Understand the objection to DRM, but what's the objection to DLC?
In reality, the number of games I've bought that I like enough to want to play months later is relatively low. The ability to eek more functionality out of them by buying add-ons is a plus... isn't it? Or am I missing something?
Or is this about the Democratic Leadership Committee, not Downloadable L. Content?
If I understand you correctly, they don't want to provide a locked down Android because that means they'd have to create their own app store, so they want to go with Tizen and provide their own app store with it.
The proxy server can check the receipts, IP addresses and other things. The server might do something like notice if the same receipt was coming from different IP addresses and take appropriate action.
Which is a great way to break things. I have two tablets, one regular phone, and one back-up phone (albeit I haven't used the latter in a long time.) Google Play (and the Amazon app store) do not require I buy the same software four times to use it on all four devices. They tie the information to an account, and as long as the account is valid on all four devices (and I can have multiple accounts on one device) the software will be delivered correctly.
And my understanding is that iOS does the same thing, which means the three major app stores (Google, Amazon, and Apple) implement this behavior, it's what people are used to, and it's what we want.
If any attempt is made by this infrastructure to tie receipts to a single device, rather than single identity, then it's screwed from the start. People wipe and/or replace their devices on a regular basis, they buy tablets to go with their phones, they don't want to buy multiple copies of their software every time they use a "new" device.
Probably not given that article is from 2011 and Chromebooks have taken off since then.
Don't ask me why they've taken off, I have no idea, I don't see the attraction either, but taken off they have. A Chromebook is frequently the best selling computer on Amazon these days.
From memory, the R101 disaster was caused by structural failures (in turn caused by poor design decisions in turn caused by political problems with the project.) R101 didn't catch fire until after it crashed. Had it been a plane with the same problems, the same thing would have happened, except there'd have been no survivors from a plane crashing into the ground at standard cruise speeds.
Further I don't think one can reasonably travel across the Atlantic in a 747 pumped full of jet fuel, and then, on reaching the other side, complain that hydrogen lifted airships are a bad thing because they might catch fire, especially as the Hindenberg experience, if anything, proved hydrogen's relative safety - a plane catching fire at the same height would not have had anything like the same survival rate.
The problems with 1930s airships are mostly to do with the difficulty at that time of creating a massive, skyscraper sized, object that was also lightweight and able to move at speeds of up to 100mph. Hydrogen? Outside of its corrosive properties, that had to be handled and probably weren't to the degree needed, it was never the major problem.
Thank you for not giving a single example of a piece of legitimate software being replaced by a piece of malware from the same company via Google Play.
I'm impressed by your inclusion of the first one actually: not only is it not an example of the type of thing we're talking about, but it's not even installable via Google Play. One might almost think that you simply googled for "Google Play malware" and pasted the first four stories, without actually checking to see if they're relevent.
win8 sucks badly because a) they force a specific UI on their users, which an OS has no business doing
Since when has it been the case that an operating system shouldn't implement ("force"? srsly?) a specific GUI?
Are you pining for the days when you could switch between GEM and Windows 1.0 (tiles, yay!), or do you think the fact Ubuntu comes with multiple desktop managers means that it's entirely different to Windows 8 which comes with, ah, two UIs?
Doesn't happen under Android, why would it happen under Windows? I'd assume that whether Microsoft examines every binary or not, they'd require anyone using the feature agree to a set of terms and conditions (with penalties for non-compliance) anyway.
I didn't say it sucked, I said it has been widely panned (based upon user reviews) since it came out. That's objectively true. Whether it's fair or not I can't judge, I don't have the OS and don't plan to upgrade to it in the immediate future.
No. Most of those versions of Windows were not hated "when they came out".
Win 3.1 was massively groundbreaking at the time, a huge improvement on 3.0, itself the first version of Windows to be taken seriously. People started to seriously dislike it as time went by, with its major memory problems, and as systems that had superior UIs but inferior featuresets (such as Mac OS) started to catch up, but at the time it was launched? It was loved.
95, ditto.
98? I thought it was meh, and by that point the Microsoft vs Netscape war was on, with Linux starting to get taken seriously. Still, people who liked Windows liked it.
Me? Yes. That one you're correct about, people hated it when it came out.
2000? No, that was widely loved. XP? Mixed reception, as it was the first consumer version of NT (good), but also introduced everything from the ugliest UI since Windows 3.1 to "Product activation".
Vista. Yes, That one you're correct about. But that was based upon user reviews. (Personally I didn't think Vista was that awful, but...)
7? No. Widespread rejoicing as almost everything that was wrong about XP was fixed. There were even die-hard GNU/Linux users who were willing to run it. Even I like 7.
8? Yes. That one you're correct about. But that's based upon user reviews.
So, basically, out of the eight versions of Windows you mention, three were panned "When they came out", three were widely praised, and two had mixed verdicts. Even on Slashdot.
The PSP didn't sell well. Sony has had to re-invent it a number of times because it was a flop. "Has a successor?" - no, Sony has tried multiple times to enter the market, and largely failed.
I don't even know what the latest gen PSP looks like. I haven't seen it in any stores. Oh, I'm sure it's in some of the stores I've been to, but certainly the store selling it knows it's not worth promoting. The 3DS, by comparison, seems to be pretty much everywhere.
Not sure it's mismanaged so much as "decided to suddenly stop for no apparent reason" - the CEO at the time wanting to turn HP into a software/services company. In that light, it's not immediately obvious what LG could do with it that would make things right.
There's also something else you should consider. Back in the mid-nineties, a company called Gateway bought the assets of a bankrupt Commodore, making fans of the Amiga temporarily very excited thinking that a major PC maker was about to rescue the most innovative personal computer platform. Gateway was doing well, the Amiga's problem was mismanagement, and finally, thought many people, the Amiga might stand a chance of returning to its former glories and lead position.
Did that happen? Did it bollocks. Gateway just wanted the patents. And with LG buying the rights, but so far as I can tell none of the people, and with LG producing smartphones and tablets in an atmosphere in which companies are able to get billion dollar judgments against their competitors over the infringment of dubious patents, LG needs a portfolio to protect its mobile business.
So don't bet on any of this meaning LG is going to hire Palm/HP staffers and start building webOS tablets. This looks like a Gateway play, not an Escom play.
Re:Nintendo needs to rethink its place in the worl
on
Is the Wii U Already Dead?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I think actually their primary problem now, in 2013, is that their business is making games consoles. It doesn't matter whether it's cheap, has "gimmicks" (can we lay that one to rest BTW? Innovation isn't gimmickry, the DS killed the PSP, and the introduction of the Wii basically forced Microsoft to go in a new direction), or anything else. The problem is they're making games consoles. And the concept really doesn't have anywhere to go, not usefully anyway.
If I wanted something more powerful than a Wii I'd have already bought am Xbox 360. But in all honesty, what I want has changed in the last five years. We have tablets and smartphones. Our PCs are no longer hooked up to 15-19" CRTs, they have 1080p 25" widescreens. Oh, and the PCs have Steam on them.
Given these entertainment options, the attractiveness of a locked down box you plug into the living room TV, requiring the consent of the entire household to do so, to play games is really going out of the window.
Sony and Microsoft need to take note, because realistically, unless their next game consoles are significantly different from the box-with-controllers-and-some-way-to-insert-a-game-and-a-TV-out model, they'll flop too.
So... did you hear that from Rep Peter King (R), the man who keeps running dubious "radicalization" Congressional investigations against Muslims, but who fund raised for the IRA, a Catholic terrorist group that meant for the first 25 years of my life I couldn't go into a pub or fast food restaurant without there being a chance I'd be blown up by some IRA coward's bomb?
Just curious. Because if you did, you might want to stop listening to him.
But do yourself a favor and stop pretending that this has anything to do with seeing ads on the internet.
Correct. The reason internet advertisers track browsers on the Internet has nothing to do with advertising. You might think that it is. You might think that it's an amazing co-incidence that virtually all advertisers do this, and pretty much nobody else does. You might think of perfectly legitimate ways in which tracking might help advertisers, such as by helping ads are relevant to the person using that browser, but noooooooooooooo that's not why they're doing it.
No, they're tracking browsers because THAT, my friend, is the ??? thing in:
1. Collect underpants.
2. ???
3. Profit!
That's right. By collecting underpants and by collecting usage data tied to web browser instances, the advertisers will suddenly make billions of dollars in profit, ensuring that even if they can't collect enough money from simply displaying ads, they will always have enough in revenue to stay in business.
And where do they keep this information? With the underpants, of course.
You think it's newsworthy if applied to some ordinary Joe or Jane? Really? So why aren't you ringing up the papers demanding more coverage? There's an article every year or two about some TSA agent being arrested after laptops etc mysteriously disappeared after being confiscated, but for some reason the stories associated with each theft never get reported at the time.
Wonder why? Oh, I know, because this stuff doesn't matter if it's happening to you or me. Even if it's our livelihoods.
Why bring up the wealth? Because that's why we're getting the story. And we're not getting a newsworthy story about widespread corruption or abuse of power or anything like that, but "Zillionaire upset after pissed off govt official holds imported luxury goods awaiting paperwork. Hear his spin on it at 11"
Do you really think it's only newsworthy because it's a rich guy, and how dare they abuse a rich guy?
No, I don't think it's newsworthy at all. Government official bullies someone? That happens every day.
You appear to think this is newsworthy. Because it involves a big expensive boat.
Everything isn't class warfare or OWS.
Apparently it is. Unfortunately we live in a world where most of us will be ignored or even treated as kooks if we suffer an injustice and complain about it, unless we're rich enough in which case it'll be splashed across the front pages of sites like Slashdot.
You know that because of the victim here, the issue will be resolved in a few days, if not sooner. Whereas most people who have their laptops taken rarely see them back in anything like a reasonable time frame.
Most people get f---ed. The reason this article got posted was because a member of our SUPERELITEJOBCREATOR class was the person screwed over. From what I can see there's nothing newsworthy about this at all, it's just someone with the money to push the story is pushing it.
Didn't you get the memo? We're supposed to care about this because Rich People are our betters, they are Job Creators(tm) and are never spongers or moochers, like all people whose employers pay them less than $50,000 a year.
Slashdot Mirror
Understand the objection to DRM, but what's the objection to DLC?
In reality, the number of games I've bought that I like enough to want to play months later is relatively low. The ability to eek more functionality out of them by buying add-ons is a plus... isn't it? Or am I missing something?
Or is this about the Democratic Leadership Committee, not Downloadable L. Content?
Still disagree because Kindle Fire.
If I understand you correctly, they don't want to provide a locked down Android because that means they'd have to create their own app store, so they want to go with Tizen and provide their own app store with it.
I don't understand this.
Which is a great way to break things. I have two tablets, one regular phone, and one back-up phone (albeit I haven't used the latter in a long time.) Google Play (and the Amazon app store) do not require I buy the same software four times to use it on all four devices. They tie the information to an account, and as long as the account is valid on all four devices (and I can have multiple accounts on one device) the software will be delivered correctly.
And my understanding is that iOS does the same thing, which means the three major app stores (Google, Amazon, and Apple) implement this behavior, it's what people are used to, and it's what we want.
If any attempt is made by this infrastructure to tie receipts to a single device, rather than single identity, then it's screwed from the start. People wipe and/or replace their devices on a regular basis, they buy tablets to go with their phones, they don't want to buy multiple copies of their software every time they use a "new" device.
Probably not given that article is from 2011 and Chromebooks have taken off since then.
Don't ask me why they've taken off, I have no idea, I don't see the attraction either, but taken off they have. A Chromebook is frequently the best selling computer on Amazon these days.
From memory, the R101 disaster was caused by structural failures (in turn caused by poor design decisions in turn caused by political problems with the project.) R101 didn't catch fire until after it crashed. Had it been a plane with the same problems, the same thing would have happened, except there'd have been no survivors from a plane crashing into the ground at standard cruise speeds.
Further I don't think one can reasonably travel across the Atlantic in a 747 pumped full of jet fuel, and then, on reaching the other side, complain that hydrogen lifted airships are a bad thing because they might catch fire, especially as the Hindenberg experience, if anything, proved hydrogen's relative safety - a plane catching fire at the same height would not have had anything like the same survival rate.
The problems with 1930s airships are mostly to do with the difficulty at that time of creating a massive, skyscraper sized, object that was also lightweight and able to move at speeds of up to 100mph. Hydrogen? Outside of its corrosive properties, that had to be handled and probably weren't to the degree needed, it was never the major problem.
Thank you for not giving a single example of a piece of legitimate software being replaced by a piece of malware from the same company via Google Play.
I'm impressed by your inclusion of the first one actually: not only is it not an example of the type of thing we're talking about, but it's not even installable via Google Play. One might almost think that you simply googled for "Google Play malware" and pasted the first four stories, without actually checking to see if they're relevent.
Since when has it been the case that an operating system shouldn't implement ("force"? srsly?) a specific GUI?
Are you pining for the days when you could switch between GEM and Windows 1.0 (tiles, yay!), or do you think the fact Ubuntu comes with multiple desktop managers means that it's entirely different to Windows 8 which comes with, ah, two UIs?
Doesn't happen under Android, why would it happen under Windows? I'd assume that whether Microsoft examines every binary or not, they'd require anyone using the feature agree to a set of terms and conditions (with penalties for non-compliance) anyway.
I didn't say it sucked, I said it has been widely panned (based upon user reviews) since it came out. That's objectively true. Whether it's fair or not I can't judge, I don't have the OS and don't plan to upgrade to it in the immediate future.
No. Most of those versions of Windows were not hated "when they came out".
Win 3.1 was massively groundbreaking at the time, a huge improvement on 3.0, itself the first version of Windows to be taken seriously. People started to seriously dislike it as time went by, with its major memory problems, and as systems that had superior UIs but inferior featuresets (such as Mac OS) started to catch up, but at the time it was launched? It was loved.
95, ditto.
98? I thought it was meh, and by that point the Microsoft vs Netscape war was on, with Linux starting to get taken seriously. Still, people who liked Windows liked it.
Me? Yes. That one you're correct about, people hated it when it came out.
2000? No, that was widely loved. XP? Mixed reception, as it was the first consumer version of NT (good), but also introduced everything from the ugliest UI since Windows 3.1 to "Product activation".
Vista. Yes, That one you're correct about. But that was based upon user reviews. (Personally I didn't think Vista was that awful, but...)
7? No. Widespread rejoicing as almost everything that was wrong about XP was fixed. There were even die-hard GNU/Linux users who were willing to run it. Even I like 7.
8? Yes. That one you're correct about. But that's based upon user reviews.
So, basically, out of the eight versions of Windows you mention, three were panned "When they came out", three were widely praised, and two had mixed verdicts. Even on Slashdot.
And it's not just a matter of having limited spending. It's also a matter of having a limited number of pockets in one's pants.
The PSP didn't sell well. Sony has had to re-invent it a number of times because it was a flop. "Has a successor?" - no, Sony has tried multiple times to enter the market, and largely failed.
I don't even know what the latest gen PSP looks like. I haven't seen it in any stores. Oh, I'm sure it's in some of the stores I've been to, but certainly the store selling it knows it's not worth promoting. The 3DS, by comparison, seems to be pretty much everywhere.
Not sure it's mismanaged so much as "decided to suddenly stop for no apparent reason" - the CEO at the time wanting to turn HP into a software/services company. In that light, it's not immediately obvious what LG could do with it that would make things right.
There's also something else you should consider. Back in the mid-nineties, a company called Gateway bought the assets of a bankrupt Commodore, making fans of the Amiga temporarily very excited thinking that a major PC maker was about to rescue the most innovative personal computer platform. Gateway was doing well, the Amiga's problem was mismanagement, and finally, thought many people, the Amiga might stand a chance of returning to its former glories and lead position.
Did that happen? Did it bollocks. Gateway just wanted the patents. And with LG buying the rights, but so far as I can tell none of the people, and with LG producing smartphones and tablets in an atmosphere in which companies are able to get billion dollar judgments against their competitors over the infringment of dubious patents, LG needs a portfolio to protect its mobile business.
So don't bet on any of this meaning LG is going to hire Palm/HP staffers and start building webOS tablets. This looks like a Gateway play, not an Escom play.
I think actually their primary problem now, in 2013, is that their business is making games consoles. It doesn't matter whether it's cheap, has "gimmicks" (can we lay that one to rest BTW? Innovation isn't gimmickry, the DS killed the PSP, and the introduction of the Wii basically forced Microsoft to go in a new direction), or anything else. The problem is they're making games consoles. And the concept really doesn't have anywhere to go, not usefully anyway.
If I wanted something more powerful than a Wii I'd have already bought am Xbox 360. But in all honesty, what I want has changed in the last five years. We have tablets and smartphones. Our PCs are no longer hooked up to 15-19" CRTs, they have 1080p 25" widescreens. Oh, and the PCs have Steam on them.
Given these entertainment options, the attractiveness of a locked down box you plug into the living room TV, requiring the consent of the entire household to do so, to play games is really going out of the window.
Sony and Microsoft need to take note, because realistically, unless their next game consoles are significantly different from the box-with-controllers-and-some-way-to-insert-a-game-and-a-TV-out model, they'll flop too.
I wouldn't say that. In fact, jibes at GNOME are getting so old I gather Seth MacFarlane included one in his Academy Awards presentation last night.
Now hold on, everyone criticizes GNOME, and why condemn Linus for making a perfectly valid observation about the OpenBSD team?
So... did you hear that from Rep Peter King (R), the man who keeps running dubious "radicalization" Congressional investigations against Muslims, but who fund raised for the IRA, a Catholic terrorist group that meant for the first 25 years of my life I couldn't go into a pub or fast food restaurant without there being a chance I'd be blown up by some IRA coward's bomb?
Just curious. Because if you did, you might want to stop listening to him.
Correct. The reason internet advertisers track browsers on the Internet has nothing to do with advertising. You might think that it is. You might think that it's an amazing co-incidence that virtually all advertisers do this, and pretty much nobody else does. You might think of perfectly legitimate ways in which tracking might help advertisers, such as by helping ads are relevant to the person using that browser, but noooooooooooooo that's not why they're doing it.
No, they're tracking browsers because THAT, my friend, is the ??? thing in:
1. Collect underpants.
2. ???
3. Profit!
That's right. By collecting underpants and by collecting usage data tied to web browser instances, the advertisers will suddenly make billions of dollars in profit, ensuring that even if they can't collect enough money from simply displaying ads, they will always have enough in revenue to stay in business.
And where do they keep this information? With the underpants, of course.
You're digging yourself deeper.
You think it's newsworthy if applied to some ordinary Joe or Jane? Really? So why aren't you ringing up the papers demanding more coverage? There's an article every year or two about some TSA agent being arrested after laptops etc mysteriously disappeared after being confiscated, but for some reason the stories associated with each theft never get reported at the time.
Wonder why? Oh, I know, because this stuff doesn't matter if it's happening to you or me. Even if it's our livelihoods.
Why bring up the wealth? Because that's why we're getting the story. And we're not getting a newsworthy story about widespread corruption or abuse of power or anything like that, but "Zillionaire upset after pissed off govt official holds imported luxury goods awaiting paperwork. Hear his spin on it at 11"
Well, other than the reason I just gave, preventing bogus reviews from being posted.
A GMail account wouldn't cut it, anyone can get as many GMail accounts as they want.
No, I don't think it's newsworthy at all. Government official bullies someone? That happens every day.
You appear to think this is newsworthy. Because it involves a big expensive boat.
Apparently it is. Unfortunately we live in a world where most of us will be ignored or even treated as kooks if we suffer an injustice and complain about it, unless we're rich enough in which case it'll be splashed across the front pages of sites like Slashdot.
You know that because of the victim here, the issue will be resolved in a few days, if not sooner. Whereas most people who have their laptops taken rarely see them back in anything like a reasonable time frame.
Most people get f---ed. The reason this article got posted was because a member of our SUPERELITEJOBCREATOR class was the person screwed over. From what I can see there's nothing newsworthy about this at all, it's just someone with the money to push the story is pushing it.
Didn't you get the memo? We're supposed to care about this because Rich People are our betters, they are Job Creators(tm) and are never spongers or moochers, like all people whose employers pay them less than $50,000 a year.
And there was me thinking Mosquitoes were definitive proof that there is no God...