I can see the future... in a few years, you will have to slide a credit card to enable use of your car's radio if someone is sitting in the passenger sit (be the front or back sits!)

Not only speeds, but we have a lot of ISPs now threatening to enforce their paper caps (you know, the ones they have not enforced but we have covered a lot in Slashdot.)

On the article, though... I love how Wall Street Journal reports on the dismissal of a rumor no one ever confirmed. I was sure these things would have disk drives, it's obvious. Bandwidth is not the only issue, complete absence of internet connectivity is still an issue in many households that own XBox, be it a full household thing or just restrictions on the kid's console alone.

The real questions I have:
Will I get day-one digital download access if I do have internet, or will publishers be allowed to side on FUD and not distribute digitally?
Better: will perhaps I get earlier access if I decide to buy digital or will I have to wait for the brick & mortar launch date?
Will non-transferable digital only copies be cheaper?

Thats an extremely hopeful twist on what happened... Google didn't convince Verizon to "agree" on wired net neutrality. Google simply bent over and offered its support in exchange of Android pimping.

It is because of Google that the wireless net neutrality exceptions were accepted, because "Google had nothing to win so their agreement must mean there is no biggie" (other than Google actually having a lot to win from Verizon's Android support.)

Far from it. Google's "most evil" act so far I'd say was joining with Verizon to kill wireless net-neutrality.

No, that would be wrong!!! You have to make sure to let the person know that singing is it's own reward and tell him he needs no money! You should know the drill if you played on the street for money!

Partially true. The artist himself was not making much money because between loopholes and fine print tricks, the studios end up keeping nearly all the profits of media sale, in some situations some artist may find themselves owing money to the studios (since every cd sent to a radio station was/is fully expensed at a full retail price as a marketing cost that you are supposed to pay for from your profits.)

But media sales have always been very lucrative, an indie artist that refuses to give away his music in Spotify and instead sells directly via iTunes and other digital outlets, or even burning his own disks, may make a LOT of money.

I was into Reggaeton a few years back, a lot of the "reggaettoneros" artists wised up darn fast. They didn’t go to any label, they self-published their stuff and got filthy rich fast. Don Omar is a good example. These are people that didnt really grow daydreaming about the rock star life, so they seem to have pursued things in a more sensible way (despite their appearance and image of being uneducated and thug-like.)

I still don't get why in this information age, the american artist still dreams of being picked up by a big label and become a super star the 80's way.

Lady in street: I loved your performance, thank you, lovely music. I'll be on my way now.

Singer: But... I need food... please give me some money....

Lady in street: You greedy asshole? How dare you ask me for money?! Music should be done for the love of it!!! Performing for my pleasure while I eat should BE your food!!!! Now sing and stop begging!!!! If you want money go and get a real job!

Jonathan Coulton was talking about this a few months ago in the TWiT podcast.

Streaming services pay garbage to independent artists because the big studios (the old boss) bullied them into accepting horrible terms or literally take them out of business.

Make no mistake; the big studios get a generous split of the Spotify profits. But for Spotify to survive with such a "generous" deal, they had to screw someone else: the indie musician that "can't really bully" them.

Mind you, in some ways, if all indies got together and left Spotify, they would suffer (right now they average their profits with a mixture of indie and big studio playbacks.)

I would not be shocked if the studios want it to work this way, to discourage the next gen of artists from pursuing an indie career.

Unless you disabled automated draft saving... yea.

This is just a stunt. This is the second article from IBM CIO I read today with him trying to scare people of allowing Apple devices in the workplace. Fear mongering, that's all it is.

Kill their revenue stream? Every minute it's down, it's a minute they are not selling ads.

Given how few drugs are meant to save lives, and most are just to make conditions bearable or alleviate temporary effects (and in most cases just to fix patient negligence that cause things like diabetes) I think more people would die due to lack of drug testing than from lack of the drugs in question.

There were many many bad things done with the Zune, but the first was attempting to do an "iPod Killer". They also abandoned the brand with the XBox and look how big of a success it has been. Thing is, the XBox was not done to mimic or copy a competitor, it simply was another console, and to be fair, one with loads of soul behind it.

I'm thinking more about their stupid Windows RT naming for tablets and Windows Phone name. I think Metro Phone and Metro Tablet may have been much more marketable names for people that hear Windows and think "that thing I use at work."

Windows for PC should remain what it is, and the number system seems to be working very nicely in that realm (the year convention makes things feel old too fast and the random letter scheme, like XP, is just horrible.) But keep it there, Microsoft does not have to name every single product they make "Windows."

I'm not saying Microsoft needs to abandon Windows, but keep the product being itself and don't shoehorn it everywhere.

There is no reason for their phone OS to be called "Windows Phone", it's not just not App compatible, it does not even have the feature the OS was named after. The same applies for their upcoming Arm Tablet approach.

But no... They feel forced to market the Phone using Windows and Office brands. They think that big Microsoft Office tile in the home screen, and the Windows name, will sell their phones. It's already proven it won’t.

Even between Microsoft fans that love PCs, no one I ever met seems to think Windows is "cool" or desirable. They feel "windows" is that thing that runs in PCs and Office is a work requirement, not a fun toy. Windows fans, if anything, may feel more love for Direct X than the OS its part off.

BTW separate note: Apple appears to have about ~10% of the current PC market, not huge, but not a joke either. There may be a much larger PC install base, but a lot of those are not actually active. That's also part of the point: Ballmer is allowing OSX to gain too much traction.

The Xbox division is indeed doing great, but Ballmer seems to undermine it every time he can. There were some big losses last year due to some acquisitions (Skype? not sure...) and they "balanced the books" by punishing a lot of divisions, the Xbox division I understand was hit hard and would had shined had they not done that.

It's like Ballmer is ashamed of anything that does not have a big Windows brand in the box, when perhaps he should be doing the opposite.

Can you imagine how well Apple would had fared had they called their iPhone a MacPhone instead? I bet it would have been a flop just due to the horrible unmarketable name.

It’s time Microsoft realizes their future is in the Metro/Xbox brands, not in the Windows/Office ones. Ballmer's resistance is slowly going to kill Microsoft.