Re: [Server-devel] [support-gang] [UKids] Amzn Fire Sale No More: pricing rises 86% !

[Adam Holt]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Caryl Bigenho 
wrote:

> The "special offers" appear only on the startup screen, no where else. Not
> a big deal,
>

Yes I agree for older students who've had media training, understanding
(better) who is branding/manipulating them and why.  But is commercial
advertising appropriate in schools on startup screens exposed to very
youngest kids seeking 21st century literacy ?

Does the Amazon Fire, a very worthy device in its domain of freemium
(advertising-centric) entertainment, abide by
http://studentdataprinciples.org, developed by some of the most thoughtful
educators?  How can we and our educational communities audit and trust
these principles, via open source code or legally-binding procedures with
teeth?  This may be the 21st century, but has anything really changed from
50 years ago --- do we really want to delegate babysitting of our youngest
citizens to de-facto TV commercial interests beyond our control?  When do
we move beyond blind trust to "Benign By Design" ?

Entirely separately, Amazon made a couple serious "mistakes" in the past 24
hours, loudly beating the drum hyping up its largest sales volume in
history: (today, apparently, if all goes well for them)

   - $34.99 Cyber Monday Amazon Tablet Fire offer was yanked (no doubt due
   to Christmas shortages, but there are laws about honoring promises
   pricing/dates/quantities).  An apology goes a long way.  Thanks to the
   several media outlets who communicated the apology.
   - Erroneously portraying a $15 "Special Offer" tablet savings in the
   attached screenshot, as if this is a Limited-Time-Offer $49.99 off of the
   regular $64.99 price, for delivery around Christmas Day:
   http://imgur.com/TwTUh0M.png

While Limited-Time-Offers are illegal when they boil down to False
Advertising, let's give Amazon the benefit of the doubt in both cases,
assuming they are not jerking our chains with Bait-and-Switch.  In the
longer-term it will be democracy's interest in speaking with our Attorneys
General (in each of the 50 US states, and other jurisdictions worldwide) to
so this planet does not forget ICT4Entertainment and ICT4Education MAY
often (increasingly?) overlap, but they have entirely different underlying
assumptions as to where society is going and why.  Be That Change !!

Thanks Sora for clarifying to me what Amazon really means by "Special
Offers" -- they don't mean a Christmastime sale as I understood in the
above screenshot -- they mean advertising-in-kids-faces whenever you pick
up the tablet:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200671290

Fine, Freemium has its place in the entertianment world.  But we should not
be blissfully unaware of how advertising targets our children:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/how-advertising-targets-our-children/
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/marketing-advertising-children-issues-at-stake

Let us hope that Amazon develops less "accidentally deceitful" offerings
for schools in future, perhaps modeled on:
http://ptac.ed.gov/document/protecting-student-privacy-while-using-online-educational-services-model-terms-service
https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/action/child-rights
http://childrenandbusiness.org

Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 30, 2015, at 6:32 AM, Sora Edwards-Thro 
> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 9:21 AM, Adam Holt  wrote:
>>
>> FWIW "$64.99 Amazon Prime without special offers" is Amazon's very own
>> language, an 86% rise over the price-for-everyone on many recent days.
>>
> As far as I understand, that's *always *been the situation. When I bought
> tablets back in September, I had the option of paying $15 more per tablet
> to avoid ads, but I didn't consider that an essential feature so I didn't
> pay extra for it. Is there any reason it would be essential, especially in
> an offline situation where there's no potential to actually click-'n-'buy
> anything?
>
>
>
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[Server-devel] XSCE Network Testing

[Tim Moody]

Network discovery and configuration have become increasingly complex as we
try to handle more and more cases.  I have created a test plan for
networking to supplement the general test plan for XSCE.  There are probably
additional cases that should be tested, especially in the area of
connections that are added or changed after installation, so add them if you
can.

 

Please help get this right by testing and recording your results in

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NTePIfkhBJpRbBQ867V3WK_ORgunMMfaZt9V
Vd8tCmI/edit?usp=sharing

 

Please copy the template to a new worksheet and fill in the testing
environment and the results for scenarios tested.

 

The overall test plan for XSCE is at

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pevXOSIoV9LQF_8QV-5_ds0WPqC1Lko3UYYJ
h8UnUkM/edit#gid=0
 =A1

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Re: [Server-devel] [UKids] Amzn Fire Sale No More: pricing rises 86% !

[Adam Holt]

On Nov 30, 2015 8:27 AM, "Nick Doiron"  wrote:
> The tablet will return to the cheap price from time to time, and get
cheaper in the long run as it is mass produced.

I would not make the assumption that hardware costs are retail price are so
correlated.  Anybody is free to invest in AMZN shares if they believe
Amazon can successfully achieve such global lock-in!

Certainly it's time for "pure Android" to face some competitive pressure:
unless one own shares in GOOG, Android was not in fact appointed by the
pope & Allah & God herself to save the masses from themselves.

On the bright side, Amzn's casino-style marketing engine dangling Christmas
candy in front of us Helpless Americans (much like ChromeOS laptops less
than $100, and new Chinese/India forks of Android) will surely bring
affordable diversity among QA'd clean devices to the developing world, so
long overdue, Eventually (will a little help from Confucius & Hindu Gods!)
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[Server-devel] Amzn Fire Sale No More: pricing rises 86% !

[Adam Holt]

Amazon assures us they are not in fact a casino, with oscillating prices,
oscillating inventory, and oscillating policies, and 86'ing inventory from
a country whose code is +86 = China ;-)

Perhaps worse from microdeployments' very practical and pragmatic
perspective, looking out over the high walls of Fortress America, Amzn's
tablets just don't exist in many countries, so that "local capacity
building" CAN become more than a fundraising buzzword One Day.

But yes: fyi Amazon has now almost doubled its tablet price range/target:
"$64.99 without special offers", instead of $34.99-for-everyone so very
recently.

Braddock's cautions (about deployments having the logistics rug pulled out
from under them) apply earlier than we imagined...

Oh for the good old days when OLPC'S microdeployment pricing only
oscillated about 10-to-20% of the XO's "China price" (perhaps that's still
the case, if OLPC still uses DHL from China).  OLPC's microdeployment
real/actual pricing (including country-by-country certication, delivery
from China, customs brokering) being even more stable in the USA, last I
checked anyway.

The future of student devices / clean browsers / consistent Sugar UX
remains all too blurry for now ~ might OLPC Australia's "Infinite" hardware
(modular laptop, announced for September 2016) possibly reconsider a clean
Sugar experience out-of-the-box?
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Re: [Server-devel] [UKids] Amzn Fire Sale No More: pricing rises 86% !

[Adam Holt]

On Nov 30, 2015 8:45 AM, "Sora Edwards-Thro"  wrote:
>
> Price has gone up to $49.99 for Prime members, as far as I can tell.
That's a 43% increase over the Black Friday $34.99 deal, not 86% or double.

FWIW "$64.99 Amazon Prime without special offers" is Amazon's very own
language, an 86% rise over the price-for-everyone on many recent days.

If they're going to Fire up the Christmas hype machine, we should honor
their offering for what it is (unlockable for now, long term unclear).  But
suppliers also need to man up and face the consequences when they pull the
rug out from sincere edutech communities.

There are state laws to protect people from constantly changing pricing,
arbitrarily limiting quantities (and hiding limiting quantities, unlike
traditional retailers which are more forthcoming than Amazon, warning
consumers in their fliers that there will be limited quantities).  And
similar anticompetitive practices in the face of modern consumer protection.

Amazon knows the Attorneys General of all 50 states extremely well, who may
(or may not, given lobbyists are well known for buying off Attorneys
General) protect US buyers anyway, from such big dataveillance
shenanigans...
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