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Comment Re:just friends, no facebook, no cloud (Score 5, Insightful) 262

Or does Unite provide a way to find the content that other people have put up? I don't understand what market Opera is trying to target here. Anyone with the where-with-all to setup their own web server and the associated DNS host records and the like has probably already done so. The OP bashes on Facebook, but Facebook (and Myspace and whatever the other sites are) offers the person an ability to tell someone else, "Look me up on Facebook. My name is..." Does Unite offer the equivalent capability?

I think the idea is more to host your own stuff, such as your pictures or some other small app like the Fridge notes without having to muck around with DNS and servers and pasting the link to your friends over IM. That way you can tell your friends to leave you at note at an URL like http://macbook-win7.jfim.operaunite.com/fridge/ instead of having to sign up for yet another service for only one simple app.

It seems to me that the large majority of what people want to share online isn't their own content, but content that they come across. Facebook is the perfect example. It seems to be filled with links to YouTube, links to other webpages, and blogs and whatever else any particular person finds interesting and wants to share with their friends. Very rarely do the large majority of people want to share content that is uniquely theirs. The one big exception that I can think of is music. Myspace seems to have the lion's share of that market. And on the subject of music, who wants to eat the bandwidth costs of serving up music from their own computer when a site like Myspace, or YouTube or listentomymusicyo.com will do it for you, for free?

I don't think the purpose is to replace any serious hosting proposal, it's more of a share with a handful of friends thing.

Comment Re:just friends, no facebook, no cloud (Score 4, Interesting) 262

So what I'm basically saying is that *I* should be the one controlling my content, not some other site or cloud service. Unite makes that easy for people.

On the other hand, it means that content on Unite is ephemeral and subject to the vagaries of hosting everything on one's computer(such as the information only being available while the PC is powered on and Opera is running, not 24x7). Also, does the app data stored on a computer running Unite survive a reinstall, which tends to happen often on Windows machines?

Comment Re:Perhaps .. (Score 5, Informative) 289

.. at the moment the difference in sales is due to market segmentation based on who is buying each type of phone?

If you are a trendy game player you are buying the iPhone and games for it, but if you are an Android user you care less for games and more about being "free" ??

Actually, there are two big differences between the Android market and the iPhone app store, business wise: there are less Android phones out there than iPhones and iPod Touches and the Android Market does not have paid apps available in every country, including Canada, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, South Korea, China, Brazil, India and Russia.

Comment Re:First pirate! (Score 2, Insightful) 762

As a general rule, we don't pay for content. Speaking as a society. We pay for the wrapper that the content is encased in, or we pay to reward the creator...but to pretty much all of us, we're not paying for the content, at least not directly. People don't hear a song on the radio, then go to the bands website to toss a quarter at them, they don't get a lend of a friends book/DVD then send them a check for 19.99. We have no problem with renting a movie, or getting a book out of the library. Even though we are gaining the experience of the content, the only "cost" we perceive with it to be the cost of the packaging itself. Why is this? I suspect that to most of us, content is culture. Or to be more precise, culture is content. And culture is something that we feel entitled to (and to be honest, in terms of our society we probably are. Our culture defines a large part of who and what we are). The efforts of big media to deny this, are doomed to fail. Not that I'm supporting this sort of piracy. Far from it. 2 bucks for even a small game is actually a VERY reasonable price. I like paying for content that I want to enjoy on a long-term basis. But that said, I get books from the library. I rent movies and games. The problem with such a download is that it is probably offering very little packaging value for the cost. It's a big danger of DDL software. You need to add value to the packaging, I.E Steam with its auto-update/download system, friends lists, etc. or the perceived value will be effectively zero.

Comment Re:Hmmm. (Score 1) 389

For violent criminals I have none and would prefer that they all be locked in solitary and dosed heavily with Prozac for the duration of their stay. Allowing them to form ANY sort of social group or interact with their buddies outside is the reason we have gangs, gang culture and all the crap that goes with it. If we can't decide to kill them, we should at least neutralize them.

I'm sure they'll be very well adjusted to interact normally with society when they come out of prison too! Or perhaps we should treat them as human beings and try to help them become more productive members of society.

Comment Re:On open source (Score 1) 275

The difference between doctors and lawyers vs coders is portability. Computer code is not strongly tied to geography (duh ... outsourcing can work). Where's it's hard for your doc to do a physical exam if he's across the country. The point is, as a coder you compete on a bigger playing field and that bigger playing field places more downward pressure on fiscal rewards.

While it is true that computer code isn't tied to a particular geographical area, outsourcing comes with its share of problems which usually don't make it a very interesting proposition, at least for short term projects. For example, this article on CIO illustrates some of the costs which are frequently overlooked when outsourcing.

I do believe, however, that the perception that "it's cheaper to do it overseas" does put a downwards pressure on wages.

Comment Re:EEE (Score 1) 152

If they start adding Google-specific stuff to their Javascript engine (say, a fast and easy API to access Google Apps implemented directly in the engine) and encouraging people to use it, then I'll start to be suspicious. Because that's sneaking into the "Extend" part, and the next phase would be to drop support in other browsers for their plugin and only offer the "special sauce 2.0" in Chrome.

But, at the moment, they are making a standards-compliant Javascript engine and offering versions of it for various web browsers, yes?

Crucially, they don't have a development toolkit that builds Javascript that can ONLY be run on "Frame", right? If you see that, then it's the First Sign. Then, and only then, would it be time to start stockpiling food and ammo to survive the potential upcoming Javascript Apocalypse. :)

You mean like Gears?

Comment Re:Sounds about right (Score 1) 649

The answer is in music, hell no, in movies mostly no.

I haven't met anybody who bought a CD with the intention of reselling it. Most people who buy music collect it, so they want to keep it.

Movies are a bit different. I think that the big movie chains might overbuy on rentals in order to get people into the store, and with the knowledge that they can resell their extras down the road. So this might encourage slightly larger sales, but in terms of individuals, again, I don't think that the second hand market convinces anybody to actually buy an original copy.

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