comon apple, how about korea? what about an apple store in aku? please? i know its a looooong shot but comon, its one of the most wired places in the world!
In 1997 the Korean economy crashed and was bailed out by the IMF. Everything was in disarray and the goverment didn't have enough money to bail out the national banks. Bankrupt banks left all firms clamoring for money for investment and one of the designs for the 'new' Korean economy was building high-tech telecom. Meaning: give subsidies to rapidlly accelerate the growth of Korean telecoms so they would grow faster, expand into new markets and theoreticlly offer growth in new businesses.
In 1997, internet usage in Korea was nowhere. There wern't many PC rooms, people wern't playing real computer games, there wern't extensive 2g networks and it wasn't the Korea you read about today.
What's remarkable about the Korean story is that the goverment made positive steps to nuture explosive broadbrand growth. It's unheard of in the US because there hasn't been a real US equivalent since the space race. No one 8 years ago thought Korea would be able to bounce back from the massive economic depression but betting on broadband has had huge paybacks. Who would have thought Samsung could make 3g cellphones with 4mp+ cameras because broadband was so prevelent? Who would've guessed people stop watching TV because TV episodes can be streamed 24/7 for roughly 50 cents a pop? Can you believe that a nation of 50 million is roughly 25% of the world's WarCraft 3 players?
The story your missing is that the Korean subsidies wern't free money to 'rich' telecoms. It was subsidies that was strategicly used by the goverment to promote internet growth. The idea being that subsidies would roll over into positive effects for citizens; that has happened, no one imagined it would be so successful. Now, could you imagine what would happen if the US had a president that bet 100 billion on the internet?
A monopoly does not always undercut the competition. What you claim (A monopoly always undercuts the competition) is completely untrue. Did EA sports undercut the price of Madden to compete against ESPN NFL?
Firms can undercut existing prices to quickly capture market shares or firms can compete at a completely different price based on features and product offerings.
I've argued that competition that lowers people's cost of entry onto the internet as being a good thing. I LIKE HOW WEB-BROWSERS ARE FREE. So Microsoft used illegal competitive tactics to neutralize Netscape. Yes/. I understand that completely. It happened years ago, we're all still affected by it, I'm writing this in Firefox, blah blah blah. But if your telling me that web browsers that are free is a bad thing then I don't think your understanding my point. I think its great that hundreds of millions of people have had access to a free web browser (despite how inferior it maybe) so they can browse webpages instead of AOL or MSN proprietary networks. I can think of all the information dissemination that has exploded since people didn't have to pay money for webbrowsers and the web was limited to people who had browsers. This isn't as important today but in 1997 (before Firefox, Mozilla, Safari), this was huge.
I like what your arguments but also remember what the web browser market had before IE. It has a $30-$50 copy of Netscape. Everyone seems to forget that people had to BUY Netscape if they wanted to use it. let's ignore for a second about Microsoft's monopoly practicies for a second but you can't ignore that Microsoft lowered the cost of browsing the web from $30 to nothing. That's HUGE. That let lots of people enter the web from using MSN/AOL accounts into using the full blown world wide web. As much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft coming in and making markets more competitive is a good thing. Being a dick and using illegal monopoly power is not so good however.
This thread is excellent in going after the dealmaker with EA. The article also mentions how the PGA and NASCAR signed exclusive rights to disinterest the general public. If you do a search on Amazon.com about golf games all you'll find are 10 different versions of Tiger Woods 2005 and a bunch of cartoony golf games like Mario Golf or Swingerz Golf. Its revealing that the market only supports one true golf sim.
If you look at the international scope of things the unlicensed Konami soccer game Winning Eleven series is far superior to EA's FIFA games despite playing anonymous characters. Perhaps Sega can follow this example of using pseudo characters with far superior gameplay to beat EA.
Nevertheless, the thread has it down pat with who is to blame. These sports unions are essentially punishing the public by entering deals that inevitably limit consumer choice. Gamers should really vocalize a protest against the NFL, the PGA, FIFA (I'm pretty sure they have an exclusive agreement) and NASCAR into signing exclusive deals.
Also, this just occurs to me. EA has consistently pushed this exclusivity garbage with car mfgs for their Need for Speed games by going exclusive with Lambo, Ferrari and Porsche so I can't get a Porsche GT2 in Sony's Gran Turismo. Hopefuly I'm not the only one pissed by all this exclusive dealing and people will start passing on EA's products due to their anti-competitive behavior.
actually no, the industry in korea doesn't have that kind of power. what actually is happening is that people are using streaming music to build playlists and they're not buying CDs. Streaming music providers such as bugs music has 14 million subscribers, SK has 41 million people. Streaming music is also Audio ON Demand, pick songs and it will build you a playlist that you can save and retrieve. Its fucking awesome man, my gf and I haven't bought a CD in years. There's just no point.
the troubling aspect in Korea right now is that good artists arn't being rewarded...
I think your right, while GBA launch games were pseudo-remakes of original Nintendo releases the PSP list points to lots of games that are out so lets put it in portable games. I'm excited as hell for Gran Turismo 4 but will I need it on portable? We'll see. How different and original is Tiger Woods, Dynasty Warriors, Need for Speed Underground going to be from their PS2 counterparts? The 59 figure is a bit inflate in my book, 3-4 different mah-jong games? Lots of other board games for a 300 dollar multimedia portable powerhouse?
I do appreciate Sony's effort at getting such big players (Namco, Capcom, Konami, SCEJ, KOEI) to release their frachise titles that I have interest in. New Ridge Racer, Metal Gear (even if its a card game), Devil May Cry, Darkstalkers has me excited because I imagine wireless racing-fight with friends and other portable only stuff. I have fears that developers will just slap their PS2 code into portable form and offer nothing more than portable versions of old familiars.
Essentially, this list is promising but it does not guarantee a good launch.
What's so amazing to me about dashboard is that it is a more innovative way to do what Microsoft Longhorn's Sidebar is trying to do. Take a look here and you tell me that Apple didn't see Microsoft's sidebar and figured out that Expose would let them do something that Microsoft couldn't even think of.
I am absolutely thrilled by the prospect of Dashboard not cluttering up my screen with "essential" information. Microsoft's Sidebar is translucent and floating on the right side but its constricted to that finite pixel width. Apple's solution is characteristicly Apple and its just a damn good way to use the Quartz engine. I think this really is a kick into the ribs of Longhorn, so far from screenshots I think its pretty clear Apple has solved this problem better than Microsoft.
I've yet to reinstall OS X on my iBook after 2 years but if and when there are several that are amazing and essential.
Quicksilver- by far the most elegent (free too) app launcher and more. It's having the ability to launch almost anything from the keyboard. An iTunes playlist, email an address book contact, launch a webpage and so on... Transmit- best FTP program on any platform, better than Smart FTP on Windows Net News Wire Lite- great free CSS reader xPad- its like a notepad but a million times better and useful Slim Battery Monitor- take back your menu space while still getting the same information Weather Pop- So simple it should've been a part of OS X
The good people over at OSnews.com wrote a great article about the Mac OS X Applications You Can't Live Without last Dec. It's missing Quicksilver but has some good suggestions of some damn good applications.
It's cheaper in China because American workers demand higher wages since American has better facilities to build high capital goods. China doesn't build high quality cars even though it has cheap labor. You know why? Because they can't. They don't have the investment, there is no accessible infastructure and the resources simply don't exist. Yet.
The point of the matter is, China has abilities to manufacturer goods and so does the USA but each has very different competitive advantages. USA can build cars, China can not build an equally good car. China can build cheap small electronics and the USA can too but why build cheap electronic goods when the USA can build cars? By nature of today's economic model, China is better suited for making goods that the USA isn't.
Your making an assumption that anything manufactured in China is a problem because "of the near slave labor conditions, lack of labor, safety, and minimum wage laws, and China's artificial (and illegal) manipulation of its currency." Perhaps its missed by too many people that every modern and industrialized country in the world went through that sort of ordeal thirty to a hundred years ago. Maybe it can be avoided but maybe not. Plus, you have no way of knowing that your $40 DVD could have been better helping the world at large if it was made in the US. Why is it that a Chinese manufactured DVD player is the product of unfair labor practices and that a US one couldn't be unfair? Isn't it equally likely that your purcahse of a Chinese made DVD player helps that manufacturing plant and the workers with a new oppertunity to work in an industrialized economy instead of an agrigarian economy?
China may or maynot be manipulating their currency but isn't it important to note that it positivelly impacts far more American's than it does negatively? That currency benefits ALL Americans, just step into WalMart and think about that $9 toaster or $49 tv.
There is nothing wrong with 'vote with my dollars' and the social/moral speak but you can't conclusivelly say that China is causing a great malice in America. How are the lower cost goods manufactured in China, that have become more accessible to ALL Americans which effectivelly makes those Americans better off, be that bad? The things in China are nurturing this incredible enviroment for Americans, I think a few people may stick around and enjoy those benefits.
I work for a company that specilizes in product design/manufacturing so MILLIONS of Americans can buy goods 3 to 4 times cheaper than they could before, because of international trade. That 4 dollar battery operated spinbrush doesn't happen through magic, it happens through manufacturing efficients, pioneering technology, brilliant engineering and low cost manufacturing. There is nothing wrong with something being not manufactured in the United States.
The real problem with what your saying is that it is devoid of any acknowledgement about the benefits of products being made outside of the USA. If China can make a DVD player cheaper and more efficientlly than in the US, then why the fuck should the USA make DVD players? Would American jobs even be possible if Americans can't be competitive with DVD players at the competitive world price because of lower cost Chinese made DVD players? It seems unreasonable that very many people in the US would spend anywhere from 20-200% more for a DVD player soley because its American made. Do you think it would be better for Americans to say no to all foreign DVD players so Americans could enjoy American made DVD players for a much higher price?
If you don't like the fact that there are no major USA branded DVD players then suck it up because I for one enjoy the ability to buy my dad a nice DVD player for under fifty dollars and so do MILLIONS of Americans (Black Friday anyone?). Maybe you'd prefer a world full of USA only goods. Start by throwing your cellphone away, your game consoles, probablly everything your computer runs on (but thankfully Microsoft Windows operating system is still a Redmond, Washington produced fabrication), not to mention clothes-food-power-creditcards-banks all financed by people & institutions from all over the world.
I don't see how Fed Ex and Dell, Cisco and eBay are very different. It could be argued that they they are brick vs web companies but the fact remains that all are breakthrough comapnies that were based on fundamnetally different ideas. It doesn't matter that their origin is from a web based orientation.
Using airplanes to deliver packages sounds normal and trivial today but remember, FedEx shipped thousands of empty boxes around for two weeks because they had to know that their infastructure worked. That's no different than Amazon's early year 1-2 growth stages when they shipped out books. Or when they were building huge warehouses all over the country. Personaly, a dot-com business model never scared me if its business plan could acuratelly (and sanely) forecast a profit. Amazon got around to it eventually (they hedged huge bets, some say they're lucky) and eBay's model is so good its being argued its almost untouchable.
As the web stores mature, I imagine that the web companies will evolve with the market to meet the new market demands (maybe cellular, maybe something else) to stay alive. Fed-Ex just bought Kinkos to stay competitive to UPS' Package Store and Cisco eats up small firms at a rate of 10 a year; all this only further points that successful companies will have to constantlly stay competitive. But to me, it doesn't seem to matter what the platform is (the web-dotcom firms are an unnecessary label).
logicool, the japanese arm of logitech just released the ultimate drive game setup for crazies. Look here. The setup features an actual Sparco seat from the Italian manufactuer with mounted petals and wheel setup from Logicool's new 900 degree GT Force Pro wheel. The whole setup costs a cool $850 US, if you throw in a Plasma and a dedicated PS2, you can have the ultimate driving simulator for under 5k. And by ultimate I mean that profressional driving schools use a similar setup to train for driving line, applied breaking techniques and 4wheel drift. Note the 30 so inch HDTVs here. The whole setup may 'only' be 5k but with games like GT4, R: Evolution the whole setup beats the pants of most arcade driving games (the only thing lacking is force feed back seats). Even millionares can't drive 500+ cars (not to mention the fantasy drift of the Ridge Racer games).
Well, its funny that the post mentions SimCanidate. The only game I remember was the EXCELLENT and exceptional Doonesbury Elecection Game Campaign '96. Read about it here and here. The game itself was fun if you were a political junkie but it did have its own quirks.
I personally loved the game because of my love for doonesbury (you could have doonesbury characters as part of your campaign team). Bonus features of the game were video clips of classic US political incidents in the past 50 years. Highlites of debates, tv commericals, Dan Quale snafus. The game is most enjoyable for people who like to follow politics and I am guessing that the lack of interest might be why there wasn't a 2000 version. You can still find copies on eBay and I hear that some poli sci professors still obsess for a copy.
The doonesbury model itself is pretty eceptional covering a broad range of '96 topics and a huge array of canidates. The real difficulty with a political sim is the emulation of political dissent and sentiment (get people out to vote, create a better 'image' and getting points for well coordinated events (al gore's 65 year old medicare patient for example). you can even hire duke to do 'dirty work' and create smear campaigns. overall i would recomend the game but I still have a hard time seeing my gf play it over rollercoaster tycoon 2 or the sims.
i agree with you that software itself doesn't cause people to make bad presentations but i think a culture of bad presentations are the norm. people who don't realize that their presentation is overly complicated and difficult to understand. issues like that should deal with a presenter fully equipped to deal with those issues with a great oral presentation. I've never thought that the actual slide content would ever be as important as the oral because you can't condense your entire speech into slides.
powerpoint doesn't make you dumb, i think the problem lies with the people who frequentlly give dumb powerpoint presentations. i've never seen a real scientific look at how powerpoint slides should be used in any setting but I would imagine it would not to be a complete script and should be easy to follow.
the poster danced on this brieflly but one of the issues at fault here is that it seems like adobe brought out a new version of photoshop just so it could implement product activation. the actual amount of new features in photoshop from 6 to now is so incremental its hard to justify its cost. I had people in the graphics department pissed at 7 because it switched some default keyboard layouts and hated the web implementation tools, right now I think adobe is really pushing the envelope here. The new photoshop really offers negligible upgrades and seems like its just a push for is quarterly earnings.
photoshop seems like its more and more bloatware with every release, new features that should've never been implemented in the first place and ridiculous applications to people's needs. i will never understand why people try to make webpages in PHOTOshop.
aside note to this is that the healing tool introduced in v7 is damn cool.
just imagine if 40-60& of your revenue depended on selling (tv dramas, cell phone ringers-graphics, avatars for your website blah blah blah). now imagine there being a major national shift towards a new infastructure that wouldn't work witih your technology.
thats a huge problem, it means going back and redoing audio codecs for your wmv files, wma files, it means going through huge databases of files and making sure its all compatabile for people with other browsers. it doesn't just mean site design, it means pulling out your spreadsheet and realizing that your going to have to change the way you sell products online. how are you going to sell a tv drama for 50 cents when you can't use the WMV codec? what if you can't find a codec to cheaplly sell tv? are you going to limit yourself to one sector of the market?
on the plus side, i'll finally be able to go to cyworld.com and see my friend's pictures on Safari.
I'm not positive about the cost effectiveness of open source (yet) but there are two issues in south korea that must be taken into consideration that is more unique than the US. First, SK is hugelly dependent on MS everything, penetration in UNIX-LINUX-MAC OS X is almost negligible and the past 2 years of worms have devestated the tech infastructure to the point that billions are lost consistantlly when a MS worm is unleashed. Using Linux would then offer a new possibility of being MS independent so they can patch when they want as soon as possible. The Second problem stems from the huge dependence on IE. South Korean portals like Daum.net and hundreds of others are designed almost exculusivelly for IE. There will have to be huge changes made to site infastrcture-design and even business models for web companies if a signifigant minority of the population starts using Mozilla.
The proclimation is interesting because it doesn't guarantee anything. Future prospects of a success would be monumental and could set a future example for dozens of countries. Here's hoping the South Korean population can make the switch
Isn't it completelly obvious to (practiclly) everyone that the extended olive branch was just a publicity gimmick? I say practiclly only because RIAA ends up shooting themselves in the foot again with more negative publicity. How many more times can one firm screw up before the snowball becomes an avalanche? Boycott RIAA is gonna go mainstream within months.
One of the key players in the persuading the FCC to let AOLIM be kept is William P. Rogerson, former FCC chair and economist at Northwestern. I couldn't find his paper but the dissenting opinions of Gerald R. Faulhaber and David J. Farber; both UPenn Econmics professors give a great opinion on why AOL has been behaving badlly (All gentlemen have held high ranking positions on the FCC). Its in PDF but their criticisms of Rogerson's draft are striking,
"AOL Time Warner's strategic behavior has not changed, and that is
perhaps the most compelling evidence that they believe they can eventually tip the
market by refusing to interoperate. Such strategic behavior only makes sense if the
market leader expects the market to tip in its favor; otherwise, interoperation is their
best strategy. But the Petition and the Affidavit are strangely and tellingly silent on
this key piece of evidence.
We also note that AOL Time Warner failed to exploit its newly acquired cable assets
to deploy an AOL Broadband service. Since the firm had no Broadband service, it
had little reason to care about advanced IM services such as two-way video that are
not feasible on dial-up connections. However, AOL Time Warner has just recently
begun marketing AOL Broadband, apparently now trying to capitalize on its cable
assets. It should not come as a surprise that as AOL Time Warner rolls out its new
broadband offering, it wishes to be relieved of the requirement to interoperate if it
offers an IM-based high-speed service. Their behavior suggests that they may well
have such a service ready to roll out soon as a feature of their AOL Broadband, and
wish to keep their network effects proprietary. In fact, it is precisely this case that the
Merger Order anticipated when it imposed the IM condition.
We urge the FCC to proceed cautiously. While conditions have evolved since the
Merger Order that suggest network effects and tipping are not as urgent today, other
evidence suggests that it is perhaps even more urgent. The FCC needs to recall that
AOL Time Warner has in its own hands the ability to offer advanced IM-based highspeed
services without let or hindrance: it need only interoperate with its competitors,
as it promised the world it would do two years ago, to the benefit of all customers."
but if you meant "bombers" as in "port spamming" or such, it is very conceivable. if people can distrubute music and RIAAs requests recieve no action by HavenCo since RIAA has no jurisdiction (this was exactlly HavenCo's stategy), then RIAA would be inclined to use every security hole-IP DOS attack-anything that they could come up with because again, who would stop them? Itd be cool to watch tho, it would be the wild wild west cyber.
the specs remind me of the X Box specs that were announced way back when. Lots of hugelly impressive numbers but spec numbers are never the sole reason in dominating a market, exclusive blockbuster games do that (GTA, GT3, FFX ect). I've got to say I am damn impressed by these specs because its clear that Sony wants it do more than just play games, but it raises a lot of questions,
Doesn't the specs sound similiar to the CLIE UX50? Also, with a boatload of features what kind of price point is Sony expecting to hit here? Integrated CD+WiFi+GraphicsEngine+USB2+Memory Stick isn't going to be cheap. The stats suggest this is going to do more to replace my iBook than replace my SP. So maybe Nintendo shouldn't be worried, this device sounds like something completelly different than just portable gaming...
the article lacks the details of how great nintendo became because of famicom and how the famicom reinvented the game marketplace forever. Atari crashed the industry, Nintendo brought it back, Sega dented the industry, Sony dominated the industry and Microsoft is making the industry better (more competition is better). wether nintendo ever becomes the titan again will be questionable, now only if gamespy did an article about celebrating Nintendo creations. I always hope Nintendo will be remembered for their devotion to creating exceptional games, and creative applicaitons to games that no one ever pieced together (Zelda, the original Mario, evolution of Mario: raccoon mario!, Metroid)... just my thoughts
So Masayoshi Son is betting the company and taking huge huge huge amounts of debt to build an incredible no where else on earth network that has great potential. Making telecoms obsolete and making media outlets change their game to provide on-demand tvshows/movies is world leading pace, but how is this guy going to keep it up if he can't make any money? The whole broadband pipe dream has been alive for decades around the world but recent US bankruptecies of big broadband (cite: XO) argue that whoever builds the architecture is not the likely winner in reaping all the benefits. Its great for the average Japanese getting fat pipe, but the lack of ability to make any immediate profits are detering US cable cos to make great infastructure. Maybe I'm wrong here but this article just pushes the point that infastructue building is a thankless job. This article to me says that US isn't going to be getting ultra fat broadband anytime soon since no one is going to take the enormous (1-2billion reserve) financial hit. So the problem again arises, how is anyone going to make any (real) money by carpeting cities with broadband?
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comon apple, how about korea? what about an apple store in aku? please? i know its a looooong shot but comon, its one of the most wired places in the world!
I understand your cynicism but your wrong.
In 1997 the Korean economy crashed and was bailed out by the IMF. Everything was in disarray and the goverment didn't have enough money to bail out the national banks. Bankrupt banks left all firms clamoring for money for investment and one of the designs for the 'new' Korean economy was building high-tech telecom. Meaning: give subsidies to rapidlly accelerate the growth of Korean telecoms so they would grow faster, expand into new markets and theoreticlly offer growth in new businesses.
In 1997, internet usage in Korea was nowhere. There wern't many PC rooms, people wern't playing real computer games, there wern't extensive 2g networks and it wasn't the Korea you read about today.
What's remarkable about the Korean story is that the goverment made positive steps to nuture explosive broadbrand growth. It's unheard of in the US because there hasn't been a real US equivalent since the space race. No one 8 years ago thought Korea would be able to bounce back from the massive economic depression but betting on broadband has had huge paybacks. Who would have thought Samsung could make 3g cellphones with 4mp+ cameras because broadband was so prevelent? Who would've guessed people stop watching TV because TV episodes can be streamed 24/7 for roughly 50 cents a pop? Can you believe that a nation of 50 million is roughly 25% of the world's WarCraft 3 players?
The story your missing is that the Korean subsidies wern't free money to 'rich' telecoms. It was subsidies that was strategicly used by the goverment to promote internet growth. The idea being that subsidies would roll over into positive effects for citizens; that has happened, no one imagined it would be so successful. Now, could you imagine what would happen if the US had a president that bet 100 billion on the internet?
A monopoly does not always undercut the competition. What you claim (A monopoly always undercuts the competition) is completely untrue. Did EA sports undercut the price of Madden to compete against ESPN NFL?
/. I understand that completely. It happened years ago, we're all still affected by it, I'm writing this in Firefox, blah blah blah. But if your telling me that web browsers that are free is a bad thing then I don't think your understanding my point. I think its great that hundreds of millions of people have had access to a free web browser (despite how inferior it maybe) so they can browse webpages instead of AOL or MSN proprietary networks. I can think of all the information dissemination that has exploded since people didn't have to pay money for webbrowsers and the web was limited to people who had browsers. This isn't as important today but in 1997 (before Firefox, Mozilla, Safari), this was huge.
Firms can undercut existing prices to quickly capture market shares or firms can compete at a completely different price based on features and product offerings.
I've argued that competition that lowers people's cost of entry onto the internet as being a good thing. I LIKE HOW WEB-BROWSERS ARE FREE. So Microsoft used illegal competitive tactics to neutralize Netscape. Yes
I like what your arguments but also remember what the web browser market had before IE. It has a $30-$50 copy of Netscape. Everyone seems to forget that people had to BUY Netscape if they wanted to use it. let's ignore for a second about Microsoft's monopoly practicies for a second but you can't ignore that Microsoft lowered the cost of browsing the web from $30 to nothing. That's HUGE. That let lots of people enter the web from using MSN/AOL accounts into using the full blown world wide web. As much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft coming in and making markets more competitive is a good thing. Being a dick and using illegal monopoly power is not so good however.
This thread is excellent in going after the dealmaker with EA. The article also mentions how the PGA and NASCAR signed exclusive rights to disinterest the general public. If you do a search on Amazon.com about golf games all you'll find are 10 different versions of Tiger Woods 2005 and a bunch of cartoony golf games like Mario Golf or Swingerz Golf. Its revealing that the market only supports one true golf sim.
If you look at the international scope of things the unlicensed Konami soccer game Winning Eleven series is far superior to EA's FIFA games despite playing anonymous characters. Perhaps Sega can follow this example of using pseudo characters with far superior gameplay to beat EA.
Nevertheless, the thread has it down pat with who is to blame. These sports unions are essentially punishing the public by entering deals that inevitably limit consumer choice. Gamers should really vocalize a protest against the NFL, the PGA, FIFA (I'm pretty sure they have an exclusive agreement) and NASCAR into signing exclusive deals.
Also, this just occurs to me. EA has consistently pushed this exclusivity garbage with car mfgs for their Need for Speed games by going exclusive with Lambo, Ferrari and Porsche so I can't get a Porsche GT2 in Sony's Gran Turismo. Hopefuly I'm not the only one pissed by all this exclusive dealing and people will start passing on EA's products due to their anti-competitive behavior.
actually no, the industry in korea doesn't have that kind of power. what actually is happening is that people are using streaming music to build playlists and they're not buying CDs. Streaming music providers such as bugs music has 14 million subscribers, SK has 41 million people. Streaming music is also Audio ON Demand, pick songs and it will build you a playlist that you can save and retrieve. Its fucking awesome man, my gf and I haven't bought a CD in years. There's just no point.
the troubling aspect in Korea right now is that good artists arn't being rewarded...
I was in Korea 2 years ago and when I read these Korea broadband-cellphone I can't help but think of William Gibson.
_ id =811961
"The future is already here -its just unevenly distributed."
--William Gibson
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story
I think your right, while GBA launch games were pseudo-remakes of original Nintendo releases the PSP list points to lots of games that are out so lets put it in portable games. I'm excited as hell for Gran Turismo 4 but will I need it on portable? We'll see. How different and original is Tiger Woods, Dynasty Warriors, Need for Speed Underground going to be from their PS2 counterparts? The 59 figure is a bit inflate in my book, 3-4 different mah-jong games? Lots of other board games for a 300 dollar multimedia portable powerhouse?
I do appreciate Sony's effort at getting such big players (Namco, Capcom, Konami, SCEJ, KOEI) to release their frachise titles that I have interest in. New Ridge Racer, Metal Gear (even if its a card game), Devil May Cry, Darkstalkers has me excited because I imagine wireless racing-fight with friends and other portable only stuff. I have fears that developers will just slap their PS2 code into portable form and offer nothing more than portable versions of old familiars.
Essentially, this list is promising but it does not guarantee a good launch.
What's so amazing to me about dashboard is that it is a more innovative way to do what Microsoft Longhorn's Sidebar is trying to do. Take a look here and you tell me that Apple didn't see Microsoft's sidebar and figured out that Expose would let them do something that Microsoft couldn't even think of.
I am absolutely thrilled by the prospect of Dashboard not cluttering up my screen with "essential" information. Microsoft's Sidebar is translucent and floating on the right side but its constricted to that finite pixel width. Apple's solution is characteristicly Apple and its just a damn good way to use the Quartz engine. I think this really is a kick into the ribs of Longhorn, so far from screenshots I think its pretty clear Apple has solved this problem better than Microsoft.
I've yet to reinstall OS X on my iBook after 2 years but if and when there are several that are amazing and essential.
Quicksilver- by far the most elegent (free too) app launcher and more. It's having the ability to launch almost anything from the keyboard. An iTunes playlist, email an address book contact, launch a webpage and so on...
Transmit- best FTP program on any platform, better than Smart FTP on Windows
Net News Wire Lite- great free CSS reader
xPad- its like a notepad but a million times better and useful
Slim Battery Monitor- take back your menu space while still getting the same information
Weather Pop- So simple it should've been a part of OS X
The good people over at OSnews.com wrote a great article about the Mac OS X Applications You Can't Live Without last Dec. It's missing Quicksilver but has some good suggestions of some damn good applications.
It's cheaper in China because American workers demand higher wages since American has better facilities to build high capital goods. China doesn't build high quality cars even though it has cheap labor. You know why? Because they can't. They don't have the investment, there is no accessible infastructure and the resources simply don't exist. Yet.
The point of the matter is, China has abilities to manufacturer goods and so does the USA but each has very different competitive advantages. USA can build cars, China can not build an equally good car. China can build cheap small electronics and the USA can too but why build cheap electronic goods when the USA can build cars? By nature of today's economic model, China is better suited for making goods that the USA isn't.
Your making an assumption that anything manufactured in China is a problem because "of the near slave labor conditions, lack of labor, safety, and minimum wage laws, and China's artificial (and illegal) manipulation of its currency." Perhaps its missed by too many people that every modern and industrialized country in the world went through that sort of ordeal thirty to a hundred years ago. Maybe it can be avoided but maybe not. Plus, you have no way of knowing that your $40 DVD could have been better helping the world at large if it was made in the US. Why is it that a Chinese manufactured DVD player is the product of unfair labor practices and that a US one couldn't be unfair? Isn't it equally likely that your purcahse of a Chinese made DVD player helps that manufacturing plant and the workers with a new oppertunity to work in an industrialized economy instead of an agrigarian economy?
China may or maynot be manipulating their currency but isn't it important to note that it positivelly impacts far more American's than it does negatively? That currency benefits ALL Americans, just step into WalMart and think about that $9 toaster or $49 tv.
There is nothing wrong with 'vote with my dollars' and the social/moral speak but you can't conclusivelly say that China is causing a great malice in America. How are the lower cost goods manufactured in China, that have become more accessible to ALL Americans which effectivelly makes those Americans better off, be that bad? The things in China are nurturing this incredible enviroment for Americans, I think a few people may stick around and enjoy those benefits.
So what's wrong with that?
I work for a company that specilizes in product design/manufacturing so MILLIONS of Americans can buy goods 3 to 4 times cheaper than they could before, because of international trade. That 4 dollar battery operated spinbrush doesn't happen through magic, it happens through manufacturing efficients, pioneering technology, brilliant engineering and low cost manufacturing. There is nothing wrong with something being not manufactured in the United States.
The real problem with what your saying is that it is devoid of any acknowledgement about the benefits of products being made outside of the USA. If China can make a DVD player cheaper and more efficientlly than in the US, then why the fuck should the USA make DVD players? Would American jobs even be possible if Americans can't be competitive with DVD players at the competitive world price because of lower cost Chinese made DVD players? It seems unreasonable that very many people in the US would spend anywhere from 20-200% more for a DVD player soley because its American made. Do you think it would be better for Americans to say no to all foreign DVD players so Americans could enjoy American made DVD players for a much higher price?
If you don't like the fact that there are no major USA branded DVD players then suck it up because I for one enjoy the ability to buy my dad a nice DVD player for under fifty dollars and so do MILLIONS of Americans (Black Friday anyone?). Maybe you'd prefer a world full of USA only goods. Start by throwing your cellphone away, your game consoles, probablly everything your computer runs on (but thankfully Microsoft Windows operating system is still a Redmond, Washington produced fabrication), not to mention clothes-food-power-creditcards-banks all financed by people & institutions from all over the world.
I don't see how Fed Ex and Dell, Cisco and eBay are very different. It could be argued that they they are brick vs web companies but the fact remains that all are breakthrough comapnies that were based on fundamnetally different ideas. It doesn't matter that their origin is from a web based orientation.
Using airplanes to deliver packages sounds normal and trivial today but remember, FedEx shipped thousands of empty boxes around for two weeks because they had to know that their infastructure worked. That's no different than Amazon's early year 1-2 growth stages when they shipped out books. Or when they were building huge warehouses all over the country. Personaly, a dot-com business model never scared me if its business plan could acuratelly (and sanely) forecast a profit. Amazon got around to it eventually (they hedged huge bets, some say they're lucky) and eBay's model is so good its being argued its almost untouchable.
As the web stores mature, I imagine that the web companies will evolve with the market to meet the new market demands (maybe cellular, maybe something else) to stay alive. Fed-Ex just bought Kinkos to stay competitive to UPS' Package Store and Cisco eats up small firms at a rate of 10 a year; all this only further points that successful companies will have to constantlly stay competitive. But to me, it doesn't seem to matter what the platform is (the web-dotcom firms are an unnecessary label).
logicool, the japanese arm of logitech just released the ultimate drive game setup for crazies. Look here. The setup features an actual Sparco seat from the Italian manufactuer with mounted petals and wheel setup from Logicool's new 900 degree GT Force Pro wheel. The whole setup costs a cool $850 US, if you throw in a Plasma and a dedicated PS2, you can have the ultimate driving simulator for under 5k. And by ultimate I mean that profressional driving schools use a similar setup to train for driving line, applied breaking techniques and 4wheel drift. Note the 30 so inch HDTVs here. The whole setup may 'only' be 5k but with games like GT4, R: Evolution the whole setup beats the pants of most arcade driving games (the only thing lacking is force feed back seats). Even millionares can't drive 500+ cars (not to mention the fantasy drift of the Ridge Racer games).
Well, its funny that the post mentions SimCanidate. The only game I remember was the EXCELLENT and exceptional Doonesbury Elecection Game Campaign '96. Read about it here and here. The game itself was fun if you were a political junkie but it did have its own quirks.
I personally loved the game because of my love for doonesbury (you could have doonesbury characters as part of your campaign team). Bonus features of the game were video clips of classic US political incidents in the past 50 years. Highlites of debates, tv commericals, Dan Quale snafus. The game is most enjoyable for people who like to follow politics and I am guessing that the lack of interest might be why there wasn't a 2000 version. You can still find copies on eBay and I hear that some poli sci professors still obsess for a copy.
The doonesbury model itself is pretty eceptional covering a broad range of '96 topics and a huge array of canidates. The real difficulty with a political sim is the emulation of political dissent and sentiment (get people out to vote, create a better 'image' and getting points for well coordinated events (al gore's 65 year old medicare patient for example). you can even hire duke to do 'dirty work' and create smear campaigns. overall i would recomend the game but I still have a hard time seeing my gf play it over rollercoaster tycoon 2 or the sims.
i agree with you that software itself doesn't cause people to make bad presentations but i think a culture of bad presentations are the norm. people who don't realize that their presentation is overly complicated and difficult to understand. issues like that should deal with a presenter fully equipped to deal with those issues with a great oral presentation. I've never thought that the actual slide content would ever be as important as the oral because you can't condense your entire speech into slides.
powerpoint doesn't make you dumb, i think the problem lies with the people who frequentlly give dumb powerpoint presentations. i've never seen a real scientific look at how powerpoint slides should be used in any setting but I would imagine it would not to be a complete script and should be easy to follow.
the poster danced on this brieflly but one of the issues at fault here is that it seems like adobe brought out a new version of photoshop just so it could implement product activation. the actual amount of new features in photoshop from 6 to now is so incremental its hard to justify its cost. I had people in the graphics department pissed at 7 because it switched some default keyboard layouts and hated the web implementation tools, right now I think adobe is really pushing the envelope here. The new photoshop really offers negligible upgrades and seems like its just a push for is quarterly earnings.
photoshop seems like its more and more bloatware with every release, new features that should've never been implemented in the first place and ridiculous applications to people's needs. i will never understand why people try to make webpages in PHOTOshop.
aside note to this is that the healing tool introduced in v7 is damn cool.
just imagine if 40-60& of your revenue depended on selling (tv dramas, cell phone ringers-graphics, avatars for your website blah blah blah). now imagine there being a major national shift towards a new infastructure that wouldn't work witih your technology.
thats a huge problem, it means going back and redoing audio codecs for your wmv files, wma files, it means going through huge databases of files and making sure its all compatabile for people with other browsers. it doesn't just mean site design, it means pulling out your spreadsheet and realizing that your going to have to change the way you sell products online. how are you going to sell a tv drama for 50 cents when you can't use the WMV codec? what if you can't find a codec to cheaplly sell tv? are you going to limit yourself to one sector of the market?
on the plus side, i'll finally be able to go to cyworld.com and see my friend's pictures on Safari.
I'm not positive about the cost effectiveness of open source (yet) but there are two issues in south korea that must be taken into consideration that is more unique than the US. First, SK is hugelly dependent on MS everything, penetration in UNIX-LINUX-MAC OS X is almost negligible and the past 2 years of worms have devestated the tech infastructure to the point that billions are lost consistantlly when a MS worm is unleashed. Using Linux would then offer a new possibility of being MS independent so they can patch when they want as soon as possible. The Second problem stems from the huge dependence on IE. South Korean portals like Daum.net and hundreds of others are designed almost exculusivelly for IE. There will have to be huge changes made to site infastrcture-design and even business models for web companies if a signifigant minority of the population starts using Mozilla.
The proclimation is interesting because it doesn't guarantee anything. Future prospects of a success would be monumental and could set a future example for dozens of countries. Here's hoping the South Korean population can make the switch
Isn't it completelly obvious to (practiclly) everyone that the extended olive branch was just a publicity gimmick? I say practiclly only because RIAA ends up shooting themselves in the foot again with more negative publicity. How many more times can one firm screw up before the snowball becomes an avalanche? Boycott RIAA is gonna go mainstream within months.
The real news in all this should be that things are going to get a lot worse before it gets better for RIAA.
RIAA Sues wrong person
P2P Music Sharing Remains Popular Despite RIAA
RIAA Sued For Amnesty Offer
One of the key players in the persuading the FCC to let AOLIM be kept is William P. Rogerson, former FCC chair and economist at Northwestern. I couldn't find his paper but the dissenting opinions of Gerald R. Faulhaber and David J. Farber; both UPenn Econmics professors give a great opinion on why AOL has been behaving badlly (All gentlemen have held high ranking positions on the FCC). Its in PDF but their criticisms of Rogerson's draft are striking,
"AOL Time Warner's strategic behavior has not changed, and that is perhaps the most compelling evidence that they believe they can eventually tip the market by refusing to interoperate. Such strategic behavior only makes sense if the market leader expects the market to tip in its favor; otherwise, interoperation is their best strategy. But the Petition and the Affidavit are strangely and tellingly silent on this key piece of evidence.
We also note that AOL Time Warner failed to exploit its newly acquired cable assets to deploy an AOL Broadband service. Since the firm had no Broadband service, it had little reason to care about advanced IM services such as two-way video that are not feasible on dial-up connections. However, AOL Time Warner has just recently begun marketing AOL Broadband, apparently now trying to capitalize on its cable assets. It should not come as a surprise that as AOL Time Warner rolls out its new broadband offering, it wishes to be relieved of the requirement to interoperate if it offers an IM-based high-speed service. Their behavior suggests that they may well have such a service ready to roll out soon as a feature of their AOL Broadband, and wish to keep their network effects proprietary. In fact, it is precisely this case that the Merger Order anticipated when it imposed the IM condition.
We urge the FCC to proceed cautiously. While conditions have evolved since the Merger Order that suggest network effects and tipping are not as urgent today, other evidence suggests that it is perhaps even more urgent. The FCC needs to recall that AOL Time Warner has in its own hands the ability to offer advanced IM-based highspeed services without let or hindrance: it need only interoperate with its competitors, as it promised the world it would do two years ago, to the benefit of all customers."
ha, that is true
but if you meant "bombers" as in "port spamming" or such, it is very conceivable. if people can distrubute music and RIAAs requests recieve no action by HavenCo since RIAA has no jurisdiction (this was exactlly HavenCo's stategy), then RIAA would be inclined to use every security hole-IP DOS attack-anything that they could come up with because again, who would stop them? Itd be cool to watch tho, it would be the wild wild west cyber.
the specs remind me of the X Box specs that were announced way back when. Lots of hugelly impressive numbers but spec numbers are never the sole reason in dominating a market, exclusive blockbuster games do that (GTA, GT3, FFX ect). I've got to say I am damn impressed by these specs because its clear that Sony wants it do more than just play games, but it raises a lot of questions,
Doesn't the specs sound similiar to the CLIE UX50? Also, with a boatload of features what kind of price point is Sony expecting to hit here? Integrated CD+WiFi+GraphicsEngine+USB2+Memory Stick isn't going to be cheap. The stats suggest this is going to do more to replace my iBook than replace my SP. So maybe Nintendo shouldn't be worried, this device sounds like something completelly different than just portable gaming...
the article lacks the details of how great nintendo became because of famicom and how the famicom reinvented the game marketplace forever. Atari crashed the industry, Nintendo brought it back, Sega dented the industry, Sony dominated the industry and Microsoft is making the industry better (more competition is better). wether nintendo ever becomes the titan again will be questionable, now only if gamespy did an article about celebrating Nintendo creations. I always hope Nintendo will be remembered for their devotion to creating exceptional games, and creative applicaitons to games that no one ever pieced together (Zelda, the original Mario, evolution of Mario: raccoon mario!, Metroid) ... just my thoughts
So Masayoshi Son is betting the company and taking huge huge huge amounts of debt to build an incredible no where else on earth network that has great potential. Making telecoms obsolete and making media outlets change their game to provide on-demand tvshows/movies is world leading pace, but how is this guy going to keep it up if he can't make any money? The whole broadband pipe dream has been alive for decades around the world but recent US bankruptecies of big broadband (cite: XO) argue that whoever builds the architecture is not the likely winner in reaping all the benefits. Its great for the average Japanese getting fat pipe, but the lack of ability to make any immediate profits are detering US cable cos to make great infastructure. Maybe I'm wrong here but this article just pushes the point that infastructue building is a thankless job. This article to me says that US isn't going to be getting ultra fat broadband anytime soon since no one is going to take the enormous (1-2billion reserve) financial hit. So the problem again arises, how is anyone going to make any (real) money by carpeting cities with broadband?