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Comment Re:bollocks (Score 1) 97

I feel like this is something the lawyers for Oculus VR and Zenimax would have looked over before Carmack started developing for the Oculus Rift. I would also think the lawyers for Facebook would have paid closed attention to this when looking into buying Oculus Rift.

Comment Re:Another reason not to use nonstandard software (Score 1) 86

Do you use a phone? Do you browse the Internet? Do you drive an automobile? Did you file your taxes?

No matter what you do unless you live in the middle of the woods you will always be exposed to software that you have no control over. Even if you're using open sourced software to communicate with people the messages are still transmitted over corporate owned hardware which means they can easily copy your message even if its encrypted.

Comment Re:Fine logic (Score 1) 202

Well, the first price increase cost us customers so the stock plunged. What will make the stock soar? A price increase!

The company has outgrown its current monthly fee. The only way for Netflix to continue growing and offer a better experience is to increase its monthly fee. Its one thing to bring in new members but they need to protect their retention rate. Netflix lately has been suffering from a quality issue where they lack new content and to a lot of us older members are starting to get annoyed by it. The good thing for Netflix is that a decent alternative doesn't exist yet but the bad thing is if the service starts to suffer and an alternative comes around people can easily jump ship.

Comment Re: What does this have to do with tech news? (Score 1) 878

Slashdot has gotten so soft, so much like reddit and other useless sites.

Can you explain to me why Reddit is a useless site? The site has thousands of different subreddits that you can customize to your tastes. Don't like /r/WTF? Unsubscribe. You enjoy discussions on movies? Subscribe to /r/movies. Its literally two clicks to do either. On top of that you can find knowledgeable people in specific subreddits. I had an old artillery shell that I wanted identified and I went to /r/military and within an hour someone had posted a link to exactly what I had. Reddit is light years ahead of where Slashdot is now.

Slashdot has gotten so soft

Slashdot is out of date. When it was first came out it had a new model no one was using but when everyone started to change and new sites started to come up Slashdot stuck to its old ways and has slowly been dying since.

Comment Re:Windows 7 (Score 1) 860

They should just roll back to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and start from there.

They probably will make their next operating system work like Windows 7 or at least give the option to choose between the two interfaces. But the main goal of the Windows 8 redesign was to make a seamless user interface between their products. They wanted it so users to be able to pick up any Microsoft device like Windows 8, Microsoft Surface, or a Windows phone and feel like they didn't even switch devices.

Comment Re:No real reason to buy until games come out (Score 1) 310

At least this generation can play last gen games... Oh wait.

To be fair here. The reason why you cant run last generation games is because of the architecture switch. Both the Xbox One and PS4 are running x86 processors which means you don't have consoles coming out with specialized CPU architectures anymore. At one point or another this had to be done and the big consequence was dropping backward compatibility unless they decide to release emulator software for the current hardware or they start releasing specialized versions of the console that contain prior generation hardware.

The big benefit though is that developers can in theory develop a game across all consoles and PC without dealing with too much porting.

Comment Re:Blockbuster Business Model (Score 4, Interesting) 385

Blockbuster had a service like Netflix and it was launched in 2004. The Blockbuster DVD-by-Mail was an interesting endeavor because everyone thought they were going to compete head to head with Netflix. The problem is that when you examined the Blockbuster DVD-by-Mail service it had a hidden agenda and that was getting people to come back to the stores.

With Netflix they sent you a DVD, you send it back through the mail, they send you another. With Blockbusters service they send you a DVD and you could either send it back and they send you a new movie OR bring it back to the stores and exchange it for a so-called rental. Except that new rental is subject to late fees and restocking fees WHICH they announced in 2005 they were getting rid of which they secretly didn't and this brought upon them a massive lawsuit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_LLC#Misleading_advertising

This was their way of getting people to come back to their stores and adding on late fees which was their cash cow.

Blockbuster is the perfect example of a company that knew the industry was changing and somewhat attempted to adapt but wouldn't let go of the past completely.In my opinion Netflix wasn't what damned them it was just the beginning. Redbox is what really killed them.

Comment Re:Lot of abandonware out there as well (Score 1) 361

I have only heard of one game that fell into abandon ware. Unfortunately, I can't find the arcade game but they used to package it with the MAME Emulator. It was an arcade game made in a former European country that no longer exists. From what I remember since the game was never released outside of that country it didn't fall into any copyright domain therefore it was considered abandon ware because the country it was made in no longer exists.

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