This sounds like the unlikely topical confluence of Microsoft, censorship, and the often broken and abused US Patent system.
This actually sounds like a great idea if they could successfully apply it to Xbox Live. It's not like it doesn't happen already online in chat rooms and MMOs. I think there's an obvious fear that this would fall into the government's hands though, especially if they can play well-synthesized voice in place of something objectionable and do it transparently. Fortunately I don't think it's going to happen for a few more years.
Let's emphasize that TFA refers to both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
Initially this kind of pissed me off, but considering that I won't be able to afford an HDTV until after I graduate and that the next generation DVD formats will under AACS output higher resolutions anyway, I think it's an okay compromise. Once again, it just sucks to be an early adopter.
A class-action lawsuit would be totally appropriate in this case. Also, who's to say that at some point, someone (ie, the producers of the television sets without digital inputs that lost the court battle, or a random hacker) manufactures a DAC that will crack HDMI and convert the signal to full analog component glory? It's a long shot, but hey.
Also, this article fails to mention that the downconversion can be turned off at the option of the individual movie studio. It seems like every other news source that has reported on this story mentions that some studios will not support the downconversion and some will. Satellite providers have had the option for years to downconvert with analog, but they have not done so yet. Maybe we need to have a little more cautious faith in these companies.
Wait, why is anyone "hotly" debating whether it will have a hard drive? It's a corporation's upcoming decision, not a foregone fact for anyone to state. Maybe I should debate over who's going to win the next presidential election or something.
The hard drive is totally Sony's call, and Sony's call only. Once you realize, as a Sony customer, that the corporation hates you (Memory Sticks, Star Wars Galaxies, evil DRM, shoddy build quality, empty promises, Emotion Engine hype) you'll realize that you have no power as a fanboy to "debate" the course of the company's future. How about waiting?
Users who play Sony CDs on their PC have no way of knowing that the rootkit has been installed. However, users of Zone Alarm 6.0 premium products are alerted to the original installation of the rootkit and have the choice to stop the process. ZoneAlarm also allows a user to halt the rootkit when it attempts to launch. These multiple layers of security protect users against the rootkit install and any viruses, Trojans, worms or other attack methods written to take advantage of its cloaking ability.
I use ZA Security Suite 6, and have been quite satisfied with it. Though inexperienced users might well end up pressing the Accept button when the rootkit installtion warning pops up, this relatively inexpensive and surprisingly potent security package has thus far kept my system pretty clean.
I myself have a Zire 72s. Now to answer your question.
Software.
Software.
Software.
Oh and storage.
Apple's iTunes software and their iTunes Music Store are the primary reasons why the iPod outsells PDAs and other media players, hands down. People have invested tons of money into their music collections over iTMS and have sort of screwed themselves into getting locked into Apple's system (speaking from personal experience). I know I could just burn all my stuff into discs and re-import, but the hallmark of Apple's is that their ease of use encourages happy laziness. So forget that.
Also, all I have in my Zire is a 1 gig CF card. Sure, it can hold a couple of feature-length movies, but my iPod holds all the music I own with a much better interface than the RealOne player on my Palm.
If Palm joined up with Apple and combined the LifeDrive concept with iTunes and iTMS, it'll be all over. But because Apple is already on top of the market, don't count on them making that move.
I remember earlier this year, I tried out one of those idiot "sign up to a bunch of free offers" programs to get a free PSP (stupid, I know). I signed up for a couple of AOL deals, waited for about 6 hours, and then I called to cancel. I reached the sales guy, he ran me through the three objections (if you know sales, you try to overcome 3 objections and if that doesn't work, give up) and I stuck to my guns. I said I had a campus connection at school, I had a fast Comcast connection at home, I didn't feel like paying for anything, and I only signed up to do the free PSP thing. Before he finished talking, something on their end clicked and gave me a prerecorded voice message about the service ending and me never being charged again. Then I heard the little "Goodbye!"
After that I never had any other problems from them. No billing or anything. I just stuck to my guns long enough against the guy trying to cross-sell me stuff.
Still didn't manage to get my PSP.
Point is, keep staying on the line and fight until you get the prerecorded message saying that you won't be billed by AOL ever again. I had no idea people were running into so much trouble.
Massive's advertising scheme in Anarchy Online allowed me to play for several months for free. Unfortunately, the game was pretty terrible, and the graphics were so bad that I found myself looking at Sprite Zero billboards; the ads ended up being more attractive than the actual game environment.
Apparently very few/.ers in the comments realize how much it costs to make a video game nowadays. Developers are paying more and more programmers and artists to put out the caliber of games expected in this and future generations. Games will be worth substantially more than $50 in terms of time and labor in the coming years. Instead of taking the cost out of end users' wallets, in-game ads will take that money from other corporations. If Massive's advertising techniques allow me to buy a $80 game for $50, I'm all for it.
but I just bought something from Amazon two days ago and got it shipped to my house yesterday. I'm happy as a clam.
The patent system is supposed to give those with novel ideas short-term exclusive use of those ideas. There are a number of ways to bust these patents, one of which is demonstrating prior art. If this cannot be demonstrated, guess what? It's a new idea! They get to use it. Good for Amazon. They get corporate dibs.
If there's any wrongdoing here, it's by the patent office. What Amazon is doing is totally legal. Rather than blame Amazon for the world's evils, decide whether everything you do is morally righteous.
You can boycott Amazon, and they clearly don't care, while me and millions of others can sit back and enjoy the low prices and convenience. The more I read, the more it seems like this is a small point of ideology that in the end is only benefitting the relationship between the best retailer on the planet and the consumer. Also consider that Amazon works with hundreds of other companies worldwide. Are you going to boycott OfficeDepot, Toys 'R' Us, and Target as well?
Patent reform is the way to go. Amazon is just doing what the system allows and should not be indigted for any wrongdoing.
1. Warez are illegal.
2. Apparently some/.ers support warez.
3. There are several hundred thousand/.ers, and there is undoubtedly a large fraction who similarly support warez
4. Why isn't there an organization or entity lobbying to change the law? Why is nobody even trying?
5. Because this subset of/.ers who support warez are apathetic, politically impotent, and lacking in passion for their own principles. Rhetoric and bickering will not yield a victory here.
How would a letter to your local legislators in support of warez sound? If you can sell the idea of stealing expensive software to a 50-year-old Congressman, I wish you Godspeed with your revolution. If not, consider the remote possibility that warez are wrong.
I happen to be a Catholic Eagle Scout and a former member of FBLA.
My family voted Democrat, against my parents' party affiliation (this was my first year).
I, like the late John Paul II, give plenty of credence to many aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution, but what you are talking about is eugenics.
Parhaps we should send all the members of the intellectually immodest Anonymous Coward master race out to fight terrorism? Maybe I should hold my own opinion and background as a basis for deciding who will be the next victim of populational selection instead.
I didn't look at the features at all for this review because 1, I know they are nearly identical
Not quite true. The feature set in OO.org in general is several years behind MS Office. OO does have nice features, like native PDF export, and the function typesetter in OO is really cool; however, in terms of polish, reliability, user-friendliness, and integration, MS Office is superior. You tend to get what you pay for (unless you happen to be a scurvy pirate).
That said, both suites tend to provide adequate basic functionality. However, OO has a little problem with not being able to display regression equations on OO Math graphs. This is what caused me to pony up for Office.
I'm not sure why this turned into a laptop/desktop fanboy war. Both form factors exist because certain people want different things. People who have the skills necessary to upgrade their computers or who want to save money go with desktop computers. People who don't have the skills, time, or inclination to upgrade, and who care about portability/space, get laptops.
Since when was any one form factor necessarily better? Toss them out there and let the economy sort 'em out. If one is better, it will gain market share. Obviously, laptops are becoming more popular. I am simply deferring to the numbers here.
I built a custom box a few years ago, but I recently bought a laptop for college and couldn't be happier. It's not like I have time to play the latest and greatest games on a PC anyway; might as well save myself the time and money and wait to buy a next-gen console.
A recognition of intellectual property as it applies to software is already a requirement to earn the Computers merit badge in the Boy Scouts of America. However, it's a pretty weak yes or no:
8. Is it permissible to accept a free copy of a computer game or program from a friend? Why or why not?
I still stole software before and after earning the badge, and pretty much all of my troop members traded games and stole music like any other typical set of adolescent men.
However, as an Eagle Scout, I have changed my stance and was disappointed that this merit badge didn't make it to the states.
I'm outraged not only by the RIAA, but mostly by Slashdot at this point.
Firstly, 10k sued? I'm not sure if settling out of court counts as a lawsuit. You'd actually have to go to court.
This sensational language and the outright, blatant lies common in recent/. headlines are forcing me to call/. an overblown Internet tabloid, infested with a veritable hive of juveniles and self-absorbed laymen. But that's beside the point.
How about this: stop the rhetoric. Then join the EFF. Convert your BS to something much less so.
My dad told me this when I was about twelve years old. Either my dad is a genius, or it's Dvorak's creativity as a writer that's dying.
Why didn't he comment on the increasing consolidation of the industry (see EA), the incredible difficulty of breaking in as an independent gamemaker, or the resurgence of console emulation as factors for killing creativity in the industry? The death of creativity in modern gaming is a consequence of these factors, not necessarily a cause of anything like a forthcoming bubble burst.
However, the knock on hardcore gamers is definitely a valid observation. Then again, hardcore gamers pay more, buy more, and demand more. Normal people like Dvorak can stick to their Minesweeper, and their kids can play Super Smash Brothers on free-to-cheap used N64's.
There are already plenty of games out that can cater to the casual gamer, that don't require any innovation on the part of the corporations. If casual gamers crave innovation without increases in difficulty, companies can just slap on a new layer of graphics and make it compatible with the latest console. Which is exactly what they do.
If anything, Dvorak provides a valuable layman's look at the current industry. It's like stepping back and seeing the big picture. The downside is that the industry is a lot more complex than a reductionist view may provide for.
Money for the iPods and accompanying services comes out of a $500,000 technology initiative fund. If anything does come out of the c/o 2008 tuition, it'll paying for future technology education (or shameless marketing) initiatives.
They did have an agreement. The day they gave the things out, there were news vans, iPod posters, and a tent full of Apple employees pretty much right outside my window. Apple and Duke turned the night into a huge event.
Another point: we have our own service team down here and boxes full of replacement iPods.
Proposed, not yet passed, but will likely pass because nothing can stop it.
This is like Slashdot editors' incorrectly written headlines, or Slashdotters' incorrect comments. The inevitability of each is so severe that one often considers them to have happenned already. Given the circumstances, you've made a totally forgiveable mistake. 'Sall good.
Until OpenOffice Calc can display linear regression equations on graphs, I'll be forced to stick to Excel. Although I do prefer OO's function typesetting in its wordprocessor over whatever old version of Microsoft Equation I use, I don't see OO as any competition to MS at least in terms of writing high school lab reports.
Furthermore, OO's interface can be extremely clunky. Have you seen America's children? The normal ones are dumb as dirt. They can barely do the SAT's, much less use OO's interface.
Slashdot Mirror
This actually sounds like a great idea if they could successfully apply it to Xbox Live. It's not like it doesn't happen already online in chat rooms and MMOs. I think there's an obvious fear that this would fall into the government's hands though, especially if they can play well-synthesized voice in place of something objectionable and do it transparently. Fortunately I don't think it's going to happen for a few more years.
Initially this kind of pissed me off, but considering that I won't be able to afford an HDTV until after I graduate and that the next generation DVD formats will under AACS output higher resolutions anyway, I think it's an okay compromise. Once again, it just sucks to be an early adopter.
A class-action lawsuit would be totally appropriate in this case. Also, who's to say that at some point, someone (ie, the producers of the television sets without digital inputs that lost the court battle, or a random hacker) manufactures a DAC that will crack HDMI and convert the signal to full analog component glory? It's a long shot, but hey.
Also, this article fails to mention that the downconversion can be turned off at the option of the individual movie studio. It seems like every other news source that has reported on this story mentions that some studios will not support the downconversion and some will. Satellite providers have had the option for years to downconvert with analog, but they have not done so yet. Maybe we need to have a little more cautious faith in these companies.
The hard drive is totally Sony's call, and Sony's call only. Once you realize, as a Sony customer, that the corporation hates you (Memory Sticks, Star Wars Galaxies, evil DRM, shoddy build quality, empty promises, Emotion Engine hype) you'll realize that you have no power as a fanboy to "debate" the course of the company's future. How about waiting?
Software.
Software.
Software.
Oh and storage.
Apple's iTunes software and their iTunes Music Store are the primary reasons why the iPod outsells PDAs and other media players, hands down. People have invested tons of money into their music collections over iTMS and have sort of screwed themselves into getting locked into Apple's system (speaking from personal experience). I know I could just burn all my stuff into discs and re-import, but the hallmark of Apple's is that their ease of use encourages happy laziness. So forget that.
Also, all I have in my Zire is a 1 gig CF card. Sure, it can hold a couple of feature-length movies, but my iPod holds all the music I own with a much better interface than the RealOne player on my Palm.
If Palm joined up with Apple and combined the LifeDrive concept with iTunes and iTMS, it'll be all over. But because Apple is already on top of the market, don't count on them making that move.
After that I never had any other problems from them. No billing or anything. I just stuck to my guns long enough against the guy trying to cross-sell me stuff.
Still didn't manage to get my PSP.
Point is, keep staying on the line and fight until you get the prerecorded message saying that you won't be billed by AOL ever again. I had no idea people were running into so much trouble.
Apparently very few /.ers in the comments realize how much it costs to make a video game nowadays. Developers are paying more and more programmers and artists to put out the caliber of games expected in this and future generations. Games will be worth substantially more than $50 in terms of time and labor in the coming years. Instead of taking the cost out of end users' wallets, in-game ads will take that money from other corporations. If Massive's advertising techniques allow me to buy a $80 game for $50, I'm all for it.
AFAIK it depends on the implementation. Have you noticed any prior implementations of either of these concepts?
Contextual presentation of information about related orders during browsing of an electronic catalog
The patent only applies to an online electronic catalog. If your grandmother was shopping for drugs online in 1978, I will stand corrected.
The patent system is supposed to give those with novel ideas short-term exclusive use of those ideas. There are a number of ways to bust these patents, one of which is demonstrating prior art. If this cannot be demonstrated, guess what? It's a new idea! They get to use it. Good for Amazon. They get corporate dibs.
If there's any wrongdoing here, it's by the patent office. What Amazon is doing is totally legal. Rather than blame Amazon for the world's evils, decide whether everything you do is morally righteous.
You can boycott Amazon, and they clearly don't care, while me and millions of others can sit back and enjoy the low prices and convenience. The more I read, the more it seems like this is a small point of ideology that in the end is only benefitting the relationship between the best retailer on the planet and the consumer. Also consider that Amazon works with hundreds of other companies worldwide. Are you going to boycott OfficeDepot, Toys 'R' Us, and Target as well?
Patent reform is the way to go. Amazon is just doing what the system allows and should not be indigted for any wrongdoing.
1. Warez are illegal. 2. Apparently some /.ers support warez.
3. There are several hundred thousand /.ers, and there is undoubtedly a large fraction who similarly support warez
4. Why isn't there an organization or entity lobbying to change the law? Why is nobody even trying?
5. Because this subset of /.ers who support warez are apathetic, politically impotent, and lacking in passion for their own principles. Rhetoric and bickering will not yield a victory here.
How would a letter to your local legislators in support of warez sound? If you can sell the idea of stealing expensive software to a 50-year-old Congressman, I wish you Godspeed with your revolution. If not, consider the remote possibility that warez are wrong.
My family voted Democrat, against my parents' party affiliation (this was my first year).
I, like the late John Paul II, give plenty of credence to many aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution, but what you are talking about is eugenics.
Parhaps we should send all the members of the intellectually immodest Anonymous Coward master race out to fight terrorism? Maybe I should hold my own opinion and background as a basis for deciding who will be the next victim of populational selection instead.
Or maybe it doesn't work that way.
There's that rumor that he's in cryogenic suspended animation.
Not quite true. The feature set in OO.org in general is several years behind MS Office. OO does have nice features, like native PDF export, and the function typesetter in OO is really cool; however, in terms of polish, reliability, user-friendliness, and integration, MS Office is superior. You tend to get what you pay for (unless you happen to be a scurvy pirate).
That said, both suites tend to provide adequate basic functionality. However, OO has a little problem with not being able to display regression equations on OO Math graphs. This is what caused me to pony up for Office.
Since when was any one form factor necessarily better? Toss them out there and let the economy sort 'em out. If one is better, it will gain market share. Obviously, laptops are becoming more popular. I am simply deferring to the numbers here.
I built a custom box a few years ago, but I recently bought a laptop for college and couldn't be happier. It's not like I have time to play the latest and greatest games on a PC anyway; might as well save myself the time and money and wait to buy a next-gen console.
Erm Disappointed that IP didn't make it Sorry
8. Is it permissible to accept a free copy of a computer game or program from a friend? Why or why not?
The full requirement list can be found here.
I still stole software before and after earning the badge, and pretty much all of my troop members traded games and stole music like any other typical set of adolescent men.
However, as an Eagle Scout, I have changed my stance and was disappointed that this merit badge didn't make it to the states.
Well, that and my CSS code fuggin sucks. But I highly recommend Firefox for correctly displaying Code that Fuggin Sucks (CFS) anyway.
Firstly, 10k sued? I'm not sure if settling out of court counts as a lawsuit. You'd actually have to go to court.
This sensational language and the outright, blatant lies common in recent /. headlines are forcing me to call /. an overblown Internet tabloid, infested with a veritable hive of juveniles and self-absorbed laymen. But that's beside the point.
How about this: stop the rhetoric. Then join the EFF. Convert your BS to something much less so.
Why didn't he comment on the increasing consolidation of the industry (see EA), the incredible difficulty of breaking in as an independent gamemaker, or the resurgence of console emulation as factors for killing creativity in the industry? The death of creativity in modern gaming is a consequence of these factors, not necessarily a cause of anything like a forthcoming bubble burst.
However, the knock on hardcore gamers is definitely a valid observation. Then again, hardcore gamers pay more, buy more, and demand more. Normal people like Dvorak can stick to their Minesweeper, and their kids can play Super Smash Brothers on free-to-cheap used N64's.
There are already plenty of games out that can cater to the casual gamer, that don't require any innovation on the part of the corporations. If casual gamers crave innovation without increases in difficulty, companies can just slap on a new layer of graphics and make it compatible with the latest console. Which is exactly what they do.
If anything, Dvorak provides a valuable layman's look at the current industry. It's like stepping back and seeing the big picture. The downside is that the industry is a lot more complex than a reductionist view may provide for.
Money for the iPods and accompanying services comes out of a $500,000 technology initiative fund. If anything does come out of the c/o 2008 tuition, it'll paying for future technology education (or shameless marketing) initiatives.
Another point: we have our own service team down here and boxes full of replacement iPods.
Proposed, not yet passed, but will likely pass because nothing can stop it.
This is like Slashdot editors' incorrectly written headlines, or Slashdotters' incorrect comments. The inevitability of each is so severe that one often considers them to have happenned already. Given the circumstances, you've made a totally forgiveable mistake. 'Sall good.
Furthermore, OO's interface can be extremely clunky. Have you seen America's children? The normal ones are dumb as dirt. They can barely do the SAT's, much less use OO's interface.