This decision is part of a growing trend in the US in favour of bigger and more powerful government after the world trade center attacks.
Unfortunatly, the primary effect of the attacks has made americans willing to give up many, previously cherished, rights so that they may benefit from the security that follows.
They've been at it for years. The pentagon is probobly the most skilled crowd of propagandists there is.
What worries me is that "traditional" propaganda has always been subject to (some) constraint. You couldn't run around screaming "YOU'VE GOT TO KILL OUR ENEMIES!!! WHAT ARE YOU!!?!?! YELLOW!?!?!" without someone calling a halt.
However video game propaganda is more subtle. Because the player is so involved, they will be more succeptible to whatever you throw at them. On top of that, they are immerrsed, a propagandists dream.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that in 10-20 years time these games will have affected a generations outlook and attitudes towards patriotisim and the army in general.
Why else would the pentagon invest so much money and then give it away for free?
Only the japaneese would have the guts to release such a game. It's this willingness to take risks that makes the games from Japan of a higher quality than US or European games.
Do you think EA would bother making this game. Even bother to think up of a new game. Why bother? Just wait till a small studio does, buy them out and run the series until its hyped up, buggy and hollywoodised death.
Come on companies!! Innovate!!! Look what these guys have done!
DRM is an industry attempt to enforce a monopoly, just like region locking. The fiasco of DVD restrictions runs counter to every single principle of the free-market which these companies supposedly hold dear. The reality is that free-market is only supported when it benifits the big guys, and in the case of digital media, it dosen't.
It's time for people to realise, music and movies are only big business because the few have a monopoly on their, inexpensive, reproduction. Now that Joe Sixpack has the ability to reproduce, they want to take it away from him. It's shameful. The way to deal with piracy is to reduce the cost of your products. That way they'll be so cheap people won't bother pirating. It's only the monopoly that makes them so expensive.
Seriously, I think that this demonstarates the new power given to the (relativly) little guy by computers. Thanks to simulation we can all tweak ideas without blowing up prototypes.
I wish I had as much free time as some of these people.:E
Hate speech is bad. Let's ban hate speech. Everybody agrees. Racism is bad. Let's ban racism. Everybody agrees.
Then of course, delighted with their success, it progresses.
Pirating is bad. Let's ban pirating. Some grumble, but considering how we did it already, everybody agrees. Pr0n is bad. Let's (restrict, then)ban Pr0n. A LOT of people start objecting. But we've done it already, there is precedent, and Pr0n is much worse than pirating and we banned that right.
It progresses to violent films, hacking websites, open source, anti-globalisers, drugs, Rk&Rl, etc, etc...
The slippery slope has already begun. BT blocked access to kiddie porn sites. Now we all wonder, what will they ban next. And you know, some execs in BT are thinking the same thing.
You think it won't happen? It HAS happened. Several times. EVEN in America. Remember prohibition.
Sadly the price we pay for our free society is having to put up with racists and haters on the net. Call me apathetic, but I think this is a price worth paying.
I tried a little mobile phone game programming myself.
Most mobile phone games are by and large, java midlets. The J2ME MIDP 1.0 spec gives some basic graphics functions, The MIDP 2.0 spec gives a lot more.
Unfortunatly sun were dead set against 3D graphics and even say so in the J2ME documentation. Admittedly the pixillation of the screen renders any type of 3D graphic ugly, but they might have at least supported it on the high end phones.
There are over 200 million(I think) java enabled phones out there. Basically, until sun support 3D graphics on mobiles, we won't see much of it.
I'm not sure if OpenGL would be a good idea in all its gargantuan glory!:E Maybe a Open GL Micro Edition would suit better? Definitely something based on an Open standard would be nice.
However as phones get more powerful all this "Micro Edition" stuff could get outdated and unesssesary. Cue the part where MS walk in with.NET for 4th generation phones. It could happen!
You now have a non-lethal means of effectivly silencing protest!
No longer will your govenment have to put up with protestors! Unruly tree-hugging anti-capitalists will stumble away even more confused than when they came in! But why stop there!
The mass tesla cannon(tm) can halt all kinds of protest! Even mass protestations against the president can be easily quashed in mid whine! Police forces can quickly and efficiently deal with dissenters without sparking media attendtion!
Coupled with new digital censorship, your government will now have the power to make sure the "Right" kind of society exists in your country!
Governments give out all kinds of excuses for censorship. That it will "aid the enemy" or "induce panic". In reality they just don't want bad press.
Censorship is a very thorny issue, but we need total freedom of the press for our society to remain free. The story of "embedded" reporters during the Iraq war was a case in point. Embedded was a euphamisim for censored and reporters felt this. Their skewed reports helped continue the culture of lies and exaggeration that prevailed in the lead up to the war. People were misinformed about that war. From start to finish. Far better for us all to get the story , warts and all, rather than have it dripped and filtered to us by biased parties.
Interestingly, the prevailence of high tech media helped retard the effect of censorship during the war. It was difficult, but no impossible, for the army to censor reporters for very long. The press center in Quatar became redundant as feeds were transmitted directly from the field. High tech media is also the ONLY reason that we are seeing images of torture from prisons in Iraq.
The media also practices self-censorship by limiting the coverage of disturbing imagery. I think they should give people more credit and stop listening to the easily offended.
The truth is never more distorted than during times of war. But this is the most critical time in which the truth needs to be shown, in all its
truth. We might like like the truth, but we NEED to hear it. We have to hold a mirror up to ourselves. Otherwise we'll start to believe all the rethoric and that would be a vert bad thing.
I'm finding it hard to believe that this comment isn't a troll.
Either that or it displays a very real ignorence of the eithics of bombing during WWII.
WWII was an ugly war. Every nation involved did thing which were, then and now, considered unacceptable. Nations still do today. Unfortunatly many still operate on the principle that the end justifies the means. I think this is actually one of the tenents of Neoconservatisim.
Microsoft have been moving away heavily from the windows API in recent time and have been pushing.NET heavily, because essentially.NET is the replacement for the windows API but on a bigger scale..NET is (possibly) going to be used by every single program that runs under every single version of windows. MS want it to be used for Client apps, web apps, mobile phone apps, server apps, scripts, hardware.. EVERYTHING.
Essentially.NET is the windows API, just now it's the "everything MS" API. By using.Net, you are using microsoft, and hence windows. No java for the masses(or unix for that matter)
Question is what effect will mono have on all this. I'm a pessimistic type so I'll say that if mono ever becomes a threat to the MS lock in, then MS will radically alter.NET or start abusing the patent system to muscle Mono out..NET is the weakest link in the MS lockin, as now Mono may allow windows apps to work flawlessly on Unix. But.Net is the keystone in the new MS API lockin. I hardly see how MS WON'T try to crush Mono!
This is kind of a pity, because, to be honest, I'm sick of memory leaks.
It's about time someone came up with lossy compression for 3D graphics.
Given advances in bump mapping, texture mapping and antialissing I feel I could live with a few less detailed polygons, in exchange for faster download time. This could have a big impact on blue vs red, no?
I think this question harps back to the old argument about levels of detail. Should we spend an extra 1000 CPU cycles giving counterstrike bots a more refined nose or spend it on more advanced AI?
I think the nose job camp is winning at the moment. Not in counterstrike mind! Just in the industry in general.
I can see where your coming from with this article but really when you think about it, sound is just not that big of an issue, in games or any other application.
Given that most people will listen to games with headphones or a set of desktop speakers, what is the point of improving sound quality. The classic example, I think, is Metal Gear Solid 2. Apparently in parts of the game dolby surround sound was of a major advantage in game. But who even HAS surround sound? No-one I know. And who on EARTH has surround sound on their PC?
Most people also aren't big into sound quality. The tone deaf masses usually encode at 128kbps and like it! (I know I do) Top this off with the fact that even stereo sound is technically quite difficult to implement and that most programmers aren't versed in phonic theory, you can see why most users could buy a ten year old sound card and see no loss of quality.
(N.B. The author still thinks music from old sonic games is groovy. As such its comments should be modded down at the earliest possible moment.):E
If you ever go out and buy something like Knight os the Old Republic for the Xbox, turn to the back pages of the manual and read the EULA.
EULAs have begun to appear in many video games recently. They're usually amoung the most draconian, restrictive and probobly illegal EULAs to date, saying thing like the company reserves the right to recind all support, take the software from you, snoop on what your doing with it online and of course is not liable for ANY AND ALL damage that may be incurred from the software.
Most people I know never even read the manual, let alone the EULA. A lot of the agreements state that just by opening the box( the EULA is sealed within the box) you have agreed to the terms!
I know myself that I usually never do any more than glance at EULAs and I've certainly never gotten to the bottom of the Microsoft EULA.
Seemingly this judge has ruled that privacy policies, in themselves agreements, only apply if you read them. Usually this could be extended to other (unsigned)agreements. But of course we must Remember!!
EULAs are to do with COMPUTERS!!! That means DCMA restrictions, patents and copyright rules all apply in computer mode. Meaning of course that normal rules _DO NOT APPLY_ . You have no rights, but many responsibilites.
Slashdot Mirror
This decision is part of a growing trend in the US in favour of bigger and more powerful government after the world trade center attacks.
Unfortunatly, the primary effect of the attacks has made americans willing to give up many, previously cherished, rights so that they may benefit from the security that follows.
Microsoft always SAY things won't be backwards compatable, but rest assured they'll backport XBox 2 games to Xbox just like .Net ...Oh wait...
Well... your tax money was spent! ;E
:E
I'm just a freeloading european!
I guess the marshall plan never really ended.
They've been at it for years. The pentagon is probobly the most skilled crowd of propagandists there is.
What worries me is that "traditional" propaganda has always been subject to (some) constraint. You couldn't run around screaming "YOU'VE GOT TO KILL OUR ENEMIES!!! WHAT ARE YOU!!?!?! YELLOW!?!?!" without someone calling a halt.
However video game propaganda is more subtle. Because the player is so involved, they will be more succeptible to whatever you throw at them. On top of that, they are immerrsed, a propagandists dream.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that in 10-20 years time these games will have affected a generations outlook and attitudes towards patriotisim and the army in general.
Why else would the pentagon invest so much money and then give it away for free?
Oh I found that alright.
I just can't find anything else!:E Port opening/closing etc...
i sometimes wonder if it's even there.
I mean, I haven't had a port blocked yet? Hmmmm...
What a country!
Only the japaneese would have the guts to release such a game. It's this willingness to take risks that makes the games from Japan of a higher quality than US or European games.
Do you think EA would bother making this game. Even bother to think up of a new game. Why bother? Just wait till a small studio does, buy them out and run the series until its hyped up, buggy and hollywoodised death.
Come on companies!! Innovate!!! Look what these guys have done!
Uh oh!! Sapagettioo!!!
Look what I found at the bottom of the page!!!
Sssshhhh!!
Everybody take note!!!
DON'T post extracts or...[NO CARRIER]
[lawsuit type="dmca" excuse="copyright-theft"]
FBI!!!
GOT YOU HIPPIES!!!
At last! First we shut down Slashdot!Then the net!!
And there's nothing you can do about it lawbreakers!!!
AHA!AHAHA!! AHAAHAAHAAA!!!
[/lawsuit?]
DRM is an industry attempt to enforce a monopoly, just like region locking.
The fiasco of DVD restrictions runs counter to every single principle of the free-market which these companies supposedly hold dear.
The reality is that free-market is only supported when it benifits the big guys, and in the case of digital media, it dosen't.
It's time for people to realise, music and movies are only big business because the few have a monopoly on their, inexpensive, reproduction. Now that Joe Sixpack has the ability to reproduce, they want to take it away from him. It's shameful. The way to deal with piracy is to reduce the cost of your products. That way they'll be so cheap people won't bother pirating. It's only the monopoly that makes them so expensive.
May we one day see a FOSS satellite in orbit?
Seriously, I think that this demonstarates the new power given to the (relativly) little guy by computers. Thanks to simulation we can all tweak ideas without blowing up prototypes.
I wish I had as much free time as some of these people.:E
It always starts with the easiest argument.
Hate speech is bad. Let's ban hate speech.
Everybody agrees.
Racism is bad. Let's ban racism.
Everybody agrees.
Then of course, delighted with their success, it progresses.
Pirating is bad. Let's ban pirating.
Some grumble, but considering how we did it already, everybody agrees.
Pr0n is bad. Let's (restrict, then)ban Pr0n.
A LOT of people start objecting. But we've done it already, there is precedent, and Pr0n is much worse than pirating and we banned that right.
It progresses to violent films, hacking websites, open source, anti-globalisers, drugs, Rk&Rl, etc, etc...
The slippery slope has already begun. BT blocked access to kiddie porn sites. Now we all wonder, what will they ban next. And you know, some execs in BT are thinking the same thing.
You think it won't happen? It HAS happened. Several times. EVEN in America. Remember prohibition.
Sadly the price we pay for our free society is having to put up with racists and haters on the net. Call me apathetic, but I think this is a price worth paying.
I tried a little mobile phone game programming myself.
.NET for 4th generation phones. It could happen!
Most mobile phone games are by and large, java midlets. The J2ME MIDP 1.0 spec gives some basic graphics functions, The MIDP 2.0 spec gives a lot more.
Unfortunatly sun were dead set against 3D graphics and even say so in the J2ME documentation. Admittedly the pixillation of the screen renders any type of 3D graphic ugly, but they might have at least supported it on the high end phones.
There are over 200 million(I think) java enabled phones out there. Basically, until sun support 3D graphics on mobiles, we won't see much of it.
I'm not sure if OpenGL would be a good idea in all its gargantuan glory!:E Maybe a Open GL Micro Edition would suit better? Definitely something based on an Open standard would be nice.
However as phones get more powerful all this "Micro Edition" stuff could get outdated and unesssesary. Cue the part where MS walk in with
I know windows XP is supposed to have a firewall, but for the life of me I can't find it.
Maybe now if I listen closely.....
You forgot
-1, no [sarcasm] tags
but thanks all the same.
You now have a non-lethal means of effectivly silencing protest!
No longer will your govenment have to put up with protestors! Unruly tree-hugging anti-capitalists will stumble away even more confused than when they came in! But why stop there!
The mass tesla cannon(tm) can halt all kinds of protest! Even mass protestations against the president can be easily quashed in mid whine! Police forces can quickly and efficiently deal with dissenters without sparking media attendtion!
Coupled with new digital censorship, your government will now have the power to make sure the "Right" kind of society exists in your country!
Order today!
Governments give out all kinds of excuses for censorship. That it will "aid the enemy" or "induce panic". In reality they just don't want bad press.
Censorship is a very thorny issue, but we need total freedom of the press for our society to remain free. The story of "embedded" reporters during the Iraq war was a case in point. Embedded was a euphamisim for censored and reporters felt this. Their skewed reports helped continue the culture of lies and exaggeration that prevailed in the lead up to the war. People were misinformed about that war. From start to finish. Far better for us all to get the story , warts and all, rather than have it dripped and filtered to us by biased parties.
Interestingly, the prevailence of high tech media helped retard the effect of censorship during the war. It was difficult, but no impossible, for the army to censor reporters for very long. The press center in Quatar became redundant as feeds were transmitted directly from the field.
High tech media is also the ONLY reason that we are seeing images of torture from prisons in Iraq.
The media also practices self-censorship by limiting the coverage of disturbing imagery. I think they should give people more credit and stop listening to the easily offended.
The truth is never more distorted than during times of war. But this is the most critical time in which the truth needs to be shown, in all its
truth. We might like like the truth, but we NEED to hear it. We have to hold a mirror up to ourselves. Otherwise we'll start to believe all the rethoric and that would be a vert bad thing.
I'm finding it hard to believe that this comment isn't a troll.
Either that or it displays a very real ignorence of the eithics of bombing during WWII.
WWII was an ugly war. Every nation involved did thing which were, then and now, considered unacceptable. Nations still do today. Unfortunatly many still operate on the principle that the end justifies the means. I think this is actually one of the tenents of Neoconservatisim.
Microsoft have been moving away heavily from the windows API in recent time and have been pushing .NET heavily, because essentially .NET is the replacement for the windows API but on a bigger scale. .NET is (possibly) going to be used by every single program that runs under every single version of windows. MS want it to be used for Client apps, web apps, mobile phone apps, server apps, scripts, hardware.. EVERYTHING.
.NET is the windows API, just now it's the "everything MS" API. By using .Net, you are using microsoft, and hence windows. No java for the masses(or unix for that matter)
.NET or start abusing the patent system to muscle Mono out. .NET is the weakest link in the MS lockin, as now Mono may allow windows apps to work flawlessly on Unix. But .Net is the keystone in the new MS API lockin. I hardly see how MS WON'T try to crush Mono!
Essentially
Question is what effect will mono have on all this.
I'm a pessimistic type so I'll say that if mono ever becomes a threat to the MS lock in, then MS will radically alter
This is kind of a pity, because, to be honest, I'm sick of memory leaks.
Either that or they act like matter and antimatter, creating an anti-matter explosion with SCO claims supports terrorism!
It's about time someone came up with lossy compression for 3D graphics.
Given advances in bump mapping, texture mapping and antialissing I feel I could live with a few less detailed polygons, in exchange for faster download time. This could have a big impact on blue vs red, no?
I think this question harps back to the old argument about levels of detail. Should we spend an extra 1000 CPU cycles giving counterstrike bots a more refined nose or spend it on more advanced AI?
I think the nose job camp is winning at the moment. Not in counterstrike mind! Just in the industry in general.
I can see where your coming from with this article but really when you think about it, sound is just not that big of an issue, in games or any other application.
:E
Given that most people will listen to games with headphones or a set of desktop speakers, what is the point of improving sound quality. The classic example, I think, is Metal Gear Solid 2. Apparently in parts of the game dolby surround sound was of a major advantage in game. But who even HAS surround sound? No-one I know. And who on EARTH has surround sound on their PC?
Most people also aren't big into sound quality. The tone deaf masses usually encode at 128kbps and like it! (I know I do) Top this off with the fact that even stereo sound is technically quite difficult to implement and that most programmers aren't versed in phonic theory, you can see why most users could buy a ten year old sound card and see no loss of quality.
(N.B. The author still thinks music from old sonic games is groovy. As such its comments should be modded down at the earliest possible moment.)
The terror of never being able to play Red Alert 2 or Age of Kings again is what keeps me on dual boot!
They generate million for tech news sites in advertising revenue every year.
..Most buildings in california are not earthquake proof.
/. proof. When will the next effect hit? ... SOON!
Also most web servers in California are not
If you ever go out and buy something like Knight os the Old Republic for the Xbox, turn to the back pages of the manual and read the EULA.
EULAs have begun to appear in many video games recently. They're usually amoung the most draconian, restrictive and probobly illegal EULAs to date, saying thing like the company reserves the right to recind all support, take the software from you, snoop on what your doing with it online and of course is not liable for ANY AND ALL damage that may be incurred from the software.
Most people I know never even read the manual, let alone the EULA. A lot of the agreements state that just by opening the box( the EULA is sealed within the box) you have agreed to the terms!
I know myself that I usually never do any more than glance at EULAs and I've certainly never gotten to the bottom of the Microsoft EULA.
Seemingly this judge has ruled that privacy policies, in themselves agreements, only apply if you read them. Usually this could be extended to other (unsigned)agreements. But of course we must Remember!!
EULAs are to do with COMPUTERS!!!
That means DCMA restrictions, patents and copyright rules all apply in computer mode. Meaning of course that normal rules _DO NOT APPLY_
. You have no rights, but many responsibilites.
And of course no privacy!
It's a standard featur in Mozillia, but it wasn't packaged with Fedora due to IP issues with the Vatican.
You could try looking for it on Livna.org. I'd use yum but Livna has too many headers