things of interest to me
Verizon's 'It Begins' ad plays up the iPhone wait for all it's worth (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsNetflix currently pays up to $1 per DVD mailed round trip, and the company mails about 2 million DVDs per day. By comparison, the company pays 5 cents to stream the same movie. In other words, the company pays 20 times more in postage per movie than it does in bandwidth, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Doing some simple math, Netflix is spending some $700 million per year in physical disk postage. Rising content prices are offset by declining postage fees for the company, as more and more users choose the streaming-only option. Furthermore, subscriber revenues will continue to increase as Netflix increases the size of its streaming library.
Two months ago, Netflix announced an $8 streaming-only plan, and raised its DVD prices. More recently, Netflix removed the "add to DVD queue" button on its streaming devices.
"We're doing this so we can concentrate on offering you the titles that are available to watch instantly," a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. "Further, providing the option to add a DVD to your Queue from a streaming device complicates the instant watching experience and ties up resources that are better used to improve the overall streaming functionality. This change does not impact the Netflix Web site, where most members manage their DVD Queues."
Users are very annoyed with the change, but as we've come to deduce, the reason the company is doing so comes down to cost. Streaming is the way to go, and Netflix wants to slowly but surely kill off its DVD mail service, or at least significantly make its streaming options look much more attractive.
The United Kingdom's Department for Transportation passed regulations making Segways subject to road traffic laws four and a half years ago, which effectively banned their use on Britain's sidewalks. And now, after years of apparent non-enforcement, UK's Highway Act of 1835 has finally claimed its first Segway-riding victim. An unemployed factory worker was convicted of riding a motor vehicle on a "pavement", which apparently is another word for sidewalk in the Queen's English, and was ordered to pay a total of £340 ($540) when the court found that Segways qualify as motor vehicles under the 176 year-old law. Given that Segways don't meet the safety standards required to be legally used on UK roads, it looks like Brits who own Woz's preferred mode of transport are exclusively limited to tooling around on private property lest they risk similar governmental retribution.British man convicted for riding Segway on the sidewalk, can't ride on the street either originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 06:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |
The Independent | Email this | Comments 
