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Comment Re:Let the users pay the bandwidth bills (Score 1) 203

I can't speak for the asian countries since I've never been there, but according to http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/th.htm, the situation in countries like Thailand is way better than what you describe (I didn't take the time to check the other countries).
You'll find poor people with really bad jobs, that's true, but it's not the norm as most of the foreigners seem to think.

To speak from my local experience: "Broadband" Internet Penetration (broadband by local standards is 128Kbps+) in Medellin was near 18% in 2008 (http://medellin.gov.co), not great but definitely nowhere near your numbers. The situation in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico is way better, so I don't know what you use to create your estimates.

Comment Re:high bandwidth (Score 2, Insightful) 203

Have you considered serving relevant ads to your users in those regions?
The ads I see for all networks (including AdSense) in Latin America are: "Find sexy colombians", "Get a degree at the University of Phoenix, Arizona" and "Green Card Lottery, click here!". Maybe that has something to do with the companies not generating enough revenue.

Comment Re:Let the users pay the bandwidth bills (Score 2, Informative) 203

I'd love to know which third world countries you've visited, saying that 99.9% of the population connects through internet cafes just shows some ignorance from your part. Maybe we have to divide third world between "really undeveloped countries" (Western Africa) and "undeveloped countries" (Latin America, Middle East).

Federico, a guy from Colombia (LA) with a standard 3Mb connection who doesn't work in a sweatshop making Nike shoes.

Comment Re:"Java never mattered"? (Score 2, Informative) 766

No. JavaScript is a scripting language, whereas Java is a full-fledged programming language.
Javascript is also a full fledged programming language, whatever that means, you can run it inside a JVM (Mozilla Rhino) or using any other engine like Spidermonkey, which means you can pretty much do the same things you can do in Java.

I guess I should know by now to expect most people to not know what they're talking about when they post.
Funny, eh? :)

Feed NSA Spy Documents Stay Sealed (wired.com)

A federal judge rejects a bid by Wired News and other media outlets to unseal whistle-blower papers in a lawsuit over surveillance of Americans. In 27B Stroke 6.


Education

Submission + - Should sites like Wikipedia be blocked at schools?

Londovir writes: Recently our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of reference for schools. My question is: should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine validity of information? What's your opinion?
Microsoft

Submission + - Ballmer repeats threats against Linux

daria42 writes: Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property. In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last week, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world."

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