Wii is already going to be the top Christmas seller (at least worldwide), provided that Nintendo don't screw up big time. For up to the end of 2006, the PS3 production target is 2 million, the Wii production target is 4 million.
Both numbers may come from a well-shaded part of an analyst, but there you have it.
The BBFC's ratings have legal force, but they are only applied to a small proportion of games (though all films, except most documentaries that get E for Exempt, are rated). It isn't an industry-led body like the MPAA or ESRB. I recall seeing one interview with them when they related the case of a horror film that the producers asked for an 18 rating to be applied. Problem was, the film wasn't very scary, so they only gave it a 15. So, it seems to be able to resist industry leaning on it. (In the end, the film had an unrelated scene from a porno cut in in order to get the 18...)
Most games are just rated by the industry-run PEGI system.
This article focuses on the result that aerospace, financial and telecoms proprietary software has items in it that get better "quality" scores than any open-source package they tested. This is expected - if your average package crashes, no-one dies. If your plane's software crashes, so does the plane.
It also notes that average open-source beats average closed-source.
So, it tries to ask the question: "How do we make open-source stuff as good as aerospace quality?", but comes across as being more controversial than it needs to be.
Opera, by all accounts, was a model of how to make an advertising-supported application. It offered the choice of generic banner ads or targetted text ads, a premium upgrade to remove the ads, and that's it. No popups, no hijacking, no sneakyness.
According to the linked sites (I'm not about to install this to check), this product has generously offered such delights as lop.com , dropped links to adultfriendfinder on the desktop, run those fraudulent system update ads (you know, the ones that say their scan detected you need to buy their useless software), installed rootkits, attacked the hosts.txt file, etc. The usual money-grabbing activities that ruin a PC. This is not in the same league as just showing a few ads at the top of the screen.
It is possible to do ad-supported software that isn't evil (e.g. the older versions of Opera), however, it's the 99% of adware that makes the other 1% look bad. With drive-by installs, popups that don't identify their origins, non-working uninstallers, theft of banner ad space from websites, rewriting of affiliate links, insertion of unauthorised sponsor links, uninstallation of competing ad engines, hijacking of homepage and search functions, self-restarting processes, etc. people can be forgiven for being suspicious of any given advertising module, even before it starts leaking personal information.
Well, there are certainly campaigns to reform the UK voting system, focused mainly around AV+ or STV (my preference), but currently we're told there is no widespread suppost for reform to the parliamentary elections - why then, people are creating DIY proportional voting is something that is ignored.
At an earlier hearing before South Sefton magistrates, Martin was also convicted of 33 counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child.
So, it seems that it was a little more than just accidentally downloading some images.
There was a bit of noise made when the law was changed recently, as previously only racial groups were protected from hate speech, and this was extended to religious groups. The law was basically the government trying to salvage some Muslim votes after the Iraq war, rather than addressing an urgent issue - since we have in the UK a credible third party (the Liberal Democrats), a small swing of votes away from Labour to the Lib Dems as a protest vote can hand the seat away to the Conservatives - this happened at least in the Shipley constituency at the last election - the Tories took the seat from Labour even though the Conservative share of the vote was down.
Back to the main point, the protest was quite high-profile, with several comedians claiming that it could stop them satirising religion (no more Monty Python and The Holy Grail, etc.). As it has happenes, religion is still (currently) satirised and criticised, despite the occasional violent protest.
So, Google starts scanning in books without asking permission, and the copyright owners get angry. Yahoo starts a rival process where they ask permission, Microsoft joins in, so Google is now trying to see if they didn't really ask permission? Presumably, Yahoo thinks they got permission, and the people whose books Yahoo are scanning think they gave it. So, even if it turns out that they mucked up the agreement, and technically Yahoo doesn't have permission, or they are accidentally scanning some books outside the agreement, how does Google hope this is going to provide an excuse for deliberately doing it without permission?
Programmer infighting is a management issue. The wrongdoers should be punished by being issued a project to be implemented in Microsoft Access. This will ensure that they do not misbehave again.
So, if you max out your points, does Steve Ballmer come round and personally throw you a limited-edition gold plated Xbox Live chair? Or, are these points just a measurement of how "hardcore" a gamer you are? If that's the case, then these points services are clearly good value, compared to buying a big sports car.
If you're paying somebody to play the games for you, perhaps the games in question aren't actually fun and you should buy some different ones? Or, is there a market for games where you start off with all powers and infinite ammo, then just go around destroying stuff with absolutely no challenge? Should developers release a £200 ultimate box set winners edition of the game that consists of one DVD that plays the end credits?
Be fair, Blu-Ray hasn't had time to fail yet. Wait until consumers have flipped their coin (though the chances of the proverbial coin landing on edge and people picking to stick with regular DVD are quite high)
Encryption works on a metaphor of sending a locked box to somebody that has the key, and wanting them to have the contents. DRM works on the basis of sending somebody the lock and the key, and asking them nicely to not take the goods once the box has been unlocked. Software DRM is always ultimately crackable by intercepting the unlocked item - that's why hardware solutions are being forced upon us.
BT (according to previous articles I've read) employs one to predict future demands for products. The company then works out ways to thwart this. Example: People at one time were getting a lot of second lines for Internet access. BT's great idea was to install a cheap splitting tech rather than a real second line, meaning that 56k modems could barely get 33.6. His side job is getting articles out to outlets that run popular science stories that mention how wonderful BT are for thinking of their customers, plus some waffle about killer yoghurt or whatever that'll be forgotten in a week.
I've been reluctant to implement referrer-checking tricks, thanks to my experience at work. AcromymFinder.com whitelists user agents, so if you're behind Squid with the privacy features turned on, the site more-or-less tells you to eff off, you clearly-screenscraping-thief, and come back with IE or Firefox or something. I don't want, should some firewalls block refererrs, to brigten some poor person's day by changing all of the images to "Stop Thief!!" or whatever. I've manually changed filenames in the past, so I'm not opposed to causing trouble if it doesn't hurt legitimate users.
gameplay.com. The pre-orders weren't there last time I checked, and I jumped in today when I saw them. They do warn that they don't know what their allocation is yet, but they're upfront enough to tell you so in red letters as the first thing on the page. The stuff I've bought there in the past has come on time, and the one order they made an error on got exchanged with no hassle.
The average MySpace user has trouble reading the English language. Due to a tool on my site called "CSS Preview" having a feedback form (with a nice heading above it announcing this fact), I get the occasional submission of some lame MySpace template from somebody who clearly thinks that MySpace is the internets, and my site will magically detect what they wanted and turn their markup-vomit into a display of how their inane ramblings will look when a template created by running FrontPage output through the Netscape Rainbow Colorizer is thrown at it. MySpace users also rudely hotlink my images.
I wouldn't care so much if their Land That Design Forgot left me alone, but I'm getting their stupidity on me and I don't like it.
Compare and contrast the PS3 price with the price of a Blu-Ray player, take into account that those shiny Cell processors, video chips, etc. that will push up the cost of producing the PS3 and either Sony is making a loss on the PS3, Blu-Ray players are being sold at a massive profit, or Sony has some super-secret manufacturing method that means the PS3 can be profitably sold for significantly less than a internal Blu-Ray drive for a PC.
Slashdot Mirror
Wii is already going to be the top Christmas seller (at least worldwide), provided that Nintendo don't screw up big time. For up to the end of 2006, the PS3 production target is 2 million, the Wii production target is 4 million.
Both numbers may come from a well-shaded part of an analyst, but there you have it.
The BBFC's ratings have legal force, but they are only applied to a small proportion of games (though all films, except most documentaries that get E for Exempt, are rated). It isn't an industry-led body like the MPAA or ESRB. I recall seeing one interview with them when they related the case of a horror film that the producers asked for an 18 rating to be applied. Problem was, the film wasn't very scary, so they only gave it a 15. So, it seems to be able to resist industry leaning on it. (In the end, the film had an unrelated scene from a porno cut in in order to get the 18...)
Most games are just rated by the industry-run PEGI system.
I think you will find they are known as "Cillit Bang Universal Degreaser" and "Cillit Bang Lime & Grime"
This article focuses on the result that aerospace, financial and telecoms proprietary software has items in it that get better "quality" scores than any open-source package they tested. This is expected - if your average package crashes, no-one dies. If your plane's software crashes, so does the plane.
It also notes that average open-source beats average closed-source.
So, it tries to ask the question: "How do we make open-source stuff as good as aerospace quality?", but comes across as being more controversial than it needs to be.
Opera, by all accounts, was a model of how to make an advertising-supported application. It offered the choice of generic banner ads or targetted text ads, a premium upgrade to remove the ads, and that's it. No popups, no hijacking, no sneakyness.
According to the linked sites (I'm not about to install this to check), this product has generously offered such delights as lop.com , dropped links to adultfriendfinder on the desktop, run those fraudulent system update ads (you know, the ones that say their scan detected you need to buy their useless software), installed rootkits, attacked the hosts.txt file, etc. The usual money-grabbing activities that ruin a PC. This is not in the same league as just showing a few ads at the top of the screen.
It is possible to do ad-supported software that isn't evil (e.g. the older versions of Opera), however, it's the 99% of adware that makes the other 1% look bad. With drive-by installs, popups that don't identify their origins, non-working uninstallers, theft of banner ad space from websites, rewriting of affiliate links, insertion of unauthorised sponsor links, uninstallation of competing ad engines, hijacking of homepage and search functions, self-restarting processes, etc. people can be forgiven for being suspicious of any given advertising module, even before it starts leaking personal information.
Well, there are certainly campaigns to reform the UK voting system, focused mainly around AV+ or STV (my preference), but currently we're told there is no widespread suppost for reform to the parliamentary elections - why then, people are creating DIY proportional voting is something that is ignored.
So, it seems that it was a little more than just accidentally downloading some images.
There was a bit of noise made when the law was changed recently, as previously only racial groups were protected from hate speech, and this was extended to religious groups. The law was basically the government trying to salvage some Muslim votes after the Iraq war, rather than addressing an urgent issue - since we have in the UK a credible third party (the Liberal Democrats), a small swing of votes away from Labour to the Lib Dems as a protest vote can hand the seat away to the Conservatives - this happened at least in the Shipley constituency at the last election - the Tories took the seat from Labour even though the Conservative share of the vote was down.
Back to the main point, the protest was quite high-profile, with several comedians claiming that it could stop them satirising religion (no more Monty Python and The Holy Grail, etc.). As it has happenes, religion is still (currently) satirised and criticised, despite the occasional violent protest.
So, Google starts scanning in books without asking permission, and the copyright owners get angry. Yahoo starts a rival process where they ask permission, Microsoft joins in, so Google is now trying to see if they didn't really ask permission? Presumably, Yahoo thinks they got permission, and the people whose books Yahoo are scanning think they gave it. So, even if it turns out that they mucked up the agreement, and technically Yahoo doesn't have permission, or they are accidentally scanning some books outside the agreement, how does Google hope this is going to provide an excuse for deliberately doing it without permission?
Programmer infighting is a management issue. The wrongdoers should be punished by being issued a project to be implemented in Microsoft Access. This will ensure that they do not misbehave again.
I believe they have already tried that plan, only they called it "The Spirits Within".
So, if you max out your points, does Steve Ballmer come round and personally throw you a limited-edition gold plated Xbox Live chair? Or, are these points just a measurement of how "hardcore" a gamer you are? If that's the case, then these points services are clearly good value, compared to buying a big sports car.
If you're paying somebody to play the games for you, perhaps the games in question aren't actually fun and you should buy some different ones? Or, is there a market for games where you start off with all powers and infinite ammo, then just go around destroying stuff with absolutely no challenge? Should developers release a £200 ultimate box set winners edition of the game that consists of one DVD that plays the end credits?
Seems like sensible future-proofing to me. Sure, the variable this is called this right now, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?
Be fair, Blu-Ray hasn't had time to fail yet. Wait until consumers have flipped their coin (though the chances of the proverbial coin landing on edge and people picking to stick with regular DVD are quite high)
Encryption works on a metaphor of sending a locked box to somebody that has the key, and wanting them to have the contents. DRM works on the basis of sending somebody the lock and the key, and asking them nicely to not take the goods once the box has been unlocked. Software DRM is always ultimately crackable by intercepting the unlocked item - that's why hardware solutions are being forced upon us.
BT (according to previous articles I've read) employs one to predict future demands for products. The company then works out ways to thwart this. Example: People at one time were getting a lot of second lines for Internet access. BT's great idea was to install a cheap splitting tech rather than a real second line, meaning that 56k modems could barely get 33.6. His side job is getting articles out to outlets that run popular science stories that mention how wonderful BT are for thinking of their customers, plus some waffle about killer yoghurt or whatever that'll be forgotten in a week.
That's some lag, but at full capacity, I hear the transfer rate is awesome.
I've been reluctant to implement referrer-checking tricks, thanks to my experience at work. AcromymFinder.com whitelists user agents, so if you're behind Squid with the privacy features turned on, the site more-or-less tells you to eff off, you clearly-screenscraping-thief, and come back with IE or Firefox or something. I don't want, should some firewalls block refererrs, to brigten some poor person's day by changing all of the images to "Stop Thief!!" or whatever. I've manually changed filenames in the past, so I'm not opposed to causing trouble if it doesn't hurt legitimate users.
gameplay.com. The pre-orders weren't there last time I checked, and I jumped in today when I saw them. They do warn that they don't know what their allocation is yet, but they're upfront enough to tell you so in red letters as the first thing on the page. The stuff I've bought there in the past has come on time, and the one order they made an error on got exchanged with no hassle.
In other words, Wii are not amused?
If you love Opera on your PC, what would be the point of using it on a lower-resolution TV instead?
I agree though, Wiiiiiiiiii! (Just pwii, er, pre-ordered.)
The average MySpace user has trouble reading the English language. Due to a tool on my site called "CSS Preview" having a feedback form (with a nice heading above it announcing this fact), I get the occasional submission of some lame MySpace template from somebody who clearly thinks that MySpace is the internets, and my site will magically detect what they wanted and turn their markup-vomit into a display of how their inane ramblings will look when a template created by running FrontPage output through the Netscape Rainbow Colorizer is thrown at it. MySpace users also rudely hotlink my images.
I wouldn't care so much if their Land That Design Forgot left me alone, but I'm getting their stupidity on me and I don't like it.
Compare and contrast the PS3 price with the price of a Blu-Ray player, take into account that those shiny Cell processors, video chips, etc. that will push up the cost of producing the PS3 and either Sony is making a loss on the PS3, Blu-Ray players are being sold at a massive profit, or Sony has some super-secret manufacturing method that means the PS3 can be profitably sold for significantly less than a internal Blu-Ray drive for a PC.
Now, which option is most likely?