Posted by
timothy
on from the cd-r-handheld-ogg-player dept.
ThatKidYouDid writes "Wired.com is holding a vote for this years best
vaporware. My vote definitely goes to the oqo, although I'd still snag one if they ever materialized. What do others really wish could have happened by Xmas?"
While not 2002's.... UO 2...
by
TibbonZero
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I would have really liked to see UO ship, or at least release the source... instead of basically firing everyone and burning most of the work for no good reason..
I remember when the GeForce 3 came out, and it was supposed to be THE card to run Doom III. Now it's looking like it won't be even close to powerfull enough.
While we all know that Doom III will be out eventually, I would say that it's been delayed enough to be considered vapourware.
At least we know from the leaked alpha that the game will ROCK:-)
If there is a piece of vaporware to rule them all it is Team Fortress 2. Check out the website http://tf2.sierra.com. The last time the news on the site was updated was Jan 23, 2001!!! The game has been in the works since 1998!! According to all the official websites TF2 is still in developement/coming soon. Neither Sierra nor Valve has reported that the game is dead. Some version of the game was even demo'd once or twice, which means it was SOMETHING.
TF2, king of vaporware.
-- The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I actually did some sound effects work for this back when it was originally slated to be a Quake 2 mod by the TF team (before they all joined on with Valve). You can actually still download the MP3 of the sounds all put together, made to sound like one huge battle.
Once they got bought out by Valve, I got paid for the work I did and that was the last I saw/heard about the game really. Looking back at it now though, I hope they really don't use my old sounds, as they're quite dated and admitedly amateur.
At one point, while I was working on the last version of TF released for QuakeWorld (remember that?), Robin of TF had me take a look at a first run of TF2 for Quake2. I actually think I have that still laying around here on an old CD somewhere.
What are you talking about? TF2 was released ages ago with only a few hiccups in production. IIRC the only the problems they suffered were:
1. They had to outsource development.
2. They had to rename the game to Counter-Strike.
I am only half joking. CS now has nearly all the important features that TF2 was meant to have, along with polish, popularity and panache that it could never have hoped for.
In addition, the Half-Life engine has undergone tremendous enhancement over the years, to nearly the state that TF2 promised. Voice communication has already been added, and a player can assume a "commander role" if the mod allows (as in Natural Selection). The graphics were also bumped up with higher quality texture maps. There have also been many many other enhancements, great and small. In fact, I think the HL engine is the most heavily upgraded engine of all time.
As far as I'm concerned, CS *IS* TF2 and Valve gave it out for free. Yay!
Remember Zeosync made that huge fuss claiming 100:1 compression on random data?
Many news agencies like Reuters ran with it and as usual Shanon proved them wrong (try www.zeosync.com hehe)
If only they had read the newsgroup compression FAQ they would have saved time and all that investor money (they had over $10 million at one point I believe).
Anyhow I thought that was the best vaporware... if only it could have been true;(
Neverwinter Nights for Linux is technically vaporware, as it has yet to be released, and isn't going to be released before January 10.
Re:A working Linux distro
by
manly_15
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
In my mind, Mandrake has come close, but who knows how long they will continue to be around.
I don't think the actual software is the big problem. Most things are not too different from the various Windows OSes. The two main issues for the desktop are:
1. Command line fear. Let's face it. As easy as something like "ifup eth0" is, the idea of typing commands scares users. Sometimes, it can almost be more difficult for newbies to navigate a GUI, especially when you get multiple windows open. It would be really cool if there was a shell that understood straight english and was able to execute commands based on them, ex "connect to the internet", "delete file called xxx", etc.
2. Documentation A lot of the documentation for *nix is very good. However, most newbies wouldn't even think to look on the web, much less in on line help. Sort of like the Mandrake Installer, a desktop OS should have help integrated EVERYWHERE, with the option to turn it off once the user is comfortable with the system.
While vaporware is generally thought of as software, what about hardware? I'd say AMD's Hammer not coming out this year was the biggest vaporware of the year.
-- Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
Silicon Film Technologies should be on there, hands down. They won in 2000 or so. You'd think after two more years they'd find a way to make this work.
It's vapor, but it could be the road to digital for people with high-quality 35mm SLR cameras. Everyone wants to go digital for the convenience, the instant feedback on the shot, the uh, privacy of not going through a photo lab, etc. There must be over a million people with SLR's of higher optical quality than most of today's point-and-shoot digitals.
In fact, I can't imagine why this hasn't flown. I don't think anyone else has beaten them to the punch, and it seems technically feasible. Maybe they can't get the sensor thin enough to close the camera back?
Re:Flying Cars?
by
gtshafted
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
What ever did happen to Mollar flying car? I remember seeing it on Beyond 2000 about 10 years ago when it was still on Fox, when they were "so close".
Re:NWN Linux
by
TeknoDragon
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
helll yeah
The .Net "Revolution"
by
Drakker
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Yes,.Net is coming! Is it a revolution? Not at all, we're going back to the good old mainframes.
Beside, 99% of their architecture isnt even ready.
Re:Next TAOCP volume from Knuth?
by
bedessen
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Knuth is a guy who likes to plan ahead. On his web site he states that Volume 4 (of The Art Of Computer Programming) will be ready in 2007, and Vol. 5 will be published in 2009. He then goes on to describe how he plans to rewrite Vols. 1-3 after he finishes 5. Finally after that, "God willing" he says, he plans to write Vol. 6 (context-free languages) and Vol. 7 (Compiler Techniques.) We're talking probably 10-20 years into the future here, certainly what I'd call long-term planning.
LiNTFS
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Or NTFS for Linux that all of us are so eager to get the hands on. Promised by November, never delivered.
Re:MS .Net Server
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
RTFM
"As in previous years, software locked in the pre-release, beta-testing stage is considered vaporware, even if it's widely available. It hasn't shipped until it's shrink-wrapped."
I wonder how well the geek-virgin stereotype holds up to the myth, or if it just gets thrown around because we like to poke fun at ourselves. I'd like to see this slashdot poll:
Are you a virgin?
Yes
No
I'm keeping my virginty for Cowboy Neal you insensitve cold!
Halo on PC is not vaporware in comparisson to Halo on the Mac: Mac users have been hearing "Real soon now" from Bungie since 2000, before the Microsoft buyout.
Linux stampede, MS death
by
NineNine
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I nominate the stampede of users rushing away from Windows to some flavor of Linux. Every other article here is something like, "Company x is installing Linux on xxx,xxx boxes!! Linux is winning! So, how much longer do you think Microsoft will be around?" Yet somehow, this hasn't even begun to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
I would have really liked to see UO ship, or at least release the source... instead of basically firing everyone and burning most of the work for no good reason..
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I remember when the GeForce 3 came out, and it was supposed to be THE card to run Doom III. Now it's looking like it won't be even close to powerfull enough. While we all know that Doom III will be out eventually, I would say that it's been delayed enough to be considered vapourware. At least we know from the leaked alpha that the game will ROCK :-)
If there is a piece of vaporware to rule them all it is Team Fortress 2. Check out the website http://tf2.sierra.com. The last time the news on the site was updated was Jan 23, 2001!!! The game has been in the works since 1998!! According to all the official websites TF2 is still in developement/coming soon. Neither Sierra nor Valve has reported that the game is dead. Some version of the game was even demo'd once or twice, which means it was SOMETHING.
TF2, king of vaporware.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
While they allegedly exist, I have yet to actually see one on the street.
And yet Amazon promises to deliver them any month now...
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Remember Zeosync made that huge fuss claiming 100:1 compression on random data?
;(
Many news agencies like Reuters ran with it and as usual Shanon proved them wrong (try www.zeosync.com hehe)
If only they had read the newsgroup compression FAQ they would have saved time and all that investor money (they had over $10 million at one point I believe).
Anyhow I thought that was the best vaporware... if only it could have been true
Neverwinter Nights for Linux is technically vaporware, as it has yet to be released, and isn't going to be released before January 10.
In my mind, Mandrake has come close, but who knows how long they will continue to be around.
I don't think the actual software is the big problem. Most things are not too different from the various Windows OSes. The two main issues for the desktop are:
1. Command line fear.
Let's face it. As easy as something like "ifup eth0" is, the idea of typing commands scares users. Sometimes, it can almost be more difficult for newbies to navigate a GUI, especially when you get multiple windows open. It would be really cool if there was a shell that understood straight english and was able to execute commands based on them, ex "connect to the internet", "delete file called xxx", etc.
2. Documentation
A lot of the documentation for *nix is very good. However, most newbies wouldn't even think to look on the web, much less in on line help. Sort of like the Mandrake Installer, a desktop OS should have help integrated EVERYWHERE, with the option to turn it off once the user is comfortable with the system.
Perhaps #2 is why OSX is so great?
While vaporware is generally thought of as software, what about hardware? I'd say AMD's Hammer not coming out this year was the biggest vaporware of the year.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
Silicon Film Technologies should be on there, hands down. They won in 2000 or so. You'd think after two more years they'd find a way to make this work.
It's vapor, but it could be the road to digital for people with high-quality 35mm SLR cameras. Everyone wants to go digital for the convenience, the instant feedback on the shot, the uh, privacy of not going through a photo lab, etc. There must be over a million people with SLR's of higher optical quality than most of today's point-and-shoot digitals.
In fact, I can't imagine why this hasn't flown. I don't think anyone else has beaten them to the punch, and it seems technically feasible. Maybe they can't get the sensor thin enough to close the camera back?
What ever did happen to Mollar flying car? I remember seeing it on Beyond 2000 about 10 years ago when it was still on Fox, when they were "so close".
helll yeah
Yes, .Net is coming! Is it a revolution? Not at all, we're going back to the good old mainframes.
Beside, 99% of their architecture isnt even ready.
Knuth is a guy who likes to plan ahead. On his web site he states that Volume 4 (of The Art Of Computer Programming) will be ready in 2007, and Vol. 5 will be published in 2009. He then goes on to describe how he plans to rewrite Vols. 1-3 after he finishes 5. Finally after that, "God willing" he says, he plans to write Vol. 6 (context-free languages) and Vol. 7 (Compiler Techniques.) We're talking probably 10-20 years into the future here, certainly what I'd call long-term planning.
Or NTFS for Linux that all of us are so eager to get the hands on. Promised by November, never delivered.
RTFM
"As in previous years, software locked in the pre-release, beta-testing stage is considered vaporware, even if it's widely available. It hasn't shipped until it's shrink-wrapped."
Describes: enterprise linux kernel pretty well.
Are you a virgin?
Halo on PC is not vaporware in comparisson to Halo on the Mac: Mac users have been hearing "Real soon now" from Bungie since 2000, before the Microsoft buyout.
I nominate the stampede of users rushing away from Windows to some flavor of Linux. Every other article here is something like, "Company x is installing Linux on xxx,xxx boxes!! Linux is winning! So, how much longer do you think Microsoft will be around?" Yet somehow, this hasn't even begun to happen.