Alternate app stores would only work on jailbroken phones, making their adoption scope limited, so the question is whether Apple will go after these start ups on the legal battlefield.
No.
The question is whether you have a viable business plan.
If the numbers aren't there than you are in trouble. If jail-breaking is strictly a geek thing you are in trouble.
The app that appeals to the geek is - by definition - niche - and he is thinking free-as-in-beer.
The iPhone makes a damn expensive paperweight.
There is a level of comfort in buying from Apple and its corporate partners that you are not going to be able to deliver.
People are getting up in arms about features that can be bought for less than $3 a month.
For a flat $6 a month I can add 10 unedited and commercial-free movie channels to my digital cable service.
If I want to introduce my kids to the online RPG, Disney and Cartoon Network both have solid entries that are free of charge.
The Sims is a consumerist fantasy.
It's all about spending frivolously and living large - and can be enjoyed on that level.
But the world of Visa and MasterCard is something I want to put behind me as much as possible when I come out to play. I particularly don't want my status in the game world to be dependent on my credit line.
I may not be counting every penny these day. But I do shop for value and I am not interested in open-ended commitments, "hidden" charges or fees.
Unless I am doing maintenance - in Safe mode - I really don't much care how long the system takes to reboot because it is not something I have do every day.
-----
Apple and Microsoft won the battle on the ground - battles fought by users in the home and small business. The little guys - the Dilberts - who subverted the corporate hierarchy, the system administrator.
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" are inverted in the Geek mind. It was OSX and Windows that were forged in the market place.
*NIX entered your world as the mandate from on high - and far too often still does.
The geek was never the rebel, the geek was the establishment.
I don't think I'd feel all that great if Amazon tried to ship my new microSD card to me in a package the size of a postage stamp.
You'd feel worse if it was a microscopic sample of the Ebola virus that went astray.
A package can't be so small that it will - quite literally - slip through the cracks. It can't be smaller than the human and machine readable labels it must carry.
Here is the briefest of samplings from the
RAND Classics:
Williams "The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy" 1954
Dresher "Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications" 1961
Dole and Asimov "Planets For Man"
Baran, ed. "On Distributed Communications" 1961-62
"A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates" 2001 Shapiro and Anderson "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail"
and who pays for the technology? Tickets will be $20 each instead of just $11.50. Raisinettes, $50.
The audience, as always.
In 1914 Henry Ford began paying $5 a day to his assembly-line workers. Tickets for the first run of D.W. Griffith's 1915 "Birth of a Nation" sold for $2.
Re:Digital broadcast
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
that 1080 only make sense if you convert a wall into a screen sit at the other side of the room.
1080 looks drop-dead gorgeous even on your refurbished 37" Sam's Club Vizio.
hat the average gamer spends 25 hrs per week playing video games, sounds like the real killer is television
and when the gamer is not playing games is he outside exercising or inside watching videos?
still glued to the tube?
Re:Digital broadcast
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Digital broadcast TV is a huge disappointment in my book. With analog TV, bad reception results in some snow on the screen. Programs are still perfectly viewable because there are no frame dropouts, and the audio is still there.
Anyone who grew up with analog TV knows better.
You lost sound.
You lost horizontal and vertical sync. You had snow and you had ghosts. Color introduced you to whole new levels of pain.
The solution to bad reception was a good antenna.
Dad brought out the forty foot ladder to mount a big Winegard on the roof. You watched him drive a ground stake in with a sledge until his face turned purple.
Your neighbor who clung to his rabbit ears as "good enough" was full of it then - and he is full of it now.
However, the programs still suck
The Boston Symphony in live performance New Year's Eve does not suck.
The Leafs and Sabres in overtime - also broadcast in 1080i - does not suck.
In order for this to track us at all, we'd need an ID to buy a ticket, need to show ID to get into the theater, have assigned seats, and they would have to change the audio slightly on every showing.
This sounds pretty much like buying tickets to a live performance.
A night out with the kids.
Harry Potter without waiting in line.
Reserved lounge seating at the restored Art Deco era Riviera.
Why should being in a specific demographic strip you of that fun?
Because advertisers back the shows that reach their target audience. A few more dollars for a new series like "Battlestar Galactica," a few less for an aging "American Idol."
Once again it seems like 'porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the 'Multiformat' category, nine are tagged 'erotica' and the last is 'dark fantasy.'
The FBI found more than 2,800 child prostitution ads posted on craigslist, with Chicago, Illinois, in the top 10 cities for juvenile prostitution, Dart said. Craigslist entered into an agreement with 43 states' attorneys general in November to enact measures that impose restrictions on its Erotic Services section. The agreement called for the Web site to implement a phone verification system for listings that required ad posters to provide a real telephone number that would be called before the ad went public.
Craigslist also imposed listing fees, requiring a credit card, for ads in the section. The proceeds were to be donated to charity.
Dart called the fees "dirty money" and said the move was a "publicity stunt" that had little practical effect because pimps use stolen credit cards or post ads in free sections.Lawsuit accuses craigslist of promoting prostitution
In the name of spurring on independent production, are there any programs out there like SEUCK (Shoot'em'up construction kit) that average joe's can use to create games?
The problem isn't the lack of programming tools - free or otherwise. The problem lies in assembling and supporting all the other talent you need: Story. Production design. Set Design. Characters and Props. Art and animation. Music. Dialog and Vocal Performance.
The generic game engine may be all you need to animate the underworlds of Grim Fandango or Bioshock.
But first they have to imagined, populated and given direction.
How many of them made $17 billion in profits over the last year?
It's one thing to cut salaries when you're hemorrhaging. It's another to cut salaries when everyone else is hemorrhaging, and you have a stable, monopoly-protected revenue base, just because your workers have no alternative.
How surprising is it when a wholesale supplier cuts his prices and costs to remain competitive in a recession?
--- but is not so quick to dial back his own profits?
Microsoft is bleeding to death when kdawson's theme is FOSS and Linux. Microsoft is rich, strong and stable when the talk turns to pay cuts and layoffs.
The well-run company survives a deep recession - a depression - by making changes before the situation turns desperate.
The 10% pay cut now is at least a better outcome for the temp than the 100% cut he'd take later if his job is outsourced to India.
It's useful to remember now and again that the median household income in the states is $50,000 -
keeps things in perspective, when you ask yourself how much your job is worth.
You buy a CD like you buy a book. You only need a "license" if the copyright holder has to give you a limited subset of his or her limited monopoly on copying/distribution.
When you a buy a copyrighted book, you do not buy the rights to copy and redistribute the book. You do not buy the right to produce or perform derivative works. I see no difference here.
I remember at one point working at a large manufacturer and noting that our internal records showed more non-VM Linux machines in use than what supposedly existed for the entire globe.
Net Applications collects webstats for clients interested only in users with unrestricted access to the web.
If your robot welder has a pin-up of Bender and is watching Hulu after-hours she'll be counted, otherwise not.
Slashdot Mirror
No.
The question is whether you have a viable business plan.
If the numbers aren't there than you are in trouble. If jail-breaking is strictly a geek thing you are in trouble.
The app that appeals to the geek is - by definition - niche - and he is thinking free-as-in-beer.
The iPhone makes a damn expensive paperweight.
There is a level of comfort in buying from Apple and its corporate partners that you are not going to be able to deliver.
For a flat $6 a month I can add 10 unedited and commercial-free movie channels to my digital cable service.
If I want to introduce my kids to the online RPG, Disney and Cartoon Network both have solid entries that are free of charge.
The Sims is a consumerist fantasy.
It's all about spending frivolously and living large - and can be enjoyed on that level.
But the world of Visa and MasterCard is something I want to put behind me as much as possible when I come out to play. I particularly don't want my status in the game world to be dependent on my credit line.
I may not be counting every penny these day. But I do shop for value and I am not interested in open-ended commitments, "hidden" charges or fees.
Power management in Windows works pretty well.
Unless I am doing maintenance - in Safe mode - I really don't much care how long the system takes to reboot because it is not something I have do every day.
-----
Apple and Microsoft won the battle on the ground - battles fought by users in the home and small business. The little guys - the Dilberts - who subverted the corporate hierarchy, the system administrator.
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" are inverted in the Geek mind. It was OSX and Windows that were forged in the market place.
*NIX entered your world as the mandate from on high - and far too often still does.
The geek was never the rebel, the geek was the establishment.
The technocratic elite.
You'd feel worse if it was a microscopic sample of the Ebola virus that went astray.
A package can't be so small that it will - quite literally - slip through the cracks. It can't be smaller than the human and machine readable labels it must carry.
The geek in full flight.
For a look at the full spectrum of RAND research: Browse by Category
Free downloads - PDF or HTML.
Here is the briefest of samplings from the RAND Classics:
Williams "The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy" 1954
Dresher "Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications" 1961
Dole and Asimov "Planets For Man"
Baran, ed. "On Distributed Communications" 1961-62
"A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates" 2001
Shapiro and Anderson "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail"
I'll save everyone time and give you the link:
Kahn "The Nature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence" 1960
The audience, as always.
In 1914 Henry Ford began paying $5 a day to his assembly-line workers. Tickets for the first run of D.W. Griffith's 1915 "Birth of a Nation" sold for $2.
1080 looks drop-dead gorgeous even on your refurbished 37" Sam's Club Vizio.
and when the gamer is not playing games is he outside exercising or inside watching videos?
still glued to the tube?
Anyone who grew up with analog TV knows better.
You lost sound.
You lost horizontal and vertical sync. You had snow and you had ghosts. Color introduced you to whole new levels of pain.
The solution to bad reception was a good antenna.
Dad brought out the forty foot ladder to mount a big Winegard on the roof. You watched him drive a ground stake in with a sledge until his face turned purple.
Your neighbor who clung to his rabbit ears as "good enough" was full of it then - and he is full of it now.
However, the programs still suck
The Boston Symphony in live performance New Year's Eve does not suck. The Leafs and Sabres in overtime - also broadcast in 1080i - does not suck.
This is the experience YouTube can't deliver.
Advertising may be integrated into a show - but they do not go away unless its producers can find other ways to pay their bills.
Product placement - a geek favorite - is particularly corrupting:
The girl next door inhales more smoke than Pittsburgh in the Forties because the sponsor is a tobacco company.
This sounds pretty much like buying tickets to a live performance.
A night out with the kids.
Harry Potter without waiting in line.
Reserved lounge seating at the restored Art Deco era Riviera.
The cinema for grown-ups.
I could live with that.
The geek sees everything as code.
Rapture must first be imagined before it can be built. The "heavy lifting" has nothing to do with how to animate water.
It has to do what role water will play in the game.
That is why the underworld of Grim Fandango seems more real and compelling than the generic fantasy lands of the high tech shooter or RPG.
The geek discovers the Fountain of Youth. Or maybe not.
Because advertisers back the shows that reach their target audience. A few more dollars for a new series like "Battlestar Galactica," a few less for an aging "American Idol."
Fictionwise's own lists of Best Sellers/HIghest Rated titles tells a different story.
Entries in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series rank 1st, 2nd, 3d, and 4th as best sellers the past six month.
Joe Halderman's "The Accidental Time Machine," came in fifth.
No erotica title made it into the top 25.
You will find YA "Twilight" on the Fictionwise "Dark Fantasy" shelf.
Which means were looking at more blogger BS on the front page of Slashdot.
Extending the fiber network costs Verizon about $4000 for each household.
Big numbers for a company whose corporate predecessors were acquiring easements, stringing wires and burying cables in the 1890s.
The barriers to entry in this business are huge.
It is not even clear that more than 40% of the population needs, wants, or is willing to pay for anything more than dial-up or DSL.
More proof that the geek doesn't have a clue about the realities of the sex trade in children.
Chronicling The Plight Of 'Very Young Girls' [Feb 24, 2009]
Very Young Girls
The FBI found more than 2,800 child prostitution ads posted on craigslist, with Chicago, Illinois, in the top 10 cities for juvenile prostitution, Dart said.
Craigslist entered into an agreement with 43 states' attorneys general in November to enact measures that impose restrictions on its Erotic Services section. The agreement called for the Web site to implement a phone verification system for listings that required ad posters to provide a real telephone number that would be called before the ad went public.
Craigslist also imposed listing fees, requiring a credit card, for ads in the section. The proceeds were to be donated to charity.
Dart called the fees "dirty money" and said the move was a "publicity stunt" that had little practical effect because pimps use stolen credit cards or post ads in free sections. Lawsuit accuses craigslist of promoting prostitution
Fair enough.
But Microsoft was there in the beginning, with the Altair.
In the eight-bit era, MBASIC was the glue that held dozens of incompatible systems together.
By 1980 Microsoft was offering a full range of languages for the micro - and poised to move into other markets.
As for CP/M:
Microsoft promised to deliver a serviceable OS in time for the projected launch of the IBM PC.
That it would be based on someone's home-brewed 16-bit "mod" of CP/M was more or less a given.
Microsoft was prepared to - quickly - negotiate a non-exclusive deal that would keep the retail price below 50 bucks.
This wasn't the kind of talk IBM was hearing from Digital Research.
The MSDOS PC was a singularly versatile platform - an office workhorse that found its way into the home and to the shop room floor.
Adventure Game Studio has been around forever. It's the toolkit used to build Maniac Mansion Deluxe.
The problem isn't the lack of programming tools - free or otherwise. The problem lies in assembling and supporting all the other talent you need: Story. Production design. Set Design. Characters and Props. Art and animation. Music. Dialog and Vocal Performance.
The generic game engine may be all you need to animate the underworlds of Grim Fandango or Bioshock.
But first they have to imagined, populated and given direction.
It's one thing to cut salaries when you're hemorrhaging. It's another to cut salaries when everyone else is hemorrhaging, and you have a stable, monopoly-protected revenue base, just because your workers have no alternative.
The temp's employer is Volt Workforce Solutions.
Volt joins most but not all firms in deciding to pass some or all of the impact of the [Microsoft] cuts on to their workers. Temp giant Volt informs workers it will make Microsoft pay cuts
How surprising is it when a wholesale supplier cuts his prices and costs to remain competitive in a recession?
--- but is not so quick to dial back his own profits?
Microsoft is bleeding to death when kdawson's theme is FOSS and Linux. Microsoft is rich, strong and stable when the talk turns to pay cuts and layoffs.
The well-run company survives a deep recession - a depression - by making changes before the situation turns desperate.
The 10% pay cut now is at least a better outcome for the temp than the 100% cut he'd take later if his job is outsourced to India.
It's useful to remember now and again that the median household income in the states is $50,000 -
keeps things in perspective, when you ask yourself how much your job is worth.
What are the desert sands but another form of solar collector?
It has been tough week all around.
You could preface every Slashdot story with this line and only the cast of characters would change: Novell lays off openSUSE Linux developers
When you a buy a copyrighted book, you do not buy the rights to copy and redistribute the book. You do not buy the right to produce or perform derivative works. I see no difference here.
This assumes that the doctor has access to the server.
That the link will hold whenever critical decisions have to be made about his patients.
Net Applications collects webstats for clients interested only in users with unrestricted access to the web.
If your robot welder has a pin-up of Bender and is watching Hulu after-hours she'll be counted, otherwise not.