Exactly, the problem is though, we need agreements that governments won't interfere with private spaceflights which is what will probably happen. Already billions of dollars have been spent on spacecraft, R&D and research that is locked up in government hands and even though we, the taxpayers have paid for it, we can't access it.
If the government would simply let citizens use what they have paid for, I think we'd see private spaceflight soar to new levels.
But until we have a sane foreign policy that maintained lasting alliances without either sacrificing the sovereignty of the country or its citizens, I don't think that will happen because rather than use diplomatic means we want to attack anyone who might get a nuke in the unsustainable idea that no one is going to develop that technology independently so the US's citizens get harmed.
Um, having drove a 1988 Taurus for 5 years (2005 to now) I've only really spent about $2,500 in maintenance. The initial $1,000 was when I bought it for $500 I needed to fix it up (new brake pads, spark plugs, inspections, etc.) the rest was just everyday stuff like buying new oil, antifreeze, etc. I do think one of the belts broke but it was really only $100 in labor/parts.
In short, I've sank about $3,000 into a car that has lasted me for trips to work/around town for the past 5 years. So long as you have basic skills, maintenance doesn't cost as much as you think. While I don't think I'd take it if I was going on a cross-country trip, for short journeys it is more than worth it. Plus, insurance is pretty damn cheap on it and I can sell it for proportionally pretty similar to what I bought it for if need be, you can't say that about a new car.
You're conflating different issues. Game consoles - from all three manufacturers - don't allow unlicensed programs on the system because most of their revenue comes from licensing software. That's not unique to Sony, nor does it demonstrate a company policy of locking down platforms in other markets. If it did, Microsoft would not allow unlicensed applications on Windows. Sony's approach to its game consoles doesn't mean that it can't run an open OS on its smartphones. In fact, it already does - Sony Ericsson is selling a number of Sony Ericsson handsets.
And you assume that a PlayStation phone wouldn't be part of these lockdowns?
Microsoft is effectively in the same boat with Sony, and their phones have major lockdown issues in Windows Phone 7 especially in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Granted, I believe that you can sideload apps to Windows Phone 7 devices, but it still is a lot less open than say the Android Market.
You're taking the disabling of OtherOS and third party controllers out of context. Both were side effects of eliminating flaws that would allow the PS3 to run unsigned code,
Clearly! In order to stop people from driving drunk we should tear up the roadways!
OtherOS was a feature enabled by default which Sony disabled. I don't want my devices to suddenly lose features, and for a company to break third party devices deliberately is the epitome of low. If I buy a car with a CD player, I don't want to get into my car some morning only to find its been disabled, no matter what the reason. Especially if it is as BS of a reason as simply not letting people use the hardware they paid for.
(ie, if someone set up a Cydia for PlayStation Sony's revenues would collapse)
Right, because we all know how the Nintendo Wii is losing money left and right and Nintendo is making a loss... Oh wait, Nintendo is making insane amounts of money.
Yet right now I have the Hombrew Channel installed and essentially have a repository with all kinds of games and applications. By your logic because Nintendo doesn't release tons of updates to break it (they've released a few, but only every 6 months or so) Nintendo should have been driven into the ground and be losing money left and right, but that hasn't happened.
You make it sound like the point was to eliminate third party controllers and stop people running Linux, which is false. In fact, the PS3 came with USB ports and the OtherOS feature precisely in order to allow a wide variety of accessories to be supported and Linux to run.
I don't give a shit what the "intent" was, if the end result is that people can't use features they paid for, that is a company I'm not going to support in any way. And yes, Sony did lose a sale, I was seriously considering buying a PS3 to use as a game console/Blu-Ray player when the entire disabling of OtherOS came up so I'm not buying a PS3.
As for your other points, they were things that the entire industry moved to long before Sony decided to. The very fact that Sony kept pushing ATRAC and Memory Stick long after they were superseded shows their devotion to their own standards.
Something tells me that re-using an older car, even one with not that great of gas mileage is going to be more eco-friendly than making an all-new car, using lots of energy to build, lots of energy from workers commuting to work to build your car, lots of energy from people taking polluting jets across the country to work on R&D, etc.
Yes, eventually when these things hit the used market, they might have a net eco gain, but at that time it could make financial sense too.
I agree that Sony in the past has been obsessed with control of its platforms, but things are changing under Stringer.
I'm sorry but I don't see any change. For one, they disabled the OtherOS feature an out of the box feature for another they disabled third party controllers. Yes. Sony doesn't even want you to have your choice of controllers. For another they've been completely against the homebrew community and are trying their hardest to break rooted PS3s. All these things have happened within the past year.
Look, if I was referencing the rootkits from a few years ago, it would be easy to rationalize as that was Sony many years ago or that was a different department. But these developments aren't just from a few years ago, they've come as recently as two weeks ago.
Yes Google does. Do you think Google -wants- people to think their operating system is a piece of crap because Motorola/LG/HTC/etc. can't be bothered to release an update. Do you think Google -wants- people to be stuck on their last-gen version? Microsoft doesn't want people to use XP, Microsoft wants people to use Windows 7. Google doesn't want people to use Android 1.5 or 2.1, Google wants people to use Android 2.2 because it includes all the fixes for all of the problems that people have had with other versions.
The more open phones are, the better it is for Google because Google can release more apps and increase marketshare.
No because Sony's stance clashes with Google's stance. Sony is all about control. Control. Control. Heck, Sony had a firmware update to break third party controllers not to mention Sony's recent moves of removing features.
Sony wants nothing more than control. Google wants open phones. The two clash in many ways.
For a small commute it makes a whole lot more sense to buy a simi-reliable cheap, used car. You can find decent ones for $1,000-$3,000 if you know what you are looking for. Lets assume that an all-electric Volt would cost $25,000 new. Now, you wouldn't have to pay for fuel with a Volt and lets say you won't have maintenance for 3 years. And lets say you find a 1988 Ford Taurus for $2,000. Now, lets say you've got a 9 mile commute, thats 18 miles round trip, at the car's 18 MPG city you are looking at, say $2.50 per day, that is $2737.50 in fuel costs for 3 years. Now, even assuming that you've got to pay $1,000 in maintenance costs, that is still a total cost of ownership of only $5737.50 for 3 years. Plus, assuming that it isn't in too bad of shape you can recoup about $1,000 or more of the costs if you sell the car after 3 years. If you'd do that with the Volt you'd end up losing far more than $5,737.
Because what happens when the "cloud" shuts down? What happens when your internet goes down and you can't even access what should be local files? What happens when the "cloud" has a major security breach and all of the files that normally wouldn't ever leave your company are now able to be downloaded to crackers everywhere?
Didn't the 90s (And early 2000s) teach us anything? If HTML isn't implemented in essentially the same way across all browsers the Internet will stagnant again and we will turn to cross-platform plugins like Flash to actually get stuff done.
Its a private company so it doesn't have the waste that plague government programs, they've hired capable engineers and its all headed by a person with a clear vision of his idealized future.
Plus, Sir Richard Branson has millions of spare cash he can sink into a venture.
Football players have elevated self-worth and a large fanbase based on name only. Engineers don't. Plus, most engineers are "fun" motivated, most would jump at the chance to work with a private space company for, say, only $75K a year compared to $100K a year doing boring things like designing bridges and dams. On the other hand, NFL players demand more money to be on the more competitive teams.
No, for most people their video content would require jumping through a bunch of hoops.
A lot of people own a sizable collection of DVDs and last time I checked, you couldn't just rip a DVD to iTunes like you can a CD. Yes, you -can- rip a DVD into formats that iTunes can read and such, but we're talking about most people here, not people skilled with computers.
Heck, a lot of people still have a sizable collection of VHS movies.
I see no real reason for most people to buy an Apple TV because its just $100 to sit with all their other devices connected to the TV. If they have a Wii/Xbox/PS3 they already have Netflix, if they have a Wii they already have a browser with Flash to look at YouTube, the PS3 can play Blu-Rays and the Xbox can play (HD)DVDs (and if you installed homebrew on your Wii you can also watch DVDs on your Wii, but most people wouldn't have) so, for argument's sake lets just assume that most people own a Wii since it is the most popular game console.
If they want to watch a DVD, they have to put it in their DVD/Blu-Ray player, if they want to watch a VHS they have to put a VHS in their VHS player, if they want to use Netflix they just have to fire up their Wii. About the only thing that an Apple TV would let them do would be stream their content from other computers which only contains a very small portion of their actual amount of content.
I'm not seeing the point of an Apple TV for most people, it doesn't solve any problems. If they really want to stream content the easiest way would be to just buy a cheap HTPC and set up their favorite media center on it, and then they could play DVDs/Blu-Rays/Netflix/YouTube/etc all from one device.
Content Playback: Ten years ago, it was.MPGs and.AVIs. Five years ago, a DiVX at sufficiently high resolution could drag a single-core CPU to the ground. You really think that Google TV's gonna be able to render 3D-mega-HD-whatever in 2015-2020?:)
And you really think your TV that is 1080p is going to support 4320p content when its released? So long as the GoogleTV box can play 1080p back on your 1080p TV its not going to matter if it can play 4320p or whatever content because the extra resolution would be lost because your TV is only capable of supporting 1080p.
I can only think of 3 games that used the N64 memory expansion: Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Yeah, that and StarCraft 64 were the only 4 games which required the expansion pack, however, when most people compile lists of what were considered to be the "best" N64 games, usually Perfect Dark or Majora's Mask makes it close to or the top game, so I'd consider that a success when compared to things like the 32x (can anyone even think of a 32x game without Googling a list of them? And even then how many of them were considered "classics" like Perfect Dark or Majora's Mask is considered today? My guess is none of them) and the like.
And yes, I wasn't really even thinking about the PS1 (by the time I got a PlayStation I figured that the Dual-Shock controllers were the standard since the beginning) but that did help the PS1.
Exactly, just about every single console has tried to do what Kinect is trying to do.
The Dreamcast had the Dreameye
The PS2 had the EyeToy
The PS3 has the PlayStation Eye
Even the 360 has the Xbox Live Vision
All of them failed to change gaming as we know it. Yeah, the EyeToy had a few games that made use of it, yeah, they were fun in a weird way but they were just tech demos.
We've been trying the camera + console combo for a decade and none of them have really changed gaming... at all. Perhaps Kinect will change that, but chances are, its just hype. I mean, has anyone ever -used- Kinect except for a few people? Plus, attempts to "revitalize" a console midway through its lifespan have historically failed, the only "success" would be the expansion pack for the N64 the rest (SegaCD, Sega 32x, etc.) have all spectacularly failed.
There is a lot of hype around "Project Natal"/Kinect but, outside of Microsoft and a few high-ranking members of the press has anyone ever actually -used- one of them?
I mean, what happens when this turns out to be the 360's version of the "Eye Toy" for the PS2?
...Such as? I can't think of a single notable book that wasn't released as a dead-tree book aside from a few books made to drum up interest for things like the Nook/Kindle but I wouldn't even call them notable.
Sure, but touch-screen devices suck for gaming no matter what you are running on them. Granted, tethering a Bluetooth controller like a Wii-Remote with a Classic Controller attached makes gaming downright awesome on both platforms.
And quite honestly, I'd rather play a good retro game than play any more of the iPhone's half-baked "games".
A) I can't run whatever I want on it, everything has to be "approved" by Apple
B) Applications essentially run in a "black-box" with Android I know what my apps have access to. If a soundboard wants to access the internet and my GPS location I'm not going to install it because it could track me and has no legitimate reason to.
C) Only one source for applications and no built-in ability to add in other repositories
D) Minimal customization out-of-box, to change something as basic as icons you have to edit the direct image file itself, etc.
On the other hand, if I was running something on Linux or Windows, I can run whatever I want on it, through things like packet sniffers and the like I can see what my applications are accessing, there are many sources for applications on both platforms and adding other repositories is as simple as typing into a dialog box. With both Windows and Linux you can customize to your desires. You can leave the stock OS how it is, or you can make it be radically different to suit your style.
An end-user will care when there are applications which Apple rejects that they can't find. A lot of my friends who were going to get the iPhone chose an Android device simply because Apple doesn't let you have emulators on their phones. While I myself think ChromeOS is a downgrade even for the pathetic excuse for an OS that is iOS, if it has apps that people want and can't get through Apple, it will have a fanbase.
But the iPad is not a true computer. Its not like their Macs but instead just a device like an iPod or Apple TV. You think that a company which basically said "Jailbreak your phone and we will come up with a software update to brick it" really is concerned about letting people decide what they can run on their iPad? There is a reason the iPad doesn't run a full operating system, Apple doesn't -want- people to use it, they simply want them to consume. Masquerading the iPad as a full computer helps them in their aims and that is to have people locked-in just like Microsoft does. There is a reason why you can't just hook an iPhone up to a computer and use it as a mass storage device like 99.999% of similarly capable phones, there is a reason why iP(o/a)ds can't play many standard, open codecs, there are reasons why you can't just sideload apps that aren't approved without jailbreaking. Apple wants people to install iTunes, use iTunes, buy things from the iTunes/App stores, and Apple makes a boatload off of things that they normally couldn't get a cut off of.
...Yet you trust a company which basically says "Hey, we might brick your phone just to spite you"
Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone's warranty.
The problem is, there's no practical reason for space travel. Yeah, its "cool" but it doesn't really accomplish much. Look at Apollo, yeah, it was pretty damn cool that we had an actual human walking on the fucking moon! But what did that really gain us other than a point for the US against the USSR? There really wasn't much -science- done or research.
Until either there is an imminent need to move to a different planet (nuclear war, etc) or an interesting thing that we can't just send a rover out to investigate, there just isn't any motivation to spend a lot of money in a manned space program.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly, the problem is though, we need agreements that governments won't interfere with private spaceflights which is what will probably happen. Already billions of dollars have been spent on spacecraft, R&D and research that is locked up in government hands and even though we, the taxpayers have paid for it, we can't access it.
If the government would simply let citizens use what they have paid for, I think we'd see private spaceflight soar to new levels.
But until we have a sane foreign policy that maintained lasting alliances without either sacrificing the sovereignty of the country or its citizens, I don't think that will happen because rather than use diplomatic means we want to attack anyone who might get a nuke in the unsustainable idea that no one is going to develop that technology independently so the US's citizens get harmed.
Um, having drove a 1988 Taurus for 5 years (2005 to now) I've only really spent about $2,500 in maintenance. The initial $1,000 was when I bought it for $500 I needed to fix it up (new brake pads, spark plugs, inspections, etc.) the rest was just everyday stuff like buying new oil, antifreeze, etc. I do think one of the belts broke but it was really only $100 in labor/parts.
In short, I've sank about $3,000 into a car that has lasted me for trips to work/around town for the past 5 years. So long as you have basic skills, maintenance doesn't cost as much as you think. While I don't think I'd take it if I was going on a cross-country trip, for short journeys it is more than worth it. Plus, insurance is pretty damn cheap on it and I can sell it for proportionally pretty similar to what I bought it for if need be, you can't say that about a new car.
You're conflating different issues. Game consoles - from all three manufacturers - don't allow unlicensed programs on the system because most of their revenue comes from licensing software. That's not unique to Sony, nor does it demonstrate a company policy of locking down platforms in other markets. If it did, Microsoft would not allow unlicensed applications on Windows. Sony's approach to its game consoles doesn't mean that it can't run an open OS on its smartphones. In fact, it already does - Sony Ericsson is selling a number of Sony Ericsson handsets.
And you assume that a PlayStation phone wouldn't be part of these lockdowns?
Microsoft is effectively in the same boat with Sony, and their phones have major lockdown issues in Windows Phone 7 especially in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Granted, I believe that you can sideload apps to Windows Phone 7 devices, but it still is a lot less open than say the Android Market.
You're taking the disabling of OtherOS and third party controllers out of context. Both were side effects of eliminating flaws that would allow the PS3 to run unsigned code,
Clearly! In order to stop people from driving drunk we should tear up the roadways!
OtherOS was a feature enabled by default which Sony disabled. I don't want my devices to suddenly lose features, and for a company to break third party devices deliberately is the epitome of low. If I buy a car with a CD player, I don't want to get into my car some morning only to find its been disabled, no matter what the reason. Especially if it is as BS of a reason as simply not letting people use the hardware they paid for.
(ie, if someone set up a Cydia for PlayStation Sony's revenues would collapse)
Right, because we all know how the Nintendo Wii is losing money left and right and Nintendo is making a loss... Oh wait, Nintendo is making insane amounts of money.
Yet right now I have the Hombrew Channel installed and essentially have a repository with all kinds of games and applications. By your logic because Nintendo doesn't release tons of updates to break it (they've released a few, but only every 6 months or so) Nintendo should have been driven into the ground and be losing money left and right, but that hasn't happened.
You make it sound like the point was to eliminate third party controllers and stop people running Linux, which is false. In fact, the PS3 came with USB ports and the OtherOS feature precisely in order to allow a wide variety of accessories to be supported and Linux to run.
I don't give a shit what the "intent" was, if the end result is that people can't use features they paid for, that is a company I'm not going to support in any way. And yes, Sony did lose a sale, I was seriously considering buying a PS3 to use as a game console/Blu-Ray player when the entire disabling of OtherOS came up so I'm not buying a PS3.
As for your other points, they were things that the entire industry moved to long before Sony decided to. The very fact that Sony kept pushing ATRAC and Memory Stick long after they were superseded shows their devotion to their own standards.
Something tells me that re-using an older car, even one with not that great of gas mileage is going to be more eco-friendly than making an all-new car, using lots of energy to build, lots of energy from workers commuting to work to build your car, lots of energy from people taking polluting jets across the country to work on R&D, etc.
Yes, eventually when these things hit the used market, they might have a net eco gain, but at that time it could make financial sense too.
I agree that Sony in the past has been obsessed with control of its platforms, but things are changing under Stringer.
I'm sorry but I don't see any change. For one, they disabled the OtherOS feature an out of the box feature for another they disabled third party controllers. Yes. Sony doesn't even want you to have your choice of controllers. For another they've been completely against the homebrew community and are trying their hardest to break rooted PS3s. All these things have happened within the past year.
Look, if I was referencing the rootkits from a few years ago, it would be easy to rationalize as that was Sony many years ago or that was a different department. But these developments aren't just from a few years ago, they've come as recently as two weeks ago.
Yes Google does. Do you think Google -wants- people to think their operating system is a piece of crap because Motorola/LG/HTC/etc. can't be bothered to release an update. Do you think Google -wants- people to be stuck on their last-gen version? Microsoft doesn't want people to use XP, Microsoft wants people to use Windows 7. Google doesn't want people to use Android 1.5 or 2.1, Google wants people to use Android 2.2 because it includes all the fixes for all of the problems that people have had with other versions.
The more open phones are, the better it is for Google because Google can release more apps and increase marketshare.
an inferior standard to HD-DVD,
Um, what? HD-DVD allowed for 30 GB dual layer at the same read speed as Blu-Ray while Blu-Ray allows for 50 GB dual layer.
While it could be argued that Blu-Ray has been more proprietary than HD-DVD was, I wouldn't call the practical specifications inferior.
No because Sony's stance clashes with Google's stance. Sony is all about control. Control. Control. Heck, Sony had a firmware update to break third party controllers not to mention Sony's recent moves of removing features.
Sony wants nothing more than control. Google wants open phones. The two clash in many ways.
For a small commute it makes a whole lot more sense to buy a simi-reliable cheap, used car. You can find decent ones for $1,000-$3,000 if you know what you are looking for. Lets assume that an all-electric Volt would cost $25,000 new. Now, you wouldn't have to pay for fuel with a Volt and lets say you won't have maintenance for 3 years. And lets say you find a 1988 Ford Taurus for $2,000. Now, lets say you've got a 9 mile commute, thats 18 miles round trip, at the car's 18 MPG city you are looking at, say $2.50 per day, that is $2737.50 in fuel costs for 3 years. Now, even assuming that you've got to pay $1,000 in maintenance costs, that is still a total cost of ownership of only $5737.50 for 3 years. Plus, assuming that it isn't in too bad of shape you can recoup about $1,000 or more of the costs if you sell the car after 3 years. If you'd do that with the Volt you'd end up losing far more than $5,737.
Because what happens when the "cloud" shuts down? What happens when your internet goes down and you can't even access what should be local files? What happens when the "cloud" has a major security breach and all of the files that normally wouldn't ever leave your company are now able to be downloaded to crackers everywhere?
Didn't the 90s (And early 2000s) teach us anything? If HTML isn't implemented in essentially the same way across all browsers the Internet will stagnant again and we will turn to cross-platform plugins like Flash to actually get stuff done.
Whos to say that $45 million can't develop it?
Its a private company so it doesn't have the waste that plague government programs, they've hired capable engineers and its all headed by a person with a clear vision of his idealized future.
Plus, Sir Richard Branson has millions of spare cash he can sink into a venture.
Football players have elevated self-worth and a large fanbase based on name only. Engineers don't. Plus, most engineers are "fun" motivated, most would jump at the chance to work with a private space company for, say, only $75K a year compared to $100K a year doing boring things like designing bridges and dams. On the other hand, NFL players demand more money to be on the more competitive teams.
No, for most people their video content would require jumping through a bunch of hoops.
A lot of people own a sizable collection of DVDs and last time I checked, you couldn't just rip a DVD to iTunes like you can a CD. Yes, you -can- rip a DVD into formats that iTunes can read and such, but we're talking about most people here, not people skilled with computers.
Heck, a lot of people still have a sizable collection of VHS movies.
I see no real reason for most people to buy an Apple TV because its just $100 to sit with all their other devices connected to the TV. If they have a Wii/Xbox/PS3 they already have Netflix, if they have a Wii they already have a browser with Flash to look at YouTube, the PS3 can play Blu-Rays and the Xbox can play (HD)DVDs (and if you installed homebrew on your Wii you can also watch DVDs on your Wii, but most people wouldn't have) so, for argument's sake lets just assume that most people own a Wii since it is the most popular game console.
If they want to watch a DVD, they have to put it in their DVD/Blu-Ray player, if they want to watch a VHS they have to put a VHS in their VHS player, if they want to use Netflix they just have to fire up their Wii. About the only thing that an Apple TV would let them do would be stream their content from other computers which only contains a very small portion of their actual amount of content.
I'm not seeing the point of an Apple TV for most people, it doesn't solve any problems. If they really want to stream content the easiest way would be to just buy a cheap HTPC and set up their favorite media center on it, and then they could play DVDs/Blu-Rays/Netflix/YouTube/etc all from one device.
Content Playback: Ten years ago, it was .MPGs and .AVIs. Five years ago, a DiVX at sufficiently high resolution could drag a single-core CPU to the ground. You really think that Google TV's gonna be able to render 3D-mega-HD-whatever in 2015-2020? :)
And you really think your TV that is 1080p is going to support 4320p content when its released? So long as the GoogleTV box can play 1080p back on your 1080p TV its not going to matter if it can play 4320p or whatever content because the extra resolution would be lost because your TV is only capable of supporting 1080p.
I can only think of 3 games that used the N64 memory expansion: Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Yeah, that and StarCraft 64 were the only 4 games which required the expansion pack, however, when most people compile lists of what were considered to be the "best" N64 games, usually Perfect Dark or Majora's Mask makes it close to or the top game, so I'd consider that a success when compared to things like the 32x (can anyone even think of a 32x game without Googling a list of them? And even then how many of them were considered "classics" like Perfect Dark or Majora's Mask is considered today? My guess is none of them) and the like.
And yes, I wasn't really even thinking about the PS1 (by the time I got a PlayStation I figured that the Dual-Shock controllers were the standard since the beginning) but that did help the PS1.
Exactly, just about every single console has tried to do what Kinect is trying to do.
The Dreamcast had the Dreameye
The PS2 had the EyeToy
The PS3 has the PlayStation Eye
Even the 360 has the Xbox Live Vision
All of them failed to change gaming as we know it. Yeah, the EyeToy had a few games that made use of it, yeah, they were fun in a weird way but they were just tech demos.
We've been trying the camera + console combo for a decade and none of them have really changed gaming... at all. Perhaps Kinect will change that, but chances are, its just hype. I mean, has anyone ever -used- Kinect except for a few people? Plus, attempts to "revitalize" a console midway through its lifespan have historically failed, the only "success" would be the expansion pack for the N64 the rest (SegaCD, Sega 32x, etc.) have all spectacularly failed.
There is a lot of hype around "Project Natal"/Kinect but, outside of Microsoft and a few high-ranking members of the press has anyone ever actually -used- one of them?
I mean, what happens when this turns out to be the 360's version of the "Eye Toy" for the PS2?
...Such as? I can't think of a single notable book that wasn't released as a dead-tree book aside from a few books made to drum up interest for things like the Nook/Kindle but I wouldn't even call them notable.
Sure, but touch-screen devices suck for gaming no matter what you are running on them. Granted, tethering a Bluetooth controller like a Wii-Remote with a Classic Controller attached makes gaming downright awesome on both platforms.
And quite honestly, I'd rather play a good retro game than play any more of the iPhone's half-baked "games".
Lets see here:
A) I can't run whatever I want on it, everything has to be "approved" by Apple
B) Applications essentially run in a "black-box" with Android I know what my apps have access to. If a soundboard wants to access the internet and my GPS location I'm not going to install it because it could track me and has no legitimate reason to.
C) Only one source for applications and no built-in ability to add in other repositories
D) Minimal customization out-of-box, to change something as basic as icons you have to edit the direct image file itself, etc.
On the other hand, if I was running something on Linux or Windows, I can run whatever I want on it, through things like packet sniffers and the like I can see what my applications are accessing, there are many sources for applications on both platforms and adding other repositories is as simple as typing into a dialog box. With both Windows and Linux you can customize to your desires. You can leave the stock OS how it is, or you can make it be radically different to suit your style.
Because most people aren't old enough to remember terminal clients, which is what ChromeOS essentially is. No native apps, etc.
If anything, Chrome OS is a downgrade from iOS.
An end-user will care when there are applications which Apple rejects that they can't find. A lot of my friends who were going to get the iPhone chose an Android device simply because Apple doesn't let you have emulators on their phones. While I myself think ChromeOS is a downgrade even for the pathetic excuse for an OS that is iOS, if it has apps that people want and can't get through Apple, it will have a fanbase.
But the iPad is not a true computer. Its not like their Macs but instead just a device like an iPod or Apple TV. You think that a company which basically said "Jailbreak your phone and we will come up with a software update to brick it" really is concerned about letting people decide what they can run on their iPad? There is a reason the iPad doesn't run a full operating system, Apple doesn't -want- people to use it, they simply want them to consume. Masquerading the iPad as a full computer helps them in their aims and that is to have people locked-in just like Microsoft does. There is a reason why you can't just hook an iPhone up to a computer and use it as a mass storage device like 99.999% of similarly capable phones, there is a reason why iP(o/a)ds can't play many standard, open codecs, there are reasons why you can't just sideload apps that aren't approved without jailbreaking. Apple wants people to install iTunes, use iTunes, buy things from the iTunes/App stores, and Apple makes a boatload off of things that they normally couldn't get a cut off of.
Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone's warranty.
The problem is, there's no practical reason for space travel. Yeah, its "cool" but it doesn't really accomplish much. Look at Apollo, yeah, it was pretty damn cool that we had an actual human walking on the fucking moon! But what did that really gain us other than a point for the US against the USSR? There really wasn't much -science- done or research.
Until either there is an imminent need to move to a different planet (nuclear war, etc) or an interesting thing that we can't just send a rover out to investigate, there just isn't any motivation to spend a lot of money in a manned space program.