Having played with the Wii for a year and change now, I can say that with regard to motion, the Wiimote seems to be good at detecting motion in the middle of its range, but lacking at the ends of the range.
Case in point: putting in Wii Golf. The learning curve for putting is fairly steep, and sometimes the game got confused with such low velocities. The MotionPlus should help that.
Yeah, I've noticed this too. Putting in golf is a good example of it failing to deal with slow motions well, but I've also seen it in boxing with fast motions. Lots of first-time boxers throw fast punches hoping their character will throw and equally fast punch. However, an actual fast punch seems to be too quick for the Wiimote, and it ends up with the character not punching at all.
I think it's a valid question. The question is (I think), "If a developer chooses to develop a game that supports this peripheral, will they be locking out the portion of the user base that hasn't bought this peripheral?"
Because part of the benefit to developers of developing for a console is a userbase with set system specifications that allow you to develop for a wide customer base without complications. Adding peripherals tends to introduce the sort of complications that are trying to be avoided.
Of course, requiring people to buy a cheap plastic guitar seems to have worked out for some developers, so this shouldn't be too bad.
I've said this before and I'll say it again-- the problem isn't marketing. Proper marketing involves studying what your potential customer base wants and needs, and producing a product that meets those needs. Microsoft hasn't been doing much of that, at least not for the past several years.
They really should have the next version of Windows driven by market demand. A big chunk of their market wants openness and transparency. They want formats that can be moved to other platforms, and protocols that can talk with anyone. Having Office fully support ODF in the next version, for example, is a development driven by marketing.
The problem isn't marketing. The problem is a lack of interest in meeting their customers' needs. If they had sat down in the early Vista planning stages and asked, "who are our potential customers, and how can we improve Windows so that those customers will want to buy it again?" then Vista would probably have been a different product.
Or if they did sit down and ask those questions, then either (a) the people who were in that meeting were morons -or- (b) the customers they were trying to market to was "morons".
I don't think it's necessarily the case that they have a game in mind. It could have been that many developers have come to them saying, "Look, we want to develop cool games for your console, and the motion-sensing thing is great and all, but we're finding it too inaccurate to do the things we want to do. Can you fix that?"
The Viacom decision is about determining what viewers actually view, and whether big business content is more (or less) popular than other content.
I really see two big problems with the decision. For YouTube users, it's a bit of a violation of privacy. But just as screwed up, IMO, is that it could just be a really sleezy move to get access to Google's records. They got a record of every viewing of every YouTube movie, IIRC with IP addresses and perhaps user names associated. It's a data-miner's dream for marketing purposes, especially for someone running TV networks.
Do we really trust that Viacom is just going to tally what videos are viewed most often to see whether pirated content is popular? That this data won't find its way to other places within Viacom?
Yes, that was my point. It is a minor hardware update, but by releasing a huge software update at the same time, they tie the two together and it *seems* like the hardware update is a really big deal. If they didn't do that, the minor hardware update just seems like a minor hardware update.
But let's all be happy that they didn't hold any features back. That's to their credit. They could have released the new software to only run on the 3G, just to spur people to upgrade. Most other phones work that way-- you don't get all the latest features without buying the latest model. So that's one place I'm happy with Apple.
They intentionally planned both an iTunes software upgrade and the release of 2.0 software for the original iPhone and iPod Touch for today, and they didn't plan for overloaded servers?
I'm normally an Apple fan, but as someone whose phone has been disabled all day, I am pissed about this. First of all, why the hell do you design the update process so that it needs to be reactivated? Even if you accept that the phones have to be activated at all (and I'm not sure why that's the case at this point), why can't they just be activated once, when you purchase it, and then have software updates just work.
But ok, that's stupid, but let's just ignore that for a second. I'll just accept that I have to activate it. But why the hell don't they have their s*#t together well enough that the activation servers are running when you release the update? WTF is the deal there?
I'm not just complaining. I'd like an explanation. Who screwed up? The original iPhone had similar activation problems on its first day. Why the hell didn't Apple anticipate this? And when is the server going to be back up?
And why isn't Apple releasing some information answering any of these questions. I've been without a phone all day, and have *no idea* how much longer my phone will be disabled. Apple needs to at least get their s*#t together well enough to release something saying, "Sorry for the inconvenience. This will be resolved by [time/date]."
Hopefully someone at Apple is noticing how much they screwed the pooch on this one, and some people are getting fired. Yeah, IMO, someone high up should be fired over this.
Of course, the problem with that is that it might steal some of the hype from iPhone 3G. After all, an original iPhone with 2.0 firmware has all the features of a new one, minus 3G and GPS. If you have all the original iPhones updated a week before, then the release of the new version is just going to seem like a minor hardware update.
MS - because this has all come out in the wash, they are going ODF anyhow and its made them look daft for not even using their own standard. I mean, how could they now?
We don't know what Microsoft's endgame is here. They might implement ODF in a buggy, half-assed manor, argue that it's because ODF is a sub-standard format, and then say, "Hmmm.... I guess we need to find a new format. Luckily, we have another ISO standard all ready to go!"
It could all just be a PR play so they can claim, "We tried to do what those FOSS fanatics wanted, but gave up when we realized how awful the format is. Those guys just can't be satisfied!"
Like, I'm a total Windows bigot, but I do more C++ on Linux and I now expect that Visual C++ should actually perform the same way that GNU does, rather than vice versa, because I trust GNU more.
Problem #1: You trust GNU more, but that doesn't mean the GNU way will win out. What happens when the most prevalent de facto standards is held up by someone unscrupulous, and you want to do something about it? We'll all be sitting around saying, "We sure wish there was some group that could study the different formats to use and make unbiased recommendations, so that the less-knowledgeable among us can make better decisions about what to implement."
Problem #2: Standards bodies (when they're working properly) allow multiple parties to collaborate on the standards. For example, if you don't want Mozilla, Apple, and Opera to start implementing different incompatible versions of HTML, then it's really helpful for them to have a common forum to discuss the changes they want to make, figure out the upsides and downsides of various approaches, and come to some compromises about what will be the "normal" way HTML will be rendered.
Standards bodies are absolutely great so long as they're uncorrupted and unbiased. If ISO is owned by Microsoft now, then it just means that it's time for some other body to step up, and hopefully create rules that will protect against the same thing happening again.
It may not implement the specifications has been pushed through as a standard, but I don' think that will stop Microsoft from claiming that (a) MS Office supports OOXML -and- (b) OOXML is an ISO approved standard.
Re:"Porn has made its way in there already"
on
Google Lively Review
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· Score: 1
Actually, he's right. Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Well I think part of the problem is that, whenever you drastically overhaul a complicated piece of software, you almost have to release it before it's done.
At least, this is the way I'm thinking about it: If you are going to completely overhaul an OS or Desktop Environment, there's a good chance it'll take years to finish (maybe 5-10 years before it's polished). During that time, you either (a) have to be developing improvements on your old version in parallel, which will take up a lot of man-hours, and if the improvements are good you'll want to put them into the new version, so you'll just be spending twice the time; or (b) At some point, you decide the new version is "good enough" and you start moving people over to it, and stop developing the old version beyond some security/bug fixes. The first option obviously has the advantage that your release will be a lot more solid on day 1.
The second option, however, means that you can get early adopters to help you test, and you can refine your prioritization based on feedback. Even though people will complain about bugs and missing features, you'll avoid the complaints that you're not making progress quickly enough, and the complaints about bugs and missing features will let you re-prioritize based on who's screaming the loudest. And people who really need stability can just stick with the old version for a couple years until it all gets worked out.
Re:"Porn has made its way in there already"
on
Google Lively Review
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm not sure whether there's a clear reason (it wouldn't surprise me if someone could come up with an argument). However, I think it's fair to assume that if someone would define himself as "a Christian IT Professional" enough to have it as the heading of his blog, then that guy would probably not be openly enthusiastic about porn.
Re:"Porn has made its way in there already"
on
Google Lively Review
·
· Score: 1
You write that as if it's a bad thing.
Did you read the header of his blog? "Technology meets Theology -- The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
To use a quaint term, when you interact in meatspace, you are typically using multiple representations for your information flow. They include words, yes, but also gestures, facial expressions, voice, movement and positioning, and so on.
Yeah, but the problem there is that, even if you can get a virtual world sufficiently complex to visualize these things, you'd still need adequate input to allow them to be expressed quickly and easily by a user. I can also tell a lot about a situation by looking at who's sweating or breathing hard, who is displaying a nervous tick, etc. But people won't choose to show these. You can't easily read people very well from a virtual smile that they can put on and take off, without sincerity making any difference. So the improvement is marginal, but the cost (of needing elaborate controls) is great. IMO, video chat is a better solution.
Just consider: you enter a roomful of people and at a glance you can typically learn a whole lot about their relationships and interactions just from where they are situated in space. Who is close to whom? Is there a hierarchical positioning like " the lecture formation" (everybody crowded with one person in front)
Ok, so let's think about a that example. A lecture. When I'm in a lecture hall, there are the unfortunate facts of reality that people take up space, and space inside a room is limited. I may have to sit far away because there isn't room up front. I may have a hard time seeing because I'm sitting behind some giant and hit humungous head is in the way. There are all sorts of potential problems there.
So why are we seeking to replicate that for an online presentation? If what you really want to see is the presentation, let's give a nice big full-screen presentation so you can see the thing. If you want to see the lecturer's facial expressions, let's give a nice big picture for video chat. If you want both, then do some sort of split-screen situation. Something like this seems like it would work.
So I still don't see the benefit of putting people in a virtual lecture hall watching a poorly-made puppet give a presentation. The whole thing sounds to me about like if someone said, "Wouldn't it be cool if, instead of web browsers, we had a 3D virtual world with a virtual library, and you could maneuver your avatar to pick up a virtual magazine and flip through its virtual pages?" Yes, I suppose that would be cool, but it seems likely that it would be a complex and frustratingly inefficient interface for simple information. Plus, it would just reintroduce a lot of the frustrations of real-life that the web had freed us from (having to go to the library instead of accessing lots of information in one place, having to arrange things in a spacial manner and then find their location, having to flip through pages instead of search, etc.).
I'm not sure that's a satisfying justification. If you want to have an avatar convey body language, intonation, and gestures, then you'll have to develop a complex language to deal with all that. Am I going to be typing, on the fly, a series of commands to make my character dance? If you simplify that language to a series of pre-set gestures and whatnot, then it seems like you aren't doing much but providing an alternate method of displaying emoticons (which are already displayed as pictures in many chat programs).
If you really want to convey the subtleties of human conversation, it seems like voice/video chat is a better solution.
I see no reason why a "geek" should prefer a 3D interface.
Well, first, a certain kind of geek has a tendency to like cutting-edge stuff, gadgetry and such, even if it isn't particularly refined or useful, and even if they aren't particularly using it. But really, I'm not even talking about a 3D interface. I'm talking about the concept of a virtual world. Geeks love that shit. You start talking about it, and inevitably someone will come out of the woodwork only for the purpose of saying, "OMG! It's just like [insert favorite cyberpunk novel here]."
Seems right to me. I get that we, as computer geeks, are supposed to love the idea of having 3D virtual worlds, alternate/virtual reality, etc. But can someone please explain to me what benefits these things actually have? Whenever any of these are announced, it always seems like either (a) there's nothing to do; or (b) they allow you to do anything, but it's pretty complex to do anything interesting, and the world ends up filled with penises.
I can never figure out what you're supposed to do with these things if you're not a pervert.
Frankly I support any and all efforts to make Linux more widespread, and a great many people will feel happier with a pressed CD instead of a cheapo burnt one. Yes we can download it, but we are NOT the target audience here.
Right. There isn't even anything that says you have to host the source yourself on your own server AFAIK. So it's not clear to me that Best Buy can't just point people to the Ubuntu website and say, "There, you can get the source code on this site."
Yeah, it was supposed to be a bit of a joke, since the complaint was about Flickr taking down the picture of a child smoking a cigarette.
I was trying to point out that the given metaphor (your landlord making you agree not to campaign for a political party) isn't really applicable. Flickr isn't saying that, in order to use Flickr, you can't support a political party. They're reserving certain rights to decide what happen on their site, which is comparable to a landlord having rules about what you can do in their house.
Slashdot Mirror
Having played with the Wii for a year and change now, I can say that with regard to motion, the Wiimote seems to be good at detecting motion in the middle of its range, but lacking at the ends of the range.
Case in point: putting in Wii Golf. The learning curve for putting is fairly steep, and sometimes the game got confused with such low velocities. The MotionPlus should help that.
Yeah, I've noticed this too. Putting in golf is a good example of it failing to deal with slow motions well, but I've also seen it in boxing with fast motions. Lots of first-time boxers throw fast punches hoping their character will throw and equally fast punch. However, an actual fast punch seems to be too quick for the Wiimote, and it ends up with the character not punching at all.
I think it's a valid question. The question is (I think), "If a developer chooses to develop a game that supports this peripheral, will they be locking out the portion of the user base that hasn't bought this peripheral?"
Because part of the benefit to developers of developing for a console is a userbase with set system specifications that allow you to develop for a wide customer base without complications. Adding peripherals tends to introduce the sort of complications that are trying to be avoided.
Of course, requiring people to buy a cheap plastic guitar seems to have worked out for some developers, so this shouldn't be too bad.
I've said this before and I'll say it again-- the problem isn't marketing. Proper marketing involves studying what your potential customer base wants and needs, and producing a product that meets those needs. Microsoft hasn't been doing much of that, at least not for the past several years.
They really should have the next version of Windows driven by market demand. A big chunk of their market wants openness and transparency. They want formats that can be moved to other platforms, and protocols that can talk with anyone. Having Office fully support ODF in the next version, for example, is a development driven by marketing.
The problem isn't marketing. The problem is a lack of interest in meeting their customers' needs. If they had sat down in the early Vista planning stages and asked, "who are our potential customers, and how can we improve Windows so that those customers will want to buy it again?" then Vista would probably have been a different product.
Or if they did sit down and ask those questions, then either (a) the people who were in that meeting were morons -or- (b) the customers they were trying to market to was "morons".
I don't think it's necessarily the case that they have a game in mind. It could have been that many developers have come to them saying, "Look, we want to develop cool games for your console, and the motion-sensing thing is great and all, but we're finding it too inaccurate to do the things we want to do. Can you fix that?"
The Viacom decision is about determining what viewers actually view, and whether big business content is more (or less) popular than other content.
I really see two big problems with the decision. For YouTube users, it's a bit of a violation of privacy. But just as screwed up, IMO, is that it could just be a really sleezy move to get access to Google's records. They got a record of every viewing of every YouTube movie, IIRC with IP addresses and perhaps user names associated. It's a data-miner's dream for marketing purposes, especially for someone running TV networks.
Do we really trust that Viacom is just going to tally what videos are viewed most often to see whether pirated content is popular? That this data won't find its way to other places within Viacom?
Yes, that was my point. It is a minor hardware update, but by releasing a huge software update at the same time, they tie the two together and it *seems* like the hardware update is a really big deal. If they didn't do that, the minor hardware update just seems like a minor hardware update.
But let's all be happy that they didn't hold any features back. That's to their credit. They could have released the new software to only run on the 3G, just to spur people to upgrade. Most other phones work that way-- you don't get all the latest features without buying the latest model. So that's one place I'm happy with Apple.
They intentionally planned both an iTunes software upgrade and the release of 2.0 software for the original iPhone and iPod Touch for today, and they didn't plan for overloaded servers?
I'm normally an Apple fan, but as someone whose phone has been disabled all day, I am pissed about this. First of all, why the hell do you design the update process so that it needs to be reactivated? Even if you accept that the phones have to be activated at all (and I'm not sure why that's the case at this point), why can't they just be activated once, when you purchase it, and then have software updates just work.
But ok, that's stupid, but let's just ignore that for a second. I'll just accept that I have to activate it. But why the hell don't they have their s*#t together well enough that the activation servers are running when you release the update? WTF is the deal there?
I'm not just complaining. I'd like an explanation. Who screwed up? The original iPhone had similar activation problems on its first day. Why the hell didn't Apple anticipate this? And when is the server going to be back up?
And why isn't Apple releasing some information answering any of these questions. I've been without a phone all day, and have *no idea* how much longer my phone will be disabled. Apple needs to at least get their s*#t together well enough to release something saying, "Sorry for the inconvenience. This will be resolved by [time/date]."
Hopefully someone at Apple is noticing how much they screwed the pooch on this one, and some people are getting fired. Yeah, IMO, someone high up should be fired over this.
Of course, the problem with that is that it might steal some of the hype from iPhone 3G. After all, an original iPhone with 2.0 firmware has all the features of a new one, minus 3G and GPS. If you have all the original iPhones updated a week before, then the release of the new version is just going to seem like a minor hardware update.
It doesn't run Linux!
No, but it does run Unix. Close enough?
MS - because this has all come out in the wash, they are going ODF anyhow and its made them look daft for not even using their own standard. I mean, how could they now?
We don't know what Microsoft's endgame is here. They might implement ODF in a buggy, half-assed manor, argue that it's because ODF is a sub-standard format, and then say, "Hmmm.... I guess we need to find a new format. Luckily, we have another ISO standard all ready to go!"
It could all just be a PR play so they can claim, "We tried to do what those FOSS fanatics wanted, but gave up when we realized how awful the format is. Those guys just can't be satisfied!"
Like, I'm a total Windows bigot, but I do more C++ on Linux and I now expect that Visual C++ should actually perform the same way that GNU does, rather than vice versa, because I trust GNU more.
Problem #1: You trust GNU more, but that doesn't mean the GNU way will win out. What happens when the most prevalent de facto standards is held up by someone unscrupulous, and you want to do something about it? We'll all be sitting around saying, "We sure wish there was some group that could study the different formats to use and make unbiased recommendations, so that the less-knowledgeable among us can make better decisions about what to implement."
Problem #2: Standards bodies (when they're working properly) allow multiple parties to collaborate on the standards. For example, if you don't want Mozilla, Apple, and Opera to start implementing different incompatible versions of HTML, then it's really helpful for them to have a common forum to discuss the changes they want to make, figure out the upsides and downsides of various approaches, and come to some compromises about what will be the "normal" way HTML will be rendered.
Standards bodies are absolutely great so long as they're uncorrupted and unbiased. If ISO is owned by Microsoft now, then it just means that it's time for some other body to step up, and hopefully create rules that will protect against the same thing happening again.
It may not implement the specifications has been pushed through as a standard, but I don' think that will stop Microsoft from claiming that (a) MS Office supports OOXML -and- (b) OOXML is an ISO approved standard.
Actually, he's right. Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Therefore, according to Jesus, porn=adultery.
Well I think part of the problem is that, whenever you drastically overhaul a complicated piece of software, you almost have to release it before it's done.
At least, this is the way I'm thinking about it: If you are going to completely overhaul an OS or Desktop Environment, there's a good chance it'll take years to finish (maybe 5-10 years before it's polished). During that time, you either (a) have to be developing improvements on your old version in parallel, which will take up a lot of man-hours, and if the improvements are good you'll want to put them into the new version, so you'll just be spending twice the time; or (b) At some point, you decide the new version is "good enough" and you start moving people over to it, and stop developing the old version beyond some security/bug fixes. The first option obviously has the advantage that your release will be a lot more solid on day 1.
The second option, however, means that you can get early adopters to help you test, and you can refine your prioritization based on feedback. Even though people will complain about bugs and missing features, you'll avoid the complaints that you're not making progress quickly enough, and the complaints about bugs and missing features will let you re-prioritize based on who's screaming the loudest. And people who really need stability can just stick with the old version for a couple years until it all gets worked out.
I'm not sure whether there's a clear reason (it wouldn't surprise me if someone could come up with an argument). However, I think it's fair to assume that if someone would define himself as "a Christian IT Professional" enough to have it as the heading of his blog, then that guy would probably not be openly enthusiastic about porn.
You write that as if it's a bad thing.
Did you read the header of his blog? "Technology meets Theology -- The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
To use a quaint term, when you interact in meatspace, you are typically using multiple representations for your information flow. They include words, yes, but also gestures, facial expressions, voice, movement and positioning, and so on.
Yeah, but the problem there is that, even if you can get a virtual world sufficiently complex to visualize these things, you'd still need adequate input to allow them to be expressed quickly and easily by a user. I can also tell a lot about a situation by looking at who's sweating or breathing hard, who is displaying a nervous tick, etc. But people won't choose to show these. You can't easily read people very well from a virtual smile that they can put on and take off, without sincerity making any difference. So the improvement is marginal, but the cost (of needing elaborate controls) is great. IMO, video chat is a better solution.
Just consider: you enter a roomful of people and at a glance you can typically learn a whole lot about their relationships and interactions just from where they are situated in space. Who is close to whom? Is there a hierarchical positioning like " the lecture formation" (everybody crowded with one person in front)
Ok, so let's think about a that example. A lecture. When I'm in a lecture hall, there are the unfortunate facts of reality that people take up space, and space inside a room is limited. I may have to sit far away because there isn't room up front. I may have a hard time seeing because I'm sitting behind some giant and hit humungous head is in the way. There are all sorts of potential problems there.
So why are we seeking to replicate that for an online presentation? If what you really want to see is the presentation, let's give a nice big full-screen presentation so you can see the thing. If you want to see the lecturer's facial expressions, let's give a nice big picture for video chat. If you want both, then do some sort of split-screen situation. Something like this seems like it would work.
So I still don't see the benefit of putting people in a virtual lecture hall watching a poorly-made puppet give a presentation. The whole thing sounds to me about like if someone said, "Wouldn't it be cool if, instead of web browsers, we had a 3D virtual world with a virtual library, and you could maneuver your avatar to pick up a virtual magazine and flip through its virtual pages?" Yes, I suppose that would be cool, but it seems likely that it would be a complex and frustratingly inefficient interface for simple information. Plus, it would just reintroduce a lot of the frustrations of real-life that the web had freed us from (having to go to the library instead of accessing lots of information in one place, having to arrange things in a spacial manner and then find their location, having to flip through pages instead of search, etc.).
I'm not sure that's a satisfying justification. If you want to have an avatar convey body language, intonation, and gestures, then you'll have to develop a complex language to deal with all that. Am I going to be typing, on the fly, a series of commands to make my character dance? If you simplify that language to a series of pre-set gestures and whatnot, then it seems like you aren't doing much but providing an alternate method of displaying emoticons (which are already displayed as pictures in many chat programs).
If you really want to convey the subtleties of human conversation, it seems like voice/video chat is a better solution.
I see no reason why a "geek" should prefer a 3D interface.
Well, first, a certain kind of geek has a tendency to like cutting-edge stuff, gadgetry and such, even if it isn't particularly refined or useful, and even if they aren't particularly using it. But really, I'm not even talking about a 3D interface. I'm talking about the concept of a virtual world. Geeks love that shit. You start talking about it, and inevitably someone will come out of the woodwork only for the purpose of saying, "OMG! It's just like [insert favorite cyberpunk novel here]."
Seems right to me. I get that we, as computer geeks, are supposed to love the idea of having 3D virtual worlds, alternate/virtual reality, etc. But can someone please explain to me what benefits these things actually have? Whenever any of these are announced, it always seems like either (a) there's nothing to do; or (b) they allow you to do anything, but it's pretty complex to do anything interesting, and the world ends up filled with penises.
I can never figure out what you're supposed to do with these things if you're not a pervert.
Frankly I support any and all efforts to make Linux more widespread, and a great many people will feel happier with a pressed CD instead of a cheapo burnt one. Yes we can download it, but we are NOT the target audience here.
You can also request a free CD from Canonical.
Right. There isn't even anything that says you have to host the source yourself on your own server AFAIK. So it's not clear to me that Best Buy can't just point people to the Ubuntu website and say, "There, you can get the source code on this site."
I don't think they are paying for support. I think Canonical support costs more than $20.
Yeah, it was supposed to be a bit of a joke, since the complaint was about Flickr taking down the picture of a child smoking a cigarette.
I was trying to point out that the given metaphor (your landlord making you agree not to campaign for a political party) isn't really applicable. Flickr isn't saying that, in order to use Flickr, you can't support a political party. They're reserving certain rights to decide what happen on their site, which is comparable to a landlord having rules about what you can do in their house.
Maybe they should be allowed to put riders in my rental contract saying I can't campaign for my local green party
No, but they probably should be able to put something in your rental contract saying that your 7 year old can't smoke in the house.