Harvard got it wrong. It was made public when the friends who had the right to publish the information published it.
There was no implied or actual restrictions on the data the students pulled from their own facebook network, and if anything, this should have stood as a lesson to people sharing information on social networks. I won't go so far as to say they posted it in public, but they did consent to having their "friends" use that information however they saw fit. When that happened they gave up their rights to dictate how that information spread from their friends.
Example: Sussy posts a status update that she is pregnant. Sussy's friend Sally is still friends with Sussy's ex-boyfriend Kevin who Sussy unfriended. Kevin hears from Sally that Sussy is pregnant, and posts on his wall that his ex-girlfriend has loose morals because she is already pregnant after they just broke up. It is Sussy's fault Kevin knows, and she might as well have made it public, because Sally can tell whomever she wants the "secret."
In this case these people posted the information on their public secret sharing place with nothing preventing anyone with access to this information from taking it and using it however they wanted. I would say it is their friends right to make the information public as there was nothing implied or otherwise to tell them not. In giving it to the researchers they made the information public. So the researchers were fine in using the information as far as the privacy policy was concerned.
"Not many PCs around with the processing power of the PS3 or even the xbox360. Both have very high end graphic cards on dedicated buses. The only thing PCs excel in hardware against the current two nextgen consoles is memory and storage, but even then the memory on the consoles is incredibly fast."
I really don't want to go into a specific analysis of the difference in processing power when comparing the CPU's. So I'll give you a few details that lead me to arrive at my opinion that they aren't as fast.
1. Some notes about their processors: The PS3 cell processor while it has 7 SPE cores there is only 1 PPE core, and no out of order execution. Which means that for a good chunk of game programming the cell is going to go very under utilized. Here is an article highlighting some of the issues with the cell as a console processor: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070221-8896 .html
The Xenon processor from the xbox 360 while more at home in a gaming console then the cell still is not perfect for gaming. Due to the issues of having a deeply piped lines processor like the xenon and having to drop much of the branch prediction and having a smaller cache to keep die size down, the Xenon is poorly designed to deal with branchy code such as game control, AI, and physics code. Here is an article discussing the Xenon: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360 -2.ars/6
So while the processors for these consoles may be more specifically designed for gaming. Due to cost savings on the die size they have had to drop much of the logic and caching that would have made them well rounded gaming processors like you get with a PC. The reality is that with the speed of development of processors by the time the consoles actually hit the market their processors were only marginally better for gaming then a PC processor, and required FAR more specialized programming in order to take advantage of that performance gap. The cell processor will likely never see its full potential used in a video game.
2. Some notes on their GPU's: The Xenos GPU which is in the xbox 360 suffers a similar story to the Xenon, in that it is designed for the console but with cost in mind. The new line of ATI graphics cards that are directx 10 compatible surely borrow a lot of the design innovations of the Xenos in how the graphics pipeline is arranged for efficiency. However the new graphics chips are clocked higher have more ram at their disposal and your even able to double down on graphics cards if you still don't have enough power. Simply put it would make no since for ATI not to release a GPU that is as good or better for PCs when they make far more money off the PC graphics card market, and they are in stiff competition with nVidia. Here is an article discussing the design choices of the Xenos GPU: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/11
In conclusion while consoles are closing the gap between PC and Console graphics, the PC market does offer graphics performance that is better then consoles and for a few reasons. The price spent on PC components is much higher then that of consoles so there are far less price restrictions on the size of the die for the CPU/GPU yielding much better general purpose processing. Consoles have a 5 year life span which enables PCs to surpass any advantage consoles may grab a very short time into their life span, and very easily because the same companies that the design the GPU for consoles also design GPU's for PCs. So until there is a huge surge in console gaming that decreases the required life cycle of consoles, and the price consumers are willing to spend on consoles goes up, console graphics just won't be able to best computer gaming for any meaningful length of time.
They each have their benefits. Saying either side is the best is just a pointless debate. Having played EXTENSIVELY on both setups I feel I'm qualified to enlighten you on 4 pros and cons of each. Since I'm reading mostly PC gamer hate I'll start with PCs so that they can see why people play console games it isn't arcane at all.
PC Gaming:
Pros 1. A Mouse makes a very intuitive and sensitive device to aim with, there are a variety of them to use so you can pick the one that works the best for you. You use it while your using the computer so you become very accustom to it. 2. A Keyboard offers a virtually limitless medium for configuration. Keyboards come in different shapes and sizes and even can be purchased specifically designed for the game your using. 3. The graphics are unparralleled. The latest greatest hardware always shows up in PCs first and the graphics truely show that. 4. PCs are used for far more then just games so it is easier to convince your spouse, parent, or self to buy.
Cons 1. All PCs are not created equal. In competitive and even advanced gaming it is clear that there is always an edge to the gamer with the best hardware. Even to build your own really good PC, not the best, your talking a $2000 a price of entry FAR higher then console gaming. While this is not necessarily a consideration for casual gamers it is frustrating to know that your computer may be what is holding you back. 2. The keyboard's single greatest strengh, configurability, is also its greatest weakness. Learning to play on a standard keyboard is not pretty for a new gamer. The buttons you press have little to no corelation between the action the game takes and learning which buttons do what can be very frustrating. The buttons are often not oriented in an easy to press intuitive manner and require some skill to master and time to learn. Buying a keyboard specifically designed for gaming can make learning easier and button placement more intuitive, but setup on those controllers, depending on game, can sometimes take hours. 3. Graphics are designed to be bleading edge in most games; in order to stay up with the graphics, you need to upgrade hardware at least every 2 years, depending on how much you spend on it. PC games made the graphics card market what it is and the games are usually designed around the latest greatest with the ability to play pretty well on moderate hardware. PC gaming can be VERY expensive. Low frame rates in a game can kill the experience completely. 4. PCs are used for other things and this con sometimes lead to annoyances for gaming. Other people in the house might need to use the computer, you might get viruses or other things that slow it down, sometimes applications that are running in the background can have a dramatic effect on performance, and because the platform is open PC games are a much more attractive market for cheaters.
Console Gaming
Pros 1. Entry cost is relatively low when compared to PCs and you don't have to upgrade for usually 5 years. 2. Everyone plays on the same hardware. Every console is pretty much the same, making for a far more level playing field. The software was designed for the hardware. Because every console is the same and every controller is the same, games are designed ground up to maximize that piece of hardware and gameplay is designed to be intuitive for the controller. 3. Multiple people can play on the same piece of hardware, making it a far more social gaming device. It is much better to see the expression on your friends face when he gets taken out then to hear about it over voice communication. 4. The community the hardware the online experience is all closed. Typically leading to a much more secure gaming environment.
Cons 1. The hardware isn't as good as PCs can be. You are limited to the hardware the console company can afford to put in there rather then what you can afford to buy. You don't get the cutting edge graphics that you do on PCs and until recently the
Slashdot Mirror
Harvard got it wrong. It was made public when the friends who had the right to publish the information published it.
There was no implied or actual restrictions on the data the students pulled from their own facebook network, and if anything, this should have stood as a lesson to people sharing information on social networks. I won't go so far as to say they posted it in public, but they did consent to having their "friends" use that information however they saw fit. When that happened they gave up their rights to dictate how that information spread from their friends.
Example:
Sussy posts a status update that she is pregnant. Sussy's friend Sally is still friends with Sussy's ex-boyfriend Kevin who Sussy unfriended. Kevin hears from Sally that Sussy is pregnant, and posts on his wall that his ex-girlfriend has loose morals because she is already pregnant after they just broke up. It is Sussy's fault Kevin knows, and she might as well have made it public, because Sally can tell whomever she wants the "secret."
In this case these people posted the information on their public secret sharing place with nothing preventing anyone with access to this information from taking it and using it however they wanted. I would say it is their friends right to make the information public as there was nothing implied or otherwise to tell them not. In giving it to the researchers they made the information public. So the researchers were fine in using the information as far as the privacy policy was concerned.
"Not many PCs around with the processing power of the PS3 or even the xbox360. Both have very high end graphic cards on dedicated buses. The only thing PCs excel in hardware against the current two nextgen consoles is memory and storage, but even then the memory on the consoles is incredibly fast."
6 .html
0 -2.ars/6
I really don't want to go into a specific analysis of the difference in processing power when comparing the CPU's. So I'll give you a few details that lead me to arrive at my opinion that they aren't as fast.
1. Some notes about their processors:
The PS3 cell processor while it has 7 SPE cores there is only 1 PPE core, and no out of order execution. Which means that for a good chunk of game programming the cell is going to go very under utilized. Here is an article highlighting some of the issues with the cell as a console processor: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070221-889
The Xenon processor from the xbox 360 while more at home in a gaming console then the cell still is not perfect for gaming. Due to the issues of having a deeply piped lines processor like the xenon and having to drop much of the branch prediction and having a smaller cache to keep die size down, the Xenon is poorly designed to deal with branchy code such as game control, AI, and physics code. Here is an article discussing the Xenon: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox36
So while the processors for these consoles may be more specifically designed for gaming. Due to cost savings on the die size they have had to drop much of the logic and caching that would have made them well rounded gaming processors like you get with a PC. The reality is that with the speed of development of processors by the time the consoles actually hit the market their processors were only marginally better for gaming then a PC processor, and required FAR more specialized programming in order to take advantage of that performance gap. The cell processor will likely never see its full potential used in a video game.
2. Some notes on their GPU's:
The Xenos GPU which is in the xbox 360 suffers a similar story to the Xenon, in that it is designed for the console but with cost in mind. The new line of ATI graphics cards that are directx 10 compatible surely borrow a lot of the design innovations of the Xenos in how the graphics pipeline is arranged for efficiency. However the new graphics chips are clocked higher have more ram at their disposal and your even able to double down on graphics cards if you still don't have enough power. Simply put it would make no since for ATI not to release a GPU that is as good or better for PCs when they make far more money off the PC graphics card market, and they are in stiff competition with nVidia. Here is an article discussing the design choices of the Xenos GPU: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/11
In conclusion while consoles are closing the gap between PC and Console graphics, the PC market does offer graphics performance that is better then consoles and for a few reasons. The price spent on PC components is much higher then that of consoles so there are far less price restrictions on the size of the die for the CPU/GPU yielding much better general purpose processing. Consoles have a 5 year life span which enables PCs to surpass any advantage consoles may grab a very short time into their life span, and very easily because the same companies that the design the GPU for consoles also design GPU's for PCs. So until there is a huge surge in console gaming that decreases the required life cycle of consoles, and the price consumers are willing to spend on consoles goes up, console graphics just won't be able to best computer gaming for any meaningful length of time.
They each have their benefits. Saying either side is the best is just a pointless debate. Having played EXTENSIVELY on both setups I feel I'm qualified to enlighten you on 4 pros and cons of each. Since I'm reading mostly PC gamer hate I'll start with PCs so that they can see why people play console games it isn't arcane at all.
PC Gaming:
Pros
1. A Mouse makes a very intuitive and sensitive device to aim with, there are a variety of them to use so you can pick the one that works the best for you. You use it while your using the computer so you become very accustom to it.
2. A Keyboard offers a virtually limitless medium for configuration. Keyboards come in different shapes and sizes and even can be purchased specifically designed for the game your using.
3. The graphics are unparralleled. The latest greatest hardware always shows up in PCs first and the graphics truely show that.
4. PCs are used for far more then just games so it is easier to convince your spouse, parent, or self to buy.
Cons
1. All PCs are not created equal. In competitive and even advanced gaming it is clear that there is always an edge to the gamer with the best hardware. Even to build your own really good PC, not the best, your talking a $2000 a price of entry FAR higher then console gaming. While this is not necessarily a consideration for casual gamers it is frustrating to know that your computer may be what is holding you back.
2. The keyboard's single greatest strengh, configurability, is also its greatest weakness. Learning to play on a standard keyboard is not pretty for a new gamer. The buttons you press have little to no corelation between the action the game takes and learning which buttons do what can be very frustrating. The buttons are often not oriented in an easy to press intuitive manner and require some skill to master and time to learn. Buying a keyboard specifically designed for gaming can make learning easier and button placement more intuitive, but setup on those controllers, depending on game, can sometimes take hours.
3. Graphics are designed to be bleading edge in most games; in order to stay up with the graphics, you need to upgrade hardware at least every 2 years, depending on how much you spend on it. PC games made the graphics card market what it is and the games are usually designed around the latest greatest with the ability to play pretty well on moderate hardware. PC gaming can be VERY expensive. Low frame rates in a game can kill the experience completely.
4. PCs are used for other things and this con sometimes lead to annoyances for gaming. Other people in the house might need to use the computer, you might get viruses or other things that slow it down, sometimes applications that are running in the background can have a dramatic effect on performance, and because the platform is open PC games are a much more attractive market for cheaters.
Console Gaming
Pros
1. Entry cost is relatively low when compared to PCs and you don't have to upgrade for usually 5 years.
2. Everyone plays on the same hardware. Every console is pretty much the same, making for a far more level playing field. The software was designed for the hardware. Because every console is the same and every controller is the same, games are designed ground up to maximize that piece of hardware and gameplay is designed to be intuitive for the controller.
3. Multiple people can play on the same piece of hardware, making it a far more social gaming device. It is much better to see the expression on your friends face when he gets taken out then to hear about it over voice communication.
4. The community the hardware the online experience is all closed. Typically leading to a much more secure gaming environment.
Cons
1. The hardware isn't as good as PCs can be. You are limited to the hardware the console company can afford to put in there rather then what you can afford to buy. You don't get the cutting edge graphics that you do on PCs and until recently the