Maybe it's a cleverly timed proposal by someone who doesn't think we should have one.
Possibly, but the bill was introduced first back in December, when there was talk about Stuxnet and the supposed vulnerability of the US Power Grid, but well before the situation erupted in Egypt or Tunisia. I suspect it was sincere at the time, even if ill thought out.
The present lesson would/should make any rational person think twice about introducing such legislation.
It seems more likely that the only reason its here on Slash Dot or on Wired is because it suddenly dawned on people just how ripe for abuse such a law would be.
As such it might be a cleverly timed Exposé of a bill intended for another purpose (warding off a large state sponsored cyber attack allegedly), but which could easily be used as has been done in Egypt. In which case we owe Egypt a debt of gratitude for demonstrating exactly how this would/could be used.
Note: I have no doubt the Government ALREADY has the means to cause a similar shutdown at their disposal, its just that doing so would be illegal. It would only take a little bit of BGP route poisoning to accomplish the same thing.
To bring that up now suggest the recent election turn around has scared Both Democrats and Republicans into believing Egypt could happen here, and rather fix the problem they react with police state measures.
Or was this on track all along, with hopes of sneaking it through, and the mainstream press just finally took notice? In which case it may well be DOA already.
The NFC capability in the phone is backed up by a credit card. The credit card can be canceled. The phone should be secured, and have remote wipe software installed (this stuff is free). Borrow a phone, remotely lock your phone, then call your bank.
The sort of geeks that value Android highly over iPhone are an extremely insignificant portion of the smartphone market.
Geeks, is that what you are going with?
You said yourself that Android phones are outselling iphones.
So if android only appeals to a insignificant portion of the smartphone market, AND it is outselling iphone, then by your OWN reasoning iphone is an even more insignificant part of the smartphone market.
And with many credit cards you get rfid whether you want it or not. And it can be scanned without you taking it out of your pocket from at least ten feet away.
Unlike rfid, NFC is an active component which can be turned off when not in use.
Both rfid and nfc can be canceled should they fall into the wrong hands. Try that when you get mugged for your cash.
Nearly every state has some form of EZPass in place these days.
I wonder how long it will be before the all learn to read each other's passes and bill accordingly? A transaction from California to Washington State would trigger a lot fewer tin foil hats than a Federal system.
On the other hand, I'd like to see the whole thing disbanded and force states to put people in the toll booths.
Why? Using people raises the cost, reduces the efficiency, and discourages the practice all together.
The Golden Gate was paid for 60 years ago, and like most roads was and continues to be funded by fuel taxes. Even those not traveling over it benefit from its existence, and it is something that should be funded out of highway funds. The practice of charging money here and there all across the country to drive on publicly funded roads is not a step forward. There is no reason to expect the funds collected will be used for bridge maintenance, that lie has been exposed in every state that uses toll roads.
There is a limit (user settable) on the size of transaction you allow, and per-day limits without the use of some form of approval. (This is already widely deployed in Japan and has been since before smartphones).
Sorry, its too late tow worry about it being only an Apple thing.
The Nexus S phone already has NFC already. Apple is definitely behind on NFC. Google already has a processing consortium set up with Barclay's and credit card clearing houses to handle the payments.
You can always turn it off and carry your less secure credit cards, or vastly less secure cash.
Why not wait till this is fully rolled out in plastic form, before putting it in a smartphone.
Way too late for that.
NFC and phone based payments have been huge in Japan for many years. Plastic does not let you password protect it. (Pin on the terminal maybe, but not passwords).
With NFC you will have the ability to pay with your choice of cards, or pay anonymously with only Google or Apple knowing the actual account. And your data can be heavily encrypted on your device.
It can unlock your car, or your house if you want it to.
But best of all, it shuts off when you want it to. The plastic versions in your pocket can be read by anyone with a bit of technology in the brief case. This has been demonstrated in spite of assurances that you have to nearly touch the plastic cards to the terminals to pay.
An, given their history, is there any reason to expect better support and continuity tomorrow than has been apparent for the last 10 years?
I've been in and out of Enlightenment several times over the years an I always end up scrapping it for something else due to the chaos. Its fine if you install it and leave it alone, then nuke it and install it again upon the next release. But migrating from release to release has been frustrating.
Now that we have exhausted all the K words and the X words, it will be interesting to see how long the E words last.
You will find it different here than the jungle hut you used to live in. Here people do things for money. Since you work for free, you might not notice this. But don't tell Charles Portis he is ripping you off by selling you a book. (Yes, he's still alive and collecting royalties).
One might ask why there was even a remake of True Grit. Must be just a clear rip off.
In this case the movie is certainly driving the hype. This book was out of print for 20 years and this edition was released only because of the potential for movie driven sales. So in a way it is still New, as it was published on November 2010.
This is strictly a temporal imbalance due to the way paper books are marketed when the the work is a new AND a best seller. Somebody has to pay for all that travel to book signings, the speaking engagements, etc.
After the hype wears down, the price straightens out.
Every single thing you said is false in the digital world.
Its not a common place for people to learn. Library patronage is falling fast.
Its no longer needed for a literate society. We have thousands of book stores, the Internet, and millions of totally free ebooks.
Finding new authors? ---> Google.
Enhances sales? Suppresses sales you mean.
And libraries deprive authors of thousands of royalties.
So wrong on 100% of your points. A case can be made that libraries in the digital age serve precisely one purpose, and that is to assure continued availability of works unpopular with the State or the Church or the general times.
Its an unpopular view, but never the less, libraries have largely outlived their general usefulness.
Well the argument is (I don't totally believe it myself) that the actual printing and distribution of paper books is so cheap these days that it makes up only a small percentage of the costs.
The cost of editing, ebook creation, and Author's Royalties account for the price of an Ebook. The difference in price between a hard cover (or paperback) and an ebook is the printing and distributional costs.
Take any popular book such as Steven Kings "Under the Dome" and compare prices. Ebook 10, Paperback 12, Hardcover 20).
If you wait a year or more the price diverges even more in favor of the ebook. Sometimes the prices are upside down, with ebooks being higher than print. Usually this does not last beyond 9 months after release.
Now what you pay for a second hand book is entirely another matter. The author gets none of that money, and neither does the publisher. You have arguably arrived at the social value of the underlying literary work as all profit has been paid previously and stripped off.
The reason one buys older books in ebook format is for convenience, and not having to line ones walls with shelves against the day you may want to re-read the work, or to avoid having to carry around a mountain of paperbacks.
For those who want to read once, and not retain anything, used paperbacks are the way to go. For those who think an author's work is worth paying for, paperbacks or ebooks make the most sense. For collectors: hard covers.
But in no case can you make the claim that an ebook has zero manufacturing costs.
The money spent on ebooks should be donated to libraries to buy those exact same ebooks. The books could then be shared.
It is a tragedy that this is not happening.
What possible justification could there be for depriving an author of their money in order to donate to libraries? Even fewer sales over all because you insist they stock the libraries with their sales revenue?
There are still a lot of people out there who prefer to buy real books, whether or not the big bookstores are catering to them.
But you have totally hand waived the story away!?!
Similar results are shown by Barnes and Noble, which actually has more titles than Amazon.
Ebooks are already nearly outselling Dead Tree Books, and the trend is only getting started. Ereader penetration is far from being mainstream. Yet the most avid readers seem to be adopting the devices at an astounding rate.
Borders and Books-a-Million have also added eReaders. Its not a trend you can dismiss lightly. Just as the family photos have disappeared from the shoebox in the closet into digital storage that may die at any given instant, the family library acquired over generations is headed for extinction as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's a cleverly timed proposal by someone who doesn't think we should have one.
Possibly, but the bill was introduced first back in December, when there was talk about Stuxnet and the supposed vulnerability of the US Power Grid, but well before the situation erupted in Egypt or Tunisia. I suspect it was sincere at the time, even if ill thought out.
The present lesson would/should make any rational person think twice about introducing such legislation.
It seems more likely that the only reason its here on Slash Dot or on Wired is because it suddenly dawned on people just how ripe for abuse such a law would be.
As such it might be a cleverly timed Exposé of a bill intended for another purpose (warding off a large state sponsored cyber attack allegedly), but which could easily be used as has been done in Egypt. In which case we owe Egypt a debt of gratitude for demonstrating exactly how this would/could be used.
Note: I have no doubt the Government ALREADY has the means to cause a similar shutdown at their disposal, its just that doing so would be illegal. It would only take a little bit of BGP route poisoning to accomplish the same thing.
The timing is so dumb that one has to wonder.
To bring that up now suggest the recent election turn around has scared Both Democrats and Republicans into believing Egypt could happen here, and rather fix the problem they react with police state measures.
Or was this on track all along, with hopes of sneaking it through, and the mainstream press just finally took notice?
In which case it may well be DOA already.
FUD again.
The NFC capability in the phone is backed up by a credit card. The credit card can be canceled.
The phone should be secured, and have remote wipe software installed (this stuff is free). Borrow a phone, remotely lock your phone, then call your bank.
Cash gone? Call a cop. Good luck with that.
The message I replied to was looking for API documentation.
Its all there. Follow the link to the Foundation Libraries, ( http://www.enlightenment.org/?p=news/show&l=en&news_id=28 ) and drill down for documentation.
Asking for screen shots of APIs Is kind of like asking for screen shots of a dictionary. But the GP did not ask for screen shots.
The sort of geeks that value Android highly over iPhone are an extremely insignificant portion of the smartphone market.
Geeks, is that what you are going with?
You said yourself that Android phones are outselling iphones.
So if android only appeals to a insignificant portion of the smartphone market, AND it is outselling iphone, then by your OWN reasoning iphone is an even more insignificant part of the smartphone market.
Seriously, do you even read what you post?
You fanboi is getting in the way of the facts.
Android is outselling iphone everywhere.
The iPhone 5 will be obsolete upon release.
And with many credit cards you get rfid whether you want it or not. And it can be scanned without you taking it out of your pocket from at least ten feet away.
Unlike rfid, NFC is an active component which can be turned off when not in use.
Both rfid and nfc can be canceled should they fall into the wrong hands. Try that when you get mugged for your cash.
Yup. 6 dollars to 3 dollars depending on time and number of passengers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge
Nearly every state has some form of EZPass in place these days.
I wonder how long it will be before the all learn to read each other's passes and bill accordingly? A transaction from California to Washington State would trigger a lot fewer tin foil hats than a Federal system.
On the other hand, I'd like to see the whole thing disbanded and force states to put people in the toll booths.
Why?
Using people raises the cost, reduces the efficiency, and discourages the practice all together.
The Golden Gate was paid for 60 years ago, and like most roads was and continues to be funded by fuel taxes. Even those not traveling over it benefit from its existence, and it is something that should be funded out of highway funds. The practice of charging money here and there all across the country to drive on publicly funded roads is not a step forward. There is no reason to expect the funds collected will be used for bridge maintenance, that lie has been exposed in every state that uses toll roads.
Apple is not the leader in this technology. Google is. Google's NFC phone is already out. Apple's is just hinted at.
Better minds than Apple have been working on this for years. Its been deployed widely in Japan for many years now.
It WILL do that. Stop spreading FUD.
There is a limit (user settable) on the size of transaction you allow, and per-day limits without the use of some form of approval. (This is already widely deployed in Japan and has been since before smartphones).
Sorry, its too late tow worry about it being only an Apple thing.
The Nexus S phone already has NFC already. Apple is definitely behind on NFC. Google already has a processing consortium set up with Barclay's and credit card clearing houses to handle the payments.
You can always turn it off and carry your less secure credit cards, or vastly less secure cash.
Why not wait till this is fully rolled out in plastic form, before putting it in a smartphone.
Way too late for that.
NFC and phone based payments have been huge in Japan for many years. Plastic does not let you password protect it. (Pin on the terminal maybe, but not passwords).
With NFC you will have the ability to pay with your choice of cards, or pay anonymously with only Google or Apple knowing the actual account. And your data can be heavily encrypted on your device.
It can unlock your car, or your house if you want it to.
But best of all, it shuts off when you want it to. The plastic versions in your pocket can be read by anyone with a bit of technology in the brief case. This has been demonstrated in spite of assurances that you have to nearly touch the plastic cards to the terminals to pay.
An, given their history, is there any reason to expect better support and continuity tomorrow than has been apparent for the last 10 years?
I've been in and out of Enlightenment several times over the years an I always end up scrapping it for something else due to the chaos. Its fine if you install it and leave it alone, then nuke it and install it again upon the next release. But migrating from release to release has been frustrating.
Now that we have exhausted all the K words and the X words, it will be interesting to see how long the E words last.
Follow the links in the article. Its all there.
Welcome to America.
You will find it different here than the jungle hut you used to live in. Here people do things for money. Since you work for free, you might not notice this. But don't tell Charles Portis he is ripping you off by selling you a book. (Yes, he's still alive and collecting royalties).
One might ask why there was even a remake of True Grit. Must be just a clear rip off.
Perhaps also useful would be a hint that simply avoiding Internet Explorer would provide all the protection from this bug that is needed.
True enough, New is not always necessary.
In this case the movie is certainly driving the hype. This book was out of print for 20 years and this edition was released only because of the potential for movie driven sales. So in a way it is still New, as it was published on November 2010.
I addressed this above.
This is strictly a temporal imbalance due to the way paper books are marketed when the the work is a new AND a best seller. Somebody has to pay for all that travel to book signings, the speaking engagements, etc.
After the hype wears down, the price straightens out.
Every single thing you said is false in the digital world.
Its not a common place for people to learn. Library patronage is falling fast.
Its no longer needed for a literate society. We have thousands of book stores, the Internet, and millions of totally free ebooks.
Finding new authors? ---> Google.
Enhances sales? Suppresses sales you mean.
And libraries deprive authors of thousands of royalties.
So wrong on 100% of your points. A case can be made that libraries in the digital age serve precisely one purpose, and that is to assure continued availability of works unpopular with the State or the Church or the general times.
Its an unpopular view, but never the less, libraries have largely outlived their general usefulness.
XML is overkill for books. Its a case of the only tool you have being a hammer causing you to look at every problem as if it were a nail.
A simple text file is all that you need. An epub is not much more than a packaged web page.
In any event none of these survive a hard drive crash. Hang on to your hard copy books.
Define Average.
Well the argument is (I don't totally believe it myself) that the actual printing and distribution of paper books is so cheap these days that it makes up only a small percentage of the costs.
The cost of editing, ebook creation, and Author's Royalties account for the price of an Ebook. The difference in price between a hard cover (or paperback) and an ebook is the printing and distributional costs.
Take any popular book such as Steven Kings "Under the Dome" and compare prices. Ebook 10, Paperback 12, Hardcover 20).
If you wait a year or more the price diverges even more in favor of the ebook. Sometimes the prices are upside down, with ebooks being higher than print. Usually this does not last beyond 9 months after release.
Now what you pay for a second hand book is entirely another matter. The author gets none of that money, and neither does the publisher. You have arguably arrived at the social value of the underlying literary work as all profit has been paid previously and stripped off.
The reason one buys older books in ebook format is for convenience, and not having to line ones walls with shelves against the day you may want to re-read the work, or to avoid having to carry around a mountain of paperbacks.
For those who want to read once, and not retain anything, used paperbacks are the way to go. For those who think an author's work is worth paying for, paperbacks or ebooks make the most sense. For collectors: hard covers.
But in no case can you make the claim that an ebook has zero manufacturing costs.
The money spent on ebooks should be donated to libraries to buy those exact same ebooks. The books could then be shared.
It is a tragedy that this is not happening.
What possible justification could there be for depriving an author of their money in order to donate to libraries? Even fewer sales over all because you insist they stock the libraries with their sales revenue?
There are still a lot of people out there who prefer to buy real books, whether or not the big bookstores are catering to them.
But you have totally hand waived the story away!?!
Similar results are shown by Barnes and Noble, which actually has more titles than Amazon.
Ebooks are already nearly outselling Dead Tree Books, and the trend is only getting started. Ereader penetration is far from being mainstream. Yet the most avid readers seem to be adopting the devices at an astounding rate.
Borders and Books-a-Million have also added eReaders. Its not a trend you can dismiss lightly. Just as the family photos have disappeared from the shoebox in the closet into digital storage that may die at any given instant, the family library acquired over generations is headed for extinction as well.