Friday, July 27, 2012

Bullshit


NSA Boss Wants More Control Over the Net
The Internet should be adapted to allow for oversight by the National Security Agency, the organization's boss says.
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Google Books Deserves To Get Life

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Just like sane countries force broadband providers to share their pipes with competitors, Google Books should be made to share its content to other online distributors, and authors of the books should get their cut, but the idea of getting in the way of digital books is plain stupid. Why deprive humanity of the treasure trove?

Google urges end to authors' digital book lawsuit
its ambitious plan to build the world's largest digital book library .... Google has said it has scanned more than 20 million books, and posted English-language snippets of more than 4 million .... authors actually benefit because the database helps people find and buy their books ..... a "de facto monopoly" to copy books en masse without permission and served to "further entrench" its market power in online searches. ..... Among the libraries whose works have been scanned are those of Harvard University, Oxford University, Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library .... The United States, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp had been among those to raise antitrust concerns about the settlement.
Paper books should feel odd. Digital books should be the norm. Digital copies of all books current and past should be available. Why do you want to get in the way of authors penetrating markets?


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Same Day Delivery: Possible


Not under all circumstances, and not everywhere, and not for every item, but what's the big deal with same day shipping? If you placed your order in the morning, why can't you have it by the time you get home in the evening?

Amazon CFO 'doesn't see a way to do same-day delivery'
"we don't see a way to do same-day delivery on a broad scale economically."

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Open English: Online Teaching

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80,000 students for $43 million does not jive. The number of students needs to be much higher.

Open English raises $43 million to teach English online across Latin America
Open English was founded in 2006 and launched commercially in 2008. Since then, it has expanded all across Spanish-speaking Latin America and Brazil, while Flybridge invested $4.25 million in its May 2011′s Series B round. ..... more than 50,000 students in 20 countries, it now plans to use its new funding to reach the 80,000 student milestone by the end of the year
Why only English? This can and should be applied to any subject, at any level.
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Google Plus Ramping Up

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They tried with Buzz, they made an attempt with Wave. Finally they nailed it with Google Plus. So much so that I think Facebook should go into search. Imagine a search engine that only delivers you search results from pages and sites liked by your friends, and friends of friends.

Google+ traffic soars: 66 percent increase in nine months
110.7 million international visitors in June. In the US, traffic increased from 15.2 million to 27.7 million visitors over the same period
These numbers are going to get better. And I expect Google to keep enriching the product.
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