Let us take 9 "quantum pairs" (honestly, I don't know the exact terminology of them). You have 9 of them on Earth (A) and 9 of them elsewhere (B). They are ordered from 0 to 8. Assuming that you can determine when the quantum waveform collapses into spin up or spin down, you start the communication when A0 is caused to collapse. Instantly B0 becomes up or down. That's the start of the communication. If after 1 ms, B1 is found to have collapsed into an up or down, that counts as a 0. If after 2ms, B1 is found to have collapsed into a up or down, that counts as a 1. You would be able to generate a byte of data this way.
So start-2-1-2-1-1-1-2-1, would be 10100010.
The point is that it doesn't matter whatever B0 to B8 end up as. Just when they end up as an up or a down.
Are you going to be able to determine whether the waveform has collapsed without collapsing it yourself.
Of course, I didn't sleep last night. My guess is that if you are in a position to determine whether or not the waveform has collapsed, you will collapse it yourself. Maybe there's an indirect method.
As far as matter transportation, I wouldn't rule it out as impossible. I certainly wouldn't say it's inevitable. When quantum communication is studied in greater depth, some inconsistencies may be uncovered which could lead to a "greater truth".
The Wii is sold out pretty much as soon as it enters stores. A price INCREASE might may sense, but a price decrease doesn't make sense until you start having demand problems. I don't think they'll increase the price due to public outrage, but the demand is there.
A price cut on the PS3 would bring an immediate price cut on the 360. Comparing a $500 PS3 to a $300 360, the $300 console is going to sell much better. Especially with a better game library right now. Sony should hope and pray that price cuts don't happen for any console until Sony has significantly reduced the manufacturing price.
Microsoft should have cut the price of the 360 in May. The Wii is very quickly gaining ground on the 360 and will catch up soon. The lead over the PS3 may disappear when Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4 come out. Microsoft should drop the 360 core (sell them with a hard drive for $249 until there are no more) and focus on a $299 360 premium. Anyone who wants to pay more can buy a $399 Elite. 360 sales are not very good and there is a lot of stock at stores. Pretty much everyone who wanted to buy one at $399 already has one.
Microsoft has non-traditional sources of income for the 360. Live brings in $50 a year per subscriber. Profit from Live is probably at least 30%. Microsoft makes a 30% profit from downloads. If someone is a Live subscriber and buys $50 worth of downloads a year (movies, television shows, Arcade, expansions, downloadable content), that would be $30 a year. Over 4 years, that's $120 profit. With publishers paying Microsoft $8 for every game sold, 20 games over 4 years adds up to $160. Both of those together would be about $280. If Microsoft's cost of manufacturing a 360 is about $300 http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20 061120132150.html/ (the article is dated November 20, 2006 and I'm assuming that it's lower now) and their cost of shipping, assembling and store profit is about $100, their total cost per console would be $400. Once the 65nm chips are out, it will only cut the cost further. You could make an argument for any price between $199 and $299. A $299 price would get them many more sales and would still be a profitable position in the long run. I don't think a price less than $299 is in the planning, but I think it could be justified.
If Microsoft wanted to screw over Sony, they would buy Rockstar and Square Enix. Buying Square Enix is probably the only way they could break into Japan. Make Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy exclusive to the 360. Release it for Windows Vista 6 months later. It would piss the Japanese off, but they would grit their teeth while buying a 360 to get some FF action. Losing Grand Theft Auto would kill the PS3 in North America and Europe, it would probably be enough to take it down worldwide. The Wii will continue to be profitable for Nintendo.
Everyone has a legitimate concern about parents molesting their children. And it would be great if there was an easy solution. But this appears to be blindly striking out at the problem. This is several steps worse than banning novels which have a fictional murder because some people may be inspired by it. This would be similar to sending people to prison for saying that they're "killing time" because someone has a last name of "Tyme". Blind stupid methods for solving problems never work, they just impair the ability of regular people to live their lives. You know that the pedophiles are just going to adopt codewords and continue their pedophile ways.
I would be much happier if this was a regular pedophile hunt. Of course, malware is going to be downloading horrific stuff to unknowing people, leading to innocent people being dragged off to jail by techno-impaired judges and juries.
Like killer bees. People know what bees are. People don't want to be stung by bees. You then put a fancy title on it: "Killer Bees Spread NORTHWARD!" and you have a perfect story for the evening news. It's even better when you imply that the watcher's children are in danger: "Pervo Bees in a van try to pick up kids outside a school!". And then imply it may be the school that the watcher's children go to. If all else fails, start making it sexy news: "Special Report: Is Cheerleading the first step to STRIPPING? Is your daughter at risk? Are the killer bees involved? We ask several young cheerleaders if they feel pressured to take their clothes off. And what sort of pressure would be required to get them naked. Film at eleven."
The Wii has three games which have sold a million copies or more: Twlight Princess, Wii Play and Wii Sports. All Nintendo games. The Wii is still early in its product life, so it can be expected that not many games will have passed the million mark yet. The problem is that too much focus is on the first party Nintendo games. If third party publishers lack the hype necessary to sell their games, they will not bring exclusive games to the Wii. The Wii will merely get awful ports like Far Cry http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/farcry/index.ht ml?q=farcry&tag=result;title;0/ and Spiderman 3http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/spiderman3/ind ex.html?q=spiderman&tag=result;title;4#. Spiderman 3 apparently sucks on every console, but it sucks extra hard on the Wii. Far Cry was a great game for the PC, but has lost a lot of its lustre on the Wii.
Nintendo has to be willing to share the spotlight with it's third party developers.
If you are going to pay six hundred dollars for a game console, you are probably willing to buy eighty dollar games. If you want cheap games, why not stick with your PS2 and buy some used games for $15 to $20 each. The Wii is being sold as the cheap alternative, so cheap downloadables make a lot of sense.
Sure you can add downloadable cheap games as an extra. But is it a good idea to use your AAA developers when you're already hurting for exclusives? All three console makers will depend heavily on their first party games to persaude the public to buy their systems.
The justification for the high price of the PS3 is that it is also a Blu-Ray player. If Blu-Ray loses the format war, where does that leave the PS3? Don't even try to say that the PS3 is a superior game console to the Xbox 360. F.E.A.R. was just released on the PS3 and it has inferior graphics to the Xbox360 or PC. The PS3 version was released 6 months after the Xbox 360 version. Nearly every game released on both platforms has inferior graphics and no online for the PS3 version.
Simply put, the PS3 doesn't hold a candle to the visuals found in the Xbox 360 version -- especially considering the handful of bugs that have dead soldiers getting stuck in walls and twitching on the floor. The detailed environments and clear draw distances aren't found on PS3. If you had never seen the other versions of F.E.A.R., you still wouldn't be impressed with the PS3's graphics, but compared to the PC and 360, this version is graphically dead in the water.
We are looking at a $199 HD-DVD player in the near future. At $150 cost per unit, I think Walmart is going to charge $199 a piece. Walmart works in volume. If they do this, you're going to see $249 players from other retailers. I guess all of the people who are saying that they are waiting for a sub $200 HD player will be buying one soon. Is Sony preventing the release of cheaper Blu-Ray players or is it just taking too long to bring down manufacturing prices?
HDTVs are about to be widely adopted. On Walmart's website, they are selling a 37 inch 720p/1080i TV for $698. I'm not saying it's the greatest quality television, but it's not outside the price range of the middle class. So you can buy a HD TV and player for under a thousand dollars.
If Sony had joined the HD-DVD coalition, they would be in a much better position. There would have been no format war and the PS3 would have a HD-DVD drive which would be the certain high definition format. Sony would still collect some royalities, just less than a Blu-Ray victory. Sometimes the safe option is the best option.
Although the United States is an increasingly unpopular country, China is a more likely enemy. The greatest points of conflict with the United States would be over Russian business deals with "anti-American" countries. The United States is unlikely to invade any more countries in the near future given the numerous complications of the Iraq war. Iraq was one of the biggest business partners of Russia and the countries did not come to blows over it. A great number of the conflicts that Russia has with the West are also with Europe. There has been a great number of conflicts over oil. As far as the "War on Terror", the US and Russia are natural allies. With Russia's occupation of Chechnya (which makes the Iraq war look like a visit to the playground http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_ War/), they have had repeated attacks by Muslim terrorists.
Russia has a lot of land and massive natural resources. China has a thirst for natural resources, severe internal conflict and a huge disproportially male population. If the effectiveness of Russia's nuclear arsenal was thought to be limited (perhaps by the development of new missile defence technologies), then China may invade Russia. The Chinese may be willing to lose ten million men to take a substantial part of Russian territory. A war for territory may move many of the disgruntled young Chinese men to the frontline.
I think the US is chosen as an enemy because America bashing is very easy right now. If the Russian government were to look at its most likely enemies, it may compromise it's business agreements.
This copy protection prevents most people from renting/borrowing a DVD and making a copy of it. Until people download the latest software for cracking it. This is mostly targetting non-technical people who were given DVD Shrink by a friend.
There will be copies of the DVD available on the Internet, because someone will crack the protection. All it takes is one copy on the Internet to ensure that anyone on a peer to peer network can get a copy.
Sony is risking alienating a large number of people to stop a small number of pirates. Not just a small number of pirates, but the non-technical pirates. They are also annoying Walmart, Blockbuster, BestBuy and any other retailer who sells their DVDs. Who are the consumers going to complain to? The retailers.
Oddly, this could cost them money even if you ignore retail backlash. Companies which rent DVDs to the consumer, purchase DVDs based on rental demand. If someone rents and burns a DVD, the movie company is pissed, but it still increases rental demand. Higher rental demand, increases sales of the DVDs to the companies who rent them. If someone finds they can't rent and burn, they probably will just download the image from BitTorrent rather than buy the DVD. Not to mention the people who can't play the Sony DVDs, they'll want a free version which actually works.
Sony has the right to put any copy protection scheme they want on their DVDs, as long as it maintains compatibility. If you sell someone a product which is designed not to work properly on their DVD player, you better tell them first. Even if the consumer was willing to get firmware updates, do you think the manufacturers want to start sending out discs and supporting consumers through the update?
They seem to be very sure that an ISP keeps accurate IP address records. Why do I feel that this will result in a semi-technical employee of the ISP pulling up who the IP Address is currently leased to? I feel sorry for all of the people with a wireless network using a SSID of "Linksys". Expect a letter tommorrow.
Does anyone else feel that it doesn't matter to the RIAA/MPAA if their lawsuits are accurate or not? If you send intimidating letters to people, some of them will settle even if they are innocent. You can then claim X number of settlements and declare victory.
This is a great scam for someone who wants to commit fraud on a national scale. Send people letters claiming that they breached copyright law and demand a settlement. Offer an opportunity for settlement for $2000. If they get a lawyer, drop any claim. If they ignore it, write it off. If it costs you a dollar per letter and 0.1% of people accept your "offer", a million letters will net you a million dollars. Maybe this is the new business model for big media.
Sony is behind the other console manufacturers. In order to catch up, it has to outperform its rivals. The European launch was a moderate success. The PS3 didn't sell out. Having an ample supply only counts if people want to buy your product for the price you're selling it at.
Mistakes Sony has made:
Including Blu Ray, Sony's dominance would almost certainly be guaranteed if it was releasing a console at the same time and price as the Xbox 360. Which would be possible with the use of a DVD drive.
Not securing exclusives, with Grand Theft Auto 4, Devil May Cry 4, Resident Evil 5 going to the Xbox 360, a lot of people don't have to buy a PS3. We will see if Metal Gear Solid 4 or Final Fantasy XIII goes multiplatform. Game publishers by default want to sell as many copies of games as possible, they inherently want to go multiplatform.
Failing to make Final Fantasy XII and God of War 2 PS3 exclusives instead of PS2 titles, these would have sold a lot of PS3s during a drought of good launch titles. They would have had to shell out a lot of money to Square for this, but it would have been worth every penny.
How can the Sony redeem itself? It has to ensure that there are a sufficient quantity of third party exclusives and a $399 price tag. Sony also has to understand that people are not going to buy a console just because it has the word Playstation on it. They need to learn from Nintendo's mistakes (and successes).
I think it would be quite easy for Microsoft to bring down the Playstation 3, but it will cost money. They need to buy Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity and pay to make MGS4 and FF13 multiplatform. Grand Theft Auto games account for 3 of the top 4 selling PS2 games (and Grand Turismo was bundled). Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity will probably cost them between $100 and $200 million. They have to replace lost PS3 sales (although a lot of people will buy an Xbox 360 instead of a PS3 in order to get the game) and pay a premium for the privilege. FF13 and MGS4 going multiplatform will cost less, simply because game publishers want to release multiplatform for more sales. Microsoft lost $4 billion on the first Xbox, so a few hundred million to drive Sony into the ground would make a lot of sense.
Microsoft can lose its battle with Sony if it assumes its lead will continue. It has to drive gamers and game publishers away from the PS3 before Sony significantly reduces the manufacturing cost.
The Wii is in a fight of its own. Any game that isn't designed for the Wii's control scheme isn't worth making. Any game designed for the Wii's control scheme will be impossible to port over to other consoles. The Wii needs to sell enough consoles AND sell third party games. If Wii owners don't buy third party games for it, it will just be Mario/Zelda box. Nintendo will make money, but console dominance will fall to Sony or Microsoft.
A Sony victory means your next console will cost $900 at launch because clearly people will clearly pay through the nose for graphics and Final Fantasy. A Microsoft victory will mean that next generation, you will have to pay for online play and downloadable content. A Wii victory will result in consoles with low end specifications and strange new control schemes.
We could live in a world without excitement. A world in which we are not stimulated or thrilled. A world in which we could only watch movies or play games approved by the Flanders family of the Simpsons. There will be unbalanced people who will be inspired by what they watch. So instead of collecting cat skulls, they pretend they're the hero of GTA. Or Manhunt. Or Barbie Horse Adventures.
Note that they found a correlation between driving fast and people who play racing games. Maybe people who like to drive fast can't drive as fast as they want, so they pop in a racing game simulater. As far as the shooter game comment, most young men are aggressive to one extent or another. If someone blows off some steam by playing Halo 3, I would prefer that to them blowing off someone's head in real life.
Do you use a VCR? There's a show that you really want to watch, but you have another appointment. The broadcast flag is designed to prevent people from recording television shows for personal use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag/ VCRs were declared legal by the Supreme Court, which the content providers want to overrule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America _v._Universal_City_Studios%2C_Inc./ The purpose of this is to make you pay for the episode which you already paid your cable bill for. The cable company pays the television channel for access and you paid the cable company. This is even more warped in countries like the United Kingdom which have a television tax.
If I own a DVD, I think I should be able to rip the video from it so I can watch it on a portable device. I paid for the DVD, the company which made the movie received its cut. The DMCA prevents me from legally ripping the video. This is to make me pay for a second copy of the same movie.
The nature of mandatory DRM hurts open source audio/video players (read more about this in the broadcast flag link). This closes the market to companies with innovative ideas and makes manufacturers follow the draconian rules of the RIAA/MPAA. The heart of a free market is the ability of new competitors to enter a market.
This is very similar to treating every Arab as if they were a terrorist. Imagine if you wanted to watch a movie and a permanent record is kept on a corporate server. If it's porn, I hope you never want to run for public office. If it's about a medical condition you have, I hope your insurance company doesn't find out. Why would you want to give up your rights so that a few companies can continue to enforce their cartel?
As far as the economic damage of piracy, Microsoft has admitted that when someone pirates software, they hope that it's their software http://techdirt.com/articles/20070312/165448.shtml /. A pirated copy is compared to a demo copy which might lead to a future sale. Windows has been frequently pirated, has Microsoft gone out of business? Several of the richest men in the world (including the richest) have made their fortune from this company which has been "victimized" by piracy.
I believe that stiff efforts need to be in place to stop the selling of pirated material. I just don't want to be monitored, digitally handcuffed or otherwise screwed over because the RIAA/MPAA wants to blame a bad year on someone other than themselves.
This is silly. Someone who is utterly confident in their market will release a mediocre product without putting any real effort into it, simply because they don't feel the need, and it's expensive. Take, for instance, Microsoft and Windows. Why include all those new features in Vista, or optimize it, when you know people are going to buy it and put out the money for upgrades? So it crashes, so it breaks, whatever.
Right now, only fools are buying Windows Vista. With poor driver support and bugs galore, Vista is currently a terrible product. Did you know that Microsoft's own wireless keyboards and mice prevent the Vista screensaver from working http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911895/? But Windows doesn't have a lot of competition and Microsoft can market itself into more sales. With stiff competition, Sony cannot get away with it's mistakes.
Convenient for you to mention only the games that have some inkling of being ported, and also convenient to dismiss franchises that are massively popular on a global scale like Final Fantasy. And citing "credible rumor"?
All three games I mentioned as coming out on both consoles have been confirmed by their developers (Virtua Fighter 5 is being released a few months later on the Xbox 360). Final Fantasy has strong sales, but it is declining. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_games/ Final Fantasy VII sold 10 million copies, VIII sold 6 million, X sold 5 million and X-2 sold 3 million. I wouldn't be surprised if XIII (for the PS3) sold only 3 or 4 million. Halo 2 sold 8 million copies and it didn't make the Xbox the winner of the previous generation. Many people may view the PS3 as an expensive Final Fantasy box. Others may pick up a Nintendo DS for classic Final Fantasy adventure as a cheap substitute for a PS3.
Fatal Inertia
Also coming to the Xbox 360, same day.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Third remake of the same game.
Hot Shots Golf 5
Who cares? I guess someone will buy it. I had to look this up on Wikipedia to find out what it was
Warhawk
This game is working out to be a total mess. They've elimintated the single player campaign for some reason and it's only reason for existance is to use the SixAxis controller's motion control
Killzone PS3
They tried to pass off pre-rendered footage as in game footage. The game started off as a lie. Maybe you have more faith in it than I do.
What exclusives does the 360 have again? Halo?
Mass Effect, Too Human, Blue Dragon, Gears of War, Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Forza Motorsports 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, etc.. You may not like any of these games, but it's certainly more than Halo 3.
The 360 is irrelevant. It hasn't been selling well
Is this Sony logic? The Xbox 360 has sold seven times as many consoles and the Wii has sold three times as many consoles. Both of Sony's competitors outsold the PS3. It's not a shortage either, I've seen PS3s available in any store that sells consoles. How is the PS3 going to dominate the market when it is behind and selling fewer consoles?
The Wii doesn't do HD, and that is big. It has a low network presence and low storage, so MMOs and the like are going to be limited.
If HD and networking is important, why not go for an Xbox 360? If HD isn't important, why pay for a PS3?
Sony felt that they owned the video game market. They should have seen the first signs when the Nintendo DS dominated the Sony PSP. Just as Nintendo became arrogant and thought they would own the console market forever, Sony will feel the harsh penalty of hubris themselves.
Sony decision to include the BluRay drive was based on the belief that PS2 owners would flock to the stores to buy anything with Playstation on the name. No matter the cost. And yet PS3s sit on store shelves, gathering dust. Greed is the irrational pursuit of money. Businesses are about the pursuit of money, but in order to be successful they have to balance their desire with common sense. Sony became greedy and lost their common sense.
Anyone who talks how many great Sony exclusives will be available, is clearly deluded. Sony exclusive after exclusive is going to the Xbox 360 as well (Assassin's Creed, Virtual Fighter 5, Armored Core 4). Big games released on both consoles (Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, F.E.A.R., GRAW 2) are being released months ahead of time on the Xbox 360 before being released on the PS3. There are credible rumors of Metal Gear Solid 4 being released on the Xbox 360 and Final Fantasy is getting kind of tired. God of War 3 and Grand Turismo 5 will be in development for years. Motorstorm is a racing game in one environment and Resistance:Fall of Man has to hold off Gears of War, Lost Planet and Halo 3 on its own. What will the PS3 have available for Christmas 2007 that isn't being released on the Xbox 360?
The PS3 will not only have to face the wrath of the 360, but it will face the vicious tide of the Nintendo Wii. Half the price. Proper motion sensing with rumble. The Wii is an elegant fighter with not an ounce of fat against the bloated husk of the Playstation 3. Released at the same time as the PS3, the Wii has sold over 3 times as many consoles.
First party games are those games that are developed by the maker of the console. Halo, Mario, Zelda, Project Gotham Racing, etc. They are not going anywhere unless the console maker no longer makes consoles. This is why you don't see Mario games being developed for the PS3.
Paid exclusives means that a publisher paid money for the title to be exclusive. Either for a limited period of time or forever.
Default exclusives occur because it costs money to port games to other consoles. When a console has the majority of the market, some game developers will make a title for just that console. Think of the NES, Playstation and Playstation 2. Many game developers would just develop for the major console and ignore the rest. This is unlikely to happen this time because of the Xbox 360's weakness in Japan, PS3's cost and Nintendo's recent history of poor 3rd party game sales.
If you have a wireless router, anyone could be sharing files on your network. Even with encryption and MAC filtering, a determined outsider could use your network (they probably would just use one of the "Linksys" SSIDs in the neighborhood instead). The term "war driving" was never brought up, stealing wireless access happens enough to have its own term. Most routers come out of the box without encryption (I don't recall one that does). Non-technical people are just happy their "Internet Explorer works" and don't really think about the configuration.
What I don't get are the hard drive forensics. You would have to have someone very competent to remove a program from Windows and not leave traces. Anyone running Windows knows that program removal tends to leave little bits and pieces behind. Like user settings and registry entries. It shouldn't, but they do anyway. Both McAfee and Norton have removal tools because they don't uninstall properly. Not to mention erasure doesn't actually wipe out data on the drive. The fact that the expert witness states that none of the methods he is using are peer reviewed is a concern.
It's always easy to say that a new product or technology is going to improve our lives. There will always be studies stating that the "insert new thing here" is safe and will fix what ails us. Science and medicine are not perfect. New developments frequently come about which contradict previous scientific dogma. It is quite possible that some lasting damage will be done to these girls that did not show up earlier. I'm not saying that we should listen to the religious right. But we shouldn't use a vaccine on millions of girls just to spite them.
It would be much better to allow parents to opt in. A parent can make the decision for their child, not the government. The vaccination cost can be paid for by the state or federal government. When a girl becomes 18, she can then decide to be vaccinated at that point. With fewer girls being vaccinated, it mitigates the consequences of unintended side effects.
Like what, exactly? If you've got roving bands of armed bandits, what the hell can a laptop do that even rates?
I think your missing the forest for the trees. I actually suggest that security wouldn't be a big issue because they would be laptops for children. The closest thing that I could come to a security issue, is malicious use after it is stolen.
Well, cellphones are a lot easier than land lines in africa - with land lines, people steal the wires.
Which still doesn't make the creation of a very low cost, reliable wireless network any easier. And the various metals in the laptops make an attractive target for thieves. A thief would steal a number of laptops and sell them to someone who could strip them of the raw materials that they could sell.
Isn't this the equivalent of saying that someone cannot discuss the merits and flaws of Windows Vista because they are not developing an operating system of their own? The ability to critique projects because you think they are impractical is one of the fundamental rights of a democracy. I like hospitals, but if I think that the construction of a hospital will be too expensive and impractical, shouldn't I be able to say that freely without being told to build my own hospital.
If the One Laptop Per Child project is beyond debate, why has it been openly rejected by India? And silently rejected by most of the world? Why shouldn't there be an incremental approach as opposed to a dramatic global deployment? Why not deploy a dozen laptop computers to a thousand schools in the participating countries and see how they are used? They don't need to be the $100 model, a cheap laptop running Linux should suffice. If they are used effectively, then expand the project. If they are stolen, broken or not used, abandon the project. The project may suit some countries and not others.
I think it would be a lot easier to have a goal of putting one handcrankable desktop in every village. You could make something heavy, durable and difficult to steal. You may be able to set up a low bandwidth wireless connection so that isolated villages could communicate with the outside world (I'm thinking a low frequency radio signal with a lot of range, but low bandwidth). The BBC/UN/etc could broadcast news and other information on radio frequencies usually reserved for AM/FM radio. We are in such an information glut that we often forget that 2400 baud modems were useful in their day. We expect video, but text can still be very useful. The information technology needs of a Third World village are pretty limited and this would satisfy them. It would be very inexpensive and require little expertise to setup. If it failed, the consequences would be minimal. If it succeeded, then more elaborate steps could be taken.
The problem with the One Child Per Laptop is that it is too ambitous. The United States was quite capable of delivering one laptop per person trapped in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Would that have solved their problem? No and that's in one of the most advanced countries in the world. If you give a laptop to a kid in Hati/Nigeria/Afghanistan, they are going to get it stolen. And that's just for the raw material of the laptop. Have you seen pictures of Chinese workers stripping old computers for their component materials? And there are countries a lot poorer than China. The idea of setting up reliable public wireless networks in the Third World is absurd. Talking someone with a non-technical university degree through a wireless setup for their house can quite frustrating. And we're supposed to believe that public wireless networks can be setup in the poorest cities in the world without a glitch? And for little money at that.
Why would we be concerned about security anyway? Wow, a poor kid just had his computer hacked and his homework was stolen. Does anyone think that any hacker would bother? It's much more likely that these laptops will be stolen and used for illegal purposes afterward. Unless they have terrible security, it won't be an issue.
This just means that you have to find and download a high quality version of the show that you want to watch. You can still get it for free, but you have to work a very little for it. It will only stop piracy committed by the very lazy or very stupid.
This move helps keep YouTube pure. Only people who take a picture of themselves everyday for years will be permitted to post content. Until the RIAA/MPAA copyrights their faces. You thought that we would only get mandatory full body coverings with a totalitarian Islamic government. Wait until you have to wear a burqa to avoid copyright violations.
From what I understand, large retailers make a lot of money on things like cables. Look at the price of cables online and look at what Best Buy charges for Monster cables. Certain retailers make more money on the USB cable sold with an inexpensive printer than on the printer itself.
I think digital downloads will replace physical ownership of discs. It will be a few years before high definition televisions become mainstream affordable. Many people are still using dial up, but how many of them can afford a high definition plasma screen. A few people with high incomes who live in an area without high speed access may be screwed by this, but I think they are far and few between. Portable players will be much better served by a digital download to their hard drive or (more likely) flash memory.
The high definition television downloads through the Itunes service and the Xbox 360 seem to be quite popular. I think we will soon see free downloads supported by ads within the content brought to the customer with torrents.
My guess is the following schedule:
first day: movie theatre release/network television debut
three months: direct download for payment
one year: torrent based delivery with advertisement for free (you download a television show with advertisements).
Walmart will continue to sell DVDs until the number of people who can't download content is small enough to make it unprofitable.
Sure the content industry wants the new disc standards for "unbreakable" copy protection, but I think they'll realize that downloads would make more sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Let us take 9 "quantum pairs" (honestly, I don't know the exact terminology of them). You have 9 of them on Earth (A) and 9 of them elsewhere (B). They are ordered from 0 to 8. Assuming that you can determine when the quantum waveform collapses into spin up or spin down, you start the communication when A0 is caused to collapse. Instantly B0 becomes up or down. That's the start of the communication. If after 1 ms, B1 is found to have collapsed into an up or down, that counts as a 0. If after 2ms, B1 is found to have collapsed into a up or down, that counts as a 1. You would be able to generate a byte of data this way.
So start-2-1-2-1-1-1-2-1, would be 10100010.
The point is that it doesn't matter whatever B0 to B8 end up as. Just when they end up as an up or a down.
Are you going to be able to determine whether the waveform has collapsed without collapsing it yourself.
Of course, I didn't sleep last night. My guess is that if you are in a position to determine whether or not the waveform has collapsed, you will collapse it yourself. Maybe there's an indirect method.
As far as matter transportation, I wouldn't rule it out as impossible. I certainly wouldn't say it's inevitable. When quantum communication is studied in greater depth, some inconsistencies may be uncovered which could lead to a "greater truth".
The Wii is sold out pretty much as soon as it enters stores. A price INCREASE might may sense, but a price decrease doesn't make sense until you start having demand problems. I don't think they'll increase the price due to public outrage, but the demand is there.
A price cut on the PS3 would bring an immediate price cut on the 360. Comparing a $500 PS3 to a $300 360, the $300 console is going to sell much better. Especially with a better game library right now. Sony should hope and pray that price cuts don't happen for any console until Sony has significantly reduced the manufacturing price.
Microsoft should have cut the price of the 360 in May. The Wii is very quickly gaining ground on the 360 and will catch up soon. The lead over the PS3 may disappear when Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4 come out. Microsoft should drop the 360 core (sell them with a hard drive for $249 until there are no more) and focus on a $299 360 premium. Anyone who wants to pay more can buy a $399 Elite. 360 sales are not very good and there is a lot of stock at stores. Pretty much everyone who wanted to buy one at $399 already has one.
Microsoft has non-traditional sources of income for the 360. Live brings in $50 a year per subscriber. Profit from Live is probably at least 30%. Microsoft makes a 30% profit from downloads. If someone is a Live subscriber and buys $50 worth of downloads a year (movies, television shows, Arcade, expansions, downloadable content), that would be $30 a year. Over 4 years, that's $120 profit. With publishers paying Microsoft $8 for every game sold, 20 games over 4 years adds up to $160. Both of those together would be about $280. If Microsoft's cost of manufacturing a 360 is about $300 http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20 061120132150.html/ (the article is dated November 20, 2006 and I'm assuming that it's lower now) and their cost of shipping, assembling and store profit is about $100, their total cost per console would be $400. Once the 65nm chips are out, it will only cut the cost further. You could make an argument for any price between $199 and $299. A $299 price would get them many more sales and would still be a profitable position in the long run. I don't think a price less than $299 is in the planning, but I think it could be justified.
If Microsoft wanted to screw over Sony, they would buy Rockstar and Square Enix. Buying Square Enix is probably the only way they could break into Japan. Make Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy exclusive to the 360. Release it for Windows Vista 6 months later. It would piss the Japanese off, but they would grit their teeth while buying a 360 to get some FF action. Losing Grand Theft Auto would kill the PS3 in North America and Europe, it would probably be enough to take it down worldwide. The Wii will continue to be profitable for Nintendo.
Everyone has a legitimate concern about parents molesting their children. And it would be great if there was an easy solution. But this appears to be blindly striking out at the problem. This is several steps worse than banning novels which have a fictional murder because some people may be inspired by it. This would be similar to sending people to prison for saying that they're "killing time" because someone has a last name of "Tyme". Blind stupid methods for solving problems never work, they just impair the ability of regular people to live their lives. You know that the pedophiles are just going to adopt codewords and continue their pedophile ways.
I would be much happier if this was a regular pedophile hunt. Of course, malware is going to be downloading horrific stuff to unknowing people, leading to innocent people being dragged off to jail by techno-impaired judges and juries.
Like killer bees. People know what bees are. People don't want to be stung by bees. You then put a fancy title on it: "Killer Bees Spread NORTHWARD!" and you have a perfect story for the evening news. It's even better when you imply that the watcher's children are in danger: "Pervo Bees in a van try to pick up kids outside a school!". And then imply it may be the school that the watcher's children go to. If all else fails, start making it sexy news: "Special Report: Is Cheerleading the first step to STRIPPING? Is your daughter at risk? Are the killer bees involved? We ask several young cheerleaders if they feel pressured to take their clothes off. And what sort of pressure would be required to get them naked. Film at eleven."
The Wii has three games which have sold a million copies or more: Twlight Princess, Wii Play and Wii Sports. All Nintendo games. The Wii is still early in its product life, so it can be expected that not many games will have passed the million mark yet. The problem is that too much focus is on the first party Nintendo games. If third party publishers lack the hype necessary to sell their games, they will not bring exclusive games to the Wii. The Wii will merely get awful ports like Far Cry http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/farcry/index.ht ml?q=farcry&tag=result;title;0/ and Spiderman 3http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/spiderman3/ind ex.html?q=spiderman&tag=result;title;4#. Spiderman 3 apparently sucks on every console, but it sucks extra hard on the Wii. Far Cry was a great game for the PC, but has lost a lot of its lustre on the Wii.
Nintendo has to be willing to share the spotlight with it's third party developers.
Accounting: The Game
Paperwork IV: The Redemption
Diablo III: Excel spreadsheet edition
1080p Crossword Puzzles
Starcraft 2: Zerg Human Resources
Grand Theft Auto V: Insurance Adjuster
Half Life 3: You actually work out the half life of a given element
If you are going to pay six hundred dollars for a game console, you are probably willing to buy eighty dollar games. If you want cheap games, why not stick with your PS2 and buy some used games for $15 to $20 each. The Wii is being sold as the cheap alternative, so cheap downloadables make a lot of sense.
Sure you can add downloadable cheap games as an extra. But is it a good idea to use your AAA developers when you're already hurting for exclusives? All three console makers will depend heavily on their first party games to persaude the public to buy their systems.
The justification for the high price of the PS3 is that it is also a Blu-Ray player. If Blu-Ray loses the format war, where does that leave the PS3? Don't even try to say that the PS3 is a superior game console to the Xbox 360. F.E.A.R. was just released on the PS3 and it has inferior graphics to the Xbox360 or PC. The PS3 version was released 6 months after the Xbox 360 version. Nearly every game released on both platforms has inferior graphics and no online for the PS3 version.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/782/782476p2.html/
We are looking at a $199 HD-DVD player in the near future. At $150 cost per unit, I think Walmart is going to charge $199 a piece. Walmart works in volume. If they do this, you're going to see $249 players from other retailers. I guess all of the people who are saying that they are waiting for a sub $200 HD player will be buying one soon. Is Sony preventing the release of cheaper Blu-Ray players or is it just taking too long to bring down manufacturing prices?
HDTVs are about to be widely adopted. On Walmart's website, they are selling a 37 inch 720p/1080i TV for $698. I'm not saying it's the greatest quality television, but it's not outside the price range of the middle class. So you can buy a HD TV and player for under a thousand dollars.
If Sony had joined the HD-DVD coalition, they would be in a much better position. There would have been no format war and the PS3 would have a HD-DVD drive which would be the certain high definition format. Sony would still collect some royalities, just less than a Blu-Ray victory. Sometimes the safe option is the best option.
Although the United States is an increasingly unpopular country, China is a more likely enemy. The greatest points of conflict with the United States would be over Russian business deals with "anti-American" countries. The United States is unlikely to invade any more countries in the near future given the numerous complications of the Iraq war. Iraq was one of the biggest business partners of Russia and the countries did not come to blows over it. A great number of the conflicts that Russia has with the West are also with Europe. There has been a great number of conflicts over oil. As far as the "War on Terror", the US and Russia are natural allies. With Russia's occupation of Chechnya (which makes the Iraq war look like a visit to the playground http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_ War/), they have had repeated attacks by Muslim terrorists.
Russia has a lot of land and massive natural resources. China has a thirst for natural resources, severe internal conflict and a huge disproportially male population. If the effectiveness of Russia's nuclear arsenal was thought to be limited (perhaps by the development of new missile defence technologies), then China may invade Russia. The Chinese may be willing to lose ten million men to take a substantial part of Russian territory. A war for territory may move many of the disgruntled young Chinese men to the frontline.
I think the US is chosen as an enemy because America bashing is very easy right now. If the Russian government were to look at its most likely enemies, it may compromise it's business agreements.
This copy protection prevents most people from renting/borrowing a DVD and making a copy of it. Until people download the latest software for cracking it. This is mostly targetting non-technical people who were given DVD Shrink by a friend.
There will be copies of the DVD available on the Internet, because someone will crack the protection. All it takes is one copy on the Internet to ensure that anyone on a peer to peer network can get a copy.
Sony is risking alienating a large number of people to stop a small number of pirates. Not just a small number of pirates, but the non-technical pirates. They are also annoying Walmart, Blockbuster, BestBuy and any other retailer who sells their DVDs. Who are the consumers going to complain to? The retailers.
Oddly, this could cost them money even if you ignore retail backlash. Companies which rent DVDs to the consumer, purchase DVDs based on rental demand. If someone rents and burns a DVD, the movie company is pissed, but it still increases rental demand. Higher rental demand, increases sales of the DVDs to the companies who rent them. If someone finds they can't rent and burn, they probably will just download the image from BitTorrent rather than buy the DVD. Not to mention the people who can't play the Sony DVDs, they'll want a free version which actually works.
Sony has the right to put any copy protection scheme they want on their DVDs, as long as it maintains compatibility. If you sell someone a product which is designed not to work properly on their DVD player, you better tell them first. Even if the consumer was willing to get firmware updates, do you think the manufacturers want to start sending out discs and supporting consumers through the update?
They seem to be very sure that an ISP keeps accurate IP address records. Why do I feel that this will result in a semi-technical employee of the ISP pulling up who the IP Address is currently leased to? I feel sorry for all of the people with a wireless network using a SSID of "Linksys". Expect a letter tommorrow.
Does anyone else feel that it doesn't matter to the RIAA/MPAA if their lawsuits are accurate or not? If you send intimidating letters to people, some of them will settle even if they are innocent. You can then claim X number of settlements and declare victory.
This is a great scam for someone who wants to commit fraud on a national scale. Send people letters claiming that they breached copyright law and demand a settlement. Offer an opportunity for settlement for $2000. If they get a lawyer, drop any claim. If they ignore it, write it off. If it costs you a dollar per letter and 0.1% of people accept your "offer", a million letters will net you a million dollars. Maybe this is the new business model for big media.
Sony is behind the other console manufacturers. In order to catch up, it has to outperform its rivals. The European launch was a moderate success. The PS3 didn't sell out. Having an ample supply only counts if people want to buy your product for the price you're selling it at.
Mistakes Sony has made:
How can the Sony redeem itself? It has to ensure that there are a sufficient quantity of third party exclusives and a $399 price tag. Sony also has to understand that people are not going to buy a console just because it has the word Playstation on it. They need to learn from Nintendo's mistakes (and successes).
I think it would be quite easy for Microsoft to bring down the Playstation 3, but it will cost money. They need to buy Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity and pay to make MGS4 and FF13 multiplatform. Grand Theft Auto games account for 3 of the top 4 selling PS2 games (and Grand Turismo was bundled). Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity will probably cost them between $100 and $200 million. They have to replace lost PS3 sales (although a lot of people will buy an Xbox 360 instead of a PS3 in order to get the game) and pay a premium for the privilege. FF13 and MGS4 going multiplatform will cost less, simply because game publishers want to release multiplatform for more sales. Microsoft lost $4 billion on the first Xbox, so a few hundred million to drive Sony into the ground would make a lot of sense.
Microsoft can lose its battle with Sony if it assumes its lead will continue. It has to drive gamers and game publishers away from the PS3 before Sony significantly reduces the manufacturing cost.
The Wii is in a fight of its own. Any game that isn't designed for the Wii's control scheme isn't worth making. Any game designed for the Wii's control scheme will be impossible to port over to other consoles. The Wii needs to sell enough consoles AND sell third party games. If Wii owners don't buy third party games for it, it will just be Mario/Zelda box. Nintendo will make money, but console dominance will fall to Sony or Microsoft.
A Sony victory means your next console will cost $900 at launch because clearly people will clearly pay through the nose for graphics and Final Fantasy. A Microsoft victory will mean that next generation, you will have to pay for online play and downloadable content. A Wii victory will result in consoles with low end specifications and strange new control schemes.
We could live in a world without excitement. A world in which we are not stimulated or thrilled. A world in which we could only watch movies or play games approved by the Flanders family of the Simpsons. There will be unbalanced people who will be inspired by what they watch. So instead of collecting cat skulls, they pretend they're the hero of GTA. Or Manhunt. Or Barbie Horse Adventures.
Note that they found a correlation between driving fast and people who play racing games. Maybe people who like to drive fast can't drive as fast as they want, so they pop in a racing game simulater. As far as the shooter game comment, most young men are aggressive to one extent or another. If someone blows off some steam by playing Halo 3, I would prefer that to them blowing off someone's head in real life.
Do you use a VCR? There's a show that you really want to watch, but you have another appointment. The broadcast flag is designed to prevent people from recording television shows for personal use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag/ VCRs were declared legal by the Supreme Court, which the content providers want to overrule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America _v._Universal_City_Studios%2C_Inc./ The purpose of this is to make you pay for the episode which you already paid your cable bill for. The cable company pays the television channel for access and you paid the cable company. This is even more warped in countries like the United Kingdom which have a television tax.
If I own a DVD, I think I should be able to rip the video from it so I can watch it on a portable device. I paid for the DVD, the company which made the movie received its cut. The DMCA prevents me from legally ripping the video. This is to make me pay for a second copy of the same movie.
The nature of mandatory DRM hurts open source audio/video players (read more about this in the broadcast flag link). This closes the market to companies with innovative ideas and makes manufacturers follow the draconian rules of the RIAA/MPAA. The heart of a free market is the ability of new competitors to enter a market.
This is very similar to treating every Arab as if they were a terrorist. Imagine if you wanted to watch a movie and a permanent record is kept on a corporate server. If it's porn, I hope you never want to run for public office. If it's about a medical condition you have, I hope your insurance company doesn't find out. Why would you want to give up your rights so that a few companies can continue to enforce their cartel?
As far as the economic damage of piracy, Microsoft has admitted that when someone pirates software, they hope that it's their software http://techdirt.com/articles/20070312/165448.shtml /. A pirated copy is compared to a demo copy which might lead to a future sale. Windows has been frequently pirated, has Microsoft gone out of business? Several of the richest men in the world (including the richest) have made their fortune from this company which has been "victimized" by piracy.
I believe that stiff efforts need to be in place to stop the selling of pirated material. I just don't want to be monitored, digitally handcuffed or otherwise screwed over because the RIAA/MPAA wants to blame a bad year on someone other than themselves.
Right now, only fools are buying Windows Vista. With poor driver support and bugs galore, Vista is currently a terrible product. Did you know that Microsoft's own wireless keyboards and mice prevent the Vista screensaver from working http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911895/? But Windows doesn't have a lot of competition and Microsoft can market itself into more sales. With stiff competition, Sony cannot get away with it's mistakes.
All three games I mentioned as coming out on both consoles have been confirmed by their developers (Virtua Fighter 5 is being released a few months later on the Xbox 360). Final Fantasy has strong sales, but it is declining. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_games/ Final Fantasy VII sold 10 million copies, VIII sold 6 million, X sold 5 million and X-2 sold 3 million. I wouldn't be surprised if XIII (for the PS3) sold only 3 or 4 million. Halo 2 sold 8 million copies and it didn't make the Xbox the winner of the previous generation. Many people may view the PS3 as an expensive Final Fantasy box. Others may pick up a Nintendo DS for classic Final Fantasy adventure as a cheap substitute for a PS3.
Also coming to the Xbox 360, same day.
Third remake of the same game.
Who cares? I guess someone will buy it. I had to look this up on Wikipedia to find out what it was
Sony felt that they owned the video game market. They should have seen the first signs when the Nintendo DS dominated the Sony PSP. Just as Nintendo became arrogant and thought they would own the console market forever, Sony will feel the harsh penalty of hubris themselves.
Sony decision to include the BluRay drive was based on the belief that PS2 owners would flock to the stores to buy anything with Playstation on the name. No matter the cost. And yet PS3s sit on store shelves, gathering dust. Greed is the irrational pursuit of money. Businesses are about the pursuit of money, but in order to be successful they have to balance their desire with common sense. Sony became greedy and lost their common sense.
Anyone who talks how many great Sony exclusives will be available, is clearly deluded. Sony exclusive after exclusive is going to the Xbox 360 as well (Assassin's Creed, Virtual Fighter 5, Armored Core 4). Big games released on both consoles (Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, F.E.A.R., GRAW 2) are being released months ahead of time on the Xbox 360 before being released on the PS3. There are credible rumors of Metal Gear Solid 4 being released on the Xbox 360 and Final Fantasy is getting kind of tired. God of War 3 and Grand Turismo 5 will be in development for years. Motorstorm is a racing game in one environment and Resistance:Fall of Man has to hold off Gears of War, Lost Planet and Halo 3 on its own. What will the PS3 have available for Christmas 2007 that isn't being released on the Xbox 360?
The PS3 will not only have to face the wrath of the 360, but it will face the vicious tide of the Nintendo Wii. Half the price. Proper motion sensing with rumble. The Wii is an elegant fighter with not an ounce of fat against the bloated husk of the Playstation 3. Released at the same time as the PS3, the Wii has sold over 3 times as many consoles.
First party games are those games that are developed by the maker of the console. Halo, Mario, Zelda, Project Gotham Racing, etc. They are not going anywhere unless the console maker no longer makes consoles. This is why you don't see Mario games being developed for the PS3.
Paid exclusives means that a publisher paid money for the title to be exclusive. Either for a limited period of time or forever.
Default exclusives occur because it costs money to port games to other consoles. When a console has the majority of the market, some game developers will make a title for just that console. Think of the NES, Playstation and Playstation 2. Many game developers would just develop for the major console and ignore the rest. This is unlikely to happen this time because of the Xbox 360's weakness in Japan, PS3's cost and Nintendo's recent history of poor 3rd party game sales.
If you have a wireless router, anyone could be sharing files on your network. Even with encryption and MAC filtering, a determined outsider could use your network (they probably would just use one of the "Linksys" SSIDs in the neighborhood instead). The term "war driving" was never brought up, stealing wireless access happens enough to have its own term. Most routers come out of the box without encryption (I don't recall one that does). Non-technical people are just happy their "Internet Explorer works" and don't really think about the configuration.
What I don't get are the hard drive forensics. You would have to have someone very competent to remove a program from Windows and not leave traces. Anyone running Windows knows that program removal tends to leave little bits and pieces behind. Like user settings and registry entries. It shouldn't, but they do anyway. Both McAfee and Norton have removal tools because they don't uninstall properly. Not to mention erasure doesn't actually wipe out data on the drive. The fact that the expert witness states that none of the methods he is using are peer reviewed is a concern.
It's always easy to say that a new product or technology is going to improve our lives. There will always be studies stating that the "insert new thing here" is safe and will fix what ails us. Science and medicine are not perfect. New developments frequently come about which contradict previous scientific dogma. It is quite possible that some lasting damage will be done to these girls that did not show up earlier. I'm not saying that we should listen to the religious right. But we shouldn't use a vaccine on millions of girls just to spite them.
It would be much better to allow parents to opt in. A parent can make the decision for their child, not the government. The vaccination cost can be paid for by the state or federal government. When a girl becomes 18, she can then decide to be vaccinated at that point. With fewer girls being vaccinated, it mitigates the consequences of unintended side effects.
I think your missing the forest for the trees. I actually suggest that security wouldn't be a big issue because they would be laptops for children. The closest thing that I could come to a security issue, is malicious use after it is stolen.
Which still doesn't make the creation of a very low cost, reliable wireless network any easier. And the various metals in the laptops make an attractive target for thieves. A thief would steal a number of laptops and sell them to someone who could strip them of the raw materials that they could sell.
Isn't this the equivalent of saying that someone cannot discuss the merits and flaws of Windows Vista because they are not developing an operating system of their own? The ability to critique projects because you think they are impractical is one of the fundamental rights of a democracy. I like hospitals, but if I think that the construction of a hospital will be too expensive and impractical, shouldn't I be able to say that freely without being told to build my own hospital.
If the One Laptop Per Child project is beyond debate, why has it been openly rejected by India? And silently rejected by most of the world? Why shouldn't there be an incremental approach as opposed to a dramatic global deployment? Why not deploy a dozen laptop computers to a thousand schools in the participating countries and see how they are used? They don't need to be the $100 model, a cheap laptop running Linux should suffice. If they are used effectively, then expand the project. If they are stolen, broken or not used, abandon the project. The project may suit some countries and not others.
I think it would be a lot easier to have a goal of putting one handcrankable desktop in every village. You could make something heavy, durable and difficult to steal. You may be able to set up a low bandwidth wireless connection so that isolated villages could communicate with the outside world (I'm thinking a low frequency radio signal with a lot of range, but low bandwidth). The BBC/UN/etc could broadcast news and other information on radio frequencies usually reserved for AM/FM radio. We are in such an information glut that we often forget that 2400 baud modems were useful in their day. We expect video, but text can still be very useful. The information technology needs of a Third World village are pretty limited and this would satisfy them. It would be very inexpensive and require little expertise to setup. If it failed, the consequences would be minimal. If it succeeded, then more elaborate steps could be taken.
The problem with the One Child Per Laptop is that it is too ambitous. The United States was quite capable of delivering one laptop per person trapped in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Would that have solved their problem? No and that's in one of the most advanced countries in the world. If you give a laptop to a kid in Hati/Nigeria/Afghanistan, they are going to get it stolen. And that's just for the raw material of the laptop. Have you seen pictures of Chinese workers stripping old computers for their component materials? And there are countries a lot poorer than China. The idea of setting up reliable public wireless networks in the Third World is absurd. Talking someone with a non-technical university degree through a wireless setup for their house can quite frustrating. And we're supposed to believe that public wireless networks can be setup in the poorest cities in the world without a glitch? And for little money at that.
Why would we be concerned about security anyway? Wow, a poor kid just had his computer hacked and his homework was stolen. Does anyone think that any hacker would bother? It's much more likely that these laptops will be stolen and used for illegal purposes afterward. Unless they have terrible security, it won't be an issue.
This just means that you have to find and download a high quality version of the show that you want to watch. You can still get it for free, but you have to work a very little for it. It will only stop piracy committed by the very lazy or very stupid.
This move helps keep YouTube pure. Only people who take a picture of themselves everyday for years will be permitted to post content. Until the RIAA/MPAA copyrights their faces. You thought that we would only get mandatory full body coverings with a totalitarian Islamic government. Wait until you have to wear a burqa to avoid copyright violations.
From what I understand, large retailers make a lot of money on things like cables. Look at the price of cables online and look at what Best Buy charges for Monster cables. Certain retailers make more money on the USB cable sold with an inexpensive printer than on the printer itself.
I think digital downloads will replace physical ownership of discs. It will be a few years before high definition televisions become mainstream affordable. Many people are still using dial up, but how many of them can afford a high definition plasma screen. A few people with high incomes who live in an area without high speed access may be screwed by this, but I think they are far and few between. Portable players will be much better served by a digital download to their hard drive or (more likely) flash memory.
The high definition television downloads through the Itunes service and the Xbox 360 seem to be quite popular. I think we will soon see free downloads supported by ads within the content brought to the customer with torrents.
My guess is the following schedule:
first day: movie theatre release/network television debut
three months: direct download for payment
one year: torrent based delivery with advertisement for free (you download a television show with advertisements).
Walmart will continue to sell DVDs until the number of people who can't download content is small enough to make it unprofitable.
Sure the content industry wants the new disc standards for "unbreakable" copy protection, but I think they'll realize that downloads would make more sense.