Australians gouged on some Windows 7 versions
Australian customers will have to stump up almost double the US price for some versions of Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system that arrived in Australian stores yesterday.
The company cited taxes, freight costs and currency fluctuations as key reasons that the retail price for full and upgrade versions of its software were substantially higher than in the US.
"We see the same questions being asked about most consumer electronics products," David McLean, Microsoft's regional director of entertainment and devices, said.
Taxes, freight costs and currency fluctuations? What a load of crap. The Aussie dollar is currently 92 US cents! Shipping? Are they using Haliburton to move the stuff? C'mon whats the deal here Microsoft?
Rural broadband using TV spectrum whitespace
From Ars Technica
The nation's first wireless broadband network operating in unused TV channel "white spaces" is now live in an unlikely spot—Claudville, Virginia.
Claudville is a small place—only 20,000 people live in the entire county, and only 900 in Claudville proper—and its Blue Ridge Mountain terrain has made Internet access hard to come by. Combine that with a countywide per capita income of $15,574 and its not hard to see why the big ISPs haven't rushed to Claudville.
The system is now up and running, and it was praised today by Rep. Boucher at a House press conference. It's still a limited trial, one that uses white spaces as a backhaul network rather than a means to connect homes and business directly to the Internet. "In the future," says Spectrum Bridge, "it is likely that TV white spaces will also be used to expand connectivity within homes and businesses." But until white spaces radios are ready for deployment, the technology works better when linked to ethernet or WiFi.
This idea has been around for a while now and seems to have some potential. The 'unlicenced' part of the equation is probably not impressing companies that DO licence parts of the spectrum.
Maybe this is something that remote rural communities in Australia could use. Seems to be a good way to overcome expensive wired infrastructure and satellite internet.
More information on the trial here.
World of Goo makes $100k in a week with ‘pay anything’ sale.
From Rock, Paper, Shotgun
As expected, 2D BOY have published details of their World Of Goo First Birthday experiment. Offering the game for whatever price people wanted to pay (previously it was $20), this meant people could get a copy for as little as $0.01 or as much as fifty million squillion space dollars. (I believe that’s the upper limit.) Originally this was intended to last for a week, but has now been extended to 25th October. And being a rather open sort they’ve announced how many copies they’ve sold so far, and indeed how much people have been paying, along with much more. It’s an unprecedented amount of detailed sales information. Its significance shouldn’t be underplayed.
I'm sure many people will try to make sense of these figures over the coming weeks. Pretty solid sales for $0 marketing. More evidence of a new ways of business that WORK in a digital market.
I actually bought this game some time ago and was quite impressed, however it lost my attention fairly quickly.
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