Then why were public executions (often preceded by torture) so popular throughout Ancient, Medieval and even Early Modern times? Surely, not everyone attended them, but similarly not everyone enjoys watching horror movies now.
I suppose that some people are just more violent than others.
I know some former PC gamers who turned to smartphone games. Actually, I'm one of them. I wouldn't even consider consoles as an alternative to PC gaming, but smartphone games are another story. PC games market is largily dominated by a few big players, who release big titles for broad audience to maximize their ROI. Naturally, their games are developed for the lowest common denominator. However, in smartphone game dev there's still a place for indie developers, who can afford to develop a game they'd play themselves, sell it for a small niche and still be profitable.
Not all of smartphone games are timewasters (well, no more than any other computer games); there are even some complex RPGs, like Zenonia for iPhone. While not as deep as the legendary Fallout, it is still much more of an RPG than many "RPG"s, released for PC nowadays.
The funny thing is, most "social games" developers prefer playing FPS, strategies or RPGs themselves, but design their social games as dumbed down as possible, so that they're accessible by the stupid masses. Why? Cause that's where the money is.
I didn't believe the statistics until I developed a couple of social games as a side projects. The most profitable players are mid-aged women. This holds true even for games where the vast majority (over 80%) of active players are male. It's not uncommon for a mid-aged woman to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a social game, so that she can click the shiny buttons all week long. I still don't know the reason of this phenomenon. Maybe, they have a lot of free time and rich husbands...
I've used it on Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Android and will definitely try it on iPhone OS later this day. So, with Opera Mini you may get consistent browsing experience no matter what smartphone (or featurephone) you choose.
I prefer the keyboard. It's still the most effective input method and the fastest way to manage your computer and smartphone (provided you learned the hotkeys and commands).
Unfortunately for Google, totalitarian systems are very effective under some circumstances. For example, totalitarianism proved to be the most effective system during large-scaled wars and other dire conditions. Today's growth of Chinese GDP proves that it is more effective in current economical situation than either US or EU.
Don't forget, during the last twenty centuries, China had the largest economy on Earth for 18 centuries, and it always was totalitarian. Like it or not, it will soon regain its position as the largest economy on the planet. So, under the circumstances, it is Google who needs China to stay relevant in future, not vice-versa.
When speaking about power consumption, I was referring to the screen. As for overall power consumption, right you are: most of the eBook readers have Linux within, and this beast has a well-known appetite for power.
Just read from E-Ink screen to feel the difference. I was skeptical about E-Ink too before having tried it out. It looks almost exactly like the real paper. So, now I can't imagine using LCD for prolonged reading when you can use E-Ink device or (even better!) good old paper book.
By the way, another key advantage of E-Ink is energy consumption: it doesn't use battery when static, and uses quite a small amount of energy to redraw the page. Due to this feature, eBooks can run for weeks or even months on a single charge.
It's because people tend to think of their passwords as words, not phrases. It's much easier to remember a simple pass phrase (e.g. "Quick_brown_fox"), than a shorter, but completely senseless random symbol combination (e.g. "gsf12mU&*").
One unit per tile system will certainly add some realism, as you (and your enemies) can't achieve infinite troops concentration any more. Hope the new Civilization combat system will be well-thought, or it risk turning into micromanagement hell.
It's not a valid comparison. Windows is the major cash cow for MS, while IE doesn't generate direct revenue. The main reason why they are spending resources on IE is to promote Bing and a number of other products.
Yep, the future of the web is looking good, except for IE that is lagging behind. I wonder, why MS wouldn't just get over it and discontinue the development of its monstrous browser. They've lost the browser war, why wouldn't they put their resources elsewhere?
At least IE8 is better than its predecessors and IE9 looks even better, but still..
I believe (prediction alert!) that, while most of the idiotic, regular populace will just buy smartphones and netbooks, everyone with technical knowledge will still use desktops, simply because of their usefulness as a platform.
Unfortunately, in this world the idiotic, regular populace is what really matters to the industry.
All three will be marginalized by the ARM onslaught. Within 10 years, smartphone will be the personal computing device, AMD and Intel processors will power the cloud.
Entropy shows us the direction of time. Lower entropy than now means past, higher entropy means future. However, if entropy ever reaches maximal level (thermodeath of the Universe), then this measure of time won't be usable any more.
Google is responsible to "keep Wikipedia running", so it won't collapse under Google's massive traffic. It's a symbiosis: Wikipedia needs Google for traffic and (to lesser extent) money, Google needs Wikipedia for the world's information. Besides, Google's engineers won't be happy tweaking their core ranking algorithms should Wikipedia suddenly disappear.
Google ranks Wikipedia very high in its search results, which bring enormous amount of traffic. Scaling and maintaining the infrastructure to deal with this traffic is the major part of Wikimedia Foundation's expenses. So, Google is in fact responsible for a huge chunk of Wikipedia's expenses, and it probably feels obligated to give Wikipedia some compensation for this.
Certainly, Apple will reject the app and Opera knows it. Maybe Opera tries to strengthen Apple's "Evil Empire" image and deal with it with the help of EU (just like they did with Microsoft recently).
Google just doesn't get all these social things, they're good at creating ruthless search bots, but lose when it comes to social interaction.
They'd better let this generation social networks be and focus on next generation social networks (mobile social networks). At least now they have an Android platform, so they may integrate social network functionality into their OS (maybe even based on current Gmail application) and start from there.
Slashdot Mirror
Then why were public executions (often preceded by torture) so popular throughout Ancient, Medieval and even Early Modern times? Surely, not everyone attended them, but similarly not everyone enjoys watching horror movies now.
I suppose that some people are just more violent than others.
I for one welcome our new intelligent rat overlords
I know some former PC gamers who turned to smartphone games. Actually, I'm one of them. I wouldn't even consider consoles as an alternative to PC gaming, but smartphone games are another story. PC games market is largily dominated by a few big players, who release big titles for broad audience to maximize their ROI. Naturally, their games are developed for the lowest common denominator. However, in smartphone game dev there's still a place for indie developers, who can afford to develop a game they'd play themselves, sell it for a small niche and still be profitable.
Not all of smartphone games are timewasters (well, no more than any other computer games); there are even some complex RPGs, like Zenonia for iPhone. While not as deep as the legendary Fallout, it is still much more of an RPG than many "RPG"s, released for PC nowadays.
The funny thing is, most "social games" developers prefer playing FPS, strategies or RPGs themselves, but design their social games as dumbed down as possible, so that they're accessible by the stupid masses. Why? Cause that's where the money is.
I didn't believe the statistics until I developed a couple of social games as a side projects. The most profitable players are mid-aged women. This holds true even for games where the vast majority (over 80%) of active players are male. It's not uncommon for a mid-aged woman to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a social game, so that she can click the shiny buttons all week long. I still don't know the reason of this phenomenon. Maybe, they have a lot of free time and rich husbands...
I've used it on Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Android and will definitely try it on iPhone OS later this day. So, with Opera Mini you may get consistent browsing experience no matter what smartphone (or featurephone) you choose.
I prefer the keyboard. It's still the most effective input method and the fastest way to manage your computer and smartphone (provided you learned the hotkeys and commands).
Based on article's title, I thought they've found dark matter and dark energy!
Unfortunately for Google, totalitarian systems are very effective under some circumstances. For example, totalitarianism proved to be the most effective system during large-scaled wars and other dire conditions. Today's growth of Chinese GDP proves that it is more effective in current economical situation than either US or EU.
Don't forget, during the last twenty centuries, China had the largest economy on Earth for 18 centuries, and it always was totalitarian. Like it or not, it will soon regain its position as the largest economy on the planet. So, under the circumstances, it is Google who needs China to stay relevant in future, not vice-versa.
When speaking about power consumption, I was referring to the screen. As for overall power consumption, right you are: most of the eBook readers have Linux within, and this beast has a well-known appetite for power.
Just read from E-Ink screen to feel the difference. I was skeptical about E-Ink too before having tried it out. It looks almost exactly like the real paper. So, now I can't imagine using LCD for prolonged reading when you can use E-Ink device or (even better!) good old paper book.
By the way, another key advantage of E-Ink is energy consumption: it doesn't use battery when static, and uses quite a small amount of energy to redraw the page. Due to this feature, eBooks can run for weeks or even months on a single charge.
It's because people tend to think of their passwords as words, not phrases. It's much easier to remember a simple pass phrase (e.g. "Quick_brown_fox"), than a shorter, but completely senseless random symbol combination (e.g. "gsf12mU&*").
One unit per tile system will certainly add some realism, as you (and your enemies) can't achieve infinite troops concentration any more. Hope the new Civilization combat system will be well-thought, or it risk turning into micromanagement hell.
It's one of the world's most ambitious projects. Not surprisingly, its construction and operation can be problematic from time to time.
It's not a valid comparison. Windows is the major cash cow for MS, while IE doesn't generate direct revenue. The main reason why they are spending resources on IE is to promote Bing and a number of other products.
Yep, the future of the web is looking good, except for IE that is lagging behind. I wonder, why MS wouldn't just get over it and discontinue the development of its monstrous browser. They've lost the browser war, why wouldn't they put their resources elsewhere?
At least IE8 is better than its predecessors and IE9 looks even better, but still..
I believe (prediction alert!) that, while most of the idiotic, regular populace will just buy smartphones and netbooks, everyone with technical knowledge will still use desktops, simply because of their usefulness as a platform.
Unfortunately, in this world the idiotic, regular populace is what really matters to the industry.
All three will be marginalized by the ARM onslaught. Within 10 years, smartphone will be the personal computing device, AMD and Intel processors will power the cloud.
Entropy shows us the direction of time. Lower entropy than now means past, higher entropy means future. However, if entropy ever reaches maximal level (thermodeath of the Universe), then this measure of time won't be usable any more.
Don't bother my beard, you insensitive clod!
Or he'll kill you with his bearded chin
As for me, I'm still waiting for real-life Gauss rifle (along with Advanced Power Armor).
Google is responsible to "keep Wikipedia running", so it won't collapse under Google's massive traffic. It's a symbiosis: Wikipedia needs Google for traffic and (to lesser extent) money, Google needs Wikipedia for the world's information. Besides, Google's engineers won't be happy tweaking their core ranking algorithms should Wikipedia suddenly disappear.
Google ranks Wikipedia very high in its search results, which bring enormous amount of traffic. Scaling and maintaining the infrastructure to deal with this traffic is the major part of Wikimedia Foundation's expenses. So, Google is in fact responsible for a huge chunk of Wikipedia's expenses, and it probably feels obligated to give Wikipedia some compensation for this.
Certainly, Apple will reject the app and Opera knows it. Maybe Opera tries to strengthen Apple's "Evil Empire" image and deal with it with the help of EU (just like they did with Microsoft recently).
Google just doesn't get all these social things, they're good at creating ruthless search bots, but lose when it comes to social interaction.
They'd better let this generation social networks be and focus on next generation social networks (mobile social networks). At least now they have an Android platform, so they may integrate social network functionality into their OS (maybe even based on current Gmail application) and start from there.