Παιχνιδομηχανές VS Windows PC = 100-0

“Why consoles?” It’s a question that plenty of formerly PC-exclusive developers have been asked, but few have tackled head-on. Instead, they’ve preferred to sidestep it in fear of stumbling right into a PR minefield. Epic President Mike Capps, however, has decided that honesty is the best policy – no matter how brutal that honesty might be.

“If you walked into [Epic's Offices] six years ago,” said Capps, “Epic was a PC company. We did one PS2 launch title, and everything else was PC. And now, people are saying ‘Why do you hate the PC? You’re a console-only company.’”

“And guess what? It’s because the money’s on console.”

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Λέει και άλλα ωραία αλλά δεν τα λέει όλα όπως θα πρεπε να τα πει. Δηλαδή; Ότι τα Windows μηχανάκια έχουν κάψει πολύ κόσμο με τις διάφορες αναβαθμίσεις και προβλήματα τους και πολύς κόσμος ξύπνησε και δεν αγοράζει πλέον Windows μηχανάκια για παιχνίδια.

Όπως επίσης παρέλειψε να πει ότι για να κάνουν ένα παιχνίδι όπως το Gears of War στα Windows θα πρέπει να φτύσουν αίμα και θα πρέπει ο πελάτης να έχει ένα 16-core Windows 7 Ultimate PC με 32 GB RAM και RAID SSD δίσκους, με τριπλές κάρτες γραφικών με 1 GB VRAM η κάθε μία.

Και πάλι θα του κρασάρει του αλλουνού το παλιοπαίχνιδο γιατί τρέχει στα γ@μ$μ€ν@ τα Windows με 8 αντιβιοτικά, 32 αντισπάιγουερ και 128 @@ρουπηρεσίες των Windows, μαζί με τον Internet Explorer και το Micro$oft Messenger να του κρασάρουν ανελλιπώς, ενώ το Facebook status γράφει αγάμητος και το TV tuner παράθυρο παίζει "Τη Ζωη της Άλλης" γιατί βλέπετε ο ίδιος του ΔΕΝ έχει ζωή. Μέσα σε όλες τις παραπάνω μ@λ@κ!ες που τον δέρνουν κατεβάζει με το μ/uTorrent και το τελευταίο επεισόδιο του Lost γιατί έτσι στα χαμένα ατενίζει και αυτός τη ζωή του, πίνοντας μπίρες, καπνίζοντας μπάφους, παίζοντας το παλιοπαίχνιδο.

Περαστικά του και περαστικά σας ΚΑΙ περαστικά μας.

Adobe Flash σε χακαρισμένα iPhone;

A simple solution to the Flash Player on iPhone problem (row? endless black hole of argument?) has been suggested. It's so simple it's marvellous.

To recap: Apple won't allow Adobe's Flash on the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It won't add a Flash plugin to the browser, MobileSafari. It won't allow Flash Player to be offered through the App Store.

So there's no way for the Flash Player to get onto the iPhone/iPod Touch, right? Wrong.

Because - as @poorlyrendered points out - there is a way for Adobe to show that Apple is wrong, completely wrong, and that Adobe is right, completely right, about how Flash will run so well on the iPhone. Assuming it will.

It's this: write a version of Flash Player and offer it to owners of jailbroken iPhones.

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Δεν λέω. Θα θελα να το δω. Όχι τίποτα άλλο αλλά αυτό θα ήτανε το τελευταίο καρφί στο φέρετρο της Adobe που λέει ένα κάρο μ@λ@κ!ες ενάντια στην Apple και έχει γραμμένους τους Apple πελάτες πάνω από 10 χρόνια τώρα.

Σε παρακαλώ πολύ Adobe. Κάνε το παραπάνω "κόλπο" που λέει το άρθρο. Περιμένω με μεγάλη ανυπομονησία τη μέρα που θα γίνεις ΚΑΝΟΝΙΚΑ ο περίγελος ΟΛΩΝ.

iStaTsakidia Adobe.

Τα @@ της Adobe μας έχουν πνίξει στο ψέμα

A couple of weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published “Thoughts on Flash,” a 1,671-word execration of Adobe’s Flash platform.

On Thursday, Adobe co-founders and co-chairmen Chuck Geschke and John Warnock followed suit with some thoughts of their own. Their eight-paragraph essay, “Our Thoughts On Open Markets,” mentions Apple only once, but when it does, it is to lambaste the company for its position on Flash, a position the two claim “could undermine this next chapter of the web–the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.”

I spoke to Geschke Thursday afternoon about the pair’s letter, Adobe’s (ADBE) new “We ♥ Apple” ad campaign and Apple’s (AAPL) stance on his company’s software. Below, a transcript of our conversation.

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Μωρέ δεν πάτε να μπιπ-μπιπ. ΖΩΑ. Ψέμα στο ψέμα. Στα μούτρα μας πάνω από 10+ χρόνια τώρα. iStaTsakidia.

Μ' εξόργισε ΕΙΔΙΚΑ το παρακάτω ΑΡΧΙΨΕΜΑ:

JP: Cross-platform mobile apps tend not to take advantage of native features unique to each device. What do you have to say about complaints that write-once-run-anywhere software results in subpar apps?

CG: Well, people don’t say that about Photoshop. They certainly don’t say it about Acrobat….I’m a little confused about what the real examples of that are. If there’s a problem with the performance of Flash as demonstrated on the iPhone, it’s because we haven’t been able to access the inner layers of hardware and software we need to to provide the kind of performance we can provide on other platforms. But that’s Apple’s choice, not ours. And now, of course, you can’t use it at all.

Ε ΟΧΙ και το Photoshop και το Acrobat. ΕΛΕΟΣ. Δεν υπάρχει κανείς Mac χρήστης που μπορεί να γνωρίζει ότι 1+1=2 να μην λέει τα χειρότερα για το Acrobat. Όσο για το Photoshop που είναι το καλύτερο εργαλείο της κατηγορίας του, η έκδοση του Mac ΔΕΝ έχει καμία σχέση με τα Mac. Ανοίγεις πάνω από 10 παράθυρα σε OpenGL και βαράει η εφαρμογή. Τα παράθυρα διαλόγου άλλα είναι Mac άλλα είναι Windows και άλλα είναι Adobe. ΔΕΝ εκμεταλλεύεται σωστά το Expose αλλά ούτε και το Spaces. Στην έκδοση CS4 δεν ήτανε 64-bit ενώ ήτανε στα Windows. ΑΚΟΜΗ και στην έκδοση CS5 δεν εκμεταλλεύεται πάνω από 2 πυρήνες των επεξεργαστών στην πλειοψηφία των εργασιών της εφαρμογής. Και ΜΥΡΙΑ άλλα προβλήματα τα οποία δεν είναι της στιγμής και ήδη είπα αρκετά.

ΟΧΙ ΑΛΛΑ ΨΕΜΑΤΑ παλιοτόμαρα της Adobe. ΟΧΙ ΑΛΛΑ ΨΕΜΑΤΑ. Ζητήστε συγγνώμη από τους Apple πελάτες και στα λόγια και στις πράξεις. Αλλιώς iStaTsakidia.

Πως οι αντίπαλοι της Apple καμουφλάρουν τις επιθέσεις τους

Last week, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps published Curated Computing: Designing For The Post-iPad Era where she observed:

"What's revolutionary about the iPad is the experience that it delivers: The iPad is a new kind of PC that ushers in an era of Curated Computing."

Not unexpectedly, this drew the attention of the anti-Apple echosystem that regards the Cupertino company as the evil incarnate who's hellbent on destroying the "open web" by curating its users' experience on Apple devices.
Taking the baton of anti-Apple venom from Adobe's Lee (Go screw yourself Apple) Brimelow, Google's newest evangelist Tim (I hate, hate Apple) Bray responded to Forrester's "Curated Computing" notion with élan:

I shudder to the core.

In a series of tweets on Twitter, Bray piled on Apple with escalating snarkiness. Let's review his misdirections away from Google's own sins:

Curated computing: Who needs complexity?

Exactly, who needs complexity? Who does need complexity other than those who profit from mediating its ill effects on consumers? Who, for example, needs Byzantine complexity purposely injected into our legal, tax or health care systems? Who profits from the shameful complexity of our IT universe? Who benefits from the anti-virus industry? Who profits from the complexity of Facebook's privacy settings, Oracle's pricing structure or Microsoft's SharePoint hairball? Who needs the complexity of users being forced to navigate through six different Android OS versions against a permutation of dozens and dozens of carriers, handset manufacturers and devices? Google would like you to believe users are craving for this complexity, just as Microsoft tried to convince you for the last two decades.
[John @gruber answers @timbray: I think this one actually nails it: "Curated computing: Who needs complexity?" Many use cases where we *don't* need complexity. Tim Bray responds:]

Agreed, many indeed, but freedom is too high a price.

Freedom? Whose freedom? The freedom of those who directly profit from the artificial complexity to continue as they please or the freedom of users who are being taxed by these parasites? Let's ignore the absurdity of equating Apple's banning of proprietary Flash with the abrogation of, say, the First Amendment, a real freedom.

Curated computing: Don't bother your pretty little head, we'll take care of what you see.

Just like Google telling the rest of the world: “If someone forced us to [disclose how our search advertising business works], it would destroy our product.” This from a company that's currently being investigated by the European Commission for antitrust ramifications of its opaque search ranking algorithms and the resulting 90% monopolistic share of the European search market. Google knows best.

Curated computing: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Let's open that curtain a bit. Here's what Bray's bosses and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page said in their The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine a few years ago:

Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.
We expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.
It could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.

It's not as if, a decade later, the rest of the world can see what's behind Google's perfectly opaque and proprietary search and advertising curtain, is it? Can you say "link farms"and SEO? Do you really know what exactly Google does with your click-stream history? Did you know Google has been snooping on European WiFi transmissions until a few days ago even though the company denied it previously? Do you really know what the man behind the curtain is doing?

Curated computing: Admire the beautiful murals on the garden walls.

Or you can go "out there" to admire the graffiti on the...ground? In Google's walled garden of advertising, for example, "cougars and cubs are out, but sugar daddies and sugar babies are in." Google "will take care of" your sexual proclivities.

Curated computing: Freedom is over-rated.

So are utopias.

I, for one, welcome our new curatorial overlords.

Of course, no mention of our current overloads: complexity merchants.

Curated computing: What they have right now in China.

And what they also had in China just a few years ago when Bray's employer Google went in three-monkey style to conduct commerce, despite all manner of people pleading the overlord of search/ad business not to.

Curated computing: Just fine if you're the curator.

Google should know, its share of the search market hovers around 65-70% and its U.S. search advertising share is over 75%. If you're the sole "curator" of AdSense/AdWords things should be just fine.

Curated computing: Your gated-exurban-community home on the Internet.

Perhaps the most pernicious proposition of the "everything must be open" crusade is the notion that curation is bad and anti-freedom. Soldiers of this crusade confuse freedom with competition. Our museums are not football-field sized warehouses where art objects are indiscriminately dumped and our magazines and blogs are not amorphous containers of randomly selected articles. Our classrooms, restaurants, hospitals and indeed all our civilized institutions are firmly reliant on curation of one kind or another. The goal should be for curators to compete, not for curation to be declared illegal and unholy by the "open" zealots.

Who's behind the curtain?
Just as Adobe is desperately trying to yell at the world, "Don't buy into Apple's walled garden, get locked into our own proprietary Flash," so is Google trying to misdirect consumers' attention from its own monopolistic sins to Apple's mobile platform where 100 million users voted with their own money to enjoy 200,000 apps. The evil man behind the curtain in this scenario is not Apple's curation, it's the frightening prospect of Google getting cut off from search and ad revenue derived from its naked domination of the search box on top of your web browser. That, unfortunately, doesn't sound like an appealing public cry, hence the "Curated Computing" misdirection whining.

Διαβάστε το αυθεντικό άρθρο εδώ.

Χειρότερα θα μπορούσα να τα πω. Καλύτερα δεν το νομίζω...

Αφιερωμένο

Εδώ και καιρό λέω να το αναρτήσω και όλο το ξεχνώ. Αφιερωμένο σε όλους τους καρεκλάτους και σε όλους τους κατά φαντασίαν καρεκλάτους.

Περαστικά σας.

Μου τη δίνετε βρε παλιοΜπεεεε αλλά δεν θα σας περάσει έτσι

There were reports yesterday that a Foxconn (FXCNY.PK) employee in the Chinese city of Shenzhen has committed suicide. It means that the woman, 24, is the sixth Foxconn employee to commit suicide this year (and there are three more employees who unsuccessfully attempted suicide). Perhaps best known is that a male Foxconn employee, 25 years old, killed himself after being asked questions about a missing iPhone prototype.

And that's why this sad story gets so much attention. To some, the connection to Apple's (AAPL) secretive ways is easy to make. After all, would it be any surprise if working with one of the most militantly guarded companies on the planet led some Foxconn employees to destructive levels of pressure and strain, even to the point of suicide? The narrative fits together so neatly.

Or does it? Because the assertion of a "suicide cluster" is something that need not be accepted uncritically. Let's do the sad math. The rate of suicide in China is, according to the WHO, 13.0 per 100,000 for men, and 14.8 per 100,000 for women (China is one of the few countries where the female suicide rate exceeds the male one). Given 300,000 employees at Foxconn's massive Shenzhen facility, we should, therefore, expect somewhere between 39 and 43 suicides a year -- tragedies, but also the interplay of known suicide rates and a large company population.

So, what does this tell us? We have had 6 suicides so far this year among Foxconn employees in Shenzhen, and we are not even halfway through the year. It is sad but true that annualized we would end up considerably lower than the 39 suicides figure cited above.

In other words, it is entirely likely that Foxconn, however difficult its work environment, and however stressful its Apple relationship, is seeing a "suicide cluster" that is happening just by tragic chance.

Διαβάστε το αυθεντικό άρθρο εδώ.

Δεν είναι όλα τα παραπάνω που προσπαθούν να τα βάλουν τα πράγματα σε μια "λογική" όσο το γεγονός ότι ΟΛΟΙ μα ΟΛΟΙ λένε ότι τους κατέβει μόνο και μόνο επειδή κάτι πήρε το μάτι τους και το αυτί τους σχετικά με την Apple σε όλα τα Foxconn γεγονότα.

Μεταξύ της υπόλοιπης λασπολογίας που υπάρχει εκεί έξω για την Apple, ε, να μην βάλουμε και κακές συνθήκες εργασίας-αυτοκτονίες;

Και επειδή είστε μεγάλα ζώα ότι σας πετάνε το καταπίνετε. Δεν πειράζει. Γι αυτό είμαι εδώ. Για να σας δείξω πόσο μπεεεε είστε...

Foxconn is the largest manufacturer of electronics and computer components worldwide, and mainly manufactures on contract to other companies. Among other things, Foxconn produces the Mac mini, the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone for Apple Inc.; Intel-branded motherboards for Intel Corp.; various orders for American computer manufacturers Dell and Hewlett-Packard; motherboards for UK computer manufacturer Zoostorm; the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for Sony; the Wii for Nintendo; the Xbox 360 for Microsoft, cell phones for Motorola, the Amazon Kindle, and Cisco equipment.

ΔΕΝ είναι εργοστάσιο που κάνει προϊόντα MONO για λογαριασμό της Apple. Όπως επίσης ΔΕΝ είναι και το μοναδικό εργοστάσιο που φτιάχνει προϊόντα της Apple. Γιατί λοιπόν κανείς δεν αναφέρει ότι το εργοστάσιο έχει κακές συνθήκες και αυτοκτονίες επειδή ένα κάρο εταιρίες δημιουργούν τις κακές αυτές καταστάσεις και γιατί για ΟΛΑ πρέπει να είναι υπεύθυνη η Apple;

Αν ευθύνεται η Apple, ΝΑΙ στην πυρά! Κι εγώ μαζί σας. Αλλά κάτι άλλο παίζει ΞΕΚΑΘΑΡΑ εδώ πέρα. Ανοίξτε τα στραβά σας και το ακατοίκητο που αποκαλείτε μυαλό και νιώστε.

Fuck Facebook

I just deleted my Facebook account.

After being with the social network for some years (I forget when I joined: either 2007 or 2006, invited by Philip Young), I’ve concluded that it simply isn’t a place for me any more that I want to spend time in.

I have no major issues with Facebook. Never had any problems with my account, with privacy, with spammers or trolls, none of that. And while Facebook privacy concerns is a pretty hot topic for discussion these days, that’s not a primary reason why I decided to quit the service.

It’s just not a place where I really spend any meaningful time. I don’t really engage with anyone there; every time I do check in, I encounter conversations galore of which I’m purely an onlooker. About the only activity I have there is automatically piped-in tweets from Twitter. (Every time I look at my Facebook presence, all those tweets look like so much spam to me.)

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Σας λυπάμαι πραγματικά. Ούτε ένα Fuck Facebook δεν μπορείτε να πείτε. Τι κάθεσαι ρε άνθρωπε μου και κατεβάζεις ότι @@ θέλεις;

Πες τα πράγματα όπως είναι:
FUCK FACEBOOK!

David Lynch

Η Apple αγαπάει(;) την Adobe

Ναι και μάλιστα ακριβώς όπως της αρμόζει!

Συμφωνώ και επαυξάνω Apple. Συμφωνώ και επαυξάνω. ΧΩΣΕ και ΣΩΣΕ. Μόνο εσύ μπορείς Apple. Μόνο εσύ. Όλοι οι άλλοι δεν τολμούν να τα βάλουν όχι μόνο με τους άλλους αλλά ΕΙΔΙΚΑ ούτε και με τους εαυτούς τους.

Go Apple. Go Apple. GO!

Gawker's Ryan Tate VS Apple's Steve Jobs = 0-1

I didn't plan to pick a fight with Steve Jobs last night. It just sort of happened: An iPad advertisement ticked me off; I sent the Apple CEO an angry email; he told me about "freedom from porn."

The electronic debate proceeded from there.

Of course, there was a bit more to it than that. There's the context: Jobs' legal fight with my employer Gawker Media, over the handling of an iPhone prototype; my long-simmering worries about Apple's growing power to limit self expression through its lockdown on iPad apps; and the fact that my wife, who might normally (and quite sensibly) veto the idea of spending Friday night sending email flames, was out of town.

So in retrospect I was primed to lash out. But there was some serendipity too: Watching a new episode of 30 Rock on my digital video recorder, I somehow failed to skip over an Apple ad I'd never seen before, one that billed the iPad as nothing less than "a revolution." You can see an excerpt of the ad at the bottom of this post.

With a Stinger cocktail at my side, I dashed off a short, pointed question to Jobs' well-known email address.

A few hours later—after midnight here in California—he got back to me. And I got back to him. And so on.

I didn't identify myself as a writer for Gawker in my initial email, sent from my ryantate.com email address. But, as you'll see in the exchange below, I eventually made my affiliation clear, and Jobs didn't seem bothered. Between that and the fact that Jobs regularly uses emails to disclose new information to the public, knowing full well recipients now regularly make the exchanges public, I feel fine reproducing the thread below.

It's a feisty discussion, as you'll see. And heated, especially on my part.

Rare is the CEO who will spar one-on-one with customers and bloggers like this. Jobs deserves big credit for breaking the mold of the typical American executive, and not just because his company makes such hugely superior products: Jobs not only built and then rebuilt his company around some very strong opinions about digital life, but he's willing to defend them in public. Vigorously. Bluntly. At two in the morning on a weekend.

As much as Jobs and his actions anger me, and as harsh as I was to him, I came away from the exchange impressed with his willingness to engage.

Διαβάστε την ΠΟΛΥ ενδιαφέρον συνέχεια εδώ.

Απίστευτη συζήτηση και φυσικά ο Steve Jobs του την είπε χωρίς σάλιο. Δεν τον χάλασε!

Βέβαια οι βλαμμένοι εκεί έξω πάλι με τον Steve Jobs και την Apple θα τα βάλουν. Δεν πειράζει όμως. Ο Steve Jobs ήρθε σε μάχη με το Χάρο αρκετές φορές από τη δεκαετία του '80. Δεν μασάει. Όπως είπε και ο φίλος μου: Ότι δεν σε σκοτώνει σε κάνει πιο... Παράξενο!

Περισσότερους παράξενους σας παρακαλώ πολύ! Όχι άλλα πρόβατα. Φτάνει! Έλεος!

Google VS Εταιρίες Τηλεπικοινωνιών = 0-1

We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC.

But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.

So today we’re announcing the following changes:

More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we're working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.

From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we'll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.

Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.

Διαβάστε το αυθεντικό άρθρο εδώ.

Τους πήρε καιρό αλλά το καταλάβανε τελικά οι μόγγολοι εκεί στην Google. Αν θέλεις να πουλήσεις κινητά τότε πρέπει να τα βάλεις μέσα στις εταιρίες τηλεπικοινωνιών. Δυστυχώς αλλά έτσι πρέπει να γίνει.

Αλλιώς αν έχεις τα κότσια φτιάχνεις το δικό σου παγκόσμιο δίκτυο. Και ρωτώ: Αν η Google δεν έχει τα κότσια τότε ποιος μπορεί να τα έχει;

Για να δούμε τι θα δούμε...

Ε, Adobe; Έφερες διαφήμιση σε μάχη με όπλα!

Adobe, no one seems to want to say this to you, but I will. Stop it, you’re embarrassing yourself.

You’ve just spent God-knows how much money on an ad buy that blankets much of the technology press (including this site). It’s a strange passive-aggressive message that just makes Jobs’ aggressive-aggressive post from a few weeks ago seem even more forceful. And it’s transparent. But worst of all, it won’t work. You must know this.

On the face of it, the ad is an attempt to convince people that you’re the good guys in this fight. “We Love Apple” — the problem is, you don’t love Apple. Why on Earth would you? They’re completely screwing you right now. Everyone knows that. You’d have to be crazy to love Apple right now.

Διαβάστε τη συνέχεια εδώ.

Μουαχαχαχα.com

Στην κυριολεξία αυτό που έκανε η Adobe είναι αυτό που λέμε εμείς οι Έλληνες: "Είπε ο Γάιδαρος, τον πετεινό, κεφάλα!".

iStaTsakidia Adobe!

Με όλα τα παραπάνω θυμήθηκα την κομματάρα: