I got Google+ invitation at same day when Google opened it. I were there just few weeks until I dropped off. I simply used Google's download utility to download all my data from Google Services (backup) and then I deleted my Google+ account (leaving my Google profile).
There were actually three reasons for that:
1. Google+ look was too Facebook like. I never registered to Facebook, I have never used facebook more than 2 minutes on my friend computer just to check out something. The facebook interface is terrible. Please, let me to theme and re-organize panels and parts of the interface, choose what parts I want to see and where. Without that I need to use third party browser addons etc.
2. Circles was great idea and the usability how easy it was to make circles. But really.... DOES EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING CIRCLE NEED TO SEE ANYONE ELSE? What I expected, was that I can make circles as mailinglists. That when I add 5 person to circle, they dont know anyone else on that circle. Then when they comment my posts, they dont see other persons posts there. More like Email system but in social and visual way. I have have lots of contacts what I need to deal all the times. Thats why I still use email as it really allows me to limit what others see what contacts I have. Some of my friends can be enemies to each other, but still they are my friends from same circle. Like I have seven friends from same school, from three of them, hates each other (2 vs 1). But still, those 3 and all 7 are my friends. When I am contact with them, I know what and from whom I can talk with them. I dont say anything about that 1 to those 2 or vice versa as they dont care and they dont want to hear. I am diplomatic person, I dont make a stand or follow policy "my friends enemy is my enemy". If someone is asshole to me, then I simply ignore him. If someone teases my friend without reason, I will stand between. If my friend teases someone else, I will stand between as well. I can say to my friends to shut up or when they do wrong. Friendship does not mean I need to support everything what others does just because they are my friends.
3. Real full name. Even that I dont have problem to show real name. I like my privacy. I have few persons who I dont like (Ex-*friends), real nasty people or so on. I want to control who can find me and who does not. Thats why I really logged out as I want that Google adds feature when someone search your name, you do not show up on the list. But you get notification that who made the search of your name/address. And then you can choose can that person find you or not. If you allow the query, then the searcher will get notification that result is added. Simply: I search person John Smith. I only receive those who allows to be found by default. But every John Smith out there will get notification that I made query with their name. Then John Smith who I know, can choose to be founded or not. If he choose to be found few days later, I get then notification that "John Smith permits your search". And then I can add him to my contact list.
If points 2. and 3. would be fixed, I would join back to Google+. And I bet many other would as most of my friends would really much have same features when I told them my opinion. They want to list all their friends to single place. Then group people to lists and post something only those lists and individuals, without anyone else to see who else got the post. And when they comment my post, no one else should see that they have answered my post.
So simply, email and postlists are still the best and only way to well socialize virtually with the people. You can even encrypt your mails.
The photos were suggested to be uploaded by default to directory what was unvisible and non-accessible for anyone else. Then you needed to go to Google+ and add the wanted photos from picasa to posts or link them to albums what you needed to set visible.
So no, by default all your photos did not be uploaded to internet, visible for everyone.
I could wear nametags in social group meetings if I dont have problems from others. But I have a personal problem. I know some people who I dont want to meet because of our old romantic relationship.
So if I dont want to meet those people, I dont go to those social groups where I could see them or they could see me.
That is for me a reason enough to want people to have possibility to be non-searchable without their permit.
So Google and Facebook should implent a way that you can do a search with name or other information. But they can not find you if you do not give permit. After the search what person have done, those who are searched gets notification about search. And then they can give permit (or just forget it) to find them.
People always has people in "social rings" where some people have stalked others or being so in love that they are annoing or believe something what is not happened and cause social problems with their actions. And people should be possible to avoid those people without dropping out the social network services like facebook and Google+ and from being touch to other people, just by those few rare persons. That is "social terrorism" what causes people to be afraid joining such social networks.
Many people have nicknames what they like to keep clean and honorable. I have few nicknames what I have used in other sites to gain respect and weight to my words when I say something. Still I have the power to choose who I am and where I say what. Without them being connected directly to me.
I like the power to talk about hard topics in situation where my boss, family or partner does not like to be talked (and of course I keep it as much possible anonym for their identity protection as well if they have not in such position like CEO of the company).
Why it is hard to believe by some people that many their nicknames are online even more important than their own real name?
(No, I dont take seriosly people whos nicknames are like "L33tMaster" or "Evil'Mastah!" or always changing nickname in same place.) My nickname is something what many believes as cryptic, but those who knows me, understands easily where it comes. And as many can know me by my other nicknames in other situations (like from school, work or camp in different nicknames) they all belongs to me and are as important.
(First, sorry about very terrible english as it is my third language)
I dont mind if Google knows who I am and what I do and when, as long I can opt out of that when I want.
I have android phone, I use Google services like GMail, Google+, Picasa, Youtube, Google Reader, Google Calender, Latitude, Google Maps, Google Navigator, Places, Street View, Google Books, Google Finance and so on. (I dont use Chrome but Chromium. I dont upload videos to Youtube but to other services)
I have multiple accounts to almost any other service, but Google knows much from me. I dont mind it, because as data what Google gets from me, it can deliver me better services and ads. And I must say, I like ads when I dont actually mind about them but sometimes I find good ads (better than what are on TV, Radio or usually webpage) and good services/products trough them. So why I would mind about that?
When wanted, I can logout from Google services to not get logged by Google personally to my account. Yes, Google has cookies for ads and so on. But as long I can keep "my profile" better focused for me, I like it.
So then what? If I want to be anonym in Internet, I should not be afraid Google. I should be afraid the ISP. The ISP knows _everything_ what I do. It could actually do anykind Man-in-the-Middle attacks what is technically possible.
I dont know who or when someone is following my network traffic, or traffic what is coming from same area where I live or to internet corner where I visit. The ISP's are bigger, meanier and evil companies. They do it just for pure business and information to them is even more important than for Google. As ISP are responsible to everything of the web when it comes to delivery.
I can skip Google fair easily if wanted almost fully. Using noscript to block Google cookies and Adblock for Google ads. But I can never skip ISP.
And ISP's does lots of work with governments and other big companies (Like microsoft) who have direct access to their machines and services.
Why I should be afraid that Google have my contacts in their contact service in Gmail when ISP knows every email, phone number, SMS and other data what I do with my phone and in EU they need to follow laws so that data is stored for 6-36 months somewhere for police, security agencies and governments to access them. Not even Google has that data, and that is far more personal for me as governments knows things like where I live, where I work, who are my family, who were my school friends, it has my passport, my driving license, my wedding license, my birth license, my social ID, my tax information, my banking information (where I have bank accounts and other basic infos and it can calculate well my income/savings roughly from taxes).
And if someone is not afraid about that, he/she should be. As smaller companies have bonus cards and other things what are used to track you. Have you ever tought that every single bonus card what stores gives, is used to track you? (Not specifically YOU but still tracking you as a user).
Companies joins to these bonus systems, they share their customer data. You can pull all kind mashups from that data. Like where you move and when. What you buy and when. They can even analyze easily when you are having a baby and what gender it is just by looking the stuff what you buy. They know your income by calculating how much you spend on month. They can even find out who you date and who you meet when you are shopping together. And then they pull a magical trick by saying "you save money". With that excuse they can rise the prices to gain more money and say "you pay less" when you have a bonus card. It is way to track and send you a customized ad flyers to home trough post office.
Google is very young and small "tracker" when it comes to other companies what tracks people trough bonus and credit cards and bonus systems.
Banks owns shares of those systems. They can calculate your economical status, insurance companies owns shares of bonus systems s
Maemo distribution + Moblin distribution = MeeGo distribution Maemo distribution - Moblin distribution = Harmattan distribution
What matter it actually have as both use/includes same Linux Operating System, almost same system programs, almost same system libraries but the graphical system is same but with slightly different software platform running it and apps?
And the tiles does not feel to work well when you start having more friends, RSS/etc feeds and messages than 5-10.
If you have 10 facebook friends, 20 RSS feeds, few podcasts and you get IM and Email messages more than 2 a hour, the tiles becomes messy and cluttered. And if you add more tiles than 8, the possibility to find easily something comes harder.
I dont know about MS/Nokia fans but for me and my friends, WP7 phone have been terrible and good luck is that I did not have money to buy such at that time and I toke only 100 dollar Android phone (ZTE Blade) what is almost perfect. bottom of screen five icons telling missed calls, new SMS's, new IM's, new Emails and web browser. Exactly same gesture possibilities as N9 was promoted (slide outside of the screen to get last used apps, home screen or all messages in one center).
Windows Phone is very great if you use it for family/friend contacts and follow few friends in facebook and so on. But for that, price is too high, better would be there 150-200 dollars.
"but what we wanted to deliver was a very rich user experience over the web that was cross platform."
Please explain why then moonlight is such a piece of crap when even microsoft is developing it and it does not work? Even moonlight site says: "Be aware that many sites require more recent silverlight API/functionality, and will not work with Moonlight 2."
And when silverlight is 4.0 and "cross-platform" lacks behind at 2.x then it is not true or rich cross platform framework.
I would not say world would be better without patents.
I would say world would be better with reasonable time with patents. Like you have 2-3 years time to start commercial use with the patent or loose it. From the patent day (day 1) you have 5 years to use it, if you got commercial use for it. And then it comes free (not public domain but something like GPL).
Without patents you would not have copyright either and so on no GPL or any other license than just public domain and that means there are no protecting anyone from abusive actions.
If you invent something or you create something, you must have rights to use it so no one (bigger/clever ones) do not steal it. But it should not be something what it is now that 75 years after creators death is the time... It is just so stupid.
Give a computer + Internet for 60 year old person and teach how to use email + chat and in few months grammar have changed a lot. Give same for a 10-15 year old and you just get l33t or SMStalk
I must say but I like the GUI more than what "Chome OS" GUI is. I did not read the article (yet) but I hope that is possible to get work on other OS's than just Linux. With that, even HURD would have a change to be successful operating system so GNU people would be happy!
Erh... what? You go to buy Windows 7 (OEM versions something like $100) and not older used compatible (CPU&RAM) motherboard with other chipset by $20-30 without need to re-install everything?
Even 1 could be enough for ruling to stop competitive company products being sold.
If companies would be smart and really being sure that other company is abusing their patent, then they would show just the ones what are needed. Now they throw almost everything what they get even close to that case and judges and assistant specialists are bored to death. Companies believe that the amount of abusive accusitions means the judge (or jury) sees how bad the accused is and it can not be a false.
Dont mistake support and developers skills. Magicka started as school project so they seems to be a newbloods in coding not knowing nice tricks as many on slashdot does. But it is true that they have gave lots of support. Implenting new features (balancing game, fixing problems of existing ones) and, yes, causing new bugs as well. Thats as well the black humor of the first free suite what was with broken sword, staff of bugs and multiple times patched robe...
And yes, forums have lots of posts that game does not run/crash etc. But I have played the story trough four times now, in the beginning, it was possible easily with few minor bugs. But then some patches caused too serious bugs like crashing always after chapter 10. But at that time, it was still in days where they released new patch _every day_.
The forums includes lots of whining posts... Like first how the checkpoint system is so stupid, what you mentioned, and reasoning for that how game is not playable. But after following few months the forums, they are almost same people who whine about everything. First they would not buy it because they dont get their +1 sword and +1 staff with nice hat what pre-ordereds got. So developers made it as DLC for small fee. Then it was impossible to beat first chapter enemies when they did not have skills for it. Then the game did not run at all.... Some of the enemies were so annoing when they grabbed player and they did not know how to get free from it... After months, it came out that most of the biggest whiners were played game multiple times trough... even that they said they would not buy it, they would not suggest it to anyone, but still they played the game with their friends.
The game designers need to keep balance in the game playability. The checkpoints are just great for games like Magicka. They dont work on FPS games or similars same way. In Magicka, the chapters are actually easy to play once player just learns something. And Magicka is more like a oldschool game what was used in many great old games as well without checkpoints. It is not so hard to play the game trough under 4 hour, even that first times it takes closer 10-15 hours.
Oh, and some whiners... they bought the game without trying out the demo to find out how well the game works on their computers. Yes, it is very stupid excuse that "integrated graphic cards are so slow" but it was wrong choise in the beginning (a school project and usually in schools you are teached only with MS tools...)
There are still many huge problems, but most of them are already something what does not effect so much to gameplay. It could always be done better. But it seems that to do that, the whole game should be written from scratch without MS technologies.
Only 7 people developed Magicka and 2 of them are coders. There have always been one of them in games Steam forum answering questions and taking suggestions. Something what players have never got from hollywood budget game developer groups what includes dozens/hundreds of developers. It is great to see that indie game developers who at least cares about players and does what they can with their knowledge and skills to fix bugs.
Magickas humor is to stick 4 players together where everyone shares their same view, so no one can escape from another. You need to stay together to see ahead of you. If you separate, the front persons does not see ahead at all.
Humans does errors, especially in Magicka where the "weapons" are 5 combinations of elements: Fire, Ice, Shield, Stone, Life, Arcane, Water and Electricity. And you need to enter those in different ways to get wanted effect for specific enemies (usually to kill them) and then launch combination in few different ways (beam, natural, area, weapon, directed, shielded) and when you and your friends (or even random people, it really works! And better if no VOIP possibility) play and make mistakes, the game turns fun.
As the fun part is not just the story, it is funny in first and second time. But the real humor comes when you and your friends are blowing up yourselfs when trying to kill enemies. Nothing is so fun as accidents happening to friends... You know the situations when friend hits head to something and hurts himself (more to pride than physically) and the situation is just too funny? Well, Magicka is about that. Everyone gets good laughs (2-4 co-op) when one guy gets idea to use one specific combination and blows up friends in the pieces or set them in fire and they burn. And everything what you can hear from VoIP (if used) is "Ooops...."
There are two bad things in the game: a) the game was coded using XNA. The game is slow as hell. It demands more resources than the graphics actually gives to expect. Even the menu takes more resources than most maps. And because XNA you can not play game with laptops or almost any computer what has integrated GPU, even that computer could run Crysis, as integrated GPU's are blocked and game does not start.
b) The game has few too powerfull combinations what players learn at some point and start easily using just them to make playing easier. And that is mistake as it is not fun anymore and it turns just as boring as FPS pipe shooter. And at that point only fun thing is the Magicka adventure. And the enemies should have littlebit more variations for different spells. Developers have done great job to make just enough differences to enemies to have them a different weaknesses but it really should be retought as many use the same 1-2 combinations all the time. SPOILER: Example many always joins beams to cause most effective hit to enemies and when they do it for every enemy, it is boring game to pla... watch.... Or that they just does same area attack to kill in 1-3 fast strikes everyone on that area.
Magicka is worth of its 9,99 price tag if you just have computer to run it. They even managed to rebalance the game well for gamepad owners and keyboard+mouse players. So you can play over online the Co-Op or on same computer. And that if something is rare thing. Example the other great game "Trine" allows 3 player Co-Op, but only on same computer. Not possible over online or even LAN to play the game. What actually killed the game very well from most friends.
For next "adventure" I am expecting they would code the engine with C/C++ or with any other sane language so it would be efficent for laptop owners. Graphics are good enough now but some new enemies and more liking... different kinds what have totally different weakness could be better. And to invent something what would force players to change gameplay tactics all the time so it could not be possible just to hit few same combos (many have started to use macro programs for that, what is cheating) to kill every enemy.
Who would say such cameras are not to be used in Covert Ops or any other surveillance must be very naive person. And I bet such person would believe that no one ever surveillance other than bad people like thiefs and terrorists...
You want a story? Then forget the movies, they are just too short. Grab a great TV series and you get great story and lots of fun. Series like Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly....
Oh, most of those have had actors who "no one know". Not big Movie Stars like Vin Diesel etc.... There are lots of great actors who are better than most of big movie stars are, but they have never got or went to movie business.
The same thing applies to TV series as for books and comic books. They are long and they bring up more small things in every episode than what movie needs to tell in one line if even it all.
There are few things what I would wish for every PC game developer would include
1] Co-Op and not just deatchmatch or capture the flag 2] Video recording by game engine
The 2] means that the game can be recorded by game engine so even if you play few hours, you get recording what is size of few tens of megabytes and not gigabytes. And later after recording, player could share the recording to anyone else if wanted. Or edit it (and then share) and even export it to wanted format.
And it should not be just so easy that recording is what is on the screen when player plays, but in editing player gets full controls to the camera as it would be a real camera. Player can choose a zoom (FOV), location and depth of field. Like observer in many FPS multiplayer games where you are a ghost and you can go around everything.
And then player could easily add/remove record points and go back and worth of the recording. And when player is finished, the recording can be saved and shared to other game owners or then exported as Full HD video in few formats and containers (AVI, MKV, MP4). And player could get fine edited video from the gameplay, were it from multiplayer or from single player.
The game developers have now many times done great cinematic parts for the story, like in Mafia, Mafia II, Mass Effect (+ II) etc. And if player could just on those parts as well move "observer camera" freely and choose different directions to be saved and exported, then players could do awesome own videos.
In any environment if you can make code better and use hardware as optimally as possible, then it is always worth of it.
I can not understand anyway how a dozen of web sites can take hundreds of megabytes of RAM when you can actually store the web sites on disk in much smaller size and you do not even need to pull down the pipe the amount of data what browser use on them in RAM.
Erh.... Microkernels does not exist in user space but in kernel space (Yes, there is at least Microsoft project where there is no more kernel space/user space separation whole software system exist at same call space). And Linux kernel is still monolithic what means Linux kernel is still a whole operating system. Would it run just a firefox or not, it does not change technicality in Linux.
And you can already get a such what you suggest. Motherboard manufacturers already use such combinations. Linux + Firefox. (Yes there are some other middleware softwares as well).
Slashdot Mirror
(I am sorry of my terrible english skills!)
I got Google+ invitation at same day when Google opened it. I were there just few weeks until I dropped off. I simply used Google's download utility to download all my data from Google Services (backup) and then I deleted my Google+ account (leaving my Google profile).
There were actually three reasons for that:
1. Google+ look was too Facebook like. I never registered to Facebook, I have never used facebook more than 2 minutes on my friend computer just to check out something. The facebook interface is terrible. Please, let me to theme and re-organize panels and parts of the interface, choose what parts I want to see and where. Without that I need to use third party browser addons etc.
2. Circles was great idea and the usability how easy it was to make circles. But really.... DOES EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING CIRCLE NEED TO SEE ANYONE ELSE?
What I expected, was that I can make circles as mailinglists. That when I add 5 person to circle, they dont know anyone else on that circle. Then when they comment my posts, they dont see other persons posts there. More like Email system but in social and visual way.
I have have lots of contacts what I need to deal all the times. Thats why I still use email as it really allows me to limit what others see what contacts I have. Some of my friends can be enemies to each other, but still they are my friends from same circle.
Like I have seven friends from same school, from three of them, hates each other (2 vs 1). But still, those 3 and all 7 are my friends. When I am contact with them, I know what and from whom I can talk with them. I dont say anything about that 1 to those 2 or vice versa as they dont care and they dont want to hear. I am diplomatic person, I dont make a stand or follow policy "my friends enemy is my enemy". If someone is asshole to me, then I simply ignore him. If someone teases my friend without reason, I will stand between. If my friend teases someone else, I will stand between as well. I can say to my friends to shut up or when they do wrong. Friendship does not mean I need to support everything what others does just because they are my friends.
3. Real full name. Even that I dont have problem to show real name. I like my privacy. I have few persons who I dont like (Ex-*friends), real nasty people or so on. I want to control who can find me and who does not.
Thats why I really logged out as I want that Google adds feature when someone search your name, you do not show up on the list. But you get notification that who made the search of your name/address. And then you can choose can that person find you or not. If you allow the query, then the searcher will get notification that result is added.
Simply: I search person John Smith. I only receive those who allows to be found by default. But every John Smith out there will get notification that I made query with their name. Then John Smith who I know, can choose to be founded or not. If he choose to be found few days later, I get then notification that "John Smith permits your search". And then I can add him to my contact list.
If points 2. and 3. would be fixed, I would join back to Google+.
And I bet many other would as most of my friends would really much have same features when I told them my opinion. They want to list all their friends to single place. Then group people to lists and post something only those lists and individuals, without anyone else to see who else got the post. And when they comment my post, no one else should see that they have answered my post.
So simply, email and postlists are still the best and only way to well socialize virtually with the people. You can even encrypt your mails.
The photos were suggested to be uploaded by default to directory what was unvisible and non-accessible for anyone else.
Then you needed to go to Google+ and add the wanted photos from picasa to posts or link them to albums what you needed to set visible.
So no, by default all your photos did not be uploaded to internet, visible for everyone.
Did they know they can log in Google+ and their post are visible to Facebook as well? No need to double post but just single post.
I could wear nametags in social group meetings if I dont have problems from others. But I have a personal problem.
I know some people who I dont want to meet because of our old romantic relationship.
So if I dont want to meet those people, I dont go to those social groups where I could see them or they could see me.
That is for me a reason enough to want people to have possibility to be non-searchable without their permit.
So Google and Facebook should implent a way that you can do a search with name or other information. But they can not find you if you do not give permit. After the search what person have done, those who are searched gets notification about search. And then they can give permit (or just forget it) to find them.
People always has people in "social rings" where some people have stalked others or being so in love that they are annoing or believe something what is not happened and cause social problems with their actions. And people should be possible to avoid those people without dropping out the social network services like facebook and Google+ and from being touch to other people, just by those few rare persons.
That is "social terrorism" what causes people to be afraid joining such social networks.
Many people have nicknames what they like to keep clean and honorable.
I have few nicknames what I have used in other sites to gain respect and weight to my words when I say something.
Still I have the power to choose who I am and where I say what. Without them being connected directly to me.
I like the power to talk about hard topics in situation where my boss, family or partner does not like to be talked (and of course I keep it as much possible anonym for their identity protection as well if they have not in such position like CEO of the company).
Why it is hard to believe by some people that many their nicknames are online even more important than their own real name?
(No, I dont take seriosly people whos nicknames are like "L33tMaster" or "Evil'Mastah!" or always changing nickname in same place.)
My nickname is something what many believes as cryptic, but those who knows me, understands easily where it comes.
And as many can know me by my other nicknames in other situations (like from school, work or camp in different nicknames) they all belongs to me and are as important.
(First, sorry about very terrible english as it is my third language)
I dont mind if Google knows who I am and what I do and when, as long I can opt out of that when I want.
I have android phone, I use Google services like GMail, Google+, Picasa, Youtube, Google Reader, Google Calender, Latitude, Google Maps, Google Navigator, Places, Street View, Google Books, Google Finance and so on. (I dont use Chrome but Chromium. I dont upload videos to Youtube but to other services)
I have multiple accounts to almost any other service, but Google knows much from me.
I dont mind it, because as data what Google gets from me, it can deliver me better services and ads. And I must say, I like ads when I dont actually mind about them but sometimes I find good ads (better than what are on TV, Radio or usually webpage) and good services/products trough them.
So why I would mind about that?
When wanted, I can logout from Google services to not get logged by Google personally to my account. Yes, Google has cookies for ads and so on. But as long I can keep "my profile" better focused for me, I like it.
So then what? If I want to be anonym in Internet, I should not be afraid Google. I should be afraid the ISP. The ISP knows _everything_ what I do. It could actually do anykind Man-in-the-Middle attacks what is technically possible.
I dont know who or when someone is following my network traffic, or traffic what is coming from same area where I live or to internet corner where I visit.
The ISP's are bigger, meanier and evil companies. They do it just for pure business and information to them is even more important than for Google. As ISP are responsible to everything of the web when it comes to delivery.
I can skip Google fair easily if wanted almost fully. Using noscript to block Google cookies and Adblock for Google ads. But I can never skip ISP.
And ISP's does lots of work with governments and other big companies (Like microsoft) who have direct access to their machines and services.
Why I should be afraid that Google have my contacts in their contact service in Gmail when ISP knows every email, phone number, SMS and other data what I do with my phone and in EU they need to follow laws so that data is stored for 6-36 months somewhere for police, security agencies and governments to access them.
Not even Google has that data, and that is far more personal for me as governments knows things like where I live, where I work, who are my family, who were my school friends, it has my passport, my driving license, my wedding license, my birth license, my social ID, my tax information, my banking information (where I have bank accounts and other basic infos and it can calculate well my income/savings roughly from taxes).
And if someone is not afraid about that, he/she should be. As smaller companies have bonus cards and other things what are used to track you. Have you ever tought that every single bonus card what stores gives, is used to track you? (Not specifically YOU but still tracking you as a user).
Companies joins to these bonus systems, they share their customer data. You can pull all kind mashups from that data. Like where you move and when. What you buy and when. They can even analyze easily when you are having a baby and what gender it is just by looking the stuff what you buy. They know your income by calculating how much you spend on month. They can even find out who you date and who you meet when you are shopping together.
And then they pull a magical trick by saying "you save money". With that excuse they can rise the prices to gain more money and say "you pay less" when you have a bonus card. It is way to track and send you a customized ad flyers to home trough post office.
Google is very young and small "tracker" when it comes to other companies what tracks people trough bonus and credit cards and bonus systems.
Banks owns shares of those systems. They can calculate your economical status, insurance companies owns shares of bonus systems s
Ain't MeeGo the merge of Maemo and Moblin?
Maemo distribution + Moblin distribution = MeeGo distribution
Maemo distribution - Moblin distribution = Harmattan distribution
What matter it actually have as both use/includes same Linux Operating System, almost same system programs, almost same system libraries but the graphical system is same but with slightly different software platform running it and apps?
And the tiles does not feel to work well when you start having more friends, RSS/etc feeds and messages than 5-10.
If you have 10 facebook friends, 20 RSS feeds, few podcasts and you get IM and Email messages more than 2 a hour, the tiles becomes messy and cluttered. And if you add more tiles than 8, the possibility to find easily something comes harder.
I dont know about MS/Nokia fans but for me and my friends, WP7 phone have been terrible and good luck is that I did not have money to buy such at that time and I toke only 100 dollar Android phone (ZTE Blade) what is almost perfect.
bottom of screen five icons telling missed calls, new SMS's, new IM's, new Emails and web browser. Exactly same gesture possibilities as N9 was promoted (slide outside of the screen to get last used apps, home screen or all messages in one center).
Windows Phone is very great if you use it for family/friend contacts and follow few friends in facebook and so on. But for that, price is too high, better would be there 150-200 dollars.
Did you even read the whole article?
+1
To sum all up
"The mother of all demos" ....
Xerox Star
Windows 1.0
Microsoft Bob
Windows 95
Windows XP
Windows 7
Windows 8
The future from Microsoft?
Conclusion: Cheap ad for that site.
"but what we wanted to deliver was a very rich user experience over the web that was cross platform."
Please explain why then moonlight is such a piece of crap when even microsoft is developing it and it does not work?
Even moonlight site says: "Be aware that many sites require more recent silverlight API/functionality, and will not work with Moonlight 2."
And when silverlight is 4.0 and "cross-platform" lacks behind at 2.x then it is not true or rich cross platform framework.
I would not say world would be better without patents.
I would say world would be better with reasonable time with patents. Like you have 2-3 years time to start commercial use with the patent or loose it. From the patent day (day 1) you have 5 years to use it, if you got commercial use for it. And then it comes free (not public domain but something like GPL).
Without patents you would not have copyright either and so on no GPL or any other license than just public domain and that means there are no protecting anyone from abusive actions.
If you invent something or you create something, you must have rights to use it so no one (bigger/clever ones) do not steal it. But it should not be something what it is now that 75 years after creators death is the time... It is just so stupid.
Turn ON your "fuckit all" sarcasm sensors.... Oh, good, then you can tell what microkernel is used in HURD today? (Did you get it?)
Give a computer + Internet for 60 year old person and teach how to use email + chat and in few months grammar have changed a lot.
Give same for a 10-15 year old and you just get l33t or SMStalk
I must say but I like the GUI more than what "Chome OS" GUI is. I did not read the article (yet) but I hope that is possible to get work on other OS's than just Linux. With that, even HURD would have a change to be successful operating system so GNU people would be happy!
Erh... what? You go to buy Windows 7 (OEM versions something like $100) and not older used compatible (CPU&RAM) motherboard with other chipset by $20-30 without need to re-install everything?
Do I smell troll here?
What?! You say Slashdot is going to be run down 2012? Hell....
Even 1 could be enough for ruling to stop competitive company products being sold.
If companies would be smart and really being sure that other company is abusing their patent, then they would show just the ones what are needed.
Now they throw almost everything what they get even close to that case and judges and assistant specialists are bored to death. Companies believe that the amount of abusive accusitions means the judge (or jury) sees how bad the accused is and it can not be a false.
Dont mistake support and developers skills. Magicka started as school project so they seems to be a newbloods in coding not knowing nice tricks as many on slashdot does. But it is true that they have gave lots of support. Implenting new features (balancing game, fixing problems of existing ones) and, yes, causing new bugs as well. Thats as well the black humor of the first free suite what was with broken sword, staff of bugs and multiple times patched robe...
And yes, forums have lots of posts that game does not run/crash etc. But I have played the story trough four times now, in the beginning, it was possible easily with few minor bugs. But then some patches caused too serious bugs like crashing always after chapter 10. But at that time, it was still in days where they released new patch _every day_.
The forums includes lots of whining posts... Like first how the checkpoint system is so stupid, what you mentioned, and reasoning for that how game is not playable. But after following few months the forums, they are almost same people who whine about everything. First they would not buy it because they dont get their +1 sword and +1 staff with nice hat what pre-ordereds got. So developers made it as DLC for small fee. Then it was impossible to beat first chapter enemies when they did not have skills for it. Then the game did not run at all.... Some of the enemies were so annoing when they grabbed player and they did not know how to get free from it... After months, it came out that most of the biggest whiners were played game multiple times trough... even that they said they would not buy it, they would not suggest it to anyone, but still they played the game with their friends.
The game designers need to keep balance in the game playability. The checkpoints are just great for games like Magicka. They dont work on FPS games or similars same way. In Magicka, the chapters are actually easy to play once player just learns something. And Magicka is more like a oldschool game what was used in many great old games as well without checkpoints. It is not so hard to play the game trough under 4 hour, even that first times it takes closer 10-15 hours.
Oh, and some whiners... they bought the game without trying out the demo to find out how well the game works on their computers. Yes, it is very stupid excuse that "integrated graphic cards are so slow" but it was wrong choise in the beginning (a school project and usually in schools you are teached only with MS tools...)
There are still many huge problems, but most of them are already something what does not effect so much to gameplay. It could always be done better. But it seems that to do that, the whole game should be written from scratch without MS technologies.
Only 7 people developed Magicka and 2 of them are coders. There have always been one of them in games Steam forum answering questions and taking suggestions. Something what players have never got from hollywood budget game developer groups what includes dozens/hundreds of developers. It is great to see that indie game developers who at least cares about players and does what they can with their knowledge and skills to fix bugs.
Magickas humor is to stick 4 players together where everyone shares their same view, so no one can escape from another. You need to stay together to see ahead of you. If you separate, the front persons does not see ahead at all.
Humans does errors, especially in Magicka where the "weapons" are 5 combinations of elements: Fire, Ice, Shield, Stone, Life, Arcane, Water and Electricity. And you need to enter those in different ways to get wanted effect for specific enemies (usually to kill them) and then launch combination in few different ways (beam, natural, area, weapon, directed, shielded) and when you and your friends (or even random people, it really works! And better if no VOIP possibility) play and make mistakes, the game turns fun.
As the fun part is not just the story, it is funny in first and second time. But the real humor comes when you and your friends are blowing up yourselfs when trying to kill enemies. Nothing is so fun as accidents happening to friends... You know the situations when friend hits head to something and hurts himself (more to pride than physically) and the situation is just too funny? Well, Magicka is about that. Everyone gets good laughs (2-4 co-op) when one guy gets idea to use one specific combination and blows up friends in the pieces or set them in fire and they burn. And everything what you can hear from VoIP (if used) is "Ooops...."
There are two bad things in the game:
a) the game was coded using XNA. The game is slow as hell. It demands more resources than the graphics actually gives to expect. Even the menu takes more resources than most maps. And because XNA you can not play game with laptops or almost any computer what has integrated GPU, even that computer could run Crysis, as integrated GPU's are blocked and game does not start.
b) The game has few too powerfull combinations what players learn at some point and start easily using just them to make playing easier. And that is mistake as it is not fun anymore and it turns just as boring as FPS pipe shooter. And at that point only fun thing is the Magicka adventure. And the enemies should have littlebit more variations for different spells. Developers have done great job to make just enough differences to enemies to have them a different weaknesses but it really should be retought as many use the same 1-2 combinations all the time. SPOILER: Example many always joins beams to cause most effective hit to enemies and when they do it for every enemy, it is boring game to pla... watch.... Or that they just does same area attack to kill in 1-3 fast strikes everyone on that area.
Magicka is worth of its 9,99 price tag if you just have computer to run it. They even managed to rebalance the game well for gamepad owners and keyboard+mouse players. So you can play over online the Co-Op or on same computer. And that if something is rare thing. Example the other great game "Trine" allows 3 player Co-Op, but only on same computer. Not possible over online or even LAN to play the game. What actually killed the game very well from most friends.
For next "adventure" I am expecting they would code the engine with C/C++ or with any other sane language so it would be efficent for laptop owners. Graphics are good enough now but some new enemies and more liking... different kinds what have totally different weakness could be better. And to invent something what would force players to change gameplay tactics all the time so it could not be possible just to hit few same combos (many have started to use macro programs for that, what is cheating) to kill every enemy.
I ha
+1
Who would say such cameras are not to be used in Covert Ops or any other surveillance must be very naive person. And I bet such person would believe that no one ever surveillance other than bad people like thiefs and terrorists...
You want a story? Then forget the movies, they are just too short. Grab a great TV series and you get great story and lots of fun. Series like Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly....
Oh, most of those have had actors who "no one know". Not big Movie Stars like Vin Diesel etc....
There are lots of great actors who are better than most of big movie stars are, but they have never got or went to movie business.
The same thing applies to TV series as for books and comic books. They are long and they bring up more small things in every episode than what movie needs to tell in one line if even it all.
There are few things what I would wish for every PC game developer would include
1] Co-Op and not just deatchmatch or capture the flag
2] Video recording by game engine
The 2] means that the game can be recorded by game engine so even if you play few hours, you get recording what is size of few tens of megabytes and not gigabytes.
And later after recording, player could share the recording to anyone else if wanted. Or edit it (and then share) and even export it to wanted format.
And it should not be just so easy that recording is what is on the screen when player plays, but in editing player gets full controls to the camera as it would be a real camera. Player can choose a zoom (FOV), location and depth of field.
Like observer in many FPS multiplayer games where you are a ghost and you can go around everything.
And then player could easily add/remove record points and go back and worth of the recording. And when player is finished, the recording can be saved and shared to other game owners or then exported as Full HD video in few formats and containers (AVI, MKV, MP4). And player could get fine edited video from the gameplay, were it from multiplayer or from single player.
The game developers have now many times done great cinematic parts for the story, like in Mafia, Mafia II, Mass Effect (+ II) etc. And if player could just on those parts as well move "observer camera" freely and choose different directions to be saved and exported, then players could do awesome own videos.
In any environment if you can make code better and use hardware as optimally as possible, then it is always worth of it.
I can not understand anyway how a dozen of web sites can take hundreds of megabytes of RAM when you can actually store the web sites on disk in much smaller size and you do not even need to pull down the pipe the amount of data what browser use on them in RAM.
Erh.... Microkernels does not exist in user space but in kernel space (Yes, there is at least Microsoft project where there is no more kernel space/user space separation whole software system exist at same call space).
And Linux kernel is still monolithic what means Linux kernel is still a whole operating system. Would it run just a firefox or not, it does not change technicality in Linux.
And you can already get a such what you suggest. Motherboard manufacturers already use such combinations. Linux + Firefox. (Yes there are some other middleware softwares as well).