While I disagree with placing M-rated games separately from other ratings (go to the video store, they don't do that THERE), I do agree that we need regulations preventing sale of M-rated games to minors. The movie industry has already done it, and games need to do it also.
I've always wondered why the government can't own the fibre like they do the roads. Like road tolls, people must pay a certain fee to the government in order to use these pipes, which may be included into the price of their internet service. Providers can maintain and expand the network, and money spent doing so can be applied as a toll credit (i.e. if AT&T spends $2bn expanding the network, then they can get an equivalent break on gov't line tolls). This way companies are not penalized for building up the infrastructure, while maintaining competitiveness for smaller players.
Here in Canada (Ontario only, actually), our DSL providers are forced to rent out their lines at government regulated wholesale rates. This has encouraged the growth of small ISPs that provide excellent service for less cost. I myself pay $20 CAD a month for service that Bell charges $50 a month for, and I get better phone support to boot.
IMHO this should also apply to the wireless spectrum. Stop auctioning these things off and simply charge tolls for any provider to use your network. A per-device-per-month scheme would work well.
I'm an undergrad in a robotics-oriented engineering program. Most of the topics that I learn are *not* wiki'ed, and I myself don't feel nearly qualified enough to start an article. There is a LOT of information that's still not wiki'ed.
Emphasis mine. I don't think "let's do the opposite of what our ultimate goal is in hopes that people magically stop being lazy one day" is a winning strategy. I'm much more enthusiastic about "let's do it better, and people will come."
Admirable but IMHO impractical. What one ought to do is provide support for mp3s (that patent will run out in time, and MP3 is a perfectly file format as it is. If you want to encourage the use of OGG, then bundle CD ripping tools with the OS that by default output OGG files. The whole point is to preserve your user's existing Windows (or Mac) workflow, and slowly push them towards open formats. Even something simple like saving in ODF by default instead of MS Word will make a world of difference a couple of years down the road.
Ah yes, one place where MS outdid Apple. Unfortunately by the time Apple woke up (and started naming everything with an "i"), the QuickTime brand was stuck.
That being said, Apple has the marketing dollars to overcome a crappy legacy brand name. The VLC crew don't...
Isn't one of the goals of Ubuntu to introduce Linux to the average home user? The people that currently muck around in iTunes, playing their MP3 files, and download videos off the intertubes that are encoded in WMV, DivX, and Xvid formats?
To get people to switch, you need to provide them with a just-as-easy-as-it-is-now path to do everything that they do currently. That means media management and file type support out of the box.
While I appreciate that there are people out there who don't need compatibility with any proprietary data formats, the truth is the majority of the world still relies on them, whether we like it or not. Refusing to play these formats is idealistic but not realistic. Where would OpenOffice be today if they didn't support MS Office formats?
You mention that if you want a platform that works with proprietary formats you should go with Windows. What an odd response that is, considering that FOSS has been working overtime for the last X years to get people off of Windows onto a more secure, stable, and standards-compliant platform. If it means embracing these formats for the time being, I'm all for it.
To parallel your analogy... You're a car company that doesn't put radios in their cars, despite the fact that all consumers want it, and you personally don't listen to music while you drive. And you wonder why your cars don't sell, and tell your unhappy customers that they should go buy the competitor's cars instead!
I use 'nix at work, and OSX at home, so my experience with VLC on Linux is limited to a few presentations I've had to finangle for work. On the Mac, however, VLC is a mess:
- The release (non-debug, non-beta) version of VLC spits out debug messages like a fricking firehose. Jumping to another spot in the video with the timeline consistently (especially when playing WMVs) pops up a debug window right in front of me, showing a bunch of minor errors with the decoder. This does not crash VLC, nor does it affect playback in any visible way, so I wonder why the software does so in a release build.
- Have you tried playing a DVD with VLC? Okay, File -> Open Disc, simple enough right? But wait, instead of quietly playing the DVD in my disc drive, it pops up a config screen that resembles the dashboard of a 747. Including the gem of all: instead of listing available disc drivers, it requires the user to type in the fricking 'nix path to the device they want. How is the average user supposed to figure THAT one out?
- Did I mention it crashes constantly? It's been better over the last couple of versions, but is still a long way from the rock solid stability of WMP and QuickTime, which bloatware as it may be, at least works.
How is Linspire going to make legit codecs a selling point when the average user doesn't even know what a codec is
Well, that's just it. Licensing codecs doesn't give Linspire a competitive advantage, it allows them to avoid a GIGANTIC competitive DIS-advantage. Hell, you can argue that it DOES give them an advantage. DivX and Xvid don't work out of the box on either Mac or Windows, and Windows users particularly have to resort to downloading shady installers (KaZaa Lite Codec Pack anyone?) that can have a slew of malware included. "Play all of your favorite files without downloading shady spyware!" seems like a good selling point to me.
The media options on Linux are still fairly weak compared to their proprietary counterparts. Too much focus on technical details and almost no focus at all on usability. Heck, what's with VLC's name and icon? "VLC" doesn't exactly scream "media player" to me (at least MPlayer got it right), and that traffic cone icon? WTF? Could we not have designed an emblem that at least IMPLIES what the app does?
I've never used Linspire, but in terms of licensing file formats such as Quicktime and Windows Media, I think they're on the right track. People want an OS that works out of the box, and that includes media tasks. If it doesn't the average user has very little patience to make it work right.
Last I checked, here in Canada the police, intelligence service, or any other form of law enforcement can also demand removal of sensitive information related to ongoing investigations or national security...
Wait... So the company that doesn't want to worry about its own software, and therefore buys a support contract, will now be benefited by the "fix it yourself" nature of FOSS? I know the power of FOSS is being able to go into the code and alter/fix things that you don't like - but considering this company clearly doesn't want to have its own little team of coders doing something like that (hence buying the contract), what's the point?
More likely a rash of unsupportive developers will simply create room for companies that actually HONOR their support contracts...
Most companies, especially software ones, take patents as a defensive measure. Nothing is worse than doing something conceptually simple and then getting sued into the ground by someone who bothered to patent it. Owning obvious patents is the only real solution (at this point in time, until laws change), and in fact may be the least evil way to act. Owning a swathe of obvious patents that the USPTO refuses to overturn, and not enforcing it with suits, is probably protecting all of us.
It's ingenious, really. Parents don't have to spend extra cash buying games for Timmy's Xbox this Christmas, they can just get the bundle. After all, Joe Parent doesn't know that the bundled games aren't hot with the kids right now. Little Timmy will play bundled games for a couple of weeks and begin demanding for hit titles like Halo. Parents, having already gotten the box already, will just cave and start buying more 360 games.
Given the loss MS took (and perhaps continue to take) on hardware sold, this is exactly the situation they want to be in.
This is not a trait unique to religious folk, it's just that they are able to demonstrate in the most frustrating ways. Even scientists are vulnerable to this - they see the evidence that fits their hypothesis, and conveniently (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) glosses over the facts that don't fit their theories.
It's a sign of a person with horrid logic, not someone religious, though the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.
1 - Have a machine vision backend analyze images coming back from cameras, picking out "guilty" cars along with their plates. Discard other data.
2 - Ensure that the code used for this vision system is open to public scrutiny.
3 - Catch the crooks, and the regular folk don't even get recorded to a hard drive at any point.
4 - ???
5 - You know the rest...
Re:Congratulations Microsoft...
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 1
I think wireless sync is more targeted towards people who are not heavy users of the PMP, and thus don't want to have to dock it to recharge *all* the time. I know my iPod can go for days before I even think I need a recharge, so WiFi sync is nice. I can leave it in my jeans pockets (pray I don't throw it in the wash) and it'll sync sometime while I sleep. It's like you pull the device out of your pocket the next day and "magically" all your new songs are there. A luxury feature for sure, but in this market it's all about the little conveniences.
Just like how the PS2 Slim introduced the upgrade train to the console world? Or the N64 expansion pack? Hardware revisions are not new to this industry, and in fact it doesn't seem like MS has really revised the hardware significantly - adding the HDMI port is the only major thing they've done. This is just a new bundle, nothing to see here, move along.
Well, then I would hope your hate for the iPod is several times that of this new Zune. Even from an Apple fanboy like myself I have to admit that the Zune is much more open than the iPod. DMR-less store? Sharing of files (albeit in a limited way)? It's not the freest device it could possibly be, but it's certainly better than anything else on the market. And unless they leave out mass storage, you can at least pull files off it (unlike a pod-like device out there).
From my first impressions it looks like MS really got their act together, and while there's still a long way to go for them, this Zune appears competitive at least.
Re:Congratulations Microsoft...
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Wow, and I thought *I* was a Apple fanboy. C'mon, I run multiple Macs at home, and I own an iPhone, and even I like the new Zunes.
Same price, same storage, but wireless sync? On that itself I'm sold. But now add a DRM-less online store with an optional subscription model? Score. Larger screen than the iPod classic? Score too. If the battery life can live up to iPod, this thing is a clear winner for the time being.
The "Zune Nano" is a bit of a disappointment. The specs are nice, but in the end the design leaves much to be desired. The black border around the screen screams "We couldn't put a larger screen in here so we'll just pretend"... Either give us a bigger screen or a smaller device, or at least find an aesthetically improved way to get around the problem. IMHO these things need to have a storage edge over the iPod nano if they expect to win.
The big-boy Zune though... that's going to give iPod a run for its money on the Windows side.
Actually, I believe SK's main claim is that Epic failed to deliver a working 360 build by the date stipulated in their contract. The whole "they were hoarding it themselves for GOW" is just fluff meant to sensationalize it and maybe up the damages a tad (though it certainly isn't provable in any case). This announcement has no bearing on SK's lawsuit I don't think - after all, it should be clear as day if Epic missed the deadline on the 360.
I'm a Mac user, and also an indie game developer. I love OSX, but I develop exclusively on Windows. Why? Because DirectX is a million times the lib that OpenGL is. I know open source advocates don't like hearing it - but look, object-oriented (I don't care what you say, a C API falls apart at that level of complexity), well supported by a massive developer base, and well maintained, and not afflicted with proprietary-video-card-extensions-itis.
In short, OpenGL works, and it works well, but it's also a major PITA. If I had an infinite amount of time and manpower, sure, I'd write everything in OpenGL, but considering Windows' market share and DX's ease, my time is better spent there. I'd like to tackle the Mac segment, and maybe I will if the market is large enough to be worth the hassle - but until then my code is Win-only.
Three things that could be better, but do already function, yet you're not using them.
Cost benefit. Just working and functional is not enough for a business. It may be for a hobbyist who's willing to accommodate the hassle to get something done, but for a business that is going to spend a certain number of very real, very costly man-hours to develop the port, there needs to be a worthwhile return. What Gabe is saying to Apple is - reduce OUR cost for porting to your platform (by reducing the human investment required) and we'll port, otherwise your platform simply won't have enough sales for us to justify the effort.
The trick between Macs and consoles is that they both require a certain installed base for developers to be interested. The GameCube had games only because Nintendo developed for themselves. Third parties wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole precisely because the installed base was insufficient to be worth the effort. The Windows side is a larger segment and any game developer will not target Mac exclusively, not at their current market share. Developers are not miffed at the limited performance of Mac hardware, we will make do with what we have, so long as people who own those machines are willing to buy our games.
I'm definitely looking into developing on the Mac, given its growing market share. But I would hope that by the time I'm settled on that decision we see actual developer support, instead of just a cursory page on their dev site. I would also hope they come up with something unified and comprehensive that can go head to head with DirectX.
It's not as if Leopard isn't breaking existing software. Pretty much every major OSX updates breaks stuff. How hard is it for them to go "well, we're not going to document nor support the API, but if you want to play with it, knock yourself out"? I seriously doubt Apple is blocking iPhone development merely because they don't want to do support.
Your 30ms ping won't be doing you much good when you're chugging along at 15fps. With lag compensation so advanced these days I'll take 450ms at 60 fps over 30ms at 15.
I dunno. I have some peers who won't touch FOSS with a ten foot pole, but at the same time feel very insulted having to PAY for their proprietary software. There do exist people who like their software free as in beer, but no free as in speech. Odd, I know.
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While I disagree with placing M-rated games separately from other ratings (go to the video store, they don't do that THERE), I do agree that we need regulations preventing sale of M-rated games to minors. The movie industry has already done it, and games need to do it also.
I've always wondered why the government can't own the fibre like they do the roads. Like road tolls, people must pay a certain fee to the government in order to use these pipes, which may be included into the price of their internet service. Providers can maintain and expand the network, and money spent doing so can be applied as a toll credit (i.e. if AT&T spends $2bn expanding the network, then they can get an equivalent break on gov't line tolls). This way companies are not penalized for building up the infrastructure, while maintaining competitiveness for smaller players.
Here in Canada (Ontario only, actually), our DSL providers are forced to rent out their lines at government regulated wholesale rates. This has encouraged the growth of small ISPs that provide excellent service for less cost. I myself pay $20 CAD a month for service that Bell charges $50 a month for, and I get better phone support to boot.
IMHO this should also apply to the wireless spectrum. Stop auctioning these things off and simply charge tolls for any provider to use your network. A per-device-per-month scheme would work well.
I'm an undergrad in a robotics-oriented engineering program. Most of the topics that I learn are *not* wiki'ed, and I myself don't feel nearly qualified enough to start an article. There is a LOT of information that's still not wiki'ed.
Admirable but IMHO impractical. What one ought to do is provide support for mp3s (that patent will run out in time, and MP3 is a perfectly file format as it is. If you want to encourage the use of OGG, then bundle CD ripping tools with the OS that by default output OGG files. The whole point is to preserve your user's existing Windows (or Mac) workflow, and slowly push them towards open formats. Even something simple like saving in ODF by default instead of MS Word will make a world of difference a couple of years down the road.
Ah yes, one place where MS outdid Apple. Unfortunately by the time Apple woke up (and started naming everything with an "i"), the QuickTime brand was stuck.
That being said, Apple has the marketing dollars to overcome a crappy legacy brand name. The VLC crew don't...
Isn't one of the goals of Ubuntu to introduce Linux to the average home user? The people that currently muck around in iTunes, playing their MP3 files, and download videos off the intertubes that are encoded in WMV, DivX, and Xvid formats?
To get people to switch, you need to provide them with a just-as-easy-as-it-is-now path to do everything that they do currently. That means media management and file type support out of the box.
While I appreciate that there are people out there who don't need compatibility with any proprietary data formats, the truth is the majority of the world still relies on them, whether we like it or not. Refusing to play these formats is idealistic but not realistic. Where would OpenOffice be today if they didn't support MS Office formats?
You mention that if you want a platform that works with proprietary formats you should go with Windows. What an odd response that is, considering that FOSS has been working overtime for the last X years to get people off of Windows onto a more secure, stable, and standards-compliant platform. If it means embracing these formats for the time being, I'm all for it.
To parallel your analogy... You're a car company that doesn't put radios in their cars, despite the fact that all consumers want it, and you personally don't listen to music while you drive. And you wonder why your cars don't sell, and tell your unhappy customers that they should go buy the competitor's cars instead!
I use 'nix at work, and OSX at home, so my experience with VLC on Linux is limited to a few presentations I've had to finangle for work. On the Mac, however, VLC is a mess:
- The release (non-debug, non-beta) version of VLC spits out debug messages like a fricking firehose. Jumping to another spot in the video with the timeline consistently (especially when playing WMVs) pops up a debug window right in front of me, showing a bunch of minor errors with the decoder. This does not crash VLC, nor does it affect playback in any visible way, so I wonder why the software does so in a release build.
How is Linspire going to make legit codecs a selling point when the average user doesn't even know what a codec is- Have you tried playing a DVD with VLC? Okay, File -> Open Disc, simple enough right? But wait, instead of quietly playing the DVD in my disc drive, it pops up a config screen that resembles the dashboard of a 747. Including the gem of all: instead of listing available disc drivers, it requires the user to type in the fricking 'nix path to the device they want. How is the average user supposed to figure THAT one out?
- Did I mention it crashes constantly? It's been better over the last couple of versions, but is still a long way from the rock solid stability of WMP and QuickTime, which bloatware as it may be, at least works.
Well, that's just it. Licensing codecs doesn't give Linspire a competitive advantage, it allows them to avoid a GIGANTIC competitive DIS-advantage. Hell, you can argue that it DOES give them an advantage. DivX and Xvid don't work out of the box on either Mac or Windows, and Windows users particularly have to resort to downloading shady installers (KaZaa Lite Codec Pack anyone?) that can have a slew of malware included. "Play all of your favorite files without downloading shady spyware!" seems like a good selling point to me.
The media options on Linux are still fairly weak compared to their proprietary counterparts. Too much focus on technical details and almost no focus at all on usability. Heck, what's with VLC's name and icon? "VLC" doesn't exactly scream "media player" to me (at least MPlayer got it right), and that traffic cone icon? WTF? Could we not have designed an emblem that at least IMPLIES what the app does?
I've never used Linspire, but in terms of licensing file formats such as Quicktime and Windows Media, I think they're on the right track. People want an OS that works out of the box, and that includes media tasks. If it doesn't the average user has very little patience to make it work right.
Last I checked, here in Canada the police, intelligence service, or any other form of law enforcement can also demand removal of sensitive information related to ongoing investigations or national security...
Dear God, GP got +5 and this post didn't?
Wait... So the company that doesn't want to worry about its own software, and therefore buys a support contract, will now be benefited by the "fix it yourself" nature of FOSS? I know the power of FOSS is being able to go into the code and alter/fix things that you don't like - but considering this company clearly doesn't want to have its own little team of coders doing something like that (hence buying the contract), what's the point?
More likely a rash of unsupportive developers will simply create room for companies that actually HONOR their support contracts...
Most companies, especially software ones, take patents as a defensive measure. Nothing is worse than doing something conceptually simple and then getting sued into the ground by someone who bothered to patent it. Owning obvious patents is the only real solution (at this point in time, until laws change), and in fact may be the least evil way to act. Owning a swathe of obvious patents that the USPTO refuses to overturn, and not enforcing it with suits, is probably protecting all of us.
It's ingenious, really. Parents don't have to spend extra cash buying games for Timmy's Xbox this Christmas, they can just get the bundle. After all, Joe Parent doesn't know that the bundled games aren't hot with the kids right now. Little Timmy will play bundled games for a couple of weeks and begin demanding for hit titles like Halo. Parents, having already gotten the box already, will just cave and start buying more 360 games.
Given the loss MS took (and perhaps continue to take) on hardware sold, this is exactly the situation they want to be in.
This is not a trait unique to religious folk, it's just that they are able to demonstrate in the most frustrating ways. Even scientists are vulnerable to this - they see the evidence that fits their hypothesis, and conveniently (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) glosses over the facts that don't fit their theories.
It's a sign of a person with horrid logic, not someone religious, though the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.
1 - Have a machine vision backend analyze images coming back from cameras, picking out "guilty" cars along with their plates. Discard other data.
2 - Ensure that the code used for this vision system is open to public scrutiny.
3 - Catch the crooks, and the regular folk don't even get recorded to a hard drive at any point.
4 - ???
5 - You know the rest...
I think wireless sync is more targeted towards people who are not heavy users of the PMP, and thus don't want to have to dock it to recharge *all* the time. I know my iPod can go for days before I even think I need a recharge, so WiFi sync is nice. I can leave it in my jeans pockets (pray I don't throw it in the wash) and it'll sync sometime while I sleep. It's like you pull the device out of your pocket the next day and "magically" all your new songs are there. A luxury feature for sure, but in this market it's all about the little conveniences.
Just like how the PS2 Slim introduced the upgrade train to the console world? Or the N64 expansion pack? Hardware revisions are not new to this industry, and in fact it doesn't seem like MS has really revised the hardware significantly - adding the HDMI port is the only major thing they've done. This is just a new bundle, nothing to see here, move along.
Well, then I would hope your hate for the iPod is several times that of this new Zune. Even from an Apple fanboy like myself I have to admit that the Zune is much more open than the iPod. DMR-less store? Sharing of files (albeit in a limited way)? It's not the freest device it could possibly be, but it's certainly better than anything else on the market. And unless they leave out mass storage, you can at least pull files off it (unlike a pod-like device out there).
From my first impressions it looks like MS really got their act together, and while there's still a long way to go for them, this Zune appears competitive at least.
Wow, and I thought *I* was a Apple fanboy. C'mon, I run multiple Macs at home, and I own an iPhone, and even I like the new Zunes.
Same price, same storage, but wireless sync? On that itself I'm sold. But now add a DRM-less online store with an optional subscription model? Score. Larger screen than the iPod classic? Score too. If the battery life can live up to iPod, this thing is a clear winner for the time being.
The "Zune Nano" is a bit of a disappointment. The specs are nice, but in the end the design leaves much to be desired. The black border around the screen screams "We couldn't put a larger screen in here so we'll just pretend"... Either give us a bigger screen or a smaller device, or at least find an aesthetically improved way to get around the problem. IMHO these things need to have a storage edge over the iPod nano if they expect to win.
The big-boy Zune though... that's going to give iPod a run for its money on the Windows side.
Actually, I believe SK's main claim is that Epic failed to deliver a working 360 build by the date stipulated in their contract. The whole "they were hoarding it themselves for GOW" is just fluff meant to sensationalize it and maybe up the damages a tad (though it certainly isn't provable in any case). This announcement has no bearing on SK's lawsuit I don't think - after all, it should be clear as day if Epic missed the deadline on the 360.
I'm a Mac user, and also an indie game developer. I love OSX, but I develop exclusively on Windows. Why? Because DirectX is a million times the lib that OpenGL is. I know open source advocates don't like hearing it - but look, object-oriented (I don't care what you say, a C API falls apart at that level of complexity), well supported by a massive developer base, and well maintained, and not afflicted with proprietary-video-card-extensions-itis.
In short, OpenGL works, and it works well, but it's also a major PITA. If I had an infinite amount of time and manpower, sure, I'd write everything in OpenGL, but considering Windows' market share and DX's ease, my time is better spent there. I'd like to tackle the Mac segment, and maybe I will if the market is large enough to be worth the hassle - but until then my code is Win-only.
Three things that could be better, but do already function, yet you're not using them.Cost benefit. Just working and functional is not enough for a business. It may be for a hobbyist who's willing to accommodate the hassle to get something done, but for a business that is going to spend a certain number of very real, very costly man-hours to develop the port, there needs to be a worthwhile return. What Gabe is saying to Apple is - reduce OUR cost for porting to your platform (by reducing the human investment required) and we'll port, otherwise your platform simply won't have enough sales for us to justify the effort.
The trick between Macs and consoles is that they both require a certain installed base for developers to be interested. The GameCube had games only because Nintendo developed for themselves. Third parties wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole precisely because the installed base was insufficient to be worth the effort. The Windows side is a larger segment and any game developer will not target Mac exclusively, not at their current market share. Developers are not miffed at the limited performance of Mac hardware, we will make do with what we have, so long as people who own those machines are willing to buy our games.
I'm definitely looking into developing on the Mac, given its growing market share. But I would hope that by the time I'm settled on that decision we see actual developer support, instead of just a cursory page on their dev site. I would also hope they come up with something unified and comprehensive that can go head to head with DirectX.
It's not as if Leopard isn't breaking existing software. Pretty much every major OSX updates breaks stuff. How hard is it for them to go "well, we're not going to document nor support the API, but if you want to play with it, knock yourself out"? I seriously doubt Apple is blocking iPhone development merely because they don't want to do support.
Your 30ms ping won't be doing you much good when you're chugging along at 15fps. With lag compensation so advanced these days I'll take 450ms at 60 fps over 30ms at 15.
I dunno. I have some peers who won't touch FOSS with a ten foot pole, but at the same time feel very insulted having to PAY for their proprietary software. There do exist people who like their software free as in beer, but no free as in speech. Odd, I know.
Maybe he prefers free-as-in-beer software? :P