onesuite.com is almost exactly the same as BigZoo. Some of the automated voices are even the same, and the domestic rates (I didn't check international, since we don't need it) are exactly the same. Same available features, etc.
That's no joke. Why haven't I switched permanently to Linux? The list of reasons is quickly becoming shorter and shorter.
Games? - The biggest games (and more games in general) are getting Linux ports.
Office suites/productivity? Done.
Plug 'n' play hardware and peripherals? Getting better, but the actual hardware manufacturers sure seem to be dragging their heels.
Low cost? Can't beat free.
Easy to configure? Again, getting better, but still a long way to go.
Easy to learn? Well, I haven't done any studies on this, but from various "switch" stories, it's at least as easy to learn (if not easier) than windows.
Security? Pretty dang good, but I'm not going to fool myself. If Linux were as widespread on the desktop as MS Windows, there would be a whole lot more exploits. Not necessarily more than on Windows, but more than there are now.
Not only can you play it on their site, you can download the source code for both the server *and* the bots. Incidentally, the bots actually have decent AI--after all, the project was originally meant as AI research.
I'll nominate Homeworld(1999), too. It's a bit more demanding as far as hardware is concerned, but even today, it's gorgeous. Earlier this year I finally got a monitor that supports 1600x1200, and cranked the settings to the max. Wow. Beauty. Just plain beauty.
The story and voice acting in the game are also unparalleled.
TiVo, with its associated abundance of convenient features, is merely the response of a free market to a real demand. Keep in mind these facts:
1.) People like certain shows, so they buy a TV.
2.) These shows are only shown on cable, so people subscribe to a cable service.
3.) People can't always watch those shows when the shows are broadcast, so they buy a VCR.
4.) People (in general) don't want to watch commercials, so they buy a TiVo.(I'm not saying that it's the only reason people buy it, it's just one)
With each step, the monetary expense increases. But consumers consider it worth the money. One major problem I see here, however, is that cable channels (in the beginning) were commercial-free. They were paid for by the subscription fees. Now, not only do you have to pay the cable company more than ever to watch the same shows, you now have a third of your time wasted by commercials.
This is why TiVo is becoming more popular. It's convenient. Someone needs to explain that term to the RIAA and MPAA.
It seems to me that a tablet PC is really aimed at a market that is small-to-non-existant. As far as I can tell, the main selling point for tablet PCs (the ability to write on the screen like a notepad) is duplicated in PDAs. In fact, the only reasons to get one instead of a PDA are 1) it's more like a computer (HD, faster CPU, more RAM) and 2) a larger screen.
Tablet PCs, instead of becoming the indispensable laptop-and-PDA killers they were touted to be, instead combine the worst features of both laptops and PDAs. What results? Low-performance, too much weight (ie less-portable), short battery life, and high price.
There's one more reason people have both a laptop and a PDA. You can get both for less than the price of a tablet PC.
Man, I was having an _ok_ day until now. This just warms my heart! From the witnesses' accounts, DC had some brief, powerful arguments, which pleased the judge, and SCO has some flacid babblings about "methods and concepts", which the judge did NOT appreciate.
The tech focus of the Clinton era led to an over-inflated economy that collapsed under its own unrealistic expectations. People blame bush for the economy tanking in 2000. It was not his fault, nor do I blame Clinton(as much as I would like to). It was similar to the time leading up to the Great Depression--wild hysteria about how much money one could make easily, followed by ruined hopes (and fortunes) when reality set in.
I will, however agree that the space program (including the much-maligned ISS) does contribute to the development of new products. However, we need to stop shouldering such a vast majority of the financial responsibility for it.
My first thoughts were exactly the same. What's to prevent you from building/buying/manufacturing + selling RFID denial-of-service devices? I can see Congress (or the FCC) quickly outlawing such devices, but how hard would it be to build one?
Not only could you drive any Walmart's system into the ground (allowing someone to get away with shoplifting), but you could sabotage someone else, sending them into a no-cameras room for a visit with store security. I confess to some degree of ignorance here, but are there any mechanisms in place in RFID systems to prevent such sabotage/DOS attacks?
One more point--what's to prevent ME from bugging the store and datamining everyone's shopping habits? I imagine an RFID detector would be simple to build, require little power, take little room, be easy to hide by the doors of a store, and would be able to intercept all radio traffic between the RFID tags and store equipment.(/me thinks for a second) Wow, that's kind of scary.
I, too, didn't realize that the author of the article is female until the "why did she get a plushie" line. I suspect being female helped the booth babes open up more willingly.
I wonder if/why so many of the attendees were lonely males? And why they shake when getting close to touching a woman? The last time I was playing video games with other people, it was with four other males. All of whom are married.
Personally, I might also be shaking, but that's because I don't feel comfortable being in close physical contact with any scantily-clad woman who is not my wife. Perhaps the reason the babes had such a strong impression of pale-skinned, shaking nerds was because all the happily-married men weren't clambering for a photo op.
I have to agree. Sure, downloading ISOs or movies via P2P can demand that kind of bandwidth, but I have yet to see anything else that comes close to that kind of demand. I can see people taking advantage of this, though. One person subscribes, three or four houses share the connection, split the cost, and the ISP gets shafted.
The other negative side effect I can see is that software companies will be less vigilant in their network code. This kind of high-throughput, low-latency connection encourages sloppy, inefficient code.
Kind of like the increase in processor speed has allowed MS to come out with increasingly bloated software that barely does more than the old version, but takes twice as many system resources.
Attacking the source of the money--that, I believe, is the only way to kill spam.
That's why I run Unsolicited Commando. It fills the inboxes of companies that pay for spam with spurious form fill-outs. I guess it's kind of like giving them a taste of their own medicine.
Mickey Cochran. The famous and wealthy lawyer who defended former NFL star O.J. Simpson several years ago. Simpson was charged with murdering his wife, and despite all sorts of convincing evidence that he was guilty, he was acquitted.
Iomega has always priced themselves out of the market. It seems they try to follow Apple's example: have a cool product and overcharge for its functionality. I would have bought a zip drive years ago, if it were not for the ridiculous price of zip disks.
My university, on the other hand, bought into ZIP in a big way. There's a 100 or 250MB zip drive on every computer on campus. Now that prices on zip drives and media are falling, the window of opportunity has already closed, and everyone is starting to get USB pen drives or just run an FTP server from home. Now the university is selling surplus zip drives for $5 a pop.
So drop the price by about 50% on the media, and Iomega could see a huge demand. But with a price as high as it is, don't hold your breath.
My university just blocked all the ports used for filesharing altogether. You can't even share within the university network. They claim it's because of "virus problems", but it's been disabled for over a year. At the same time, however, they have published limits on maximum P2P traffic. Seems like they're saying one thing and doing another.
There's another factor to keep in mind--hair driers and electric razors have a 60hz signal going through with a fair amount of current. Therefore, there's an appreciable amount of power being put into the air. Cell phones, on the other hand, operate at much higher frequencies and at much much lower power levels.
I'll agree with that--there are already emulators out there. IBM would just be repeating the work done by others.
On the other hand, what are the chances IBM has access to Office source code? And if they have access to it, what are the chances they have contractual permission to take Office and port it to Linux? Well, maybe they do, since M$ isn't threatening to sue.....yet.
And another question--I can't imagine they'll distribute it under GPL once it's ported. M$ will get no additional sales because of it. The people who will use it are people who are locked into Office, but want to switch from Windows to Linux. I imagine they'll be able to use it for free, but how will the distribution be handled? For some reason, I have a hard time imagining "MS Office for Linux" on CompUSA's shelves.
No, wait, I realized how dumb the 'free' comment was--M$ office 'upgrade' to Linux for free? HA!
copy-protection software will let Disney distribute content on mobile phones, PDAs and portable media players
Does anyone around here have an interest in watching a movie on a 1.5" (4 cm) lcd? I guess some people may like it, but for some reason I have a hard time believing people are going to shell out their hard-earned cash for a movie that will only play on their cell phone.
Slashdot Mirror
onesuite.com is almost exactly the same as BigZoo. Some of the automated voices are even the same, and the domestic rates (I didn't check international, since we don't need it) are exactly the same. Same available features, etc.
That's no joke. Why haven't I switched permanently to Linux? The list of reasons is quickly becoming shorter and shorter.
Games? - The biggest games (and more games in general) are getting Linux ports.
Office suites/productivity? Done.
Plug 'n' play hardware and peripherals? Getting better, but the actual hardware manufacturers sure seem to be dragging their heels.
Low cost? Can't beat free.
Easy to configure? Again, getting better, but still a long way to go.
Easy to learn? Well, I haven't done any studies on this, but from various "switch" stories, it's at least as easy to learn (if not easier) than windows.
Security? Pretty dang good, but I'm not going to fool myself. If Linux were as widespread on the desktop as MS Windows, there would be a whole lot more exploits. Not necessarily more than on Windows, but more than there are now.
Ah, but there is a way to force garbage collection:
System.gc();
Not only can you play it on their site, you can download the source code for both the server *and* the bots. Incidentally, the bots actually have decent AI--after all, the project was originally meant as AI research.
I'll nominate Homeworld(1999), too. It's a bit more demanding as far as hardware is concerned, but even today, it's gorgeous. Earlier this year I finally got a monitor that supports 1600x1200, and cranked the settings to the max. Wow. Beauty. Just plain beauty.
The story and voice acting in the game are also unparalleled.
Ah, here is where semantics of the English language enter. You see, what the quote means is that they will have two groups of people helping them:
1.) security specialists from Cisco Systems Inc, and
2.) Microsoft Corp.
Surely nobody could possibly confuse the two.
TiVo, with its associated abundance of convenient features, is merely the response of a free market to a real demand. Keep in mind these facts:
1.) People like certain shows, so they buy a TV.
2.) These shows are only shown on cable, so people subscribe to a cable service.
3.) People can't always watch those shows when the shows are broadcast, so they buy a VCR.
4.) People (in general) don't want to watch commercials, so they buy a TiVo.(I'm not saying that it's the only reason people buy it, it's just one)
With each step, the monetary expense increases. But consumers consider it worth the money. One major problem I see here, however, is that cable channels (in the beginning) were commercial-free. They were paid for by the subscription fees. Now, not only do you have to pay the cable company more than ever to watch the same shows, you now have a third of your time wasted by commercials.
This is why TiVo is becoming more popular. It's convenient. Someone needs to explain that term to the RIAA and MPAA.
It seems to me that a tablet PC is really aimed at a market that is small-to-non-existant. As far as I can tell, the main selling point for tablet PCs (the ability to write on the screen like a notepad) is duplicated in PDAs. In fact, the only reasons to get one instead of a PDA are 1) it's more like a computer (HD, faster CPU, more RAM) and 2) a larger screen.
Tablet PCs, instead of becoming the indispensable laptop-and-PDA killers they were touted to be, instead combine the worst features of both laptops and PDAs. What results? Low-performance, too much weight (ie less-portable), short battery life, and high price.
There's one more reason people have both a laptop and a PDA. You can get both for less than the price of a tablet PC.
Man, I was having an _ok_ day until now. This just warms my heart! From the witnesses' accounts, DC had some brief, powerful arguments, which pleased the judge, and SCO has some flacid babblings about "methods and concepts", which the judge did NOT appreciate.
This is the beginning of the end.
The tech focus of the Clinton era led to an over-inflated economy that collapsed under its own unrealistic expectations. People blame bush for the economy tanking in 2000. It was not his fault, nor do I blame Clinton(as much as I would like to). It was similar to the time leading up to the Great Depression--wild hysteria about how much money one could make easily, followed by ruined hopes (and fortunes) when reality set in.
I will, however agree that the space program (including the much-maligned ISS) does contribute to the development of new products. However, we need to stop shouldering such a vast majority of the financial responsibility for it.
My first thoughts were exactly the same. What's to prevent you from building/buying/manufacturing + selling RFID denial-of-service devices? I can see Congress (or the FCC) quickly outlawing such devices, but how hard would it be to build one?
Not only could you drive any Walmart's system into the ground (allowing someone to get away with shoplifting), but you could sabotage someone else, sending them into a no-cameras room for a visit with store security. I confess to some degree of ignorance here, but are there any mechanisms in place in RFID systems to prevent such sabotage/DOS attacks?
One more point--what's to prevent ME from bugging the store and datamining everyone's shopping habits? I imagine an RFID detector would be simple to build, require little power, take little room, be easy to hide by the doors of a store, and would be able to intercept all radio traffic between the RFID tags and store equipment.(/me thinks for a second) Wow, that's kind of scary.
I, too, didn't realize that the author of the article is female until the "why did she get a plushie" line. I suspect being female helped the booth babes open up more willingly.
I wonder if/why so many of the attendees were lonely males? And why they shake when getting close to touching a woman? The last time I was playing video games with other people, it was with four other males. All of whom are married.
Personally, I might also be shaking, but that's because I don't feel comfortable being in close physical contact with any scantily-clad woman who is not my wife. Perhaps the reason the babes had such a strong impression of pale-skinned, shaking nerds was because all the happily-married men weren't clambering for a photo op.
It's a reference to The Princess Bride (book and movie). I have yet to watch a movie with more quotable one-liners.
I have to agree. Sure, downloading ISOs or movies via P2P can demand that kind of bandwidth, but I have yet to see anything else that comes close to that kind of demand. I can see people taking advantage of this, though. One person subscribes, three or four houses share the connection, split the cost, and the ISP gets shafted.
The other negative side effect I can see is that software companies will be less vigilant in their network code. This kind of high-throughput, low-latency connection encourages sloppy, inefficient code.
Kind of like the increase in processor speed has allowed MS to come out with increasingly bloated software that barely does more than the old version, but takes twice as many system resources.
Attacking the source of the money--that, I believe, is the only way to kill spam.
That's why I run Unsolicited Commando. It fills the inboxes of companies that pay for spam with spurious form fill-outs. I guess it's kind of like giving them a taste of their own medicine.
My preferred method of retaliation? Attack the source of money for spammers.
Mickey Cochran. The famous and wealthy lawyer who defended former NFL star O.J. Simpson several years ago. Simpson was charged with murdering his wife, and despite all sorts of convincing evidence that he was guilty, he was acquitted.
Iomega has always priced themselves out of the market. It seems they try to follow Apple's example: have a cool product and overcharge for its functionality. I would have bought a zip drive years ago, if it were not for the ridiculous price of zip disks.
My university, on the other hand, bought into ZIP in a big way. There's a 100 or 250MB zip drive on every computer on campus. Now that prices on zip drives and media are falling, the window of opportunity has already closed, and everyone is starting to get USB pen drives or just run an FTP server from home. Now the university is selling surplus zip drives for $5 a pop.
So drop the price by about 50% on the media, and Iomega could see a huge demand. But with a price as high as it is, don't hold your breath.
Let's just hope that electronics manufacturers don't try to pull a "proprietary protocol" mess like MS did a while back...
My university just blocked all the ports used for filesharing altogether. You can't even share within the university network. They claim it's because of "virus problems", but it's been disabled for over a year. At the same time, however, they have published limits on maximum P2P traffic. Seems like they're saying one thing and doing another.
My RFID blocker is a hammer. One whack and it's as if there never was an RFID tag there.
There's another factor to keep in mind--hair driers and electric razors have a 60hz signal going through with a fair amount of current. Therefore, there's an appreciable amount of power being put into the air. Cell phones, on the other hand, operate at much higher frequencies and at much much lower power levels.
I'll agree with that--there are already emulators out there. IBM would just be repeating the work done by others.
On the other hand, what are the chances IBM has access to Office source code? And if they have access to it, what are the chances they have contractual permission to take Office and port it to Linux? Well, maybe they do, since M$ isn't threatening to sue.....yet.
And another question--I can't imagine they'll distribute it under GPL once it's ported. M$ will get no additional sales because of it. The people who will use it are people who are locked into Office, but want to switch from Windows to Linux. I imagine they'll be able to use it for free, but how will the distribution be handled? For some reason, I have a hard time imagining "MS Office for Linux" on CompUSA's shelves.
No, wait, I realized how dumb the 'free' comment was--M$ office 'upgrade' to Linux for free? HA!
copy-protection software will let Disney distribute content on mobile phones, PDAs and portable media players
Does anyone around here have an interest in watching a movie on a 1.5" (4 cm) lcd? I guess some people may like it, but for some reason I have a hard time believing people are going to shell out their hard-earned cash for a movie that will only play on their cell phone.
This guy already is.