I wouldn't go that far. Valve has limitless amounts of money and access to the best possible talent.
In fact, let's have fun and imagine that the entirety of Steam's/Valve's success has been to provide the necessary money for the massive, multi-billion production values Half-Life 3 will demand!
This is nothing like gaming on mobile devices. For one, these trackpads have a curvature to them, as well as edges. This provides tactile feedback for always knowing where your thumb is.
The idea is to try and create an experience that's close to the precision of a keyboard and mouse. No console controller offers this.
I'm actually really happy about this. This is the kind of innovation controllers have been needing for a very long time. I can pretty much guarantee that PS5 and, uh, Xbox Two? will employ controllers with this kind of tech.
Fighting poverty would require such things like raising the minimum wage to something you can live off of (this just failed to happen in DC, for people employed by major retailers like Walmart), putting a cap on interest rates by credit cards/loans, increasing education spending, etc.
All these things are impossible to do by anyone as long as companies are allowed to buy what they want from politicians.
This is why the Xbox One has to die. It needs to be shown that consumers will not put up with the always-on/DRM BS that MS tried to pull off. The fact that they even tried it shows their intentions, and they must be punished.
If Sony tries it down the line with the PS5--and I have no doubt that Sony would have loved to do it, but was smart enough not to--then the PS5 needs to die too. Go with the Wii-Three or whatever will be out by then. Make it clear that always-on/DRM BS will always kill the console.
The problem is rockets. They suck and will never get us anywhere useful in space.
We need to invent something better. There is something out there that is undiscovered and impossible right now that will change all this. Some new source of energy, or method of storing energy.
Go back in time far enough and tell an expert that one day we'll have pocket computers, and they would probably laugh at you. "Computers can't be that small, because vacuum tubes can't be that small. There is no computer without vacuum tubes."
I'm sure that there were a handful of people who were born in 1870, and lived over 100 years. Imagine how these people would have reflected back, by the end of their lives.
They were born in a world without lightbulbs or telephones. A world where there was no such thing as recorded sound. Certainly no video, and "thinking machines" were beyond imagining.
And then they left a world where there were computers, cars capable of going hundreds of miles per hour, airplanes that could take them anywhere. They could instantly speak with someone on the other side of the world. And humans had walked on another cosmic entity.
A lot can happen in a hundred years. It just needs a few people being at the right place and at the right time.
We'll have computers where just one chip will have the CPU, RAM and the storage. We'll also have humanoid robots, that will use these chips as their brain.
However, the chips will be volatile. So one day, your robot will be running low on power, trying its best to find a source of electricity. But then it'll run out, and essentially die. However, it will get to be born anew.
And there will be faint traces of who/what it was before its death, left in its brain as echos of a past life.
It's the old "Give a man a fish" vs "Teach him how to fish" thing.
Gates is giving the man a fish. It's great work and a huge amount of people have fish now thanks to him. But it doesn't solve the root of the problem. The most important thing that can be done for these poverty-stricken nations is for the people to be educated. Educated to improve their lives, and become enlightened to fight their greedy, worthless leaders.
The internet is the greatest tool there is for education. All human knowledge is within reach in mere seconds.
Gates' comment is just PR speak. If it were MS doing the balloons internet thing, he wouldn't have said it. Furthermore, he's comparing a billionaire philanthropist's work with one of the many side projects of a corporation. It's not even Apples (lol) to Oranges. It's more like Apples to Potatoes.
Gates may not have much to do with MS these days, but he still of course has an allegiance to the company that was his baby for so long. He'll swipe at Google any chance he gets.
Phones? Yes (There's not much benefit going past 1280 * 800 )
Tablets? Getting there (Nexus 7 at 1080p, Nexus 10 at 2560 * 1600)
Monitors? NO! Let me put it like this. Most monitors sit somewhere between the previously mentioned phone and tablet resolutions, despite being 2-5 times the size.
I used to have Sprint, in South FL. I had no complaints about the phone service, but the data service was abysmal. It was so bad, I actually developed a type of twisted, perverted fascination with the speed of Sprint's data. I had a speed test app, that I would often use when I felt especially frustrated. I guess it was a way of indulging my fascination. After dozens of tests, at different times throughout the day, and over a geographic area consisting of south florida (both coasts), and central Florida, over the span of nearly 2 years, these were my findings:
By far, the most common speed I saw was around 90-120kbps. No, that's no joke and no exaggeration. That was the speed of my 3G (not 1x, but 3G! 1x probalby didn't even count as internet), roughly 90% of the time.
On especially bad times, it would be as low as 40-70 kpbs.
Every once in a blue moon, and this was mainly in an unpopulated area of the west coast, I saw speeds of 200-600 kbps. These were always like mini-surprises. "I can stream video now! Woah!"
Some notes: -No, it wasn't my phone's fault. Not only had I tried different ROMs, plus these speeds are consistent with what I see from some of my poor, sucker co-workers stuck on Sprint. It takes them like 20 seconds to load a mobile page -WiMaxx 4G was one of the most useless telecom technologies I've ever seen. Basically, if there was a wall between you and the cell tower, you had no 4G connectivity. If you were driving, your 4G would stay connected for maybe a dozen seconds. -I went to St Augustine (which is at the very north part of Florida), and to my amazement, Sprint's 3G exceeded 1Mbps while there. It's almost like it was a different provider there.
I'm on T-Mobile and I'm pretty happy. The lack of LTE is meaningless when you have HSPA+.
My very first day on T-Mobile, I did a speedtest in my home. 12Mbps on cellular data. My jaw dropped, especially after having been with Sprint for nearly two years.
Taking stuff into space requires a huge amount of energy. Right now, the stuff we sent into space has to carry its own energy, stored in fuel. Because so much energy is needed, lots of fuel is needed. But fuel is heavy, so even more energy is needed.
Externalizing the energy source for what gets sent into space can severely lower costs of getting stuff up there. I don't know if a slingshot is the best way to do it, but at least it's thinking in the right direction.
"Innovation" is a meaningless buzz word that rarely ever applies.
"Execution" is the important thing. It's the single biggest reason for Apple's huge success the last decade. Harddrive-based MP3 players, touch screen smartphones, tablets... Apple didn't create any of these. They just executed them well, and marketed the crap out of them.
I don't think Samsung's software customizations have much--if anything--to do with their success. Samsung is successful because they don't make the mistakes other manufacturers have made, over and over again.
Motorola? They got married to Verizon to produce Droid phones, and largely ignored the other carriers. Thankfully Google is straightening them out.
HTC? They've made some pretty good devices, but their marketing has always non-existant, instead leaving that up to the carriers. They only recently started up a "flagship" brand, the "One" (You could argue if the name is good or bad--it largely doesn't matter. What's matter is that the public keep seeing it).
Sony? LG? Not many sexy phones (although that seems to be starting to change), and a general lack of good marketing. Again, leaving it mainly to the carriers to market.
On the contrary, Samsung has done the three things that are necessary for a successful phone: They made their phones good, often with very impressive innards and screens. They marketed their phones intensely, and on their own (rather than just leaving that up to the carriers), and made them available on all carriers, with the same name. And lastly, and this is a big one that the other makers messed up on, they established a brand (Galaxy) and kept at it. We've been seeing "Galaxy", on all carriers, for years.
I wouldn't go that far. Valve has limitless amounts of money and access to the best possible talent.
In fact, let's have fun and imagine that the entirety of Steam's/Valve's success has been to provide the necessary money for the massive, multi-billion production values Half-Life 3 will demand!
This is nothing like gaming on mobile devices. For one, these trackpads have a curvature to them, as well as edges. This provides tactile feedback for always knowing where your thumb is.
The idea is to try and create an experience that's close to the precision of a keyboard and mouse. No console controller offers this.
I'm actually really happy about this. This is the kind of innovation controllers have been needing for a very long time. I can pretty much guarantee that PS5 and, uh, Xbox Two? will employ controllers with this kind of tech.
I had the same thought.
Earn my blessing, or my wrath!
Probably not, but you can print out a copyright toy of Wolverine for your kid.
Fighting poverty would require such things like raising the minimum wage to something you can live off of (this just failed to happen in DC, for people employed by major retailers like Walmart), putting a cap on interest rates by credit cards/loans, increasing education spending, etc.
All these things are impossible to do by anyone as long as companies are allowed to buy what they want from politicians.
I wish they were more specific though. What is this company going to do? Drugs? Medical devices?
Overall, I like the thought of a major IT company trying its hand in healthcare. For some reason it seems promising.
This is why the Xbox One has to die. It needs to be shown that consumers will not put up with the always-on/DRM BS that MS tried to pull off. The fact that they even tried it shows their intentions, and they must be punished.
If Sony tries it down the line with the PS5--and I have no doubt that Sony would have loved to do it, but was smart enough not to--then the PS5 needs to die too. Go with the Wii-Three or whatever will be out by then. Make it clear that always-on/DRM BS will always kill the console.
The problem is rockets. They suck and will never get us anywhere useful in space.
We need to invent something better. There is something out there that is undiscovered and impossible right now that will change all this. Some new source of energy, or method of storing energy.
Go back in time far enough and tell an expert that one day we'll have pocket computers, and they would probably laugh at you. "Computers can't be that small, because vacuum tubes can't be that small. There is no computer without vacuum tubes."
See subject.
I'm sure that there were a handful of people who were born in 1870, and lived over 100 years. Imagine how these people would have reflected back, by the end of their lives.
They were born in a world without lightbulbs or telephones. A world where there was no such thing as recorded sound. Certainly no video, and "thinking machines" were beyond imagining.
And then they left a world where there were computers, cars capable of going hundreds of miles per hour, airplanes that could take them anywhere. They could instantly speak with someone on the other side of the world. And humans had walked on another cosmic entity.
A lot can happen in a hundred years. It just needs a few people being at the right place and at the right time.
Oh god, here come the jokes.
We'll have computers where just one chip will have the CPU, RAM and the storage. We'll also have humanoid robots, that will use these chips as their brain.
However, the chips will be volatile. So one day, your robot will be running low on power, trying its best to find a source of electricity. But then it'll run out, and essentially die. However, it will get to be born anew.
And there will be faint traces of who/what it was before its death, left in its brain as echos of a past life.
It's the old "Give a man a fish" vs "Teach him how to fish" thing.
Gates is giving the man a fish. It's great work and a huge amount of people have fish now thanks to him. But it doesn't solve the root of the problem. The most important thing that can be done for these poverty-stricken nations is for the people to be educated. Educated to improve their lives, and become enlightened to fight their greedy, worthless leaders.
The internet is the greatest tool there is for education. All human knowledge is within reach in mere seconds.
Gates' comment is just PR speak. If it were MS doing the balloons internet thing, he wouldn't have said it. Furthermore, he's comparing a billionaire philanthropist's work with one of the many side projects of a corporation. It's not even Apples (lol) to Oranges. It's more like Apples to Potatoes.
Gates may not have much to do with MS these days, but he still of course has an allegiance to the company that was his baby for so long. He'll swipe at Google any chance he gets.
This.
I bought a pack of 100 safety razor blades for 11 bucks on Amazon. Cheap, and a better shave than my old 4-blade cartridge shaver.
Phones? Yes (There's not much benefit going past 1280 * 800 )
Tablets? Getting there (Nexus 7 at 1080p, Nexus 10 at 2560 * 1600)
Monitors? NO! Let me put it like this. Most monitors sit somewhere between the previously mentioned phone and tablet resolutions, despite being 2-5 times the size.
I used to have Sprint, in South FL. I had no complaints about the phone service, but the data service was abysmal. It was so bad, I actually developed a type of twisted, perverted fascination with the speed of Sprint's data. I had a speed test app, that I would often use when I felt especially frustrated. I guess it was a way of indulging my fascination. After dozens of tests, at different times throughout the day, and over a geographic area consisting of south florida (both coasts), and central Florida, over the span of nearly 2 years, these were my findings:
By far, the most common speed I saw was around 90-120kbps. No, that's no joke and no exaggeration. That was the speed of my 3G (not 1x, but 3G! 1x probalby didn't even count as internet), roughly 90% of the time.
On especially bad times, it would be as low as 40-70 kpbs.
Every once in a blue moon, and this was mainly in an unpopulated area of the west coast, I saw speeds of 200-600 kbps. These were always like mini-surprises. "I can stream video now! Woah!"
Some notes:
-No, it wasn't my phone's fault. Not only had I tried different ROMs, plus these speeds are consistent with what I see from some of my poor, sucker co-workers stuck on Sprint. It takes them like 20 seconds to load a mobile page
-WiMaxx 4G was one of the most useless telecom technologies I've ever seen. Basically, if there was a wall between you and the cell tower, you had no 4G connectivity. If you were driving, your 4G would stay connected for maybe a dozen seconds.
-I went to St Augustine (which is at the very north part of Florida), and to my amazement, Sprint's 3G exceeded 1Mbps while there. It's almost like it was a different provider there.
I'm on T-Mobile and I'm pretty happy. The lack of LTE is meaningless when you have HSPA+.
My very first day on T-Mobile, I did a speedtest in my home. 12Mbps on cellular data. My jaw dropped, especially after having been with Sprint for nearly two years.
Yeah.
Taking stuff into space requires a huge amount of energy. Right now, the stuff we sent into space has to carry its own energy, stored in fuel. Because so much energy is needed, lots of fuel is needed. But fuel is heavy, so even more energy is needed.
Externalizing the energy source for what gets sent into space can severely lower costs of getting stuff up there. I don't know if a slingshot is the best way to do it, but at least it's thinking in the right direction.
"Innovation" is a meaningless buzz word that rarely ever applies.
"Execution" is the important thing. It's the single biggest reason for Apple's huge success the last decade. Harddrive-based MP3 players, touch screen smartphones, tablets... Apple didn't create any of these. They just executed them well, and marketed the crap out of them.
I don't think Samsung's software customizations have much--if anything--to do with their success. Samsung is successful because they don't make the mistakes other manufacturers have made, over and over again.
Motorola? They got married to Verizon to produce Droid phones, and largely ignored the other carriers. Thankfully Google is straightening them out.
HTC? They've made some pretty good devices, but their marketing has always non-existant, instead leaving that up to the carriers. They only recently started up a "flagship" brand, the "One" (You could argue if the name is good or bad--it largely doesn't matter. What's matter is that the public keep seeing it).
Sony? LG? Not many sexy phones (although that seems to be starting to change), and a general lack of good marketing. Again, leaving it mainly to the carriers to market.
On the contrary, Samsung has done the three things that are necessary for a successful phone: They made their phones good, often with very impressive innards and screens. They marketed their phones intensely, and on their own (rather than just leaving that up to the carriers), and made them available on all carriers, with the same name. And lastly, and this is a big one that the other makers messed up on, they established a brand (Galaxy) and kept at it. We've been seeing "Galaxy", on all carriers, for years.
I'd probably be that fast too if I had "Bolt" in my name.
Rekall rekall rekall!