I didn't read it as "we set up a completely different network just for VoIP, and then charged you almost nothing for it", I read it as "we have a great network; our VoIP servers are located within our network so the packets don't have to travel far (and don't travel over anyone else's network, in case you have a reason to fear the internet backbone guys, but trust our network completely); and maybe we encrypt the voice data too".
If my reading is more accurate, I do see a slight advantage for the ISP owner, but it's not an arbitrary or anti-competitive advantage... any time a provider places servers closer to the users, that's a slightly good thing (eg. ISP-hosted usenet servers are sometimes a very wonderful thing), and there's no reason for the law to discourage it.
That service wouldn't be affected by net neutrality laws. The company has provided a service that is competitive with other services. The ISP does not need to take the extra step of slowing down competing services in order to gain more customers.
You kid, but I have no doubt that in 10 years, you'll get suspicious glances if you walk into a workplace restroom holding an iPod (not those kind of glances hopefully, but no doubt some people will slack off that way if they're really determined to do so).
I listen to podcasts on my MP3 player while in the restroom. I don't currently watch video, but it wouldn't surprise me if some video iPod or PSP owners find it convenient to watch TV for 5 minutes at a time.
Do content producers really think that, in the long run, technology will allow them charge a bunch of money for different uses? Or is there some (less... scary) motivation behind this?
charge a little more for viewing Lost in a 640x480 window, versus a 480x360 window
charge a little more for viewing it during rush hour, versus sitting on the toilet at 11pm
charge a little more for viewing it while in the north side of town, versus viewing it while in the south side of town
I'm not saying that the studios will necessarily go that far, but there is some line of sanity that shouldn't be crossed, and it's possible they're crossing it with this lawsuit.
In order to compete, a game be shown in playable format. For the 2006 awards season, playable format is defined as the ability for the judge to manipulate a game in real-time while running on its native platform (i.e. "hands on" gameplay).
The Windows EULAs allow transfer in a few situations, but they allow transfer in so few situations that it actually made a lot of news when somebody figured out how to openly sell second-hand copies of Windows licenses.
Where's the first sale doctrine when it comes to Windows XP? It seems like all it takes is some wording in the EULA to do away with first-sale requirements. Therefore, the only thing weighing on game producer's minds is whether the market will bear it or not. With XP, the answer is yes. With games... who knows, it's not inconceivable that it will be standard practice years from now.
Well, 2005/2006 has brought a small wave of new 2D games... 2005 brought the pretty popular Geometry Wars (sort of a modern remake of Robotron: 2084) along with Xbox Live Arcade 360, which may encourage more investment in smaller games like that, and 2006 brings us New Super Mario Bros. and Super Paper Mario.
I don't know, maybe game producers think the market for 2D games is sufficiently small that it's enough to release emulators running the old 2D classics? I don't know. All three of the above are "must play" games in my book, since there's only so many times you can replay the same SMB3 levels.
A question that's been bugging me: is "540p" a solid technical term? I can't find a definition for it. Or is it slang term for "1080i" that isn't really technically correct or well defined? Or is 540p always assumed to be a 32:9 aspect ratio or something odd like that?
Yes, 540p is clearly "1/4 HD". What doesn't seem clear is the suggestion that 1080i = 540p.
I don't understand the full details of the deinterlacing side-effects mentioned near this post, but it IS pretty clear to me that a single 1080i field contains 1920x540. Whether some deinterlacing algorithms end up needing to delete even more data above and beyond that, I don't know, but ultimately, the 1080i data that initially comes into your TV/receiver is "1/2 HD", and there must be a reason for that; the spec designers must have thought that the extra horizontal data was useful somehow.
... pay-as-you-go spectrum? Is the U.S. government in the habit of approving business plans now? Has the FCC ever had this arrangement with any other company before?
It doesn't matter what profits oil companies make. No matter what, when prices go up, the incentive for new competition to enter the market goes up, and the incentive for existing companies to invest in trying to produce more gasoline goes up. If current oil companies don't do their best to compete, the higher prices will make new companies all the more eager to replace them.
The $500 PS3 looks reasonable if you want a Blu-ray drive. It still doesn't look reasonable next to the $350-400 Xbox 360 (which also promises to be a "complete media center", in case that's what people buy consoles for these days), and it doesn't look reasonable next to the $300 PS2 (which also shipped with Linux).
But yes, regardless of the details, if Sony had been more plain-spoken and not appeared to be arrogant, they probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much ill-will as they did.
Yes, the Xbox 360 doesn't have HDMI either, but it's currently $100-200 cheaper than the no-HDMI PS3. The price difference is because if people buy a PS3, they're forced to get a Blu-ray drive whether they like it or not. And a Blu-ray drive without HDMI has been argued to be a pretty bad deal (a worse deal than simply forcing first-gen buggy hardware onto the masses, most of whom would otherwise wait to buy the cheaper/less buggy 2nd or 3rd generation players).
The pat economic answer for gasoline lines is that higher prices encourage producers to do whatever they can to increase supply, which helps get the product to a wider number of poeple, thereby making the largest number of poeple happy.
That doesn't seem to apply to musical acts though... there's a huge number of people trying to get their music heard. I mean, fans can always get a more authentic experience by going to a concert put on by a local band... but maybe that's not how popularity/fans work? Is it a failure of the music industry? Or that people just don't have enough information about the smaller acts? Or does the human psyche want to glom on to stars no matter what?
Ticket scalping is a sure sign of a supply/demand imbalance, just as long lines at gas stations in the U.S. were during the 1973 oil crisis, and Xbox 360's on EBay for $1000. If the market demand is high enough to sell some tickets at $500, it's almost a sure bet that someone will sell them for that price, and it might as well be the people putting on the show who earn the money, rather than some random guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time, who is contributing no economic benefit.
But.... since the Wii is so close in hardware to the GC, they can get further price reductions by using as many of the same hardware components as possible (and for the same reason, hopefully Wii will be able to do a much more rapid worldwide rollout than the 360 or anyone else has been able to do).
I can't find a quote right this minute, but I've heard multiple times that the gaming industry definitely considers it more expensive to create artwork for textures in HD games versus SD game textures. I don't know what percentage of a game's cost goes to texture artwork, but since it's not 100% of a game's cost, an HD game's price isn't double or anything like that.
Though Xbox debuted at #2 in the console wars, so that's not to say that a giant ship can't muster a giant amount of resources to get it going again. But yes, even if they do that, it's rather more wasteful than simply keeping the engine going the whole time, and not dragging along a heavy anchor named Blu-ray.
To be fair, some people already have HDTV sets, and are interested in HD movie content (eg. ~5% of the TV market). Also, DVI is a higher-quality connection than component cables, even for playing games, though again, it's not a huge pronounced difference.
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If my reading is more accurate, I do see a slight advantage for the ISP owner, but it's not an arbitrary or anti-competitive advantage... any time a provider places servers closer to the users, that's a slightly good thing (eg. ISP-hosted usenet servers are sometimes a very wonderful thing), and there's no reason for the law to discourage it.
That service wouldn't be affected by net neutrality laws. The company has provided a service that is competitive with other services. The ISP does not need to take the extra step of slowing down competing services in order to gain more customers.
You kid, but I have no doubt that in 10 years, you'll get suspicious glances if you walk into a workplace restroom holding an iPod (not those kind of glances hopefully, but no doubt some people will slack off that way if they're really determined to do so).
I listen to podcasts on my MP3 player while in the restroom. I don't currently watch video, but it wouldn't surprise me if some video iPod or PSP owners find it convenient to watch TV for 5 minutes at a time.
- charge a little more for viewing Lost in a 640x480 window, versus a 480x360 window
- charge a little more for viewing it during rush hour, versus sitting on the toilet at 11pm
- charge a little more for viewing it while in the north side of town, versus viewing it while in the south side of town
I'm not saying that the studios will necessarily go that far, but there is some line of sanity that shouldn't be crossed, and it's possible they're crossing it with this lawsuit.The Windows EULAs allow transfer in a few situations, but they allow transfer in so few situations that it actually made a lot of news when somebody figured out how to openly sell second-hand copies of Windows licenses.
I hear that poor areas of China have a thriving alternative that seems like it will only grow larger...
Where's the first sale doctrine when it comes to Windows XP? It seems like all it takes is some wording in the EULA to do away with first-sale requirements. Therefore, the only thing weighing on game producer's minds is whether the market will bear it or not. With XP, the answer is yes. With games... who knows, it's not inconceivable that it will be standard practice years from now.
I don't know, maybe game producers think the market for 2D games is sufficiently small that it's enough to release emulators running the old 2D classics? I don't know. All three of the above are "must play" games in my book, since there's only so many times you can replay the same SMB3 levels.
A question that's been bugging me: is "540p" a solid technical term? I can't find a definition for it. Or is it slang term for "1080i" that isn't really technically correct or well defined? Or is 540p always assumed to be a 32:9 aspect ratio or something odd like that?
I don't understand the full details of the deinterlacing side-effects mentioned near this post, but it IS pretty clear to me that a single 1080i field contains 1920x540. Whether some deinterlacing algorithms end up needing to delete even more data above and beyond that, I don't know, but ultimately, the 1080i data that initially comes into your TV/receiver is "1/2 HD", and there must be a reason for that; the spec designers must have thought that the extra horizontal data was useful somehow.
... pay-as-you-go spectrum? Is the U.S. government in the habit of approving business plans now? Has the FCC ever had this arrangement with any other company before?
Even without inexpensive wireless, sooner or later POTS numbers will be supplemented and ultimately supplanted.
It doesn't matter what profits oil companies make. No matter what, when prices go up, the incentive for new competition to enter the market goes up, and the incentive for existing companies to invest in trying to produce more gasoline goes up. If current oil companies don't do their best to compete, the higher prices will make new companies all the more eager to replace them.
Twice as powerful as a 360? As powerful as a $2k PC? I get enthusiastic myself sometimes, but aren't these statements pretty clearly overboard?
But yes, regardless of the details, if Sony had been more plain-spoken and not appeared to be arrogant, they probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much ill-will as they did.
And jumping from 9.8mbps MPEG2 (DVD) to 36-54mbps MPEG4 (Blu-ray/HD DVD) isn't simply "adding 60 lines".
Yes, the Xbox 360 doesn't have HDMI either, but it's currently $100-200 cheaper than the no-HDMI PS3. The price difference is because if people buy a PS3, they're forced to get a Blu-ray drive whether they like it or not. And a Blu-ray drive without HDMI has been argued to be a pretty bad deal (a worse deal than simply forcing first-gen buggy hardware onto the masses, most of whom would otherwise wait to buy the cheaper/less buggy 2nd or 3rd generation players).
That doesn't seem to apply to musical acts though... there's a huge number of people trying to get their music heard. I mean, fans can always get a more authentic experience by going to a concert put on by a local band... but maybe that's not how popularity/fans work? Is it a failure of the music industry? Or that people just don't have enough information about the smaller acts? Or does the human psyche want to glom on to stars no matter what?
Ticket scalping is a sure sign of a supply/demand imbalance, just as long lines at gas stations in the U.S. were during the 1973 oil crisis, and Xbox 360's on EBay for $1000. If the market demand is high enough to sell some tickets at $500, it's almost a sure bet that someone will sell them for that price, and it might as well be the people putting on the show who earn the money, rather than some random guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time, who is contributing no economic benefit.
But.... since the Wii is so close in hardware to the GC, they can get further price reductions by using as many of the same hardware components as possible (and for the same reason, hopefully Wii will be able to do a much more rapid worldwide rollout than the 360 or anyone else has been able to do).
I can't find a quote right this minute, but I've heard multiple times that the gaming industry definitely considers it more expensive to create artwork for textures in HD games versus SD game textures. I don't know what percentage of a game's cost goes to texture artwork, but since it's not 100% of a game's cost, an HD game's price isn't double or anything like that.
Though Xbox debuted at #2 in the console wars, so that's not to say that a giant ship can't muster a giant amount of resources to get it going again. But yes, even if they do that, it's rather more wasteful than simply keeping the engine going the whole time, and not dragging along a heavy anchor named Blu-ray.
To be fair, some people already have HDTV sets, and are interested in HD movie content (eg. ~5% of the TV market). Also, DVI is a higher-quality connection than component cables, even for playing games, though again, it's not a huge pronounced difference.