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Comment Reserved seating (Score 2) 213

by reagan9000 (#54061935) Attached to: Movie Theaters Haven't Innovated Beyond Popcorn, Says Netflix CEO

Not true. In my city in the US, theaters have introduced at-seat table service and reserved seating. The former is nice to have but the latter is transformative. No queues, no racing for seats, no getting stuck in lousy seats or separated from your friends. Contrary to Netflix's self-interest, there are still films that benefit from being viewed in a movie theater, and reserved seating completely removes any tension or unknowns from the experience.
Security

Submission + - HTTP Strict Transport Security becomes Internet standard (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "A Web security policy mechanism that promises to make HTTPS-enabled websites more resilient to various types of attacks has been approved and released as an Internet standard — but despite support from some high-profile websites, adoption elsewhere is still low. HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) allows websites to declare themselves accessible only over HTTPS (HTTP Secure) and was designed to prevent hackers from forcing user connections over HTTP or abusing mistakes in HTTPS implementations to compromise content integrity."
Google

Submission + - DuckDuckGo - Is Google Playing Fair? (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Penurious Penguin
Penurious Penguin writes: Privacy-oriented search-engine and Google-rival, DuckDuckGo, is contending possible anti-competitiveness on the part of Google. MIT graduate and founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg, cites several examples; his company's disadvantages in the Android mobile OS; and browsers, which in Firefox requires only a single step to set DuckDuckGo as the default search — while doing so in Chrome requires five. Weinberg also questions the domain duck.com, which he offered to purchase before it was acquired by Google. His offer was declined and duck.com now directs to Google's homepage.

Weinberg isn't the first to make similar claims; there was scroogle.org, which earlier this year, permanently shut down after repeated compatibility issues with Google's algorithms. Whatever the legitimacy of these claims, there certainly seems a growing market for people interested in privacy and objective searches — avoiding profiled search-results, aka "filter bubbles".
Earth

Submission + - The World Falls Back in Love with Coal

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Richard Anderson reports on BBC that despite stringent carbon emissions targets in Europe designed to slow global warming and massive investment in renewable energy in China, coal, the dirtiest and most polluting of all the major fossil fuels, is making a comeback with production up 6% on 2010, twice the rate of increase of gas and more than four times that of oil. “What is going on is a shift from nuclear power to coal and from gas to coal; this is the worst thing you could do, from a climate change perspective,” says Dieter Helm. Why the shift back to coal? Because coal is cheap, and getting cheaper all the time. Due to the economic downturn, there has been a "collapse in industrial demand for energy," leading to an oversupply of coal, pushing the price down. Meanwhile China leads the world in coal production and consumption. It mines over 3 billion tons of coal a year, three times more than the next-biggest producer (America), and last year overtook Japan to become the world's biggest coal importer. Although China is spending massive amounts of money on a renewable energy but even this will not be able to keep up with demand, meaning fossil fuels will continue to make up the majority of the overall energy mix for the foreseeable future and when it comes to fossil fuels, coal is the easy winner — it is generally easier and cheaper to mine, and easier to transport using existing infrastructure such as roads and rail, than oil or gas. While China is currently running half a dozen carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects — which aim to capture CO2 emissions from coal plants and bury it underground — the technology is nowhere near commercial viability. "Renewed urgency in developing CCS globally, alongside greater strides in increasing renewable energy capacity, is desperately needed," writes Anderson, "but Europe's increasing reliance on coal without capturing emissions is undermining its status as a leader in clean energy, and therefore global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.""
Businesses

Submission + - Insurance industry could screen-out Psychopaths from Senior Management

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Dr. Clive Boddy believes that increasingly fluid corporate career paths have helped psychopaths conceal their disruptive workplace behavior and ascend to previously unattainable levels of authority. Boddy points out psychopaths are primarily attracted to money, status and power, currently found in unparalleled abundance in the global banking sector. As if to prove the point, many of the world's money traders self identify as the "masters of the universe." Solution? Screening with psychological tests. Who would pay for it? The insurance industry, since such bosses-from-hell leave behind vast wakes of psychological wreckage, with payouts to victims usually the result.

Comment Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs (Score 2) 264

by reagan9000 (#41277869) Attached to: NYC Taxi Commission Nixes Cab-Hailing Apps

In this case, this regulation is in response to previous misbehavior. NYC cabs used to accept so-called 'radio calls', where one could call a cab's central office to schedule a pickup. Cabbies would flip the 'radio call' flag on when they didn't want to pick up a minority, go to a distant destination, or charge more during rush hour. Cab companies are jumping at this app, since it gives them the ability to again discriminate against undesirable customers and inconvenient destinations.

The free market provides plenty of opportunities for cabbies to choose their customers. There are private car services and 'gypsy cabs' that customers can call or, presumably, 'hail' via an app. These companies can charge what they want and in many cases the cost is comparable to a yellow cab; in fact, private car services typically charge a fixed price that sometimes works out to be cheaper than a similar trip in a yellow cab.

Comment What do you want to do with it? (Score 1) 732

by reagan9000 (#40126053) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Shop For a Laptop?

Other than "it shouldn't get hot", your criteria doesn't make any sense. What do you want to do? Play certain games, word process, read e-mail? The model we recommend depends on what you want to do with it. Specifying the CPU doesn't make any sense without knowing what you want to do with it. Who decides what computer to buy based on hardware specifications these days??
Government

The Trial of Terry Childs Begins 502

Posted by kdawson from the there-but-for-luck-and-precedent-go-we-all dept.
snydeq writes "Opening arguments were heard today in the trial against IT admin Terry Childs, who was arrested 18 months ago for refusing to hand over passwords to the San Francisco city network. InfoWorld's Paul Venezia, who has been following the case from the start, speculates that the 18-month wait is due to the fact that 'the DA has done no homework on the technical issues in play here and is instead more than willing to use the Frankenstein offense: It's different, so it must be killed.' On the other hand, the city — which has held Childs on $5 million bail despite having already dropped three of the four charges against him — may have finally figured out 'just how ridiculous the whole scenario is but is too far down the line to pull back the reins and is continuing with the prosecution just to save face,' Venezia writes. The trial is expected to last until mid-March. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, to whom Childs eventually gave the city's network passwords, will be included in the roster of those who will testify in the case — one that could put all admins in danger should Childs be found guilty of tampering."
Games

How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive? 478

Posted by Soulskill from the shortly-after-blizzard-conquers-the-earth dept.
GamesIndustry is running an interview with Theodore Bergquist, CEO of GamersGate, in which he forecasts the death of physical game distribution in favor of digital methods, perhaps in only a few years. He says, "Look at the music industry, look at 2006 when iTunes went from not being in the top six of sellers — in the same year in December it was top three, and the following year number one. I think digital distribution is absolutely the biggest threat [traditional retailers] can ever have." Rock, Paper, Shotgun spoke with Capcom's Christian Svensson, who insists that developing digital distribution is one of their top priorities, saying Capcom will already "probably do as much digital selling as retail in the current climate." How many of the games you acquire come on physical media these days? At what point will the ease of immediate downloads outweigh a manual and a box to stick on your shelf (if it doesn't already)?

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