If I buy music from iTMS if have to use iTunes or an iPod to listen. Not that the WMA is much better, but there seems to be more options (car stereos, most non-apple mp3 players do support the WMA format).
Of course, if you bought the songs through the iTMS, then you already know that iTunes has the ability to burn the songs to audio CD (since you need iTunes to buy from the iTMS). From that audio CD format, you may play it in your car, home stereo, or re-rip it to any digital format you wish to play it with (which might reduce the quality some).
It might take a few extra minutes, but if you are just wanting to re-rip it to MP3, or Ogg Vorbis, or WMA or whatever, then just use a rewritable CD to do it.
Strangely, I've been able to play iTunes burned CDs, or iTMS bought music, in places that aren't my iBook with iTunes or the iPod I don't have; like on my home stereo, and in car CD players. So, I guess I don't NEED to use iTunes or an iPod to listen to my iTMS bought music. And neither do you.
So where's Expose in Windows? This alone is one feature of Panther (and future OS X and above releases) that makes OS X worth having. Having one button press to either make all open windows scale down and show on the desktop so you can get what you want, or another button press to bring all open windows of one application to the front, scaled down (and tab between apps) so you can choose the window you want, or yet another button to make every window get off the desktop to get to something on the desktop; and hit corresponding button again to go back to how you were, is simply wonderful. I don't recall this feature in any current version of Windows. I expect something similar to be copiedH^H^H^H^H^H^innovated into Longhorn.
What about the advanced graphics engine of OS X that allows you to scale windows without losing much quality when going bigger, or keeping the same quality when going smaller?
What about a scalable tool bar (dock in OS X) that can be modified to make icons scale up when moved over so you know what you are over if the tool bar is very full? Oh, wait, that goes with the advanced graphics engine.
What about incredibly fast user switching without logging off another user to accomplish? Well, this may be in Windows, but I haven't really used any Windows beyond 98 SE.
2) I.E. does less than Firefox
Tabbed browsing? It is in Firefox, not IE.
IE finally got a built in popup blocker, but only if you have Windows XP with Service Pack 2, and there's still a ton of people running Windows 98-2000 and not XP.
CSS support? It's much better and standards compliant in Firefox than in IE.
Fully W3C HTML standard compliant? Firefox, not IE.
UT2004 is much more than just a mod for UT2003. It takes UT2003, expands upon it, and brings it up to what UT2003 should have been in the first place.
Assault returning, Onslaught and it's vehicles, vehicle capture the flag, new characters, and the return of the original sniper rifle, as well as the removal of those God awful shoulder lights for teams and the return of colored armor are all things that UT2003 should have had.
UT2004 feels more like UT than UT2003 did. It's a return to what UT should be, and a divergance from the Quake-ness that UT2003 felt like.
It's way more than mod to UT2003; it completely erases UT2003 from the face of the Earth for the game that should have been in the first place.
Or, here's an idea, a battery pack that goes in your pocket and feeds the system through the charging socket.
Sony already has that planned. However, the battery unit at E3 was about half the size of the PSP itself, which is going to be hard enough to fit in normal sized pockets.
And, of course, no mention on how expensive this extra battery unit will cost, either (since they didn't talk a sylable about price for the unit, accessories, or the games at E3).
Besides, are you going to want extra wires hanging out of your pocket for a battery pack while you carry your PSP around on one of [sarcasm] these oh-so-cool looking [/sarcasm] Lanyards?
I was at E3 as well; and there wasn't a damned thing actually PLAYABLE on the PSP. The most you could do was change the camera angle in Metal Gear Acid, and the closest thing to playable was running around a small town in some RPG where you could talk to like 4 people. No leaving town, no menus, no battles.
Hell, you couldn't even do anything like pause, rewind, fast forward, or stop any video being shown on the PSP units that were showing movie trailers or Incubus videos that you could touch.
Maybe you should rename the pic to "touching" instead of "playing".;-P
Microsoft does not have any interest in Linux and BSD
Actually, Microsoft has a huge interest in both Linux and BSD. The thing is, from BSD, they are easily able to take what they want and incorporate it in Windows to try an make up for some of Windows shortcomings that BSD might do better, with no fear of copyright infringement.
Should Microsoft try and incorporate technologies from Linux into Windows, they would need to release the source for the parts that incorporate the GPL code.
Should Linux go the BSD lisence instead of the GPL, Microsoft would be free to take any and everything that Linux does better than Windows, put it in Windows, and never have to tell anyone or show that source.
Plus, if Microsoft could incorporate as much of Linux into Windows as they could, then they could effectively use that to push Linux out of the OS market, both server and the fledgling consumer market Linux is in.
The reason I don't own one (and probably never will) is that that niche caters to those who desire a pre-produced, non-gaming-capable tool for "productivity".
I don't think pissing off Sony would be a good move - they could be a lot more aggressive about playstation 3 exclusive titles and do some serious damage to the xbox 2.
Or, you know, sue Microsoft out of the console market by stating that emulation of PSOne and PS2 titles is a violation of the DMCA, since it breaks the region encryption, etc. of the disks
Microsoft isn't stupid. Evil, but not stupid. They get a lot of good things from the DMCA, and if they were caught in violation of the DMCA by making the Xbox Next emulate PSOne/PS2 games, they'd stand to lose a lot... and more than just money. Sony could effectively wipe out the threat of Microsoft's competition by having the Xbox Next be banned in North America while it has the emulation abilities.
So instead of just thinking of how Sony could get agressive in the games area, think how they could use the legal system to not only get MS out of the console market, but give them a huge PR black eye in both the public and buisness sectors; and a DMCA black eye is enough to drive a company under at this point in time, even one like Microsoft..
But, I did get 10 minutes with Doom 3 at E3 this year.
Granted, 10 minutes isn;t a long time, but it was enough to say that I am looking forward to the game, now. And I had pretty much given up on Doom 3 after all the hype.
Granted, this was also the Xbox version, not the PC version, but it was still very good. Much better than I expected.
Sure about that? Plenty of free 2-3 month trial accounts out there, and not every one of them will renew. IE they won't pay.
Only a fool would assume MS isn't including all the current free trial members in with this statistic... that means they don't necessarily have 1 million fully paid accounts, just 1 million active accounts right now..
Congrats MS, thanks for bringing online console game to the masses.
Excpet that Sony hit the 1 million online consoles mark a little less than a year before, and Sega had more subscribers to Sega.NET in the same amount of time that Xbox Live has been out.
Whoops, guess MS didn't bring online console gaming to the masses, then.
And we don't know how far those numbers will drop over the next few months as people with their free 2-3 month trials don't renew.
I think what I was pointing out is that Microsoft's "standard" really is a standard. The fundamental technology (DirectX) is widespread, accessible and mature enough to be considered the standard on which the gaming industry can me built. (Yes I know OpenGL is used as well, and I'm not trying to belittle it).
Except that the DirectX "standard" only works on Windows-based platforms, such as Windows PCs, the Xbox, and Windows CE devices. However, it is NOT a standard on other operating systems such as Sun's JAVA OS, or any *Nix including OS X and Linux.
OpenGL, however, is a standard that ALL OSes can use, even if Microsoft intentionally cripples OpenGL support on Windows in favor of their own 'standard'. After all, I run UT2004 on my OS X iBook, and there isn't a hint of DirectX support in OS X, it runs on OpenGL on here.
A standard that is only a standard on one type of platform (like DirectX being a standard only on windows platforms) is not a standard in the truest sense of the word.
Besides, DirectX is just a hack to get games to run better on Windows, as well as force developers away from known and true industry standards. According to Microsoft industry standards are good, so long as they own those standards (.doc, DirectX, etc.).
When you can show me the widespread adoption and use of DirectX as a standard accross mutliple types of platforms (IE not just Windows based platforms), then I will say that yes, it is a true standard. As long as it exists only on a Windows based system, however, I will call it a tool in maintaining monopoly status in the PC OS and office suite markets, and yet another way that Microsoft snubs its nose at Industry Standards in favor of their own which they own all the rights to.
True but when you REALLY think about it, how many Xbox games have been ported to other systems? SC2 (with mixed results being the graphics most notably)
Except that Soul Calibur 2 was NEVER designed just for the Xbox. It was known at the beginning that Namco was developing for ALL THREE systems at once.
And yet, the GC version outsold the PS2 and Xbox versions as well. Why? the Xbox had slightly better graphics and 5.1 surround sound for it's SC2 over the GameCube. However, the GC version had Link.
and enough sports games to challenge EA's draconan rules.
Wow, your glasses truly are rose tinted, aren't they? Perhaps you didn't notice, but Microsoft has CANCELLED it's crap ass XSN Sports titles for this year (the only non-crap ones being Links and Top Spin, which were great)? Or had you been in a cave in April? Oh, and look who JUST HAPPENED to get on the XBL bandwagon after Microsoft cancelled competition for it? Yep, EA.
Seems to me that EA was the one wearing down Microsoft, not the other way around.
Microsoft would NEVER knowingly or uknowingly violate anyone's patents. They are the most legal company in the world, and their sheer POPULARITY shows it.
They OBVIOUSLY make all the best software on the planet based on merit alone.
Which, of course, is why I am on a Macintosh...;-P
I haven't tried Morrowind on the PC... but the Xbox version was buggy as hell; and the re-release GOTY edition didn't fix any of the damn bugs, either.
Maybe they do good on the PC, but I'm not a huge fan of their work, being as all of the games they have released on the Xbox (and I never played any of their stuff before Morrowind on the Xbox) have been buggy glitchfests so far (problems with frames in Pirates of the Carribien? Bethesda's offical 'fix'? Leave the game on, sitting in 1 spot, for 45 minutes to let the game fully cache! Pathetic.)
I'll have to check out their PC versions, but they're batting 1000 with the crapfest on the Xbox.
Slashdot Mirror
So is every 'release' of a product before the third or later version. Windows as well.
On many DRM encrypted files, you get sent to some web page that states you aren't using a compatible player... and you're using the WMP 9 for Mac.
Of course, if you bought the songs through the iTMS, then you already know that iTunes has the ability to burn the songs to audio CD (since you need iTunes to buy from the iTMS). From that audio CD format, you may play it in your car, home stereo, or re-rip it to any digital format you wish to play it with (which might reduce the quality some).
It might take a few extra minutes, but if you are just wanting to re-rip it to MP3, or Ogg Vorbis, or WMA or whatever, then just use a rewritable CD to do it.
Strangely, I've been able to play iTunes burned CDs, or iTMS bought music, in places that aren't my iBook with iTunes or the iPod I don't have; like on my home stereo, and in car CD players. So, I guess I don't NEED to use iTunes or an iPod to listen to my iTMS bought music. And neither do you.
This deserves to be modded up. But my mod points expired 2 days ago.
The two largest third party publishers in the market are EA and Activision. Not EA and Vivendi Universal.
1) into Windows by 2006 what is already in OS X
So where's Expose in Windows? This alone is one feature of Panther (and future OS X and above releases) that makes OS X worth having. Having one button press to either make all open windows scale down and show on the desktop so you can get what you want, or another button press to bring all open windows of one application to the front, scaled down (and tab between apps) so you can choose the window you want, or yet another button to make every window get off the desktop to get to something on the desktop; and hit corresponding button again to go back to how you were, is simply wonderful. I don't recall this feature in any current version of Windows. I expect something similar to be copiedH^H^H^H^H^H^innovated into Longhorn.
What about the advanced graphics engine of OS X that allows you to scale windows without losing much quality when going bigger, or keeping the same quality when going smaller?
What about a scalable tool bar (dock in OS X) that can be modified to make icons scale up when moved over so you know what you are over if the tool bar is very full? Oh, wait, that goes with the advanced graphics engine.
What about incredibly fast user switching without logging off another user to accomplish? Well, this may be in Windows, but I haven't really used any Windows beyond 98 SE.
2) I.E. does less than Firefox
Tabbed browsing? It is in Firefox, not IE.
IE finally got a built in popup blocker, but only if you have Windows XP with Service Pack 2, and there's still a ton of people running Windows 98-2000 and not XP.
CSS support? It's much better and standards compliant in Firefox than in IE.
Fully W3C HTML standard compliant? Firefox, not IE.
So, how exacly was he lying?
I'd really like to know.
Hardly.
UT2004 is much more than just a mod for UT2003. It takes UT2003, expands upon it, and brings it up to what UT2003 should have been in the first place.
Assault returning, Onslaught and it's vehicles, vehicle capture the flag, new characters, and the return of the original sniper rifle, as well as the removal of those God awful shoulder lights for teams and the return of colored armor are all things that UT2003 should have had.
UT2004 feels more like UT than UT2003 did. It's a return to what UT should be, and a divergance from the Quake-ness that UT2003 felt like.
It's way more than mod to UT2003; it completely erases UT2003 from the face of the Earth for the game that should have been in the first place.
Sony already has that planned. However, the battery unit at E3 was about half the size of the PSP itself, which is going to be hard enough to fit in normal sized pockets.
And, of course, no mention on how expensive this extra battery unit will cost, either (since they didn't talk a sylable about price for the unit, accessories, or the games at E3).
Besides, are you going to want extra wires hanging out of your pocket for a battery pack while you carry your PSP around on one of [sarcasm] these oh-so-cool looking [/sarcasm] Lanyards?
I was at E3 as well; and there wasn't a damned thing actually PLAYABLE on the PSP. The most you could do was change the camera angle in Metal Gear Acid, and the closest thing to playable was running around a small town in some RPG where you could talk to like 4 people. No leaving town, no menus, no battles.
Hell, you couldn't even do anything like pause, rewind, fast forward, or stop any video being shown on the PSP units that were showing movie trailers or Incubus videos that you could touch.
Maybe you should rename the pic to "touching" instead of "playing". ;-P
Actually, Microsoft has a huge interest in both Linux and BSD. The thing is, from BSD, they are easily able to take what they want and incorporate it in Windows to try an make up for some of Windows shortcomings that BSD might do better, with no fear of copyright infringement.
Should Microsoft try and incorporate technologies from Linux into Windows, they would need to release the source for the parts that incorporate the GPL code.
Should Linux go the BSD lisence instead of the GPL, Microsoft would be free to take any and everything that Linux does better than Windows, put it in Windows, and never have to tell anyone or show that source.
Plus, if Microsoft could incorporate as much of Linux into Windows as they could, then they could effectively use that to push Linux out of the OS market, both server and the fledgling consumer market Linux is in.
Funny, my iBook runs Unreal Tournament 2004 just fine. As well as Halo for the Mac. And a bunch of other games as well.
And yet, it is still a very productive piece of equipment.
Or, you know, sue Microsoft out of the console market by stating that emulation of PSOne and PS2 titles is a violation of the DMCA, since it breaks the region encryption, etc. of the disks
Microsoft isn't stupid. Evil, but not stupid. They get a lot of good things from the DMCA, and if they were caught in violation of the DMCA by making the Xbox Next emulate PSOne/PS2 games, they'd stand to lose a lot... and more than just money. Sony could effectively wipe out the threat of Microsoft's competition by having the Xbox Next be banned in North America while it has the emulation abilities.
So instead of just thinking of how Sony could get agressive in the games area, think how they could use the legal system to not only get MS out of the console market, but give them a huge PR black eye in both the public and buisness sectors; and a DMCA black eye is enough to drive a company under at this point in time, even one like Microsoft..
Wow, that's sure like the CRT monitors with their normally over 1" less viewing space than advertised (17" CRT's have 15.9" viewable, for example).
It has 2 dual DVI ports on it to allow for such a feat.
Mmmmmm, two 30" montiors at 4.1 million pixels each. More screen rela estate than any one person should be allowed.
Nice single DVD to install, too.... too bad it eats up almost 6 GB of HDD space.
Granted, 10 minutes isn;t a long time, but it was enough to say that I am looking forward to the game, now. And I had pretty much given up on Doom 3 after all the hype.
Granted, this was also the Xbox version, not the PC version, but it was still very good. Much better than I expected.
YMMV of course.
Sure about that? Plenty of free 2-3 month trial accounts out there, and not every one of them will renew. IE they won't pay.
Only a fool would assume MS isn't including all the current free trial members in with this statistic... that means they don't necessarily have 1 million fully paid accounts, just 1 million active accounts right now..
Excpet that Sony hit the 1 million online consoles mark a little less than a year before, and Sega had more subscribers to Sega.NET in the same amount of time that Xbox Live has been out.
Whoops, guess MS didn't bring online console gaming to the masses, then.
And we don't know how far those numbers will drop over the next few months as people with their free 2-3 month trials don't renew.
Except that the DirectX "standard" only works on Windows-based platforms, such as Windows PCs, the Xbox, and Windows CE devices. However, it is NOT a standard on other operating systems such as Sun's JAVA OS, or any *Nix including OS X and Linux.
OpenGL, however, is a standard that ALL OSes can use, even if Microsoft intentionally cripples OpenGL support on Windows in favor of their own 'standard'. After all, I run UT2004 on my OS X iBook, and there isn't a hint of DirectX support in OS X, it runs on OpenGL on here.
A standard that is only a standard on one type of platform (like DirectX being a standard only on windows platforms) is not a standard in the truest sense of the word.
Besides, DirectX is just a hack to get games to run better on Windows, as well as force developers away from known and true industry standards. According to Microsoft industry standards are good, so long as they own those standards (.doc, DirectX, etc.).
When you can show me the widespread adoption and use of DirectX as a standard accross mutliple types of platforms (IE not just Windows based platforms), then I will say that yes, it is a true standard. As long as it exists only on a Windows based system, however, I will call it a tool in maintaining monopoly status in the PC OS and office suite markets, and yet another way that Microsoft snubs its nose at Industry Standards in favor of their own which they own all the rights to.
Except that Soul Calibur 2 was NEVER designed just for the Xbox. It was known at the beginning that Namco was developing for ALL THREE systems at once.
And yet, the GC version outsold the PS2 and Xbox versions as well. Why? the Xbox had slightly better graphics and 5.1 surround sound for it's SC2 over the GameCube. However, the GC version had Link.
and enough sports games to challenge EA's draconan rules.
Wow, your glasses truly are rose tinted, aren't they? Perhaps you didn't notice, but Microsoft has CANCELLED it's crap ass XSN Sports titles for this year (the only non-crap ones being Links and Top Spin, which were great)? Or had you been in a cave in April? Oh, and look who JUST HAPPENED to get on the XBL bandwagon after Microsoft cancelled competition for it? Yep, EA.
Seems to me that EA was the one wearing down Microsoft, not the other way around.
Um, I think you forget that the PSOne was only selling moderately well until one particualr game was announced as exclusive. That game being FF7.
Then, and ONLY THEN, did it begin to sell like wildfire.
They OBVIOUSLY make all the best software on the planet based on merit alone.
Which, of course, is why I am on a Macintosh... ;-P
This should have happened a long time ago, though. Somehow, they just keep spinning themselves a halfway decent rep.
Maybe they do good on the PC, but I'm not a huge fan of their work, being as all of the games they have released on the Xbox (and I never played any of their stuff before Morrowind on the Xbox) have been buggy glitchfests so far (problems with frames in Pirates of the Carribien? Bethesda's offical 'fix'? Leave the game on, sitting in 1 spot, for 45 minutes to let the game fully cache! Pathetic.)
I'll have to check out their PC versions, but they're batting 1000 with the crapfest on the Xbox.