Comment Hmmmm.. (Score 1) 187
Who the f**k are Anonymous? Oh wait...
Submission + - Pirate Movie Downloads Rise By 30% in UK says Stud (unitethecows.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Internet research firm Envisional says it found that illegal movie downloads in the UK have increased by 30% in the last 5 years.
Blaming faster broadband speeds and better file sharing methods, Envisional claims that the top five box office movies of 2010 were downloaded in the UK around 1.4 million times.
Avatar, topped the list with an estimated 200,000 downloads. However the movie still managed to £98m in box office takings in the UK in 2010.
"The methods of piracy have become easier, with quicker downloads and easier to find content — anyone with broadband can do it.” said Dr David Price of Envisional.
According to the study, movies are not the only downloads that have risen. The most popular TV Shows were downloaded around 1.24 million times in the UK last year, a 33% increase on 2006.
"We have a big demand in this country for north American TV shows in particularGlee and House are heavily illegally downloaded in the UK” Price told Sky News.
"We're very eager to get the television shows as soon as they get broadcast in the US....... we often have to wait for one month or two months for those shows to be shown legitimately in the UK."
He stated that the entertainment industry needs to be more competitive to reduce illegal file sharing.
"The best way to challenge this is to give people what they want..people are prepared to pay for downloads, so making these things legitimately available would be a huge step forward." He said.
Kieran Sharpe of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) said piracy “costs the British economy £170m a year and is putting thousands of jobs at risk.”
"Research for the Government has shown that film piracy costs the (global film) industry about half a billion pounds a year Research for the government has shown that film piracy costs the industry about half a billion pounds a yearAbout a third of that is due to illegal downloading of film and TV content.”
Blaming faster broadband speeds and better file sharing methods, Envisional claims that the top five box office movies of 2010 were downloaded in the UK around 1.4 million times.
Avatar, topped the list with an estimated 200,000 downloads. However the movie still managed to £98m in box office takings in the UK in 2010.
"The methods of piracy have become easier, with quicker downloads and easier to find content — anyone with broadband can do it.” said Dr David Price of Envisional.
According to the study, movies are not the only downloads that have risen. The most popular TV Shows were downloaded around 1.24 million times in the UK last year, a 33% increase on 2006.
"We have a big demand in this country for north American TV shows in particularGlee and House are heavily illegally downloaded in the UK” Price told Sky News.
"We're very eager to get the television shows as soon as they get broadcast in the US....... we often have to wait for one month or two months for those shows to be shown legitimately in the UK."
He stated that the entertainment industry needs to be more competitive to reduce illegal file sharing.
"The best way to challenge this is to give people what they want..people are prepared to pay for downloads, so making these things legitimately available would be a huge step forward." He said.
Kieran Sharpe of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) said piracy “costs the British economy £170m a year and is putting thousands of jobs at risk.”
"Research for the Government has shown that film piracy costs the (global film) industry about half a billion pounds a year Research for the government has shown that film piracy costs the industry about half a billion pounds a yearAbout a third of that is due to illegal downloading of film and TV content.”
Comment Re:The webcam light... (Score 1) 330
TL;DR
Submission + - Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predi (livescience.com)
mcgrew writes: "From LiveScience:
"Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences. The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Submission + - Load a C64 Into Your Browser... (kingsquare.nl)
beaverdownunder writes: Forget having Linux boot in your browser... 'jsc64 is a Commodore 64 emulator written in JavaScript by Tim de Koning. It's a port of the FC64, the Commodore 64 emulator written in Actionscript by Darron Schall and Claus Wahlers.' Even has a few demo games. Trés cool!
Submission + - Student finds universe's missing mass (cosmosmagazine.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.
Comment Re:So this is... (Score 1) 201
You've obviously never come across Dwarf Bread before!
Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 195
..when they were 5.25"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Floppy_disk_5.25_inch.JPG
Comment Don't miss out Thames House (Score 1) 1095
If your geekiness extends to security related subjects then I recommend the Thames House tour which starts from the third floor reception at around 10am each day. It's a pretty long tour so you may want bring some lunch in a rucksack and camera &/or a video camera is essential.
No need to book in advance as not a lot of tourists know about the tour - when I went the receptionist on the ground floor didn't even know about it and I had to kick up a right fuss before they gave in and let me up to where it started!
Have a fun trip!
No need to book in advance as not a lot of tourists know about the tour - when I went the receptionist on the ground floor didn't even know about it and I had to kick up a right fuss before they gave in and let me up to where it started!
Have a fun trip!
Comment Re:41? (Score 3, Insightful) 569
Well....
Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study (2008), Page 17, when describing how they calculate piracy:
1. Determine how much PC packaged software was deployed in 2008;
2. Determine how much PC packaged software was paid for/legally acquired in 2008; and
3. Subtract one from the other to get the amount of pirated software.
To calculate "deployment" they asked 6,200 people (p.17 of above report) how much software they install in a given year. Take into account that these 6,000 people are spread across 24 countries - that's an average of just 258 people per country for their survey! (For those that are interested they estimate the rest of the world based on these 24 countries)
Software paid for/legally acquired comes from IDC estimates.
They then get their magic 41% figure... Is it just me or does this seem as flimsy as a polystyrene tow-bar?
Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study (2008), Page 17, when describing how they calculate piracy:
1. Determine how much PC packaged software was deployed in 2008;
2. Determine how much PC packaged software was paid for/legally acquired in 2008; and
3. Subtract one from the other to get the amount of pirated software.
To calculate "deployment" they asked 6,200 people (p.17 of above report) how much software they install in a given year. Take into account that these 6,000 people are spread across 24 countries - that's an average of just 258 people per country for their survey! (For those that are interested they estimate the rest of the world based on these 24 countries)
Software paid for/legally acquired comes from IDC estimates.
They then get their magic 41% figure... Is it just me or does this seem as flimsy as a polystyrene tow-bar?
Comment Really? (Score 1) 460
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+games
I mean seriously.. if someone had asked the same of the Windows they would have been torn to pieces by rabid penguins, toasted in the warm glow of a thousand flames and then thrown to the trolls to pick over.
Now I will admit that I have in the past missed the point but are Linux games that rare/difficult to find?
QNX, SkyOS, HelenOS maybe.. but linux???
I mean seriously.. if someone had asked the same of the Windows they would have been torn to pieces by rabid penguins, toasted in the warm glow of a thousand flames and then thrown to the trolls to pick over.
Now I will admit that I have in the past missed the point but are Linux games that rare/difficult to find?
QNX, SkyOS, HelenOS maybe.. but linux???
Comment Risk Management (Score 1) 730
For any company that rates intellectual property theft as a risk to their business they should, as a matter of course, have procedures in place where all employees (both inhouse and outsourced) and any contractors who have access to the information are required to sign non-disclosure/confidentiality agreements. Make sure that these agreements emphasise what information is of a proprietary and confidential nature and outline what actions you will take if they breach the agreements.
While this won't stop all instances of intellectual property theft it does give the business a solid legal foundation to pursue any damages if you have to take it to court.
Insurance is one option although intellectual property is a very difficult risk to insure as is virtually impossible to place a monetary value on the ideas/source code/manuscripts etc. It is probably worth exploring though, from my experience in the insurance industry, the cost is likely to make it uneconomical for all but the biggest companies. Though thats a business decision for you to make.
While this won't stop all instances of intellectual property theft it does give the business a solid legal foundation to pursue any damages if you have to take it to court.
Insurance is one option although intellectual property is a very difficult risk to insure as is virtually impossible to place a monetary value on the ideas/source code/manuscripts etc. It is probably worth exploring though, from my experience in the insurance industry, the cost is likely to make it uneconomical for all but the biggest companies. Though thats a business decision for you to make.
Comment Motivate the programmers.. (Score 2, Interesting) 176
First of all I do think that his idea has merit but it doesn't take a genius to start seeing the flaws - in particular what motivation does the development team have to continue developing the project?
1. Generate interest
2. Collect investment
3. Profit
4. Interest wanes, Investments slow
5. Developer thinks of new idea
6. Goto 1
With this business model we'll never see any completed games.
What you need to do is set up a third party finance company who sign people up for a subscription. Subscribers then get access to all the games currently in development and then each month the subscriptions are divvied up between the various projects in a fair and quantifiable manner (i.e. number of players/hours played/etc). This way the investment is incremental so encouraging longer term development rather than letting developers grab a quick cash injection before moving onto the next project.
1. Generate interest
2. Collect investment
3. Profit
4. Interest wanes, Investments slow
5. Developer thinks of new idea
6. Goto 1
With this business model we'll never see any completed games.
What you need to do is set up a third party finance company who sign people up for a subscription. Subscribers then get access to all the games currently in development and then each month the subscriptions are divvied up between the various projects in a fair and quantifiable manner (i.e. number of players/hours played/etc). This way the investment is incremental so encouraging longer term development rather than letting developers grab a quick cash injection before moving onto the next project.
Comment Re:Moving company? (Score 1) 216
Surely its obvious what's happening here...
1. Boy wants new toy
2. Wife/Girlfriend says no
3. Boy invents spurious tech excuse to create the illusion that it would actually being useful/needed
4. Profit (for Apple anyway)
This episode of Sesame Street was bought to you by the word: Machiavellian.
1. Boy wants new toy
2. Wife/Girlfriend says no
3. Boy invents spurious tech excuse to create the illusion that it would actually being useful/needed
4. Profit (for Apple anyway)
This episode of Sesame Street was bought to you by the word: Machiavellian.
Comment Re:The real question (Score 1) 453
Bit pedantic.. or you rush read my comment...either way:
Category H = Tracked vehicles.
Road use of a JCB requires a Cat H licence.
(Though I will accept that JCB's are not neccesarily tracked and can have wheels so may not *always* need a Cat H licence.)
Category H = Tracked vehicles.
Road use of a JCB requires a Cat H licence.
(Though I will accept that JCB's are not neccesarily tracked and can have wheels so may not *always* need a Cat H licence.)
