I agree to a large degree, but at least we can glean SOME info from this. I won't watch the commercial (it will probably be on the net within a 1/2 hour anyway). Here are the things I would watch for:
Crowd - Is it just a flat polygon? Sets of flat polygons? Undetailed models? Semi-detailed models? Is there dynamic detail (does it look better up close if the camera zooms in?)
Players - This is the one to look at. How good do they look? Recent games look quite good, but they could be better. The animation is the biggest problem here. While they may have motion captured realistic running, when you switch from running to jumping for the ball or something like that it is usually quite a noticeable transition. Did they get these smooth? Do the players look very detailed up close?
Misic - Footsteps in snow for all the players (bonus points if they don't dissapear after 20 steps or so)? Depth blur? Hear blur for hot days? Does the grass look like grass, or a green texture? Having actual grass when they zoom in on the ball or action instead of a green texture would be very cool.
I'm sure people who play these games on any regular basis (I'm not a sports person) could come up with more. Personally I'd like to see a GT4 killer. GT4 looks awesome, but it is still obvious it is a game. Take GT4, make it hi-def, ANTI-ALIAS IT, add damage to the cars, increase the background detail and you could have one FANTASTIC looking game.
Hopefully we'll see more screen shots and movies soon as we get closer to the launches (and the XBox 360 unveiling on the 12th).
And personal note to MS: Don't make a cool looking game like Malice this time, only to release it as a terrible "me too" game 3+ years later.
What can I say, I like it. I'm not saying that it's the answer to everything. And for the record I have written more than a few programs in it (one of which maintains my site for me). And I NEVER claimed I was an expert.
I know. I've been using it for a few months and really like it. That said, I wan't saying "Python is the answer to all your problems", I was saying "Maybe you should look at Python to see if it is worth looking into". I also suggested that they just stay with Java.
My post wasn't designed to give an answer, but a direction they might want to look in.
OK, I just watched your video, and I obviously missed the point (to a large degree).
First I'd like to say, VERY cool concept. Like sometihng out of a movie. That is awesome and looks like it would be so much fun to work on/play with.
OK, back to the topic. I still think that Python would be a good language. It has the usual features (object oriented, etc), it can be modified at runtime easily (loading/replacing code, a cool side effect of an interpreted language), and there are TONS of standard libraries (not unlike Java, only more) that would give you interfaces to the toolkit you use to draw (OpenGL perhaps?), and other things. Give it a look.
But awesome application. Now if you could just combine that with a 3D display it would be amazing. And think of the games you could play on something like that (something akin to Qix using your finger perhaps?) Or the "coffee break" game from Mario Paint, or xbill, the list goes on!
Why not set it up in Python? Python can be called from just about any language, and can call just about any language. There are Python bindings for Objective-C, the Win32 API, QT, and just about everything else.
I realize that this probably isn't the kind of thing you were expecting (I'm guessing you expected to get answers like "C++"), but I think it's a good idea.
But of the two languages that you have now, I would stick with Java simply because it is completely cross platform (plus just about everyone getting out of school now knows Java because it was so popular/"language of the future", where as many don't know (or have only had an introduction to instead of a large amount of work with) C#.
But the great thing about Python is you could use it as an itermediary between toolkits and such. Without changing your API, you could replace the Python code so that it used Win32 instead of Swing or QT without making your users learn something new. You want to change the back end from C++ to C or to something else, the interface and the way they call things stays EXACTLY the same.
Just a though, from a guy who has recently discovered and fell in love with Python. And things will only get better with Python 3.0!
This month's Linux Magazine has a review of a four port 3ware hardeware RAID5 controller that is (duh) supported under Linux. They gave it 5/5 Penguins.
Now the card is $440, which may be more than you are willing to spend, but that would solve your problem.
I can see that to a degree. "Volume up, volume up, volume up" or "next, next, next, next". But if the TV was smarter (or it integrated with your TiVo or something) then it could be very hany. If you use a TiVo, then you basically never use the channel up/down buttons (I don't). So the commands could be more like:
Play Friday's Law & Order
Play the oldest Cheers episode
Add a wishlist for "Stargate"
Record PBS at 5pm on Wendsday
Show me the to-do list
or... Play all episodes on the TiVo of shows directed by people who's last names start with the letter "R" that were NOT aired in the 80s in alphebetical order of guest stars' characters' first names. (OK, useless, but can you imagine how hard it would be to enter that in a UI with just a remote?).
Give the box some intelligence and it could be useful. But one word for each remote button on a standard TV would be painful.
Re:I would find this useful...
on
IRC On The PSP
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree, it's a pain.
That said, if you use this hack for the ZipIt Wireless device, you could use IRC, on Linux, for about $100, and it is wireless too. Cheaper than buying a PSP (but then again anyone who buys a PSP to run IRC through a hack in a game must not be poor).
Love my PSP, but I would have rather had a "normal" soft-keyboard (or even just press up/down to select the next/previous letter in the alphabet, left/right to select the next/previous blank). I don't know what they were thinking with that. Text input on cell phones only works because you have those twelve buttons. Without the twelve buttons, that becomes about the most anoying text input method I've seen.
Yeah, the Mario 64 thing didn't work at all, I ended up using the D-pad (which didn't work great either thanks to the momentum they put in).
As for Yoshi, I'm only up to about 3500m. My guess is reviewers played it for a while and then went on to the next game (as a consequence of their job) and so they didn't get to stick around long enough to really get into it. It's not a perfect game by any means, but it is a blast to play.
No, not really. I saw a page today that showed how to do it (hint: it involved a $30 adaptor made for a Erricson phone that looked terrible). The problem is that the PSP uses Memory Stick Duos while you have a normal Memory Stick (I assume). The normal memory sticks are about 33% longer so they won't work. Sorry.
Now if your camera uses a Memory Stick Duo, then you CAN use that. You can use the same Memory Stick for many things, the PSP keeps all it's stuff under a folder on the stick called "PSP" (origional, huh?). My mom has a 512MB stick she got for her DSC-T1 (the really thin square 5.1MP Sony camera) and I checked and it worked fine (I could even look at the photos on it).
In short:
MS Duos work in MS Duo slots
MS Duos work in MS slots (with an adaptor you get when you buy one, but not included with the PSP)
MS work in MS slots
MS Duos DO NOT WORK in MS slots (with the caveat listed above, check the other comments in this story and hackaday.com and you might find the info).
I got my PSP on launch day and have a few things to day about it. First it needs more games. And no matter what people say, I think it's safe to bet that the system will be BIG once more titles (like the announced GTA game, for example) come out. There are many A list titles that are supposed to come out in a while or be in development.
That said, I bought 3 games. Lumines, Wipeout, and Twisted Metal. Lumines is fantastic. It should be bundled with every PSP. It should be built into the firmware. It should be a required purchase for anyone. The game is so simple and yet so fun. Wipeout is fun (not that good at it right now once you get past the first two difficulty levels) and Twisted Metal isn't bad.
Now there are some games I would like to see on the system. I'd love to have a PaRappa or Amplitude to carry with me. The PSP should be able to run a game like Gish without any problem too.
As for the hardware it's self there are a few things to say. First is the screen is AMAZING. Absolutly amazing. I looked at the pack in copy of Spider Man 2 and I can definatly see my self using the PSP to watch movies on an airplane or something. It looks better than most (all?) portable DVD players that I've seen. The only problem is that the screen (actually the whole front of the unit) are very receptive to fingerprints/smudges and such. Just a minor thing. My only other hardware comments are the WiFi and the analog nub. The WiFi doesn't support WPA encryption, which suprises me. I hope they add it in a future update of the firmware. As for the analog nub, it is VERY hard to make small movements from center, and very easy to make larger movements like around the outside of it's range. In short doing things like pushing the stick a little bit (like in Mario 64 to tiptoe) would be very tough.
As for the other features, they intrigue me. The music playing is interesting, but I don't think I'll use it for that. Most of my music is in AAC (ripped it myself, so it's unprotected) so without being able to listen to that the feature doesn't hold much use to me. Being able to watch videos that I make (say download off the 'net and put them on there) looks quite nice (although the 32mb memory stick would obviously have to be replaced). I can't quite tell but it looks to me like it is possible to run programs off the memory stick. If that is true it would be great for the hacker community. I would love to be able to program the PSP. Even if they charged $50 or $100 for the dev kit. This would not be out of the question as Sony has done it twice in the past (the Net Yahorzee PS1 and the Linux Kit for the PS2).
Over all it is a solid little system and very fun. I didn't have problems with flying UMDs when the system got the littlest twitch, and the square button feels exactly like the others. The design flaws from the Japanese launch have defianatly been fixed.
The system has a good future if you ask me. Sony will put their might behind it (the gaming magazines this month are about half PSP ads from Sony). Great games should be comming, and there are good games out now (plus the amazing Lumines). It has a USB port and Sony is supposed to release stuff for that (a littke keyboard for typing in games, they could make a GPS module, other interesting stuff). It should have a good future.
Note that I also have a DS and I really like that too. I've been playing Yoshi's Touch and Go lately. That is a simplistic game that seems kind of boring at first but after a few plays it becomes very fun as you get the hang of the controlls. It is quite unique in that respect. The DS has a good future too, for what it's worth.
I've been browsing the internet more often on mobile devices and I can tell you, it just sucks. There is no other word for it.
I have both a Dell Axim x50v (480x640 Windows Mobile 2k3) and my cell phone (LG 325, tiny little screen). Most sites are a major pain to access.
There are a few that are good. My site looks fine (but it is VERY simplistic so that's to be expected). Some sites work to make things look good (Google, OSNews). Slashdot is unreadable on the phone (except in Palm mode which is terrible) and can be read on the PDA in "1 Column Mode" (which works pretty well with most sites). By try to visit any commercial site and you are out of luck. Dell, Maxtor, and most others I've tried (often who like to use one large image split into little images so their site looks like an interactive print ad) are almost completely unviewable. You know why surfing on phones hasn't taken off? Because back when it would have been feasable (simpler pages, years ago) the phones weren't available. Now that they are, sites are unviewable (except for the terrible little portal the phone company provides and one or two other sites specifically designed for phones). Combine that with the increasing prevelance of sites like I explained above and even worse... flash sites... and you just can't do much of anything. I'd call it a chicken and egg problem, but there are millions of eggs out there (the phones), but almost no chickens (sites).
CSS should be able to solve this (if done correctly), but that's not easy, most phones don't support CSS (don't think so, anyway), and most sites don't seem to use CSS (or at least don't have the stylesheets for phones/PDAs, only for normal browsers).
OSNews is actually a model site in this respect, IMHO. Go to their site in IE/FF/Netscape/Opera it looks just fine. Go to it on my phone, it looks different (simpler) but just fine (all the content is there). Go to it on my PDA and I get the desktop version, which (in 1 column view) looks just fine. Haven't checked the site in Lynx, but I wouldn't be suprised if it worked just fine.
Sites need to do a better job. With all the content management systes everyone seems to use (I even wrote my own for my site), you'd think they could come up with a way to make near text only pages with no columns for people on phones/PDAs/screenreaders/etc. Which is another point. I would think that the same things that make sites easier for phones and PDAs would also make them easier to use for the blind using screen readers.
But most places can't be bothered. Dell SOLD ME A PDA, and their site is a pain to access ON THAT SAME PDA. Shows how much most companies care.
PS: And god help you if you had to surf in anything less than 800x600 on a desktop these days. Same problem. Maybe that's the solution. Give everyone's phones 1024x768 and a jewler's loupe to view sites with.
Yep. A friend's boss (who controlled one of the largest cell accounts in town) had his signal get dropped on the way to work every day, which caused him problems. So he called them up and said "fix it or we change providers." They put up a cell tower, "just for him." If you control money, they'll fix it for you.
The problem is, you have to control money. They won't screw with "world's largest retailer", or if they are dumb enough to do it, they'll learn the lesson and from then on make sure their computers are nice to "world's largest retailer's" traffic. The problem is that when it's just grandma, they'll say "Hmm. That's too bad." or "We'll look into it" and nothing will ever happen.
PS: As a side note, I've heard of the new boom business for VoIP: telemarketers. No long distance to anywhere, and you could call from your call center in India to Seattle for the same price you'd pay if your call center was in Wala Wala. At least the national Do Not Call list works (for the most part).
"Your Honor, we could not be sure that the traffic in question was VoIP or some other protocall (BitTorrent, streaming video, etc). As such we can not in good concience mark that traffic as VoIP. If we did, we could falsely degrade the service of our paying customers we are under contract with; and pretty soon everyone would try to disguise their traffic to look like VoIP because of the prefered servicee. Therefor we are unable to mark any traffic except our own as VoIP."
The argument is simple enough. The fact is this kind of thing can only be controlled by making it illegal, and then monitoring things with random spot-checks and maybe continuous tests, handing out fines as neccessary.
They'd do it just like they monitor gasoline pumps to make sure they are fair (i.e., that the gallon you bought actually is a gallon). Make it illegal, and do random checks. If it is enough of a headache to try to fake out the system so you can cheat, most places won't bother.
In his newest article, he talks about the Burst.com settlement, but in the last 3 or 4 paragraphs he gets back to the topic of this story... including this little titdbit:
"And there are other dirty tricks available to broadband ISPs. Telecom New Zealand, for example, is reportedly planning to alter TCP packet interleaving to discourage VoIP. By bunching all voice packets in the first half of each second, half a second of dead air would be added to every conversation, changing latency in a way that would drive grandmothers everywhere back to their old phone companies."
All I had to do was turn off the DHCP server in the Airport Express and it worked great. I would assume it would work with static addresses to. But if you just want it for an extra access point or for music listening (and not as a router) it does work just fine. Really I've got about 5 things on my network that could serve as a DHCP server (everyone seems to include one on their gadget these days).
The Airport Express could care less who issued the DHCP packet as long as it works. You should be fine.
OK, I have some insider info. The following are just a FEW of the standards they will use to make life easier:
Processor(s)
RAM
TCP/IP
and more!
OK, in all seriousness, this sounds good. The PS2 had a hard time at the start of it's life cycle because it was tought to develop for since there were little in the way of libraries for it.
That said, I hope Sony pushes things like OpenGL (I guess they couldn't do Direct3D), SDL, OpenAL, and other such things. Truely open standards.
The number and (seeming) quality of PSP games seems to show that Sony learned its lesson, so it should be interesting to see how well they do (from a developer standpoint) with the PS3. I wonder if they went as far as to develop some basic game engines (a 3D platformer, a racer, a FPS, etc) that (when modified quite a bit) would produce good games but give developers a good launching pad. I doubt it, but that would probably be very good (especially for the little guys who, unlike EA, can't afford to put 100 guys and 12 months into just the engine).
On a side note, I think it would be very cool if they exposed the functionality to hackers more. Make it so you can load games into system memory and execute them so the homebrew people have something to play with, just cut them off from mass storage (no HD no CD/DVD) so you wouldn't be able to pirate things. Give people C++, a few libraries, and OpenGL and they could get some cool stuff (I know I'd love to try it). Basically a Net Yahorzee/PS2 Linux without having to buy special hardware (yeah, I bet I spelled that wrong). Plus if you give that to the tinkerer community, they have less of a reason to go figure out a way to force it to do that since it's provided (if they provide a functional version).
Yes, definatly. While I didn't seek out forms of music specifically, I would sometimes download other things from people's collections when I found they had something else I wanted. It was this way that I found a few of the bands that I listen to.
But more importantly, if I heard a song I liked and didn't know what it was, I could find out on the 'net and download it. But whenever I did that I would try to get other things by the artist to find out if I liked them. I bought more than a few of my CDs after finding music this way.
While the iTunes price isn't bad, it still discourages expirmatentation the way Napster and Kazaa used to let you. I think the idea of 5 or 10 cent music (as in that article that I think was posted here a day or two ago) would fix that problem for me. I think that would be about ideal without actually being free. Plus it would force the services to try to compete on a level other than price (the difference between 9 and 10 cents isn't a very good reason to switch services, so to get new people they'd have to have a better catalog, less DRM, better quality, whatever).
I got a Dell Axim x50v right before Christmas and I love the little thing to death. It's screen is amazing. Some parts of WM2003se aren't perfect, but overall it is a nice little device.
That said I am often frustrated by PocketIE. While it works (and rather well) the fact that you can't have more than one window open (no tabs) SERIOUSLY hampers me. I can't tell you how many times I'd like to open a link in a second window/tab to look at in a minute or load while I continue reading, or open a collection of 2/3 links to look at. But instead I have to choose one or the other and read that now. Then I have to remember how to get back to where I was to find the other links, and remember which links those were. I haven't browsed using a single window on any platform in at least 5 years, probably more. So this feels like a HUGE limitation to me and really cramps my browsing style.
Having not only a second option from Pockete IE, but one that might allow me tabs/windows would be fantastic. I will download it the second it's released.
OK, I just RTFA (yeah yeah) and I saw they are thinking about making a CDMA version. That'd be fantastic. That would open up the console more (betwen CDMA and GSM, you have most everyone with a cell phone in the US in your market) and gives you Sprint and Verizon (two of the biggest).
Now if they could just keep Sprint and Verizon from crippling it to death...
I've got to admit that sounds very tempting. Especially the Python (my current favorite language). Too bad I have to use Sprint (good service, terrible phones).
That said, I still can't see the thing as a game platform. I can see it as a geek toy, and I think they could have done better marketing it that way. But it will never be more much more than any other cellphone for games, I think. And I STILL don't get the portrait screen. Who decided on that? Square would be fine (the gameboy was square at ~160x160 pixels IIRC), 4:3 would be fine (that's what the GBA and DS are I think), and I can see the point of 16:9 (widescreen, like the PSP). But portrait? Portrait only seems good for three things: tennis, tetris, and galaxian. Maybe FPSes (on a phone???). But platformers are tough (not enough forward view, look at what they had to do for Sonic on the NGage), racers you don't get to see the road as wide, it just doesn't make sense to me.
If they change it at all internally (IE more than just cosmetics, even slightly) I'd like to see the screen fixed (like I said, square would be good) and it would be easy to put borders around the older games and it shouldn't be too hard to make software that works with or without the extra realestate (even if it doesn't play as well).
It just seems like they'll have a hard time making games that way (prove me wrong if you can, Nokia). That and price. No matter what you do it's still a cell-phone, and I don't want to pay $30+ for cellphone games (note I don't know what they cost). If most of them were more reasonable (say $10) I think they'd do better. And they could make more applications downloadable as an option if you have a large SD card (or whatever). That would be cool too.
OK, those are my thoughts. And I got through everything wihtout mentioning the Taco at all.... oops.
Last thing (sorry to reply to myself). If even little guys like Chronic Logic and many other "Indie" places can release a game that runs on Win/Lin/Mac, then WHY CAN'T MR. JUGGERNAUT EA do the same thing? That's right, they can, they just don't care.
A little forethought during planning and early development and it would be easy for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure people who play these games on any regular basis (I'm not a sports person) could come up with more. Personally I'd like to see a GT4 killer. GT4 looks awesome, but it is still obvious it is a game. Take GT4, make it hi-def, ANTI-ALIAS IT, add damage to the cars, increase the background detail and you could have one FANTASTIC looking game.
Hopefully we'll see more screen shots and movies soon as we get closer to the launches (and the XBox 360 unveiling on the 12th).
And personal note to MS: Don't make a cool looking game like Malice this time, only to release it as a terrible "me too" game 3+ years later.
What can I say, I like it. I'm not saying that it's the answer to everything. And for the record I have written more than a few programs in it (one of which maintains my site for me). And I NEVER claimed I was an expert.
My post wasn't designed to give an answer, but a direction they might want to look in.
First I'd like to say, VERY cool concept. Like sometihng out of a movie. That is awesome and looks like it would be so much fun to work on/play with.
OK, back to the topic. I still think that Python would be a good language. It has the usual features (object oriented, etc), it can be modified at runtime easily (loading/replacing code, a cool side effect of an interpreted language), and there are TONS of standard libraries (not unlike Java, only more) that would give you interfaces to the toolkit you use to draw (OpenGL perhaps?), and other things. Give it a look.
But awesome application. Now if you could just combine that with a 3D display it would be amazing. And think of the games you could play on something like that (something akin to Qix using your finger perhaps?) Or the "coffee break" game from Mario Paint, or xbill, the list goes on!
I realize that this probably isn't the kind of thing you were expecting (I'm guessing you expected to get answers like "C++"), but I think it's a good idea.
But of the two languages that you have now, I would stick with Java simply because it is completely cross platform (plus just about everyone getting out of school now knows Java because it was so popular/"language of the future", where as many don't know (or have only had an introduction to instead of a large amount of work with) C#.
But the great thing about Python is you could use it as an itermediary between toolkits and such. Without changing your API, you could replace the Python code so that it used Win32 instead of Swing or QT without making your users learn something new. You want to change the back end from C++ to C or to something else, the interface and the way they call things stays EXACTLY the same.
Just a though, from a guy who has recently discovered and fell in love with Python. And things will only get better with Python 3.0!
What a deal for multiple computer households. I can't wait. I just wish the free update for new Macs was retroactive to January's announcements.
This month's Linux Magazine has a review of a four port 3ware hardeware RAID5 controller that is (duh) supported under Linux. They gave it 5/5 Penguins.
Now the card is $440, which may be more than you are willing to spend, but that would solve your problem.
Give the box some intelligence and it could be useful. But one word for each remote button on a standard TV would be painful.
That said, if you use this hack for the ZipIt Wireless device, you could use IRC, on Linux, for about $100, and it is wireless too. Cheaper than buying a PSP (but then again anyone who buys a PSP to run IRC through a hack in a game must not be poor).
Love my PSP, but I would have rather had a "normal" soft-keyboard (or even just press up/down to select the next/previous letter in the alphabet, left/right to select the next/previous blank). I don't know what they were thinking with that. Text input on cell phones only works because you have those twelve buttons. Without the twelve buttons, that becomes about the most anoying text input method I've seen.
As for Yoshi, I'm only up to about 3500m. My guess is reviewers played it for a while and then went on to the next game (as a consequence of their job) and so they didn't get to stick around long enough to really get into it. It's not a perfect game by any means, but it is a blast to play.
Oops. Make that last point "MS DO NOT WORK IN MS Duo slots", I put them the wrong way. Sorry 'bout that.
Now if your camera uses a Memory Stick Duo, then you CAN use that. You can use the same Memory Stick for many things, the PSP keeps all it's stuff under a folder on the stick called "PSP" (origional, huh?). My mom has a 512MB stick she got for her DSC-T1 (the really thin square 5.1MP Sony camera) and I checked and it worked fine (I could even look at the photos on it).
In short:
Hope that helps.
I got my PSP on launch day and have a few things to day about it. First it needs more games. And no matter what people say, I think it's safe to bet that the system will be BIG once more titles (like the announced GTA game, for example) come out. There are many A list titles that are supposed to come out in a while or be in development.
That said, I bought 3 games. Lumines, Wipeout, and Twisted Metal. Lumines is fantastic. It should be bundled with every PSP. It should be built into the firmware. It should be a required purchase for anyone. The game is so simple and yet so fun. Wipeout is fun (not that good at it right now once you get past the first two difficulty levels) and Twisted Metal isn't bad.
Now there are some games I would like to see on the system. I'd love to have a PaRappa or Amplitude to carry with me. The PSP should be able to run a game like Gish without any problem too.
As for the hardware it's self there are a few things to say. First is the screen is AMAZING. Absolutly amazing. I looked at the pack in copy of Spider Man 2 and I can definatly see my self using the PSP to watch movies on an airplane or something. It looks better than most (all?) portable DVD players that I've seen. The only problem is that the screen (actually the whole front of the unit) are very receptive to fingerprints/smudges and such. Just a minor thing. My only other hardware comments are the WiFi and the analog nub. The WiFi doesn't support WPA encryption, which suprises me. I hope they add it in a future update of the firmware. As for the analog nub, it is VERY hard to make small movements from center, and very easy to make larger movements like around the outside of it's range. In short doing things like pushing the stick a little bit (like in Mario 64 to tiptoe) would be very tough.
As for the other features, they intrigue me. The music playing is interesting, but I don't think I'll use it for that. Most of my music is in AAC (ripped it myself, so it's unprotected) so without being able to listen to that the feature doesn't hold much use to me. Being able to watch videos that I make (say download off the 'net and put them on there) looks quite nice (although the 32mb memory stick would obviously have to be replaced). I can't quite tell but it looks to me like it is possible to run programs off the memory stick. If that is true it would be great for the hacker community. I would love to be able to program the PSP. Even if they charged $50 or $100 for the dev kit. This would not be out of the question as Sony has done it twice in the past (the Net Yahorzee PS1 and the Linux Kit for the PS2).
Over all it is a solid little system and very fun. I didn't have problems with flying UMDs when the system got the littlest twitch, and the square button feels exactly like the others. The design flaws from the Japanese launch have defianatly been fixed.
The system has a good future if you ask me. Sony will put their might behind it (the gaming magazines this month are about half PSP ads from Sony). Great games should be comming, and there are good games out now (plus the amazing Lumines). It has a USB port and Sony is supposed to release stuff for that (a littke keyboard for typing in games, they could make a GPS module, other interesting stuff). It should have a good future.
Note that I also have a DS and I really like that too. I've been playing Yoshi's Touch and Go lately. That is a simplistic game that seems kind of boring at first but after a few plays it becomes very fun as you get the hang of the controlls. It is quite unique in that respect. The DS has a good future too, for what it's worth.
I have both a Dell Axim x50v (480x640 Windows Mobile 2k3) and my cell phone (LG 325, tiny little screen). Most sites are a major pain to access.
There are a few that are good. My site looks fine (but it is VERY simplistic so that's to be expected). Some sites work to make things look good (Google, OSNews). Slashdot is unreadable on the phone (except in Palm mode which is terrible) and can be read on the PDA in "1 Column Mode" (which works pretty well with most sites). By try to visit any commercial site and you are out of luck. Dell, Maxtor, and most others I've tried (often who like to use one large image split into little images so their site looks like an interactive print ad) are almost completely unviewable. You know why surfing on phones hasn't taken off? Because back when it would have been feasable (simpler pages, years ago) the phones weren't available. Now that they are, sites are unviewable (except for the terrible little portal the phone company provides and one or two other sites specifically designed for phones). Combine that with the increasing prevelance of sites like I explained above and even worse... flash sites... and you just can't do much of anything. I'd call it a chicken and egg problem, but there are millions of eggs out there (the phones), but almost no chickens (sites).
CSS should be able to solve this (if done correctly), but that's not easy, most phones don't support CSS (don't think so, anyway), and most sites don't seem to use CSS (or at least don't have the stylesheets for phones/PDAs, only for normal browsers).
OSNews is actually a model site in this respect, IMHO. Go to their site in IE/FF/Netscape/Opera it looks just fine. Go to it on my phone, it looks different (simpler) but just fine (all the content is there). Go to it on my PDA and I get the desktop version, which (in 1 column view) looks just fine. Haven't checked the site in Lynx, but I wouldn't be suprised if it worked just fine.
Sites need to do a better job. With all the content management systes everyone seems to use (I even wrote my own for my site), you'd think they could come up with a way to make near text only pages with no columns for people on phones/PDAs/screenreaders/etc. Which is another point. I would think that the same things that make sites easier for phones and PDAs would also make them easier to use for the blind using screen readers.
But most places can't be bothered. Dell SOLD ME A PDA, and their site is a pain to access ON THAT SAME PDA. Shows how much most companies care.
PS: And god help you if you had to surf in anything less than 800x600 on a desktop these days. Same problem. Maybe that's the solution. Give everyone's phones 1024x768 and a jewler's loupe to view sites with.
The problem is, you have to control money. They won't screw with "world's largest retailer", or if they are dumb enough to do it, they'll learn the lesson and from then on make sure their computers are nice to "world's largest retailer's" traffic. The problem is that when it's just grandma, they'll say "Hmm. That's too bad." or "We'll look into it" and nothing will ever happen.
PS: As a side note, I've heard of the new boom business for VoIP: telemarketers. No long distance to anywhere, and you could call from your call center in India to Seattle for the same price you'd pay if your call center was in Wala Wala. At least the national Do Not Call list works (for the most part).
The argument is simple enough. The fact is this kind of thing can only be controlled by making it illegal, and then monitoring things with random spot-checks and maybe continuous tests, handing out fines as neccessary.
They'd do it just like they monitor gasoline pumps to make sure they are fair (i.e., that the gallon you bought actually is a gallon). Make it illegal, and do random checks. If it is enough of a headache to try to fake out the system so you can cheat, most places won't bother.
"And there are other dirty tricks available to broadband ISPs. Telecom New Zealand, for example, is reportedly planning to alter TCP packet interleaving to discourage VoIP. By bunching all voice packets in the first half of each second, half a second of dead air would be added to every conversation, changing latency in a way that would drive grandmothers everywhere back to their old phone companies."
(cable) -> cable modem -> Linksys BEFSR41 -> ethernet -> Airport Express -> Mac Laptop
All I had to do was turn off the DHCP server in the Airport Express and it worked great. I would assume it would work with static addresses to. But if you just want it for an extra access point or for music listening (and not as a router) it does work just fine. Really I've got about 5 things on my network that could serve as a DHCP server (everyone seems to include one on their gadget these days).
The Airport Express could care less who issued the DHCP packet as long as it works. You should be fine.
I just bought a new PB when they announced them at Macworld. Do you think they will extend the offer that far back (~2 months maybe?). Just wondering.
OK, in all seriousness, this sounds good. The PS2 had a hard time at the start of it's life cycle because it was tought to develop for since there were little in the way of libraries for it.
That said, I hope Sony pushes things like OpenGL (I guess they couldn't do Direct3D), SDL, OpenAL, and other such things. Truely open standards.
The number and (seeming) quality of PSP games seems to show that Sony learned its lesson, so it should be interesting to see how well they do (from a developer standpoint) with the PS3. I wonder if they went as far as to develop some basic game engines (a 3D platformer, a racer, a FPS, etc) that (when modified quite a bit) would produce good games but give developers a good launching pad. I doubt it, but that would probably be very good (especially for the little guys who, unlike EA, can't afford to put 100 guys and 12 months into just the engine).
On a side note, I think it would be very cool if they exposed the functionality to hackers more. Make it so you can load games into system memory and execute them so the homebrew people have something to play with, just cut them off from mass storage (no HD no CD/DVD) so you wouldn't be able to pirate things. Give people C++, a few libraries, and OpenGL and they could get some cool stuff (I know I'd love to try it). Basically a Net Yahorzee/PS2 Linux without having to buy special hardware (yeah, I bet I spelled that wrong). Plus if you give that to the tinkerer community, they have less of a reason to go figure out a way to force it to do that since it's provided (if they provide a functional version).
But more importantly, if I heard a song I liked and didn't know what it was, I could find out on the 'net and download it. But whenever I did that I would try to get other things by the artist to find out if I liked them. I bought more than a few of my CDs after finding music this way.
While the iTunes price isn't bad, it still discourages expirmatentation the way Napster and Kazaa used to let you. I think the idea of 5 or 10 cent music (as in that article that I think was posted here a day or two ago) would fix that problem for me. I think that would be about ideal without actually being free. Plus it would force the services to try to compete on a level other than price (the difference between 9 and 10 cents isn't a very good reason to switch services, so to get new people they'd have to have a better catalog, less DRM, better quality, whatever).
That said I am often frustrated by PocketIE. While it works (and rather well) the fact that you can't have more than one window open (no tabs) SERIOUSLY hampers me. I can't tell you how many times I'd like to open a link in a second window/tab to look at in a minute or load while I continue reading, or open a collection of 2/3 links to look at. But instead I have to choose one or the other and read that now. Then I have to remember how to get back to where I was to find the other links, and remember which links those were. I haven't browsed using a single window on any platform in at least 5 years, probably more. So this feels like a HUGE limitation to me and really cramps my browsing style.
Having not only a second option from Pockete IE, but one that might allow me tabs/windows would be fantastic. I will download it the second it's released.
Horray for MiniMo!
Now if they could just keep Sprint and Verizon from crippling it to death...
That said, I still can't see the thing as a game platform. I can see it as a geek toy, and I think they could have done better marketing it that way. But it will never be more much more than any other cellphone for games, I think. And I STILL don't get the portrait screen. Who decided on that? Square would be fine (the gameboy was square at ~160x160 pixels IIRC), 4:3 would be fine (that's what the GBA and DS are I think), and I can see the point of 16:9 (widescreen, like the PSP). But portrait? Portrait only seems good for three things: tennis, tetris, and galaxian. Maybe FPSes (on a phone???). But platformers are tough (not enough forward view, look at what they had to do for Sonic on the NGage), racers you don't get to see the road as wide, it just doesn't make sense to me.
If they change it at all internally (IE more than just cosmetics, even slightly) I'd like to see the screen fixed (like I said, square would be good) and it would be easy to put borders around the older games and it shouldn't be too hard to make software that works with or without the extra realestate (even if it doesn't play as well).
It just seems like they'll have a hard time making games that way (prove me wrong if you can, Nokia). That and price. No matter what you do it's still a cell-phone, and I don't want to pay $30+ for cellphone games (note I don't know what they cost). If most of them were more reasonable (say $10) I think they'd do better. And they could make more applications downloadable as an option if you have a large SD card (or whatever). That would be cool too.
OK, those are my thoughts. And I got through everything wihtout mentioning the Taco at all.... oops.
A little forethought during planning and early development and it would be easy for them.