Sounds more like someone biased against blu ray making his case. His ranting about the cropping is a bit nuts. I understand you don't want 2.39:1 movie cropped to 4:3, but here its more like like cropped to 2.35:1. You are not seriously losing anything.
Show us some screen shots to demo how bad this is, rathter than rant about it.
CDMA is the technically superior standard. Code Division Multiplexing allows much more efficient use of bandwidth than the much more simple Time/frequency Division Multiplexing that GSM uses.
The progression is Analog->TDM/FDM->CDMA
UMTS is also based on Code division multiplexing and is the intended successor to GSM for markets supporting GSM.
So in this case we chose right, we are now backtracking the pattern though.
I don't know where you get the google boys being evil from this.
The main princriple is sueing the holding company above him and he also has action against the subcontractor below him that actually did the work.
"He later filed a complaint related to the matter against Blue City and Gore Design Completions Ltd., the San Antonio executive-jet outfitting firm that worked on the plane, in District Court in Bexar County, Texas."
That seems to indicate that the work was indeed improperly done and as lead contractor he is being held responsible. His response sue above and below and try to pass the buck.
I was an Opera user for years, then switched to FF 1.0. I keep trying each Opera release and give up after a day. This time I have stuck with 9.0 but I could use some small improvements.
My thoughts on this version:
Ad blocking:
Built in content blocker,Who cares, I haven't used it. I have nothing against ads, just annoyances. I do it differently in Opera. I surf with sound,anims,popups and plugins off by default. Use site preferences to turn them on very few sites. This means I get a nice clean browser experience everywhere and can selectively enable features on the few sites that need them. Great idea.
Compatability:
This was a bugaboo in previous iterations. So far this release is now nearly even. In theory masking should help, but I haven't had to use it, my banking and other sites that were problematic, now work.
Missing:
Absolutely great would be an extension architecture, because there is always some slick 3rd party feature you would like. But so far, I don't feel I am missing much.
Greater configurability. It seems that FF is more configurable. I can put buttons anywhere including on the file menu line to save space. I can edit bookmark folder in place without opening the bookmark manager.
Small things:
I would like the search hightlight to be yellow for greater visibility.
I want middle mouse button launch in a new window from bookmarks. Annoying that I have to hold shift key to do this.
Maybe config, but I keep a stable of pages as my homepage and in Opera they come up with yesterdays page, not a fresh load. This sucks...
Overall I am happy with Opera 9 as the first credible challenge to firefox in years.
I have both and was an Opera user for years before switching to firefox. Currently trialing Opera9.
Sure you can turn everything off. That is no biggie. But when I have everything turned on, firefox gives me the edge in space and configurability allowing me to put buttons next to the "File, Edit, etc..." Menu. I recover one line this way and still have all the stuff I want on.
I work for a telecom infrastructure providier. Net neutrality will be dead within 5 years. It is what every big infrastructure buyer wants. No one should have any illusions that consumers matter more than big buisness. They want it and and they will pay for the officials you elect to get it done. Simple as that.
The problem as the telcos/providers see it, is that the internet evolved too fast and got away from them. A million unregulated services making money that they don't get a piece of. And that is their problem. They are not in any way happy with being a provider of a data pipe, and let you come up with a new service to make money.
While they make money they make money on the volume of traffic, they don't get to hold any of it for ransom and demand a cut of the actual buisness. Essentially they want to tax every service out there.
Craig is exactly right about the implications. Remember the myriad of 3rd party services on the phone network or the cable network? Essentially ZERO. Once they regulate and double charge for each bit. Any small startup is hosed. They can't afford the extra fees and they can't compete with the big corps who do.
They don't want the right to provide extra quality of service as they claim. They want the right to completely destroy quality of service and then charge a fortune to get it back. It is not like they are going to re-egineer the network for more bandwidth for higher end customers, they will simply shrink the pool of the low class internet (free services, individuals, startups) until you would think dialup is fast. But it will be nice and fast to visit Google/MS/Yahoo etc...
Look at what ISP's have been trying to pull against Vonage, often because they have competing services. The is extortion of a limited resource and nothing more. Sad thing is,it seems unstoppable to me.
The Navy is doing PRK. This was the first procedure done widely on civilians. Lasik was introduced later. The primary Lasik advantage is the patients have usable vision sooner and are pain free sooner. PRK is the better treatment, but in our quick fix society, Lasik is more popular. It is also pushed by many docs as there is less negative feedback from customers, less followups during the shorter initial healing cycle.
Lasik, cuts a flap into the stroma, this is not the same flap that is removed for PRK as some folks have been characterizing. Alarmingly this flap never full seems to heal. It has been lifted YEARS after the original surgery. Lasik permanently weakens the cornea.
PRK is essentially moving or removing the epithelium. A thin surface layer that will grow back, not the deeper flap cut in the above. Variant (LASEK or epi-Lasik) attempt to preseve the epithelial layer and use it as a sort of bandage during healing. This helps speed the healing and lower pain, but it is still not as good as traditional Lasik.
Bottom Line: PRK and variants, better/slower/more painful. Laskik has more issues/complications, but is more comfortable/faster.
The navy is making the right choice here.
Looks like Opera is back.
on
Opera 9.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I used Opera for years, but once firefox hit 1.0, I switched. I kept trying new Opera versions, but they fell short in compatability area or content control like Flashblock that I just couldn't live without.
But now with all the per site configuration, I may finally switch back. Per site identities, per site masking, per site control of multimedia; These were things I always said Opera needed to deal with a poor web pages. The diehard Opera heads would always tell me we have the change all the bad web sites. Being a realistic person, I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I stuck with Firefox.
But now I am ready to give Opera another shot. It was a great browser, now with more control and compatability, it may be back in my books.
"in which Salzar was running six liters low on water,"
Considering that he probably started with less than 5 liters of blood in his body, if he were 6 liters low on water, he would be dead, very dead, on his way to mumification.
CFP is an ultra right wing blog and has an anti global warming science agenda. The have no balancing articles.
But hey, the maybe posting a valid article. Let us see who wrote it.
Tom Harris wrote the article. He is a PR person working for PR/Lobby firm High Park group. They don't say who they are working for, but this guy is paid to have this opinion. I suppose it is possible that he was paid by some concerned for the environment corporation, but I have my doubts. http://www.highparkgroup.com/services.htm
"Compare these tiny changes with the experience of an Australian citizen who moves from Hobart to Darwin to live. Such a person experiences a change in annual average temperature of 18C, which is accommodated quite happily by wearing fewer clothes, drinking more beer and trading in one's heater for an air conditioner."
There you go folks, just wear less clothing and global warming will be a non issue.
I really have to wonder who falls for this stuff.
Not to mention wondering about the sellouts who write this stuff.
Who is Duke Nukem to your average teen gamer today? When Duke 3d was big they were mastering potty training.
On the other hand, players of the original probably will not be interested in that type of game anymore. I played Duke 3d in University but that was 10+ years ago. I don't play FPS games anymore as I don't have time to get over the motion sickness curve. It takes me too long to get my FPS legs now.
I think this game will get no advantage from being a sequel.
I also have a serious hard time believing this game is actually in development. If it is, it already ranks as the most colossal development failure in the gaming industry ever. 10 Years. I am quaking in my boots at the dev costs on this one. And if this is a mind boggling huge game it will take an army to to polish and test it.
All we have is MS preliminary press blitz. We don't know what the sticking point is. PDF is essentially open, but presumably has some usage license.
I can't see a recourse for action unless Microsoft wants to violate that usage license. Perhaps the license precludes Microsofts usual answer to standards (embrace, extend, then envelop).
"Association for Competitive Technology" is also quoted in the article as an unbiased source. But if you check sourcewatch.org you will find they are actually a Microsoft initiated astroturfing group.
I think there was considerable ill will generated. Read any forum anywhere when the new gen machines are mentioned. Sony is always mentioned with respect to their DRM infecting ways.
Blu Ray DRM nastiness is often thought to be worse than HD-DVD (though they are the same) and blamed on Sony.
Sony has definitely hurt brand image with quite a few people and it continues to get propagated to anywone who visits internet forums.
I really would prefer to see Sony succeed, rather than roll over and give microsoft another monopoly.
But the management of this company is out of touch. Rather than use it's content division to help HW sales, it uses it, to poison the brand (DRM rootkits).
Next up it wants to use it's new game machine as a trojan horse for Blu-Ray. Good plan. Too bad they totally messed it up, but over pricing it and importantly not including digital video outputs (DVI/HDMI) at all, let alone not having HDCP to protect us from that ICT garbage.
Is there a Sony HD set that doesn't have HDMI inputs? Where is the obvious and needed synergy between product lines.
A trojan horse mentality works if you get it for free. Ie price it like your competetion, but give them a free bonus of Blu-Ray. If you force people not interested in Blu Ray, to pay more for Blu Ray, you likely just lost a sale.
If you can't be price competetive. Drop the Blu Ray drive on the base model. Base: DVD drive, Flash memory, Component output. $299. Top: Blu Ray drive, HD, HDMI output, pack in movie $499.
Again use the studio as an asset. You should be able to include a movie essentially for free.
Sony continues to trash its brand value on a daily basis. If I were a shareholder, I would be bailing out fast. No signs of a turnaround on this barge.
"that said, Sony is just Palm all over again. Sony had a gargantuan lead with the PS2 -- 75% market share or some such. Then they basically rolled over."
The only thing laughable is your very thin analysis. Sony's flubbed launch will speed up the process, but it does not change the inevitable outcome. Sony was mortally wounded the day the first Xbox was launched. It is only a quesiton of how much time it takes to die. Microsoft is leveraging a combination of PC API's, Market clout and it's mountain of monopoly cash to buy out developers when all else fails. Look at the number of PC/Xbox only releases even when the ps/2 was the market leader. Microsoft is simply extending one monopoly into another.
This is no slashdot party line. It is simple observations. How do you compete against someone who owns the main gaming API's for PC, and has massive marketing clout and a mountain of cash to buy up the developers that are the oxygen of gaming. Thinking ahead (generation 3 or 4 Xbox) in gaming time. There were will be Microsoft and bit players.
The same thing will happen in any computing related market Microsoft wants to dominate.
I was looking at various LCD's in store and the Sony Glossy screen models looked really nice. The non glossy next to it looks like someone took steel wool to the surface. Hey that might be a solution to glossy woes.:-)
I wouldn't mind matte either but the current screens are kind blah. I would prefer something more like the screen on a real glass monitor like my trinitron. Which manages to be perfectly but manages glare quite well.
This really isn't a surprise. Just business as usual. Microsoft has vast monopoly power that will allow it to gain monopolies in any emerging computing connected/related device.
PDA's previously owned by Palm, will soon be a microsoft monopoly.
Gaming. Sony faces the biggest threat ever and yet managed to make incredibly stupid moves that will make the move to microsoft gaming domination even faster. Microsoft is using it's clout with gaming house/publishers and outright buying them if all else fails. The end is microsoft will dominate console gaming. Only when is the question, not if.
Media. Microsoft is agressively pusing it's DRM/codecs everywhere. It managed to get it's codecs into both HD-DVD and Blu Ray standards. It has just about every online media shop except Itunes. Itunes is an anomoly and it will be interesting to see how weathers the microsoft onslaught. I predict in 10 years. More than half the music sold will be using microsoft DRM.
If this is a trojan horse for jumpstarting Blu Ray, then the base unit should have HDMI/HDCP. With ICT available at any studios whim. Having Blu Ray limited to 540 line playback over component, completely obliterates the point. 540p is not going to look much different than DVD.
First. HDMI for all PS3. For the above reason, don't cripple your arlready expensive base systems movie capability. If you are going to cripple it in the base. Rip out the expensive Blu Ray drive and put a DVD drive in the base to drop the price even more. There is zero point to a blu ray if you can't Guarantee > 540P.
Next. Free Content (first taste). Sony is also a studio. Find some trashy action flick that went no where, but has good visuals. Include as free pack in. Cost is negligible, but it will show the movie ability of the system.
Do this and a $500 launch point is not too bad and it serves the trojan horse principal.
On the gaming side, try to stay at least within $100 of Xbox or you are hosed.
"When BusinessWeek visited Duke on a Saturday in early April, it was clear why many American students don't have the intensity of their overseas counterparts. There are a zillion distractions. The campus was like a carnival, with concerts, outdoor parties, and sunbathing on the grass. Meanwhile, the programming team was sequestered in a concrete-and-steel computer science building writing algorithms on whiteboards and tapping out C++ code on a PC."
Why not do Buisness degree and have more time for fun, and less chance of being offshored later. Less late nights and weekends at work staring at a computer screen.
I am sort of in the same place. I was gung ho to get a new LCD so a sprung for 24" Dell with 1920x1200 resolution and found out, much to my chagrin, that using it hurt my eyes. My eyes hurt the whole time I owned (until I got rid of it).
I found there were a host of wierd artifacts that no one ever mentions.
Basically part of the problem is brightness, at about 5 time CRT brightness, so I cranked the backlight to it's lowest setting. Still too bright, adjusted further in graphics card adjustments. Now it looks like crap and the viewing angle issues are accentuated. Move your head a couple and dark tones lighten up, this also causes strange parallax issues. As tones presented to each eye may vary, so you get a false 3d.
Taken together these may be giving you the problem.
I am still looking, but two things to look for are: 1: get a S-IPS panel, they are more rare, but they have much better off axis performance. 2: backlight control. Make sure you have a model that the backlight can be turned down to truly dim levels.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds more like someone biased against blu ray making his case. His ranting about the cropping is a bit nuts. I understand you don't want 2.39:1 movie cropped to 4:3, but here its more like like cropped to 2.35:1. You are not seriously losing anything.
Show us some screen shots to demo how bad this is, rathter than rant about it.
CDMA is the technically superior standard. Code Division Multiplexing allows much more efficient use of bandwidth than the much more simple Time/frequency Division Multiplexing that GSM uses.
The progression is Analog->TDM/FDM->CDMA
UMTS is also based on Code division multiplexing and is the intended successor to GSM for markets supporting GSM.
So in this case we chose right, we are now backtracking the pattern though.
I don't know where you get the google boys being evil from this.
The main princriple is sueing the holding company above him and he also has action against the subcontractor below him that actually did the work.
"He later filed a complaint related to the matter against Blue City and Gore Design Completions Ltd., the San Antonio executive-jet outfitting firm that worked on the plane, in District Court in Bexar County, Texas."
That seems to indicate that the work was indeed improperly done and as lead contractor he is being held responsible. His response sue above and below and try to pass the buck.
I see no evil from the google guys here.
I was an Opera user for years, then switched to FF 1.0. I keep trying each Opera release and give up after a day. This time I have stuck with 9.0 but I could use some small improvements.
My thoughts on this version:
Ad blocking:
Built in content blocker,Who cares, I haven't used it. I have nothing against ads, just annoyances. I do it differently in Opera. I surf with sound,anims,popups and plugins off by default. Use site preferences to turn them on very few sites. This means I get a nice clean browser experience everywhere and can selectively enable features on the few sites that need them. Great idea.
Compatability:
This was a bugaboo in previous iterations. So far this release is now nearly even. In theory masking should help, but I haven't had to use it, my banking and other sites that were problematic, now work.
Missing:
Absolutely great would be an extension architecture, because there is always some slick 3rd party feature you would like. But so far, I don't feel I am missing much.
Greater configurability. It seems that FF is more configurable. I can put buttons anywhere including on the file menu line to save space. I can edit bookmark folder in place without opening the bookmark manager.
Small things:
I would like the search hightlight to be yellow for greater visibility.
I want middle mouse button launch in a new window from bookmarks. Annoying that I have to hold shift key to do this.
Maybe config, but I keep a stable of pages as my homepage and in Opera they come up with yesterdays page, not a fresh load. This sucks...
Overall I am happy with Opera 9 as the first credible challenge to firefox in years.
I have both and was an Opera user for years before switching to firefox. Currently trialing Opera9.
D r.operafox.png
Sure you can turn everything off. That is no biggie. But when I have everything turned on, firefox gives me the edge in space and configurability allowing me to put buttons next to the "File, Edit, etc..." Menu. I recover one line this way and still have all the stuff I want on.
http://i.pbase.com/o4/04/606404/1/63200501.vAlG5X
I work for a telecom infrastructure providier. Net neutrality will be dead within 5 years. It is what every big infrastructure buyer wants. No one should have any illusions that consumers matter more than big buisness. They want it and and they will pay for the officials you elect to get it done. Simple as that.
The problem as the telcos/providers see it, is that the internet evolved too fast and got away from them. A million unregulated services making money that they don't get a piece of. And that is their problem. They are not in any way happy with being a provider of a data pipe, and let you come up with a new service to make money.
While they make money they make money on the volume of traffic, they don't get to hold any of it for ransom and demand a cut of the actual buisness. Essentially they want to tax every service out there.
Craig is exactly right about the implications. Remember the myriad of 3rd party services on the phone network or the cable network? Essentially ZERO. Once they regulate and double charge for each bit. Any small startup is hosed. They can't afford the extra fees and they can't compete with the big corps who do.
They don't want the right to provide extra quality of service as they claim. They want the right to completely destroy quality of service and then charge a fortune to get it back. It is not like they are going to re-egineer the network for more bandwidth for higher end customers, they will simply shrink the pool of the low class internet (free services, individuals, startups) until you would think dialup is fast. But it will be nice and fast to visit Google/MS/Yahoo etc...
Look at what ISP's have been trying to pull against Vonage, often because they have competing services. The is extortion of a limited resource and nothing more. Sad thing is,it seems unstoppable to me.
The Navy is doing PRK. This was the first procedure done widely on civilians. Lasik was introduced later. The primary Lasik advantage is the patients have usable vision sooner and are pain free sooner. PRK is the better treatment, but in our quick fix society, Lasik is more popular. It is also pushed by many docs as there is less negative feedback from customers, less followups during the shorter initial healing cycle.
Lasik, cuts a flap into the stroma, this is not the same flap that is removed for PRK as some folks have been characterizing. Alarmingly this flap never full seems to heal. It has been lifted YEARS after the original surgery. Lasik permanently weakens the cornea.
PRK is essentially moving or removing the epithelium. A thin surface layer that will grow back, not the deeper flap cut in the above. Variant (LASEK or epi-Lasik) attempt to preseve the epithelial layer and use it as a sort of bandage during healing. This helps speed the healing and lower pain, but it is still not as good as traditional Lasik.
Bottom Line:
PRK and variants, better/slower/more painful. Laskik has more issues/complications, but is more comfortable/faster.
The navy is making the right choice here.
I used Opera for years, but once firefox hit 1.0, I switched. I kept trying new Opera versions, but they fell short in compatability area or content control like Flashblock that I just couldn't live without.
But now with all the per site configuration, I may finally switch back. Per site identities, per site masking, per site control of multimedia; These were things I always said Opera needed to deal with a poor web pages. The diehard Opera heads would always tell me we have the change all the bad web sites. Being a realistic person, I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I stuck with Firefox.
But now I am ready to give Opera another shot. It was a great browser, now with more control and compatability, it may be back in my books.
Bravo Opera dudes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060619/ap_on_re_mi_ea /myspace_mideast_5
Teach your kids about the dangers of meeting strangers... and how they are magnified tenfold online.
Realistically, this guy weiged what? 120 lbs fresh.
6 liters is 13 lbs. Do you really believe he lost over 10% of body weight in water in a little over 2 hours and still won the race??
Generally a 2% loss causes weakness and performance loss.
"in which Salzar was running six liters low on water,"
Considering that he probably started with less than 5 liters of blood in his body, if he were 6 liters low on water, he would be dead, very dead, on his way to mumification.
Cool. The Dalai Lamas answer is the same sort of answer a good scientist gives when proved wrong...
CFP is an ultra right wing blog and has an anti global warming science agenda. The have no balancing articles.
u te_of_Public_Affairs
3 813
But hey, the maybe posting a valid article. Let us see who wrote it.
Tom Harris wrote the article. He is a PR person working for PR/Lobby firm High Park group. They don't say who they are working for, but this guy is paid to have this opinion. I suppose it is possible that he was paid by some concerned for the environment corporation, but I have my doubts.
http://www.highparkgroup.com/services.htm
How about the Scientists:
Bob Carter. First "Scientist" quoted. Known climate change skeptic, Member of Institue of public affairs: Lobby group.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Instit
Funded by Oil/Gas/Mining/Pesticide/Logging corporations.
Bob wrote this Gem of a piece about protectin Austrailians from the dreaded disease "Mother Earhism":
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=
"Compare these tiny changes with the experience of an Australian citizen who moves from Hobart to Darwin to live. Such a person experiences a change in annual average temperature of 18C, which is accommodated quite happily by wearing fewer clothes, drinking more beer and trading in one's heater for an air conditioner."
There you go folks, just wear less clothing and global warming will be a non issue.
I really have to wonder who falls for this stuff.
Not to mention wondering about the sellouts who write this stuff.
Who is Duke Nukem to your average teen gamer today? When Duke 3d was big they were mastering potty training.
On the other hand, players of the original probably will not be interested in that type of game anymore. I played Duke 3d in University but that was 10+ years ago. I don't play FPS games anymore as I don't have time to get over the motion sickness curve. It takes me too long to get my FPS legs now.
I think this game will get no advantage from being a sequel.
I also have a serious hard time believing this game is actually in development. If it is, it already ranks as the most colossal development failure in the gaming industry ever. 10 Years. I am quaking in my boots at the dev costs on this one. And if this is a mind boggling huge game it will take an army to to polish and test it.
The first 100 Million dollar game?
All we have is MS preliminary press blitz. We don't know what the sticking point is. PDF is essentially open, but presumably has some usage license.
I can't see a recourse for action unless Microsoft wants to violate that usage license. Perhaps the license precludes Microsofts usual answer to standards (embrace, extend, then envelop).
"Association for Competitive Technology" is also quoted in the article as an unbiased source. But if you check sourcewatch.org you will find they are actually a Microsoft initiated astroturfing group.
Why does the media lap this stuff up?
The only ones I see.
The sensor is meant to integrate in Nike shoes.
The sensor doesn't have changeable batteries.
I am sure you can figure out some way to attach to non nikes, unless I read this wrong and ceartian shoes come with embeded sensor.
Batter is a concern until they tell us how long it lasts. If three years then what the heck...
This is the same Creative that used patent extortion against ID software. These guys are one step removed from SCO. I launched my personal boycott of creative products that day.- on-creative-patentn/
http://3dgpu.com/archives/2004/07/28/john-carmack
Anyone using dubious patents to extort as a buisness model deserves to get crushed. I wish ID had played hardball against these slimeballs.
I think there was considerable ill will generated. Read any forum anywhere when the new gen machines are mentioned. Sony is always mentioned with respect to their DRM infecting ways.
Blu Ray DRM nastiness is often thought to be worse than HD-DVD (though they are the same) and blamed on Sony.
Sony has definitely hurt brand image with quite a few people and it continues to get propagated to anywone who visits internet forums.
I really would prefer to see Sony succeed, rather than roll over and give microsoft another monopoly.
But the management of this company is out of touch. Rather than use it's content division to help HW sales, it uses it, to poison the brand (DRM rootkits).
Next up it wants to use it's new game machine as a trojan horse for Blu-Ray. Good plan. Too bad they totally messed it up, but over pricing it and importantly not including digital video outputs (DVI/HDMI) at all, let alone not having HDCP to protect us from that ICT garbage.
Is there a Sony HD set that doesn't have HDMI inputs? Where is the obvious and needed synergy between product lines.
A trojan horse mentality works if you get it for free. Ie price it like your competetion, but give them a free bonus of Blu-Ray. If you force people not interested in Blu Ray, to pay more for Blu Ray, you likely just lost a sale.
If you can't be price competetive. Drop the Blu Ray drive on the base model.
Base: DVD drive, Flash memory, Component output. $299.
Top: Blu Ray drive, HD, HDMI output, pack in movie $499.
Again use the studio as an asset. You should be able to include a movie essentially for free.
Sony continues to trash its brand value on a daily basis. If I were a shareholder, I would be bailing out fast. No signs of a turnaround on this barge.
"that said, Sony is just Palm all over again. Sony had a gargantuan lead with the PS2 -- 75% market share or some such. Then they basically rolled over."
The only thing laughable is your very thin analysis. Sony's flubbed launch will speed up the process, but it does not change the inevitable outcome. Sony was mortally wounded the day the first Xbox was launched. It is only a quesiton of how much time it takes to die. Microsoft is leveraging a combination of PC API's, Market clout and it's mountain of monopoly cash to buy out developers when all else fails. Look at the number of PC/Xbox only releases even when the ps/2 was the market leader. Microsoft is simply extending one monopoly into another.
This is no slashdot party line. It is simple observations. How do you compete against someone who owns the main gaming API's for PC, and has massive marketing clout and a mountain of cash to buy up the developers that are the oxygen of gaming. Thinking ahead (generation 3 or 4 Xbox) in gaming time. There were will be Microsoft and bit players.
The same thing will happen in any computing related market Microsoft wants to dominate.
I was looking at various LCD's in store and the Sony Glossy screen models looked really nice. The non glossy next to it looks like someone took steel wool to the surface. Hey that might be a solution to glossy woes. :-)
I wouldn't mind matte either but the current screens are kind blah. I would prefer something more like the screen on a real glass monitor like my trinitron. Which manages to be perfectly but manages glare quite well.
I think the matte laptop screen are too matte.
This really isn't a surprise. Just business as usual. Microsoft has vast monopoly power that will allow it to gain monopolies in any emerging computing connected/related device.
PDA's previously owned by Palm, will soon be a microsoft monopoly.
Gaming. Sony faces the biggest threat ever and yet managed to make incredibly stupid moves that will make the move to microsoft gaming domination even faster. Microsoft is using it's clout with gaming house/publishers and outright buying them if all else fails. The end is microsoft will dominate console gaming. Only when is the question, not if.
Media. Microsoft is agressively pusing it's DRM/codecs everywhere. It managed to get it's codecs into both HD-DVD and Blu Ray standards. It has just about every online media shop except Itunes. Itunes is an anomoly and it will be interesting to see how weathers the microsoft onslaught. I predict in 10 years. More than half the music sold will be using microsoft DRM.
If this is a trojan horse for jumpstarting Blu Ray, then the base unit should have HDMI/HDCP. With ICT available at any studios whim. Having Blu Ray limited to 540 line playback over component, completely obliterates the point. 540p is not going to look much different than DVD.
First. HDMI for all PS3. For the above reason, don't cripple your arlready expensive base systems movie capability. If you are going to cripple it in the base. Rip out the expensive Blu Ray drive and put a DVD drive in the base to drop the price even more. There is zero point to a blu ray if you can't Guarantee > 540P.
Next. Free Content (first taste). Sony is also a studio. Find some trashy action flick that went no where, but has good visuals. Include as free pack in. Cost is negligible, but it will show the movie ability of the system.
Do this and a $500 launch point is not too bad and it serves the trojan horse principal.
On the gaming side, try to stay at least within $100 of Xbox or you are hosed.
From the original article:
"When BusinessWeek visited Duke on a Saturday in early April, it was clear why many American students don't have the intensity of their overseas counterparts. There are a zillion distractions. The campus was like a carnival, with concerts, outdoor parties, and sunbathing on the grass. Meanwhile, the programming team was sequestered in a concrete-and-steel computer science building writing algorithms on whiteboards and tapping out C++ code on a PC."
Why not do Buisness degree and have more time for fun, and less chance of being offshored later. Less late nights and weekends at work staring at a computer screen.
I am sort of in the same place. I was gung ho to get a new LCD so a sprung for 24" Dell with 1920x1200 resolution and found out, much to my chagrin, that using it hurt my eyes. My eyes hurt the whole time I owned (until I got rid of it).
I found there were a host of wierd artifacts that no one ever mentions.
Basically part of the problem is brightness, at about 5 time CRT brightness, so I cranked the backlight to it's lowest setting. Still too bright, adjusted further in graphics card adjustments. Now it looks like crap and the viewing angle issues are accentuated. Move your head a couple and dark tones lighten up, this also causes strange parallax issues. As tones presented to each eye may vary, so you get a false 3d.
Taken together these may be giving you the problem.
I am still looking, but two things to look for are: 1: get a S-IPS panel, they are more rare, but they have much better off axis performance. 2: backlight control. Make sure you have a model that the backlight can be turned down to truly dim levels.