Amazon sidesteps French ban on free shipping by charging a penny
France’s “anti-Amazon” law prohibiting free shipping and discounts has now gone into effect, and Amazon quickly announced that it had conformed — technically. Though it no longer ships books for free, it only charges 0.01 euro, conforming to the letter if not the spirit of the law (French Prime members still receive free book shipping). It’s also no longer allowed to give a 5 percent discount on books, the maximum allowed by French law. Despite Amazon’s ceremonial cent for shipping, bricks-and-mortar competitors in the country now have a big leg-up. They’re exempt from the law and can still offer 5 percent discounts and free delivery — even those with a large online presence like FNAC, a French book and electronics giant. Meanwhile, Amazon could still appeal the decision to EU courts, who reportedly see the French decision as anti-competitive.
[Image credit: François Guillot/AFP/Getty Images]
Source: Amazon France (translated)
‘Lettuce’ hope so: OnePlus Two allegedly coming, codenamed ‘Lettuce’
The OnePlus One has barely started reaching the lucky few who have been able to order one, but we’ve already gotten wind that there maybe a successor to this year’s biggest surprise. This news comes from leak extraordinaire, @evleaks, who says that a tentatively named OnePlus Two is coming, and is codenamed ‘Lettuce’; as fun trivia, @evleaks also said in his tweet that the OnePlus One was codenamed ‘Bacon’. While we always expected a successor from OnePlus after the critical success that the One turned out to be, with supply of the device still very much stagnant for the general public, it seems hard to conceive the purposes of a subsequent device so soon.
This follows previous, false rumours that OnePlus was developing a tablet device, but we’ll remain quietly hopeful that this rumour is true. The OnePlus One took the Android community by surprise offering value for money usually reserved for Nexus devices with none of the compromises. Perhaps the only ‘issue’ with the phone is that access to the phone is via invites only and the roll-out of that system appears to be rather dismal.
What do you think about seeing a OnePlus Two ‘Lettuce’ sometime in the near future? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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Moto X and G get banned in Germany
A ruling made at the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany on July 8th found Motorola to infringe on a patent held by LPKF – a German engineering firm – in reference to the antenna design used in the companies Moto X and Moto G devices.
Consequently, Motorola have been ordered to pay damages to LPKF and have also been instructed to recall all devices sold in Germany which infringe on the patent.
Now LPKF have found success in Germany it’ll be interesting to see if the company persue the same claims in other courts around the world.
SOURCE: GSMArena
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Chinese State-Run Media Labels iPhone’s Location Tracking a ‘National Security Concern’ [iOS Blog]
China’s state-run media broadcast today labeled Apple’s location tracking services found iOS 7 and the iPhone a “national security concern”, reports The Wall Street Journal. The broadcast cited researchers who said that those with access to the country’s location data could gain “knowledge of the broader situation in China” and perhaps even state secrets.
The Chinese government said that it began developing these concerns about U.S. technology companies after the discovery of PRISM last year, which is a secret intelligence program ran by the NSA. In its broadcast, China’s state run media said that Apple would need to “take on any legal responsibilities” if any data leaks harmed citizens.
Last year, a privacy lawsuit concerning Apple’s location tracking services in iOS was dismissed by the US District Court of Northern California. The suit alleged that Apple was collecting location data in violation of its own privacy laws, however Judge Lucy Koh ruled that the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence.
In the U.S., Apple has made a number of privacy-related moves in the past year, choosing to notify users of information requests from law enforcement and backing congressional bills to increase transparency in government surveillance.
The news also comes as Apple has made efforts towards improving its presence in China over the past few years, which include partnering with the country’s biggest carrier China Mobile and opening new Apple Stores in populated regions. CEO Tim Cook has also visited the country numerous times, meeting with government officials and China Mobile executives to discuss market growth. Apple also became China’s fifth-largest smartphone vendor in Q4 2013, taking 7% of the total market share in the country.
Note: Due to the controversial nature of this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
90 percent of 911 calls made in Washington, DC lacked accurate location info
Data pulled from a recent Freedom of Information Act request reveals that an overwhelming majority of 911 wireless calls made over a six-month period last year in Washington, DC were delivered “without accurate location information to find callers who are lost, confused, unconscious or otherwise unable to share their location.” Only ten percent of calls from the first half of 2013 within the city included detailed location data. At the moment, FCC regulations demand higher location accuracy only on outdoor calls, making built-up areas like DC harder to hone in on. Public safety officials told the Washington Post that these location issues are widespread.
According to Find Me 911, carriers typically able to offer “Phase I’ data, which covers a phone number and the location of the base station transmitting the call. ‘Phase I’I data, meanwhile, includes latitude and longitude coordinates, accurate to between 50 and 300 meters. According to the data, Verizon and Sprint offered this detailed information on 24.6 percent and 23.3 percent of emergency calls. However, T-Mobile included this location data on a dire 3.2 percent of emergency calls. Worse still, AT&T only did so on 2.6 percent of calls made. Fortunately, the FCC approved new technology last year that will apparently more accurately locate callers indoors. It reckons that updated rules regarding location accuracy from wireless callers would save around 10,000 lives a year.
Via: Ars Technica
London’s black cabs may soon be forced to accept card payments
Part of the reason app-based car services like Uber and Hailo have become so popular is their quick service and no-fuss payments. Hailo, in particular, has bridged the gap for London’s black cabs, which have widely shunned card payments due to high setup and running costs. However, things could soon be made a lot easier for city commuters (and tourists) if new plans being considered by Transport for London (TfL) come into force.
The Evening Standard reports that TfL will soon launch a consultation on making debit and credit card payment facilities mandatory by 2016. Under the new proposals, the authority would scrap the surcharge currently levied against card payments, burying the average cost of a debit or credit transaction in the standard fare. That means you’d pay the same amount regardless of the payment method, and you’d no longer need to stop off at a cash machine in order to pay for your journey. Given the recent backlash over Hailo’s decision to become a fully-fledged Uber rival, London’s cabbies wouldn’t have to rely on a third party (at least for cashless payments), ensuring that riders and drivers both enjoy small wins.
[Image credit: Lars Plougmann, Flickr]
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Evening Standard
Computer glitch resurrects draft cards for 14,000 long-dead Pennsylvania men
Come a guy’s 18th birthday in the US, he’s afforded new privileges. Aside from being able to legally buy cigarettes, lottery tickets and porn, he also has a couple of shiny civic duties to follow: signing up for the Selective Service System and voting on a regular basis. In terms of the former, draft dodging is a pretty serious offense, as the families of very old (and most likely very deceased) men in Pennsylvania were recently reminded. According to Boston, a database operator’s error caused some 14,250 notices to go out to men born between 1893 and 1897, stating that their failure to fill out draft cards could result in fines and imprisonment. How’d that happen? Well, if you’re familiar with the Y2K Bug, the story makes a lot more sense.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s cataloging software apparently uses a two-digit birth-year field, and, as a result, the operator unknowingly selected gents hailing from a hundred years prior the actual target range of 1993 to 1997. Keystone State employees didn’t realize the issue until they were inundated by calls from understandably confused family members asking what the deal was. To its credit, the SSS issued an apology and noted that those files would be deactivated from the database and will send a personal letter of apology to President Lincoln posthaste.
[Image credit: Getty]
Filed under: Software
Source: Boston
Google says it’s struggling to cope after being asked to censor 250,000 EU webpages
Google’s top lawyer has spoken out to try to explain the mess that happened last week, when the search giant censored, and then partially reinstated, links to a number of important news articles. Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond now admits that some of the initial censorship decisions were “incorrect,” specifically in the case of some Guardian newspaper articles that were delisted for a short time. But, as you’d probably expect, he also gives Google’s side of the story.
“We’ve had over 70,000 take-down requests covering 250,000 webpages since May.”
Drummond says that Europe’s recent “Right To Be Forgotten” (RTBF) ruling, which allows a member of the public to request the removal of search results containing their name, is so “vague and subjective” that it’s hard to enforce consistently. He adds that Google has received so many requests — 70,000 so far, concerning 250,000 different web pages, all of which must be assessed individually — that the company has been struggling to cope. He says the process is still very much a “work in progress” that will lead to “difficult and debatable judgments,” as well as to errors.
Unfortunately, Drummond fails to address one of the most controversial de-listings of last week. This concerned a BBC blog post about the former Merrill Lynch CEO, Stan O’Neal, and his involvement in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. At the time, the BBC was left in the dark about who had ordered the takedown and why — and O’Neal has since denied it was him. This led others to argue that Google had deliberately approved a weak takedown request (possibly from someone who had merely commented on the original post) in order to make the RTBF ruling appear worse for the public interest than it really is. Judging from Drummond’s general defence, he’d likely argue that it’s extremely difficult to decide whether a specific request is spurious or legitimate when you’re being swamped by so many.
Via: GigaOm
Source: The Guardian
OnePlus teases wood covers announcement on July 22nd
Owning a smartphone is a very personal thing and many people choose to customize theirs with covers or skins. Recently, phones have become a lot more customizable, particularly the Motorola Moto X, for which you can choose colours for your back cover, or even to choose to have it made of wood. It looks like another phone manufacturer is about to head that route as well as OnePlus teases wood covers on their Google+ with a simple picture that says “Knock On Wood” and the date, July 22nd.
Whether this means OnePlus goes with the full-blown Moto Maker-type arrangement, or just offers variants made of wood remains to be seen, but barring a rip off of LG’s Knock On code, OnePlus looks poised to introduce wood covers for their sole smartphone, the OnePlus One, on July 22nd. As we found out though, having a wood case isn’t always the best thing, particularly if you drop your phone into a fire, but with the size of the 5.5-inch OnePlus One, chances are the fire would go out instead.
Are you interested in getting a wood back cover for your OnePlus One? Is wood something you need on your smartphone? Let us know your opinion.
Source: Google+ via TalkAndroid
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So this happened: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood to rack up $200 million in IAPs in 2014
The free-to-play mobile game market is proving itself to be profitable, fast growing, but overall, extremely contentious. Sometimes, though, it’s so very hard to argue with results, and one of the results that has been brought to our attention is the fact that one free-to-play game is predicted to rake in up to $200 million in in-app purchases just this year. That game is Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a game published by GluMobile, and lets players assume the role of a socialite in Hollywood, not unlike Kim Kardashian herself, and try and make it as a number of A-list professions including actor, designer, or model.
The game obviously isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, however analyst Douglas Creutz thinks its success is down to the fact that “Kim Kardashian’s brand has driven people to download the game.” And if you want to put that $200 million figure in perspective, popular mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out garnered $100 million in a whole year, whereas Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is expected to make the $200 million mark 6 months after its June release. That’s a pretty staggering statistic and it really makes you wonder how much branding makes a difference in the mobile gaming industry. If you’re interested in checking out what all the fuss is about, we’ve got the download links to Kim Kardashian: Hollywood down below.
What do you think about this kind of success for a free-to-play game like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? Let us know your thoughts.
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