I'm with you. I never thought there would or could be a game that I loved or played more than Team Fortress 2, but Borderlands 2 has taken that title. It is a fantastic blend of FPS and RPG, the stories are worthwhile and are frequently very funny (and sometimes touching), the art is great and the voice acting is some of the best I've heard. It is fun to play solo and LOTS of fun to play multiplayer. Once you beat the game it starts over again with everything scaled to greater difficulty (and greater rewards). I never imagined that could be fun, but because of the story and the acting and the gameplay, I've not only played through more than once I've played through more than once with each of the six character classes. I own it on PS3, Steam and will buy a Vita to play it mobile. For me, there just is not a better game!
Also, a GPS unit is relatively durable, so if I bought one last year, I have no need to buy one again this year. Combine these two, and it's easy to see a significant decline in sales, even without considering smart phones.
This. Beyond durability, they are more upgradable than ever. I bought a GPS unit that, in addition to purely fun stuff like customizing the voice and changing the car graphics, has upgradeable maps, all of this via USB. A family member recently ditched their old, non-upgradeable GPS unit for the same style that I have because the map in their old GPS was so out of date it was unusable. While they will have to buy new maps from time to time, it is unlikely that they will buy new hardware for a LONG time.
The release of firmware- and map-upgradeable hardware at a price within reach of average consumers is a fairly recent phenomenon...one that may even coincide with the this dip in hardware sales. Let's see how TomTom and Garmin's map update subscriptions are doing too, to get a full picture.
I can't argue with their sales data, but I concur with the "hogwash" tag. There was a time when I carried a PIM, a Cell Phone and an MP3 player, and rejoiced when I could finally afford a single converged device. It makes sense both from a technological and a practical point of view that we've achieved further convergence to the point that one device can additionally have GPS and games and a camera and video and internet browsing and more. However, there is a ceiling on the eyeballs-to-interfaces ratio that you're going to hit at some point: there's only so many things you can do at once.
On a recent long car trip my "phone" was monopolized as I had it playing music for the whole ride, and my wife frequently used it to surf the net. Occasionally we even took a phone call. In short, because we were already using multiple other features on the "phone," the GPS functions could not be in front of my eyes when I wanted them.
So count me in as someone who does have a mobile convergence device but was nonetheless very happy to have purchased a standalone GPS (my first, a TomTom One XL), earlier this year (ironically right in the middle of their 1st quarter sales downturn).
Re:Ztetris port available?
on
Tetris Turns 25
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· Score: 2, Informative
For multiplayer where you send garbage to your opponent, what you want is Tetris for the Nintendo DS. As essential on the DS as it was on the earlier Game Boys, this is a tremendous value in that you can do a 10-player local (line of site) game when only one of you has the cartridge. You can also play against three people online.
Ooh, and they released Tetris via WiiWare and its multiplayer lets you send garbage as well.
I always loved Tetris Attack for the SNES (and Gameboy Color), and was disappointed that they didn't include that as one of the modes in Tetris DS. However, Planet Puzzle League plays very similarly.
...with a double bravo to Netcraft has even developed a version of its anti-phishing toolbar for Lynx, which cause a genuine choking-on-my-Mountain-Dew fit of giggles.
I signed up for GrandCentral back when it was pretty new, but I never really used it for the sole reason that I had to be at my computer to get my voice mails. If I was wandering around and just barely miss a call, I don't know who it was and what's more (if I recall correctly) I don't know who was calling either, because it's the "GrandCentral" number that comes into your phone.
While I think you're right that it *used* to be that way, and that it still *defaults* that way, for some time (at least a year?), Grand Central has had a Caller ID option in their settings tab where you can chose, a la:
"What Caller ID do you want us to display when GrandCentral calls your forwarding phones?
Display Caller's number; I will know who's calling before picking up (default)
Display my GrandCentral number; I will know if the call came through my GrandCentral number "
Also, if you call your Grand Central number from one of the phones you've told it to ring, it takes you right to your voice mail menu: you don't have to be at a computer to get your voice mail.
It has not rolled out to all users yet (as of 3/12 in the AM), similar to when they add new features to GMail it appears that it has to roll through the network. I confirmed this in my own Grand Central account.
You talk about ditching the show so quickly and yet wonder why Fox does it...gee, I wonder.
With apologies to pvera, who likes Fringe, I gave up on Fringe after 5 episodes. I understand what you're saying about giving a show a fair shake, but how many episodes does it take? I was very enthusiastic about Fringe and I think I may have even watched the premier live (vs. timeshifting on DVR). But after 5 episodes I decided that it was contrived to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.
I don't see a reason to inflict self-punishment by forcing yourself to partake in entertainment beyond the point that you that you don't find it entertaining. There has to be some point, and maybe it's one episode, maybe it's 3 or 5, where I have to say, "This is not as entertaining or diverting as my other available entertainment options, such as Team Fortress 2."
And with a lot of hour-long serialized dramas these days, you have to be in for the long haul. I'm not necessarily compelled to watch every week of most of the Law and Order shows, as they're fairly self-contained. But if you miss an episode of 24 or Lost, you're not going to get it. And Fringe felt like it was trying to be one of those types of shows, so what I was really deciding wasn't that night's 40 minutes of entertainment, but whether it was good enough to commit to 13 or 23 hours or whatever.
I've had a DVR for a number of years now (first from Time Warner, now Tivo), and I have to tell you, they make it completely irrelevant what time or day a show is on. When my son was growing up he didn't even know when his shows were on: to him, when it was time for SpongeBob or Power Rangers, they were always just there.
While I understand not everyone has a DVR, when people say they don't watch Conan O'Brian or Robot Chicken or SNL or whatever because they can't stay up that late...well, neither can I. But I record(ed) Conan every night and would check it out the next day. Sometimes I'd listen to a monologue while shaving the next morning.
For a long time, that kind of activity was transparent to the networks from a Nielsen perspective, but Nielsen is finally tracking DVR usage, and its making a difference, i.e. Nielsen Reports DVR Playback Is Adding To TV Viewing Levels. My family is watching Dollhouse, but have never watched it on Friday. On Monday March 9 we watched the episode that aired Friday Feb 7. We still have an episode on the Tivo from Friday March 6. And I know I'm not the only one that's doing that...reports are that viewership went up 30% once time-shifting was factored in.
So while I think that Fox are boneheads because they have canceled and/or otherwise botched a number of my favorite shows (Futurama and especially Firefly), I genuinely don't think that being on a Friday night matters anymore, especially to a possibly more tech-savvy (and likely to DVR or internet time-shift) sci-fi audience.
I think that Dvorak is putting too much blame on the spreadsheet: it was just an accelerant on an already-burning fire. As Frank Zappa said when asked, "What do you think happened in this country?"
Well, two important things, and each one of them has only three letters: One was LSD...and the other is MBA. When people started taking MBA seriously, that was the beginning of the ruination of the American industrial society. When all decisions are based on an MBA's concept of numerical reality, you're in deep , because the only thing that can be judged as real is that which can be proved by a column of figures. And when all aesthetic decisions are turned over to these kinds of people, who use these criteria to make steering decisions for a company with no regard for people and no regard for what the product really is, and the only thing that matters is maximizing your profit, you have a problem. Because you can't have quality then; you cannot have excellence. Quality's expensive. I think most of these people that come from business schools have the desire to make sure everything is cheesy. That's what happens when you do things that way.
Agreed. I love the idea of the in-game advertising/product placement being dynamic and making sense in the environment, and consider the Obama billboard in Burnout to be a great implementation of the idea. Having billboards makes sense in an outdoor driving game, and if you have a console that's internet-connected, why not have them updated with fresh content? I mean, when I play Crazy Taxi on my Dreamcast the passengers still want to go to Tower Records, you know?
The only thing I'd ask of publishers is to also let us customize the content. I'd like to be able to upload my own goofy graphic for a billboard, or have an all Frank Zappa radio station. Even in Mario Kart they use your Miis collection in the ads that appear in the mall level; it'd be awesome to have control of some of that content on my local machine.
Agreed. You have to get into the definition of "pirating" there. Sort of like the tree falling in the forest, if you buy a game and install a crack to run it off of your hard drive instead of the CD for whatever reason (convenience, conserving laptop battery from spinning up the CD), and you do this for your own personal use, are you actually "pirating?"
Are you depriving the publisher of anything at all, or does this fall under Fair Use?
What you described is why "choosing not to buy a game" exists (because it cost $90-$110 instead of $10-$25). My argument is just do without it. Then the publisher is not only not getting any income, they're not getting any hype or promotion either.
And again, understanding the difference between material and non-material goods, if keeping food on the table means that I can only afford a Toyota Corolla (a $10-$25 game), what legal or ethical entitlement do I have to "pirate" a Toyota Prius (a $90 - $100 game)?
The POINT is, people only have so much disposable income to spend on things like music. They spend what their budget allows them to spend, and after that, they can either follow copyright law "to the letter", owning, listening to and promoting by word of mouth the few albums they paid for. OR, they can take the approach of "pirating" whatever strikes their fancy, broadening their musical horizons in the process and giving all those additional artists a better shot at being on their "short list" to spend their limited income on down the road.
Ugh, I don't understand how people get to this point. To quote goldspider above, "I'm not willing to pay $1000 for Adobe Creative Suite. By what reasoning am I, therefore, entitled to a copy of the software? I have yet to hear a rational answer to that question."
I understand that argument by analogy doesn't fully work when you're talking about tangible vs. intangible goods, but follow me: the point is, people only have so much disposable income to spend on things like prime rib. So they can follow the law to the letter and only buy the food they can actually afford, like Ramen or condensed tomato soup. OR, they can take the approach of just shoplifting whatever strikes their fancy, broadening their palate in the process and perhaps introducing their friends to whole new food groups.
Doesn't work, does it? Now, does it not work because I'm committing a fallacy of relevance/weak analogy, or is it really because as dirtyfly said, you don't want to pay for it and it's easy to steal?
Where do we have an ethical or legal right to consume an unlimited amount of art and/or entertainment without paying for it? How about this: if a game publisher is charging $50 and doesn't offer a sufficient demo to let you know whether you want to part with your funds, just do without it entirely? If a music artist doesn't have enough free or cheap stuff for me to decide whether to part with the $10 to $20 for their CD or the $10 to $50 for their concert ticket, how about *doing without it*? How about not giving any of the above any of my recreational/entertainment time except perhaps to drop them a note that says, "If you'd had more try-before-you-buy content I was going to check you out, but you don't, so you lose until you change your business model."
The diet stuff leaves you hungry, leads to more snacking. Supposedly, when you eat food (with real live calories) your body thinks it's been in starvation mode (thank you 0 calorie soda!) and stores as many calories as it can as fat. I have also read rumors about the diet soda actually contributing to weight gain via messing with your metabolism's mind (so to speak), but can the above be correct? Because doesn't water also have 0 calories? Or is the issue that the sweetness of the diet soda is triggering something (not triggered by 0 calorie water) that is then unsatisfied with 0 calories?
Personally I'm glad Wal-mart's putting pressure on the record labels, there's a lot of inefficiency in how they do things. I'm quite certain they could get that price down to around $10 pretty easily if they wanted to.
One thing that has to be kept in mind when comparing the retail price of entertainment items: a) what did it cost to make them, and b) how much money have they already made on them? For a major label music CD or many boxed video games, the answers are a) a lot and b) nothing. That's going to get reflected in the retail price of the item, as all of the profits are coming from the sale of that item.
Hold that in contrast to DVD, where the answers are a) a lot and, b) the theatrical receipts (with the exception of direct-to-dvd titles). There are titles where the theatrical release has already recouped the creation and marketing costs, and the DVD is pure profit. Of course there are also many times, even for Oscar Nominees, that the DVD release is what makes a title profitable after an otherwise "lackluster" theatrical run.
I'm not saying that there's a 1:1 correlation, but it is something to consider when evaluating the retail prices of entertainment items, especially if arguing along the lines of "why does this DVD of a two hour movie with four hours of bonus footage" or "this game that provides 60 hours of playtime" cost the same as "this 74 minute CD"
I applaud the EFF in this, and this briefing is one heck of a document. I advocate fair use and wish device shifting would get to the supreme court so this issue could be settled. However, when you put files into a p2p folder, you ARE *sharing* the files. That someone didn't accept your sharing of the offer (or the software used someone else's copy) doesn't negate the fact that you shared them. In other words, beyond the fine point legality/illegality of the act, ethically I think the guy did something wrong.
But the idea that you can't device shift I'd like to see make it to the supreme court. I see this like Miranda and so many other cases: something legally good will hopefully happen on the back of someone who probably did do something wrong.
Netflix streaming + spare laptop + video out + (gov surplus)projector + wall = 100" movies.
Wow, that would make the artifacts on the SDTV resolution of the streaming Netflix movies something like three inches square!
I like Netflix streaming, and I use it frequently to watch/listen to documentaries at bedtime with a laptop on the nightstand. However I don't see the need to hook up to TV through laptop or forthcoming set-top box until they get some better resolution.
I second that, and add, make this work on the Wii. Like your Tivo, it's already plugged in to my HDTV and can get on the internet. In fact, make it work on all the game consoles. You always read about the PS2 helping the adoption of DVDs because people evidently said, "Whoa, we already have a DVD player!" Why not do the same thing for the XBox, Playstation 3 and Wii, where suddenly everyone says, "Hey, this works with Netflix!" Sounds like a winner to me.
Note that if Netflix's current streamed movie stuff worked with browsers other than IE that perhaps it WOULD work on the Wii...and any other internet-enabled device including phones or whatever. In lieu of that, maybe they could actually release software, i.e. "game" discs for the Wii and Playstation and Xbox, and a Palm app, and a java app, etc.
My library is affiliated with both Overdrive and Netlibrary, and thus offers e-books and digital audiobooks, accessed through through the web by entering my library card number. I have an e-book on my Treo right now that I checked out from my local library.
So maybe it's not *ubiquitous*, but e-books from the library are totally here and now.
>Why not make an amp with a "dynamic range compression" knob on it. When you turn it up, the music sounds clear in noisy environments. In a quiet environment, you turn it down and you get a more authentic sound with all the detail.
Thank you, you've outlined in perfect detail exactly what I've been wanting on my car stereo since I first had a car stereo.
I remember seeing an NAD cassette deck in a hi-fi shop that had a knob like that to assist in making mix tapes for your car. But screw that, put it right on the amplifier of any device used in a portable situation whether it be a car or a pocket. I specifically chose an A/V receiver with the Dolby "Night Mode" dynamic range control and find it essential when the situation is right. Late at night is what they chose to name it after, but it's even more useful to my family when we have a fan on in the room, belting out all that white noise. Man I want a control like that on everything. I want to be able to turn it off when I'm in the right environment! But I want to turn it on when I'm not.
Bah. Fuel efficient cars (including hybrids) reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I'll happily pony up the extra $$ for that, even if I'll never "regain" the expenditure with savings at the gas pump.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm with you. I never thought there would or could be a game that I loved or played more than Team Fortress 2, but Borderlands 2 has taken that title. It is a fantastic blend of FPS and RPG, the stories are worthwhile and are frequently very funny (and sometimes touching), the art is great and the voice acting is some of the best I've heard. It is fun to play solo and LOTS of fun to play multiplayer. Once you beat the game it starts over again with everything scaled to greater difficulty (and greater rewards). I never imagined that could be fun, but because of the story and the acting and the gameplay, I've not only played through more than once I've played through more than once with each of the six character classes. I own it on PS3, Steam and will buy a Vita to play it mobile. For me, there just is not a better game!
Also, a GPS unit is relatively durable, so if I bought one last year, I have no need to buy one again this year. Combine these two, and it's easy to see a significant decline in sales, even without considering smart phones.
This. Beyond durability, they are more upgradable than ever. I bought a GPS unit that, in addition to purely fun stuff like customizing the voice and changing the car graphics, has upgradeable maps, all of this via USB. A family member recently ditched their old, non-upgradeable GPS unit for the same style that I have because the map in their old GPS was so out of date it was unusable. While they will have to buy new maps from time to time, it is unlikely that they will buy new hardware for a LONG time.
The release of firmware- and map-upgradeable hardware at a price within reach of average consumers is a fairly recent phenomenon...one that may even coincide with the this dip in hardware sales. Let's see how TomTom and Garmin's map update subscriptions are doing too, to get a full picture.
I can't argue with their sales data, but I concur with the "hogwash" tag. There was a time when I carried a PIM, a Cell Phone and an MP3 player, and rejoiced when I could finally afford a single converged device. It makes sense both from a technological and a practical point of view that we've achieved further convergence to the point that one device can additionally have GPS and games and a camera and video and internet browsing and more. However, there is a ceiling on the eyeballs-to-interfaces ratio that you're going to hit at some point: there's only so many things you can do at once.
On a recent long car trip my "phone" was monopolized as I had it playing music for the whole ride, and my wife frequently used it to surf the net. Occasionally we even took a phone call. In short, because we were already using multiple other features on the "phone," the GPS functions could not be in front of my eyes when I wanted them.
So count me in as someone who does have a mobile convergence device but was nonetheless very happy to have purchased a standalone GPS (my first, a TomTom One XL), earlier this year (ironically right in the middle of their 1st quarter sales downturn).
For multiplayer where you send garbage to your opponent, what you want is Tetris for the Nintendo DS. As essential on the DS as it was on the earlier Game Boys, this is a tremendous value in that you can do a 10-player local (line of site) game when only one of you has the cartridge. You can also play against three people online.
Ooh, and they released Tetris via WiiWare and its multiplayer lets you send garbage as well.
I always loved Tetris Attack for the SNES (and Gameboy Color), and was disappointed that they didn't include that as one of the modes in Tetris DS. However, Planet Puzzle League plays very similarly.
...with a double bravo to Netcraft has even developed a version of its anti-phishing toolbar for Lynx, which cause a genuine choking-on-my-Mountain-Dew fit of giggles.
I signed up for GrandCentral back when it was pretty new, but I never really used it for the sole reason that I had to be at my computer to get my voice mails. If I was wandering around and just barely miss a call, I don't know who it was and what's more (if I recall correctly) I don't know who was calling either, because it's the "GrandCentral" number that comes into your phone.
While I think you're right that it *used* to be that way, and that it still *defaults* that way, for some time (at least a year?), Grand Central has had a Caller ID option in their settings tab where you can chose, a la:
"What Caller ID do you want us to display when GrandCentral calls your forwarding phones?
"
Also, if you call your Grand Central number from one of the phones you've told it to ring, it takes you right to your voice mail menu: you don't have to be at a computer to get your voice mail.
It has not rolled out to all users yet (as of 3/12 in the AM), similar to when they add new features to GMail it appears that it has to roll through the network. I confirmed this in my own Grand Central account.
You talk about ditching the show so quickly and yet wonder why Fox does it...gee, I wonder.
With apologies to pvera, who likes Fringe, I gave up on Fringe after 5 episodes. I understand what you're saying about giving a show a fair shake, but how many episodes does it take? I was very enthusiastic about Fringe and I think I may have even watched the premier live (vs. timeshifting on DVR). But after 5 episodes I decided that it was contrived to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.
I don't see a reason to inflict self-punishment by forcing yourself to partake in entertainment beyond the point that you that you don't find it entertaining. There has to be some point, and maybe it's one episode, maybe it's 3 or 5, where I have to say, "This is not as entertaining or diverting as my other available entertainment options, such as Team Fortress 2."
And with a lot of hour-long serialized dramas these days, you have to be in for the long haul. I'm not necessarily compelled to watch every week of most of the Law and Order shows, as they're fairly self-contained. But if you miss an episode of 24 or Lost, you're not going to get it. And Fringe felt like it was trying to be one of those types of shows, so what I was really deciding wasn't that night's 40 minutes of entertainment, but whether it was good enough to commit to 13 or 23 hours or whatever.
I've had a DVR for a number of years now (first from Time Warner, now Tivo), and I have to tell you, they make it completely irrelevant what time or day a show is on. When my son was growing up he didn't even know when his shows were on: to him, when it was time for SpongeBob or Power Rangers, they were always just there.
While I understand not everyone has a DVR, when people say they don't watch Conan O'Brian or Robot Chicken or SNL or whatever because they can't stay up that late...well, neither can I. But I record(ed) Conan every night and would check it out the next day. Sometimes I'd listen to a monologue while shaving the next morning.
For a long time, that kind of activity was transparent to the networks from a Nielsen perspective, but Nielsen is finally tracking DVR usage, and its making a difference, i.e. Nielsen Reports DVR Playback Is Adding To TV Viewing Levels. My family is watching Dollhouse, but have never watched it on Friday. On Monday March 9 we watched the episode that aired Friday Feb 7. We still have an episode on the Tivo from Friday March 6. And I know I'm not the only one that's doing that...reports are that viewership went up 30% once time-shifting was factored in.
So while I think that Fox are boneheads because they have canceled and/or otherwise botched a number of my favorite shows (Futurama and especially Firefly), I genuinely don't think that being on a Friday night matters anymore, especially to a possibly more tech-savvy (and likely to DVR or internet time-shift) sci-fi audience.
I think that Dvorak is putting too much blame on the spreadsheet: it was just an accelerant on an already-burning fire. As Frank Zappa said when asked, "What do you think happened in this country?"
Agreed. I love the idea of the in-game advertising/product placement being dynamic and making sense in the environment, and consider the Obama billboard in Burnout to be a great implementation of the idea. Having billboards makes sense in an outdoor driving game, and if you have a console that's internet-connected, why not have them updated with fresh content? I mean, when I play Crazy Taxi on my Dreamcast the passengers still want to go to Tower Records, you know?
The only thing I'd ask of publishers is to also let us customize the content. I'd like to be able to upload my own goofy graphic for a billboard, or have an all Frank Zappa radio station. Even in Mario Kart they use your Miis collection in the ads that appear in the mall level; it'd be awesome to have control of some of that content on my local machine.
Wouldn't a router with QOS solve that issue?
You must not listen to Ozzy Osborne or Judas Priest! ;)
Agreed. You have to get into the definition of "pirating" there. Sort of like the tree falling in the forest, if you buy a game and install a crack to run it off of your hard drive instead of the CD for whatever reason (convenience, conserving laptop battery from spinning up the CD), and you do this for your own personal use, are you actually "pirating?"
Are you depriving the publisher of anything at all, or does this fall under Fair Use?
What you described is why "choosing not to buy a game" exists (because it cost $90-$110 instead of $10-$25). My argument is just do without it. Then the publisher is not only not getting any income, they're not getting any hype or promotion either.
And again, understanding the difference between material and non-material goods, if keeping food on the table means that I can only afford a Toyota Corolla (a $10-$25 game), what legal or ethical entitlement do I have to "pirate" a Toyota Prius (a $90 - $100 game)?
The POINT is, people only have so much disposable income to spend on things like music. They spend what their budget allows them to spend, and after that, they can either follow copyright law "to the letter", owning, listening to and promoting by word of mouth the few albums they paid for. OR, they can take the approach of "pirating" whatever strikes their fancy, broadening their musical horizons in the process and giving all those additional artists a better shot at being on their "short list" to spend their limited income on down the road.
Ugh, I don't understand how people get to this point. To quote goldspider above, "I'm not willing to pay $1000 for Adobe Creative Suite. By what reasoning am I, therefore, entitled to a copy of the software? I have yet to hear a rational answer to that question."
I understand that argument by analogy doesn't fully work when you're talking about tangible vs. intangible goods, but follow me: the point is, people only have so much disposable income to spend on things like prime rib. So they can follow the law to the letter and only buy the food they can actually afford, like Ramen or condensed tomato soup. OR, they can take the approach of just shoplifting whatever strikes their fancy, broadening their palate in the process and perhaps introducing their friends to whole new food groups.
Doesn't work, does it? Now, does it not work because I'm committing a fallacy of relevance/weak analogy, or is it really because as dirtyfly said, you don't want to pay for it and it's easy to steal?
Where do we have an ethical or legal right to consume an unlimited amount of art and/or entertainment without paying for it? How about this: if a game publisher is charging $50 and doesn't offer a sufficient demo to let you know whether you want to part with your funds, just do without it entirely? If a music artist doesn't have enough free or cheap stuff for me to decide whether to part with the $10 to $20 for their CD or the $10 to $50 for their concert ticket, how about *doing without it*? How about not giving any of the above any of my recreational/entertainment time except perhaps to drop them a note that says, "If you'd had more try-before-you-buy content I was going to check you out, but you don't, so you lose until you change your business model."
http://gizmodo.com/5025583/how-the-wii-motionplus-makes-the-wiimote-more-accurate
Personally I'm glad Wal-mart's putting pressure on the record labels, there's a lot of inefficiency in how they do things. I'm quite certain they could get that price down to around $10 pretty easily if they wanted to.
One thing that has to be kept in mind when comparing the retail price of entertainment items: a) what did it cost to make them, and b) how much money have they already made on them? For a major label music CD or many boxed video games, the answers are a) a lot and b) nothing. That's going to get reflected in the retail price of the item, as all of the profits are coming from the sale of that item.
Hold that in contrast to DVD, where the answers are a) a lot and, b) the theatrical receipts (with the exception of direct-to-dvd titles). There are titles where the theatrical release has already recouped the creation and marketing costs, and the DVD is pure profit. Of course there are also many times, even for Oscar Nominees, that the DVD release is what makes a title profitable after an otherwise "lackluster" theatrical run.
I'm not saying that there's a 1:1 correlation, but it is something to consider when evaluating the retail prices of entertainment items, especially if arguing along the lines of "why does this DVD of a two hour movie with four hours of bonus footage" or "this game that provides 60 hours of playtime" cost the same as "this 74 minute CD"
I applaud the EFF in this, and this briefing is one heck of a document. I advocate fair use and wish device shifting would get to the supreme court so this issue could be settled. However, when you put files into a p2p folder, you ARE *sharing* the files. That someone didn't accept your sharing of the offer (or the software used someone else's copy) doesn't negate the fact that you shared them. In other words, beyond the fine point legality/illegality of the act, ethically I think the guy did something wrong.
But the idea that you can't device shift I'd like to see make it to the supreme court. I see this like Miranda and so many other cases: something legally good will hopefully happen on the back of someone who probably did do something wrong.
Netflix streaming + spare laptop + video out + (gov surplus)projector + wall = 100" movies.
Wow, that would make the artifacts on the SDTV resolution of the streaming Netflix movies something like three inches square!
I like Netflix streaming, and I use it frequently to watch/listen to documentaries at bedtime with a laptop on the nightstand. However I don't see the need to hook up to TV through laptop or forthcoming set-top box until they get some better resolution.
I second that, and add, make this work on the Wii. Like your Tivo, it's already plugged in to my HDTV and can get on the internet. In fact, make it work on all the game consoles. You always read about the PS2 helping the adoption of DVDs because people evidently said, "Whoa, we already have a DVD player!" Why not do the same thing for the XBox, Playstation 3 and Wii, where suddenly everyone says, "Hey, this works with Netflix!" Sounds like a winner to me.
Note that if Netflix's current streamed movie stuff worked with browsers other than IE that perhaps it WOULD work on the Wii...and any other internet-enabled device including phones or whatever. In lieu of that, maybe they could actually release software, i.e. "game" discs for the Wii and Playstation and Xbox, and a Palm app, and a java app, etc.
My library is affiliated with both Overdrive and Netlibrary, and thus offers e-books and digital audiobooks, accessed through through the web by entering my library card number. I have an e-book on my Treo right now that I checked out from my local library.
So maybe it's not *ubiquitous*, but e-books from the library are totally here and now.
>Why not make an amp with a "dynamic range compression" knob on it. When you turn it up, the music sounds clear in noisy environments. In a quiet environment, you turn it down and you get a more authentic sound with all the detail.
Thank you, you've outlined in perfect detail exactly what I've been wanting on my car stereo since I first had a car stereo.
I remember seeing an NAD cassette deck in a hi-fi shop that had a knob like that to assist in making mix tapes for your car. But screw that, put it right on the amplifier of any device used in a portable situation whether it be a car or a pocket. I specifically chose an A/V receiver with the Dolby "Night Mode" dynamic range control and find it essential when the situation is right. Late at night is what they chose to name it after, but it's even more useful to my family when we have a fan on in the room, belting out all that white noise. Man I want a control like that on everything. I want to be able to turn it off when I'm in the right environment! But I want to turn it on when I'm not.
Bah. Fuel efficient cars (including hybrids) reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I'll happily pony up the extra $$ for that, even if I'll never "regain" the expenditure with savings at the gas pump.