Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 291
Thing is, if you already own a smartphone and you hire one of those plans, then the price is exactly the same as if you also had a phone tied up.
Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 291
The nice thing about how the law has impacted the market is that NO company even thought about selling the phones at full price. Under the new law, you either receive an unlocked phone at a subsidized price by signing an 18-month contract, or you buy an unlocked, provider free phone. In case you want to switch providers mid-contract, you can: a) pay a penalty fee (which is more or less the remaining price of the phone considering how long you've been on contract), or b) give back the phone. I don't think it's a bad deal at all.
Submission + - What's Keeping You on XP? 2
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "PC World reports that Windows XP lost more than 11 percent of its share from September to December 2011 to post a December average of 46.5 percent, a new low for the aged OS as users have gotten Microsoft's message that the operating system should be retired. Figures indicate that Windows 7 will become the most widely used version in April, several months earlier than previous estimates. Two months ago, as Microsoft quietly celebrated the 10th anniversary of XP's retail launch, the company touted the motto "Standing still is falling behind" to promote Windows 7 and demote XP and in July, Microsoft told customers it was "time to move on" from XP, reminding everyone that the OS would exit all support in April 2014. Before that, the Internet Explorer (IE) team had dismissed XP as the "lowest common denominator" when they explained why it wouldn't run IE9. The deadline for ditching Windows XP is in April 2014, when Microsoft stops patching the operating system. "Enterprises don't want to run an OS when there's no security fixes," says Michael Silver, an analyst with Gartner Research rejecting the idea that Microsoft would extend the end-of-life date for Windows XP to please the 10% who have no plans to leave the OS. "The longer they let them run XP, the more enterprises will slow down their migration.""
Submission + - Law That Allows Summary Closing of Websites Passed (elpais.com)
Sir Mal Fet writes: In a very polemic move by the Spanish parliament, the infamous 'Sinde' law, already discussed here, was passed on December 31st. Albeit modified from their original version, the law will allow the Spanish government to request ISPs to summary close a website due to copyright infringment (Original in Spanish, Google translation). If the ISP refuses, then it's passed to court where a judge can order the website closed. It seems it's one good, one bad over there. The law is in public consult until March, and No Les Votes, a Spanish organization that opposes the law, has already started a campaign to boicot it (Original in Spanish; Google translation).
Submission + - Canada Welcomes Hemingway to the Public Domain (activepolitic.com)
bs0d3 writes: As Public Domain Day has passed, we had a good look at what could have entered the Public Domain in America if we had pre-1978 copyright laws. Works ranging from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King — the final installment in his Lord of Rings trilogy to Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash would be free to use. Under the law that existed until 1978.. Up to 85% of all copyrighted works from 1983 might have been entering the public domain on January 1, 2012. This isn't the same story for the rest of the world though. As the US and EU have long lasting, stern, copyright laws; the law in Canada is a little less intense. While Europe marks the entry of James Joyce into its public domain, Joyce has been in the public domain in Canada for the past 20 years. In Canada, the term is life of the author plus 50 years, consistent with international law. In the U.S. and Europe, the term exceeds international requirements by requiring 70 years, meaning many works take two more decades to enter the public domain. Wallace McLean offers his annual list of new entrants into the Canadian public domain, which notably includes Ernest Hemingway.
Submission + - Geo-physicist Tries to Recreate an Ice Age Ecosyst (inhabitat.com)
formaggio writes: Russian geo-physicist Sergei Zimov has come up with an effective way to stop the escape of nearly 500 billion tons of methane seeping out of the ground and threatening global agriculture and climate, and he’s doing it by recreating the last ice age across 160 sq km of Siberian “desert" in a project he calls the Pleistocene Park. His plans even include cloning the wooly mammoth.
Submission + - Humility encourages helpfulness, study shows (fellowgeek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Psychologists have found evidence that ‘humble’ people have a higher propensity to give up time for other people compared to ‘arrogant’ people. The research, which supports intuitive understanding on the matter, was conducted by researchers from Baptist institute, Baylor University. It was recently published in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
"The findings are surprising because in nearly 30 years of research on helping behaviour, very few studies have shown any effect of personality variables on helping,"
"The findings are surprising because in nearly 30 years of research on helping behaviour, very few studies have shown any effect of personality variables on helping,"
Submission + - Chile forbids carriers from selling network-locked (twitter.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As from today, network operators in Chile are no longer allowed to sell carrier-locked phones, and must unlock free of charge all devices already sold to costumers through a simple form on their respective websites. The new regulation came into effect in preparations for the rollout of Mobile Number Portability, set to begin on January 16th. This is one among other restrictions that forbid carriers to lock in the customers through "abusive clauses" in their contracts, one of which was through selling locked devices. Now if a customer wishes to change carriers he/she needs only to have the bills up to date and the process of porting the number should only take 24hrs.
Submission + - P2P Ruled as "Completely Neutral" in Spain (publico.es)
Sir Mal Fet writes: In line with previous rulings discussed here, a judge in spain has ruled that P2P technologies are "completely neutral" (original in spanish ; Google translation ), thus dismissing a lawsuit originated in 2008 from the Spanish Association of Musical Producers (Promusicae), Warner, EMI, and Sony suing Pablo Soto, a spanish man who created the Blubster, MP2P y Piolet programs to share files. The labels demanded 13 million euros in damages arguing that the mere existence and distribution of P2P technologies violated copyright, but the ruling stated the technology itself was neutral, so the creator could not be held responsible for how the software was used, and demanded that they pay for legal expenses. Promusicae said it was going to appeal the ruling.
Comment Re:I have problems with this (Score 1) 1319
From what I've heard recently, the pilgrims went to the US not to escape religious persecution, but to enable it, they went to a land where they could be free to persecute the crap out of whoever they felt like in order to keep their societies pure.
And watching the latest political news they seem to have been widly successful with that goal
Submission + - VP of EU Comission Questions Current Copyright Law (europa.eu)
Sir Mal Fet writes: In an insightful blog post Neelie Kroes, vicepresident of the EU commission, doubts of the usefulness of current copyright laws. Her arguments include that copyright laws should create a framework for innovation, not protect business models, that artist are receiving little to no money for their work, and that new ideas "often are killed stone dead by rigid, pre-digital legislation". It's nice to see common sense in authorities, so let's hope this translates into real law proposals.
Submission + - NVIDIA Teases Android 4.0 on Tegra 3, Transformer (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: "NVIDIA continues to tease their Tegra 3 platform with the upcoming release of Google's Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) operating system and the Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet from Asus. The company has released a video of the two working together driven by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Reportedly, the video above was recorded on November 16, just two days after the source code for ICS was made publicly available. Even though it's only an early demo, you can already see Ice Cream Sandwich is looking solid, from silky smooth transitions to impeccable 1080p playback performance. There's even a quick look at fully optimized gaming that taps into all four cores of NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor."
Comment It's all about the Risk Free Asset (Score 1) 633
Actually, this is finance, not (pure) economics. What happens is the following: In the Capital Asset pricing model (CAPM) model, which is the most simple (and therefore widely used) method to value assets that have volatility, the risk-free asset is one of the key pillars. This asset is represented as a sure bet, and is the minimum return an investor is willing to have for a given amount invested. Then any other asset is simply a function of the risk free asset, the expected return, and the risk premium of the volatility.
If there were no US treasury bonds, this risk free asset would "disappear", so the whole method of valuation of assets would be impacted. Actually, this is a real problem right now in finance, since after the discussion of the US debt the question of whether the risk free asset should be the US treasury bond or other asset (for example, the German treasury bond was an option, or a "pool" of different treasury bonds) was starting to be discussed. Google it, there are several papers about it. So, yeah, actually eliminating the treasury bond would have a much deeper impact than it would appear at first glance.
If there were no US treasury bonds, this risk free asset would "disappear", so the whole method of valuation of assets would be impacted. Actually, this is a real problem right now in finance, since after the discussion of the US debt the question of whether the risk free asset should be the US treasury bond or other asset (for example, the German treasury bond was an option, or a "pool" of different treasury bonds) was starting to be discussed. Google it, there are several papers about it. So, yeah, actually eliminating the treasury bond would have a much deeper impact than it would appear at first glance.
Comment Re:One company (Score 1) 461
Many authors need editors in order to produce a worthwhile product. A few don't. Expect the average quality of writing to decline.
...Or expect a service of editor-for-hire to appear. If there are freelance writers created by this change, why not freelance editors? I'll be surprised if it doesn't exist already.
Comment Re:Prey project (Score 1) 485
As parent says, Prey project is a must in any laptop. Since nobody posted it here's the link [preyproject.com].
