Bitcoin will be subject to regulation in the US as it gains in popularity. The article below goes into fearmongering about the potential of Bitcoins to be used by criminals, but forgets to mention that ALL currencies are used by criminals. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374611351125202.html
Considering there is a huge shortage of COBOL programmers, this is an excellent idea!
A high rolling gambler and his accomplice tapped into the Crown casino video surveillance cctv system and were able to read other players cards. In just 8 hands (!) this led to them winning some $32 million herals sun
Because sometimes that’s cheaper than a return, if you book with different airlines consumerist
The Global Atlas is the comprehensive information platform on the potential of renewable energy. It provides resource maps from leading technical institutes worldwide and tools for evaluating the technical potential of renewable energies. It can function as a catalyst for policy development and energy planning, and can support investors in entering renewable energy markets.
via IRENA – Global Atlas for Solar & Wind.
Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate – Telegraph.
This has cost the UK GBP7 billion. They have repealed the laws, but the millionaires are not coming back much.
Apple’s foreign profits are funneled through different countries to reside in a country where there is no or little tax on profits. They don’t pay taxes in the US untill the money is repatriated to the US, but they do mark a portion of the money as being taxed in the US and take that off their books. This means that there are lower profit figures than they actually have allthough the money is still in foreign accounts.
How Apple's phantom taxes hide billions in profit.
Not using a credit card is becoming a much more viable method over the internet (22% of the overall e-commerce payments), with iDeal and Paypal, but also many other methods used to pay for porn or gambling. Worldpay has made an interactive map showing the predominance of specific alternative currencies per country.
This is based on this report by worldpay.
That’s a pretty crass threat and bizarre that a US company can do this!
Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you’ll be fired | The Digital Home – CNET News.
Apps and websites that use the Google Maps API will soon have to pay $4 per 1,000 visitors Google announced today.
There is an allowance for small sites – the first 25,000 map-loads a day are free.
Google Maps API now costs $4 per 1,000 requests • The Register.
Basically it’s because econonmists allways calibrate the data – ie. change certain parameters to try to represent reality. Carter proved that even small changes to parameters make huge differences in the predictive power of a model. Economists calibrate and recalibrate their models all the time, leading to worse and worse predictions.
Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong: Scientific American.
As for what kinds of tricks the labels use, well, Frascogna notes “breakage fees” of 20%, which are based on breakage rates for vinyl from half a century ago. That CDs don’t break so much and that digital files don’t break at all, doesn’t matter. The labels still try to get a super high breakage rate that they get to deduct. For them, it’s pure profit. Then there are “uncollected account” withholdings, on the basis that some retailers go bankrupt and don’t pay for the stock they had. The way it’s described here, that’s often just a set number, rather than based on any actual, documented cases of uncollected fees. Next up? “Free goods.” Now, we talk about the importance of free goods all the time. But here it’s used in a different manner. Basically the labels deduct the “cost” of providing reviewers/radio stations/etc. with “free” copies of your album. That money comes straight out of the gross that the royalty is calculated on. The fact that you could just email the mp3 to those folks yourself? Well, pay no attention to that newfangled technology.
Next up, there are “container charges.” That’s for things like the jewel cases and inserts for CDs. Again, the fact that digital music doesn’t have such expenses is pretty much ignored. Also, the fact that all of these expenses get deducted from the artists’ share? That also seems wrong. Even more insane? Apparently the standard “container charge” is an additional 30% off the revenue. Again, in many cases that’s just pure profit for the labels.
Finally, there’s the ever lovely and totally amorphous “reserves.” As Frascogna notes: “no one really knows what reserves entail.” It’s basically a blank check for the record labels to claim they have to keep some of the money themselves for “other stuff,” which is mostly undefined. In this case, some labels simply set a straight percentage, up to 20% more of the gross that artists never get to see as part of their own royalties.
via RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000 | Techdirt.
It has decided to roll back a days’ trading as a result of the stolen bitcoins, which were dumped on the market, crashing the value of a single bitcoin. Apparently there wasn’t that much cash involved (only $1000,-) which means that the bitcoin currency isn’t very strong at all.
Concurrently, a trojan has been found that scours your hd for bitcoins, and on top of that a hacker has released accounts and passwords for a slew of bitcoin users.
Huge Bitcoin sell off due to a compromised account – rollback
Bitcoin collapses on malicious trade • The Register.
Well, this is getting interesting. Last week, we noted that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, alone among the other G8 leaders, questioned today’s copyright laws, suggesting that they did not fit with the times, and pointed out that these century-old laws don’t seem to fit with today’s internet.
What the ‘free’ west can learn from ‘oppressive’ Russia!
via Russian President Proposes Creative Commons-Style Rules Baked Directly Into Copyright | Techdirt.
This page shows each ministry’s ICT projects, descriptions and budgets and how far they’re over or under budget.
ICT-dashboard | ICT-dashboard.
KPN: Where unlimited means limited!
I guess this is their strategy for people using whatsapp and skype services more often. It’s not a very good one, it’s like going back to the days where we paid a few cents per email… that business model didn’t last that long either.
KPN wil klanten extra laten betalen voor bepaalde mobiele internetdiensten. Daarmee lijkt de provider netneutraliteit aan de kant te willen zetten. Onder meer voor onbeperkt gebruik van voip en chat via 3g zal extra moeten worden betaald.KPNDe telecomprovider gaat bundels voor mobiele telefonie introduceren waarbij mensen tegen een meerprijs ‘extra faciliteiten’ kunnen gebruiken. Dat blijkt uit de woorden van KPN-topman Eelco Blok.Tegen Tweakers.net zei Blok dat gebruikers het onbeperkt gebruik van bepaalde diensten, bijvoorbeeld instant messaging en voip-diensten als Skype, moeten ‘afkopen’. Volgens Blok betekent dat niet meteen dat diensten worden geblokkeerd voor gebruikers die niet extra willen betalen. Dat strookt echter niet met zijn uitspraak dat onbeperkt gebruik moet worden betaald. Dat zou immers tot gevolg hebben dat mensen die niet extra betalen, de desbetreffende dienst niet onbeperkt kunnen gebruiken.
via KPN wil klanten extra laten betalen voor chat- en voip-diensten | Mobile | Tweakers.net Nieuws.
Background: In 2009, the EU discussed the issue of a term extension for the ”neighbouring rights” that record companies have to recorded music. These neighbouring rights are now 50 years from the recording of a song. The proposal was to extend them to 95 years. After a lively debate in the European Parliament, it was decided to extend them to 70 years. Then the issue got stuck in the Council of Ministers, where several countries (including Sweden and Denmark) felt that no extension was necessary. Now it appears that the Danish government has folded, which means that there is no longer a blocking minority in the Council.
Right now: On the agenda for the meeting of the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee JURI this Monday and Tuesday, there has appeared a point about making certain formal corrections to the text that the European Parliament adopted (such as the date when the new rules should enter into force). It appears that they have been trying to give the issue a low profile. The documents were not sent out to members of the JURI committee until last Friday, after we had explicitly asked for them.
Copyright term extension will be voted this week « Christian Engström, Pirate MEP.
A new study by Forrester Research found that maintaining a Facebook presence is less effective at drumming up business than plain old email newsletters or search ads. Companies interviewed for the study “received little benefits from Facebook,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Another recent study found that even print ads were better at fostering consumer engagement with brands than a Facebook page. Hundreds of thousands of people may “like” a brand’s Facebook page, but they don’t actually like it
via Nobody Actually Likes Your Brand’s Stupid Facebook Page.
A study conducted by the Dutch calculators came up with the conclusion that open source didn’t save any money. Not so, says the MOD – they didn’t take into account things like the same costs incurred for 2500 users are now spent to service 6000 users, a savings of 66%!
Rekenkamer blundert bij berekening open source | Webwereld.
internet kassa, ecommerce, e-commerce, internet payment, credit card, creditkaart, shop
The European Commission (EC) suspended trading in carbon credits on Wednseday after unknown hackers compromised the accounts of Czech traders and siphoned off around $38 million, according to published reports.
EU countries including Estonia, Austria, The Czech Republic, Poland and France began closing their carbon trading registries yesterday after learning that carbon allowances had been siphoned from the account of the Czech based register. A notice posted on the Web site of the Czech based registry said that it was “not accessible for technical reasons” on Thursday.
The EC followed suit: issuing a statement on Wednesday evening saying that the EC was suspending transactions for all EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) members until January 26 in light of “recurring security breaches in national registries over the last two months.”
via Carbon Trading Halted After Hack Of Exchange | threatpost.
Allthough you lose quite a few subscribers, you keep the subscribers who are interested in your messages and you increase conversions. You won’t be put on a spamlist (if you mail a subscribed list with an option to unsubscribe). It also outperforms using social media.
Extreme Email Experiment: How Much Is Too Much?.