News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by mandevil on Friday June 05, 2020 @09:22AM (#23428187)
Isn't that because credit cards came later to the EU, so they had better standards because they didn't have to worry about supporting huge quantities of obsolete technology? I don't know the exact details on credit cards, but I know that's true for CDMA vs. GSM and NTSC vs PAL. In the US there were so many black and white TV's already out there that they couldn't abandon them, hence NTSC (which allowed the older black and white TV's to just read the Red channel). In Europe, with out those huge numbers of already existing TVs to support, they could go straight to a clearly better standard, PAL.

This is a common problem, see _The Innovators Dilemma_ by Clayton Christensen.

Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by giantrobot on Friday June 05, 2020 @01:36PM (#23431319)
Pedantic note on NTSC: the signal has a luma (brightness) and chroma (color) component. The NTSC standard had a place for chroma information from the get-go but it was unused for a long time. Color cameras were expensive, storage more complex, and the televisions themselves more complex and expensive. As technology improved it became more practical and broadcasters started doing color broadcasts. Old black and white televisions worked as before but then new color ones...had color. Huzzah for forward thinking specifications.

Black and white televisions just displayed the luma component of the signal. The luma component was not just the "red" signal but a measure of total brightness.

Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by ripdog on Friday June 05, 2020 @09:35AM (#23428324)
>Isn't that because credit cards came later to the EU, so they had better standards because they didn't have to worry about supporting huge quantities of obsolete technology?

In New Zealand, credit card machines are basically required to be replaced every few years as security standards improve. Is this not the case in USA?

Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by tyoma on Friday June 05, 2020 @11:00AM (#23429325)
In the US merchants own their own machines and the banks have to strongarm them into getting new ones. This is one of the reasons some places still require a swipe to pay.
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by ketzu on Friday June 05, 2020 @09:50AM (#23428490)
As far as I know, the tech of credit cards is also borne from liability regulation. The higher security of the european system allowed the european banks to move liability to the users.
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by LargoLasskhyfv on Friday June 05, 2020 @01:17PM (#23430975)
Ahem. No. At the end of the day PAL worked the same way. I know because we had a small black & white TV-Set when i was very little. And been mostly disinterested in it, because playing in the surrounding forests with my friends was more exiting, even for them, who already had colour TV.
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by amaccuish on Friday June 05, 2020 @10:47AM (#23429159)
Credit cards are much less used in Europe. France pioneered chip cards with the Carte Bancaire.