This all seems interesting, but a bit pricey if you ask me. I can copy shows from my TiVo to my PC on the home network and watch them on the PC without paying another nickel. In the U.S. at least, I think LocationFree TV is going to be up against some stiff competition in the form of TiVo To Go.
If the hype is to be believed, getting an Xbox 360 this XMas may be a long shot. So what are Ma and Pop who don't really know a lot about gaming, going to do? Why they'll just pick up a regular Xbox of course for a lot less money. There undoubtedly will be some coat tails sales of the first Xbox, even more if they cut prices. But don't expect any marketing of this from Microsoft. PS 2 sales may benefit too, but since the kids will be all, Xbox this and Xbox that, the old Xbox stands a better shot of getting some more sales this way.
This is just another reminder that this is rocket science and isn't an easy thing to pull off. I can't help but wonder how easy or difficult it is for more experienced groups like NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to share information and expertise with newer groups. For purely scientific missions like this, global collaboration would probably have helped a lot. Not that there wasn't any of that at all, but I do wonder.
In any case, I hope they won't be soured on future missions. Failures are just a part of the learning process.
I'm guessing that they're going for a Battlestar Galactica style re-imagining. So maybe Number 6 will be a woman this time! I must say though that the new Battlestar Galactica has become one of my favorite shows, so there is a chance that something good can come from a Prisoner remake.
I think the ad supported Windows idea could work. But to sweeten the pot a little, there should be a discount or commission if the user actually clicks the ad and buys something. Jane User out there might not mind ads on the computer if it makes buying something less expensive than doing it the old fashioned way. From another angle, perhaps the computer retailer could get a commission when users of computers they sell click ads and buy something.
This might actually be of some good use in hospital settings as a replacement for PDAs (which are too small) or Tablet PCs, which are needlessly complex. I've been pushing web based forms for clinical research data entry for which a device like this would be perfect because it doesn't require making the forms microscopic and this internet tablet is much cheaper than a Tablet PC. I also found that Tablet PCs tend to run hot and are still a bit too heavy for the typical nurse to lug around for too long. Unfortunately, hospitals tend to be very Windows-centric, so this will still be a hard sell.
I'm actually rather impressed because emulation is no small technological feat or at least what they've done probably didn't come easy or cheap. As far as marketing goes, they've accomplished enough to legitimately claim that the 360 can play your old games. Remember, even the PS2 cannot play all of the old PSOne games.
Anyway, I think the real fun will begin when the homebrew Playstation 2 emulators for Xbox 360 start making the rounds. And lets not forget MAME!
Too much time on my hands. I got too much time on my hands...
That Styx song was the first thing to come to mind, but heck, watching all six films simultaneously is actually quite a time saver. In the hurried future, perhaps this will be the preferred mode of receiving entertainment! Hmmm, where did I put those Star Trek Season One DVDs?
[In my best Curly imitation]: Hey! I resemble that remark...nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Seriously, most of the time I prefer to play female characters in FFXI because they look nice and I feel like it brings some balance to the gender proportions of the game world, even if most of those females are males in real life.
Most of the time the question of rl gender doesn't come up, but if it does I just tell the truth, that's just my style.
The never ending battle of maintaining TPM is just standard operating procedure. Apple certainly is not counting on that to protect their profits because even with a hardware piece in the finished x86 Macs, hardware can be hacked and cloned too. Don't be too surprised if there are reports of knockoff x86 Mac clones in east Asia once the new Macs hit the streets. So why keep up the battle? It's mostly political/diplomatic I would guess, the same reasoning behind the copy limits in iTunes. Anyone with a little knowledge can get around the copy limits in iTunes, but Apple has to keep them in there to keep RIAA happy.
Either way, Apple can win. If x86 Macs and the OS are widely cloned and pirated, they gain marketshare relative to Windows and then go nuts cracking down on the cloners and pirates. Some portion of the masses hooked on the pirated MacOS become paying customers and on the development side, more software is created to serve greater demand. Played right, there's definitely money to be made. But of course they can't be too obvious about this since pissing off Microsoft at this stage would not be a good thing.
I found the Leapster to be a great toy for my own 4 year old little gamer. The games are a very good replacement for the PC edutainment you'd typically find for the under 7 crowd, but without the hassle of installing it. A lot of edutainment titles I've encountered don't age well on the PC. That is, upgrading sound and video often breaks the older games which were designed with low end hardware in mind and sometimes simply won't work higher resolutions. And the form factor of the Leapster is a good intro to what they'll later encounter graduating to Gameboys and other consoles. The games are pretty much just pick up and play using the touch screen and stylus never posed any problems either. The one downside is that the Leapster eats batteries like crazy, so I'd definitely buy the charging unit. Too bad the Leapster isn't an open platform, it uses Flash and I'd love to code some stuff on it!
Well actually FFXI is coming to the 360, so I guess they worked out how PlayOnline and XBL are going to get along. I don't think there are current plans for voice support though.
Anyway, I think Sony is hurting themselves a bit by not at least having a central service as an option or hub if you will. I think it's more likely that they simply haven't had the time to plan and test such a service thanks to Microsoft forcing the move to a new generation of hardware earlier than Sony would have liked given the money that the PS2 continues to bring in for them.
Well it just looks like Microsoft is making use of what marketing research seems to be telling us about human behaviour. Things that are in short supply, no matter the cause, tend to be valued more. There also seem to be more than enough hardcore gamers to create buzz on the first day no matter how much those first 20 360s cost or what the bundles are. You'd think that if people know they're being manipulated this way, they would choose not to participate, but in the end, people want what they want. So it really doesn't matter how artificial the manipulation is, some shops are still going to be mobbed.
But, given all of the above, they could still come out weak like the PSP launch if they're not careful. As the mantra goes, it's the games that really matter. If they get things like Perfect Dark Zero out on launch day then they've got a shot at a strong launch, if not there will be plenty of 360s on the shelves on days two and three.
Hasn't the idea of promoting a service based on access to a lot of copyright protected material placed on the internet illegally been bashed and trashed soundly in the courts? I just don't see how a service like GUBA which charges for access can avoid being sued out of existence by *AA. They really cannot claim not to know that much of the material is protected by copyright. Of course, Google can't claim that either, but Google doesn't charge a fee for access and doesn't promote said material as a reason to use their services.
Hah! I like the idea of GORM and I hope that we'll see something similar for KDE and Gnome. The choice of desktop environment is one of the things I like about Linux, even if it touches off holy wars every now and then. In the end I think these wars will result in a better desktop experience not only for Linux users, but Windows users as well since Microsoft isn't above stealing good ideas for themselves. Oh, what about Mac users you say? The Mac desktop is already perfect, nothing needed there!;-)
and after hours the site even serves up alcoholic beverages
And if these are being served up by lovely hostesses as well, it's time to buy a ticket to Tokyo! I wonder if they'll play games with the guests as well, video games that is...
The risk of theft for the device is definitely greater than that of say a laptop simply because the iPod is more popular and probably more easily converted to cash. But the risk can be minimized by taking care not to store information that can be used to identify individual patients. Using patient id numbers as keys to lookup tables which would be stored in a central database in a secure server. I don't know how much patient info is stored in the current data format right now, but in the U.S. at least there are definitely HIPAA matters that have to be considered. Another issue is the fact that because iPods can store so much information, they've been banned from use in a number of corporations for security reasons and it is likely that a number of hospitals may take a similar view.
Hmmm, I'd always suspected that my DSL connection, and I use that term loosely these days, sucked. Here in the big city, I think that Cable broadband is eventually going to beat out DSL if SBC's failure to keep up in the speed and quality race is any indication. But out in the sticks, who knows?
This law seems reasonably well intentioned, but as with internet sales taxes it will be hard to enforce via state laws. And of course for sellers outside of the U.S., forget it. Wouldn't it be better for states to make this a voluntary certification rather than a law. Sellers that have gone through the certification process could use it as additional proof of trustworthiness and the state doesn't have to waste resources trying to enforce a law that may be inherently unenforceable for internet commerce.
This stuff is just beautiful. It makes me miss doing physics all the more. I was taught that ultimately we were just building models to explain and predict the real world and not to confuse the model with reality, whatever that is. But I've always had a thing for lovely models!
Slashdot Mirror
This all seems interesting, but a bit pricey if you ask me. I can copy shows from my TiVo to my PC on the home network and watch them on the PC without paying another nickel. In the U.S. at least, I think LocationFree TV is going to be up against some stiff competition in the form of TiVo To Go.
If the hype is to be believed, getting an Xbox 360 this XMas may be a long shot. So what are Ma and Pop who don't really know a lot about gaming, going to do? Why they'll just pick up a regular Xbox of course for a lot less money. There undoubtedly will be some coat tails sales of the first Xbox, even more if they cut prices. But don't expect any marketing of this from Microsoft. PS 2 sales may benefit too, but since the kids will be all, Xbox this and Xbox that, the old Xbox stands a better shot of getting some more sales this way.
This is just another reminder that this is rocket science and isn't an easy thing to pull off. I can't help but wonder how easy or difficult it is for more experienced groups like NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to share information and expertise with newer groups. For purely scientific missions like this, global collaboration would probably have helped a lot. Not that there wasn't any of that at all, but I do wonder.
In any case, I hope they won't be soured on future missions. Failures are just a part of the learning process.
I'm guessing that they're going for a Battlestar Galactica style re-imagining. So maybe Number 6 will be a woman this time! I must say though that the new Battlestar Galactica has become one of my favorite shows, so there is a chance that something good can come from a Prisoner remake.
Be seeing y....oh never mind...
I think the ad supported Windows idea could work. But to sweeten the pot a little, there should be a discount or commission if the user actually clicks the ad and buys something. Jane User out there might not mind ads on the computer if it makes buying something less expensive than doing it the old fashioned way. From another angle, perhaps the computer retailer could get a commission when users of computers they sell click ads and buy something.
This might actually be of some good use in hospital settings as a replacement for PDAs (which are too small) or Tablet PCs, which are needlessly complex. I've been pushing web based forms for clinical research data entry for which a device like this would be perfect because it doesn't require making the forms microscopic and this internet tablet is much cheaper than a Tablet PC. I also found that Tablet PCs tend to run hot and are still a bit too heavy for the typical nurse to lug around for too long. Unfortunately, hospitals tend to be very Windows-centric, so this will still be a hard sell.
I'm actually rather impressed because emulation is no small technological feat or at least what they've done probably didn't come easy or cheap. As far as marketing goes, they've accomplished enough to legitimately claim that the 360 can play your old games. Remember, even the PS2 cannot play all of the old PSOne games.
Anyway, I think the real fun will begin when the homebrew Playstation 2 emulators for Xbox 360 start making the rounds. And lets not forget MAME!
Too much time on my hands. I got too much time on my hands...
That Styx song was the first thing to come to mind, but heck, watching all six films simultaneously is actually quite a time saver. In the hurried future, perhaps this will be the preferred mode of receiving entertainment! Hmmm, where did I put those Star Trek Season One DVDs?
With weekly Jump magazine weighing in at @ 500 pages the comic section would be bigger than the paper.....
Would that be a bad thing? Sign me up!
Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls.
[In my best Curly imitation]: Hey! I resemble that remark...nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Seriously, most of the time I prefer to play female characters in FFXI because they look nice and I feel like it brings some balance to the gender proportions of the game world, even if most of those females are males in real life.
Most of the time the question of rl gender doesn't come up, but if it does I just tell the truth, that's just my style.
The never ending battle of maintaining TPM is just standard operating procedure. Apple certainly is not counting on that to protect their profits because even with a hardware piece in the finished x86 Macs, hardware can be hacked and cloned too. Don't be too surprised if there are reports of knockoff x86 Mac clones in east Asia once the new Macs hit the streets. So why keep up the battle? It's mostly political/diplomatic I would guess, the same reasoning behind the copy limits in iTunes. Anyone with a little knowledge can get around the copy limits in iTunes, but Apple has to keep them in there to keep RIAA happy.
Either way, Apple can win. If x86 Macs and the OS are widely cloned and pirated, they gain marketshare relative to Windows and then go nuts cracking down on the cloners and pirates. Some portion of the masses hooked on the pirated MacOS become paying customers and on the development side, more software is created to serve greater demand. Played right, there's definitely money to be made. But of course they can't be too obvious about this since pissing off Microsoft at this stage would not be a good thing.
This reminds me of the old Reeses commercials...
Sony: Hey! Your spyware's in my rootkit!
Blizzard: Your rootkit's in my spyware!
User (taking a bite): Mmmm, now that's good computing! So liberating...
Announcer Don Pardo: Two great tastes that go together.
I found the Leapster to be a great toy for my own 4 year old little gamer. The games are a very good replacement for the PC edutainment you'd typically find for the under 7 crowd, but without the hassle of installing it. A lot of edutainment titles I've encountered don't age well on the PC. That is, upgrading sound and video often breaks the older games which were designed with low end hardware in mind and sometimes simply won't work higher resolutions. And the form factor of the Leapster is a good intro to what they'll later encounter graduating to Gameboys and other consoles. The games are pretty much just pick up and play using the touch screen and stylus never posed any problems either. The one downside is that the Leapster eats batteries like crazy, so I'd definitely buy the charging unit. Too bad the Leapster isn't an open platform, it uses Flash and I'd love to code some stuff on it!
Well actually FFXI is coming to the 360, so I guess they worked out how PlayOnline and XBL are going to get along. I don't think there are current plans for voice support though.
Anyway, I think Sony is hurting themselves a bit by not at least having a central service as an option or hub if you will. I think it's more likely that they simply haven't had the time to plan and test such a service thanks to Microsoft forcing the move to a new generation of hardware earlier than Sony would have liked given the money that the PS2 continues to bring in for them.
Well it just looks like Microsoft is making use of what marketing research seems to be telling us about human behaviour. Things that are in short supply, no matter the cause, tend to be valued more. There also seem to be more than enough hardcore gamers to create buzz on the first day no matter how much those first 20 360s cost or what the bundles are. You'd think that if people know they're being manipulated this way, they would choose not to participate, but in the end, people want what they want. So it really doesn't matter how artificial the manipulation is, some shops are still going to be mobbed.
But, given all of the above, they could still come out weak like the PSP launch if they're not careful. As the mantra goes, it's the games that really matter. If they get things like Perfect Dark Zero out on launch day then they've got a shot at a strong launch, if not there will be plenty of 360s on the shelves on days two and three.
Hasn't the idea of promoting a service based on access to a lot of copyright protected material placed on the internet illegally been bashed and trashed soundly in the courts? I just don't see how a service like GUBA which charges for access can avoid being sued out of existence by *AA. They really cannot claim not to know that much of the material is protected by copyright. Of course, Google can't claim that either, but Google doesn't charge a fee for access and doesn't promote said material as a reason to use their services.
Hah! I like the idea of GORM and I hope that we'll see something similar for KDE and Gnome. The choice of desktop environment is one of the things I like about Linux, even if it touches off holy wars every now and then. In the end I think these wars will result in a better desktop experience not only for Linux users, but Windows users as well since Microsoft isn't above stealing good ideas for themselves. Oh, what about Mac users you say? The Mac desktop is already perfect, nothing needed there! ;-)
(uh that last bit was a joke...)
and after hours the site even serves up alcoholic beverages
And if these are being served up by lovely hostesses as well, it's time to buy a ticket to Tokyo! I wonder if they'll play games with the guests as well, video games that is...
The risk of theft for the device is definitely greater than that of say a laptop simply because the iPod is more popular and probably more easily converted to cash. But the risk can be minimized by taking care not to store information that can be used to identify individual patients. Using patient id numbers as keys to lookup tables which would be stored in a central database in a secure server. I don't know how much patient info is stored in the current data format right now, but in the U.S. at least there are definitely HIPAA matters that have to be considered. Another issue is the fact that because iPods can store so much information, they've been banned from use in a number of corporations for security reasons and it is likely that a number of hospitals may take a similar view.
I can stop any time I want...I just read it for the articles...and it keeps the weight off...yeah, that's it...
Hmmm, I'd always suspected that my DSL connection, and I use that term loosely these days, sucked. Here in the big city, I think that Cable broadband is eventually going to beat out DSL if SBC's failure to keep up in the speed and quality race is any indication. But out in the sticks, who knows?
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I'm a woman's man: no time to talk.
I guess now I will have time to talk afterall!
Ah ah ah ah stayin' alive!
This law seems reasonably well intentioned, but as with internet sales taxes it will be hard to enforce via state laws. And of course for sellers outside of the U.S., forget it. Wouldn't it be better for states to make this a voluntary certification rather than a law. Sellers that have gone through the certification process could use it as additional proof of trustworthiness and the state doesn't have to waste resources trying to enforce a law that may be inherently unenforceable for internet commerce.
God: Uh, you know I invented the human genome right after I created the rest of the cosmos.
Patent Officer: (Head down scribbling.) Did you file the proper paperwork?
God: No.
Patent Officer: (Head still down.) Sorry. I can't help you. Perhaps you can purchase a license from the patent holders.
God: (Turns around and leaves.)
All fades out...forever...
This stuff is just beautiful. It makes me miss doing physics all the more. I was taught that ultimately we were just building models to explain and predict the real world and not to confuse the model with reality, whatever that is. But I've always had a thing for lovely models!