I'm going to pay the $12.99 a month (in 6-month blocks) for World of Warcraft. I played for almost 6 months in the closed beta. I thought MMORPGs were sucky and expensive. Now I look back at how much time I spent and how much entertainment value was in that time.
What interests me is a thought I had. "Cancel cable to play WoW.". This lead into the idea of just downloading the shows I like from BitTorrent. Yes, it's illegal for now, but it's not always going to be.
I think we'll start to see more of a choice in what we consider entertainment. I'd rather have streaming "on-demand" shows at 99 cents per hour's viewing than paying $40 a month for cable.
If I watch an hour an evening (which I don't do, but let's just say) of TV, that's still only $30 a month, saving me money off my cable bill. Say I like 3 shows, each on once a week, add in a movie or two on the weekends. That's still under $20 a month for on-demand entertainment. Plus, I can watch it when I'm not playing WoW.
Yeah, a bit scatterbrained, I'll admit. But if I'm representative of the 18-49 demographic, then others must be having this desire/thought. The iTunes music store seems to be working, so where's my NBC TV shop? or my HBOnline? Keep your TiVo, especially with the new "ads while you skip ads" system. I'll pay for my content to get it commercial free.
As an experienced gamer, but one who's about to take my first plunge into the MMORPG realm, I think that a valid point is raised about the free trial being needed for MMORPGs.
With a normal HL2 or D3 type game, I know what my $50 is getting me. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to the game. When I shell out the same cash for a MMORPG, I'm basically getting a 1-month teaser, but then being asked to put forth more money to continue. It's like Gauntlet in the arcade, or a long distance phone call.
If not for being invited into the closed beta for World of Warcraft, I most certainly wouldn't be picking up the game next Tuesday.
I think if more MMORPGs offer a free trial, or invite more non MMORPGers into their beta tests, they'll end up with more paying customers in the long run.
But in a roundabout way. I'd been surfing while in Bangkok, Thailand on my PowerBook and had closed the lid.
3 days later, after trekking through northern Cambodia, and sitting in some shade at a temple in Angkor, I opened up the Powerbook and was able to see 3-day-old Slashdot headlines.
It was strange to be that close to technology at one of the most mystical and spiritual spots on earth.
What's geekier? I'd opened the PowerBook to make a blog entry.
I've been all over South-East Asia and spent a good deal of time in the backwoods of the countries of Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia.
The urban middle class lives DIFFERENTLY than we do. We live spread out, pack-ratting lives, because we're not confined by space to how much we own. Asian lives are very different, and it's almost like comparing apples to oranges.
My point was that in Rural areas, and even in smaller cities (200,000 and less) you'll find the masses of the poor. The big urban centers have jobs that pay enough to support a decent quality of living. Of course, it's not taking home $3000 a month, but for the cost of living, it's pretty good.
I wouldn't say that it's going to be explosive growth (as in Japan, where the iPod has more than 45% of the MP3 player market now), but it's definitely a growing economy, and a good one to get in on now, while the getting is good.
This report suggests that 80 million of China's 1.5 billion citizens live below the poverty line. I've read reports that the Chinese Middle Class extends to numbers equalling the population of the United States.
On a recent trip to China, I observed a LOT of technology-obsessed youth - the exact target market for new computers and iPods. And in a country where you don't usually have the expense of a car, flashy goods like the iPod go a long way to showing off your social standing.
Understand that your vision of poverty-stricken China holds true for a large expanse of rural China, the urban population in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong live a lot like the rest of us (albeit in slightly more cramped spaces).
In a society like that, where large purchases (houses and cars) are unusual, they're left with things like Rolexes and iPods to show off their wealth.
NTT is a surprisingly large company (now a group of companies), and the bureaucracy of such a company is staggeringly prohibitive to actually getting anything accomplished.
We tried launching Wireless access there in 2000 and 2001, and the endless meetings and forms were more than discouraging.
But the real answer to how NTT DoCoMo (a division of the monster) manages to turn around so fast is that their researchers work with cell researchers from KDDI, J-Phone (now Vodafone), and that other one who nobody uses (TUCA).
Where does all the funding for research come from? Well, in a country of now 135 million people, there are over 80 million cellular subscribers. A good portion of these are also cellular internet users, paying an extra 100 yen here, 100 yen there for different services.
There is a LOT more income on a monthly basis to Japanese cellular providers than there is in America, or anywhere else in the world.
The easy bottom line is that all this cash can be thrown at research, and that this research is further supported by companies like National/Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, etc who make the phones for Japan.
The average turn-around time in phone ownership in Japan is 9 months. Your $150 top-of-the-line video-camera/mp3/digital still camera/phone is made obsolete in that short span of time. The furthering of technology by DoCoMo/Vodaphone/etc allows the phone manufacturers to move more units.
The consumer gets new features at the same monthly price (more or less), a new phone to show off to friends, and better service.
The providers and hardware manufacturers rake in the cash.
The cycle supports itself, and it makes everyone happy.
These three "selling points" to me just stress how prone to failure this product can be. I read it as follows:
1. The water pressure sucks. 2. The thing is pain to put together 3. And the water will evaporate in a New York minute.
Guess the writer was given some heavy truth serum before he wrote this one up.
Read the article again, and you'll find that the author (this looks very much like it was Babelfished from Japanese source material BTW) makes those 3 statements about conventional cooling systems, not NEC's new laptop cooling system.
The cooling system made by NEC has a small, high-pressure pump, the tank, pump, and CPU attached areas are NOT inter-connected, and no large tank installation is required.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to pay the $12.99 a month (in 6-month blocks) for World of Warcraft. I played for almost 6 months in the closed beta. I thought MMORPGs were sucky and expensive. Now I look back at how much time I spent and how much entertainment value was in that time.
What interests me is a thought I had. "Cancel cable to play WoW.". This lead into the idea of just downloading the shows I like from BitTorrent. Yes, it's illegal for now, but it's not always going to be.
I think we'll start to see more of a choice in what we consider entertainment. I'd rather have streaming "on-demand" shows at 99 cents per hour's viewing than paying $40 a month for cable.
If I watch an hour an evening (which I don't do, but let's just say) of TV, that's still only $30 a month, saving me money off my cable bill. Say I like 3 shows, each on once a week, add in a movie or two on the weekends. That's still under $20 a month for on-demand entertainment. Plus, I can watch it when I'm not playing WoW.
Yeah, a bit scatterbrained, I'll admit. But if I'm representative of the 18-49 demographic, then others must be having this desire/thought. The iTunes music store seems to be working, so where's my NBC TV shop? or my HBOnline? Keep your TiVo, especially with the new "ads while you skip ads" system. I'll pay for my content to get it commercial free.
As an experienced gamer, but one who's about to take my first plunge into the MMORPG realm, I think that a valid point is raised about the free trial being needed for MMORPGs.
With a normal HL2 or D3 type game, I know what my $50 is getting me. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to the game. When I shell out the same cash for a MMORPG, I'm basically getting a 1-month teaser, but then being asked to put forth more money to continue. It's like Gauntlet in the arcade, or a long distance phone call.
If not for being invited into the closed beta for World of Warcraft, I most certainly wouldn't be picking up the game next Tuesday.
I think if more MMORPGs offer a free trial, or invite more non MMORPGers into their beta tests, they'll end up with more paying customers in the long run.
Didn't we create these "interactive stories" in the early 80's?
Those Choose Your Own Adventure and Which Way books were pretty darned popular in my grade school library.
Aww nuts.. my site comes up a LOT when people search for the Hello Kitty Vibrator.. I don't know why.. it was an OLD OLD story.. like 2000 old..
But in a roundabout way. I'd been surfing while in Bangkok, Thailand on my PowerBook and had closed the lid.
3 days later, after trekking through northern Cambodia, and sitting in some shade at a temple in Angkor, I opened up the Powerbook and was able to see 3-day-old Slashdot headlines.
It was strange to be that close to technology at one of the most mystical and spiritual spots on earth.
What's geekier? I'd opened the PowerBook to make a blog entry.
I've been all over South-East Asia and spent a good deal of time in the backwoods of the countries of Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia.
The urban middle class lives DIFFERENTLY than we do. We live spread out, pack-ratting lives, because we're not confined by space to how much we own. Asian lives are very different, and it's almost like comparing apples to oranges.
My point was that in Rural areas, and even in smaller cities (200,000 and less) you'll find the masses of the poor. The big urban centers have jobs that pay enough to support a decent quality of living. Of course, it's not taking home $3000 a month, but for the cost of living, it's pretty good.
I wouldn't say that it's going to be explosive growth (as in Japan, where the iPod has more than 45% of the MP3 player market now), but it's definitely a growing economy, and a good one to get in on now, while the getting is good.
Your numbers are a bit off.
This report suggests that 80 million of China's 1.5 billion citizens live below the poverty line. I've read reports that the Chinese Middle Class extends to numbers equalling the population of the United States.
On a recent trip to China, I observed a LOT of technology-obsessed youth - the exact target market for new computers and iPods. And in a country where you don't usually have the expense of a car, flashy goods like the iPod go a long way to showing off your social standing.
Understand that your vision of poverty-stricken China holds true for a large expanse of rural China, the urban population in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong live a lot like the rest of us (albeit in slightly more cramped spaces).
In a society like that, where large purchases (houses and cars) are unusual, they're left with things like Rolexes and iPods to show off their wealth.
NTT is a surprisingly large company (now a group of companies), and the bureaucracy of such a company is staggeringly prohibitive to actually getting anything accomplished.
We tried launching Wireless access there in 2000 and 2001, and the endless meetings and forms were more than discouraging.
But the real answer to how NTT DoCoMo (a division of the monster) manages to turn around so fast is that their researchers work with cell researchers from KDDI, J-Phone (now Vodafone), and that other one who nobody uses (TUCA).
Where does all the funding for research come from? Well, in a country of now 135 million people, there are over 80 million cellular subscribers. A good portion of these are also cellular internet users, paying an extra 100 yen here, 100 yen there for different services.
There is a LOT more income on a monthly basis to Japanese cellular providers than there is in America, or anywhere else in the world.
The easy bottom line is that all this cash can be thrown at research, and that this research is further supported by companies like National/Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, etc who make the phones for Japan.
The average turn-around time in phone ownership in Japan is 9 months. Your $150 top-of-the-line video-camera/mp3/digital still camera/phone is made obsolete in that short span of time. The furthering of technology by DoCoMo/Vodaphone/etc allows the phone manufacturers to move more units.
The consumer gets new features at the same monthly price (more or less), a new phone to show off to friends, and better service.
The providers and hardware manufacturers rake in the cash.
The cycle supports itself, and it makes everyone happy.
I have done this
1) Run OS X
2) Run Virtual PC with Win98
3) Run Apple IIe Emulator in that VPC Win98
4) Play Oregon Trail
Yes.. it's sad..
Read the article again, and you'll find that the author (this looks very much like it was Babelfished from Japanese source material BTW) makes those 3 statements about conventional cooling systems, not NEC's new laptop cooling system.
The cooling system made by NEC has a small, high-pressure pump, the tank, pump, and CPU attached areas are NOT inter-connected, and no large tank installation is required.