Usenet piracy, however, still requires a bit of fiddling with to get working. You need to choose and install a client. You need to set it up with your server's settings. You need to learn about binaries, how to rejoin split files, how to use RAR archives, how to recreate missing parts by using multiple servers or fiddling with PAR2s, and so on.. and that's just to leech. If you want to contribute, there's another whole list of things you need to learn how to do to make usable posts.
Uh... that's why there's EasyNews and its web-based front end. You get 20% more transfer quota if you use NNTP, but I find the web frontend saves me from the nasty post-joining and stuff. And the only client you need is a web browser, which I believe practically everyone on the 'net already has. The only thing needed is using RAR, which well, works like WinZip for the average person. And Easynews has a nifty zipmanager where you pick the files you want, click Zip, and it queues up a zip file containing those files for one-click downloading.
Heck, Easynews has auto-PAR on the front end too. If the post has PAR/PAR2 files, it'll automatically use them to recreate the binaries it missed and list them alongside the real posted binaries. And it understands NZB files - upload the NZB, and it'll list all files it has. (It also has a PAR/PAR2 and NZB viewer so you can view all the files in a list, their status on Easynews (missing/found), then select and zip them in one fell swoop.
The interface isn't the prettiest, but it's all web-based for the binary downloads. And you need paid USENET servers - most ISP USENET servers suffer from poor retention and completion rates, while the premium paid services tend to camp out on the hub of USENET and get every file.
I don't work for Easynews, but I do use them. I've not seen a reason to use any USENET client in ages (though modern ones are also pretty good at all this - multiserver, auto-join, auto-decode, etc. But why bother, when you can have it all served to you?)
Why can't someone make a device like the AudioTron? Something that will work with practically every operating system out there, with zero software install (well, maybe a bit, if you're using Windows 9x, DOS or such)?
(The AudioTron scans your entire network looking for Windows/SMB/CIFS shares, and then indexes them. Since most operating systems either have SMB sharing natively in the OS, or provided via Samba and also thus compatible with NAS appliances that share via SMB/CIFS without leaving a PC on.)
This is especially so since the majority of media devices out there use SMB internally to share the files (Xbox360, Linksys, Netgear, DLink, etc). Windows Media Connect is a joke that requires a billion ports to be opened in the XP firewall...
I can't believe people have missed one of the major features of the Slingbox... it has an IR blaster.
It's a small feature, but very useful. I hook my Slingbox to my TiVo. Voila, I can watch my TiVo anywhere! (With full control of it too). It also supports cableboxes, so you can use it with digital cable. Or if you're really down, you can use the coax input for analog cable.
So via coax, it's like your VLC setup. But then add in the remote control feature, and the ability to remotely choose between coax, composite and s-video inputs dynamically, and Slingbox makes it a snap to setup. It can be all done via VLC and a few other OSS apps, but honestly, Slingbox took only 10 minutes to set up. Add 5 more minutes to change it static IP and open a port on my router so I can view it over the Internet.
Hook up a small surveillance camera, TiVo and maybe regular cable (or antenna) to it, and you can choose between seeing your camera, watching TiVo, or plain old regular cable/OTA, all controllable via the GUI or keyboard. It's place-shifting for the lazy.
If YDL is free for the PS3, then don't you think Sony might... object?
After all, Sony's probably heavily subsidizing the PS3, hoping to recoup them by game sales. And of course, you don't have to buy games on the PS3 for YDL...
One of the main reasons the Sony PS2-Linux kit was $250 was basically to cover the PS2 subsidy (so Sony would make up the difference in hardware cost vs. sales price in selling the Linux kit).
ICANN is the organization responsible for all domain registration. They were ordered to remove spamhous.org 's registration, and as the article says, have refused. The registrar that sponsors their domain, Tucows Inc., could still be ordered to cut their registration -- if that happens, watch your inbox for deluges of spam. If the registrar was GoDaddy or someone high profile like that, we'd probably be alright.... Tucows... we're screwed.
Which while annoying briefly, might be a Good Thing(tm). Face it, those who use services like Spamhaus probably don't realize *how much* spam there is. If your government official gets 1 spam in 20, well, they thing "just hit delete" works fine if their total spam load is 1,000 emails a day (50 spams get through). If, on the other hand, they suddenly are hit with the full brunt of it, there may be changes. Imagine Grandma who gets 5 or 6 spams a week after her ISP's filters (which probably are quite effective). And then suddenly getting 600 a day. It may open up the eyes of those who don't believe it to be a problem because they're sitting behind a wall protecting them. It's just we've all been sitting "behind the wall" to see true increases. When the amount of mail that makes it past the filters doubles, total traffic may have increased 10 times or more.
This might encourage development of a new email infrastructure that gets rapidly adopted by the Internet, suddenly faced with the realities of how much spam there really is in the world.
I for one, would love to see the end of poorly-configured MTAs who send me bounce emails that are improperly formatted. Of all things an MTA should do, is to generate proper emails! Otherwise they're contributing to the spam problem (I've got hundreds all addressed as "Mailer Daemon " and even more from antivirus/antispam systems, and nevermind whitelist systems. They all seem to contribute to the spam problem by generating even more email in response to email.)
Think about it - let's say Spamhaus is effective enough that they're stemming the tide of spam (which I've noticed has increased 50% in the past month or two).
So they shut down, and everyone using them suddenly gets lots more spam. Those who only use Spamhaus as a suggestion won't notice too much, but now everyone else realizes how big the problem really is. Which may call for action, like revamping the email infrastructure. It only takes one important congresscritter to suddenly have his blackberry reject emails from other congresscritters because it was full of spam. Or heck, imagine government paralyzed because they're spending more time deleting than responding.
Sometimes you have to realize that spam filters may be part of the problem - those who rely on them start to get a distorted idea of how much spam is out there. So turning off the filters for a few weeks may be a better solution to get people moving.
Or rapidly degenerate email to the point where the only use of it is spam, so no one bothers using it anymore. Which would be a good solution too as it can lead to fast implementation of next-generation email solutions. (Forums have replaced mailing lists, IM has replaced quick "how are you doing?" emails, and so on). If people's phones ring multiple times a minute... or if a junk fax started using up all your paper and toner/ink in the course of an hour...
Like I for once would like to kill bounce emails - you'd be surprised at the number of MTAs and spamfilters that contribute to the spam problem - their bounce replies are spam basically (no viable From address, etc). And those that whitelist, well, depending on the mood, I intentionally whitelist them. If they spam me because they don't want spam and don't bother believing that From addresses can be forged, too bad.
Sometimes letting the broken thing (SMTP) break down is a good thing rather than continuously patching something to do what it really can't do.
The best way to prevent piracy is to put a game out that is incomplete without registering.
I can see why some publisher who wants just to shove a game out of the door and forget about it might think anti-pirate CDs are a good idea, but any multi-player game, or indeed any game were content is expandable, unlockable or downloadable should not need anti-pirate measures. You need to access the web anyway, so why not check the CD serial key. Then you can reward your genuine customers with additional content, maps, objects etc. and shut out the freeloaders by barring them from the servers and so on. So they get to play a bugged 1.0 for a while. So what? Meanwhile your customers are on 1.5 happily playing the cool new levels you just released.
Games that force me to insert a CD really piss me off. I end up going to gamecopyworld or similar to acquire the crack. And that's the thing. Pirates can rip the copy protection in seconds and then dump the whole game up for download or provide a crack. So why bother with it anyway? Copy protection licence fees are still money down the drain when the pirates simply rip it out. That money would be better invested in keeping customers happy and "training" them through a positive experience as to why they should buy your game.
Better yet, don't have any copy protection at all.
StarDock's Galactic Civilizations has ZERO copy protection. So little, the StarForce b*stards decided that they will facilitate it's piracy. (Imagine that, a copy protection firm feeling so threatened by the *LACK* of copy protection they feel the need to spread pirated copies around!)
StarDock's reaction? Piracy happens, always had happened, and always will happen (think about it, piracy was around since before the founding fathers created the US - except it was sheet music and books!). Annoying the legitimate customer leads nowhere. Instead, what StarDock does is provide *new* content and bugfixes to legit customers. You don't need a key to play. All the key gets you is easy access to the extra content and fixes from the online service. But it's completely optional.
I'm starting to like Steam - it's fairly unobtrusive, I can lose the CD without losing my games, it eliminates the need for copy protection, and works offline, too. Sure you can get hacks for it (or just... use an egress firewall), but if it's not affecting me, I'm not going to go through the extra effort.
How does Gametap compare to, say, Steam, in terms of UI, technical details, DRM madness? It looks like a nice service, but I'm loathe to try any subscription service that's not exclusively an MMO, due to the massive DRM often needed to enforce a subscription for a single-player game.
GameTap is an online service, while Steam is a distribution service. GameTap is closer to subscription music services like Rhapsody/Napster, while Steam would be more like iTunes Music Store. The former is used by the game to provide the online component, while the latter is used to get the game. Steam's DRM isn't terribly bad - either start it without a network connection for "offline" mode, or just log in and get updates/play online. (you can kill Steam's need to log in with an egress firewall). While GameTap, if you don't have a network connection, it's useless. (I suspect offline mode was created so you can always use your games if Valve folds). Both have the great option of being able to always get your game again if you lose your CD - instead of buying another copy, you just redownload it. Don't care much for Steam's redistribution policy though (Half-Life/Half-Life 2 you can transfer to another account for free, other games $10... (physical media games, not online purchased through Steam)).
Either way, it beats the need to have the CDs themselves copyprotected with crap. Given the option of having a million CDs to keep around in the drive, or installing rootkits for copyprotection, or having the program check if you're legit (with the option to run offline), I'd choose the latter.
People engaging in this type of activity...definitely a desperate cry for attention and recognition by inescure people that in doing so are among the darker side of the online gaming world. Not to mention, dishonest. I would hope Microsoft (or whoever) finds a way to kabosh this sort of thing.
The question I have is... WHY?
Gamerscore doesn't mean crap. Seriously. It's just an arbitrary number that some game developer uses. That's why there was an article a while back about how to get an easy 3000 points by renting a few games in a few hours (basically just going for the easiest achievements). Earning an achievement has absolutely no relation to how hard you worked to get that achievement. Some games require you to do many things to get 10 measly points after 30 hours of work, while others, you get achievements just by sitting on your ass and loading the game.
It's not a real currency that can be spent, like Microsoft Points, it doesn't unlock anything in Xbox Live, it's just an arbitrary number.
And there are various save game hacks you can do to load up someone else's save game and get those achievements credited to your account. $300 for 3000 points? Honestly, that number is just for bragging. There are no prizes, no awards, nothing.
Microsoft Points are currency. Gamerscore is a lousy number that means zilch to Microsoft, and only gives you the ability to brag. But hey, if someone's willing to pay $300 for this, more power to them (it's how the market's supposed to work).
Unless they want to limit the number of free devices they want to give out... I recall a problem a few years back where a chinese company wanted me to send the motherboard to them overseas (ecs?) to rma it. Needless to say, the board was worth less than the shipping cost.
It's probably going to be like some rebates. You send your hardware in to get it swapped out to their US site. Their US site rejects your RMA because you forgot to either include the UPC code off the box, the receipt, or the hardware well packaged in closed cell foam. Oh yeah, then they'll reject it and make you send it to their main warehouse in Taiwan, via FedEx. Where it will stay on the shipping dock for six weeks, where the company will not have a record of it arriving, until someone empties the RMA bin.
Mischa works for Six Apart _because_ Bantown "pwnzed" them two years back.
Six Apart didn't try to fight them, instead they tempted them with guided tours and positions in the company.
Utter idiocy.
Actually, there's more than enough supposition to imply that SixApart's software is contaminated with trojans. Face it, you have someone who wants to claim they have a flaw, and they want to make a secret communications network. The best way to do it is to use sites like LiveJournal and people who use software like MovableType (both SixApart products) to distribute your exploit. What better way than to infect LiveJournal users and readers, and readers of sites using MovableType (and several other popular blogging software) to get them to be part of your network?
Heck, because of this we can probably issue a statement saying that all of SixApart's products and services may be contaminated with trojan horses. Which may infect all browsers, due to claim by a representative of SixApart. (He may not be the official spokesperson, but since he was introduced as coming from SixApart, he is a representative of the company). And until proven otherwise, all their products and services should be considered suspect, maybe even blacklisted. It is a credible claim, and if this is a hoax, well, who's to say it is or it isn't? Maybe if they claim it's a hoax, their backdoor will stay open.
So they release a player that both plays un-drmed music and does something that no other player does(shares a song, even a little bit) and it is user hostile? Right.
I'm not buying one, as I don't plan on buying drm music and don't really want a hd based player, but compared to anything else on the market, the sharing is a *feature*, not a limitation. Sure, compared to a hypothetical uber-player it's a limitation, but I didn't see one of those at Best Buy last time I was there.
It's more like, the WiFi feature is the most hyped "will kill the iPod" feature of the Zune, only that well, it lets you do very limited things. When you see a gadget with "Supports WiFi", what do you think? You think it connects to the wireless network at home, surfs the web, or at least lets you play music on your PC and other network-ish things, like maybe internet radio. Maybe even let you play your Zune's music on your Xbox360.
Now we learn it's a very limited use, sharing music with other Zune owners.
As for tracking people who use this to send images (which isn't supported), it'll only be a while until someone cracks the protocol, then anonymous people can send images to all zune-carrying people. I see a great marketing/spamming opportunity! Oh, too bad it isn't supported. Yet.
The third shift is slang for when the CM continues to manufacture more of your product without being asked about it. The goal, of course, is to shunt this product to a separate market and undercut your production (after all, they don't have marketing, R&D, etc to pay for). Since these CMs often handle inventory for you, they can order extra parts without you knowing.
Or they take your design, modify it, and manufacture their own (possibly inferior) version. They have everything they need - board layouts (schematic can be derived), binary object code (for FPGAs, flash memory, etc), parts lists, etc.
Wouldn't a better solution be to click on his ads? If his ad clickthrough rate shoots up, he may get accused of click fraud. Click several times or run a script to do it over several days. Surely wget and a simple script set to refresh a page every minute, then get every ad on that page.
It isn't a tough choice. I don't have the luxury of having a seperate "gaming PC", which means that the rare occasions I install a game on my laptop, I take copy protection somewhat seriously. If the game requires any sort of installation that may compromise the functionality or security of my computer, I cannot install the game, for any price! I have a PC first and foremost for non-gaming, and so if a company wants to sell a product to casual gamers such as myself, they must forgoe any sort of copy protection or DRM that messes with the primary functions of my computer.
I have heard all sorts of horror stories about Steam, and other game protection systems, and I am not going to take a risk for a $5 savings. Either I have 100% control over my computer, or they don't have a sale.
Hence, Steam.
Did you know, you can install the Steam client on another PC? Just download it. Then log into your account, and magically, all your purchases are still there! So on your new PC, you'd download the Steam client, and if you lost all the CDs to your Valve games, you'd just download that, log in, go to "My Games", and click "download" on all the games. Voila, your games are back. (Yes, that includes multi-gigabyte games like Half-Life 2.) The backup option is for those who don't want to download all over again.
Of course, the copy protection is that you must be logged into your steam account to play *OR* disconnect your network cable and play offline mode (both supported options, the latter is for when you're mobile and not connected to the 'net). Naturally, only one person can stay logged into your steam account at any one time, and sharing accounts can lead to trouble. I suppose if you use ZoneAlarm or other egress firewall, you can have Steam in offline mode 99% of the time except for the time you want to grab an update.
In fact, I don't believe Steam installs any sort of crapware - all the games want to link against the Steam DLL, which does the authentication. Granted, the early versions of steam sucked (a quick Google revealed threads from 2004 and 2005 saying such), but no incidences of spyware (that I could see). But it seems to have been resolved now. I haven't opened any ports on my firewall, that's for certain (not that it proves anything), nor has Windows Firewall bugged me about it wanting to open ports. So all traffic is steam-initiated.
I think this Steam as a copy protection system comes from the fact that early versions required you to be connected to play Half-Life 2, and they were completely unreliable, crashed often, were CPU hogs, and so forth. Less nasty than Unbox, since you don't have to run the Steam client when you don't want to. About the worse it does is log into your account, and possible tell Valve you're playing some game.
You forgot a more interesting point - a lot of the Pro audio cards with better DACs and everything... cost less than the fancier Creative Labs cards! (Look at the X-Fi line - ouch! You can get very decent M-Audio cards that cost half the price.) Looks like the next audiophile is the gamer.
Sure if you start adding fancy I/O (well, basic I/O for pro use) the cost starts adding up, but the top of the line X-Fi is still overpriced and you can probably get cards with that kind of I/O for way less. Maybe even a few Firewire audio cards. M-Audio makes some nice USB ones as well...
A good reason for the fact that SCSI disks can be 15kRPM and lower capacities is the size of the platter. To spin the platter at 15kRPM, it has to be much smaller (and you see this on a few 10kRPM drives as well) - I believe while you can get 2.5"/3" diameter platters for a regular PATA/SATA disk, a 15kRPM SCSI will be significantly smaller (2" or less). The forces on the disc platter are too great to use normal sized platters (i.e., they'd tear themselves apart like some CDs do in fast drives). And given the way the disks are formatted, we're talking a loss of over 50% capacity or so.
Which is why the 10kRPM PATA/SATA drives are really pricey, and why most drives stay at 7200 RPM - people want capacity over speed (look at the largest number on the box). Building platters capable of high speeds is difficult if you don't want them to shatter and overheat.
Of course, the reason SATA is fast is well... the larger platters counteract the slower rotational speed because at the outer edges, the bits are passing by with similar linear velocities as a 15kRPM drive. Of course, performance drops off near the center of the platter, where the 15kRPM drive will win.
It is about right - they were talking about HDTV since the 80's. It's just that only around now has technology reached the point where HDTV is practical. (Wasn't the original HDTV rollout years something like 1997, 2000, 2003, and so on until technology became cheap and available?)
TVs are getting cheap (what you paid for a "big screen" TV back in the 1980s would get you a nice HDTV these days, IIRC), contents is starting to become available (as equipment etc. become much cheaper), bandwidth usage remains similar to what exists, and most importantly, processing power and storage have fallen in price. Imagine trying to record a 720p stream in the 80s and 90s using existing technology. Or even trying to edit it.
Of course, the Futurama joke about SDTVs was dated extremely quickly... (the one where Amy shows off her obscene tattoo that because of SDTV, ends up being blurred.)
It has 2 HDMI ports (supporting HDCP) for your cablebox and other device, and a DVI-I port for either VGA (with adapter), DVI, or HDMI (with adapter). Yes, it supports HDCP on the DVI port as well, giving you up to three ports (assuming you don't intend to connect a PC to it). I believe most of the Aquos line has DVI-I ports instead of VGA to which HDCP is supported, thus giving you up to 3 HDMI ports. But like most LCD TVs, you'd want to use an HDMI-DVI cable rather than an adapter due to the limited space you have in the trough hiding the ports (keeps cabling neat).
And yes, you can use an A/V receiver with HDMI inputs, or an HDMI switch box (they both implement HDMI "repeater" inteface for HDCP), but I've heard of hit-and-miss stories from devices like this - some work, others don't (HDMI/HDCP issues).
Heck, the TV has two Firewire (S400 supported) ports, as well. And most of those HDTV cableboxes (almost always a Motorola 6xxx with crappy software) have Firewire outputs. It's one of the few ways to get encrypted cable HDTV into your Windows MCE device at HD resolutions (with a hack to let MCE capture off Firewire rather than internal tuner, and the IR blaster to control your cablebox). But, you can connect your cablebox to your TV that way, too, sparing an HDMI connection.
Start the game at a moderate difficulty setting. If the player ends up dying way too often at the same point in the game, switch to a lower difficulty (the worst thing a game can get you to do is make you repeat the same damn point in a level many times. After 5 or so tries, it turns from "fun" to annoying. Especially if the save point is miles away (how about having save points appear more frequently on easier levels?).
Then if the player starts blowing through the level, raise the difficulty again.
There comes a point when a player gets frustrated, and maybe in the beginning, instead of "difficulty", you start with a difficulty threshold - so the lower it is, the quicker the game goes into "easier mode".
And please, don't make it so the entire game has to be redone because you missed X at the beginning, and X was some out-of-the-way place that people won't care to look. For adventure games where exploration is key, this is less of an issue (as long as said explorer isn't on a time limit...).
Dead Rising has it close by letting you restart the game at your current level (makes it easier the next time around), but fails in that you have to restart the entire game.
Sorry, but QTFairUse6 does NOT break DRM in the same way that Hymn, et. al. do it. Hymn breaks DRM by getting the keys and decrypting the files itself. What QTFairUse does is... use iTunes to break it (relying on the fact that you have ciphertext, a key, and a black box (iTunes) that can take those two inputs and produce unencrypted audio).
If you examine the source code, you'll see why it hasn't been ported to Mac - it isn't portable. It relies on the fact that for a brief period of time, there will be a frame of decrypted AAC data. It first attaches to the iTunes process, then it attaches a breakpoint inside of iTunes. You play your audio, and when iTunes finishes decrypting a frame of m4p, it hits the breakpoint. Then QTFairUse, acting as a debugger, grabs a copy of the AAC memory buffer, and writes it to a file, which is (surprise) unencrypted. (This was how the first iTunes hack was done, too).
What QTFairUse6/MyFairTunes does is make it entirely automated by faking out a debugger. If you knew where to set the breakpoint, and where in memory to find the unencrypted data, you could basically do the same thing with your bog-standard VisualStudio debugger (albeit more slowly).
The iTMS 6 format wasn't broken, just an alternate attack vector was found. And it might be more difficult in OS X, since a process can prevent itself from being debugged by setting permissions to do so.
That's why QTFairUse is version specific - it needs to know where to find the memory buffer, and where to set the breakpoint.
Actually, That might work better than you think. Typing of the Dead. Took House of the Dead 2, put it on the dreamcast and had you type for your life! Reading of the Dead: and Edutainment game. Edutainment...now there's a real zombie.
Actually, Typing of the Dead was ported to the PC - I have a copy of it. It's an extremely fun game to play. The character models were redone to have a huge duracell battery connected to a dreamcast and a keyboard that sticks out in front. Very cute.
It is probably one of the few "M" rated "Educational" titles out there. If you see it, buy it - it's very good.
Yeah, but it's all about the firware update... You'd have to get everybody with an existing dvd player to have this done. Or in the case you posted about, you'd need everybody with an existing Xbox 360 to have a firmware upgrade.
In the article summary (and TFA), DVD players will not have to be modified. Existing HD-DVD players, though, will need a firmware update to handle it.
One thing I want to know... how well does it support smart "season passes" like TiVo? (I've never used myth, sorry)
E.g., if I have two shows to record, one of them is "high priority" and has precedence over the "low priority" show (i.e., high priority shows get recorded first, while low priority shows get recorded later (days/hours) if there's a conflict). Now, if the low priority show suddenly has a single showing the conflicts, while the high priority show has a rerun later, TiVo will record the low priority in preference, then schedule to record the rerun. Of course, if both shows are single showing and conflict, only the high priority show gets recorded.
(Extend example to multiple shows and across multiple tuners, as well - dual tuners gets rid of a two-way conflict, but it is possible to have more). Ditto with shows you pick to record...
Slashdot Mirror
Use their other domain? The one that they registered in their home country perhaps? (Hint: add
Uh... that's why there's EasyNews and its web-based front end. You get 20% more transfer quota if you use NNTP, but I find the web frontend saves me from the nasty post-joining and stuff. And the only client you need is a web browser, which I believe practically everyone on the 'net already has. The only thing needed is using RAR, which well, works like WinZip for the average person. And Easynews has a nifty zipmanager where you pick the files you want, click Zip, and it queues up a zip file containing those files for one-click downloading.
Heck, Easynews has auto-PAR on the front end too. If the post has PAR/PAR2 files, it'll automatically use them to recreate the binaries it missed and list them alongside the real posted binaries. And it understands NZB files - upload the NZB, and it'll list all files it has. (It also has a PAR/PAR2 and NZB viewer so you can view all the files in a list, their status on Easynews (missing/found), then select and zip them in one fell swoop.
The interface isn't the prettiest, but it's all web-based for the binary downloads. And you need paid USENET servers - most ISP USENET servers suffer from poor retention and completion rates, while the premium paid services tend to camp out on the hub of USENET and get every file.
I don't work for Easynews, but I do use them. I've not seen a reason to use any USENET client in ages (though modern ones are also pretty good at all this - multiserver, auto-join, auto-decode, etc. But why bother, when you can have it all served to you?)
Why can't someone make a device like the AudioTron? Something that will work with practically every operating system out there, with zero software install (well, maybe a bit, if you're using Windows 9x, DOS or such)?
(The AudioTron scans your entire network looking for Windows/SMB/CIFS shares, and then indexes them. Since most operating systems either have SMB sharing natively in the OS, or provided via Samba and also thus compatible with NAS appliances that share via SMB/CIFS without leaving a PC on.)
This is especially so since the majority of media devices out there use SMB internally to share the files (Xbox360, Linksys, Netgear, DLink, etc). Windows Media Connect is a joke that requires a billion ports to be opened in the XP firewall...
I can't believe people have missed one of the major features of the Slingbox... it has an IR blaster.
It's a small feature, but very useful. I hook my Slingbox to my TiVo. Voila, I can watch my TiVo anywhere! (With full control of it too). It also supports cableboxes, so you can use it with digital cable. Or if you're really down, you can use the coax input for analog cable.
So via coax, it's like your VLC setup. But then add in the remote control feature, and the ability to remotely choose between coax, composite and s-video inputs dynamically, and Slingbox makes it a snap to setup. It can be all done via VLC and a few other OSS apps, but honestly, Slingbox took only 10 minutes to set up. Add 5 more minutes to change it static IP and open a port on my router so I can view it over the Internet.
Hook up a small surveillance camera, TiVo and maybe regular cable (or antenna) to it, and you can choose between seeing your camera, watching TiVo, or plain old regular cable/OTA, all controllable via the GUI or keyboard. It's place-shifting for the lazy.
If YDL is free for the PS3, then don't you think Sony might... object?
After all, Sony's probably heavily subsidizing the PS3, hoping to recoup them by game sales. And of course, you don't have to buy games on the PS3 for YDL...
One of the main reasons the Sony PS2-Linux kit was $250 was basically to cover the PS2 subsidy (so Sony would make up the difference in hardware cost vs. sales price in selling the Linux kit).
Which while annoying briefly, might be a Good Thing(tm). Face it, those who use services like Spamhaus probably don't realize *how much* spam there is. If your government official gets 1 spam in 20, well, they thing "just hit delete" works fine if their total spam load is 1,000 emails a day (50 spams get through). If, on the other hand, they suddenly are hit with the full brunt of it, there may be changes. Imagine Grandma who gets 5 or 6 spams a week after her ISP's filters (which probably are quite effective). And then suddenly getting 600 a day. It may open up the eyes of those who don't believe it to be a problem because they're sitting behind a wall protecting them. It's just we've all been sitting "behind the wall" to see true increases. When the amount of mail that makes it past the filters doubles, total traffic may have increased 10 times or more.
This might encourage development of a new email infrastructure that gets rapidly adopted by the Internet, suddenly faced with the realities of how much spam there really is in the world.
I for one, would love to see the end of poorly-configured MTAs who send me bounce emails that are improperly formatted. Of all things an MTA should do, is to generate proper emails! Otherwise they're contributing to the spam problem (I've got hundreds all addressed as "Mailer Daemon " and even more from antivirus/antispam systems, and nevermind whitelist systems. They all seem to contribute to the spam problem by generating even more email in response to email.)
In the long run.
Think about it - let's say Spamhaus is effective enough that they're stemming the tide of spam (which I've noticed has increased 50% in the past month or two).
So they shut down, and everyone using them suddenly gets lots more spam. Those who only use Spamhaus as a suggestion won't notice too much, but now everyone else realizes how big the problem really is. Which may call for action, like revamping the email infrastructure. It only takes one important congresscritter to suddenly have his blackberry reject emails from other congresscritters because it was full of spam. Or heck, imagine government paralyzed because they're spending more time deleting than responding.
Sometimes you have to realize that spam filters may be part of the problem - those who rely on them start to get a distorted idea of how much spam is out there. So turning off the filters for a few weeks may be a better solution to get people moving.
Or rapidly degenerate email to the point where the only use of it is spam, so no one bothers using it anymore. Which would be a good solution too as it can lead to fast implementation of next-generation email solutions. (Forums have replaced mailing lists, IM has replaced quick "how are you doing?" emails, and so on). If people's phones ring multiple times a minute... or if a junk fax started using up all your paper and toner/ink in the course of an hour...
Like I for once would like to kill bounce emails - you'd be surprised at the number of MTAs and spamfilters that contribute to the spam problem - their bounce replies are spam basically (no viable From address, etc). And those that whitelist, well, depending on the mood, I intentionally whitelist them. If they spam me because they don't want spam and don't bother believing that From addresses can be forged, too bad.
Sometimes letting the broken thing (SMTP) break down is a good thing rather than continuously patching something to do what it really can't do.
Better yet, don't have any copy protection at all.
StarDock's Galactic Civilizations has ZERO copy protection. So little, the StarForce b*stards decided that they will facilitate it's piracy. (Imagine that, a copy protection firm feeling so threatened by the *LACK* of copy protection they feel the need to spread pirated copies around!)
StarDock's reaction? Piracy happens, always had happened, and always will happen (think about it, piracy was around since before the founding fathers created the US - except it was sheet music and books!). Annoying the legitimate customer leads nowhere. Instead, what StarDock does is provide *new* content and bugfixes to legit customers. You don't need a key to play. All the key gets you is easy access to the extra content and fixes from the online service. But it's completely optional.
I'm starting to like Steam - it's fairly unobtrusive, I can lose the CD without losing my games, it eliminates the need for copy protection, and works offline, too. Sure you can get hacks for it (or just... use an egress firewall), but if it's not affecting me, I'm not going to go through the extra effort.
GameTap is an online service, while Steam is a distribution service. GameTap is closer to subscription music services like Rhapsody/Napster, while Steam would be more like iTunes Music Store. The former is used by the game to provide the online component, while the latter is used to get the game. Steam's DRM isn't terribly bad - either start it without a network connection for "offline" mode, or just log in and get updates/play online. (you can kill Steam's need to log in with an egress firewall). While GameTap, if you don't have a network connection, it's useless. (I suspect offline mode was created so you can always use your games if Valve folds). Both have the great option of being able to always get your game again if you lose your CD - instead of buying another copy, you just redownload it. Don't care much for Steam's redistribution policy though (Half-Life/Half-Life 2 you can transfer to another account for free, other games $10... (physical media games, not online purchased through Steam)).
Either way, it beats the need to have the CDs themselves copyprotected with crap. Given the option of having a million CDs to keep around in the drive, or installing rootkits for copyprotection, or having the program check if you're legit (with the option to run offline), I'd choose the latter.
The question I have is... WHY?
Gamerscore doesn't mean crap. Seriously. It's just an arbitrary number that some game developer uses. That's why there was an article a while back about how to get an easy 3000 points by renting a few games in a few hours (basically just going for the easiest achievements). Earning an achievement has absolutely no relation to how hard you worked to get that achievement. Some games require you to do many things to get 10 measly points after 30 hours of work, while others, you get achievements just by sitting on your ass and loading the game.
It's not a real currency that can be spent, like Microsoft Points, it doesn't unlock anything in Xbox Live, it's just an arbitrary number.
And there are various save game hacks you can do to load up someone else's save game and get those achievements credited to your account. $300 for 3000 points? Honestly, that number is just for bragging. There are no prizes, no awards, nothing.
Microsoft Points are currency. Gamerscore is a lousy number that means zilch to Microsoft, and only gives you the ability to brag. But hey, if someone's willing to pay $300 for this, more power to them (it's how the market's supposed to work).
It's probably going to be like some rebates. You send your hardware in to get it swapped out to their US site. Their US site rejects your RMA because you forgot to either include the UPC code off the box, the receipt, or the hardware well packaged in closed cell foam. Oh yeah, then they'll reject it and make you send it to their main warehouse in Taiwan, via FedEx. Where it will stay on the shipping dock for six weeks, where the company will not have a record of it arriving, until someone empties the RMA bin.
Actually, there's more than enough supposition to imply that SixApart's software is contaminated with trojans. Face it, you have someone who wants to claim they have a flaw, and they want to make a secret communications network. The best way to do it is to use sites like LiveJournal and people who use software like MovableType (both SixApart products) to distribute your exploit. What better way than to infect LiveJournal users and readers, and readers of sites using MovableType (and several other popular blogging software) to get them to be part of your network?
Heck, because of this we can probably issue a statement saying that all of SixApart's products and services may be contaminated with trojan horses. Which may infect all browsers, due to claim by a representative of SixApart. (He may not be the official spokesperson, but since he was introduced as coming from SixApart, he is a representative of the company). And until proven otherwise, all their products and services should be considered suspect, maybe even blacklisted. It is a credible claim, and if this is a hoax, well, who's to say it is or it isn't? Maybe if they claim it's a hoax, their backdoor will stay open.
It's more like, the WiFi feature is the most hyped "will kill the iPod" feature of the Zune, only that well, it lets you do very limited things. When you see a gadget with "Supports WiFi", what do you think? You think it connects to the wireless network at home, surfs the web, or at least lets you play music on your PC and other network-ish things, like maybe internet radio. Maybe even let you play your Zune's music on your Xbox360.
Now we learn it's a very limited use, sharing music with other Zune owners.
As for tracking people who use this to send images (which isn't supported), it'll only be a while until someone cracks the protocol, then anonymous people can send images to all zune-carrying people. I see a great marketing/spamming opportunity! Oh, too bad it isn't supported. Yet.
The third shift is slang for when the CM continues to manufacture more of your product without being asked about it. The goal, of course, is to shunt this product to a separate market and undercut your production (after all, they don't have marketing, R&D, etc to pay for). Since these CMs often handle inventory for you, they can order extra parts without you knowing.
Or they take your design, modify it, and manufacture their own (possibly inferior) version. They have everything they need - board layouts (schematic can be derived), binary object code (for FPGAs, flash memory, etc), parts lists, etc.
Just a hazard of outsourced production.
Wouldn't a better solution be to click on his ads? If his ad clickthrough rate shoots up, he may get accused of click fraud. Click several times or run a script to do it over several days. Surely wget and a simple script set to refresh a page every minute, then get every ad on that page.
Hence, Steam.
Did you know, you can install the Steam client on another PC? Just download it. Then log into your account, and magically, all your purchases are still there! So on your new PC, you'd download the Steam client, and if you lost all the CDs to your Valve games, you'd just download that, log in, go to "My Games", and click "download" on all the games. Voila, your games are back. (Yes, that includes multi-gigabyte games like Half-Life 2.) The backup option is for those who don't want to download all over again.
Of course, the copy protection is that you must be logged into your steam account to play *OR* disconnect your network cable and play offline mode (both supported options, the latter is for when you're mobile and not connected to the 'net). Naturally, only one person can stay logged into your steam account at any one time, and sharing accounts can lead to trouble. I suppose if you use ZoneAlarm or other egress firewall, you can have Steam in offline mode 99% of the time except for the time you want to grab an update.
In fact, I don't believe Steam installs any sort of crapware - all the games want to link against the Steam DLL, which does the authentication. Granted, the early versions of steam sucked (a quick Google revealed threads from 2004 and 2005 saying such), but no incidences of spyware (that I could see). But it seems to have been resolved now. I haven't opened any ports on my firewall, that's for certain (not that it proves anything), nor has Windows Firewall bugged me about it wanting to open ports. So all traffic is steam-initiated.
I think this Steam as a copy protection system comes from the fact that early versions required you to be connected to play Half-Life 2, and they were completely unreliable, crashed often, were CPU hogs, and so forth. Less nasty than Unbox, since you don't have to run the Steam client when you don't want to. About the worse it does is log into your account, and possible tell Valve you're playing some game.
You forgot a more interesting point - a lot of the Pro audio cards with better DACs and everything... cost less than the fancier Creative Labs cards! (Look at the X-Fi line - ouch! You can get very decent M-Audio cards that cost half the price.) Looks like the next audiophile is the gamer.
Sure if you start adding fancy I/O (well, basic I/O for pro use) the cost starts adding up, but the top of the line X-Fi is still overpriced and you can probably get cards with that kind of I/O for way less. Maybe even a few Firewire audio cards. M-Audio makes some nice USB ones as well...
A good reason for the fact that SCSI disks can be 15kRPM and lower capacities is the size of the platter. To spin the platter at 15kRPM, it has to be much smaller (and you see this on a few 10kRPM drives as well) - I believe while you can get 2.5"/3" diameter platters for a regular PATA/SATA disk, a 15kRPM SCSI will be significantly smaller (2" or less). The forces on the disc platter are too great to use normal sized platters (i.e., they'd tear themselves apart like some CDs do in fast drives). And given the way the disks are formatted, we're talking a loss of over 50% capacity or so.
Which is why the 10kRPM PATA/SATA drives are really pricey, and why most drives stay at 7200 RPM - people want capacity over speed (look at the largest number on the box). Building platters capable of high speeds is difficult if you don't want them to shatter and overheat.
Of course, the reason SATA is fast is well... the larger platters counteract the slower rotational speed because at the outer edges, the bits are passing by with similar linear velocities as a 15kRPM drive. Of course, performance drops off near the center of the platter, where the 15kRPM drive will win.
It is about right - they were talking about HDTV since the 80's. It's just that only around now has technology reached the point where HDTV is practical. (Wasn't the original HDTV rollout years something like 1997, 2000, 2003, and so on until technology became cheap and available?)
TVs are getting cheap (what you paid for a "big screen" TV back in the 1980s would get you a nice HDTV these days, IIRC), contents is starting to become available (as equipment etc. become much cheaper), bandwidth usage remains similar to what exists, and most importantly, processing power and storage have fallen in price. Imagine trying to record a 720p stream in the 80s and 90s using existing technology. Or even trying to edit it.
Of course, the Futurama joke about SDTVs was dated extremely quickly... (the one where Amy shows off her obscene tattoo that because of SDTV, ends up being blurred.)
A nice Sharp Aquos.
It has 2 HDMI ports (supporting HDCP) for your cablebox and other device, and a DVI-I port for either VGA (with adapter), DVI, or HDMI (with adapter). Yes, it supports HDCP on the DVI port as well, giving you up to three ports (assuming you don't intend to connect a PC to it). I believe most of the Aquos line has DVI-I ports instead of VGA to which HDCP is supported, thus giving you up to 3 HDMI ports. But like most LCD TVs, you'd want to use an HDMI-DVI cable rather than an adapter due to the limited space you have in the trough hiding the ports (keeps cabling neat).
And yes, you can use an A/V receiver with HDMI inputs, or an HDMI switch box (they both implement HDMI "repeater" inteface for HDCP), but I've heard of hit-and-miss stories from devices like this - some work, others don't (HDMI/HDCP issues).
Heck, the TV has two Firewire (S400 supported) ports, as well. And most of those HDTV cableboxes (almost always a Motorola 6xxx with crappy software) have Firewire outputs. It's one of the few ways to get encrypted cable HDTV into your Windows MCE device at HD resolutions (with a hack to let MCE capture off Firewire rather than internal tuner, and the IR blaster to control your cablebox). But, you can connect your cablebox to your TV that way, too, sparing an HDMI connection.
Start the game at a moderate difficulty setting. If the player ends up dying way too often at the same point in the game, switch to a lower difficulty (the worst thing a game can get you to do is make you repeat the same damn point in a level many times. After 5 or so tries, it turns from "fun" to annoying. Especially if the save point is miles away (how about having save points appear more frequently on easier levels?).
Then if the player starts blowing through the level, raise the difficulty again.
There comes a point when a player gets frustrated, and maybe in the beginning, instead of "difficulty", you start with a difficulty threshold - so the lower it is, the quicker the game goes into "easier mode".
And please, don't make it so the entire game has to be redone because you missed X at the beginning, and X was some out-of-the-way place that people won't care to look. For adventure games where exploration is key, this is less of an issue (as long as said explorer isn't on a time limit...).
Dead Rising has it close by letting you restart the game at your current level (makes it easier the next time around), but fails in that you have to restart the entire game.
Sorry, but QTFairUse6 does NOT break DRM in the same way that Hymn, et. al. do it. Hymn breaks DRM by getting the keys and decrypting the files itself. What QTFairUse does is... use iTunes to break it (relying on the fact that you have ciphertext, a key, and a black box (iTunes) that can take those two inputs and produce unencrypted audio).
If you examine the source code, you'll see why it hasn't been ported to Mac - it isn't portable. It relies on the fact that for a brief period of time, there will be a frame of decrypted AAC data. It first attaches to the iTunes process, then it attaches a breakpoint inside of iTunes. You play your audio, and when iTunes finishes decrypting a frame of m4p, it hits the breakpoint. Then QTFairUse, acting as a debugger, grabs a copy of the AAC memory buffer, and writes it to a file, which is (surprise) unencrypted. (This was how the first iTunes hack was done, too).
What QTFairUse6/MyFairTunes does is make it entirely automated by faking out a debugger. If you knew where to set the breakpoint, and where in memory to find the unencrypted data, you could basically do the same thing with your bog-standard VisualStudio debugger (albeit more slowly).
The iTMS 6 format wasn't broken, just an alternate attack vector was found. And it might be more difficult in OS X, since a process can prevent itself from being debugged by setting permissions to do so.
That's why QTFairUse is version specific - it needs to know where to find the memory buffer, and where to set the breakpoint.
Actually, Typing of the Dead was ported to the PC - I have a copy of it. It's an extremely fun game to play. The character models were redone to have a huge duracell battery connected to a dreamcast and a keyboard that sticks out in front. Very cute.
It is probably one of the few "M" rated "Educational" titles out there. If you see it, buy it - it's very good.
Yeah, but it's all about the firware update... You'd have to get everybody with an existing dvd player to have this done. Or in the case you posted about, you'd need everybody with an existing Xbox 360 to have a firmware upgrade.
In the article summary (and TFA), DVD players will not have to be modified. Existing HD-DVD players, though, will need a firmware update to handle it.
One thing I want to know... how well does it support smart "season passes" like TiVo? (I've never used myth, sorry)
E.g., if I have two shows to record, one of them is "high priority" and has precedence over the "low priority" show (i.e., high priority shows get recorded first, while low priority shows get recorded later (days/hours) if there's a conflict). Now, if the low priority show suddenly has a single showing the conflicts, while the high priority show has a rerun later, TiVo will record the low priority in preference, then schedule to record the rerun. Of course, if both shows are single showing and conflict, only the high priority show gets recorded.
(Extend example to multiple shows and across multiple tuners, as well - dual tuners gets rid of a two-way conflict, but it is possible to have more). Ditto with shows you pick to record...