The point isn't to "water down" the Wii as a gaming system, it's to have less boxes next to the TV. The PS3 is a disaster because Sony wanted to push a new expensive technology, we're talking about plain old DVD here, for which players can be bought for about 20$USD at Wal-Mart.
I'm guessing the Wii hardware is probably more than powerful enough to play DVDs through a firmware update. Adding 5$ for a DVD playback license wouldn't water down the Wii at all. And the Wii already comes with a remote that fits the "media remote" look in a way, there would be no need to buy an additional remote.
Would I pay 5$ to be able to remove my DVD player from my setup? You bet.
Because, of course, a Firefox extension that only a few slashdotter use is MUCH BETTER than actually modifying Slashdot so that ALL links use mirrordot in order to prevent actual slashdotting of web servers world-wide.
This is all nice and good, but what I'd like to see is a voting system for TV ads. Digital cable, satellite, PVRs... they all allow some type of feedback, why not implement a voting system so you can vote ads up or down.
That way, annoying ads would be voted down (companies would stop paying to show it) and fun/good ads would be voted up (companies would know what style works).
Maybe add a third option to let them know they're showing it too often. Sometimes I like some ads but they appear so often as to become annoying.
First of all the idea that Linux has bad support for hardware is an old myth that has been pretty much fixed in recent years.
But old myths die hard.
I still encounter people who don't even know that Macs have been running Unix for the last seven years, or that they're not limited to one-button mouses, etc.
It may sound crazy, but maybe if Firefox had a default splash screen with logos and links to linux distros, they might become more popular. State how Firefox is free and open source and that the Linux OS is also free and open-source. Use the most popular Windows OSS program to spread the word about Linux.
Funny how the music and movie industries want all the protection and laws they can get, yet we as customers don't get squat.
Don't like that music CD? Sorry, most stores don't offer refunds, only a replacement for defective discs (let's not talk about copy-protected discs here, it's not the issue).
Didn't like that movie? Sorry, you can't get a refund for that $10 movie ticket.
Everything else in the world comes with a warranty. You can return products within a reasonable amount of time and get a refund.
But not with the RIAA and MPAA. No sir. They are the law, you owe them money even if their products suck so bad that you think you wasted both money and time.
Sounds good, however that's exactly the kind of stuff those APIs should be doing automagically since their target is also "write once, run anywhere with OS look'n feel". The more you rely on each programmer to do this (and each of them is expected to do it) the more the chances of screwing it up.
The Mac mini still uses the Core Duo and only has 802.11g. No Core 2 Duo, no 802.11n. And it's still too expensive too. When it lauched it was 499/599$US. Not anymore.
AOpen just released their own Santa Rosa "Mac mini-sized" desktop computer. I'm hoping Apple will release a new Santa Rosa Mac mini next tuesday.
Is email just too hectic a communication form for some people?
If anything, I find phone calls and personnal conversations (while working) more disruptive. I mean, here you are, working on something, and you HAVE to stop in order to talk to the other person. Email, on the other hand, can wait until I'm done with whatever I'm in the middle of doing.
You got that right. I can have an MSN account for free and use a non-MS client to use their network but I need to pay a monthly fee to play multiplayer games online with an Xbox 360 (something that's free on any other platform apart from MMORPGs).
I, for one, am glad to see they're not going with Microsoft for their future devices. It means I can actually think of Palm as a viable option now, if they have Mac OS X support.
If companies think they can have an audience for a browser-only viewer, they're in for a big surprise. Normal people don't want to watch television on their computer monitors. Hardware such as the AppleTV is a step in the right direction, along with the iTunes Store to get your movies and TV shows.
The tag would already contain the amount value and the currency. Without an internet connection it would display as usual but could at least display the currency of the amount. The "$" sign is used by the USA, Canada and Australia (and maybe others, I don't know). Of course you can assume it's in US dollars, but assuming does a lot of damage in a lot of types of informations: currency, lengths/weights, dates, etc.
As for violating the separation of content and presentation, I beg to differ. If the content is meaningless because it assumes a knowledge of locale, then it's not pure "content". Presentation would be more akin to where the $ sign is located. I, for one, never understood why you put $ in front of the amount in english, since you don't say "dollars 50" but "50 dollars".
In any case, even if we did add such a tag, we could be sure Microsoft would screw it up somehow, making it useless since most people are still stuck in Windows+Internet Explorer with no clue as to the alternatives (even if it were Windows + Firefox).
[...] a 600GB disc will cost around $180 (£90) [...]
How about some kind of tag with the amount, the currency and the date? That way, the browser could show us the value in our own currency, checked against the exchange rate for that day?
eBay is not a news website. eBay is making money from people putting items up for sale and from people buying them. And since PayPal is also owned by eBay they're also making money if people use PayPal to list their items/buy their items.
There shouldn't be any non-eBay-related ads on eBay.
So what, it does need to be made in the first place, you can't work around that. On the upside, if you subscribe to a podcast you CAN'T miss it, unless someone decides to remove it from the server.
Since they plan on doing something from scratch (from what I understand), how about defining open standards that could be used on any platform?
I know some things can't be cross-platforms (executables, etc), others can (wallpaper, keyboard, mouse, language, international, email and IM settings, etc).
Put everything in pure (i.e., non-"Microsoft-enhanced").xml files and keep it simple.
Seeing as Microsoft is part of this initiative, however, I predict that "cross-platform" will mean "Windows Vista and future versions of Windows".
Slashdot Mirror
It would be nice to have some sort of lists where the distros are listed, along with "This Distro signed for Microsoft protection" tags.
You damn kids, get off my lawn.
Sincerely,
Commodore 64.
The point isn't to "water down" the Wii as a gaming system, it's to have less boxes next to the TV. The PS3 is a disaster because Sony wanted to push a new expensive technology, we're talking about plain old DVD here, for which players can be bought for about 20$USD at Wal-Mart.
I'm guessing the Wii hardware is probably more than powerful enough to play DVDs through a firmware update. Adding 5$ for a DVD playback license wouldn't water down the Wii at all. And the Wii already comes with a remote that fits the "media remote" look in a way, there would be no need to buy an additional remote.
Would I pay 5$ to be able to remove my DVD player from my setup? You bet.
DVDs are only 480p, and a LOT of people only use stereo audio. Not everyone has a home theater system you know.
As for DVD region codes, it wouldn't change anything for the games.
The Wii is already "encumbered with royalties, patents, region codes and whatnot": it can play MP3's and display JPEG's.
Because, of course, a Firefox extension that only a few slashdotter use is MUCH BETTER than actually modifying Slashdot so that ALL links use mirrordot in order to prevent actual slashdotting of web servers world-wide.
That's not a problem, they have no Turbographix games on the VC.
TurboGrafx-16 games, on the other hand...
This is all nice and good, but what I'd like to see is a voting system for TV ads. Digital cable, satellite, PVRs... they all allow some type of feedback, why not implement a voting system so you can vote ads up or down.
That way, annoying ads would be voted down (companies would stop paying to show it) and fun/good ads would be voted up (companies would know what style works).
Maybe add a third option to let them know they're showing it too often. Sometimes I like some ads but they appear so often as to become annoying.
I still encounter people who don't even know that Macs have been running Unix for the last seven years, or that they're not limited to one-button mouses, etc.
It may sound crazy, but maybe if Firefox had a default splash screen with logos and links to linux distros, they might become more popular. State how Firefox is free and open source and that the Linux OS is also free and open-source. Use the most popular Windows OSS program to spread the word about Linux.
Funny how the music and movie industries want all the protection and laws they can get, yet we as customers don't get squat.
Don't like that music CD? Sorry, most stores don't offer refunds, only a replacement for defective discs (let's not talk about copy-protected discs here, it's not the issue).
Didn't like that movie? Sorry, you can't get a refund for that $10 movie ticket.
Everything else in the world comes with a warranty. You can return products within a reasonable amount of time and get a refund.
But not with the RIAA and MPAA. No sir. They are the law, you owe them money even if their products suck so bad that you think you wasted both money and time.
You really haven't tried both Firefox and Opera on OS X if you think Opera feels less native than Firefox.
At least with Opera the page forms don't look like they're from Windows 98.
That's why I prefer Opera. If you think Firefox is bad, try it on OS X.
He's a plumber, then?
---
if (style == Style.Windows) {
preferences_menu_item.name = "Options";
add_menu_item(preferences_menu_item, tools_menu);
} else {
preferences_menu_item.name = "Preferences";
add_menu_item(preferences_menu_item, edit_menu);
}
---
Sounds good, however that's exactly the kind of stuff those APIs should be doing automagically since their target is also "write once, run anywhere with OS look'n feel". The more you rely on each programmer to do this (and each of them is expected to do it) the more the chances of screwing it up.
The Mac mini still uses the Core Duo and only has 802.11g. No Core 2 Duo, no 802.11n. And it's still too expensive too. When it lauched it was 499/599$US. Not anymore.
AOpen just released their own Santa Rosa "Mac mini-sized" desktop computer. I'm hoping Apple will release a new Santa Rosa Mac mini next tuesday.
To really have a tax kill email so we could switch to something better would require a world-wide tax from all governments. Not gonna happen.
I'll pick MSN, thank you.
It's dead in the same way Mac OS Classic is dead.
I, for one, am glad to see they're not going with Microsoft for their future devices. It means I can actually think of Palm as a viable option now, if they have Mac OS X support.
If companies think they can have an audience for a browser-only viewer, they're in for a big surprise. Normal people don't want to watch television on their computer monitors. Hardware such as the AppleTV is a step in the right direction, along with the iTunes Store to get your movies and TV shows.
The tag would already contain the amount value and the currency. Without an internet connection it would display as usual but could at least display the currency of the amount. The "$" sign is used by the USA, Canada and Australia (and maybe others, I don't know). Of course you can assume it's in US dollars, but assuming does a lot of damage in a lot of types of informations: currency, lengths/weights, dates, etc.
As for violating the separation of content and presentation, I beg to differ. If the content is meaningless because it assumes a knowledge of locale, then it's not pure "content". Presentation would be more akin to where the $ sign is located. I, for one, never understood why you put $ in front of the amount in english, since you don't say "dollars 50" but "50 dollars".
In any case, even if we did add such a tag, we could be sure Microsoft would screw it up somehow, making it useless since most people are still stuck in Windows+Internet Explorer with no clue as to the alternatives (even if it were Windows + Firefox).
eBay is not a news website. eBay is making money from people putting items up for sale and from people buying them. And since PayPal is also owned by eBay they're also making money if people use PayPal to list their items/buy their items.
There shouldn't be any non-eBay-related ads on eBay.
So what, it does need to be made in the first place, you can't work around that. On the upside, if you subscribe to a podcast you CAN'T miss it, unless someone decides to remove it from the server.
Since they plan on doing something from scratch (from what I understand), how about defining open standards that could be used on any platform?
.xml files and keep it simple.
I know some things can't be cross-platforms (executables, etc), others can (wallpaper, keyboard, mouse, language, international, email and IM settings, etc).
Put everything in pure (i.e., non-"Microsoft-enhanced")
Seeing as Microsoft is part of this initiative, however, I predict that "cross-platform" will mean "Windows Vista and future versions of Windows".