The compatibility issues should be overcome fairly easily. PS2 is the first console to use boot discs and drivers, if better DVD software is developed PS2 users (in theory) can upgrade to that, by purchasing/downloading the next driver disc.
The PS2 is already compatible with many existing Sony Products through the Sony Memory Stick, only no-one is quite sure what this will mean for the console at the moment.
Emulation is the reason they are releasing they are taking this particular stance. If they release the chips etc even under license then people developing emulators without Sonys permission (ie using the Sony chipset) wont have much of a leg to stand on.
Unfortunatly for my little European country, the phone network/infrastructure is pathetic (we are charged per minute for all local and internet calls, no flat rate fees either, the fastest connection someone can get with a 56k modem is in the high 40's, the average is significantly slower). The capability to introduce DSL is there but the phone comapny is dragging its feet, if it is introduced the cost will be too prohibitive for the average home customer, who have already been priced out of the ISDN market. The phone company, which is basically a monopoly was recently privatised/ipo'd and is more interested in keeping shareholders happy than providing a worthwhile data service.
All of this, and believe me, we are not the only country in this situation, is why there is so much interest in adapting existing conections into the home to avail of faster interenet access.
I figure its going to be a while before we (the consumers) actually see anything faster than the current modem set up for a long while.
There are many problems with cable connections due to interferance, anyone tried to use an appliance (ie a hairdryer) beside their cabled up TV? See what happens? That makes the current cable system fairly unworkable.
The one thing that is holding the internet back is that everything is expanding, growing and getting faster apart from modems. There will be many companies trying anything they can think of to develop faster access over the comming years, one of them is bound to get it right, perhaps this is it.
In the original article there is a mention of previous attempts to use electricity wires (they dont specify any in particular, but it must refer to the UK one from some months ago) this company says it will be different, who knows? But based on the amount of calls regarding access speeds that come into the ISP I work for every day, a solution is needed sooner rather than later. If no solution is found, the average consumer will give up on the 'net altogether.
In the short term they will probably try to close down the site until the case is finished, which to their small mindedness will be a victory.
Next, although it seems inconceivable, the RIAA stands a chance. Its going to be a fairly technical case, if they get a "non-techie" Judge they stand a very good chance of convincing him that they are right.
I am no John Grisham, but surely all the RIAA have to do is prove that the main use of Napster is to assist in creating illegal files. That to me doesn't appear to be too difficult, although I hope that Napster win out, but I very much doubt it.
So much to say, so little time, I got a few thoughts that may fuel the fire, although chances are I am preaching to the converted, but here goes.
Legislating against free speech, restricting what I can see and can't see should not be called legislation, lets get real here folks, it is censorship.
Do I want to be censored? No, of course not, I believe that as a reasonably responsible adult I can choose what I want to see and what I don't want to see. Just becaust there is porn on the net doesn't mean I want to look at it, just as there porn mags being sold in many places doesn't mean I want to buy them.
Am I worried that my 6 year old nephew can get access to hardcore porn on the net? No, why? The same reason as I know he wont be watching hardcore porn videos, its called parental control, I often wonder why governments forget about this when it comes to movies, tv, and internet. It is the most powerful law going, at least my Mother was when I was 6!:-)
Legislation should be different to censorship, and I welcome it. I want sites where I buy stuff to have to comply to some law somewhere. If what I get is not what I ordered I want a specific 'net based law I can fall back on that will protect me. The fact that much of the legislation before governments in many different countries at the moment lumps everything to do with the net all together does not help anyone who actually uses the interent on a regular basis. The other regular media only ever pick up on the anti-porn, harmful to children stuff and everthing else gets no attention at all. This is not good, and I am sure that even here at/. there will be replys to this story saying that any attempt to control the net is wrong. There needs to be something somewhere that protects my rights.
Now re-read the next article you see in a newspaper or magazine abot our evil internet, and replace the word "internet" with another mass form of communication "telephone", see how stupid some of the rubbish the politicians are sprouting is now? Imagine if a law was passed saying that you cant use certain words on the telephone? Essentailly thats what they are trying to do here. Would you elect the politician who trys to introduce that law, no and neither would anyone else. The law would be laughed out of congress as being unworkable, why isn't the same happening here?
Actually its pretty easy to see why the same is not happening here, its because of ignorance. Ignorance on the non internet-savy public. The public that believes TV and Newspaper when they say that the interent can be used for evil, the public that cheers the politician when he says that the internet is evil. Will we the net users win against this ignorance, probably not, but I believe that the internet culture cannot be legislated for.
How can one country legislate the WORLD WIDE Web? That makes no sense to me, there are no borders here. You cannot walk into a store in the high street and buy a gun in my country, but you may be able to in yours, different countries different laws. How this applies to the 'net is anyones guess at the moment. Governments the world over are falling over themselves to bring in new net laws, unfortunatly (or in fact fortunatly for us) there is pretty much no uniformity on these laws and because of this there will in essense be no law at all. If the US passes a law to ban slashdot, well set up on a server somewhere else, who loses? We don't.
Finally, I believe that the internet will be impossible to control, different legislation affecting different countries, new ways of accessing the net stopping the mass blocking of sites, I believe that the legislation will get politicians re-elected, give them a few good sound-bites that the ignorant masses will eat up, and we will all continue as we are.
In a flight sim, you shoot down and blow up objects. You are not getting desensitized from killing living creatures but just destroying objects.
Tell that to the people of Iraq, Slovakia, Macedonia etc, etc, etc.
What annoys me about the backlash against entertainment, is that it is an easy "vote-winning" target. Here is a newsflash for you all, there was violence, torture, killing, hate crimes, war and even *gasp!* sex, long before there was TV, Films, Games and FPSs or Sims. Ask yourself which came first, the first World War or Quake? Real Guns do kill, Half Life doesnt.
I know in the Uk there is the BPI (Brittish Phonograph Institute?)which would be the equivalent of Billboard, and aside from compiling charts and royalties etc, one of its duties should (or perhaps is) be to protect music.
If something is not currently available no-one is making money from it, an on-line archive of music which is available to download at a very small cost would be useful, also it would preserve it. Anyways, its my idea, I'm going to IPO it next week on Nasdeq, I'll make a fortune and I'll live hapily ever after.
Zappa was their "Special Ambassador For The West" he his job was the try to establish trade between the US and Czech.
It was The State Department then run by James Baker, whose wife founded the PMRC with our gal Tipper that put an end to it all. Conspiracy? Who knows but Oliver Stone is slated to direct the movie:-)
After my initial disappointment that this wasn't a campaign to have the American Film Institute digitally remaster the first five Police Academy films (a noble cause methinks) it seemed like a good idea.
Unfortunatly as with much of the internet today the technology to make it really workable and useful isnt there. Until they develop a small walkman type thing with a screen big and clear enouugh to make reading easy it will never catch on. At the moment the power cable on my PC wont stretch the 12 mile train journey I got to take every day, and my laptop gives me headaches if I stare at for too long.
A worthy cause though, there is a lot of stuff out there that if it isnt saved now, will never be available, so I'll try to spread the word amongst my more learned friends, both of them.
To be serious for a moment though, as I am into music and I am constantly aghast at all the great music that has never been issued on CD and therefore is currently unavailable, I wonder if there is a similar scheme for albums? With mp3 technology, which the internet gods did get right, surely there must be somewhere to get all those currently deleted albums, anyone got any ideas?
I welcome anything that gets me cheaper movies, everthing over here is more expensive than in the US (Movies, DVDs, Games, Books etc). Maybe they will do the decent thing seeing as this download is out there, and scrap regionalisation completely, the real reason it exists is to allow them to charge different prices in different locations.
But I would say they are even more worried about all those nice sites where you can download complete movies. The whole office (almost 100 of us)where I work watched TPM two months before it was released over here in Europe.
Slashdot Mirror
The PS2 is already compatible with many existing Sony Products through the Sony Memory Stick, only no-one is quite sure what this will mean for the console at the moment.
Emulation is the reason they are releasing they are taking this particular stance. If they release the chips etc even under license then people developing emulators without Sonys permission (ie using the Sony chipset) wont have much of a leg to stand on.
All of this, and believe me, we are not the only country in this situation, is why there is so much interest in adapting existing conections into the home to avail of faster interenet access.
There are many problems with cable connections due to interferance, anyone tried to use an appliance (ie a hairdryer) beside their cabled up TV? See what happens? That makes the current cable system fairly unworkable.
The one thing that is holding the internet back is that everything is expanding, growing and getting faster apart from modems. There will be many companies trying anything they can think of to develop faster access over the comming years, one of them is bound to get it right, perhaps this is it.
In the original article there is a mention of previous attempts to use electricity wires (they dont specify any in particular, but it must refer to the UK one from some months ago) this company says it will be different, who knows? But based on the amount of calls regarding access speeds that come into the ISP I work for every day, a solution is needed sooner rather than later. If no solution is found, the average consumer will give up on the 'net altogether.
1)Every mention of Celine Dion out of my radio and TV.
2)Every mention of Bill Gates out of Slashdot posts.
Just wonderin'
But as someone who has spent hours upon hours researching old radio shows for a college assignment, it sounds like a real good idea.
McDonalds for making me fat.
Budweiser for making me drunk.
My parents for making me ugly.
The cast of Friends for making me wish I was skinny, sober and beautiful.
On a scale of one to ten how stupid is this guy? When will these people grow up and learn that not everything is someone elses fault?
Next, although it seems inconceivable, the RIAA stands a chance. Its going to be a fairly technical case, if they get a "non-techie" Judge they stand a very good chance of convincing him that they are right.
I am no John Grisham, but surely all the RIAA have to do is prove that the main use of Napster is to assist in creating illegal files. That to me doesn't appear to be too difficult, although I hope that Napster win out, but I very much doubt it.
Legislating against free speech, restricting what I can see and can't see should not be called legislation, lets get real here folks, it is censorship.
Do I want to be censored? No, of course not, I believe that as a reasonably responsible adult I can choose what I want to see and what I don't want to see. Just becaust there is porn on the net doesn't mean I want to look at it, just as there porn mags being sold in many places doesn't mean I want to buy them.
Am I worried that my 6 year old nephew can get access to hardcore porn on the net? No, why? The same reason as I know he wont be watching hardcore porn videos, its called parental control, I often wonder why governments forget about this when it comes to movies, tv, and internet. It is the most powerful law going, at least my Mother was when I was 6! :-)
Legislation should be different to censorship, and I welcome it. I want sites where I buy stuff to have to comply to some law somewhere. If what I get is not what I ordered I want a specific 'net based law I can fall back on that will protect me. The fact that much of the legislation before governments in many different countries at the moment lumps everything to do with the net all together does not help anyone who actually uses the interent on a regular basis. The other regular media only ever pick up on the anti-porn, harmful to children stuff and everthing else gets no attention at all. This is not good, and I am sure that even here at /. there will be replys to this story saying that any attempt to control the net is wrong. There needs to be something somewhere that protects my rights.
Now re-read the next article you see in a newspaper or magazine abot our evil internet, and replace the word "internet" with another mass form of communication "telephone", see how stupid some of the rubbish the politicians are sprouting is now? Imagine if a law was passed saying that you cant use certain words on the telephone? Essentailly thats what they are trying to do here. Would you elect the politician who trys to introduce that law, no and neither would anyone else. The law would be laughed out of congress as being unworkable, why isn't the same happening here?
Actually its pretty easy to see why the same is not happening here, its because of ignorance. Ignorance on the non internet-savy public. The public that believes TV and Newspaper when they say that the interent can be used for evil, the public that cheers the politician when he says that the internet is evil. Will we the net users win against this ignorance, probably not, but I believe that the internet culture cannot be legislated for.
How can one country legislate the WORLD WIDE Web? That makes no sense to me, there are no borders here. You cannot walk into a store in the high street and buy a gun in my country, but you may be able to in yours, different countries different laws. How this applies to the 'net is anyones guess at the moment. Governments the world over are falling over themselves to bring in new net laws, unfortunatly (or in fact fortunatly for us) there is pretty much no uniformity on these laws and because of this there will in essense be no law at all. If the US passes a law to ban slashdot, well set up on a server somewhere else, who loses? We don't.
Finally, I believe that the internet will be impossible to control, different legislation affecting different countries, new ways of accessing the net stopping the mass blocking of sites, I believe that the legislation will get politicians re-elected, give them a few good sound-bites that the ignorant masses will eat up, and we will all continue as we are.
Thanks for listening.
Tell that to the people of Iraq, Slovakia, Macedonia etc, etc, etc.
What annoys me about the backlash against entertainment, is that it is an easy "vote-winning" target. Here is a newsflash for you all, there was violence, torture, killing, hate crimes, war and even *gasp!* sex, long before there was TV, Films, Games and FPSs or Sims. Ask yourself which came first, the first World War or Quake? Real Guns do kill, Half Life doesnt.
----
I know in the Uk there is the BPI (Brittish Phonograph Institute?)which would be the equivalent of Billboard, and aside from compiling charts and royalties etc, one of its duties should (or perhaps is) be to protect music.
If something is not currently available no-one is making money from it, an on-line archive of music which is available to download at a very small cost would be useful, also it would preserve it. Anyways, its my idea, I'm going to IPO it next week on Nasdeq, I'll make a fortune and I'll live hapily ever after.
---
It was The State Department then run by James Baker, whose wife founded the PMRC with our gal Tipper that put an end to it all. Conspiracy? Who knows but Oliver Stone is slated to direct the movie :-)
---
Unfortunatly as with much of the internet today the technology to make it really workable and useful isnt there. Until they develop a small walkman type thing with a screen big and clear enouugh to make reading easy it will never catch on. At the moment the power cable on my PC wont stretch the 12 mile train journey I got to take every day, and my laptop gives me headaches if I stare at for too long.
A worthy cause though, there is a lot of stuff out there that if it isnt saved now, will never be available, so I'll try to spread the word amongst my more learned friends, both of them.
To be serious for a moment though, as I am into music and I am constantly aghast at all the great music that has never been issued on CD and therefore is currently unavailable, I wonder if there is a similar scheme for albums? With mp3 technology, which the internet gods did get right, surely there must be somewhere to get all those currently deleted albums, anyone got any ideas?
---
But I would say they are even more worried about all those nice sites where you can download complete movies. The whole office (almost 100 of us)where I work watched TPM two months before it was released over here in Europe.