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Comment Re:Why? (Score 4, Insightful) 2219

by Kthoris (#46182155) Attached to: Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds!
Amazing, I hadn't thought about it in that sense until you mention it. 800x600 CRT. it's like viewing AOL on that small monitor of my old Win 3.1 system 20 years ago. Horrible. Strangely, I do think they are listening. If not, they wouldn't have responded this quickly with such voracity. I'm actually thankful for that. Let's just hope they actually DO give us the option to keep "Classic". If not, I won't be around much afterwards.

Comment Re:No mention of Sim City in TFA (Score 1) 427

by Kthoris (#43209943) Attached to: Electronics Arts CEO Ousted In Wake of SimCity Launch Disaster
AS you state, yes, this MAY not be specifically because of Sim City, as in, the total sum of ALL the reasons that Riccitiello was fired. Yes, the Q4 earnings were pretty pathetic. My point is: who's to say that, Riccitiello didn't go to the board and say something like "Yes gentlemen, I know the latest earnings aren't where I predicted they would be, BUT, as you can see, Sim City is coming along, and I can tell you it is going to be a SMASH HIT! I am so confident of this game to make up the difference in the earnings (just like SWTOR was going to), that I am willing to put my job on the line."

As it is, Riccitiello, as of late (and previously mentioned by another poster), has had a very anti-customer approach to ALL EA games. That, in and of itself, could be the biggest thing against him. He's been promising to the damn board for years that their earnings would keep going up and up, and all of the gamers have just continued to be more, and more, fed up with his tactics. So much so, that they stopped buying them. When they did, they get this Sim City hunk o' junk. It's one giant slap in the face.

Now, add on the Amazon debacle, the twisted pile of crap PR that's against them, and you have a mixture of really poignant reasons why he's been ousted, or resigned, or whatever 'slant' you want to give it.

To say that, "No the article doesn't specifically state Sim City as the reason" , may be true, however, what's stated in the article is not necessarily the WHOLE truth behind his (ahem) untimely departure.
Cellphones

Submission + - Lamenting the Demise of Hangups (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ian Bogost writes about a cultural tradition we've mostly lost as smartphones become ubiquitous: hanging up. While we still use the terminology (in the same way we say 'rewind' when skipping back on our DVR), the physical act of hanging up a telephone when we're done using it no longer occurs. And we don't get that satisfying crash and clatter when hanging up on somebody to make a point. 'In the context of such gravity, the hangup had a clear and forceful meaning. It offered a way of ending a conversation prematurely, sternly, aggressively. Without saying anything, the hangup said something: we're done, go away. ... Today a true hangup — one you really meant to perform out of anger or frustration or exhaustion — is only temporary and one-sided even when it is successfully executed. Even during a heated exchange, your interlocutor will first assume something went wrong in the network, and you could easily pretend such a thing was true later if you wanted. Calls aren't ever really under our control anymore, they "drop" intransitively.' It's an interesting point about the minor cultural changes that go along with evolving technology.
The Internet

Submission + - Seniors Search for Virtual Immortality

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Most ancestors from the distant past are, at best, names in the family Bible leaving behind a few grainy photos, a death certificate or a record from Ellis Island. But J. Peder Zane writes that retirees today have the ability to leave a cradle-to-grave record of their lives so that 50, 100, even 500 years hence people will be able to see how their forebears looked and moved, hear them speak, and learn about their aspirations and achievements. A growing number of gerontologists also recommend that persons in that ultimate stage should engage in the healthy and productive exercise of composing a Life Review. In response, a growing number of businesses and organizations have arisen to help people preserve and shape their legacy — a shift is helping to redefine the concept of history, as people suddenly have the tools and the desire to record the lives of almost everybody. The ancient problem that bedeviled historians — a lack of information about people's everyday lives — has been overcome. Stefani Twyford, who creates video biographies through her company, Legacy Multimedia says many of her clients are baby boomers who wanted to record their own parents’ lives. “There is a real sense that we can finally get these stories down and they want to act before it’s too late." One of John Butterfield’s daughters hired Twyford to make a DVD about his life for his 80th birthday. “They videotaped me and they talked to relatives and friends,” recalled Mr. Butterfield, who is now 87. “Now, everyone they taped except my brother is dead. It told me to hurry up.” New devices and technologies are certain to further this immortality revolution as futurists are already imagining the day when people can have a virtual conversation with holograms of their ancestors that draw on digital legacies to reflect how the dead would have responded. “People have always wanted to connect with other people and see that they have touched others, and made a difference,” Twyford says. “What’s changed is that we now have the tools to record and share their legacy, forever.”"

Submission + - Veoh once again beats UMG (after going out of business) (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Veoh has once again beaten the record companies; in fact it has beaten them in every round, only to have been forced out of business by the attorneys fees it expended to do so. I guess that's the record companies' strategy to do an 'end around' the clear wording of the DMCA "safe harbor": outspend them until they fold. Back in 2009 the lower court dismissed UMG's case on the ground that Veoh was covered by the DMCA "safe harbor" and had complied with takedown notices. The record companies of course appealed. And they of course lost. Then, after the Viacom v. YouTube decision by the 2nd Circuit, which ruled that there were factual issues as to some of the videos, they moved for rehearing in UMG v. Veoh. Now, in a 61-page decision (PDF), the 9th Circuit has once again ruled that the statute means it says, and rejected each and every argument the record companies made. Sadly, though, it did not award attorneys fees."
Moon

Why NASA's New Video Game Misses the Point 205

Posted by Soulskill from the if-only-astronauts-could-rocket-jump dept.
longacre writes "Erik Sofge trudges through NASA's latest free video game, which he finds tedious, uninspiring and misguided. Quoting: 'Moonbase Alpha is a demo, of sorts, for NASA's more ambitious upcoming game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, which will feature more destinations, and hopefully less welding. The European Space Agency is developing a similar game, set on the Jovian Moon, Europa. But Moonbase Alpha proves that as a recruiting campaign, or even as an educational tool, the astronaut simulation game is a lost cause. Unless NASA plans to veer into science fiction and populate its virtual moons, asteroids and planets with hostile species, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to suffer through another minute of pretending to weld power cables back into place, while thousands of miles away, the most advanced explorers ever built are hurtling toward asteroids and dwarf planets and into the heart of the sun. Even if it was possible to build an astronaut game that's both exciting and realistic, why bother? It will be more than a decade before humans even attempt another trip outside of Earth's orbit. If NASA wants to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers, its games should focus on the real winners of the space race — the robots.'"
Networking

OnLive Latency Tested 204

Posted by Soulskill from the in-the-case-of-ping-v.-pong dept.
The Digital Foundry blog has done an analysis of recently launched cloud gaming service OnLive, measuring latency across several different games. Quoting: "In a best-case scenario, we counted 10 frames delay between button and response on-screen, giving a 150ms latency once the display's contribution to the measurement was removed. Unreal Tournament III worked pretty well in sustaining that response during gameplay. However, other tests were not so consistent, with DiRT 2 weighing in at 167ms-200ms while Assassin's Creed II operated at a wide range of between 150ms-216ms. ... OnLive says that the system works within 1000 miles of its datacenters on any broadband connection and recommends 5mbps or better. We gave OnLive the best possible ISP service we could find: Verizon FiOS, offering a direct fiber optic connection to the home. Latency was also reduced still further simply due to the masses of bandwidth FiOS offers compared to bog standard ADSL: in our case, 25mbps."
PC Games (Games)

Activision Wants Consoles To Be Replaced By PCs 344

Posted by Soulskill from the oppose-on-principle dept.
thsoundman writes with this excerpt from thegamersblog: "We live in a world where we have multiple platforms for gaming: PC, PS3, 360, Wii, etc. Each platform has varying amounts of power when it comes to playing games. Activision, one of the leading cross-platform publishers, wishes to move away from the 'walled gardens' set by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. ... [Activision CEO Bobby] Kotick’s solution is to turn to the PC, where it can set its own model for pricing — not unlike what Blizzard has done with World of Warcraft and Battle.net. Kotick stated that Activision would 'very aggressively' support the likes of HP and Dell in any attempt at making an easy 'plug-and-play' PC that would hook up directly to the TV."
Microsoft

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy from the dis-orientation dept.
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings Online To Go Free-To-Play 138

Posted by Soulskill from the has-a-nice-one-ring-to-it dept.
darkwing_bmf sends word of Turbine's announcement that Lord of the Rings Online will become a free-to-play game this fall. 'The move is another validation of the free-to-play business model, where gamers can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as better weapons or decorative gear for their game characters. The business model has been popular in Asia but only recently took off in the US. This move shows the pressure is building on game publishers to shift to the new business model or face declining audiences.' According to a post on the official website, LotRO's micro-transaction system will be "very similar" to how Turbine's DDO store works, and current subscribers will maintain all of their privileges.
Role Playing (Games)

How Gamers View Their MMOs 132

Posted by Soulskill from the ooo-shiny-objects dept.
GamerDNA is trying out what they call their Discovery Engine, a system that uses metadata from users to classify games and identify which have similar traits. Massively describes it thus: "Once the gamerDNA community continues to contribute to something like this, it builds up an enormous database of terminology based on actual player knowledge, not just shiny PR words thrown together to promote a game. These search terms can end up being unique to a specific genre, and ultimately lead gamers to exactly the types of games they're looking for." GamerDNA tested the system out on some of the popular MMOs, and they've posted the results. They look at how MMO players identify themselves within the game, how they describe the setting, and what basic descriptive phrases they use in reference to the games.

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