I doubt Amazon will do that. They will probably give first time buyers a boost so that they will get the best service possible. A good first impression is very valuable.
Google will probably use it as an additional way of ranking websites. They are looking for an supplement to their link-based pagerank, because it's too easy to manipulate.
Now they can rank the page based on real popularity by looking at the number of visitors. It would also be possible to monitor users and their surfing habits. If a user visits the site every day it means that the site is a valuable ressource and should be ranked high. This would be a way to lower the ranks of sites that gets lots of visitors, but where few visitors come back.
But the privacy concerns outweighs any benefits. I will not use GWA.
These kinds of browser checks are the same reason why browsers like Opera needs to fake the User-Agent. This page of yours would also block Opera. Let people use whatever browser they want without blocking them.
This is what Opera 7.20 uses by default: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.20 [en]
Because it contains MSIE it fools a lot of scripts, like yours.
But what about closed source software, that you need to buy (Photoshop, Games etc.)? Without a common package format that works across distro's, you end up with huge statically linked tar.gz files, or programs that are only supported for a couple of Red Hat versions.
Look at all of the versions on the download page for Opera. There are 12 different files that you need to choose from!
Also there's no way of knowing (that I can see) what extra software was installed. Sendmail? Apache? Or are we just talking a basic kernel and networking?
I don't know much about the EAL standard, but after a quick look at the previous certification(EAL 2), I think it probably includes all of the software.
Re:Odds are it -was- a commercial
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Consider that the gentleman in question already owned the product supposedly being marketed. That makes this angle very unlikely.
Perhaps they want to build a culture of people sharing music with iPods. If they get enough people to do this, others will see this and buy an iPod instead of other products because they can be part of a "special" group.
Besides, when these things happen, people want to tell others about it. This guy even wrote an article about the "phenomena":-)
Too bad you have to be an "authorized N-Gage developer" to program in C/C++. With all the competition in the market, they need all the help they can get.
N-Gage(tm) supports two different game styles: downloadable titles and rich games distributed on MMC cards.
Downloadable titles for N-Gage are developed in Java(tm) MIDP in the same way and with the same tools used to develop downloadable games for any other Series 60 Platform device. You do not require authorization to develop downloadable games for any Series 60 Platform device.
Rich games are programmed in C++ for Symbian OS. They are multiple megabytes in size and are sold at retail on memory cards. Rich games are developed using an N-Gage SDK that extends Series 60 Platform. Access to the SDK and details about the specific extensions available in the SDK are provided only to authorized N-Gage developers. The SDK is required to produce MMC cards compatible with N-Gage.
A lot of the newer games use more than one CD, but install most of their game data on the harddrive. I don't want to go back to switching discs everytime the game wants to load something. Even if they put the game on a DVD, they would eventually find a way to use the space.
If you click on the same link that you downloaded from and save the file over the old, it won't get overwritten (bittorrent will check the file). Then you will share your file with other downloaders automatically. There's no need to set up a server. Remember that Bittorrent goes both ways.
"640K of memory should be enough for anybody"
on
Is Prescott 64-bit?
·
· Score: 1
"I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." - Bill Gates
That seems like an inefficient method of sharing files. A single byte has 256 different values.
A 8 byte bitpattern has 2^64 different combinations. That's 18446744073709551616 different patterns. You would need 17179869184GB (or 16777216TB) to represent the different combinations, that's a 16 million users with 1TB on their computers. Now imagine downloading a 5MB file... think about how many people you would need to connect to, so that you could assemble the file.
Another disadvantage with FTP/HTTP servers is that they usually have logs, so it's easy to find out which files you've downloaded.
Don't know how P2P servers/hubs work, but at least I assume they can't log which files you download.
I agree. Most of the current improvements in technology is improving what already exist. If you look back 20 years, the technology has improved a lot, but most of the improvements have been incremental.
Cars are basically the same. We have more TV-channels, mobile phones are more practical and computers are cheaper and faster. The only real change is they way we handle information. We have access to an almost unlimited source of information, that would be hard to believe only 10 years ago. Everyone (in the west) has a cell phone and can access the internet with a computer if they want to. but it's still "more of the same". Connect fast and cheap computers in a global network and information overload is the logical conclusion.
The problem is that we are so used to improvements in technology, that we don't think about them like people 50 years ago. While they were just getting used to nuclear weapons, TVs and electric kitchen appliances, the government started putting people into space! At the same time the society changed dramatically. This forced people to not only be aware of what was around them, but they also needed to think about where the world was going.
Perhaps there's a way to increase the range?
I guess they used WiFi because mobile phones are more limited because of the transfer rate.
What about also installing a PDA inside the plane? If you install a few extra sensors and a PDA, the plane could probably fly itself for a limited time. When a PDA can run flight simulators, it should be able to control the plane for a few seconds. The transfer rate would then not be an issue (you would just send course corrections)
I'm afraid that Google will become too big. They have searches for almost everything (web, usenet, news, shopping) and are continually expanding. They are so popular that they have become part of the language ("googling for information")
I know this is because they offer a good service, at least the web-search and usenet parts are good, but they are becoming very dominant. Google is probably the start page of many browsers, and that means they have a power over how people find information. Google is quickly becoming the portal for information, and is continually expanding into other markets
It'd be really nice to have some kind of comparison list for various blog sites out there. I note from the blogger.com information, that they're still not making RSS part of the free service level, something which (ahem) LiveJournal offers on their free accounts.
I think it's because they want more control over how people view their pages. It's understandable, because the free services must be paid for with ads. If free accounts could generate RSS, the readers might use software like NNTP//RSS to extract the raw information, without viewing the ads.
You're right. I bet they even have radio, perhaps a TV too, they sure have money to spend.
What's great about the evolution in the computer industry is that you can use an old PC and still get the work done. You don't need a 3GHz Pentium to download music. You can get older computers for a very low price. Perhaps the computer was even given to them by a family member. If an average MP3 is 5 MB, you only need 5GB for a thousand songs.
$2000 is a lot of money for someone in their situation. Chances are that the girl didn't even know this could happen, and the punishment is far greater than the crime in this case.
The European countries have also agreed to follow the "Universal Declaration Of Human Rights", mentioned in an earlier article, so the government can't do arbitrary interference.
I don't think that such basic conventions can be too detailed, because it will depend on the current technology. It may give the government a little more wiggle room, but they still have to have a proper justification. Saying that "we will keep your mails, just in case we need them later" violates the intention of Article 8. The final interpretation is left to The Court of Human Rights.
Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home
and his correspondence.
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of
this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in
a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or
the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or
crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the
rights and freedoms of others.
That's just what RIAA does. Instead of using some of their funds to support alternative ways of distributing music, they use the court system to reduce the problem.
The real problem with these businesses is that they have grown so big that it's hard for smaller companies to compete today. If they support the new technologies, they will open the door for new competition.
When you can use any phone company in the world via the internet, or buy music directly from the artist, they will actually have to compete on more equal terms.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt Amazon will do that. They will probably give first time buyers a boost so that they will get the best service possible. A good first impression is very valuable.
They probably did some tricks and displayed the article as one page for indexing.
But I miss a comparison with other products. Both search appliances like Thunderstone and Fast and compared to full text search software.
Yahoo has a lighter version if you're just interested in search.
http://search.yahoo.com/
Google will probably use it as an additional way of ranking websites. They are looking for an supplement to their link-based pagerank, because it's too easy to manipulate.
Now they can rank the page based on real popularity by looking at the number of visitors. It would also be possible to monitor users and their surfing habits. If a user visits the site every day it means that the site is a valuable ressource and should be ranked high. This would be a way to lower the ranks of sites that gets lots of visitors, but where few visitors come back.
But the privacy concerns outweighs any benefits. I will not use GWA.
If you could play the same games on the PC, who would buy a PS3?
These kinds of browser checks are the same reason why browsers like Opera needs to fake the User-Agent. This page of yours would also block Opera. Let people use whatever browser they want without blocking them.
This is what Opera 7.20 uses by default:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.20 [en]
Because it contains MSIE it fools a lot of scripts, like yours.
But what about closed source software, that you need to buy (Photoshop, Games etc.)? Without a common package format that works across distro's, you end up with huge statically linked tar.gz files, or programs that are only supported for a couple of Red Hat versions.
Look at all of the versions on the download page for Opera. There are 12 different files that you need to choose from!
Also there's no way of knowing (that I can see) what extra software was installed. Sendmail? Apache? Or are we just talking a basic kernel and networking?
I don't know much about the EAL standard, but after a quick look at the previous certification(EAL 2), I think it probably includes all of the software.
Consider that the gentleman in question already owned the product supposedly being marketed. That makes this angle very unlikely.
Perhaps they want to build a culture of people sharing music with iPods. If they get enough people to do this, others will see this and buy an iPod instead of other products because they can be part of a "special" group.
Besides, when these things happen, people want to tell others about it. This guy even wrote an article about the "phenomena" :-)
Too bad you have to be an "authorized N-Gage developer" to program in C/C++. With all the competition in the market, they need all the help they can get.
From the source:
N-Gage(tm) supports two different game styles: downloadable titles and rich games distributed on MMC cards.
Downloadable titles for N-Gage are developed in Java(tm) MIDP in the same way and with the same tools used to develop downloadable games for any other Series 60 Platform device. You do not require authorization to develop downloadable games for any Series 60 Platform device.
Rich games are programmed in C++ for Symbian OS. They are multiple megabytes in size and are sold at retail on memory cards. Rich games are developed using an N-Gage SDK that extends Series 60 Platform. Access to the SDK and details about the specific extensions available in the SDK are provided only to authorized N-Gage developers. The SDK is required to produce MMC cards compatible with N-Gage.
Here: http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/
A lot of the newer games use more than one CD, but install most of their game data on the harddrive. I don't want to go back to switching discs everytime the game wants to load something. Even if they put the game on a DVD, they would eventually find a way to use the space.
It works in IE5 as well, but I remember that it sometimes crashes if you undo and there's nothing left to undo.
If you click on the same link that you downloaded from and save the file over the old, it won't get overwritten (bittorrent will check the file). Then you will share your file with other downloaders automatically. There's no need to set up a server. Remember that Bittorrent goes both ways.
That's an urban legend.
"I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." - Bill Gates
That seems like an inefficient method of sharing files. A single byte has 256 different values. A 8 byte bitpattern has 2^64 different combinations. That's 18446744073709551616 different patterns. You would need 17179869184GB (or 16777216TB) to represent the different combinations, that's a 16 million users with 1TB on their computers. Now imagine downloading a 5MB file... think about how many people you would need to connect to, so that you could assemble the file.
Another disadvantage with FTP/HTTP servers is that they usually have logs, so it's easy to find out which files you've downloaded. Don't know how P2P servers/hubs work, but at least I assume they can't log which files you download.
I agree. Most of the current improvements in technology is improving what already exist. If you look back 20 years, the technology has improved a lot, but most of the improvements have been incremental.
Cars are basically the same. We have more TV-channels, mobile phones are more practical and computers are cheaper and faster. The only real change is they way we handle information. We have access to an almost unlimited source of information, that would be hard to believe only 10 years ago. Everyone (in the west) has a cell phone and can access the internet with a computer if they want to. but it's still "more of the same". Connect fast and cheap computers in a global network and information overload is the logical conclusion.
The problem is that we are so used to improvements in technology, that we don't think about them like people 50 years ago. While they were just getting used to nuclear weapons, TVs and electric kitchen appliances, the government started putting people into space! At the same time the society changed dramatically. This forced people to not only be aware of what was around them, but they also needed to think about where the world was going.
Perhaps there's a way to increase the range? I guess they used WiFi because mobile phones are more limited because of the transfer rate. What about also installing a PDA inside the plane? If you install a few extra sensors and a PDA, the plane could probably fly itself for a limited time. When a PDA can run flight simulators, it should be able to control the plane for a few seconds. The transfer rate would then not be an issue (you would just send course corrections)
I'm afraid that Google will become too big. They have searches for almost everything (web, usenet, news, shopping) and are continually expanding. They are so popular that they have become part of the language ("googling for information")
I know this is because they offer a good service, at least the web-search and usenet parts are good, but they are becoming very dominant. Google is probably the start page of many browsers, and that means they have a power over how people find information. Google is quickly becoming the portal for information, and is continually expanding into other markets
This can't be good for competition
You're right. I bet they even have radio, perhaps a TV too, they sure have money to spend.
What's great about the evolution in the computer industry is that you can use an old PC and still get the work done. You don't need a 3GHz Pentium to download music. You can get older computers for a very low price. Perhaps the computer was even given to them by a family member. If an average MP3 is 5 MB, you only need 5GB for a thousand songs.
$2000 is a lot of money for someone in their situation. Chances are that the girl didn't even know this could happen, and the punishment is far greater than the crime in this case.
The European countries have also agreed to follow the "Universal Declaration Of Human Rights", mentioned in an earlier article, so the government can't do arbitrary interference.
I don't think that such basic conventions can be too detailed, because it will depend on the current technology. It may give the government a little more wiggle room, but they still have to have a proper justification. Saying that "we will keep your mails, just in case we need them later" violates the intention of Article 8. The final interpretation is left to The Court of Human Rights.
Just to get a more official view:
Quoted from European Convention on Human Rights (available in several languages)
That's just what RIAA does. Instead of using some of their funds to support alternative ways of distributing music, they use the court system to reduce the problem.
The real problem with these businesses is that they have grown so big that it's hard for smaller companies to compete today. If they support the new technologies, they will open the door for new competition.
When you can use any phone company in the world via the internet, or buy music directly from the artist, they will actually have to compete on more equal terms.