How do you explain their insistence, then, on doing object recognition in photos on-device? Is it possible that they have understood the affordances of various data collection and obfuscation techniques and will apply the appropriate ones after taking into account their desire to protect privacy?
Google indeed has RAPPOR (and other projects, I'm sure), but the cultural difference Apple claims is "we consider privacy in everything we do" instead of "we add privacy where we can."
> the cultural difference Apple claims is "we consider privacy in everything we do"
I'm pretty sure that should be interpreted as "we've determined privacy is a differentiator in the market, so as of some indeterminate time in the past, ranging from a few years ago to our inception, we consider privacy in everything we do."
Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and that's not to say they haven't been privacy conscious in the past, but let's not confuse the current stance as entirely altruistic, when there are are multiple incentives at play, one of which is concern for the user.
Sure. But you can replace Apple in my comment with Jobs, and it would apply equally as well, had Jobs not passed away. The article you reference points this out specifically:
> His comments arrived as Apple started to identify Google, and its ascending Android operating system, as its chief competitor. Here we see the first signs of the hardware seller deploying its privacy position as a branding and competitive tactic, a strategy that has come to the fore during its current standoff with the feds.
I don't see it as being cynical, just as being rational. People rarely have a single motivation for their actions, even if they may report a singly motivation if asked (possibly the primary reason, or the one they feel comfortable talking about). I don't see why this would be any different for a corporation, generally being made up of many people.
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with this. We just need to be sure we don't fall into the trap of thinking we can take what is presented at face value as the whole story, just as you can't when dealing with individuals much of the time. Apple is not our trusted old friend, that will look out for our best interests. They are at best an acquaintance that we have a business relationship with. That doesn't mean they won't act in a manner we appreciate, but it does mean we should not assume they will act as a good friend.
"One leading hypothesis is that firms employing low-wage workers—such as fast-food chains—have significant monopsony power in the labor market; that is, they are the principal purchasers of low-wage labor in a particular job market. And a monopsonist facing a price floor doesn’t necessarily buy less, just as a monopolist facing a price ceiling doesn’t necessarily sell less and may sell more."
"The employment effect of the minimum wage is one of the most studied topics in all of economics. This report examines the most recent wave of this research – roughly since 2000 – to determine the best current estimates of the impact of increases in the minimum wage on the employment prospects of low-wage workers. The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage."
Thanks for teaching me a new word (monopsony)! It's been a long while since my vocabulary has been increased with something that's not a millennial invention.
Farmers know that term very well. When the second loading ramp or grain elevator closes, and there's only one buyer left, farmers face a monopsony. Farmers have fought back with co-ops and Government price supports.
As the name suggests, MOSS (Measure of Software Similarity) and other tools employed for plagiarism detection work by detecting logical similarity. Obfuscated code is considered identical to the original.
It seems, then, that you're a flashcard consultancy that works with customers to optimize learning using SRS + something like http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm. Perhaps with more secret sauce.
Are there studies you use to inform your secret sauce? Are they recent?
I ask as someone who's been building a personal knowledge base of sorts of which one key component is Anki / SRS.
Filecoin providers may feasibly beat S3 on price in USD if (i) they're betting on the protocol because up-front losses may be more than compensated for in investment returns on Filecoin or (ii) the alternate for them is making no money on unused disk space.
The problem is that the investment possibilities for Filecoin might be limited since it will be tied to a real world service unlike most other digital currencies. People are free to speculate how much Bitcoins are worth because there is no company out there saying "Bitcoin are worth X". Filecoin will basically be saying "Filecoins are worth X GB per hour". The way to combat this issue is to tie the price to some other currency (e.g. X USD or Bitcoin per GB per hour paid in Filecoin), but it would be tough to convince other people to use your currency if you aren't even confident enough in it to price your own products using it.
For your second point, we need to keep in mind the free space might be empty but it is not free as in beer. Using the disk will cost extra electricity and CPU cycles. Plus we shouldn't forget that disks are still the most common piece of hardware to fail inside a computer. Increasing usage of that disk increases the risk of failure.
>The pricing is left fluid precisely to avoid this. The price can change over time. 1 Filecoin / N time today. 0.1 / N tomorrow.
That makes sense from an economic perspective but how does that work from a customer service perspective? Is the price pegged to a different currency? How would a user be able to predict the cost of the service if the price is not pegged to anything?
How can you predict the value of a dollar? It's not pegged to anything either.
Although in fact the decline of the value of the dollar is relatively predictable because of the Federal Reserve's policy goal of keeping inflation relatively low and the law of large numbers as applied to the generation of the real rate of inflation.
At my local deli a dollar used to buy a bagel with the works; and now buys less than half of a plain bagel. That's over the course of 20 years. Any unit of exchange is valued anew in each transaction; the persistence and trends in value exist mostly due to social pressure and the cost of bargaining. I don't make offers and counter offers on each bagel I buy; I just look at the sign and accept the price or leave without a bagel.
> Although in fact the decline of the value of the dollar is relatively predictable because of the Federal Reserve's policy goal of keeping inflation relatively low and the law of large numbers as applied to the generation of the real rate of inflation.
That's a crucial point. If the Fed didn't pledge to keep inflation under control, the dollar wouldn't be such a great store of value or medium of exchange. It's the stability promised by central banks that allow you to "predict the value of a dollar" in the immediate future.
If Filecoin works, the price to store, say, 4 TB of data will be bounded by the cost of a 4 TB disk and the cost of 4 TB of S3. That's a wide range, but it's not as bad as Bitcoin's 1000% fluctuations.
>The problem is that the investment possibilities for Filecoin might be limited since it will be tied to a real world service unlike most other digital currencies.
That certainly hasn't dampened the investment possibilities in actual, government-issued currencies.
> The way to combat this issue is to tie the price to some other currency (e.g. X USD or Bitcoin per GB per hour paid in Filecoin), but it would be tough to convince other people to use your currency if you aren't even confident enough in it to price your own products using it.
You can't peg a decentralized currency. You need to be able to control supply in order for the peg to work (ie. to sell more into the market to lower the price, if needed), and then it wouldn't be decentralized.
I believe you are referring to Season 2 Episode 1 of This American Life the tv show titled "Escape". Two sentence summary from the site:
"Mike and his mom get caught up in a fight that lots of kids have with their parents. Except in their case, due to some very specialized circumstances, they go through the fight in slow motion, over the course of years."
Google indeed has RAPPOR (and other projects, I'm sure), but the cultural difference Apple claims is "we consider privacy in everything we do" instead of "we add privacy where we can."