Halo was released on PC many years after its Xbox debut and despite the very dated and blocky graphics the performance was incredibly poor. The frame rate was so low that many PC gaming magazines used it to benchmark PCs and video cards alongside much more attractive games like FEAR and Quake 3. Amusing, considering the game was a PC-only title for a while.
Mirror's edge is a fantastic game with good controls on PC, but the interface was poorly ported from consoles. The tutorials kept directing me to press Xbox 360 controller buttons even though I don't own that gamepad, so I had to hit escape to look at the key mappings about a dozen times. It's really frustrating when you're told to press "A" (not "the A button" but just "A"), so I do, and nothing happens because it's actually referring to a controller button which happens to be mapped to the shift key..
And when I do want to play a game with my friends, I honestly prefer sitting in the living room, sharing a nice 25yo single malt, and playing together on the big screen. The simple joy of being with friends, Steam will never be able to provide or compete with.
What about the other side of the spectrum? It's 10pm and you're in your jammies and you see on Steam that a friend is playing a casual game. With one click you can join his game, play together for 10 minutes, and make plans together for the weekend while chatting. There's a lot of value in that, even if it's not your very favourite means of gaming.
You can make your profile private which effectively opts you out of any social features. You can also disable in-game overlays but I find those handy whenever I want to pull up a web browser.
While what you say is true. Wikipedia makes enough internet traffic, and Googles XX% of it makes Google WAY more than 2 million bucks. So Google doesn't 'owe' Wikipedia anything, but it would be stupid not to have it.
I agree, but Google itself provides absolutely zero content. Google owes 100% of its revenue to content authors and publishers. I doubt Google will be cutting cheques to every other site in its index.
Not that Wikipedia creates any content either.. though I believe the donation was in fact to Wikimedia which releases its open source wiki server for free.
It's trivial for a website to disallow Google's crawlers if the traffic they bring is a problem. Google owes nothing to Wikipedia. This is a charitable donation and not a matter of obligation.
Also, websites disappear from the web every day. Google doesn't have to change their algorithms to accommodate this. Wikipedia is at the top of search results because they contain valuable textual content relevant to specific queries, and because people link to Wikipedia from their sites. The point of Google's algorithms is to be a hands-off approach to search ranking.
I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it.
If there is a privacy war it is a war of one. You know the chef is poisoning the soup but you find it too delicious to stop eating.
Is there really any demand to burn Youtube videos to DVDs in 1080p? Sounds to me like Google picked an inappropriate codec for their medium. Perhaps they chose it simply to drive a wedge between their Chrome browser which supports this codec, and IE and Firefox which do not.
Because if I have 3 services and have... lets put a number 10% market share and then I unify all three and say about this new one: we are almost at %10 market share... it is a lie! yo are only regaining / recounting what you already have... speed is relative there, there is no strength in that, they are not gaining. They are regaining and marketing it as an achievement.
How is it lying? All those websites make it very clear that Bing is the name of their search engine. If anything is inaccurate it's the fact that anyone is still using the retired names MSN and Live.
Give Microsoft credit where it's due. One of the very first screens you see when you start up Internet Explorer for the first time is the search engine selection menu.
Should I really give Microsoft credit for doing what the anit-trust regulators forced them to do?
If you're like the OP and you accuse Microsoft of failing to do something that they did a long time ago, then yes.
I was going to ask about that... growing from where? because people assumes Bing is new while in reality it is a replacement of Live so counting from zero is like a distorted point of view.
This sounds like economy... after loosing 20% of something then gain 5% at fast peace and claim WE ARE GROWING!... lame.
Okay, so provide the statistics that show Bing is less popular that Live.com. Also, show in the article where the things "people assumes" changed the raw numbers on their statistics charts.
Finally - and this is the most perplexing one of all - please explain how if something shrinks and then gets bigger it doesn't mean that it's growing.
Live, MSN, and Bing all use the Bing search engine, though. Try it yourself. Live.com redirects to Bing, and MSN.com and its subdomains use the Bing searhc engine. They're all exactly the same service. Why should they be broken apart?
So where in the article does it claim that Bing is stealing Google's market share? The only claim made is that Bing is increasing in popularity and that its growth is accelerating. Your points are valid but not as a rebuttal.
When you and your child go to the doctor does he give you your heights in separate units of measure, or does he compare them to you on an all-inclusive pie chart?
Also, have you heard of Cuil? Wikia search? Yauba? Those search engines started at zero as well. Why isn't their fame acclaimed the way you insist Bing's is?
I just upgraded my sister's WinXP laptop from IE7 to IE8 just yesterday and the wizard appeared on the first launch asking which search engine I preferred. Her default on IE7 was Google so that's what it recommended first, but gave the option to change to Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, and several others. Did you skip that wizard?
This is what happens when you make your search engine the default one for your web browser as well as make it difficult for someone to add or change this option.
Duh!
Give Microsoft credit where it's due. One of the very first screens you see when you start up Internet Explorer for the first time is the search engine selection menu. It tells you the default engine (Bing), offers a list of alternatives, and gives you instructions on how you can add any other engine that's not in the list. If anything Microsoft is overly gracious in this respect.
Compare this procedure to Chrome. It's far more difficult and nowhere near as transparent in this regard. It's possible but not obvious.
The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?
They probably did and were turned down. Yahoo didn't hesitate to provide this information to China when asked.
It's a brand new and very unique market, though. It's not worth dismissing on a whim. China does things its own way and it's up to intelligent business to learn and offer compelling services for that market. Google absolutely excels at this. This isn't a simple matter of an unsuccessful company closing shop with its tail between its legs.
Either Google has an ulterior motive or they are earnestly trying to force China to change its stance on censorship in publishing. Or both. Regardless of their motive there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?
Maybe those users have no market value? Why bother target an ad at someone who doesn't have the money to buy your stuff?
Why advertise cigarettes to children? Market investment. Considering all the ridiculous projects Google releases and subsequently shuts down it's obvious they have money to burn on risky ventures. I can't believe Google considers China one of their more disposable investments.
The difference is probably that Google can easily do without the Chinese market. They're by far not the number one search engine in China.
That's what I've been reading as well but the numbers don't add up. I read that the Chinese internet market is currently 300 million people and skyrocketing daily, and that Google accounts for 1/3 of search results served in the country. So that's 100 million Google users. Why is Google so dismissive of this enormous number of customers?
I wasn't referring only to search companies in my comment. Other articles on this story mentioned that Google had identified similar security breaches in at least 20 other companies, and I doubt those were all search/email companies. It will be very interesting to see whether any or all of those companies are identified and what their reaction will be. I was pretty shocked at Google's fierce ultimatum (suddenly removing censorship, effectively punishing the government for the hackers' actions) and will be doubly astounded if any other company dares to ally themselves with such brash action.
Slashdot Mirror
Halo was released on PC many years after its Xbox debut and despite the very dated and blocky graphics the performance was incredibly poor. The frame rate was so low that many PC gaming magazines used it to benchmark PCs and video cards alongside much more attractive games like FEAR and Quake 3. Amusing, considering the game was a PC-only title for a while.
Mirror's edge is a fantastic game with good controls on PC, but the interface was poorly ported from consoles. The tutorials kept directing me to press Xbox 360 controller buttons even though I don't own that gamepad, so I had to hit escape to look at the key mappings about a dozen times. It's really frustrating when you're told to press "A" (not "the A button" but just "A"), so I do, and nothing happens because it's actually referring to a controller button which happens to be mapped to the shift key..
And when I do want to play a game with my friends, I honestly prefer sitting in the living room, sharing a nice 25yo single malt, and playing together on the big screen. The simple joy of being with friends, Steam will never be able to provide or compete with.
What about the other side of the spectrum? It's 10pm and you're in your jammies and you see on Steam that a friend is playing a casual game. With one click you can join his game, play together for 10 minutes, and make plans together for the weekend while chatting. There's a lot of value in that, even if it's not your very favourite means of gaming.
You can make your profile private which effectively opts you out of any social features. You can also disable in-game overlays but I find those handy whenever I want to pull up a web browser.
While what you say is true. Wikipedia makes enough internet traffic, and Googles XX% of it makes Google WAY more than 2 million bucks. So Google doesn't 'owe' Wikipedia anything, but it would be stupid not to have it.
I agree, but Google itself provides absolutely zero content. Google owes 100% of its revenue to content authors and publishers. I doubt Google will be cutting cheques to every other site in its index.
Not that Wikipedia creates any content either.. though I believe the donation was in fact to Wikimedia which releases its open source wiki server for free.
It's trivial for a website to disallow Google's crawlers if the traffic they bring is a problem. Google owes nothing to Wikipedia. This is a charitable donation and not a matter of obligation.
Also, websites disappear from the web every day. Google doesn't have to change their algorithms to accommodate this. Wikipedia is at the top of search results because they contain valuable textual content relevant to specific queries, and because people link to Wikipedia from their sites. The point of Google's algorithms is to be a hands-off approach to search ranking.
No but the link in TFA has direct HTTP downloads of the full game and the downloader/installer.
If there is a privacy war it is a war of one. You know the chef is poisoning the soup but you find it too delicious to stop eating.
Cancel your cable. War won.
Is there really any demand to burn Youtube videos to DVDs in 1080p? Sounds to me like Google picked an inappropriate codec for their medium. Perhaps they chose it simply to drive a wedge between their Chrome browser which supports this codec, and IE and Firefox which do not.
Because if I have 3 services and have... lets put a number 10% market share and then I unify all three and say about this new one: we are almost at %10 market share... it is a lie! yo are only regaining / recounting what you already have... speed is relative there, there is no strength in that, they are not gaining. They are regaining and marketing it as an achievement.
How is it lying? All those websites make it very clear that Bing is the name of their search engine. If anything is inaccurate it's the fact that anyone is still using the retired names MSN and Live.
Give Microsoft credit where it's due. One of the very first screens you see when you start up Internet Explorer for the first time is the search engine selection menu.
Should I really give Microsoft credit for doing what the anit-trust regulators forced them to do?
If you're like the OP and you accuse Microsoft of failing to do something that they did a long time ago, then yes.
IE has been doing this since version 7, yet Bing is still increasing in popularity.
I was going to ask about that... growing from where? because people assumes Bing is new while in reality it is a replacement of Live so counting from zero is like a distorted point of view.
This sounds like economy... after loosing 20% of something then gain 5% at fast peace and claim WE ARE GROWING! ... lame.
Okay, so provide the statistics that show Bing is less popular that Live.com. Also, show in the article where the things "people assumes" changed the raw numbers on their statistics charts.
Finally - and this is the most perplexing one of all - please explain how if something shrinks and then gets bigger it doesn't mean that it's growing.
Live, MSN, and Bing all use the Bing search engine, though. Try it yourself. Live.com redirects to Bing, and MSN.com and its subdomains use the Bing searhc engine. They're all exactly the same service. Why should they be broken apart?
IE keeps your previous default search engine when you upgrade it, actually.
So where in the article does it claim that Bing is stealing Google's market share? The only claim made is that Bing is increasing in popularity and that its growth is accelerating. Your points are valid but not as a rebuttal.
When you and your child go to the doctor does he give you your heights in separate units of measure, or does he compare them to you on an all-inclusive pie chart?
Also, have you heard of Cuil? Wikia search? Yauba? Those search engines started at zero as well. Why isn't their fame acclaimed the way you insist Bing's is?
Go to your address bar, type bing, and press ctrl-enter. Suddenly instead of talking AROUND the issue you are qualified to talk ABOUT it.
You're welcome.
I just upgraded my sister's WinXP laptop from IE7 to IE8 just yesterday and the wizard appeared on the first launch asking which search engine I preferred. Her default on IE7 was Google so that's what it recommended first, but gave the option to change to Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, and several others. Did you skip that wizard?
This is what happens when you make your search engine the default one for your web browser as well as make it difficult for someone to add or change this option.
Duh!
Give Microsoft credit where it's due. One of the very first screens you see when you start up Internet Explorer for the first time is the search engine selection menu. It tells you the default engine (Bing), offers a list of alternatives, and gives you instructions on how you can add any other engine that's not in the list. If anything Microsoft is overly gracious in this respect.
Compare this procedure to Chrome. It's far more difficult and nowhere near as transparent in this regard. It's possible but not obvious.
The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?
They probably did and were turned down. Yahoo didn't hesitate to provide this information to China when asked.
It's a brand new and very unique market, though. It's not worth dismissing on a whim. China does things its own way and it's up to intelligent business to learn and offer compelling services for that market. Google absolutely excels at this. This isn't a simple matter of an unsuccessful company closing shop with its tail between its legs.
Either Google has an ulterior motive or they are earnestly trying to force China to change its stance on censorship in publishing. Or both. Regardless of their motive there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?
Maybe those users have no market value? Why bother target an ad at someone who doesn't have the money to buy your stuff?
Why advertise cigarettes to children? Market investment. Considering all the ridiculous projects Google releases and subsequently shuts down it's obvious they have money to burn on risky ventures. I can't believe Google considers China one of their more disposable investments.
The difference is probably that Google can easily do without the Chinese market. They're by far not the number one search engine in China.
That's what I've been reading as well but the numbers don't add up. I read that the Chinese internet market is currently 300 million people and skyrocketing daily, and that Google accounts for 1/3 of search results served in the country. So that's 100 million Google users. Why is Google so dismissive of this enormous number of customers?
I wasn't referring only to search companies in my comment. Other articles on this story mentioned that Google had identified similar security breaches in at least 20 other companies, and I doubt those were all search/email companies. It will be very interesting to see whether any or all of those companies are identified and what their reaction will be. I was pretty shocked at Google's fierce ultimatum (suddenly removing censorship, effectively punishing the government for the hackers' actions) and will be doubly astounded if any other company dares to ally themselves with such brash action.