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1. Comment - IBM Sues Amazon for Patent Infringement

   (Oct 23, 2006 - 5:17 PM)

   Ahhh...payback's a b*tch.
   
   Now...don't get me wrong, those patents sound like they're on the BS side but that hasn't stopped companies like Amazon and their "one click" patent.
   
   Seriously, I read last week about some accountant/firms patenting business methods to reduce tax. I mean, unbelievable. Say you find a loophole to reduce your tax rate and you share it with friends or you're an accountant and you implement it to save money for your clients you could be opening yourself up to a suite.
   
   Congress needs to outlaw the patenting of business methodologies.

2. Comment - Sony Strikes Back with PS3 Price Cut

   (Sep 25, 2006 - 1:42 AM)

   NEWS FLASH: Most of the data used on multi-disc games like the ones Square Enix are famous for releasing hold mostly CGI pre-rendered movies. As for the speed of the optical discs, from what I recall reading, the DVD drives are usually 2x (or was it 4x) in the PS2 and Xbox.
   
   With the power of both the Xbox360 and especially the PS3, it shouldn't be a problem to include real time cutscenes that look fantastic and save disc space. Will it look as good as the pre-rendered cutscenes. No. But it'll still look better and should rival (or be close enough to not matter) any CGI cutscenes used in the PS2. Look at some of the demos in games such as Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo. They look very very good. Considering that this is how real time stuff is suppose to look on the PS3, real time cutscenes should look fantastic and not have the sometimes jarring graphical differences evidenced in some games when it jumps to gameplay.
   
   Take Oblivion. It is PC game but it is a game with a staggering amount of content. It all fits on one DVD. Why? Because it makes good use of the space and uses in game cutscenes instead of pre-renders.
   
   For streaming data faster, which is one thing Sony has pimped about it's Blu-Ray disc drive, just use 16x or higher DVD drives instead of the 2x or 4x drives and...we see a huge increase in speed. Duh.
   
   Unfortunately Sony fanboys will simply not accept the truth. That Blu-Ray was simply not needed by the PS3 and it was pushed onto consumers by other divisions in the Sony corporation.
   
   If BR is the dominant format, Sony stands to reap a lot of money from licensing fees. Sony could litterally rake in billions over the next 5-10 years off of BR. That's why BR is being foistered on the gamers. Not because it is even remotely necessary, but because of dollars Sony can potentially make in the licensing department.
   
   Licensing and selling proprietary formats has led to beta, atrac, memory stick, umd, and probably others I'm forgetting. In most cases (except for atrac), there was already an exhisting format that was equal or better but Sony wanted to try to get their format up so they could make money selling hardware as well as earn licensing revenue.
   
   By the way, don't take this as me ranting against new formats or even proprietary formats. I just hate it when a company continually tries to lock me into their system when there is an equal or in some cases better rival format that is already in the market. In cases like CF and SD, they are already well established formats and the Memory Stick format was hardly needed. If the new format had a compelling feature to top exhisting ones then I can see supporting it but that hasn't been the case in most of Sony's proprietary crap.
   
   And don't take this as a rant against Blu-Ray, I actually think that in many respects, it is better than HD-DVD. Specifically the standardized use of a protective coating (from TDK) to prevent scratched discs as well as the higher amount of data each disc layer can hold.
   
   *EDIT*
   And smart people will realise that 720p is also true HD. There are multiple resolutions in the HD format. 720p is part of it. 1080p is merely a higher resolution in the HD format. Not to mention that HDMI is not needed for 1080p resolutions. A dual link DVI port will handle 1080p resolutions though you'd need seperate audio cable(s). The usage of "true HD" is merely a Sony marchitecture term and holds no water when used to seperate "true" HD and "fake" HD. It either is HD resolution (720p, 1080i, 1080p) or it isn't.
   
   HDMI is the media company's way of controlling how we watch our movies and taking away certain consumer rights we in the USA have.

3. Comment - Sony Strikes Back with PS3 Price Cut

   (Sep 24, 2006 - 12:38 AM)

   Likely 2-4 weeks. Even more likely is that this was a relatively easy change. What I think happened is that they were flip flopping on adding HDMI to the lower end PS3's and none were actually developed. Most steps between making the PS3 lower end and higher end models are the same anyways and only the HD's used and a couple of other parts are different/missing.
   
   What I think was happening was that they made only the higher end PS3's that are selling for $600. Since only 20% of the initial batch of PS3's will be the lower end models, they just make a bunch of higher end models until they finalized plans and likely a few weeks ago sent word to the manufactoring plants on what to make.

4. Comment - Sony Strikes Back with PS3 Price Cut

   (Sep 24, 2006 - 12:33 AM)

   I recall reading on Bloomberg.com that Sony's own projections for the PS3 being that they will not recover the costs for developing it and subsidizing the costs associated with selling it until 5 years into the PS3's lifespan.
   
   This means that to develope and sell the PS3, Sony's games division may run in the red for the next 4-5 years. I'm sure this also assumes that the PS3 will be the market leader with perhaps PS2 like sales numbers or close to PS2 numbers.
   
   I am not sure how the Sony fanboys will spin that report but it just seems that any news about Sony these days is all negative. Even moves it is doing to try to make themselves look better are backfiring.

5. Comment - Sony Strikes Back with PS3 Price Cut

   (Sep 24, 2006 - 12:18 AM)

   Not up to speed on my technical jargon or keeping up with the latest specs but I believe dual link DVI (not the same as dual DVI) which is a single connector will support any resolution HDMI 1.3 can and with the same amount of color depth. So HDMI is not exactly needed and without the DRM crap. Of course, the big media companies are forcing HDMI on us because they want to control every single facet of our home entertainment.
   
   Honestly, at this rate, I will just read more books which doesn't hold jack for DRM and maybe play MMORPG's which are relatively cheap considering the time you can put into one and a good one should last you a few years. Just move to a new one every few years and done. That along with the numorous free games on the internet with good gameplay means you can just say screw it to all the repetitive sequels and other pieces of turd they repackage as new games.