From what I can tell, the ONLY source for this story is ONE single person. I'm not sure I believe that this story is the case until more information is available from additional sources. "Apple has not confirmed this and so far the sole source is Matthew Green, a cryptographer and associate professor at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute." https://appleinsider.com/artic...

Your example of CD Projekt isn't a good one. That company didn't move to Poland. They were founded in Poland. The Witcher is a game series based off of Polish fantasy novels. They are as Polish as you can possibly get. They didn't move there because it was more economical.

This is not a new phenomenon in the slightest. For over a decade, Internet Explorer had WAY over 80% of the browser marketplace, and set the defacto standard for the entire internet. The entire web was beholden to Microsoft. We were beholden to Microsoft MUCH more than we are beholden to Google. This was a time before the ascension of the iPhone and after the death rattle of Netscape. The field is much more diverse than it has been in many years.

Then "philanthropic" loans like this to the state of Washington would be less necessary. I think it's hilarious when corporations work out complicated schemes to avoid 90% of the taxes they should be owed, and then they come up with some idea to make charitable contributions which still only add up to a small fraction of the taxes they should be paying. Then they hold up these charitable contributions to make themselves look like heroes.

I'd just like to point out that you can still purchase the game. A DMCA take-down notice was sent to GoG and Steam, both of which just followed the directive of the take-down notice and removed the game from their sites. Stardock still sells the game directly from their website. I'm not an expert so I'm not sure if Stardock is obligated to respect a DMCA notice to their own website. As I understand it, take down notices are sent to third-party sites, informing that third party that there is a copyright conflict on the offending material. It's not really applicable to a first-party site. I believe in order to get Stardock to remove Star Control from their own website, the guys suing them would need to request that the judge prevent sales of Star Control: Origins until the conflict was settled, and then the judge would have to approve that injunction. So far that hasn't happened.

Consoles are not going to be "replaced" by cloud game streams. It's not surprising that this CEO has forgotten that there are many gamers, all over the world, who do not have access to high-speed internet connections that are required for an online-only service. An average console generation is approximately 5 years. We are not 5 years away from ubiquitous high-speed internet connections in rural and undeveloped areas of the world.

Microsoft tried making this mistake with the X-Box One, and they were so short-sighted that they almost went to market with it, before they realized that by making their console online-only they will deny themselves many thousands of valuable customers.

Cloud game streams will evolve as a subscription model to supplement (and for some people) replace the gaming console. Just like Netflix supplements cable television for many, and replaces it for some.

Eventually we may have cable set-top boxes or television sets with the "Xbox" app and the "Playstation" app and the "Nintendo" app built into them so that we can download and play games through these boxes instead of buying a dedicated console. However, consoles will still be necessary and still exist for the people who want to take their gaming with them on the road, or when they deploy overseas, or if they live in an area without broadband.

The way I understand it, it's actually impossible for them to "block" these services. There would be two ways they could "block" the services, and both of them would have extremely high impact to Steam. First, they could ban the Bots who are collecting and trading the skins that are being gambled on. We all know that this would only be a temporary measure. More bots would simply be created to replace those banned. Secondly, they could alter the API for Steam to prohibit the type of trading that is occurring. However, they would break a lot of legitimate functions if they went this route. So saying that Steam "won't block" the gambling is being pretty disingenuous. It'd be like if Major League Baseball could "block" betting on baseball games by not posting scores online. That's really not a valid or realistic solution to the problem. It certainly looks like Steam is taking active steps to shut the gambling sites down.

They tried this already with Games for Windows Live. It failed miserably and had all sorts of issues. First of all, console players were never able to successfully play will with PC players. Secondly, sign-in problems on the PC caused problems, both on the PC and on the console. Being logged into Steam while you play a game isn't that big a deal. Having to then sign into Games for Windows when you launched a game was just dumb. I remember back in the days of Bioshock, which had Games for Windows Live, I couldn't play the game on my PC while my wife was watching Netflix on the TV, because we watched Netflix through the XBox 360. Microsoft wouldn't let you sign into multiple devices at once. It was a completely asinine system. Microsoft designs things for their business, not for the consumer. This will fall flat on its face for that reason.

This isn't true. You're able to connect to the app on Exchange normally. This is a separate app from the 365 application. I was able to download it and authenticate to my company's Exchange without any issues and we do not have a 365 business license. For us, the issue is security as this is another avenue to access an employee's email which can be exploited.

Having an unbiased view? In the realm of POLITICS?! If that is your criterion then nobody in politics should ever get appointed to anything, ever. They're politicians, not judges. It's not their job to be unbiased. In fact their job is completely the opposite, to be biased in favor of those who elected them. I wish it weren't the case, but it is.

Exactly this. This isn't a compromise. This is yet ANOTHER way for AT&T to Double-Dip and get money from both service providers and the customer.

AT&T can charge Netflix extra money for making a "Fast Lane" available on its network. Then, it can turn around and let the customer "choose" to pay an extra $20 a month to actually USE this "Fast Lane". Rinse and Repeat with every type of service you can think of: YouTube, Twitch, online gaming, Skype, etc. Soon the customer could have an extra $50-100 tacked onto his or her bill every month. Huge win for ISPs.

I can see the advertising now! Subscribe to three fast lanes and get a 20% discount on your bundle!

It's interesting reading the opposite side of this story. However, this has pretty low credibility to me. We're dealing with one story which is being publicly told by an individual who is putting her name out there, and standing behind her words. This rebuttal consists of a few loose allegations with no facts to back them up, posted by a generic anonymous coward. It reads more like office gossip than a factual rebuttal.

However, I have a few thoughts on it.

- It's insinuated that Julie is being deceitful by hiding the fact that the engineer is an ex-boyfriend. If it is, in fact, true that it was an ex-boyfriend, it's equally reasonable that Julie excluded that part of the story from her public side of the tale in order to protect his identity and not publicly call him out. Keep in mind Julie didn't even mention the founder or his wife by name.

- It's insinuated that the engineer's advances were "OK" because he was an "ex". This is simply false. Just because you had a relationship with someone doesn't make it OK to harass you.

- It's insinuated that Julie didn't have any issues with the retaliation that the engineer used against her. However if you read Julie's story, she obviously did. She may just not have come forward about it immediately, which is what happens in MANY cases of retaliation and harassment. It's easier and more comfortable to deal with the issue on your own, hope it blows over by itself, etc.

- The back-and-forth regarding the wife just sounds like meaningless he-said she-said. I'll believe it if the wife comes forward publicly and says something about it, but this just sounds like 3rd person rumor mongering to me.

- The insinuation that the "Passion Projects" at GitHub was somehow a bribe to get Julie to stop "threatening" the founder's family is a pretty serious allegation to make without any factual information to back it up, and posted anonymously.

I got a Boxee for Christmas and we've been loving it. I haven't used a Roku or Apple TV, but the Boxee is great. We use it primarily as a media station to watch media on my PC on the TV. It's fast, the quality is wonderful, and we don't have hardly any technical problems with it. I did need to browse a few forums after a firmware update made it unable to see the shared folders on my PC. Other than that, it's great for watching Daily Show and other things whenever we feel like it. The remote control keyboard is great too. The interface could use some work. I find it difficult to mark "Favorites" and then get to them easily again.