Basho - Slashdot User

Comment Bits and Bytes on TVO from 1983 (Score 3, Interesting) 15

by Basho on Monday August 19, 2024 @12:45PM (#64718188) Attached to: Internet Archive Streams Re-Discovered 1980s Radio Show About Early Computers

First thing that comes to mind is the 1983 TV Ontario show Bits and Bytes with Luba Goy and Billy Van - lots of the episodes are on YouTube now - covering the high tech computers of the day, including including the Apple ][, Commodore PET, VIC 20 and 64, Atari 800, TRS-80, TI 99 and the IBM PC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC_T5mvuguw and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bits_and_Bytes

Submission + - A Secret Google Deal Let Spotify Completely Bypass Android's App Store Fees (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @01:18AM

An anonymous reader writes: Music streaming service Spotify struck a seemingly unique and highly generous deal with Google for Android-based payments, according to new testimony in the Epic v. Google trial. On the stand, Google head of global partnerships Don Harrison confirmed Spotify paid a 0 percent commission when users chose to buy subscriptions through Spotify’s own system. If the users picked Google as their payment processor, Spotify handed over 4 percent — dramatically less than Google’s more common 15 percent fee. Google fought to keep the Spotify numbers private during its antitrust fight with Epic, saying they could damage negotiations with other app developers who might want more generous rates.

Google’s User Choice Billing program, launched in 2022, is typically described as shaving about 4 percent off Google’s Play Store commission if developers use their own payment system, bringing down Google’s 15 percent subscription service fee to more like 11 percent. That often ends up saving developers little or no money since they must foot the cost of payment processing themselves. And in court, Google has focused on benefits like greater flexibility rather than cost savings. [...] Harrison says Spotify’s “unprecedented” popularity was great enough to justify a “bespoke” deal. “If we don’t have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones,” Harrison testified. As part of the deal, both parties also agreed to commit $50 million apiece to a “success fund.”

Google acknowledged Harrison’s testimony in a statement to The Verge. “A small number of developers that invest more directly in Android and Play may have different service fees as part of a broader partnership that includes substantial financial investments and product integrations across different form factors,” says spokesperson Dan Jackson. “These key investment partnerships allow us to bring more users to Android and Play by continuously improving the experience for all users and create new opportunities for all developers." Google would not name other developers that have gotten the company to agree to more generous rates. During the trial, we learned that Google offered Netflix a special discounted rate of just 10 percent, but Netflix refused. Netflix no longer offers an in-app purchase option on Android and no longer pays Google anything to distribute its app as a result.

Submission + - World's richest 1% emit as much carbon as bottom two-thirds: report (phys.org) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20, 2023 @09:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: For example, in France, the richest one percent emit as much carbon in one year as the poorest 50 percent in 10 years.

Excluding the carbon associated with his investments, Bernard Arnault, the billionaire founder of Louis Vuitton and richest man in France, has a footprint 1,270 times greater than that of the average Frenchman.

The key message, according to Lawson, was that policy actions must be progressive.

"We think that unless governments enact climate policy that is progressive, where you see the people who emit the most being asked to take the biggest sacrifices, then we're never going to get good politics around this," he said.

Comment Terrible start - no Terms, just enter phone number (Score 1) 54

by Basho on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @06:18PM (#63255093) Attached to: Instagram's Co-founders Are Mounting a Comeback

They aren't off to a very good start - the signup page is: a text box where they expect me to enter my phone number?

No terms? No explanation of what they are going to do with my phone number? No company details?

No way I'm trusting a system that gets that first step so terribly wrong.

Microsoft Will Not Sue Over Linux Patents 291

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @09:01AM from the what's-with-the-saber-rattling-then dept.

San Muel writes "In an official statement, Microsoft has said it has no immediate plans to sue after alleging patent infringements by open-source vendors for the time being. The company goes on to say that, essentially, it could have done that any time in the last three years if it wanted to. So what's the purpose of these bold announcements? '[John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead] added that while Microsoft may not have plans to sue, it could be using the threat of litigation to try to encourage corporate customers to move to those open-source product vendors with whom it had signed licensing agreements, such as Novell. "Microsoft has spent time and money accumulating patents. Maybe it has started using that armory to move corporate customers to open-source software that Microsoft approves of."'"

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