It seems to me that Microsoft are the big winner here. Their attempts to enter the TV market have failed several times, whereas the BBC has been at the forefront of digital TV R&D for years.
Nope, IPTV is delivery of television over the Internet Protocol. It doesn't necessarily have to involve "The Internet", and could just as easily be run over these fibre lines as over DSL, which is also common.
I don't see why there shouldn't be competing standards.
Good call! Let's define a new port that IE's version of the web works on. Then those that want to use IE can use the version of the web (let's call it, oh, I don't know, "The Microsoft Network") that works for their browser, and everyone else can use the standards-based HTTP and HTML version that works on port 80.
The in-game bundle is a good marketing ploy, with $250 a great price for this product. The gamble is on the consumer's behavior after the console gets home.
I don't see how this is a gamble. If Nintendo is selling the system at a profit (and I'm sure they will be) then they've made some money. It might only be a couple of bucks, but it's still profit - even if it gets thrown in the trash the moment it gets home.
If you look at the competition's model, they're gambling way more that their customers are going to buy a bunch of games in the future, in order to recoup the loss they're taking on the console.
Here is the very important part Halogen is to be that new Halo RTS. Congrats guys if you do actually get this published!
That's pretty much how I read it, too, although see this comment for why it might not be Halogen itself that gets published. My guess is that MS hired the team to work on their own development, and that shutting it down was a condition.
It's not that shoving them all down the same wire makes the quality reduced.
Well, of course, that's not what the actual cause is. After all, you can happily shove hundreds of digital tv channels down a single piece of coax with no loss of signal quality. As you say, it's the interference between the different components of the signal that's the issue with CVBS.
Shame on me for waving my hands and glossing over the details on Slashdot:-)
The "composite" refers to the fact that the signal on the cable is made up of several different signals (video, sync, blanking). By shoving them all down the same wire, the video quality is necessarily reduced.
You can't do that. Anymore than you can stick "a few departments with no disabled" in an inaccessible building.
There's a degree of difference between the 2 situations, but in the process of formulating my disagreement with you, I actually find myself conceding the point here.
It is also entirely likely that they want to maintain one platform (for deployment, maintenance, training and support reasons) rather than multiple (and the cost of multiple may well outweigh any MS licence savings).
Would it really, though? We're talking about word processors and spreadsheets here, not operating systems or programming languages.
Plus, using both MS and OO ODF implementations at the same time is likely to expose compatibility problems [...] The last people you want to be inflicting compatibility problems on are your disabled user base - they have enough problems without also being relegated to an applications platform subtly different to everyone else's.
As another poster pointed out, the stated aim for the whole project is to allow the residents of Massachusetts to be able to read the documents. So really the last people you'd be wanting to inflict compatibility problems on are them, disabled or not. So it's actually quite a good thing to get a heterogenous environment to generate the documents. No doubt there'll be teething problems, but surely that's the case with just about any such project.
But if the plugin works, there's really no reason they must switch from MS, is there? I mean the goal is to store everything in ODF so that taxpayers can read it with that they like, not for the state to necessarily switch to open source word processors, right?
Well, I'd expect the state to use a cost-effective way of producing the documents.
If the MS Office licences are already paid for, I'd say there's a good chance that sticking with MS Office is a the most cost-effective way of doing it.
If you're adding users, or renewing licences, there seems to me to be a good argument for changing to some free software too.
Winske said that Gutierrez told the group there would be no mass migration to open-source Office applications until they are proven to be accessible.
I guess it remains to be seen whether "no mass migration" really means "not everyone will be migrated" or "nobody will be migrated". For your and your fellow taxpayers' sakes, one would hope it's the former.
It would seem like a logical thing to do would be to outfit a few departments with no disabled (I guess we're really talking about blind and partially-sighted) people with OOo, and hold back their licences for new people who do need MS Office.
I'm assuming there are a bunch of licences that are paid for and therefore owned by the state, and they're not on some sort of insane annual renewal system.
... they're saying that they won't necessarily be adopting OpenOffice.org software for their users with disabilities, instead allowing them to use plugins with MS Office.
That seems like good news - Microsoft needs to produce such plugins in order to keep doing business with the state; users get a choice in the software they use; and nobody's locked in to a proprietary document format.
Never seen the movie in question, as it happens. For some reason I'm familiar with "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die", tho.
Populous was my first exposure to multi-player gaming - I have fond memories of building myself a 3-wire RS232 cable so my mate and I could link our Atari STs together and play against each other.
What are you referring to? They haven't made any changes to their JScript engine, which is their implementation of ECMAScript.
Read it again - he's talking about EMACScript. They've re-written IE7 in LISP and now, like the rest of Vista, it runs under EMACS. That's why the hardware requirements are so huge.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the first story I saw after I finally got my wifi back post yesterday's Windows Update.
Microsoft FTW!
And if you could spell litre properly too, it'd be even better
And I thought you were just pleased to see me!
He also has good hair, which I gather is a requirement for office in the US.
I can no longer respect myself, having never read it.
:-)
The good news, though, is that I now know about it, so I can read it and regain that which I have lost. Thanks for the pointer
It seems to me that Microsoft are the big winner here. Their attempts to enter the TV market have failed several times, whereas the BBC has been at the forefront of digital TV R&D for years.
You just made me cry laughing.
Shift-2 is an @ sign on modern American keyboards. On a British keyboard, it's a ".
Nope, IPTV is delivery of television over the Internet Protocol. It doesn't necessarily have to involve "The Internet", and could just as easily be run over these fibre lines as over DSL, which is also common.
Good call! Let's define a new port that IE's version of the web works on. Then those that want to use IE can use the version of the web (let's call it, oh, I don't know, "The Microsoft Network") that works for their browser, and everyone else can use the standards-based HTTP and HTML version that works on port 80.
Who's with me?
I don't see how this is a gamble. If Nintendo is selling the system at a profit (and I'm sure they will be) then they've made some money. It might only be a couple of bucks, but it's still profit - even if it gets thrown in the trash the moment it gets home.
If you look at the competition's model, they're gambling way more that their customers are going to buy a bunch of games in the future, in order to recoup the loss they're taking on the console.
That's pretty much how I read it, too, although see this comment for why it might not be Halogen itself that gets published. My guess is that MS hired the team to work on their own development, and that shutting it down was a condition.
Well, of course, that's not what the actual cause is. After all, you can happily shove hundreds of digital tv channels down a single piece of coax with no loss of signal quality. As you say, it's the interference between the different components of the signal that's the issue with CVBS.
Shame on me for waving my hands and glossing over the details on Slashdot
The "composite" refers to the fact that the signal on the cable is made up of several different signals (video, sync, blanking). By shoving them all down the same wire, the video quality is necessarily reduced.
Is that because the Scots and the Welsh have a good view of Northern Ireland?
There's a degree of difference between the 2 situations, but in the process of formulating my disagreement with you, I actually find myself conceding the point here.
Would it really, though? We're talking about word processors and spreadsheets here, not operating systems or programming languages.
As another poster pointed out, the stated aim for the whole project is to allow the residents of Massachusetts to be able to read the documents. So really the last people you'd be wanting to inflict compatibility problems on are them, disabled or not. So it's actually quite a good thing to get a heterogenous environment to generate the documents. No doubt there'll be teething problems, but surely that's the case with just about any such project.
Well, I'd expect the state to use a cost-effective way of producing the documents.
If the MS Office licences are already paid for, I'd say there's a good chance that sticking with MS Office is a the most cost-effective way of doing it.
If you're adding users, or renewing licences, there seems to me to be a good argument for changing to some free software too.
I guess it remains to be seen whether "no mass migration" really means "not everyone will be migrated" or "nobody will be migrated". For your and your fellow taxpayers' sakes, one would hope it's the former.
It would seem like a logical thing to do would be to outfit a few departments with no disabled (I guess we're really talking about blind and partially-sighted) people with OOo, and hold back their licences for new people who do need MS Office.
I'm assuming there are a bunch of licences that are paid for and therefore owned by the state, and they're not on some sort of insane annual renewal system.
... they're saying that they won't necessarily be adopting OpenOffice.org software for their users with disabilities, instead allowing them to use plugins with MS Office.
That seems like good news - Microsoft needs to produce such plugins in order to keep doing business with the state; users get a choice in the software they use; and nobody's locked in to a proprietary document format.
Result!
Touché.
Never seen the movie in question, as it happens. For some reason I'm familiar with "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die", tho.
Either that or you don't understand irony.
Nice sig, tho.
Agreed.
Populous was my first exposure to multi-player gaming - I have fond memories of building myself a 3-wire RS232 cable so my mate and I could link our Atari STs together and play against each other.
I'll have it!
I'm planning on buying a Wii, as I've always been a Nintendo fan. There are still a good few titles I'd love to play on the PS2, though.
You, sir or madam, are my hero.
Crappy ads, I shall miss you!