The article makes it sound like idle talk, but statements from that level may actually have something behind them, but not what you may think at first. I mean Gates knows that he isn't likely to get the opportunity to buy Nintendo. But his statement lets people know that he's in the market. So maybe it won't be Nintendo, but some other prominent Japanese (or other) games company. Who knows? Would Namco, Konami, or Capcom turn him down? Any one of these, handled correctly, could get MS the traction they need in Japan to make the Xbox successor a success there and bolster the chances elsewhere in the world.
I think the next 18 months will be very interesting.
While I think building all sorts of emulators would be a lot of fun, I can only see this as making sense in the most critical situations where porting just isn't practical or timely enough. This is often the case encountered when trying to preserve some old arcade game for example. You've got the code but it's 500K lines of assembly for some proprietary board. I can see the government using emulation to delay or smooth the transition to new systems when the services can't afford to be unavailable for even a few days.
...then only outlaws will use Linux! Seriously this could be one of the outcomes if the craziness of software patents continues to spread. Because let's face it, many if not most of us using Linux are going to keep using it regardless of the outcome of current litigation. And in many companies Linux came in through the backdoor anyway.
So what does that leave us with? I don't expect to patent holders to come sniffing around every single company that may be using Linux somewhere, especially since no one will be widely advertising its use in a hostile patent environment. And of course continued development of Linux will work around the patent problem and continue as before.
This is a nice reminder to me to get my butt in gear! I've got all of these ideas swirling around in my head, but not too much code on the ground yet. Lately, I've been focusing on art work, and having a lot of fun at it, but gotta get back to the code!
Microsoft's outsourcing moves not only involve cutting costs, they also involve politics. Both China and India have very high rates of software piracy and as companies like Microsoft demand greater protection of intellectual property, they run the risk of pushing said countries into free open source software. If OSS becomes the standard in India or China, then Microsoft loses Windows and Office sales forever.
So in an effort to prevent the spread of OSS, Microsoft is investing millions of dollars into a research center in China and efforts in India. This makes big time political points too, which makes it less likely that the governments in either country will lock Microsoft out of the game with OSS. It's still risky though, as both India and China have made moves to encourage local software development on Linux.
Right now I'm betting that MS will eventually put a good portion of development in China where the labor costs are even less than India and it is politically more stable. But that's just a wild guess. In any case, low and mid level coders' days are numbered at MS.
With such high broadband penetration, could it be that South Korea will be the home of the first million player MMORPG? Online gaming is very popular there, perhaps in part because of the high speeds available. Whereas just across the water in Japan, these games are not as popular and broadband is far less available. In the US right now we're stuck with all of this great infrastructure, but fall short in that last mile. Plus the US government isn't making a real commitment to make broadband a part of everyday life.
It's too bad that we are lagging here in the US because just imagine what a richly information empowered citizenry could do...not to mention the games!:-)
As I been dragged almost kicking and screaming into more Python, via a Zope project I'm working on, I find this very interesting. I've been fascinated with the potential of the.Net platform for a while now, particularly because of its ability to support a wide range of languages via the CLR. Now with Mono coming along IronPython, I've got some new things to play with!
I just hope that Jim's new job at Microsoft won't bring the project to halt.
Nothing to see here folks, move along please. Dan O'Dowd isn't adding any new information at all. Duh, any software can be sabotaged whether open source or not. All it takes is motive and ability, and not a whole lot of it. But at least with OSS, there is the ability of knowing just what you are using. I'm sure the Department of Defense has plenty of talented people who can assure them that Bin Laden hasn't hacked the Linux kernel. As for Windows, only Microsoft knows what's in there, so we just have to take their word for it. Now under those conditions, which would you choose?
Sadly, piracy is here to stay. When people want something, little issues like morals have a way of going away. So any smart business in such an environment has to factor this into the cost of things and how they do business. This I think in one reason that new CDs in Japan can cost $30 or $40 USD. But at the same time, they seem to be taking the added value approach with boxed limited editions, videos, and other extras included (plus some not too difficult to defeat copy protection). So at least you get more for the money and the publishers can stay in business. I hate paying that much for CDs or DVDs, but since I prefer to have a mostly legit collection, I try to get the extras at least.
That said, I think in the long run we'll see piracy leveraged as a marketing tool more than anything else. Yeah, efforts will be made to fight it and it will never be legal or recommended. But locking up or suing people left and right (like RIAA) isn't going to work. So if the ocean is full of sharks, you gotta learn to swim really fast!
I used to joke with some former coworkers about the Microsoft Linux distribution. They of course thought it was just a joke, but the truth of the matter is that if MS did come out with a version of Office for Linux and even a whole MS blessed Linux distribution, it would be a total nightmare for their competition. Why? Simple, it would solve a lot of the antitrust related problems they've had recently and it could even help them deal effectively with any defections caused by security concerns. If Office existed on Linux natively, then many businesses wouldn't even look at alternative office suites at all because Office is the defacto standard now. Moving to Linux would be easy and whichever distros MS recommended would become the preferred ones.
Ultimately, Microsoft is about making money (as any business), if Linux Office can bring the bucks and remove some headaches, don't be surprised if it comes. And about that MS distribution of Linux. Well, don't be too surprised if such a thing already exist internally at Microsoft. I'm sure plenty of their research people (and others) may have rolled their own Linux distros for research or personal use. There may even be dirty ports of Office on Linux already in existence.
Yeah, MS has a lot of pride but you can't spend that at the store. I suspect that one reason they're planning to give a big chunk of their cash pile to shareholders is to get a little hungrier again as a company. They've grow a little fat and lazy in middle age, so a little trim might give them an edge. That is, by reducing their safety net, maybe it can spark something in their corporate mentality to truly innovate rather than just buying other companies with ideas. Who knows, it'll be interesting to watch in any case.
It'll certainly be interesting to watch how shareholder pressure will change Google. And jeez, coming out at $135/share is IMHO just plain crazy and unsustainable. Google may have done some really good things for the technology of search engines, etc.., but I don't see how they can sustain a share price that high. Perhaps the Dark Side is already beckoning.
This certainly sounds like it could be useful, as generally more communication is a good thing. But from my own observations, I'm not entirely sure that the other driver knowing what I'm thinking/feeling is a good thing. I've had plenty of thoughts about the asinine driving of other people that probably would have resulted in fights rather than better understanding! I, of course, drive perfectly!
Other than the cost, one of my concerns was the amount of heat a tablet pc generates while in use. I was looking into them for use by nurses collecting research data. But after trying a few out about a year ago and noticing how they heat up, I didn't think the nurses would be too happy.
Still it's good to see the price come down. But I still wonder when Dell is going to get into the act.
I agree, the true hobbyist should be okay. But I wonder if the distribution of hobbyist created mod chip schematics will be legal. Since these would likely show up on websites, I don't see how they could really stop that anyway.
In any case, I guess this will drive the mod business further underground in UK. Piracy, like pr0n is pretty hard to stop since there's a lot of money to be made.
Kewl! Now I can get the components made for that Killotron 5000 I've been working on!
Seriously, I think fab services like this could be a great boon, but how do you keep some group with nefarious intent from getting WMD components fabbed this way. If the pieces were submitted by multiple customers, it would be difficult to see that someone was trying to build something destructive.
I cannot say that a NASA budget cut is a big surprise. It's only a matter of time before the full effects of our misadventure in Iraq comes home to roost. But there may be a silver lining in here for NASA.
At the core, the scientists and engineers at NASA are very smart and clever people. They've done some incredible work on budgets that seem little more than spit and lint compared to the outlays the military typically gets. I think that they'll do great work no matter what the budget is because in the end they have great passion for their work.
Awww, such is the life of the PC gamer! In the old days, people would complain about these things, but the truth is that I think PC gamers live for this! I mean, who here doesn't like having an excuse to go out and seriously upgrade your rig?
Heck, I'm not even planning to get Doom 3, and I get all jittery just thinking about upgrading my old box, which is way overdue. But I've learned to wait until the game comes out and real people play on real systems, before doing any upgrade. That way you can get the right hardware and avoid any unforeseen incompatibilities.
I agree that a lot more needs to be done to make computers and their applications easier to use. And I know as a developer that that takes a lot of work. But the other problem is that it takes a whole different brain because, well, developers just aint like normal people...:-)
Yeah, you've all heard that before,but seriously, I don't know how many times my wife has had trouble with some device or application that neither of us has used before, and I'll just come in and make it work immediately. Then I'll joke that the guys who made it probably think just like me. Well, that probably isn't just a joke. What it means in the end is that we need designers who can think more like the end user. Unfortunately, there appear to be few designer/end user brained people involved with OSS. But I think that is changing in some of the more prominent projects like Firefox and OpenOffice which have seen great improvements in usability IMHO. So all is not lost!
As for me, I think Apple has done some great work in the areas of design and usability, so the next computer I add to my stable will very likely be a Mac.
This reminds me of the whole New Coke thing years ago. Was it pure genius that Coke managed to sap Pepsi sales with the sweeter more Pepsi-like New Coke while hanging on to loyal customers with the reintroduced Coka Cola Classic, or was it a colossal blunder that they were just lucky enough to escape and still get ahead? Who knows? Unless the virus writer is caught, we may never know. Right now, I guess he or she is saying, "Yeah, I meant to do that!"
In any case, I guess when it comes to virus writing sloppy coding pays off. And perhaps sloppy != stupid, unless of course you get caught! I suppose the next trick is for someone to release a code obfuscator that produces sloppy looking code.
If I'd spent that much time on a train, I'd read comics every day as well. Japan is a very, VERY different culture than its American counterpart. Sorry to say so, but I have no desire to value my job more than my own personal life. I work to live, not vice versa. If we ever catch up to such a workaholic lifestyle, it will no longer be America.
Actually, Americans edge out the Japanese in terms of hours worked. And Americans take less vacation time as well. So unfortunately, the workaholic lifestyle _is_ America. We need to take our lives back! So I say more manga, less work!
Hmmm, and my wife thinks I spend a lot of money! I can only wonder what his wife must have said when he first started talking about his plans. Well good luck to him!
The danger posed by the relative ease of engineering new biological agents makes a strong argument for promoting genomic diversity in human beings. It is this diversity that makes it less likely that any particularly nasty bug is going to wipe out the human race. And indeed, this diversity often gives us clues to eventual cures for various diseases.
Unfortunately, people often want the same thing or whatever is popular in the media. With genetic engineering, we could see a reduction in genomic variability as parents decide they want designer babies. We're already seeing an imbalance in the male to female ratio as sex selection becomes more and more viable an option.
So dear/.ers, what can you do about this? Well, hmmm, MATE WITH SOMEONE DIFFERENT TODAY! Oops, forgot where I was, nevermind...
I think's it's somewhat ironic, that emulation and piracy probably had a big hand in Nintendo's current love affair with NES rereleases. Few have fought harder to fight piracy and emulation than Nintendo, but one can argue that emulation and piracy proved the existence of the market they are now happily mining. I don't think they'd have been as willing to risk this without that proof.
This is no endorsement of piracy, but I suspect that piracy rates are just another tick on the marketing meter for measuring a game's popularity. As for the price of these classics, well $20 isn't too bad, but they should IMHO be more like $9.99 unless they come with some decent extras.
Slashdot Mirror
The article makes it sound like idle talk, but statements from that level may actually have something behind them, but not what you may think at first. I mean Gates knows that he isn't likely to get the opportunity to buy Nintendo. But his statement lets people know that he's in the market. So maybe it won't be Nintendo, but some other prominent Japanese (or other) games company. Who knows? Would Namco, Konami, or Capcom turn him down? Any one of these, handled correctly, could get MS the traction they need in Japan to make the Xbox successor a success there and bolster the chances elsewhere in the world.
I think the next 18 months will be very interesting.
While I think building all sorts of emulators would be a lot of fun, I can only see this as making sense in the most critical situations where porting just isn't practical or timely enough. This is often the case encountered when trying to preserve some old arcade game for example. You've got the code but it's 500K lines of assembly for some proprietary board. I can see the government using emulation to delay or smooth the transition to new systems when the services can't afford to be unavailable for even a few days.
...then only outlaws will use Linux! Seriously this could be one of the outcomes if the craziness of software patents continues to spread. Because let's face it, many if not most of us using Linux are going to keep using it regardless of the outcome of current litigation. And in many companies Linux came in through the backdoor anyway.
So what does that leave us with? I don't expect to patent holders to come sniffing around every single company that may be using Linux somewhere, especially since no one will be widely advertising its use in a hostile patent environment. And of course continued development of Linux will work around the patent problem and continue as before.
This is a nice reminder to me to get my butt in gear! I've got all of these ideas swirling around in my head, but not too much code on the ground yet. Lately, I've been focusing on art work, and having a lot of fun at it, but gotta get back to the code!
Microsoft's outsourcing moves not only involve cutting costs, they also involve politics. Both China and India have very high rates of software piracy and as companies like Microsoft demand greater protection of intellectual property, they run the risk of pushing said countries into free open source software. If OSS becomes the standard in India or China, then Microsoft loses Windows and Office sales forever.
So in an effort to prevent the spread of OSS, Microsoft is investing millions of dollars into a research center in China and efforts in India. This makes big time political points too, which makes it less likely that the governments in either country will lock Microsoft out of the game with OSS. It's still risky though, as both India and China have made moves to encourage local software development on Linux.
Right now I'm betting that MS will eventually put a good portion of development in China where the labor costs are even less than India and it is politically more stable. But that's just a wild guess. In any case, low and mid level coders' days are numbered at MS.
With such high broadband penetration, could it be that South Korea will be the home of the first million player MMORPG? Online gaming is very popular there, perhaps in part because of the high speeds available. Whereas just across the water in Japan, these games are not as popular and broadband is far less available. In the US right now we're stuck with all of this great infrastructure, but fall short in that last mile. Plus the US government isn't making a real commitment to make broadband a part of everyday life.
:-)
It's too bad that we are lagging here in the US because just imagine what a richly information empowered citizenry could do...not to mention the games!
As I been dragged almost kicking and screaming into more Python, via a Zope project I'm working on, I find this very interesting. I've been fascinated with the potential of the .Net platform for a while now, particularly because of its ability to support a wide range of languages via the CLR. Now with Mono coming along IronPython, I've got some new things to play with!
I just hope that Jim's new job at Microsoft won't bring the project to halt.
Nothing to see here folks, move along please. Dan O'Dowd isn't adding any new information at all. Duh, any software can be sabotaged whether open source or not. All it takes is motive and ability, and not a whole lot of it. But at least with OSS, there is the ability of knowing just what you are using. I'm sure the Department of Defense has plenty of talented people who can assure them that Bin Laden hasn't hacked the Linux kernel. As for Windows, only Microsoft knows what's in there, so we just have to take their word for it. Now under those conditions, which would you choose?
Sadly, piracy is here to stay. When people want something, little issues like morals have a way of going away. So any smart business in such an environment has to factor this into the cost of things and how they do business. This I think in one reason that new CDs in Japan can cost $30 or $40 USD. But at the same time, they seem to be taking the added value approach with boxed limited editions, videos, and other extras included (plus some not too difficult to defeat copy protection). So at least you get more for the money and the publishers can stay in business. I hate paying that much for CDs or DVDs, but since I prefer to have a mostly legit collection, I try to get the extras at least.
That said, I think in the long run we'll see piracy leveraged as a marketing tool more than anything else. Yeah, efforts will be made to fight it and it will never be legal or recommended. But locking up or suing people left and right (like RIAA) isn't going to work. So if the ocean is full of sharks, you gotta learn to swim really fast!
I used to joke with some former coworkers about the Microsoft Linux distribution. They of course thought it was just a joke, but the truth of the matter is that if MS did come out with a version of Office for Linux and even a whole MS blessed Linux distribution, it would be a total nightmare for their competition. Why? Simple, it would solve a lot of the antitrust related problems they've had recently and it could even help them deal effectively with any defections caused by security concerns. If Office existed on Linux natively, then many businesses wouldn't even look at alternative office suites at all because Office is the defacto standard now. Moving to Linux would be easy and whichever distros MS recommended would become the preferred ones.
Ultimately, Microsoft is about making money (as any business), if Linux Office can bring the bucks and remove some headaches, don't be surprised if it comes. And about that MS distribution of Linux. Well, don't be too surprised if such a thing already exist internally at Microsoft. I'm sure plenty of their research people (and others) may have rolled their own Linux distros for research or personal use. There may even be dirty ports of Office on Linux already in existence.
Yeah, MS has a lot of pride but you can't spend that at the store. I suspect that one reason they're planning to give a big chunk of their cash pile to shareholders is to get a little hungrier again as a company. They've grow a little fat and lazy in middle age, so a little trim might give them an edge. That is, by reducing their safety net, maybe it can spark something in their corporate mentality to truly innovate rather than just buying other companies with ideas. Who knows, it'll be interesting to watch in any case.
It'll certainly be interesting to watch how shareholder pressure will change Google. And jeez, coming out at $135/share is IMHO just plain crazy and unsustainable. Google may have done some really good things for the technology of search engines, etc.., but I don't see how they can sustain a share price that high. Perhaps the Dark Side is already beckoning.
This certainly sounds like it could be useful, as generally more communication is a good thing. But from my own observations, I'm not entirely sure that the other driver knowing what I'm thinking/feeling is a good thing. I've had plenty of thoughts about the asinine driving of other people that probably would have resulted in fights rather than better understanding! I, of course, drive perfectly!
Other than the cost, one of my concerns was the amount of heat a tablet pc generates while in use. I was looking into them for use by nurses collecting research data. But after trying a few out about a year ago and noticing how they heat up, I didn't think the nurses would be too happy.
Still it's good to see the price come down. But I still wonder when Dell is going to get into the act.
I agree, the true hobbyist should be okay. But I wonder if the distribution of hobbyist created mod chip schematics will be legal. Since these would likely show up on websites, I don't see how they could really stop that anyway.
In any case, I guess this will drive the mod business further underground in UK. Piracy, like pr0n is pretty hard to stop since there's a lot of money to be made.
Kewl! Now I can get the components made for that Killotron 5000 I've been working on!
Seriously, I think fab services like this could be a great boon, but how do you keep some group with nefarious intent from getting WMD components fabbed this way. If the pieces were submitted by multiple customers, it would be difficult to see that someone was trying to build something destructive.
I cannot say that a NASA budget cut is a big surprise. It's only a matter of time before the full effects of our misadventure in Iraq comes home to roost. But there may be a silver lining in here for NASA.
At the core, the scientists and engineers at NASA are very smart and clever people. They've done some incredible work on budgets that seem little more than spit and lint compared to the outlays the military typically gets. I think that they'll do great work no matter what the budget is because in the end they have great passion for their work.
I'm shocked! No Ayumi Hamasaki, T.M. Revolution, or even the Pillows? Or how about some Puffyamiyumi? Kids today...sheesh!
Awww, such is the life of the PC gamer! In the old days, people would complain about these things, but the truth is that I think PC gamers live for this! I mean, who here doesn't like having an excuse to go out and seriously upgrade your rig?
Heck, I'm not even planning to get Doom 3, and I get all jittery just thinking about upgrading my old box, which is way overdue. But I've learned to wait until the game comes out and real people play on real systems, before doing any upgrade. That way you can get the right hardware and avoid any unforeseen incompatibilities.
Awww, the life of a PC Gamer...
I agree that a lot more needs to be done to make computers and their applications easier to use. And I know as a developer that that takes a lot of work. But the other problem is that it takes a whole different brain because, well, developers just aint like normal people...:-)
Yeah, you've all heard that before,but seriously, I don't know how many times my wife has had trouble with some device or application that neither of us has used before, and I'll just come in and make it work immediately. Then I'll joke that the guys who made it probably think just like me. Well, that probably isn't just a joke. What it means in the end is that we need designers who can think more like the end user. Unfortunately, there appear to be few designer/end user brained people involved with OSS. But I think that is changing in some of the more prominent projects like Firefox and OpenOffice which have seen great improvements in usability IMHO. So all is not lost!
As for me, I think Apple has done some great work in the areas of design and usability, so the next computer I add to my stable will very likely be a Mac.
This reminds me of the whole New Coke thing years ago. Was it pure genius that Coke managed to sap Pepsi sales with the sweeter more Pepsi-like New Coke while hanging on to loyal customers with the reintroduced Coka Cola Classic, or was it a colossal blunder that they were just lucky enough to escape and still get ahead? Who knows? Unless the virus writer is caught, we may never know. Right now, I guess he or she is saying, "Yeah, I meant to do that!"
In any case, I guess when it comes to virus writing sloppy coding pays off. And perhaps sloppy != stupid, unless of course you get caught! I suppose the next trick is for someone to release a code obfuscator that produces sloppy looking code.
...but without all of the fun! ;-)
If I'd spent that much time on a train, I'd read comics every day as well. Japan is a very, VERY different culture than its American counterpart. Sorry to say so, but I have no desire to value my job more than my own personal life. I work to live, not vice versa. If we ever catch up to such a workaholic lifestyle, it will no longer be America.
Actually, Americans edge out the Japanese in terms of hours worked. And Americans take less vacation time as well. So unfortunately, the workaholic lifestyle _is_ America. We need to take our lives back! So I say more manga, less work!
Hmmm, and my wife thinks I spend a lot of money! I can only wonder what his wife must have said when he first started talking about his plans. Well good luck to him!
The danger posed by the relative ease of engineering new biological agents makes a strong argument for promoting genomic diversity in human beings. It is this diversity that makes it less likely that any particularly nasty bug is going to wipe out the human race. And indeed, this diversity often gives us clues to eventual cures for various diseases.
/.ers, what can you do about this? Well, hmmm, MATE WITH SOMEONE DIFFERENT TODAY! Oops, forgot where I was, nevermind...
Unfortunately, people often want the same thing or whatever is popular in the media. With genetic engineering, we could see a reduction in genomic variability as parents decide they want designer babies. We're already seeing an imbalance in the male to female ratio as sex selection becomes more and more viable an option.
So dear
I think's it's somewhat ironic, that emulation and piracy probably had a big hand in Nintendo's current love affair with NES rereleases. Few have fought harder to fight piracy and emulation than Nintendo, but one can argue that emulation and piracy proved the existence of the market they are now happily mining. I don't think they'd have been as willing to risk this without that proof.
This is no endorsement of piracy, but I suspect that piracy rates are just another tick on the marketing meter for measuring a game's popularity. As for the price of these classics, well $20 isn't too bad, but they should IMHO be more like $9.99 unless they come with some decent extras.