A few people are carrying stories that Xbox 360 units are going for exorbitant prices on eBay. I've checked out the auctions and it seems like there is a huge proportion of bidders who have either only a few feedback points or none at all. Many bidders even have symbols next to their screen names indicating that their account is less than 30 days old. Why are so many eBay virgins willing to pay premium prices for an Xbox 360?
It seems that some sort of massive fraud is going on here. The sellers themselves may simply be propping up the prices on their own auctions. Or, even more sinister and genius, a third party (Microsoft?) is following up Microsoft's deliberate Xbox shortage plan with a plan to inflate the eBay market as well. The fact that Xbox 360 units are selling on eBay for about $1000, there is a lot of money at steak here and what better way to show how wonderful and popular the new system is than by populating the press with stories of people so desperate for an Xbox that the system is selling for $1000?
Crazy conspiracy theory? Brilliant plot uncovered? What do you think?
"If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home." That's quite a misleading interpretation of what the EULA actually says. Now, I want to make it clear that I'm no fan of Sony, but that is merely someone's interpretation, not an actual part of the EULA.
The EULA actually says "In the event that you no longer possess or have the right under such license to use the original CD product, your rights hereunder to use the DIGITAL CONTENT shall expire immediately." To me, it seems that if your CD is really stolen, you can still use the back-up you have. That's part of fair use, isn't it? Backups in case of fire or theft or hurricanes, etc. What the EULA is saying is that you can't rip the CD to your hard drive and then sell it on eBay, all the while keeping the ripped version. Basically, it's the idea of trying to prevent users from going to Blockbuster, renting a DVD, and then making a copy.
One thing that makes many desktop aplications so productive is the use of keyboard shortcuts. That's one thing that web pages are lacking. Yeah, gMail has some minimal shortcuts, but web applications don't act the same way as desktop applications. It'd be great if there were a browser plug-in that user-approved web pages could interface with so that keyboard shorts would work with web-based server-side applications...like the new gOffice.
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It seems that some sort of massive fraud is going on here. The sellers themselves may simply be propping up the prices on their own auctions. Or, even more sinister and genius, a third party (Microsoft?) is following up Microsoft's deliberate Xbox shortage plan with a plan to inflate the eBay market as well. The fact that Xbox 360 units are selling on eBay for about $1000, there is a lot of money at steak here and what better way to show how wonderful and popular the new system is than by populating the press with stories of people so desperate for an Xbox that the system is selling for $1000?
Crazy conspiracy theory? Brilliant plot uncovered? What do you think?
"If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home." That's quite a misleading interpretation of what the EULA actually says. Now, I want to make it clear that I'm no fan of Sony, but that is merely someone's interpretation, not an actual part of the EULA. The EULA actually says "In the event that you no longer possess or have the right under such license to use the original CD product, your rights hereunder to use the DIGITAL CONTENT shall expire immediately." To me, it seems that if your CD is really stolen, you can still use the back-up you have. That's part of fair use, isn't it? Backups in case of fire or theft or hurricanes, etc. What the EULA is saying is that you can't rip the CD to your hard drive and then sell it on eBay, all the while keeping the ripped version. Basically, it's the idea of trying to prevent users from going to Blockbuster, renting a DVD, and then making a copy.
I'm drunk and a bit confused. Does this have anything to do with intelligent design? Cough.
One thing that makes many desktop aplications so productive is the use of keyboard shortcuts. That's one thing that web pages are lacking. Yeah, gMail has some minimal shortcuts, but web applications don't act the same way as desktop applications. It'd be great if there were a browser plug-in that user-approved web pages could interface with so that keyboard shorts would work with web-based server-side applications...like the new gOffice.