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Comment: Handoffs per minute for vehicle passenger (Score 1) 120

by tepples (#44035679) Attached to: Comcast To Expand Public WiFi Using Home Internet Connections

Better WiFi (or WiMax, etc) should allow this eventually.

There are deployments of WiMAX technology, but they've been on licensed spectrum owned by cellular carriers. In any case, if you plan to serve people from a home router, how many handoffs per minute would it take to serve a customer in a bus moving at 30 mph (50 km/h)?

Comment: Every major console since NES is "locked out" (Score 1) 559

by tepples (#44034153) Attached to: Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One

Even the Wii provides a better experience in that regard, both for local multiplayer [...] But in general, why would you want to buy a locked out system

The Wii, the Wii U, and in fact every Nintendo console since the Nintendo Entertainment System has been "a locked out system". The lockout chip, combined with a developer approval policy that has exploited the correlation between experience and quality, has resulted in a measure of quality control on Nintendo's platforms. This quality control is arguably the only way the NES was able to pull the North American video game market out of the shovelware rut it was in from 1983 through 1985. As for why one would buy a console over a living room gaming PC in the first place, that's because major PC game developers have tended to pay little attention to local multiplayer, and major developers of local multiplayer games have tended to pay little attention to the PC platform.

Comment: To appease retailers (Score 1) 381

by tepples (#44031939) Attached to: MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher

[To qualify as a publisher to earn XBLA release slots,] You have to ship some specific quantity of disks to retail.

If this is true, I wonder whether Microsoft put this rule in place to appease retailers that treat consoles as essentially loss leaders to get people in the door to buy higher-margin disc games.

Comment: Discretionary income (Score 1) 559

by tepples (#44031621) Attached to: Microsoft Reputation Manager's Guide To Xbox One

According to the 2010 census, 17.7% of the population of the U.S. is rural.

I would imagine that video game console makers prefer customers with more discretionary income to buy more disc games and more download games. How much discretionary income do these rural dwellers have compared to urban dwellers?

Comment: In Russia, Yandex serves YOU (Score 1) 290

by tepples (#44029785) Attached to: Google Aims To Cull Child Porn By Algorithm, Not Human Review

Also if it becomes known that Google actively filters certain political content or skews search results intentionally to push a political agenda, they may end up losing their #1 spot as search engine really fast (especially if at the same time the competition, most notably Bing because that's the only one that I know wiith serious money behind it, finally gets their act together and provides a proper alternative).

Bing? Hardly. I'm betting more on DuckDuckGo powered by Yandex.

Comment: When kids are more informed than their parents (Score 1) 381

by tepples (#44029675) Attached to: MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher

non-gaming parents who will be giving consoles for birthdays/Christmas

I know beggars can't be choosers, but by November, kids will have read about the limitations of the Xbox One. "Mommy, can I have a PS4? It's cheaper. Or better yet, a new computer that does homework and games."

Comment: Re:What is a publisher even for? (Score 1) 381

by tepples (#44029511) Attached to: MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher

Sometimes developers need upfront money while developing the game to pay salaries, bills, etc, especially if the game is larger than their last one.

And sometimes a developer has a complete game for Windows or Mac or Android or iOS, is paying "salaries, bills, etc" out of the revenue from that game, and is waiting for a developer license to bring it to one of the consoles. What role does a publisher fill in this situation except as a holder of "slots" on Microsoft's release schedule?

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