sudomal

They also own IMDb... a slight annoyance for me because it's integrated with Amazon's streaming service rather than being a neutral platform for movies.

It'll be a similar reason for Spotify's [former?] monthly limits.

Then why is Luxembourg such a magnet? It's not just Amazon, companies that exclusively cater for the UK market moved their base there.

Different retailers target different sectors of the market and those sectors have varying levels of profit and growth. To me, Amazon seems to be aiming at the lower end, i.e. they focus on price rather than ethics, so they experience high growth in sales and relatively low profits.

I don't think everyone should copy them. It's like telling Apple to copy Acer or Samsung.

I'm sure I saw a documentary a few years back where an aeroplane engine manufacturer had a control centre. The sole purpose of this place was to track minute engine attributes in real time, and alert their clients of future maintenance. Is that just on the latest planes?

I'm imagining a future where most cameras have Street View style blurring in their hardware. Where vintage digital cameras are sought after and illicit manufacturers produce unauthorised copies with the feature disabled.

The player does not need to pay, but at the same time is subjected to game theory driven psychological trickery that's been developed over decades. Think of it like gambling, but more subtle, yet gambling is heavily regulated.

It sounds like an ideal CyanogenMOD candidate. A phone from an iconic manufacturer that's already running Android and needs to be opened up a bit.

I suspect that legalisation of weed is going to be a blip in history and they'll heavily tax it to phase it out. It just doesn't make sense to encourage people to breathe in smoke.

One thing that stuck me about Google Music is its lack of built-in support for last.fm. Was kind of hoping this had it.

Yep. The disadvantage of consolidation in that industry is these big providers have a conflict of interest. In an ideal world, platform providers would be broken up and prevented from selling their own content. That goes for Google too.

I can fully appreciate this. Abstraction takes the fun (or spark) out of programming, all we really do these days as developers is glue framework components together.

Agreed. As you get older too, you start to appreciate how much time is burned by working. It's good to work, just it shouldn't dominate your waking life.

One benefit of this is Nokia could potentially acquire the successful ventures - once Microsoft is out of the picture and they're allowed to return to the smartphone business.

Better yet, host it locally. More privacy for the user.

AFAIK ISPs have special hardware from/for these big streaming services to efficiently handle the traffic. Every-so-often that peering/mirroring equipment cannot support the demand and they have to upgrade the capacity.

I can't agree. People that use Spotify, Rdio, last.fm are edge cases, they are early adopters, often heavy users - the sort that freemium services often kick off when they mature.

This is disappointing, and I expect Apple will redesign the cameras because of it.

The article mentions that authorities have tools to bypass the LED. I would guess that the complexity is on purpose and wasn't supposed to be used by the general public. I bet the same is true for sound.

One thing I like a lot about PHP is its version stability, it has changed somewhat over time, but not to the point where it breaks important features.

I have seen many a framework and language (the sort that you might see hyped on this website) that make drastic changes and only their most ardent fans stick with the new version. It's often an opportunity to switch to the next big thing.

That's the sort of thing an employer or some government official would say to give it a positive spin. If Amazon wanted to be praised, they would make the work environment more comparative to other local employers and get a good reputation.

A laptop is a good option for x86 network stuff. Relatively low power with a battery back-up. I would never use a desktop PC, too expensive.

Those look like commuters. Commuters are already zombies. Going back and forth between their home and office on autopilot.

The thing I find interesting is watching the different types, like for example, very early in the morning you get 'lower' class workers with a standard tabloid newspaper and overalls. The closer it gets to nine, the more they look like managers or office workers, and the more focused they are on their gadgets.

More info here for those with an interest: http://www.leafnut.com

Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.

They have been installing LED street lights in the UK for a while now. The LED supplier approaches a council, the council agrees to pay the supplier the difference between their normal and new lighting bill for X years. The supplier gives them the relatively expensive LED lamps (which talk to each other wirelessly) and management system. The council installs them. Supplier makes money from the price difference.

It's like a lot of things that appear on HN... strange and unfamiliar words without context. Yep, a smartphone.

Even the photos with their old/fuzzy/faded effect reminds me of the style used by TV adverts for online dating.

I suspect the FM radio has been added to help them to convert feature phone users. It's the sort of feature that's highly prized in countries outside of North America.

As far as I understand it, Microsoft got the smartphone part of the business. Nokia will continue to make feature phones, but Microsoft's Nokia will have exclusivity on smartphones for a set number of years.

And real Nokia might return to the smartphone business when the MS exclusivity expires.