The partnership to be supported by Google Wallet and Apple Pay has nothing to do with payments at the store. Stores sign contracts with processing companies; the store seldom owns the payment terminal. The store is free to negotiate or decide what type of machine they will use, which types of cards to accept, and if they will accept conveniences like MC Paypass, Interac Flash, or NFC methods. The retailer is well within their rights to say they won't accept NFC.
The only thing they are not allowed to do is to decline to accept legal tender. I.e. they legally aren't allowed to reject a $100 if it is a genuine bill, regardless of what store policy is.
There are a lot of hidden costs associated with using cards and other technologies with payment terminals. When you pay $6.00 for your purchase, the retailer doesn't get all that money.The processing company that processes all the transactions paid for with cards at a retailer gets a cut of every transaction. If it is a credit card, like Visa or MC, then the credit card company also takes a small percentage.
While Google Wallet and Apply Pay may be free to the end-user, I highly doubt that it is free for the retailer. Google and Apple are likely taking another slice of the pie. So... percentage for the processing company, percentage for the credit card company and a percentage for Google or Apple. It's not beyond belief that this could easily exceed 5% of the purchase price, which could be about 10% of the profit margin. That's a huge number, even if it only amounts to $0.30 on a $6.00 purchase.
It's an annoying hassle for CVS customers to have to wait and deal with another mobile payment system, but it easily means millions in savings each year, nationwide.
It should be able to read your thoughts and transmit them to Apple every time you have a new idea, so that Apple can instantly create a new patent application and claim that they invented the idea. This would solve the problem of people being able to steal Apple's inventions before they have a chance to secure a patent on it. The API should be called something like 6. (Not sure if those will show properly, but there should be a superscript th and the c used for cents. Obvious play on 6th sense)
I know kickstarter is going to get a lot of negative feelings about this, but I can't blame them for their decision. Look at all the crazy lawsuits that happen and succeed... such as a person suing the owner of the house they are robbing, after they injure themselves during the crime... there is a chance that if they allowed a project to go forward, knowing that it could provide a new forum for cyberstalking against someone with a long history or it, then kickstarter risks a liability lawsuit.
This isn't discrimination, it's just declining to serve a customer (which a businesses has every right to do) for a reason that has some merit to it. They don't want to be part of a bad situation and don't want to risk involvement or any form of responsibility for it. It sucks, but it's not unreasonable
1) The postal service, because they help letter bombs and the like reach their destinations 2) Banks, since they store money and are responsible for the creation of new money, which might be used by a terrorist 3) Cellphone makes and service providers, because they help terrorists communicate 4) TV makes and news companies, since they report on terrorist attacks, which other terrorist can get ideas from 5) The TSA, FBI, CIA, and so forth, because they are aiding terrorists by not catching all of them before they attack 6) The parents of terrorists, for giving birth to them
And yet, you are here. Next time, before you become your own contradiction, how about being a little civil. You bring up Google, yet the defendant was a Spanish company, with Google not being mentioned in the title.
I'll admit, I wasn't able to read the article yet, but am I the only one who thought of this? Was this covered in the article?
With a sail so thin, that would be an easy thing to rip
Now, this is not my line of work and it never will be, but I don't think whether it be developers or another type of job, it is always beneficial to have someone a rank above you present. It doesn't matter if the manager has no ability for what his workers are doing, if he has a friendly relationship with his workers, understands that positive reinforcement(such as ordering pizza) is better than just making sure people are focused, and allows some extra freedoms since these hours are beyond the norm, then having a manager present will result in better output.
I've spent many years as a supervisor and assistant manager at the restaurants I have worked at - yes, I realize these work environments are a little more casual than what is suggested in this article - and these principles have always served me well for when I and others have to work past when we would normally close up and go home.
a must have? Then why is it that every one of my Korean friends say that Google isn't as popular in Korea, which has been confirmed by friends that have gone there to teach and returned, and that the primary search engine used is Naver? It is a little difficult to see what all Naver offers without understanding Korean, but if Naver was to offer an english variant of all the services it offers, it would be a strong competitor to Google.
Ok, I'm no buff about the games or companies mentioned, or on the patent system, but if the Pirates game was around before the application was submitted, would that not count as prior art and void the chance of a patent? Especially since WOTC sent a letter to WizKids about it...? Just saying is all
Sure, Microsoft would still much rather win, but I doubt they were kidding themselves into thinking that they weren't in the wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole reason they took it to court was to send the message that just because you think that Microsoft is infringing on your patents, doesn't mean they're going to roll over and pay you off. You better be ready to go the distance if you want to earn your dollar.
Would be to buy a few external hard drives. With the storage capacity of hard drives these days you can't go wrong. I bought an enclosure for one of my internal drives and now I don't know how I could live without it. Having a portable drive like this is an amazing convience, especially with a capacity of 160GB.
Well, unless I was informed wrong, the US didn't create the internet at all. It was created a CERN as a method of allow scientists in different labs and/or working on seperate, yet related projects, to communicate and share data more efficiently.
Funny how the US will not only try to govern a world technology, but will assume responsibility for its creation.
You mean outside of the fact that in an agreement for AOL/TimeWarner to help fund the Mozilla Foundation, AOL get's the right to use Gecko(I believe I have the right core name lol) as the core for their Netscape browser?
While MS won't be able to usurpe the rights to use the core, it is likely that they will try to use their stake in AOL to reduce or eliminate the funding AOL provides the Mozilla Foundation
Either I'm going crazy, or this isn't so 'recent,' because I swear I've already seen at least 3 earlier articles about this so called showdown here on slashdot.
And it's no real feat the the morse code won, the person using it has know it for years and has likely had a lot of practice. Plus it's only one button, or lever if you will, that he has to press, where as you some kid having to choose between a dozen different keys to find the letter they want.
I dunno... it just doesn't strike me as impressive or newsworthy; even the first time around.
The reason for maintaining a standard QWERTY or Davork(sic?) layout is because it allows the user to subconciously know where the keys are because that is what he is used to.
At the same time though, providing the user the ability to design his own keyboard layout would be a nice feature and likely wouldn't be too hard to provide since they are already having to code a keyboard program for the touch screen. This may be something that they will choose to implement once they get a stable port working on the DS.
Sure, if you look at as a copy protection it is lacking, but I think that they're on the right track with this idea. It's impossible to create an ironclad protection, a person could simply pop the cd into a standard cd player and instead of pumping the feed to their headphones or speakers, the can attach it to the line-in jack of their sound card and record the stream, label it, and add in the ID3 tag.
Instead of trying to prevent something that has such a simple workaround, why not create a scheme to cause the end-user to stop and think about it for a second? It may not have much of an effect immediately, but as time goes on the values and morals of new generations may change and a gradual decrease in piracy may begin.
At the same time, piracy isn't soley a bad thing. I've downloaded whole cds, perfect versions of the songs, and if it has enough songs I like I go out and buy the cd. That's how I've come into possession of about 1/3 off my 100-150 cds. A fair number of my friends do exactly the same thing. We want to hear it before we buy it, and the radio just doesn't provide that anymore. A cd could be out for a couple years and even though the band may be hugely popular, take Jet for example,their cd has been out 2 years and recently have they released a 2nd and 3rd single from the cd. A band can't make a living from waiting 2 years for their cd to finally start selling big.
I may not support piracy, but if it's used wisely it can benefit all parties.
Well, that's the thing, the best bet would be to offer it free to download. I would be the same quality as what you would see of your tv, so a standard 320x240 resolution, add in the premium commercials, slap on the copy protection, add then ship it off to the tracker(s). The revenue comes from the companies who purchase the advert spots.
You never know, it just might be then suddenly realizing: Holy sh*t! We forgot to make an ending to Halo 2! Quick let's jump on the bandwagon again and make a movie before Nintendo can release a Metroid movie or Id releases their Doom3 movie!
I'm surprised that companies haven't taken advantage of this and similar ideas. They are wasting millions of dollars trying to shut down trackers and p2p sites instead of turning them into a source of profit.
Would it not be a better idea to sign a new set of commercial contracts with various comanies for the rights to the commercial break(s) in an encoded version of the show specifically made to be freely distrubted, probably with a form of DRM or copy protection to deter the ease of making versions without commercials, over the bit torrent protocols?
Am I the only one who has thought that this would make a lot of sense, and provide a new source of income? Think of what companies would be will to be pay for such rights? These releases could potentially reach more people than television can and the episode would be available on demand, instead of requiring the end recipent to wait for their television providors to get around to airing the episode. It would also attract more users to the bit torrent network and allowing them legal access to the files they want.
easier access + legal downloads = more clients sharing the files
And for those of you wondering just what the difference, if any, there is between our fansubs and the offical versions, we tend to be a lot more literal to what is happening.
As you have notice, a lot of animes brought over a toned down from the original version. They tend to localize references made so that the American and Canadian consummer will get the joke. And if they decide to, or need to, leave a name or something in the original japanese, they don't provide a note as to what it translates to. Where as we stick to the actual events, keep the same references, but provide an explaination, and add notes for something that the veiwer is unlike to know.
I'm not sure why they seem to think that bit torrent has seemly created a fansubbing scene, all it's done is made it a little easier to find.
The fansubbing scene has been going on for years, and started long before bit torrent was even first thought of. Heck, I've been in it for almost 3 years now. But, before bit torrent came around it was limited to those of us who knew, or who had the patience to learn how to use an IRC client.
But the post does make a valid point; allowing the public of a region where a show isn't licensed for distrubition to see an unofficial version of the show is excellent marketing. But it's a marketing plan that needs to be regulated; allowing it to get out of hand would ruin a companies ability to sell the series it wishes to license.
I used to work with the fansub group #Anime-Kraze, found on irc.rizon.net or www.anime-kraze.org and while I still maintain a presence, I no longer help out with creating the subtitled releases. Because we are picky about what shows we will fansub, 99% of the series we choose are eventually licensed. Unlike a lot of other groups - for those of you who aren't new to the scene you may reconize the group - #anime-Junkies was notorious for this, they would refuse to stop fansubbing or distrubting a series after the company that owns the distrubtion rights to requested them to. If the company ever requests that we stop, we would. We have about a dozen series that we'll temporarily ban a user from our channel if they are found to have it available for download.
Having helped out with so many different series, having seen some many series from other groups, there are a lot of animes I have purchased that I would never have considered even watching had it not been for the fact that I was able to view them at no charge. Heck, I've bought 5 complete series since December.
The fansubbing communty isn't about piracy, and never will be, it's about taking something we enjoy and allowing others who may not be able to understand the original language, a chance to properly experience it. Not everyone has easy access to imported anime, around here the only place you can rent it is Blockbuster and they have a VERY limited selection, so we provide them the ability to see it.
I don't deny that some people simply download so that they don't need to buy a series, but you'll find that there are far more of us who, once we find a series we love, will buy it happily. And just so you don't go thinking that those of us who sub it are the worst for not buying a series, we're actually the best for it. So many of us that fansub have huge collections of the series we and our friends sub.
Slashdot Mirror
The partnership to be supported by Google Wallet and Apple Pay has nothing to do with payments at the store. Stores sign contracts with processing companies; the store seldom owns the payment terminal. The store is free to negotiate or decide what type of machine they will use, which types of cards to accept, and if they will accept conveniences like MC Paypass, Interac Flash, or NFC methods. The retailer is well within their rights to say they won't accept NFC.
The only thing they are not allowed to do is to decline to accept legal tender. I.e. they legally aren't allowed to reject a $100 if it is a genuine bill, regardless of what store policy is.
There are a lot of hidden costs associated with using cards and other technologies with payment terminals. When you pay $6.00 for your purchase, the retailer doesn't get all that money.The processing company that processes all the transactions paid for with cards at a retailer gets a cut of every transaction. If it is a credit card, like Visa or MC, then the credit card company also takes a small percentage.
While Google Wallet and Apply Pay may be free to the end-user, I highly doubt that it is free for the retailer. Google and Apple are likely taking another slice of the pie. So... percentage for the processing company, percentage for the credit card company and a percentage for Google or Apple. It's not beyond belief that this could easily exceed 5% of the purchase price, which could be about 10% of the profit margin. That's a huge number, even if it only amounts to $0.30 on a $6.00 purchase.
It's an annoying hassle for CVS customers to have to wait and deal with another mobile payment system, but it easily means millions in savings each year, nationwide.
It should be able to read your thoughts and transmit them to Apple every time you have a new idea, so that Apple can instantly create a new patent application and claim that they invented the idea. This would solve the problem of people being able to steal Apple's inventions before they have a chance to secure a patent on it. The API should be called something like 6. (Not sure if those will show properly, but there should be a superscript th and the c used for cents. Obvious play on 6th sense)
I know kickstarter is going to get a lot of negative feelings about this, but I can't blame them for their decision. Look at all the crazy lawsuits that happen and succeed... such as a person suing the owner of the house they are robbing, after they injure themselves during the crime... there is a chance that if they allowed a project to go forward, knowing that it could provide a new forum for cyberstalking against someone with a long history or it, then kickstarter risks a liability lawsuit.
This isn't discrimination, it's just declining to serve a customer (which a businesses has every right to do) for a reason that has some merit to it. They don't want to be part of a bad situation and don't want to risk involvement or any form of responsibility for it. It sucks, but it's not unreasonable
We can queue up the "If you strike me down..." quote anytime now.
Let's also sue...
1) The postal service, because they help letter bombs and the like reach their destinations
2) Banks, since they store money and are responsible for the creation of new money, which might be used by a terrorist
3) Cellphone makes and service providers, because they help terrorists communicate
4) TV makes and news companies, since they report on terrorist attacks, which other terrorist can get ideas from
5) The TSA, FBI, CIA, and so forth, because they are aiding terrorists by not catching all of them before they attack
6) The parents of terrorists, for giving birth to them
Need I continue...?
And yet, you are here. Next time, before you become your own contradiction, how about being a little civil. You bring up Google, yet the defendant was a Spanish company, with Google not being mentioned in the title.
I'll admit, I wasn't able to read the article yet, but am I the only one who thought of this? Was this covered in the article? With a sail so thin, that would be an easy thing to rip
The Wii Balance Board is the Canada of medical devices. Cheap, but just as effective as its expensive counterparts
Now, this is not my line of work and it never will be, but I don't think whether it be developers or another type of job, it is always beneficial to have someone a rank above you present. It doesn't matter if the manager has no ability for what his workers are doing, if he has a friendly relationship with his workers, understands that positive reinforcement(such as ordering pizza) is better than just making sure people are focused, and allows some extra freedoms since these hours are beyond the norm, then having a manager present will result in better output. I've spent many years as a supervisor and assistant manager at the restaurants I have worked at - yes, I realize these work environments are a little more casual than what is suggested in this article - and these principles have always served me well for when I and others have to work past when we would normally close up and go home.
a must have? Then why is it that every one of my Korean friends say that Google isn't as popular in Korea, which has been confirmed by friends that have gone there to teach and returned, and that the primary search engine used is Naver? It is a little difficult to see what all Naver offers without understanding Korean, but if Naver was to offer an english variant of all the services it offers, it would be a strong competitor to Google.
Let someone else do all the work, then find a way to legally steal it and assume all the riches
Ok, I'm no buff about the games or companies mentioned, or on the patent system, but if the Pirates game was around before the application was submitted, would that not count as prior art and void the chance of a patent? Especially since WOTC sent a letter to WizKids about it...? Just saying is all
Sure, Microsoft would still much rather win, but I doubt they were kidding themselves into thinking that they weren't in the wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole reason they took it to court was to send the message that just because you think that Microsoft is infringing on your patents, doesn't mean they're going to roll over and pay you off. You better be ready to go the distance if you want to earn your dollar.
Would be to buy a few external hard drives. With the storage capacity of hard drives these days you can't go wrong. I bought an enclosure for one of my internal drives and now I don't know how I could live without it. Having a portable drive like this is an amazing convience, especially with a capacity of 160GB.
Well, unless I was informed wrong, the US didn't create the internet at all. It was created a CERN as a method of allow scientists in different labs and/or working on seperate, yet related projects, to communicate and share data more efficiently. Funny how the US will not only try to govern a world technology, but will assume responsibility for its creation.
You mean outside of the fact that in an agreement for AOL/TimeWarner to help fund the Mozilla Foundation, AOL get's the right to use Gecko(I believe I have the right core name lol) as the core for their Netscape browser? While MS won't be able to usurpe the rights to use the core, it is likely that they will try to use their stake in AOL to reduce or eliminate the funding AOL provides the Mozilla Foundation
Either I'm going crazy, or this isn't so 'recent,' because I swear I've already seen at least 3 earlier articles about this so called showdown here on slashdot.
And it's no real feat the the morse code won, the person using it has know it for years and has likely had a lot of practice. Plus it's only one button, or lever if you will, that he has to press, where as you some kid having to choose between a dozen different keys to find the letter they want.
I dunno... it just doesn't strike me as impressive or newsworthy; even the first time around.
The reason for maintaining a standard QWERTY or Davork(sic?) layout is because it allows the user to subconciously know where the keys are because that is what he is used to.
At the same time though, providing the user the ability to design his own keyboard layout would be a nice feature and likely wouldn't be too hard to provide since they are already having to code a keyboard program for the touch screen. This may be something that they will choose to implement once they get a stable port working on the DS.
Sure, if you look at as a copy protection it is lacking, but I think that they're on the right track with this idea. It's impossible to create an ironclad protection, a person could simply pop the cd into a standard cd player and instead of pumping the feed to their headphones or speakers, the can attach it to the line-in jack of their sound card and record the stream, label it, and add in the ID3 tag. Instead of trying to prevent something that has such a simple workaround, why not create a scheme to cause the end-user to stop and think about it for a second? It may not have much of an effect immediately, but as time goes on the values and morals of new generations may change and a gradual decrease in piracy may begin. At the same time, piracy isn't soley a bad thing. I've downloaded whole cds, perfect versions of the songs, and if it has enough songs I like I go out and buy the cd. That's how I've come into possession of about 1/3 off my 100-150 cds. A fair number of my friends do exactly the same thing. We want to hear it before we buy it, and the radio just doesn't provide that anymore. A cd could be out for a couple years and even though the band may be hugely popular, take Jet for example,their cd has been out 2 years and recently have they released a 2nd and 3rd single from the cd. A band can't make a living from waiting 2 years for their cd to finally start selling big. I may not support piracy, but if it's used wisely it can benefit all parties.
Well, that's the thing, the best bet would be to offer it free to download. I would be the same quality as what you would see of your tv, so a standard 320x240 resolution, add in the premium commercials, slap on the copy protection, add then ship it off to the tracker(s). The revenue comes from the companies who purchase the advert spots.
You never know, it just might be then suddenly realizing: Holy sh*t! We forgot to make an ending to Halo 2! Quick let's jump on the bandwagon again and make a movie before Nintendo can release a Metroid movie or Id releases their Doom3 movie!
I'm surprised that companies haven't taken advantage of this and similar ideas. They are wasting millions of dollars trying to shut down trackers and p2p sites instead of turning them into a source of profit.
Would it not be a better idea to sign a new set of commercial contracts with various comanies for the rights to the commercial break(s) in an encoded version of the show specifically made to be freely distrubted, probably with a form of DRM or copy protection to deter the ease of making versions without commercials, over the bit torrent protocols?
Am I the only one who has thought that this would make a lot of sense, and provide a new source of income? Think of what companies would be will to be pay for such rights? These releases could potentially reach more people than television can and the episode would be available on demand, instead of requiring the end recipent to wait for their television providors to get around to airing the episode. It would also attract more users to the bit torrent network and allowing them legal access to the files they want.
easier access + legal downloads = more clients sharing the files
And for those of you wondering just what the difference, if any, there is between our fansubs and the offical versions, we tend to be a lot more literal to what is happening.
As you have notice, a lot of animes brought over a toned down from the original version. They tend to localize references made so that the American and Canadian consummer will get the joke. And if they decide to, or need to, leave a name or something in the original japanese, they don't provide a note as to what it translates to. Where as we stick to the actual events, keep the same references, but provide an explaination, and add notes for something that the veiwer is unlike to know.
I'm not sure why they seem to think that bit torrent has seemly created a fansubbing scene, all it's done is made it a little easier to find.
The fansubbing scene has been going on for years, and started long before bit torrent was even first thought of. Heck, I've been in it for almost 3 years now. But, before bit torrent came around it was limited to those of us who knew, or who had the patience to learn how to use an IRC client.
But the post does make a valid point; allowing the public of a region where a show isn't licensed for distrubition to see an unofficial version of the show is excellent marketing. But it's a marketing plan that needs to be regulated; allowing it to get out of hand would ruin a companies ability to sell the series it wishes to license.
I used to work with the fansub group #Anime-Kraze, found on irc.rizon.net or www.anime-kraze.org and while I still maintain a presence, I no longer help out with creating the subtitled releases. Because we are picky about what shows we will fansub, 99% of the series we choose are eventually licensed. Unlike a lot of other groups - for those of you who aren't new to the scene you may reconize the group - #anime-Junkies was notorious for this, they would refuse to stop fansubbing or distrubting a series after the company that owns the distrubtion rights to requested them to. If the company ever requests that we stop, we would. We have about a dozen series that we'll temporarily ban a user from our channel if they are found to have it available for download.
Having helped out with so many different series, having seen some many series from other groups, there are a lot of animes I have purchased that I would never have considered even watching had it not been for the fact that I was able to view them at no charge. Heck, I've bought 5 complete series since December.
The fansubbing communty isn't about piracy, and never will be, it's about taking something we enjoy and allowing others who may not be able to understand the original language, a chance to properly experience it. Not everyone has easy access to imported anime, around here the only place you can rent it is Blockbuster and they have a VERY limited selection, so we provide them the ability to see it.
I don't deny that some people simply download so that they don't need to buy a series, but you'll find that there are far more of us who, once we find a series we love, will buy it happily. And just so you don't go thinking that those of us who sub it are the worst for not buying a series, we're actually the best for it. So many of us that fansub have huge collections of the series we and our friends sub.