In the future, do you envision some sort of mechanism that will reconcile different laws between different countries when it comes to the creation and distribution of online content?
I suspect that there will be as there are already certain structures in places (such as the World Intellectual Property Organization) that seem to take steps toward this goal. However, to refine my question, do you believe we will see any organizations more oriented toward the rights of world citizens rather than multinational corporations (or zaibatsu, as one might call them ^_^)?
I have read several of these hardware comparisons, and while they are certainly interesting for what they are (hardware comparisons) I cannot help but continue to feel that they are missing the point: the games.
In this article, it seemed the games were not even mentioned until the very final paragraph. While I do understand that was not the point of the article, I would care for Slashdot link to more game reviews and comparisons.
To be quite honest, I do not care which console has the absolutely greater graphics. Even the aging PS2 is still comparable to the latest two consoles, and while there is always room for improvement, all three are bassically "good enough."
I have been playing Super Smash Brothers Melee since its release perhaps three weeks ago here. It is a wonderful game, better than the Nintendo 64 original, and most enjoyable. While it is always interesting to see the consoles compared in terms of their hardware, I would also like to see more links to a comparison of Xbox games (since I cannot yet buy it ^_^).
Sadly this is not yet the case in Japan. As you may be aware the PlayStation 2 is the leading console in Japan. However, I suspect that the tide might be turning, so to speak.
Perhaps it is because Nintendo is occupied with producing consoles for America, but as of lately, the GameCube has been exceedingly hard to find in stores here. I have owned a GameCube since its launch here, but several of my friends who have not yet purchased one are currently unable to locate them.
With a number of games beginning to be released for it, I believe that the GameCube may now be increasing in popularity. Again, I do not have hard numbers to back this up, but it is a popular feeling here, in some social circles.
I think Nintendo will find great success with its console, especially considering its success in the United States. If the trend in Japan will continue it may be its most popular console since the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo.
Hello. I mean no disrespect, but that does not seem to be a terribly professional way to conduct an interview. This is simply my opinion, and I do not mean any criticism.
Personally I would have rather waited a month for a more coherent interview. (Or maybe that is just my poor English skills ^_^) Again, that is only my opinion. I must say that I am not a large Bruce Campbell like many here appear to be, but I am familiar with his career and movies, and I was interested in a better representation of his answers.
I am currently a student in Tokyo and I may be able to assist you.
I am afraid I cannot recommend specific shops since school duties have prevented me from frequenting "Electrical Town" perhaps as much as I would like. However I do not think that you will have any difficulties either navigating the district or the individual shops.
All shops will have prices clearly posted so if you are familiar with a certain piece of electronic equipment, you will be able to identify it as well as the price. If you wish, you can attempt to bargain with the vendors; it would no doubt help to have a Japanese speaking freind or colleague with you, but many vendors will speak enough English to permit basic bargaining.
May I refer you to the following link: http://www.akiba.or.jp/index_e.html. This is an official page with much information in English about Akihabara.
Good luck, and I hope you enjoy your visit to Tokyo.
I am currently a student and my friends and I all have an interest in "hacking", both hardware and software. Many of the laws that have bound you in the United States will also bind us here in Japan due to the multinational nature of many corporations and agreements on Intellectual Property.
Do you have advice for the curious student, perhaps someone interested in research or experiments similar to yours, but without any resources to assist him in a court of law? I have had a friend who received threats of a legal nature from a large company and he chose not to continue his research since he did not have the resources for a lengthy legal battle.
To conclude my question, what would you recommend to the student who wishes to do as you have done, but does not have similar resources?
I am not sure but I believe another story about this was recently posted here. In any case it is very interesting and deserving of coverage.
A collegue of mine here at the University of Tokyo has mention that similar work has been done in his lab. It seems clear to me that the next major breakthrough in computing will be the elimination of the unwieldy and awkward keyboard.
It has been discussed what the next major User Interface metaphor will be; That is, what will replace the familiar desktop? I believe that the Desktop will remain with us until the end of manuel input devices. I do not believe we will ever see an efficient three dimensional user interfact metaphor until we have more efficient ways of interfacing with our machines, be it with our eyes or through or neurons or whatever sort of technology might be on the horizon.
At least, that is my view on the matter. I would welcome hearing from you if you disagree. Thank you.
Hello. These devices, or similar devices, are actually quite popular in Japan. It is a headset that one will wear while one is preparing to go to sleep. The device actually monitors the on set of Rapid Eye Movement sleep and when such sleep is detected, a bright red light is shined into the wearers eyes.
The idea is that when the wearer detects this red light he will be able to recognize it as a cue that he is dreaming. Henceforth he is able to imagine whatever he would like in the dreams. There is a brief English phrase for such a state of dreaming, but I cannot recall it at the present.
I will be happy to find more information on these devices if it would be interesting to anyone else. Thank you.
Hello. I have made several posts in the last days about a friend who found himself in similar trouble with Sony.
If someone can recommend a page will more information in English (or even better Japanese ^_^) I will gladly do what I can to help. It hurts me very much to see dedicated fans and hobbyists be threatened and intimidate for doing things that will only benefit the company in the long run.
I do not wish to see this lawyer paid but if it must come to that I will gladly help do a small bit to assist. I will even pay to assist in the German localisation, assuming that it will continue after this unfortunate incidence.
Please reply with additional information if it is available. I wish to know more but I have plenty of trouble with English, to say nothing of German ^_^
Hello. My friend wrote the program during 1996/7 while he was finishing his Math degree at the University of Tokyo. (I will note it was not related to his degree but only a project he was completing for enjoyment.) He is now gone from the University but I would be happy to contact him to see if he still has a copy of the program.
I am sure he would be happy to give away the source code as long as it does get him in trouble to Sony again ^_^
I will write him and ask him what became of it and if he still has it. I am sorry I do not remember the name of the program but I will tell you as soon as I hear back from him. He also wrote several other tools for the hobbyist PlayStation programmer and I will ask him about those tools also.
Several days ago I posted a note about a friend of mine who got in trouble with Sony after posting home programming tools to the Internet. To revise my previous post, I believe it was a tool that allowed someone to write a PlayStation boot sector on a CD. My friend used it for writing his own programs to run on a PlayStation but perhaps Sony was understandably concerned it might lead to the copying of their games.
I just want to say how fascinating I find this culture of console hacking and programming. Here is Japan in the home of the console, I wish we had a more active community, but it does not seem to be so. I am not sure why not, especially since consoles are nearly uniform in popularity among all age groups and such.
My only fear is for these programmers. Microsoft is well know for its business practices, and I worry that they will disaprove of this Xbox net-play project. I do not see how this will hurt them but I still think they will not like it. Too bad since it will only make their console more popular.
Hello. You are of course correct, I am sorry I was not more clear. I was referring to games that have been released in the last two years. I will also admit that I am not a major computer gamer, but consoles are my first love. However I think it cannot be argued that modern day computer games are roughly on par with modern day console games in terms of graphics; however, on average, perhaps console games use less memory?
I apologize if I have missed your point and I apologize for not being more clear in my initial post. Thank you for your comments and for your patience!
Hello, I am sorry for my failure to see the information about the upcoming GameCube comparison. English is not my primary language and to be honest I was relieved to reach the end of that lengthy article. I did not concentrate on the conclusion but rather the technical comparison.
Perhaps I was not clear in my original post, but as of now, more Japanese homes have consoles than computers. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Many of the events you have mentioned do in fact occur. If you would like to know more, I would be happy to answer questions you have but I am afraid that I may misunderstand you. As I said, my English is not the language with which I am best skilled. Thank you for your patience.
I am a student of Physics at the University of Tokyo and my superiors have instituted a plan that accomplishes many of these aims.
We have correspondence programs with several universities in Africa in which we will provide to them our outmoded hardware. It is unfortunate that often, we are not able to replace our hardware as often as we would prefer, but when we do, we attempt to find a physics department without adequate hardware.
Also in the course of completing their theses, graduate students must write various software tools to assist them. The copyright to these tools belongs to the University if I am not mistaken. Although my University does not distribute these freely as some would prefer, they are sometimes provided to the other universities which have the hardware necessary to run them (with the consent of the programmer student of course).
Yes, there is more that may be done, but I believe that we are working to genuinely assist other physics programs which are less fortunate that we are in some respects. Does anyone else know of similar programs?
I will be honest, perhaps up until this release, KDE was simply too slow for me to use. My computer is a Pentium 200 MMX laptop with 144 MB of RAM. I recently installed serveral different types of Linux (including Red Hat, Debian and others) and unfortunately I discovered that the Window managers I wished to use were all too slow.
In fact, I am currently running Windows 2000 on this laptop, not because of desire but because I have not yet found a Linux GUI that will run fast enough and offer the features that I desire.
Can anyone tell me of a distribution that will quickly incorporate this new version of KDE? I want to try it in the very near future, but to tell you the truth, I am not skilled enough to install it myself yet. However, I wish to learn. Thank you for your recommendation.
I believe that returns are scrutinized heavily because manufacturers wish to know how their products have failed. Perhaps it is also due to larger numbers of customers modifying their equipment. I am sorry I do not have a more accurate answer for you.
I read through the article and perhaps I did not understand it completely but I believe the writer may have been missing the points overall.
In Japan, the market for consoles is perhaps much greater than it is in the United States. Many people have a computer but not as many as have a console. Instead of looking at the Xbox as a console, I believe it was looked at as a dedicated gaming computer. Does that make sense? Please correct me if I am unclear.
I believe that the writer missed many of the reason for the popularity and technical strength of consoles. For a console, a developer of course knows what sort of hardware his program will be running on, and he has specialized tools from the console maker to help him in his development. That is not found so much with a computer (though it is with the Xbox). Quite a bit can be done without enormous quantities of RAM as consoles through out history have shown. If you remember the Zelda game for the Nintendo 64, it would run on only 4 MB of RAM. I would like to see PC games do that ^_^
I also did not see a comparison of the Xbox to the Nintendo GameCube. I have had a GameCube since it was released two months ago and I am very pleased with it so far. I may even enjoy it more than my PlayStation 2. I believe that the GameCube is a worthy competitor to the Xbox.
I am making the point that consoles are not meant to be personal computers and they should not be judged in that way. The Xbox is a impressive dedicated gaming PC in many respects if developers will learn to fully utilize its power, but as a console, I do not prefer it.
Thank you for reading this long post of mine. Once again please correct me if I am not clear in what I say. Thank you.
It upsets me personally to see the death of various console emulators. I have a friend who did work on such a project while completeing a Math degree here at the University of Tokyo. This was in 1996/7 if I remember correctly.
He released some tools such as a disassembler which while of course not for emulations, Sony did not like so much. Sony sent him an unfriendly letter and unfortunately my friend removed his tools from public access;_;
It is especially bad since he was simply trying to assist the hobbyist PlayStation programmer. It is too bad Sony does not realize their loss.
I am not sure how warrantees work in the United States but here they are not valid if you modify your equipment. Therefore if the retailer or manufacturer were to check your equipment (which many in Japan will do if only for their own benefit) you might find yourself in trouble if they catch you!!
On a different topic, I request clarification. Perhaps I miss your point so do stop me if I am incorrect. However, you say that when you are hacking, it is sometimes about taking risks? Yet you are able to return your equipment even if you mess up? I do not see where the risk is. I wish we had it so well here ^_^
Hello! I have owned a Nintendo GameCube since it was release in Japan about two months ago. I have used it with multiple games including Pikmin and others and I have not yet seen my console crash. A few of my friends also have this console and they have not reported a crash.
I hope my comments are useful from someone who has owned a GameCube for longer than it has been possible for Americans ^_^
Slashdot Mirror
Hello.
In the future, do you envision some sort of mechanism that will reconcile different laws between different countries when it comes to the creation and distribution of online content?
I suspect that there will be as there are already certain structures in places (such as the World Intellectual Property Organization) that seem to take steps toward this goal. However, to refine my question, do you believe we will see any organizations more oriented toward the rights of world citizens rather than multinational corporations (or zaibatsu, as one might call them ^_^)?
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
I have read several of these hardware comparisons, and while they are certainly interesting for what they are (hardware comparisons) I cannot help but continue to feel that they are missing the point: the games.
In this article, it seemed the games were not even mentioned until the very final paragraph. While I do understand that was not the point of the article, I would care for Slashdot link to more game reviews and comparisons.
To be quite honest, I do not care which console has the absolutely greater graphics. Even the aging PS2 is still comparable to the latest two consoles, and while there is always room for improvement, all three are bassically "good enough."
I have been playing Super Smash Brothers Melee since its release perhaps three weeks ago here. It is a wonderful game, better than the Nintendo 64 original, and most enjoyable. While it is always interesting to see the consoles compared in terms of their hardware, I would also like to see more links to a comparison of Xbox games (since I cannot yet buy it ^_^).
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Sadly this is not yet the case in Japan. As you may be aware the PlayStation 2 is the leading console in Japan. However, I suspect that the tide might be turning, so to speak.
Perhaps it is because Nintendo is occupied with producing consoles for America, but as of lately, the GameCube has been exceedingly hard to find in stores here. I have owned a GameCube since its launch here, but several of my friends who have not yet purchased one are currently unable to locate them.
With a number of games beginning to be released for it, I believe that the GameCube may now be increasing in popularity. Again, I do not have hard numbers to back this up, but it is a popular feeling here, in some social circles.
I think Nintendo will find great success with its console, especially considering its success in the United States. If the trend in Japan will continue it may be its most popular console since the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo.
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Hello. I mean no disrespect, but that does not seem to be a terribly professional way to conduct an interview. This is simply my opinion, and I do not mean any criticism.
Personally I would have rather waited a month for a more coherent interview. (Or maybe that is just my poor English skills ^_^) Again, that is only my opinion. I must say that I am not a large Bruce Campbell like many here appear to be, but I am familiar with his career and movies, and I was interested in a better representation of his answers.
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
I am currently a student in Tokyo and I may be able to assist you.
I am afraid I cannot recommend specific shops since school duties have prevented me from frequenting "Electrical Town" perhaps as much as I would like. However I do not think that you will have any difficulties either navigating the district or the individual shops.
All shops will have prices clearly posted so if you are familiar with a certain piece of electronic equipment, you will be able to identify it as well as the price. If you wish, you can attempt to bargain with the vendors; it would no doubt help to have a Japanese speaking freind or colleague with you, but many vendors will speak enough English to permit basic bargaining.
May I refer you to the following link: http://www.akiba.or.jp/index_e.html. This is an official page with much information in English about Akihabara.
Good luck, and I hope you enjoy your visit to Tokyo.
R. Suzuka
I am currently a student and my friends and I all have an interest in "hacking", both hardware and software. Many of the laws that have bound you in the United States will also bind us here in Japan due to the multinational nature of many corporations and agreements on Intellectual Property.
Do you have advice for the curious student, perhaps someone interested in research or experiments similar to yours, but without any resources to assist him in a court of law? I have had a friend who received threats of a legal nature from a large company and he chose not to continue his research since he did not have the resources for a lengthy legal battle.
To conclude my question, what would you recommend to the student who wishes to do as you have done, but does not have similar resources?
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
I am not sure but I believe another story about this was recently posted here. In any case it is very interesting and deserving of coverage.
A collegue of mine here at the University of Tokyo has mention that similar work has been done in his lab. It seems clear to me that the next major breakthrough in computing will be the elimination of the unwieldy and awkward keyboard.
It has been discussed what the next major User Interface metaphor will be; That is, what will replace the familiar desktop? I believe that the Desktop will remain with us until the end of manuel input devices. I do not believe we will ever see an efficient three dimensional user interfact metaphor until we have more efficient ways of interfacing with our machines, be it with our eyes or through or neurons or whatever sort of technology might be on the horizon.
At least, that is my view on the matter. I would welcome hearing from you if you disagree. Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Hello. These devices, or similar devices, are actually quite popular in Japan. It is a headset that one will wear while one is preparing to go to sleep. The device actually monitors the on set of Rapid Eye Movement sleep and when such sleep is detected, a bright red light is shined into the wearers eyes.
The idea is that when the wearer detects this red light he will be able to recognize it as a cue that he is dreaming. Henceforth he is able to imagine whatever he would like in the dreams. There is a brief English phrase for such a state of dreaming, but I cannot recall it at the present.
I will be happy to find more information on these devices if it would be interesting to anyone else. Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Hello. I have made several posts in the last days about a friend who found himself in similar trouble with Sony.
If someone can recommend a page will more information in English (or even better Japanese ^_^) I will gladly do what I can to help. It hurts me very much to see dedicated fans and hobbyists be threatened and intimidate for doing things that will only benefit the company in the long run.
I do not wish to see this lawyer paid but if it must come to that I will gladly help do a small bit to assist. I will even pay to assist in the German localisation, assuming that it will continue after this unfortunate incidence.
Please reply with additional information if it is available. I wish to know more but I have plenty of trouble with English, to say nothing of German ^_^
R. Suzuka
Hello. My friend wrote the program during 1996/7 while he was finishing his Math degree at the University of Tokyo. (I will note it was not related to his degree but only a project he was completing for enjoyment.) He is now gone from the University but I would be happy to contact him to see if he still has a copy of the program.
I am sure he would be happy to give away the source code as long as it does get him in trouble to Sony again ^_^
I will write him and ask him what became of it and if he still has it. I am sorry I do not remember the name of the program but I will tell you as soon as I hear back from him. He also wrote several other tools for the hobbyist PlayStation programmer and I will ask him about those tools also.
Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Several days ago I posted a note about a friend of mine who got in trouble with Sony after posting home programming tools to the Internet. To revise my previous post, I believe it was a tool that allowed someone to write a PlayStation boot sector on a CD. My friend used it for writing his own programs to run on a PlayStation but perhaps Sony was understandably concerned it might lead to the copying of their games.
I just want to say how fascinating I find this culture of console hacking and programming. Here is Japan in the home of the console, I wish we had a more active community, but it does not seem to be so. I am not sure why not, especially since consoles are nearly uniform in popularity among all age groups and such.
My only fear is for these programmers. Microsoft is well know for its business practices, and I worry that they will disaprove of this Xbox net-play project. I do not see how this will hurt them but I still think they will not like it. Too bad since it will only make their console more popular.
R. Suzuka
Hello. You are of course correct, I am sorry I was not more clear. I was referring to games that have been released in the last two years. I will also admit that I am not a major computer gamer, but consoles are my first love. However I think it cannot be argued that modern day computer games are roughly on par with modern day console games in terms of graphics; however, on average, perhaps console games use less memory?
I apologize if I have missed your point and I apologize for not being more clear in my initial post. Thank you for your comments and for your patience!
R. Suzuka
Hello, I am sorry for my failure to see the information about the upcoming GameCube comparison. English is not my primary language and to be honest I was relieved to reach the end of that lengthy article. I did not concentrate on the conclusion but rather the technical comparison.
Perhaps I was not clear in my original post, but as of now, more Japanese homes have consoles than computers. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Many of the events you have mentioned do in fact occur. If you would like to know more, I would be happy to answer questions you have but I am afraid that I may misunderstand you. As I said, my English is not the language with which I am best skilled. Thank you for your patience.
R. Suzuka
I am a student of Physics at the University of Tokyo and my superiors have instituted a plan that accomplishes many of these aims.
We have correspondence programs with several universities in Africa in which we will provide to them our outmoded hardware. It is unfortunate that often, we are not able to replace our hardware as often as we would prefer, but when we do, we attempt to find a physics department without adequate hardware.
Also in the course of completing their theses, graduate students must write various software tools to assist them. The copyright to these tools belongs to the University if I am not mistaken. Although my University does not distribute these freely as some would prefer, they are sometimes provided to the other universities which have the hardware necessary to run them (with the consent of the programmer student of course).
Yes, there is more that may be done, but I believe that we are working to genuinely assist other physics programs which are less fortunate that we are in some respects. Does anyone else know of similar programs?
R. Suzuka
I will be honest, perhaps up until this release, KDE was simply too slow for me to use. My computer is a Pentium 200 MMX laptop with 144 MB of RAM. I recently installed serveral different types of Linux (including Red Hat, Debian and others) and unfortunately I discovered that the Window managers I wished to use were all too slow.
In fact, I am currently running Windows 2000 on this laptop, not because of desire but because I have not yet found a Linux GUI that will run fast enough and offer the features that I desire.
Can anyone tell me of a distribution that will quickly incorporate this new version of KDE? I want to try it in the very near future, but to tell you the truth, I am not skilled enough to install it myself yet. However, I wish to learn. Thank you for your recommendation.
R. Suzuka
I believe that returns are scrutinized heavily because manufacturers wish to know how their products have failed. Perhaps it is also due to larger numbers of customers modifying their equipment. I am sorry I do not have a more accurate answer for you.
I read through the article and perhaps I did not understand it completely but I believe the writer may have been missing the points overall.
In Japan, the market for consoles is perhaps much greater than it is in the United States. Many people have a computer but not as many as have a console. Instead of looking at the Xbox as a console, I believe it was looked at as a dedicated gaming computer. Does that make sense? Please correct me if I am unclear.
I believe that the writer missed many of the reason for the popularity and technical strength of consoles. For a console, a developer of course knows what sort of hardware his program will be running on, and he has specialized tools from the console maker to help him in his development. That is not found so much with a computer (though it is with the Xbox). Quite a bit can be done without enormous quantities of RAM as consoles through out history have shown. If you remember the Zelda game for the Nintendo 64, it would run on only 4 MB of RAM. I would like to see PC games do that ^_^
I also did not see a comparison of the Xbox to the Nintendo GameCube. I have had a GameCube since it was released two months ago and I am very pleased with it so far. I may even enjoy it more than my PlayStation 2. I believe that the GameCube is a worthy competitor to the Xbox.
I am making the point that consoles are not meant to be personal computers and they should not be judged in that way. The Xbox is a impressive dedicated gaming PC in many respects if developers will learn to fully utilize its power, but as a console, I do not prefer it.
Thank you for reading this long post of mine. Once again please correct me if I am not clear in what I say. Thank you.
R. Suzuka
It upsets me personally to see the death of various console emulators. I have a friend who did work on such a project while completeing a Math degree here at the University of Tokyo. This was in 1996/7 if I remember correctly.
;_;
He released some tools such as a disassembler which while of course not for emulations, Sony did not like so much. Sony sent him an unfriendly letter and unfortunately my friend removed his tools from public access
It is especially bad since he was simply trying to assist the hobbyist PlayStation programmer. It is too bad Sony does not realize their loss.
R. Suzuka
I am not sure how warrantees work in the United States but here they are not valid if you modify your equipment. Therefore if the retailer or manufacturer were to check your equipment (which many in Japan will do if only for their own benefit) you might find yourself in trouble if they catch you!! On a different topic, I request clarification. Perhaps I miss your point so do stop me if I am incorrect. However, you say that when you are hacking, it is sometimes about taking risks? Yet you are able to return your equipment even if you mess up? I do not see where the risk is. I wish we had it so well here ^_^
Hello! I have owned a Nintendo GameCube since it was release in Japan about two months ago. I have used it with multiple games including Pikmin and others and I have not yet seen my console crash. A few of my friends also have this console and they have not reported a crash.
I hope my comments are useful from someone who has owned a GameCube for longer than it has been possible for Americans ^_^
R. Suzuka