I just wish Sony would use some of the untapped power to fix some of the serious functional flaws.
As well as the problems caused by the lack of scaling, it now seems that the PS2 emulation produces much worse image quality than a real PS2 on some PS2 games.
Just do a search for "ps2 ps3 jaggies" to find plenty of coverage of this issue (though strangely not on Slashdot yet).
I've not yet got a PS3 (I'm in the UK), but this is a deal-breaker for me if they can't fix it before the European launch.
Although Mac power management is miles better than on PCs, it's not flawless.
For instance, my Mac Mini (Power PC) no longer sleeps correctly. It used to, it just doesn't any more. Also, my PowerBook would lock up if I attached an external monitor while it was sleeping.
I picked mine up this morning. I had a preorder, and got mine without trouble. There were none for sale not preordered.
I'm pleased with it so far, though there has been a massive shortage of accessories as seems usual for Nintendo on launch.
GAME (the store where I got mine) had no separate Wiimotes at all, and only a very limited number of the ones packed in with Wii Play. They were also very limited in extra nunchuks and classic controllers.
They also didn't have any additional cables at all, so I'm stuck with composite until the (seemingly mythical) component cables appear.
They seemed to have plenty of stock of games at least.
If the skills or stats exist and have an effect on the game, then hiding them doesn't help.
The hardcore players will just conduct experiments within the game to determine what the stats and mechanics are. This just means that the hardcore players have even more of an advantage.
For example, some of the game mechanics of Final Fantasy XI are rather complicated and depend on stats that are not directly visible in the game. However, people have done sufficient testing that most of the effects are fairly well understood.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, this isn't quite true: Final Fantasy XI needs the HDD. However, that is a special case (and was so on the PS2 as well).
They already do this. The information IS digitally signed, which is why you can't modify the data.
What the article is reporting on is that this doesn't stop you CLONING the data.
Just as with with the XBOX binaries the digital signature doesn't do anything to stop you copying the data. It is only other security systems (special disks on the xbox, the physical object for passports) that stop you doing this.
The problem with the passports is that the encryption on the link is an unchanging encryption with a key that is not particularly secure. Once you have the key, then you can read the data and clone the chip.
The passports could have been designed more securely. For instance, it could work exactly like SSL encrypted web sites. The passport could have a unique secret private key, and a public key signed by the government. This wouldn't stop anyone reading the data but it would stop them cloning it, as the private key never leaves the chip.
Unfortunately, doing SSL encryption would require a significant amount of processing power in the passport chip. This would be much more expensive.
Basically, the government has traded off security for cost, and chosen a cheaper, less secure version.
I'm actually pretty impressed with the backwards compatibility as reported so far. At least it seems that most games will work without problem.
This is in contrast with the Xbox 360 backwards compatibilty which is such a total joke that I can't believe anyone even bothers to mention it as a feature. On the 360 there isn't any way to move an old save from an Xbox, huge numbers of games don't work at all, and those that do are not guaranteed to behave the same way.
I'm not complaining about the 360; it's a great console. However, I'm baffled as to why Microsoft even bothered with the backwards compatibilty (apart from suckering people with a tick-box feature). It's sufficiently bad that I doubt anyone moving from an Xbox would consider using the 360 as a replacement if they want to play xbox games.
[1] By the way, Slashdot, Blu-Ray is the correct spelling; I heard Sony didn't use "Blue" as they couldn't trademark it.
Being pedantic, even that is wrong. According to blu-ray.com, the correct short form is 'Blu-ray' not 'Blu-Ray'. The full name of the media is 'Blu-ray Disc'.
The price drop only affects the Japanese release, and then only on the lower-end model.
Sony have already stated that there will only be 100,000 PS3s at launch in Japan. They have also stated that the vast majority of these will be the higher end version. Thus the price cut will be on a very small number of units.
In all of the flame wars about the competing HD movie formats, one thing I've not seen discussed much is that neither the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 are likely to be any good as movie players.
I've got an Xbox 360. Due to the cooling required it is far too loud to be seriously considered as a movie player. It's bad enough when playing games.
Obviously the PS3 isn't yet available, so we can't yet judge how noisy it will be. However, given the power requirements, it's unlikely to be any better than the 360.
Also (and I know this isn't directly applicable to the PS3 situation), remember that despite being sold as such, the PS2 was a really dreadful DVD player.
Although it does accept cookies, any cookies that were created while Private Browsing was switched on are automatically deleted when Private Browsing is switched off.
I used to use this for backups (I only don't now because that machine is no longer in use).
If you turn off the compression options, then the files will get written to the DVD as a standard filesystem so you can still get at your data without having the software.
I believe that the keys for this software will be revoked, and the current users (if any) "upgraded".
Actually, the linked story claims Toshiba says they do not expect the keys to be revoked, as
this feature does not violate the AACS security stipulations.
However, the article also claims Toshiba have announced 'upgrades' to remove this feature. This
does raise the question though of if this feature is allowed, then why are they removing it?
Just because an attack CAN be distributed doesn't mean that it is sensible to describe it as a DDoS. Nowhere in the referenced news story does it mention using multiple attackers. In fact, it specifically discusses the case of a lone attacker.
Because this attack can be staged with a single computer, it is more specific to describe it normal DoS attack.
Point 2 would be useful, except that if the mail gets deleted by Hotmail's first level spam filters, it doesn't generate bounce messages. In fact, it claims successful delivery to the sender.
Actually, sending mail to Hotmail is much worse than that.
The Symantec BrightMail filters that Hotmail uses will silently delete mail. The sender will see no indication that the mail failed, but the message will be deleted; it will NOT necessarily appear in the Junk Mail folder.
I've been using Hotmail for years, but have recently been having terrible trouble with it losing messages from mailing lists that I am on, even with spam protection set at its lowest level.
Hotmail is NOT a reliable email system.
As far as I can tell, the only real solution to this is to tell your recipients not to use Hotmail.
Even if they do add more titles, the backwards compatibility is still nearly useless for many games as there is still no way of transferring saved games from the Xbox to the Xbox 360.
I'm worried that Sony may try to pull the same stunt. Like the 360, the PS3 is missing memory card slots for the previous generation, so saved games could be a problem there as well.
I assume the disclaimer is there simply because all the other numbers on that chart are quoted in GB. They are simply pointing out that that link is really slow. As other replies have stated, this doesn't matter in practice as you don't need to do this. It seems the primary point of this bit of the presentation was to point out this limitation so that developers don't do this by mistake.
Yeah, the bandwidth for the PS3 looks good. However, the Xbox 360 also has a small amount (10 MB if I recall correctly) of embedded RAM on the GPU to cover the framebuffer. This should reduce the load on the main memory in the Xbox 360 considerably.
How these will compare in practice hasn't really been made public yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, EVE Online has daily downtime - 11am to 12 noon GMT.
I just wish Sony would use some of the untapped power to fix some of the serious functional flaws.
As well as the problems caused by the lack of scaling, it now seems that the PS2 emulation produces much worse image quality than a real PS2 on some PS2 games.
Just do a search for "ps2 ps3 jaggies" to find plenty of coverage of this issue (though strangely not on Slashdot yet).
I've not yet got a PS3 (I'm in the UK), but this is a deal-breaker for me if they can't fix it before the European launch.
Not necessarily.
Although Mac power management is miles better than on PCs, it's not flawless.
For instance, my Mac Mini (Power PC) no longer sleeps correctly. It used to, it just doesn't any more. Also, my PowerBook would lock up if I attached an external monitor while it was sleeping.
I picked mine up this morning. I had a preorder, and got mine without trouble. There were none for sale not preordered.
I'm pleased with it so far, though there has been a massive shortage of accessories as seems usual for Nintendo on launch.
GAME (the store where I got mine) had no separate Wiimotes at all, and only a very limited number of the ones packed in with Wii Play. They were also very limited in extra nunchuks and classic controllers.
They also didn't have any additional cables at all, so I'm stuck with composite until the (seemingly mythical) component cables appear.
They seemed to have plenty of stock of games at least.
If the skills or stats exist and have an effect on the game, then hiding them doesn't help.
The hardcore players will just conduct experiments within the game to determine what the stats and mechanics are. This just means that the hardcore players have even more of an advantage.
For example, some of the game mechanics of Final Fantasy XI are rather complicated and depend on stats that are not directly visible in the game. However, people have done sufficient testing that most of the effects are fairly well understood.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, this isn't quite true: Final Fantasy XI needs the HDD. However, that is a special case (and was so on the PS2 as well).
However, no normal games should require the HDD.
They already do this. The information IS digitally signed, which is why you can't modify the data.
What the article is reporting on is that this doesn't stop you CLONING the data.
Just as with with the XBOX binaries the digital signature doesn't do anything to stop you copying the data. It is only other security systems (special disks on the xbox, the physical object for passports) that stop you doing this.
The problem with the passports is that the encryption on the link is an unchanging encryption with a key that is not particularly secure. Once you have the key, then you can read the data and clone the chip.
The passports could have been designed more securely. For instance, it could work exactly like SSL encrypted web sites. The passport could have a unique secret private key, and a public key signed by the government. This wouldn't stop anyone reading the data but it would stop them cloning it, as the private key never leaves the chip.
Unfortunately, doing SSL encryption would require a significant amount of processing power in the passport chip. This would be much more expensive.
Basically, the government has traded off security for cost, and chosen a cheaper, less secure version.
This is in contrast with the Xbox 360 backwards compatibilty which is such a total joke that I can't believe anyone even bothers to mention it as a feature. On the 360 there isn't any way to move an old save from an Xbox, huge numbers of games don't work at all, and those that do are not guaranteed to behave the same way.
I'm not complaining about the 360; it's a great console. However, I'm baffled as to why Microsoft even bothered with the backwards compatibilty (apart from suckering people with a tick-box feature). It's sufficiently bad that I doubt anyone moving from an Xbox would consider using the 360 as a replacement if they want to play xbox games.
[1] By the way, Slashdot, Blu-Ray is the correct spelling; I heard Sony didn't use "Blue" as they couldn't trademark it.
Being pedantic, even that is wrong. According to blu-ray.com, the correct short form is 'Blu-ray' not 'Blu-Ray'. The full name of the media is 'Blu-ray Disc'.
The price drop only affects the Japanese release, and then only on the lower-end model.
Sony have already stated that there will only be 100,000 PS3s at launch in Japan. They have also stated that the vast majority of these will be the higher end version. Thus the price cut will be on a very small number of units.
In all of the flame wars about the competing HD movie formats, one thing I've not seen discussed much is that neither the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 are likely to be any good as movie players.
I've got an Xbox 360. Due to the cooling required it is far too loud to be seriously considered as a movie player. It's bad enough when playing games.
Obviously the PS3 isn't yet available, so we can't yet judge how noisy it will be. However, given the power requirements, it's unlikely to be any better than the 360.
Also (and I know this isn't directly applicable to the PS3 situation), remember that despite being sold as such, the PS2 was a really dreadful DVD player.
Don't forget that Apple's Pro apps have yet another "look".
NTSC and PAL are standard definition standards.
I highly doubt anyone going to the effort of importing a PS3 is going to be running it in standard definition.
Safari does accept cookies while Private Browsing is on. It just deletes them when you turn Private Browsing off again.
Thus, you can still log into sites that need cookies, but you will need to do it each session.
Although it does accept cookies, any cookies that were created while Private Browsing was switched on are automatically deleted when Private Browsing is switched off.
That really isn't the same thing at all.
The Firefox Clear Private Data will destroy data from all your browsing, and thus lose useful things such as your history.
Safari's Private Browsing mode stops it collecting data in the first place, and crucially, only while it is active.
I second this suggestion.
I used to use this for backups (I only don't now because that machine is no longer in use).
If you turn off the compression options, then the files will get written to the DVD as a standard filesystem so you can still get at your data without having the software.
Actually, the linked story claims Toshiba says they do not expect the keys to be revoked, as this feature does not violate the AACS security stipulations.
However, the article also claims Toshiba have announced 'upgrades' to remove this feature. This does raise the question though of if this feature is allowed, then why are they removing it?
Just because an attack CAN be distributed doesn't mean that it is sensible to describe it as a DDoS. Nowhere in the referenced news story does it mention using multiple attackers. In fact, it specifically discusses the case of a lone attacker.
Because this attack can be staged with a single computer, it is more specific to describe it normal DoS attack.
Or they live outside the US. The difference in resolution between SD NTSC and 720p HD is rather larger than the difference between SD PAL and 720p HD.
720p HD does look better than a good PAL DVD, but it's not a huge difference.
Point 2 would be useful, except that if the mail gets deleted by Hotmail's first level spam filters, it doesn't generate bounce messages. In fact, it claims successful delivery to the sender.
Actually, sending mail to Hotmail is much worse than that.
The Symantec BrightMail filters that Hotmail uses will silently delete mail. The sender will see no indication that the mail failed, but the message will be deleted; it will NOT necessarily appear in the Junk Mail folder.
I've been using Hotmail for years, but have recently been having terrible trouble with it losing messages from mailing lists that I am on, even with spam protection set at its lowest level.
Hotmail is NOT a reliable email system.
As far as I can tell, the only real solution to this is to tell your recipients not to use Hotmail.
Even if they do add more titles, the backwards compatibility is still nearly useless for many games as there is still no way of transferring saved games from the Xbox to the Xbox 360.
I'm worried that Sony may try to pull the same stunt. Like the 360, the PS3 is missing memory card slots for the previous generation, so saved games could be a problem there as well.
I assume the disclaimer is there simply because all the other numbers on that chart are quoted in GB. They are simply pointing out that that link is really slow. As other replies have stated, this doesn't matter in practice as you don't need to do this. It seems the primary point of this bit of the presentation was to point out this limitation so that developers don't do this by mistake.
Yeah, the bandwidth for the PS3 looks good. However, the Xbox 360 also has a small amount (10 MB if I recall correctly) of embedded RAM on the GPU to cover the framebuffer. This should reduce the load on the main memory in the Xbox 360 considerably.
How these will compare in practice hasn't really been made public yet.