I couldn't find it in TFA, but my understanding is that Harvard was originally included in the list, but then dropped after it indicated a willingness to fight the RIAA and not sell out its students. I know that Harvard isn't the only college/university fighting the RIAA on this, but I hope that as bigger names start joining the fight, the smaller schools will take their lead and also start saying no to the RIAA.
I'm surprised this story even passed Slashdot's screening process. There's a screening process? I thought they just had a few monkeys that clicked "accept" or "reject," and the "reject" button was about 15 times the size of the "accept" button.
MS may be late to acknowledge the issue - no later than I'd expect any major corp to be, but late regardless - but if retroactively extending the 90-day warranty to three years isn't a move to earn customer good will, I don't know what they could do that would. I wholeheartedly agree. I experienced the dreaded 3 red rings just over a year after I had bought my console (I got it the first week it was released). At the time it broke, the warranty was only 3 months on it. They then extended it to one year shortly after that, but I was still out of luck because it was over one year. I was not thrilled with shelling out $140 to get it repaired (and $20 to ship it to them only to find out that the day after I shipped it they were now paying for shipping both ways as part of the $140...argh), but it was cheaper than any of my other options. Now they are going to refund the $140 I paid, and I am very happy for it. I'm not sure how that would cost customer good will -- if anything it shows me that Microsoft will stand behind its products, which is much more than I could say for Sony who wanted $200 to repair the PS2 with disc read errors (when the thing cost $250 new in the store).
So they have to turn that divsions average 30% operating loss into a profit and try to recoup those $3 billion. That will not be easy. CNN has an article about the story. From it:
Bach said the new warranty would not impact the Xbox division's plan to turn a profit in fiscal 2008, which started this month. Bach is the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division. Granted, "plan" is no guarantee, but they are expecting to make a profit this year.
That shows that Sony wanted to pretend to do the right thing for the customer which benefits me in the long run. I was going to call you out on this until I read it again and saw the word pretend. We all know that Sony doesn't do anything right for the customer!
It didn't make sense that Italy would get bogged down in backwards Ethiopia in WW2, that the English would lose a few battles to Zulus with spears... You clearly have never played any of the Civilization games...that stuff happens all the time!
In-game advertising works in a variety of genres, while it doesn't in others. It is all about whether it fits in with the game or not. In some cases, I wish there was more in-game advertising -- take MLB2K7 for example. All the stadiums have advertising for just a couple companies (including the developer and Progressive auto insurance). I would much rather see authentic ads (such as WB Mason and the big Bud Light ad at Yankee Stadium) than I would ads for the developer or one or two companies that paid for the spots.
I think a game like Forza has the right amount of advertising -- the advertisements are varied enough that you don't get sick of seeing a particular one, and racing is notorious for putting some sort of ad or label on every single spot they can. I love listening to the interviews with the racers: "The DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS..."
That being said, advertisements can really suspend your immersion in a game when they don't fit. If you're in a fantasy setting and see an ad for Coca Cola, your immersion is lost and it really detracts from the game. If you're in a FPS and you're in an urban setting, then maybe a few billboards would add to the realism -- but if every wall is plastered with ads then it takes away from the realism and the game suffers.
That's really the way the game industry has always been - you saw something in life that was frustrating or annoying, then tried to make it into a game. Unfortunately many of the game designers do exactly that...but forget to make it fun and instead leave it frustrating or annoying.
Next to noone uses the MM/DD/YY. Most countries (including most European countries) use DD/MM/YY, and even YYYY/MM/DD is more common than the "American" format. That's what I figured, but I was too busy at the time to actually check and I knew if I said something incorrect I'd have about 10 posts correcting me for my US-centric ignorance.
So if it isn't released until late July, perhaps 7/25/07, are they going to rename this plane the 7257? No, they'll just release it on August 7, 2007 which will please such airlines as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic (those crazy Brits do DD/MM/YY for those of you who didn't get the joke). Not sure about the rest of Europe, but I e-mail folks in London almost every day and have to convert all their dates.
While I agree that roleplaying may suffer a bit when you have a night elf female voiced by a guy who sounds like he's from the south, I've found that having voice chat can make the games much more fun.
Back in my WoW days I enjoyed jumping on Teamspeak and chatting with people during our raids. Our guild was good enough that when we were clearing trash mobs (unless someone screwed up) we could freely chat and tell jokes and stuff. It also made hours of grinding for items much more fun when you could just chat with people. The range of real people behind the players also made for some interesting times. We had people that ranged from early teens to grandmothers/grandfathers, all across the world in a variety of different occupations. It made the game a lot more fun because you developed a certain bond with the other players that you couldn't do only over text chat.
Plus it was really fun listening to the guys/girls with the Australian accents!
What I found in my teamspeak experiences is that people are more surprised when the chick is actually a chick than when the chick turns out to be a dude.
This is not a NEW development, other companies have been doing similar things and providing them either free or for pay for years now. Many online mapping and real estate companies provide a "Street View" product.
Agreed. I worked for a company a couple years ago where they were building a site that had pictures of intersections that would be used by lawyers/insurance agencies for auto accidents. It wasn't nearly the scale of Google, and it was all manual -- a person would drive down the street, get out, take pictures, mark them clearly as a particular intersection, then upload it...
Then again, we didn't have billions in capital and nearly unlimited storage either...
The answer, like most things in life, is simple: put up curtains.
Thank you, SilentChris! My wife just left me, I just lost my job, and I'm the prime suspect in a murder, but I just put up curtains and my entire life is back on track!
People like me, 42 and overweight, should leave our blinds open at all times. Eventually we'll start showing up in Google Views buck naked.
And that will be the end of google views.
I think you underestimate the number of people who would want to look at that...I'm at work, but try searching for "fat old porn" and see how many hits you get on google.
I thought they were very very rare, and the chance of your or my kids being involved in one was tiny.
Considering that this is slashdot, the odds of your or my kids being involved is basically 0, because having kids usually requires having sex and we all know we on slashdot don't do that!
Slashdot Mirror
I couldn't find it in TFA, but my understanding is that Harvard was originally included in the list, but then dropped after it indicated a willingness to fight the RIAA and not sell out its students. I know that Harvard isn't the only college/university fighting the RIAA on this, but I hope that as bigger names start joining the fight, the smaller schools will take their lead and also start saying no to the RIAA.
Argh...forgot the close tag...sorry about that!
In-game advertising works in a variety of genres, while it doesn't in others. It is all about whether it fits in with the game or not. In some cases, I wish there was more in-game advertising -- take MLB2K7 for example. All the stadiums have advertising for just a couple companies (including the developer and Progressive auto insurance). I would much rather see authentic ads (such as WB Mason and the big Bud Light ad at Yankee Stadium) than I would ads for the developer or one or two companies that paid for the spots.
I think a game like Forza has the right amount of advertising -- the advertisements are varied enough that you don't get sick of seeing a particular one, and racing is notorious for putting some sort of ad or label on every single spot they can. I love listening to the interviews with the racers: "The DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS..."
That being said, advertisements can really suspend your immersion in a game when they don't fit. If you're in a fantasy setting and see an ad for Coca Cola, your immersion is lost and it really detracts from the game. If you're in a FPS and you're in an urban setting, then maybe a few billboards would add to the realism -- but if every wall is plastered with ads then it takes away from the realism and the game suffers.
GM runs a really good loan business.
GMAC is no longer a subsidiary of GM. It was sold to a private equity firm, and GM only has a minority stake in it.
While I agree that roleplaying may suffer a bit when you have a night elf female voiced by a guy who sounds like he's from the south, I've found that having voice chat can make the games much more fun.
Back in my WoW days I enjoyed jumping on Teamspeak and chatting with people during our raids. Our guild was good enough that when we were clearing trash mobs (unless someone screwed up) we could freely chat and tell jokes and stuff. It also made hours of grinding for items much more fun when you could just chat with people. The range of real people behind the players also made for some interesting times. We had people that ranged from early teens to grandmothers/grandfathers, all across the world in a variety of different occupations. It made the game a lot more fun because you developed a certain bond with the other players that you couldn't do only over text chat.
Plus it was really fun listening to the guys/girls with the Australian accents!
What I found in my teamspeak experiences is that people are more surprised when the chick is actually a chick than when the chick turns out to be a dude.
Agreed. I worked for a company a couple years ago where they were building a site that had pictures of intersections that would be used by lawyers/insurance agencies for auto accidents. It wasn't nearly the scale of Google, and it was all manual -- a person would drive down the street, get out, take pictures, mark them clearly as a particular intersection, then upload it...
Then again, we didn't have billions in capital and nearly unlimited storage either...
Thank you, SilentChris! My wife just left me, I just lost my job, and I'm the prime suspect in a murder, but I just put up curtains and my entire life is back on track!
</sarcasm>
And that will be the end of google views.
I think you underestimate the number of people who would want to look at that...I'm at work, but try searching for "fat old porn" and see how many hits you get on google.
Considering that this is slashdot, the odds of your or my kids being involved is basically 0, because having kids usually requires having sex and we all know we on slashdot don't do that!
votekick TLF
We have enough problem landing on flat ground on Mars...now you want to land in a cave? Good luck with that!
A perfect example of why Slashdot needs a "+1, Groan" moderation.
So I think we should
News break: wokavader wants to have sex with barnyard animals! You heard it here, right from the horse's mouth!
Are you reading the same slashdot as I am? Since when has slashdot been about "objective news reporting"?