...there wasn't that looming threat of "Cancel your subscription, lose your music"
IMO, 10 cents per song is a great idea. Except that it must be a permanent purchase, not a "rental." If it is a fair deal, which 10 cents per song is (permanent), then people will flock to it. Make them MP3s (I saw a discussion earlier in the thread about a service just like that) and it will be even better.
I believe the whole reason that Napster and free clients were widely used was that the record industry was charging way too much for CDs. Keep in mind that the cost of the more expensive to make cassettes has hovers around $10, even while CDs at the mall shops has risen to almost $20.
People do not want to pay $20 for a CD. And that is really the crux of the record industry's problem.
And Nintendo is following suit with the Gameboy Advance, at least in the (partially) technically inferior status. Great system, but they are using their monopoly status to put out a product with a crappy screen, then in the future release a Gameboy Advance Plus, that has a backlit screen and costs more.
The rub is that people will have to get the new one, since the GBA's screen is horrible. And Nintendo will have sold you two GBAs, even though you would've normally only bought one.
Greg
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 1
Thats very true and all, for now. Comparing a system's generation 2 games with a more powerful system's generation 1 games is very easy to do. Most likely they will be on par. Look at the batch of Dreamcast games released around the time the PS2 was out. The PS2 was outclassed!
The same is happenening here. Keighley is comparing generation 2 PS2 games with generation 1 XBox games. Not surprisingly the PS2 games are at least on par with the XBox games. And right now, thats the reason I'm not getting an XBox or a Gamecube. The PS2 is finally hitting its stride, and at (for Sony) a most opportune time. MGS2, GTA3, Devil May Cry, etc. all great games
Come back in a year, and lets revisit this comparison.
Will the RIAA go after Apple, Microsoft, the Linux distro companies, et al once they realize that file sharing is built into all the current operating systems?
What about international standards? Will FTP be a target? How about web servers?
The point is, the RIAA shouldn't be promoting this as trying to stop piracy, they should be advertising this as bringing C2 security to every computer!
So you are getting pissed at Firaxis for farming out the port to Westlake? I saw Civ3/Win32 at a meeting with Infogrames at E3, and they hadn't even decided who was going to port the Mac version. Which means there wasn't a Mac version at the time. And that was the end of May.
Westlake is the best Mac porting house, so I would think it's better to have them work on Civ3/Mac than have Firaxis have to create a Mac port team since they obviously don't have one.
Is five months too much to wait? Maybe, but then again the PC version doesn't even have multiplayer. And good games don't die after 5 months...
Just to clarify about RealBasic: RealBasic is a native Mac application. It only runs on the Mac. However, it can target Win32 from the same source code that targets a Mac (OS 9 and X). I was just pointing out when it does that, the compiled Win32 app fits with Windows, just as the compiled Mac app fits with MacOS.
I believe some of the problems lie in the way a multiplatform library works. For games, if SDL isn't as fast on Windows as DirectX, why should it be used? I know its a bad example, because I think that SDL actually routes down to DirectX on Windows. Remember, users come before developers...
But what about a UI library that doesn't draw the controls the same as the user's operating system? Look at Photoshop for Windows.. it looks like I'm using a Mac. I don't want that! I want an application that looks and feels like what I normally use. The best libraries will work like that, even though they have a cross-platform API. Linux versions will have the window manager look and feel. Mac versions will look like a Mac application.
RealBasic for Mac does this pretty well. Using a single source tree, RealBasic will compile for both Mac and Windows. The Mac apps look like Mac apps, and the Windows apps look like Windows apps. That transparency is what will win.
Of course, to make it easier for the developer can be a good thing. But to give the user a better experience is more important. Because if a user doesn't like your product, why bother?
Of course Quake 3 is legitimate. Why else would ATI hack their own drivers to boost Quake 3 framerates?
But I guess what you mean by legitimate is "geared to casual users". The Sims is definately geared to casual users where Quake 3 is aimed right at hardcore gamers.
If you want a game that would put Linux on the map, try any of the Blizzard games. A huge following, tremendously popular games, yet Blizzard refuses to port to Linux. Kind of surprising they haven't tried it with at least one game, considering they release all their games for the Mac.
Sure! Actually I think that MPEG-2 may support this (via timestamps), but I know that homegrown solutions can do this.
The company I work for has a digital video recording solution that is reliant on variable frame rates. The factors are either external events, or motion in the video changing the rate both high and low. That way, we record higher rates when it is necessary (motion or a register being used, for example). We save space using this and our customers can maintain longer periods of video that way, without backing it up to tape. Add tape backup to that, and they can even back up more time per tape.
Anyway, our playback is currently proprietary, and we can switch frame rates at any time.
A good solution would allow you to control the rates at which each camera is recorded at. For instance, at a casino, the blackjack table could be recorded at 15 or 30, while the entrance to the casino/hotel would be less. It would be strange for all 1000 cameras to need to be recorded at the same rate.
The problem with multiplexers is they generate a single video stream at the expense of frame rate. The typical cheap ($1000) multiplexers from Pelco and Philips will take 16 cameras and generate a single analog video signal. However, the generate video is still 30 fps, so that means each camera is dropped to about 2 fps.
Easy, compress the stream AT the camera, or at least, off the server. That way the data transmission is already down to its lowest point. And yes, for a scalable solution the system should be broken up across multiple compression units/servers.
Why does this topic seem so familiar? Oh, its what I do for a living! (though on a much smaller scale)
It will only hurt your compression, if the compression is interframe. If compression is being done on each frame individually, cutting the framerate in half will actually cut the storage requirements in half.
And to make it even better, drop the requirement that the video has to be 30 fps. For retrieved video, 5 fps plays great if you are looking at movement of people. 15 fps is great if you are looking at movement of cars and such.
Trust me, I work on a security system that digitally records between 16-32 cameras in a retail environment (though we do have customers with 60+ cameras). We normally record at 2 fps during activity, and a much lower rate when not. Customers choose image sizes of approximately 10k per image (with 720x243x2 source images). We don't require that the user has tons of storage, so they typically get about a week's worth of video. Backup is very simple, using DAT tapes.
Because in this case speed is optimized at the expense of image quality. Read the artice, they do a comparison of the "optimized" Quake3 images to the "unoptimized" Quack3 images. The "optimized" images look noticably worse.
Conversely, since the controllers are connected using USB (as I understand it), I wonder if the Xbox controller would work when plugged into a normal PC.
Here is what I know of the XBox controllers: The controllers do use USB for the communication, but the connectors have been changed so that they aren't standard USB connectors. You can't plug any old USB device into the XBox, and you can't plug any XBox controller in a PC. Basically done to avoid customer service phone calls.
Thankfully console crashes are typically due to the game, not the actual device. I remember Mortal Kombat for Nintendo 64 used to hang the console every once in awhile. There will only be more crashes if there is less Q/A, since the platform does not contain many variables like a regular computer.
You know, coming from IT, I've been taking all this into account where there are developers in a company. I haven't been thinking about it in a frame where a company doesn't have developers around. My thoughts were that the developers would be allocated to work on in-house software just like they are allocated to work on external software. However, in small companies that have no such in-house expertise, it is a cost problem. How can a 10-person company afford the services of a consultant, or a salaried developer who only works on fixing the software the company uses. Its not feasible!
The difference is, that you are not at the mercy of an outside company to provide the fixes. You can fix it yourself. Provided the hired help is competent, the fixes can be implemented and deployed at a more rapid pace than when dealing with a software vendor.
Unfortunately, those terms are so vague that they are open to interpretation. Any good lawyer could easily twist the meaning of these terms to suit his/her client(s).
Note this clause:
(6) necessary to protect personally identifying information
Couldn't I break into a system, and then claim that I was trying to prove that the system was not maliciously using my personal information. For example, using those AOL documents...
Your honor, I swear, I wasn't trying to break into AOL, I was just trying to make sure they weren't sending the contents of my drive back to Virginia!
Reading the text file, it does look like someone could write a trojan that acted as the go-between described in the document. At that point, their account name and password could be stolen.
The author talks about common people who have no idea that right click actually does something under Windows. Do you think that the common people normally go to Control Panel? Wouldn't they be just as ignorant of that as they would of a right click?
As to your argument that Open With does not show normally, and after that not show multiple choices, I just right clicked (no Shift) on a text document under Windows 2000.
It showed "Open With" as the 4th choice on my dropdown, and it currently shows that I can open the file with 4 programs: Notepad, Internet Explorer, Frontpage, and Programmers Notepad. Note that I am still viewing the menu, and no dialogs have appeared. If I don't like that, they give me the option to choose a different program.
Maybe somehow, somewhere (my computer), these changes you want are already in place.
Of course, its possible I changed a couple checkboxes, but I don't remember.
Working in a retail related industry, I can tell you from dealing with Point of Sale systems that many companies still use Token Ring for their registers. The code usually works fine out in the field, but it is a pain for our Q/A to set up the right testing environment.
Just a little example for an OS that does check that bit...
Run Windows 2000, and have the floppy drive empty. Go to the "My Computer" icon and bring up the drive listing. Then choose the floppy drive. Windows brings up a dialog saying "Please insert a floppy disk" It is a modal dialog, with only a cancel button, not an "OK" button. It determines when there is a disk in the drive and completes the operation itself.
I couldn't say if any other operatings systems do, but I'd bet they don't like you said...
I had something similar happen to me last year. The company was giving out more stock options. Since I was higher up on the food chain, I got more than most. Funny thing is, I didn't want them, and as part of a plan for me to stay (half the company was bailing from poor management and their project getting axed, though I wasn't part of that project) I wanted half those stock options that I received converted at the price they were supposedly valued at into salary. It worked out pretty well, I get more money per week, and I am still with the company. And no one has spoken of stock options since then.
Slashdot Mirror
...there wasn't that looming threat of "Cancel your subscription, lose your music"
IMO, 10 cents per song is a great idea. Except that it must be a permanent purchase, not a "rental." If it is a fair deal, which 10 cents per song is (permanent), then people will flock to it. Make them MP3s (I saw a discussion earlier in the thread about a service just like that) and it will be even better.
I believe the whole reason that Napster and free clients were widely used was that the record industry was charging way too much for CDs. Keep in mind that the cost of the more expensive to make cassettes has hovers around $10, even while CDs at the mall shops has risen to almost $20.
People do not want to pay $20 for a CD. And that is really the crux of the record industry's problem.
Greg
And Nintendo is following suit with the Gameboy Advance, at least in the (partially) technically inferior status. Great system, but they are using their monopoly status to put out a product with a crappy screen, then in the future release a Gameboy Advance Plus, that has a backlit screen and costs more.
The rub is that people will have to get the new one, since the GBA's screen is horrible. And Nintendo will have sold you two GBAs, even though you would've normally only bought one.
Greg
Thats very true and all, for now. Comparing a system's generation 2 games with a more powerful system's generation 1 games is very easy to do. Most likely they will be on par. Look at the batch of Dreamcast games released around the time the PS2 was out. The PS2 was outclassed!
The same is happenening here. Keighley is comparing generation 2 PS2 games with generation 1 XBox games. Not surprisingly the PS2 games are at least on par with the XBox games. And right now, thats the reason I'm not getting an XBox or a Gamecube. The PS2 is finally hitting its stride, and at (for Sony) a most opportune time. MGS2, GTA3, Devil May Cry, etc. all great games
Come back in a year, and lets revisit this comparison.
Greg
Will the RIAA go after Apple, Microsoft, the Linux distro companies, et al once they realize that file sharing is built into all the current operating systems?
What about international standards? Will FTP be a target? How about web servers?
The point is, the RIAA shouldn't be promoting this as trying to stop piracy, they should be advertising this as bringing C2 security to every computer!
Greg
So you are getting pissed at Firaxis for farming out the port to Westlake? I saw Civ3/Win32 at a meeting with Infogrames at E3, and they hadn't even decided who was going to port the Mac version. Which means there wasn't a Mac version at the time. And that was the end of May.
Westlake is the best Mac porting house, so I would think it's better to have them work on Civ3/Mac than have Firaxis have to create a Mac port team since they obviously don't have one.
Is five months too much to wait? Maybe, but then again the PC version doesn't even have multiplayer. And good games don't die after 5 months...
Greg
Just to clarify about RealBasic: RealBasic is a native Mac application. It only runs on the Mac. However, it can target Win32 from the same source code that targets a Mac (OS 9 and X). I was just pointing out when it does that, the compiled Win32 app fits with Windows, just as the compiled Mac app fits with MacOS.
Greg
I believe some of the problems lie in the way a multiplatform library works. For games, if SDL isn't as fast on Windows as DirectX, why should it be used? I know its a bad example, because I think that SDL actually routes down to DirectX on Windows. Remember, users come before developers...
But what about a UI library that doesn't draw the controls the same as the user's operating system? Look at Photoshop for Windows.. it looks like I'm using a Mac. I don't want that! I want an application that looks and feels like what I normally use. The best libraries will work like that, even though they have a cross-platform API. Linux versions will have the window manager look and feel. Mac versions will look like a Mac application.
RealBasic for Mac does this pretty well. Using a single source tree, RealBasic will compile for both Mac and Windows. The Mac apps look like Mac apps, and the Windows apps look like Windows apps. That transparency is what will win.
Of course, to make it easier for the developer can be a good thing. But to give the user a better experience is more important. Because if a user doesn't like your product, why bother?
Greg
Of course Quake 3 is legitimate. Why else would ATI hack their own drivers to boost Quake 3 framerates?
But I guess what you mean by legitimate is "geared to casual users". The Sims is definately geared to casual users where Quake 3 is aimed right at hardcore gamers.
If you want a game that would put Linux on the map, try any of the Blizzard games. A huge following, tremendously popular games, yet Blizzard refuses to port to Linux. Kind of surprising they haven't tried it with at least one game, considering they release all their games for the Mac.
Greg
Sure! Actually I think that MPEG-2 may support this (via timestamps), but I know that homegrown solutions can do this.
The company I work for has a digital video recording solution that is reliant on variable frame rates. The factors are either external events, or motion in the video changing the rate both high and low. That way, we record higher rates when it is necessary (motion or a register being used, for example). We save space using this and our customers can maintain longer periods of video that way, without backing it up to tape. Add tape backup to that, and they can even back up more time per tape.
Anyway, our playback is currently proprietary, and we can switch frame rates at any time.
Greg
A good solution would allow you to control the rates at which each camera is recorded at. For instance, at a casino, the blackjack table could be recorded at 15 or 30, while the entrance to the casino/hotel would be less. It would be strange for all 1000 cameras to need to be recorded at the same rate.
Greg
The problem with multiplexers is they generate a single video stream at the expense of frame rate. The typical cheap ($1000) multiplexers from Pelco and Philips will take 16 cameras and generate a single analog video signal. However, the generate video is still 30 fps, so that means each camera is dropped to about 2 fps.
Greg
Easy, compress the stream AT the camera, or at least, off the server. That way the data transmission is already down to its lowest point. And yes, for a scalable solution the system should be broken up across multiple compression units/servers.
Why does this topic seem so familiar? Oh, its what I do for a living! (though on a much smaller scale)
Greg
It will only hurt your compression, if the compression is interframe. If compression is being done on each frame individually, cutting the framerate in half will actually cut the storage requirements in half.
Greg
And to make it even better, drop the requirement that the video has to be 30 fps. For retrieved video, 5 fps plays great if you are looking at movement of people. 15 fps is great if you are looking at movement of cars and such.
Trust me, I work on a security system that digitally records between 16-32 cameras in a retail environment (though we do have customers with 60+ cameras). We normally record at 2 fps during activity, and a much lower rate when not. Customers choose image sizes of approximately 10k per image (with 720x243x2 source images). We don't require that the user has tons of storage, so they typically get about a week's worth of video. Backup is very simple, using DAT tapes.
Greg
Because in this case speed is optimized at the expense of image quality. Read the artice, they do a comparison of the "optimized" Quake3 images to the "unoptimized" Quack3 images. The "optimized" images look noticably worse.
Greg
Here is what I know of the XBox controllers: The controllers do use USB for the communication, but the connectors have been changed so that they aren't standard USB connectors. You can't plug any old USB device into the XBox, and you can't plug any XBox controller in a PC. Basically done to avoid customer service phone calls.
Greg
Thankfully console crashes are typically due to the game, not the actual device. I remember Mortal Kombat for Nintendo 64 used to hang the console every once in awhile. There will only be more crashes if there is less Q/A, since the platform does not contain many variables like a regular computer.
Greg
You know, coming from IT, I've been taking all this into account where there are developers in a company. I haven't been thinking about it in a frame where a company doesn't have developers around. My thoughts were that the developers would be allocated to work on in-house software just like they are allocated to work on external software. However, in small companies that have no such in-house expertise, it is a cost problem. How can a 10-person company afford the services of a consultant, or a salaried developer who only works on fixing the software the company uses. Its not feasible!
Greg
The difference is, that you are not at the mercy of an outside company to provide the fixes. You can fix it yourself. Provided the hired help is competent, the fixes can be implemented and deployed at a more rapid pace than when dealing with a software vendor.
Greg
Note this clause:
(6) necessary to protect personally identifying information
Couldn't I break into a system, and then claim that I was trying to prove that the system was not maliciously using my personal information. For example, using those AOL documents...
Greg
Reading the text file, it does look like someone could write a trojan that acted as the go-between described in the document. At that point, their account name and password could be stolen.
Greg
The author talks about common people who have no idea that right click actually does something under Windows. Do you think that the common people normally go to Control Panel? Wouldn't they be just as ignorant of that as they would of a right click?
As to your argument that Open With does not show normally, and after that not show multiple choices, I just right clicked (no Shift) on a text document under Windows 2000.
It showed "Open With" as the 4th choice on my dropdown, and it currently shows that I can open the file with 4 programs: Notepad, Internet Explorer, Frontpage, and Programmers Notepad. Note that I am still viewing the menu, and no dialogs have appeared. If I don't like that, they give me the option to choose a different program.
Maybe somehow, somewhere (my computer), these changes you want are already in place.
Of course, its possible I changed a couple checkboxes, but I don't remember.
Greg
Working in a retail related industry, I can tell you from dealing with Point of Sale systems that many companies still use Token Ring for their registers. The code usually works fine out in the field, but it is a pain for our Q/A to set up the right testing environment.
Greg
Just a little example for an OS that does check that bit...
Run Windows 2000, and have the floppy drive empty. Go to the "My Computer" icon and bring up the drive listing. Then choose the floppy drive. Windows brings up a dialog saying "Please insert a floppy disk" It is a modal dialog, with only a cancel button, not an "OK" button. It determines when there is a disk in the drive and completes the operation itself.
I couldn't say if any other operatings systems do, but I'd bet they don't like you said...
Greg
I had something similar happen to me last year. The company was giving out more stock options. Since I was higher up on the food chain, I got more than most. Funny thing is, I didn't want them, and as part of a plan for me to stay (half the company was bailing from poor management and their project getting axed, though I wasn't part of that project) I wanted half those stock options that I received converted at the price they were supposedly valued at into salary. It worked out pretty well, I get more money per week, and I am still with the company. And no one has spoken of stock options since then.
Greg