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Comment Re:No iPad for me (Score 1) 584

by biglig2 (#31460866) Attached to: Here Come the Linux iPad Clones

Examples, please?

What file is there she will want to look at that won't work? Flash video? Who's left that doesn't offer a HTML5 version for iPhone? How many of those will last a month of complaints about their product not working on iPad before they add one?

Comment Re:No iPad for me (Score 2, Informative) 584

by biglig2 (#31460788) Attached to: Here Come the Linux iPad Clones

You do realise that installing a game or astrology app on an iPhone, and hence one supposes on an iPad, is about, oh, two zillion times easier than doing it on a PC?

I just did it now. Took me 30 seconds.

Turn on, App Store, search, star sign. List of dozens, with screen shots and reviews; pick one; confirm password, bought, downloads in the background, done. Apparently I am loyal, romantic, direct and stubborn. Good to know.

I'd say try that on a PC, but I'm worried you might not be running Linux, and I'd feel very guilty if you downloaded a random Windows app you found off Google and it mailed your credit card details to the Mafia.

Comment Re:No iPad for me (Score 2, Insightful) 584

by biglig2 (#31460718) Attached to: Here Come the Linux iPad Clones

Well, the thing is, Apple have concluded that locking it up tight as a drum is the only way to make it a slick experience, and they figured out with iPhone that more people value that than openness.

Hell, I'm a huge geek, and a PDA/smartphone obsessive from way back, and I agree with them! In the device that runs my life from my shirt pocket I value slickness more than the openness. I have never had a tech device as flat out useful as my iPhone, because it all just works.

Comment Can I just point out one thing? (Score 1) 584

by biglig2 (#31460604) Attached to: Here Come the Linux iPad Clones

There have been tablets around for years. Years! XP Tablet edition came out in 2002. So did the ProGear Linux tablet.

And did any of you buy one? No. No-one did. Bill Gates - with the unholy power of Microsoft's marketing division - has been trying to persuade people to use Tablet PCs for nine years and no-ones bought one.

So anyone saying that "these new tablets coming out soon will beat the iPad" is flat out insane. You can buy a Linux tablet right now. But none of you do.

Hell, the iPad is the best thing to happen to Linux tablets ever. It'll drive the price down, and make everyone else raise their game when they see it eating into their consumer notebook markets.
Games

Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming 49

Posted by Soulskill from the break-out-your-rocket-launcher dept.
rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."

Comment Good reviews of Star Trek too. (Score 2, Informative) 629

by biglig2 (#30516094) Attached to: The Definitive Evisceration of <em>The Phantom Menace</em> *NSFW*

His reviews of Generations and Insurrection are good too: besides the obvious flaws in the plots of both, he knows the TV series well enough to find the non-obvious continuity flaws. Intercutting the plot of Insurrection with footage of Picard chewing Wesley a new one for doing exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) the things that Picard does in the film is exquisite.
Games

Pirates as a Marketplace 214

Posted by Soulskill from the marrrrrrrket-share dept.
John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting: "Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."

Comment Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le (Score 1) 656

by biglig2 (#29642583) Attached to: Palm Ignores USB-IF Warning, Restores iTunes Sync

It's even better than that, not only is all the data on the disk already but, as nneonneo points out above, Apple provide a nice neat .XML file (with a fully published spec) that tells any application that wants to know exactly where all the data is, plus anything else it knows about it, plus the playlists.

Palm haven't written any desktop software any more, I guess because their philosophy is "WebOs doesn't need to sync to your PC, it syncs to the cloud!" which is fine except most people don't yet have their music in the cloud.
Earth

World's First Massively Multiplayer Forecast Game? 39

Posted by Soulskill from the weather-channel-may-disagree dept.
krou writes "The Institute of the Future will soon be launching what it calls the first massively multiplayer forecast game, billed as The Superstruct Game. According to the game's FAQ, the idea is to 'imagine how we might solve the problems we'll face.' Interestingly, the game itself is meant to be played 'on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces.' From the IFTF website's sneak peak, the game is set in the year 2019, where the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has forecast the possibility of human extinction by the year 2042 as the result of five simultaneous 'super-threats': Quarantine, which is a result from 'declining health and pandemic disease'; Ravenous, which relates to the global collapse of the world food system; Power Struggle, related to the flux of power 'as nations fight for energy supremacy and the world searches for alternative energy solutions'; Outlaw Planet, covering increased surveillance and loss of liberties; and, lastly, Generation Exile, which covers the massive increase in refugees."

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