15906010
submission
destinyland writes:
In the Central African Republic, broadband internet service costs 3891% of the average monthly income. "Put another way, a month’s broadband service costs more than three years’ average wages in the country," notes one technology blog, "compared with less than two hours’ earnings in Macau." A United Nations' technology group released the figures in a new report in advance of a September 19 summit on the digital divide in developing countries. ("We are trying to avoid a broadband divide,” said Dr. Hamadoun Toure, the secretary general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union.) Their agency noted that the rate for broadband penetration is below 1% in many poor countries, with monthly costs higher than the average monthly income. "By contrast," notes the BBC, "in the world's most developed economies, around 30% of people have access to broadband at a cost of less than 1% of their income." And the report also estimates that there are 5 billion cellphones in the world — though some people may own more than one.
15636632
submission
theodp writes:
Out of necessity, reports Slate, tech startups are changing the way workers are screened and hired. Take database technology startup RethinkDB, whose old-school recruiting effort — job boards, external recruiters — yielded hundreds of resumes, dozens of phone screens, and numerous four-hour meetings with viable candidates, but no one who fit their criteria. 'They [recruiters] can't tell the difference between the competent ones and the stars,' complained Y Combinator's Paul Graham. Instead, the RethinkDB founders turned to sites like Github.com and stackoverflow.com to pick up six people (they're still looking), a mix of full-timers and interns, both senior and junior. 'You can see the code being written and how technically accurate they are,' explained RethinkDB's Michael Glukhovsky.
14955356
submission
Kanel writes:
Kids that grew up with the internet are not the "digital natives" consultants have made us believe. They'r ok with the net but they don't care much about web 2.0 and find plenty of other things more important than the internet.
Consultants and book-writers, mostly old guys, have called for the education system to be re-modelled to suit this new generation, but they never conducted surveys to see if this "generation @" were anything like what they had envisioned. Turns out children who have known the net their whole life are not particularly skilled at it, nor do they live their life on-line.
14793102
submission
longacre writes:
Erik Sofge trudges through NASA’s latest free video game, which he finds tedious, uninspiring and misguiding: "Moonbase Alpha is a demo, of sorts, for NASA's more ambitious upcoming game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, which will feature more destinations, and hopefully less welding. The European Space Agency is developing a similar game, set on the Jovian Moon, Europa. But Moonbase Alpha proves that as a recruiting campaign, or even as an educational tool, the astronaut simulation game is a lost cause. Unless NASA plans to veer into science fiction and populate its virtual moons, asteroids and planets with hostile species, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to suffer through another minute of pretending to weld power cables back into place, while thousands of miles away, the most advanced explorers ever built are hurtling toward asteroids and dwarf planets and into the heart of the sun. Even if it was possible to build an astronaut game that's both exciting and realistic, why bother? It will be more than a decade before humans even attempt another trip outside of Earth's orbit. If NASA wants to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers, its games should focus on the real winners of the space race—the robots."
14684088
submission
spidweb writes:
One Indie developer has written a nuanced article on how software piracy affects him, approaching the issue from the opposite direction. He lists the ways in which the widespread piracy of PC games helps him. From the article, "You don't get everything you want in this world. You can get piles of cool stuff for free. Or you can be an honorable, ethical being. You don't get both. Most of the time. Because, when I'm being honest with myself, which happens sometimes, I have to admit that piracy is not an absolute evil. That I do get things out of it, even when I'm the one being ripped off." The article also tries to find a middle ground between the Piracy-Is-Always-Bad and Piracy-Is-Just-Fine sides of the argument that might enable single-player PC games to continue to exist.
14680808
submission
scurtis writes:
An insider has told eWEEK Europe that some Internet service providers in the UK only sign-up customers who can be guaranteed a good service, in order to improve average speed claims. The revelation comes after the regulator Ofcom criticised broadband service providers earlier this week for not delivering the speeds promised to consumers. Meanwhile, TalkTalk’s chairman Charles Dunstone has argued that Ofcom could be doing a lot more to push BT — as the operator of the copper infrastructure — to improve maintenance of the lines and its communication with fellow service providers.
