They probably have never seen the new GBA SP either.
I heard Nintendo is gonna make a GBA BlueTooth adapter to provide wireless gaming through NTT Docomo phones. Really, the little voices in my head told me.:)
If Nokia really want to create a wireless gaming market, maybe they should try and focus on promoting the current breed of games on J2ME and Series 60 platforms. Most people don't even know they exist.
Oh yeah, thanks for the link to that ad. It's uber-r3t@rd3d. LMAO
As much as everyone likes to jump the gun and critize MS for yet another buy-out, I really would like to point out that this is beneficial to everyone to a certain degree.
Viruses trageting Windows are extremely wide-spread: Melissa, Remote Explorer, and the recent Slammer brought down the whole Internet in a matter of minutes.
Slammer is the perfect example that the vulnerability of one specific OS will indeed affect everyone else connected to the network in an extremely short timeframe.
Any kind of built-in antivirus software in Windows at all will reduce such risk for all of us. While I wouldn't bank on MS to provide the best AV solution (hence I believe third-party AV software will continue to do very well), I do think that this move by MS is important, maybe even neccessary, to protect the the stability of the Internet as a whole.
Viurs writers target the *popular* OS. If 90% of the world is running Linux, then most viruses will target Linux. It doesn't matter how proactive you are or how secure your OS is, the fact is that there *will* be another virus, probably more damaging than Slammer, appear eventually, not matter how hard we try to prevent it. We can only try to reduce the damage by full-time monitoring and detection + rapid repsonse.
Over 90% of viruses and trojans targets Windows. If any OS needs a built-in virus scanner, it'd be Windows. I think MS is doing the right thing here.
XP has built-in firewall, yet ZoneAlarm and Norton isn't losing any sales. In fact, I think it helps them because it raises the awareness of security solutions among average users and they in turn become attracted to the more powerful third-party products.
Competition is fierce in the AV marketplace, with a number of successful leaders. I doubt MS is really trying to own this sector because there are just too many moving targets. MS traditionally only engages its ***Anti-Competitive Death-Ray*** when there's a single, clear leader in a specific market (Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, Netscape, Palm, Sun, etc.)
It'll be depending on how much resources MS will put into it.
Think of Defrag or CD Burning in XP, the shortcomings of these built-in features allow plenty of room for third-party offerings.
In fact, sometimes these built-in features (like defrag) raise consciousness among the average users who would otherwise overlooked the need for them, and in turn, ignite sales of third-party products.
It's only when MS pours millions of dollars into squashing the competition when it becomes an unfair, anti-competetitve behaviour.
It's obvious that this is just an attempt to pat comsumers on the back and make them feel more secure about the stock OS.
Even if they were to compete in the AV market, MS can't even write a secure OS for the life of them, I doubt they can maintain a competitive AV product for some years. LMAO
Those are 2 different companies. One is Verizon Communications and the other is Verizon Wireless (a joint venture co-owned by Verizon and Vodafone).
A bit of histroy: Let's not forget U.S. Robotics
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Jeff and Donna founded Palm Computing, but they needed captial, so they merged their company with U.S. Robotics.
All is fine until 3Com acquired U.S. Robotics for its line of telecommunication products, and got Palm Computing as part of the deal. 3Com never really knew how to manage the subsidary, Jeff and Donna got upset will the management, so they made an OS licensing deal with Palm Computing and left 3Com to found Handspring.
The usual IIRC restrictions apply to this bit of info.:)
Re:Why did Handspring split off in the first place
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· Score: 2, Informative
The PalmPilot company was founded by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dublinsky. 3Com bought it via its aquisition of U.S. Robotics. Jeff and Donna soon left to found Handspring. 3Com spun off Palm years later.
Read the other replies for further details.
Good for everyone: Jeff and Donna are back
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Handspring has been losing money and slipping market share. It probably will go broke if Palm weren't gonna acquire it. (See the story on The Register.) There'll be one less competitor anyways if Handspring cease to exist.
What's good, however, is that Jeff Hawkins will return as CTO and Donna Dublinsky will return as a board member. They were the founders of the original PalmPilot company and left because of the (mis)management of US Robotics/3Com. Their return to Palm Inc will surely bring more innovations to Palm Inc.
Nothing really. Handspring decided to end production of the Visor last year IIRC. The Treo line (smartphones) is what Handspring has been focusing on.
The only overlapping products from these two companies are the Treo 90 (the only non-smartphone PDA in Handspring current product line) and the Tungsten W (the only smartphone from Palm Inc). Both of them are OS 4.1 devices and should reach EOL by the time the merger completes.
Sega did die a slow death since the 32x/Saturn period. Nintendo made many similar bad decisions with the N64, however, Nintendo is doing just about all the right things with GameCube: low price, developer friendly, etc.
It takes years for any given console to gain critical mass, and probably even longer for a video game company to recover from its mistakes and regain the top spot. It's obvious that Nintendo will never win over Sony in this generation, but that's besides the point. GameCube is a good platform and Nintendo can use this chance to restore the faith of its customers and developers. GameCube should be considered a successful console if it can claim the #2 spot and stay there comfortably till the next lifecycle.
It was unfortunate that Sega made so many mistakes. However, Nintendo's current position isn't as bad as Sega (not even as bad as when Sega launched the Saturn). Also, Nintendo has tons of cash in reserve, has the GBA/Pokemon cash cow so that it'll continue to be profitable even if GC turns out to be a massive failure, and unlike Sega, it doesn't have an arcade business to support.
Nintendo is on track and will likely continue to be a long term player in the console market. But of course, consider the massive success of PS2 and the stiff competition from Microsoft, it has very little room for errors in the years to come.
The next 18 months or so is particularly critical to both Microsoft and Nintendo, because as their consoled mature and developers become familiar with the platforms, the killer titles will soon emerges and a chance for either platform to reach critial mass. Personally I think Nintendo was brilliant when designing the GameCube -- it placed manufacturing efficiency above bleeding edge performance. Nintendo can price the GameCube @ $129 or even $99 today if they really want to, without losing too much money. Even its $149 price point right now is a huge advantage (the Playstation reached critical mass when it dropped its price to $149). Nintendo actually has a very good chance of securing a #2 position within the next 18 months. Except that I can't say for sure if it will because Ninendo really put on a lousy E3 presentation this year.
I just hope that now that Nintendo's gone disc, they'll follow Sony's example and make this new one backwards compadible.
That, IMO, is one of the main reasons that PS2 won out over the Dreamcast.
Well, first of all, there's an unfair comparision because there was no point in providing backward compatibility with Dreamcast. What could you possibly make Dreamcast backward compatible with? Saturn? (Software libabry too small, most of its best games like NiGHTS or Panzer Dragon do not appeal to the general mass.)
The reason backward compatiblity is beneficial to PS2 is that the original Playstation had a huge software library, and development was still ongoing at PS2's launch. The same goes for GBA, backward compatibility is important because GB has a HUGE software library.
I agree with you that the success of the PS2's initial period was largely due to its backward compatibility, but it solely depends on the fact that Playstation was already #1 and has a huge library. It's an advantage unique to Sony at that time.
If the next Nintendo console will indeed ship in 2005, that will mean GameCube will only have 3 years worth of a backcatalog. Having backward compatibility to this small catalog will probably makes little difference to the console's initial sales. Consider that the Genesis was backward compatible with the Sega Master System (via an adapter), yet it was Sonic that sold the Genesis by millions.
Moreover, backward compatibilty really does very little to a console's longetivity. After the first year or two, once there are enough native titles out, nobody (other than the really enthuaist) wants to play games from the last generation.
There are more important things to the success of a console's launch period, like price, launch titles, exclusives, brand loyalty, and most important of all, hype. Backward compatibility is relatively irrelevant when compared to any of those things.
"Swifter-type one-use dusters and mops, paper plates (don't recall the brand) now advertising that you have more time for family if you use their product and throw it away..."
At least those are all paper products and hence boidegradable.
Probably just a way to make sure lusers will "download" the file instead of streaming it, since MOV file will be streamed and played by the QuickTime plugin by default.
It's also the safest mean of serving a binary file. Some web servers, when serving a file type not present in its MIME database, defaults to text/plain. I can't even count how many times I click on a link to an EXE or BIN file and I get a page of junk text instead of a "Save As..." dialog box.
"Will Smith has a lot going for him, but he might have ruined The Matrix."
I cinged at first too when I thought what if Will Smith got it.
But then, think about it, what if it was before the first Matrix was released and I told you Keanu Reeves was gonna be in a new sci-fi movie, whose previous sci-fi credits includes Johnny Mnemonic and Chained Reactions?
At least Men in Black and Independance Day looked better on a resume!!!
And I guess we all forgot Will Smith does know how to act. Remember Six Degrees of Separation?
What I admired the Brothers in the casting is that they seem to make a point in having a racially diversed cast. In Reloaded, we get not one, but two Asian characters.
1. Nintendo is conservative and family-oriented. Sega generally aims at an older audience. The "family" is the very principle audience for Ninendo (it has publicly admitted that), everything it does has to be appealing to this audience.
2. "they're both soley games companies" Well they still make hardware, but 2 different kinds of hardware with 2 very different philosophies. Nintendo's hardware is merely a plaform for them to sell their games, Nintendo's consoles are designed to be capable, but not particularly designed to compete at the hardware level (the SNES has a CPU half as fast as the Genesis which came 2 years before, the N64 used cartidges while the world had switched to CD-ROM). Sega's only remaining hardware business is in the arcade, a market that's important to Sega, and a market where its hardware has to be competetive.
3. Sega, first and foremost, is an arcade business. (They killed Dreamcast instead of their arcade division, didn't they?) Ninendo hasn't made an arcade game probably since the Donkey Kong series. The TriForce, once again, is merely a platform for Nintendo to sell games. Nintendo would've wanted no part in it if they were actually required to make arcade hardware as part of the deal.
4. "neither of them are afraid of trying new gaming genres out"? Only Sega is. Sega takes risks. It made some of the most original (but commerically lackluster) games like NiGHTS, Shenmue and Jet Set Radio. Nintendo just reharshes the same old franchises from over a decade ago like Zelda and Mario. Sure, every incarnation of them are well-executed and innovative in its own rights, but they're still limited by the original's theme and formula, and formula are exactly what they look like when compared to stuff like Shenmue and Jet Set Radio.
5. From what I understand, SoA (Sega of America) actually develops games for the US market (say, the Sega Sports Series), while NoA (Nintendo of America) is only resposnible for business and testing within the US market. The original Sega was also a result of a Japanese-American merger. In other words, Nintendo is a primarily Japanese company with typical Japanese values and practices, the domestic Japanese retail market will always come before any other. Other the other hand, Sega was conceived as a blend of east and west all the way from management to marketing, and it has always equally valued their Eastern and Western markets and targeted them respectively.
6. "With Shenmue, Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Sega Sports titles being GameCube exclusive." Well that's sure is good for Nintendo, but where's Sega's end of the bargain?
I guess I sound like a Nintendo basher. I do think Nintendo makes excellent games, and the GameCube is a well-designed piece of hardware: clean layout, low manufacturing cost, respectable performance. However, Nintendo is not the kind of company I'd like to see Sega merging with. Much of what makes Sega special will be lost as a result.
Sega and Nintendo are like Apple and Microsoft. They are 2 very different companies.
Reading this discussion reminds me of Usenet's video games newsgroups. Has Slashdot degraded to a buncha 14yos?
Sega merging with Nintendo is like Apple merging with Microsoft. It'll be a disaster and there'll be nothing left of Sega other than a bunch of exclusive GameCube titles. Nintendo is too conservative and family-oriented, it's only interested in retail, and has very little hardware expertise. This is the same company who refused to license games aimed at matured audience and the refused to use CD-ROM in N64 despite what the gamers wanted. Nintendo makes excellent games, but I wouldn't quite consider it an innovative risk-taker.
Likewise, being bought by Microsoft will results in a buncha exclusive PC/XBox titles. What Microsoft really wants is a brand that can let them penetrate the Japanese market, where it's failed so miserably so far. Microsoft is only interested in nothing more than Sega's logo. Microsoft is every bit as conservative as Nintendo is, it'll never let Sega make risky, innovative games.
Namco is a very natural choice for a merger, it makes a whole lot of business sense. Just the very fact that they can combine and streamline their arcade manufacturing units already can save both companies a great deal of money. Namco's business overlaps with Sega more than any other Japenese game developer does, even more so than Capcom and Konami. Capcom and Konami only makes arcade cabinets, while Sega and Namco are the only ones left who still make light gun games on projection screens and networked racers on hydrolics.
The Japanese stock market has already spoken. Both companies' stocks surged when Namco asked Sega to reconsider a merger of the 2 companies.
Whatever path Sega takes, it needs to ensure that it'll still be able to make games like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio and After Burner. If Sega won't be able to take risks, then it might as well be dead.
I agreed with all the previous posters that if a drive doesn't support Mount Rainier already, don't count on a firmware upgrade being available in the future.
Philips latest 4x DVD+RW drive DVDRW416K is the first DVD+RW drive supports Mount Rainier. Note that it was just announced at CeBit last month and it's not shipping yet.
Do consider that if Mount Rainier is important to you, alternatively you might want to consider DVD-RAM. The new Panasonic LF-D521 can read and write DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW, and the drive can be had for $160-$199. DVD-RAM media is quite a bit more expensive than DVD-RW/+RW, and incomaptible with existing players, but for random access data storage it's far more reliable and simple. DVD-RAM has the same defect management and drag-and-drop rewriting that DVD+MRW promised, but it's here now (actually it's been around almost as long as DVD-ROM has). It's a good choice for random access data storage if it fits your need.
What I wonder is how reliable traditional (non-Mount Rainier) packet writing on DVD+RW is. Minor defects on a traditional packet-writing CD-RW can render the whole disc unreadable. I wonder if the same is true for traditional packet writing DVD+RW. Does anyone here has a solid answer to that?
Keep in mind that in some circles, packet writing of CDs is considered an excellent way to lose your data, and nothing more.
It's a known fact that traditional packet writing is very unreliable because a few minor defects can render an entire disc unreadable.AFAIK, this is one of the things that Mount Rainier intended to address with its built-in defect management. Hence, Mount Rainier would be a must-have if anyone wants to use packet writing in general.
I too am a little disappointed overall. I guess lot of us are expecting explanations in these shorts.
Taking them for what they are -- a showcase of different anime styles spunoff of the movie's universe -- then they're mildly entertaining. Not quite spectacular, but enjoyable.
However, I think "The Second Renaissance" failed to deliever in either respect. Artistically it's typical, the art direction lacks imagination. The "history" it tells is boring and cut-and-dry. The first half has a nice political spin on the history, I really felt that they could've painted a more detailed story in the political/diplomatic front, and make the whole background story more realisitc.
I did hear that the best out of these shorts is "The Final Flight of Osiris", so hopefully that one will have more meat in it.
There are, by my imagination, a couple spins on the power-source thing.
1. As terrorism: Human may be an incredibly inefficient power source, but using human this way can promote terror among the remaining rebels. Suicide bombers aren't very efficient compared to missiles, yet they promote much higher level of terror.
2. Body parts: I'm dying to find out that there are actually a new race of cyborgs (half-machine half human) behind the machines' leadership, and they kept human in captivity to grow body parts for their own longetivity.
Was there ever a debate? I thought it's always been Richard Stalin's, I mean Stallman's, one-man propaganda.
If he really wanted brand recognition, he's free to change the GPL to require to do so. The fact is that anyone who repackages open source software is free to call their product whatever they want. None of the repackaged Apache out there has the word "Apache" in their names, does the ASF care? No. It's part of the very freedom that free software promises: freedom to name your derived software whatever you want.
Stalin, I mean Stallman, has nobody to blame other than the fact that FSF picked a dumbass brand name. People associate the name Linux with the entire operating system because they want to and they like to. You can't control how the public uses brand names, just ask any trademark lawyers. Many trademarks like Xerox, Kleenex and Aspirin got diluted to common-name status despites the trademark owners tried hard to reinforced that they were indeed trademarks.
This is FREE software that we're talking about, I believe we have the freedom to call it whatever we want.
Sony's high-density format uses more expensive proprietary media. GigaRec and HD-Burn use plain old CD-Rs.
As for compatibility, both technolofies try to provide some level of compatiblity. While HD-Burn discs can only be read in supporting DVD drives, most modern CD/DVD drives today should be able to read GigaRec discs (as vclaimed by Plextor).
Note that these are NOT new formats, but rather, more like hacked standards. They are stretching the physical properties of the Orange Book specs, but the discs they write are still regular Orange Book format (only that they're written with higher frequencies).
HD-Burn vs GigaRec (Re:Nice idea, but...)
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And I knew I should have sumbitted each format as a separate story so readers don't get confused.:) Their are 2 technologies here, Sanyo's HD-Burn and Plextor's GigaRec.
For one, they both use regular blank CD-Rs. Blank DVD-R/+R are $2-4 a pop even in lots of 500-100. It's nice to be able to squeeze more data on the same old CD-Rs even at the cost of compatibility. It's the same situation with 800/800MB blank CD-Rs: higher capacity, reduced compatiblity.
GigaRec can be read by any regular good quality CD drive (supposedly). It's HD-Burn that needs a support DVD drive (and that's DVD drive not a CD drive). On the bright side of HD-Burn, Sanyo is an OEM for mechanisms and chipsets, and they'll be likely to make all their future drives HD-Burn compatible. many drives on the market today use Sanyo inside, so they really have the market share to push a new format.
GigaRec is unlikely to be licensed to other OEMs. Plextor doesn't have a habit of licensing their technologies. So GigaRec will solely be a value-added feature to Plextor drives.
While I can't give you a reliable figure of adoption rate, thousands-block pooling has been mandated by the FCC quite some time ago and has been rolled out by many local wireline operators. Quoted from an FCC press release dated 7/16/2002:
The Commission also adopted a system for allocating numbers
in blocks of 1,000 rather than 10,000 (thousands-block number pooling). The Commission determined
that all carriers, including wireless carriers, would be required to participate in thousands-block number
pooling once they became LNP-capable. The pooling deadline is November 24, 2002 (in area codes
where wireline carriers are providing pooling), for wireless carriers operating in the largest 100
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
And as other posts already pointed out, the technical issues are all ironed out. Other wireless operators already have the infrastructure in place to provide WNP (presumably Verzion Wireless too, but they'll never admit it as long as the case is still open).
I chose DNS because it's already implemented and already has all of the administrative infrastructure in place.
Other than the fact that the idea of DNS over DTMF POTS is impratical, technically impossible and simply pointless, you also make the assumption that DNS *works*, and DNS is *good*.
DNS fails easily. When is the last time you find yourself not being able to go to a web site by domain name but it worked by IP? When is the last time the root servers were hacked? Who was the last netadmin at your school/company commited suicide over longstanding DNS issues?
Whatever it is, it must be standardized so that companies/people can stop giving out phone numbers and instead give out meaningful, memorable names.
To use you support.ibm.com example previously:
How does 1-800-IBM-HELP sound for a solution?
Many viable alternatives exist way before DNS did.
Shoehorning one legacy technology over another imcompatible legacy technology is hardly an innovative solution.
Slashdot Mirror
They probably have never seen the new GBA SP either.
:)
I heard Nintendo is gonna make a GBA BlueTooth adapter to provide wireless gaming through NTT Docomo phones. Really, the little voices in my head told me.
If Nokia really want to create a wireless gaming market, maybe they should try and focus on promoting the current breed of games on J2ME and Series 60 platforms. Most people don't even know they exist.
Oh yeah, thanks for the link to that ad. It's uber-r3t@rd3d. LMAO
As much as everyone likes to jump the gun and critize MS for yet another buy-out, I really would like to point out that this is beneficial to everyone to a certain degree.
Viruses trageting Windows are extremely wide-spread: Melissa, Remote Explorer, and the recent Slammer brought down the whole Internet in a matter of minutes.
Slammer is the perfect example that the vulnerability of one specific OS will indeed affect everyone else connected to the network in an extremely short timeframe.
Any kind of built-in antivirus software in Windows at all will reduce such risk for all of us. While I wouldn't bank on MS to provide the best AV solution (hence I believe third-party AV software will continue to do very well), I do think that this move by MS is important, maybe even neccessary, to protect the the stability of the Internet as a whole.
Viurs writers target the *popular* OS. If 90% of the world is running Linux, then most viruses will target Linux. It doesn't matter how proactive you are or how secure your OS is, the fact is that there *will* be another virus, probably more damaging than Slammer, appear eventually, not matter how hard we try to prevent it. We can only try to reduce the damage by full-time monitoring and detection + rapid repsonse.
Over 90% of viruses and trojans targets Windows. If any OS needs a built-in virus scanner, it'd be Windows. I think MS is doing the right thing here.
XP has built-in firewall, yet ZoneAlarm and Norton isn't losing any sales. In fact, I think it helps them because it raises the awareness of security solutions among average users and they in turn become attracted to the more powerful third-party products.
Competition is fierce in the AV marketplace, with a number of successful leaders. I doubt MS is really trying to own this sector because there are just too many moving targets. MS traditionally only engages its ***Anti-Competitive Death-Ray*** when there's a single, clear leader in a specific market (Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, Netscape, Palm, Sun, etc.)
It'll be depending on how much resources MS will put into it.
Think of Defrag or CD Burning in XP, the shortcomings of these built-in features allow plenty of room for third-party offerings.
In fact, sometimes these built-in features (like defrag) raise consciousness among the average users who would otherwise overlooked the need for them, and in turn, ignite sales of third-party products.
It's only when MS pours millions of dollars into squashing the competition when it becomes an unfair, anti-competetitve behaviour.
It's obvious that this is just an attempt to pat comsumers on the back and make them feel more secure about the stock OS.
Even if they were to compete in the AV market, MS can't even write a secure OS for the life of them, I doubt they can maintain a competitive AV product for some years. LMAO
That's an unfair analogy. Japan might be small, but most of the major cities in Japan has much higher population density that even Manhattan.
And of course, the Japanese customers are generally more welcoming to new technologies altogether.
The combination of smaller size and higher population and lower barrier makes it a hotbed for new wireless technologies.
On another note, Three UK and Three HK will have limited 3G service in their repective markets by the end of 2003 / start of 2004.
Those are 2 different companies. One is Verizon Communications and the other is Verizon Wireless (a joint venture co-owned by Verizon and Vodafone).
Jeff and Donna founded Palm Computing, but they needed captial, so they merged their company with U.S. Robotics.
:)
All is fine until 3Com acquired U.S. Robotics for its line of telecommunication products, and got Palm Computing as part of the deal. 3Com never really knew how to manage the subsidary, Jeff and Donna got upset will the management, so they made an OS licensing deal with Palm Computing and left 3Com to found Handspring.
The usual IIRC restrictions apply to this bit of info.
The PalmPilot company was founded by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dublinsky. 3Com bought it via its aquisition of U.S. Robotics. Jeff and Donna soon left to found Handspring. 3Com spun off Palm years later.
Read the other replies for further details.
Handspring has been losing money and slipping market share. It probably will go broke if Palm weren't gonna acquire it. (See the story on The Register.) There'll be one less competitor anyways if Handspring cease to exist.
What's good, however, is that Jeff Hawkins will return as CTO and Donna Dublinsky will return as a board member. They were the founders of the original PalmPilot company and left because of the (mis)management of US Robotics/3Com. Their return to Palm Inc will surely bring more innovations to Palm Inc.
Nothing really. Handspring decided to end production of the Visor last year IIRC. The Treo line (smartphones) is what Handspring has been focusing on.
The only overlapping products from these two companies are the Treo 90 (the only non-smartphone PDA in Handspring current product line) and the Tungsten W (the only smartphone from Palm Inc). Both of them are OS 4.1 devices and should reach EOL by the time the merger completes.
Sega did die a slow death since the 32x/Saturn period. Nintendo made many similar bad decisions with the N64, however, Nintendo is doing just about all the right things with GameCube: low price, developer friendly, etc.
It takes years for any given console to gain critical mass, and probably even longer for a video game company to recover from its mistakes and regain the top spot. It's obvious that Nintendo will never win over Sony in this generation, but that's besides the point. GameCube is a good platform and Nintendo can use this chance to restore the faith of its customers and developers. GameCube should be considered a successful console if it can claim the #2 spot and stay there comfortably till the next lifecycle.
It was unfortunate that Sega made so many mistakes. However, Nintendo's current position isn't as bad as Sega (not even as bad as when Sega launched the Saturn). Also, Nintendo has tons of cash in reserve, has the GBA/Pokemon cash cow so that it'll continue to be profitable even if GC turns out to be a massive failure, and unlike Sega, it doesn't have an arcade business to support.
Nintendo is on track and will likely continue to be a long term player in the console market. But of course, consider the massive success of PS2 and the stiff competition from Microsoft, it has very little room for errors in the years to come.
The next 18 months or so is particularly critical to both Microsoft and Nintendo, because as their consoled mature and developers become familiar with the platforms, the killer titles will soon emerges and a chance for either platform to reach critial mass. Personally I think Nintendo was brilliant when designing the GameCube -- it placed manufacturing efficiency above bleeding edge performance. Nintendo can price the GameCube @ $129 or even $99 today if they really want to, without losing too much money. Even its $149 price point right now is a huge advantage (the Playstation reached critical mass when it dropped its price to $149). Nintendo actually has a very good chance of securing a #2 position within the next 18 months. Except that I can't say for sure if it will because Ninendo really put on a lousy E3 presentation this year.
I just hope that now that Nintendo's gone disc, they'll follow Sony's example and make this new one backwards compadible.
That, IMO, is one of the main reasons that PS2 won out over the Dreamcast.
Well, first of all, there's an unfair comparision because there was no point in providing backward compatibility with Dreamcast. What could you possibly make Dreamcast backward compatible with? Saturn? (Software libabry too small, most of its best games like NiGHTS or Panzer Dragon do not appeal to the general mass.)
The reason backward compatiblity is beneficial to PS2 is that the original Playstation had a huge software library, and development was still ongoing at PS2's launch. The same goes for GBA, backward compatibility is important because GB has a HUGE software library.
I agree with you that the success of the PS2's initial period was largely due to its backward compatibility, but it solely depends on the fact that Playstation was already #1 and has a huge library. It's an advantage unique to Sony at that time.
If the next Nintendo console will indeed ship in 2005, that will mean GameCube will only have 3 years worth of a backcatalog. Having backward compatibility to this small catalog will probably makes little difference to the console's initial sales. Consider that the Genesis was backward compatible with the Sega Master System (via an adapter), yet it was Sonic that sold the Genesis by millions.
Moreover, backward compatibilty really does very little to a console's longetivity. After the first year or two, once there are enough native titles out, nobody (other than the really enthuaist) wants to play games from the last generation.
There are more important things to the success of a console's launch period, like price, launch titles, exclusives, brand loyalty, and most important of all, hype. Backward compatibility is relatively irrelevant when compared to any of those things.
"Swifter-type one-use dusters and mops, paper plates (don't recall the brand) now advertising that you have more time for family if you use their product and throw it away..."
At least those are all paper products and hence boidegradable.
Probably just a way to make sure lusers will "download" the file instead of streaming it, since MOV file will be streamed and played by the QuickTime plugin by default.
It's also the safest mean of serving a binary file. Some web servers, when serving a file type not present in its MIME database, defaults to text/plain. I can't even count how many times I click on a link to an EXE or BIN file and I get a page of junk text instead of a "Save As..." dialog box.
"Will Smith has a lot going for him, but he might have ruined The Matrix."
I cinged at first too when I thought what if Will Smith got it.
But then, think about it, what if it was before the first Matrix was released and I told you Keanu Reeves was gonna be in a new sci-fi movie, whose previous sci-fi credits includes Johnny Mnemonic and Chained Reactions?
At least Men in Black and Independance Day looked better on a resume!!!
And I guess we all forgot Will Smith does know how to act. Remember Six Degrees of Separation?
What I admired the Brothers in the casting is that they seem to make a point in having a racially diversed cast. In Reloaded, we get not one, but two Asian characters.
They have similar values?
1. Nintendo is conservative and family-oriented. Sega generally aims at an older audience. The "family" is the very principle audience for Ninendo (it has publicly admitted that), everything it does has to be appealing to this audience.
2. "they're both soley games companies" Well they still make hardware, but 2 different kinds of hardware with 2 very different philosophies. Nintendo's hardware is merely a plaform for them to sell their games, Nintendo's consoles are designed to be capable, but not particularly designed to compete at the hardware level (the SNES has a CPU half as fast as the Genesis which came 2 years before, the N64 used cartidges while the world had switched to CD-ROM). Sega's only remaining hardware business is in the arcade, a market that's important to Sega, and a market where its hardware has to be competetive.
3. Sega, first and foremost, is an arcade business. (They killed Dreamcast instead of their arcade division, didn't they?) Ninendo hasn't made an arcade game probably since the Donkey Kong series. The TriForce, once again, is merely a platform for Nintendo to sell games. Nintendo would've wanted no part in it if they were actually required to make arcade hardware as part of the deal.
4. "neither of them are afraid of trying new gaming genres out"? Only Sega is. Sega takes risks. It made some of the most original (but commerically lackluster) games like NiGHTS, Shenmue and Jet Set Radio. Nintendo just reharshes the same old franchises from over a decade ago like Zelda and Mario. Sure, every incarnation of them are well-executed and innovative in its own rights, but they're still limited by the original's theme and formula, and formula are exactly what they look like when compared to stuff like Shenmue and Jet Set Radio.
5. From what I understand, SoA (Sega of America) actually develops games for the US market (say, the Sega Sports Series), while NoA (Nintendo of America) is only resposnible for business and testing within the US market. The original Sega was also a result of a Japanese-American merger. In other words, Nintendo is a primarily Japanese company with typical Japanese values and practices, the domestic Japanese retail market will always come before any other. Other the other hand, Sega was conceived as a blend of east and west all the way from management to marketing, and it has always equally valued their Eastern and Western markets and targeted them respectively.
6. "With Shenmue, Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Sega Sports titles being GameCube exclusive." Well that's sure is good for Nintendo, but where's Sega's end of the bargain?
I guess I sound like a Nintendo basher. I do think Nintendo makes excellent games, and the GameCube is a well-designed piece of hardware: clean layout, low manufacturing cost, respectable performance. However, Nintendo is not the kind of company I'd like to see Sega merging with. Much of what makes Sega special will be lost as a result.
Sega and Nintendo are like Apple and Microsoft. They are 2 very different companies.
Reading this discussion reminds me of Usenet's video games newsgroups. Has Slashdot degraded to a buncha 14yos?
Sega merging with Nintendo is like Apple merging with Microsoft. It'll be a disaster and there'll be nothing left of Sega other than a bunch of exclusive GameCube titles. Nintendo is too conservative and family-oriented, it's only interested in retail, and has very little hardware expertise. This is the same company who refused to license games aimed at matured audience and the refused to use CD-ROM in N64 despite what the gamers wanted. Nintendo makes excellent games, but I wouldn't quite consider it an innovative risk-taker.
Likewise, being bought by Microsoft will results in a buncha exclusive PC/XBox titles. What Microsoft really wants is a brand that can let them penetrate the Japanese market, where it's failed so miserably so far. Microsoft is only interested in nothing more than Sega's logo. Microsoft is every bit as conservative as Nintendo is, it'll never let Sega make risky, innovative games.
Namco is a very natural choice for a merger, it makes a whole lot of business sense. Just the very fact that they can combine and streamline their arcade manufacturing units already can save both companies a great deal of money. Namco's business overlaps with Sega more than any other Japenese game developer does, even more so than Capcom and Konami. Capcom and Konami only makes arcade cabinets, while Sega and Namco are the only ones left who still make light gun games on projection screens and networked racers on hydrolics.
The Japanese stock market has already spoken. Both companies' stocks surged when Namco asked Sega to reconsider a merger of the 2 companies.
Whatever path Sega takes, it needs to ensure that it'll still be able to make games like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio and After Burner. If Sega won't be able to take risks, then it might as well be dead.
I agreed with all the previous posters that if a drive doesn't support Mount Rainier already, don't count on a firmware upgrade being available in the future.
Philips latest 4x DVD+RW drive DVDRW416K is the first DVD+RW drive supports Mount Rainier. Note that it was just announced at CeBit last month and it's not shipping yet.
Do consider that if Mount Rainier is important to you, alternatively you might want to consider DVD-RAM. The new Panasonic LF-D521 can read and write DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW, and the drive can be had for $160-$199. DVD-RAM media is quite a bit more expensive than DVD-RW/+RW, and incomaptible with existing players, but for random access data storage it's far more reliable and simple. DVD-RAM has the same defect management and drag-and-drop rewriting that DVD+MRW promised, but it's here now (actually it's been around almost as long as DVD-ROM has). It's a good choice for random access data storage if it fits your need.
What I wonder is how reliable traditional (non-Mount Rainier) packet writing on DVD+RW is. Minor defects on a traditional packet-writing CD-RW can render the whole disc unreadable. I wonder if the same is true for traditional packet writing DVD+RW. Does anyone here has a solid answer to that?
It's a known fact that traditional packet writing is very unreliable because a few minor defects can render an entire disc unreadable.AFAIK, this is one of the things that Mount Rainier intended to address with its built-in defect management. Hence, Mount Rainier would be a must-have if anyone wants to use packet writing in general.
I too am a little disappointed overall. I guess lot of us are expecting explanations in these shorts.
Taking them for what they are -- a showcase of different anime styles spunoff of the movie's universe -- then they're mildly entertaining. Not quite spectacular, but enjoyable.
However, I think "The Second Renaissance" failed to deliever in either respect. Artistically it's typical, the art direction lacks imagination. The "history" it tells is boring and cut-and-dry. The first half has a nice political spin on the history, I really felt that they could've painted a more detailed story in the political/diplomatic front, and make the whole background story more realisitc.
I did hear that the best out of these shorts is "The Final Flight of Osiris", so hopefully that one will have more meat in it.
There are, by my imagination, a couple spins on the power-source thing.
:)
1. As terrorism: Human may be an incredibly inefficient power source, but using human this way can promote terror among the remaining rebels. Suicide bombers aren't very efficient compared to missiles, yet they promote much higher level of terror.
2. Body parts: I'm dying to find out that there are actually a new race of cyborgs (half-machine half human) behind the machines' leadership, and they kept human in captivity to grow body parts for their own longetivity.
I know its cliche, but so is the moive.
It's still the best sci-fi movie in years though.
Was there ever a debate? I thought it's always been Richard Stalin's, I mean Stallman's, one-man propaganda.
If he really wanted brand recognition, he's free to change the GPL to require to do so. The fact is that anyone who repackages open source software is free to call their product whatever they want. None of the repackaged Apache out there has the word "Apache" in their names, does the ASF care? No. It's part of the very freedom that free software promises: freedom to name your derived software whatever you want.
Stalin, I mean Stallman, has nobody to blame other than the fact that FSF picked a dumbass brand name. People associate the name Linux with the entire operating system because they want to and they like to. You can't control how the public uses brand names, just ask any trademark lawyers. Many trademarks like Xerox, Kleenex and Aspirin got diluted to common-name status despites the trademark owners tried hard to reinforced that they were indeed trademarks.
This is FREE software that we're talking about, I believe we have the freedom to call it whatever we want.
Sony's high-density format uses more expensive proprietary media. GigaRec and HD-Burn use plain old CD-Rs.
As for compatibility, both technolofies try to provide some level of compatiblity. While HD-Burn discs can only be read in supporting DVD drives, most modern CD/DVD drives today should be able to read GigaRec discs (as vclaimed by Plextor).
Note that these are NOT new formats, but rather, more like hacked standards. They are stretching the physical properties of the Orange Book specs, but the discs they write are still regular Orange Book format (only that they're written with higher frequencies).
And I knew I should have sumbitted each format as a separate story so readers don't get confused. :) Their are 2 technologies here, Sanyo's HD-Burn and Plextor's GigaRec.
For one, they both use regular blank CD-Rs. Blank DVD-R/+R are $2-4 a pop even in lots of 500-100. It's nice to be able to squeeze more data on the same old CD-Rs even at the cost of compatibility. It's the same situation with 800/800MB blank CD-Rs: higher capacity, reduced compatiblity.
GigaRec can be read by any regular good quality CD drive (supposedly). It's HD-Burn that needs a support DVD drive (and that's DVD drive not a CD drive). On the bright side of HD-Burn, Sanyo is an OEM for mechanisms and chipsets, and they'll be likely to make all their future drives HD-Burn compatible. many drives on the market today use Sanyo inside, so they really have the market share to push a new format.
GigaRec is unlikely to be licensed to other OEMs. Plextor doesn't have a habit of licensing their technologies. So GigaRec will solely be a value-added feature to Plextor drives.
Other than the fact that the idea of DNS over DTMF POTS is impratical, technically impossible and simply pointless, you also make the assumption that DNS *works*, and DNS is *good*.
DNS fails easily. When is the last time you find yourself not being able to go to a web site by domain name but it worked by IP? When is the last time the root servers were hacked? Who was the last netadmin at your school/company commited suicide over longstanding DNS issues?
To use you support.ibm.com example previously:
How does 1-800-IBM-HELP sound for a solution?
Many viable alternatives exist way before DNS did. Shoehorning one legacy technology over another imcompatible legacy technology is hardly an innovative solution.