Given that most movies based on video games suck, a delay in the Doom movie can only be a good thing! More worrisome is all of the free publicity said likely bad movie will get because of the "link" to the Columbine shootings. All of that said, maybe it will be a good show afterall. The first Mortal Kombat movie was pretty good, so there's at least a little hope... Yeah...
It's nice that China and India are settling their differences, but I don't really think that workers in the U.S. have much to worry about in the long run. Why? Because I think that if the slide in quality that I've been seeing continues, the pendulum of outsourcing will swing back to the U.S.. I don't want to be mean, but frankly the cheap hardware coming out of China has been pretty low in quality. In my own experiences, I'm seeing a greater incidence of dead on arrival electronics, enough that I've begun to actively avoid electronics that say anything on them about being made in China. As for India, who hasn't seen the increasing numbers of stories regarding software and desk support outsourcing nightmares?
Now in all fairness, there are Chinese and Indian companies producing high quality products, but these are not cheap and those companies are the leading tail of the bell shaped curve. If quality continues to be a problem for companies in the bump and the trailing edge, then U.S. workers will get another chance. Of course this all assumes that consumers actually care about quality...
The rise of in-game adverstising is just more proof that video games have arrived on the scene as mainstream entertainment in the same way as movies and television. People are going to complain at first,"why should I pay $50 for a game and have to suffer ads?" But don't we already pay in excess of $50 per month on average for cable tv and still have to watch ads? Advertising is not going to go away, and the fact that a large and desireable demographic is spending a lot of time playing video games rather than watching tv plus the rising cost of game production, means that in-game ads are inevitable.
The real fun will be seeing how creative in-game ads will (or won't) be. Sports games should be fairly straight forward, but MMORPGs will likely be a real challenge. I don't think we'll see the Nike sword exactly, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see a logo on something more appropriate like footgear, and then only in the equipment or inventory view. The really clever may create new in-game brands linked to real world brands via NPCs in some fashion. Heck there might even be complete branded missions (shudder shudder)!
I don't think Sony would go to the trouble of getting the patents if they didn't have something that was at least in the early design stages. Remember, Sony makes more than just the Playstation and its home market of Japan is full of competitors selling all sorts of fanciful electronics, many of which never see U.S. shores. For example, in east Asia you'll find all sorts of items with magnets in them for purported therapeutic benefits, shoes, mattresses, etc.. So why shouldn't Sony market an ultrasonic pillow that helps you relax after a hard day of work or dealmaking at the bar after work;-). The pillow would have different settings that could stimulate various relaxing smells or sensations. This is just one possibility that really doesn't require a lot of R&D to take to market depending on the laws governing such claims in that market which appear to be somewhat more lax than those in the U.S.. Yes, the R&D is not insignificant, but engineering an ultrasonic pillow should be easier than something like a game controller which needs to respond to in game situations in a consistent fashion.
Eventually the technology may make its way into game controllers, but I doubt that is where it will be seen first. I'll be watching for Sony branded pillows, mattresses, and rave caps for the hip crowd. Mmmmmm, I can smell those colors now!
My PhD is in Physics, I've worked in IT in various capacities, including software development, for the last several years now. The research background coupled with the IT work helped me get my current bioinformatics position. From what I've seen, I would say make sure that you get a heavy dose of statistics training with your mathematics because you're going to need it! I work closely with a biostatistician to implement computer analyses and have learned a lot in the process, but more statistics in grad school would have helped!
Now call me biased, but I think my Physics training has helped me think about problems in code and science, so I think it would be a nice addition to your biological studies. Heh, we physicists always think we can do anything!
I remember when I first heard of Python back in grad school. I wondered what would become of it, but didn't have time to deal with it at the time, after all FORTRAN was teh cool, right? Lately, since I started using Zope, which is written in Python, and more recently Plone, which is built on Zope, I've really gained a great appreciation for Python because it really has made building sophisticated logic for web apps a lot easier than some alternatives. Now admittedly, I did not choose any of these because I heard they were easy or even cool, I stumbled into Zope because of an app, OIO, that I thought I could build on for another project. Later I heard about Plone and decided that I could build an easier to use portal for clinical investigators using that rather than PHP based solutions like PHP-Nuke. Python was just the icing on the cake as I discovered how much I could do with it.
Well I guess this makes it official! If people are willing to kill over the assets of or money obtained from video games, I guess that makes them as mainstream as sports, movies, or anything else people may have a murderous passion for! I wonder how long it will be before Gov Rod B. in Illinois or Senator Clinton picks up on this story? Actually, the worst case for them would be if China decides to unleash a new crack down on cybercafes and video games. I'd love to see the politicians start to squirm at being on the same side of an issue as the oft criticized government of China!
As for the men involved in the case, I would guess that they had had issues before this latest problem. Yeah, the money is the issue here and trust, but they were probably already on the edge.
This sounds like typical Sony behavior. Wasn't there a problem with the first batch of Playstations overheating that Sony tried to ignore and finally, probably at the nudging of large U.S. retailers, began to address? I'm guessing that retailers like Best Buy and WalMart have enough clout to force Sony to change their position. Afterall, consumers are going to return what they think is defective merchandise regardless of what the manufacturer says. That means angry people at the returns section of Best Buy or WalMart, which means unhappy managers and execs. Since WalMart basically runs the world now, when they complain to Sony, Sony listens.
In Sony's defense though, they usually clear up problems with new products without a year or so of introduction. That's one reason I'm in no hurry to buy a PSP right now.
Heh heh heh! It doesn't really matter because there is no political downside to jumping on the ban violent video games for kids bandwagon. The radlibs as you call them will still vote for HC for the same reason they begrudgingly voted for John Kerry, no other good choices. In the meantime, any laws that ban the sales of violent video games to kids will be found unconstitutional, so no losses there. Then the politicians get bonus points (like killin a hooker in GTA after sex) by complaining about the judiciary! Gravy for everyone! So slick Bill will be proud!
But it's theater man! In this age of banal reality shows, surely this is worth some risk!
Seriously though, it looks like the study has revealed the 21st century equivalent of strangers offering candy to children to entice them to enter their cars. Interestingly enough, web saavy kids may well turn out to be less likely to give away vital information. Mine have told me of all sorts of schemes that people use to scam people out of id info on neopets and gaiaonline. Granted, before they went on the internet, I warned them not to give out personal info, it's still good to see that they are being smart out there!
Oh yeah! Let's get the kids hooked on MMORPGs as early as possible! LOL That said, I think I'd love Pokemon Online, especially if you get a chance to kick Pichachu's butt at some point!
Sorry, but DRM isn't going to go away. So if it must be here, then it will have to be something that doesn't detract from the end user experience. Most people aren't interested in massive piracy of copyrighted works and will interpret obtrusive DRM as broken media and return it to the place of purchase. In this sense, the market will sort out what the best way to implement DRM is going to be. So far, I think Apple's scheme is on the right track because it lets the consumer (the average consumer that is) do pretty much all of the things that he or she might want to do if they bought a CD at physical retail outlet. This is just fine for 9 out of 10 people. Yes Apple's DRM can be hacked by those determined to do so, but that is true of any DRM and will always be true. Nothing is going to stop determined pirates. That's just a fact of business.
In the end, I think DRM will evolve as it should as long as the government keeps its hands out of it. This is a market issue, nothing about public safety or national security is at stake, so they should stay out of it.
I was recently reading about Ico and its creator in Power Up and then went out and was lucky enough to find a used copy is pretty good condition really cheap. I haven't finished Ico yet (too much time in Vana'diel), but I'm glad to hear that something new from the same creative team is coming out. Ico was/is one of the more creative titles to come out over the last several years. Unfortunately the really interesting titles don't always sell well upon release. But with all of same ol' games coming out over and over on the new consoles, I think many gamers are starving for and are now willing to try something different.
Nothing to see here folks! This is just Illinois politics. The governor has been a profound disappointment here and is now scrambling for easy targets to win reelection. They all know this law won't stand constitutional muster.
Once again, it looks like competition is good. I've been bugging Yahoo! for years about supporting non-IE browsers, but only getting automated replies. I guess Google, and its cozyness with the Firefox creators, is enough of a threat that they felt some real heat. I hope this announcement also means that maybe Google will start supporting Firefox and other non-IE browsers when they roll out new toys like desktop search. If Yahoo! and Google keep going at it like this, it can only mean good things for the end user!
Sorry big ol' game publishers, but I won't be buying games at $59.95. Fifty dollars is my limit and only reserved for much anticipated titles. I've never seen a game worth more than $50 at retail and I'm not convinced that the next gen games are going to show us anything to make it worth the cost. I would predict that the only game that will get away with charging $59.95 will be the next iteration of Madden since EA killed off all of the competition with the NFL exclusive deal. So they can try charging more, but I'd guess they're going to back off of that real quick!
Unless the game spends the night and then makes me breakfast the next morning, there's no way I'm paying $60 for a game!
This is just more proof that Linux has arrived on the scene as a real contender in the IT world. I remember when I first heard of Linux, there were literally daily changes being released for the kernel and things were seemingly in a constant state of flux. At the time I was using OS/2, but I was curious enough to keep an eye on Linux and where it was going. Years later, when it really mattered, the choice was simple, Linux. Why? I work in an environment where I'm an army of one and costs and security are very important. Windows just wasn't the best choice for what I needed to build and the budget I had. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought that way! So called studies that refute what frontline IT people see everyday in the field just prove the desperation of those threatened by Linux and the overall free open source movement. If they're smart, eventually they'll learn to live with and perhaps profit from it, but right now they seem more interested in stopping it through FUD and legislation.
I think what we are seeing in the TiVo Comcast deal is Comcast making the very smart move of leveraging the TiVo brand. This is actually pretty good news for both. If things go well, don't be surprised to see Comcast make a play to buy TiVo outright. Yeah, I know many here think Comcast sucks, and maybe they do, but I wouldn't mind seeing what TiVo has built and their name survive, even as part of Comcast. So far I've been pretty happy with TiVo and as a Comcast customer, adding TiVo can only be a good thing!
This opens up another front on the OSS battle so to speak. While some posters here question the value of informing companies that they may be in violation of the GPL and claim that they can simply ignore it, companies that ignore such warnings do so at their own peril. Why? Because from a legal standpoint they can't be sure who will hit them with a suit or when. There are all sorts of questions about who would have legal standing to bring a suit, and this itself would vary from state to state and country to country. If I'm a company bent on violating the GPL, defending that could be difficult especially if a GPL backing company like IBM or Novell decides it's in their best interests to get involved and bankrolls the lawsuit.
Given this, I think few companies will intentionally violate the GPL. So I think that most smart companies if informed of a problem, will probably rectify it one way or another rather than risk an uncertain threat of liability. Certainly any high profile organization with a smart legal counsel would. The not so smart ones are another story!
Hard to say. There haven't been any recent announcements about work on the MMORPG. I think the MMORPG market is currently saturated leaving little room for newcomers even if they have a big name license like Star Trek. And given that the performance of Enterprise has tarnished the brand a bit, this wouldn't be a good time. Still, there could be money to be made. If I were them, I would wait a couple of years before seriously pushing the project forward.
Now that Marvel's silly claims are falling flat in court, it might be a good time for them to team up with NCSoft and give their fans what they want. Why not go ahead and license the characters to NCSoft in a special expansion pack with a premium monthly surcharge? Fans who want to play as or against Marvel characters get what they want, and Marvel and NCSoft get some extra cash. This seems to make so much more sense than duking it out in court.
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Given that most movies based on video games suck, a delay in the Doom movie can only be a good thing! More worrisome is all of the free publicity said likely bad movie will get because of the "link" to the Columbine shootings. All of that said, maybe it will be a good show afterall. The first Mortal Kombat movie was pretty good, so there's at least a little hope... Yeah...
Hmmm, EA gets another sports exclusive. Nothing to see here folks!
It's nice that China and India are settling their differences, but I don't really think that workers in the U.S. have much to worry about in the long run. Why? Because I think that if the slide in quality that I've been seeing continues, the pendulum of outsourcing will swing back to the U.S.. I don't want to be mean, but frankly the cheap hardware coming out of China has been pretty low in quality. In my own experiences, I'm seeing a greater incidence of dead on arrival electronics, enough that I've begun to actively avoid electronics that say anything on them about being made in China. As for India, who hasn't seen the increasing numbers of stories regarding software and desk support outsourcing nightmares?
Now in all fairness, there are Chinese and Indian companies producing high quality products, but these are not cheap and those companies are the leading tail of the bell shaped curve. If quality continues to be a problem for companies in the bump and the trailing edge, then U.S. workers will get another chance. Of course this all assumes that consumers actually care about quality...
The rise of in-game adverstising is just more proof that video games have arrived on the scene as mainstream entertainment in the same way as movies and television. People are going to complain at first,"why should I pay $50 for a game and have to suffer ads?" But don't we already pay in excess of $50 per month on average for cable tv and still have to watch ads? Advertising is not going to go away, and the fact that a large and desireable demographic is spending a lot of time playing video games rather than watching tv plus the rising cost of game production, means that in-game ads are inevitable.
The real fun will be seeing how creative in-game ads will (or won't) be. Sports games should be fairly straight forward, but MMORPGs will likely be a real challenge. I don't think we'll see the Nike sword exactly, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see a logo on something more appropriate like footgear, and then only in the equipment or inventory view. The really clever may create new in-game brands linked to real world brands via NPCs in some fashion. Heck there might even be complete branded missions (shudder shudder)!
I don't think Sony would go to the trouble of getting the patents if they didn't have something that was at least in the early design stages. Remember, Sony makes more than just the Playstation and its home market of Japan is full of competitors selling all sorts of fanciful electronics, many of which never see U.S. shores. For example, in east Asia you'll find all sorts of items with magnets in them for purported therapeutic benefits, shoes, mattresses, etc.. So why shouldn't Sony market an ultrasonic pillow that helps you relax after a hard day of work or dealmaking at the bar after work ;-). The pillow would have different settings that could stimulate various relaxing smells or sensations. This is just one possibility that really doesn't require a lot of R&D to take to market depending on the laws governing such claims in that market which appear to be somewhat more lax than those in the U.S.. Yes, the R&D is not insignificant, but engineering an ultrasonic pillow should be easier than something like a game controller which needs to respond to in game situations in a consistent fashion.
Eventually the technology may make its way into game controllers, but I doubt that is where it will be seen first. I'll be watching for Sony branded pillows, mattresses, and rave caps for the hip crowd. Mmmmmm, I can smell those colors now!
My PhD is in Physics, I've worked in IT in various capacities, including software development, for the last several years now. The research background coupled with the IT work helped me get my current bioinformatics position. From what I've seen, I would say make sure that you get a heavy dose of statistics training with your mathematics because you're going to need it! I work closely with a biostatistician to implement computer analyses and have learned a lot in the process, but more statistics in grad school would have helped!
Now call me biased, but I think my Physics training has helped me think about problems in code and science, so I think it would be a nice addition to your biological studies. Heh, we physicists always think we can do anything!
I remember when I first heard of Python back in grad school. I wondered what would become of it, but didn't have time to deal with it at the time, after all FORTRAN was teh cool, right? Lately, since I started using Zope, which is written in Python, and more recently Plone, which is built on Zope, I've really gained a great appreciation for Python because it really has made building sophisticated logic for web apps a lot easier than some alternatives. Now admittedly, I did not choose any of these because I heard they were easy or even cool, I stumbled into Zope because of an app, OIO, that I thought I could build on for another project. Later I heard about Plone and decided that I could build an easier to use portal for clinical investigators using that rather than PHP based solutions like PHP-Nuke. Python was just the icing on the cake as I discovered how much I could do with it.
Ha haah! Made me look! Nice one.... Of course the sad thing is that stuff like this could really happen...
Too bad really. If they could have settled their dispute online in some fashion, they'd both still be alive and free. Sigh...
Well I guess this makes it official! If people are willing to kill over the assets of or money obtained from video games, I guess that makes them as mainstream as sports, movies, or anything else people may have a murderous passion for! I wonder how long it will be before Gov Rod B. in Illinois or Senator Clinton picks up on this story? Actually, the worst case for them would be if China decides to unleash a new crack down on cybercafes and video games. I'd love to see the politicians start to squirm at being on the same side of an issue as the oft criticized government of China!
As for the men involved in the case, I would guess that they had had issues before this latest problem. Yeah, the money is the issue here and trust, but they were probably already on the edge.
This sounds like typical Sony behavior. Wasn't there a problem with the first batch of Playstations overheating that Sony tried to ignore and finally, probably at the nudging of large U.S. retailers, began to address? I'm guessing that retailers like Best Buy and WalMart have enough clout to force Sony to change their position. Afterall, consumers are going to return what they think is defective merchandise regardless of what the manufacturer says. That means angry people at the returns section of Best Buy or WalMart, which means unhappy managers and execs. Since WalMart basically runs the world now, when they complain to Sony, Sony listens.
In Sony's defense though, they usually clear up problems with new products without a year or so of introduction. That's one reason I'm in no hurry to buy a PSP right now.
Heh heh heh! It doesn't really matter because there is no political downside to jumping on the ban violent video games for kids bandwagon. The radlibs as you call them will still vote for HC for the same reason they begrudgingly voted for John Kerry, no other good choices. In the meantime, any laws that ban the sales of violent video games to kids will be found unconstitutional, so no losses there. Then the politicians get bonus points (like killin a hooker in GTA after sex) by complaining about the judiciary! Gravy for everyone! So slick Bill will be proud!
But it's theater man! In this age of banal reality shows, surely this is worth some risk!
Seriously though, it looks like the study has revealed the 21st century equivalent of strangers offering candy to children to entice them to enter their cars. Interestingly enough, web saavy kids may well turn out to be less likely to give away vital information. Mine have told me of all sorts of schemes that people use to scam people out of id info on neopets and gaiaonline. Granted, before they went on the internet, I warned them not to give out personal info, it's still good to see that they are being smart out there!
Oh yeah! Let's get the kids hooked on MMORPGs as early as possible! LOL That said, I think I'd love Pokemon Online, especially if you get a chance to kick Pichachu's butt at some point!
Sorry, but DRM isn't going to go away. So if it must be here, then it will have to be something that doesn't detract from the end user experience. Most people aren't interested in massive piracy of copyrighted works and will interpret obtrusive DRM as broken media and return it to the place of purchase. In this sense, the market will sort out what the best way to implement DRM is going to be. So far, I think Apple's scheme is on the right track because it lets the consumer (the average consumer that is) do pretty much all of the things that he or she might want to do if they bought a CD at physical retail outlet. This is just fine for 9 out of 10 people. Yes Apple's DRM can be hacked by those determined to do so, but that is true of any DRM and will always be true. Nothing is going to stop determined pirates. That's just a fact of business.
In the end, I think DRM will evolve as it should as long as the government keeps its hands out of it. This is a market issue, nothing about public safety or national security is at stake, so they should stay out of it.
I think I'll try to finish the game on Friday while the kids are out! Heh, heh, heh!
Oh yeah, I'm on Shiva. My characters are not 1337, but I have spent a lot of time exploring the world and generally hangin out.
I was recently reading about Ico and its creator in Power Up and then went out and was lucky enough to find a used copy is pretty good condition really cheap. I haven't finished Ico yet (too much time in Vana'diel), but I'm glad to hear that something new from the same creative team is coming out. Ico was/is one of the more creative titles to come out over the last several years. Unfortunately the really interesting titles don't always sell well upon release. But with all of same ol' games coming out over and over on the new consoles, I think many gamers are starving for and are now willing to try something different.
Nothing to see here folks! This is just Illinois politics. The governor has been a profound disappointment here and is now scrambling for easy targets to win reelection. They all know this law won't stand constitutional muster.
This is just a waste of taxpayer money.
Once again, it looks like competition is good. I've been bugging Yahoo! for years about supporting non-IE browsers, but only getting automated replies. I guess Google, and its cozyness with the Firefox creators, is enough of a threat that they felt some real heat. I hope this announcement also means that maybe Google will start supporting Firefox and other non-IE browsers when they roll out new toys like desktop search. If Yahoo! and Google keep going at it like this, it can only mean good things for the end user!
Sorry big ol' game publishers, but I won't be buying games at $59.95. Fifty dollars is my limit and only reserved for much anticipated titles. I've never seen a game worth more than $50 at retail and I'm not convinced that the next gen games are going to show us anything to make it worth the cost. I would predict that the only game that will get away with charging $59.95 will be the next iteration of Madden since EA killed off all of the competition with the NFL exclusive deal. So they can try charging more, but I'd guess they're going to back off of that real quick!
Unless the game spends the night and then makes me breakfast the next morning, there's no way I'm paying $60 for a game!
This is just more proof that Linux has arrived on the scene as a real contender in the IT world. I remember when I first heard of Linux, there were literally daily changes being released for the kernel and things were seemingly in a constant state of flux. At the time I was using OS/2, but I was curious enough to keep an eye on Linux and where it was going. Years later, when it really mattered, the choice was simple, Linux. Why? I work in an environment where I'm an army of one and costs and security are very important. Windows just wasn't the best choice for what I needed to build and the budget I had. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought that way! So called studies that refute what frontline IT people see everyday in the field just prove the desperation of those threatened by Linux and the overall free open source movement. If they're smart, eventually they'll learn to live with and perhaps profit from it, but right now they seem more interested in stopping it through FUD and legislation.
I think what we are seeing in the TiVo Comcast deal is Comcast making the very smart move of leveraging the TiVo brand. This is actually pretty good news for both. If things go well, don't be surprised to see Comcast make a play to buy TiVo outright. Yeah, I know many here think Comcast sucks, and maybe they do, but I wouldn't mind seeing what TiVo has built and their name survive, even as part of Comcast. So far I've been pretty happy with TiVo and as a Comcast customer, adding TiVo can only be a good thing!
This opens up another front on the OSS battle so to speak. While some posters here question the value of informing companies that they may be in violation of the GPL and claim that they can simply ignore it, companies that ignore such warnings do so at their own peril. Why? Because from a legal standpoint they can't be sure who will hit them with a suit or when. There are all sorts of questions about who would have legal standing to bring a suit, and this itself would vary from state to state and country to country. If I'm a company bent on violating the GPL, defending that could be difficult especially if a GPL backing company like IBM or Novell decides it's in their best interests to get involved and bankrolls the lawsuit.
Given this, I think few companies will intentionally violate the GPL. So I think that most smart companies if informed of a problem, will probably rectify it one way or another rather than risk an uncertain threat of liability. Certainly any high profile organization with a smart legal counsel would. The not so smart ones are another story!
Hard to say. There haven't been any recent announcements about work on the MMORPG. I think the MMORPG market is currently saturated leaving little room for newcomers even if they have a big name license like Star Trek. And given that the performance of Enterprise has tarnished the brand a bit, this wouldn't be a good time. Still, there could be money to be made. If I were them, I would wait a couple of years before seriously pushing the project forward.
Now that Marvel's silly claims are falling flat in court, it might be a good time for them to team up with NCSoft and give their fans what they want. Why not go ahead and license the characters to NCSoft in a special expansion pack with a premium monthly surcharge? Fans who want to play as or against Marvel characters get what they want, and Marvel and NCSoft get some extra cash. This seems to make so much more sense than duking it out in court.