Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 10:20 UTC
You know all that talk about net neutrality in the US? How for instance Verizon and Google want net neutrality to apply only to something they call the 'wired' internet, which is apparently somehow different from the 'mobile' internet? Well, while you Americans are only talking about it, us Dutch are once again way ahead of the curve: the largest of the three main carriers has announced its intention to start charging extra for services like VoIP, instant messaging, Facebook, and so on, with the other two carriers contemplating similar moves. The dark future of the web, right here in my glorified swamp.
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RE[2]: Purely a matter of money
by avgalen on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 14:51
in reply to "RE: Purely a matter of money"
Member since:2010-09-23
Charging for bandwidth (per second) instead of used bandwidth (per month) is probably not a viable option for KPN. The problem is that with 1 Mbit per second you can still cause about 300 Gigabyte of bandwidth per month.
Charging for bandwidth (per month) is actually a very good motivator for KPN NOT to block "the next killer-app" because it would earn them money. Also, the Opta (supervising organisation) seems to allow charging extra for access to applications. It is extremely unlikely that they would allow blocking applications entirely
I am not happy at all with this change by KPN, but I think we will have to realise that the current situation (unlimited internet for 10 Euro) is simply not sustainable. If it DOES turn out to be sustainable for other companies KPN will see lots of people switch to those companies and not make any money anymore (free market FTW). Of course, that requires a healthy, competitive market and this might not be the case (oligopoly with a very high limit for new companies to enter the market). The end result would then be that consumers will have to pay more and that all companies in this oligopoly will make more money than before. And then Opta should intervene
RE[3]: Purely a matter of money
by danieldk on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 16:49
in reply to "RE[2]: Purely a matter of money"
Member since:2005-11-18
Charging for bandwidth (per second) instead of used bandwidth (per month) is probably not a viable option for KPN. The problem is that with 1 Mbit per second you can still cause about 300 Gigabyte of bandwidth per month.
Seriously, who is using full bandwidth all day? People have to sleep, work, spend time with their children, etc. So as long as a phone is not used as a modem to download (why would you, since Ziggo offers connections with 120MBit downstream?), even the most demanding users would probably use 1/30th and the rest of the consumers far less.
I am not happy at all with this change by KPN, but I think we will have to realise that the current situation (unlimited internet for 10 Euro) is simply not sustainable.
It is, at proper bandwidths. Anyway, we both agree on the fact that this is not a good solution to the problem (regardless of whether the problem actually exists).
Edited 2011-04-23 16:49 UTC
RE[2]: Purely a matter of money
by WereCatf on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 15:37
in reply to "RE: Purely a matter of money"
Member since:2006-02-15
I disagree. They should charge by bandwidth. E.g. 10 Euro per month for 1MBit/s, 20 Euro per month for 3.6 MBit, etc.
I agree. That's exactly what I have in fact: I pay 9.90e a month for 1Mbps bandwidth, no restrictions on the amount or type of the data transmitted except for BitTorrent data which they do not want to have to deal with. (I can understand that, though, and I atleast have no reason to complain about such when everything else is so great) Absolutely fantastic to use.
RE[2]: Purely a matter of money
by JAlexoid on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 20:42
in reply to "RE: Purely a matter of money"
Member since:2009-05-19
I disagree. They should charge by bandwidth. E.g. 10 Euro per month for 1MBit/s, 20 Euro per month for 3.6 MBit, etc.
Technically would result in an overburdened network. Your phone will be trying to connect to the tower at maximum speed available, thus using up the same bandwidth you would be using up by actually using the network that powers the tower. There is no bandwidth problem of the network that powers the towers, the problem is the actual radio spectrum overcrowding...
RE[3]: Purely a matter of money
by WereCatf on Sat 23rd Apr 2011 21:26
in reply to "RE[2]: Purely a matter of money"
Member since:2006-02-15
Technically would result in an overburdened network. Your phone will be trying to connect to the tower at maximum speed available, thus using up the same bandwidth you would be using up by actually using the network that powers the tower. There is no bandwidth problem of the network that powers the towers, the problem is the actual radio spectrum overcrowding...
Of course the phone will be able to connect to the network at max speed, it's the bandwidth that is limited and that is all software. As for techically being possible... well, it ALREADY IS in country-wide use here in Finland, all major operators do it and it works just peachy.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-18
I disagree. They should charge by bandwidth. E.g. 10 Euro per month for 1MBit/s, 20 Euro per month for 3.6 MBit, etc.
Such subscriptions may amount to bandwidth limits, but have two advantages:
- No hidden bills for customers if you go through a monthly allotted limit.
- Even if you have an 1Mbit/s subscription, you could use VOIP services, but the quality will just be worse than 3.6 of 7.2 MBit/s.
Anyway, the main issue with KPNs new policy is that it discriminates against new services. Suppose that I make a great new service that changes the mobile world. KPN could decide they want their share of the pie (by adding it to a more expensive package), or block the service completely. This of course, is not fair, they are just providing the infrastructure.