Opening up the cellular phone networks would probably upset carriers, but consumers would benefit tremendously. Why should I have to buy a phone that only works on the Cingular network or only on the Verizon network? Carriers would be angry because it would force them to be competitive.
While we're at it, why not kill all of the stupid one or two year service agreements. These also seem to benefit only the carriers and stifle the market. The current state of the cellular phone market is designed to only benefit carriers. Consumers suffer as carriers pat themselves on the back thinking that their customers are happy.
Nethack. A dungeon-exploration game to which even non-Dungeons and Dragons fanatics can become addicted. Every adventure game has monsters and magic items, but Nethack has so many monsters, magic items, puzzling situations, and amazing secrets that you'll completely forget about the ASCII graphics. It's the most complex and thought-intensive adventure you'll experience on the Net (to access Nethack, FTP to linc.cis.upenn.edu/pub/NH3.1/binaries; also read rec.games.roguelike.nethack).
It may not be as popular as World of Warcraft, but nethack is still quite popular. I have been playing for some time and haven't finished the game yet. Perhaps many gamers today would not have the patience for it.
"Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire, " said Mr Capossela, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Business Division.
I imagine that they would like it if Office did expire--they could really suck money out of their customers if the software expired through DRM-style technology.
If a Mac will run OS X and Windows, why wouldn't people defect from their PCs? They can still run Windows and try out using a computer with all of the niceties of their iPods.
After they get the hang of OS X, they will wonder why they ever tolerated Windows. . .
I don't think that Lucent is holding all the cards here. There are many other groups that could have a say in this lawsuit:
Approximately 640 patents world wide make up the "essential" intellectual property surrounding MPEG-2. These are held by over 20 corporations and one university:
* Alcatel
* Canon Inc.
* Columbia University
* France Télécom (CNET)
* Fujitsu
* General Electric Capital Corporation
* General Instrument Corp. (now the broadband division of Motorola)
* GE Technology Development, Inc.
* Hitachi, Ltd.
* KDDI Corporation (KDDI)
* Lucent Technologies * LG Electronics Inc.
* Matsushita
* Mitsubishi
* Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT)
* Philips
* Robert Bosch GmbH
* Samsung
* Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
* Scientific Atlanta
* Sharp
* Sony
* Thomson Licensing S.A.
* Toshiba
* Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC).
Imagine what a rifle scope built with this technology would do for Soldiers on the battlefield. Well-aimed fire is one of the primary factors that decides who wins in a firefight. The military would definitely profit from wide-spread use of super vision lenses.
As a university student, paying for tuition, books, class fees, and living expenses is burdensome enough. Tacking on an extra $450 to all my bills would be extremely painful. If the government wants to invade my privacy and monitor university internet traffic, fine. I'm no terrorist and I believe that some good can come from monitoring.
However, I shouldn't have to foot the bill nor should my school. If they want access, let them pay for it. My low status in the tax bracket means that I wouldn't be paying for much of the cost.
People cannot use software that they don't know exists. By introducing others to open source software, they can get the benefits of it (freedom, cool features, a future free of vendor lock-in, etc.) and the community gets more people to (perhaps unknowingly) test the software. If open source/free software is to continue improving and reach the point of being usable by everyone, everyday people must use it and provide feedback so that bugs are corrected and cool new features are added and improved.
It sounds like they are describing the characteristics of a Killer App--addictive, easy-to-use, and cool.
I can think of a few OS programs that fall into this catergory, relative to the user's perception of "easy-to-use." For me, CLI is easy-to-use, so apps like mplayer or emacs are killer apps, though I'm not sure the general public would agree. . .
Although they are not my carrier, I hope that other carriers will take notice and support them on this issue.
No one should ever have to pay for advertising unless without their consent. If you want to spam me then get my permission and pay me for it. If I agree then pay for part of my bill, not just the cost to send your message, but more so that my service is cheaper.
when you can use biometrics with encryption instead? A retina scanner in place of a PIN for a debit/credit card would be easy to integrate into the existing system and would not be objectionable.
Slashdot Mirror
While we're at it, why not kill all of the stupid one or two year service agreements. These also seem to benefit only the carriers and stifle the market. The current state of the cellular phone market is designed to only benefit carriers. Consumers suffer as carriers pat themselves on the back thinking that their customers are happy.
Why wait for the book when you can have the book come to you: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0545010225/ref=am b_link_4077732_1/102-0255563-1302538
It may not be as popular as World of Warcraft, but nethack is still quite popular. I have been playing for some time and haven't finished the game yet. Perhaps many gamers today would not have the patience for it.
I imagine that they would like it if Office did expire--they could really suck money out of their customers if the software expired through DRM-style technology.
After they get the hang of OS X, they will wonder why they ever tolerated Windows. . .
Approximately 640 patents world wide make up the "essential" intellectual property surrounding MPEG-2. These are held by over 20 corporations and one university:
* Alcatel
* Canon Inc.
* Columbia University
* France Télécom (CNET)
* Fujitsu
* General Electric Capital Corporation
* General Instrument Corp. (now the broadband division of Motorola)
* GE Technology Development, Inc.
* Hitachi, Ltd.
* KDDI Corporation (KDDI)
* Lucent Technologies
* LG Electronics Inc.
* Matsushita
* Mitsubishi
* Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT)
* Philips
* Robert Bosch GmbH
* Samsung
* Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
* Scientific Atlanta
* Sharp
* Sony
* Thomson Licensing S.A.
* Toshiba
* Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC).
-- from the Wikipedia
Imagine what a rifle scope built with this technology would do for Soldiers on the battlefield. Well-aimed fire is one of the primary factors that decides who wins in a firefight. The military would definitely profit from wide-spread use of super vision lenses.
However, I shouldn't have to foot the bill nor should my school. If they want access, let them pay for it. My low status in the tax bracket means that I wouldn't be paying for much of the cost.
People cannot use software that they don't know exists. By introducing others to open source software, they can get the benefits of it (freedom, cool features, a future free of vendor lock-in, etc.) and the community gets more people to (perhaps unknowingly) test the software. If open source/free software is to continue improving and reach the point of being usable by everyone, everyday people must use it and provide feedback so that bugs are corrected and cool new features are added and improved.
Hey, if vi is a what you use, enjoy it. I enjoy using emacs because C-x ( Emacs is great! C-x ) C-u 1000 C-x e
It sounds like they are describing the characteristics of a Killer App--addictive, easy-to-use, and cool. I can think of a few OS programs that fall into this catergory, relative to the user's perception of "easy-to-use." For me, CLI is easy-to-use, so apps like mplayer or emacs are killer apps, though I'm not sure the general public would agree. . .
It just goes to show that while money can motivate people, passion for the work is a better motivator.
Although they are not my carrier, I hope that other carriers will take notice and support them on this issue.
No one should ever have to pay for advertising unless without their consent. If you want to spam me then get my permission and pay me for it. If I agree then pay for part of my bill, not just the cost to send your message, but more so that my service is cheaper.
when you can use biometrics with encryption instead? A retina scanner in place of a PIN for a debit/credit card would be easy to integrate into the existing system and would not be objectionable.
The U.S. Army uses an old DOS database program (ULLS-G) to track and schedule maintenance for its vehicles and equipment.
It's rather funny because the computers that run it are usually modern (Pentium 4, 256MB RAM, 40GB HDD, DVD-ROM drive, etc.)
Another fine example of your tax dollars at work...