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Comment Xbox One (and I assume, PS4) (Score 1) 201

Some time ago my friend bought an xbox one and a few games. I helped her set it up.
1. You can't use it at all before activating online
2. You can't use it at all before downloading and installing a mandatory 5GB+ update.
3. When you put a game in for the first time, you can't play the game until you download a mandatory 5GB update for the game.

So it took over 5 hours from plugging in that MS P.O.S. before we could play a single game, and that was with a half decent ADSL2 internet connection...

I haven't used a PS4 but I guess it's the same. My PS3 and PS2 just work with no net...

Comment So it's like 4 of my dell U2711 packed into one? (Score 1) 204

I've got 2 x 2560x1440 screens and it's more than enough real estate for anything. I can't see the point of effectively having 4 of them on one screen of the same size. Even modern graphics cards struggle to do decent 3D on what I have, so what on earth is going to work on such a high res display? The only advantage I can see in 3D is less need for AA which might save some cycles...

Plus Windows scaling is so rubbish, and there is still so many non-dpi aware apps out there that many people still (need to) use, that this is a solution waiting for a problem.

Comment Re:Or...just spend $60 for a GoPano for iPhone (Score 2) 52

Yes but the GoPano creates basically a ring of video, not a sphere like the Geonaut which captures virtually everything both around and above/below (except for the camera base).

Play with it on their home page:http://fr.playgeonaute.com/video-360-692-geonaute-360-don-t-miss-any-action

Comment Re:seamonkey (Score 1) 555

Seamonkey has adopted the same rapid release cycle as Firefox (because Seamonkey uses the same Gecko engine as Firefox does, and the old Gecko versions won't get security fixes so neither will Seamonkey), so you (and me) are just as screwed as if you were a Firefox user.

Same deal with Thunderbird, which I can no longer recommend as a mail application to anyone.

They really are throwing out the baby with the bathwater on this one.

Hopefully Asa will get the boot and they'll come back to reality.

Comment Stupidest idea ever (Score 4, Informative) 121

(Disclaimer, I work for a broadcaster in Australia, so take this with a grain of salt)

OK for starters the bit about "consistent speed no matter how many users there were" is complete garbage, with ANY radio based system data system.

Secondly, if you start using the TV spectrum for data in both directions, you start putting a really strong signal OUT your TV antenna, which despite being on a different frequency to the actual TV channels, it is close enough to swamp the (really weak by several orders of magnitude) TV signal on the next band with the (extremely strong in comparison) outgoing signal.

So you can forget about watching TV while you're using the internet.

The decision to sell the TV bandwidth rather than just keep it for the public use (eg. super HD TV, or super multichanneling or whatever is in the future) is completely about $$$$ and greed by the Federal Govt so they can sell the bandwidth to the highest bidder.

Grrr.

Submission + - VirtualBox beta supports OS X as guest OS on Macs (virtualbox.org)

milesw writes: In addition to a slew of new features, VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 offers experimental support for Mac OS X guests running on Apple hardware. Got to wonder if Ellison discussed this with Jobs beforehand, given Apple's refusal to allow virtualizing their (non-server) OS.

Comment The results and links to the textbooks to download (Score 1) 216

http://www.clrn.org/fdti/

You can also download the complete report from there.

I've pulled down a couple, they were about 44 & 80 meg respectively. eg. CK12 Calculus is 43.8 meg and 457 pages.

It's nice to see they haven't made them hard to find for the rest of us who might want to review our rusty math (or whatever).

Comment Re:Optical zoom - bleh (Score 1) 596

And there is a lot of stuff worth taking a picture of that is right in front of you but you can't get it all in the frame because the camera won't go wide enough.

Going from a 3x to a 12x is great, as long as some of that increase is in the rearward direction so you can actually get all of your family in the shot while they are at the christmas dinner table.

Games

Does a Game Have To Fail To Get a Real Ending? 178

After the closure of Tabula Rasa over the weekend, the Opposable Thumbs blog asks if that's what it takes for a game to have an actual ending these days. Quoting: "It's no surprise that most games hope for a sequel, as it's the easiest way to get some of that money back while taking advantage of the staff, engine, assets, and other advantages you've banked while creating the first title. The problem? This has lead to a generation of cliff-hangers at worst, and endings that hedge their bets at best. ... As all the game's characters die, as the servers are shut down, as the data is erased or backed up and then boxed or whatever happens to MMO data once the game is done, it's hard not to be a little sad. The sights and sounds of the world of Tabula Rasa are gone, forever. All the memories written into those ones and zeroes will quickly be forgotten, and no one will walk those grounds again." Massively put together a few screenshots and videos to commemorate the ending of the game.

Comment Re:Another thing to look out for (Score 1) 225

Have to agree,
  I picked up a couple of second hand DELL 21" CRT's (with flat screen trinitron tubes no less), and have never looked back. Cost about $80 each from memory. Better response, natural colour, blacks than anything you can buy, and worked out cheaper too.
  They suck a lot of power though, and in summer you notice the heat they produce, but I don't care about that.
  However given that LCD's are only about 10-15% efficient at getting the backlight out to your face, it's all relative.
  And no, I don't care about the desk real estate (just get a deeper desk if it's a problem, and/or do what I did and make a stand for them so they sit above the keyboard etc.)

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