Comment Re:Authors... (Score 4, Funny) 174
Actually, the article was submitted by the Conficker bot. It has evolved a rudimentary PR function...
Comment Re:"I can't wait to throw a fireball." (Score 2, Interesting) 303
That's cool, but perhaps a tennis-based Natal game could be tuned to respond to simple flicks of the wrist instead of depending on an overhead slam motion? I would expect something along those lines.
Comment Re:Excited about it but there are still problems (Score 1) 303
You are onto something that I think is important -- you can use Natal with a regular controller in your hand. See, a game built from the ground up to exclusively use gestures is one thing, and it could be very cool. But I can imagine uses for Natal in every other game that I currently play with a regular controller.
Imagine fighting real-time in a dungeon crawler with your standard 360 controller, and being able to use your voice or quick gestures to cast spells or issue commands to the rest of your AI party? Voice controls could be huge in a lot of games. And I already make one-handed gestures to opponents in various games -- now, they can really mean something! So, don't think of this as a one trick pony. Consider other possibilities...
Comment Re:"I can't wait to throw a fireball." (Score 4, Insightful) 303
So the Wii is also failing in those areas? It requires a similar amount of space to play Wii Sports.... maybe a small amount less, but not much.
Comment Re:Seems to me like people in Europe enjoy more fr (Score 2, Insightful) 674
Yeah, that's a little deceptive. When is the last time a song was banned in the US? If you are an adult, have you ever had trouble purchasing a violent video game in the US? If you are a member of an extremist group (non-violent, at least), do you need to hide that in the US? Can you buy military style weapons in the US? You may not agree with some of the freedoms we have in the US, but they remain available.
I could come up with a list of things that are more accessible and free in the EU. It's give and take. Each area has advantages when it comes to freedom. I don't think you can make a blanket statement that one area enjoys more freedoms than the other without qualifying which freedoms are most important to you.
Submission + - Apple Itunes has gone DRM-free
scordis writes: Just this morning on running Apple's "Software Update" alongside the expected security update, I recieved a 7.2 update for itunes. Which includes the much talked about support for the so called enhanced DRM free music from EMI. So it is here! How long before we start to see other labels moving to this new "enhanced" format?
Submission + - ESR Gives up on Fedora
tmc4inphilly writes: Eric S. Raymond's frustration with Fedora reach a breaking point that resulted a letter that he sent to a number of Linux-related publications and mailing lists. "After thirteen years as a loyal Red Hat and Fedora user, I reached my limit today, when an attempt to upgrade one package pitched me into a four-hour marathon of dependency chasing, at the end of which an attempt to get around a trivial file conflict rendered my system unusable."
Submission + - NASA signs memorandum of understanding with Virgin
caffiend666 writes: "Tuesday, NASA signed a memorandum of understanding with Virgin Galactic. Although not a partnership, it is interesting to see NASA work with even more private spaceflight companies. The cryptic agreement includes that 'The memorandum is only a framework to explore potential collaborations. It does not include training of NASA astronauts, an agreement to buy seats on a Virgin Galactic flight, or provision of technical advice by NASA to Virgin Galactic.'"
Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM 236
khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.
Submission + - Merrill Lynch: 30% of U.S. Households to Own Wii b
njkid1 writes: "According to a report in the Financial Times, the Wii's sales momentum is so strong that some analysts have upgraded their long-term outlooks for the console. Nintendo's new console just came off a very strong performance in January, easily selling more consoles than either the Xbox 360 or Sony's PS3.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1530 9&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"
Journal Journal: Apple and Cisco Make Nice on iPhone
Looks like the legal hounds were pulled back and Cisco and Apple agree to share rights on iPhone. More at the source
Submission + - ESR gives up on Fedora
greginnj writes: "Noted Linux evangelist Eric S. Raymond (ESR) has publicly announced that he is giving up on Fedora and switching to Ubuntu:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 007-February/msg01006.html Not content to alert RedHat alone, it appears he has also sent out press releases to alert the media:
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/21/13402 37 . The announcement has already drawn smackbacks from David Cantrell of RedHat and Alan Cox."
Submission + - Our customers demand Linux
rolfc writes: The OMXgroup, maker of systems for financial markets says in Computer Sweden that their next generation of software, Genium, will run on Linux since the customers demand it. The article in Swedish states that it is not the technical differences that is the reason but the fact that it is an open and competitive platform, and their customers has given clear signals that they want to run Linux.
Submission + - Zend Core web apps using Ajax with Dojo and DB2
An anonymous reader writes: Quickly create a responsive Web application using DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, XQuery, PHP, and the Dojo JavaScript Framework. This tutorial shows you the advantages of the Ajax approach and see a step-by-step implementation. You will be using Zend Core, which conveniently bundles the DB2 9 Express-C data server, Apache2 Web server, PHP scripting language, DB2 extensions for PHP, and a powerful administration console. See how to take advantage of the speedy pureXML capabilities of IBM DB2 9.
Submission + - What is the cost of using hosted applications?
foniksonik writes: I work at a small company, less than 30 people, and yet the leadership refuses to consider using hosted applications for ANY purpose. They won't consider going to Gmail as a POP email provider, or using Basecamp for Project Management or Harvest for timesheets, Salesforce for CRM. etc. even though these hosted applications would save them a lot of effort/grief as well as time = money.
They claim that there is a huge downside to not 'owning' their own data in these areas and that it far outweighs the savings from not having to manage, maintain and support those tools internally. SO we have created a hodgepodge of opensource versions of the tools (dotProject, timesheet, Sugar) which don't interoperate well together either AND take a lot of time to set up, deploy, configure and customize for our needs. We have competent developers and a team in India we contract to for time intensive troubeshooting... but he time they spend on these apps takes away from time they could be devoting to PAID projects.
What do you think Slashdot? Are hosted apps a money loser, does not having ultimate control of your operational business data (as opposed to your code or other proprietary data) keep you from considering them as a time = money saver? If your company has already made the leap to hosted apps for business use, what are your experiences — good and bad?
They claim that there is a huge downside to not 'owning' their own data in these areas and that it far outweighs the savings from not having to manage, maintain and support those tools internally. SO we have created a hodgepodge of opensource versions of the tools (dotProject, timesheet, Sugar) which don't interoperate well together either AND take a lot of time to set up, deploy, configure and customize for our needs. We have competent developers and a team in India we contract to for time intensive troubeshooting... but he time they spend on these apps takes away from time they could be devoting to PAID projects.
What do you think Slashdot? Are hosted apps a money loser, does not having ultimate control of your operational business data (as opposed to your code or other proprietary data) keep you from considering them as a time = money saver? If your company has already made the leap to hosted apps for business use, what are your experiences — good and bad?
