Their hands are so full... they had idle time to add DX10 compatibility?
From the gamer's perspective, the benefit of episodic gaming is to refocus on the content. The frustration comes from Valve paying lip-service to that idea, while still focused on the technology behind the content. Valve broke an implicit shift in priorities.
If the console versions were causing the delay, then they should have been delayed and the PC Episode 2 should've been on Steam months and months ago.
Not only that... but you only get the WGA install from Microsoft's proprietary binary windows update apps.
They already know everything they care to know about your machine at that point. It can't really spill any more of your private information. You just allowed them to do a full audit of your machine, for the express purpose of transmitting that information back.
When you see that WGA installation box, the update software just finished asking microsoft for the lastest drivers for each and every piece of hardware you have installed, any OS patches, MS software patches, the last client-scanning malware detection/removal tool, etc.
I thought we've long-since billed ourselves the Protectors of the Free World? Sounds to me like tracking those objects falls under the job description.
In any event, it's a hell of alot cheaper than our playing in the sand.
However, there are limits on how big the die can be and remain feasible for high volume manufacturing.
The limits aren't such a big deal. Quad-core processors are already rolling off the lines and user demand for them doesn't really exist. They could easily throw together a 2xCPU/1xGPU/1xDSP configuration at similar complexity. And the market would actually care about that chip.
Or more appropriately: How long until AMD starts releasing multi-core chips with multiple/mixed CPU/GPU cores, joined by an virtual inter-core HT bus, and all wired into main memory? (and optionally a bank of GDDR)
You don't think Apple would lose marketshare in a market it largely refined and dominated, simply because its expensive products are more attractive and superior in quality to cheaper alternatives?
Hmmmm.... this situation sounds vaguely familiar somehow...
Next line-refresh they'll definitely add a higher storage iphone (16g at least, hopefully closer to 30).
So they'll have room to rebrand a slightly-reduced form-factor 4gb miniphone, in various cute colors, as the entry-level device. hell, they might even float a 2gig miniphone depending on where flash prices are in 10 months.
But we shouldn't allow them to lock us into particular handsets - just because they don't want competition in that market. And we shouldn't allow them to block non-harmful forms of traffic they already support (data) for no reason other than they don't want competition from that market (VoIP).
The very existance of an 'end-game' is an admission that 99% of the preceding gameplay experience was tedious crap designed to waste your time. The end-game is the game that you would've gotten, if it wasn't acceptable to force tedium upon the user.
As you said: you're supposed to win. You're going to get to level eight-million and face down the Big Bad(tm).
So what's with all the damn rats? What the hell is that doing aside from wasting time?
We don't need to see a bunch of numbers increment to move a story along. We don't need to gain 'levels' to get a cool new sword or cool new spell. We don't need to kill rats then goblins then orcs then ogres, ad nauseum, to feel like we're getting closer to the Big Bad(tm).
It's OK to start off doing heroic crap. We're going to get there anyway.
So let's just skip to the part where we can't get more levels to make the next challenge easier, and focus on the fun stuff.
Honestly, if you take this opinion further, you can see that all patents are bad -- when it comes to the general populace.
That's still debatable.
Fortunately, this argument is much more straightforward than your more general one: Allowing preventable human suffering to continue in the name of corporate profits is bad.
Maybe it is worse for the general public if Toshiba is granted a limited monopoly on some fancy display technology, in exchange for publicly declaring exactly how it works. But at least no-one's going to die because of it.
So pardon me if I'm willing to remain conservative about making broad changes to all IP law, while still being progressive about having gene-patents revoked.
All this is fine when the customer uses the connection for light speed surfing, and for 3 or 4 hours a day - the telcos can absorb the end user expectations without any degradation of performance.
Clearly, you don't have Comcast.
Maybe they do a decent job elsewhere, but in SE Michigan 'Comcastic' was immediately coopted as a network slur.
"Sorry about the disconnects guys, my connection's 'comcastic' today"
Second, however, without knowing the details of the record labels' agreement with Apple to sell their music on the iTMS, there's no way to know if Apple CAN treat the indie labels music differently
A contract like that would be illegal, top to bottom. The big labels can't contractually obligate Apple to require DRM on other people's music. That'd land the RIAA right back in court for anticompetitive practices.
They could threaten to pull their distribution contract on the sly, but that would be awfully shady by itself. I wouldn't be surprised that Apple is bending to such 'off-the-books' demands and simply doesn't want to rock the lucrative boat. But it can't be a literal contract term.
The calls to license FairPlay are rather disingenuous and unfair I think
Why? Microsoft will already license PlaysForSure to anyone - Wal*Mart just launched their video service with it. And as far as the Zune's DRM goes... no-one's mentioning that worthless hunk of plastic and its ten users because they're a non-issue. We're just talking about Fairplay because it's 99% of the market.
If you wanted to broaden the call to all DRM to be licensed, I doubt anyone would change their position. CSS was digital DRM for DVDs, licensed to anyone. Sure, it sucked but so does PlaysforSure and Fairplay and the rest. They never work - proprietary or not - so there's no reason to avoid fair licensing as an interim solution.
Steve Jobs was right on. The simplest solution here is the best. DRM must die
Firstly, that's not even remotely what Jobs' said. He presented a hypothetical business case, where DRM would be removed from iTunes if the big labels asked. That's more like saying iTunes will be DRM-free 'when pigs fly'. His whole letter was a FUD defense against licensing Fairplay, and the bit about DRM-free utopia was his attempt to redirect ill-will toward the major labels.
Secondly, DRM dying is the best solution, but so long as the entrenched players (RIAA+Apple) are pushing DRM, the best we can do is call for an end to anticompetitive practices.
"For instance, your proposed solution has serious problems with false positives that would render it useless in practice."
As he literally described it, sure. But his concept sounds quite workable to me, even if the implementation is flawed.
Why not: . Run the output audio through the interpreter . any potential commands detected in the output go onto a 'watch list' for a second or two . if commands come in from the mic that match those on the 'watch list' - ignore them or optionally ask for confirmation
if the user isn't in the middle of a voice 'session' the computer could even squelch all the watch list matches automatically. A 'session' being determined easily enough as starting with a 'go' word and kept alive for X time after a successfully processed command.
E.g.
If the algorithm detects 'delete star dot star' in the outgoing audio stream, it would simply ignore (or require confirmation for) any detected 'delete star dot star' from the mic for the next second or so.
The big downside here, is running all outgoing audio through the speech filter. That may ultimately be more resource intensive than a true mathematical solution. However, it's a reasonable quick-n-easy hack that can be implemented today and is pushed off to under-utilized cores easily enough.
At any rate: potentially nasty voice commands (anything resulting in changes or deletions) should require password verification and all commands should have several levels of 'undo'.
Technology is neutral. If you're uneasy with how evil our leaders are becoming, it doesn't really matter whether they develop new technologies or not, does it?
"For one, Blu-Ray does provide a lot more breathing room for content on disks."
Breathing room that's largely irrelevant. The transfer speeds require just as much compression (if not more) and an increase in data duplication across the disk. Mix that with the high cost of content development this-gen -- publishers really don't want to pay for anything more than they have to.
Having 'space' is largely a non-issue. (FMV-addicted franchises notwithstanding)
90% of Sony's cock-ups are things the general gaming public never knew or cared about. What matters is that the PS3 costs $500-600 goddamm dollars, and gamers just aren't paying it. Blu-Ray is the boat anchor keeping the PS3 from leaving the dock.
Without the ill-conceived tech marriage to BDR, the PS3 would instantly become $200 cheaper and they would be flying off the shelves.
Slashdot Mirror
Their hands are so full... they had idle time to add DX10 compatibility?
From the gamer's perspective, the benefit of episodic gaming is to refocus on the content.
The frustration comes from Valve paying lip-service to that idea, while still focused on the technology behind the content. Valve broke an implicit shift in priorities.
If the console versions were causing the delay, then they should have been delayed and the PC Episode 2 should've been on Steam months and months ago.
It's not the maze, it's the Minotaur.
geocide is still probably pushing it, but genocide is right out.
You've never been to youtube, have you?
Dog the Bounty Hunter?
I'm surprised you haven't noticed that by now.
The reaction to the iPhone neatly mirrors the reaction to the iPod.
Not only that... but you only get the WGA install from Microsoft's proprietary binary windows update apps.
They already know everything they care to know about your machine at that point .
It can't really spill any more of your private information. You just allowed them to do a full audit of your machine, for the express purpose of transmitting that information back.
When you see that WGA installation box, the update software just finished asking microsoft for the lastest drivers for each and every piece of hardware you have installed, any OS patches, MS software patches, the last client-scanning malware detection/removal tool, etc.
I thought we've long-since billed ourselves the Protectors of the Free World?
Sounds to me like tracking those objects falls under the job description.
In any event, it's a hell of alot cheaper than our playing in the sand.
The limits aren't such a big deal.
Quad-core processors are already rolling off the lines and user demand for them doesn't really exist.
They could easily throw together a 2xCPU/1xGPU/1xDSP configuration at similar complexity.
And the market would actually care about that chip.
Or more appropriately:
How long until AMD starts releasing multi-core chips with multiple/mixed CPU/GPU cores, joined by an virtual inter-core HT bus, and all wired into main memory? (and optionally a bank of GDDR)
You don't think Apple would lose marketshare in a market it largely refined and dominated, simply because its expensive products are more attractive and superior in quality to cheaper alternatives?
Hmmmm.... this situation sounds vaguely familiar somehow...
Realistically, they don't have to strip anything.
Next line-refresh they'll definitely add a higher storage iphone (16g at least, hopefully closer to 30).
So they'll have room to rebrand a slightly-reduced form-factor 4gb miniphone, in various cute colors, as the entry-level device. hell, they might even float a 2gig miniphone depending on where flash prices are in 10 months.
Of course it shouldn't be free.
But we shouldn't allow them to lock us into particular handsets - just because they don't want competition in that market. And we shouldn't allow them to block non-harmful forms of traffic they already support (data) for no reason other than they don't want competition from that market (VoIP).
The very existance of an 'end-game' is an admission that 99% of the preceding gameplay experience was tedious crap designed to waste your time. The end-game is the game that you would've gotten, if it wasn't acceptable to force tedium upon the user.
As you said: you're supposed to win.
You're going to get to level eight-million and face down the Big Bad(tm).
So what's with all the damn rats?
What the hell is that doing aside from wasting time?
We don't need to see a bunch of numbers increment to move a story along.
We don't need to gain 'levels' to get a cool new sword or cool new spell.
We don't need to kill rats then goblins then orcs then ogres, ad nauseum, to feel like we're getting closer to the Big Bad(tm).
It's OK to start off doing heroic crap.
We're going to get there anyway.
So let's just skip to the part where we can't get more levels to make the next challenge easier, and focus on the fun stuff.
That's still debatable.
Fortunately, this argument is much more straightforward than your more general one:
Allowing preventable human suffering to continue in the name of corporate profits is bad.
Maybe it is worse for the general public if Toshiba is granted a limited monopoly on some fancy display technology, in exchange for publicly declaring exactly how it works. But at least no-one's going to die because of it.
So pardon me if I'm willing to remain conservative about making broad changes to all IP law, while still being progressive about having gene-patents revoked.
Clearly, you don't have Comcast.
Maybe they do a decent job elsewhere, but in SE Michigan 'Comcastic' was immediately coopted as a network slur.
"Sorry about the disconnects guys, my connection's 'comcastic' today"
They could threaten to pull their distribution contract on the sly, but that would be awfully shady by itself. I wouldn't be surprised that Apple is bending to such 'off-the-books' demands and simply doesn't want to rock the lucrative boat. But it can't be a literal contract term.Why? Microsoft will already license PlaysForSure to anyone - Wal*Mart just launched their video service with it.
And as far as the Zune's DRM goes... no-one's mentioning that worthless hunk of plastic and its ten users because they're a non-issue. We're just talking about Fairplay because it's 99% of the market.
If you wanted to broaden the call to all DRM to be licensed, I doubt anyone would change their position.
CSS was digital DRM for DVDs, licensed to anyone. Sure, it sucked but so does PlaysforSure and Fairplay and the rest. They never work - proprietary or not - so there's no reason to avoid fair licensing as an interim solution.Firstly, that's not even remotely what Jobs' said. He presented a hypothetical business case, where DRM would be removed from iTunes if the big labels asked. That's more like saying iTunes will be DRM-free 'when pigs fly'. His whole letter was a FUD defense against licensing Fairplay, and the bit about DRM-free utopia was his attempt to redirect ill-will toward the major labels.
Secondly, DRM dying is the best solution, but so long as the entrenched players (RIAA+Apple) are pushing DRM, the best we can do is call for an end to anticompetitive practices.
Not to mention that we should be looking at Apache-on-Windows vs Apache-on-Linux.
Why mix up the comparison of Linux/Windows with Apache/IIS with C/C++ if you don't have to?
An actual apples-to-apples comparison would be interesting.
... I still think it's a good idea.
The trick will be getting device makers to leverage it.
"For instance, your proposed solution has serious problems with false positives that would render it useless in practice."
As he literally described it, sure.
But his concept sounds quite workable to me, even if the implementation is flawed.
Why not:
. Run the output audio through the interpreter
. any potential commands detected in the output go onto a 'watch list' for a second or two
. if commands come in from the mic that match those on the 'watch list' - ignore them or optionally ask for confirmation
if the user isn't in the middle of a voice 'session' the computer could even squelch all the watch list matches automatically. A 'session' being determined easily enough as starting with a 'go' word and kept alive for X time after a successfully processed command.
E.g.
If the algorithm detects 'delete star dot star' in the outgoing audio stream, it would simply ignore (or require confirmation for) any detected 'delete star dot star' from the mic for the next second or so.
The big downside here, is running all outgoing audio through the speech filter. That may ultimately be more resource intensive than a true mathematical solution. However, it's a reasonable quick-n-easy hack that can be implemented today and is pushed off to under-utilized cores easily enough.
At any rate: potentially nasty voice commands (anything resulting in changes or deletions) should require password verification and all commands should have several levels of 'undo'.
Technology is neutral.
If you're uneasy with how evil our leaders are becoming, it doesn't really matter whether they develop new technologies or not, does it?
"For one, Blu-Ray does provide a lot more breathing room for content on disks."
Breathing room that's largely irrelevant. The transfer speeds require just as much compression (if not more) and an increase in data duplication across the disk. Mix that with the high cost of content development this-gen -- publishers really don't want to pay for anything more than they have to.
Having 'space' is largely a non-issue.
(FMV-addicted franchises notwithstanding)
90% of Sony's cock-ups are things the general gaming public never knew or cared about.
What matters is that the PS3 costs $500-600 goddamm dollars, and gamers just aren't paying it.
Blu-Ray is the boat anchor keeping the PS3 from leaving the dock.
Without the ill-conceived tech marriage to BDR, the PS3 would instantly become $200 cheaper and they would be flying off the shelves.
It was, the Wilderness, Arena and Palace were the planned sequels that never got made.
=/
not coincidentally, these guns will have a much larger heatsink available.
What, are these guys new to gaming?
How about Syndicate, or Magic Carpet, or Dungeon Keeper, or Theme hospital?
How about xcom? (a real sequel, thanks.)
How about Alternate Reality the Wilderness, or the Arena, or the Palace?