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User: Clsid

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  1. Re:Nintendo + Apple on MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher · · Score: 2

    Jobs wasn't anti-games. You seem to have forgotten that speech where he was introducing some action games to OSX by way of Activision among others. Hell, the guy started his computing career in Atari by programming games.

    You seem to have a strong dislike of Apple that makes you say random and crazy statements about the company. It's not like they haven't been convicted of anything yet regarding the book trial and your comment about the AppleTV just goes to show that you just hate them because they are not doing whatever it is that you want. To me, the AppleTV is one of their best products because it only focus on one thing and does it well, and there is no comparison with the other so-called SmartTVs platforms. If I want to play game on a TV I would get a console, which is more expensive but also provides a lot of things.

    I don't know why is that I'm able to enjoy tech companies in general, be it Google, Apple and even Microsoft with some of the tools they make. And sure I have my own gripes with all of them, like the privacy issues with Google and Facebook, overpriced hardware with Apple and things like the stupid DRM in XBox One AND Steam. But that does not mean I have to trash other companies to make me feel superior about whatever tech I decided to focus on.

  2. Re:Duh, they are a publisher on MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher · · Score: 2

    And you are stupid as hell by defending a corporation as if you were a shareholder. Sony screwed people back then and that's fact. Learn to deal with it and be thankful that you didn't get burned. Some people refuse to buy Dodge Caravans after their door glass broke on them and you cannot easily forget something like that. This is what serves companies to stick to honest business practices if they want to keep getting repeated sales.

    Besides, with the PS4 charging money for online access, the choice is very clear to me, a PC gaming rig and a Wii U is the way to go. You get to play all the cool games at even better resolutions than the "next-gen" consoles, plus all the fun and original Nintendo games.

  3. Re:Beware Internet Echo Chambers on Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One · · Score: 1

    And a lot of people don't realize the energy savings. A Wii U only uses around 32W while the PS3 needs over 200W and the XBox360 uses around 187. A PC gaming rig is much more than that. That is one of the reasons I have decided to do my gaming on a Nintendo console now.

  4. Re:Spin it all you like guys ... on Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Kinect is a gimmick like it always have been. I understand why people give away their privacy for something like Google products or Facebook, because at least they are getting something for free. But you are paying for this device and you are perfectly happy with them capturing marketing data off of you. Besides, you know perfectly well that both the XBox and the PS are pretty much the same thing. But hey, fighting for consumer rights does not work if there is people that will say, bah it does not affect me today and then complain when it's too late in the future.

  5. Re:Spin it all you like guys ... on Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One · · Score: 0

    I really would like to know why on earth you would like to pay $100 more for Kinect. Even the Wii provides a better experience in that regard, both for local multiplayer and small kids which I assume is the target demographic for a Kinect right? But in general, why would you want to buy a locked out system when there is a competing solution that is offered for less? It's like going for a Betamax instead of VHS.

  6. Re:Damage control on Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason why he said that is because Steam is far from a good thing. It is cool it provides a digital library with downloadable games. It is bad that you have to run Steam in order to play the game that you have already paid. It is bad that games are ridden with DRM. Sure, that might be a sign of times to come but for people that grew up playing games the old fashioned way, we clearly see that as a disadvantage instead of some revolutionary system.

  7. Re:Damage control on Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One · · Score: 2

    You do realize that if for some reason your connection goes down you will be unable to play? What kind of idiot does not understand what that means for a consumer? Plus it costs more than $100 dollars more than the PS4 because of a feature I don't want (Kinect). I don't live in a farm, far from it, but I won't buy such a handicapped system, especially when there are alternatives. DRM isn't even the major issue here, since in my eyes they are doing the same thing Steam is doing in the PC, sans the extreme price cuts. To me it comes down to value, in terms of dollars I have to spend and stupid restrictions. Add to the fire the condescending attitude of saying, the problem it's not the system, it's you, and you have the situation we have today.

  8. Re:Facebook, google invented little on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    There is a lot of good tech out there that hardly see the masses, so the real innovation is making it happen. Is it important that there were pseudo-smartphones before the iPhone or prehistoric tablets before the iPad? The Ford Model-T was not an innovation in itself since it was about making a car affordable.

  9. Re:Glass??? on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    Your PC does not use your full power draw all the times, and if the computer is idle it consumes even less than that. Get a Kill-a-Watt and see what happens, it is very informative to say the least. Granted, I have a Geforce GTX 660 which might not use as much power as a Titan and I use a Sandy Bridge i3 3220 which is very power efficient. But in general, I was shocked to compare my actual power draw and how it goes down a lot if I just use a Macbook for computing and a Wii for games.

  10. Re:This study is full of shit on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    Stop trying to be a smartass and recognize that all of those companies not only brought innovation but they keep bringing value. Hell they are the main reason why the US leads on tech by a long shot. Even a country like China that blocks foreign companies to favor local ones had to bow down to Apple and Android.

    And in case you still don't believe Facebook is important, just ask yourself what everybody was doing before Facebook. How many people you know actually became a lot more interested in computers after seeing something like Facebook or Skype? Seeing grown-ups and even the elderly stuck to idiotic games like Farmville was beyond my comprehension but even then I had to admit that Facebook truly hit the nail in the head.

  11. Re:Facebook, google invented little on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    I think all of these companies created something new and it is the very fact why they became huge in the first place.

    In general Facebook validated the so-called social networks, and made them work for everybody. Something MySpace and others were not able to do. Facebook was also able to make photo sharing and commenting extremely easy and created a platform for web games with massive audiences. If you remember well, before Facebook, people had to use stuff like Classmates.com to try and find each other. So all of those were big game changers. Also the whole concept of the global village is pretty much synthesized in there.

    Google's search engine was and it still is the main drive behind the company. But Maps, with their scrollable Ajax tiles pretty much made competing products look like a toy. Same deal with Gmail, and they even created the next Windows without even realizing it, which is Android.

    I had some hopes for Microsoft after they created Bing, XBox360, .NET, but lately they seem to be failing in all areas now, and if they are not playing catch up they are screwing their traditional products in a very weird way, from Windows to the Surface. Still, they have plenty of money so there is time to reinvent the company after Ballmer and the suits step down. Just taking a look at who's head of the Windows division speaks volumes about why they are producing these kind of crap. Previous guy left after behaving like a sociopath, new one has a business degree and work on "user experience". The head of OSX is a guy who is both an electrical engineer and a computer science major with a master on CS, and part of the NeXT team, hardly a person chosen by internal office politics. And if you look at Linux, well, the guy who pretty much started the whole thing still runs the show.

    So my point is that as long as you have the hackers, the engineers and the resources we will still see plenty of innovation as we did with the Facebook kid, or the Google boys. Microsoft needs to either become an IBM with a sound service infrastructure and top management or go back to being the software powerhouse it once was.

  12. Re:what is innovation? on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    The problem with your rationale is that the 1bn Facebook users are contributing with a lot more details in general than your regular Youtube visitor. So there is no way Facebook and Youtube are comparable in that regard. You don't see all companies rushing to create a Youtube channel while having a Facebook presence is kind of a must these days.

  13. Re:what is innovation? on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    In general Facebook validated the so-called social networks, and made them work for everybody. Something MySpace and others were not able to do. Facebook was also able to make photo sharing and commenting extremely easy and created a platform for web games with massive audiences. If you remember well, before Facebook, people had to use stuff like Classmates.com to try and find each other. So all of those were big game changers. Also the whole concept of the global village is pretty much synthesized in there.

    But of course, then we have the privacy issues and data mining operations, which are huge. They could have lived perfectly by only charging people for extra storage of pictures, and good old-fashioned newspaper style advertising by region, but the greed of companies like Google and Facebook knows no bounds. So we have this situation now where everything you do is being tracked online. Just check on your web logs how many times your computer talks to Facebook and Google domains per session even if you don't visit those websites.

  14. Re:Deinvent cycle. on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    I think it's better to say that:

    -Google is a huge data mining operation with zero concern for user's privacy. They give free tools to developers and end-users to provide an incentive so people will give away more info. The more they can gather from you the more money they can make.
    -Facebok is another huge data mining operation with zero concern for user's privacy. They allow people to socialize better as an incentive to keep giving away your personal information. As with Google, the more they can gather from you the more money they can make..
    -Apple is an overpriced hardware company with the firm intention of creating vendor lock-in either through hardware or software. The more they can lock you in the more money they make.
    -Microsoft is a monopolistic software vendor with the firm intention of creating vendor lock-in so they can keep charging you for continual upgrades to their systems. The more they can lock you in the more money they make.

    As you see, this is the main reason why the Free Software Foundation is totally right regarding software freedom. There are zero guarantees that an undemocratic for-profit corporation, especially the big ones will play fair. The government is supposed to do that but they are too slow and not prepared to deal with such tasks. The main problem is that we have software patents and hardware is not exactly open source, where I believe vendors should be forced to document how to interface with their equipment at the very least.

  15. Re:Confusion on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    But that backend innovation can only take place if consumers buy a lot of appliances. I believe that what Apple does is important, since it seems it's one of the few companies able to push hardware forward. They set the trend to kill the floppy, provide good web browsers on smartphones, get rid of mechanical hard drives and now they are doing the same with the DVD drive. Plus the energy efficiency of their products are often overlooked but it is one of their most important features imho.

    Other companies like Facebook also provides technology in the form of software. You can be a tech company and only produce specialized polymers.

  16. Re:Glass??? on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    "THE threat to traditional desktop computing"

    Wake up, desktop computing was badly hurt by laptops, tablets and smartphones. Apple just released the equivalent of the MacBook Air for desktops and I'm pretty sure that we will finally see PC makers doing something different than cloning the iMac with the All-In-Ones. Gaming hardware companies (Alienware, Razer) were the only companies imho that really were making an effort, but they served a niche market.

  17. Re:Glass??? on Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) · · Score: 1

    I like the Mac Pro and I think Apple has done a fantastic job. But I have to say that the time of the heavy-weight desktops has passed and for a good reason. Even if you build your own PC gaming rig, the amount of power they require is tremendous. I'm talking around 200W or more. This is without mention the cost of such machine. When you compare gaming on a PC to gaming in something like a Wii that uses like 18W, you start to realize that maybe we can start saving a lot of money and stop wasting so much energy. Even the Wii U, with the few games it has needs 30W, the same energy consumption as a MacBook under load.

  18. Re:Exclusive rights to football on EA Takes Over Scrabble App, Wipes Player Histories and Switches Dictionary · · Score: 1

    I think playing something like PES is completely enjoyable. Maybe NHL is a different story. But if you truly cannot live without playing with a fictional team, I suggest you only buy one of those every other year. But really, you should just avoid their products in the long run, lack of money it's the only thing that will make them change.

  19. Re:That's Right EA. on EA Takes Over Scrabble App, Wipes Player Histories and Switches Dictionary · · Score: 1

    Sorry, in my case I refuse to buy any more games from them. I do want to play Mass Effect 3 and the new Battlefield when it comes out, but I can live without it just fine. And it's not so much that the games are bad quality as it was the case of SimCity and others, but more that what they did with Battlefield 3 where they charged premium for a game, only to act as if the game was a freemium game afterwards is totally unacceptable to me.

    Besides, it's not like there aren't competing titles anyway, and nowadays, playing something like Metro 2033 or Bioshock Infinite is a lot more refreshing than just playing the latest version of BF or CoD.

  20. I agree. What would it take for gamers to actually start a movement to boycott EA. I know that even if Battlefield and Need for Speed looks cool, I'm sure as hell not going to give any money to that company again. There are a lot of competing products out there, especially now that Codemasters released Grid 2. But actions like mine are insignificant when done on your own, since I'm pretty sure somebody at EA is probably laughing their ass off when they see that somebody is refusing to buy their products.

  21. Re:Better security might help on Confirmed: CBS News Reporter's Computer Compromised · · Score: 4, Informative

    SELinux is not provided by the NSA anymore. It has been incorporated into the kernel and all you have to do is enable stuff that you want to use now. The code has been reviewed and the NSA was not the only entity involved, so I would not worry about that too much.

  22. Re:My Mac Sucks on Apple Shows Off New iOS 7, Mac OS X At WWDC · · Score: 1

    He made a joke in case you fail to realize it.

  23. Re:My Mac Sucks on Apple Shows Off New iOS 7, Mac OS X At WWDC · · Score: 1

    Well, I don't know about you but I can do better even with my "inferior" 8100. Remember, Macs will always beat PCs because of the SCSI drives. Plus I have a Jaz drive connected to mine and it works wonders at 1000 MB per disk. Sometimes I do have to fiddle with scratch disks and what not, plus the ocassional bomb icon from MacOS 8, but hey, I bet your desktop doesn't look as pretty as mine. Oh, and before I forget, I can totally game here with Marathon, Warcraft 2 and SimCity 2000.

  24. Re:So long lamedroid and windows mobilame. on Apple Shows Off New iOS 7, Mac OS X At WWDC · · Score: 1

    You've got to be kidding. What would you call the Mac Pro? Sure, the Macbook and OSX are incremental upgrades, but iOS packs a lot of new stuff now. If you fail to realize that you must be either getting old or you have lost your ability to enjoy new technology, no matter where it comes from.

  25. Re:Waiting for Apple on Sony Touts 25 Hour Battery Life For Haswell-Equipped Vaio Pro · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    And I have to say that's one of the reasons I will always prefer a Mac laptop over a Windows laptop of any kind. The power management is truly something, and I can see a noticeable difference if I use Windows on Boot Camp and then use OSX.