I agree, tho the situation on this side of the pond seems to be shifting rather quickly away from any behemoth PVR provider. The most popular UK cousin of Tivo: Sky Plus, is quite popular over here, but is starting to pale in the face of the oncoming torrent [pun partially intended] of alternatives about:
*PVR PC. MythTV has improved in leaps and bounds, and even Windows MCE [I'm serious!] provides a rather capable PVR system.
*Off-the-shelf PVR. Lots of Freeview decoders avaiable now with hard disks for recording TV, although recordable DVD seems to be the more popular medium for the majority of consumers here. There's something about the physical format that is still appealing to many, it seems.
*Downloads. While official channels, such as ITMS have taken off in some parts, folk here can't actually use these, instead being generally restricted to less savoury RealOne streaming affairs which are, of course, horrible. Less-authorised downloads are rampant - offering something that no UK TV provider can: access to US shows almost immediately after showing in the States.
The usual lag of several months for shows to cross national borders is something that content providers may want to address sooner, rather than later, otherwise they may find their audience doing it for themselves, as it were.
the argument that source code is uncopyrightable, with some extensions could be applied to almost all, say, fiction stories since no one's written a truly new story in like five thousand years.
The idea is not what is protected under copyright, it is the work itself which is protected under copyright. Just because the idea implemented in a story (or computer program for that matter) has been done before, that does not mean that someones actual book, movie or videogame is somehow immune from copyright.
Patents, on the other hand... Well, let's not get started on patents...
It's all well and good complaining when the RIAA start doing things like this, and it's great to inform your friends, to donate to the EFF or contact your Representative (or MP), but if we still buy music from RIAA members, we are in danger of sending mixed signals.
There is a world of great music out there that is NOT published by RIAA members, including many independent labels that really support artists and treat them with more respect than industry heavy-hitters who - despite their protests to the contrary - really only care about their bottom-line.
Compare, for example, independent music retailers, such as bleep who allow unlimited backups (for your own personal use, of course) of their non-DRM MP3 files with today's announcement from on high by the RIAA to see that there really IS a viable alternative to the dominance of the RIAA/BPI and similar organisations - but it will only ever become a true success if we put our money where our mouths are and stop supporting the RIAA.
No. Judges aren't The Borg. One judge's opinion (and that's little-o opinion, not an opinion handed down) is hardly a watershed event
But this Judge's opinion is quite representative of the concerns of many in Europe. Remember that the EU software patent directive was rejected by a margin of over 600 votes.
If the concerns of people such as Sir Robin Jacob are well publicised, this can only help educate the public at large and inform the MEPs who vote on such matters.
I buy myself an Xbox (200$), PS2 (180$), and a GameCube (120$). That costs me $500. A GeForce 6800 GT costs the same amount
You don't need to spend $500 on the latest video card to play current games. You can get a more than capable video card for under $100.
We do have representatives from the real-time strategy crowd and the FPS crowd, but what of the musir rythm games, platformers, party games (Mario Party on a computer would be considerably more constrained!), J-RPGs, etc?
*Rhythm games - How about stepmania? *J-RPGs - Final Fantasy XI should keep you busy until Phantasy Star goes online. *Platformers - I recommend the excellent Psychonauts. *Party games - I wouldn't wish Mario Party on my worst enemy, but when my friends come over we sit down in front of the TV and play a few dozen rounds of Mashed.
I should mention I've never had to patch Super Mario Sunshine. When I bought it in 2002, it worked bug free!
Consoles certainly win out there, I hate patching. Although, if things aren't kept under control, we might see consoles slipping into patch fever.
game developers write for different CPUs and graphics APIs right now. the technical issue of writing for the mac is not the issue.
the real problem is more to do with the number of mac users, in particular the number who buy games for their mac. there aren't enough people on the platform buying games to warrant publishers to bankroll publication of most game titles.
making ports easier and cheaper for the mac is certainly a good thing, and may help publishers take the leap to the platform, but they're not going to publish the games if no one is there to buy them.
while this may seem like somewhat of a chicken/egg scenario, things can be done to get more games on the mac platform:
*buy games -- support existing mac titles (there are some good titles already out there!) *tell your friends -- you have lots of mac-owning friends, right? get them to play games too. *support the grassroots -- don't ignore independent studios! companies like pompom make great cross-platform games.
Mechanisms such as the WIPO and WTO are incredibly influential entities, and have already been able to leverage many governments to implement laws governing media, and other communications [see: DMCA, EUCD].
Most of this work is due to the lobbying from large multi-nationals, as it is their interests that are at stake. In the case of the Internet, it would be logical to assume that affected corporations will lobby the relevant organizations to ensure global enforcement of rules that benefit them.
It is sensible to expect then, that in lieu of any bold moves to stop it happening, a similar fate will befall the internet.
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia.
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the pointlessness of mindless complaining. One day a bird pooped on me on my way home from school. I cried because I had poop on me, and protested to my mother to pay some attention to my plight and how nasty the bird was for pooping on me. Her recommendation was to stop crying and go wash off the poop.
Taking existing laws such as libel, and trying to enforce them is a nightmare.
Laws vary from country to country. In this situation, you can try and coerce countries to abide to them in a method agreed by everyone as WIPO Copyright and the Geneva conventions do currently.
Of course like Copyright, and the Geneva conventions, people's interpretation of such agreements vary, as do their enforcement of these agreements.
Seriously, this is not "Funny". Check out Donna McClean from Bristol UK who HAS successfully patented herself and her entire genetic code
No, she *applied* for a patent, but it has not been granted. There is a vast gaping chasm between applying for a patent and actually being granted it.
In Europe you cannot patent genetic codes for people, animals or plants - at least not right now. The fear is that if large corporations manage to enforce bio-patents on the rest of the world via pressure from the WTO.
Worse: Sue said woman for more than she can ever possibly make under normal circumstances, breaking her family apart and probably separating her three kids.
Worst: Word of your lawsuit makes it to the Slashdot front page.
I suspect that Nintendo's argument is that they want to appeal not just to the predominantly teenage male "hardcore" market.
Rather than entering the hardware arms race of Microsoft and Nintendo to see who can create the most realistic, or at least visually impressive game experience, Nintendo seem to want a more modest aesthetic and rely more on interesting game designs. Whether or not that will work, who knows - but I do at least applaud their attempt at diversifying the game market.
Not everyone wants to play Need for Bling Underground Xtreme 2007, you know.
Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia) Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic) Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia) Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia) Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia) Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia) Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia) The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia) Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia) Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic) Amerie, Touch (Columbia) Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic) Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy) Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy) Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy) The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia) The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic) Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy) Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic) Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia)
1) Cause billions of dollars of damage in less than an hour's time and shut down an entire industry for days.
The destruction in NYC was paltry compared to the ongoing expenditure fighting the "war on terror".
2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
Sure, but the point being made by the previous poster was that their ability to do that is not especially strong, and the "intelligence" services are not exactly adept at preventing such things. Perhaps alternative measures may prove more useful in combating terrorism, rather than throwing away the liberty that so many have struggled to attain?
3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
It wasn't that bad, really. And the harshness of the clampdown was more due to paranoia from the government than anything else. Remember that the point of terrorism is to cause fear, and let the fear do the work.
4) Happen as the result of an accident
?
Also, please provide a source for your 400,000 dead in past four years statistic. Statistics I've found from 1998 say around 49,000 died in North America from car accidents that year. Sounds like you're pulling your numbers out of thin air.
The poster said in the last 10 years. According to your statistics, hey are acutally understating the figure somewhat.
Unless of course, you make encryption illegal, which would be difficult to do, because the privacy hounds would never let something like that happen.
You'd think so, eh?
Unfortunately in the UK the police already have powers to demand that you hand over your keys/passwords to any encrypted data. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill the UK government can demand that you to hand over your encryption keys to the police.
Laws like these are getting slipped through very easily, with little counter from the opposition parties. With all of the hype around "terror" there is an even stronger drive to give more and more power to the police - the privacy hounds, at least here, are too quiet a voice to halt laws such as RIP when more media-friendly laws such as smoking and fox hunting seem to dominate.:/
China are very flippant when it comes to the copyright of material from other nations, but in time they will fall in line as they will eventually want other nations to obey their copyright.
For a long time the United States freely duplicated materials that were under English copyright. Eventually, it became in their interest to put an end to the practice so that they may profit by selling their own works by asserting copyright.
I suspect that as China develops a slightly more outward-looking perspective it will in time do more to enforce copyright so that they too may benefit.
of course there will be re-tooling costs, but Mass. have obviously decided that the long-term gains are worth the immediate cost.
so many organizations maintain very old systems and constantly patch and tinker with them to within an inch of their life to save on creating a new system. sometimes this is a good idea, but often there comes a time when this is no longer a wise move.
with open source software reaching the stage it has, the balance between immediate cost and eventual payoff has obviously tipped for some people.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, tho the situation on this side of the pond seems to be shifting rather quickly away from any behemoth PVR provider. The most popular UK cousin of Tivo: Sky Plus, is quite popular over here, but is starting to pale in the face of the oncoming torrent [pun partially intended] of alternatives about:
*PVR PC. MythTV has improved in leaps and bounds, and even Windows MCE [I'm serious!] provides a rather capable PVR system.
*Off-the-shelf PVR. Lots of Freeview decoders avaiable now with hard disks for recording TV, although recordable DVD seems to be the more popular medium for the majority of consumers here. There's something about the physical format that is still appealing to many, it seems.
*Downloads. While official channels, such as ITMS have taken off in some parts, folk here can't actually use these, instead being generally restricted to less savoury RealOne streaming affairs which are, of course, horrible. Less-authorised downloads are rampant - offering something that no UK TV provider can: access to US shows almost immediately after showing in the States.
The usual lag of several months for shows to cross national borders is something that content providers may want to address sooner, rather than later, otherwise they may find their audience doing it for themselves, as it were.
To be fair, the claim by Apple that the Intel machines are "three times faster" isn't really comparing Apples with, err, Apples.
Compare the G4 1.4GHz mac mini with the Core Solo 1.5GHz machine and you'll notice that there isn't much of a difference in performance.
the argument that source code is uncopyrightable, with some extensions could be applied to almost all, say, fiction stories since no one's written a truly new story in like five thousand years.
The idea is not what is protected under copyright, it is the work itself which is protected under copyright. Just because the idea implemented in a story (or computer program for that matter) has been done before, that does not mean that someones actual book, movie or videogame is somehow immune from copyright.
Patents, on the other hand... Well, let's not get started on patents...
It's all well and good complaining when the RIAA start doing things like this, and it's great to inform your friends, to donate to the EFF or contact your Representative (or MP), but if we still buy music from RIAA members, we are in danger of sending mixed signals.
There is a world of great music out there that is NOT published by RIAA members, including many independent labels that really support artists and treat them with more respect than industry heavy-hitters who - despite their protests to the contrary - really only care about their bottom-line.
Compare, for example, independent music retailers, such as bleep who allow unlimited backups (for your own personal use, of course) of their non-DRM MP3 files with today's announcement from on high by the RIAA to see that there really IS a viable alternative to the dominance of the RIAA/BPI and similar organisations - but it will only ever become a true success if we put our money where our mouths are and stop supporting the RIAA.
from tfa: If consumers buy the PS3 as a multimedia machine, they might not purchase as many video games...
since the PSP also plays music and movies, fewer people are buying games designed for it. In the PS2's initial
year on the market, players bought more than three games for each machine that was shipped. For the PSP, that
ratio slipped to 2 to 1.
I suspect that the reason for this was not the fact that the PSP can play music and movies, but the fact that
(and I'm bracing for the karma burn here) the PSP simply hasn't released enough quality games.
Sure, there are some good titles, but nowhere near enough of the quality and variety needed to really push the
PSP platform.
As long as the PS3 manages to maintain a game catalog akin to that of the PS2, it should do well. Having a slew
of additional features should not harm sales, as long as the games are there in force.
Other than that, what is the point of running XP on a Mac/Intel box? To be cool?
So that we can play CounterStrike.
No. Judges aren't The Borg. One judge's opinion (and that's little-o opinion, not an opinion handed down) is hardly a watershed event
But this Judge's opinion is quite representative of the concerns of many in Europe. Remember that the EU software patent directive was rejected by a margin of over 600 votes.
If the concerns of people such as Sir Robin Jacob are well publicised, this can only help educate the public at large and inform the MEPs who vote on such matters.
I buy myself an Xbox (200$), PS2 (180$), and a GameCube (120$). That costs me $500. A GeForce 6800 GT costs the same amount
You don't need to spend $500 on the latest video card to play current games. You can get a more than capable video card for under $100.
We do have representatives from the real-time strategy crowd and the FPS crowd, but what of the musir rythm games, platformers, party games (Mario Party on a computer would be considerably more constrained!), J-RPGs, etc?
*Rhythm games - How about stepmania?
*J-RPGs - Final Fantasy XI should keep you busy until Phantasy Star goes online.
*Platformers - I recommend the excellent Psychonauts.
*Party games - I wouldn't wish Mario Party on my worst enemy, but when my friends come over we sit down in front of the TV and play a few dozen rounds of Mashed.
I should mention I've never had to patch Super Mario Sunshine. When I bought it in 2002, it worked bug free!
Consoles certainly win out there, I hate patching. Although, if things aren't kept under control, we might see consoles slipping into patch fever.
Le Sarge est dans l'arbre?
that's actually not the issue at all.
game developers write for different CPUs and graphics APIs right now. the technical issue of writing for the mac is not the issue.
the real problem is more to do with the number of mac users, in particular the number who buy games for their mac. there aren't enough people on the platform buying games to warrant publishers to bankroll publication of most game titles.
making ports easier and cheaper for the mac is certainly a good thing, and may help publishers take the leap to the platform, but they're not going to publish the games if no one is there to buy them.
while this may seem like somewhat of a chicken/egg scenario, things can be done to get more games on the mac platform:
*buy games -- support existing mac titles (there are some good titles already out there!)
*tell your friends -- you have lots of mac-owning friends, right? get them to play games too.
*support the grassroots -- don't ignore independent studios! companies like pompom make great cross-platform games.
The perfect partner to Portable OpenOffice might just be Portable Firefox.
This is very useful for me as I'm otherwise forced to use IE on the university computers. Neat.
I wonder if they surveyed any of the people affected by this rather substaintial, but as yet unresolved issue on many powerbooks?
Of course 'they' can, and probably will.
Mechanisms such as the WIPO and WTO are incredibly influential entities, and have already been able to leverage many governments to implement laws governing media, and other communications [see: DMCA, EUCD].
Most of this work is due to the lobbying from large multi-nationals, as it is their interests that are at stake. In the case of the Internet, it would be logical to assume that affected corporations will lobby the relevant organizations to ensure global enforcement of rules that benefit them.
It is sensible to expect then, that in lieu of any bold moves to stop it happening, a similar fate will befall the internet.
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia.
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the pointlessness of mindless complaining. One day a bird pooped on me on my way home from school. I cried because I had poop on me, and protested to my mother to pay some attention to my plight and how nasty the bird was for pooping on me. Her recommendation was to stop crying and go wash off the poop.
Taking existing laws such as libel, and trying to enforce them is a nightmare.
Laws vary from country to country. In this situation, you can try and coerce countries to abide to them in a method agreed by everyone as WIPO Copyright and the Geneva conventions do currently.
Of course like Copyright, and the Geneva conventions, people's interpretation of such agreements vary, as do their enforcement of these agreements.
Seriously, this is not "Funny". Check out Donna McClean from Bristol UK who HAS successfully patented herself and her entire genetic code
No, she *applied* for a patent, but it has not been granted. There is a vast gaping chasm between applying for a patent and actually being granted it.
In Europe you cannot patent genetic codes for people, animals or plants - at least not right now. The fear is that if large corporations manage to enforce bio-patents on the rest of the world via pressure from the WTO.
Bad: Woman rights remarks about your company.
Worse: Sue said woman for more than she can ever possibly make under normal circumstances, breaking her family apart and probably separating her three kids.
Worst: Word of your lawsuit makes it to the Slashdot front page.
I suspect that Nintendo's argument is that they want to appeal not just to the predominantly teenage male "hardcore" market.
Rather than entering the hardware arms race of Microsoft and Nintendo to see who can create the most realistic, or at least visually impressive game experience, Nintendo seem to want a more modest aesthetic and rely more on interesting game designs. Whether or not that will work, who knows - but I do at least applaud their attempt at diversifying the game market.
Not everyone wants to play Need for Bling Underground Xtreme 2007, you know.
Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia)
from the eff
Perhaps this DRM is your punishment for listening to Ricky Martin and Celine Dion?
1) Cause billions of dollars of damage in less than an hour's time and shut down an entire industry for days.
The destruction in NYC was paltry compared to the ongoing expenditure fighting the "war on terror".
2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
Sure, but the point being made by the previous poster was that their ability to do that is not especially strong, and the "intelligence" services are not exactly adept at preventing such things. Perhaps alternative measures may prove more useful in combating terrorism, rather than throwing away the liberty that so many have struggled to attain?
3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
It wasn't that bad, really. And the harshness of the clampdown was more due to paranoia from the government than anything else. Remember that the point of terrorism is to cause fear, and let the fear do the work.
4) Happen as the result of an accident
?
Also, please provide a source for your 400,000 dead in past four years statistic. Statistics I've found from 1998 say around 49,000 died in North America from car accidents that year. Sounds like you're pulling your numbers out of thin air.
The poster said in the last 10 years. According to your statistics, hey are acutally understating the figure somewhat.
There is a good review by Kieron Gillen at the not-so-corporate Eurogamer.
Unless of course, you make encryption illegal, which would be difficult to do, because the privacy hounds would never let something like that happen.
:/
You'd think so, eh?
Unfortunately in the UK the police already have powers to demand that you hand over your keys/passwords to any encrypted data. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill the UK government can demand that you to hand over your encryption keys to the police.
Laws like these are getting slipped through very easily, with little counter from the opposition parties. With all of the hype around "terror" there is an even stronger drive to give more and more power to the police - the privacy hounds, at least here, are too quiet a voice to halt laws such as RIP when more media-friendly laws such as smoking and fox hunting seem to dominate.
China are very flippant when it comes to the copyright of material from other nations, but in time they will fall in line as they will eventually want other nations to obey their copyright.
For a long time the United States freely duplicated materials that were under English copyright. Eventually, it became in their interest to put an end to the practice so that they may profit by selling their own works by asserting copyright.
I suspect that as China develops a slightly more outward-looking perspective it will in time do more to enforce copyright so that they too may benefit.
of course there will be re-tooling costs, but Mass. have obviously decided that the long-term gains are worth the immediate cost.
so many organizations maintain very old systems and constantly patch and tinker with them to within an inch of their life to save on creating a new system. sometimes this is a good idea, but often there comes a time when this is no longer a wise move.
with open source software reaching the stage it has, the balance between immediate cost and eventual payoff has obviously tipped for some people.
TFA mentioned the Uncanny Valley.