UT has nothing to do with GMT, Universal Time is actually mesauring the distance travelled around the sun, and takes into account wobbles etc...
This is from my head though, there are two 'universal' times, one takes into account wobbles of the earth, the other doesn't, one is definite, the other has a day of a slightly different length each time.
So next time you are late to work, blame it on a meteor shower knocking your UT alarm clock off, and I guess you PHB will go cross eyed, and say something like:
"Huh, yeah, I had one like that, I bought the newer model.. erm..."
I remember a game like this on the amiga, where I never got past the fiurst incision, which usually lead to a complete dissection of the victim, I mean patient.
Of course, parent groups may protest that this will lead to home grown surgery systems, where people use this as a simulator.
I can imagine/.'ers at the operating theatre asking for a local instead of going under, then telling the surgeon that perhaps he should try the level 5 technique, and then arguing with him:
"How many successful quarduple bypasses have *you* done?? I'll do it myself thanks!"
How to make money? Simply change the operations!
Breast Augmentation Surgery (with celebrebrity appearances!) 'Sex change chop shop' (with cele... no wait, that is too much)
I think they called it 'tamogotchi' is something:-)
I really like you idea - but look at 'A Dogs Life' by David Braben, or 'Creatures' (that *is* the one where you have a pet magical creature on an island?)
They take 'programming' much in the way of the sims, or the original little computer people.
Perhaps making it visibly logical could be more educational.
Opensource isn't just a one man band. The best games would have >1 developer to lend a hand.
Don't encourage rash, hacky programming tendancies to push quantity of quality.
Of course, fleshing out mist of your game can be a good way of making you want to complete it.
My advice: Get other people to help with graphics. Go to a site like www.deviantart.com and post a message saying pixel help / 3d help needed for xyz game, AFTER you have an engine that can showcase their work.
Looking good isn't a crime!
There are some rgeat freeware games around, and top down shooters using mouse look are excellent, and they usually have some funky particle FX.
As game development is simplified through libraries, we may see more amateur games, and more skill, pressuring commercial games sales.
CounterStrike for instance, if this used an open source, free beer 3d engine, then the 'best game' would have been open source and free beer.
OK quake 1 is open source now for ages, I am not sure what this means for counterstrike source code?
Valve obv. have license for thier commercial exploits of the game.
Modification of games is also prevelant, making open source games modifiable, even using md2 model files etc, would greatly increase thier adoption.
Seriously, I hope he get swift and healthy recovery, and that Apple pay some of thier iPod profits to cancer research.
Or anti-smoking campaigns. Or petitioning for stricter monitoring of electrical installations around homes. Or anti-pollution campaigns. Or fighting against chemical farming, and modern farming methods, overproduction and under delivery. The limitation of artificial colours and preservatives in all food and drinks.
I think that covers most reasons why we have cancer.
Get well soon!
Re:The state of mobile development
on
J2ME Polish 1.0
·
· Score: 1
Yeah the site was good, I realised immediately that is it an extension of the J2ME interface mode, I looked it all up about a month ago when deciding.
As I am doing PDA UI intensive work, superwaba is best.
I'll see when I want to write a neat game:-)
Re:The state of mobile development
on
J2ME Polish 1.0
·
· Score: 1
Do they support the Personal Profile, which != Personal Java...
In this instance I do have the liberty of choosing the devices... but I agree, J2ME is great for many tools, but enterprise applications? The development costs are high... with J2ME Polish they are reduced.
The cost, directly paid to the patent office, is enormous for 3000 patents.
So if M$ file 2900 dummy patents, and say, look, take the cash, but let us have these 100, isn't that illegal?
I am not an operating systems developer, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be scared that in the future the only way I can enjoy technological advances of computing is by using M$ software.
Come on linux, we are all rooting for you, does linux have any patents? Maybe liek the cell phones giants, we all need some to share...
I though the sharp zaurus had the best support for java anyway, sun have a download just for the zaurus on thier site... Had much luck programming java on your zaurus?
What is it like developing interfaces? Try superwaba if you like, great for interfaces.
Excellent, I am getting a veritable Greek alphabet of programs installed, Betaplayer, not Mew-Book!
it is installed, and I already like it, the first screen makes you feel like you are in a dusty library... nice work guys on this - wherever you are!
Thanks for the link, BTW check out betaplayer, it is great!
The state of mobile development
on
J2ME Polish 1.0
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Currently there is a Great place to devleop for mobile devices. The personal profile for J2me. This gives you lots of power for development.
You can download a linux only SDK for this right now, I haven;t tried it. Device support is 0 right now I think.
J2ME has two modes, a WAPesque card mode, where you decide what you want, but have no idea what it will look like, and a canvas mode (gaming) where you can draw things...
I rather distain the current J2ME, it placed a lot of focus on some really lame devices that noone really cares about anymore... so by the time it is usable we are waiting for something more powerful.
Until I am developing in Personal Profile, I will be using superwaba (www.superwaba.com.br) which was base on waba. It has bugs, but, you can knock up a sexy looking interface in seconds.
Problems with Superwaba - it allocates memory though a palm database driver (as far as I can tell) meaning each object or array is limited to 64kb, so you have to have some work arounds...
For serious applications, we can only wait... anyone had some experience with personal profile?
As in TurtleWax
on
J2ME Polish 1.0
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
J2ME Polish, as in wax on, wax off...
I will definately look into this, a game engine? CSS layouts? *droooll* oh man this is awesome!
For practical people who preffer extraction and reporting languages, please let us mere mortals bask in this little triumph.
In 2 years Java on a mobile device will be so awesome! Hurrah for Java!
Personally, I own two PDA's, including the new Dell Axim X30 high.
I was shocked at the lack of simple software for e-Books. I tried loading a html book into it. IE slows down more than a sunday driver at a crossing.
It was painful to use. A pda is not much smaller than a flimsy paperback. I am talking about travel reading, making the most of those flights, taxis, trains.
We can get content from the web - that is fine. We can read enough news - but some good books wouldn't go amiss.
I downloaded copies of Terry Pratchets Discworld, all of them. I guess this is legitimate since I have all of them in hard/paperback at home.
Some are TXT, they read best. Some are.html, which sucks for some reason. (I can play quake 2, but not read a html page > 500kb?)
I think the real problem is, book reader costs. The cost of that little LCD. Lets get the market adoption of those to a critical mass. People who have them now might not appreciate reading a book via it, and see it as a reminder / toy.
Common format - I installed Acrobat reader on my PDA, blam, half the screen lines faded out wierd, froze, adn I had to soft reset. Thanks Adobe. *cough*wankers*cough*
Sorry that was for them handling their PDF encryption the way they did.
So, I would happily pay money for a book. I am writing my own eBook reader for simple txt and html files. I want 'next page' that cleanly replaces the page. I want to move my eyes to the top, like a book, not fix them at one point (scrolling) and jitter as I 'page down'
I think moving your eyes as you read is less stressful.
Also, a simple 'dog ear' function that remembers where you were.
Oh, and when I read a book, and it makes a reference to a clue before, a quick 'find last reference' of a word might be nice.
I think footnotes should be placed inside and then replaced with a *, which you can tap to view. (since they are no longer footnotes, we can call them annotations?)
Of course, when we effectively zero the costs of publishing, what are publishers good for? Of course, they can tie thier writers into thier e-Books if they publish the hardcopies also.
They could get a small fee for supporting thier site and download bandwidth. But as I see it, 95% at least of the price I pay should go to the Author.
Then we can see eBooks at very low prices. And the only ones who will loose out are the publishers. Who cares about them?
Now we need some way of moving music into a computer so we can listen to it on the move... that woudl rule, then we could... no it sounds like a silly idea. You cannot get rid of music publishers.
The games industry is huge - ok it must be very competative right now, but if you are making quality games, you should aim for a decent profit... how badly can a game flop, that has undergone at least 2 years of development and review? Unless they don't actually check if the game is any good...
I think prices need to come down, to increase unit sales of games, currently there is room for a handful of popular games.
I know PS2 owners with about 8 games... 8... thats it... I don't play games on the PC, I will play the Doom3 demo though.
They need management akin to the film industry, as the skills are merging between them.
No seriously, that is sick... I use a keyboard cover http://www.protectcovers.com/.
I plugged my USB into my IR on the motherboard once. Went to make a pot noodle and the room was full of smoke. Or was it the other way around?
Melted onto my ide cable, but that still worked:-)
My PC (same one) survived a TNT package delivery.
I am not used to european power outlets, I tuened off my atx, removed and added ram, then wondered why that slot didn't work, until I saw the green light on the motherboard - not on off switch at wall...
No but next time the above average educated crowd of/.'rs are at a talk, meeting, lecture or suchlike, they can gain the admiration of thier friends by flippings the slides around...
Business models are still based on users giving money for the next expansion. If you pay for shitty programming, when you know the last was shitty, then you are encouraging shitty programming.
Nothing else in the world can possibly encourage shitty programming.
Micropayments can actually tie a developer into keeping a game good, as it becomes a longer source of income, not just a WHAM bam, 2 week sales.
If people can get the game for a low price, but enjoy paying it, and the world evolves and keeps growing and devleoping, they will play it more and more.
Graphics are not really going to improve drastically in a way that will improve the possibilities for game developers - we can already model things as close enough to reality - what will improve is the number of things on the screen, and the resolution of the polygons and textures.
Therefore, we are not looking for new games for 'wow' factor in Graphics, I think Doom 3 may be the last of its kind... except for attention to detail, and artistic skills, there is no technical (bar some excellent culling and efficiency algorithms they use, but still, it is opengl library calls... pixel shaders... oh pixel lighting:-) ) advances that will make a game 'obsolete' anymore.
Unreal 1 is still a damn cool game! Replace the low res meshes with higher res, double texture sizes, increase level detail, viola, a whole new game.
What this means is - you can have a game that remains playable for far longer. Micropayments make that a viable business solution. For both customers and businesses.
Base rate $5 a month. This gives you 5000 world credits, or special bonuses, that allow you to progress in the game, etc.
When you reach certain goal points, moving through game chapters, which for the average player could be 3-4 days of playing, you can accumulate a few cents of transactions, that get dealt with in a very expensive way:
select sum(fldCost) from user_trans where theUser=938271
You then send a monthy bill, OR paperless, charge credit card / paypal and have thier bill available inside the game, with optional 'reality cloaking' so the prices appear as 'pint of ale' or 'Congestion zone charge' (GTA London... hhahaha)
So, there you have it... make games free, make enjoying them cost money!:-)
What really would be the most fun misuse you could engineer with this? Running quake? 200mhz... is possible ~10fps...
Running linux?:-) I mean, not the supplied version, but a custom version, and actually use it - with an IR keyboard adapter...
I don't think you could make a beowulf cluster on these, it has IR tranmitter, but no receiver... USB - could be 'networked' via usb I suppose...
I guess when you can watch movies on your remote control, you might need a smaller remote control, to control your remote control... and you know that that will end up having a Gb of RAM:-)
Excellent, as handhelds.org are trying to engineer a useful, cool linux handheld platform (in addition to the excellent offerings from you-know-who) Sony have given the world a cool toy.
Nothing sells in westernised world like hype and pricing, and I think they are doing a favour to Linux by pricing this up as they have, it is aimed for conservative sales I guess - not many poeple have such a wired up setting that would really benefit from such a powerful device.
What is funny, is that this device is more powerful than the moon landing computers - and it is a remote control! Can anyone else cite an overkill of technology?
Of course, it can probably do some great things like scheduling and some additional linux dvd players, tivo's and other household appliances might become the next craze, all because Sony have given them all a remote control that can talk to all of them.
The saddest thing is, the lack of bluetooth... or at least it would seem... also batteries might be a problem for such a device role, but I guess it hasa docking station you can seat permanently beside you chair...
Although I guess most slashdotters would take it out of the house, and go IR-wardriving, looking for devices to control!:-)
RIAA: I 'ork 'hor 'theee 'aarr'eeeaaaay Dentist: What? RIAA: *spit* the RIAA, you know... Dentist: hmmmm....
*zzzzzzzzzzzzgrrrrrrriiiilllzzzdddmmmmmmmmmm*
Subsonic drill noises Sounds of delicate enamel being drilled
*Blood curdling scream of agony*
Oh yes, you have chosen to piss off all the wrong people now, you overpaid music execs... next time you feel the drill penetrate your sensitive nerves, or you get stuck in the lift listening to Avril Latrine... you will know...
Slashdot Mirror
I would say something like, bring on the high caffeinated programmer brand of Java, but instead:
;-) Hi Starbucks, how you doin'?
By enabling intergenetic breeding, the genes from a cocoa plant can be placed direclty into coffee beans, alongside genes from a cow.
Add sugar cane, and you can see the possibilities
Then you could have different coffee plant varieties:
Mocha
White Mocha
2 sugars, no milk variety
Now if they could make one that does a decent frappe...
UT has nothing to do with GMT, Universal Time is actually mesauring the distance travelled around the sun, and takes into account wobbles etc...
This is from my head though, there are two 'universal' times, one takes into account wobbles of the earth, the other doesn't, one is definite, the other has a day of a slightly different length each time.
So next time you are late to work, blame it on a meteor shower knocking your UT alarm clock off, and I guess you PHB will go cross eyed, and say something like:
"Huh, yeah, I had one like that, I bought the newer model.. erm..."
I'll be watching.
If you define graffitti as lines, colours and shapes, and then you defnie art as lines colours and shapes, then there is no distinction.
The rest of the post was worryingly sincere.
So I'll have to wait until I can make a cluster of these for easy channel flipping! :-)
I for one see this as a way of stremaing 3d animations on top of ANY programming on ANY channel!
That is scary! That is REALLY scarey!
I remember a game like this on the amiga, where I never got past the fiurst incision, which usually lead to a complete dissection of the victim, I mean patient.
/.'ers at the operating theatre asking for a local instead of going under, then telling the surgeon that perhaps he should try the level 5 technique, and then arguing with him:
Of course, parent groups may protest that this will lead to home grown surgery systems, where people use this as a simulator.
I can imagine
"How many successful quarduple bypasses have *you* done?? I'll do it myself thanks!"
How to make money? Simply change the operations!
Breast Augmentation Surgery (with celebrebrity appearances!)
'Sex change chop shop' (with cele... no wait, that is too much)
I think they called it 'tamogotchi' is something :-)
I really like you idea - but look at 'A Dogs Life' by David Braben, or 'Creatures' (that *is* the one where you have a pet magical creature on an island?)
They take 'programming' much in the way of the sims, or the original little computer people.
Perhaps making it visibly logical could be more educational.
I agree with Pitfall one, three is a bit suspect.
Opensource isn't just a one man band. The best games would have >1 developer to lend a hand.
Don't encourage rash, hacky programming tendancies to push quantity of quality.
Of course, fleshing out mist of your game can be a good way of making you want to complete it.
My advice: Get other people to help with graphics. Go to a site like www.deviantart.com and post a message saying pixel help / 3d help needed for xyz game, AFTER you have an engine that can showcase their work.
Looking good isn't a crime!
There are some rgeat freeware games around, and top down shooters using mouse look are excellent, and they usually have some funky particle FX.
As game development is simplified through libraries, we may see more amateur games, and more skill, pressuring commercial games sales.
CounterStrike for instance, if this used an open source, free beer 3d engine, then the 'best game' would have been open source and free beer.
OK quake 1 is open source now for ages, I am not sure what this means for counterstrike source code?
Valve obv. have license for thier commercial exploits of the game.
Modification of games is also prevelant, making open source games modifiable, even using md2 model files etc, would greatly increase thier adoption.
Top ten open source, free games?
...Keeps the Doctor Away!
Maybe that was too obvious to be stated.
Seriously, I hope he get swift and healthy recovery, and that Apple pay some of thier iPod profits to cancer research.
Or anti-smoking campaigns. Or petitioning for stricter monitoring of electrical installations around homes. Or anti-pollution campaigns. Or fighting against chemical farming, and modern farming methods, overproduction and under delivery. The limitation of artificial colours and preservatives in all food and drinks.
I think that covers most reasons why we have cancer.
Get well soon!
Yeah the site was good, I realised immediately that is it an extension of the J2ME interface mode, I looked it all up about a month ago when deciding.
:-)
As I am doing PDA UI intensive work, superwaba is best.
I'll see when I want to write a neat game
Do they support the Personal Profile, which != Personal Java...
In this instance I do have the liberty of choosing the devices... but I agree, J2ME is great for many tools, but enterprise applications? The development costs are high... with J2ME Polish they are reduced.
Good work folks
The cost, directly paid to the patent office, is enormous for 3000 patents.
So if M$ file 2900 dummy patents, and say, look, take the cash, but let us have these 100, isn't that illegal?
I am not an operating systems developer, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be scared that in the future the only way I can enjoy technological advances of computing is by using M$ software.
Come on linux, we are all rooting for you, does linux have any patents? Maybe liek the cell phones giants, we all need some to share...
I though the sharp zaurus had the best support for java anyway, sun have a download just for the zaurus on thier site... Had much luck programming java on your zaurus?
What is it like developing interfaces? Try superwaba if you like, great for interfaces.
Excellent, I am getting a veritable Greek alphabet of programs installed, Betaplayer, not Mew-Book!
it is installed, and I already like it, the first screen makes you feel like you are in a dusty library... nice work guys on this - wherever you are!
Thanks for the link, BTW check out betaplayer, it is great!
Currently there is a Great place to devleop for mobile devices. The personal profile for J2me. This gives you lots of power for development.
You can download a linux only SDK for this right now, I haven;t tried it. Device support is 0 right now I think.
J2ME has two modes, a WAPesque card mode, where you decide what you want, but have no idea what it will look like, and a canvas mode (gaming) where you can draw things...
I rather distain the current J2ME, it placed a lot of focus on some really lame devices that noone really cares about anymore... so by the time it is usable we are waiting for something more powerful.
Until I am developing in Personal Profile, I will be using superwaba (www.superwaba.com.br) which was base on waba. It has bugs, but, you can knock up a sexy looking interface in seconds.
Problems with Superwaba - it allocates memory though a palm database driver (as far as I can tell) meaning each object or array is limited to 64kb, so you have to have some work arounds...
For serious applications, we can only wait... anyone had some experience with personal profile?
J2ME Polish, as in wax on, wax off...
:-/
I will definately look into this, a game engine? CSS layouts? *droooll* oh man this is awesome!
For practical people who preffer extraction and reporting languages, please let us mere mortals bask in this little triumph.
In 2 years Java on a mobile device will be so awesome! Hurrah for Java!
OK, back to superwaba hacking....
Or was it the other way around?
:-)
Let me get this straight. You went for a smoke and the room was full of pot noodle?
As I wrote that, I was anticipating the reply
A room full of pot noodle... chicken and mushroom.... mmmmmmmmmmm pot noooodle
Personally, I own two PDA's, including the new Dell Axim X30 high.
.html, which sucks for some reason. (I can play quake 2, but not read a html page > 500kb?)
I was shocked at the lack of simple software for e-Books. I tried loading a html book into it. IE slows down more than a sunday driver at a crossing.
It was painful to use. A pda is not much smaller than a flimsy paperback. I am talking about travel reading, making the most of those flights, taxis, trains.
We can get content from the web - that is fine. We can read enough news - but some good books wouldn't go amiss.
I downloaded copies of Terry Pratchets Discworld, all of them. I guess this is legitimate since I have all of them in hard/paperback at home.
Some are TXT, they read best. Some are
I think the real problem is, book reader costs. The cost of that little LCD. Lets get the market adoption of those to a critical mass. People who have them now might not appreciate reading a book via it, and see it as a reminder / toy.
Common format - I installed Acrobat reader on my PDA, blam, half the screen lines faded out wierd, froze, adn I had to soft reset. Thanks Adobe. *cough*wankers*cough*
Sorry that was for them handling their PDF encryption the way they did.
So, I would happily pay money for a book. I am writing my own eBook reader for simple txt and html files. I want 'next page' that cleanly replaces the page. I want to move my eyes to the top, like a book, not fix them at one point (scrolling) and jitter as I 'page down'
I think moving your eyes as you read is less stressful.
Also, a simple 'dog ear' function that remembers where you were.
Oh, and when I read a book, and it makes a reference to a clue before, a quick 'find last reference' of a word might be nice.
I think footnotes should be placed inside and then replaced with a *, which you can tap to view. (since they are no longer footnotes, we can call them annotations?)
Of course, when we effectively zero the costs of publishing, what are publishers good for? Of course, they can tie thier writers into thier e-Books if they publish the hardcopies also.
They could get a small fee for supporting thier site and download bandwidth. But as I see it, 95% at least of the price I pay should go to the Author.
Then we can see eBooks at very low prices. And the only ones who will loose out are the publishers. Who cares about them?
Now we need some way of moving music into a computer so we can listen to it on the move... that woudl rule, then we could... no it sounds like a silly idea. You cannot get rid of music publishers.
The games industry is huge - ok it must be very competative right now, but if you are making quality games, you should aim for a decent profit... how badly can a game flop, that has undergone at least 2 years of development and review? Unless they don't actually check if the game is any good...
I think prices need to come down, to increase unit sales of games, currently there is room for a handful of popular games.
I know PS2 owners with about 8 games... 8... thats it... I don't play games on the PC, I will play the Doom3 demo though.
They need management akin to the film industry, as the skills are merging between them.
No seriously, that is sick... I use a keyboard cover http://www.protectcovers.com/.
:-)
I plugged my USB into my IR on the motherboard once. Went to make a pot noodle and the room was full of smoke. Or was it the other way around?
Melted onto my ide cable, but that still worked
My PC (same one) survived a TNT package delivery.
I am not used to european power outlets, I tuened off my atx, removed and added ram, then wondered why that slot didn't work, until I saw the green light on the motherboard - not on off switch at wall...
the other slot worked!
No but next time the above average educated crowd of /.'rs are at a talk, meeting, lecture or suchlike, they can gain the admiration of thier friends by flippings the slides around...
tsk
Business models are still based on users giving money for the next expansion. If you pay for shitty programming, when you know the last was shitty, then you are encouraging shitty programming.
:-) ) advances that will make a game 'obsolete' anymore.
Nothing else in the world can possibly encourage shitty programming.
Micropayments can actually tie a developer into keeping a game good, as it becomes a longer source of income, not just a WHAM bam, 2 week sales.
If people can get the game for a low price, but enjoy paying it, and the world evolves and keeps growing and devleoping, they will play it more and more.
Graphics are not really going to improve drastically in a way that will improve the possibilities for game developers - we can already model things as close enough to reality - what will improve is the number of things on the screen, and the resolution of the polygons and textures.
Therefore, we are not looking for new games for 'wow' factor in Graphics, I think Doom 3 may be the last of its kind... except for attention to detail, and artistic skills, there is no technical (bar some excellent culling and efficiency algorithms they use, but still, it is opengl library calls... pixel shaders... oh pixel lighting
Unreal 1 is still a damn cool game! Replace the low res meshes with higher res, double texture sizes, increase level detail, viola, a whole new game.
What this means is - you can have a game that remains playable for far longer. Micropayments make that a viable business solution. For both customers and businesses.
A simple business model:
:-)
Base rate $5 a month. This gives you 5000 world credits, or special bonuses, that allow you to progress in the game, etc.
When you reach certain goal points, moving through game chapters, which for the average player could be 3-4 days of playing, you can accumulate a few cents of transactions, that get dealt with in a very expensive way:
"insert into table user_trans(fldUser, fldItem, fldCost) values(" + theUser + ", " + theItem + ", " + theCostInCaseItChanges ")";
Now you use an expensive reporting system to
select sum(fldCost) from user_trans where theUser=938271
You then send a monthy bill, OR paperless, charge credit card / paypal and have thier bill available inside the game, with optional 'reality cloaking' so the prices appear as 'pint of ale' or 'Congestion zone charge' (GTA London... hhahaha)
So, there you have it... make games free, make enjoying them cost money!
Are Sony releasing the source code?
:-) I mean, not the supplied version, but a custom version, and actually use it - with an IR keyboard adapter...
:-)
What really would be the most fun misuse you could engineer with this? Running quake? 200mhz... is possible ~10fps...
Running linux?
I don't think you could make a beowulf cluster on these, it has IR tranmitter, but no receiver... USB - could be 'networked' via usb I suppose...
I guess when you can watch movies on your remote control, you might need a smaller remote control, to control your remote control... and you know that that will end up having a Gb of RAM
Excellent, as handhelds.org are trying to engineer a useful, cool linux handheld platform (in addition to the excellent offerings from you-know-who) Sony have given the world a cool toy.
:-)
Nothing sells in westernised world like hype and pricing, and I think they are doing a favour to Linux by pricing this up as they have, it is aimed for conservative sales I guess - not many poeple have such a wired up setting that would really benefit from such a powerful device.
What is funny, is that this device is more powerful than the moon landing computers - and it is a remote control! Can anyone else cite an overkill of technology?
Of course, it can probably do some great things like scheduling and some additional linux dvd players, tivo's and other household appliances might become the next craze, all because Sony have given them all a remote control that can talk to all of them.
The saddest thing is, the lack of bluetooth... or at least it would seem... also batteries might be a problem for such a device role, but I guess it hasa docking station you can seat permanently beside you chair...
Although I guess most slashdotters would take it out of the house, and go IR-wardriving, looking for devices to control!
RIAA: I 'ork 'hor 'theee 'aarr'eeeaaaay
Dentist: What?
RIAA: *spit* the RIAA, you know...
Dentist: hmmmm....
*zzzzzzzzzzzzgrrrrrrriiiilllzzzdddmmmmmmmmmm*
Subsonic drill noises
Sounds of delicate enamel being drilled
*Blood curdling scream of agony*
Oh yes, you have chosen to piss off all the wrong people now, you overpaid music execs... next time you feel the drill penetrate your sensitive nerves, or you get stuck in the lift listening to Avril Latrine... you will know...