Fortunately, though, one of the guys in QA told me that part of the design process for the final case involved making it tough enough to survive the life of an average console. The final design has been crash-tested to survive a fall from 2m onto a hard surface. At Microsoft's R&D plant, there's a machine that's been dropping Xbox prototypes onto the floor 10 hours a day, seven days a week since September.
Whether that reasoning played more of a factor than straight up marketing is quite debatable.
Of course marketing is involved! MS sells the console at a loss and the recoup costs thru hardware and software royalties. This is how every other console company works.
Aside from this a console is based on the concept of fixed hardware. If you could plug in any old usb device you could possibly run into compatibility issues... this is not what a console is about! MS wants all the hardware ( and software ) QA to go thru them to ensure that people do not run into these problems. This is not a PC! Tom
Sounds funny to the average/.er till you realize that ctrl+c, ctrl+k (u or t), and ctrl+p would be two handed operations for most people in this right handed world. Humm i wonder why the decided on x, c, and v... that's weird... they all seem to be within easy one-handed reaching distance from the ctrl key. Hummm... and they're all next to each other... duh. Tom
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage." Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up.
Please... GET IT THRU YOUR THICK SKULL! 90% of windows APIs are freely avalible on msdn.microsoft.com.... the source that implements those APIs is not freely avalible. Contrary to what most penguin dicks lead you to believe, you don't need the source code to the implementation of those APIs to write windows apps. Sheesh!
It's a well known fact that Microsoft's applications call undocumented functions in Windows. And were you asleep during the whole Kerberos fiasco?
Oh yes... those secret MakeMicrosoftProductsBetter APIs.
BTW, since msdn.microsoft.com is so useful, tell me where I can find the spec for the CAB file format. And I don't mean source code that can only ever compile on Windows because it calls special CAB-generating Win32 functions, unless you can tell me where the exact operation of said functions is documented precisely enough that one could reimplement them on a non-Windows platform.
http://www.wotsit.org/download.asp?f=cab
It's windows source but there are no Win32 APIs required.
"[9] This compliance provision is also contained in the undertaking that IBM entered into with the European Commission in 1984. See Undertaking given by IBM, Appendix B, 6, Bulletin of the European Communities, Vol. 17, No. 10 at 102 (1984). If the government believes what it says about the small risk to Microsoft of having its source code studied by competitors under the conditions specified, then the government should have no objection to giving Microsoft the reciprocal right to inspect the source code of competitors' products under the same conditions to confirm that they are not using Microsoft's source code for an improper purpose. Absent such inspection, it would be effectively impossible for Microsoft to determine whether competitors that had access to Microsoft's source code had misappropriated Microsoft's programming methods for use in their own products."
This basicly says if our competitors' get to look at our source code... we get to look at theirs. That insures that neither are stealing from each other. Duh! What's the big deal with that? Too much for you fools to understand?
> The other disturbing trend is the > power consumption is getting much > worse. Whatever happened to the > "faster, smaller, less power" > mantra? The Voodoo 5, for example, > needs to have a hard drive power > cable plugged into it. The GeForce > 2 is in the same ballpark, if not > worse. I agree that the need for an external power supply on the Voodoo5 is absolutely ridiculous, but your assertion that the GeForce 2 is "in the same ballpark, if not worse" is completely false. The GeForce2 does not need external power at all, it totally runs off the mobo. Tom
The problem is that many Microsoft programs (such as Windows, MSIE, Office, etc.) blindly trust certain kinds of ActiveX controls, allowing them to install and run, without prompting, even if you have ActiveX "disabled" in MSIE.
Uhhh... i'm not sure what your running, but i've never seen any ActiveX control install itself on it's own. By default it asks the user for permission before installing the ActiveX component. It only installs automatically if you tell it to always trust controls from the author or if you disable the security. Either way you made the choice just like downloading and installing any software. Someone moderate this guy down before he spreads more FUD. =) Tom
If the OS company was forced to open its API specs, the next version of WINE would be able to run the Windows-native Office.
Oh yes. That ever so hidden "void MakeOfficeRunFaster()" call that no one can seem to find. People confuse the magic of an HWND with "hidden APIs", those abstractions are there to allow the OS to change it's implementation without breaking the thousands of applications written for it. The WINE project has had issues with the API documentation that Microsoft does provide. The bad documentation of some windows APIs is because their documentation guys are not programmers and not any API conspiracy on their part.
Either way, portability would be assured and the OS becomes less and less relevant.
I'm sorry to bust your little bubble, but a 90% market share OS will not disappear overnight. Remember we still have people running Win 3.11! Linux is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being ready to take the place of Windows, it has much maturing to do still. I'm sure one day that Linux will be an competitive os to Windows, just not yet.
I would have to say that servers are most secure to this kind of key retrieval method. They seem to fail mentioning that you must first break into the system before you can search for the key. Well duhhh... if this guy has already hacked into your server your screwed. I would think that someone that helped to create RSA would be bright enough to realize that one out so i'm sure that it's the fault of zdnet's crack reporting team. I would be more concerned with software that keeps the decryption key on your local system like www.timelock.com or www.softlocx.com. Really all this does is remind people that randomness is a recognizable pattern and using a sentence is a better choice for a key.
Slashdot Mirror
This should take care of most cases....
Fortunately, though, one of the guys in QA told me that part of the design process for the final case involved making it tough enough to survive the life of an average console. The final design has been crash-tested to survive a fall from 2m onto a hard surface. At Microsoft's R&D plant, there's a machine that's been dropping Xbox prototypes onto the floor 10 hours a day, seven days a week since September.
Whether that reasoning played more of a factor than straight up marketing is quite debatable.
Of course marketing is involved! MS sells the console at a loss and the recoup costs thru hardware and software royalties. This is how every other console company works.
Aside from this a console is based on the concept of fixed hardware. If you could plug in any old usb device you could possibly run into compatibility issues... this is not what a console is about! MS wants all the hardware ( and software ) QA to go thru them to ensure that people do not run into these problems. This is not a PC! Tom
looking for artwork. We want your ideas
for startup/shudown and off screens.
Oh yea... this sounds like a successful project to me.
> Copy: ctrl+c Cut: ctrl+x Paste: ctrl+v I :)
/.er till you realize that ctrl+c, ctrl+k (u or t), and ctrl+p would be two handed operations for most people in this right handed world. Humm i wonder why the decided on x, c, and v... that's weird... they all seem to be within easy one-handed reaching distance from the ctrl key. Hummm... and they're all next to each other... duh. Tom
> always liked those
Sounds funny to the average
"Children who torture flies grow up to torture dogs, and later, people."
I tortured flies and grasshoppers as a child an have yet to torture dogs or people. Insects are very different from people and household pets you see.
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage." Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up.
Please... GET IT THRU YOUR THICK SKULL! 90% of windows APIs are freely avalible on msdn.microsoft.com.... the source that implements those APIs is not freely avalible. Contrary to what most penguin dicks lead you to believe, you don't need the source code to the implementation of those APIs to write windows apps. Sheesh!
It's a well known fact that Microsoft's applications call undocumented functions in Windows. And were you asleep during the whole Kerberos fiasco?
Oh yes... those secret MakeMicrosoftProductsBetter APIs.
BTW, since msdn.microsoft.com is so useful, tell me where I can find the spec for the CAB file format. And I don't mean source code that can only ever compile on Windows because it calls special CAB-generating Win32 functions, unless you can tell me where the exact operation of said functions is documented precisely enough that one could reimplement them on a non-Windows platform.
http://www.wotsit.org/download.asp?f=cab
It's windows source but there are no Win32 APIs required.
"[9] This compliance provision is also contained in the undertaking that IBM entered into with the European Commission in 1984. See Undertaking given by IBM, Appendix B, 6, Bulletin of the European Communities, Vol. 17, No. 10 at 102 (1984). If the government believes what it says about the small risk to Microsoft of having its source code studied by competitors under the conditions specified, then the government should have no objection to giving Microsoft the reciprocal right to inspect the source code of competitors' products under the same conditions to confirm that they are not using Microsoft's source code for an improper purpose. Absent such inspection, it would be effectively impossible for Microsoft to determine whether competitors that had access to Microsoft's source code had misappropriated Microsoft's programming methods for use in their own products."
This basicly says if our competitors' get to look at our source code... we get to look at theirs. That insures that neither are stealing from each other. Duh! What's the big deal with that? Too much for you fools to understand?
> The other disturbing trend is the > power consumption is getting much > worse. Whatever happened to the > "faster, smaller, less power" > mantra? The Voodoo 5, for example, > needs to have a hard drive power > cable plugged into it. The GeForce > 2 is in the same ballpark, if not > worse. I agree that the need for an external power supply on the Voodoo5 is absolutely ridiculous, but your assertion that the GeForce 2 is "in the same ballpark, if not worse" is completely false. The GeForce2 does not need external power at all, it totally runs off the mobo. Tom
Uhhh... i'm not sure what your running, but i've never seen any ActiveX control install itself on it's own. By default it asks the user for permission before installing the ActiveX component. It only installs automatically if you tell it to always trust controls from the author or if you disable the security. Either way you made the choice just like downloading and installing any software. Someone moderate this guy down before he spreads more FUD. =) Tom
If the OS company was forced to open its API specs, the next version of WINE would be able to run the Windows-native Office.
Oh yes. That ever so hidden "void MakeOfficeRunFaster()" call that no one can seem to find. People confuse the magic of an HWND with "hidden APIs", those abstractions are there to allow the OS to change it's implementation without breaking the thousands of applications written for it. The WINE project has had issues with the API documentation that Microsoft does provide. The bad documentation of some windows APIs is because their documentation guys are not programmers and not any API conspiracy on their part.
Either way, portability would be assured and the OS becomes less and less relevant.
I'm sorry to bust your little bubble, but a 90% market share OS will not disappear overnight. Remember we still have people running Win 3.11! Linux is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being ready to take the place of Windows, it has much maturing to do still. I'm sure one day that Linux will be an competitive os to Windows, just not yet.
I would have to say that servers are most secure to this kind of key retrieval method. They seem to fail mentioning that you must first break into the system before you can search for the key. Well duhhh... if this guy has already hacked into your server your screwed. I would think that someone that helped to create RSA would be bright enough to realize that one out so i'm sure that it's the fault of zdnet's crack reporting team. I would be more concerned with software that keeps the decryption key on your local system like www.timelock.com or www.softlocx.com. Really all this does is remind people that randomness is a recognizable pattern and using a sentence is a better choice for a key.