Google bought a building that takes up an entire square city block - 15th - 16th streets, 8th - 9th Ave, in Manhattan. For $1.9B they could probably just write the word GOOGLE in REALLY big letters wrapped around the side of the building (that's only 1 1/2 letters per side) and write it off from their advertising budget.
One word - Flip.
More than 1 word - notice all those mini-camcorders everywhere? My parents had a 30 gig HDD which I thought they would never fill up, and then they bought a Sony something or other. Turned out they also had over 6 gig of photos, but I think it still would have taken years to fill up the rest with digital stills. But those video cameras have to offload somewhere. I also thought my 80 gig laptop would last till it didn't but my Flip Ultra HD takes up 8 gigs a pop, and with 2 boys playing soccer, baseball and celebrating both catholic an jewish holidays, well lets just say my wife likes taking videos. So in short, camcorders are pushing consumer PC storage needs.
That said, I personally wouldn't mind a world were computers ran off of SSD and everything was backed up onto external HDD or better yet central servers in homes.
Don't most major league sports teams do this as well? And major corporations in a bid to avoid taxes? And most (US) individuals in a bid to pay less in taxes?
I'm not saying it's right or wrong only that it just is and is practically universal.
So can the McDonalds in California now start giving away free video games instead of toys with their Happy Meals and say they are doing it to support the Cub Scouts?
How do so many normally smart people on here miss the so very obvious? The guy at the paper said he didnt think anybody would sign up for this b/c nobody in their right mind would. The paper charges $5 per week for the website so Cablvision - which owns Newsday - is run by f@ck-face Jim Dolan and he only charges $5 so he can tell peop ehow great it is that if they subscribe to the paper or to Optimum Online they SAVE $5 per week by having free access to the website. It's a gimmick, plain and simple, as CV loses customer after customer to Verizon FIOS this is just another thing they like to promote - like News 12. Simply put, they aren't looking fo r$5 per week online subscrinbers, they want Optimum Online and Newsday paper subsribers to think they are getting something extra.
I'm a Newsday and Cablevision subscriber and the site does suck so I don't use it, and the paper quality itself has fallen off a cliff.
I still can't believe they are seriously asking for $5 per week for this. I pay $2.50 per week for the paper to be delivered so I guess they decided to double that to come up with the price?
I have to say I'm kind of surprised at the amount of "I don't want to move my finger/hand/arm across my desktop monitor" comments on here. If there was "functioning" touchscreen software does anybody really think it would be on a standard desktop screen? Been to a casino lately? Seen the number of horizontal machines? Lots and lots of them? Personally I think they suck and won't use them, but they are always crowded. Fat lazy people with 3 chins like slouching over and looking down. If/when touchscreen software becomes ubiquitous, all average sized desktop monitors will be installed on swivel arms for optimal positioning back and forth between touch and mouse/keyboard usage. Think a cross between an airplane tray and that stupid futuristic iMac.
Many games have a hard part that's too difficult to get through, so using this ocassionally doesn't seem so bad. I don't remember this much uproar when God of War let people play in "easy mode" after dieing a few times, and there are other games that do this as well. I would have liked this option in the Jak and Daxter series. In the first admittedly easy but very fun game there is a fish catching mini-game which has absolutey nothing to do with the rest of the gameplay. In Jak 2 there is a mission where you have to destroy 5 ships but I could never get more than 3, so I sold the game back, only to rent it again months later and finally beat it. There is also an on-rails level where you ave to destroy 40 jet-packed bad guys which was really hard. Again, that series is about having fun as I don't think there is a "Game Over" screen anywhere to be found, so if you can't actually lose, is it "cheating" to win?
I keep reading all these Wii stories about how Nintendo is abandoning the "hardcore gamer" (though I still haven't read an adequate definition of who/what that is) but I can't help but think these anti-Wii/Nintendo/DS people are the same ones who were bashing Lucas over the newer Star Wars trilogy. All their comments go something like this -
When I was 10 years old Star Wars/Nintendo was so great but now that I'm 40 all these new Star Wars movies/Nintendo products really suck ass I can't believe how George Lucas/Nintendo have RAPED my childhood by putting out such great products for me when I was a 10 years old but now that I'm 40 all their new products suck ass because they are for kids but I'm 40 now and I want George Lucas/Nintendo to make stuff for me that I like now that is exactly the same as the stuff they made for me when I was 10.
I'm sure it's not a 100% overlap of those people, but I bet it's dam close.
Just like the same people who knock the Wii for nothing but Zelda/Mario/Metroid games can't wait for Halo3/MSG4/GTA4/Maddenadinfinitum. I hate (obviously) stupid people.
Congrats to the only person who mentioned "DVI". I would gladly wager - even if incorrectly - that there are more tvs out there with DVI than HDMI. How many people are going to bust up either their tv or PS3 cable trying to jam that HDMI connector to the DVI jack?
I had a similar thought about the pointing - in Zelda he was leading that Spyro-ish gadfly around - and I thought pointing for an entire game would get awful tiring quick. (I'm considering buying the Gamecube version myself just to avoid this.) My other bad thought was about how often the nanchuck attachment is used. If you want to use your other hand for anything - snack, drink, phone call, etc., is that attachemnt just gonna be hanging there without dis-attaching, or is there some velcro/magnet/cord storage connector? With the amount of time that nanchuck seems to be used, they just should've built the motion into that shell controller and saved the Wii-mote as the optional controller, not the other way around as they are promoting. My guess is - after the novelty quickly wears off - most gamers will use something other than the Wii-mote. (not a troll, just my initial thoughts)
After many years of reading Slashdot I never really fully appreciated how high and mighty and self-centered people commenting here are until now. All the do-it-yourselfers with your MythTV etc. are so far up your own @sses you have no idea what the article is really about, though I guess many of you are too superior to be bothered with reading the article. This article is about a service Cablevision currently has - a DVR box they rent for an extra $9.95 per month - and how instead of in people's homes they want to "in essence" keep the hard drive at their offices to lower their costs and therefore: is there a big legal difference based upon where the data is stored? Cablevision is not forcing you or anyone else to subscribe to this service, nor is it really a new service, but it may be a good option for some of their 3 million customers. {I have Cablevision, though not their DVR box as I have my own DVR, but I may sign up for this new service when my DVR dies since theirs does HD, at least currently.) The bigger question really is does it matter where Cablevision stores the shows/data? Since they are currently renting DVR boxes (even with HD) should it matter if these boxes are located in a person homes, on the side of their house next to the electric meter, in a big raid server on top of a lightpole, or in their offices? This person was the first of maybe 2 comments which appeared relevant.
My wife doesn't play much, but when she did "Ooga Booga" on the Dreamcast was great fun - a 3rd person deathmatch game with voodoo gods and godess - and the first tennis game also kept us occupied for awhile.
With my son we play Super Smash Brothers Melee on the Gamecube (my wife also joins us occasionally) plenty of ways to even out the fighting with either co-op or vs. modes. Before that we played a ton of "Godzilla", which is a slow moving 3D fighter though without a lot of handicapping abilities. The PS2 version seems to be much easier than the Gamecube version. The Gauntlet series is famous for team fighting - funny how no one has mentioned it. We played through many hours of Dark Legacy on the PS2. We've played through some of Serious Sam Next Encounter but the control scheme is a bit tough for him.
As mentioned above Lego Star Wars is good for any Star Wars fans though I believe it is only co-op and not versus.
I can't believe anybody is saying "nobody really wants this". Sure, maybe not to watch a 90 minute movie, but there is lots of other stuff. Have you been into any retailer lately who ISN'T selling some type of small video device? GBA Video and a million other things for kids featuring SpongeBob or Pokemon. Verizon is pushing their Vcast phone/wireless network. Everybody has been waiting a lifetime for the Dick Tracey watchphonetelevision. These things would be great for tv shows - with Tivo and DVR and VOD does anybody even watch tv in "real" time anymore? Every Met fan in America would own one just to carry around Bill Buckner's most infamous moment. And every sports fan has their own moment they would like to own so all the guys could sit around the bar comparing them to see whose was bigger. I mean better.
And really, isn't the whole "small screen" arguement a bit ridiculous considering we are a nation grown up on Gameboys? Not that kids have $500 or whatever to buy an "Apple Video iPod", but please, we all know these are coming. Don't think so? How many people had DVD players 10 years ago? Or cell phones? 10 years from now people will be saying confusedly - what do you mean you don't have a video player on you? It's gonna happen.
Format wars, shmormat wars. It will not be VHS vs. Beta all over again b/c we already had that 'war' and we can't forget it since everybody keeps bringing it up so how can it happen again? It's not like there aren't plenty of examples of this right now. Want that new Madden game? Do you want the PS2, Gamecube or Xbox version? Want a new OS for your computer - Mac, XP or Linux? Or better yet, Win XP Home or Win XP Pro? (And isn't MS putting out about 7 different versions of Vista next year?) Got a digital camera, need memory? CF, SD or Memory Stick? Want to buy a DVD? Widescreen or Letterbox, theater release or Director's cut? Need gas? Regular, Premium or Super?
People choose and make decisions every day and this will be just another choice. Do I buy the HD-DVD player or the Blu-Ray player? Will it slow adoption? Certainly. Will that "slowness" be measurable? No. What will they compare it to, DVD player adoption, which was widespread, despite the CC option of Divx?
Let them both come out, let the consumer choose. Isn't that what we are all supposed to want, choice?
Slashdot Mirror
Google bought a building that takes up an entire square city block - 15th - 16th streets, 8th - 9th Ave, in Manhattan. For $1.9B they could probably just write the word GOOGLE in REALLY big letters wrapped around the side of the building (that's only 1 1/2 letters per side) and write it off from their advertising budget.
I think the smart brother on Numb3rs already solved this a few seasons back.
One word - Flip. More than 1 word - notice all those mini-camcorders everywhere? My parents had a 30 gig HDD which I thought they would never fill up, and then they bought a Sony something or other. Turned out they also had over 6 gig of photos, but I think it still would have taken years to fill up the rest with digital stills. But those video cameras have to offload somewhere. I also thought my 80 gig laptop would last till it didn't but my Flip Ultra HD takes up 8 gigs a pop, and with 2 boys playing soccer, baseball and celebrating both catholic an jewish holidays, well lets just say my wife likes taking videos. So in short, camcorders are pushing consumer PC storage needs. That said, I personally wouldn't mind a world were computers ran off of SSD and everything was backed up onto external HDD or better yet central servers in homes.
Don't most major league sports teams do this as well? And major corporations in a bid to avoid taxes? And most (US) individuals in a bid to pay less in taxes? I'm not saying it's right or wrong only that it just is and is practically universal.
So can the McDonalds in California now start giving away free video games instead of toys with their Happy Meals and say they are doing it to support the Cub Scouts?
How do so many normally smart people on here miss the so very obvious? The guy at the paper said he didnt think anybody would sign up for this b/c nobody in their right mind would. The paper charges $5 per week for the website so Cablvision - which owns Newsday - is run by f@ck-face Jim Dolan and he only charges $5 so he can tell peop ehow great it is that if they subscribe to the paper or to Optimum Online they SAVE $5 per week by having free access to the website. It's a gimmick, plain and simple, as CV loses customer after customer to Verizon FIOS this is just another thing they like to promote - like News 12. Simply put, they aren't looking fo r$5 per week online subscrinbers, they want Optimum Online and Newsday paper subsribers to think they are getting something extra.
Digg > FB.
3dfx?
I'm a Newsday and Cablevision subscriber and the site does suck so I don't use it, and the paper quality itself has fallen off a cliff. I still can't believe they are seriously asking for $5 per week for this. I pay $2.50 per week for the paper to be delivered so I guess they decided to double that to come up with the price?
I have to say I'm kind of surprised at the amount of "I don't want to move my finger/hand/arm across my desktop monitor" comments on here. If there was "functioning" touchscreen software does anybody really think it would be on a standard desktop screen? Been to a casino lately? Seen the number of horizontal machines? Lots and lots of them? Personally I think they suck and won't use them, but they are always crowded. Fat lazy people with 3 chins like slouching over and looking down. If/when touchscreen software becomes ubiquitous, all average sized desktop monitors will be installed on swivel arms for optimal positioning back and forth between touch and mouse/keyboard usage. Think a cross between an airplane tray and that stupid futuristic iMac.
Many games have a hard part that's too difficult to get through, so using this ocassionally doesn't seem so bad. I don't remember this much uproar when God of War let people play in "easy mode" after dieing a few times, and there are other games that do this as well.
I would have liked this option in the Jak and Daxter series. In the first admittedly easy but very fun game there is a fish catching mini-game which has absolutey nothing to do with the rest of the gameplay. In Jak 2 there is a mission where you have to destroy 5 ships but I could never get more than 3, so I sold the game back, only to rent it again months later and finally beat it. There is also an on-rails level where you ave to destroy 40 jet-packed bad guys which was really hard. Again, that series is about having fun as I don't think there is a "Game Over" screen anywhere to be found, so if you can't actually lose, is it "cheating" to win?
They should have called it UnRealDVD since it sure as hell doesn't make a real DVD.
You left out Omega Man.
the chronological end of mankind:
Soylent Green
The Omega Man
Planet of the Apes
I'm fairly certain Japan is not a 3rd world country.
And if you call them that again they'll sic all their robots on you BWAHAHA
I keep reading all these Wii stories about how Nintendo is abandoning the "hardcore gamer" (though I still haven't read an adequate definition of who/what that is) but I can't help but think these anti-Wii/Nintendo/DS people are the same ones who were bashing Lucas over the newer Star Wars trilogy. All their comments go something like this - When I was 10 years old Star Wars/Nintendo was so great but now that I'm 40 all these new Star Wars movies/Nintendo products really suck ass I can't believe how George Lucas/Nintendo have RAPED my childhood by putting out such great products for me when I was a 10 years old but now that I'm 40 all their new products suck ass because they are for kids but I'm 40 now and I want George Lucas/Nintendo to make stuff for me that I like now that is exactly the same as the stuff they made for me when I was 10. I'm sure it's not a 100% overlap of those people, but I bet it's dam close. Just like the same people who knock the Wii for nothing but Zelda/Mario/Metroid games can't wait for Halo3/MSG4/GTA4/Maddenadinfinitum. I hate (obviously) stupid people.
Congrats to the only person who mentioned "DVI". I would gladly wager - even if incorrectly - that there are more tvs out there with DVI than HDMI. How many people are going to bust up either their tv or PS3 cable trying to jam that HDMI connector to the DVI jack?
I had a similar thought about the pointing - in Zelda he was leading that Spyro-ish gadfly around - and I thought pointing for an entire game would get awful tiring quick. (I'm considering buying the Gamecube version myself just to avoid this.) My other bad thought was about how often the nanchuck attachment is used. If you want to use your other hand for anything - snack, drink, phone call, etc., is that attachemnt just gonna be hanging there without dis-attaching, or is there some velcro/magnet/cord storage connector? With the amount of time that nanchuck seems to be used, they just should've built the motion into that shell controller and saved the Wii-mote as the optional controller, not the other way around as they are promoting. My guess is - after the novelty quickly wears off - most gamers will use something other than the Wii-mote. (not a troll, just my initial thoughts)
After many years of reading Slashdot I never really fully appreciated how high and mighty and self-centered people commenting here are until now. All the do-it-yourselfers with your MythTV etc. are so far up your own @sses you have no idea what the article is really about, though I guess many of you are too superior to be bothered with reading the article. This article is about a service Cablevision currently has - a DVR box they rent for an extra $9.95 per month - and how instead of in people's homes they want to "in essence" keep the hard drive at their offices to lower their costs and therefore: is there a big legal difference based upon where the data is stored? Cablevision is not forcing you or anyone else to subscribe to this service, nor is it really a new service, but it may be a good option for some of their 3 million customers. {I have Cablevision, though not their DVR box as I have my own DVR, but I may sign up for this new service when my DVR dies since theirs does HD, at least currently.) The bigger question really is does it matter where Cablevision stores the shows/data? Since they are currently renting DVR boxes (even with HD) should it matter if these boxes are located in a person homes, on the side of their house next to the electric meter, in a big raid server on top of a lightpole, or in their offices? This person was the first of maybe 2 comments which appeared relevant.
My wife doesn't play much, but when she did "Ooga Booga" on the Dreamcast was great fun - a 3rd person deathmatch game with voodoo gods and godess - and the first tennis game also kept us occupied for awhile. With my son we play Super Smash Brothers Melee on the Gamecube (my wife also joins us occasionally) plenty of ways to even out the fighting with either co-op or vs. modes. Before that we played a ton of "Godzilla", which is a slow moving 3D fighter though without a lot of handicapping abilities. The PS2 version seems to be much easier than the Gamecube version. The Gauntlet series is famous for team fighting - funny how no one has mentioned it. We played through many hours of Dark Legacy on the PS2. We've played through some of Serious Sam Next Encounter but the control scheme is a bit tough for him. As mentioned above Lego Star Wars is good for any Star Wars fans though I believe it is only co-op and not versus.
I don't think that's James Cagney's voice, I think it's the "Frog" (AKA Edward G. Robinson) from Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse.
I can't believe anybody is saying "nobody really wants this". Sure, maybe not to watch a 90 minute movie, but there is lots of other stuff. Have you been into any retailer lately who ISN'T selling some type of small video device? GBA Video and a million other things for kids featuring SpongeBob or Pokemon. Verizon is pushing their Vcast phone/wireless network. Everybody has been waiting a lifetime for the Dick Tracey watchphonetelevision. These things would be great for tv shows - with Tivo and DVR and VOD does anybody even watch tv in "real" time anymore? Every Met fan in America would own one just to carry around Bill Buckner's most infamous moment. And every sports fan has their own moment they would like to own so all the guys could sit around the bar comparing them to see whose was bigger. I mean better. And really, isn't the whole "small screen" arguement a bit ridiculous considering we are a nation grown up on Gameboys? Not that kids have $500 or whatever to buy an "Apple Video iPod", but please, we all know these are coming. Don't think so? How many people had DVD players 10 years ago? Or cell phones? 10 years from now people will be saying confusedly - what do you mean you don't have a video player on you? It's gonna happen.
Format wars, shmormat wars. It will not be VHS vs. Beta all over again b/c we already had that 'war' and we can't forget it since everybody keeps bringing it up so how can it happen again? It's not like there aren't plenty of examples of this right now. Want that new Madden game? Do you want the PS2, Gamecube or Xbox version? Want a new OS for your computer - Mac, XP or Linux? Or better yet, Win XP Home or Win XP Pro? (And isn't MS putting out about 7 different versions of Vista next year?) Got a digital camera, need memory? CF, SD or Memory Stick? Want to buy a DVD? Widescreen or Letterbox, theater release or Director's cut? Need gas? Regular, Premium or Super? People choose and make decisions every day and this will be just another choice. Do I buy the HD-DVD player or the Blu-Ray player? Will it slow adoption? Certainly. Will that "slowness" be measurable? No. What will they compare it to, DVD player adoption, which was widespread, despite the CC option of Divx? Let them both come out, let the consumer choose. Isn't that what we are all supposed to want, choice?