Kazakh anthem plays you?
Borat sings from Internet?
The anthem runs you to Kazakhstan?
Banned-movie mock-anthem slips into your speaker system?
The possibilities seem limitless with this one... =)
In many developing countries, the software industry deliberately allowed piracy to run wild for a few years. This ensured that even small/poor companies would buy PCs and install the very best/latest/most expensive commercial tools on them, and get used to doing business with these tools. Then the BSA (backed diplomatically by the U.S./Canada/EU - or in other words "the ever-altruistic Western Powers") lobbied/armwrestled many developing world governments into letting the BSA raid companies with their lawyers. So one minute you were in an environment where nobody cared what software your company installed. The next minute, the BSA knocked your front door down with a threatening-sounding court order and a small army of lawyers, and demanded that you "pay up" for every bit of software installed on various PCs around the office. This was a few years before most open source tools became good enough to use. In the long-term, this has backfired mightily, because the scathing experience of having your office raided by BSA droids/lawyers has driven lots of businesses in the developing world to look seriously at Open Source tools.
I don't get it... There are x dozen tablet makers out there (Samsung/Android most notably), but each time the tiniest detail about iPhone/iPad "N" is leaked, there is a big bruhaha and Apple gets huuuuuge attention. Apple is overrated and - very often - overpriced. Who cares what iPad 3/4/5 "look like"? Its same-old-same-old from Apple, with a new processor+camera+screen thrown in. Big fucking deal! Apple products, to my mind, are aimed at people who have plenty of money but very little technical knowledge or buying sense. Let the sheeple throw their money at the new iPad 3. Personally, I will be waiting to see what novelties Samsung & Others bring to market.
Ironic that we are in the 2nd Decade of the 21st Century, and anyone with the potential to make waves in any way is instantly charged/extradited/executed/crucified/smeared publicly, no matter where they are. Examples: Man tweets relatively insignificant crap about Mohammed - extradited to KSA and charged with Apostasy/Death Penalty. Man/Peace Activist in 70s reveals Israel has Nkes/WMDs - gets instant life-in-prison in Israel. Man leaks government war/diplomacy documents on the web - Charged with raping 2 women in Sweden/extradition to U.S. and Life Sentence Wanted (some want him executed, too). Socialist/Lefty Man gets ready to challenge Sarkozy presidency in France - charged with sudden nude sex assault on chamber maid in Manhattan Hotel, arrested on way to NY Airport, supposedly prevented from "fleeing" to France. British Man hacks U.S. gov computers looking for "UFO and Free Energy Evidence" - spends 10 years in will-he-be-extradited-to-USA-or-not-? limbo. The cases may be different, but the point of the actions taken against each man is the same. Punish-Him-And-Make-An-Example-Of-Him. Whether the laws should actually work this way is anybody's guess...
I don't live in the U.S., so I wouldn't know where to send people (e.g. bricks and mortar stores) to find this particular book. It isn't a huge bestseller, and thus probably not in stock everywhere. The Amazon link has a lot of info + customer reviews of the book, so I posted that. Feel free to buy (or not buy) this book wherever it is you shop for books.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 - being an Android, rather than iOS device - looks and feels nothing like the iPad 2 when its switched on. Completely different UI/graphic design look. In fact it doesn't look remotely similar. Samsung also doesn't call it the sPad or something. They call it Galaxy Tab, which bears no resemblance to "iPad" whatsoever. Try it out yourself. Go to a store that has both the Samsung tablet and the Apple tablet, try both, and come back and tell me that they look similar. They don't! As for whoever modded my original parent post "Troll" - you Apple freaks are the worst fanboys of all. Samsung's tablet is technically superior to iPad 2. Pointing that out - that Apple doesn't have the best device on the market - is stating the facts, not trolling.But go on. Keep living in your twisted little fanboy world where Apple is the greatest computer company on the planet, and its products are the only ones that are great or groundbreaking. You Apple fanboys will grow older and wiser someday, and look back and wonder precisely what it was that was so "amazing" about Apple's products.
The book "Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy" by Martin Lindstrom explains in great detail the (crazy) lengths companies/stores go to gleam as much - normally private - information on shoppers as possible. Its very readable, quite frightening (the bits about loyalty cards and credit cards especially), and written by someone who comes from the marketing/behavioral study field, and seems keen on fully exposing the shady practices of the industry to average readers. Its available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Brandwashed-Tricks-Companies-Manipulate-Persuade/dp/0385531737 and other book sellers.
Galaxy Tab 10.1 is slimmer, lighter, has a higher res camera, a better screen and longer battery life than IPad 2. Oh, its also cheaper, and unlike iPad 2, can be bought "as is", without being tied to a mandatory 12/24 month dataplan, as is the case with iPad 2 where I live. I don't think Galaxy Tab is a shameless copy of iPad 2. I think that it is a significantly BETTER product that happens to look somewhat similar to iPad 2 (then again, all tablet computers look a lot like each other).
Apple is suing because Samsung has produced a superior Tablet Computer. And some crappy court in Germany has decided to uphold this stupid claim. Galaxy Tab is the better tablet of the two, and Apple - being its typical agressive, domineering self - is suing to keep Korean Samsung's superior product out of people's hands, so they have have to go and buy an iPad 2 instead.
It seems to me that a lot of people who have studied image processing/video processing cannot come up with a benevolent/non-malignant use of their skills that also generates an income they can live on, and wind up building some computer vision algorithm or software that tracks/identifies/spies on people for profit instead. There are so many positive things that can be done with image processing, like - to name just one example - upgrading/restoring 1000s of hours of old archive footage to 21st Century clarity/sharpness. Or, for example, sifting through medical imagery and looking for signs of disease/tumors/tissue anomalies. Or converting 2D content to Stereoscopic 3D content. Instead of doing that, and similar, some cretins choose to build one digital surveillance/biometric ID system after another, for quick profit, and the whole world suffers the loss of regular, everyday privacy these systems cause. This sort of stuff should be banned from Public Spaces. It doesn't help Joe/Jane Ordinary live better. It just gives companies - including bricks and mortar companies now - fancy new tools to spy on their customers. It used to be that staying away from Facebook and similar privacy destroyers gave you some tangible privacy. Now, with the help of intelligent computer vision software peering through dumb surveillance cameras, every public location/shopping space becomes another Facebook that wants to track & surveil you. And this time you can't opt out at all! Again, this stuff should be banned for the good of everyone.
This man and his sprawling NewsCorp media empire have almost single-handedly ruined/corrupted objective journalism, and done so across multiple countries where NewsCorp is active. Nothing good can come from allowing Rupert Murdoch anywhere near schools and educational institutions. His signature reckless profiteering and lack of a conscience/values will likely corrupt the education process, too, not enhance it. I can't believe that Bill Gates is teaming up with Murdoch... I was under the impression that Bill had gone all "good guy philanthropist". Maybe I was wrong about that... But seriously, no venture owned by Rupert Murdoch should be allowed within a mile or so of a school, or of any other institution frequented by kids. This man will just try to spread his twisted, f^cked up neocon-ultra-jingo-conservative values to school children, given the chance. Don't do it, Bill. Whatever you are trying to accomplish, its not worth collaborating with this news-bully/snakeoil salesman/jingoist warmonger. Simply... don't... do it!
People who continously argued over the years that game DRM services like Steam (or SecuROM, or EA newcomer "Origin") were "harmless" anti-piracy measures or even - gasp - "just great, so easy to use!" can now rejoice.
Once SOPA/PIPA, and then SOPA/PIPA 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 get passed, using the ENTIRE INTERNET will VERY MUCH become like being permantently trapped in a walled garden like Steam, or iTunes.
Today's "wild" internet will then, over the years, become a distant memory, like 8 track tapes or Polaroid film.
Of course 50% or so of the internet's population will then walk away from the NET entirely, because there's nothing interesting on it anymore. And content companies/dotcoms/stock markets will now PANIC that people are LEAVING the internet.
But that shouldn't stop a nice bill like SOPA or PIPA and EVEN STRICTER LEGISLATION THAT WILL ALMOST SURELY FOLLOW THEM.
Go on. Pass these stupid bills. See what happens to the Internet as a result.
Sometime between 2015 and 2020 - or whenever the general public wakes up about privacy issues and casual privacy intrusions - every business model built around little more than gathering lots and lots of intrusive data about people will crash at the same time.
I call this the POPPING OF THE UNPRIVACY BUBBLE...
Ordinary people wake up and start protesting all the little privacy intrusions that hundreds of companies have - gradually, slowboiling-style - slipped into our lives.
Ordinary people start to partake in mass privacy and personal data protection lawsuits aimed at the worst offenders (like Facebook, which somehow - no joke - knows who your friends are, even if you've never had a facebook account or visited facebook.com in your life).
Ordinary people start to shut down internet and smartphone accounts that they initially thought weren't too bad, and walk away from these services en masse.
Ordinary people create tremendous demand for new replacement services with rock-tight privacy protections (including each service submitting itself voluntarily to once-three-monthly privacy audits carried out by independent privacy experts).
Ordinary people wise up and stop buying devices that, for example, have no plastic lid to cover the face camera with, or no hardware switch that kills wireless/bluetooth, or no LED light or other indicator showing that data is being transmitted about you.
It will happen sometime this decade. The great 'Privacy Awakening'.
When it does happen, services and devices built around toying with your private data and sucking as much of it away into the ether will fail completely within a matter of weeks. Stock prices will go into nosedives. CEOs and board members will be forced to resign. Entire management layers will be vaporized.
Popular tech blogs and magazines will have to start rating the 'Privacy Friendliness' or 'Privacy Protection Level' of things they review.
Lawmakers will have to implement Strong and Proactive Privacy Protection Laws if they want to get re-elected.
It will happen sometime between now and 2020. Kind of like the Arab Spring.
Its the other way around. Ever since the EU - France/Sarkozy and Germany/Merkel in particular - pushed a then EU-membership-eagerTurkey away in the mid 2000s with silly religious-geographic arguments, like "Turkey isn't and never will be a European Country", privacy-rights and other human rights in Turkey - like the right to peaceful protest/assembly - have become seriously eroded. Turkey in 2011 is a true Orwellian 1984 state where people are afraid to discuss politics or religion over the phone or internet, where going into important business meetings you are routinely asked to check your smartphone/mobile phone at the door, where anytime anything crime related happens, police magically get hold of 'detailed Internet records' of the perps immediately. It wasn't like this when Turkey was still headed for EU membership. All of this happened AFTER the EU basically stopped/stalled/pseudo-rejected Turkey's memberhip talks.
There are 4 ways for something like this to work out financially for MS. 1) Either an Xbox 360's true manufacturing cost in 2011 is a mere 50 - 70 dollars a unit (ageing hardware + economies of scale from manufacturing tens of millions of them). 2) Or people who choose to become "Windows PC users" for the next 5 - 10 years will get shafted out of money so frequently and in so many different little ways that the cost of the free Xbox becomes negligible in the long run. 3) Or the creation cost of 1 unit of a typical Xbox 360 game works out at 3 - 5 dollars a pop while the retail price for the same unit is 40 dollars, so the profit made from selling a few games cancels out the cost of giving away a free console. 4) Or the next Xbox 2012 or whatever they will call it is R&D and almost ready to launch and MS banks on the fact that the free Xbox 360 users will willingly fork out dollar 699 or so to upgrade to the new Xbox 2012.
A number of things can go wrong... 1 - The budget gets slashed at the last minute (from dollar 55 million to dollar 25 million for example) because the producers have 'nagging doubts' about its merchantability. 2 - Bad casting choices that don't fit the characters in the book. 3 - Brutal editing and scene deletion to get the film under 2 hours (e.g. butchered to 102 minutes runtime with titles when 135 minutes are needed to tell the plot without jumpy pacing and loose ends). 4 - Dumbing down/oversimplification of the story. 5 - Changing the story to the point where Neuromancer becomes Neon-man-city. 6 - Poor art direction choices to make the material more appealing to 2012 cinema viewers (vs 1984 scifi book readers) Lots of smooth NURB design on everything (because NURBS sell mobile phones, cars and so on in the real world). 7 - Messing up the tech in the novel (brain-jacks are suddenly wireless with bluetooth-likee headsets)... the 'Matrix' is different from the novel... Case's 'deck' is made by Apple or Nokia with a big glowing logo on it. 8 - Trying to make Neuromancer more Matrixy (slow-mo action with 360 degree camera and so on). The list just goes on and on and on...
DotCommers had a fondness for chewing a lot of bubblegum, and blowing a lot of bubbles with said bubblegum. The rest of the story - bubbles having anything to do with 'stocks' and so on - was pure mainstream media distortion of what really went down. Honestly...;)
AI is a much better film than people gave it credit for (Kubrick's version would probably have been more 'genius' of course). I had a chance to watch it again on cable the other day and AI was much better than I remembered from the 1st viewing.
Molly is going to be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing a black wig and a leather skirt. She will sound 'a little Austrian', which will add to the mystique of Neuromancer. When her fingernail blade implants don't work, she will pick enemies up by their hair and throw them into the filming 3D camera, making it seem like they fly out of the screen at you in IMAX3D. =)
This would have been easier to put together 20 years ago, I think they tried to do a movie a couple of times already but it fell apart.
Today's 3D CGI VFX, digital cinematography tools, Stereoscopic 3D film cameras and other innovations will probably make Neuromancer 10 times easier to realize properly compared with what was available 20 or even 10 years ago. Things like digital set extensions (to visualize The Sprawl for example) are done so well these days that virtually nobody 'sees' where the real set ends and the CG extension starts. Provided that the art director is really good (i.e. BladeRunner Syd Mead good), Neuromancer could be real eye candy when its filmed.
I agree, I also wonder how the general pebcak's will react to the theme of the movie. Will they understand that the book was ground breaking stuff? Or will they think it's a cheap knock off of the Matrix.
The only thing Neuromancer has in common with The Matrix is the idea of jacking into cyberspace via a computer-to-brain connection. That's where the similarities end. Neuromancer is totally different material storywise, as are the followups Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. If done well, Neuromancer would make The Matrix look very 'Hollywood Action Movie with some fancy dystopian Color Grading'. Gibson's world is very very complex, detailed and realistic compared to The Matrix.
Neuromancer doesn't feature VR goggles. The characters in the book 'jack in' to cyberspace by plugging a cable into a jack surgically inserted behind the ear. Its a direct-to-brain interface that makes you feel/believe you are really in cyberspace.
Slashdot Mirror
Kazakh anthem plays you? Borat sings from Internet? The anthem runs you to Kazakhstan? Banned-movie mock-anthem slips into your speaker system? The possibilities seem limitless with this one... =)
In many developing countries, the software industry deliberately allowed piracy to run wild for a few years. This ensured that even small/poor companies would buy PCs and install the very best/latest/most expensive commercial tools on them, and get used to doing business with these tools. Then the BSA (backed diplomatically by the U.S./Canada/EU - or in other words "the ever-altruistic Western Powers") lobbied/armwrestled many developing world governments into letting the BSA raid companies with their lawyers. So one minute you were in an environment where nobody cared what software your company installed. The next minute, the BSA knocked your front door down with a threatening-sounding court order and a small army of lawyers, and demanded that you "pay up" for every bit of software installed on various PCs around the office. This was a few years before most open source tools became good enough to use. In the long-term, this has backfired mightily, because the scathing experience of having your office raided by BSA droids/lawyers has driven lots of businesses in the developing world to look seriously at Open Source tools.
Another device that screws with your privacy. Film at 10.
I don't get it... There are x dozen tablet makers out there (Samsung/Android most notably), but each time the tiniest detail about iPhone/iPad "N" is leaked, there is a big bruhaha and Apple gets huuuuuge attention. Apple is overrated and - very often - overpriced. Who cares what iPad 3/4/5 "look like"? Its same-old-same-old from Apple, with a new processor+camera+screen thrown in. Big fucking deal! Apple products, to my mind, are aimed at people who have plenty of money but very little technical knowledge or buying sense. Let the sheeple throw their money at the new iPad 3. Personally, I will be waiting to see what novelties Samsung & Others bring to market.
Ironic that we are in the 2nd Decade of the 21st Century, and anyone with the potential to make waves in any way is instantly charged/extradited/executed/crucified/smeared publicly, no matter where they are. Examples: Man tweets relatively insignificant crap about Mohammed - extradited to KSA and charged with Apostasy/Death Penalty. Man/Peace Activist in 70s reveals Israel has Nkes/WMDs - gets instant life-in-prison in Israel. Man leaks government war/diplomacy documents on the web - Charged with raping 2 women in Sweden/extradition to U.S. and Life Sentence Wanted (some want him executed, too). Socialist/Lefty Man gets ready to challenge Sarkozy presidency in France - charged with sudden nude sex assault on chamber maid in Manhattan Hotel, arrested on way to NY Airport, supposedly prevented from "fleeing" to France. British Man hacks U.S. gov computers looking for "UFO and Free Energy Evidence" - spends 10 years in will-he-be-extradited-to-USA-or-not-? limbo. The cases may be different, but the point of the actions taken against each man is the same. Punish-Him-And-Make-An-Example-Of-Him. Whether the laws should actually work this way is anybody's guess...
I don't live in the U.S., so I wouldn't know where to send people (e.g. bricks and mortar stores) to find this particular book. It isn't a huge bestseller, and thus probably not in stock everywhere. The Amazon link has a lot of info + customer reviews of the book, so I posted that. Feel free to buy (or not buy) this book wherever it is you shop for books.
I DID point out that its available at Amazon AND other book sellers. You're nitpicking, bro.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 - being an Android, rather than iOS device - looks and feels nothing like the iPad 2 when its switched on. Completely different UI/graphic design look. In fact it doesn't look remotely similar. Samsung also doesn't call it the sPad or something. They call it Galaxy Tab, which bears no resemblance to "iPad" whatsoever. Try it out yourself. Go to a store that has both the Samsung tablet and the Apple tablet, try both, and come back and tell me that they look similar. They don't! As for whoever modded my original parent post "Troll" - you Apple freaks are the worst fanboys of all. Samsung's tablet is technically superior to iPad 2. Pointing that out - that Apple doesn't have the best device on the market - is stating the facts, not trolling.But go on. Keep living in your twisted little fanboy world where Apple is the greatest computer company on the planet, and its products are the only ones that are great or groundbreaking. You Apple fanboys will grow older and wiser someday, and look back and wonder precisely what it was that was so "amazing" about Apple's products.
The book "Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy" by Martin Lindstrom explains in great detail the (crazy) lengths companies/stores go to gleam as much - normally private - information on shoppers as possible. Its very readable, quite frightening (the bits about loyalty cards and credit cards especially), and written by someone who comes from the marketing/behavioral study field, and seems keen on fully exposing the shady practices of the industry to average readers. Its available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Brandwashed-Tricks-Companies-Manipulate-Persuade/dp/0385531737 and other book sellers.
Galaxy Tab 10.1 is slimmer, lighter, has a higher res camera, a better screen and longer battery life than IPad 2. Oh, its also cheaper, and unlike iPad 2, can be bought "as is", without being tied to a mandatory 12/24 month dataplan, as is the case with iPad 2 where I live. I don't think Galaxy Tab is a shameless copy of iPad 2. I think that it is a significantly BETTER product that happens to look somewhat similar to iPad 2 (then again, all tablet computers look a lot like each other). Apple is suing because Samsung has produced a superior Tablet Computer. And some crappy court in Germany has decided to uphold this stupid claim. Galaxy Tab is the better tablet of the two, and Apple - being its typical agressive, domineering self - is suing to keep Korean Samsung's superior product out of people's hands, so they have have to go and buy an iPad 2 instead.
It seems to me that a lot of people who have studied image processing/video processing cannot come up with a benevolent/non-malignant use of their skills that also generates an income they can live on, and wind up building some computer vision algorithm or software that tracks/identifies/spies on people for profit instead. There are so many positive things that can be done with image processing, like - to name just one example - upgrading/restoring 1000s of hours of old archive footage to 21st Century clarity/sharpness. Or, for example, sifting through medical imagery and looking for signs of disease/tumors/tissue anomalies. Or converting 2D content to Stereoscopic 3D content. Instead of doing that, and similar, some cretins choose to build one digital surveillance/biometric ID system after another, for quick profit, and the whole world suffers the loss of regular, everyday privacy these systems cause. This sort of stuff should be banned from Public Spaces. It doesn't help Joe/Jane Ordinary live better. It just gives companies - including bricks and mortar companies now - fancy new tools to spy on their customers. It used to be that staying away from Facebook and similar privacy destroyers gave you some tangible privacy. Now, with the help of intelligent computer vision software peering through dumb surveillance cameras, every public location/shopping space becomes another Facebook that wants to track & surveil you. And this time you can't opt out at all! Again, this stuff should be banned for the good of everyone.
This man and his sprawling NewsCorp media empire have almost single-handedly ruined/corrupted objective journalism, and done so across multiple countries where NewsCorp is active. Nothing good can come from allowing Rupert Murdoch anywhere near schools and educational institutions. His signature reckless profiteering and lack of a conscience/values will likely corrupt the education process, too, not enhance it. I can't believe that Bill Gates is teaming up with Murdoch... I was under the impression that Bill had gone all "good guy philanthropist". Maybe I was wrong about that... But seriously, no venture owned by Rupert Murdoch should be allowed within a mile or so of a school, or of any other institution frequented by kids. This man will just try to spread his twisted, f^cked up neocon-ultra-jingo-conservative values to school children, given the chance. Don't do it, Bill. Whatever you are trying to accomplish, its not worth collaborating with this news-bully/snakeoil salesman/jingoist warmonger. Simply... don't... do it!
People who continously argued over the years that game DRM services like Steam (or SecuROM, or EA newcomer "Origin") were "harmless" anti-piracy measures or even - gasp - "just great, so easy to use!" can now rejoice. Once SOPA/PIPA, and then SOPA/PIPA 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 get passed, using the ENTIRE INTERNET will VERY MUCH become like being permantently trapped in a walled garden like Steam, or iTunes. Today's "wild" internet will then, over the years, become a distant memory, like 8 track tapes or Polaroid film. Of course 50% or so of the internet's population will then walk away from the NET entirely, because there's nothing interesting on it anymore. And content companies/dotcoms/stock markets will now PANIC that people are LEAVING the internet. But that shouldn't stop a nice bill like SOPA or PIPA and EVEN STRICTER LEGISLATION THAT WILL ALMOST SURELY FOLLOW THEM. Go on. Pass these stupid bills. See what happens to the Internet as a result.
Sometime between 2015 and 2020 - or whenever the general public wakes up about privacy issues and casual privacy intrusions - every business model built around little more than gathering lots and lots of intrusive data about people will crash at the same time. I call this the POPPING OF THE UNPRIVACY BUBBLE... Ordinary people wake up and start protesting all the little privacy intrusions that hundreds of companies have - gradually, slowboiling-style - slipped into our lives. Ordinary people start to partake in mass privacy and personal data protection lawsuits aimed at the worst offenders (like Facebook, which somehow - no joke - knows who your friends are, even if you've never had a facebook account or visited facebook.com in your life). Ordinary people start to shut down internet and smartphone accounts that they initially thought weren't too bad, and walk away from these services en masse. Ordinary people create tremendous demand for new replacement services with rock-tight privacy protections (including each service submitting itself voluntarily to once-three-monthly privacy audits carried out by independent privacy experts). Ordinary people wise up and stop buying devices that, for example, have no plastic lid to cover the face camera with, or no hardware switch that kills wireless/bluetooth, or no LED light or other indicator showing that data is being transmitted about you. It will happen sometime this decade. The great 'Privacy Awakening'. When it does happen, services and devices built around toying with your private data and sucking as much of it away into the ether will fail completely within a matter of weeks. Stock prices will go into nosedives. CEOs and board members will be forced to resign. Entire management layers will be vaporized. Popular tech blogs and magazines will have to start rating the 'Privacy Friendliness' or 'Privacy Protection Level' of things they review. Lawmakers will have to implement Strong and Proactive Privacy Protection Laws if they want to get re-elected. It will happen sometime between now and 2020. Kind of like the Arab Spring.
Its the other way around. Ever since the EU - France/Sarkozy and Germany/Merkel in particular - pushed a then EU-membership-eagerTurkey away in the mid 2000s with silly religious-geographic arguments, like "Turkey isn't and never will be a European Country", privacy-rights and other human rights in Turkey - like the right to peaceful protest/assembly - have become seriously eroded. Turkey in 2011 is a true Orwellian 1984 state where people are afraid to discuss politics or religion over the phone or internet, where going into important business meetings you are routinely asked to check your smartphone/mobile phone at the door, where anytime anything crime related happens, police magically get hold of 'detailed Internet records' of the perps immediately. It wasn't like this when Turkey was still headed for EU membership. All of this happened AFTER the EU basically stopped/stalled/pseudo-rejected Turkey's memberhip talks.
There are 4 ways for something like this to work out financially for MS. 1) Either an Xbox 360's true manufacturing cost in 2011 is a mere 50 - 70 dollars a unit (ageing hardware + economies of scale from manufacturing tens of millions of them). 2) Or people who choose to become "Windows PC users" for the next 5 - 10 years will get shafted out of money so frequently and in so many different little ways that the cost of the free Xbox becomes negligible in the long run. 3) Or the creation cost of 1 unit of a typical Xbox 360 game works out at 3 - 5 dollars a pop while the retail price for the same unit is 40 dollars, so the profit made from selling a few games cancels out the cost of giving away a free console. 4) Or the next Xbox 2012 or whatever they will call it is R&D and almost ready to launch and MS banks on the fact that the free Xbox 360 users will willingly fork out dollar 699 or so to upgrade to the new Xbox 2012.
A number of things can go wrong... 1 - The budget gets slashed at the last minute (from dollar 55 million to dollar 25 million for example) because the producers have 'nagging doubts' about its merchantability. 2 - Bad casting choices that don't fit the characters in the book. 3 - Brutal editing and scene deletion to get the film under 2 hours (e.g. butchered to 102 minutes runtime with titles when 135 minutes are needed to tell the plot without jumpy pacing and loose ends). 4 - Dumbing down/oversimplification of the story. 5 - Changing the story to the point where Neuromancer becomes Neon-man-city. 6 - Poor art direction choices to make the material more appealing to 2012 cinema viewers (vs 1984 scifi book readers) Lots of smooth NURB design on everything (because NURBS sell mobile phones, cars and so on in the real world). 7 - Messing up the tech in the novel (brain-jacks are suddenly wireless with bluetooth-likee headsets)... the 'Matrix' is different from the novel... Case's 'deck' is made by Apple or Nokia with a big glowing logo on it. 8 - Trying to make Neuromancer more Matrixy (slow-mo action with 360 degree camera and so on). The list just goes on and on and on...
...the Matrix jacks into YOU!
DotCommers had a fondness for chewing a lot of bubblegum, and blowing a lot of bubbles with said bubblegum. The rest of the story - bubbles having anything to do with 'stocks' and so on - was pure mainstream media distortion of what really went down. Honestly... ;)
Yes. He will play 'Cyberspace' by wearing a bodysuit covered in blinking LED lights, neon glowstrips and such on a darkened set.
AI is a much better film than people gave it credit for (Kubrick's version would probably have been more 'genius' of course). I had a chance to watch it again on cable the other day and AI was much better than I remembered from the 1st viewing.
Molly is going to be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing a black wig and a leather skirt. She will sound 'a little Austrian', which will add to the mystique of Neuromancer. When her fingernail blade implants don't work, she will pick enemies up by their hair and throw them into the filming 3D camera, making it seem like they fly out of the screen at you in IMAX3D. =)
This would have been easier to put together 20 years ago, I think they tried to do a movie a couple of times already but it fell apart.
Today's 3D CGI VFX, digital cinematography tools, Stereoscopic 3D film cameras and other innovations will probably make Neuromancer 10 times easier to realize properly compared with what was available 20 or even 10 years ago. Things like digital set extensions (to visualize The Sprawl for example) are done so well these days that virtually nobody 'sees' where the real set ends and the CG extension starts. Provided that the art director is really good (i.e. BladeRunner Syd Mead good), Neuromancer could be real eye candy when its filmed.
I agree, I also wonder how the general pebcak's will react to the theme of the movie. Will they understand that the book was ground breaking stuff? Or will they think it's a cheap knock off of the Matrix.
The only thing Neuromancer has in common with The Matrix is the idea of jacking into cyberspace via a computer-to-brain connection. That's where the similarities end. Neuromancer is totally different material storywise, as are the followups Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. If done well, Neuromancer would make The Matrix look very 'Hollywood Action Movie with some fancy dystopian Color Grading'. Gibson's world is very very complex, detailed and realistic compared to The Matrix.
Neuromancer doesn't feature VR goggles. The characters in the book 'jack in' to cyberspace by plugging a cable into a jack surgically inserted behind the ear. Its a direct-to-brain interface that makes you feel/believe you are really in cyberspace.