Not according to NetMarketShare and others. The marketshare is still higher than that.
As a point of reference to how it would affect us... with 17% marketshare, one of my sites has 170,000 unique visitors that would be "left out in the cold" if I did not support IE6. That number is higher per other browser share sites that point to around 20% and around 23%... meaning near a quarter of a MILLION potential lost site visitors/customers.
Perhaps if you run a small site with a few visitors, (let's say 1000), then losing 170 or 200 or 230 of them isnt a big deal (well, to me it would be, but to each their own)... but as it is now, our site is moving to a very big high profile site that gets 10 times the unique visitors... meaning 1.7 million visitors (to 2.3 million) that cannot properly use the site.
As a web developer with more than ten years experience who doesn't use any kind of "IE only" hacks and code, I disagree.
IE wastes time, because it's the only browser that needs extra care, but when you know what it can and can't do properly, you know how to code css that just works on every browser, IE 6 included, without hacks and without extra CSS files for IE.
Writing extra IE-only css code is a sign of incompetence.
Javascript is a different matter, but jQuery takes care of that problem just fine (mostly).
Makes a rather boring and "old fashioned looking" site... heck, you cant even do xmlHTTPRequests without an IE only hack. Or border spacing of certain elements. Or border thickness. Or dynamic and static DIV placement. Or a variety of other very simple CSS stuff.
But yeah, I guess if one skips all of that, one can make a site that works in everything without IE conditionals. Probably not a good idea nowadays except for simple sites.
Well, not exactly. It does not force you to do anything. It’s the irrational need to support the die-hards and thereby reinforce the belief that their behavior is correct.
It's RATIONAL to support the 60% plus Internet base out there, in order to have a site that can continue to make money (because one sells a product or information) regardless of one's desire to see IE6 die a horrible and quick death. Fixed that for ya!
Meanwhile 99% of the web users regularly update their Flash client because otherwise the sites “stop working”.
So in my book it’s the own fault of the industry, that it did not have the spine but the irrational fear to lose the worst part of their customers.
I quickly dealed with this, by making using their “the site does not work” logic on themselves: The “browser outdated” error page I redirected them to, looked exactly like the genuine IE error pages. Including a link to complain to customer support to fix IE’s bugs. To the users it looked like their browser failed. So they fixed it. Done.:)
Meanwhile... prompting people with what seems like a malware message, since they already ignored Windows' suggestion to upgrade IE to a more recent version (via Automatic Updates), probably wont work very well. While it works for high profile software that people need to see their pron and YouTube (Flash), it for whatever reason, doesnt seem to work very well when applied to IE - instead, people simply dont come back to the site (unless you've got something very unique to offer).
Actually, there was no designing involved in the failing parts. The code just ran into unspecified territory. You could say the outcome was determined by natural selection.;)
Or... you could say it was designed into it in many areas where Microsoft intentionally ignored standards and inserted their own method of doing things. I would agree with you, if it weren't for all the memos, emails and such that went back and forth at Microsoft about trying to kill Netscape dominance by doing such things (see the DOJ case against MS for more info).
While the PP may seem like a conspiracy theorist, the fact is, ensuring web code would fail on IE unless written to Microsoft's specs/"standards" was indeed an intentional move on their part, combined with their push into the business world for their various technologies that only worked on IE. The intent, as I noted above, was to ensure that they would gain more marketshare over Netscape and take the Internet playing field away from them. They succeeded, and hence, we have IE6 (and IE7 and IE8) to code workarounds for.
I for one still remember the day of going to websites that were IE6 only...
I am not a web developer, so I am a bit confused about why websites are unable to provide even a basic level of support for IE6 -- perhaps a simple page without any fancy effects that just gives people whatever information they were looking for. Is it really that necessary to use Javascript for everything?
Or anything but the most basic HTML? Or CSS? Yeah... I guess if you skip all of those, it's possible...
But here's the thing... doing that also means doing a bunch of extra work for the "IF IE6..." section. It is more intelligent to spend that time adding a bunch of IE6 workarounds to get the same functionality that users of better browsers have.
The only other alternative is to have a very basic site with limited capabilities for everyone - in this day and age, for any complex site, or content driven site or high content site, that's not really an option.
When one of your biggest clients happens to be GM or Blue Cross, it doesn't happen very quickly or ever. I think there are still quite a few Win 2000 machines over there.
Ah. An EDS...errr..HP employee? I remember when IS&S over at GM was spouting off 10 years ago about their 'new' IT model was going to move faster and how they would never be stuck with legacy platforms ever again. When I told them it wouldn't work, they just laughed. Who's laughing now?
Probably those in management who got nice bonuses or kickbacks for selecting the platform they did. And when they can (and probably do) justify the relentless improvement/upgrade cycles to upper management as the "cost of technology advancement" and repeat the same scenario ad-infinitum, I doubt a single red flag is raised. If you think about it that way, chances are, you will be the one to stop laughing, while those who picked and set up such a system will keep on laughing...
I'll be writing shit web code for IE6 forever anyway.
That really blows. We're informing our web clients that we're no longer supporting IE 6 and that any IE 6 visitor will land on a "nice, soft" page requesting that they upgrade to one of the many other available browsers. We just got one client to agree to upgrade their 25 employees from IE 6 to IE 8 (they already had FF installed but they have some 3rd party sites that require ActiveX).
If you're stuck doing it for an employer or client you may be better served by spending some time nudging them away from IE 6 because it will save you painful hours in the long run.
When your "clients" are "anyone who uses the Internet and may be interested in your product or information" such a tactic does not work. Trying it, and checking the bounce rate on Google Analytics will confirm this.
Really? Read what else it does... check out the Wikipedia link provided in the post above. Seems more like a trojan/rootkit pretending to be audio CD copy protection.
now can we do something about the rest of the awful browser?
Open 20 tabs and the entire thing chugs to a grinding halt as only one (1) of my four (4) processor cores gets maxed out. So much for the "multithreading" everybody says that Firefox.
The same list of 20 tabs peg all my cores to 100% for a few seconds and then they're all done rendering, when I'm using Chrome. No thanks Firefox. You guys are ancientsauce.
I am curious if that is a Windows specific problem (not as in "MS screwed up" but as in "Firefox for Windows does not take advantage of SMP") as I have no such problem on eComstation or OS/2 Warp. Any Linux users who can confirm this problem does/does not exist for Linux?
Ah... I think the problem here is you are misreading the article - or I need more coffee.
The article says that surveillance cameras are already installed (after other changes). It then goes on to say that the city
"is going a step further by becoming the first in the country to combine those systems with sensors..."
Future tense... "is going a step further" - not "went a step further"
and...
"East Orange police say the overall system can trim response time to mere seconds."
Not "has trimmed..."
But there's more. I actually decided to read other articles on it. The surveillance cameras started being put in place on or before 2003. The "smart camera" system is newer - and yes, installed and apparently in use (contrary to the poor wording in the article I quoted). But regardless, in place AFTER the 2003 camera rollout.
"Other upgrades followed" some event that already happened
That means that those upgrades already occurred, as in future tense from the event indicated, but at the present moment, the event(s) that followed are past event(s). C'mon, I've read your posts, and know you are more than smart enough to know what I was saying.
Regardless, the statement means that the cameras were already installed, even if after previous events - which was the point of our original little thread divergence.
The good news is everyone will continue to call you back with whatever pops up on their caller ID (your cell phone number) despite your best efforts to coach them all into using your GV number.
The better news is that if you have an Android phone (and some other non-Android phones I think), you can select which number is used to return calls. On my G1, I have the option of (a) always using my cell number to return calls, (b) always using my GV number to return calls, (c) always being offered a prompt asking me which to use, and (d) having option a set but hitting the GV app "button" to make a call through GV anyway.
Apparently, it's supported as an app on at least Android and Blackberry phones (with, if memory serves, it being rejected from the iPhone app store), and as a web app for virtually any other smart phone (iPhone, Windows imMobile, Palm WebOS, Nokia N60, etc)
It makes it pretty easy for me... I select "Call with Google Voice" when making any business call, or "Call without Google Voice" for all others (I chose option (c) above for my phone). It adds one more click to making each phone call... but that's it. And of course, using the "Call with..." option enables all of GV's other options (recording, transcription (as pathetic as it can be), conferencing more people in, and so on.
As for delay, I dont experience any added delay on my GV calls... though occasionally, I do experience bad call quality. Very rarely lately, but a few months ago, it was a little more obvious and a little more frequent.
We don't need to look for ways on how this could go wrong - the constant surveillance is wrong by itself.
True. But computerizing it to minimize how many humans need to be viewing it, or to minimize how much video the humans are viewing is at least kinda a step in the right direction. Besides meaning some bored cop isnt watching some interesting (but not criminal) event on Cam 42 and missing a mugging on Cam 1701, it means they need less people to sit there monitoring people's every activity - instead, they just need to monitor the activities flagged as potentially criminal. In effect, this system reduces the constant (human) survelliance, while fighting the human curiosity/boredom factor by alerting the cops monitoring it to what they should be watching.
Does that make it good? No... but it does make it a little better. And since (the part everyone seems to keep forgetting) the cameras are there already, and not going to be removed (the option here seems to be keep the cameras and human monitoring, or add a computerized monitoring component to them), then this may be the better overall option, for both privacy and safety.
Yeah, I said that in an earlier post... but the thing is, this (article) is about computerizing the detection of problems and such. The cameras are already there. If anything, this may reduce some of the abuses, or at least mean that humans are monitoring less of the stuff until informed by a computer that something needs to be viewed.
There are levels of the assumption of privacy. On a public street I expect that anything I do might be photographed, but I don't expect that any party is keeping an extensive enough set of recordings of me to plot all my movements and my daily activities.
So, what you are saying is you dont own a cell phone?
Privacy and freedom are more important than a few lives. After all, what is the point of living if you have to do it under constant control and observation? I'd rather be dead.
What part of the fact that cameras are already in place did you miss? And what privacy is being invaded on a public street where there is no expectation of privacy (except by idiots hiding under AC status here instead of posting under their account). And what freedom is being infringed by this system? The "freedom" of criminals to commit crimes? Remember, the system does not act on the event in person. It points it out to a human being who then decides what to do... just like as if the human being (cop) saw it in person.
This is clearly a well thought-out plan. Why, what could possibly go wrong?
In this day and age, it doesnt really matter how well thought out such a plan is when it involves information or people. There are always those who have the ability to and will abuse any system. Does that mean we should stop all innovation because of those who will abuse them? Or that instead we should weigh the potential for abuse against the potential for good in determining what to do with such ideas? Or plan in as many safety measures and punishments as possible to prevent abuse?
I know your (possibly rhetorical) question is the expected slashdot normal obligatory response for such things, but on the other hand, there has been quite a bit of innovation and ideas that have been fought every step of the way because of such opinions, dogma and other factors. As this system leaves in the human factor for actually deciding if an action is necessary (ie: sending cops), and then leaves the cops deciding what actions to take, it doesnt seem any more open for abuse than the current surveillance system in place. Now... if the system sent automated drones out to deal with everything it thought was a crime... that would be a different story. But fortunately, we are probably still a long way away from such technology - much less the application of such technology even if it did exist.
All the bigoted assholes will just hit slashdot to discriminate and post their hate. Or maybe just you will. Either way, get a life, grow up, and join the 21st century.
While there are proponents and doubters for such systems, real world application and testing of these technologies are probably the only way to improve them. Is it a waste of money, as some detractors claim? I wish I knew. Perhaps analyzing the crime statistics and costs related to them in contrast to the monies spent would give a clearer picture. Then there's the factor of "a life saved... is priceless" - in which such systems (the existing one, and the "smart" one) may be crucial in saving someone's life; for instance, a mugging victim who was stabbed and left for dead in a deserted street where they otherwise would not be spotted until they had bled to death, or in assisting the police in arriving at the scene of a fight before it gets out of hand and a life is lost.
Either way, such systems will at least help expand and mature this particular area of computers, in a way beneficial to areas other than crime prevention and fighting. It will surely help with any system that is required to interact with human beings (robotics, AI, action and identity sensing systems, various medical systems that are or will be tasked with monitoring and determining the state of certain patient groups in hospitals and institutions, etc).
All snarking aside - this is a case of CSRs forgetting who they work for. They work for Verizon - NOT the customer. They have to keep "what is best for Verizon" in mind when dealing with customers.
They work for Verizon... Which makes its money off its customers... Lose the customers, lose the money, lose the job. It's that simple. Ultimately, the customers are the ones providing your paycheck.
Thus, Verizon and others, unlike what's possible in other markets (such as purchasing home electronics from Best Buy) have absurd termination fees on their phone contracts (with or without new phone). Makes a decent percentage of unhappy customers stay.
That's the big difference with comparing Verizon to EB or Best Buy or Walmart. You dont have to pay (much or anything) to stop shopping at EB. You usually do have to pay to leave Verizon for someone else. Or pay more getting a non-contract line without all those wonderful promotional pricing so you can choose to freely leave at any time of your choosing. Or at least stick out your 1, 2 or longer year contract to avoid penalty.
All snarking aside - this is a case of CSRs forgetting who they work for. They work for Verizon - NOT the customer. They have to keep "what is best for Verizon" in mind when dealing with customers.
All snarking aside, this is a case of Verizon not understanding the meaning of the term "customer service" - unless the acronym CSR stands for "Company Service Rep" in Verizon's playbook.
Now true - it would be a hell of a lot easier if we, as customers, had a list of options that we could choose from so we could make the best decisions possible. But the rub is - what company would ever go for that?
They go out of their way to help you and generally get the job done.
They will even help out with suggesting service plans and whatnot. I actually had to push to bump my minutes above the next tier. (I kept going over and I decided to just make it impossible to go over.) The csr on the line said, "you don't appear to ever use that many."
My experience with T-Mobile has been the same. When we call (we have four lines), they go out of their way to remind us that we've got a new free phone available on our contract, offered to switch us to cheaper plans than ones we were selecting (when we called to add a few lines) that included more services, let us know when new pricing (their recent plan pricing reductions) were available and offered to switch us to the newer cheaper plans and on and on.
That doesnt even count the fact that due to roaming agreements with almost everyone, we never pay roaming charges.
Then there's the large number of times I have called because I bought a non T-Mobile phone (Cingular, Cingular and AT&T and random unlocked phone that TMo did not sell) and needed help getting data or such working. Those calls all started with "Well, we dont sell or officially support that phone, but here's what we need to do..." followed by the CSR walking me through every step of the setup and phone settings changes while they enabled any changes needed on their end... and ending with "OK, now, hang up, restart your phone and try x service on it - it should all be working fine now" - at that point, I hang up, restart the phone, test, and like clockwork, in under 10 minutes, the CSR rep calls back to make sure all is well and properly working.
On top of that, not a single change gets made to our account without SMS text notifications being sent to all our phones letting us know and letting us know how we can check on the change to reverse it or understand more about it. That's on top of the online notifications, email notification and written notification. No guessing. No wondering when someone on the plan changes something that will incur us lots of charges. No wondering if TMo has changed something that will cost us more. Not with at least 3, if not 4, different notifications being sent to us.
Then there's the TMo Community (aka: forums), where they actually allow whole sections devoted to rooting and modding your cell phone and are very quick to have bulletins and tips on potential phone problems and fixes. Most carriers and cell manufacturers go out of their way to prevent you from rooting your phone and installing custom mods. TMo simply adds a big disclaimer at the top of every rooting or mod section, then lets the community go "hog wild" offering, suggesting or instructing each other on how to root and re-ROM your phone.
Since switching through Sprint (pretty ok with their cust service), ATT (rather make a deal with the devil), Verizon (rather burn in hell) to TMo (5 years ago), I've decided to stay with TMo - at least for as long as they keep providing such stellar customer service.
Are they perfect? No, probably not. Do they occassionally screw something up? Sure. But, in all my cell and landline phone experiences, they are very very far ahead of the pack.
What is disgusting about the DMCA is its automatic nature, and the absolute lack of repercussions for filing a false notice. It aught to be wire fraud, but it isn't considered such.
No, what is disgusting is that there ARE provisions for damages and such for those who file false claims/notices, but they have never (to my knowledge) been used, tested or enforced.
Slashdot Mirror
Not according to NetMarketShare and others. The marketshare is still higher than that.
As a point of reference to how it would affect us... with 17% marketshare, one of my sites has 170,000 unique visitors that would be "left out in the cold" if I did not support IE6. That number is higher per other browser share sites that point to around 20% and around 23%... meaning near a quarter of a MILLION potential lost site visitors/customers.
Perhaps if you run a small site with a few visitors, (let's say 1000), then losing 170 or 200 or 230 of them isnt a big deal (well, to me it would be, but to each their own)... but as it is now, our site is moving to a very big high profile site that gets 10 times the unique visitors... meaning 1.7 million visitors (to 2.3 million) that cannot properly use the site.
Not bothering is thus not an option for us....
As a web developer with more than ten years experience who doesn't use any kind of "IE only" hacks and code, I disagree.
IE wastes time, because it's the only browser that needs extra care, but when you know what it can and can't do properly, you know how to code css that just works on every browser, IE 6 included, without hacks and without extra CSS files for IE.
Writing extra IE-only css code is a sign of incompetence.
Javascript is a different matter, but jQuery takes care of that problem just fine (mostly).
Makes a rather boring and "old fashioned looking" site... heck, you cant even do xmlHTTPRequests without an IE only hack. Or border spacing of certain elements. Or border thickness. Or dynamic and static DIV placement. Or a variety of other very simple CSS stuff.
But yeah, I guess if one skips all of that, one can make a site that works in everything without IE conditionals. Probably not a good idea nowadays except for simple sites.
Well, not exactly. It does not force you to do anything. It’s the irrational need to support the die-hards and thereby reinforce the belief that their behavior is correct.
It's RATIONAL to support the 60% plus Internet base out there, in order to have a site that can continue to make money (because one sells a product or information) regardless of one's desire to see IE6 die a horrible and quick death. Fixed that for ya!
Meanwhile 99% of the web users regularly update their Flash client because otherwise the sites “stop working”.
So in my book it’s the own fault of the industry, that it did not have the spine but the irrational fear to lose the worst part of their customers.
I quickly dealed with this, by making using their “the site does not work” logic on themselves: The “browser outdated” error page I redirected them to, looked exactly like the genuine IE error pages. Including a link to complain to customer support to fix IE’s bugs. To the users it looked like their browser failed. So they fixed it. Done. :)
Meanwhile... prompting people with what seems like a malware message, since they already ignored Windows' suggestion to upgrade IE to a more recent version (via Automatic Updates), probably wont work very well. While it works for high profile software that people need to see their pron and YouTube (Flash), it for whatever reason, doesnt seem to work very well when applied to IE - instead, people simply dont come back to the site (unless you've got something very unique to offer).
Actually, there was no designing involved in the failing parts. The code just ran into unspecified territory. You could say the outcome was determined by natural selection. ;)
Or... you could say it was designed into it in many areas where Microsoft intentionally ignored standards and inserted their own method of doing things. I would agree with you, if it weren't for all the memos, emails and such that went back and forth at Microsoft about trying to kill Netscape dominance by doing such things (see the DOJ case against MS for more info).
While the PP may seem like a conspiracy theorist, the fact is, ensuring web code would fail on IE unless written to Microsoft's specs/"standards" was indeed an intentional move on their part, combined with their push into the business world for their various technologies that only worked on IE. The intent, as I noted above, was to ensure that they would gain more marketshare over Netscape and take the Internet playing field away from them. They succeeded, and hence, we have IE6 (and IE7 and IE8) to code workarounds for.
I for one still remember the day of going to websites that were IE6 only...
I am not a web developer, so I am a bit confused about why websites are unable to provide even a basic level of support for IE6 -- perhaps a simple page without any fancy effects that just gives people whatever information they were looking for. Is it really that necessary to use Javascript for everything?
Or anything but the most basic HTML? Or CSS? Yeah... I guess if you skip all of those, it's possible...
But here's the thing... doing that also means doing a bunch of extra work for the "IF IE6..." section. It is more intelligent to spend that time adding a bunch of IE6 workarounds to get the same functionality that users of better browsers have.
The only other alternative is to have a very basic site with limited capabilities for everyone - in this day and age, for any complex site, or content driven site or high content site, that's not really an option.
Ah. An EDS...errr..HP employee? I remember when IS&S over at GM was spouting off 10 years ago about their 'new' IT model was going to move faster and how they would never be stuck with legacy platforms ever again. When I told them it wouldn't work, they just laughed. Who's laughing now?
Probably those in management who got nice bonuses or kickbacks for selecting the platform they did. And when they can (and probably do) justify the relentless improvement/upgrade cycles to upper management as the "cost of technology advancement" and repeat the same scenario ad-infinitum, I doubt a single red flag is raised. If you think about it that way, chances are, you will be the one to stop laughing, while those who picked and set up such a system will keep on laughing...
I'll be writing shit web code for IE6 forever anyway.
That really blows. We're informing our web clients that we're no longer supporting IE 6 and that any IE 6 visitor will land on a "nice, soft" page requesting that they upgrade to one of the many other available browsers. We just got one client to agree to upgrade their 25 employees from IE 6 to IE 8 (they already had FF installed but they have some 3rd party sites that require ActiveX). If you're stuck doing it for an employer or client you may be better served by spending some time nudging them away from IE 6 because it will save you painful hours in the long run.
When your "clients" are "anyone who uses the Internet and may be interested in your product or information" such a tactic does not work. Trying it, and checking the bounce rate on Google Analytics will confirm this.
XCP was an attempt at audio CD copy protection.
Really? Read what else it does... check out the Wikipedia link provided in the post above. Seems more like a trojan/rootkit pretending to be audio CD copy protection.
now can we do something about the rest of the awful browser?
Open 20 tabs and the entire thing chugs to a grinding halt as only one (1) of my four (4) processor cores gets maxed out. So much for the "multithreading" everybody says that Firefox. The same list of 20 tabs peg all my cores to 100% for a few seconds and then they're all done rendering, when I'm using Chrome. No thanks Firefox. You guys are ancientsauce.
I am curious if that is a Windows specific problem (not as in "MS screwed up" but as in "Firefox for Windows does not take advantage of SMP") as I have no such problem on eComstation or OS/2 Warp. Any Linux users who can confirm this problem does/does not exist for Linux?
Ah... I think the problem here is you are misreading the article - or I need more coffee.
The article says that surveillance cameras are already installed (after other changes). It then goes on to say that the city
"is going a step further by becoming the first in the country to combine those systems with sensors..."
Future tense... "is going a step further" - not "went a step further"
and...
"East Orange police say the overall system can trim response time to mere seconds."
Not "has trimmed..."
But there's more. I actually decided to read other articles on it. The surveillance cameras started being put in place on or before 2003. The "smart camera" system is newer - and yes, installed and apparently in use (contrary to the poor wording in the article I quoted). But regardless, in place AFTER the 2003 camera rollout.
Huh? Context.
"Other upgrades followed" some event that already happened
That means that those upgrades already occurred, as in future tense from the event indicated, but at the present moment, the event(s) that followed are past event(s). C'mon, I've read your posts, and know you are more than smart enough to know what I was saying.
Regardless, the statement means that the cameras were already installed, even if after previous events - which was the point of our original little thread divergence.
The good news is everyone will continue to call you back with whatever pops up on their caller ID (your cell phone number) despite your best efforts to coach them all into using your GV number.
The better news is that if you have an Android phone (and some other non-Android phones I think), you can select which number is used to return calls. On my G1, I have the option of (a) always using my cell number to return calls, (b) always using my GV number to return calls, (c) always being offered a prompt asking me which to use, and (d) having option a set but hitting the GV app "button" to make a call through GV anyway.
Apparently, it's supported as an app on at least Android and Blackberry phones (with, if memory serves, it being rejected from the iPhone app store), and as a web app for virtually any other smart phone (iPhone, Windows imMobile, Palm WebOS, Nokia N60, etc)
Google Voice Page
It makes it pretty easy for me... I select "Call with Google Voice" when making any business call, or "Call without Google Voice" for all others (I chose option (c) above for my phone). It adds one more click to making each phone call... but that's it. And of course, using the "Call with..." option enables all of GV's other options (recording, transcription (as pathetic as it can be), conferencing more people in, and so on.
As for delay, I dont experience any added delay on my GV calls... though occasionally, I do experience bad call quality. Very rarely lately, but a few months ago, it was a little more obvious and a little more frequent.
This part that you quoted:
"Other upgrades followed (past tense, already happened)... video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas"
We don't need to look for ways on how this could go wrong - the constant surveillance is wrong by itself.
True. But computerizing it to minimize how many humans need to be viewing it, or to minimize how much video the humans are viewing is at least kinda a step in the right direction. Besides meaning some bored cop isnt watching some interesting (but not criminal) event on Cam 42 and missing a mugging on Cam 1701, it means they need less people to sit there monitoring people's every activity - instead, they just need to monitor the activities flagged as potentially criminal. In effect, this system reduces the constant (human) survelliance, while fighting the human curiosity/boredom factor by alerting the cops monitoring it to what they should be watching.
Does that make it good? No... but it does make it a little better. And since (the part everyone seems to keep forgetting) the cameras are there already, and not going to be removed (the option here seems to be keep the cameras and human monitoring, or add a computerized monitoring component to them), then this may be the better overall option, for both privacy and safety.
Who watches the watchers?
Any system that can be abused will be.
Falcom
Yeah, I said that in an earlier post... but the thing is, this (article) is about computerizing the detection of problems and such. The cameras are already there. If anything, this may reduce some of the abuses, or at least mean that humans are monitoring less of the stuff until informed by a computer that something needs to be viewed.
There are levels of the assumption of privacy. On a public street I expect that anything I do might be photographed, but I don't expect that any party is keeping an extensive enough set of recordings of me to plot all my movements and my daily activities.
So, what you are saying is you dont own a cell phone?
Privacy and freedom are more important than a few lives. After all, what is the point of living if you have to do it under constant control and observation? I'd rather be dead.
What part of the fact that cameras are already in place did you miss? And what privacy is being invaded on a public street where there is no expectation of privacy (except by idiots hiding under AC status here instead of posting under their account). And what freedom is being infringed by this system? The "freedom" of criminals to commit crimes? Remember, the system does not act on the event in person. It points it out to a human being who then decides what to do... just like as if the human being (cop) saw it in person.
This is clearly a well thought-out plan. Why, what could possibly go wrong?
In this day and age, it doesnt really matter how well thought out such a plan is when it involves information or people. There are always those who have the ability to and will abuse any system. Does that mean we should stop all innovation because of those who will abuse them? Or that instead we should weigh the potential for abuse against the potential for good in determining what to do with such ideas? Or plan in as many safety measures and punishments as possible to prevent abuse?
I know your (possibly rhetorical) question is the expected slashdot normal obligatory response for such things, but on the other hand, there has been quite a bit of innovation and ideas that have been fought every step of the way because of such opinions, dogma and other factors. As this system leaves in the human factor for actually deciding if an action is necessary (ie: sending cops), and then leaves the cops deciding what actions to take, it doesnt seem any more open for abuse than the current surveillance system in place. Now... if the system sent automated drones out to deal with everything it thought was a crime... that would be a different story. But fortunately, we are probably still a long way away from such technology - much less the application of such technology even if it did exist.
All the niggers will just hit the next town over.
All the bigoted assholes will just hit slashdot to discriminate and post their hate. Or maybe just you will. Either way, get a life, grow up, and join the 21st century.
While there are proponents and doubters for such systems, real world application and testing of these technologies are probably the only way to improve them. Is it a waste of money, as some detractors claim? I wish I knew. Perhaps analyzing the crime statistics and costs related to them in contrast to the monies spent would give a clearer picture. Then there's the factor of "a life saved... is priceless" - in which such systems (the existing one, and the "smart" one) may be crucial in saving someone's life; for instance, a mugging victim who was stabbed and left for dead in a deserted street where they otherwise would not be spotted until they had bled to death, or in assisting the police in arriving at the scene of a fight before it gets out of hand and a life is lost.
Either way, such systems will at least help expand and mature this particular area of computers, in a way beneficial to areas other than crime prevention and fighting. It will surely help with any system that is required to interact with human beings (robotics, AI, action and identity sensing systems, various medical systems that are or will be tasked with monitoring and determining the state of certain patient groups in hospitals and institutions, etc).
All snarking aside - this is a case of CSRs forgetting who they work for. They work for Verizon - NOT the customer. They have to keep "what is best for Verizon" in mind when dealing with customers.
They work for Verizon... Which makes its money off its customers... Lose the customers, lose the money, lose the job. It's that simple. Ultimately, the customers are the ones providing your paycheck.
Thus, Verizon and others, unlike what's possible in other markets (such as purchasing home electronics from Best Buy) have absurd termination fees on their phone contracts (with or without new phone). Makes a decent percentage of unhappy customers stay.
That's the big difference with comparing Verizon to EB or Best Buy or Walmart. You dont have to pay (much or anything) to stop shopping at EB. You usually do have to pay to leave Verizon for someone else. Or pay more getting a non-contract line without all those wonderful promotional pricing so you can choose to freely leave at any time of your choosing. Or at least stick out your 1, 2 or longer year contract to avoid penalty.
Business is not war.
What you stated there after more than a paragraph of description that backed saying that business is war, is equivalent to saying "nuh uh!!!!"
"uh huh!!!!"
All snarking aside - this is a case of CSRs forgetting who they work for. They work for Verizon - NOT the customer. They have to keep "what is best for Verizon" in mind when dealing with customers.
All snarking aside, this is a case of Verizon not understanding the meaning of the term "customer service" - unless the acronym CSR stands for "Company Service Rep" in Verizon's playbook.
Now true - it would be a hell of a lot easier if we, as customers, had a list of options that we could choose from so we could make the best decisions possible. But the rub is - what company would ever go for that?
T-Mobile
I have no spoken to a bad CSR at tmobile.
They go out of their way to help you and generally get the job done.
They will even help out with suggesting service plans and whatnot. I actually had to push to bump my minutes above the next tier. (I kept going over and I decided to just make it impossible to go over.) The csr on the line said, "you don't appear to ever use that many."
My experience with T-Mobile has been the same. When we call (we have four lines), they go out of their way to remind us that we've got a new free phone available on our contract, offered to switch us to cheaper plans than ones we were selecting (when we called to add a few lines) that included more services, let us know when new pricing (their recent plan pricing reductions) were available and offered to switch us to the newer cheaper plans and on and on.
That doesnt even count the fact that due to roaming agreements with almost everyone, we never pay roaming charges.
Then there's the large number of times I have called because I bought a non T-Mobile phone (Cingular, Cingular and AT&T and random unlocked phone that TMo did not sell) and needed help getting data or such working. Those calls all started with "Well, we dont sell or officially support that phone, but here's what we need to do..." followed by the CSR walking me through every step of the setup and phone settings changes while they enabled any changes needed on their end... and ending with "OK, now, hang up, restart your phone and try x service on it - it should all be working fine now" - at that point, I hang up, restart the phone, test, and like clockwork, in under 10 minutes, the CSR rep calls back to make sure all is well and properly working.
On top of that, not a single change gets made to our account without SMS text notifications being sent to all our phones letting us know and letting us know how we can check on the change to reverse it or understand more about it. That's on top of the online notifications, email notification and written notification. No guessing. No wondering when someone on the plan changes something that will incur us lots of charges. No wondering if TMo has changed something that will cost us more. Not with at least 3, if not 4, different notifications being sent to us.
Then there's the TMo Community (aka: forums), where they actually allow whole sections devoted to rooting and modding your cell phone and are very quick to have bulletins and tips on potential phone problems and fixes. Most carriers and cell manufacturers go out of their way to prevent you from rooting your phone and installing custom mods. TMo simply adds a big disclaimer at the top of every rooting or mod section, then lets the community go "hog wild" offering, suggesting or instructing each other on how to root and re-ROM your phone.
Since switching through Sprint (pretty ok with their cust service), ATT (rather make a deal with the devil), Verizon (rather burn in hell) to TMo (5 years ago), I've decided to stay with TMo - at least for as long as they keep providing such stellar customer service.
Are they perfect? No, probably not. Do they occassionally screw something up? Sure. But, in all my cell and landline phone experiences, they are very very far ahead of the pack.
What is disgusting about the DMCA is its automatic nature, and the absolute lack of repercussions for filing a false notice. It aught to be wire fraud, but it isn't considered such.
No, what is disgusting is that there ARE provisions for damages and such for those who file false claims/notices, but they have never (to my knowledge) been used, tested or enforced.