The problem isn't storage its speed. Really with 1TB of HD space there isn't anything you can't have a lot of. On the other hand I/O, especially magnetic I/O is the main bottleneck. Storage isn't a problem.
Haptic feedback is a double edged sword though. While SurePress did make sure you were hitting the buttons, it decreased typing speed by a lot. While I could get ~30 WPM on an iPod touch, my typing speed noticeably dropped whenever I typed on a Storm.
Sure, but there are a lot of people who play solitaire on Windows computers. Yet its not really that much of a game when compared to, say, Halo or Oblivion. Sure, they will be hits but as a loyal Nintendo fan for many years I can't help but feel disappointed. I played Mario rather than Sonic, defended the N64 from Sony fanboys, even got a Gamecube on release day, along with waiting till midnight to get a Wii. Nintendo has almost abandoned its true fans. The last real hardcore Nintendo game was Brawl for the Wii and that was released a year ago. Sure, Metroid and Golden Sun are good, but Nintendo has way more IP that they could release to appeal to us loyal Nintendo customers. Earthbound has a huge following here in America, yet they haven't even released the original (Mother 2) on the Virtual Console, let alone releasing Mother One which was even translated in English. With digital distribution the worst you lose is some space on your server. The days of "we can't release this because its too much of a gamble" are gone. Other series haven't received games in years such as Kid Icarus.
I can't help but be disappointed in Nintendo ever since the Wii became a huge success. They have totally abandoned the Nintendo fan and prefer to cater to the super casual gamer. Even with no risk.
Having read TFA I see no mention of 8 gigs of RAM. The Core 2 Duo isn't exactly blazing fast, though it could play some games reasonably well. The small case also hurts it because most gaming PCs are designed for expandability, which is also quite "green" because it saves you from buying a new computer. Also, most gaming PCs are overclock-able, and have large enough PSU to upgrade decently.
I don't think this really qualifies as either a real gaming PC or a green PC. Sure, it will play games, but I wouldn't call it a gaming PC. Same thing with green, it uses a bit too much power to be considered really all that green. Sure, its a good compromise but I don't think its really that green or really that much of a gaming PC.
I'd say no one "won" E3. Nintendo's releases were "meh" at best, sure the new Metroid looks good, but Wii Sports and the rest of the "Wii" series are glorified tech demos. The multiplayer Mario game looks sort of OK, but it reminds me too much of LoZ: 4 Swords which wasn't that great. Sony shot itself in the foot with a UMD-less PSP, and their motion control like most things by Sony will be a decent implementation... But far too expensive and supporting only a few games (just look at how little the Six-Axis controller is used). The new motion control for the 360 looks interesting, but like most things done by MS, its going to have a terrible implementation.
I'd say everyone "lost" at E3, other then perhaps the new Golden Sun DS game I won't be buying anything demoed unless they get really, really, great reviews.
What I think would be best for Google would be to fork a version of OOo to include "Save to the cloud" support and integration with Google Docs. Along with integration with every e-mail client by using perhaps HTML e-mail or a plugin to enable Google Docs support. Create an iPhone app, plugins for MS Office, make it easy for anyone with any program to access and use Google Docs and it will succeed.
Maybe some people do, but I doubt that The Pirate Bay is the place to go to find new music. People hear a song on a show, or maybe see a youtube clip, or maybe use tastekid or Pandora, THEN they go download the stuff they want. I wouldn't even consider pawing through the "genre" section on TPB and picking some random band... I have much more specific tastes.
Ok, but if it was through YouTube then it was most likely a copyright offending clip so there was instant promotion through copyright infringement. Then there is the hype effect, there are some bands that people would like but they don't like the songs that are played on the radio or hyped through official channels, however if they pirate the album they might find that they really like the band and are more apt to buy a CD or go to a concert. The person would have never bought the CD if the entry price hadn't been $0.
There are plenty of other ways of advertising that don't give away the actual album for free, yet are still free for the band. I'm not actually arguing against piracy, but just the notion that sending money directly to the band members is somehow more "right" than buying the CD.
Such as?
And how isn't it more right? If I spend $20 on an album how much actually goes to the band, the people who actually made the music? Very, very, little. The publisher, promoters, etc. Had really little to do with the overall album and had little to nothing to do with the music. I listen to the music, the music was created by the band, I enjoy the music, not the production. The paint is only secondary to the painter, the canvas isn't more important than the work. Sure, you currently need canvas and paint to look at a painting but they are only secondary to the painter.
If tomorrow all the publishers, promoters, etc. vanished we would still have music because music is created by the artist. How doesn't it make sense to give money directly to the people who are actually making the music? Is it not more fair to give money to the painter than to the maker of the canvas?
The nice thing about used games is the fact that if a game that you thought was going to be so amazing turned out to be horrible, you can take it back and reclaim a bit of $. There have been a few games that I've had to do that to and it saved me $20 or more per time.
Nintendo also did it with their "Player's Choice" games. I think I remember getting Tales of Symphonia for $20, a great deal. I also think MS does it with Xbox Platinum hits.
So if I rob you it's fine as long as I use the money to feed my family?
No, because I get something taken away. Now, if you could make a 1 on 1 copy of my car without damaging it, sure, I'd be happy to let you make a copy of it. Similarly if I had a infinite (as in really infinite, not just a lot) supply of money I wouldn't mind if you took from the never-ending pile of money in my front yard.
Yes, you could argue that they could possibly be taking away sales, however usually pirated stuff is sold at a huge discount (though not free) that some people who wouldn't buy it would buy it.
if the police were going around residential neighborhoods using this as an excuse to search people's houses I'd be upset. But are you really bothered by the fact that they arrested a large pirating operation that is making pirated CDs to be sold for profit.
And how do you know that might not be the next step? You know, before the RIAA/MPAA started suing individuals, whenever people made VHS copies of things or burnt a CD they always joked that they might get arrested, today in 2009 that is coming quite close to reality. Perhaps its not going into people's houses but at various "security theater" setups they might decide to search your car and take these or use it as evidence for a lawsuit.
That is where the internet and piracy comes in. Guess what, torrents *gasp* advertise for the band. Release a few samples on TPB and watch your popularity slowly rise. Some bands wouldn't be known if not for promotion in the days before the internet but now any band can promote *for free*. There are tons of bands that would have not survived if not for promotion due to the internet, many bands who don't fit the mold of the radio stations wouldn't have a following. About the only sort of promotion that really works well today is opening for a popular band, other than that promotion via the traditional channels are worthless. As for recording, if you send money directly to the band, they can get things recorded by paying a flat fee and all is good. Plus recording studios are going away because with a bit of an investment anyone can get decent enough recording equipment. Will it sound perfect, no. Will it work for MP3s that 95% of music listeners listen to? Yes.
No, its reasonable and workable. If most government programs were just service providers. Every household would have to pay a "defense fee" this simply keeps up the costs of our armed forces, this is one of the few mandatory taxes because it affects everyone. Because its not much harder to defend a house of 1 than a household of 10, its done by household not by person. Fire departments and police departments would charge an annual or monthly fee if you chose to have their protection, you could chose to have a third party protect you from fire or to secure your home. The government's fire/police would be regulated so fees couldn't go up, would have a mandatory quality of service, and would be required to respond to any call, however after the call they could charge for a heavy payment if they did not subscribe to their service. Roads would be financed through either an optional license fee that would allow you to be on any government road, or you could choose to pay tolls throughout the way. Healthcare and social security would be optional, however you would have to pay to get them along with guarantees that the more you payed the better the service you would get (for example, someone who worked and payed social security for 50 years would get a much higher return then someone who paid social security for 10 years). Public libraries would be funded with library card dues along with a loosening of copyright laws for public libraries that would allow for free books for any book either A) Not being actively printed B) With a dead author or C) Has been printed for 30 years. This would allow for them to continue.
Sure, the only right way to protest it is to not buy things and I usually avoid RIAA-based labels with a passion and only buy them if they are a unique band that I want to hear the style more in more artists (Such as Nightwish), I only really listen to RIAA labels on YouTube or internet radio and don't download them over P2P, that said I believe that its a fundamental right of technology to make backups and within reason to download things for non-commercial use. Sure, the current legal system disagrees but I really hope that changes in the next few years.
Yes, sometimes the content is good but you don't want to pay the price to the middleman. There are some bands that if I could I'd buy records directly from the band, I like the band but don't like the label, so I go to concerts so support the band more directly.
I also believe that the current prices are quite high on music, especially with the addition of $1.29 songs on iTunes. A better price point would be below $.50 with all songs downloadable on an album.
So in conclusion, I believe that morally you should have a right to copy and download, legally I know that you do not and I try to stay away from illegal downloading simply because its illegal but yet I do believe strongly in a right to download.
The problem isn't "bad" music but rather "fad" music (which, indecently usually sounds horrible) artists that are "cool" today and then tomorrow you wouldn't be caught dead with their CD. Because of that, people want cheap music to fill up their iPods and CD collections. Even $.99 is too much for some people for a song they might listen to only a few times.
Sure, we can all agree that this occasion was good because they were making a profit, but how much longer till it starts targeting the average person? We used to think before the RIAA went on a suing spree that no one would ever sue for non-profit personal use of items, but the RIAA proved us wrong. Today its not an abuse of the legal system however with the record company's actions in recent years it soon will be.
It works for any country that has deceived its citizens with "terrorism" because we all know that all pirated movie sales go to terrorism or child pornography or some other made-up social ill that the governments dream up. Because we all know that it NEVER goes to putting food on the table or supporting the local economy or anything like that.
So apparently recording agencies are able to do anything except record good music. They can bribe judges, hire lawyers, buy congress, complain, make commercials and now train dogs. You would think that with all this money they could come up with a working business model other then abusing the legal system.
How much longer till we can figure out how our brain "codes" things then exploit it for our own benefit? Just think about it, custom-made drugs to make it seem like you are flying, fighting a dragon, more epic than any video game imaginable, all while being perfectly controlled with little to no side effects. Or take a pill and have the entire library of congress memorized. I wonder how much longer this will take.
...Or it could be saving the creator's rears if the Chinese government detects a major protest on these sites and the sites owners were unaware and didn't stop it they might be held accountable and executed also. However, what you say may be true for some of the sites that aren't based out of China.
The government is not entitled to my money/possessions in a free society. Taxes should be used solely for things that I benefit from that the government does with my permission. Anything else is unjust.
...And nearly 100% of the people I know have at least some form of internet access. Unless they are living out of a box most everyone has internet access of some form. Broadband no, but internet yes even if its just hopping on to their neighbor's unsecured linksys network....
I think not for some of the same reasons as the PS3: porting. If I use Direct X 9 its relatively easy to port it to the Xbox and will run on XP too. Same thing for the PS3, if they don't do all kinds of fancy stuff if the game doesn't sell well as a PS3 exclusive just change it up, add in a few extras an release it as a 360 game. I don't know why any game developer unless they were either MS owned or heavily invested in my MS would choose to use an incompatible Direct X version.
Because of a few reasons. One is that you don't have to risk that much information, anything I would consider really sensitive I don't have on my profile. Really what is so sensitive that is an invasion of privacy thats on Facebook?
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The problem isn't storage its speed. Really with 1TB of HD space there isn't anything you can't have a lot of. On the other hand I/O, especially magnetic I/O is the main bottleneck. Storage isn't a problem.
Haptic feedback is a double edged sword though. While SurePress did make sure you were hitting the buttons, it decreased typing speed by a lot. While I could get ~30 WPM on an iPod touch, my typing speed noticeably dropped whenever I typed on a Storm.
Sure, but there are a lot of people who play solitaire on Windows computers. Yet its not really that much of a game when compared to, say, Halo or Oblivion. Sure, they will be hits but as a loyal Nintendo fan for many years I can't help but feel disappointed. I played Mario rather than Sonic, defended the N64 from Sony fanboys, even got a Gamecube on release day, along with waiting till midnight to get a Wii. Nintendo has almost abandoned its true fans. The last real hardcore Nintendo game was Brawl for the Wii and that was released a year ago. Sure, Metroid and Golden Sun are good, but Nintendo has way more IP that they could release to appeal to us loyal Nintendo customers. Earthbound has a huge following here in America, yet they haven't even released the original (Mother 2) on the Virtual Console, let alone releasing Mother One which was even translated in English. With digital distribution the worst you lose is some space on your server. The days of "we can't release this because its too much of a gamble" are gone. Other series haven't received games in years such as Kid Icarus.
I can't help but be disappointed in Nintendo ever since the Wii became a huge success. They have totally abandoned the Nintendo fan and prefer to cater to the super casual gamer. Even with no risk.
Having read TFA I see no mention of 8 gigs of RAM. The Core 2 Duo isn't exactly blazing fast, though it could play some games reasonably well. The small case also hurts it because most gaming PCs are designed for expandability, which is also quite "green" because it saves you from buying a new computer. Also, most gaming PCs are overclock-able, and have large enough PSU to upgrade decently.
I don't think this really qualifies as either a real gaming PC or a green PC. Sure, it will play games, but I wouldn't call it a gaming PC. Same thing with green, it uses a bit too much power to be considered really all that green. Sure, its a good compromise but I don't think its really that green or really that much of a gaming PC.
I'd say no one "won" E3. Nintendo's releases were "meh" at best, sure the new Metroid looks good, but Wii Sports and the rest of the "Wii" series are glorified tech demos. The multiplayer Mario game looks sort of OK, but it reminds me too much of LoZ: 4 Swords which wasn't that great. Sony shot itself in the foot with a UMD-less PSP, and their motion control like most things by Sony will be a decent implementation... But far too expensive and supporting only a few games (just look at how little the Six-Axis controller is used). The new motion control for the 360 looks interesting, but like most things done by MS, its going to have a terrible implementation.
I'd say everyone "lost" at E3, other then perhaps the new Golden Sun DS game I won't be buying anything demoed unless they get really, really, great reviews.
What I think would be best for Google would be to fork a version of OOo to include "Save to the cloud" support and integration with Google Docs. Along with integration with every e-mail client by using perhaps HTML e-mail or a plugin to enable Google Docs support. Create an iPhone app, plugins for MS Office, make it easy for anyone with any program to access and use Google Docs and it will succeed.
Maybe some people do, but I doubt that The Pirate Bay is the place to go to find new music. People hear a song on a show, or maybe see a youtube clip, or maybe use tastekid or Pandora, THEN they go download the stuff they want. I wouldn't even consider pawing through the "genre" section on TPB and picking some random band... I have much more specific tastes.
Ok, but if it was through YouTube then it was most likely a copyright offending clip so there was instant promotion through copyright infringement. Then there is the hype effect, there are some bands that people would like but they don't like the songs that are played on the radio or hyped through official channels, however if they pirate the album they might find that they really like the band and are more apt to buy a CD or go to a concert. The person would have never bought the CD if the entry price hadn't been $0.
There are plenty of other ways of advertising that don't give away the actual album for free, yet are still free for the band. I'm not actually arguing against piracy, but just the notion that sending money directly to the band members is somehow more "right" than buying the CD.
Such as?
And how isn't it more right? If I spend $20 on an album how much actually goes to the band, the people who actually made the music? Very, very, little. The publisher, promoters, etc. Had really little to do with the overall album and had little to nothing to do with the music. I listen to the music, the music was created by the band, I enjoy the music, not the production. The paint is only secondary to the painter, the canvas isn't more important than the work. Sure, you currently need canvas and paint to look at a painting but they are only secondary to the painter.
If tomorrow all the publishers, promoters, etc. vanished we would still have music because music is created by the artist. How doesn't it make sense to give money directly to the people who are actually making the music? Is it not more fair to give money to the painter than to the maker of the canvas?
The nice thing about used games is the fact that if a game that you thought was going to be so amazing turned out to be horrible, you can take it back and reclaim a bit of $. There have been a few games that I've had to do that to and it saved me $20 or more per time.
Nintendo also did it with their "Player's Choice" games. I think I remember getting Tales of Symphonia for $20, a great deal. I also think MS does it with Xbox Platinum hits.
So if I rob you it's fine as long as I use the money to feed my family?
No, because I get something taken away. Now, if you could make a 1 on 1 copy of my car without damaging it, sure, I'd be happy to let you make a copy of it. Similarly if I had a infinite (as in really infinite, not just a lot) supply of money I wouldn't mind if you took from the never-ending pile of money in my front yard.
Yes, you could argue that they could possibly be taking away sales, however usually pirated stuff is sold at a huge discount (though not free) that some people who wouldn't buy it would buy it.
if the police were going around residential neighborhoods using this as an excuse to search people's houses I'd be upset. But are you really bothered by the fact that they arrested a large pirating operation that is making pirated CDs to be sold for profit.
And how do you know that might not be the next step? You know, before the RIAA/MPAA started suing individuals, whenever people made VHS copies of things or burnt a CD they always joked that they might get arrested, today in 2009 that is coming quite close to reality. Perhaps its not going into people's houses but at various "security theater" setups they might decide to search your car and take these or use it as evidence for a lawsuit.
That is where the internet and piracy comes in. Guess what, torrents *gasp* advertise for the band. Release a few samples on TPB and watch your popularity slowly rise. Some bands wouldn't be known if not for promotion in the days before the internet but now any band can promote *for free*. There are tons of bands that would have not survived if not for promotion due to the internet, many bands who don't fit the mold of the radio stations wouldn't have a following. About the only sort of promotion that really works well today is opening for a popular band, other than that promotion via the traditional channels are worthless. As for recording, if you send money directly to the band, they can get things recorded by paying a flat fee and all is good. Plus recording studios are going away because with a bit of an investment anyone can get decent enough recording equipment. Will it sound perfect, no. Will it work for MP3s that 95% of music listeners listen to? Yes.
No, its reasonable and workable. If most government programs were just service providers. Every household would have to pay a "defense fee" this simply keeps up the costs of our armed forces, this is one of the few mandatory taxes because it affects everyone. Because its not much harder to defend a house of 1 than a household of 10, its done by household not by person. Fire departments and police departments would charge an annual or monthly fee if you chose to have their protection, you could chose to have a third party protect you from fire or to secure your home. The government's fire/police would be regulated so fees couldn't go up, would have a mandatory quality of service, and would be required to respond to any call, however after the call they could charge for a heavy payment if they did not subscribe to their service. Roads would be financed through either an optional license fee that would allow you to be on any government road, or you could choose to pay tolls throughout the way. Healthcare and social security would be optional, however you would have to pay to get them along with guarantees that the more you payed the better the service you would get (for example, someone who worked and payed social security for 50 years would get a much higher return then someone who paid social security for 10 years). Public libraries would be funded with library card dues along with a loosening of copyright laws for public libraries that would allow for free books for any book either A) Not being actively printed B) With a dead author or C) Has been printed for 30 years. This would allow for them to continue.
Sure, the only right way to protest it is to not buy things and I usually avoid RIAA-based labels with a passion and only buy them if they are a unique band that I want to hear the style more in more artists (Such as Nightwish), I only really listen to RIAA labels on YouTube or internet radio and don't download them over P2P, that said I believe that its a fundamental right of technology to make backups and within reason to download things for non-commercial use. Sure, the current legal system disagrees but I really hope that changes in the next few years.
Yes, sometimes the content is good but you don't want to pay the price to the middleman. There are some bands that if I could I'd buy records directly from the band, I like the band but don't like the label, so I go to concerts so support the band more directly.
I also believe that the current prices are quite high on music, especially with the addition of $1.29 songs on iTunes. A better price point would be below $.50 with all songs downloadable on an album.
So in conclusion, I believe that morally you should have a right to copy and download, legally I know that you do not and I try to stay away from illegal downloading simply because its illegal but yet I do believe strongly in a right to download.
The problem isn't "bad" music but rather "fad" music (which, indecently usually sounds horrible) artists that are "cool" today and then tomorrow you wouldn't be caught dead with their CD. Because of that, people want cheap music to fill up their iPods and CD collections. Even $.99 is too much for some people for a song they might listen to only a few times.
Sure, we can all agree that this occasion was good because they were making a profit, but how much longer till it starts targeting the average person? We used to think before the RIAA went on a suing spree that no one would ever sue for non-profit personal use of items, but the RIAA proved us wrong. Today its not an abuse of the legal system however with the record company's actions in recent years it soon will be.
It works for any country that has deceived its citizens with "terrorism" because we all know that all pirated movie sales go to terrorism or child pornography or some other made-up social ill that the governments dream up. Because we all know that it NEVER goes to putting food on the table or supporting the local economy or anything like that.
So apparently recording agencies are able to do anything except record good music. They can bribe judges, hire lawyers, buy congress, complain, make commercials and now train dogs. You would think that with all this money they could come up with a working business model other then abusing the legal system.
How much longer till we can figure out how our brain "codes" things then exploit it for our own benefit? Just think about it, custom-made drugs to make it seem like you are flying, fighting a dragon, more epic than any video game imaginable, all while being perfectly controlled with little to no side effects. Or take a pill and have the entire library of congress memorized. I wonder how much longer this will take.
...Or it could be saving the creator's rears if the Chinese government detects a major protest on these sites and the sites owners were unaware and didn't stop it they might be held accountable and executed also. However, what you say may be true for some of the sites that aren't based out of China.
The government is not entitled to my money/possessions in a free society. Taxes should be used solely for things that I benefit from that the government does with my permission. Anything else is unjust.
Why not have an EU-wide mandate of a computer bill of rights? In this include the right to encryption and the right to keep your key to yourself.
When has ATI had solid anything drivers. Even the Windows drivers cause BSoDs for no apparent reason.
...And nearly 100% of the people I know have at least some form of internet access. Unless they are living out of a box most everyone has internet access of some form. Broadband no, but internet yes even if its just hopping on to their neighbor's unsecured linksys network....
I think not for some of the same reasons as the PS3: porting. If I use Direct X 9 its relatively easy to port it to the Xbox and will run on XP too. Same thing for the PS3, if they don't do all kinds of fancy stuff if the game doesn't sell well as a PS3 exclusive just change it up, add in a few extras an release it as a 360 game. I don't know why any game developer unless they were either MS owned or heavily invested in my MS would choose to use an incompatible Direct X version.
Because of a few reasons. One is that you don't have to risk that much information, anything I would consider really sensitive I don't have on my profile. Really what is so sensitive that is an invasion of privacy thats on Facebook?