They have to pre-announce they're taking a 1Billion hit this financial quarter due to SEC regulation. Funnily enough they also announced they expect the XBOX division to be profitable next year. i.e. they're taking a huge loss now so they can claim a profit next year for their shareholders.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren't a CPA. They aren't "pre-announcing" a 1 billion dollar hit. They've extended the Xbox 360's warranty to 3 years, which covers every single 360 currently in a home. Now, because they've done this FASB's accounting standards state that they must recognize a liability for the potential cost to the company if all these warranties are called in. I would expect the actual hit to their bottom line from Warranty Expenses will be less than this 1 billion figure, and that will be spread out over next few years. So it doesn't just hit them this year to help make next year profitable, as they can have expenses from this 3 year warranty easily hit next year and the year after as well.
Anyone who falls into the category of a Guitar Hero addict already owns all of these songs on Guitar Hero 1 for PS2.
Except for the fact that by purchasing these songs from the XBL marketplace, you get access to:
Online Leaderboards
Multiplayer/Co-op tracks
The improved (read: easier) Hammer On's and Pull Off's
The ability to switch between GH1 and GH2 tracks without switching disks.
While I think everyone would love for these tracks to be sold individually and for cheaper, I still think the advantages of the DLC version over the original is well worth the price.
Was it actually running any sizable applications? Or just sitting there doing nothing? (and using 1Gb in the process)
Personally, on my system, I'm running Vista with Aero on 1 gig of RAM as well. At one point in my usage, I had Adobe Photoshop open with about 3 files, Illustrator with 2 files, Firefox with 4 tabs, and a MS Word 2007 document open, not to mention the usual IM programs. Overall, I was using about 75% of the RAM, and I noticed NO performance degradation at all. Switching between the active applications was by far the snappiest I've ever seen it in Windows with large applications like Photoshop.
There also goes any kind of marketing that was actually interesting (ARGs and the like)
From TFA:
Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from "falsely representing oneself as a consumer".
While I haven't read the law start to finish, I'm fairly certain that ARGs would not be affected by this. While it is a marketing strategy that often hides the fact of which company is actually behind it, I have never seen an ARG that tries to pull off representing itself as a consumer and giving the product favorable reviews. ARGs are used to stir up excitement about a product, not try to convince consumers that others like them are loving the product.
"We want to make sure that users understand the system's limitations," said Gerhard Eschelbeck, a spokesman for Webroot, "and caution them that Microsoft's anti-virus programs may not fully protect them."
In testing, the company said, the new Windows Defender program failed to block 84% of viruses - including 15 of the most common pieces of malicious code.
This is the biggest piece of FUD I have seen in a long time. Microsoft doesn't have their own anti-virus program. Windows Defender is a malware/spyware detector, not an anti-virus program. Even if you have it turned on, Windows' Security Center will still tell you you're at risk because you don't have anti-virus software installed. This is like expecting Ad-Aware to fully protect your computer against all the trojans out in the wild.
Also figuring that Webroot is the creator of Spy Sweeper, it's no wonder that they'd want to spread FUD about a direct competitor's FREE product.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren't a CPA. They aren't "pre-announcing" a 1 billion dollar hit. They've extended the Xbox 360's warranty to 3 years, which covers every single 360 currently in a home. Now, because they've done this FASB's accounting standards state that they must recognize a liability for the potential cost to the company if all these warranties are called in. I would expect the actual hit to their bottom line from Warranty Expenses will be less than this 1 billion figure, and that will be spread out over next few years. So it doesn't just hit them this year to help make next year profitable, as they can have expenses from this 3 year warranty easily hit next year and the year after as well.
Launchcast is down today. Well, the free version at least. There's no way they would go silent for their paying customers.
Except for the fact that by purchasing these songs from the XBL marketplace, you get access to:
While I think everyone would love for these tracks to be sold individually and for cheaper, I still think the advantages of the DLC version over the original is well worth the price.
Personally, on my system, I'm running Vista with Aero on 1 gig of RAM as well. At one point in my usage, I had Adobe Photoshop open with about 3 files, Illustrator with 2 files, Firefox with 4 tabs, and a MS Word 2007 document open, not to mention the usual IM programs. Overall, I was using about 75% of the RAM, and I noticed NO performance degradation at all. Switching between the active applications was by far the snappiest I've ever seen it in Windows with large applications like Photoshop.
From TFA:
Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from "falsely representing oneself as a consumer".While I haven't read the law start to finish, I'm fairly certain that ARGs would not be affected by this. While it is a marketing strategy that often hides the fact of which company is actually behind it, I have never seen an ARG that tries to pull off representing itself as a consumer and giving the product favorable reviews. ARGs are used to stir up excitement about a product, not try to convince consumers that others like them are loving the product.
"We want to make sure that users understand the system's limitations," said Gerhard Eschelbeck, a spokesman for Webroot, "and caution them that Microsoft's anti-virus programs may not fully protect them."
In testing, the company said, the new Windows Defender program failed to block 84% of viruses - including 15 of the most common pieces of malicious code.
This is the biggest piece of FUD I have seen in a long time. Microsoft doesn't have their own anti-virus program. Windows Defender is a malware/spyware detector, not an anti-virus program. Even if you have it turned on, Windows' Security Center will still tell you you're at risk because you don't have anti-virus software installed. This is like expecting Ad-Aware to fully protect your computer against all the trojans out in the wild.
Also figuring that Webroot is the creator of Spy Sweeper, it's no wonder that they'd want to spread FUD about a direct competitor's FREE product.