http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-talk/pin-less_debit_cards_coming_to_banks/5b7eb7aa
so starting from next summer, we maybe able to see this in Canada.
The basic idea of this card is to flash it above a detecting device and your items would be paid.
Personally, I think this idea is similar to those smart card idea. For example, in HK, we have the Octopus Card ( for more information go here: http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html ) for many years already. Hence, I think Canada is a bit slow in using these technology.
Also, I kind of agree with the man in the news video that why they don't integrate this service into mobile devices? I am not 100% sure but I heard from my friends from Japan that they can do these similar transactions using their mobile devices. Maybe Joseph could show us some of these technology from Japan?
What do you guys think about this "new" pin-less debit card? Do you think it would be useful or effective at all?
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Old news but not everyone knows about it
So back in October, the government passed a proposal by Bell to allow, on-top of monthly charges, charge by usage after the given bandwidth is met. So it practically works like our cellular phone services, you're charged overages.
Bell is one of the major ISPs over at the east coast and some people say that the government is trying to not let outside companies to try and compete (and improve) our internet infrastructure, bringing down competition.
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-802.htm
long read, tldr; for me.
But because of this, somewhere closer to us, Shaw has implemented a trial system of overage usage charges over at Edmonton.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Shaw-Confirms-Plans-To-Charge-Per-Gig-Overages-11113
They are potentially bringing it to all the provinces they service.
What does that means to a lot of us? We're for sure gonna hit the cap and they're gonna milk money off consumers. They are overcharging at around $2 a gig, now by my experience of renting servers at data centers, I can buy like an extra block of 1TB of premium bandwidth for probably less than 20 bucks a month, I pay for a shared 100mbit unmetered hub at 35bucks with a server per month thats in Germany. The theoretical cap is about 4000GB/4TB which works out to be around 115Gigs per buck at a data center. Although its different because shaw has to send the service to you and do the infrastructure, the difference is HUGE.
With new streaming services to Canada like Netflix, we are also going to have a higher usage because of streaming HD content. So the upfront cost of Netflix is 8bucks or so, but by using it, we're also using up our bandwidth, which besides from the monthly cost, now has the overage usage cost, so we'll need to factor in the cost per movie we're streaming in the total cost of Netflix. I would probably be better off renting at Rogers than wasting my bandwidth streaming. It is also not a fair trade if you think about it. You are streaming thus you are not recording (well you can but lets say you cant). The amount of bandwidth used is not equal to the amount of data you get to store on your hard drive. In a sense it becomes a waste of bandwidth because you cant use that same portion of bandwidth again from playback because it is streamed.
Digital distribution platforms, getting more and more popular these days. Now I buy a lot of games off Steam and always delete/reinstall because of limited hard drive space. With the change, I will think twice as each game can cost me around 6 gigs of bandwidth (Black ops was 6 gigs). So besides the fact of the delete/reinstall cycle, the initial download will cost bandwidth, I will probably not bother buying anymore games online because It'll cost me another 10 bucks or so to download it. I personally do not see the future of digital distribution and DLC with implementation of these charges. Hell I'll stop my PS3 from auto-updating stuff as well. This may discourage mp3 buying sites like itunes, I'm not paying 99cents anymore, I'm paying a dollar and some cents plus tax. iTunes rental? nope not doing it 2.99 + atleast another 4 bucks for HD.
So all this may somehow tie into Net Neutrality in some ways. A question to ask is if I am getting charged per Gigabyte, is there a reason to prioritize say emails, because I am paying to use that bandwidth. Should ISPs still packet shape your transfers even though you are paying per gigabyte to use it?
so the tl:dr of all this is that the government is pretty backwards I guess.
Bell is one of the major ISPs over at the east coast and some people say that the government is trying to not let outside companies to try and compete (and improve) our internet infrastructure, bringing down competition.
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-802.htm
long read, tldr; for me.
But because of this, somewhere closer to us, Shaw has implemented a trial system of overage usage charges over at Edmonton.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Shaw-Confirms-Plans-To-Charge-Per-Gig-Overages-11113
They are potentially bringing it to all the provinces they service.
What does that means to a lot of us? We're for sure gonna hit the cap and they're gonna milk money off consumers. They are overcharging at around $2 a gig, now by my experience of renting servers at data centers, I can buy like an extra block of 1TB of premium bandwidth for probably less than 20 bucks a month, I pay for a shared 100mbit unmetered hub at 35bucks with a server per month thats in Germany. The theoretical cap is about 4000GB/4TB which works out to be around 115Gigs per buck at a data center. Although its different because shaw has to send the service to you and do the infrastructure, the difference is HUGE.
With new streaming services to Canada like Netflix, we are also going to have a higher usage because of streaming HD content. So the upfront cost of Netflix is 8bucks or so, but by using it, we're also using up our bandwidth, which besides from the monthly cost, now has the overage usage cost, so we'll need to factor in the cost per movie we're streaming in the total cost of Netflix. I would probably be better off renting at Rogers than wasting my bandwidth streaming. It is also not a fair trade if you think about it. You are streaming thus you are not recording (well you can but lets say you cant). The amount of bandwidth used is not equal to the amount of data you get to store on your hard drive. In a sense it becomes a waste of bandwidth because you cant use that same portion of bandwidth again from playback because it is streamed.
Digital distribution platforms, getting more and more popular these days. Now I buy a lot of games off Steam and always delete/reinstall because of limited hard drive space. With the change, I will think twice as each game can cost me around 6 gigs of bandwidth (Black ops was 6 gigs). So besides the fact of the delete/reinstall cycle, the initial download will cost bandwidth, I will probably not bother buying anymore games online because It'll cost me another 10 bucks or so to download it. I personally do not see the future of digital distribution and DLC with implementation of these charges. Hell I'll stop my PS3 from auto-updating stuff as well. This may discourage mp3 buying sites like itunes, I'm not paying 99cents anymore, I'm paying a dollar and some cents plus tax. iTunes rental? nope not doing it 2.99 + atleast another 4 bucks for HD.
So all this may somehow tie into Net Neutrality in some ways. A question to ask is if I am getting charged per Gigabyte, is there a reason to prioritize say emails, because I am paying to use that bandwidth. Should ISPs still packet shape your transfers even though you are paying per gigabyte to use it?
so the tl:dr of all this is that the government is pretty backwards I guess.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
International IT Security Issues: Operation Aurora and Stuxnet
Operation Aurora is the name given to a series of security compromises which affected GMail and other online services. It was widely portrayed in the popular press as an incident of international cyber-espionage, with Chinese government operatives against (mostly American) global IT firms.
Stuxnet is the name of a Windows worm. Again, the popular press portrayed it as likely to be the product of Israeli efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear industry.
With your knowledge of computer systems and security of networked systems, do you believe these stories? Are the claims justified? Is this a kind of modern-day warfare? Have your say in the comments.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Body Scanners Revealed
As mentioned in class and in the textbook, body scanners are being used more and more in international airports. In order to increase privacy, the body scanners were supposed to be made "non-recordable" - the scanned images were not supposed to be recorded on the scanner. However, it looks like that didn't quite work out...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40218074/?gt1=43001
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40218074/?gt1=43001
Video on new Facebook Messaging
http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/2010/11/16/whats-facebook-messages-facebook-made-a-video-to-explain/
All users to get an @facebook.com email.
One feature that stuck out: FB promises to converge all SMS, emails and such in threaded conversations. They claim that privacy is not compromised.
Robots with ethics
Computers "learning" ethical theories? Meet Nao!
Interesting article describing the combination of artificial intelligence and ethical theories.
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