Yes this is Bethesda, but it's Microsoft's distribution system and the Xbox 360 platform will be hurt by this in the longrun if they keep allowing developers to ship stripped-down games in hopes of selling content later.
Sure you don't NEED to buy horse armor for $2.50, but watch what happens then with games like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. It shipped with 10 multiplayer maps. Previous Ghost Recon games all came with at least twice as many. What do you want to bet that they have a bunch more maps sitting around that they could have put on the game disc, but are now waiting to sell online instead?
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with the Marketplace "microtransaction" model. It's making it too easy for companies to hold back features from their games, then sell them to you through Xbox Live. They just released an add-on for Oblivion, a game that has been out no more than 2 weeks. It puts armor on your horse, and they want $2.50 for it. If marketplace wasn't there, how much do you want to bet that it would have been included on the ($60) game disc? Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter has the same problem - they only shipped it with 10 multiplayer maps (previous generations of Ghost Recon came with more than twice that). I'll bet they start selling the rest online soon enough.
If it becomes commonplace that Xbox 360 games come with fewer features or options than previous generation games and you have to pay to unlock the rest, you can bet Sony will take full advantage.
The tagging system is still experimental.. They're working on ways to improve it. Users abusing the feature will only lead to a better system in the long run. So if people want to tag every other article as "gay" or every pro-MS article as "fud" then I say let them.
Everything in this article is heresay and wouldn't be let anywhere near a trial. If Paul Allen wants to testify, fine, but it doesn't sound like he has any desire to do so.
Cerberus Help Desk. There's a pretty simple web GUI, or you can tell your users to email issues to a support mail address and it'll enter them into the tracking system automatically. There's a free version that's 100% functional, except that it's limited to a single email address/ticket queue. For your purposes that sounds like that's enough.
People need to RTFA before submitting... The article specifically says this does NOT get around any kind of security measures present in the 360, and that this doesn't bring them any closer to running homebrew content or bypassing the 360's copy protection and DRM measures.
There are plenty of USB-based Smartcards out there. Not sure about Linux drivers, but they work great with Windows.
The problem with Biometrics is that if somebody does manage to forge your credentials, it's very difficult to change your "password" (fingerprint/retina/etc).
I work in a *very* big company (can't say right now, in the office... but we're possibly the biggest on Earth by at least one metric) and recently the focus is on LAMP for servers, intranets and databases.
If the company's that big, then you're pretty much guaranteed to have at least one of everything somewhere within the organization. No Fortune 50 company would standardize on LAMP for all of their systems either - it just doesn't scale well enough yet. MySQL in particular is a lightweight when compared to Oracle or UDB (or even PostgreSQL in many ways).
In any case, the article is talking about their SAP system.
If Skype weren't a bug-ridden, crash-happy P.O.S. I might be more sympathetic. Right now they rate up there with Real as a company that deserves to get steamrolled.
It's probably something like the HDCP that you find on newer digital HDTV sets. The bitstream betweeen video card and monitor is encrypted so you can't record a digital copy of the data by intercepting the video signal.
Try browsing through your LAN switch's MAC address tables.. The manufacturer ID on the WAP will probably be different than most of your other computers' network cards.
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Yes this is Bethesda, but it's Microsoft's distribution system and the Xbox 360 platform will be hurt by this in the longrun if they keep allowing developers to ship stripped-down games in hopes of selling content later.
Sure you don't NEED to buy horse armor for $2.50, but watch what happens then with games like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. It shipped with 10 multiplayer maps. Previous Ghost Recon games all came with at least twice as many. What do you want to bet that they have a bunch more maps sitting around that they could have put on the game disc, but are now waiting to sell online instead?
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with the Marketplace "microtransaction" model. It's making it too easy for companies to hold back features from their games, then sell them to you through Xbox Live. They just released an add-on for Oblivion, a game that has been out no more than 2 weeks. It puts armor on your horse, and they want $2.50 for it. If marketplace wasn't there, how much do you want to bet that it would have been included on the ($60) game disc? Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter has the same problem - they only shipped it with 10 multiplayer maps (previous generations of Ghost Recon came with more than twice that). I'll bet they start selling the rest online soon enough.
If it becomes commonplace that Xbox 360 games come with fewer features or options than previous generation games and you have to pay to unlock the rest, you can bet Sony will take full advantage.
"3Com" tag gets filtered out..
Here's some good insight on how reliable a source he is: PBS analyst falsely claims Stanford Ph.D
The tagging system is still experimental.. They're working on ways to improve it. Users abusing the feature will only lead to a better system in the long run. So if people want to tag every other article as "gay" or every pro-MS article as "fud" then I say let them.
Everything in this article is heresay and wouldn't be let anywhere near a trial. If Paul Allen wants to testify, fine, but it doesn't sound like he has any desire to do so.
You're ok as long as you didn't have that reaction to the "OMG BARBIE LINUX LOL!!1!!!!" headline...
As long as there is no "hot coffee" mod....
Getting the Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Ya, it's not technically an RPG but it's a great quest.
That brings a whole new meaning to "Boom Headshot!"
Cerberus Help Desk. There's a pretty simple web GUI, or you can tell your users to email issues to a support mail address and it'll enter them into the tracking system automatically. There's a free version that's 100% functional, except that it's limited to a single email address/ticket queue. For your purposes that sounds like that's enough.
[+] Tinfoil, helmet
People need to RTFA before submitting... The article specifically says this does NOT get around any kind of security measures present in the 360, and that this doesn't bring them any closer to running homebrew content or bypassing the 360's copy protection and DRM measures.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-09,GGLD:en&q=windows+ins tallation+cd+with+recent+updates
Where are you getting $20m? He's given nearly $30 BILLION dollars to his foundation...And your math is waaaay off.
If that doesn't, then this certainly does... http://media.putfile.com/Lady-Goes-Crazy-on-Tradin g-Spouses
There are plenty of USB-based Smartcards out there. Not sure about Linux drivers, but they work great with Windows.
The problem with Biometrics is that if somebody does manage to forge your credentials, it's very difficult to change your "password" (fingerprint/retina/etc).
Wrong. The article says that the CIO nixed the switch to Linux, but the article does not say that the CIO will return to UNIX.
They never left UNIX in the first place.
RTFA moron..The platform they're going back to is UNIX.
Or it other words, this guy just doesn't know how to secure a Linux system, or support it with any tech know how.
Yeah because the UNIX system that they were going to convert from is so much easier to use.....
I work in a *very* big company (can't say right now, in the office... but we're possibly the biggest on Earth by at least one metric) and recently the focus is on LAMP for servers, intranets and databases.
If the company's that big, then you're pretty much guaranteed to have at least one of everything somewhere within the organization. No Fortune 50 company would standardize on LAMP for all of their systems either - it just doesn't scale well enough yet. MySQL in particular is a lightweight when compared to Oracle or UDB (or even PostgreSQL in many ways). In any case, the article is talking about their SAP system.
If Skype weren't a bug-ridden, crash-happy P.O.S. I might be more sympathetic. Right now they rate up there with Real as a company that deserves to get steamrolled.
What is a secure monitor?
It's probably something like the HDCP that you find on newer digital HDTV sets. The bitstream betweeen video card and monitor is encrypted so you can't record a digital copy of the data by intercepting the video signal.
Try browsing through your LAN switch's MAC address tables.. The manufacturer ID on the WAP will probably be different than most of your other computers' network cards.