How Big a Role Does Brand Value Play in Determining the Price of a Product?

Brand is a signal of quality of the product. For example; a famous brand such as Apple for cellular phones will cost more because consumers have a belief (based on previous purchase, market ratings, and word of mouth etc.) that it has better quality and features compared with a similar cellular phone which is not of famous brand. Consumers are willing to pay a higher price for the higher quality (vertical differentiation due to brand value of Apple). The exact value of brand has always been a focal point of debate by experts in marketing and price pundits. Brand value does play a significant role in price of the product only if the consumers perceive a brand value and their willingness to pay is affected by this. There are different ways to price such as cost plus based pricing and willingness to pay based pricing. Typically cost plus pricing does not factor the brand value as it is not a direct cost to company. If a company is doing willingness to pay based pricing then brand value must play a big role, but willingness to pay based pricing is not easy due to limited data on consumers. How big a role does brand value play in determining the price of a product?

1. Why couldn't cellular phones prior foment the political revolutions that the Internet is presently fomenting?

It's not the technology that foments revolution. It is the people. Iran already had a revolution in 1979, a rather unfortunate one as it turned out. They did it without cell phones. Next time they will do it with cell phones, when historical conditions are right.

2. Files Transmission using Media Transfer Protocol (MTP)

In this article we will describe what Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is, as well as its advantages and disadvantages. The MTP protocol seeks to address concerns about the distribution of digital content in the consumer market as an increasing number of organizations create and distribute digital audio/video content. The aim of MTP is to deliver content via a secure, easy-to-use interface, and push it to a range of devices. The Media Transfer Protocol, introduced by Microsoft, is a protocol designed for intelligent storage devices like phones and digital audio players. It is based on, and fully compatible with, the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP). MTP allows the synchronization of files between portable devices and a personal computer (PC). Standardized in 2000, PTP was originally developed to transfer images from a digital still camera to a PC. PTP is limited to transferring images and is an insufficient solution for media rich portable devices like phones and portable media players. Microsoft therefore introduced the MTP to address the shortcomings in PTP. Before the development of MTP, mobile phone manufacturers integrated USB Mass Storage Class (USB MSC) into their products to facilitate file transfers between PC and phones. However, since the standardization of MTP as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device class in 2008, manufacturers have slowly started moving towards implementing support for MTP in their devices. MTP offers the following advantages over USB MSC: A smartphone device in MTP mode controls the input and output to the file system. Hence there is no risk of data loss in case of accidental or intentional disconnection from USB of the host computer. MTP also prevents formatting of the smartphone's partition as users are only working on a layer over the file system, thus providing a greater degree of lock-down. Unlike MTP, USB MSC works at a block level. This means when a phone with this protocol is connected to a PC system, it gives the host computer absolute control over the phone's operating system partition. This can lead to serious consequences, for example, it would be possible for the host to reformat the file system in the phone. As the MTP driver uses a simulated file system, it is always compatible with any host computer regardless if the operating system of the host supports the file system or not. With USB MSC, the host PC must support the USB MSC file system natively or download drivers for it to be compatible. MTP is closely related to Windows Media Player and supports copyright protection through digital rights management (DRM). USB MSC does not have any support for DRM. USB MSC prevents the PC and device from accessing itself at the same time. With USB MSC, the phone device is locked by the host computer while it is being accessed. Users trying to use their phones during this period will not be able to. MTP does not suffer from such issues and allows simultaneous usage by the host computer and the user. Thus, the user could make calls, check SMS messages while the phone is performing file transfer to and from the PC. Let us now turn to some of the disadvantages of using MTP: Files on a MTP device cannot be directly viewed or altered. They must first be copied to the host computer before it can be opened. Large files will take a much longer transfer time which can be very inconvenient to the user. MTP can only perform a single operation (read, write, delete, etc.) each time and other operations cannot be executed without completing the current running operation first. File timestamps are often read-only and set by the device after a file is uploaded to it. SyncBack uses a number of strategies to get around this limitation. MTP devices are mounted as Windows portable devices. Thus, they show up as an entry in Windows Explorer with no drive letter issued. Software trying to connect to these devices via drive letters will not be able to do so. One example would be the old versions (pre-V7) of the backup and synchronization software, SyncBackPro, SyncBackSE and SyncBackFree. Android devices like phones and tablets with the MTP protocol will have no drive letters allocated to them and the old versions of SyncBackPro/SE/Free will not be able to perform data backups or synchronization to or from these devices. However, SyncBackPro and SyncBackSE V7 and newer support MTP (it is not supported in SyncBackFree). In conclusion, the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is a class protocol for current and future portable media devices like portable media players and cellular phones. An alternative to using MTP is to install SyncBack Touch on the device. There are many advantages to using SyncBack Touch instead of MTP.

3. How can I get rid of a hacker who's embedded so deeply in my phone/smart devices that normal solutions don't work?

You may not be able to purge the infected phone. Some models of cellular phones and tablets have malware installed in the phone's own bios. I have recently learned that several programs are repeatedly reinstalling themselves. They do not exist in the app store and they give themselves full rights and privileges like no other app has. They do not use cryptic names so they are not boldly presenting themselves.Technological IdeasHow can I get rid of a hacker who's embedded so deeply in my phone/smart devices that normal solutions do not work?.