While I haven't read every single comment to this thread, one thing that seems to be glossed over is the fact that when I put down $60 for a game like MK or Portal 2 (ok it's a little cheaper, but ignore that for now) I expect to be able to play using the PSN against other players. It has nothing to do with the fact that the PSN is free. It has everything to do with my expectations of the product when I purchase it. Maybe the value of the game is more like $50 or less if I can't play online or maybe I wouldn't buy the game if I couldn't play online.
Couple the above with the much talked about identity theft potential and Sony needs to give it's customers something to say "We screwed up, we really do appreciate your business and we are trying to make it better." The problem is, the value of that something is different for every user. Some people may never have their identity stolen as a result of this problem and some people never play online. On the other hand you've got plenty of people that will have their identity stolen and expect to always be playing online. Their best option might be to give people a choice. 3-6 months of PS+, or 3-6 months of Netflix credit, or something else entirely.
I doubt that anyone will read this since it's so far down in the comments, but I'm slightly surprised at some of the backlash to this. Don't get me wrong, if I read this and was a Dish DVR user I would be worried and probably a bit furious. However, I see this panning out in one of two ways.
1. The injunction stays and Dish will be forced into licensing the TiVo technology. Hopefully this will mean that Dish will actually start selling actual TiVo boxes. I'm not sure it will go that far, but it would make me happier since I would have the option of going to Dish if I wanted to.
2. The injunction will be overturned or stayed for a long period of time. In this case I can only hope that TiVo still gets the money from Dish.
I can't imagine that Dish will get to a point where they will actually turn off their customer's DVRs.
Now for the reason I'm slightly surprised at the backlash on slashdot. TiVo has a history of being hacker friendly. For the longest time, their stance has been a do what you want as long as you don't blame us when your system stops working. In addition, if you don't want to pay for a DVR or service, MythTV has been around for a while. I don't have one, but I've heard that it's a very stable and easy to install/use piece of software.
After all this time I can't believe that someone hasn't just come up with a kit/product that is embeded linux with a small (somewhere around 3" to 5") LCD panel and a network adapter or WiFi.
If there is something out there like this, I'd love to know about it. The best I've seen previous to this is hacking an old laptop and throwing it into a custom frame, but I want something that uses very little power and generates as little heat as possible.
I've read the replies to this post and felt the need to add one more plus that makes the TiVo far superior then any VCR I have ever used. When fast forwarding, there are three speeds that you can use. Anything past the first one will automatically back up a few seconds when you hit play again. This is one of my major complaints about FFing on a VCR. I have to hit the FF, then REW, then if I go to far back FF and REW again. This is extremely anoying and some times takes up way too much time.
I'm a little surprised that the article didn't mention 3D data. To me, the next step in multimedia would be something like holographic video. By adding a 3rd dimension the amount of data per minute of video would be huge! Take it one step further and put together a "Holodeck" which would use 3D audio as well.
We bought a product from (company name withheld). There were some customizations that needed to be done for our company. It took well over 18 months for them to get the first portion running without too much of a problem. Then there were arguments over how certain pieces of the system were supposed to work. We got completely fed up and decided to write our own. About a year later we had a D.A.M. system we could call or own and works much better for us then the other system.
If you are considering going with a certain product, get a list of people already using the system and call them. Ask them how they use the system, how well it has performed for them, how much downtime have they experienced in the last year, and most importantly, how was the support when they needed it. If you can test drive the system, do it.
In general I am opposed to pirating video or audio content. However, in the case of most TV (broadcast) shows there are more then a few reasons you might want to download your show from the Internet that I feel are more then valid.
1> That crappy VCR that you own missed an episode because for some reason the network BHBs decided that the best time slot for your favorite show should be 3am on Monday morning and you didn't know. Of course the best way to fix this is get a Tivo!
2> By some miracle there are more the one show you want to record at the same time and your not going to be home. And of course the UPN show that you didn't record isn't going to be played again until hell freezes over. Of course you could just buy another Tivo.
3> You've heard of this amazing show that a bunch of your friends from back home are talking about, but the area you live in doesn't get that network. Of course you could send your friends a Tivo, ask them to record it for you, and have them ship it back to you.
4> You are a huge fan of a certain show and the possibility of all the episodes being released on DVD are slim to none. There have been a few gems of a TV series that I've wanted to go back and watch, but their not available on VHS/DVD/Beta for purchase, rental, or syndication. In this case the solution is a little trickier involving sending your new 2000 hour Tivo back in time.
"Of course that's just my oppinion, I could be wrong." DM
I noticed that a few people were talking about how USB is so slow. What if they were including a USB 2.0 controller? Theoretical speeds for 2.0 are above that of IEE1394.
On the other hand, for the features that I'd love to see you may not need anything faster then 12Mbs. Personaly I would love to be able to use my cable modem connection to be able to update my show listings and maybe (I wish) be able to do some remote control from the Internet.
If you read the article it actualy states that the limit was already extended last January, so we're talking more like 6 times as fast.
"In recent years, the government had moved to ease export restrictions. The Clinton Administration boosted the MTOPS limit to 85,000 from 28,000 last January and the Senate passed a bill on Sept. 6 that effectively removed MTOPS limits."
OK, if Bruce is busy enough to the point that he can't write the answers in email format himself, can we expect him to explain something that is truley covered in his book.
BTW, the book was a fun and relatively quick read. I would definately recommend picking it up for some light reading.
While the chances that smallpox being released as a weapon may be small, there is still a very real possibility it could happen. I doubt you could convince me that (a) the only two places that smallpox exists are in the two specified locations, granted I agree that the chances of this are remote and (b) that human error or greed could not result in the release of smallpox from either of these two locations.
Considering how devastating smallpox could be, why shouldn't we attempt to protect ourselves. If there are people that are "intelligent" and determined enough to take over an airplane and kill themselves and over 5000 others, finding at least one person willing and capable of releasing smallpox into this world can't be that hard.
Bruce, I managed to see you speak earlier this year and while I missed most of the first documentary I did see all of "Fanalysis". I really liked it. I did notice that even though the film points out some of the rediculous and lame questions asked by fans, they still get asked even though the film ended less then five minutes prior to the Q&A. Do you find that doing the Q&A after "Fanalysis" cuts down, at all, on the really stupid and obvious questions?
I was fresh out of college and had a CS degree. While I was hired as a programmer, I was the only person in the company of about 12 people that had any interest in learning to setup email on our AIX machine.
At some point my boss decided that after I managed to setup POP and made a few changes here and there that I was ready to support 28 servers in 4 different locations in varying O/S (including DOS, *nix, Netware, and VMS) and machine types. FYI, I didn't know a thing about VMS when my bos took the contract.
Too make a long painful story short, after a 70 hour week working on rebuilding a DOS box, I found a head hunter and ran screaming and laughing to where I am now.
I don't miss the 3am pages or the users and managers screaming at me because something wasn't working because I (a) didn't know how to get it working yet and there is only so much you can learn at a time or (b) my boss had promised that I would do something and then never tell me.
First of all let me say that I have no interest in playing any of the Myst series games.
Second, I can understand being pissed off about buying something that doesn't work. I've had other software that I bought that completely sucked time and energy trying to get it to install let alone play.
However, on the other hand with all the available hardware out there I can't imagine the task of testing all available hardware. Granted that's why you have system requirements, but what about the guy that bought the $20 CDROM from some unknown manufacturer or a single model of a name brand that they never tested that is having a problem with SafeDisc.
Last, but not least, I disagree with this being posted as a review. IMO this should have been more of a "this is a problem, what can we do about it" post.
Unless my definition of privacy is distorted, in this ideal world, no information would be held in secret. Therefore any information that could be used to bring harm to you or someone you know physically, financially, or otherwise would be publicly available. That really doesn't sound ideal to me.
I've got a couple year old sony. While it doesn't have the optical in, coupled with a set of Cerwin Vega speakers the system sounds incredible. I don't have a Sub, but with the RE-38 speakers that I use for the fronts, I almost don't even need one.
Slashdot Mirror
While I haven't read every single comment to this thread, one thing that seems to be glossed over is the fact that when I put down $60 for a game like MK or Portal 2 (ok it's a little cheaper, but ignore that for now) I expect to be able to play using the PSN against other players. It has nothing to do with the fact that the PSN is free. It has everything to do with my expectations of the product when I purchase it. Maybe the value of the game is more like $50 or less if I can't play online or maybe I wouldn't buy the game if I couldn't play online.
Couple the above with the much talked about identity theft potential and Sony needs to give it's customers something to say "We screwed up, we really do appreciate your business and we are trying to make it better." The problem is, the value of that something is different for every user. Some people may never have their identity stolen as a result of this problem and some people never play online. On the other hand you've got plenty of people that will have their identity stolen and expect to always be playing online. Their best option might be to give people a choice. 3-6 months of PS+, or 3-6 months of Netflix credit, or something else entirely.
Not sure if it's a result of the book review here, but seems that Zembly's site is down.
I doubt that anyone will read this since it's so far down in the comments, but I'm slightly surprised at some of the backlash to this. Don't get me wrong, if I read this and was a Dish DVR user I would be worried and probably a bit furious. However, I see this panning out in one of two ways.
1. The injunction stays and Dish will be forced into licensing the TiVo technology. Hopefully this will mean that Dish will actually start selling actual TiVo boxes. I'm not sure it will go that far, but it would make me happier since I would have the option of going to Dish if I wanted to.
2. The injunction will be overturned or stayed for a long period of time. In this case I can only hope that TiVo still gets the money from Dish.
I can't imagine that Dish will get to a point where they will actually turn off their customer's DVRs.
Now for the reason I'm slightly surprised at the backlash on slashdot. TiVo has a history of being hacker friendly. For the longest time, their stance has been a do what you want as long as you don't blame us when your system stops working. In addition, if you don't want to pay for a DVR or service, MythTV has been around for a while. I don't have one, but I've heard that it's a very stable and easy to install/use piece of software.
After all this time I can't believe that someone hasn't just come up with a kit/product that is embeded linux with a small (somewhere around 3" to 5") LCD panel and a network adapter or WiFi.
If there is something out there like this, I'd love to know about it. The best I've seen previous to this is hacking an old laptop and throwing it into a custom frame, but I want something that uses very little power and generates as little heat as possible.
Where in the article did it say that P2P applications (in general) will be outlawed?
I've read the replies to this post and felt the need to add one more plus that makes the TiVo far superior then any VCR I have ever used. When fast forwarding, there are three speeds that you can use. Anything past the first one will automatically back up a few seconds when you hit play again. This is one of my major complaints about FFing on a VCR. I have to hit the FF, then REW, then if I go to far back FF and REW again. This is extremely anoying and some times takes up way too much time.
I'm a little surprised that the article didn't mention 3D data. To me, the next step in multimedia would be something like holographic video. By adding a 3rd dimension the amount of data per minute of video would be huge! Take it one step further and put together a "Holodeck" which would use 3D audio as well.
We bought a product from (company name withheld). There were some customizations that needed to be done for our company. It took well over 18 months for them to get the first portion running without too much of a problem. Then there were arguments over how certain pieces of the system were supposed to work. We got completely fed up and decided to write our own. About a year later we had a D.A.M. system we could call or own and works much better for us then the other system.
If you are considering going with a certain product, get a list of people already using the system and call them. Ask them how they use the system, how well it has performed for them, how much downtime have they experienced in the last year, and most importantly, how was the support when they needed it. If you can test drive the system, do it.
In general I am opposed to pirating video or audio content. However, in the case of most TV (broadcast) shows there are more then a few reasons you might want to download your show from the Internet that I feel are more then valid.
1> That crappy VCR that you own missed an episode because for some reason the network BHBs decided that the best time slot for your favorite show should be 3am on Monday morning and you didn't know. Of course the best way to fix this is get a Tivo!
2> By some miracle there are more the one show you want to record at the same time and your not going to be home. And of course the UPN show that you didn't record isn't going to be played again until hell freezes over. Of course you could just buy another Tivo.
3> You've heard of this amazing show that a bunch of your friends from back home are talking about, but the area you live in doesn't get that network. Of course you could send your friends a Tivo, ask them to record it for you, and have them ship it back to you.
4> You are a huge fan of a certain show and the possibility of all the episodes being released on DVD are slim to none. There have been a few gems of a TV series that I've wanted to go back and watch, but their not available on VHS/DVD/Beta for purchase, rental, or syndication. In this case the solution is a little trickier involving sending your new 2000 hour Tivo back in time.
"Of course that's just my oppinion, I could be wrong." DM
I noticed that a few people were talking about how USB is so slow. What if they were including a USB 2.0 controller? Theoretical speeds for 2.0 are above that of IEE1394.
On the other hand, for the features that I'd love to see you may not need anything faster then 12Mbs. Personaly I would love to be able to use my cable modem connection to be able to update my show listings and maybe (I wish) be able to do some remote control from the Internet.
If you read the article it actualy states that the limit was already extended last January, so we're talking more like 6 times as fast.
"In recent years, the government had moved to ease export restrictions. The Clinton Administration boosted the MTOPS limit to 85,000 from 28,000 last January and the Senate passed a bill on Sept. 6 that effectively removed MTOPS limits."
OK, if Bruce is busy enough to the point that he can't write the answers in email format himself, can we expect him to explain something that is truley covered in his book.
BTW, the book was a fun and relatively quick read. I would definately recommend picking it up for some light reading.
While the chances that smallpox being released as a weapon may be small, there is still a very real possibility it could happen. I doubt you could convince me that (a) the only two places that smallpox exists are in the two specified locations, granted I agree that the chances of this are remote and (b) that human error or greed could not result in the release of smallpox from either of these two locations.
Considering how devastating smallpox could be, why shouldn't we attempt to protect ourselves. If there are people that are "intelligent" and determined enough to take over an airplane and kill themselves and over 5000 others, finding at least one person willing and capable of releasing smallpox into this world can't be that hard.
Bruce, I managed to see you speak earlier this year and while I missed most of the first documentary I did see all of "Fanalysis". I really liked it. I did notice that even though the film points out some of the rediculous and lame questions asked by fans, they still get asked even though the film ended less then five minutes prior to the Q&A. Do you find that doing the Q&A after "Fanalysis" cuts down, at all, on the really stupid and obvious questions?
I was fresh out of college and had a CS degree. While I was hired as a programmer, I was the only person in the company of about 12 people that had any interest in learning to setup email on our AIX machine.
At some point my boss decided that after I managed to setup POP and made a few changes here and there that I was ready to support 28 servers in 4 different locations in varying O/S (including DOS, *nix, Netware, and VMS) and machine types. FYI, I didn't know a thing about VMS when my bos took the contract.
Too make a long painful story short, after a 70 hour week working on rebuilding a DOS box, I found a head hunter and ran screaming and laughing to where I am now.
I don't miss the 3am pages or the users and managers screaming at me because something wasn't working because I (a) didn't know how to get it working yet and there is only so much you can learn at a time or (b) my boss had promised that I would do something and then never tell me.
First of all let me say that I have no interest in playing any of the Myst series games.
Second, I can understand being pissed off about buying something that doesn't work. I've had other software that I bought that completely sucked time and energy trying to get it to install let alone play.
However, on the other hand with all the available hardware out there I can't imagine the task of testing all available hardware. Granted that's why you have system requirements, but what about the guy that bought the $20 CDROM from some unknown manufacturer or a single model of a name brand that they never tested that is having a problem with SafeDisc.
Last, but not least, I disagree with this being posted as a review. IMO this should have been more of a "this is a problem, what can we do about it" post.
Unless my definition of privacy is distorted, in this ideal world, no information would be held in secret. Therefore any information that could be used to bring harm to you or someone you know physically, financially, or otherwise would be publicly available. That really doesn't sound ideal to me.
I've got a couple year old sony. While it doesn't have the optical in, coupled with a set of Cerwin Vega speakers the system sounds incredible. I don't have a Sub, but with the RE-38 speakers that I use for the fronts, I almost don't even need one.