iPod's days are numbered. Apple's Microsoft-esque shennigans of blocking out contnet from other vendors and funky prorietary DRM schemes have earned them no love. Combine that with the comparable (if not better) quality, yet cheaper priced products from competitors (which just happen to be compatable with whatever you want to run on it from wherever you can get it) will be the stake in the heart.
Take off your geek blinders and look at the cold, hard numbers. Sales of iPod are *increasing* not decreasing. And despite how most people on Slashdot (including myself) feel about DRM, most people really don't care as long as the restrictions aren't over the top, and the iPod restrictions are perfectly acceptable to almost everyone but the hardcore "Ogg or nothing" crowd, which makes up a very small minority of the real world, even if they are over-represented here.
The mouse sensitivity issue isn't really a limitation the XFPS can overcome. Halo 2 for Xbox wasn't meant to have mouse used as a controller at all, so the XFPS is translating mouse movement into joystick movement data, which the code of Halo is going to process just like any other joystick data and at a fixed rate.
While this is unfortunate for people who would like to play Halo 2 with "true" mouse-look,it actually makes things more fair for Xbox Live users and such who would be at a decided disadvantage if they were playing against people who had full-speed mouselook when they were using the default Xbox controller.
I can imagine the outrage there would be here if Microsoft announced that software had to be one of three specific licenses to be "Windows certified".
All this will do is alienate businesses that might have opened their source with their own licenses and cause them to either not open their source at all, or just ignore the OSI completely (thereby removing any power the organization might have had).
Computers really aren't getting that much faster anymore. Desktop processors really hit a big bump at 3 ghz (a couple of years ago now) and haven't gone up much since then. This is why you're reading all the hype about dual-core systems now. Intel and AMD have brought the single-core CPU about as far as it can go without some major new breakthroughs, or skyrocketing prices.
I'm pretty sure the headline is intentionally meant to sound like a music radio tagline. Pretty funny, I thought. Expanding all the acronyms would have ruined it.
Windows is far from perfect, but the author's bias is really obvious in a few places.
For example:
(Sometime in the later '90s, a Mac org whose name I forget ran a rather amazing hacker competition: they offered a $13,000 cash prize to anyone in the world who could hack into the company's unprotected Mac server and alter the contest's home page in any way. Needless to say, no one ever could).
If the author were half as clever as he thinks he is, or not being dishonest, he'd realize that such a competition says absolutely nothing about the operating system and everything about the person or persons who configured it. I could put a really secure Windows 2003 Server on the net (the easy way: basically disable every incoming network service). Doesn't mean Windows 2003 is secure...
As to why the masses don't migrate en-masse to the Mac Mini.. That's an easy one... They want to actually run applications other than Final Cut and iTunes. For all the greatness of OS X, Apple still hasn't managed to do a very good job of getting widespread developer support behind it. An operating system can be the most secure and uncrashable thing on the planet and nobody is going to give a flying damn if they can't run software they want to use on it.
*reads the other responses* Child porn.. child porn.. child porn..
Heh, there's some fuckers with dirty minds posting today...
I'm going to guess they've just had this line beaten into their heads from the "think of the children" PR machine behind funding for things like steganalysis.
Honestly, how many pervs do you think are out there hiding their child porn with methods such as this? I'd guess very close to zero. I'm not saying there aren't weirdos out there who like to collect this sort of thing, I'm just guessing it is a lot more likely to be sitting there unprotected in some directory on their harddrive or at MOST on some encrypted volume... I find it hard to believe they'd set up some fancy steganography system to hide it.
Steganography is an ultimate emperor's new clothes technology to get funding for. There's no solid proof anyone is using it to do anything illegal, but the people who want to be funded to research this bullshit can just say "well, of course there's no proof, because it is hidden in images! Images that TERRORISTS or CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS might be trading as we speak!!!"
Of course passwords and keys can be bypassed, just as a locked door can be. But it's the fact that there's a locked door there that keeps a good percentage of casual villians out of your life.
Yeah but part of the point here is that people who implement password systems are making them increasingly difficult for users to use (eg. Sorry, your password must contain at least 10 letters, some of which must be letters, some special symbols, some numbers). That's a lot harder to use/manage than a key, especially since people generally only need a couple of keys (home, car, maybe work) as opposed to dozens if not more of passwords (home system, work system, web email, web site registrations, etc).
I don't think passwords should be thrown away but they should be viewed like a home key. A nice front-line defense, but one that is simple and doesn't make things overly complicated for the legitimate user.
I know it has become a running joke, and rightfully so, but quite honestly, I've failed to prove I'm human to these stupid things on more than one occasion.
A lot of them do stupid things like start with a serif font, distort the hell out of it, and expect me to be able to tell which is a 1 and which is a 7.
Also, while we're on the subject.. I didn't know these things (CAPTCHAs) had a name... a really stupid name.
we're smarter mostly because we have brains a few thousand times larger than mice, not because of any special virtue of our brain tissue, and our brain cells are certainly not going to be optimal for controlling a mouse's body and living as a mouse.
Intelligence is a matter of brain size, eh? Elephants must be hella smart then! No wonder they never forget!
I'm positive the next generation of consoles will be very nice to behold, but I also remember all of the hype surrounding the PS2 launch and how the PS2 was such a super computer that they had to ban exports to Iraq, and how it was "movie quality" and such... And then it came out, and it was a clear step up, but not nearly the giant leap the hype suggested.
I suspect we'll see the same thing here.
The other thing to worry about is that the increasing reliance of highly detailed art means games are going to take much longer to produce, cost a lot more to make, and those costs will certainly be transfered to the consumer. Not to mention that when you're making games that require 100s of artists and with artists being a limited resource, you'll be seeing less projects spread among less game developer/publishers, with less competition and thus less gameplay innovation...
So things aren't *all* rosy...
Still, I'm sure I'll buy the Xbox2 on release day... I'm a sucker for new things.
Multics was also a huge commercial failure, because security tends to get in the way of people using computers to get real work done.
I'm not suggesting that all security is worthless, and some systems need to be really, really secure, I'm just noting that there's a lot of people (developers and sys/network admins) who are enamored with the theoretical underpinnings of security to the point where they implement security measures that do more harm (in terms of reducing or eliminating productivity) than good.
The product was good, service was good but the rest of the business world (mainly M$) did
As rich and powerful as Microsoft is, they just don't have the kind of power you think they do, especially when it comes to markets outside of computer OSes. I can't believe you're sitting here blaming Microsoft for the fact that Tivo is a poorly run company...
The vast majority of business failures people think were somehow caused by Microsoft were really caused by the ineptitude of the company that went under. When Microsoft goes after a market, a well-run company will push them back (see: Quicken vs Microsoft Money). A poorly run company? Well... Darwin's law kicks in. Is that really Microsoft's fault?
Their anti-spyware software doesn't work on older versions of Windows. Poor ol' me with WinME will continue to use measures that work on older versions of Windows.
Don't worry about it, it is getting to be so difficult to target older versions of Windows with the new APIs and development tools that even the adware guys will probably just throw up a dialog asking you to upgrade to XP before they can install their spyware. So you'll be sittin' pretty with your WinME install!
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You're assuming that Firefox has the same amount of bugs and vulnerabilities that IE does and it's not the case.
Got any stats or solid proof to back that up? No? Didn't think so. Just goes to show OSS supporters are capable of FUD too.
And you assume that is a Windows XP problem and not due to running something as non-standard as DeepFreeze?
Heheheh.
Do you think he would be alive still if he couldn't be replaced without huge efforts?
How's that tinfoil hat treating you?
iPod's days are numbered. Apple's Microsoft-esque shennigans of blocking out contnet from other vendors and funky prorietary DRM schemes have earned them no love. Combine that with the comparable (if not better) quality, yet cheaper priced products from competitors (which just happen to be compatable with whatever you want to run on it from wherever you can get it) will be the stake in the heart.
Take off your geek blinders and look at the cold, hard numbers. Sales of iPod are *increasing* not decreasing. And despite how most people on Slashdot (including myself) feel about DRM, most people really don't care as long as the restrictions aren't over the top, and the iPod restrictions are perfectly acceptable to almost everyone but the hardcore "Ogg or nothing" crowd, which makes up a very small minority of the real world, even if they are over-represented here.
The mouse sensitivity issue isn't really a limitation the XFPS can overcome. Halo 2 for Xbox wasn't meant to have mouse used as a controller at all, so the XFPS is translating mouse movement into joystick movement data, which the code of Halo is going to process just like any other joystick data and at a fixed rate.
While this is unfortunate for people who would like to play Halo 2 with "true" mouse-look,it actually makes things more fair for Xbox Live users and such who would be at a decided disadvantage if they were playing against people who had full-speed mouselook when they were using the default Xbox controller.
Quit whining you friggin' nerd.
Closer to the MPL, actually...
I can imagine the outrage there would be here if Microsoft announced that software had to be one of three specific licenses to be "Windows certified".
All this will do is alienate businesses that might have opened their source with their own licenses and cause them to either not open their source at all, or just ignore the OSI completely (thereby removing any power the organization might have had).
This is most non-subtle paid PR story Slashdot has ever run.
it doesn't seem like they're convinced with offering the best value on hardware.
They're a business, just like any other business they want to maximize profits.
Computers really aren't getting that much faster anymore. Desktop processors really hit a big bump at 3 ghz (a couple of years ago now) and haven't gone up much since then. This is why you're reading all the hype about dual-core systems now. Intel and AMD have brought the single-core CPU about as far as it can go without some major new breakthroughs, or skyrocketing prices.
I'm pretty sure the headline is intentionally meant to sound like a music radio tagline. Pretty funny, I thought. Expanding all the acronyms would have ruined it.
Windows is far from perfect, but the author's bias is really obvious in a few places.
For example:
(Sometime in the later '90s, a Mac org whose name I forget ran a rather amazing hacker competition: they offered a $13,000 cash prize to anyone in the world who could hack into the company's unprotected Mac server and alter the contest's home page in any way. Needless to say, no one ever could).
If the author were half as clever as he thinks he is, or not being dishonest, he'd realize that such a competition says absolutely nothing about the operating system and everything about the person or persons who configured it. I could put a really secure Windows 2003 Server on the net (the easy way: basically disable every incoming network service). Doesn't mean Windows 2003 is secure...
As to why the masses don't migrate en-masse to the Mac Mini.. That's an easy one... They want to actually run applications other than Final Cut and iTunes. For all the greatness of OS X, Apple still hasn't managed to do a very good job of getting widespread developer support behind it. An operating system can be the most secure and uncrashable thing on the planet and nobody is going to give a flying damn if they can't run software they want to use on it.
*reads the other responses* Child porn.. child porn.. child porn..
Heh, there's some fuckers with dirty minds posting today...
I'm going to guess they've just had this line beaten into their heads from the "think of the children" PR machine behind funding for things like steganalysis.
Honestly, how many pervs do you think are out there hiding their child porn with methods such as this? I'd guess very close to zero. I'm not saying there aren't weirdos out there who like to collect this sort of thing, I'm just guessing it is a lot more likely to be sitting there unprotected in some directory on their harddrive or at MOST on some encrypted volume... I find it hard to believe they'd set up some fancy steganography system to hide it.
Steganography is an ultimate emperor's new clothes technology to get funding for. There's no solid proof anyone is using it to do anything illegal, but the people who want to be funded to research this bullshit can just say "well, of course there's no proof, because it is hidden in images! Images that TERRORISTS or CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS might be trading as we speak!!!"
Of course passwords and keys can be bypassed, just as a locked door can be. But it's the fact that there's a locked door there that keeps a good percentage of casual villians out of your life.
Yeah but part of the point here is that people who implement password systems are making them increasingly difficult for users to use (eg. Sorry, your password must contain at least 10 letters, some of which must be letters, some special symbols, some numbers). That's a lot harder to use/manage than a key, especially since people generally only need a couple of keys (home, car, maybe work) as opposed to dozens if not more of passwords (home system, work system, web email, web site registrations, etc).
I don't think passwords should be thrown away but they should be viewed like a home key. A nice front-line defense, but one that is simple and doesn't make things overly complicated for the legitimate user.
I know it has become a running joke, and rightfully so, but quite honestly, I've failed to prove I'm human to these stupid things on more than one occasion.
A lot of them do stupid things like start with a serif font, distort the hell out of it, and expect me to be able to tell which is a 1 and which is a 7.
Also, while we're on the subject.. I didn't know these things (CAPTCHAs) had a name... a really stupid name.
Would anyone care to explain this apparent conflict?
Self-interest, pure and simple. We aren't musicians here on Slashdot. And we want everything for free.
Infect the mothership?
The article lost all credibility with me with the infect the mothership line. Everybody knows you need to use a Mac to infect the mothership.
Can it get any more horny than this?
I've heard of some sick fetishes (I do have access to the Internet, after all), but you take the cake, my friend!
we're smarter mostly because we have brains a few thousand times larger than mice, not because of any special virtue of our brain tissue, and our brain cells are certainly not going to be optimal for controlling a mouse's body and living as a mouse.
Intelligence is a matter of brain size, eh? Elephants must be hella smart then! No wonder they never forget!
I'm positive the next generation of consoles will be very nice to behold, but I also remember all of the hype surrounding the PS2 launch and how the PS2 was such a super computer that they had to ban exports to Iraq, and how it was "movie quality" and such... And then it came out, and it was a clear step up, but not nearly the giant leap the hype suggested.
I suspect we'll see the same thing here.
The other thing to worry about is that the increasing reliance of highly detailed art means games are going to take much longer to produce, cost a lot more to make, and those costs will certainly be transfered to the consumer. Not to mention that when you're making games that require 100s of artists and with artists being a limited resource, you'll be seeing less projects spread among less game developer/publishers, with less competition and thus less gameplay innovation...
So things aren't *all* rosy...
Still, I'm sure I'll buy the Xbox2 on release day... I'm a sucker for new things.
Multics was also a huge commercial failure, because security tends to get in the way of people using computers to get real work done.
I'm not suggesting that all security is worthless, and some systems need to be really, really secure, I'm just noting that there's a lot of people (developers and sys/network admins) who are enamored with the theoretical underpinnings of security to the point where they implement security measures that do more harm (in terms of reducing or eliminating productivity) than good.
Are you applying for a software "design" position?
I should hope he isn't considering he is fresh out of college...
The product was good, service was good but the rest of the business world (mainly M$) did
As rich and powerful as Microsoft is, they just don't have the kind of power you think they do, especially when it comes to markets outside of computer OSes. I can't believe you're sitting here blaming Microsoft for the fact that Tivo is a poorly run company...
The vast majority of business failures people think were somehow caused by Microsoft were really caused by the ineptitude of the company that went under. When Microsoft goes after a market, a well-run company will push them back (see: Quicken vs Microsoft Money). A poorly run company? Well... Darwin's law kicks in. Is that really Microsoft's fault?
Their anti-spyware software doesn't work on older versions of Windows. Poor ol' me with WinME will continue to use measures that work on older versions of Windows.
Don't worry about it, it is getting to be so difficult to target older versions of Windows with the new APIs and development tools that even the adware guys will probably just throw up a dialog asking you to upgrade to XP before they can install their spyware. So you'll be sittin' pretty with your WinME install!