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Wired's 2004 Vaporware Awards
l3pYr writes "Based on user submissions, Wired Magazine has posted its 2004 Vaporware Awards. Duke Nukem Forever has garnered the 'Lifetime Achievement Award,' so it doesn't - officially - make the list. Some of the lucky winners this year are: Alienware, Valve, Microsoft, Apple and TiVo."
10. Alienware's Video Array
9. Intel's Pentium 4 at 4 GHz
8. Apple Computer's G5 Chips at 3 GHz
7. Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms
6. Gran Turismo 4
5. ATI's Radeon X800 series of video cards
4. TiVoToGo
3. Microsoft's Longhorn
2. CherryOS
1. Phantom Game Console
I have it installed on my system also, although I don't recall booting it anytime recently. It does boot though. It has X, you can compile programs, I think it runs Emacs, it definately runs vi, there might even be a couple games ported to it now. It's a turtle, but definately not vaporware.
Clickety Click
I was thinking the same thing. We have a system at work that has a X800 installed in it, we got it 6 months ago. Also we just got three X800 XTs in the middle of december. I don't see how these cards can be considered vapourware.
Also, we didn't jump through any special hops to get these cards, we just placed an order with a local computer store, like any Joe Blow is able to do.
[SIG] Far better to be thought a fool then to post on
Anyone can throw a computer in a pretty case and call it by whatever name they want -- the big deal is the price point they claim to be able to deliver (similar to a console, which MS already did with the XBox), and the concept of a 'subscription' (with a delivery mechanism) for games.
Showing a physical unit off at the CES is like showing a MMORPG without any multi-user support -- it might look pretty, but it's missing the core feature that's supposed to make it special.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Although that article you linked to claimed that it was running games, another site says that the console was never plugged in during CES. Link to Article here
The article does mention that the Phantom was part of a display for Windows Embedded Devices, which I guess means someone at Microsoft has seen this thing running, but it still seems a little suspicious to me.
That's exactly what they did. IBM built a brand new fab specifically to build very fast 970s and other 13 nm and smaller chips.
That was the whole point.
While popular religion often presents the idea that early Christians all believed the coming of Christ would be immediate, this is actually explicitly refuted in the Bible in II Thessalonians 2:1-3.
Jesus did state that the kingdom of heaven would come "in this generation" (his generation, not ours) (Mark 9:1, Matthew 24:34), but He also taught that the kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36) and was "within you" (Luke 17:20-21). Since the Bible later identifies the kingdom as the church, refers to Christians already being a part of the kingdom in the past tense rather than future (Colossians 1:13), describes Christ as presently serving as King rather than serving as King in the future (Acts 2:33, Hebrews 12:2), and describes Christ as returning the Kingdom to the Father at His second coming rather than establishing the Kingdom at that time (I Corinthians 15:24), it seems that the prophecy of Christ of the coming of the kingdom referred to the establishment of the church, rather than to His coming at the end of time.
Finally, both Christ (Mark 13:32) and His apostles (I Thessalonians 5:2) stated that noone knew the time of His coming and that it would be without warning, like a thief in the night. Thus, while I and II Thessalonians indicate that many early Christians may have misunderstood, a properly educated 1st century C.E. Christian holding to the doctrine of the second coming as taught by Christ and His apostles would have recognized that the day might or might not come in the immediate future.
That said, you did get a laugh out of me. ;) Hope you found the Bible info informative and that addressing a serious response to a joke doesn't bug you. (That's how I learned everything in high school physics; the teacher addressed serious responses to my jokes.)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
That's not as bad as TiVoToGo being #4, despite having already been released only a few days outside the specified window. And the X800 got #5 despite being scheduled to be in transit at press time and having previously available to reviewers.
Virus and Virus 2000 showed a lot of the phenominal mind of David Braben, with impressive graphics and a complex realistic flying system.
In addition to that, he's one of the VERY few coder/designer/CEOs who ALSO are willing to spend the time answering people's questions on USENET. He also ran a survey to see if there was interest in a Linux version of Elite, at the request of fans. That kind of response is rare, but very much appreciated.
Unfortunately, Braben's promises of Elite 4, the debacles over Frontier and FFE, the failure to market Virus 2000 in the US, allegations that he was involved in the killing-off of the clone "Elite: The New Kind", alleged harassment of Ian Bell over his Elite website, etc, suggest that there is a less welcome side to his character.
Most of these are beyond fixing today. Elite 4 is not. But people won't remember the Elite series forever. There's only so big a timeframe to operate in. If he needs help, ideas, support, whatever - that's fine, we can all understand that, but he's not going to get any of those if he doesn't ask, and he might well not get as good as is there, if he's seen as secretive and hostile.
Elite 4 is vaporware, right now, and one of the worst examples of it. If it's done right, though, AND released, it could be a serious killer app in the games market. Even if it's "perfect" and the ultimate product ever written, nobody is going to care if they can't ever see it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)