...and still the name of the provider gets truncated to "voda..."? Tsk, tsk.
(Apologies for wasting a few seconds of your time with this pointless post... but i have to say something negative about something from Apple, or i'll lose street cred.)
Well... I'm not a rocket surgeon, but i think it would allow for slightly smaller sim-holding mechanisms in devices such as cellphones. As the challenge appears to be to make them smaller and thinner with every generation.
Yes, but they were only funny the first 500 times. Really, these kind of jokes pop up at the top of *every* article that has even remotely to do with Apple.
I read page 1, then the site got slashdotted, appearantly. I can only imagine the fire alarms going off, server rooms on fire, sparks everywhere, chaos, mayhem... Much more interesting than a "an unexpected error has occured. contact your administrator." windows dialog on a machine.
Well then, without the original article... I guess one thing that Hollywood thinks computers can do, is for servers to be ab-so-lu-tely quiet... In series such as 24 and CSI, I see rack after rack of Dell equipment, and they must be on because there are blue lights everywhere... Yet people can have normal conversations. Also, especially in CSI:NY, why are the server racks in the office rooms? Oh, and come to think of it... In CSI, where people are supposed to scrutinize every little detail, not to miss everything... Who thought it would be a good idea to work on transparent screens? I would imagine that all the distractions you see *through* the screen, would make you miss essential clues? Weird.
Windows 7 mobile - since when do you need Microsoft's involvement to release an app for that? I haven't used windows 7, but previous stuff, like windows CE, was an open platform - not FOSS, but you could do whatever you wanted with what you had.
Since, well, Windows 7 mobile. Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile_7 : "Windows Phone 7 will only run applications that have first been approved by Microsoft and will only be available via the Windows Phone Marketplace."
All-digital distribution isn't fun if you can't get cable or DSL where you live, or if you're trying to squeeze 20 GB of a Blu-ray or multi-DVD game over low-end DSL.
This is about Ubisoft. You can't play any of their new games without an internet connection. Not even in singleplayer.
Who is going to carry around 100 of their original, expensive dvd's in their car? Waiting for them to get stolen, damaged by kids, scratched in the player when you take a speedbump? If you want to carry around so many movies, i think most people want to carry around copies, which involves de-css'ing them anyway. And then, carrying them around in the flash memory of a player seems suddenly a whole lot easier than burning them on physical media.
Besides, the way i understand it, most people don't buy dvd's anyway, but download them in the first place, making it even easier.
modern graphics are modeled in 3D then flattened. All 3D requires is that you flatten it from two slightly different perspectives; the incremental cost should be small, on the order of 10% or 20%, not enough to require you to drop from 1080p to 720p.
I'm not an expert on the subject, but this "flattening" you speak of, isn't that the actual rendering? I always thought that this was the bit where the biggest part of numbercrunching is done. This is were for each pixel in the 2D plane of the screen is calculated, based on the position of objects, textures and light sources. Doubling this task would probably mean more than a 10-20% increase in load.
It's a thin line between sarcasm and bullsh*t, when it comes to pointless applebashing here. I grow tired of the attitude here, where if you have nothing negative to say about apple, you're automatically a branless apple fanboi.
Apple is not really, in spirit, a tech company at all,
Really? Perhaps that is why they changed their name from "Apple Computer Inc." to "Apple Inc." a few years ago. It's not a big secret that they shifted their main focus from computer stuff to music and other content.
This is why your music was DRMd, even when the rights owners did not want it to be.
Wait... Are you now suggesting that the MAFIAA didn't want DRM on their music in the iTunes Store, but Apple forced it? So you also think that Apple finally dropped DRM under pressure of the music biz?
Its because open source is the enemy for Apple, even more than for MS, because it represents intellectual freedom.
Why are huge portions of OS X opensource and publicly available then? Where do i find the source of (portions of) Windows?
I read that you cannot activate the iPad from Linux. Now, why would that be, exactly....?
I just view it as "system requirements". Do you also whine about not being able to play Dragon Age Origins under Linux? Or your fancy exotic printer or scanner only being supported in Windows or OS X? It's just a big iPod, and iPods need iTunes, ever since the beginning of time. Get over it. If you don't like the iPad, just say so and buy yourself another tablet.
maybe, maybe not.
I've noticed that xbox owners are usually much more rabid about their precious systems then other console owners. Go to any gaming sit you like and read some of the posts. The xbox owners appear a lot more vicious and petty, much like liberals who don't get their way. I do admit there are exceptions.
Personally when I made the choice to buy a gaming console I decided to buy from a HARDWARE company instead of a software company.
Yes, as the AC above you has demonstrated.
But this me a little of people complaining about all the Apple fanboys and everything, while the page is filled with bash after bash at Apple.
And for the record, with all the mice, keyboards, Zunes, Xboxes, controllers, headsets and whatnot, i think it's hard to see MS as a software-only company. And so what, isn't a company allowed to make such a change? As if Sony never made any f*ckups in their history?
- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.
Good luck trying to put a fat PS3 in the box of a slimline PS3.
Re:Don't Support Closed Systems...
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
When you buy into closed systems, you put money into the hands of people who will perpetuate closed systems. As a result, more advertising, sneaky (I say that because its closed) innovation, and influence is produced and then the culture of computer use trends further in that direction...
Agreed. However, the enterprises that you speak of, are also needed to push the technological frontier forward. Intel wouldn't make such powerful cpu's, Nvidia wouldn't make such powerful gpu's, hell, even Creative wouldn't be so succesful in the sound department if it wasn't for companies like Microsoft creating a platform that EA could create games for. And without those cpu's, without faster and bigger hard drives, without dirt-cheap memory, Linux wouldn't have come so far as it is now. You can't do it on your own.
Many forces right now are interested in producing limited/closed systems, and furthermore very thin 'clients' that would have the majority if the processing and data storage done in the cloud. Nevermind that you are limited by the permissions inherent to the construct of the closed system -- and subject to the inevitable "nickle and dime" pay/fees attached.
Ok, then don't buy into this cloud thing. Your choice. But again, clouds also cost nickles and dimes. I like the idea of doing things in the cloud, but datacenters cost money too, you know. Power, cooling and bandwidth are not free. I learned alot from hosting my own server in a datacenter, and experimented quite a bit with Ubuntu there, but yesterday i picked up my server again, since i have learned enough, and it is just burning my money.
Buying into this junk is a way of voting with your money for a future that has more of it. I'm pretty happy with the freedoms I enjoy in computing. Right now, computing is still kind-of a 'wild west' of sorts, with many freedoms still open and available. As have many other aspects of life, the power of the susceptible consumer buying into bad ideas has led to the limitation of access to variety/possibilities/alternatives; that which is not mainstream loses its ground and at some point has no platform to present from.
Doesn't that go for everything? You can have interesting ideas for a supercar, with far better steering than with a regular steering wheel, but you'll never get it on the road on your own.
Think for yourself. Do you want a 'computer' that only allows you to do what they want you to do? Do you want people who offer this to get your money and drive the market further in that direction?
I *am* thinking for myself, and i don't need others to tell me what are good and bad ideas. Yes, software more and more tries to think what you want, and is adapted to that, Microsoft and Apple do tons of research on those things. You can see that as a negative thing, fine, there is still Linux, and if you don't like something, go and code it yourself. On the positive side, this has enabled far more people to actually *use* the new technologies. As much as i dislike Windows, i have to give credit to His Billness for getting the pc out of the basement back into the living room, because since Windows 95 every housewife can actually use a computer, because clicking on buttons that say "Send Mail" make more sense than entering key commands in mutt.
Back ontopic: we're not talking here about a computer, but a portable media device. It's an oversize iPod Touch. Not to be confused with real computers from Apple, which run OS X, still a pretty open OS (more open than Windows, at least). I admit i'd rather like the idea of a touchpad with some more functionality, but be honest, Microsoft has tried the road before of just slapping Windows on a tablet, resulting in a laptop without a keyboard. Just applying a desktop os to a tablet, adding a virtual keyboard or whatever, is not the way to tablet computing. Apple went the other direction completely. Something in the middle would be nice, but it isn't there yet. Think Linux can fill that gap? I'd like to see that. Really, i would.
While i can still play games i bought 15 years ago, there is no guarantee whatsoever that i can play today's games in 15 years. In the past, i got the feeling of really 'owning' a game (well, a non-revokable license to play it, you know what i mean), but now, i can only play it if the publisher is still in business *and* allows me to activate the game, so essentially holding hostage a game i paid good bucks for.
Another reason is that intolerable dlc business, which i still suspect is a mechanism for publishers to hinder the secondhand market, and/or generate 50% more revenue of a game by selling content that (in most cases) might as well have been included in the release.
Then again, maybe it is just me getting older, having kids, etc.
Oh you can use it in any way you please. You have that right. MS (and Apple and everyone else) has the right to sell a device with or without features as they see fit. And you have the right to buy it, or to buy a different product, or buy nothing altogether. If you don't like the (im)possibilities of this phone, shop elsewhere.
Nowhere does the law say anything about "any phone you intend to sell should have the capability to install applications from ANY source." In fact, i would be more worried if such a DOES exist.
So stop whining, and let your money talk.
Oh, and how is this different from Playstations, where you can only play Sony-approved and -labelled games? It's not as if this technique is anything new.
I'm not sure if they would be able to keep such a deceit up. Word would get out eventually, and i think it would do more harm than good, it clearly would show that there is something to hide, and it would even more look like a scam to separate the punters from their cash.
iTunes works as long as Apple says it's ok, not if anything actually knows how to interact with iTunes. Palm does know how and kept programming to make it work. It was Apple that kept altering iTunes to purposely break that connection to wall out Palm since they didn't want to jump through Apple's hoops.
Eh... Palm was connecting to iTunes by faking its usb vendor id, imposting as a genuine Apple device. This technique is heavily frowned upon by the USB Implementers Forum, no matter how noble the cause. It's like the usb equivalent of identity theft. So i'm afraid Palm is no saint either.
I seem to remember that the so-called DLC for EA games years ago (Madden NFL 06, Godfather, Need For Speed) also took 100KB to download on an Xbox 360. This was 4 years ago. Did nobody wonder back then how they fitted entire football arenas, weapon arsenals and sportscars in just a few thousand bytes?
Getting Snow Leopard for $29 while running Tiger is not a valid upgrade path according to Apple. The $29 version of SL is only allowed to be used to upgrade Leopard to Snow Leopard. Users of Tiger should buy the Mac Box Set for $169, including iWork and iLife 09.
Not that the installer complains, it'll install on every hard drive inside a Mac, with Tiger, Leopard, Windows or nothing on it, without checking for any previous versions.
While i in no away agree to Ubi's view... It is your hardware, but not your software. If everone plays only pirated games, there will be no more games to pirate. Did that occur to you? There are numerous situations where DRM restricts legitimate users (well, all cases where DRM applies, really) but pirating is not the answer.
Just don't play their games *at all* if you wish to make a statement. Now, you only give them ammunition to justify plans like this.
But i can still pay the games i bought for a NES or Mega Drive. I think the PS2 is the last console before the new generation where patches, firmware upgrades and whatnot became the norm.
I have no problem with not being able to play the games i bought now in 10 years or so, but perhaps they shouldn't be priced as such then. Games now cost the same as 20 years ago, yet they don't have the same lifespan.
Yeah i remember that too... Scrolling past lines showing only things like "Dim a as Integer", and Tim Robbins going like "Brilliant!".
In the same movie, i also remember "top secret IP adresses", in the 10.0.0.0-range. While this is cause for laughter amongst people in the know, this might very well be the equivalent of telephone numbers beginning with 555, to avoid legal problems when using real public ip's. (Altough i like the game Uplink's approach to this, using octets above 255.)
Slashdot Mirror
...and still the name of the provider gets truncated to "voda..."? Tsk, tsk.
(Apologies for wasting a few seconds of your time with this pointless post... but i have to say something negative about something from Apple, or i'll lose street cred.)
Well... I'm not a rocket surgeon, but i think it would allow for slightly smaller sim-holding mechanisms in devices such as cellphones. As the challenge appears to be to make them smaller and thinner with every generation.
Yes, but they were only funny the first 500 times. Really, these kind of jokes pop up at the top of *every* article that has even remotely to do with Apple.
I read page 1, then the site got slashdotted, appearantly. I can only imagine the fire alarms going off, server rooms on fire, sparks everywhere, chaos, mayhem... Much more interesting than a "an unexpected error has occured. contact your administrator." windows dialog on a machine.
Well then, without the original article... I guess one thing that Hollywood thinks computers can do, is for servers to be ab-so-lu-tely quiet... In series such as 24 and CSI, I see rack after rack of Dell equipment, and they must be on because there are blue lights everywhere... Yet people can have normal conversations. Also, especially in CSI:NY, why are the server racks in the office rooms? Oh, and come to think of it... In CSI, where people are supposed to scrutinize every little detail, not to miss everything... Who thought it would be a good idea to work on transparent screens? I would imagine that all the distractions you see *through* the screen, would make you miss essential clues? Weird.
Windows 7 mobile - since when do you need Microsoft's involvement to release an app for that? I haven't used windows 7, but previous stuff, like windows CE, was an open platform - not FOSS, but you could do whatever you wanted with what you had.
Since, well, Windows 7 mobile. Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile_7 : "Windows Phone 7 will only run applications that have first been approved by Microsoft and will only be available via the Windows Phone Marketplace."
They've had tablet support since Windows 3.11.
Yeah, and look how many Windows tablets you've seen in the wild since then.
I have only seen one with my own eyes. In use by a Microsoft partner account manager, so it kinda figures.
All-digital distribution isn't fun if you can't get cable or DSL where you live, or if you're trying to squeeze 20 GB of a Blu-ray or multi-DVD game over low-end DSL.
This is about Ubisoft. You can't play any of their new games without an internet connection. Not even in singleplayer.
Who is going to carry around 100 of their original, expensive dvd's in their car? Waiting for them to get stolen, damaged by kids, scratched in the player when you take a speedbump? If you want to carry around so many movies, i think most people want to carry around copies, which involves de-css'ing them anyway. And then, carrying them around in the flash memory of a player seems suddenly a whole lot easier than burning them on physical media.
Besides, the way i understand it, most people don't buy dvd's anyway, but download them in the first place, making it even easier.
...said he LOVES the parodies! Read this on fok.nl (and translated here from dutch).
modern graphics are modeled in 3D then flattened. All 3D requires is that you flatten it from two slightly different perspectives; the incremental cost should be small, on the order of 10% or 20%, not enough to require you to drop from 1080p to 720p.
I'm not an expert on the subject, but this "flattening" you speak of, isn't that the actual rendering? I always thought that this was the bit where the biggest part of numbercrunching is done. This is were for each pixel in the 2D plane of the screen is calculated, based on the position of objects, textures and light sources. Doubling this task would probably mean more than a 10-20% increase in load.
It's a thin line between sarcasm and bullsh*t, when it comes to pointless applebashing here. I grow tired of the attitude here, where if you have nothing negative to say about apple, you're automatically a branless apple fanboi.
Apple is not really, in spirit, a tech company at all,
Really? Perhaps that is why they changed their name from "Apple Computer Inc." to "Apple Inc." a few years ago. It's not a big secret that they shifted their main focus from computer stuff to music and other content.
This is why your music was DRMd, even when the rights owners did not want it to be.
Wait... Are you now suggesting that the MAFIAA didn't want DRM on their music in the iTunes Store, but Apple forced it? So you also think that Apple finally dropped DRM under pressure of the music biz?
Its because open source is the enemy for Apple, even more than for MS, because it represents intellectual freedom.
Why are huge portions of OS X opensource and publicly available then? Where do i find the source of (portions of) Windows?
I read that you cannot activate the iPad from Linux. Now, why would that be, exactly....?
I just view it as "system requirements". Do you also whine about not being able to play Dragon Age Origins under Linux? Or your fancy exotic printer or scanner only being supported in Windows or OS X? It's just a big iPod, and iPods need iTunes, ever since the beginning of time. Get over it. If you don't like the iPad, just say so and buy yourself another tablet.
maybe, maybe not. I've noticed that xbox owners are usually much more rabid about their precious systems then other console owners. Go to any gaming sit you like and read some of the posts. The xbox owners appear a lot more vicious and petty, much like liberals who don't get their way. I do admit there are exceptions.
Personally when I made the choice to buy a gaming console I decided to buy from a HARDWARE company instead of a software company.
Yes, as the AC above you has demonstrated.
But this me a little of people complaining about all the Apple fanboys and everything, while the page is filled with bash after bash at Apple.
And for the record, with all the mice, keyboards, Zunes, Xboxes, controllers, headsets and whatnot, i think it's hard to see MS as a software-only company. And so what, isn't a company allowed to make such a change? As if Sony never made any f*ckups in their history?
- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.
Good luck trying to put a fat PS3 in the box of a slimline PS3.
When you buy into closed systems, you put money into the hands of people who will perpetuate closed systems. As a result, more advertising, sneaky (I say that because its closed) innovation, and influence is produced and then the culture of computer use trends further in that direction...
Agreed. However, the enterprises that you speak of, are also needed to push the technological frontier forward. Intel wouldn't make such powerful cpu's, Nvidia wouldn't make such powerful gpu's, hell, even Creative wouldn't be so succesful in the sound department if it wasn't for companies like Microsoft creating a platform that EA could create games for. And without those cpu's, without faster and bigger hard drives, without dirt-cheap memory, Linux wouldn't have come so far as it is now. You can't do it on your own.
Many forces right now are interested in producing limited/closed systems, and furthermore very thin 'clients' that would have the majority if the processing and data storage done in the cloud. Nevermind that you are limited by the permissions inherent to the construct of the closed system -- and subject to the inevitable "nickle and dime" pay/fees attached.
Ok, then don't buy into this cloud thing. Your choice. But again, clouds also cost nickles and dimes. I like the idea of doing things in the cloud, but datacenters cost money too, you know. Power, cooling and bandwidth are not free. I learned alot from hosting my own server in a datacenter, and experimented quite a bit with Ubuntu there, but yesterday i picked up my server again, since i have learned enough, and it is just burning my money.
Buying into this junk is a way of voting with your money for a future that has more of it. I'm pretty happy with the freedoms I enjoy in computing. Right now, computing is still kind-of a 'wild west' of sorts, with many freedoms still open and available. As have many other aspects of life, the power of the susceptible consumer buying into bad ideas has led to the limitation of access to variety/possibilities/alternatives; that which is not mainstream loses its ground and at some point has no platform to present from.
Doesn't that go for everything? You can have interesting ideas for a supercar, with far better steering than with a regular steering wheel, but you'll never get it on the road on your own.
Think for yourself. Do you want a 'computer' that only allows you to do what they want you to do? Do you want people who offer this to get your money and drive the market further in that direction?
I *am* thinking for myself, and i don't need others to tell me what are good and bad ideas. Yes, software more and more tries to think what you want, and is adapted to that, Microsoft and Apple do tons of research on those things. You can see that as a negative thing, fine, there is still Linux, and if you don't like something, go and code it yourself. On the positive side, this has enabled far more people to actually *use* the new technologies. As much as i dislike Windows, i have to give credit to His Billness for getting the pc out of the basement back into the living room, because since Windows 95 every housewife can actually use a computer, because clicking on buttons that say "Send Mail" make more sense than entering key commands in mutt.
Back ontopic: we're not talking here about a computer, but a portable media device. It's an oversize iPod Touch. Not to be confused with real computers from Apple, which run OS X, still a pretty open OS (more open than Windows, at least). I admit i'd rather like the idea of a touchpad with some more functionality, but be honest, Microsoft has tried the road before of just slapping Windows on a tablet, resulting in a laptop without a keyboard. Just applying a desktop os to a tablet, adding a virtual keyboard or whatever, is not the way to tablet computing. Apple went the other direction completely. Something in the middle would be nice, but it isn't there yet. Think Linux can fill that gap? I'd like to see that. Really, i would.
...why i am losing interest in games rapidly.
While i can still play games i bought 15 years ago, there is no guarantee whatsoever that i can play today's games in 15 years. In the past, i got the feeling of really 'owning' a game (well, a non-revokable license to play it, you know what i mean), but now, i can only play it if the publisher is still in business *and* allows me to activate the game, so essentially holding hostage a game i paid good bucks for.
Another reason is that intolerable dlc business, which i still suspect is a mechanism for publishers to hinder the secondhand market, and/or generate 50% more revenue of a game by selling content that (in most cases) might as well have been included in the release.
Then again, maybe it is just me getting older, having kids, etc.
Oh you can use it in any way you please. You have that right. MS (and Apple and everyone else) has the right to sell a device with or without features as they see fit. And you have the right to buy it, or to buy a different product, or buy nothing altogether. If you don't like the (im)possibilities of this phone, shop elsewhere.
Nowhere does the law say anything about "any phone you intend to sell should have the capability to install applications from ANY source." In fact, i would be more worried if such a DOES exist.
So stop whining, and let your money talk.
Oh, and how is this different from Playstations, where you can only play Sony-approved and -labelled games? It's not as if this technique is anything new.
I'm not sure if they would be able to keep such a deceit up. Word would get out eventually, and i think it would do more harm than good, it clearly would show that there is something to hide, and it would even more look like a scam to separate the punters from their cash.
iTunes works as long as Apple says it's ok, not if anything actually knows how to interact with iTunes. Palm does know how and kept programming to make it work. It was Apple that kept altering iTunes to purposely break that connection to wall out Palm since they didn't want to jump through Apple's hoops.
Eh... Palm was connecting to iTunes by faking its usb vendor id, imposting as a genuine Apple device. This technique is heavily frowned upon by the USB Implementers Forum, no matter how noble the cause. It's like the usb equivalent of identity theft. So i'm afraid Palm is no saint either.
I seem to remember that the so-called DLC for EA games years ago (Madden NFL 06, Godfather, Need For Speed) also took 100KB to download on an Xbox 360. This was 4 years ago. Did nobody wonder back then how they fitted entire football arenas, weapon arsenals and sportscars in just a few thousand bytes?
Getting Snow Leopard for $29 while running Tiger is not a valid upgrade path according to Apple. The $29 version of SL is only allowed to be used to upgrade Leopard to Snow Leopard. Users of Tiger should buy the Mac Box Set for $169, including iWork and iLife 09.
Not that the installer complains, it'll install on every hard drive inside a Mac, with Tiger, Leopard, Windows or nothing on it, without checking for any previous versions.
While i in no away agree to Ubi's view... It is your hardware, but not your software. If everone plays only pirated games, there will be no more games to pirate. Did that occur to you? There are numerous situations where DRM restricts legitimate users (well, all cases where DRM applies, really) but pirating is not the answer.
Just don't play their games *at all* if you wish to make a statement. Now, you only give them ammunition to justify plans like this.
And who is "legally bound" to patch the games if Ubisoft ceased to exist?
But i can still pay the games i bought for a NES or Mega Drive. I think the PS2 is the last console before the new generation where patches, firmware upgrades and whatnot became the norm.
I have no problem with not being able to play the games i bought now in 10 years or so, but perhaps they shouldn't be priced as such then. Games now cost the same as 20 years ago, yet they don't have the same lifespan.
Yeah i remember that too... Scrolling past lines showing only things like "Dim a as Integer", and Tim Robbins going like "Brilliant!".
In the same movie, i also remember "top secret IP adresses", in the 10.0.0.0-range. While this is cause for laughter amongst people in the know, this might very well be the equivalent of telephone numbers beginning with 555, to avoid legal problems when using real public ip's. (Altough i like the game Uplink's approach to this, using octets above 255.)