i understand what you're saying, but if their membership still does not allow them to overturn such an obvious case of commercially motivated corruption/corporate strong-arming tactics, then they really don't have much of a say anyway--at least not in any meaningful sense.
basically, this incident shows that ISO is up for sale. if you can afford to purchase the votes, then you can have whatever you want become an ISO standard. this not only makes ISO standards meaningless, but it also demonstrates that ISO decisions are not made by public discussion & open discourse between members, but rather by secret dealings conducted behind closed doors by commercial interests. therefore, ISO is no longer an impartial democratic body, but rather a standards auction house for rich corporations.
you make a good point, but that has more to to with the consolidation of mainstream media, which is really a separate issue (though its implications and effects are broad and far-reaching).
in the meantime, the web has done a lot to diversify the media sources that the average person is exposed to. from here, it's up to the individual to make a conscious effort to get their news from independent news sources and check multiple news sources to account for inherent biases and verify accuracy of reported info. news aggregators like slashdot/digg have also played a large role in facilitating this process.
i haven't checked digg lately, but i know/. has been following this incident closely. as slashdotters, we're probably ahead of the curve in staying up to date with the latest IT news. therefore, we also need to play our part. i think most IT professionals are probably aware of this issue, but perhaps some of the upper management decision-makers aren't so well informed. if you happen to work at a big company who's an ISO member, you could stimulate discussion within the company, and hopefully put more pressure on ISO to appeal the approval of OOXML.
we might be reaching the physical (or practical) limit of data density for hard disk platters, but we'll probably just move to new technologies. it's very unlikely that magnetic disk drives are the pinnacle of data storage technology. there are probably more efficient storage mediums in the works already.
i don't know what can currently match magnetic disks drives in terms of IO speed, but holographic storage shows a lot of promise. in theory, holographic storage can read/write millions of bits of data in parallel rather than one bit at a time as with conventional optical or magnetic media. the theoretical limit of holographic storage density is tens of Tb (terabits) per cm^3. and already commercial industries have achieved 500 Gb per square-inch (about 5x the density achievable on magnetic hard disks).
holograms also have some very interesting properties that may or may not transfer to digital data storage. for instance, if you record a hologram of a 3D object onto a photographic plate, you can in essence reproduce a 3D image of the whole object with any piece of that photographic plate. Wikipedia explains this phenomenon thusly:
Since each point in the hologram contains light from the whole of the original scene, the whole scene can, in principle, be re-constructed from an arbitrarily small part of the hologram. To demonstrate this concept, the hologram can be broken into small pieces and the entire object can still be seen from each small piece. If one envisions the hologram as a "window" on the object, then each small piece of hologram is just a part of the window from which it can still be viewed, even if the rest of the window is blocked off.
since holographic data storage also uses optical interference patterns to store information, i guess it's possible that this phenomenon would also transfer over, though it might not since we're talking about digital data in this case rather than analog data. with analog data, losing a part of the interference pattern simply reduces the resolution of the holographic image, though it remains whole. with digital data, that loss of resolution could simply corrupt the data. but i don't know, i'm not a holography expert.
didn't IBM also resign from ISO over OOXML? i think this form of passive protest is important as it draws attention to the corruption at hand. if nothing else, it's garnered media attention and highlighted how serious an issue this is.
i think all principled members of ISO need to show solidarity and resign together. a mass exodus from the organization would force the industry to stop ignoring the issue. it says to governments and companies who care about standardization that ISO is no longer a legitimate vendor-neutral standardization body.
the next step would be for IBM, the Norwegian technical committee members, and other parties serious about standardization, to form a new organization for promoting international standards--and to make reforms to safeguard against an incident like this from happening within the new standards body.
that's like saying, i don't see how much pencil & paper can help, since you could draw whatever you want that looks cool on paper but have it not work in reality--design concepts are created by design artists, not engineers.
most concept cars are designed to explore/show off design aesthetics. they show the direction an auto manufacturer is headed in in the future. they may employ general engineering concepts, but the detail technical aspects aren't dealt with until much later. it always starts with a concept sketch or design mock-up, and in this case the mock-up was made for a video game initially.
well at least the PS3 has Prologue. Polyphony Digital has decided to skip the PSP system completely. =[
oh well, at least there's Test Drive, Race Driver 2006, and Asphalt Urban GT 2 (an unbelievably good racing title by Game Loft--a company previously known for making java games for cellphones)...
i don't think bringing MMOs to the PS3 will be much of a challenge. current gen. consoles are pretty much just compact computers. the PS3 has mouse & keyboard peripherals, and internet connectivity is pretty much standard. there's really no reason for MMOs to not go to consoles.
i think the harder task to accomplish is trying to bring MMOs to the PSP. and i'm not talking about controls here. people said the PSP could never support a decent shooter, yet many successful implementations have graced the system, including:
Star Wars: Battle Front II & Star Wars Battlefront: Rogue Squadron
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror & Logan's Shadow
Splinter Cell: Essentials
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo & FTB 2
Medal of Honor Heroes & Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Syphon Filter: Combat Ops
Chili Con Carnage
Gun Showdown
clearly, if a developer is creative enough, they can still manage to design a robust & intuitive control scheme for the handheld, even for FPS or RTS games. and with Monster Hunter Freedom, Valhalla Knights, and Bounty Hounds, there are already many examples of how this can be achieved for an RPG.
i think the bigger issue for portable MMOs is the subscription model. i don't think gamers will want to pay a monthly subscription for a portable MMO.
it's a shame that Sony never launched an Xbox-Live-like service for the PSP. it would have been great to be able to connect to your friends via the PSP--check if they're online, send them messages, see what games they're playing, invite them to a game, etc. i'm sure most PSP owners wouldn't mind paying a monthly subscription for an all-inclusive service that allowed them to play all of their PSP games online.
as of now, the PSP's wi-fi connectivity is completely underutilized. hardly any games support infrastructure multiplayer, and the few that do have sparse online players. a cohesive network connecting all PSP systems at all times would have made developing online multiplayer easier for developers, and would also make online gaming a more integral part of the PSP. not connecting the PSP to the Playstation Network was Sony's major mistake.
i agree with you about Sony (it's not just limited to their game publishing arm), but those charts show that all MMOs (and probably all games) follow an arcing popularity curve.
a few games like WOW and Tibia seem to have longer popularity arcs than usual, but they will still wane in popularity eventually. and FF XI actually seems to be doing better than a lot of other games.
their anti-consumer business model/attitude, and incompetent corporate leadership, etc. have resulted in many mismanaged products. but i really don't see what would suggest that their development studios are washed out. the game developers have little to do with company policies or customer relations. it's mostly the management-level decision makers that are delusional sociopaths.
grasping at straws to avoid admitting you were wrong is a bit immature don't you think? maybe you should do a little more research yourself before making wild assumptions without any supporting evidence.
if FPS and RTS games can be made to work on consoles, then MMOs can surely be migrated to consoles. most MMOs are MMORPGs--which are just regular RPGs with a social element derived from the online multiplayer gameplay. and there have been RPGs on consoles since the days of the Atari 2600 (Dragonstomper). i don't see how adding internet multiplayer to a thriving, and highly successful, console gaming genre would be a bad idea.
aside from internet connectivity, there is nothing about MMOs that makes them the exclusive domain of computer gaming. and now that internet access is an integral component of the current-gen consoles, that barrier is moot. aside from player preference, there's no reason not to choose a console over a PC for an MMO platform.
#3 was the first thing that came to my mind when i read it was a PTP wireless beam. the article doesn't really discuss the issue, but i would imagine snow/rain/fog/humidity/(hail?) could be potential problems.
however, when people generally speak of mm-wave, aren't they talking about non-directional radio waves? since this is a directional beam produced by two lasers, couldn't it have different properties from conventional mm-waves? from what i can gather, mm-waves around the ~60 GHz range are the most prone to oxygen attenuation. so using a 100 GHz mm-wave should protect from atmospheric attenuation.
this space.com article talks about data transmission in space using lasers (sent from earth). in this instance, they're using laser pulses to communicate, so it may be different to what's being applied here, but it does show that a laser beam can be received at great distances. i mean, isn't coherent light a distinctive characteristic of all lasers? so perhaps it wouldn't be as affected by atmospheric conditions.
with desktop processors so powerful nowadays, most people will never make full use of the processing power on a standard desktop (unless they're running Windows Vista + an AV program + IE + a bunch of malware in the background). a decently optimized operating system should allow most users to do what they need to do (word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, listen to music, watch videos, check e-mail, etc.) on a relatively modest system with 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM.
and i'm not just talking about netbooks or laptops. there ought to be low-power desktops that the average consumer can use for their daily computing needs without wasting any energy or CPU cycles, and still perform (for their purposes) just as well as a top of the line standard PC.
as long as you're not running bloated software that negates the huge increases in computing power over the years, there's no reason for most casual computer users to have a quad core CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and a $300 video card. sure, it may be affordable, but unless you're actually going to use that computing power for processor-intensive applications, then you'd benefit more from having a low-power PC that runs cool/quiet, and that you can leave on at all times.
of course, that means computer vendors need to stop pre-installing their systems with a bunch of bundled cruftware--no SBC-branded IE browser with 3 different custom toolbars, no Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus, and no Nero Home or other useless programs filling up the system tray. most computer users can't even tell you what half the icons in their system tray are for, much less use them on a regular basis. and with a lean install, most users could probably get by on a system only half-as powerful as the computer they have (and it'd probably still boot up faster).
Facebook is actually a well-designed/developed site, and a particularly useful one in its original niche. college students, especially incoming freshmen, gravitated to the site because it allowed them to stay in touch with all of their friends from high school who are now off to different universities, and it was also different from other social networks in that it had highly organized and usefully structured profiles which aren't cluttered by pictures, clashing colors, and annoying videos or music the way that Myspace profiles are.
facebook also organizes users by their schools, thus making the social network more useful as a practical networking tool. it's very useful for organizing student groups/events, or just making new friends (and not just online ones). out of all the social networking sites that have popped up in recent years, facebook is probably the least appropriate to use the word "trendy" on. and it's not likely to die any time soon, because it's actually a very ingeniously designed site.
MySpace, Xanga, Friendster, etc. were the trend-driven social networking sites. they weren't created around usefulness or original functionality. the fact that MySpace has not only remained, but grown into one of the most popular sites on the web shows that your prediction about "trendy" sites does not hold any water. Myspace is horribly designed, buggy, hideous, and filled with angst-ridden teenagers and illiterate retards, but its become such a cultural fixture that it's permanence is practically guaranteed.
all of the early social networking boom sites have died out so that the ones that remain will probably be here for a while. so your "* is just another fad" comment is about 4 years too late. saying it to demonstrate your non-conformity (or to show that you're above fads & fashions) is ignoring the reality staring you in the face.
wow, that's pretty cool (no pun in tended). at first i thought you were just plugging another slot cooler, but that thing is pretty slick. have you gotten one yourself?
if it really does outperform active coolers then that's quite impressive. and at $30 it's cheaper than most liquid cooling solutions. add a Peltier/thermoelectric active cooler to that thing and you have the perfect silent cooling solution with no moving parts.
heh, that's funny 'cause i'm kinda in the same boat. i do graphic design & web development, which does give me some opportunity to write web applications, but i still miss having personal coding projects that i'd stay up all night working on. i sorta fell out of the habit senior year of high school (started dating and my priorities changed). since then i'm a lot less productive during my free time. i spend most of my time these days playing Front Mission 3 on PopStation and watching Star Trek episodes on my computer.
compared to the days when i was writing my own proxy program to hack TetriNET, turning my webcam into a motion-detector, creating password decrypters, or writing my own Perl AIM bot (to display my online status on my homepage), the stuff i do in my free time now is a lot less exciting.
well, making you sign up is a different story since you have to give out your e-mail address, fill out a huge form, confirm the sign-up, etc.
and i didn't mean that as an insult. that statement would apply equally as well to anyone.
if you aren't willing to spend at least 30 seconds on a comment, then that comment probably isn't very well thought out. think of the difference between letters and e-mails, or e-mails and IMs. the more time & effort required for a particular communication, the more thought the sender will put into it.
most internet message boards i've been to have an overabundance of banal, poorly-written comments--things like, "me too," "LOL," "n00b!," etc.--that are just a waste of space. then there are the threads that consist entirely of people listing things (the last movie/tv show they watched, or the last song they listened to or book they read, etc.) there's nothing wrong with such threads per se, as long as they stimulate discussion, but these threads go on and on for pages with people just listing movie titles/tv shows and not a single comment on the things listed. it's utterly retarded. these people might as well just list these things in a text file on their computer if they have no desire to actually converse with someone else.
and i know that even i have made useless, poorly thought out comments on many occasions. it's just part of our compulsive nature when people have access to immediate self-expression.
that is pretty lame. i stopped play MapleStory a long time ago (when they came out of beta and everyone lost their stats/items or whatever). i guess they sacrificed gameplay/fairness for profitability. i hope that this will hurt them in the long wrong as players realize it's complete BS to be able to buy power, as TFA warned against.
otherwise it just becomes another ZT Online, which is an thinly veiled attempt to disguise a virtual auction as an online video game.
you don't have to customize your character. that's the whole point. you can play it completely for free if you want to, and many people do. most people who play MapleStory do not spend any money on it, but it's still profitable enough to be a huge success.
and the whole point of customizing how your character looks is for it to be seen by others, not you. do you buy expensive clothes just to look at yourself in the mirror all day? it's just like how people wear fancy clothes in real life to impress others. you want to express yourself aesthetically and distinguish yourself from others. they're just applying this social dynamic to online games.
RTFA. this model has already proven to be very successful in several free Korean MMOs. that's why the big gaming publishers are showing interest in it. it's not hard to understand why character customizations is appealing to some people, and therefore a potential revenue stream. if enough people download a free game, at least a small percentage of them will want to accessorize their avatar and will be willing to pay for it--especially if your game attracts female players.
the more co-ed and lively or interactive of a social environment you foster in the game, the more invested people will be in their avatars, and thus spend more on cosmetic add-ons and customizations. MMOs are naturally immersive because of their combined social and role-playing element. people willing to spend 20+ hours a week playing an MMO, then what's a few dollars on virtual apparel/accessories?
i think MapleStory and Second Life both came out before WoW, so WoW certainly wasn't the first game to create a market for virtual goods.
and no one is saying that all games will become free and supported by micropayments, just that this model is gaining a lot of attention as there have been several successful releases.
if you RTFA, the author talks about keeping the playing field even by not allowing players to pay for power. in Maple Story the micropayments were used for buying cosmetic items to customize your character's appearance. so you could purchase sun glasses, designer shoes, hats, etc. but they have no effect on gameplay.
the whole point of this model, which the article discusses, is to exploit computers as gaming forums. the micropayment system is driven by the social aspect of multiplayer online games. players want to express themselves through the game, and this system allows players to do that through virtual apparel. people who don't want to pay for these superficial add-ons do not need to, and it won't change their gaming experience.
and other posters have pointed out, pre-paid cards are an easy way for players, or parents, to control in-game spending. these are even mentioned in TFA:
Kim says people prefer prepaid cards to tying credit cards to ongoing subscriptions to online role-playing games as is the case with popular "World of Warcraft."
i think to most moderately intelligent users, an arithmetic world problem or even a basic calculus equation, like taking the derivative of cos(x^2), wouldn't be that much harder than reading a very distorted CAPTCHA. it's just a different kind of difficulty. instead of straining to make out twisted and shrouded letters, you're just forced to think a little.
personally, i'd much rather complete a simple, straightforward mental exercise than to solve a randomly generated CAPTCHA, which you're likely to fail by misconstruing a lowercase "L" for a capital "I," or the number one.
of course, if you run a site like IGN, in which most of your posters are 13-year-old retards, yes, you might drive away a lot of your "normals." but you'd be sacrificing quantity for quality. there are still plenty of people willing to solve an easy challenge to make a post. a lot of people won't even be slowed down by them compared to standard CAPTCHAs.
besides, if you're not willing to make an effort to solve the CAPTCHA, then maybe your comment isn't really worth posting. it would at least make people put more thought into their posts and filter out a lot of kipple.
Did you see the article about the Pandora console? Now that is IMO a geek toy worth blowing some cash on (and thankfully I was on the mailing list so I got an order in before the site was slashdotted):)
i couldn't agree with you more. personally, i love my PSP to death. it's the only gaming system i have, and i use it all the time to read e-books, listen to audiobooks, or play PSX games. once you get CFW on it, there's no other handheld out there that can compare as a general portable entertainment device. however, the Pandora is looking to change that.
as a novice C++ programmer, i really wanted to develop my own homebrew apps for the PSP, but the lack of real documentation and closed nature of the platform presents a daunting obstacle. so when i heard about Pandora, it got me really excited. a powerful open source handheld whose manufacturer embraced & encouraged homebrew? how could any real geek not be psyched by this news? the Pandora is a tinkerer's dream.
the people complaining about how Pandora isn't newsworthy because it can't compete with the PSP/DS just don't get it. yea, the PSP/DS have a lot more games and publisher support, but that's not the point. the Pandora isn't competing for the mainstream gaming market. between the PSP and the DS, Sony and Nintendo have the bases covered. but the Pandora is aimed at a niche market who up until now have had to content themselves with voiding the warranty on their PSP/DS.
compared to many other articles posted on/., the average computer geek probably has a lot more use for the Pandora than any of the supercomputers, super batteries, Cell-powered PCI Express cards, or other specialized hardware that the average geek may read about simply as a passing interest in its novelty.
XviD and DivX are the two most popular video codecs used on the internet, both of which are MPEG-4 Part 2 encodings. i would hardly consider it irrelevant. XviD in particular is useful because it provides high-quality video compression under a GNU license and is supported on all platforms. H.264 is a patented codec, so despite there being open source implementations, it's still excluded from certain FOSS products.
the author probably wanted to specifically mention H.264 because it's a very well-known encoding that is used in popular consumer products like the Video iPod, iPhone, PSP, etc.
frankly, out of the specifically mentioned encodings, MPEG-2 is the most out of date and would be completely irrelevant if it weren't used in DVDs. no one uses MPEG-2 encoding for either downloadable content or ripped movies. it doesn't offer good compression ratios (for reasonable video quality). even digital TV broadcasts are quickly switching to the higher quality MPEG-4 AVC.
This card could be perfect for people making HTPCs who want a low power and QUIET computer to watch on their TV using myth/etc.
i was imagining how cool it'd be to have one of these + VIA EPIA/Eden micro-ATX (what's the smallest form factor that supports PCI-E?) for a HTPC/DVR. that is until i read that the card comes with a one-slot cooler. that would suggest that the processor runs pretty hot, and the slot cooler would probably make a good deal of noise.
Leadtek says that the card will enable both encoding and transcoding at speeds that are 'faster than real-time.'
sweet, i can finally have my PVR record programs before they actually air!
but seriously though, how much is this card going to cost? is it just for professional video processing or will there be other uses for it as well? i wouldn't mind having one of these things for a PVR/media center, except for the fact that it needs a one-slot cooler, meaning it probably runs hot and noisy.
actually, i wouldn't be so frustrated with Sony's tactic if the PSP were in fact crap. but the hardware itself is an amazing piece of engineering with great potential. it's just Sony's incompetent mismanagement of the platform that has crippled the system.
it doesn't matter how great a piece of hardware is if there isn't matching software to take advantage of it. and Sony has gone the extra step of using software to cripple a great piece of hardware. if it weren't for homebrew and CFW, the PSP would probably have remained crap to this day.
i can play PSX games, run emulators, listen to music, watch videos, read e-books, surf the web, etc. all on the go. but that's only because i don't use my PSP the way that Sony wants people to use it. still, there isn't a portable entertainment device out there that can do all this. so until the Pandora comes out, i'll have to keep putting up with Sony's BS.
from the PS1 or PS2 generation? i don't recall any notable feature drops from the PS1. but then again i never owned the later hardware revisions like the PSOne.
besides,the PS1 didn't have an awful lot of auxiliary features to begin with. aside from CD playback, i don't know what they could have removed and kept the system a playstation.
Slashdot Mirror
i understand what you're saying, but if their membership still does not allow them to overturn such an obvious case of commercially motivated corruption/corporate strong-arming tactics, then they really don't have much of a say anyway--at least not in any meaningful sense.
basically, this incident shows that ISO is up for sale. if you can afford to purchase the votes, then you can have whatever you want become an ISO standard. this not only makes ISO standards meaningless, but it also demonstrates that ISO decisions are not made by public discussion & open discourse between members, but rather by secret dealings conducted behind closed doors by commercial interests. therefore, ISO is no longer an impartial democratic body, but rather a standards auction house for rich corporations.
you make a good point, but that has more to to with the consolidation of mainstream media, which is really a separate issue (though its implications and effects are broad and far-reaching).
in the meantime, the web has done a lot to diversify the media sources that the average person is exposed to. from here, it's up to the individual to make a conscious effort to get their news from independent news sources and check multiple news sources to account for inherent biases and verify accuracy of reported info. news aggregators like slashdot/digg have also played a large role in facilitating this process.
i haven't checked digg lately, but i know /. has been following this incident closely. as slashdotters, we're probably ahead of the curve in staying up to date with the latest IT news. therefore, we also need to play our part. i think most IT professionals are probably aware of this issue, but perhaps some of the upper management decision-makers aren't so well informed. if you happen to work at a big company who's an ISO member, you could stimulate discussion within the company, and hopefully put more pressure on ISO to appeal the approval of OOXML.
we might be reaching the physical (or practical) limit of data density for hard disk platters, but we'll probably just move to new technologies. it's very unlikely that magnetic disk drives are the pinnacle of data storage technology. there are probably more efficient storage mediums in the works already.
i don't know what can currently match magnetic disks drives in terms of IO speed, but holographic storage shows a lot of promise. in theory, holographic storage can read/write millions of bits of data in parallel rather than one bit at a time as with conventional optical or magnetic media. the theoretical limit of holographic storage density is tens of Tb (terabits) per cm^3. and already commercial industries have achieved 500 Gb per square-inch (about 5x the density achievable on magnetic hard disks).
holograms also have some very interesting properties that may or may not transfer to digital data storage. for instance, if you record a hologram of a 3D object onto a photographic plate, you can in essence reproduce a 3D image of the whole object with any piece of that photographic plate. Wikipedia explains this phenomenon thusly:
since holographic data storage also uses optical interference patterns to store information, i guess it's possible that this phenomenon would also transfer over, though it might not since we're talking about digital data in this case rather than analog data. with analog data, losing a part of the interference pattern simply reduces the resolution of the holographic image, though it remains whole. with digital data, that loss of resolution could simply corrupt the data. but i don't know, i'm not a holography expert.
didn't IBM also resign from ISO over OOXML? i think this form of passive protest is important as it draws attention to the corruption at hand. if nothing else, it's garnered media attention and highlighted how serious an issue this is.
i think all principled members of ISO need to show solidarity and resign together. a mass exodus from the organization would force the industry to stop ignoring the issue. it says to governments and companies who care about standardization that ISO is no longer a legitimate vendor-neutral standardization body.
the next step would be for IBM, the Norwegian technical committee members, and other parties serious about standardization, to form a new organization for promoting international standards--and to make reforms to safeguard against an incident like this from happening within the new standards body.
that's like saying, i don't see how much pencil & paper can help, since you could draw whatever you want that looks cool on paper but have it not work in reality--design concepts are created by design artists, not engineers.
most concept cars are designed to explore/show off design aesthetics. they show the direction an auto manufacturer is headed in in the future. they may employ general engineering concepts, but the detail technical aspects aren't dealt with until much later. it always starts with a concept sketch or design mock-up, and in this case the mock-up was made for a video game initially.
well at least the PS3 has Prologue. Polyphony Digital has decided to skip the PSP system completely. =[
oh well, at least there's Test Drive, Race Driver 2006, and Asphalt Urban GT 2 (an unbelievably good racing title by Game Loft--a company previously known for making java games for cellphones)...
i don't think bringing MMOs to the PS3 will be much of a challenge. current gen. consoles are pretty much just compact computers. the PS3 has mouse & keyboard peripherals, and internet connectivity is pretty much standard. there's really no reason for MMOs to not go to consoles.
i think the harder task to accomplish is trying to bring MMOs to the PSP. and i'm not talking about controls here. people said the PSP could never support a decent shooter, yet many successful implementations have graced the system, including:
clearly, if a developer is creative enough, they can still manage to design a robust & intuitive control scheme for the handheld, even for FPS or RTS games. and with Monster Hunter Freedom, Valhalla Knights, and Bounty Hounds, there are already many examples of how this can be achieved for an RPG.
i think the bigger issue for portable MMOs is the subscription model. i don't think gamers will want to pay a monthly subscription for a portable MMO.
it's a shame that Sony never launched an Xbox-Live-like service for the PSP. it would have been great to be able to connect to your friends via the PSP--check if they're online, send them messages, see what games they're playing, invite them to a game, etc. i'm sure most PSP owners wouldn't mind paying a monthly subscription for an all-inclusive service that allowed them to play all of their PSP games online.
as of now, the PSP's wi-fi connectivity is completely underutilized. hardly any games support infrastructure multiplayer, and the few that do have sparse online players. a cohesive network connecting all PSP systems at all times would have made developing online multiplayer easier for developers, and would also make online gaming a more integral part of the PSP. not connecting the PSP to the Playstation Network was Sony's major mistake.
i agree with you about Sony (it's not just limited to their game publishing arm), but those charts show that all MMOs (and probably all games) follow an arcing popularity curve.
a few games like WOW and Tibia seem to have longer popularity arcs than usual, but they will still wane in popularity eventually. and FF XI actually seems to be doing better than a lot of other games.
their anti-consumer business model/attitude, and incompetent corporate leadership, etc. have resulted in many mismanaged products. but i really don't see what would suggest that their development studios are washed out. the game developers have little to do with company policies or customer relations. it's mostly the management-level decision makers that are delusional sociopaths.
grasping at straws to avoid admitting you were wrong is a bit immature don't you think? maybe you should do a little more research yourself before making wild assumptions without any supporting evidence.
if FPS and RTS games can be made to work on consoles, then MMOs can surely be migrated to consoles. most MMOs are MMORPGs--which are just regular RPGs with a social element derived from the online multiplayer gameplay. and there have been RPGs on consoles since the days of the Atari 2600 (Dragonstomper). i don't see how adding internet multiplayer to a thriving, and highly successful, console gaming genre would be a bad idea.
aside from internet connectivity, there is nothing about MMOs that makes them the exclusive domain of computer gaming. and now that internet access is an integral component of the current-gen consoles, that barrier is moot. aside from player preference, there's no reason not to choose a console over a PC for an MMO platform.
#3 was the first thing that came to my mind when i read it was a PTP wireless beam. the article doesn't really discuss the issue, but i would imagine snow/rain/fog/humidity/(hail?) could be potential problems.
however, when people generally speak of mm-wave, aren't they talking about non-directional radio waves? since this is a directional beam produced by two lasers, couldn't it have different properties from conventional mm-waves? from what i can gather, mm-waves around the ~60 GHz range are the most prone to oxygen attenuation. so using a 100 GHz mm-wave should protect from atmospheric attenuation.
this space.com article talks about data transmission in space using lasers (sent from earth). in this instance, they're using laser pulses to communicate, so it may be different to what's being applied here, but it does show that a laser beam can be received at great distances. i mean, isn't coherent light a distinctive characteristic of all lasers? so perhaps it wouldn't be as affected by atmospheric conditions.
you don't have to take it that far.
with desktop processors so powerful nowadays, most people will never make full use of the processing power on a standard desktop (unless they're running Windows Vista + an AV program + IE + a bunch of malware in the background). a decently optimized operating system should allow most users to do what they need to do (word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, listen to music, watch videos, check e-mail, etc.) on a relatively modest system with 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM.
and i'm not just talking about netbooks or laptops. there ought to be low-power desktops that the average consumer can use for their daily computing needs without wasting any energy or CPU cycles, and still perform (for their purposes) just as well as a top of the line standard PC.
as long as you're not running bloated software that negates the huge increases in computing power over the years, there's no reason for most casual computer users to have a quad core CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and a $300 video card. sure, it may be affordable, but unless you're actually going to use that computing power for processor-intensive applications, then you'd benefit more from having a low-power PC that runs cool/quiet, and that you can leave on at all times.
of course, that means computer vendors need to stop pre-installing their systems with a bunch of bundled cruftware--no SBC-branded IE browser with 3 different custom toolbars, no Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus, and no Nero Home or other useless programs filling up the system tray. most computer users can't even tell you what half the icons in their system tray are for, much less use them on a regular basis. and with a lean install, most users could probably get by on a system only half-as powerful as the computer they have (and it'd probably still boot up faster).
Facebook is actually a well-designed/developed site, and a particularly useful one in its original niche. college students, especially incoming freshmen, gravitated to the site because it allowed them to stay in touch with all of their friends from high school who are now off to different universities, and it was also different from other social networks in that it had highly organized and usefully structured profiles which aren't cluttered by pictures, clashing colors, and annoying videos or music the way that Myspace profiles are.
facebook also organizes users by their schools, thus making the social network more useful as a practical networking tool. it's very useful for organizing student groups/events, or just making new friends (and not just online ones). out of all the social networking sites that have popped up in recent years, facebook is probably the least appropriate to use the word "trendy" on. and it's not likely to die any time soon, because it's actually a very ingeniously designed site.
MySpace, Xanga, Friendster, etc. were the trend-driven social networking sites. they weren't created around usefulness or original functionality. the fact that MySpace has not only remained, but grown into one of the most popular sites on the web shows that your prediction about "trendy" sites does not hold any water. Myspace is horribly designed, buggy, hideous, and filled with angst-ridden teenagers and illiterate retards, but its become such a cultural fixture that it's permanence is practically guaranteed.
all of the early social networking boom sites have died out so that the ones that remain will probably be here for a while. so your "* is just another fad" comment is about 4 years too late. saying it to demonstrate your non-conformity (or to show that you're above fads & fashions) is ignoring the reality staring you in the face.
wow, that's pretty cool (no pun in tended). at first i thought you were just plugging another slot cooler, but that thing is pretty slick. have you gotten one yourself?
if it really does outperform active coolers then that's quite impressive. and at $30 it's cheaper than most liquid cooling solutions. add a Peltier/thermoelectric active cooler to that thing and you have the perfect silent cooling solution with no moving parts.
heh, that's funny 'cause i'm kinda in the same boat. i do graphic design & web development, which does give me some opportunity to write web applications, but i still miss having personal coding projects that i'd stay up all night working on. i sorta fell out of the habit senior year of high school (started dating and my priorities changed). since then i'm a lot less productive during my free time. i spend most of my time these days playing Front Mission 3 on PopStation and watching Star Trek episodes on my computer.
compared to the days when i was writing my own proxy program to hack TetriNET, turning my webcam into a motion-detector, creating password decrypters, or writing my own Perl AIM bot (to display my online status on my homepage), the stuff i do in my free time now is a lot less exciting.
well, making you sign up is a different story since you have to give out your e-mail address, fill out a huge form, confirm the sign-up, etc.
and i didn't mean that as an insult. that statement would apply equally as well to anyone.
if you aren't willing to spend at least 30 seconds on a comment, then that comment probably isn't very well thought out. think of the difference between letters and e-mails, or e-mails and IMs. the more time & effort required for a particular communication, the more thought the sender will put into it.
most internet message boards i've been to have an overabundance of banal, poorly-written comments--things like, "me too," "LOL," "n00b!," etc.--that are just a waste of space. then there are the threads that consist entirely of people listing things (the last movie/tv show they watched, or the last song they listened to or book they read, etc.) there's nothing wrong with such threads per se, as long as they stimulate discussion, but these threads go on and on for pages with people just listing movie titles/tv shows and not a single comment on the things listed. it's utterly retarded. these people might as well just list these things in a text file on their computer if they have no desire to actually converse with someone else.
and i know that even i have made useless, poorly thought out comments on many occasions. it's just part of our compulsive nature when people have access to immediate self-expression.
that is pretty lame. i stopped play MapleStory a long time ago (when they came out of beta and everyone lost their stats/items or whatever). i guess they sacrificed gameplay/fairness for profitability. i hope that this will hurt them in the long wrong as players realize it's complete BS to be able to buy power, as TFA warned against.
otherwise it just becomes another ZT Online, which is an thinly veiled attempt to disguise a virtual auction as an online video game.
you don't have to customize your character. that's the whole point. you can play it completely for free if you want to, and many people do. most people who play MapleStory do not spend any money on it, but it's still profitable enough to be a huge success.
and the whole point of customizing how your character looks is for it to be seen by others, not you. do you buy expensive clothes just to look at yourself in the mirror all day? it's just like how people wear fancy clothes in real life to impress others. you want to express yourself aesthetically and distinguish yourself from others. they're just applying this social dynamic to online games.
RTFA. this model has already proven to be very successful in several free Korean MMOs. that's why the big gaming publishers are showing interest in it. it's not hard to understand why character customizations is appealing to some people, and therefore a potential revenue stream. if enough people download a free game, at least a small percentage of them will want to accessorize their avatar and will be willing to pay for it--especially if your game attracts female players.
the more co-ed and lively or interactive of a social environment you foster in the game, the more invested people will be in their avatars, and thus spend more on cosmetic add-ons and customizations. MMOs are naturally immersive because of their combined social and role-playing element. people willing to spend 20+ hours a week playing an MMO, then what's a few dollars on virtual apparel/accessories?
i think MapleStory and Second Life both came out before WoW, so WoW certainly wasn't the first game to create a market for virtual goods.
and no one is saying that all games will become free and supported by micropayments, just that this model is gaining a lot of attention as there have been several successful releases.
if you RTFA, the author talks about keeping the playing field even by not allowing players to pay for power. in Maple Story the micropayments were used for buying cosmetic items to customize your character's appearance. so you could purchase sun glasses, designer shoes, hats, etc. but they have no effect on gameplay.
the whole point of this model, which the article discusses, is to exploit computers as gaming forums. the micropayment system is driven by the social aspect of multiplayer online games. players want to express themselves through the game, and this system allows players to do that through virtual apparel. people who don't want to pay for these superficial add-ons do not need to, and it won't change their gaming experience.
and other posters have pointed out, pre-paid cards are an easy way for players, or parents, to control in-game spending. these are even mentioned in TFA:
that depends on your definition of "normals."
i think to most moderately intelligent users, an arithmetic world problem or even a basic calculus equation, like taking the derivative of cos(x^2), wouldn't be that much harder than reading a very distorted CAPTCHA. it's just a different kind of difficulty. instead of straining to make out twisted and shrouded letters, you're just forced to think a little.
personally, i'd much rather complete a simple, straightforward mental exercise than to solve a randomly generated CAPTCHA, which you're likely to fail by misconstruing a lowercase "L" for a capital "I," or the number one.
of course, if you run a site like IGN, in which most of your posters are 13-year-old retards, yes, you might drive away a lot of your "normals." but you'd be sacrificing quantity for quality. there are still plenty of people willing to solve an easy challenge to make a post. a lot of people won't even be slowed down by them compared to standard CAPTCHAs.
besides, if you're not willing to make an effort to solve the CAPTCHA, then maybe your comment isn't really worth posting. it would at least make people put more thought into their posts and filter out a lot of kipple.
i couldn't agree with you more. personally, i love my PSP to death. it's the only gaming system i have, and i use it all the time to read e-books, listen to audiobooks, or play PSX games. once you get CFW on it, there's no other handheld out there that can compare as a general portable entertainment device. however, the Pandora is looking to change that.
as a novice C++ programmer, i really wanted to develop my own homebrew apps for the PSP, but the lack of real documentation and closed nature of the platform presents a daunting obstacle. so when i heard about Pandora, it got me really excited. a powerful open source handheld whose manufacturer embraced & encouraged homebrew? how could any real geek not be psyched by this news? the Pandora is a tinkerer's dream.
the people complaining about how Pandora isn't newsworthy because it can't compete with the PSP/DS just don't get it. yea, the PSP/DS have a lot more games and publisher support, but that's not the point. the Pandora isn't competing for the mainstream gaming market. between the PSP and the DS, Sony and Nintendo have the bases covered. but the Pandora is aimed at a niche market who up until now have had to content themselves with voiding the warranty on their PSP/DS.
compared to many other articles posted on /., the average computer geek probably has a lot more use for the Pandora than any of the supercomputers, super batteries, Cell-powered PCI Express cards, or other specialized hardware that the average geek may read about simply as a passing interest in its novelty.
XviD and DivX are the two most popular video codecs used on the internet, both of which are MPEG-4 Part 2 encodings. i would hardly consider it irrelevant. XviD in particular is useful because it provides high-quality video compression under a GNU license and is supported on all platforms. H.264 is a patented codec, so despite there being open source implementations, it's still excluded from certain FOSS products.
the author probably wanted to specifically mention H.264 because it's a very well-known encoding that is used in popular consumer products like the Video iPod, iPhone, PSP, etc.
frankly, out of the specifically mentioned encodings, MPEG-2 is the most out of date and would be completely irrelevant if it weren't used in DVDs. no one uses MPEG-2 encoding for either downloadable content or ripped movies. it doesn't offer good compression ratios (for reasonable video quality). even digital TV broadcasts are quickly switching to the higher quality MPEG-4 AVC.
i was imagining how cool it'd be to have one of these + VIA EPIA/Eden micro-ATX (what's the smallest form factor that supports PCI-E?) for a HTPC/DVR. that is until i read that the card comes with a one-slot cooler. that would suggest that the processor runs pretty hot, and the slot cooler would probably make a good deal of noise.
sweet, i can finally have my PVR record programs before they actually air!
but seriously though, how much is this card going to cost? is it just for professional video processing or will there be other uses for it as well? i wouldn't mind having one of these things for a PVR/media center, except for the fact that it needs a one-slot cooler, meaning it probably runs hot and noisy.
actually, i wouldn't be so frustrated with Sony's tactic if the PSP were in fact crap. but the hardware itself is an amazing piece of engineering with great potential. it's just Sony's incompetent mismanagement of the platform that has crippled the system.
it doesn't matter how great a piece of hardware is if there isn't matching software to take advantage of it. and Sony has gone the extra step of using software to cripple a great piece of hardware. if it weren't for homebrew and CFW, the PSP would probably have remained crap to this day.
i can play PSX games, run emulators, listen to music, watch videos, read e-books, surf the web, etc. all on the go. but that's only because i don't use my PSP the way that Sony wants people to use it. still, there isn't a portable entertainment device out there that can do all this. so until the Pandora comes out, i'll have to keep putting up with Sony's BS.
from the PS1 or PS2 generation? i don't recall any notable feature drops from the PS1. but then again i never owned the later hardware revisions like the PSOne.
besides,the PS1 didn't have an awful lot of auxiliary features to begin with. aside from CD playback, i don't know what they could have removed and kept the system a playstation.