> I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.
Have you considered that maybe you should have lower-salaried entry positions, then, and promote as they pick up the missing skills? Speaking here as someone whose salary has doubled in the 5 years since they left university...
I don't think Apple is going to be shipping OS X for generic PC hardware anytime soon. I _do_ think we'll see something similar in 2-4 years time, however. Okay, the two big arguments against "generic" Apple computers:
1. Hardware support - part of what makes Apple hardware so reliable is that the hardware is relatively good quality, well tested together, and there's a fairly simple selection to test on.
2. Apple is not a software company.
So lets imagine a mid-way point. Apple start selling ATX motherboards with a copy of OS X bundled, and obviously which include all the DRM you need to let OS X run. So, if some random person wants to build their own Apple box, they buy the motherboard, pick components they like from an approved list, put the whole lot together, and bingo they have a nice, stable, customised Apple system. People who want to build their own, or put it an freaky case, or make it glow UV are happy.
But what about OEMs that want to go a little further? Well, have Apple provide a hardware certification program. The OEM picks the pieces, makes sure they work to a level they're confident in, posts a sample system off to Apple, who run their own stability/compatibility tests, and stick a nice friendly "Apple certified" logo on that particular combination of parts.
This is not perfect. It's going to be more expensive than just stuffing together generic PC components. I think, however, it's a good mid-point between generic OS X boxes, and only Apple boxes running OS X.
I agree - doing something wrong (copying copyright material without the copyright owner's permission) will have consequences, and these will be unpleasant. It's maybe a little dumb of the RIAA, as in this case they get their money maybe a little earlier, and a bunch of negative publicity with it, but it's not wrong.
Now, product pricing, DRM with everything, wanting you to buy the same song more than once (different media), that's evil...
Feel that, if I had mod points, you'd be going up. I mean, I like Will Wright's work, but for goodness sake people, stop drooling over him like he's some demigod!
For example, is calling to report that the fire alarm is going off in a university building, which turns out to be a faulty alarm, an emergency because it requires an immediate response, or a non-emergency because it wasn't actually a fire, and the alarm system had auto-reported it anyway?
Same question for something being reported more than once - for example, a nearby house caught fire recently, and we called to report it, to find out that (not unsuprisingly, given the size of the fire when we spotted it), that several other people had called already?
> The likes of OSX automatically scales down the fancy stuff if your system doesn't have the grunt to run them well, I imagine Vista will do the same.
You have used Microsoft products before, right?
Okay, I'm being harsh, but last time I checked, Vista had fairly crazy minimum requirements, and even if it's not taking up CPU/graphics while not running the effects, I'd be bloody amazed if it's not still trying to take up a whole bunch of memory (which, sure, might be swapped out, but doesn't mean I like it).
To solve backups, they need to guarantee they'll replace a disc, at cost, for at least 5 years after the game was released. A lot of companies will do a replacement, but charge you a fortune for it...
It's a good point... well, as not exactly my first post:)... I've been seeing scratches appearing on my XBox 360 discs, and one actually had to go back because it stoped playing. I ordered some d_skins, which arrived this morning - they're kinda funky, but rather expensive. Also, they make my XBox 360 drive make weird noises, mostly a freaky grinding noise when the disc spins up - I suspect they're just aggravating a dying drive, though.
Erm, yeah, some sort of conclusion... if you're worried about scratches, they seem a good solution so far. I'd rather have a $1 d_skin die rather than a $60 XBox 360 game, and all that...
Note to self - actually read the links before responding... interesting stuff, certainly. Particularly interesting is the parts about people preferring fonts their familiar with (it shouldn't be a massive suprise I'm more familiar with Times).
Would write more coherent stuff, but it's 2am here...
Apparently Helvetica was originally created for use by the Swedish railway, as they needed a font that would be easily readable on signs. As such, I'm told, it is ideally suited for use in small sections which need high visibility, while Times is better suited for large sections of text. So, for example, Helvetica is ideal for nice clear headings, while Times makes for easier to read article text...
Not sure about how being an electronic display changes that - is this a reading angle issue, contrast or resolution, do you know?
Moving past the "The article is really ugly, it's just an error mesage" jokes, here's some issues with the article:
Mis-placed Google ads. What are they doing just under the title? Sure, it's eye-catching, but I don't want to have to scroll down to get at the article I've asked for.
Fixed width. The page doesn't fit horizontally on my browser! Why? Well, lets start with the fact that someone decided that 450pixels is how wide I want the article. That's a really bad sign. Also, what's with the wasted space on the right hand side - for goodness sake people, stuff the Google ads in there! I can expand my window, but heaven help anyone using an 800x600 display.
I'm scrolling, and suddenly some freaky Flash app is offering to speak text! Why on earth would I want a Flash application that speaks text I have to enter myself into the box? It, and the newsletter signup are apparently so incredibly important they need a quarter of the horizontal width of the page!
It's all Arial. Arial, and other sans-serif fonts look very pretty, but are optimised towards small sections of text. Large blocks of text, such as article text, should be done using a serif font like Times, for readability.
Getting pickier here... the header (blue on blue) is hard to read. Links are the wrong colour - as a user, brown-ish red means a link I've already been to, not a new link. It may look pretty, but it breaks user expectations.
Look at the "Rate This Article" at the bottom. It uses numbers as links. Great, I just love single character anchors.
The problem with web design is that too many companies hire people who came from advertising. The web is not an advertising medium - you can advertise as part of it, but fundamentally, if I'm reading your site, you have my attention already. Stop trying to get my attention, and focus on letting me get to the information I want as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm am not here to drool over how many hours you spent deciding my web browser is 900 pixels wide, I am here to acquire information and move on to something more enjoyable.
Having said that, actually ugly web sites are bad. If your website looks like you just discovered the header 1-5 buttons in Dreamweaver, and would have used a blinking marquee if you knew how, I'm going to avoid it. Bright yellow 24pt text on a light blue background is going to give me a headache. Plain websites are fine (Slashdot), efficient websites are ideal (GMail), but pretty sites I have to wrestle to get anywhere on, or ugly sites that look like they were created by a colour blind five year old are bad.
Maybe it's just me, but new technology seems to be released with more bugs, than it used to. I bought a DVD player/HDD recorder back when they were just out, and it was something of a pest; the clock randomly reset itself, it decided to come out of standby at random moments, that sort of thing. My XBox 360 sounds like a vacuum cleaner, while more recent models apparently have a quieter drive. More to the point, the only device I've been an early adopter for, and didn't have problems, was my DS.... but it didn't come out here until months after everywhere else, so doesn't really count. Certainly, at this point I'm swearing off being an early adopter; I don't mind a bug here and there, but problems with everything I buy is really getting on my nerves...
The ambilight example seems quite a poor one, though, as it was faulty components rather than design (or so it seems from the article)...
Wow... I mean, if you Google for my real name, you get... well, apparently I'm a singer song-writer and artist, as well as myself! I'd love to be credited with being so multi-talented, but just searching online for me is not a good idea.
Also, did a search for my online name, and you get... well, yikes, really... and it's not all me, I swear! Note to self, fake own online death.
I can't comment on other countries, but as an example, the UK has only had HDTV sources since late 2005. Sky, the most popular television platform, has not even launched its HDTV service yet! Suffice to say, we don't have a lot of HDTVs yet!
Lets move on to another point... " RCA Color TV entered the U.S. market in 1954. It took ten years for color to become mass-market and RCA was out there alone." Erm, so? If you're trying to make a point about how long it took color to become mass-market in comparison to HDTV, it would really help if you had a date when HDTV televisions became available in the US?
"In one jump, consumers are moving to large-screen, wide-screen projection, high-definition digital video and digital television sound, as standard." - Erm, what? The numbers say nothing more than they have televisions that can show HDTV. Case in point, my 26" HDTV. Also, I'd hardly consider 15% to be "as standard".
"DVD videos look grand on your 27" screen. But not so hot at twice that size."
Tried with an unscaling DVD player? No, its still not quite as good as a pure HD source, but at a cost of $100, compared to $1000+ and buying all my DVDs again, want to guess what I'm doing for the forseeable future?
The PS2 does not have lots of fun games because of the hardware, it has lots of games because lots of people bought the console. If lots of people stay clear of the PS3, it could never gain enough momentum to get much in the way of good games. There are ways around this; Microsoft made the XBox a success by _pouring_ money into having games available for the console, and Sony could do the same, but doing so is incredibly expensive, and to be honest I see Sony as more likely to abandon the whole project rather than just pour away money like that.
Now, having said that, I think there's more than enough Sony fans who will buy the console irrespective of anything else, to give it the momentum it needs. I just don't think we're looking the PS3 dominating the market in the same way that, for example, the PS1 did...
Yet more reasons I wish websites would let me login with an X509 certificate; it means I'm not giving the site a reusable authentication token! Not to mention, when some idiot decides to store, let alone e-mail me, my credentials in clear text, it's not nearly as big an issue.
Public/private key allows for authentication (yeah, was using the wrong term, well spotted) tokens that cannot be re-used, by having each side of the conversation send a piece of data, randomly generated for that conversation, which the other party signs, and returns. The sending party can now check that the signature matches the public key it's been given, and knows that the other entity has the private key if they do match.
On the server side, it would then check that the key's certificate match the registered certificate for a user, and allow them access if so. On the client side, it can check at the certificate for the server's key has been signed by a certificate authority they trust, to verify who it is talking to.
Did that make any sense, 'cos I'm not very good at this? Key point is, you generate authentication tokens that are valid for only one conversation, by having randomly generated data signed by each party.
Just makes it harder - is there anything stopping me from making a site that takes in your user ID, logs into the real site with that ID, pulls out the image and title, and shows it to you?
The real answer. IMHO, is using public keys for authorisation, as you're then never sending anything that can be used again. Man in the middle attacks are still possible if you can persuade the user to accept the wrong server certificate, but it's as good as it gets, IMHO.
The user's key doesn't even have to be signed - just have the site remember the key you used first, much in the same way you'd set up a password.
Why do people feel a need for technologies to have a killer app? I mean, yes, killer app = good, but if a technology doesn't have one, maybe it's just not destined too.
Okay, so I'm a little fed up about hearing about AJAX. It's not a cure for cancer people, it's a way of updating web pages without a page refresh! For the people that find it useful, great. I really like GMail, for example.
I see comments like "most sites that utilize these technologies seem to be incremental improvements, not revolutionary interface changes." and think - well, that's great. I don't want incredible shiny web applications that sing, dance, and have unspeakable numbers of points of failure, I want web sites that let me do what I'm there to do, as quickly as possible.
Let me give you an example; at work, expenses are submitted through an online Java applet. It's pretty, it's shiny, it auto-verifies your data on entry, provides useful tips... and you know what? On half the systems I have access to, it refuses to work. Sure, it's mostly an issue with having been poorly tested, but if they'd given me a web page with some nice standard form/input fields, I'd have been done in a fraction of the time...
I care about size/weight of stuff. I move house semi-frequently (suffice to say the housing market near where I work is a nightmare), so having small, light items to move is a bonus.
And you know what? The Xbox 360s size is a complete non-issue; it's smaller than the XBox, to start with. It's a bit heavy, but not problematically so.
>...don't these guys realize how dangerously huge and clunky the Xbox 360 already is?
Yeah, I mean, it's so much bigger than the original XBox... no, wait, what? Look, it's not a small console, but then, neither is the PS3!
> Top priorities for a redesigned Xbox 360 (we'll call it "Xbox 360 NEO...): adding an HD-DVD drive, or at least a slot-loading DVD drive; So what the hell is that thing on the front of my Xbox 360, a cup holder? I will agree that releasing a new model with built in HD-DVD is probably a good idea, though, so they're not losing the entire HD playback market to the PS3.
> integrating that ridiculous "power brick" AC adaptor into the main chassis;... smoothing out all known hardware flaws and overheating problems; and finally, slashing the weight of the whole system by at least 25 percent.
So, their plan is to integrate a unit with high heat output into the main chassis, remove some of the weight (which pretty much means cutting down on the heatsinks), reducing the surface area for it to lose heat through, and at the same time resolving all the heating problems? This will be done through the use of magic pixies, right???
> $450-600 is a reasonable introductory price for a streamlined, enhanced Xbox 360
Ah, right. So being more expensive, and less powerful than your immediate competition is a good idea? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has seriously suggested the PS3 will launch at above $399, and while how much is certainly up for debate, I also can't see it being less powerful...
> adding an embedded hard drive (ideally a 4 GB flash RAM microdrive) Why would I want such a thing? External HD = good - I want to be able to pull the drive from my console, and connect it to another. It's not like it's some unwieldy mess that's cluttering up my living room, it's a small module stuck to the side for goodness sake.
> More importantly, gadget freaks have proven they'll buy the same gadget again and again if it's made smaller, sleeker, and more powerful (see the iPod Nano, the slimline PS2, the Nintendo DS Lite, and countless other examples).
Do they have any actual numbers to support the idea that significant numbers of people are replacing perfectly functional devices with smaller ones? In particular, in the case of the iPod Nano and the slimline PS2, they came out after long enough that people's original version of the device could be wearing out (for example, my PS2 will occaisionally refuse to play discs). Nintendo DS Lite - it isn't even out yet, you can't claim anything about its sales!
> Embrace lower game costs and digital game distribution over Xbox Live So, with my XBox 360 NEO, with it's 4gb HD, where exactly am I going to put those games?
BitTorrent is peer to peer. Having said that, the BitTorrent as it stands, is drastically unsuitable for use in a streaming enviornment. It is designed to transfer files, not stream them in real time; we can start with the requirement that the server has the entire file to generate the.torrent file from (try that on a live video stream, for example), and continue with the lack of an guaranteed arrival order or time. Oh, and that.torrent file - still going to be hard for a few million users to grab at once.
A BitTorrent-like protocol could be used, something that sends the stream meta data as signed packets along with the stream itself, although actually ensuring in-order and on-time delivery is still going to be a massive headache. There are all sorts of interesting and complex trips that could be used, mostly focusing on a BitTorrent-like protocol to allow trivial proxying (so an ISP could buy a few computers, hook them up to their network, subscribe to the most popular streams, and their subscribers would automatically find and use them, as they would have high bandwidth to them).
Someone want to remind me what was wrong with multicast, though?
Slashdot Mirror
> I've interviewed some people from top colleges that just don't know their way around a business at all, and I have no desire to train them in exchange for a high 5 figure salary.
Have you considered that maybe you should have lower-salaried entry positions, then, and promote as they pick up the missing skills? Speaking here as someone whose salary has doubled in the 5 years since they left university...
I don't think Apple is going to be shipping OS X for generic PC hardware anytime soon. I _do_ think we'll see something similar in 2-4 years time, however. Okay, the two big arguments against "generic" Apple computers:
1. Hardware support - part of what makes Apple hardware so reliable is that the hardware is relatively good quality, well tested together, and there's a fairly simple selection to test on.
2. Apple is not a software company.
So lets imagine a mid-way point. Apple start selling ATX motherboards with a copy of OS X bundled, and obviously which include all the DRM you need to let OS X run. So, if some random person wants to build their own Apple box, they buy the motherboard, pick components they like from an approved list, put the whole lot together, and bingo they have a nice, stable, customised Apple system. People who want to build their own, or put it an freaky case, or make it glow UV are happy.
But what about OEMs that want to go a little further? Well, have Apple provide a hardware certification program. The OEM picks the pieces, makes sure they work to a level they're confident in, posts a sample system off to Apple, who run their own stability/compatibility tests, and stick a nice friendly "Apple certified" logo on that particular combination of parts.
This is not perfect. It's going to be more expensive than just stuffing together generic PC components. I think, however, it's a good mid-point between generic OS X boxes, and only Apple boxes running OS X.
Thoughts?
I agree - doing something wrong (copying copyright material without the copyright owner's permission) will have consequences, and these will be unpleasant. It's maybe a little dumb of the RIAA, as in this case they get their money maybe a little earlier, and a bunch of negative publicity with it, but it's not wrong.
Now, product pricing, DRM with everything, wanting you to buy the same song more than once (different media), that's evil...
> Our marketing department has done extensive research
s/research/drugs/
So why is depriving someone of something which is rightfully theirs, less wrong than taking something which someone has?
</devil's advocate>
Feel that, if I had mod points, you'd be going up. I mean, I like Will Wright's work, but for goodness sake people, stop drooling over him like he's some demigod!
Do you know how they defined emergency?
For example, is calling to report that the fire alarm is going off in a university building, which turns out to be a faulty alarm, an emergency because it requires an immediate response, or a non-emergency because it wasn't actually a fire, and the alarm system had auto-reported it anyway?
Same question for something being reported more than once - for example, a nearby house caught fire recently, and we called to report it, to find out that (not unsuprisingly, given the size of the fire when we spotted it), that several other people had called already?
> The likes of OSX automatically scales down the fancy stuff if your system doesn't have the grunt to run them well, I imagine Vista will do the same.
You have used Microsoft products before, right?
Okay, I'm being harsh, but last time I checked, Vista had fairly crazy minimum requirements, and even if it's not taking up CPU/graphics while not running the effects, I'd be bloody amazed if it's not still trying to take up a whole bunch of memory (which, sure, might be swapped out, but doesn't mean I like it).
To solve backups, they need to guarantee they'll replace a disc, at cost, for at least 5 years after the game was released. A lot of companies will do a replacement, but charge you a fortune for it...
It's a good point... well, as not exactly my first post :) ... I've been seeing scratches appearing on my XBox 360 discs, and one actually had to go back because it stoped playing. I ordered some d_skins, which arrived this morning - they're kinda funky, but rather expensive. Also, they make my XBox 360 drive make weird noises, mostly a freaky grinding noise when the disc spins up - I suspect they're just aggravating a dying drive, though.
Erm, yeah, some sort of conclusion... if you're worried about scratches, they seem a good solution so far. I'd rather have a $1 d_skin die rather than a $60 XBox 360 game, and all that...
Note to self - actually read the links before responding... interesting stuff, certainly. Particularly interesting is the parts about people preferring fonts their familiar with (it shouldn't be a massive suprise I'm more familiar with Times).
Would write more coherent stuff, but it's 2am here...
Sources... err, conversation with Dr. McKinna (who teaches the HCI course here): http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~james/
Apparently Helvetica was originally created for use by the Swedish railway, as they needed a font that would be easily readable on signs. As such, I'm told, it is ideally suited for use in small sections which need high visibility, while Times is better suited for large sections of text. So, for example, Helvetica is ideal for nice clear headings, while Times makes for easier to read article text...
Not sure about how being an electronic display changes that - is this a reading angle issue, contrast or resolution, do you know?
Moving past the "The article is really ugly, it's just an error mesage" jokes, here's some issues with the article:
Getting pickier here... the header (blue on blue) is hard to read. Links are the wrong colour - as a user, brown-ish red means a link I've already been to, not a new link. It may look pretty, but it breaks user expectations.
Look at the "Rate This Article" at the bottom. It uses numbers as links. Great, I just love single character anchors.
The problem with web design is that too many companies hire people who came from advertising. The web is not an advertising medium - you can advertise as part of it, but fundamentally, if I'm reading your site, you have my attention already. Stop trying to get my attention, and focus on letting me get to the information I want as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm am not here to drool over how many hours you spent deciding my web browser is 900 pixels wide, I am here to acquire information and move on to something more enjoyable.
Having said that, actually ugly web sites are bad. If your website looks like you just discovered the header 1-5 buttons in Dreamweaver, and would have used a blinking marquee if you knew how, I'm going to avoid it. Bright yellow 24pt text on a light blue background is going to give me a headache. Plain websites are fine (Slashdot), efficient websites are ideal (GMail), but pretty sites I have to wrestle to get anywhere on, or ugly sites that look like they were created by a colour blind five year old are bad.
Maybe it's just me, but new technology seems to be released with more bugs, than it used to. I bought a DVD player/HDD recorder back when they were just out, and it was something of a pest; the clock randomly reset itself, it decided to come out of standby at random moments, that sort of thing. My XBox 360 sounds like a vacuum cleaner, while more recent models apparently have a quieter drive. More to the point, the only device I've been an early adopter for, and didn't have problems, was my DS.... but it didn't come out here until months after everywhere else, so doesn't really count. Certainly, at this point I'm swearing off being an early adopter; I don't mind a bug here and there, but problems with everything I buy is really getting on my nerves...
The ambilight example seems quite a poor one, though, as it was faulty components rather than design (or so it seems from the article)...
Wow... I mean, if you Google for my real name, you get... well, apparently I'm a singer song-writer and artist, as well as myself! I'd love to be credited with being so multi-talented, but just searching online for me is not a good idea.
Also, did a search for my online name, and you get... well, yikes, really... and it's not all me, I swear! Note to self, fake own online death.
Can't find the article you're talking about, so here's another (which claims the numbers are 15% of US households):
c le.jhtml?articleID=178601629
http://www.digitaltvdesignline.com/howto/showArti
I can't comment on other countries, but as an example, the UK has only had HDTV sources since late 2005. Sky, the most popular television platform, has not even launched its HDTV service yet! Suffice to say, we don't have a lot of HDTVs yet!
Lets move on to another point... " RCA Color TV entered the U.S. market in 1954. It took ten years for color to become mass-market and RCA was out there alone."
Erm, so? If you're trying to make a point about how long it took color to become mass-market in comparison to HDTV, it would really help if you had a date when HDTV televisions became available in the US?
"In one jump, consumers are moving to large-screen, wide-screen projection, high-definition digital video and digital television sound, as standard." - Erm, what? The numbers say nothing more than they have televisions that can show HDTV. Case in point, my 26" HDTV. Also, I'd hardly consider 15% to be "as standard".
"DVD videos look grand on your 27" screen. But not so hot at twice that size."
Tried with an unscaling DVD player? No, its still not quite as good as a pure HD source, but at a cost of $100, compared to $1000+ and buying all my DVDs again, want to guess what I'm doing for the forseeable future?
Score +-0: Kinda naive?
The PS2 does not have lots of fun games because of the hardware, it has lots of games because lots of people bought the console. If lots of people stay clear of the PS3, it could never gain enough momentum to get much in the way of good games. There are ways around this; Microsoft made the XBox a success by _pouring_ money into having games available for the console, and Sony could do the same, but doing so is incredibly expensive, and to be honest I see Sony as more likely to abandon the whole project rather than just pour away money like that.
Now, having said that, I think there's more than enough Sony fans who will buy the console irrespective of anything else, to give it the momentum it needs. I just don't think we're looking the PS3 dominating the market in the same way that, for example, the PS1 did...
Yet more reasons I wish websites would let me login with an X509 certificate; it means I'm not giving the site a reusable authentication token! Not to mention, when some idiot decides to store, let alone e-mail me, my credentials in clear text, it's not nearly as big an issue.
Public/private key allows for authentication (yeah, was using the wrong term, well spotted) tokens that cannot be re-used, by having each side of the conversation send a piece of data, randomly generated for that conversation, which the other party signs, and returns. The sending party can now check that the signature matches the public key it's been given, and knows that the other entity has the private key if they do match.
On the server side, it would then check that the key's certificate match the registered certificate for a user, and allow them access if so. On the client side, it can check at the certificate for the server's key has been signed by a certificate authority they trust, to verify who it is talking to.
Did that make any sense, 'cos I'm not very good at this? Key point is, you generate authentication tokens that are valid for only one conversation, by having randomly generated data signed by each party.
Just makes it harder - is there anything stopping me from making a site that takes in your user ID, logs into the real site with that ID, pulls out the image and title, and shows it to you?
The real answer. IMHO, is using public keys for authorisation, as you're then never sending anything that can be used again. Man in the middle attacks are still possible if you can persuade the user to accept the wrong server certificate, but it's as good as it gets, IMHO.
The user's key doesn't even have to be signed - just have the site remember the key you used first, much in the same way you'd set up a password.
Why do people feel a need for technologies to have a killer app? I mean, yes, killer app = good, but if a technology doesn't have one, maybe it's just not destined too.
Okay, so I'm a little fed up about hearing about AJAX. It's not a cure for cancer people, it's a way of updating web pages without a page refresh! For the people that find it useful, great. I really like GMail, for example.
I see comments like "most sites that utilize these technologies seem to be incremental improvements, not revolutionary interface changes." and think - well, that's great. I don't want incredible shiny web applications that sing, dance, and have unspeakable numbers of points of failure, I want web sites that let me do what I'm there to do, as quickly as possible.
Let me give you an example; at work, expenses are submitted through an online Java applet. It's pretty, it's shiny, it auto-verifies your data on entry, provides useful tips... and you know what? On half the systems I have access to, it refuses to work. Sure, it's mostly an issue with having been poorly tested, but if they'd given me a web page with some nice standard form/input fields, I'd have been done in a fraction of the time...
Then work called and interrupted my train of thought.
I care about size/weight of stuff. I move house semi-frequently (suffice to say the housing market near where I work is a nightmare), so having small, light items to move is a bonus.
And you know what? The Xbox 360s size is a complete non-issue; it's smaller than the XBox, to start with. It's a bit heavy, but not problematically so.
> ...don't these guys realize how dangerously huge and clunky the Xbox 360 already is?
... smoothing out all known hardware flaws and overheating problems; and finally, slashing the weight of the whole system by at least 25 percent.
Yeah, I mean, it's so much bigger than the original XBox... no, wait, what? Look, it's not a small console, but then, neither is the PS3!
> Top priorities for a redesigned Xbox 360 (we'll call it "Xbox 360 NEO...): adding an HD-DVD drive, or at least a slot-loading DVD drive;
So what the hell is that thing on the front of my Xbox 360, a cup holder? I will agree that releasing a new model with built in HD-DVD is probably a good idea, though, so they're not losing the entire HD playback market to the PS3.
> integrating that ridiculous "power brick" AC adaptor into the main chassis;
So, their plan is to integrate a unit with high heat output into the main chassis, remove some of the weight (which pretty much means cutting down on the heatsinks), reducing the surface area for it to lose heat through, and at the same time resolving all the heating problems? This will be done through the use of magic pixies, right???
> $450-600 is a reasonable introductory price for a streamlined, enhanced Xbox 360
Ah, right. So being more expensive, and less powerful than your immediate competition is a good idea? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has seriously suggested the PS3 will launch at above $399, and while how much is certainly up for debate, I also can't see it being less powerful...
> adding an embedded hard drive (ideally a 4 GB flash RAM microdrive)
Why would I want such a thing? External HD = good - I want to be able to pull the drive from my console, and connect it to another. It's not like it's some unwieldy mess that's cluttering up my living room, it's a small module stuck to the side for goodness sake.
> More importantly, gadget freaks have proven they'll buy the same gadget again and again if it's made smaller, sleeker, and more powerful (see the iPod Nano, the slimline PS2, the Nintendo DS Lite, and countless other examples).
Do they have any actual numbers to support the idea that significant numbers of people are replacing perfectly functional devices with smaller ones? In particular, in the case of the iPod Nano and the slimline PS2, they came out after long enough that people's original version of the device could be wearing out (for example, my PS2 will occaisionally refuse to play discs). Nintendo DS Lite - it isn't even out yet, you can't claim anything about its sales!
> Embrace lower game costs and digital game distribution over Xbox Live
So, with my XBox 360 NEO, with it's 4gb HD, where exactly am I going to put those games?
BitTorrent is peer to peer. Having said that, the BitTorrent as it stands, is drastically unsuitable for use in a streaming enviornment. It is designed to transfer files, not stream them in real time; we can start with the requirement that the server has the entire file to generate the .torrent file from (try that on a live video stream, for example), and continue with the lack of an guaranteed arrival order or time. Oh, and that .torrent file - still going to be hard for a few million users to grab at once.
A BitTorrent-like protocol could be used, something that sends the stream meta data as signed packets along with the stream itself, although actually ensuring in-order and on-time delivery is still going to be a massive headache. There are all sorts of interesting and complex trips that could be used, mostly focusing on a BitTorrent-like protocol to allow trivial proxying (so an ISP could buy a few computers, hook them up to their network, subscribe to the most popular streams, and their subscribers would automatically find and use them, as they would have high bandwidth to them).
Someone want to remind me what was wrong with multicast, though?