Comment Sounded pretty good... (Score 5, Insightful) 337
...until the "with Vista Ultimate 64" part.
Comment Re:Ill-fated? (Score 1, Interesting) 81
I find it amazing that Sony is still around actually. Nintendo always makes money on their console and they're the only one of the three to consistently turn large profits from the gaming industry. By comparison, its two competitors spend their time either sinking into the red and losing money or going back and forth between making and losing money.
If anyone was to survive in this industry, it would be Nintendo because they've proven time and again that they can profit from anything (even Gamecube-esqe sales). At this point, it's a wonder that Sony's stakeholders aren't raising more complaints about Sony's business model of selling their console for a heavy loss. If the PS3 fails any harder than it already has been so far, the future of a PS4 looks mighty grim. Sadly, most of this is due to shoehorning their BluRay format into the console which forced the price to skyrocket even to the point where they would sacrifice functionality of the unit to keep the costs down.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is finally starting to post gains with their gaming division which is practically unheard of. If they could overhaul the 360 to get rid of the costs and negative PR added by continuously having to deal with RRoDs, it's likely that the 360 would stay in the black.
All in all, Nintendo will continue on its merry way making Mario and Zelda games until the end of time. Microsoft will continue attempting to take over your home media center and continue trying to kick Sony in the balls at every opportunity. Sony will continue pushing their BluRay player even as it destroys their games division.
If anyone was to survive in this industry, it would be Nintendo because they've proven time and again that they can profit from anything (even Gamecube-esqe sales). At this point, it's a wonder that Sony's stakeholders aren't raising more complaints about Sony's business model of selling their console for a heavy loss. If the PS3 fails any harder than it already has been so far, the future of a PS4 looks mighty grim. Sadly, most of this is due to shoehorning their BluRay format into the console which forced the price to skyrocket even to the point where they would sacrifice functionality of the unit to keep the costs down.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is finally starting to post gains with their gaming division which is practically unheard of. If they could overhaul the 360 to get rid of the costs and negative PR added by continuously having to deal with RRoDs, it's likely that the 360 would stay in the black.
All in all, Nintendo will continue on its merry way making Mario and Zelda games until the end of time. Microsoft will continue attempting to take over your home media center and continue trying to kick Sony in the balls at every opportunity. Sony will continue pushing their BluRay player even as it destroys their games division.
Submission + - IBM beats Microsoft over the head with own code (networkworld.com)
bednarz writes: "IBM added a delicious twist on its new commitment to help OpenOffice.org battle Microsoft Office by donating code that was originally derived in part from a Microsoft-developed technology.
IBM's iAccessible2, code-named Project Missouri, is a specification for technology used to help the visually impaired interact with Open Document Format (ODF)-compliant applications and was developed in part using Microsoft Active Accessibility (MAA)."
Writing the Bioware Way 25
Thursday at GDC Austin featured several excellent presentations, but the cap to that day's writing track was without a doubt BioWare's discussion of their writing processes, tools, and the creation of the Xbox 360 title Mass Effect. The talk detailed the numerous revision processes their work goes through, as well as the shape of their writing team across a project's lifetime. Read on for notes from the session, and impressions from the short amount of in-game footage they showed during the event.
Submission + - Record Company Collusion a Defense to RIAA Case?
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Is collusion by the record companies a defense to an RIAA case? We're about to find out, because the RIAA has made a motion to strike the affirmative defense of Marie Lindor, who alleged that "the plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have" in UMG v. Lindor. The motion will be decided by the same judge who agreed with legal scholars in sustaining another affirmative defense of Ms. Lindor, in which she alleges (pdf) that the RIAA's $750-per-song-file statutory damages theory is "unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate to any actual damages that may have been sustained, in violation of the Due Process Clause"."
Feed Engadget: Dell collaborating with software makers on virtual PCs (engadget.com)
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Apparently, Dell is working with VMware (makers of Fusion) and SWsoft (the team behind Parallels) to develop new computers with virtualization features for a new line of the company's PCs. According to reports, Dell's chief technology officer Kevin Kettler confirmed the collaboration at the Linuxworld conference in San Francisco. The plans right now are for the systems to tackle virtual versions of Windows and Linux which could run in tandem on a user's machine, though when asked about support for Apple's OS X on the virtual PCs, Kettler said "I can't speculate on that," but went on to say "virtualization is very powerful. It's an environment that would allow many different operating systems to coexist. You can interpret that however you would like." So -- at least as far as we can tell -- not an out-and-out "no."[Via Pocket-lint]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Feed The Register: Chinese firm claims World of Warcraft stole its fonts (theregister.com)
Font of all typographic wisdom
A Chinese company is suing the developer behind one of the world's biggest games over a claim that the World of Warcraft (WoW) game used its fonts without permission. The suit could be worth $13.2m.
Submission + - Diebold rebrands what noone wants.
Irvu writes: Diebold has apparently failed in their bid to sell their tainted elections systems unit. Unable to find a buyer the CEO of Diebold promised that the system will be run more "openly and independently." To prove that they are serious, they renamed it. Diebold Election Systems is now Premiere Election Solutions. They still sell GEMS, AccuVote OS and the ever-unpopular AccuVote-TSX which performed so disastrously in California's Top-to-Bottom Review under the same names. Apparently their rebranding effort only goes so far.
Feed Linux.com: Hands-on Linux training at SHARE (linux.com)
San Diego -- Mainframe programmers and sysadmins get more than just sales pitches and informational talks at SHARE this week -- they also get real-world training. I sat in on a number of educational sessions and hands-on labs at the conference, taught by engineers from IBM, Novell, and independent software vendors.
Feed The Register: Google-funded startup to offer free Wi-Fi in San Francisco (theregister.com)
Could prove death knell for city-backed plan
Things are looking bleak for boosters of a plan to bring a city-backed Wi-Fi access to San Francisco.
Feed Engadget: Lenovo says "no thanks" to Vista for 2008 Olympics (engadget.com)
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Poor Vista, you really can't buy a break. First you've got legions of users angrily awaiting a decent update for a whole slew of problems, then there's the CEOs taking pot-shots at you, and now, Lenovo, supplier of the 2008 Olympic Games' computer systems says it's sticking with XP. Word on the street is that all vital computing tasks for the Games will be handled on XP-enabled PCs, while some internet lounges used by athletes will be equipped with Vista systems. According to Yang Yuanqing, chairman of Lenovo, "the Olympic Games require mature, stable technologies and it's not a place to try new technologies." Yang, we're pretty sure a legion of Vista users feel similarly about their desktops. You can almost hear Microsoft's sharp intake of breath from here.[Via Slashdot]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - Bandwidth crunch looms for cable companies (arstechnica.com)
coax4life writes: While Verizon and AT&T lay fiber, cable companies are looking at a huge bandwidth crunch according to a new report. Increased demand for high-def programming on the TV side and faster download speeds on the ISP side of the business will leave cable companies in a rough spot — after spending over $100 billion in the last decade on infrastructure improvements. Jumping on the fiber bandwagon may help. 'Upgrading to a fiber infrastructure is a much more expensive proposition, and one more likely to occur in areas where the cable companies are facing more competition. It can happen, though — several years ago, Comcast's predecessor on the northwest side of Chicago laid fiber on top of its existing coaxial installation. The payoff is good for both cable companies and users, as it can result in more programming choices and faster Internet access.' Moving to switched digital video solutions will also help.
Cross-Platform Microsoft 348
willdavid sends us to the ZDNet blogs for a provocative opinion piece by John Carroll. He points to Microsoft's evident cross-platform strategy with Silverlight, and wonders whether the company couldn't make money — and win friends — by extending its excellent development ecosystem cross-platorm. "Microsoft, apparently, is helping the folks at Mono to port Silverlight to Linux. This is good news, as the primary fear I've heard from developers is that Silverlight will be locked to Microsoft platforms and products. Microsoft has already committed to supporting Silverlight cross-browser on Windows, and has a version that runs on Mac OS X (which is even available from the Apple web site). The last step is Linux, and Microsoft is working with Novell and Mono to make this happen."
Submission + - Bad Movie Physics Hurt Scientific Understanding (physorg.com)
eldavojohn writes: "A paper published by UCF researchers claims that bad movie physics hurt students' understanding of real world physics. From the article, "Some people really do believe a bus traveling 70 mph can clear a 50-foot gap in a freeway, as depicted in the movie Speed." The professors published this paper out of fear that society will pay the price. One of the authors commented on advancements in the past years "All the luxuries we have today, the modern conveniences, are a result of the science research that went on in the '60s during the space race. It didn't just happen. It took people doing hard science to do it." I commented on the physics of the most recent Die Hard having problems detracting from my enjoyment of the movie but is it really the root of a growing problem of poor science & math among students?"
Novell Proclaims 'We're Not SCO' and We Won't Sue 183
E5Rebel writes "Novell has promised not to sue anybody over the Unix copyrights that a US court last week ruled it owned. They said there was no Unix in Linux and now they are sticking by it. Perhaps they had no option, but Novell deserve praise for taking on the fight with SCO...."
Slashdot Top Deals
Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers. -- Tom Lehrer
