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Comment Slashdot Reader's Reading Comprehension FAILED (Score 1) 278

I love all the comments about 25.3 hours on standardized testing is no big deal. Y'all clearly failed reading comprehension or are letting your political biases blind you. The article clearly says those 25.3 hours are spent TAKING the 112 tests. Here's the relevant paragraph...

The heaviest testing load falls on the nation’s eighth-graders, who spend an average of 25.3 hours during the school year taking standardized tests, uniform exams required of all students in a particular grade or course of study. Testing affects even the youngest students, with the average pre-K class giving 4.1 standardized tests, the report found.

Those of us in or related to education know what a total clusterf*ck NCLB made of public education in America. If we don't restore our public education system, it will collapse and horrific for-profit companies will completely control education in this country and only the wealthiest will get decent educations.

Comment Re:PC dominates the gaming world (Score 2) 250

PC gaming is a larger market than all other platforms... COMBINED.

What are you drinking because I want some!

PC Gaming is expected to see worldwide revenue of $27 billion in 2017.

As you can see, PC Gaming and Console revenue worldwide is pretty comparable in 2015. Both pull in a bit under $25 billion.

According to Gartner, the Gaming industry was projected to be $111 billion in 2015.

So, if Gartner's projection was roughly right, and PC Gaming & Console Gaming's worldwide revenues are about $25 billion each, who is grabbing the remaining $61 billion? Well, according to Digital-Capital, a game investment bank, the future is mobile gaming.

Comment Completely unsurprising (Score 5, Insightful) 250

Us techies always think it's about power or performance, but mobility is a transformative feature. Many people prioritize it over nearly every customer experience feature we can offer in products today. It's largely why Apple came to dominate smartphones. They offered the world's most mobile handheld computer first.

If I were Microsoft or Sony, I would be very worried. Most of my gaming time used to be on PC games. Then I progressed to consoles and now nearly all of my gaming time is on my iPad or iPhone with minimal laptop time for games not on iOS. Smart gaming companies are already pivoting into mobile gaming where the majority of the money is in the gaming industry.

Comment Re:What Happened? (Score 2) 127

Android isn't actually profitable. At least, if you're talking about the smartphone segment, Apple takes 93% of all profits. Samsung only takes roughly 9%. Do you know why those numbers don't add up to 100%? Simple: other smartphone vendors make nothing or lose money on their devices.

The critical and classic mistake so many Android fanboys make: they think market share matters. Business is about money and profit. Right now, virtually the entire smartphone business worldwide, belongs to Apple because they earn the overwhelming majority of the profit.

Source: http://bgr.com/2015/02/09/appl...

Comment The number of naive posts in this article is sad. (Score 1) 485

So many people just buy the BS rhetoric: "Greece spent too much." It seems like so few bother to study the issues or actually look at multiple examples around the globe. Greece collapsed like others before it: for the benefit of big banks & their profits. I'm not going to bother explaining the whole situation, I doubt many would even bother to read it if I did.

For those few who are curious, here's a decent starting place and this one too.

Comment Re:tfa is long and rambling. (Score 1) 204

Yes, exercise, nutrition and environment are huge factors in the development of many diseases. But, look at the profits. Follow the money and you'll see how many major corporations have zero interest in actually eliminating many diseases because it would significantly reduce profits. They make money on being "safe enough" when they drill for oil, farm plants & animals, etc. They make money on the front end with all the "food & drink" products and services they sell. They make money during all the diagnostic processes used to identify a person's symptoms and they make money on the treatments they sell to manage the symptoms.

Comment Re:Google the All-Knowing (Score 1) 110

Google already knows everything its customers share with it in all of its services. The trick is mining it and analyzing it for the most benefit. They're the largest advertising-funded company on Earth and their plan has been to maximize the value of the data assets they own, that's the primary driver behind Android for them: the massive amount of data they get on users and the corresponding screen time and space they have for targeted advertising.

Comment Re:Jobs is admired because greed (Score 1) 266

This!!!!!!!!!!

What everyone on Slashdot who hates Jobs forgets, is how critical he was in one of the most massive transformations in technology of the past forty years: It's about the user stupid! Prior to his near manic obsession with his "perfect experiences," most technology companies, run by engineers, focused on the cool technology. Jobs helped to make technology a tool for the masses. Now, in a post-Jobs world and thanks to very smart people at companies like IDEO, which exists in large part because of Apple's impact, some tech companies focus on customer experiences.

Regardless of your feelings about Jobs, our world would be a VERY different place if "human centric" and "customer experience" concepts didn't exist or were introduced later by other people. There was no one in tech at the time who, like Jobs, understood how to sell and how to push people to care about customer's wants and needs. That's why Apple is one of the largest and most successful companies in American history.

Comment Bias is part of the human condition (Score 1) 27

Technology is neutral and amoral.

That opening sentence clearly reveals the bias of the author. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical applications. By definition, those are not neutral or amoral because that application is driven by whoever wants to create the practical application. Further, multiple studies have revealed how biased scientific research can be since humans by nature have biases that we often don't even realize we believe until we're confronted with overwhelming evidence. While this book sounds like it's worth reading, please don't fall into the trap of believing technology is somehow inherently neutral. It's a directed process. The beliefs and morals of those doing the directing invariably influence the technology.

Some links to research into bias in science:

Comment Identity Fraud is the issue! (Score 2) 269

This article completely misrepresents the issue, which is identity fraud. Yes, I know it's easy to hate on Apple, but if you're a thoughtful individual, read this story at Forbes for a better explanation of the issue. ApplePay isn't at fault here. Banks and their lax verification practices are when coupled with how easy it is to steal identity data.

Comment Re:Tim Cook, Just buy Telsa (Score 3, Interesting) 138

Good lord no!

Tesla is still sexy even though their latest financials look rough. If Mr. Cook truly wanted to by them, it wouldn't be for $35B. Acquisitions like Tesla would demand a premium, bare minimum of 50% I'd guess. That's about $53B as a bare minimum. That would be very hard to justify, when given Apple's scale and expertise, they could likely build their own automotive group for $10-15B.

Also keep in mind that Tim Cook is brilliant too. There probably isn't a better tech CEO anywhere when it comes to hardball negotiations, logistical strategy and planning. I doubt Mr. Cook or Mr. Musk would work well together. Now, as strategic partners? Maybe. But, that requires a lot of discussions, which we know they've been doing. The automotive space is very mature and definitely long overdue for a radical shake up. Apple and Tesla partnered up could be very compelling. Time will tell if something comes of it.

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