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Comment app/Market place side step? (Score 1) 279

Though what i have always wondered about the age of "in app purchases" is how much of them go through the "store/market" and not the app provider's billing crew. Seems like it would give the opportunity for any app maker that uses their own billing system to remove barriers that would require authentication or even notification of purchases. Think if your information is given in app to "unlock the full version" instead of the "app/market" now the EULA for adding that information may bring the ability for the application to bill as you go. Lets look at an example I buy the hot bird flinger game everyone seems obsessed about and supply in app my information to buy new explosive birds. Awesome now i can explode the feathery smirking bastards. Sweet boom! save the day. What the ending to the game wasn't the end? Lets grab that new level by clicking "continue exploding birds in the sun" a new 20$ addon with more bird types! Awesome! No where does it say the content is DLC and will be charged. it just loads and continues... and now you have a seamless operation of pumping sales and technically having already informed the customer at the initial purchase somewhere in the EULA that some continuations of levels could be dlc. Bam there you have something that could be considered... well i'm not sure malicious is the right word but i'm sure slashdot has some better suggestions...but that is how i've been noticing all of these "in app purchases" with zenonia, and many other games. Even after purchasing the "full version" there are a ton of ad-dons and "bonuses" that seem to just crop out of nowhere...i initially though it was just an unfinished game or the devs just "forgot" to put that content in there but it could be more.

Comment Re:So who owns it? (Score 1) 142

by Fentekreel (#37081152) Attached to: Canadian Judge Rules Domain Names Are Property
So if that is true, for not being able to seize the domain, would that make the doj and interpol unable to shut down the pirate bay or others? The sites couldn't be seized, and in that effect if they are property, are the the property of the entity that gives them, the land the entity resides in, or the property owner (considering it is not the distributing entity) ?
Businesses

Submission + - This Tech Bubble is Different 3

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Tech bubbles happen, writes BW's Ashlee Vance, but we usually gain from the innovation left behind. But this one — driven by social networking — could leave us empty-handed. Math whiz Jeff Hammerbacher provides a good case study. One year out of Harvard, 23-year-old Hammerbacher arrived at Facebook, was given the lofty title of research scientist and put to work analyzing how people used the social networking service. Over the next two years, Hammerbacher assembled a team that built a new class of analytical technology, one which translated insights into people's relationships, tendencies, and desires into precision advertising and higher sales. But something gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google, and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,' he says. 'That sucks.' Silicon Valley historian Christophe Lecuyer agrees: 'It's clear that the new industry that is building around Internet advertising and these other services doesn't create that many jobs. The loss of manufacturing and design knowhow is truly worrisome.'
Input Devices

Microsoft Kinect With World of Warcraft 80

Posted by Soulskill from the get-some-exercise-while-you-raid dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming."
AT&T

AT&T To Allow Xbox 360 As U-verse Set-Top Box 62

Posted by Soulskill from the convergent-evolution dept.
suraj.sun sends this quote from Engadget about U-verse subscribers soon gaining the ability to use an Xbox 360 as a set-top box: "A so-called Wired Release will roll out to AT&T U-verse customers next Sunday, and it'll bring the long awaited feature with it (though you'll have to wait until November 7th for that particular aspect). This means an AT&T U-verse customer's Xbox 360 will have a Dashboard app, and when launched, it'll let it function exactly like any other U-verse set-top. The only major catch is that it can't be the only set-top — you'll need at least one DVR at another TV in the house to enjoy one of the four HD streams that could be funneled into your home."
Botnet

Comcast Warns Customers Suspected of Bot Infection 196

Posted by Soulskill from the wonder-what-this-does-when-it-detects-torrents dept.
eldavojohn writes "Comcast is pushing a new program nationwide that warns customers if they might have a bot infection. It puts a semitransparent overlay on the top of the website you're viewing, warning you that you may have a bot installed if the provider detects botnet traffic from your residence. Of course, if you have multiple machines running behind a router or modem then you're going to have a difficult time pinning down which machine might have the infection."
Science

Researchers Discover That Sand Behaves Like Water 192

Posted by Soulskill from the not-in-your-stomach dept.
Xeger writes "University of Chicago researchers have found that streams of sand can behave in a similar manner to liquids, forming water-like droplets when poured from a funnel. To obtain these results, they dropped their expensive high-speed camera from a height of several meters and observed the sand forming into droplets — something that shouldn't happen without surface tension. These findings suggest that conventional engineering wisdom about sand, dirt and other grainy materials needs to be rethought, and that it might be possible to apply fluid dynamics to some solids problems."

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