Firstly, this looks basically like Opera's Link (although I don't think that supports passwords etc yet).
Security-wise, although I can see that many people would like any stored data encrypted so the service provider can't make use of it, that'd mean the user's computer would need to encrypt/decrypt it client-side. If you want to be able to access information from a bog-standard HTML interface (which I believe Opera Link allows), the service provider needs to be able to decrypt your information server-side.
So where does the report say that your BitTorrent use is automatically illegal?
Now, that 36.4% figure of computers with LimeWire installed has been turned into the title of 'Report Says 36.4% of World's Computers Infringe on IP'. Shouldn't you be angry at that instead?
It's not mentioned in the summary, but added reliability might make these types of disks more appealling too:
The no-moving-parts characteristic is, in part, what protects your data longer, since accidentally bumping your laptop won't scramble your stored files. Samsung says the drive can withstand an operating shock of 1,500Gs at.5 miliseconds (versus 300Gs at 2 miliseconds for a traditional hard drive). The drive is heartier in one other important way: Mean time between failure is rated at over 2 million hours, versus under 500,000 hours for the company's other drives.
The "legacy" defense they give is exceedingly weak, in fact non-existent.
Windows 2000 was released in 1999, XP in 2001, both use boot.ini - yet they say they named it in 2001 but say the name is there because of "legacy"? This could have happened back in 2001, they couldn't have used the "legacy" excuse then. I'd sooner they said 'yeah, we gave a file a silly name, and didn't realise'.
This is apparently largely because of the success of a similar project where they put every episode of The Daily Show on-line a few months back. This action didn't hurt ratings, and it may have actually helped them.
Two weeks after all the past episodes were put online, The Daily Show had to shut down production due to the writers strike. I doubt those two weeks are really enough to make any solid conclusions from. It's strange though, I'd have expected ratings to drop considerably after that, considering there weren't any new episodes to air (or are the ratings referencing only those two weeks?)
I'm sure that putting them online wouldn't noticably hurt ratings (or perhaps could even increase them), but I don't think that you can evidence much from those two weeks.
Being a good choice for people using music subscription does not mean it would automatically be a bad choice for those not using subscription services.
So why is the only quote in the summary from the only really negative bit of the review?
Heres another quote, from the conclusion:
We expect that the new lineup will help Microsoft become an established player in the PMP space over the next year. The updated devices should also put an end to the almost-endless set of Zune-related jokes, and they are an obvious choice for anyone who loves subscription music services.
How about if Firefox randomly chose one of the supplied search engines as the default, but allowed people to change this in the installer? That way, they could get their income from more sources, but people could actively choose their search engine if they wanted (without having to delve into the settings).
I realise that's not going to happen, and some people may say that Google should be default on the basis that it's considered the best search engine (although if another smaller engine surpassed Google in result quality, would Mozilla really drop Google as the default and sacrifice their revenue? I think not).
Just because they have a new API for getting the random numbers, it doesn't mean that they are using different algorithms for generating those random numbers.
I looked up the full quote, which shows that they have different algorithms that can be used with that API, one passing the 'FIPS' standard:
The BCRYPT_RNG_FIPS186_DSA_ALGORITHM algorithm identifier is also available should you need an algorithm that meets Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) for use with the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA).
Just replying to my own comment here, as it seems as if these companies might be selling these products despite not being allowed to sell them to other countries - if this is the case, then obviously it's not as clearcut as in my comment above.
But the companies that supply the boxed version from have nothing to do with Valve directly. Charging back would hurt those companies, not Valve/Steam, in fact it probably helps Steam as it makes the boxed version a less attractive proposition for both buyers and sellers.
I'm really disappointed in Valve here, but then I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
this means (a) the album went platinum with no marketing help from a major label
You have to consider that Radiohead were already hugely successful (partly down to previous marketing from a major label), and also that their new album got huge publicity from many news sites due to the way it was being released.
It's extremely hard to imagine that a small band (let alone an unknown) could have got anywhere near the amount of publicity this has had. Even if another band as big as Radiohead released an album in the same way, it wouldn't get as much publicity as this one has (being the first major release done in this way).
Unfortunately there wasn't a cheaper 'home' version of Windows 2000, and so Windows XP was a good upgrade path, being a huge improvement over Windows 9x.
As you say though, Windows XP offered little to people already using Windows 2000 (and still doesn't offer much extra now, besides the extra support time).
I feel it's somewhat hypocritical of the mother to use the fact that her daugher was 13 as a defence - if she really placed little value in her daughter's opinion, she shouldn't have bought it solely on that opinion in the first place.
From the second linked article in the summary: The episodes are available (with French subtitles) starting from 2.99 euros each, or by packs of two (4.99 euros) or three episodes (5.99 euros).
Isn't a large part of the success here just down to the 'on-demand' version having French subtitles? The US-broadcast version isn't really an alternative if you need that.
It's not as if this is something that can't be easily fixed though. There are certainly many legitimate complaints about activation, but I'm sure he knew he still needed to activate Visio at some point (he has Office activated, after all).
Well, the Visio license is valid, I just haven't activated it. I'm just too lazy to complete the wizard, I guess.
Well, you could hash the URL into a non-unique identifier, and send that identifier to Google.
Google could then look that up in their database, then return known phishing URLs hashed with another method. The browser could then check to see if the URL also matches with the second hash returned.
Slashdot Mirror
Security-wise, although I can see that many people would like any stored data encrypted so the service provider can't make use of it, that'd mean the user's computer would need to encrypt/decrypt it client-side. If you want to be able to access information from a bog-standard HTML interface (which I believe Opera Link allows), the service provider needs to be able to decrypt your information server-side.
So where does the report say that your BitTorrent use is automatically illegal?
Now, that 36.4% figure of computers with LimeWire installed has been turned into the title of 'Report Says 36.4% of World's Computers Infringe on IP'. Shouldn't you be angry at that instead?
The no-moving-parts characteristic is, in part, what protects your data longer, since accidentally bumping your laptop won't scramble your stored files. Samsung says the drive can withstand an operating shock of 1,500Gs at .5 miliseconds (versus 300Gs at 2 miliseconds for a traditional hard drive). The drive is heartier in one other important way: Mean time between failure is rated at over 2 million hours, versus under 500,000 hours for the company's other drives.
The "legacy" defense they give is exceedingly weak, in fact non-existent.
Windows 2000 was released in 1999, XP in 2001, both use boot.ini - yet they say they named it in 2001 but say the name is there because of "legacy"? This could have happened back in 2001, they couldn't have used the "legacy" excuse then. I'd sooner they said 'yeah, we gave a file a silly name, and didn't realise'.
I'm sure that putting them online wouldn't noticably hurt ratings (or perhaps could even increase them), but I don't think that you can evidence much from those two weeks.
Being a good choice for people using music subscription does not mean it would automatically be a bad choice for those not using subscription services.
Heres another quote, from the conclusion:
We expect that the new lineup will help Microsoft become an established player in the PMP space over the next year. The updated devices should also put an end to the almost-endless set of Zune-related jokes, and they are an obvious choice for anyone who loves subscription music services.
How about if Firefox randomly chose one of the supplied search engines as the default, but allowed people to change this in the installer? That way, they could get their income from more sources, but people could actively choose their search engine if they wanted (without having to delve into the settings).
I realise that's not going to happen, and some people may say that Google should be default on the basis that it's considered the best search engine (although if another smaller engine surpassed Google in result quality, would Mozilla really drop Google as the default and sacrifice their revenue? I think not).
The BCRYPT_RNG_FIPS186_DSA_ALGORITHM algorithm identifier is also available should you need an algorithm that meets Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) for use with the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA).
Your point is that in Russia and Thailand they sell the products at significantly lower prices due to lower average incomes.
His point is that, in the UK, prices are significantly higher, even though incomes are not drastically different than those in the US.
Just replying to my own comment here, as it seems as if these companies might be selling these products despite not being allowed to sell them to other countries - if this is the case, then obviously it's not as clearcut as in my comment above.
But the companies that supply the boxed version from have nothing to do with Valve directly. Charging back would hurt those companies, not Valve/Steam, in fact it probably helps Steam as it makes the boxed version a less attractive proposition for both buyers and sellers.
I'm really disappointed in Valve here, but then I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
It's extremely hard to imagine that a small band (let alone an unknown) could have got anywhere near the amount of publicity this has had. Even if another band as big as Radiohead released an album in the same way, it wouldn't get as much publicity as this one has (being the first major release done in this way).
Another cockroach.
Unfortunately there wasn't a cheaper 'home' version of Windows 2000, and so Windows XP was a good upgrade path, being a huge improvement over Windows 9x.
As you say though, Windows XP offered little to people already using Windows 2000 (and still doesn't offer much extra now, besides the extra support time).
The important quote: "if they are not happy to give you chapter and verse Im afraid I cant either"
I feel it's somewhat hypocritical of the mother to use the fact that her daugher was 13 as a defence - if she really placed little value in her daughter's opinion, she shouldn't have bought it solely on that opinion in the first place.
From the article: Ballmer was good-natured about the critique as he defended the operating system.
From the second linked article in the summary: The episodes are available (with French subtitles) starting from 2.99 euros each, or by packs of two (4.99 euros) or three episodes (5.99 euros).
Isn't a large part of the success here just down to the 'on-demand' version having French subtitles? The US-broadcast version isn't really an alternative if you need that.
Well, you could hash the URL into a non-unique identifier, and send that identifier to Google.
Google could then look that up in their database, then return known phishing URLs hashed with another method. The browser could then check to see if the URL also matches with the second hash returned.
Not sure your pattern works for the Quake series. Quake 3 was a huge change from the first two, being completely multiplayer-oriented.
I don't think the Quake series has 'petered out' either, in my view Quake 4 was the game that Doom 3 should have been.
Opera has significantly more features than Firefox does without some extensions installed, yet Opera definitely isn't a memory hog.
I don't think it's just the loss of $200 that bothers everyone, the price drop also makes the product seem a little less 'exclusive'.
(I'm sure that's not the factor most people would be annoyed about, but I'm sure a fair few people bought it largely as a status symbol.)