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PlayStation Home Beta Opens to the Public
Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for PlayStation Home, the virtual world designed for PlayStation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds... [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]...
till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816
"Grand Central" sounds like something perfectly made for the Cell processor."
It was.
All of the stuff they are doing now with GPU acceleration was originally going to be Cell based. All of that Core image stuff was essentially Cell wrapper code.
That is until IBM decided to dump Apple as a client after landing contracts for all three console makers. They were sick of dealing with Apple and that was a perfect opportunity to cut ties with the company.
Of course no one from Apple will admit any of this now since the official line is they 'decided' to move to x86. Just like someone telling everyone about a former girl/boyfriend "They didn't dump me, I dumped them" to try to save face.
Of course Apple knows very few people will remember Apple running to PA Semi after getting dumped by IBM to try to save them.
AMD wasn't a viable chip supplier for Apple.
So Apple ended up turning to Intel and x86 as their 'first choice'.
A G5 with multiple Cells on a daughter card was going to be the ultimate media workstation. Photoshop, Maya, etc would have been mind bogglingly fast.