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Comment Re:Use more bandwidth to enjoy media? (Score 1) 247

by Vlobulle (#35790624) Attached to: The End of Content Ownership

100 Mbps connections are becoming pretty cheap is some places. 30 euros a month here, no usage cap.

So yes, streaming a BD is definitely something I would consider streaming (in any direction) if there was a point to it. Because obviously it's easier to stream a rip of nearly equivalent quality (not a 720p one, please).

What I'd gladly have would be a streaming friendly P2P network. It always feels a waste to download a movie at 10 time its bitrate, yet not being able to watch it because of that tiny 128kb chunk missing in the first mb... And I'm pretty sure it's the same for whoever is benefiting of my upload.

Comment Ever walk into a library and smell.... (Score 1) 254

by BruceSchaller (#30493622) Attached to: Google Found Guilty of French Copyright Infringement
That sweet sickly smell in libraries... That is the smell of the collection rotting.

That is the waste of human knowledge with time. Failing to secure the knowledge of the world's past is criminal. Digital copies of all published work should exist, in a single location, for the preservation of knowledge.

I agree that rightholders should be able to control access to their content. Perhaps a payment system can be worked into the equation. The cost should be considerably less than print works, simply because digital data doesn't require printing, etc, etc... Orphan works should, however, remain part of our history, and should be accessible. Furthermore, any work in the public domain should be available.

So far, I've bought three books for which excerpts were available. They were scientific works, which I would not have considered buying unless I had seen a preview, to ensure they had the relevant data I needed. I then donated those books to my library.

Win, win, win, for everybody. Vive le googlebooks...
Communications

EA Forum Ban Will Now Mean EA Game Ban 549

Posted by timothy from the being-nice-is-actually-an-option dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A post on the EA Support Forums from APOC, online community manager for Electronic Arts, outlines a new policy for their new forums, saying users who earn a ban based on their behavior in the forums will be locked out of all of the EA games tied to that account: 'Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned. Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since it's all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature. All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but it's what we have to do.'" Update: 10/31 12:36 GMT by T : Not so! Pandanapper writes "After a flood of complaints the EA community moderator APOC corrects his statement about how banning you from the forums bans you from your game access as well:"That said, the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad."
Microsoft

Silverlight 2.0 Released 164

Posted by kdawson from the opposite-of-sun dept.
rfernand79 writes "Via Scott Guthrie's Blog for Microsoft, we find out that Silverlight 2.0 has been released. The blog post notes some interesting statistics, including the magnitude of video streamed during the Olympics and the Democratic National Convention (both using Silverlight). 'Hello Worlds' and educational links are included in the post."
Software

Do Software Versions Really Matter? 693

Posted by timothy from the blame-patrick-volkerding dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I work for a rather large software company and I am currently working on a completely new product. So new in fact, that the official name has not even been decided. I had assumed that the version number for this product would be 1.0 (at most). However recently I learned that the Product Managers want to release this NEW product with a version number somewhere between 5.0 and 8.0 because 'there is a stigma about buying 1.0 products. People assume it's no good.' This latest Dilbert-esque comedy routine nearly sent me over the edge. So to gauge my sanity against that of the upper Product Management, I ask the community: Do version numbers play a role in software decisions, or have product version numbers lost all credibility and meaning? Would the community feel comfortable buying version '6.3' software (and paying tens of thousands of dollars for it) knowing that it was the first release of the product?"
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail 202

Posted by samzenpus from the well-here's-your-problem dept.
Slashdot has one of the best discussion systems there is. It's grown and adapted over the years to meet various challenges and suit the needs of our users. A lot of time and effort has gone into it and we are always open to user input to help make it better. Some of our best ideas start as user suggestions and we appreciate the feedback. Of course they can't all be gems and sometimes the suggestions we get are unworkable or just bizarre. Here are a few of my favorite unhelpful, helpful suggestions.
It's funny. Laugh.

XKCD Improving the Internet ... Yet Again 204

Posted by CmdrTaco from the oh-oh-monroe dept.
netbuzz writes "Comic creator Randall Monroe suggested in a recent xkcd strip that YouTube comments would be better — or, more precisely, less idiotic — if only those posting them were forced to hear their words read aloud first. Well, YouTube has gone and made this "audio preview" a reality, albeit an optional one. And, it's not the first time that xkcd has contributed to the betterment of the Internet, as those who are familiar with last year's "Internet census" and its use of a Hilbert curve may remember."
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail 251

Posted by samzenpus from the sell-outs dept.
There is no shortage of comments about us selling out or running advertisements as stories. As you might expect there is no shortage of mail with the same theme. What I enjoy most about them is all the different corporate entities and sometimes political parties, that we are supposedly working for. If even half of them were true, I would have a stack of W-2s as long as my arm every year for the tax man. The truth of the matter is, nobody here sits in their Microsoft smart chair, talking on their minion iPhone, while playing in the Google money pool. (If someone knows how to get into the Google money pool, please send me a mail.) Conspiracy theories have been around as long as man, so I guess it should come as no surprise that Slashdot has a few of it's own. Read below to find out who is pulling our strings.

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