This is crazy - the only good reason I can think of that the W3C would say to wait is if Adobe paid somebody off to say that. There's a NEED immediately for cross-platform media that HTML5 provides today. The only other solution to this immediate need is to use Adobe Flash, and it's already a complete fail in the mobile space (including Android, which is absolutely horrible at running Flash content that's not specifically designed for use on mobile devices). They need to accelerate the finalization of the media aspects of HTML5 immediately, and call everything else HTML5.1 or HTML6, then let THAT come out in 3 years. To wait until 3 MORE iPad and iPhone hardware releases have been shipped, not to mention who knows how many Android devices, not to mention Windows Phone 7 (well, ok, we can probably safely not mention Windows Phone 7 since it has Silverlight as its focus) there's just not 3 years to wait, guys.
If for no other reason than to stimulate competition in this area, everyone should start using Amazon Payments whenever possible. PayPal has been forging their own rules for years. I once had someone do an "instant transfer" from my account for $500 to an online casino that I didn't authorize. PayPal said the account wasn't hacked but couldn't explain how the transfer was completed. Fortunately I caught it before it cleared my bank account and had the bank do a stop payment on the transfer. This got ME black-listed at PayPal for several months even though they had been contacted by me, my bank, AND the casino saying that the transaction was never authorized! If I hadn't managed to stop them I'm sure they would have held that money for months. This kind of behavior simply has to stop.
Hopefully once Amazon Payments becomes more widely used, PayPal will stop acting like they answer to nobody and realize that they need to make improvements not just make money.
As far as I know, Google Checkout doesn't allow transfer of funds for any reason, only for the sale of some product or service. PayPal and Amazon Payments let you send money for any reason at all.
This is great news for both Apple and Android users. This is just the sort of news Apple needs to hear to make them tired of their single-carrier approach in the US. As with many AT&T users, their lack of supporting tethering on the iPhone and the inconsistent network coverage (although when it does work their 3G is MUCH faster than Verizon's) has made me long for another carrier to be available to iPhone users who don't want to jailbreak their iPhones. However we shouldn't forget that there are two MAJOR problems with Verizon on all their phones that make me not want to switch to Verizon even if they did have the iPhone:
1. Verizon's 3G network is NOT capable of voice and data at the same time. Once you're on the phone, all data connections are closed until you hang up. Not so great when you're trying to use maps and someone calls you, or while on the phone you try to find a nearby restaurant to meet the caller. As Verizon callers know, "I'll have to check that and call you back" is not an uncommon thing to say. In an age of Bluetooth headsets being the norm, we should be able to use our phone's data channel while we're on the phone. Verizon's 3G network is very 2G in this instance (and LTE, Verizon's 4G network will fix this but launch is not until mid-2011 at least)
2. Verizon only gives their 3G data users 5GB of use before they start levying HUGE overage charges (http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/30/family_provider_far_apart_over_nearly_18000_phone_bill/). I personally have no intention of going over 5GB but I also don't want to WORRY about a limit at all. Again, very backward thinking by Verizon here, reminiscent of Compuserve and AOL charging hourly for Internet access back in the 1980s. Charge a fair price for unlimited data (I think $30 is fair but let the market decide) and then you'll have a shot at my business.
In short, I'd love to see Verizon get the iPhone but not in an exclusive deal, not with 5GB data caps, and not unless they can support data and voice at the same time on their 3G network (which has excellent coverage).
This is getting closer to my price range, but it doesn't appear to have any kind of cooling system, at least they've been mum on the subject so I assume that's the case. As I live in Texas, that's a pretty big deal...
Tesla: Here's an idea... Given that there's space under the hood that's not being used, install some Vortex Tubes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube) in the front of the car and funnel the cooled air into the cab for A/C. It would only work while you were moving fast enough to generate the compressed air, but it would be better than nothing.
None of this is substantiated but I'm still thinking it's going to be DEAD ON. If I'm wrong this is still the device they SHOULD make:)
It will be called the "iTouch"
Full OSX 10.6 support
Screen will approximately 5.25"x8.5", basically the size of a 8.5x11" paper folded in half).
Resolution will be either 960x1600 if they go with the new 180dpi screens or 840x1400 if they stick with the iPhone's ~160dpi
No physical keyboard, just Bluetooth mouse/kb support. Device will possibly have a "photo frame" style fold-out back for propping it up when in use with a Bluetooth keyboard.
Multi-touch up to 5 points similar to iPhone. Virtual keyboard will allow shift/alt combinations, etc.
Stylus support for signatures (optional and external to the device)
3G Unlocked SIM slot for data (along with 802.11b/g/n)
GPS w/WAAS or EGNOS (for increased accuracy) built in
Non-removable battery similar to the design direction with the iPhone 3G and MBP 17" Unibody.
You need an iPod and Audible. The unabridged books are fantastic. I use them for long drives but if I had vision problems it would make reading much more enjoyable. They even have monthly "listener" plans that you subscribe to and can then pick a set number of titles you can buy each month for no additional charge.
I made the mistake of buying Warhawk online instead of retail. The problem is that my user account on the system is the only one tied to my PSN network login (of course) so if my kids log into their PS3 accounts, they can't even start the game. That means that they need to log on as me whenever they want to play, even offline.
XBox Live has a better system for DRM - purchases are tied to the serial number of the device that purchased them, ALONG WITH the userID of the purchaser, so the purchaser can go to a different device (friends house, replacement system) and as long as they're logged in still access the content, or anyone who's on the same system that originally made the purchase can access the content WITHOUT LOGGING IN TO XBOX LIVE.
This is a huge oversight on Sony's part and I really hope they fix it. For families with more than one game player it will never be acceptable to tell each member of the family to purchase the same game if they want to play it. They are shooting themselves in the foot with their own DRM for DLC.
There's simply no case here. Hardware advances, flash memory becomes cheaper, there's just nothing here unless they promised they would have 1.1 compliance in the 1.0 players. I feel for the early adopters, and I think that the BluRay 1.0 spec was too easy on manufacturers (one of the few areas HD-DVD had it right from the beginning) but the electronics market has always been prone to "early retirement". I can guarantee this guy would have sued Samsung if HD-DVD had won the format war because Samsung had not accurately predicted the future.
In the interest of customer service though, Samsung should offer a trade-up program to their early adopters with little or even no cost to upgrade to a 1.1 player, simply because these guys can go from Samsung resenters to Samsung evangelists, and a lot of the hardware should be recoverable (especially the diode which is hugely expensive). They could even make an in-house upgrade kit and just retrofit the old players. Hell they only sold like 5,000 of them just take the hit and play the good guy Samsung. It's just good business. It's NOT legally liable though.
Just some thoughts:
Ok asking for deposits on future tickets is a bad idea. Instead, they should be selling sponsorships both corporate and individual and get the U.S. populace to be part of this.
Phase 1: Sell engraved pavestones, engravings on a wall of sponsors, advertisements, construction tours, etc. and get this rolling.
Phase 2: Continue selling sponsorship for construction of shuttles based on best existing reusable craft design at that point.
Phase 3: Once they have the spaceport built, they should start selling sponsorship of a commercial space port and begin construction as soon as possible. Primary focus of the spaceport would be in-space construction.
Phase 4: Build space-locked (non-landing) mining ships at the space port, and start mining near-Earth asteroids . At this point the space economy would be started, as the minerals mined could be used to build new stations and ships to continue the process with the only planetary launches/landings required for crew and basic life support needs.
Phase 5: At $10,000/kg cost to fly food into space, soybeans and other fast-growing crops should be grown in space as quickly as possible, starting an in-space food market to supplement the mining market and facilitate deployment of a much larger in-space workforce.
Compared to the alternative, where Mozilla goes away because of lack of revenue, I think it's fine that they get money from Google advertising. Google has just done a hell of a good job making money off advertising, that's really it. If some of that money goes to help an effort to create a better, open source browser, that's a great thing for everyone.
I'm not a Microsoft basher in general, but I do think that Firefox has done a better job being standards compliant than any other browser, an area in which Microsoft has not been held to by lack of competition in the last few years. I can't even tell you how bad/. looks on IE7 because the text overlaps half the time. MS will come up to speed in IE only if there's a reason for them to invest the time in it. Firefox provides that reason. Google pays for Firefox, fine by me. Just remember that it's in Google's best interest to run on ALL browsers from MS Smartphone and the iPhone to Firefox, Safari and IE. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Google has NO strategic advantage by "their" browser becoming dominant, they just need to make sure that Microsoft doesn't shut them out of their own revenue sources, and if IE were the only Windows compatible browser that would be a very realistic possibility. As it is, Firefox keeps things honest (and sorry, there are NO other browsers out there on Windows that have a chance against either Firefox or IE).
I think that disclaimer is pretty standard even on the commercial programs I've used. TurboTax might offer some kind of guarantee because they sell so many millions of copies, but I doubt they'd stick their neck out too far on liability. Unfortunately my taxes are too complicated for any of these packages so I have to use an accountant or I get shafted. Every year this around this time I become a big advocate of a national sales tax and we could just let this entire market go away.
I completely agree with you, as long as it's IN-GAME advertising and not a commercial. Perfect example is the cola cans in Half Life. When I grew up in Michigan, Mellow-Yellow was a popular soda, but here in Texas they don't even sell it. So why not let Valve make a few bucks selling ads to Mellow-Yellow in the areas it sells and Mountain Dew in Texas? Sure the first few developers to embrace this will be double-dipping, but eventually the extra financial lure will pull in developers and publishers who will try to undercut the initial players and can still turn a profit. Competition on the supply side will always drive prices down. At least with downloadable content, it's conceivable that we'll see free games (Imagine a Madden NFL game that you could ONLY play online, and that had live commercials on the billboards, around the field, etc. but didn't cost you a dime - I for one would gladly move away from the current sports-game model of repurchasing every year for an online-only model like this).
To sum it up: When I watch an old TV show and someone pulls out a box of cereal that says "Cereal" on the side, or a can of soda that says "Soda" on the side, it DISTRACTS me from the content more than a box of Cheereos and a can of Coke. As long as it's not disrupting game play I say bring on the influx of advertising cash and lower the retail price at the counter.
I can officially say the war is not over as a consumer. I own a BluRay player (by virtue of the fact that I bought a PS3) but I don't buy any BluRay discs and probably won't because although they look about 10-20% better on my 56" DLP HDTV, the quality is NOT enough to warrant a cost of 2-3x what a DVD costs. Even more importantly, as a consumer I'm really ready to move away from physical medium and move to a download model. I also own an XBox 360 and the quality of the HD movie downloads is just as good as the BluRay movies I've seen (Talladega Nights, Click and Lady in the Water). MS definitely needs to either up the size of the hard drive or let you use an external drive to store the 5-6GB video files but other than that I really prefer the download service. I know it's only 720p but it seriously looks just as good (at least on a 56" - on a 108" it might be another story altogether).
Another good thing about a download model is that there's no inventory shortage, no packaging, no disc to scratch and no losing the discs or having your kid scratch it up. If they ever do the DRM right (they haven't yet) - I'd be able to log in at my brother's house and watch anything I bought while I was over there (just like bringing the movie with me when I visit).
So my vote for the HD format is "neither" - let's move to a download model and be done with it. Winner of HD format = Hard Drive & Consumers.
I've also had a motherboard replacement and needed to call Microsoft. They were great to work with and had the OS activated in a few minutes. Long code to type in manually but no big deal really and they stayed on the phone with me and walked me through it.
I don't know why everyone's so anti-Microsoft. They defintely got over-zealous in their exclusive licensing deals with preloading Windows a few years back but the antitrust settlement seems to have made them change their business practices. I certainly have no problem with them requiring users of the OS to register their copies online, given how much piracy of their software there was prior to them moving to an activation system. It seems like that's what most commercial software will eventually go to, and I have no problem with it.
I've switched my whole house to Compact Flourescent (CFL) and have been really pleased with the result. The bulbs I bought came with a 7 year warranty and didn't cost only a little more than what you paid (I paid $13 for a pack of 6 at Home Depot). The company that made these is "Commercial Electric". I will say that brand seems to make a big difference with these bulbs. I didn't buy enough to do the whole house so the next time I bought more I was at a different store and they didn't have the Commercial Electric brand. I bought some Sylvania bulbs and while they eventually light the room well, they take a long time to warm up, where the Commercial Electric bulbs were instantaneously bright.
I will say that I replaced both my front flood lights and back porch light with some 23 watt CFLs (100 watt equivalent light output) and they're great when it's warm, but take several minutes to reach full brightness when it's cold out (and I mean cold as-in Texas cold, I don't know if they would ever reach full brightness in say, Michigan or someplace where it gets REALLY cold) so you might consider something other than CFLs for outside lights.
Did it make a difference on my electicity bill? It's hard to say since our electricity rate keeps going up, but I assume I would have had an even bigger bill had I not changed the bulbs. Especially when you consider that all my ceiling fans have 4 bulbs each and they all went from 60w incandescent (total of 240w) to 12w CFCs (total of 48w) it's probably making a difference.
BTW: I did this about 2 years ago and have not had even one of the CFL bulbs go out or break (out of about 65 bulbs).
Although it's worth noting that a properly written kernel COULD theoretically dynamically distribute "SPU tasks" between the SPUs, you're right that it's up to the application running on the "full" core to do that. Each of the SPUs inherently doesn't do anything until it has its instruction set code sent to it from the full core. What I could see happening is a generic SPU instruction set that could (for example) run a subset of a VM instruction set so that certain types of VM threads could execute on one of a set of, say 4 SPUs per Cell processor (while the other SPUs could remain dedicated to memory management or IO processing). That would allow applications that did not in themselves include SPU code to take advantage of the SPUs beyond just OS level operations. Unfortunately making an SPU run anything generic sort of defeats the purpose of the SPU in the first place (highly optimized instruction sets) but it would still be better than the SPUs just sitting there dormant since most developers probably won't be writing custom SPU instruction set code.
On true multi-core chips though, the solution is really simple. Breaking large tasks into multiple threads will inherently take advantage of both multiple processors and multiple cores on each processor. There's a certain amount of performance hit taken in any thread context switch, so you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by launching 200 threads when your typical user is going to have 2 cores, but it's easy enough in code to query the number of physical cores you have on the system and distribute the load accordingly (for a non-Server app I'd suggest MaxWorkerThreads = NumCores * 4 which seems to give a decent balance between using the cores and hyperthreading without wasting a lot of time context switching).
Although I think the iPod has been great in terms of user experience and form factor (especially the Nano) I think Apple's proprietary... well... everything really - would be bad for the market overall. I think Napster in particular with their subscription model all-you-can-eat plan is helping drive things forward, which we probably would never have seen if Apple controlled all the strings. Apple still has Lost exclusively (and no HD version) as well as other shut-out deals they've made like the Harry Potter books. I love their products, but I don't really care for their pricing and DRM strategies.
Microsoft almost always does their best work when they're the underdog (XBox 360, Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones) and they're certainly most agressive on new features when they're not the market leader, so MS will probably drive the overall digital audio market much more agressively when they're not teamed with Apple (and vice-versa).
The other good thing about MS being a competitor to Apple is that they are very good about letting other companies have a chance of competing against Apple without completely ignoring the DRM issues. Sure there would be MP3 players out there, but there would be little-to-none legal digital audio outside of Apple if Microsoft didn't enable all the other smaller hardware manufacturers to group together behind a single DRM standard.
I will say I'm still scratching my head on the Zune, though. I don't understand why it doesn't do WiFi OTA purchasing from day 1. That's the next logical step for the market and it's the one area where MS could have really been the leader. It also would have forced Apple's hand on addressing the OTA issue which would be great for consumers.
Viva le competition!
The HDMI connection from the 360 will be a cable just like the component and VGA cables are today. It will need to have a little more hardware to it where it connects to the 360 so that it can process the HDMI key exchange protocol, but should connect to the existing universal output just fine. As I understand it the software patch will include a new video driver for the ATI card in the 360 so that it will upscale to 1080p as well as the current 1080i from any source, but that in fact games could be written to do 1080p native (which would then scale down to 720p, 480p, SD or VGA depending on the cable connected). I'm worried that MS is going to try to charge more than $50 for their HDMI cable since it will have the extra hardware, but I hope they're smart enough to realize this would push more people towards PS3 (since you can buy a straight HDMI-HDMI cable for about $50).
BTW: I hope Sony's smart enough to make this cut in the US. I was DEFINITELY not planning on getting a PS3 but the 20G system would look pretty attractive to me at $399. I don't want he WiFi (I use 802.11a instead of 802.11g) and don't care about the memory cards, and hopefully the HD can be upgraded to a non-Sony drive so we could pop in a 160GB drive. That would make a pretty compelling system.
They're on to something here (duplicate royalties aside) but trying to make the Blu-Ray side translucent is a bad idea when the other side already IS translucent! Putting a Blu-Ray on the flip side of a 3 layer disk (2 layers of HD-DVD, 1 of DVD) would be a good move though, and they could just let the Blu-Ray side be Blu-Ray - This would probably not work with a dual layer Blu-Ray anyway, which they will hopefully eventually come out with to get above 25GB on a disk.
Personally, I really do hate double-sided disks though. I like to keep my movies in a CD holder instead of their cases so I can take them with me. When all the disks look alike (ie no silk-screen image on the top side) it's a real pain trying to tell them apart.
I've pretty much decided on HD-DVD... I can't imagine that Toshiba is charging anywhere near what Sony would charge (being Sony) and I like the idea that I won't be paying for the studios to invest in new hardware to manufacture the disks since they can use standard DVD burners to pump out HD-DVD disks.
This is great news and I'm excited that they are doing it, but they're not quite there yet. They need 4 layers so they can do a dual layer DVD and a dual layer HD-DVD and they will win this thing. Unfortunately the DVD market is already used to getting a dual-layer product so the quality and extra features can't just take a hit on existing players without people noticing. At the same time, 15GB, while it's big for a SD picture, isn't enough room for a HD picture, even without extra features. On the other hand, on a normal sized (let's say "smaller than 42") SD TV, it might be possible to make an acceptable looking picture in a single layer DVD (since everyone with an HD-TV will probably want the HD-DVD anyway).
I've pretty much decided on HD-DVD already. I'm tired of Sony formats and especially Sony prices. This is just one more illustration of how new these new formats are, and the fact that they are still discovering features they can add of this magnitude, it really makes me NOT want to be an early adopter.
If studios are smart enough to charge the same for one of these new disks as they do for a standard DVD (maybe Toshiba would have to waive some royalty for the first year to make it happen), I think most people would buy the new format if they're going to spend the money on the DVD anyway.
Show all modifications, but clearly show modifications that have not yet been through an editorial review. Also, when a user makes repeated erroneous additions that are surfaced through review, restrict their ability to contribute in the future, though to make that work there would have to be an incentive to keep one account instead of multiples, something like an ebay scoring system. Just some thoughts...
I AM a Sony fanboy - I love my PSP - and although I was planning on it originally I won't be buying a PS3. I got a 360 and I'll get a Wii if it's under $200 but the PS3 didn't really impress me. Certainly not enough to spend $600 + extended warranty (I went through FIVE PS2's over the years because they kept breaking - if the PS3 comes with a 90 day warranty that's a huge red flag btw) + tax + 1 game + 1 extra controller and it's going to cost at LEAST $800 - that's just way too much.
And I don't buy their statements about the Internet play being free. They'll either offload everything to 3rd party servers like they did with the PS2 or they'll have their own servers which will cost them enough that they'll start charging for it (especially when you factor in tech support).
I do have an HDMI TV too, and yes I do want hi-res movies but I can't help thinking that every movie studio that produces a movie on BluRay is putting money into Sony (a competitor in the movie industry) vs. HD-DVD where the money goes to Toshiba (not a competitor). When you remember that they can manufacture HD-DVD disks for under one dollar, I just don't see how Blu-Ray can win this one (even though the storage capacity is really good). I also will believe it when I see it about BluRay disks resisting scratches. If I can take a key to a BluRay disk and not be able to scratch it maybe then I'll buy in to that format.
But again, I love my PSP:)
If capacity is the most important issue, neither format is large enough. Even BluRay will only hold about 2 hours of video at 1080i (of course they can crank up the compression as needed). The best solution I've seen is a third format - holographic disc (http://www.engadget.com/entry/9772446245622191) which stores multiple bytes per cell instead of single bits. They can put about 1 terrabyte on a disk, and Toshiba just became an investor in Optware (the Japanese company that owns the technology) http://www.optware.co.jp/english/index_what.htm... Things could get interesting if Toshiba (one of the main companies behind HD-DVD) suddenly backs a format with 20 times Blu-Ray's capacity.
Slashdot Mirror
This is crazy - the only good reason I can think of that the W3C would say to wait is if Adobe paid somebody off to say that. There's a NEED immediately for cross-platform media that HTML5 provides today. The only other solution to this immediate need is to use Adobe Flash, and it's already a complete fail in the mobile space (including Android, which is absolutely horrible at running Flash content that's not specifically designed for use on mobile devices). They need to accelerate the finalization of the media aspects of HTML5 immediately, and call everything else HTML5.1 or HTML6, then let THAT come out in 3 years. To wait until 3 MORE iPad and iPhone hardware releases have been shipped, not to mention who knows how many Android devices, not to mention Windows Phone 7 (well, ok, we can probably safely not mention Windows Phone 7 since it has Silverlight as its focus) there's just not 3 years to wait, guys.
If for no other reason than to stimulate competition in this area, everyone should start using Amazon Payments whenever possible. PayPal has been forging their own rules for years. I once had someone do an "instant transfer" from my account for $500 to an online casino that I didn't authorize. PayPal said the account wasn't hacked but couldn't explain how the transfer was completed. Fortunately I caught it before it cleared my bank account and had the bank do a stop payment on the transfer. This got ME black-listed at PayPal for several months even though they had been contacted by me, my bank, AND the casino saying that the transaction was never authorized! If I hadn't managed to stop them I'm sure they would have held that money for months. This kind of behavior simply has to stop. Hopefully once Amazon Payments becomes more widely used, PayPal will stop acting like they answer to nobody and realize that they need to make improvements not just make money. As far as I know, Google Checkout doesn't allow transfer of funds for any reason, only for the sale of some product or service. PayPal and Amazon Payments let you send money for any reason at all.
This is great news for both Apple and Android users. This is just the sort of news Apple needs to hear to make them tired of their single-carrier approach in the US. As with many AT&T users, their lack of supporting tethering on the iPhone and the inconsistent network coverage (although when it does work their 3G is MUCH faster than Verizon's) has made me long for another carrier to be available to iPhone users who don't want to jailbreak their iPhones. However we shouldn't forget that there are two MAJOR problems with Verizon on all their phones that make me not want to switch to Verizon even if they did have the iPhone: 1. Verizon's 3G network is NOT capable of voice and data at the same time. Once you're on the phone, all data connections are closed until you hang up. Not so great when you're trying to use maps and someone calls you, or while on the phone you try to find a nearby restaurant to meet the caller. As Verizon callers know, "I'll have to check that and call you back" is not an uncommon thing to say. In an age of Bluetooth headsets being the norm, we should be able to use our phone's data channel while we're on the phone. Verizon's 3G network is very 2G in this instance (and LTE, Verizon's 4G network will fix this but launch is not until mid-2011 at least) 2. Verizon only gives their 3G data users 5GB of use before they start levying HUGE overage charges (http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/30/family_provider_far_apart_over_nearly_18000_phone_bill/). I personally have no intention of going over 5GB but I also don't want to WORRY about a limit at all. Again, very backward thinking by Verizon here, reminiscent of Compuserve and AOL charging hourly for Internet access back in the 1980s. Charge a fair price for unlimited data (I think $30 is fair but let the market decide) and then you'll have a shot at my business. In short, I'd love to see Verizon get the iPhone but not in an exclusive deal, not with 5GB data caps, and not unless they can support data and voice at the same time on their 3G network (which has excellent coverage).
This is getting closer to my price range, but it doesn't appear to have any kind of cooling system, at least they've been mum on the subject so I assume that's the case. As I live in Texas, that's a pretty big deal... Tesla: Here's an idea... Given that there's space under the hood that's not being used, install some Vortex Tubes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube) in the front of the car and funnel the cooled air into the cab for A/C. It would only work while you were moving fast enough to generate the compressed air, but it would be better than nothing.
None of this is substantiated but I'm still thinking it's going to be DEAD ON. If I'm wrong this is still the device they SHOULD make :)
You need an iPod and Audible. The unabridged books are fantastic. I use them for long drives but if I had vision problems it would make reading much more enjoyable. They even have monthly "listener" plans that you subscribe to and can then pick a set number of titles you can buy each month for no additional charge.
I made the mistake of buying Warhawk online instead of retail. The problem is that my user account on the system is the only one tied to my PSN network login (of course) so if my kids log into their PS3 accounts, they can't even start the game. That means that they need to log on as me whenever they want to play, even offline. XBox Live has a better system for DRM - purchases are tied to the serial number of the device that purchased them, ALONG WITH the userID of the purchaser, so the purchaser can go to a different device (friends house, replacement system) and as long as they're logged in still access the content, or anyone who's on the same system that originally made the purchase can access the content WITHOUT LOGGING IN TO XBOX LIVE. This is a huge oversight on Sony's part and I really hope they fix it. For families with more than one game player it will never be acceptable to tell each member of the family to purchase the same game if they want to play it. They are shooting themselves in the foot with their own DRM for DLC.
There's simply no case here. Hardware advances, flash memory becomes cheaper, there's just nothing here unless they promised they would have 1.1 compliance in the 1.0 players. I feel for the early adopters, and I think that the BluRay 1.0 spec was too easy on manufacturers (one of the few areas HD-DVD had it right from the beginning) but the electronics market has always been prone to "early retirement". I can guarantee this guy would have sued Samsung if HD-DVD had won the format war because Samsung had not accurately predicted the future. In the interest of customer service though, Samsung should offer a trade-up program to their early adopters with little or even no cost to upgrade to a 1.1 player, simply because these guys can go from Samsung resenters to Samsung evangelists, and a lot of the hardware should be recoverable (especially the diode which is hugely expensive). They could even make an in-house upgrade kit and just retrofit the old players. Hell they only sold like 5,000 of them just take the hit and play the good guy Samsung. It's just good business. It's NOT legally liable though.
Just some thoughts: Ok asking for deposits on future tickets is a bad idea. Instead, they should be selling sponsorships both corporate and individual and get the U.S. populace to be part of this. Phase 1: Sell engraved pavestones, engravings on a wall of sponsors, advertisements, construction tours, etc. and get this rolling. Phase 2: Continue selling sponsorship for construction of shuttles based on best existing reusable craft design at that point. Phase 3: Once they have the spaceport built, they should start selling sponsorship of a commercial space port and begin construction as soon as possible. Primary focus of the spaceport would be in-space construction. Phase 4: Build space-locked (non-landing) mining ships at the space port, and start mining near-Earth asteroids . At this point the space economy would be started, as the minerals mined could be used to build new stations and ships to continue the process with the only planetary launches/landings required for crew and basic life support needs. Phase 5: At $10,000/kg cost to fly food into space, soybeans and other fast-growing crops should be grown in space as quickly as possible, starting an in-space food market to supplement the mining market and facilitate deployment of a much larger in-space workforce.
Compared to the alternative, where Mozilla goes away because of lack of revenue, I think it's fine that they get money from Google advertising. Google has just done a hell of a good job making money off advertising, that's really it. If some of that money goes to help an effort to create a better, open source browser, that's a great thing for everyone. I'm not a Microsoft basher in general, but I do think that Firefox has done a better job being standards compliant than any other browser, an area in which Microsoft has not been held to by lack of competition in the last few years. I can't even tell you how bad /. looks on IE7 because the text overlaps half the time. MS will come up to speed in IE only if there's a reason for them to invest the time in it. Firefox provides that reason. Google pays for Firefox, fine by me. Just remember that it's in Google's best interest to run on ALL browsers from MS Smartphone and the iPhone to Firefox, Safari and IE. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Google has NO strategic advantage by "their" browser becoming dominant, they just need to make sure that Microsoft doesn't shut them out of their own revenue sources, and if IE were the only Windows compatible browser that would be a very realistic possibility. As it is, Firefox keeps things honest (and sorry, there are NO other browsers out there on Windows that have a chance against either Firefox or IE).
I think that disclaimer is pretty standard even on the commercial programs I've used. TurboTax might offer some kind of guarantee because they sell so many millions of copies, but I doubt they'd stick their neck out too far on liability. Unfortunately my taxes are too complicated for any of these packages so I have to use an accountant or I get shafted. Every year this around this time I become a big advocate of a national sales tax and we could just let this entire market go away.
I completely agree with you, as long as it's IN-GAME advertising and not a commercial. Perfect example is the cola cans in Half Life. When I grew up in Michigan, Mellow-Yellow was a popular soda, but here in Texas they don't even sell it. So why not let Valve make a few bucks selling ads to Mellow-Yellow in the areas it sells and Mountain Dew in Texas? Sure the first few developers to embrace this will be double-dipping, but eventually the extra financial lure will pull in developers and publishers who will try to undercut the initial players and can still turn a profit. Competition on the supply side will always drive prices down. At least with downloadable content, it's conceivable that we'll see free games (Imagine a Madden NFL game that you could ONLY play online, and that had live commercials on the billboards, around the field, etc. but didn't cost you a dime - I for one would gladly move away from the current sports-game model of repurchasing every year for an online-only model like this). To sum it up: When I watch an old TV show and someone pulls out a box of cereal that says "Cereal" on the side, or a can of soda that says "Soda" on the side, it DISTRACTS me from the content more than a box of Cheereos and a can of Coke. As long as it's not disrupting game play I say bring on the influx of advertising cash and lower the retail price at the counter.
I can officially say the war is not over as a consumer. I own a BluRay player (by virtue of the fact that I bought a PS3) but I don't buy any BluRay discs and probably won't because although they look about 10-20% better on my 56" DLP HDTV, the quality is NOT enough to warrant a cost of 2-3x what a DVD costs. Even more importantly, as a consumer I'm really ready to move away from physical medium and move to a download model. I also own an XBox 360 and the quality of the HD movie downloads is just as good as the BluRay movies I've seen (Talladega Nights, Click and Lady in the Water). MS definitely needs to either up the size of the hard drive or let you use an external drive to store the 5-6GB video files but other than that I really prefer the download service. I know it's only 720p but it seriously looks just as good (at least on a 56" - on a 108" it might be another story altogether). Another good thing about a download model is that there's no inventory shortage, no packaging, no disc to scratch and no losing the discs or having your kid scratch it up. If they ever do the DRM right (they haven't yet) - I'd be able to log in at my brother's house and watch anything I bought while I was over there (just like bringing the movie with me when I visit). So my vote for the HD format is "neither" - let's move to a download model and be done with it. Winner of HD format = Hard Drive & Consumers.
I've also had a motherboard replacement and needed to call Microsoft. They were great to work with and had the OS activated in a few minutes. Long code to type in manually but no big deal really and they stayed on the phone with me and walked me through it.
I don't know why everyone's so anti-Microsoft. They defintely got over-zealous in their exclusive licensing deals with preloading Windows a few years back but the antitrust settlement seems to have made them change their business practices. I certainly have no problem with them requiring users of the OS to register their copies online, given how much piracy of their software there was prior to them moving to an activation system. It seems like that's what most commercial software will eventually go to, and I have no problem with it.
I've switched my whole house to Compact Flourescent (CFL) and have been really pleased with the result. The bulbs I bought came with a 7 year warranty and didn't cost only a little more than what you paid (I paid $13 for a pack of 6 at Home Depot). The company that made these is "Commercial Electric". I will say that brand seems to make a big difference with these bulbs. I didn't buy enough to do the whole house so the next time I bought more I was at a different store and they didn't have the Commercial Electric brand. I bought some Sylvania bulbs and while they eventually light the room well, they take a long time to warm up, where the Commercial Electric bulbs were instantaneously bright. I will say that I replaced both my front flood lights and back porch light with some 23 watt CFLs (100 watt equivalent light output) and they're great when it's warm, but take several minutes to reach full brightness when it's cold out (and I mean cold as-in Texas cold, I don't know if they would ever reach full brightness in say, Michigan or someplace where it gets REALLY cold) so you might consider something other than CFLs for outside lights. Did it make a difference on my electicity bill? It's hard to say since our electricity rate keeps going up, but I assume I would have had an even bigger bill had I not changed the bulbs. Especially when you consider that all my ceiling fans have 4 bulbs each and they all went from 60w incandescent (total of 240w) to 12w CFCs (total of 48w) it's probably making a difference. BTW: I did this about 2 years ago and have not had even one of the CFL bulbs go out or break (out of about 65 bulbs).
Although it's worth noting that a properly written kernel COULD theoretically dynamically distribute "SPU tasks" between the SPUs, you're right that it's up to the application running on the "full" core to do that. Each of the SPUs inherently doesn't do anything until it has its instruction set code sent to it from the full core. What I could see happening is a generic SPU instruction set that could (for example) run a subset of a VM instruction set so that certain types of VM threads could execute on one of a set of, say 4 SPUs per Cell processor (while the other SPUs could remain dedicated to memory management or IO processing). That would allow applications that did not in themselves include SPU code to take advantage of the SPUs beyond just OS level operations. Unfortunately making an SPU run anything generic sort of defeats the purpose of the SPU in the first place (highly optimized instruction sets) but it would still be better than the SPUs just sitting there dormant since most developers probably won't be writing custom SPU instruction set code. On true multi-core chips though, the solution is really simple. Breaking large tasks into multiple threads will inherently take advantage of both multiple processors and multiple cores on each processor. There's a certain amount of performance hit taken in any thread context switch, so you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by launching 200 threads when your typical user is going to have 2 cores, but it's easy enough in code to query the number of physical cores you have on the system and distribute the load accordingly (for a non-Server app I'd suggest MaxWorkerThreads = NumCores * 4 which seems to give a decent balance between using the cores and hyperthreading without wasting a lot of time context switching).
Although I think the iPod has been great in terms of user experience and form factor (especially the Nano) I think Apple's proprietary... well... everything really - would be bad for the market overall. I think Napster in particular with their subscription model all-you-can-eat plan is helping drive things forward, which we probably would never have seen if Apple controlled all the strings. Apple still has Lost exclusively (and no HD version) as well as other shut-out deals they've made like the Harry Potter books. I love their products, but I don't really care for their pricing and DRM strategies. Microsoft almost always does their best work when they're the underdog (XBox 360, Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones) and they're certainly most agressive on new features when they're not the market leader, so MS will probably drive the overall digital audio market much more agressively when they're not teamed with Apple (and vice-versa). The other good thing about MS being a competitor to Apple is that they are very good about letting other companies have a chance of competing against Apple without completely ignoring the DRM issues. Sure there would be MP3 players out there, but there would be little-to-none legal digital audio outside of Apple if Microsoft didn't enable all the other smaller hardware manufacturers to group together behind a single DRM standard. I will say I'm still scratching my head on the Zune, though. I don't understand why it doesn't do WiFi OTA purchasing from day 1. That's the next logical step for the market and it's the one area where MS could have really been the leader. It also would have forced Apple's hand on addressing the OTA issue which would be great for consumers. Viva le competition!
The HDMI connection from the 360 will be a cable just like the component and VGA cables are today. It will need to have a little more hardware to it where it connects to the 360 so that it can process the HDMI key exchange protocol, but should connect to the existing universal output just fine. As I understand it the software patch will include a new video driver for the ATI card in the 360 so that it will upscale to 1080p as well as the current 1080i from any source, but that in fact games could be written to do 1080p native (which would then scale down to 720p, 480p, SD or VGA depending on the cable connected). I'm worried that MS is going to try to charge more than $50 for their HDMI cable since it will have the extra hardware, but I hope they're smart enough to realize this would push more people towards PS3 (since you can buy a straight HDMI-HDMI cable for about $50). BTW: I hope Sony's smart enough to make this cut in the US. I was DEFINITELY not planning on getting a PS3 but the 20G system would look pretty attractive to me at $399. I don't want he WiFi (I use 802.11a instead of 802.11g) and don't care about the memory cards, and hopefully the HD can be upgraded to a non-Sony drive so we could pop in a 160GB drive. That would make a pretty compelling system.
They're on to something here (duplicate royalties aside) but trying to make the Blu-Ray side translucent is a bad idea when the other side already IS translucent! Putting a Blu-Ray on the flip side of a 3 layer disk (2 layers of HD-DVD, 1 of DVD) would be a good move though, and they could just let the Blu-Ray side be Blu-Ray - This would probably not work with a dual layer Blu-Ray anyway, which they will hopefully eventually come out with to get above 25GB on a disk. Personally, I really do hate double-sided disks though. I like to keep my movies in a CD holder instead of their cases so I can take them with me. When all the disks look alike (ie no silk-screen image on the top side) it's a real pain trying to tell them apart. I've pretty much decided on HD-DVD... I can't imagine that Toshiba is charging anywhere near what Sony would charge (being Sony) and I like the idea that I won't be paying for the studios to invest in new hardware to manufacture the disks since they can use standard DVD burners to pump out HD-DVD disks.
This is great news and I'm excited that they are doing it, but they're not quite there yet. They need 4 layers so they can do a dual layer DVD and a dual layer HD-DVD and they will win this thing. Unfortunately the DVD market is already used to getting a dual-layer product so the quality and extra features can't just take a hit on existing players without people noticing. At the same time, 15GB, while it's big for a SD picture, isn't enough room for a HD picture, even without extra features. On the other hand, on a normal sized (let's say "smaller than 42") SD TV, it might be possible to make an acceptable looking picture in a single layer DVD (since everyone with an HD-TV will probably want the HD-DVD anyway). I've pretty much decided on HD-DVD already. I'm tired of Sony formats and especially Sony prices. This is just one more illustration of how new these new formats are, and the fact that they are still discovering features they can add of this magnitude, it really makes me NOT want to be an early adopter. If studios are smart enough to charge the same for one of these new disks as they do for a standard DVD (maybe Toshiba would have to waive some royalty for the first year to make it happen), I think most people would buy the new format if they're going to spend the money on the DVD anyway.
Show all modifications, but clearly show modifications that have not yet been through an editorial review. Also, when a user makes repeated erroneous additions that are surfaced through review, restrict their ability to contribute in the future, though to make that work there would have to be an incentive to keep one account instead of multiples, something like an ebay scoring system. Just some thoughts...
I AM a Sony fanboy - I love my PSP - and although I was planning on it originally I won't be buying a PS3. I got a 360 and I'll get a Wii if it's under $200 but the PS3 didn't really impress me. Certainly not enough to spend $600 + extended warranty (I went through FIVE PS2's over the years because they kept breaking - if the PS3 comes with a 90 day warranty that's a huge red flag btw) + tax + 1 game + 1 extra controller and it's going to cost at LEAST $800 - that's just way too much. And I don't buy their statements about the Internet play being free. They'll either offload everything to 3rd party servers like they did with the PS2 or they'll have their own servers which will cost them enough that they'll start charging for it (especially when you factor in tech support). I do have an HDMI TV too, and yes I do want hi-res movies but I can't help thinking that every movie studio that produces a movie on BluRay is putting money into Sony (a competitor in the movie industry) vs. HD-DVD where the money goes to Toshiba (not a competitor). When you remember that they can manufacture HD-DVD disks for under one dollar, I just don't see how Blu-Ray can win this one (even though the storage capacity is really good). I also will believe it when I see it about BluRay disks resisting scratches. If I can take a key to a BluRay disk and not be able to scratch it maybe then I'll buy in to that format. But again, I love my PSP :)
If capacity is the most important issue, neither format is large enough. Even BluRay will only hold about 2 hours of video at 1080i (of course they can crank up the compression as needed). The best solution I've seen is a third format - holographic disc (http://www.engadget.com/entry/9772446245622191) which stores multiple bytes per cell instead of single bits. They can put about 1 terrabyte on a disk, and Toshiba just became an investor in Optware (the Japanese company that owns the technology) http://www.optware.co.jp/english/index_what.htm ... Things could get interesting if Toshiba (one of the main companies behind HD-DVD) suddenly backs a format with 20 times Blu-Ray's capacity.