> When marketing managers and O-level executives have a resource that tells them that they need to stop making decisions based on what their favorite colors are, or what websites their kids like to visit...
Or confusing attention grabbing, and a good website. Managers seem to confuse websites (which aer an information source) and advertising (which primarily has to grab people's attention).
Frankly, most of it is cheap. For price comparison, my Mac Mini has wireless and gigabit ethernet, for £400. I bought a digital tuner for a further £80. Lets call the drives £60 each, taking us up to £600, leaving £1,200 to cover the Blu-Ray drive, and DRMing your content.
> the vastly opposing directions various consoles and chip makers are going technology-wise
Erm, isn't it, like, Sony and everyone else? The XBox 360 has 3 symmetric cores for its CPU. PCs are heading towards 2-4 symmetric cores. The Wii has, from what I can tell, only one core. The PS3 is the odd one out with 8 asymmetric cores. I'd also imagine this would bother them a lot less if they didn't burn out their developers by keeping them in near-permanent "crunch mode", until they snap a few years in and go do something more rewarding ( http://lostgarden.com/2006/04/joyful-life-of-lapse d-game-developer.html ), meaning there just aren't many experienced coders out there writing games...
While I'm at it; what _really_ gets me is that Battlefield 2142 costs about $6-8 more than any other game for the PC, in the UK. Not, we're paying the same price for advertising supported content, no, we're paying EXTRA. If they had a regularly priced version with advertising, or even a reduced cost version, and then the premium no-adverts version, I'd probably buy the premium version, but there's no way I'm paying premium prices for an average product that has adverts.
> As for the rising costs to develop and publish games, that's not my problem. That's EA's problem.
Absolutely. They complain one second how the market demands shiny new graphics, then the next are screaming "Look, shinyier, better graphics!". We want graphics at the standard we're used to, and that's a standard they pushed graphics too.
I didn't cancel my Auto Assault pre-order when they announced advertising. I should have (irrespective of the end game quality). But I'm making a stand here; if they want to sell a reduced cost, advertising supported version, sure, I'm happy for them, but I'm not buying a full price game and then getting adverts in it. Let alone spyware...
My computer, my Internet connection, not yours, EA...
What I'm wondering is what on earth they thought copyright laws did, if they didn't stop you selling other people's copyrighted material without their permission!
Exactly. Personally, and I'm a software developer, I'm almost cheering the crackers on... and certainly, I think this is a brilliant example of the power of Google Code search to allow security problems to be easily located, and then fixed (well, if you're me, anyway).
Year old game to be available for PS3Okay, and there's a new joinable faction.
So, erm, why is this worthy of putting on/.? I mean, if it was an exclusive, or at least was launching on the PS3 at the same time as other platforms, or even had been listed as Windows/XBox 360 exclusive before, maybe, but... really, so what?
And if Sony win, they won't at all be complacent? We're talking about the same company that told everyone to work longer hours to afford a PS3, right?
Now, I think predictions of doom and gloom for Sony are nonsense. If you actually look at the profit figures for Sony, sure, they're not in great shape, but this isn't going to sink them either. I also can't see the PS3 being a complete failure; it's overpriced and complex to develop for, but it's also very powerful. I see a much more likely outcome being that Sony lose a chunk of market share to Microsoft this time around, leaving them with, say, 30-40% market share, and don't make anything like the profit they could have done, and next time around they maybe demonstrate a little more interest in what the customer's want, as opposed to what the media section wants.
> It's not Paypal's fault if you actually believed that the poorly-worded email you got was actually from them because it had their logo someplace on it.
Thing is, and amongst the reasons I'm not comfortable with making customers liable, is that I've seen some really convincing phishing e-mails. Sure, most of them are total drivel, but I've seen a few that are styled to match my bank's website almost perfectly, with roll-over URLs that look correct.
> On the other hand, this sort of thing could also seriously undermine the confidence that people have in online transactions and the like, so I can't help but wonder if maybe it isn't shortsighted not to just take the hit.
Absolutely. If customers were liable for phishing, I'd have my bank revoke my Internet banking details immediately. I can not afford to lose the contents of my bank accounts, it's certainly not worth risking just for a little convenience here and there.
I get the feeling they're not the kind of person that has 10s of thousands of dollars in their bank accounts...
Certainly, having my accounts emptied would be devestating. I've got the deposit on a house, plus money to pay for furniture in my accounts, a lot of which was generously donated by my parents. If that went, it would take me something close to a decade to save it again... that's not a "Well, boy do I feel dumb, nevermind, just won't do it again", that's "Bloody hell, now what do I do???". I do what I can to protect my accounts; log in only from systems I manage myself, never click links in e-mails, change passwords regularly, maintain accounts with different banks and different passwords, but still...
I'd consider something on the order of not allowing people to use Internet banking for 5-10 years, a more appropriate level of punishment, not to mention common sense under the circumstances.
My bank does. I know this, because I accidentally got my account locked (apparently couldn't type that day), and re-activating it required two halves of a key, one given over the phone, one supplied by e-mail...
"According to Merrill Lynch research company, the most expensive component of the PlayStation 3 will be its Blu-ray disk drive, which will initially cost $350. The second most expensive part of the gaming machine will be the Cell processor which will cost Sony "at least" $230 per unit to make. Nvidia's RSX graphics processor will cost $70, while for 256MB of XDR memory as well as 256MB of GDDR3 memory Sony will have to pay $50, believes Merrily Lynch."
So... $350 for a drive whose only real advantage in gaming terms is you can squeeze more hours of HD footage on a system whose 3D graphics are going to be almost as good as pre-rendered? $230 for the CPU, which will be used for... physics? Are people really going to notice the difference between physics on the XBox 360 and PS3?
To me, it would have seemed better to forget about the Blu-Ray drive as it started becoming apparent that manufacturing would be an issue, and release it later as an add-on...
The post's marked funny, but no, seriously, if both formats flop, it isn't a big issue. Upscaled DVDs are just fine for me, thanks, and I imagine a lot of other people too. Not only that, but I'd be amazed if they don't try the launch again a few more years down the line, hopefully with better formats...
Heck, we may never see another format like DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, because we'll all download movies over ultra fast broadband, but I'm a believe it when I see it kinda guy on that front.
> NOW Before all the goddam whiners start barking about liablity, and poisioning and the like remmeber theis was MY lunch meant to be eaten or discarded my ME, and it was STOLEN.
The answer, of course, is to make everyone (except lunch stealer) happy by sticking a label on it that says:
Can I just point out, you said MIMO. I'm assuming 802.11n draft compliant then, at about 540Mb/s, or about 10 times the speeds Microsoft were talking about?
Lucky you! Here, also in Europe, we only get one of the mobile networks where I work, for example (although the transmitter is more or less on top of the building next door). Reception in the town centre is also fairly poor for most networks.
Well, I'm quietly considering that I frequently buy things for other people (gifts probably account for the majority of what I buy from Amazon, and occasionally I buy stuff for someone who doesn't have a credit card, and they pay me back in cash), and thinking what that must have done for my profile.
Certainly, it recommends some _really_ odd stuff from time to time...
So far the best experience I've had with a Media PC setup has been using an Intel based Mac Mini, EyeTV 2 and a DVB-T receiver. It's not perfect (the Mac will occaisionally fail to wake up to record a program, for example), but it's fairly good.
However, at the end of the day, the only advantage it has over a standalone dedicated box is upgradability. Cost and ease of use are both major downsides.
Slashdot Mirror
> When marketing managers and O-level executives have a resource that tells them that they need to stop making decisions based on what their favorite colors are, or what websites their kids like to visit...
Or confusing attention grabbing, and a good website. Managers seem to confuse websites (which aer an information source) and advertising (which primarily has to grab people's attention).
Frankly, most of it is cheap. For price comparison, my Mac Mini has wireless and gigabit ethernet, for £400. I bought a digital tuner for a further £80. Lets call the drives £60 each, taking us up to £600, leaving £1,200 to cover the Blu-Ray drive, and DRMing your content.
> the vastly opposing directions various consoles and chip makers are going technology-wise
e d-game-developer.html ), meaning there just aren't many experienced coders out there writing games...
Erm, isn't it, like, Sony and everyone else? The XBox 360 has 3 symmetric cores for its CPU. PCs are heading towards 2-4 symmetric cores. The Wii has, from what I can tell, only one core. The PS3 is the odd one out with 8 asymmetric cores. I'd also imagine this would bother them a lot less if they didn't burn out their developers by keeping them in near-permanent "crunch mode", until they snap a few years in and go do something more rewarding ( http://lostgarden.com/2006/04/joyful-life-of-laps
While I'm at it; what _really_ gets me is that Battlefield 2142 costs about $6-8 more than any other game for the PC, in the UK. Not, we're paying the same price for advertising supported content, no, we're paying EXTRA. If they had a regularly priced version with advertising, or even a reduced cost version, and then the premium no-adverts version, I'd probably buy the premium version, but there's no way I'm paying premium prices for an average product that has adverts.
> As for the rising costs to develop and publish games, that's not my problem. That's EA's problem.
Absolutely. They complain one second how the market demands shiny new graphics, then the next are screaming "Look, shinyier, better graphics!". We want graphics at the standard we're used to, and that's a standard they pushed graphics too.
I didn't cancel my Auto Assault pre-order when they announced advertising. I should have (irrespective of the end game quality). But I'm making a stand here; if they want to sell a reduced cost, advertising supported version, sure, I'm happy for them, but I'm not buying a full price game and then getting adverts in it. Let alone spyware...
My computer, my Internet connection, not yours, EA...
What I'm wondering is what on earth they thought copyright laws did, if they didn't stop you selling other people's copyrighted material without their permission!
Exactly. Personally, and I'm a software developer, I'm almost cheering the crackers on... and certainly, I think this is a brilliant example of the power of Google Code search to allow security problems to be easily located, and then fixed (well, if you're me, anyway).
Disclaimer: I want analysts to be stoned. With actual stones.
Year old game to be available for PS3Okay, and there's a new joinable faction.
/.? I mean, if it was an exclusive, or at least was launching on the PS3 at the same time as other platforms, or even had been listed as Windows/XBox 360 exclusive before, maybe, but... really, so what?
So, erm, why is this worthy of putting on
And if Sony win, they won't at all be complacent? We're talking about the same company that told everyone to work longer hours to afford a PS3, right?
Now, I think predictions of doom and gloom for Sony are nonsense. If you actually look at the profit figures for Sony, sure, they're not in great shape, but this isn't going to sink them either. I also can't see the PS3 being a complete failure; it's overpriced and complex to develop for, but it's also very powerful. I see a much more likely outcome being that Sony lose a chunk of market share to Microsoft this time around, leaving them with, say, 30-40% market share, and don't make anything like the profit they could have done, and next time around they maybe demonstrate a little more interest in what the customer's want, as opposed to what the media section wants.
> It's not Paypal's fault if you actually believed that the poorly-worded email you got was actually from them because it had their logo someplace on it.
Thing is, and amongst the reasons I'm not comfortable with making customers liable, is that I've seen some really convincing phishing e-mails. Sure, most of them are total drivel, but I've seen a few that are styled to match my bank's website almost perfectly, with roll-over URLs that look correct.
> On the other hand, this sort of thing could also seriously undermine the confidence that people have in online transactions and the like, so I can't help but wonder if maybe it isn't shortsighted not to just take the hit.
Absolutely. If customers were liable for phishing, I'd have my bank revoke my Internet banking details immediately. I can not afford to lose the contents of my bank accounts, it's certainly not worth risking just for a little convenience here and there.
I get the feeling they're not the kind of person that has 10s of thousands of dollars in their bank accounts...
Certainly, having my accounts emptied would be devestating. I've got the deposit on a house, plus money to pay for furniture in my accounts, a lot of which was generously donated by my parents. If that went, it would take me something close to a decade to save it again... that's not a "Well, boy do I feel dumb, nevermind, just won't do it again", that's "Bloody hell, now what do I do???". I do what I can to protect my accounts; log in only from systems I manage myself, never click links in e-mails, change passwords regularly, maintain accounts with different banks and different passwords, but still...
I'd consider something on the order of not allowing people to use Internet banking for 5-10 years, a more appropriate level of punishment, not to mention common sense under the circumstances.
My bank does. I know this, because I accidentally got my account locked (apparently couldn't type that day), and re-activating it required two halves of a key, one given over the phone, one supplied by e-mail...
Exactly. Although the biggest issue is their inability to realise this early on, and limit the damage, rather than carrying on regardless. Looking at the estimated components costs (from http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20 060906013432.html ):
"According to Merrill Lynch research company, the most expensive component of the PlayStation 3 will be its Blu-ray disk drive, which will initially cost $350. The second most expensive part of the gaming machine will be the Cell processor which will cost Sony "at least" $230 per unit to make. Nvidia's RSX graphics processor will cost $70, while for 256MB of XDR memory as well as 256MB of GDDR3 memory Sony will have to pay $50, believes Merrily Lynch."
So... $350 for a drive whose only real advantage in gaming terms is you can squeeze more hours of HD footage on a system whose 3D graphics are going to be almost as good as pre-rendered? $230 for the CPU, which will be used for... physics? Are people really going to notice the difference between physics on the XBox 360 and PS3?
To me, it would have seemed better to forget about the Blu-Ray drive as it started becoming apparent that manufacturing would be an issue, and release it later as an add-on...
The post's marked funny, but no, seriously, if both formats flop, it isn't a big issue. Upscaled DVDs are just fine for me, thanks, and I imagine a lot of other people too. Not only that, but I'd be amazed if they don't try the launch again a few more years down the line, hopefully with better formats...
Heck, we may never see another format like DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, because we'll all download movies over ultra fast broadband, but I'm a believe it when I see it kinda guy on that front.
That should be 's lunch, DO NOT EAT
> NOW Before all the goddam whiners start barking about liablity, and poisioning and the like remmeber theis was MY lunch meant to be eaten or discarded my ME, and it was STOLEN.
The answer, of course, is to make everyone (except lunch stealer) happy by sticking a label on it that says:
's lunch, DO NOT EAT
I have to say, trusting SHA-1 to do what it says on the tin, is not incompetent. Naive, sure, but not incompetent.
Okay, better, but there's still the possibility of Photoshop.
Can I just point out, you said MIMO. I'm assuming 802.11n draft compliant then, at about 540Mb/s, or about 10 times the speeds Microsoft were talking about?
Lucky you! Here, also in Europe, we only get one of the mobile networks where I work, for example (although the transmitter is more or less on top of the building next door). Reception in the town centre is also fairly poor for most networks.
Hey, stop asking awkward questions about problems security experts have known for years! Bad consumer! No biscuit!
Well, I'm quietly considering that I frequently buy things for other people (gifts probably account for the majority of what I buy from Amazon, and occasionally I buy stuff for someone who doesn't have a credit card, and they pay me back in cash), and thinking what that must have done for my profile.
Certainly, it recommends some _really_ odd stuff from time to time...
Disagree. There just isn't enough momentum for people to be bothered hacking these, IMHO.
So far the best experience I've had with a Media PC setup has been using an Intel based Mac Mini, EyeTV 2 and a DVB-T receiver. It's not perfect (the Mac will occaisionally fail to wake up to record a program, for example), but it's fairly good.
However, at the end of the day, the only advantage it has over a standalone dedicated box is upgradability. Cost and ease of use are both major downsides.