In order to have your Beacon puchases shown to your Facebook friends, you must:
1) Sign up for Blockbuster or Yelp, etc
2) Sign up for Facebook
3) Specifically enable Beacon on Facebook
4) During an event with Blockbuster or Yelp, say "YES I WANT TO SHOW THIS TO THE WORLD"
Sure, lots of people might do steps 1 and 2 without thinking about it, but step 3 and 4 are actions that you have to go out of your way to do.
When I made a review on Yelp, after the review was posted a new screen came up that offered to link my review to my Facebook profile.
I don't agree with this lawsuit or the settlement. Because of it, my friends on Facebook won't be able to see my Yelp reviews. What's next?
I have no basis for this opinion, but I suspect that the trouble you're facing with today's youth is probably the same trouble your parents faced with your generation.
That's because people who sell BMWs tend to work for... BMW dealers.
There isn't much of a threat of a BMW salesperson selling an Audi or Lexus.
A more accurate comparison would be an electronics retail store that sells Sony, Panasonic, and 10 other brands. And in that case, you can bet that the manufacturers do everything they can to get them to sell their product.
When I worked for an Internet Service Provider, we sold circuits from many other first-tier companies such as NewEdge and Covad and AT&T. You can bet they all tried their best to "sell" us on their products. That ranged from contests to classes to newsletters to parties.
If you don't think that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and MetroPCS are doing the same thing at Best Buy, then either you're mistaken, or these stores are missing out on a great opportunity.
I think many of the posters here, who all have great ideas and suggestions, are missing the point of the OP.
Why is an out-of-the-box XP machine performing better than an out-of-the-box Linux machine?
The Linux community shouldn't be saying "try this" or "tweak that" or "install this device driver" or "switch your hardware"... they should be working on building those into the next revs of the OS and making them part of the default configuration (or at least an easy prompt like XP offers).
Yup. Basically you're carrying around your "identity" with you, which has limited off-net data and a net connection, plus a display. It's today's smartphone but better.
And then you dock that thing into nearly ubiquiteous stations (work, home, school, hotel, coffee shop, strip club, etc) and use the connected monitor and other peripherals.
The real boon is if you didn't even have to dock your smartphone, but its proximity was good enough (security, oy!) to do it wirelessly.
And if you don't have your smartphone with you, you'd still be able to authenticate some other way to these nearly ubiquituous terminals and go about your day.
With all the data "in the cloud", including your preferences, application licenses, etc, life gets a lot easier. Well, until the cloud explodes, gets hacked, or you lose your connection.
Facebook's "intelligence" has matched me up with friends from high school, people I used to work with, many of whom I would have never thought to look up. And it's been a lot of fun, and great for business too.
And the current ability to "Hide" updates from people I don't care to hear about is great.
Huh? For all you know, they might be selling Dells, HP, Lenovos, and Asuses(?).
Staples already does it for almost all of the above.
If anyone should be worried, or pissed, it might be Best Buy and the like.
Until the day when Microsoft starts making their own laptops and desktops, the companies you rattled off have nothing to fear. In fact, they should be happy to have another possible retail outlet to sell their stuff. Especially if it puts a dent in Apple stores.
I don't know all the details, but subscribers of just about any AT&T high-speed internet service (DSL) can enjoy free wi-fi access at a number of their hotspots.
This includes every Starbucks location -- which is basically every other block.
Maybe someone who has the service can comment on it's openness.
How many times have we (administrators, geeks, etc) shown something to someone and had a security warning pop up, and we just quickly ignore it and continue on?
Now granted, WE know what we're doing, but the user just watches us skip right over it.
Or, how many times have we set something up and haven't configured the security yet? So we tell our users that it's okay, just press OK and try it out.
The best example is when we get a software driver that has been unsigned, and the instructions say to just skip over the warning.
What kind of example are WE setting when we don't even follow our own advice?
My very new Sharp TV has a lot of bells and whistles. One of them sounds pretty neat on the surface. If it's showing a dark movie, the screen dims a bit to preserve power. If it's showing a colorful movie, it brightens up for more contrast.
And when you're playing a video game that can't make up its mind, the brightness is continually going up and down on this thing making it very distracting.
Where I live, homes are billed for their water and sewage based on how many bedrooms the home has.
They don't monitor usage, because the meters are too expensive (however there is a mandate to replace it in a few years, but it's not yet determined if that will change the billing).
I'm all for smart stuff, but I'd be happy if the billing were fair. I should not pay the same as my neighbor who has three kids, a spouse, and a larger lawn to water.
It's a shame that neither of these sites reviewed OK Cupid.
I've been on that site for some time now, and have met some truly amazing people from it. They have, by far, the most impressive search filters that I've ever seen. Their match percentage is scary accurate (and gets even more accurate as you answer more questions about yourself).
And best of all, it's 100% supported by advertising which isn't obnoxious.
It's basically the Uncanny Valley theory, applied to 3D animation instead.
A compelling movie doesn't *need* to be seen in 3D. If it has a great plot, etc, then you'll enjoy it. I don't think any amount of technology will ever change that.
Still, when this technology ultimately comes to research and games it will really change things.
They won't kill it by pulling the plug. But we've all seen these things happen.
They will give it funding, throw some more people at it, and it will become an entry-level system which will be awesome for 1-2 years.
Then someone will decide to rename it to something like Oracle LiteSQL. It will get a new logo. It all goes downhill from there as people forget what MySQL was, and it just gets integrated right into the main Oracle product line. The free service will be useless for all but the most basic of tasks. Support options will be more expensive. It will become unnecessarily complex. Lawyers will force takedowns of servers still using MySQL. There will be a security issue that takes 2 months to fix.
Just to throw in a "me too", I have had Google set as my default search engine for well over 3 or 4 years on many machines and installations.
I've since installed a wide variety of Microsoft apps, including Live Messenger, Windows Desktop Search, and Search 4, and never once has it changed my preference.
I think Live Messenger *asked* me if I could, but I said no and it didn't.
His findings don't even suggest that it was his default search that could have been changed.
I suspect there's a chance that if anything was updated without his approval, it might have been one of the alternate search providers within IE. I could definitely see a Microsoft update which changed this setting from Live Search to Bing... and I don't think it would be necessarily evil to update their URL.
Slashdot Mirror
In order to have your Beacon puchases shown to your Facebook friends, you must:
1) Sign up for Blockbuster or Yelp, etc
2) Sign up for Facebook
3) Specifically enable Beacon on Facebook
4) During an event with Blockbuster or Yelp, say "YES I WANT TO SHOW THIS TO THE WORLD"
Sure, lots of people might do steps 1 and 2 without thinking about it, but step 3 and 4 are actions that you have to go out of your way to do.
When I made a review on Yelp, after the review was posted a new screen came up that offered to link my review to my Facebook profile.
I don't agree with this lawsuit or the settlement. Because of it, my friends on Facebook won't be able to see my Yelp reviews. What's next?
Since infected computers often lead to DDOS and spam botnets, I think this is a good idea.
Up for debate is the method they use to detect a rogue machine, but if they can perfect that then I'm all for this.
Clueless users probably go for months without realizing they're sending out hundreds of emails a day, or helping to bring down some remote server.
It's the next-best thing to requiring a license to use the 'net. ;)
I have no basis for this opinion, but I suspect that the trouble you're facing with today's youth is probably the same trouble your parents faced with your generation.
That's because people who sell BMWs tend to work for... BMW dealers.
There isn't much of a threat of a BMW salesperson selling an Audi or Lexus.
A more accurate comparison would be an electronics retail store that sells Sony, Panasonic, and 10 other brands. And in that case, you can bet that the manufacturers do everything they can to get them to sell their product.
When I worked for an Internet Service Provider, we sold circuits from many other first-tier companies such as NewEdge and Covad and AT&T. You can bet they all tried their best to "sell" us on their products. That ranged from contests to classes to newsletters to parties.
If you don't think that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and MetroPCS are doing the same thing at Best Buy, then either you're mistaken, or these stores are missing out on a great opportunity.
I know an advertising executive that could go.
I think many of the posters here, who all have great ideas and suggestions, are missing the point of the OP.
Why is an out-of-the-box XP machine performing better than an out-of-the-box Linux machine?
The Linux community shouldn't be saying "try this" or "tweak that" or "install this device driver" or "switch your hardware"... they should be working on building those into the next revs of the OS and making them part of the default configuration (or at least an easy prompt like XP offers).
Yup. Basically you're carrying around your "identity" with you, which has limited off-net data and a net connection, plus a display. It's today's smartphone but better.
And then you dock that thing into nearly ubiquiteous stations (work, home, school, hotel, coffee shop, strip club, etc) and use the connected monitor and other peripherals.
The real boon is if you didn't even have to dock your smartphone, but its proximity was good enough (security, oy!) to do it wirelessly.
And if you don't have your smartphone with you, you'd still be able to authenticate some other way to these nearly ubiquituous terminals and go about your day.
With all the data "in the cloud", including your preferences, application licenses, etc, life gets a lot easier. Well, until the cloud explodes, gets hacked, or you lose your connection.
I dunno, I kinda like it.
Facebook's "intelligence" has matched me up with friends from high school, people I used to work with, many of whom I would have never thought to look up. And it's been a lot of fun, and great for business too.
And the current ability to "Hide" updates from people I don't care to hear about is great.
I hear those can play games, too.
Hello, General! It looks like you're attacking a country today! Would you like to...
[ ] Send in the foot solders
[ ] Cut off their food and water supplies
[ ] Engage cyberterrorism
[ ] Launch all zig (for great justice!)
Huh? For all you know, they might be selling Dells, HP, Lenovos, and Asuses(?).
Staples already does it for almost all of the above.
If anyone should be worried, or pissed, it might be Best Buy and the like.
Until the day when Microsoft starts making their own laptops and desktops, the companies you rattled off have nothing to fear. In fact, they should be happy to have another possible retail outlet to sell their stuff. Especially if it puts a dent in Apple stores.
I don't know all the details, but subscribers of just about any AT&T high-speed internet service (DSL) can enjoy free wi-fi access at a number of their hotspots.
This includes every Starbucks location -- which is basically every other block.
Maybe someone who has the service can comment on it's openness.
How many times have we (administrators, geeks, etc) shown something to someone and had a security warning pop up, and we just quickly ignore it and continue on?
Now granted, WE know what we're doing, but the user just watches us skip right over it.
Or, how many times have we set something up and haven't configured the security yet? So we tell our users that it's okay, just press OK and try it out.
The best example is when we get a software driver that has been unsigned, and the instructions say to just skip over the warning.
What kind of example are WE setting when we don't even follow our own advice?
Exactly. I spent about $20-30/mo with Amazon on downloaded music (DRM-free).
On the surface, I'd be better off with a monthly subscription service like what this article is reporting about.
However, I know that my music won't suddenly disappear on me and I can do just about whatever I want with it.
Contrast that to the music I bought from Urge a couple years ago. And when Urge vanished, so did the ability to play my music. Not cool.
My very new Sharp TV has a lot of bells and whistles. One of them sounds pretty neat on the surface. If it's showing a dark movie, the screen dims a bit to preserve power. If it's showing a colorful movie, it brightens up for more contrast.
And when you're playing a video game that can't make up its mind, the brightness is continually going up and down on this thing making it very distracting.
Thankfully it's a feature than can be disabled.
Where I live, homes are billed for their water and sewage based on how many bedrooms the home has.
They don't monitor usage, because the meters are too expensive (however there is a mandate to replace it in a few years, but it's not yet determined if that will change the billing).
I'm all for smart stuff, but I'd be happy if the billing were fair. I should not pay the same as my neighbor who has three kids, a spouse, and a larger lawn to water.
It's a shame that neither of these sites reviewed OK Cupid.
I've been on that site for some time now, and have met some truly amazing people from it. They have, by far, the most impressive search filters that I've ever seen. Their match percentage is scary accurate (and gets even more accurate as you answer more questions about yourself).
And best of all, it's 100% supported by advertising which isn't obnoxious.
So then for polytheists, would that be an array?
No you're not alone.
It's basically the Uncanny Valley theory, applied to 3D animation instead.
A compelling movie doesn't *need* to be seen in 3D. If it has a great plot, etc, then you'll enjoy it. I don't think any amount of technology will ever change that.
Still, when this technology ultimately comes to research and games it will really change things.
They won't kill it by pulling the plug. But we've all seen these things happen.
They will give it funding, throw some more people at it, and it will become an entry-level system which will be awesome for 1-2 years.
Then someone will decide to rename it to something like Oracle LiteSQL. It will get a new logo. It all goes downhill from there as people forget what MySQL was, and it just gets integrated right into the main Oracle product line. The free service will be useless for all but the most basic of tasks. Support options will be more expensive. It will become unnecessarily complex. Lawyers will force takedowns of servers still using MySQL. There will be a security issue that takes 2 months to fix.
Bookmark this and come back in 2012. You'll see.
Anyone who has seen Contact knows exactly what happened.
And then they wonder why no one wants to pay them $20/mo for a subscription.
You've hit the nail on the head. And this is why I think there will always be a place, albiet much smaller, for traditional reporters.
And that place won't be on dead trees. After all, reporting has nothing to do with the medium it's presented in.
Where does it say anywhere that they will be doing this for paid books?
Perhaps this is a way for them to get into the advertising business, while providing books for free, similar to the way Google delivers Maps, etc.
If it's an option to bring rare and out-of-print books to the masses, then why shoot it down?
Just to throw in a "me too", I have had Google set as my default search engine for well over 3 or 4 years on many machines and installations.
I've since installed a wide variety of Microsoft apps, including Live Messenger, Windows Desktop Search, and Search 4, and never once has it changed my preference.
I think Live Messenger *asked* me if I could, but I said no and it didn't.
His findings don't even suggest that it was his default search that could have been changed.
I suspect there's a chance that if anything was updated without his approval, it might have been one of the alternate search providers within IE. I could definitely see a Microsoft update which changed this setting from Live Search to Bing... and I don't think it would be necessarily evil to update their URL.
This is very bad news for Hopper and the rest of his gang.