Given the size of corporate lobbies in Washington, D.C., and the assets any one of them -- whether pharmaceutical patents or music copyrights -- would stand to lose, I highly doubt any of Obama's economic recovery efforts will involve weakening the United States' IP regime.
Several people have commented about Midway's Chapter 11 filing possibly leading to other companies purchasing their IP rights to various franchise, but it's important to keep in mind that there's a big difference between Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Under Chapter 11, reorganization, the organization is given time to restructure its debt, retain its assets, and negotiate deals with creditors. It still has to pay off its debts, but possibly over a longer term or with a lower interest rate. This is a very different beast from Chapter 7, where the firm's assets are sold off (liquidated) to pay off the creditors, after which the firm ceases to exist.
Under some circumstances, a company in Chapter 11 can be forced into Chapter 7, but as it stands now, the proud Midway name will continue on down the road.
It wasn't a bad game overall, but it had bugs, balance issues, and became quite repetitive as compared to other RTS titles. And instead of working to correct the issues fans had with the title, it went ahead and rush an expansion pack out the door (which sold far worse than the original title) and moved on to the equally abysmal "Space Siege."
Oh well, at least it'll have some awesome looking cutscenes!
In the realm of mature gamers (most of whom have the disposable income to purchase all or as many of the current generation of consoles as they like), fanboy platform wars have no real place. That being said, I see both major positives and negatives about this announcement.
On the plus side, any increase in the competition of two massive corporate juggernauts can only be good for consumers, and the game being multiplatform will help it reach a wider audience and boost sales (especially overseas). In this day and age, it seems like third party exclusive titles are becoming a thing of the past, being replaced by highly subsidized exclusive bonus content (which results in more money for the developers who MAKE the games we love).
However, one advantage consoles have always had is the uniformity of hardware, allowing developers to milk as much performance as possible out of the system, and resulting in better looking titles than on comparably equipped PC hardware (but PCs, being upgradable, often quickly strip that advantage away as hardware progresses). Today, multiplatform developers for Xbox 360 and PS3 often strive for graphical parity between the versions (e.g., GTA4, Assassin's Creed). And while I have no doubt both are powerful systems in their own respects, they are also radically different hardware architectures and I can't see how developers can realistically claim to be maxing out the performance on both systems, yet still have them come out looking virtually indistinguishable.
As an owner of both systems, I was looking forward to FF XIII as an incredible showcase of just how powerful the PS3 was as a system. I'm sure it will still be a fantastic game, but I wonder if this decision won't negatively impact the final product...
Your statistics that the 9th Circuit is overtuned only 75% of the time, but the 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th circuits are overturned 100% of the time is incredibly misleading.
While you can look at the raw percentage numbers alone (and thus you are technically correct), the Supreme Court only granted certiorari on 3, 3, 1 and 1 cases in those respective circuits anyway, while they heard TWENTY FOUR cases from the 9th Circuit in the same time period. Of those, 18 were reversed or vacated (which is 6x the 4th and 5th circuits, and 18x the 8th and 10th). So this notion that the court is reversing more cases anywhere except the 9th Circuit is both misleading and wrong.
The reason for the numbers is simple: the Court can choose to hear whichever cases it deems needed for its ruling. If it felt the judgment of the circuit court was essentially correct, there is little need to hear it again at the Supreme Court level. On the other hand, if there is serious question about the soundness of the appellate court's decision, the Supreme Court is the only higher power that can undo it. As I think the real numbers in that statistic shows, the Court feels the need to do that in far more cases originating in the 9th Circuit than anywhere else (including the courts of all fifty states combined!). The fact that not every one of those is immediately reversed is just a reflection of the much larger number of cases.
And FYI, not only is your statistic misleading, but your conclusion is incorrect as well. While the 9th Circuit may hear more cases than some of the smaller areas, it's certainly not 8x-24x, so yes, based on those numbers, any given ruling from the 9th Circuit IS statistically more likely to be heard by the Supreme Court, and it overturned them 75% of the time in 2002. (though I doubt it's a personal grudge against California)
In asking for over $100,000 in her request for attorney fees, the defendant used a lodestar method of calculating the fee (which is really just a fancy way of saying multiple reasonable number of hours by a reasonable rate and that's what you pay). She said $175/hr was reasonable for one of her attorneys and $225/hr was reasonable for the other, but she gave no reason for the increased rate for the second attorney. IN FACT, $175/hr was the rate she agreed upon rate, so I'm not so sure that request wasn't an attempt to reap a windfall.
As far as the reasonableness of the number of hours, the defendant's lawyers used a block billing style that made it very difficult to determine what hours were spent on what (and the attorney's fees award was for only part of the case, not simply "everything she would have paid the attorneys"). Both sides submitted expert evidence of how reasonable or unreasonable the hours were, and the court agreed with Capitol Record's more detailed analysis.
So ultimately will she have to pay something? Probably, but you can blame HER lawyers for that, not the court. Lack of detail in the billing records, unexplained increases in hourly rates, and an INCREASE (rather than a decrease, what they're supposed to do) in hours after they thought they could get fee shifting, made it look like the defendant's lawyers were trying to take the plaintiff for a ride. And the court agreed.
From a PR perspective, I completely agree that Sony has screwed the pooch on managing consumer opinions, at least within the industry. Outside, however, the average consumer just sees a $499 60GB PS3 on sale.
I disagree with the people that insist Sony is driving for some "magic" $599 price point. If it were, I think the sales spike the will see from this price drop will convince them otherwise. The reality for Sony is that they have a huge number of 60GB systems collecting dust on store shelves. The still-born 20GB is largely vanished, and the 80GB isn't even available yet.
Now, if Sony was to announce the 80GB system at the same $499 that the 60GB has just been reduced to, how many of those 60GB systems would they be likely to sell, now or in the future? Not many, I'd wager, unless they planned to drop the price on those even further. The company would be foolish to do that, especially since the 80GB won't be around until August. The smart thing to do -- and what I suspect is Sony's plan all along here -- is to release the 80GB at $599 with the no-longer-in-production 60GB at $499 until the 60GB units are either depleted or nearly impossible to find (as opposed to now, where it's the only thing available!), then get another PR boost with another price drop lowering the 80GB to $499 as well.
Altering the motherboard design to include an HDMI port on the system itself is great, but doesn't the current Xbox 360 use a proprietary A/V-out port (through which your composite, s-video, component, optical audio,etc. are all passed)?
What's to stop MS from just releasing an HDMI video cable that goes through that same port, for the sake of all those without HDMI built in, as well as an XBL or other update to make it possible?
It's an enforcement issue, both on the retail and parental fronts.
As long as the majority of retailers treat ESRB ratings merely as guidelines rather than policy (the fact that they were originally intended as guidelines only is moot at this point), 12 year olds exposed to GTA and irrate politicians will remain. It's also the fault of parents who refuse/neglect to monitor their children's activity, and what the activists are really screaming for is a Big Brother to ensure from the top down that kids have a harder time playing them.
<rant> As a side rant on the GTA sex game debacle, it makes NO SENSE whatsoever to be outraged at a game maker over content that was discarded and locked out of the game prior to release, only accessible via a hack. For whatever reason, the developer chose to remove it, and like scenes cut from a movie the game should be judged based on what it is, not on what it is when any number of hacks or Gameshark codes are applied to it (nude Tomb Raider, anyone??). </rant>
Man can render unspeakably terrible things to his own kind. Death walls and gas chambers are only ghastly instruments that remind us of what mankind is capable. Is it some twisted part of the human condition? Is our psychology so simple to manipulate? Is this capacity for moral distortion within each of us?
Atrocities are not unique to the Nazis. My father likes to remind me of Japanese war crimes committed against POWs. There is no cause so noble or philosophy so infallible that human cruelty has not made a foundation from it. Even today well meaning people of conscience are drawn to polar opposites and debate whether President Bush is a righteous man or a war criminal.
The scale and efficency of the Nazi killing machine is what shocks us so, but it reenforces what we already know: this kind of holocaust can never happen again. Even though it does, and like lemmings we turn a blind eye. Rwanda? Somalia? And how many people are unconsciously hardening their hearts against Americans on one side and Arabs on the other, or the Israelis against the Palestineans? If the dam were to break, would we again see organized slaughter of the Nazi kind?
I think far more dangerous than the mind-numbing horrors of which the preserved Nazi implements of death remind us are the horrors that even reasonable men justify. One and a half million people died in Auschwitz and Birkenau, but more than four hundred thousand human beings died in blast and fallout from the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is tragedy in every life lost, but where they differ is in how they are both seen fifty years later.
Aside from a few isolated fools, the Holocaust is condemned by every soul the world over. But sentiment on the two bombings remains divided, even met with passioned approval by entirely reasonable people. War is a harsh thing, and military strategy is a long way from genocide. But tell me, were the women in line at the bank in Hiroshima and the children in the schoolhouse in Nagasaki any less innocent than those who perished in the gas chambers?
Pardon my lack of sympathy for HDTV TiVo/DirecTV customers. But as a cable customer stuck for years with a SD Tivo while DirecTV customers have enjoyed their HDTV version, I am only too happy to offer a smug seat on the SDTV couch as we all wait for the day, someday, that the media companies get their act together enough that we can all enjoy more than 5 channels of decent HD content (maybe even time-shift it, too!).
I only fear TiVo might end up as an unfortunate casualty of this extended growing period.
Annoying or not, should an individual have the right to turn off a public television that the other people nearby have an equal right to?
This smacks terribly of the problems presented by personal cell phone jammers -- I'm all in favor of common courtesy, but how far should someone be permitted to go to enforce their own personal comfort?
As in both of these cases, should it extend into potentially infringing on the personal comfort of others? How many others? If you can block one person's cell phone signal with a jammer, can you turn off a high mounted TV set in an airport that dozens of people might be watching, because you don't feel like moving?
I fail to see what regulation the university is breaking by enforcing its own policies on its own dormitories...
When you sign an apartment lease, you may have to agree to pay a fee if you have a dog. That's not the apartment complex prohibiting you from owning a dog, it's prohibiting you from owning one on their premises, as one of their residents (unless you pay the fee, of course).
The university is not prohibiting students from owning 802.11b/g APs, they are prohibiting their residents from operating them on their premises, as one of their residents. When students move in, they agree to abide by the university's policies.
As callous as it may sound, if students don't like that policy they should find someplace else to live, one that does allow the unrestricted use of WiFi access points. I'm sure the university would reconsider its new policy if there was a mass exodus from the dorms by upset students.
Will the mentioned "slight modifications" made by Microsoft to create the Sender ID standard also make it different enough from the OS SPF to call it proprietary?
For woe be the day MS openly embraces a developing standard not of its own design!
I was first introduced (or so I thought) to the impressive talent of Michael Bell in the Soul Reaver series as Raziel. The story, but most especially the voice acting, really elevated the game's quality to a higher standard.
It was only after reading the man's filmography that I understood what a powerhouse of animation and game acting he was. It includes game roles in everything from I-Ninja to Warcraft 3, and my jaw hit the floor when I read some of the animation credits from my childhood that he claims (Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man). This guy has been doing this (and well) for a very long time!
Okay quit wading through the tons of "I'm not sure"s and "I believe"s; here's the low-down on consoles and HDTVs as it stands now.
Btw, I've had a 34" Sony WEGA widescreen HDTV for nearly a year now, and am an avid gamer on all 3 major consoles.
Xbox is by far the king, supporting 480i and 480p on nearly every game, 720p on a few (e.g., Soul Calibur 2) and 1080i on a few as well (e.g., Dragon's Lair 3D). It is also more apt to support 16:9 (widescreen) though it depends on the game. (Interestingly, SC2 for Xbox supports 720p, a natively 16:9 resolution, but ADDS two black bars on either side to make it 4:3 -- framerate issues I imagine)
Gamecube is next up with only 480i and 480p, but with the 480p much more frequently than PS2. I have also found GC games to more frequently have a widescreen option as well, but not nearly as ubiquitously as Xbox. At the [relative] bottom is PS2, which only supports 480p on a handful of games that I know of. 16:9 options on PS2 are nearly just as infrequent.
What does it all translate into? Preferential treatment for the Xbox version of multi-platform games, especially if you have a surround sound setup as well! Virtually any HDTV on the market has some option to accommodate 4:3 sources on a widescreen set (usually some combination of horizontal stretching and vertical cropping that minimizes distortion), and the frequency of HDTV-friendly games can only go up. Considering that DVDs and the majority of HDTV broadcasts are also widescreen, for futureproofing's sake you'd be handicapping yourself with a 4:3 HD set.
The reasons others have cited for lack of support currently are quite valid, maximizing performance, lack of widescreen userbase, and each developer makes their best judgment on how far to go. But as time goes on, the install-base of widescreen and HD TVs will increase, and public praise for games that cater to these people will have a greater and greater impact.
If less play time ultimately results in higher quality for that shorter time (as some games seem to be trying for lately), then I agree completely. Most gamers would take an eight hour masterpiece over a 60 hour vanilla copycat anyday.
But if the issue is not one of quality, but length alone, then I think definitely the longer the better! A crappy eight hour game is even WORSE than a crappy 60 hour game!
I highly doubt MMORPGs as a genre will ever appeal to the mass market (unless the definition of an MMORPG changes radically) --
The idea of a game which requires you to spend countless hours with only moderate rewards in order to progress your avatar slowly along a path with no real end whilst building useful skills and friends along the way, that reminds me of another "MM-RPG" the mass markets already engage in droves: Real Life!
There will always be another option -- find an unauthorized patch or crack to either remove the DRM check from Windows or emulate that the the option is turned on.
It's the same thing some did with the activation system on WindowsXP and Office.
How isn't the distribution system horribly out-of-date? The very concept
of taking data, sticking it onto physical discs, putting those discs inside
plastic wrappers, moving those discs via trucks, holding them inside stores,
requiring the consumer to transport themselves several kilometres to buy the
disc, then transport it home, simply so the customer can play music? That
system makes sense for physical goods; not for pure data.
Indeed, how right you are! Hardly anyone uses those antiquated
means of
datadelivery anymore!
There's nothing wrong with their delivery methods -- it's cost : benefit
ratio for the consumer is losing balance.
Slashdot Mirror
What would he have us use if not Google? Bing?!
Oh wait, maybe not...
Given the size of corporate lobbies in Washington, D.C., and the assets any one of them -- whether pharmaceutical patents or music copyrights -- would stand to lose, I highly doubt any of Obama's economic recovery efforts will involve weakening the United States' IP regime.
I'm just sayin'...
Several people have commented about Midway's Chapter 11 filing possibly leading to other companies purchasing their IP rights to various franchise, but it's important to keep in mind that there's a big difference between Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Under Chapter 11, reorganization, the organization is given time to restructure its debt, retain its assets, and negotiate deals with creditors. It still has to pay off its debts, but possibly over a longer term or with a lower interest rate. This is a very different beast from Chapter 7, where the firm's assets are sold off (liquidated) to pay off the creditors, after which the firm ceases to exist.
Under some circumstances, a company in Chapter 11 can be forced into Chapter 7, but as it stands now, the proud Midway name will continue on down the road.
It wasn't a bad game overall, but it had bugs, balance issues, and became quite repetitive as compared to other RTS titles. And instead of working to correct the issues fans had with the title, it went ahead and rush an expansion pack out the door (which sold far worse than the original title) and moved on to the equally abysmal "Space Siege."
Oh well, at least it'll have some awesome looking cutscenes!
In the realm of mature gamers (most of whom have the disposable income to purchase all or as many of the current generation of consoles as they like), fanboy platform wars have no real place. That being said, I see both major positives and negatives about this announcement.
On the plus side, any increase in the competition of two massive corporate juggernauts can only be good for consumers, and the game being multiplatform will help it reach a wider audience and boost sales (especially overseas). In this day and age, it seems like third party exclusive titles are becoming a thing of the past, being replaced by highly subsidized exclusive bonus content (which results in more money for the developers who MAKE the games we love).
However, one advantage consoles have always had is the uniformity of hardware, allowing developers to milk as much performance as possible out of the system, and resulting in better looking titles than on comparably equipped PC hardware (but PCs, being upgradable, often quickly strip that advantage away as hardware progresses). Today, multiplatform developers for Xbox 360 and PS3 often strive for graphical parity between the versions (e.g., GTA4, Assassin's Creed). And while I have no doubt both are powerful systems in their own respects, they are also radically different hardware architectures and I can't see how developers can realistically claim to be maxing out the performance on both systems, yet still have them come out looking virtually indistinguishable.
As an owner of both systems, I was looking forward to FF XIII as an incredible showcase of just how powerful the PS3 was as a system. I'm sure it will still be a fantastic game, but I wonder if this decision won't negatively impact the final product...
Wow, I wonder what it means if you play videogames while smoking!
They might as well lock you up, you'd be such a danger to yourself and others...
Your statistics that the 9th Circuit is overtuned only 75% of the time, but the 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th circuits are overturned 100% of the time is incredibly misleading.
While you can look at the raw percentage numbers alone (and thus you are technically correct), the Supreme Court only granted certiorari on 3, 3, 1 and 1 cases in those respective circuits anyway, while they heard TWENTY FOUR cases from the 9th Circuit in the same time period. Of those, 18 were reversed or vacated (which is 6x the 4th and 5th circuits, and 18x the 8th and 10th). So this notion that the court is reversing more cases anywhere except the 9th Circuit is both misleading and wrong.
The reason for the numbers is simple: the Court can choose to hear whichever cases it deems needed for its ruling. If it felt the judgment of the circuit court was essentially correct, there is little need to hear it again at the Supreme Court level. On the other hand, if there is serious question about the soundness of the appellate court's decision, the Supreme Court is the only higher power that can undo it. As I think the real numbers in that statistic shows, the Court feels the need to do that in far more cases originating in the 9th Circuit than anywhere else (including the courts of all fifty states combined!). The fact that not every one of those is immediately reversed is just a reflection of the much larger number of cases.
And FYI, not only is your statistic misleading, but your conclusion is incorrect as well. While the 9th Circuit may hear more cases than some of the smaller areas, it's certainly not 8x-24x, so yes, based on those numbers, any given ruling from the 9th Circuit IS statistically more likely to be heard by the Supreme Court, and it overturned them 75% of the time in 2002. (though I doubt it's a personal grudge against California)
This is not necessarily the case
In asking for over $100,000 in her request for attorney fees, the defendant used a lodestar method of calculating the fee (which is really just a fancy way of saying multiple reasonable number of hours by a reasonable rate and that's what you pay). She said $175/hr was reasonable for one of her attorneys and $225/hr was reasonable for the other, but she gave no reason for the increased rate for the second attorney. IN FACT, $175/hr was the rate she agreed upon rate, so I'm not so sure that request wasn't an attempt to reap a windfall.
As far as the reasonableness of the number of hours, the defendant's lawyers used a block billing style that made it very difficult to determine what hours were spent on what (and the attorney's fees award was for only part of the case, not simply "everything she would have paid the attorneys"). Both sides submitted expert evidence of how reasonable or unreasonable the hours were, and the court agreed with Capitol Record's more detailed analysis.
So ultimately will she have to pay something? Probably, but you can blame HER lawyers for that, not the court. Lack of detail in the billing records, unexplained increases in hourly rates, and an INCREASE (rather than a decrease, what they're supposed to do) in hours after they thought they could get fee shifting, made it look like the defendant's lawyers were trying to take the plaintiff for a ride. And the court agreed.
From a PR perspective, I completely agree that Sony has screwed the pooch on managing consumer opinions, at least within the industry. Outside, however, the average consumer just sees a $499 60GB PS3 on sale.
I disagree with the people that insist Sony is driving for some "magic" $599 price point. If it were, I think the sales spike the will see from this price drop will convince them otherwise. The reality for Sony is that they have a huge number of 60GB systems collecting dust on store shelves. The still-born 20GB is largely vanished, and the 80GB isn't even available yet.
Now, if Sony was to announce the 80GB system at the same $499 that the 60GB has just been reduced to, how many of those 60GB systems would they be likely to sell, now or in the future? Not many, I'd wager, unless they planned to drop the price on those even further. The company would be foolish to do that, especially since the 80GB won't be around until August. The smart thing to do -- and what I suspect is Sony's plan all along here -- is to release the 80GB at $599 with the no-longer-in-production 60GB at $499 until the 60GB units are either depleted or nearly impossible to find (as opposed to now, where it's the only thing available!), then get another PR boost with another price drop lowering the 80GB to $499 as well.
So if an extra 20GB is worth an extra $100 or a few months waiting for you, go for it. For me, 60GB is plenty, and the hard drive is already pretty damn easy to upgrade way past the 80GB anyway, if one were so inclined.
Altering the motherboard design to include an HDMI port on the system itself is great, but doesn't the current Xbox 360 use a proprietary A/V-out port (through which your composite, s-video, component, optical audio,etc. are all passed)?
What's to stop MS from just releasing an HDMI video cable that goes through that same port, for the sake of all those without HDMI built in, as well as an XBL or other update to make it possible?
Oh come on, people! Are you telling me the idea of genetically modified food is that new to you?!
It's an enforcement issue, both on the retail and parental fronts.
As long as the majority of retailers treat ESRB ratings merely as guidelines rather than policy (the fact that they were originally intended as guidelines only is moot at this point), 12 year olds exposed to GTA and irrate politicians will remain. It's also the fault of parents who refuse/neglect to monitor their children's activity, and what the activists are really screaming for is a Big Brother to ensure from the top down that kids have a harder time playing them.
<rant>
As a side rant on the GTA sex game debacle, it makes NO SENSE whatsoever to be outraged at a game maker over content that was discarded and locked out of the game prior to release, only accessible via a hack. For whatever reason, the developer chose to remove it, and like scenes cut from a movie the game should be judged based on what it is, not on what it is when any number of hacks or Gameshark codes are applied to it (nude Tomb Raider, anyone??).
</rant>
Link.
Man can render unspeakably terrible things to his own kind. Death walls and gas chambers are only ghastly instruments that remind us of what mankind is capable. Is it some twisted part of the human condition? Is our psychology so simple to manipulate? Is this capacity for moral distortion within each of us?
Atrocities are not unique to the Nazis. My father likes to remind me of Japanese war crimes committed against POWs. There is no cause so noble or philosophy so infallible that human cruelty has not made a foundation from it. Even today well meaning people of conscience are drawn to polar opposites and debate whether President Bush is a righteous man or a war criminal.
The scale and efficency of the Nazi killing machine is what shocks us so, but it reenforces what we already know: this kind of holocaust can never happen again. Even though it does, and like lemmings we turn a blind eye. Rwanda? Somalia? And how many people are unconsciously hardening their hearts against Americans on one side and Arabs on the other, or the Israelis against the Palestineans? If the dam were to break, would we again see organized slaughter of the Nazi kind?
I think far more dangerous than the mind-numbing horrors of which the preserved Nazi implements of death remind us are the horrors that even reasonable men justify. One and a half million people died in Auschwitz and Birkenau, but more than four hundred thousand human beings died in blast and fallout from the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is tragedy in every life lost, but where they differ is in how they are both seen fifty years later.
Aside from a few isolated fools, the Holocaust is condemned by every soul the world over. But sentiment on the two bombings remains divided, even met with passioned approval by entirely reasonable people. War is a harsh thing, and military strategy is a long way from genocide. But tell me, were the women in line at the bank in Hiroshima and the children in the schoolhouse in Nagasaki any less innocent than those who perished in the gas chambers?
Pardon my lack of sympathy for HDTV TiVo/DirecTV customers. But as a cable customer stuck for years with a SD Tivo while DirecTV customers have enjoyed their HDTV version, I am only too happy to offer a smug seat on the SDTV couch as we all wait for the day, someday, that the media companies get their act together enough that we can all enjoy more than 5 channels of decent HD content (maybe even time-shift it, too!).
I only fear TiVo might end up as an unfortunate casualty of this extended growing period.
Annoying or not, should an individual have the right to turn off a public television that the other people nearby have an equal right to?
This smacks terribly of the problems presented by personal cell phone jammers -- I'm all in favor of common courtesy, but how far should someone be permitted to go to enforce their own personal comfort?
As in both of these cases, should it extend into potentially infringing on the personal comfort of others? How many others? If you can block one person's cell phone signal with a jammer, can you turn off a high mounted TV set in an airport that dozens of people might be watching, because you don't feel like moving?
I should think not!
I fail to see what regulation the university is breaking by enforcing its own policies on its own dormitories...
When you sign an apartment lease, you may have to agree to pay a fee if you have a dog. That's not the apartment complex prohibiting you from owning a dog, it's prohibiting you from owning one on their premises, as one of their residents (unless you pay the fee, of course).
The university is not prohibiting students from owning 802.11b/g APs, they are prohibiting their residents from operating them on their premises, as one of their residents. When students move in, they agree to abide by the university's policies.
As callous as it may sound, if students don't like that policy they should find someplace else to live, one that does allow the unrestricted use of WiFi access points. I'm sure the university would reconsider its new policy if there was a mass exodus from the dorms by upset students.
But where has all the sig' gone?
Will the mentioned "slight modifications" made by Microsoft to create the Sender ID standard also make it different enough from the OS SPF to call it proprietary?
For woe be the day MS openly embraces a developing standard not of its own design!
I was first introduced (or so I thought) to the impressive talent of Michael Bell in the Soul Reaver series as Raziel. The story, but most especially the voice acting, really elevated the game's quality to a higher standard.
It was only after reading the man's filmography that I understood what a powerhouse of animation and game acting he was. It includes game roles in everything from I-Ninja to Warcraft 3, and my jaw hit the floor when I read some of the animation credits from my childhood that he claims (Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man). This guy has been doing this (and well) for a very long time!
(The other actors for the Soul Reaver series should not be forgotten either, including Simon Templeman, Rene Auberjonois of ST:DS9, and another fav of mine: Tony Jay as the Elder God)
Actually, in Japanese is means "NO!" in a rather abrupt and impolite fashion.
Okay quit wading through the tons of "I'm not sure"s and "I believe"s; here's the low-down on consoles and HDTVs as it stands now.
Btw, I've had a 34" Sony WEGA widescreen HDTV for nearly a year now, and am an avid gamer on all 3 major consoles.
Xbox is by far the king, supporting 480i and 480p on nearly every game, 720p on a few (e.g., Soul Calibur 2) and 1080i on a few as well (e.g., Dragon's Lair 3D). It is also more apt to support 16:9 (widescreen) though it depends on the game. (Interestingly, SC2 for Xbox supports 720p, a natively 16:9 resolution, but ADDS two black bars on either side to make it 4:3 -- framerate issues I imagine)
Gamecube is next up with only 480i and 480p, but with the 480p much more frequently than PS2. I have also found GC games to more frequently have a widescreen option as well, but not nearly as ubiquitously as Xbox. At the [relative] bottom is PS2, which only supports 480p on a handful of games that I know of. 16:9 options on PS2 are nearly just as infrequent.
What does it all translate into? Preferential treatment for the Xbox version of multi-platform games, especially if you have a surround sound setup as well! Virtually any HDTV on the market has some option to accommodate 4:3 sources on a widescreen set (usually some combination of horizontal stretching and vertical cropping that minimizes distortion), and the frequency of HDTV-friendly games can only go up. Considering that DVDs and the majority of HDTV broadcasts are also widescreen, for futureproofing's sake you'd be handicapping yourself with a 4:3 HD set.
The reasons others have cited for lack of support currently are quite valid, maximizing performance, lack of widescreen userbase, and each developer makes their best judgment on how far to go. But as time goes on, the install-base of widescreen and HD TVs will increase, and public praise for games that cater to these people will have a greater and greater impact.
Right, but that's 12 or so geeks laying with one girl. And that's just ew.
If less play time ultimately results in higher quality for that shorter time (as some games seem to be trying for lately), then I agree completely. Most gamers would take an eight hour masterpiece over a 60 hour vanilla copycat anyday. But if the issue is not one of quality, but length alone, then I think definitely the longer the better! A crappy eight hour game is even WORSE than a crappy 60 hour game!
I highly doubt MMORPGs as a genre will ever appeal to the mass market (unless the definition of an MMORPG changes radically) --
The idea of a game which requires you to spend countless hours with only moderate rewards in order to progress your avatar slowly along a path with no real end whilst building useful skills and friends along the way, that reminds me of another "MM-RPG" the mass markets already engage in droves: Real Life!
There will always be another option -- find an unauthorized patch or crack to either remove the DRM check from Windows or emulate that the the option is turned on.
It's the same thing some did with the activation system on WindowsXP and Office.
Indeed, how right you are! Hardly anyone uses those antiquated means of data delivery anymore!
There's nothing wrong with their delivery methods -- it's cost : benefit ratio for the consumer is losing balance.