From the article: "Dave 'Fargo' Kosak of GameSpy.com predicts: Here at GameSpy the general consensus is that the Sony handheld will blow the market wide open -- our editors often consider it to be the "iPod of Gaming," the must-have peripheral that'll make portables cool."
I'd take this more seriously if it came from a source with a shred of journalistic integrity. These are, after all, the people who listed such classics as Donkey Kong Country, Halo, and Quake 2 in their "Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time" list. Considering the fact that all three of these games are generally considered to be excellent by most gamers years after their release, they're obviously not overhyped. This is compounded when you consider, as Penny Arcade aptly notes, that Gamespy plays as much a part in the hype machine as anyone else. It's rather obvious that they were picked by Gamespy to create controversy instead of presenting a list of games that deserve the shame of being called overhyped. It seems to me that the "iPod of gaming" remark is yet another of these gambits, aimed more at ushering more hits their way than providing any useful information.
I wish they'd stop pissing around and make a 4th Donkey kong country for the cube/xbox/whatever.
Donkey Kong is Nintendo's intellectual property, and Rare is owned by Microsoft now. I highly doubt that Nintendo is going to let them put Donkey Kong on the Xbox, and there's no way Microsoft is going to let them develop anything for the Gamecube. The only reason they're allowed to develop for the GBA is because it's not directly in competition with the Xbox.
Also remember that at the time the ball was in Sony's court. The (largely unwarranted) hype they'd created around the PS2 along with Sega's string of hrdware flops had successfully supressed Dreamcast sales, they were coming off of one of the most successful consoles yet, and competition from Nintendo and Microsoft was a full year away. They were practically the only game in town, and they had a slew of Playstation games that ran on their hardware. The PSP, on the other hand, is set to launch considerably later than the DS (at least in the US), and Nintendo is coming off the most sucessful console of all time (GBA sales put PS2 sales to shame) to release a system that's likely to cost about half as much as the competition. Additionally, Nintendo has a TON of GBA games that will run on the DS, and already has final dev kits in the hands of many developers.
I swear there's no pleasing some people. Would you rather have a non-backlit screen like the original GBA? Back when it came out folks griped about needing a bright light to see the screen.
Yes, it was a definite problem with the GBA, but it was fixed in the SP which is front lit. Nintendo is using a reflective TFT that makes the screen easily visible in high light situations, and the front light fixed low light issues. Additionally you can turn off the front light and save battery when the ambient lighting is sufficient. All things considered, I think it's a superior option for a handheld.
And tell me, when will you EVER watch your PSP at an angle?? Maybe your buddy watching LOTR over your shoulder in the car will have a bad angle. Is that a reason to not buy one?
Go find someone who owned a Game Gear back in the 90s, and ask them if it wasn't a problem. The issue is considerably less of a concern now, but it still is one nonetheless. Not just for others watching along with you, but for yourself. Take a laptop screen and tilt it up and down, and you'll see what I mean: if you go too far in either direction, things get too dark or too washed out. Now imagine this effect with a device you're holding in your hand
Oops, sorry. My thoughts ran ahead of my words in a few spots. Here're some corrections so it makes more sense:
"Secondly, none of the music labels/movie studios have adopted the UMD as an approved format, meaning there's a strong chance that Sony Pictures and Sony Music will be the only companies producing content on it."
"On first thought, the idea of laptop style screen technology in a handheld,i>seems like a good one, but if you've ever tried to use your laptop outdoors on a sunny day, you'll know just how easily that backlight is drowned out."
I honestly don't see the PSP's multimedia capabilities being all that widely used. Their coice to go to a proprietary media, the UMD, means that people with extensive DVD or CD collections will have to purchase their music and movies all over again if they want to use them in the PSP. If you start a collection on the PSP, you're going to have to buy it all over again to use it on your home entertainment system, or be left hoping that Sony evetually releases a standalone player.
Secondly, none of the music labels/movie studios have adopted the UMD as an approved format, meaning there's a strong chance that Sony Pictures and Sony Music will companies producing content on it.
Thirdly, in terms of movie playback, the PSP is severely harmed by battery life. The numbers I've read say it will have less than 3 hours' worth of power in movie playback mode. That means if you want to watch a long film like, oh say, any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you'd better have an outlet nearby. Additionally, it means that after watching shorter movies, you're not going to have much battery left to play games, meaning you'll have to choice on which you want on each outing.
Finally, there's the backlit screen. On first thought, the idea of laptop style screen technology in a handheld, but if you've ever tried to use your laptop outdoors on a sunny day, you'll know just how easily that backlight is drowned out. Chances are good that on any given car/train trip you're going to pass through a patch of sunlight, severely imparing how easily you can see the screen. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the color shift issues that occur when you view a laptop screen from any angle except straight on.
You must be thinking of the Playstation 2, which is widely considered the hardest console to code for since the Sega Saturn. Indeed, one of the things developers like about the Gamecube is that it's relatively easy to code for (thanks in large part to its PowerPC processor). Also, I have my doubts that Nintendo will give any of the ground it has unless they become massively unprofitable. And since Nintendo's had only one unprofitable quarter in over 20 years, that could be quite a while.
Sega's produced some fantastic titles in recent years (Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, the ESPN Sports line, ect.) Indeed, I'd aruge that they're one of the most innovative publishers out there today. The problem, it seems, is that for the most part people don't like games that break the mold. Great example: Jet Set Radio. It was the first game to feature cel shading, was an absolute blast to play, and featured a fantastic soundtrack. What happened to it? It flopped because it was "too weird". Sega can't get past people's pre-conceptions to get people to see a truly phenomenal game it is (a problem which is plaguing Nintendo too). People are too focuses on "gritty" or "realistic" games instead of quality ones. Hell, I bet you that Toe Jam & Earl would flop today for that very same reason. The truth is, a game which doesn't stray too far from a "tried and true" formula like Metal Gear Solid 2 gets all kinds of attention from press and fans alike while adding almost nothing to the gameplay. A game like Zelda: Legend of the Wind Waker, on the other hand, gets tons of flak for looking nothing else on the market (despite being gorgeous). I gusss people just like homogeny in their entertainment.
Only manufacturers would be just as bad. What exactly do Dell intend to do if everyone does stop innovating? Eventually everyone has a printer which is at the limit of the existing technology. Since it is not (according to that quote) profitable to research more printers Dell's printer business will dry up leaving them with just the odd repair or replacement to go on.
From a quick check of Divx Networks' web site, it doesn't seem like Datel is an official licensee. If this is the case, I'm certain Datel will get a cease and desist from them for using their registered trademark. And the Genesis emulation is an even worse situation. About the only way that's gonna work is via copyright infringement. Since Sega is still making money off of things like the Sonic Mega Collection for the Gamecube, I can't see them taking this one lightly.
Right. Which means if you run PlayFair or Hymn or I'mABigScriptKiddieLookAtMeWoo or whatever on one of your iTunes songs, you are no longer legally authorized to listen to any of your iTunes songs. You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation, which if you do it enough is a felony!
You just illustrated the whole problem with the issue. You do something they don't like, and instantly you're a felon. I'm not part of the tinfoil hat brigade, but it's not too much of a stretch to see Apple or other DRM'ed music distributors adding all kinda of crackpot terms into their licenses and since they're subject to change without notice, you're stuck with terms you didn't even agree to. If you listen to your music without complying, you're a felon.
You're thinking of Babbage's "Difference Engine", which was indeed a mechanical calculator. He also designed the "Analytical Engine" which was a full-fledged digital computer. The only reason the information age didn't occur in the nineteenth century is because he lacked the precision manufacturing processes needed to actually build it (I can't find a link about it, but a modern team actually built one which worked). Indeed, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote The Difference Engine which, despite its confusing title, speculates what the world would have been like had Babbage succeeded in building the Analytical Engine.
I think the GBA's CPU has a variable clockspeed anyhow. If you play some games when your batteries are on the verge of making the power light turn from red to green, you can see the LED color change as the CPU power needed by the game changes. That could be something else, though.
Tape is just as succeptible to environmental conditions as CD-Rs. The tape can rot, distort if overheated, get wrecked by magnetic interference, or get eaten by a malfunctioning tape player. The fact is, if you're serious about keeping any sort of data over a long period of time, you should be careful and make sure you back it up again periodically. Anything else is leaving the matter up to fate, no matter how durable you think the media is.
Re:WinFS WILL be in the next version, just no netw
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
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· Score: 2, Funny
I would feel insulted or take them seriously, though the same admins thought it was OK to use the default database admin account name and the default -- *blank* -- password on the primary image database server. It only processed 50,000 checks up to and beyond $100,000 USD, so maybe they were right to not bother with a password -- such trivial amounts after all.:-/
What company do you work for again? I have a withdrawl to make.
Perhaps I'm just being a curmudgeon, but the term "live-action anime" seems like an oxymoron. "Anime" is a french word meaning "animate", which has been adopted by the Japanese to mean "animation", and by the rest of the world to mean "Japanese animation". It does not have to do with any sort of stylistic sensibility, its just the term for animation from Japan. Not all anime is full of over-the top action sequences, there are just as many that are romantic comedies, or dramas. Should every movie that contains elements similar to an anime like Love Hina or be called "live-action anime" too? I think not. Additionally, I don't see people calling something clearly inspired by Japanese animation like Grenndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack "American anime" despite stylistic similarities. Therefore I don't see why a movie should be called "live-action anime" for that same style. Furthermore, it's self-contradictory. Essentially you're saying "live action cartoon", which are pretty much mutually exclusive.
I'm all for neologism, but this just seems to make the meaning of the word less precise rather than moreso. Oh well, just my two cents.
If you're not terribly worried about price (which I'd assume you aren't, since you're willing to invest in 1TB worth of storage just for movies), I may have a solution. The Sigma Designs Xcard is an MPEG decoder card that A) delivers superb picture quality over compsite, component, and S-Video B) can decode MPEG4 video such as Divx and Xvid in hardware and C) With the help of a piece of software called JovePlayer it can playback DVD image files, and can also act as a PVR system.
So it's not the image file itself that executes the code. It tricks IE's image decoding algorithm into exceeding its memory bounds, writing whatever follows directly into RAM.
Fox loves to do this. Especially with shows they air around the same time as The Simpsons, which is by far their most popular show. They like to use those slots to show off whatever new series they feel like hawking that week, causing the musical slots effect you're talking about. That and football games that go into overtime generally mean the kiss of death for whatever show is unlucky enough to be there. The sad part is that they kill great shows to promote ones with far less lasting power.
Nah, force them to view goatse.cx as punishment for rule-breaking.
While that would probably an effective deterrent, I wouldn't be suprised if you wound up paying large therapy bills a few years down the road.
Re:New WPA security ("improved WEP") any good?
on
Wireless Hacks
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· Score: 1
It's WEP with a time-based key rather than a static one. This makes it much harder to break becaus you can't get a large enough dataset to mount an attack. It also means that if they get one key, they can't decrypt more than a few packets before they need to find the next one. In other words, its significantly betterthan WEP.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article: "Dave 'Fargo' Kosak of GameSpy.com predicts: Here at GameSpy the general consensus is that the Sony handheld will blow the market wide open -- our editors often consider it to be the "iPod of Gaming," the must-have peripheral that'll make portables cool."
I'd take this more seriously if it came from a source with a shred of journalistic integrity. These are, after all, the people who listed such classics as Donkey Kong Country, Halo, and Quake 2 in their "Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time" list. Considering the fact that all three of these games are generally considered to be excellent by most gamers years after their release, they're obviously not overhyped. This is compounded when you consider, as Penny Arcade aptly notes, that Gamespy plays as much a part in the hype machine as anyone else. It's rather obvious that they were picked by Gamespy to create controversy instead of presenting a list of games that deserve the shame of being called overhyped. It seems to me that the "iPod of gaming" remark is yet another of these gambits, aimed more at ushering more hits their way than providing any useful information.
I wish they'd stop pissing around and make a 4th Donkey kong country for the cube/xbox/whatever. Donkey Kong is Nintendo's intellectual property, and Rare is owned by Microsoft now. I highly doubt that Nintendo is going to let them put Donkey Kong on the Xbox, and there's no way Microsoft is going to let them develop anything for the Gamecube. The only reason they're allowed to develop for the GBA is because it's not directly in competition with the Xbox.
Also remember that at the time the ball was in Sony's court. The (largely unwarranted) hype they'd created around the PS2 along with Sega's string of hrdware flops had successfully supressed Dreamcast sales, they were coming off of one of the most successful consoles yet, and competition from Nintendo and Microsoft was a full year away. They were practically the only game in town, and they had a slew of Playstation games that ran on their hardware. The PSP, on the other hand, is set to launch considerably later than the DS (at least in the US), and Nintendo is coming off the most sucessful console of all time (GBA sales put PS2 sales to shame) to release a system that's likely to cost about half as much as the competition. Additionally, Nintendo has a TON of GBA games that will run on the DS, and already has final dev kits in the hands of many developers.
I swear there's no pleasing some people. Would you rather have a non-backlit screen like the original GBA? Back when it came out folks griped about needing a bright light to see the screen.
Yes, it was a definite problem with the GBA, but it was fixed in the SP which is front lit. Nintendo is using a reflective TFT that makes the screen easily visible in high light situations, and the front light fixed low light issues. Additionally you can turn off the front light and save battery when the ambient lighting is sufficient. All things considered, I think it's a superior option for a handheld.
And tell me, when will you EVER watch your PSP at an angle?? Maybe your buddy watching LOTR over your shoulder in the car will have a bad angle. Is that a reason to not buy one?
Go find someone who owned a Game Gear back in the 90s, and ask them if it wasn't a problem. The issue is considerably less of a concern now, but it still is one nonetheless. Not just for others watching along with you, but for yourself. Take a laptop screen and tilt it up and down, and you'll see what I mean: if you go too far in either direction, things get too dark or too washed out. Now imagine this effect with a device you're holding in your hand
Oops, sorry. My thoughts ran ahead of my words in a few spots. Here're some corrections so it makes more sense:
,i>seems like a good one, but if you've ever tried to use your laptop outdoors on a sunny day, you'll know just how easily that backlight is drowned out."
"Secondly, none of the music labels/movie studios have adopted the UMD as an approved format, meaning there's a strong chance that Sony Pictures and Sony Music will be the only companies producing content on it."
"On first thought, the idea of laptop style screen technology in a handheld
I honestly don't see the PSP's multimedia capabilities being all that widely used. Their coice to go to a proprietary media, the UMD, means that people with extensive DVD or CD collections will have to purchase their music and movies all over again if they want to use them in the PSP. If you start a collection on the PSP, you're going to have to buy it all over again to use it on your home entertainment system, or be left hoping that Sony evetually releases a standalone player.
Secondly, none of the music labels/movie studios have adopted the UMD as an approved format, meaning there's a strong chance that Sony Pictures and Sony Music will companies producing content on it.
Thirdly, in terms of movie playback, the PSP is severely harmed by battery life. The numbers I've read say it will have less than 3 hours' worth of power in movie playback mode. That means if you want to watch a long film like, oh say, any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you'd better have an outlet nearby. Additionally, it means that after watching shorter movies, you're not going to have much battery left to play games, meaning you'll have to choice on which you want on each outing.
Finally, there's the backlit screen. On first thought, the idea of laptop style screen technology in a handheld, but if you've ever tried to use your laptop outdoors on a sunny day, you'll know just how easily that backlight is drowned out. Chances are good that on any given car/train trip you're going to pass through a patch of sunlight, severely imparing how easily you can see the screen. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the color shift issues that occur when you view a laptop screen from any angle except straight on.
You must be thinking of the Playstation 2, which is widely considered the hardest console to code for since the Sega Saturn. Indeed, one of the things developers like about the Gamecube is that it's relatively easy to code for (thanks in large part to its PowerPC processor). Also, I have my doubts that Nintendo will give any of the ground it has unless they become massively unprofitable. And since Nintendo's had only one unprofitable quarter in over 20 years, that could be quite a while.
Sega's produced some fantastic titles in recent years (Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, the ESPN Sports line, ect.) Indeed, I'd aruge that they're one of the most innovative publishers out there today. The problem, it seems, is that for the most part people don't like games that break the mold. Great example: Jet Set Radio. It was the first game to feature cel shading, was an absolute blast to play, and featured a fantastic soundtrack. What happened to it? It flopped because it was "too weird". Sega can't get past people's pre-conceptions to get people to see a truly phenomenal game it is (a problem which is plaguing Nintendo too). People are too focuses on "gritty" or "realistic" games instead of quality ones. Hell, I bet you that Toe Jam & Earl would flop today for that very same reason. The truth is, a game which doesn't stray too far from a "tried and true" formula like Metal Gear Solid 2 gets all kinds of attention from press and fans alike while adding almost nothing to the gameplay. A game like Zelda: Legend of the Wind Waker, on the other hand, gets tons of flak for looking nothing else on the market (despite being gorgeous). I gusss people just like homogeny in their entertainment.
Only manufacturers would be just as bad. What exactly do Dell intend to do if everyone does stop innovating? Eventually everyone has a printer which is at the limit of the existing technology. Since it is not (according to that quote) profitable to research more printers Dell's printer business will dry up leaving them with just the odd repair or replacement to go on.
Two words: ink cartridges.
Waiting until the new version hits retail shelves would've helped. You bought the old version, rather than the new one.
From a quick check of Divx Networks' web site, it doesn't seem like Datel is an official licensee. If this is the case, I'm certain Datel will get a cease and desist from them for using their registered trademark. And the Genesis emulation is an even worse situation. About the only way that's gonna work is via copyright infringement. Since Sega is still making money off of things like the Sonic Mega Collection for the Gamecube, I can't see them taking this one lightly.
Right. Which means if you run PlayFair or Hymn or I'mABigScriptKiddieLookAtMeWoo or whatever on one of your iTunes songs, you are no longer legally authorized to listen to any of your iTunes songs. You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation, which if you do it enough is a felony! You just illustrated the whole problem with the issue. You do something they don't like, and instantly you're a felon. I'm not part of the tinfoil hat brigade, but it's not too much of a stretch to see Apple or other DRM'ed music distributors adding all kinda of crackpot terms into their licenses and since they're subject to change without notice, you're stuck with terms you didn't even agree to. If you listen to your music without complying, you're a felon.
You're thinking of Babbage's "Difference Engine", which was indeed a mechanical calculator. He also designed the "Analytical Engine" which was a full-fledged digital computer. The only reason the information age didn't occur in the nineteenth century is because he lacked the precision manufacturing processes needed to actually build it (I can't find a link about it, but a modern team actually built one which worked). Indeed, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote The Difference Engine which, despite its confusing title, speculates what the world would have been like had Babbage succeeded in building the Analytical Engine.
You people don't read the write-up do you? It says right there that game sales have dropped 40%.
I think the GBA's CPU has a variable clockspeed anyhow. If you play some games when your batteries are on the verge of making the power light turn from red to green, you can see the LED color change as the CPU power needed by the game changes. That could be something else, though.
Tape is just as succeptible to environmental conditions as CD-Rs. The tape can rot, distort if overheated, get wrecked by magnetic interference, or get eaten by a malfunctioning tape player. The fact is, if you're serious about keeping any sort of data over a long period of time, you should be careful and make sure you back it up again periodically. Anything else is leaving the matter up to fate, no matter how durable you think the media is.
I would feel insulted or take them seriously, though the same admins thought it was OK to use the default database admin account name and the default -- *blank* -- password on the primary image database server. It only processed 50,000 checks up to and beyond $100,000 USD, so maybe they were right to not bother with a password -- such trivial amounts after all. :-/
What company do you work for again? I have a withdrawl to make.
Perhaps I'm just being a curmudgeon, but the term "live-action anime" seems like an oxymoron. "Anime" is a french word meaning "animate", which has been adopted by the Japanese to mean "animation", and by the rest of the world to mean "Japanese animation". It does not have to do with any sort of stylistic sensibility, its just the term for animation from Japan. Not all anime is full of over-the top action sequences, there are just as many that are romantic comedies, or dramas. Should every movie that contains elements similar to an anime like Love Hina or be called "live-action anime" too? I think not. Additionally, I don't see people calling something clearly inspired by Japanese animation like Grenndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack "American anime" despite stylistic similarities. Therefore I don't see why a movie should be called "live-action anime" for that same style. Furthermore, it's self-contradictory. Essentially you're saying "live action cartoon", which are pretty much mutually exclusive. I'm all for neologism, but this just seems to make the meaning of the word less precise rather than moreso. Oh well, just my two cents.
Too late? HArdly. Warp Pipe has had functional Gamecube tunneling for months now. It's now in the stage of improving reliablity and adding features.
If you're not terribly worried about price (which I'd assume you aren't, since you're willing to invest in 1TB worth of storage just for movies), I may have a solution. The Sigma Designs Xcard is an MPEG decoder card that A) delivers superb picture quality over compsite, component, and S-Video B) can decode MPEG4 video such as Divx and Xvid in hardware and C) With the help of a piece of software called JovePlayer it can playback DVD image files, and can also act as a PVR system.
So it's not the image file itself that executes the code. It tricks IE's image decoding algorithm into exceeding its memory bounds, writing whatever follows directly into RAM.
Cartoon Network aired it, not Comedy Central.
Fox loves to do this. Especially with shows they air around the same time as The Simpsons, which is by far their most popular show. They like to use those slots to show off whatever new series they feel like hawking that week, causing the musical slots effect you're talking about. That and football games that go into overtime generally mean the kiss of death for whatever show is unlucky enough to be there. The sad part is that they kill great shows to promote ones with far less lasting power.
Nah, force them to view goatse.cx as punishment for rule-breaking. While that would probably an effective deterrent, I wouldn't be suprised if you wound up paying large therapy bills a few years down the road.
It's WEP with a time-based key rather than a static one. This makes it much harder to break becaus you can't get a large enough dataset to mount an attack. It also means that if they get one key, they can't decrypt more than a few packets before they need to find the next one. In other words, its significantly betterthan WEP.