Yellowjacket Greenap - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Sad but inevitable (Score 1) 397

by Yellowjacket Greenap on Friday November 30, 2007 @02:00PM (#21535111) Attached to: Game Journalist May Have Been Fired Over Negative Review

It is ironic to complain about advertisers having leverage over GameSpot while at the same time complaining that too much content is locked up for subscribers only. Both criticisms are fair, and they show the impossible position that GameSpot is in. If they didn't have special content for subscribers, there would be no reason to subscribe, and then they'd be even deeper into their advertisers' pockets. It could be that professional games reviews aren't a viable business model. Too many amateurs doing it for free to have a viable subscription model, and too many moral hazards in the advertising model.

Apple Hides Account Info in DRM-Free Music 669

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @05:17PM from the tabs-keeping-tabs dept.

Alvis Dark writes "Apple launched iTunes Plus earlier today, the fruit of its agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music. What they didn't say is that all DRM-free tracks have the user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them. Is this to discourage people from throwing the tracks up on their favorite P2P platform? 'It would be trivial for iTunes to report back to Apple, indicating that "Joe User" has M4As on this hard drive belonging to "Jane Userette," or even "two other users." This is not to say that Apple is going to get into the copyright enforcement business. What Apple and indeed the record labels want to watch closely is, will one user buy music for his five close friends?'"

It's Not News, It's Fark 229

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @02:27PM from the all-spin-zone dept.

"In It's Not News, It's Fark, Drew Curtis takes a critical look at the mass media. He promises to examine why the news is often not news at all, to look at the fear mongering, the cyclical nature of the news and the fluff that is passed off as important. Drew breaks down these not-news stories into 8 separate categories and gives examples, along with user comments from Fark. Unfortunately, 230 of the books 278 pages (including the index) are used for these examples. What time is spent talking about the media and the advertisement model it is built on, is insightful a bit cynical and very brief." Read below for the rest of the review.

USPTO Examiner Rejected 1-Click Claims As "Obvious" 195

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @02:15AM from the well-duh dept.

theodp writes "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known,' Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced.' The Judiciary Committee hearing this testimony included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."

Hybrid Cars to Get New Mileage Ratings 781

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:22PM from the creative-math dept.

Skidge writes "Wired is running a piece showing the drastically reduced mileage ratings for hybrids after the upcoming changes in gas mileage calculations by the EPA. While the cars themselves aren't changing, plugging these new numbers in to the equation makes a hybrid much less cost effective: "The two top-selling hybrid vehicles, the Prius and Honda's Civic Hybrid, will lose 12 and 11 miles per gallon respectively from their city driving estimates." The new values come from more realistic testing; the old, over-inflated ratings were higher in part because the cars idled a lot, allowing the hybrids to completely turn off their engines. The new ratings should be more in line with what hybrid drivers are actually seeing."

Slashdot Top Deals