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Comment Re:Netflix doesn't care (Score 2) 172

AFAIK being a Canadian subscriber, the US version of Netflix I would have the lions share of content. If so then they would be able to see what content was viewed by users who have registered information from other locations. They could use this to make offerings and tailor their service to other markets.

So really it's not a loss for either the content owners or Netflix, they get to see a preview of demand and negotiate accordingly to bring that to the location that favors them the most.
Privacy

Lessig: Future Tech Will Help Privacy Catch Up With the Internet (wsj.com) 35

An anonymous reader writes: In a new interview, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig shared his view of the future of privacy in this age of data breaches. "The average cost per user of a data breach is now $240 — think of businesses looking at that cost and saying, 'What if I can find a way to not hold that data, but the value of that data?' When we do that, our concept of privacy will be different. Our concept so far is that we should give people control over copies of data. In the future, we will not worry about copies of data, but using data." Lessig sees new technological advancements as the key to shoring up our privacy, which has been eroding since the dawn of the internet. Being able to act on data without holding it is key: "If I ping a service, and it tells me someone is over 18, I don't need to hold that fact. The level of security I have to apply [is not] the same [that] would be required if I was holding all of this data on my servers. This will radically change the burden of security that people will have."

Comment Re:Classic FUD (Score 1) 373

Ever heard of people walking through parking lots "feeling" the handles one at a time? It effects everyone. If someone was able to take these exploits and run it from their backpack they would just work faster and bring more people. Walk around until the lights blink, open and go, quick money really.

Comment Re:Seriously ? (Score 1) 123

Why is it that "Putting it online" is a thing? Putting something important like this over the Internet is really just negligence. The kind of data these companies need would sit beautifully over a dial up connection over POTS(not VOIP of course). This would save a large amount of troubleshooting when it goes down and avoids the Internet all together.

So actually sending the data via telephone lines save labor, lowers costs and will cause zero problems (if of course postulating over the internet could confirm this Zero problem hypothesis).

Comment Re: mmm 4k content (Score 1) 100

Sounds like you're talking about vector drawings like Inkscape and the svg format. PNG is mostly used in raster images which include a list of hex values. To minimise the complexity of the image (as mentioned above) the programming will first simplify the image, sometimes by simply averaging similar values over an area of the image then gets fed to a compression routine that substitutes those averaged values with symbols(I.e ten 'x's become "x10" or something similar). SVG and vector images have the same hex, describing line segments, curves and colours.

Comment Re:Smaller Is Better (Score 1) 99

Those aircraft only look to be 100Lbs max. A jet coming at a wall of these things would push those drones around like the toys they are. Maybe out of sheer luck you could bring a jet down. If each had some sort of explosive that would be triggered by the jets wake it would be more likely but clouding the sky and hoping for the best doesn't really seem that likely.

Comment Re:Great! (Score 4, Insightful) 79

This is merely a waltz for the public. China knows what they are getting into with Alibaba, the ability to take what they have lying around and sidestep having to find someone else sell it for them. Right now China basically manufactures for the world but they sell at small margins so that resellers / contractors sell the goods at a markup to the rest of the world. Alibaba gives a chance to sell directly to the consumer. The Chinese government wants Alibaba to seem strong willed so "The West" builds confidence in buying their stuff. In reality most of what Alibaba sells is leftovers and over runs.

I personally don't think China would leave something this public to chance, most of Alibaba's backers are the who's who of Chinese nationals and Chinese mainland (which the govt controls) makes everything Alibaba sells. It's hard to picture Alibaba being as rogue as they put on.

Comment Re:Translation: (Score 1) 158

It makes sense for Microsoft to bide their time until they can just run everything on an X86. Why when Intel is only a couple of years away from making a (barely) suitable tablet processor would they commit to 2 architectures. Microsoft knows the tablet/portable arena is the way forward and the PC is just the bread that sops up the gravy, if they wait it out a bit they will have 1 install base rather than ARM vs X86.

Comment Re: Sounds like a planned PR stunt to me. (Score 1) 622

I think the interesting thing is if there are ever any laws passed that deal with personal data cloud providers would go out of business out of fear of being hacked. We've sold ourselves so cheap if "personal data" ever becomes a thing, most of the internet would collapse. Well maybe not Wikipedia. But the rest of it for sure.

Comment Re:They may still hire you (Score 2) 580

Exactly. It's a little convenient that the FBI is spilling the beans when they are about to interview a bunch of interns. They just want to spread the word and turn up the heat on these guys before the big day. I bet a choice few will be sweating buckets behind the desk when the day comes. The chances of them being able to staff more than a hand full of people that have never downloaded a MP3 in the Napster / Bittorrent era is just not going to happen. It's also an advantage of staffing people that know the culture.

But I digress.... Good luck guys!

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