual - unless it means that a good chunk of Android phones and tablets are merely bought and junked, or bought and used as a featurephone.
By all accounts and measures, OS X traffic is extremely minimal compared to say, Windows, certainly no more than its marketshare.
What's the difference between talking on a cell phone and talking to a passenger? Texting while driving is already illegal in Florida.
Try shouting this phrase into your phone - "Be quiet!"
You can do this in a car with passengers quite safely and they will politely shut up without being offended.
Now do this on the phone while you're talking to your spouse, your boss, or your customer. They will get quite offended, and you'll probably find yourself out of a home, a job, or a client.
Passengers know and respect that if you need to concentrate, you're doing it for your own and their safety. That aspect is lost when you're on the phone - in fact, the person on the other end may expect you to be paying attention them 100%, not multitasking, i.e., driving.
In aviation, there's a concept called "aviate, navigate, communicate", i.e., fly the plane, make sure you're going where you're supposed to be going, then talk. ATC knows this, and if they give you a command and you respond "Standby", they know that you're currently busy. They aren't offended, and unless there's a real concern about safety (i.e., traffic), they'll wait.
Alas, most people do not understand that there may be priorities other than speaking.
but the irony is laughable because you need to own practically every set top box on the market to get all of the content out there since no one company has everything.
Didn't the content industry say that was intentional?
They saw what happened with the music industry and iTunes, and to prevent another iTunes happening, they intentionally spread out the competition. They don't want Netflix or Amazon or iTunes to have everything on purpose, because that means no one service will be able to control them. (If one service had everything, customers would flock there, giving that service rather large powers).
Of course, the bigger issue Is international distribution - I will probably bet the biggest video distributor around is... Apple. Because iTunes is practically everywhere and most likely the only provider of video content over the internet for most countries out there. Sure, the UK and US may have tons of alternates, but countries like Canada and Australia have few, if any, alternatives. (No, Apple didn't bully their way in, they just had the means and well, could prove the demand for content - but even Apple has to negotiate nasty per-country distribution agreements).
So, "Original Programming" is going to be three times as expensive as cable and you'll be tracked and data mined.
One of the biggest ironies is TV networks realize that streaming content is a great way to counter stuff like ad skipping and such (remember, the "ratings" networks go for are C3 (commercials, 3 days) ones - the ratings during programming matters absolutely not - only during the commercial breaks).
At least, that was my experience when I streamed TV rather than put it on my TiVo. The content on my TiVo I just skip through the ads, but the streamed content? Ad heaven. You can't skip them, you have to sit through them, they're short so you can't even go through the bathroom, etc. And some are so nasty that if you rewind through them, they show another ad! And re-show the ad break.
That is right that low fat, low calorie food is what is making us fat.
No, the problem is food is being processed into low-fat food, leading to very high caloric density with little mass.
The Low Fat movement is probably one of the worst diets available. It seems reasonable on the outset - fat is very calorie-dense after all, and if you need to get rid of 500 calories a day, excising fat changes the volume of food you consume very little. That's the theory. The reality is we need fat (though, "good fats" the unsaturated kind, and not saturated, or trans fats) as many nutrients are fat-soluble, and well, they do also enhance flavor.
The worst part of the low-fat craze is the flavor part because by removing fats, they replace it with tons of salt and sugar - enough so that the fat calories may be offset completely by useless calories of sugar or ever worse, high-fructose corn syrup. (Digestion of fats takes time, so it also helps you feel fuller longer).
So now you have low-fat, high calorie foods that don't fill you up, so you eat more of it and in the end, you consume way more calories than you intend.
Then there's whole food pyramid thing - it doesn't take into account processed foods at all. Sure you have your meat, your vegetables, your fruits, your grain (usually mistaken as carbs). But white bread? That's not on the list! And the industry keeps emphasizing that grains are really carbs so you need half your servings to be white bread.
In fact, studies have shown if you take what's on the shelf today, and the current food pyramid, you'll gain weight. (And let's not go into portion sizes - a recipe from the 60's that makes "4-6 servings" would really only make 2-3 servings today...)
so do they plan to mail out kits with land mines for us to test with ?
They do actually have test landmines that are basically the primer and detonator with no explosive. Trigger them and they "blow up" in that they release a burst of compressed air
When buried in a test sandpit, the "explosions" from them kick up a fair bit of sand, making it easy to see when they've been detonated. Depending on the minesweeper design, this may or may not be a desirable outcome (some designs intentionally trigger the landmine rather than try to find them for defusing. Of course, such designs are generally also evaluated to see if they're designed to be sacrificial, and to see if the original mission may be fulfilled to a lesser capacity - some designs are meant to be cheap and if they destroy more than one, bonus).
I am not a heavy comic reader, but I always went to the Comixology site to buy rather than the in app purchase. I figured that Comixology deserved the full price, and not the 30% skim that Apple took.
Perhaps, perhaps not. It's a seldom known fact that the cost of sales varies pretty dramataically.
It's possible (and for many companies, entirely probable) that it's cheaper to pay Apple 30% than to duplicate Apple's efforts. In fact, many are extremely happy that stores are only charging 30% and it saves them money in the end. It doesn't matter the store - Amazon, Google Play (FYI - IAPs in Play Store require Google getting a 30% cut as well), iTunes, Steam. I've seen many prefer "someone else" handle all the nasty billing/taxes/gift cards/etc work.
After all, it's only a matter of time until some payment processor that your favorite site uses is breached, so that's a genuine concern. Then there's the whole CDN, accounts (how many websites were poorly secured and had breaches, again?), past purchases, etc. stuff that has to be handled.
Hell, in the end, Comixology could've run the numbers and figured the cost of a sale on their website. It could be break even - they make the same as iTunes via their website. Or perhaps they make more money through iTunes than their website (don't laugh - there are companies who have done the math and realized their cost of sales is higher than 30%).
Of course, Amazon is a huge company, so if payment processors is a huge chunk of the cost of sales, switching to Amazon would save them a bunch of money now. Of course, if it isn't, then it's just Amazon screwing over iTunes and Google Play users to favor their own App Store, which is also a perfectly valid strategy.
Honestly, one of the great things about comixology was being able to quickly buy/download the next comic in the series when I was binge-reading. I have *hundreds* of comics through them, but I'm not sure if I will be buying any more with this new system. The kindle thing was enough of a pain, but at least a book takes a little longer to read.
I think they've shot themselves in teh foot on this one.
And you know what? Comixology knew that, that's why they sucked it up and gave Apple the 30% (though to be honest, the wholesale price Comixology paid meant they still made a profit - even raw comic books that sell for $4 probably cost the store $2 or less). Because by making the user jump through hoops to buy it to get that extra 30% means they'll lose the impulse-buy. And impulse-buy is big - for every person willing to jump through a hoop, 10-20 would just do one-click purchasing (just ask Amazon - if One-Click didn't work, why bother suing B&N over it?), making that 30% easily justifiable.
And no, Amazon won't sell it online any cheaper - they can't. Diamond Comics (the SOLE comic distributor for practically ALL comics worldwide) has a virtual monopoly on it, and they view any reseller that undercuts others (comic stores) very dimly. The only time it doesn't matter is when the items are available through other channels (e.g., most books). But comics are Diamond's property and someone who undercuts may find their orders shorted, especially on items that are often allocated.
You forgot to mention that the other walled gardens charge so much, almost entirely _because_ Apple did first, and continues to. If others charged less, shareholders would want their heads, for leaving so much money on the table. If moves like this eventually cause the app stores to reconsider and drop their ridiculously high rates, that's a big win for consumers AND for developers and content creators. I'm all for it. If it doesn't change anything then Apple still takes less of our money even if Amazon takes about the same amount, so it's still at least a small win.
Actually, you fail to notice that many other instances that the cut is much more than 30%.
Take a look and see what's on sale on Amazon. Ever notice stuff that's 30% or more off? Think Amazon's being a pal and taking a loss? Hell no! Amazon's cut of that item is much MORE than 30% so they can give you the 30% discount, throw in shipping AND make a profit.
Apple merely set the rate such that the average selling price of $1 means Apple breaks even on a sale. You know, after Visa/Mastercard/etc take their 30 cents plus 2-3%. (You can easily find iTunes gift cards for 20%+ off - and it still gives the retailer a profit and covers printing costs.). Funny enough, Google Play gift cards hardly ever go on sale, neither do Steam ones.
Hell, you can bet even Steam takes at least 30%, if not way more. Most likely, it was way more until Apple came around with 30%.
In fact, given what Apple does for the developer, from payment handling, refund handling, taxes, hosting, etc., 30% can be considered cheap. For some companies, they pay resellers more than 30% for each sale, so they often prefer to sell direct (Autodesk will prefer to use the stores than its reseller network as it makes more money. They'd put it all up, but the $1000 limit of most stores often prevents it). Yeah, the developer can handle it themselves, but it's just another headache of running a store which is less time to do actual development.
Any chance this means Google is going to back-pedal on Google+ ?
I'd welcome Google splitting it's products such that you can subscribe to YouTube without also being signed up to Google+ and GMail and Maps and the kitchen sink. Or vice versa.
Why?
Remember, you're the product in all those services, and by forcing G+ on you, Google's enhancing the product for sale.
About the only thing is that they can take back the whole "Steve Jobs said G+ was a joke" thing, but really, G+ is a great way to get back at Facebook. Because well, Facebook aims to be a closed community - Facebook's tracking is limited to sites that have Like buttons.
Google's ability to sell ads (Facebook can only sell ads within its network - it doesn't sell ads outside of Facebook, yet) means it reaches practically the entire Internet (Google, and Google-owned ad networks are around what, 98% of desktop browsers, and practically all mobile browsers), meaning it's out-Facebooking Facebook in its ability to gather user information (i.e., non-voluntarily-provided information), thus offering advertisers a far better product.
Sure its last results are down, but they're still massively profitable, and within a short period of time (cost-per-click is down, which means the last 2% are dying) Google would really get at everyone.
Hell, Android was released just so Google wouldn't be locked out of iOS ad sales.
Face it - Google's addicted to ad money, and Google knows it - it's their massively primary revenue stream, the alternatives are a joke (iAds - you get LESS information about users from them than Google, they cost mode, and are limited to iOS), so Google's really the big guy. Google's trying to save Google Glass before the internet brands it as an always-present surveillance camera worn by people with more money than sense (i.e., Glassholes). Because otherwise it'll kill it as a data gathering option Google has to sell more ad data.
Hell, think GMail's picture-proxy is for your safety by "not reveailing your IP address"? Why bother, when the proxy will happily load you tagged images confirming your e-mail address and that you read it. Perhaps think what Google has next in store - i.e., that Promotions tab might be the phase.
Slashdot Mirror
That's really more the fault of Google than anyone else - Google's map updates are really slow since they started doing it themselves. When Google was paying Navteq or Tele-Atlas for the map data, it usually updates within 6 months (2 updates - they both do quarterly updates of map data)
I mean, Google still hasn't got my old house address in it. Something that was in every GPS update since 2010.
We mock Apple maps, but as long as Apple uses TomTom/TeleAtlas, at least the map data is updated fairly constantly.
Technically, the airspace IS restricted - by FAA rules. Typically you're not allowed to fly anything below 1000' AGL in a populated area. And a city is definitely a populated area.
There's a reason the light RC aircraft you see sold in stores are marketed as "Park Flyers" - you may not need to fly them at an RC park, but you should be flying them in a less populated park.
Granted, the FAA is unlikely to prosecute hobbyists that don't endanger lives or property (they could, mind you, but probably won't), but be an idiot and they can come down.
In fact, hobbyists often have unofficial governing bodies for that reason - while every one participating doesn't have to be "licensed" by the body, the body exists to help keep the sport in good reputation by creating processes, procedures and regulations to ensure they can coexist with others who may not share the same love of the sport. And yes, they may also try to restrict people's ability to fly "complex" RC vehicles until they've shown the skill to do so (again, it's all voluntary).
RC hobbyists aren't dumb, they know it only takes a couple of idiots to screw them over, which is why they subject themselves to voluntary regulation. It's also a lot easier to do advocacy when you can prove you're on the up and up, and disavow anyone who flouts the rules.
I hate to be in your car when you're driving 8 hours straight without a break. That's why the Tesla Supercharger network is so useful - it's broken a long trip up into reasonable lengths (3 hours is really the maximum for a family - between the need for bathroom breaks, leg stretching, etc).
Sure, the driver can do 8 hours with discipline, but the rest of the family gets fidgety, the legs start to cramp, etc and soon they'll be demanding that you stop. And if you do it at a supercharger, well, you stop for meals, snacks, a walk, and half an hour later, you have plenty of juice to make it to the next supercharger. (And no, a half hour really is the minimum length for a break when you include all the hassles of getting everyone out, to the bathroom, and then a nice little walk to get the legs going again).
Then again, Teslas get 280+ miles, the supercharger easily adds 200 miles during a half hour, etc, so you're good for 4-5 hours of driving.
And most families that can't afford two cars can't afford to go on long trips very often. In which case, you basically... rent a car. If your electric gets you through your day-to-day activities, then the occasional long distance family car trip means instead of paying two insurances and maintenance on the gas car you barely use, you just rent it for the time you need.
Which isn't a bad idea - a longer trip you may want to rent a larger vehicle to hold more stuff, and so everyone travels in comfort.
I know, there's plenty of ways to buy a smartphone off-contract.
Now, walk into a cellphone store and they probably won't sell you a phone off contract, even if it gives you the off-contract price. Even if you wave money in their faces.
However, Apple will happily sell you an iPhone off contract if you walk into an Apple store (and it'll be unlocked, to boot).
Or if you want Android, Google Play will sell you a Nexus 5 free of contracts. Just having to deal with the annoyance of Google Play's physical item shipping.
Though, Apple still has a small advantage in that you can walk into an Apple Store and walk out with a phone. Getting a Nexus 5 requires waiting a week or two for it to arrive. (As does Apple if you order online).
Works for one-party consent, but two-party, not so much.
Which was the basis of several lawsuits - basically if you're a sender, who doesn't agree to Google's ToS, are still bound by them by sending an email to a Google Mail user.
We used to joke about "Reading this comment means you pay me $10", but it's basically the same thing - suddenly doing something "normal" (like sending an email) can bind you legally to terms you never knew about, seen, or explicitly agreed to.
Because a programming boot camp does not teach a profession, it teaches a trade.
And there are plenty of "boot camps" for teaching trades - welding, plumbing, carpentry, etc. They won't make you accredited, but it means you can do light work at home, for example. Hell, Home Depot and many other companies offer them, often for free.
We need to realize that programming is a trade. We've known it all along, because we typically call programmers "code monkeys" - that's all they do - put bits of code one after the other.
There's also the engineering part, or rather the software professional. These people are the ones that take problems and generate solutions - designing the blocks that get handed to the programmers to implement. The software architects, the engineers, analysts, etc.
The real problem is language ambiguity - we call "computer programmers" when they really encompass a trade, a profession, and a science, when really it's the programmer that's the tradesman, the engineer the profession, and the scientist the science.
I think the real question is not integrity, but busywork. I mean, you know how many essays will have to be graded (anywhere from 10-1000, depending on the class). And one also knows how long it takes to grade an essay (probably 5-20 minutes, depending on length).
The problem because well, if you have 1000 students, then perhaps you shouldn't be giving them an essay every week that requires use of auto-graders in order to get marks. No, if it takes a couple of weeks for a gaggle of TAs to finish grading them, it means you don't give essays every week - you give them once a month at most. Because an auto-grader is just saying that you don't care enough about the assignment to bother even marking them. In which case, the sole purpose of the assignment is busywork.
That's what I object to - work for the sake of work. It may even boil down to respect - the student may have spent one to many hours on the essay, and you're basically giving them a mark based on a 2 second computer analysis. Not even bothering to read it - the student wrote the essay with the intent for it to be read by a human, and effectively, he's just getting it round-filed and a random number generated.
Especially if it's a forced-length essay - 10 pages about blah that won't be read by anyone due Friday.
Yes, it means that courses where essays are common would have to change their grading systems - though I haven't been to a class where the final exam wasn't the final determinator of your grade - fail the final you fail the course. Essays/assignments/etc., were often only worth 10% of the mark, tops (often 0% - yes, the class gave out optional homework. Though you can tell who did it and who didn't from the final exam marks).
So... Windows is now malware-free then? I mean, everyone now has anti-virus, anti-malware programs. Visiting sketchy websites prompts warnings from many browsers, including IE. Unsigned apps downloaded from the Internet pop up dialogs asking if you really trust them, etc.
And I would say for nearly 2 decades we've been hearing about how to protect yourself and your computer from malware.
By that logic, Windows SHOULD be malware-free by now... right?
The problem is no, because of the Dancing pigs principle - a user will pick dancing pigs over security every time .
Yes, that includes downloading oddball encrypted ZIP files, entering strange passwords, clicking through all dialogs that say "DO NOT RUN THIS FILE!!!!" etc. Hell, you can probably tell the user to rename the file to .exe and they'll do it as well even if it involves clicking through a million checkboxes (e.g., "Show filename extensions").
It's only a matter of time before malware Android apps spread through e-mails "from a friend".
The problem is, Google Play isn't available in a lot of places where Android is. Say China, for example.
China's especially touching because the Chinese app stores are complete rubbish - full of pirated apps and Trojans and other crap.
But even in North America or Europe, sticking with Google Play is limiting, because there are tons of legit app stores as well. Say, Humble Bundle or Amazon. But the problem is the checkbox is all or nothing - either you only use Google Play, or you allow everything.
The problem with "let the user decide" is it ignores the ultimate reality of security - Dancing Pigs. Basically a user cannot be trusted with their own security - they will always choose the least secure path if it gets them what they want. So if their friend shows them a new app they have to install manually, well, they'll do it.
Hell, even on iOS jailbroken users get broken into constantly. Because they install OpenSSH, usually because some HOWTO said to install it. There have been many iOS worms and Trojans that exploit the fact that if you can SSH into an iOS device, it's jailbroken so you can do many more things.
Perhaps the best solution is just rethink transportation, period.
Take Europe, for example. You can call the drivers there "crazy" because they run red lights, lane markings are a suggestion (you can easily fit 4 lanes of traffic in a marked 2-lane road), park practically anywhere and everywhere, etc., but then you realize - these drivers are *GOOD*.
I mean, in North America, parallel parking spots are huge - we leave huge gaps between cars. While in Europe, they leave only inches between vehicles. And you'd think down a single lane alleyway with cars parked on both sides that you'd have a bunch of cars with dings and dents, but no. The cars are generally pristine, and the drivers are quite good.
And they're texting and driving.
How? Easy. European drivers drive because they want to. Public transit means if you don't want to drive to commute, you don't.
In North America, the problem is that cities are laid out for cars, so you have to drive, even if you don't want to. And lots of people don't want to drive. Instead they want to be doing other things, so not only is the general skill level of drivers low, they're not interested in driving at all.
Hence the need to re-think transportation in North America because a good majority of people are doing something they don't want to do. In fact, it'll be better on all sides - if the disinterested drivers had usable alternate means of transport, it leaves the roads free for those who do want to drive, enhancing life for everyone concerned.
That's the fundamental problem. In Europe, they drive because they want to drive. In North America, everyone's forced to drive.
Probably as a proxy.
Because even though mobile screens are having 1080p or 4K displays, chances are you aren't going to be able to see all those pixels - for the vast majority of users, a widescreen SD version would probably be more than adequate. So your "mobile phone" version would be SD and unless you hold it to your nose to watch it, you probably won't notice.
Then you can get the "tablet" version at 720p for a buck or two more.
Upgrade to the computer for the 1080p version, and for your living room, you'll get the 1080p or 4K version.
Because in the end, your phone's 5" screen, despite it having a 4K screen, probably won't need the 4K version.
Chip & PIN was never for online retail - it's for regular meatspace retail. Online retail is, and always has, used the traditional Card Not Present transaction that mail order and telephone orders have always done. Or what regular online retail does right now. Even in Europe, which has had Chip and PIN for years now.
Nothing special. You're still vulnerable to getting your numbers stolen, but that's already taken care of right now through limited liability.
Target using Chip and PIN though is different - this is for their stores, not their online store. And Chip and PIN is such that the breach would be meaningless because Target wouldn't get the credit card details to be breached - the terminal talks to the bank over an encrypted link and all target gets is a transaction ID they can reference.
Most likely, Target saw it as an opportunity to upgrade their payment system to not store credit card numbers (which Chip and PIN doesn't need) at all, I mean, if you're going to upgrade your payment system, you might as well do the Chip and PIN upgrade as well since you will have to do it in a year or two anyhow. Get it over all at once rather than suffer through it now, and again later.
That exists right now - it's called a "Card Not Present" transaction and the transaction fees ARE higher as a result. I believe Square charges like 3.5% instead of 2.5% for those kind of transactions. because of the increased risk.
Paypal fees mirror the credit card processing fees, so Paypal knows how to do Card Not Present transactions (and they do tons of verification as well that reduces their risk).
Why is it that the purveyor of walled gardens is the last to get in on this? Apple's never removed content from people's devices. Sure, they've removed content, but if you have a backup copy (on your PC, say), it remains perfectly usable, even installable on new devices. All content too - music, movies, TV shows, books, apps.
It seems every OTHER store that isn't "Evil Apple" has done the whole "Delete From Your Library" thing - Google Play, Amazon, Steam (yes, Steam has disabled and removed games from people's libraries).
Sure, Apple COULD follow them, but why is it in the 10+ years of DRM stuff being sold by Apple, everyone else decided they'd exercise the power. And most of the examples have been around for shorter periods of time than Apple's DRM offerings!
It turns out the vast majority of the price of a book is NOT in the printing or distribution. In fact, it's under 10% of the price is actually due to the deadtree nature of the book. All the rest of the money goes to the author, the editor, the indexer (if the book has an index), the person who makes the table of contents (if one exists), the typesetter, the artists (cover, etc), marketing and many other bits of work involved in publishing a book. In fact, the authors role is to deliver a manuscript, and everyone else's role is to fix that up into a book (authors are not expected to need to do tables, indicies, spelling, non-content art, etc).
Of course, for self-publishers, they have to do it all, which is why self-publishing pays more.
Considering that you can find PSN and XBL cards for $50 on sale regularly, for $815, that means you can get a PS4 and have 8 years of online play, or a Xbone and 6 years of online for the same price.
In 6 years, I'm not sure if you're still wanting to be using this box for gaming, or if you've gave up and bought another $150 video card (3 more years for PSN/XBL) somewhere in the meantime.
Of course, it's a naÃve analysis, since it eliminates Steam sales, but there are sales on PSN/XBL as well, some or many of which can rival Steam on pricing. And with PC games costing $60, well, the console premium for a game just doesn't exist anymore.
Granted, though, Steam may have more frequent sales, though apparently that can be to negative effect as it means people using Steam refuse to pay full price, artificially depressing PC game sales.
There are multiple levels of skill required. At the very most basic level, programming is just a trade, like a bricklayer. You tell the bricklayer to build a wall of bricks here to there and all that, and they execute it. Just like you can tell a programmer you need a function to do X and Y and go do it. (You may even specify that since there's a gap in the ground, what the bricklayer should do, just like you tell the programmer to use quicksort to arrange the array). You might refer to these sort of programmers as "codemonkeys" because they went to a "learn to program in java" type course.
Then there's skilled trades and professions above it. After all, one may need to choose the kind of brick to use, the arrangement, design, mortar, etc to meet requirements of the wall. Just like a software engineer might go and look at the problem and break it down - figuring out what algorithms, architectures and other stuff to use and directing the programmers below them to actually do it.
Then there's the scientists - computer scientists, material scientists, etc., who go and figure out how to make better bricks, etc.
Actually, what's interesting is that iOS, despite being under 20% of smartphones and tablets, still accounts for way more than 20% (closer to 50%) of traffic. Even worse in tech-oriented circles where iOS traffic can be easily be double that of Android.
That's highly unusual - unless it means that a good chunk of Android phones and tablets are merely bought and junked, or bought and used as a featurephone.
By all accounts and measures, OS X traffic is extremely minimal compared to say, Windows, certainly no more than its marketshare.
Try shouting this phrase into your phone - "Be quiet!"
You can do this in a car with passengers quite safely and they will politely shut up without being offended.
Now do this on the phone while you're talking to your spouse, your boss, or your customer. They will get quite offended, and you'll probably find yourself out of a home, a job, or a client.
Passengers know and respect that if you need to concentrate, you're doing it for your own and their safety. That aspect is lost when you're on the phone - in fact, the person on the other end may expect you to be paying attention them 100%, not multitasking, i.e., driving.
In aviation, there's a concept called "aviate, navigate, communicate", i.e., fly the plane, make sure you're going where you're supposed to be going, then talk. ATC knows this, and if they give you a command and you respond "Standby", they know that you're currently busy. They aren't offended, and unless there's a real concern about safety (i.e., traffic), they'll wait.
Alas, most people do not understand that there may be priorities other than speaking.
Didn't the content industry say that was intentional?
They saw what happened with the music industry and iTunes, and to prevent another iTunes happening, they intentionally spread out the competition. They don't want Netflix or Amazon or iTunes to have everything on purpose, because that means no one service will be able to control them. (If one service had everything, customers would flock there, giving that service rather large powers).
Of course, the bigger issue Is international distribution - I will probably bet the biggest video distributor around is ... Apple. Because iTunes is practically everywhere and most likely the only provider of video content over the internet for most countries out there. Sure, the UK and US may have tons of alternates, but countries like Canada and Australia have few, if any, alternatives. (No, Apple didn't bully their way in, they just had the means and well, could prove the demand for content - but even Apple has to negotiate nasty per-country distribution agreements).
One of the biggest ironies is TV networks realize that streaming content is a great way to counter stuff like ad skipping and such (remember, the "ratings" networks go for are C3 (commercials, 3 days) ones - the ratings during programming matters absolutely not - only during the commercial breaks).
At least, that was my experience when I streamed TV rather than put it on my TiVo. The content on my TiVo I just skip through the ads, but the streamed content? Ad heaven. You can't skip them, you have to sit through them, they're short so you can't even go through the bathroom, etc. And some are so nasty that if you rewind through them, they show another ad! And re-show the ad break.
No, the problem is food is being processed into low-fat food, leading to very high caloric density with little mass.
The Low Fat movement is probably one of the worst diets available. It seems reasonable on the outset - fat is very calorie-dense after all, and if you need to get rid of 500 calories a day, excising fat changes the volume of food you consume very little. That's the theory. The reality is we need fat (though, "good fats" the unsaturated kind, and not saturated, or trans fats) as many nutrients are fat-soluble, and well, they do also enhance flavor.
The worst part of the low-fat craze is the flavor part because by removing fats, they replace it with tons of salt and sugar - enough so that the fat calories may be offset completely by useless calories of sugar or ever worse, high-fructose corn syrup. (Digestion of fats takes time, so it also helps you feel fuller longer).
So now you have low-fat, high calorie foods that don't fill you up, so you eat more of it and in the end, you consume way more calories than you intend.
Then there's whole food pyramid thing - it doesn't take into account processed foods at all. Sure you have your meat, your vegetables, your fruits, your grain (usually mistaken as carbs). But white bread? That's not on the list! And the industry keeps emphasizing that grains are really carbs so you need half your servings to be white bread.
In fact, studies have shown if you take what's on the shelf today, and the current food pyramid, you'll gain weight. (And let's not go into portion sizes - a recipe from the 60's that makes "4-6 servings" would really only make 2-3 servings today...)
They do actually have test landmines that are basically the primer and detonator with no explosive. Trigger them and they "blow up" in that they release a burst of compressed air
When buried in a test sandpit, the "explosions" from them kick up a fair bit of sand, making it easy to see when they've been detonated. Depending on the minesweeper design, this may or may not be a desirable outcome (some designs intentionally trigger the landmine rather than try to find them for defusing. Of course, such designs are generally also evaluated to see if they're designed to be sacrificial, and to see if the original mission may be fulfilled to a lesser capacity - some designs are meant to be cheap and if they destroy more than one, bonus).
Perhaps, perhaps not. It's a seldom known fact that the cost of sales varies pretty dramataically.
It's possible (and for many companies, entirely probable) that it's cheaper to pay Apple 30% than to duplicate Apple's efforts. In fact, many are extremely happy that stores are only charging 30% and it saves them money in the end. It doesn't matter the store - Amazon, Google Play (FYI - IAPs in Play Store require Google getting a 30% cut as well), iTunes, Steam. I've seen many prefer "someone else" handle all the nasty billing/taxes/gift cards/etc work.
After all, it's only a matter of time until some payment processor that your favorite site uses is breached, so that's a genuine concern. Then there's the whole CDN, accounts (how many websites were poorly secured and had breaches, again?), past purchases, etc. stuff that has to be handled.
Hell, in the end, Comixology could've run the numbers and figured the cost of a sale on their website. It could be break even - they make the same as iTunes via their website. Or perhaps they make more money through iTunes than their website (don't laugh - there are companies who have done the math and realized their cost of sales is higher than 30%).
Of course, Amazon is a huge company, so if payment processors is a huge chunk of the cost of sales, switching to Amazon would save them a bunch of money now. Of course, if it isn't, then it's just Amazon screwing over iTunes and Google Play users to favor their own App Store, which is also a perfectly valid strategy.
And you know what? Comixology knew that, that's why they sucked it up and gave Apple the 30% (though to be honest, the wholesale price Comixology paid meant they still made a profit - even raw comic books that sell for $4 probably cost the store $2 or less). Because by making the user jump through hoops to buy it to get that extra 30% means they'll lose the impulse-buy. And impulse-buy is big - for every person willing to jump through a hoop, 10-20 would just do one-click purchasing (just ask Amazon - if One-Click didn't work, why bother suing B&N over it?), making that 30% easily justifiable.
And no, Amazon won't sell it online any cheaper - they can't. Diamond Comics (the SOLE comic distributor for practically ALL comics worldwide) has a virtual monopoly on it, and they view any reseller that undercuts others (comic stores) very dimly. The only time it doesn't matter is when the items are available through other channels (e.g., most books). But comics are Diamond's property and someone who undercuts may find their orders shorted, especially on items that are often allocated.
Actually, you fail to notice that many other instances that the cut is much more than 30%.
Take a look and see what's on sale on Amazon. Ever notice stuff that's 30% or more off? Think Amazon's being a pal and taking a loss? Hell no! Amazon's cut of that item is much MORE than 30% so they can give you the 30% discount, throw in shipping AND make a profit.
Apple merely set the rate such that the average selling price of $1 means Apple breaks even on a sale. You know, after Visa/Mastercard/etc take their 30 cents plus 2-3%. (You can easily find iTunes gift cards for 20%+ off - and it still gives the retailer a profit and covers printing costs.). Funny enough, Google Play gift cards hardly ever go on sale, neither do Steam ones.
Hell, you can bet even Steam takes at least 30%, if not way more. Most likely, it was way more until Apple came around with 30%.
In fact, given what Apple does for the developer, from payment handling, refund handling, taxes, hosting, etc., 30% can be considered cheap. For some companies, they pay resellers more than 30% for each sale, so they often prefer to sell direct (Autodesk will prefer to use the stores than its reseller network as it makes more money. They'd put it all up, but the $1000 limit of most stores often prevents it). Yeah, the developer can handle it themselves, but it's just another headache of running a store which is less time to do actual development.
Why?
Remember, you're the product in all those services, and by forcing G+ on you, Google's enhancing the product for sale.
About the only thing is that they can take back the whole "Steve Jobs said G+ was a joke" thing, but really, G+ is a great way to get back at Facebook. Because well, Facebook aims to be a closed community - Facebook's tracking is limited to sites that have Like buttons.
Google's ability to sell ads (Facebook can only sell ads within its network - it doesn't sell ads outside of Facebook, yet) means it reaches practically the entire Internet (Google, and Google-owned ad networks are around what, 98% of desktop browsers, and practically all mobile browsers), meaning it's out-Facebooking Facebook in its ability to gather user information (i.e., non-voluntarily-provided information), thus offering advertisers a far better product.
Sure its last results are down, but they're still massively profitable, and within a short period of time (cost-per-click is down, which means the last 2% are dying) Google would really get at everyone.
Hell, Android was released just so Google wouldn't be locked out of iOS ad sales.
Face it - Google's addicted to ad money, and Google knows it - it's their massively primary revenue stream, the alternatives are a joke (iAds - you get LESS information about users from them than Google, they cost mode, and are limited to iOS), so Google's really the big guy. Google's trying to save Google Glass before the internet brands it as an always-present surveillance camera worn by people with more money than sense (i.e., Glassholes). Because otherwise it'll kill it as a data gathering option Google has to sell more ad data.
Hell, think GMail's picture-proxy is for your safety by "not reveailing your IP address"? Why bother, when the proxy will happily load you tagged images confirming your e-mail address and that you read it. Perhaps think what Google has next in store - i.e., that Promotions tab might be the phase.