Sugar may not be good for you but I much rather have sugar than corn syrup. The fact it's more expensive and they won't go nuts putting it in everything is an added bonus.
That only works on the basis that only a handful of people will do it. If no one pays for entertainment then it does in fact hurt the artist, publisher and consumers.
This idea that you wouldn't have bought it anyway is just some shit head logic. It had some value to you otherwise you wouldn't have spent the time downloading it, installing it and playing it. Unless of course you're some jobless waster and your time is worth nothing and of course you wouldn't buy a game if you had already completed it for free.
You can't even have a decent meal for $0.99 and most drinks or chocolate bars are $0.99 or nearly there and you don't get to keep them. If you don't think a single song is worth $0.99 then why are you listening to it? $0.99 is nothing for something you can keep forever. Hell it's nothing for something that provides a days worth of entertainment.
In my mind Sony is the same as ever. They've always been a mix of good and bad ideas. For instance I thought Mini-Discs were awesome but it had its own DRM issues. I don't think anyone can take away the fact the PS1 and especially the PS2 were totally awesome devices even if a lot of their hardware isn't that great. I think DRM is only more noticeable now because it's easier for them to implement and I think all companies have been getting away with trampling over the right to make copies of media you purchase because of piracy.
While I love open source it's because there's a zillion phones that run android. I suspect if you compare any one Android model against RIM or Apple's offerings then it won't look so good. Combine that with the fact Android owners seem less keen on paying for apps and I think you end up with the iphone or even blackberry being more attractive to a developer despite android's growth.
If automated cars came about it goes without saying that people will moan about the smallest thing that goes wrong even if the automated cars are much safer. I think it's because people won't want a safe automated car. They want to take stupid risks and risk everyone's life to get home a few minutes earlier.
I rather see more trains and and a return of street cars in cities and other ways where we can move a lot of people through means that don't use petrol and instead use electricity. It will move any potential pollution out of the cities and it certainly has to be easier to make power generation more efficient if it's centralised. Likewise if the main mode of transportation is run by companies rather than individuals then we'll see upgraded more efficient transportation happen sooner.
I like how they're crying about an unfair advantage while at the same time using their desktop dominance to try and force Bing on people through their dominant browser and in the past having changed browser settings in other browsers to point to Bing which is a bigger violation, imo, than what they claim Google have done. It seems to be even with this huge advantage no one wants to use Bing so they're going to cry monopoly to the EU.
The 3DS is truly awesome and the 3D works well. The biggest problem with it (or any glassesless 3D) is that it is sensitive to positioning. It does take some getting used to find out how you need to position it and if you're in an office or somewhere with annoying overhead lights trying to fight with the glare from lights and the right position can be a pain.
I find my eyes have adjusted and they're not so sensitive to movement and losing the 3D effect. I think a lot of the headaches are from people not holding it right or trying to concentrate to hard. It'll go away but there are still some instances where 3D is a no-no. One being waking up after a night of heavy drinking and trying to play. That's a good way to make your stomach feel like shit.
Nintendo was wise to put a slider and allow people to remove the effect and the games are just as fun without (the ones I have anyway) but the system is well suited for 3D because it's really only going to be looked at by one person staring straight into it. The reason why 3D TV will fail, imo, is no one wants to sit in a specific area through a whole movie or two.
They need to find a way to get the effect to work from any angle and then it'll take off because yes the 3D effects are really nice to look at.
To be fair to Nintendo at least in the NES days when the seal started a publisher could only publish something like 5 games a year so they couldn't just develop a load of shovelware. This is why Konami opened Ultra to get around the limit and release more games. I suspect Nintendo stopped the limit either because of the monopoly charges against them or from pressure from Sega because if Sega allows a publisher to publish as much as they want then you know which system they'll favour.
Of course because the UK is absolutely shit at upgrading its train infrastructure. London would be lovely without cars but the underground could not handle it and the government won't put up the cash to fix that even if that means more buses because there are more stupid things to spend the money on.
Name one music device that will play unlimited DRM formats and why would Apple licence fairplay when they would prefer all the music to be DRM-free and again it doesn't stop you from buying CDs and ripping them or even burning your DRM'ed iTunes music and playing it elsewhere. Yes it's a hassle but a minor hassle brought on by others. You can argue the same about the Kindle or just about anything else that uses DRM. Why doesn't Microsoft licence their Xbox DRM to allow people to create legal emulators for the PC or even PS3?
Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox 360 software just as Nintendo and Sony do on their own systems. But if you want to play games you aren't strictly locked to their system (aside form exclusives like Mario) and you certainly aren't locked into iTunes or Apple to listen to music or to even get music onto an iPod.
I prefer not being forced to a country site. I buy from numerous Amazon country shops rather than just the UK one. As it is the message asking if you want to go to your country specific site when you go to the.com is enough.
To be fair the music is DRM-free as Apple always wanted so you can play your music on other devices too. Music through iTunes is much more open than any console and the games, movies, etc they sell. The Xbox 360 won't even let you surf the internet because you might find some sort of online entertainment that may dissuade you from buying a XBL membership.
But it's not just about competition. Microsoft used their position to harm competition and do things like ruin Java compatibility. Apple on the other hand has pushed for non-DRM music for ages and only sold it with DRM when they had to. But as it is you can play your iTunes music on any device that supports the format and you import music into iTunes in any supported format. It would be nice if they support FLAC but not doing so is hardly an abuse of power.
You could always sell tracks that would play on an iPod or iPhone. I had only like 5 tracks from iTunes. I binned them because they were from the early days and had DRM. The hundreds of other files I had played fine including those from Amazon so how are they stopping them? If you want to argue that they stopped people from selling DRM tracks fair enough but considering Apple pushed for selling non-DRM music themselves I don't see that as being an abuse of market power because I'm not aware of any device that allows any DRM scheme to be used and it defeats their goal of making things more open by making their music playable on any device as well as anyone else's music being playable if it's in a certain format. Yes they don't, for example, support FLAC but a lot of devices don't.
The latest iphone should be supported now. It wasn't initially but if you get the latest libraries (libmobiledevice I think) it works. Then your phone should mount to Linux and Amarok at least should show an option for iphones.
That's a bit rubbish the downloader doesn't work on 64-bit Linux. I have to admit I'm still using 32-bit Ubuntu on my laptop mainly because it will have less issues and I don't have enough memory on it to worry about any sort of benefit to having a 64-bit OS so I wasn't aware of that issue.
They're at least in the UK and Germany and I suspect most if not all of Europe. If they don't do it in New Zealand I suspect that is more because of costs of selling and or support and not having a hardware device as an incentive to sell music in as many countries as possible.
Yet you feel you're entitled to play it which has a negative effect on an honest consumer like myself.
I believe they fall under the category of fat smoker.
And we don't put corn syrup in coke or any other drinks (at least the ones I've had). The reason being is because there is a production quota. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup#European_Union
Sugar may not be good for you but I much rather have sugar than corn syrup. The fact it's more expensive and they won't go nuts putting it in everything is an added bonus.
That only works on the basis that only a handful of people will do it. If no one pays for entertainment then it does in fact hurt the artist, publisher and consumers.
This idea that you wouldn't have bought it anyway is just some shit head logic. It had some value to you otherwise you wouldn't have spent the time downloading it, installing it and playing it. Unless of course you're some jobless waster and your time is worth nothing and of course you wouldn't buy a game if you had already completed it for free.
You can't even have a decent meal for $0.99 and most drinks or chocolate bars are $0.99 or nearly there and you don't get to keep them. If you don't think a single song is worth $0.99 then why are you listening to it? $0.99 is nothing for something you can keep forever. Hell it's nothing for something that provides a days worth of entertainment.
$0.99 is nothing these days. If it's not worth $0.99 then it's not worth pirating. Some people are just tight asses.
Tablets won't go away just like the internet didn't go away no matter how hard Microsoft prayed.
In my mind Sony is the same as ever. They've always been a mix of good and bad ideas. For instance I thought Mini-Discs were awesome but it had its own DRM issues. I don't think anyone can take away the fact the PS1 and especially the PS2 were totally awesome devices even if a lot of their hardware isn't that great. I think DRM is only more noticeable now because it's easier for them to implement and I think all companies have been getting away with trampling over the right to make copies of media you purchase because of piracy.
No it has to be because Sony is evil and therefore validating my reason not to pay for software!
While I love open source it's because there's a zillion phones that run android. I suspect if you compare any one Android model against RIM or Apple's offerings then it won't look so good. Combine that with the fact Android owners seem less keen on paying for apps and I think you end up with the iphone or even blackberry being more attractive to a developer despite android's growth.
If automated cars came about it goes without saying that people will moan about the smallest thing that goes wrong even if the automated cars are much safer. I think it's because people won't want a safe automated car. They want to take stupid risks and risk everyone's life to get home a few minutes earlier.
I rather see more trains and and a return of street cars in cities and other ways where we can move a lot of people through means that don't use petrol and instead use electricity. It will move any potential pollution out of the cities and it certainly has to be easier to make power generation more efficient if it's centralised. Likewise if the main mode of transportation is run by companies rather than individuals then we'll see upgraded more efficient transportation happen sooner.
And how many apps does it have? Must be plenty seeing how Nokia is jumping to Windows Phone 7.
I like how they're crying about an unfair advantage while at the same time using their desktop dominance to try and force Bing on people through their dominant browser and in the past having changed browser settings in other browsers to point to Bing which is a bigger violation, imo, than what they claim Google have done. It seems to be even with this huge advantage no one wants to use Bing so they're going to cry monopoly to the EU.
The 3DS is truly awesome and the 3D works well. The biggest problem with it (or any glassesless 3D) is that it is sensitive to positioning. It does take some getting used to find out how you need to position it and if you're in an office or somewhere with annoying overhead lights trying to fight with the glare from lights and the right position can be a pain.
I find my eyes have adjusted and they're not so sensitive to movement and losing the 3D effect. I think a lot of the headaches are from people not holding it right or trying to concentrate to hard. It'll go away but there are still some instances where 3D is a no-no. One being waking up after a night of heavy drinking and trying to play. That's a good way to make your stomach feel like shit.
Nintendo was wise to put a slider and allow people to remove the effect and the games are just as fun without (the ones I have anyway) but the system is well suited for 3D because it's really only going to be looked at by one person staring straight into it. The reason why 3D TV will fail, imo, is no one wants to sit in a specific area through a whole movie or two.
They need to find a way to get the effect to work from any angle and then it'll take off because yes the 3D effects are really nice to look at.
To be fair to Nintendo at least in the NES days when the seal started a publisher could only publish something like 5 games a year so they couldn't just develop a load of shovelware. This is why Konami opened Ultra to get around the limit and release more games. I suspect Nintendo stopped the limit either because of the monopoly charges against them or from pressure from Sega because if Sega allows a publisher to publish as much as they want then you know which system they'll favour.
Of course because the UK is absolutely shit at upgrading its train infrastructure. London would be lovely without cars but the underground could not handle it and the government won't put up the cash to fix that even if that means more buses because there are more stupid things to spend the money on.
Arguably Amazon offers as much if not more than Google even if they don't offer the same exact things.
Name one music device that will play unlimited DRM formats and why would Apple licence fairplay when they would prefer all the music to be DRM-free and again it doesn't stop you from buying CDs and ripping them or even burning your DRM'ed iTunes music and playing it elsewhere. Yes it's a hassle but a minor hassle brought on by others. You can argue the same about the Kindle or just about anything else that uses DRM. Why doesn't Microsoft licence their Xbox DRM to allow people to create legal emulators for the PC or even PS3?
Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox 360 software just as Nintendo and Sony do on their own systems. But if you want to play games you aren't strictly locked to their system (aside form exclusives like Mario) and you certainly aren't locked into iTunes or Apple to listen to music or to even get music onto an iPod.
I prefer not being forced to a country site. I buy from numerous Amazon country shops rather than just the UK one. As it is the message asking if you want to go to your country specific site when you go to the .com is enough.
To be fair the music is DRM-free as Apple always wanted so you can play your music on other devices too. Music through iTunes is much more open than any console and the games, movies, etc they sell. The Xbox 360 won't even let you surf the internet because you might find some sort of online entertainment that may dissuade you from buying a XBL membership.
But it's not just about competition. Microsoft used their position to harm competition and do things like ruin Java compatibility. Apple on the other hand has pushed for non-DRM music for ages and only sold it with DRM when they had to. But as it is you can play your iTunes music on any device that supports the format and you import music into iTunes in any supported format. It would be nice if they support FLAC but not doing so is hardly an abuse of power.
You could always sell tracks that would play on an iPod or iPhone. I had only like 5 tracks from iTunes. I binned them because they were from the early days and had DRM. The hundreds of other files I had played fine including those from Amazon so how are they stopping them? If you want to argue that they stopped people from selling DRM tracks fair enough but considering Apple pushed for selling non-DRM music themselves I don't see that as being an abuse of market power because I'm not aware of any device that allows any DRM scheme to be used and it defeats their goal of making things more open by making their music playable on any device as well as anyone else's music being playable if it's in a certain format. Yes they don't, for example, support FLAC but a lot of devices don't.
The latest iphone should be supported now. It wasn't initially but if you get the latest libraries (libmobiledevice I think) it works. Then your phone should mount to Linux and Amarok at least should show an option for iphones.
That's a bit rubbish the downloader doesn't work on 64-bit Linux. I have to admit I'm still using 32-bit Ubuntu on my laptop mainly because it will have less issues and I don't have enough memory on it to worry about any sort of benefit to having a 64-bit OS so I wasn't aware of that issue.
They're at least in the UK and Germany and I suspect most if not all of Europe. If they don't do it in New Zealand I suspect that is more because of costs of selling and or support and not having a hardware device as an incentive to sell music in as many countries as possible.
I'm in the UK, numb nuts.