If the Moto 360 is halfway as capable and slick-looking as has been shown thus far, any iWatch is going to have trouble keeping up.
The 360 is the first smart watch that I would not be embarrassed wearing at a client meeting or in the boardroom. With the full OLED screen, customize-able bands (metallic and non-metalic, black, silver, colored...), Moto has a winner with this product.
- If you get 1% back in points on your CC, that means a 0.5% interchange fee for merchants, tops, due to point writeoffs.
- If you think that lowering interchange fees by 0.5% will result in 0.5% lower prices at the till on average across the industry, and not just more profit swallowed on average, I have a bridge to sell you.
That is not how insurance or any of these points systems work. They are value-shifted based on the idea that only a small percentage of insurance is cashed, that a lot of points go unredeemed, etc. IE, your 1% cash back would turn into 0.5% reduction in interchange fees saved.
Furthermore, do you HONESTLY expect Walmart to reduce all your prices by 0.5% if their interchange fees go down by 0.5%? If you do then I have a nice bridge for sale.
Expect your travel insurance, extended warranty protection, points, cash back, and other credit card features to dry up rapidly if interchange fees are reduced. These perks that have been built up over the years are not free, they are paid for by interchange fees.
The majority of cities don't even have "taxi medallions" so I think you are looking at a limited set. The only cities that have medallions according to wikipedia are Boston, NYC, and Chicago.
There usually is not any said restriction. There is a licensing fee and your service provider has to comply with the regulations, and then you are allowed in.
Now, New York and some cities actually restrict the number of cabs on the street. That, I think, is silly, and is indeed crony-ism.
You are touching on some very, very good points on inflation, and why comp-sci majors should learn more about economics before going all balls-out making a new currency.
The whole idea that BTC can't inflate past a certain point is why it is guaranteed to fail. Fiat currency and inflation **is not bad**, it is in fact good for many reasons when it is under control. You outline one of those reasons above - inflation encourages people to spend money, thus keeping the economy alive. Another reason inflation and fiat currency is required is because the GDP of the planet is not some static sum. Every day the earth spins around, there is another day of work that needs to be quantified. The currency that quantifies that day of work has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from when you can't make more currency? You need to devalue all other existing currency. How do you do this without inflation?
There is a case to be made for taxi regulation. It protects passengers, which is really the main reason taxi regulation exists. In order to fund that regulation, they allow companies artificial monopolies.
The last thing you want is a totally unregulated taxi industry. There is a reason these kinds of things became regulated in the first place.
All card terminals in the US need to accept chip & PIN by 2015 because the banks will be mandating it. It's coming like a tidal wave and US retailers are turning a blind eye, hopefully the banks and Visa/MC hold steadfast in the requirement.
It should be embarrassing to the USA that every single other OECD nation on the planet switched to Chip & PIN 5-10 years ago. The USA does not always HAVE to be different. Sometimes going with the flow is the more intelligent choice.
I agree somewhat with janitors and even fast food. But the idea that waitstaff are vulnerable to automation is a bit ridiculous. The whole reason people go out to a restaurant with waitstaff has little to do with the food and everything to do with the experience of being waited on. Having some kind of robot you place orders on turns that restaurant into yet another fast food joint.
( I am actually serious... who in the western world did not already know the NSA had these capabilities? The surprising thing to me would have been if it came out that they DID NOT have them - at which point I would wonder what they were doing with their billions of dollars ).
Facebook Google Twitter Yahoo all provide them already. So does ident.ca and OpenID.ogr and DOZENS of others. And if you wear a tinfoil hat 24*7 then you can run your own trivially. And finally, your ISP should provide one with your account as well.
"Looks like shit" is subjective. Personally I feel like Chrome "looks like shit" on Linux compared to Windows and Mac OSX where it has a consistent look. I am looking very much forward to this move. Like many nowadays I live in the browser and spend 95% of my time there. The more it is consistent across platforms the better. It doesn't matter nearly as much that my browser on Linux looks like my Eclipse as it does that my browser on Linux looks and behaves like my browser on Android or Windows or Mac.
The problem IS NOT PASSWORDS. Fighting for "better passwords" is a never-ending, stupid, foolish waste of time.
What is the point of a password? It is to prove who you are. Nothing more, nothing less. A password is not used as a key to look up information for a retailer, or blog, or anything else - that is keyed off your user name. All a password is is an identifier showing WHO YOU ARE.
It is unrealistic to expect a human to remember dozens of complex passwords and change them monthly. It is also unrealistic to preach "password managers" as a solution because they don't work in all situations and on the go.
So then, why is it then that I need a username and password FOR EVERY OF Amazon, Tesco, Virgin, and every other company listed in the OP, and Facebook, and Yahoo, and Google, and Slashdot, and every other site? Why can't I just have ONE complex, known, secure identification mechanism?
And even more pointedly - WHY IS IT that the technology ALREADY EXISTS to answer every point I raised - namely, the combination OpenID and OAuth - to solve this problem?
If every webmaster would stop thinking they live in their own universe, and SIMPLY STOP storing their own passwords and instead REQUIRE AND ONLY SUPPORT OpenID and OAuth authentication, this whole problem would be nearly entirely eliminated from the internet. People would have ONLY ONE password to remember, for all sites. They could be FORCED to change it monthly, and it would not be a huge burden since it is their ONLY password.
But no, every site in existence thinks they are THE ONE and should be able to exist in their own walled garden independent of everyone else.
Fits law only makes sense when using a mouse on the desktop.
When using a laptop trackpad it makes no sense at all because of how the motion tracking works.
It makes even less sense when using a touch interface, where there is no "throw" action at all. With a touch interface, the controls should be as close to the object they are manipulating as possible so your eyes don't need to move.
With BitCoin, not only is there a log of every transaction, but everyone on earth has access to it. You can actually trace a coin from when it was created through every single wallet it touched! And all one needs to tie a wallet to a physical person is some IP logging data which is fairly easy to acquire.
I don't know how BitCoin and anonymity got tied together. It is pretty much the LEAST anonymous currency that exists on earth. At least with Amazon coins, one would need to get access to Amazon's servers to find out who bought what, or issue a court order of some kind - random joe down the street can't tell what I bought.
But I find it easier to stomach Silicon Valley CEO pay for a reason - they are producing an actual product whereas investment banks do not - they actually harm the economy, they don't help it.
Furthermore, most Silicon Valley CEOs are either founders of the companies or were involved from an early phase. They put a lot of blood and sweat into these companies over the years. They are not just MBAs flown in for a couple of years to later on bail with golden parachutes when things get rough.
If that is truely all one needs then this cutout would not be expensive would it? And it would be paid for from the increased revenues. This is the way all necessities should be costed. Equal opportunity over equal outcomes.
The problem is not a "market failure", it is that the market is distorted. If the true laws of supply and demand were allowed to work on the water market in California, then water would be a lot more expensive right now because of how rare it is due to drought.
If the people are using too much water then raise the price. Define what consitutes a "drought" in strict terms (average rainfall below some amount for X days in a row), and raise the price per gallon of water an extra 50% during these drought conditions. Add in a credit for people below the poverty line so that they don't have issues.
Usage problems will be solved overnight. Charge people more and they will use less. Wallet pressure works a lot better than "peer pressure".
It is not hard to understand. It is not that China "wants to keep DPRK in power". Rather, it is China's view that it is no one's business outside the DPRK how the DPRK conducts it's affairs. This is not new or unique, it is how basically all of China's foreign-policy doctrine - keep your nose out of other countrie's business.
China never wants to be involved in other countries' problems nor do they seek to impose their will on other countries - you don't see China out trying to spread their own unique brand of communist/capitalism elsewhere do you? That's because they don't - China keeps to themselves, for good or bad.
It is hard for people in the West to believe this because in the West foreign policy is essentially *ALL ABOUT* spreading your influence and trying to spread democracy. China has no interest in any of this.
You're missing the point. It will change over time.
FTTH will not help anything because the provider is the same. You see, the problem with broadband competition in the US is almost everyone has only two wires into the home. The Telco and the Cable provider. The cost for anyone else to roll out the infrastructure is MASSIVE and this not realistic. The third option, that EVERYONE has, is wireless. There are many more than two wireless providers in any given area. As wireless speeds increase and latency decreases (due to more close nodes), they will become more and more competitive with the telco and cable companies.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you subscribe to unblock-us or unotelly or one of the other DNS VPN providers, then you can watch all of that in Canada as well.
It's called AppOps. Was in Android hidden, then removed, but still ships in standard Cyanogenmod.
If the Moto 360 is halfway as capable and slick-looking as has been shown thus far, any iWatch is going to have trouble keeping up.
The 360 is the first smart watch that I would not be embarrassed wearing at a client meeting or in the boardroom. With the full OLED screen, customize-able bands (metallic and non-metalic, black, silver, colored...), Moto has a winner with this product.
I already replied to this above
- If you get 1% back in points on your CC, that means a 0.5% interchange fee for merchants, tops, due to point writeoffs.
- If you think that lowering interchange fees by 0.5% will result in 0.5% lower prices at the till on average across the industry, and not just more profit swallowed on average, I have a bridge to sell you.
That is not how insurance or any of these points systems work. They are value-shifted based on the idea that only a small percentage of insurance is cashed, that a lot of points go unredeemed, etc. IE, your 1% cash back would turn into 0.5% reduction in interchange fees saved.
Furthermore, do you HONESTLY expect Walmart to reduce all your prices by 0.5% if their interchange fees go down by 0.5%? If you do then I have a nice bridge for sale.
Expect your travel insurance, extended warranty protection, points, cash back, and other credit card features to dry up rapidly if interchange fees are reduced. These perks that have been built up over the years are not free, they are paid for by interchange fees.
The majority of cities don't even have "taxi medallions" so I think you are looking at a limited set. The only cities that have medallions according to wikipedia are Boston, NYC, and Chicago.
There usually is not any said restriction. There is a licensing fee and your service provider has to comply with the regulations, and then you are allowed in.
Now, New York and some cities actually restrict the number of cabs on the street. That, I think, is silly, and is indeed crony-ism.
You are touching on some very, very good points on inflation, and why comp-sci majors should learn more about economics before going all balls-out making a new currency.
The whole idea that BTC can't inflate past a certain point is why it is guaranteed to fail. Fiat currency and inflation **is not bad**, it is in fact good for many reasons when it is under control. You outline one of those reasons above - inflation encourages people to spend money, thus keeping the economy alive. Another reason inflation and fiat currency is required is because the GDP of the planet is not some static sum. Every day the earth spins around, there is another day of work that needs to be quantified. The currency that quantifies that day of work has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from when you can't make more currency? You need to devalue all other existing currency. How do you do this without inflation?
There is a case to be made for taxi regulation. It protects passengers, which is really the main reason taxi regulation exists. In order to fund that regulation, they allow companies artificial monopolies.
The last thing you want is a totally unregulated taxi industry. There is a reason these kinds of things became regulated in the first place.
.. and all customers will have chipped cards by October.
The banks ARE making moves here.
All card terminals in the US need to accept chip & PIN by 2015 because the banks will be mandating it. It's coming like a tidal wave and US retailers are turning a blind eye, hopefully the banks and Visa/MC hold steadfast in the requirement.
It should be embarrassing to the USA that every single other OECD nation on the planet switched to Chip & PIN 5-10 years ago. The USA does not always HAVE to be different. Sometimes going with the flow is the more intelligent choice.
I agree somewhat with janitors and even fast food. But the idea that waitstaff are vulnerable to automation is a bit ridiculous. The whole reason people go out to a restaurant with waitstaff has little to do with the food and everything to do with the experience of being waited on. Having some kind of robot you place orders on turns that restaurant into yet another fast food joint.
Honestly anyone with half a clue has known the NSA has been doing this FOR YEARS.
In fact I saw a great documentary on the subject in 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
( I am actually serious... who in the western world did not already know the NSA had these capabilities? The surprising thing to me would have been if it came out that they DID NOT have them - at which point I would wonder what they were doing with their billions of dollars ).
Facebook Google Twitter Yahoo all provide them already. So does ident.ca and OpenID.ogr and DOZENS of others. And if you wear a tinfoil hat 24*7 then you can run your own trivially. And finally, your ISP should provide one with your account as well.
"Looks like shit" is subjective. Personally I feel like Chrome "looks like shit" on Linux compared to Windows and Mac OSX where it has a consistent look. I am looking very much forward to this move. Like many nowadays I live in the browser and spend 95% of my time there. The more it is consistent across platforms the better. It doesn't matter nearly as much that my browser on Linux looks like my Eclipse as it does that my browser on Linux looks and behaves like my browser on Android or Windows or Mac.
Repeat after me.
The problem IS NOT PASSWORDS. Fighting for "better passwords" is a never-ending, stupid, foolish waste of time.
What is the point of a password? It is to prove who you are. Nothing more, nothing less. A password is not used as a key to look up information for a retailer, or blog, or anything else - that is keyed off your user name. All a password is is an identifier showing WHO YOU ARE.
It is unrealistic to expect a human to remember dozens of complex passwords and change them monthly. It is also unrealistic to preach "password managers" as a solution because they don't work in all situations and on the go.
So then, why is it then that I need a username and password FOR EVERY OF Amazon, Tesco, Virgin, and every other company listed in the OP, and Facebook, and Yahoo, and Google, and Slashdot, and every other site? Why can't I just have ONE complex, known, secure identification mechanism?
And even more pointedly - WHY IS IT that the technology ALREADY EXISTS to answer every point I raised - namely, the combination OpenID and OAuth - to solve this problem?
If every webmaster would stop thinking they live in their own universe, and SIMPLY STOP storing their own passwords and instead REQUIRE AND ONLY SUPPORT OpenID and OAuth authentication, this whole problem would be nearly entirely eliminated from the internet. People would have ONLY ONE password to remember, for all sites. They could be FORCED to change it monthly, and it would not be a huge burden since it is their ONLY password.
But no, every site in existence thinks they are THE ONE and should be able to exist in their own walled garden independent of everyone else.
Fits law only makes sense when using a mouse on the desktop.
When using a laptop trackpad it makes no sense at all because of how the motion tracking works.
It makes even less sense when using a touch interface, where there is no "throw" action at all. With a touch interface, the controls should be as close to the object they are manipulating as possible so your eyes don't need to move.
With BitCoin, not only is there a log of every transaction, but everyone on earth has access to it. You can actually trace a coin from when it was created through every single wallet it touched! And all one needs to tie a wallet to a physical person is some IP logging data which is fairly easy to acquire.
I don't know how BitCoin and anonymity got tied together. It is pretty much the LEAST anonymous currency that exists on earth. At least with Amazon coins, one would need to get access to Amazon's servers to find out who bought what, or issue a court order of some kind - random joe down the street can't tell what I bought.
CEO pay in general is too high I agree.
But I find it easier to stomach Silicon Valley CEO pay for a reason - they are producing an actual product whereas investment banks do not - they actually harm the economy, they don't help it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Furthermore, most Silicon Valley CEOs are either founders of the companies or were involved from an early phase. They put a lot of blood and sweat into these companies over the years. They are not just MBAs flown in for a couple of years to later on bail with golden parachutes when things get rough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
If that is truely all one needs then this cutout would not be expensive would it? And it would be paid for from the increased revenues. This is the way all necessities should be costed. Equal opportunity over equal outcomes.
The problem is not a "market failure", it is that the market is distorted. If the true laws of supply and demand were allowed to work on the water market in California, then water would be a lot more expensive right now because of how rare it is due to drought.
If the people are using too much water then raise the price. Define what consitutes a "drought" in strict terms (average rainfall below some amount for X days in a row), and raise the price per gallon of water an extra 50% during these drought conditions. Add in a credit for people below the poverty line so that they don't have issues.
Usage problems will be solved overnight. Charge people more and they will use less. Wallet pressure works a lot better than "peer pressure".
They only have to follow the rules for ROMs they ship the Google apps in.
It is not hard to understand. It is not that China "wants to keep DPRK in power". Rather, it is China's view that it is no one's business outside the DPRK how the DPRK conducts it's affairs. This is not new or unique, it is how basically all of China's foreign-policy doctrine - keep your nose out of other countrie's business.
China never wants to be involved in other countries' problems nor do they seek to impose their will on other countries - you don't see China out trying to spread their own unique brand of communist/capitalism elsewhere do you? That's because they don't - China keeps to themselves, for good or bad.
It is hard for people in the West to believe this because in the West foreign policy is essentially *ALL ABOUT* spreading your influence and trying to spread democracy. China has no interest in any of this.
You're missing the point. It will change over time.
FTTH will not help anything because the provider is the same. You see, the problem with broadband competition in the US is almost everyone has only two wires into the home. The Telco and the Cable provider. The cost for anyone else to roll out the infrastructure is MASSIVE and this not realistic. The third option, that EVERYONE has, is wireless. There are many more than two wireless providers in any given area. As wireless speeds increase and latency decreases (due to more close nodes), they will become more and more competitive with the telco and cable companies.