Right, I remember reading about this when it happened. I don't know if that trial is still going on, but if it is I hope they're found guilty. I'd be interested to see if they would restore it worldwide or just for European consoles.
I think what they did with their DRM is stupid, and I am most definitely not a fan of DRM. That said, what would stealing Playstation customer information prove to Sony that all of the revenue lost immediately after that whole fiasco didn't? If they wanted to make a point, the hackers did just that. Time to move on if you ask me.
Forgive my generalization on the OtherOS topic, but my point is still valid. Removing functionality from their product, while not a great business tactic, isn't an appropriate excuse to steal a company's customer information thus causing them to take their service down.
If my bank said I could no longer use their online banking I would think that it would not be okay to rob the bank in retaliation. Plus, I would think they would be rightfully upset at anyone who tried to setup their own website to bank online at that same bank.
Yeah, I understand that they've tarnished the Sony brand by exposing customer's information, but you're making it sound like they were handing out that information to anyone who asked. They didn't ask to have someone take customer information or have their online network taken down. And, I'm sorry, taking away a popular feature they no longer wanted to support isn't an invitation either. I wasn't a fan of removing OtherOS but I don't think the appropriate course of action was to steal customer information in order to defame their company.
I don't think most consumers care why they were hacked, just that their service was interrupted. Sure Sony's security sucked, but I think the general public will just hold the hackers responsible for the brunt of the problems down the road once this whole thing passes. In the end, Sony will move on and likely continue to do unpopular things which is why I don't really see anything meaningful being accomplished.
I get it, they've done a ton of unpopular things, but what has all of this hacking done? Do they really think it's made them think twice about potentially unpopular business decisions? Are a ton of other hacker just jumping on a bandwagon because they can? Do you think that losing all that money will inspire them to do good by their consumers?
I can only speculate as to the true intentions of the hackers out there, but it kinda bothers me when I get the impression that people are doing this to "get back at them for something they did that I don't like or agree with." If that's really the case, I wish they would just get over it already and move on. I am personally getting sick of reading about Sony.
As a self-taught programmer myself, learning standard C has given me a whole new outlook on how I code. I also thought it would be good to know where a lot of the more modern languages were derived from.
are WE really against selling violent games to minors?
I am not against selling games to minors, but I am against people taking away an opportunity to be a good parent.
I would much rather be involved in my child's life by making him or her (I don't have a kid yet) understand the line between fantasy and reality. My mother did that to me when she saw me playing mortal kombat when I was 8 years old and I honestly feel like her taking the time to talk to me about what I was playing and explain to me that what you do in mortal kombat cannot be done in real life is what we need to see more of. Rather than handing that responsibility off to the government by having them make a law preventing the outright sale of violent video games.
You're right, of course they don't want to sell a system for $600. They want to sell it for $1000 or however much a blu-ray player costs. What they're doing is trying to saturate the market with thier new (and expensive) next generation media. And what better way to do that than bundle it with the PS3? Successor to arugably one of the most successful videogame systems ever.
The side effect? A $600 dollar system. I don't like the price as much as the next person, but what Sony is doing with blu-ray could really pay off in the long run. However, it's a risk especially given their track with the last few formats they've tried to push.
I may not be sold on buying a PS3, but I'm sure a whole bunch of other people are just on the name alone. And if all goes according to plan for Sony, they'll have the market flooded with blu-ray players and plenty of potential buyers to their new media format.
Sony will either win big with the PS3 or come close to tanking their computer entertainment division
...considered a double-edged sword, so to speak, for Microsoft? If they release portions of the inner workings to hackers, then what is stopping the hackers from finding a 'hole in the wall' or potential exploit and NOT telling Microsoft about it?
I'm sure Microsoft already has thought of that scenerio, but still, do you think that would be possible?
I don't know if the problem is the ERSB so much as the ESRB's failure to let parents know that they exist and that they need their help enforcing their rating system.
Why not run an ad campaign to let parents know about the issue?
...that violent video games can be used as a scapegoat for bad parenting
"You know I don't have enough time to talk to my kids the difference between a violent video game and reality, so I'll just preasure congress to remove all violent video games from our stores."
I am the lead developer/designer of my company's web department, and (at least in my office) I require my employees to write standards complient/well-formed code for a few reasons.
It's easy to read.
We often have multiple people developing web sites and if there is one thing that bothers me is that I can't easily find where I need to add or remove items (See any web page created by FrontPage or Dreamweaver).
Clean code is a step towards SEO web sites
One of the things we try to strive for is SEO web sites. We can pitch something like that to a client and get them to pay more for the "quality" of their website. Our clients don't know much about internet marketing plans, but when you tell them that their web site is optimized for search engine's crawlers, they like to hear it.
Cross-browser compatability.
Sure standards aren't supported by every browser, but I found that the less 'bloated' the code is, the better chance you have to make the web page appear similar in all browsers. Of course there will be differences on that page in different browsers, but that can't really be avoided. But I think standards complient code will help you get a close as possible.
Those are the major reasons I opted to enfore my employees to use standards complient code, and in my opinion I think that any web developer/designer that doesn't at least attempt to write valid/complient code is either purposely trying to complete a website within a deadline they can't meet or they're just plain lazy.
I must say, nVidia is IMO leaps and bounds ahead of ATI in its linux support. I can say that nVidia's linux compatability alone was about 50% of my decision to switch from ATI. I've got a dual boot (Win XP / Fedora Core 4) AMD 64 3500, geForce 7800 GT, 1GB RAM and it performs beautifully under both OSes.
Slashdot Mirror
99% of Slashdot users will hate on this story... Sight Unseen.
Right, I remember reading about this when it happened. I don't know if that trial is still going on, but if it is I hope they're found guilty. I'd be interested to see if they would restore it worldwide or just for European consoles.
I think what they did with their DRM is stupid, and I am most definitely not a fan of DRM. That said, what would stealing Playstation customer information prove to Sony that all of the revenue lost immediately after that whole fiasco didn't? If they wanted to make a point, the hackers did just that. Time to move on if you ask me.
Forgive my generalization on the OtherOS topic, but my point is still valid. Removing functionality from their product, while not a great business tactic, isn't an appropriate excuse to steal a company's customer information thus causing them to take their service down.
If my bank said I could no longer use their online banking I would think that it would not be okay to rob the bank in retaliation. Plus, I would think they would be rightfully upset at anyone who tried to setup their own website to bank online at that same bank.
Yeah, I understand that they've tarnished the Sony brand by exposing customer's information, but you're making it sound like they were handing out that information to anyone who asked. They didn't ask to have someone take customer information or have their online network taken down. And, I'm sorry, taking away a popular feature they no longer wanted to support isn't an invitation either. I wasn't a fan of removing OtherOS but I don't think the appropriate course of action was to steal customer information in order to defame their company.
I don't think most consumers care why they were hacked, just that their service was interrupted. Sure Sony's security sucked, but I think the general public will just hold the hackers responsible for the brunt of the problems down the road once this whole thing passes. In the end, Sony will move on and likely continue to do unpopular things which is why I don't really see anything meaningful being accomplished.
I get it, they've done a ton of unpopular things, but what has all of this hacking done? Do they really think it's made them think twice about potentially unpopular business decisions? Are a ton of other hacker just jumping on a bandwagon because they can? Do you think that losing all that money will inspire them to do good by their consumers? I can only speculate as to the true intentions of the hackers out there, but it kinda bothers me when I get the impression that people are doing this to "get back at them for something they did that I don't like or agree with." If that's really the case, I wish they would just get over it already and move on. I am personally getting sick of reading about Sony.
it is discrimination against illogical people. You should say "the applicant appeared to be a replicant, do not hire" to cover your ass completely.
What does it say about people who conduct studies about facebook?
As a self-taught programmer myself, learning standard C has given me a whole new outlook on how I code. I also thought it would be good to know where a lot of the more modern languages were derived from.
Outlook?
In Soviet Russia, passport disables YOU!
I am not against selling games to minors, but I am against people taking away an opportunity to be a good parent.
I would much rather be involved in my child's life by making him or her (I don't have a kid yet) understand the line between fantasy and reality. My mother did that to me when she saw me playing mortal kombat when I was 8 years old and I honestly feel like her taking the time to talk to me about what I was playing and explain to me that what you do in mortal kombat cannot be done in real life is what we need to see more of. Rather than handing that responsibility off to the government by having them make a law preventing the outright sale of violent video games.
http://static.flickr.com/29/44753311_a9270c41ac_o. jpg
You could... However, you'd then have to exclude all of the games from 2000.
You're right, of course they don't want to sell a system for $600. They want to sell it for $1000 or however much a blu-ray player costs. What they're doing is trying to saturate the market with thier new (and expensive) next generation media. And what better way to do that than bundle it with the PS3? Successor to arugably one of the most successful videogame systems ever.
The side effect? A $600 dollar system. I don't like the price as much as the next person, but what Sony is doing with blu-ray could really pay off in the long run. However, it's a risk especially given their track with the last few formats they've tried to push.
I may not be sold on buying a PS3, but I'm sure a whole bunch of other people are just on the name alone. And if all goes according to plan for Sony, they'll have the market flooded with blu-ray players and plenty of potential buyers to their new media format.
Sony will either win big with the PS3 or come close to tanking their computer entertainment division
...considered a double-edged sword, so to speak, for Microsoft? If they release portions of the inner workings to hackers, then what is stopping the hackers from finding a 'hole in the wall' or potential exploit and NOT telling Microsoft about it?
I'm sure Microsoft already has thought of that scenerio, but still, do you think that would be possible?
I don't know if the problem is the ERSB so much as the ESRB's failure to let parents know that they exist and that they need their help enforcing their rating system. Why not run an ad campaign to let parents know about the issue?
Sadly enough, some people would answer 'yes' to that question.
...that violent video games can be used as a scapegoat for bad parenting
"You know I don't have enough time to talk to my kids the difference between a violent video game and reality, so I'll just preasure congress to remove all violent video games from our stores."
I am the lead developer/designer of my company's web department, and (at least in my office) I require my employees to write standards complient/well-formed code for a few reasons.
It's easy to read.
We often have multiple people developing web sites and if there is one thing that bothers me is that I can't easily find where I need to add or remove items (See any web page created by FrontPage or Dreamweaver).
Clean code is a step towards SEO web sites
One of the things we try to strive for is SEO web sites. We can pitch something like that to a client and get them to pay more for the "quality" of their website. Our clients don't know much about internet marketing plans, but when you tell them that their web site is optimized for search engine's crawlers, they like to hear it.
Cross-browser compatability.
Sure standards aren't supported by every browser, but I found that the less 'bloated' the code is, the better chance you have to make the web page appear similar in all browsers. Of course there will be differences on that page in different browsers, but that can't really be avoided. But I think standards complient code will help you get a close as possible.
Those are the major reasons I opted to enfore my employees to use standards complient code, and in my opinion I think that any web developer/designer that doesn't at least attempt to write valid/complient code is either purposely trying to complete a website within a deadline they can't meet or they're just plain lazy.
I must say, nVidia is IMO leaps and bounds ahead of ATI in its linux support. I can say that nVidia's linux compatability alone was about 50% of my decision to switch from ATI. I've got a dual boot (Win XP / Fedora Core 4) AMD 64 3500, geForce 7800 GT, 1GB RAM and it performs beautifully under both OSes.