Here's a thought - do banks have a responsibility to register domain names related to themeselves? I think one could make that argument.
I wouldn't agree. In the UK I'm sure there's been instances of crooks taking over an empty shop, fitting it out like a real bank and conning people into depositing money there. There was certainly a case where a gang used a stolen ATM to grab card numbers and PINs. Where does the responsibility lie? With the consumer, or the bank?
To extend the tiresome analogy: if I took over the shop next door to a bank, and fitted it out like the real bank next door, then took deposits and ran away with the money, would it be the bank's fault? Not really, if we assume that to keep the analogy correct, the real bank didn't notice the fake bank. Is it the consumer? They bear some responsibility. People should carry out the basic checks to make sure they're really in a bank. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the crook.
But the only reason it's popular is because it's been on TV. Would ABC pour millions into a pilot ep of Lost if they weren't sure they'd be selling it to x number of countries? If it came out on DVD first, who would buy it? DVDs don't produce 'watercooler moments'.
Agreed. Instead of outsourcing all this stuff maybe more people should be allowed in your country to do the work there. Plenty of tax dollars there, makes sense to me.
Yeh, down with Blizzard, and once we've hit them, we're moving onto the bigger target, those one-armed bandits at the fair which dish out tickets instead of money... 300 for a pencil! This is outrageous!
It's probably the former, isn't it. Or think of this way - the site isn't viewed as 'uncool' by anyone, and there are a fair proportion of teen/early 20s types buying music from the site - how else to explain Eminem & The Killers - but the majority are still the 30+ baby boomer offspring you describe.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the summary talks of grey-markets; are these the same grey markets that were thought of as great until Sony shut down Lik-Sang and are now thought of as bad because of some Cisco gear going wrong?
Heheh, superb point, I was just about to post same. I'm surprised you didn't get modded out of view. It's exactly the same problem as what might have been faced by Sony, the import of trademarked goods that for all we know come from some two-bit factory in Shenzhen. OK, so in the PSP's case, it must be very hard to make a dupe unit... it probably wouldn't happen... but then, who thought it would happen with Cisco kit?
Two very revealing responses by the/. crowd there - on the one hand, we like cheap PSPs (although it's Sony, so we boycott them) & on the other hand, we don't want dud Cisco kit! That is what the trademark was invented for. It's the good bit of IP law.
Mod him up. Here's another link from the time - talking about the impact the ruling might have on software. It's essentially the same problem in both cases, the import of trademarked goods from outside the European Economic Area. It's sad that a company goes out of business, but it's the precedent. We Europeans need to talk to our legislators to try and change this trademark issue, in the age of Internet Commerce we should not be restricted in this way.
It's really just a beefed-up Pocket PC or Ipaq or call it what you will. With the added speakers or whatever, oh and the tactile feel of course. But my 5-year-old HP Ipaq can do the pictures, the music, and the video at today's speed. The surprising thing is that they haven't done something like this on the music side before. MS late to the tech party once again? Missing out on the initial music player market counts as this decade's 'Microsoft Network'.
Fair point, but since I have no way of inspecting what the object actually does, it seems to offer little protection. I'd imagine that the SL environment is enough of a sandbox to remove any real chance of damaging my machine. There must be another way. Sure, have the prompt if someone gives you something unsolicited, but it gets tedious when I click to get a drink, click to choose the flavour then click again to accept the drink I already accepted.
I concur with the parent. Just this week I tried it out, and I came to the same conclusion - it's IRC with graphics. I also did the dancing - this made me laugh with pity and I had to log off. I'm sure that some fool will "buy" the animations or clothes you've created with their fake Linden money, but if you're talented enough to do that, you're probably already doing it in the real world. One of the most annoying things was having to click "yes" to all the objects you get offered, kinda ruins the flow somewhat.
Trade secrets are money makers, and you can't definitively say that opening their source wouldn't give away some trade secrets or algorithms that keep NVidia at the cutting edge of video card production.
If only the money made from trade secrets could be outweighed by the money lost through a class action suit against Nvidia for r00ting a phalanx of machines...
I remember Protect and Survive, Duck and Cover etc etc... the diagrams taught me that the fall-out descends like rain, so how would they detect it overhead...
Okay, but you'd need new TV tuners that tune to the "old" bands, but in some digital format. What do you suppose the chances are of new sets supporting that anytime soon?
Plus, the vast majority of these sets surely won't be going anywhere - if we say analogue TVs make up 80% of the 248 million sets in the US (in 2001), are these all going to landfill, or will they be paired up with cable, or digital terrestrial and a set-top box? It's the latter, and they could still receive local independent analogue services. Of course we know why no-one would allow this, they can't regulate it.
Besides, it's not as if those SP1 computers will mysteriously explode when support ends. There's no real need to rush this through your organisation in a week. If you have a problem which requires MS support, then upgrade to SP2 first and see if the problem remains.
I've spent the day co-ordinating my department's response to the auto-install of IE7, since several of our apps are incompatible. We've had to block it with the reg key. But why are they so cagey about the actual release date? "This month" isn't good enough, I need a precise date if I'm to avoid a phalanx of users unable to use business-critical web sites. What can be so hard about it? Have they not set a date themselves? If not, why say "this month"?
They bang on in their blog about how we ought to be ready, and here's a load of tools to help you, but we won't give you the exact date, that would ruin the game, right?
Slashdot Mirror
To extend the tiresome analogy: if I took over the shop next door to a bank, and fitted it out like the real bank next door, then took deposits and ran away with the money, would it be the bank's fault? Not really, if we assume that to keep the analogy correct, the real bank didn't notice the fake bank. Is it the consumer? They bear some responsibility. People should carry out the basic checks to make sure they're really in a bank. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the crook.
But the only reason it's popular is because it's been on TV. Would ABC pour millions into a pilot ep of Lost if they weren't sure they'd be selling it to x number of countries? If it came out on DVD first, who would buy it? DVDs don't produce 'watercooler moments'.
Agreed. Instead of outsourcing all this stuff maybe more people should be allowed in your country to do the work there. Plenty of tax dollars there, makes sense to me.
Yeh, down with Blizzard, and once we've hit them, we're moving onto the bigger target, those one-armed bandits at the fair which dish out tickets instead of money... 300 for a pencil! This is outrageous!
Ok, I promise to unblock the ads, but I'll be damned if I'm going to actually READ them. net effect = same?
It's probably the former, isn't it. Or think of this way - the site isn't viewed as 'uncool' by anyone, and there are a fair proportion of teen/early 20s types buying music from the site - how else to explain Eminem & The Killers - but the majority are still the 30+ baby boomer offspring you describe.
Aparently they are forced to work there, since if they don't and end up on welfare, they're "stealing from the state".
Two very revealing responses by the
Mod him up. Here's another link from the time - talking about the impact the ruling might have on software. It's essentially the same problem in both cases, the import of trademarked goods from outside the European Economic Area. It's sad that a company goes out of business, but it's the precedent. We Europeans need to talk to our legislators to try and change this trademark issue, in the age of Internet Commerce we should not be restricted in this way.
Is it that intangible commodity they used to term "mindshare"?
It's really just a beefed-up Pocket PC or Ipaq or call it what you will. With the added speakers or whatever, oh and the tactile feel of course. But my 5-year-old HP Ipaq can do the pictures, the music, and the video at today's speed. The surprising thing is that they haven't done something like this on the music side before. MS late to the tech party once again? Missing out on the initial music player market counts as this decade's 'Microsoft Network'.
Wow, it just struck me that I haven't heard that term since about 1989!
I suggest you drill a hole in the door so you can debunk this urban myth once and for all.
Come on, this is Slashdot, you should've weaved a Steve Ballmer reference in there.
Fair point, but since I have no way of inspecting what the object actually does, it seems to offer little protection. I'd imagine that the SL environment is enough of a sandbox to remove any real chance of damaging my machine. There must be another way. Sure, have the prompt if someone gives you something unsolicited, but it gets tedious when I click to get a drink, click to choose the flavour then click again to accept the drink I already accepted.
I concur with the parent. Just this week I tried it out, and I came to the same conclusion - it's IRC with graphics. I also did the dancing - this made me laugh with pity and I had to log off. I'm sure that some fool will "buy" the animations or clothes you've created with their fake Linden money, but if you're talented enough to do that, you're probably already doing it in the real world. One of the most annoying things was having to click "yes" to all the objects you get offered, kinda ruins the flow somewhat.
What, are they streaming WAV files?
I remember Protect and Survive, Duck and Cover etc etc... the diagrams taught me that the fall-out descends like rain, so how would they detect it overhead...
Besides, it's not as if those SP1 computers will mysteriously explode when support ends. There's no real need to rush this through your organisation in a week. If you have a problem which requires MS support, then upgrade to SP2 first and see if the problem remains.
I've spent the day co-ordinating my department's response to the auto-install of IE7, since several of our apps are incompatible. We've had to block it with the reg key. But why are they so cagey about the actual release date? "This month" isn't good enough, I need a precise date if I'm to avoid a phalanx of users unable to use business-critical web sites. What can be so hard about it? Have they not set a date themselves? If not, why say "this month"? They bang on in their blog about how we ought to be ready, and here's a load of tools to help you, but we won't give you the exact date, that would ruin the game, right?