What's the fuss? This practice has been required by law for anyone obtaining pets such as cats and dogs in Australia for years now. Both of my cats have them, and it's just a tiny implant with owner information, and the only trouble with them so far that I've heard of is that some have been known to slip out of place in the body of the animal and make it difficult to get the information out of them.
The burden of proof in Civil law is on the balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt, so I wouldn't like to be the one fronting the legal fees to try it.
How can you say that over the next five years there won't be a single developer that tries it? There's simply no way that this can be considered anything other than a lessening of features for people unfortunate enough to buy it in it's first iteration.
Right, it doesn't make much sense. Even though many people may not actually use it, the big plus on a console is that they're only making games for one set of hardware. Even though this is only the media that it is going to use, and even though people may swear that there's barely any chance it could have an effect for future games, the lifecycle of a console can be very long, and we have no idea how things are going to nut out over the next four to five years.
The only thing I can see working is if people will actually be able to trade in their consoles, get a new one, and they use the old ones for parts for repairs, or 'refurbish' them over time. It seems pretty reasonable, however when you're factoring in that this would be for several million consoles, no doubt what Microsoft would be aiming for, there are going to be massive costs involved no matter what. I simply can't see the logic in it.
Since they're not 'losing money' as they actually made a profit, should they still follow Sony and Microsoft's fine example, which made losses of $52.6 million and $179 million respectively?
"It also can't be understated that Nintendo saw a profit in its last quarter. By comparison, Sony Computer Entertainment today reported a quarterly loss of 5.9 billion yen ($52.6 million). Last week, Microsoft's Home and Entertainment division, which makes the Xbox, said it lost $179 million during its last quarter. I'd take a profit over a loss any day of the week. It's also the first time Sony has ever had two back-to-back losses.
A response based on technicalities to an article based on technicalites. We all know that web browsing does slow down productivity in some way most places where it is available, and yet when something comes out pointing at the obvious somebody has to attack those points on technicalities so that we all pretend that it doesn't exist. Sorry - just like coffee breaks, 9 times out of ten it will decrease productivity. Sure, you'll find someone who is going over the top on their estimates and be able to counter them, but that doesn't nullify what is blindingly obvious.
Look - I know this is supposed to be Slashdot and we're all supposed to say "Hey, the Internet is being talked down in some way - We'd better defend it now!", but the Internet, along with almost any other device, from a scratch pad to the telephone, can and is misused so that there is 'less productivity' at work. Do any of us give a stuff that our employers aren't getting 100% of the miniscule amount that they pay us? Hell no. But does that mean that we have to pretend that it doesn't happen?
Geeze I'm sorry, like every single other story on the site is worth a mention? Between bashing Microsoft for mistakes they haven't made yet and hyping the latest open source program that hasn't produced a solid outcome yet, I welcome something that I'll actually find slightly interesting.
Why would they introduce another chip line into low end machines, when their customer base is 90% clueless about computers? They say "oooh, lets look at AMD chips" to get Intel riled up into offering them a deal on the next batch of chips.
Gee, I don't know, perhaps because of price? These consumers 'clueless' about computers are pretty eager to get a good price - And since as you say they don't care about what chips their computers are using, the lower price offered by AMD would be nothing other than a good move.
Intel? A Monopoly? Not a chance. 80% market share isn't a monopoly. Incentives don't make you a monopolist. You can't compare Intel to DeBeers (who won't put an office in the US cause they know the second they do, their ass is gone). Not even to Microsoft.
Hmmm, 80% market share now, but this is after AMD have spent years breaking the ice after reaching the gigahert barrier. You don't think that a company that has had a virtual manopoly just rolls over and dies when they get to 80% do you? If these tactics are proven, then it shows what a company with 'only' 80% market share can do to a minority competitor - And that doesn't make it any less worse.
Right now, all this has determined that they can be sued. If anything that's the surprise to me: With baseless suits being a big features in this day and age, I'm surprised they couldn't just go ahead and do it. But the judge is allowing it because:
"We'll be demonstrating that the company had knowledge of what was happening, and that these two individuals knew of this [piracy] activity," Tony Bannon, counsel for the labels, said.
The plaintiff has promised to demonstrate that they had full knowledge, not just that they had unverified takedown notices. And if they do - It's fair enough. But they'll have their day to prove it.
Come on, I know the first Resident Evil movie wasn't all that good on the whole, but the laser sequence when the soldiers were in the passage to the Red Queen's chamber was the best part! Who could forget the memorable quotes that were uttered there, such as "It's coming back!" and "You're going into shock.. Stay with me.. Stay awake!!"? Or where the team leader is sliced into tiny pieces by the laser when he would have survived if he'd just taken a step back. A classic movie? No, but a great laser sequence, you betcha!
Yep, sorry, you are wrong. The gaming scene has far more users than Linux on computer, and the difference between getting a handheld or not to the average Joe isn't whether it can run a version of Linux or not. It may make it slightly more attractive for some, but saying that it would be the difference between 'high sales' and 'total failure', when the DS has already sold millions and millions without this so far, is ludicrous.
Even on home consoles, mod-chip users are in the vast minority. Although a console's moddability has infact driven a small portion of the sales in the past (Such as with the Dreamcast), the average Joe whose friend installs it for him isn't doing it for a 'stable Linux distribution', he's doing it for the pirated games.
"who is a judge of what is shocking and what is not?"
Their advertisers, which is where they gain a good portion of their income from. It's all well and good that they can technically perhaps be on the correct side of the law, but when it comes to standing your ground or losing your income a public company is going to cave.
Gee, a game that only recently came out is outdoing a game that came out over 6 months ago in sales in a single week? That's INCREDIBLE! Stand back WoW, those 2 million subscribers now mean nothing!
Sony also have Planetside in their lineup, which I believe that they bought the parent developers of during development, however I'm not certain on this.
You're right about that. About all that was genuinly left interested in the Matrix were the 'philosophical' idiots that thought that there was still some great meaning and master plan behind the two terrible, terrible sequels.
There's a huge difference in legal terms between being found guilty and what happened here, just because you don't understand it that doesn't make the distinction less important.
Well geeze, I'm very impressed with your logic that consumer protection laws should be replaced with 'That's fucking life'.
I'm sorry, but whether it's Apple or anyone else, when you have hundreds to thousands of people working for you a company can make mistakes. Because they don't screw up with one product in your experience that doesn't mean they're shielded from any failure to come.
The way I see it is that the settlement is being arranged, and it's pretty clear cut, Apple made bad claims and are going to have to make on offer like, oh, thousands of other companies have in the past. No it doesn't mean that they're suddenly going to lose the computing war, or that their OS is going to turn to shit, it means that they're going to have to honor their claims.
I realise that obviously nothing has been set in stone and it wouldn't have gotten the final go-ahead, but I just can't see a Star Trek movie, or in that case a new Star Trek franchise starting successfully as a movie. Considering how much of a dodgey prospect it ended up being putting the most-popular ratings-wise TNG crew in the seat for Nemesis, it shows how hard it can be when you've got a well-known and popular cast to start from.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, however apart from breaking 'Trek convention', you can look back at the past shows and see how hard it has been for other crews to get their dynamic working, TNG needed a few seasons, as did DS9 to get into the groove, and I just can't see it magically happening just because it's a movie.
On another note, I've heared rumours that it's going to be another prequel. What is it with prequels these days? How many prequels out of the whole are actually done right? Prequels have no inherent good qualities - They're before what fans are used to, they are always inconsistent in some minute way, along with a host of other problems such as the creators having the need to link up and introduce every concept ever seen in the previous shows. As an example is it ever really that interesting to have a set of shields, which have been seen and known in a show for a long time, introduced to a new crew that gush over what and how good they are? What I'm saying is that prequels start off on the wrong foot to begin with: They're a nice concept that sounds interesting, but they're rarely implemented well. Why, instead of arbitrarily trying to force a different story out of the works by making the technology shit can't they just take the story from a different set of people or from a different perspective? Too long Star Trek has relied on the mantra of 'This is the Starfleet crew who are going to have lots of adventures'. Aside from trying to force this aspect through being a prequel, Enterprise still had a great chance to break out of this rut. Before the Federation's rules, before the Federation's technology! But unfortunately it didn't take long for it to get bogged down in the same pit.
This ISN'T to make everybody pay GST. This is to make those sneaky buggers that would charge 10% GST after the auction whether they collect GST or not include it in the auction price and not as a boost after-sale. This is for consumer protection, not taxation, it's just written up very badly as usual on Slashdot.
Too busy jumping on the sensational headlines. If this were about the tax, why would it be a consumer protection group asking Ebay? It's just about making sure the consumer isn't confused when they use auctions that charge the GST after the auction to get a little extra profit, business or not. This doesn't mean that every personal auction needs to charge and register for the GST.
Slashdot Mirror
Goatse Man.
What's the fuss? This practice has been required by law for anyone obtaining pets such as cats and dogs in Australia for years now. Both of my cats have them, and it's just a tiny implant with owner information, and the only trouble with them so far that I've heard of is that some have been known to slip out of place in the body of the animal and make it difficult to get the information out of them.
The burden of proof in Civil law is on the balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt, so I wouldn't like to be the one fronting the legal fees to try it.
How can you say that over the next five years there won't be a single developer that tries it? There's simply no way that this can be considered anything other than a lessening of features for people unfortunate enough to buy it in it's first iteration.
Right, it doesn't make much sense. Even though many people may not actually use it, the big plus on a console is that they're only making games for one set of hardware. Even though this is only the media that it is going to use, and even though people may swear that there's barely any chance it could have an effect for future games, the lifecycle of a console can be very long, and we have no idea how things are going to nut out over the next four to five years.
The only thing I can see working is if people will actually be able to trade in their consoles, get a new one, and they use the old ones for parts for repairs, or 'refurbish' them over time. It seems pretty reasonable, however when you're factoring in that this would be for several million consoles, no doubt what Microsoft would be aiming for, there are going to be massive costs involved no matter what. I simply can't see the logic in it.
Since they're not 'losing money' as they actually made a profit, should they still follow Sony and Microsoft's fine example, which made losses of $52.6 million and $179 million respectively?
From a far more informing Gamespot article here
"It also can't be understated that Nintendo saw a profit in its last quarter. By comparison, Sony Computer Entertainment today reported a quarterly loss of 5.9 billion yen ($52.6 million). Last week, Microsoft's Home and Entertainment division, which makes the Xbox, said it lost $179 million during its last quarter.
I'd take a profit over a loss any day of the week. It's also the first time Sony has ever had two back-to-back losses.
A response based on technicalities to an article based on technicalites. We all know that web browsing does slow down productivity in some way most places where it is available, and yet when something comes out pointing at the obvious somebody has to attack those points on technicalities so that we all pretend that it doesn't exist. Sorry - just like coffee breaks, 9 times out of ten it will decrease productivity. Sure, you'll find someone who is going over the top on their estimates and be able to counter them, but that doesn't nullify what is blindingly obvious.
Look - I know this is supposed to be Slashdot and we're all supposed to say "Hey, the Internet is being talked down in some way - We'd better defend it now!", but the Internet, along with almost any other device, from a scratch pad to the telephone, can and is misused so that there is 'less productivity' at work. Do any of us give a stuff that our employers aren't getting 100% of the miniscule amount that they pay us? Hell no. But does that mean that we have to pretend that it doesn't happen?
It's a FAAAAAAAAAKE!
Geeze I'm sorry, like every single other story on the site is worth a mention? Between bashing Microsoft for mistakes they haven't made yet and hyping the latest open source program that hasn't produced a solid outcome yet, I welcome something that I'll actually find slightly interesting.
Gee, I don't know, perhaps because of price? These consumers 'clueless' about computers are pretty eager to get a good price - And since as you say they don't care about what chips their computers are using, the lower price offered by AMD would be nothing other than a good move.
Intel? A Monopoly? Not a chance. 80% market share isn't a monopoly. Incentives don't make you a monopolist. You can't compare Intel to DeBeers (who won't put an office in the US cause they know the second they do, their ass is gone). Not even to Microsoft.
Hmmm, 80% market share now, but this is after AMD have spent years breaking the ice after reaching the gigahert barrier. You don't think that a company that has had a virtual manopoly just rolls over and dies when they get to 80% do you? If these tactics are proven, then it shows what a company with 'only' 80% market share can do to a minority competitor - And that doesn't make it any less worse.
"We'll be demonstrating that the company had knowledge of what was happening, and that these two individuals knew of this [piracy] activity," Tony Bannon, counsel for the labels, said.
The plaintiff has promised to demonstrate that they had full knowledge, not just that they had unverified takedown notices. And if they do - It's fair enough. But they'll have their day to prove it.Come on, I know the first Resident Evil movie wasn't all that good on the whole, but the laser sequence when the soldiers were in the passage to the Red Queen's chamber was the best part! Who could forget the memorable quotes that were uttered there, such as "It's coming back!" and "You're going into shock.. Stay with me.. Stay awake!!"? Or where the team leader is sliced into tiny pieces by the laser when he would have survived if he'd just taken a step back. A classic movie? No, but a great laser sequence, you betcha!
Yep, sorry, you are wrong. The gaming scene has far more users than Linux on computer, and the difference between getting a handheld or not to the average Joe isn't whether it can run a version of Linux or not. It may make it slightly more attractive for some, but saying that it would be the difference between 'high sales' and 'total failure', when the DS has already sold millions and millions without this so far, is ludicrous.
Even on home consoles, mod-chip users are in the vast minority. Although a console's moddability has infact driven a small portion of the sales in the past (Such as with the Dreamcast), the average Joe whose friend installs it for him isn't doing it for a 'stable Linux distribution', he's doing it for the pirated games.
"who is a judge of what is shocking and what is not?"
Their advertisers, which is where they gain a good portion of their income from. It's all well and good that they can technically perhaps be on the correct side of the law, but when it comes to standing your ground or losing your income a public company is going to cave.
Gee, a game that only recently came out is outdoing a game that came out over 6 months ago in sales in a single week? That's INCREDIBLE! Stand back WoW, those 2 million subscribers now mean nothing!
Sony also have Planetside in their lineup, which I believe that they bought the parent developers of during development, however I'm not certain on this.
You're right about that. About all that was genuinly left interested in the Matrix were the 'philosophical' idiots that thought that there was still some great meaning and master plan behind the two terrible, terrible sequels.
There's a huge difference in legal terms between being found guilty and what happened here, just because you don't understand it that doesn't make the distinction less important.
Hey, Ausgamers are great for stuff like this. Get it here
Hmm, they could always allow it and finally bring real competition to Microsoft on their home ground? I can dream..
I'm sorry, but whether it's Apple or anyone else, when you have hundreds to thousands of people working for you a company can make mistakes. Because they don't screw up with one product in your experience that doesn't mean they're shielded from any failure to come.
The way I see it is that the settlement is being arranged, and it's pretty clear cut, Apple made bad claims and are going to have to make on offer like, oh, thousands of other companies have in the past. No it doesn't mean that they're suddenly going to lose the computing war, or that their OS is going to turn to shit, it means that they're going to have to honor their claims.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, however apart from breaking 'Trek convention', you can look back at the past shows and see how hard it has been for other crews to get their dynamic working, TNG needed a few seasons, as did DS9 to get into the groove, and I just can't see it magically happening just because it's a movie.
On another note, I've heared rumours that it's going to be another prequel. What is it with prequels these days? How many prequels out of the whole are actually done right? Prequels have no inherent good qualities - They're before what fans are used to, they are always inconsistent in some minute way, along with a host of other problems such as the creators having the need to link up and introduce every concept ever seen in the previous shows. As an example is it ever really that interesting to have a set of shields, which have been seen and known in a show for a long time, introduced to a new crew that gush over what and how good they are? What I'm saying is that prequels start off on the wrong foot to begin with: They're a nice concept that sounds interesting, but they're rarely implemented well. Why, instead of arbitrarily trying to force a different story out of the works by making the technology shit can't they just take the story from a different set of people or from a different perspective? Too long Star Trek has relied on the mantra of 'This is the Starfleet crew who are going to have lots of adventures'. Aside from trying to force this aspect through being a prequel, Enterprise still had a great chance to break out of this rut. Before the Federation's rules, before the Federation's technology! But unfortunately it didn't take long for it to get bogged down in the same pit.
This ISN'T to make everybody pay GST. This is to make those sneaky buggers that would charge 10% GST after the auction whether they collect GST or not include it in the auction price and not as a boost after-sale. This is for consumer protection, not taxation, it's just written up very badly as usual on Slashdot.
Too busy jumping on the sensational headlines. If this were about the tax, why would it be a consumer protection group asking Ebay? It's just about making sure the consumer isn't confused when they use auctions that charge the GST after the auction to get a little extra profit, business or not. This doesn't mean that every personal auction needs to charge and register for the GST.