Has Google Gone Quixote in the Fight to Save Adobe Flash?
The past few months have not been kind to Adobe Flash. For that matter, the past few years haven’t been much better. It was excluded from the initial, 2007 release and each subsequent update of the Apple iPhone. It hurt, but it was acceptable. After all, it was a phone…a smartphone…but a phone all the same.
The exclusion of the reigning king of streaming video, from the Apple iPad, though? That was too personal. It’s a computer. Computers have Flash. If they don’t, users can’t watch Hulu. If you can’t watch Hulu, what is the point of. recreational computing?
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DRM: Can there ever be a compromise?
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a thorn in the side of every PC gamer. The measures put in place by game developers to protect their product from piracy range anywhere from slightly annoying (requiring the game disc to be in the disc drive) to the outright absurd (requiring continuous online access). But don’t the game creators need a way to protect their bottom line? After all, retails stores use lots of methods like sensors, cameras, security guards, receipt checking to protect their inventory. So why shouldn’t game developers implement their own methods? They should. But they’re doing it wrong.
The developers believe they are protecting their assets but they’re completely ignoring the issue that DRM punishes their paying customers rather than preventing piracy. They are rigid in their thinking that they can completely eliminate piracy altogether instead of being flexible and coming up with a solution that minimizes theft but isn’t a huge hassle for consumers. Read more…
Will the Dreams of Verizon Customers Finally Become a Reality with the iPhone 4G?
It seems the end may finally be near for the symbiotic relationship shared by Apple and AT&T, since 2007. According to a Wall Street Journal report, from March 29, 2010, internal sources confirm they are developing a different version of the iPhone. The general consensus, within the industry, has been that Apple would release a new version (called iPhone 4G around the internet) in June.
So what is so significant about potential plans by Apple to begin producing a new iPhone? It appears this one will operate on CDMA networks, not just the traditionally supported GSM networks, like the one operated by AT&T Wireless. Specifically, Verizon Wireless customers may be the primary benefactors of the new CDMA expansion.
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Week in Review: Gaming News
All I have to say is a lot of stuff happened last week in the gaming world. I had so many news stories to choose from, that I didn’t know where to start. I picked a few I was interested in, a few I thought were silly or fun and a few that seem important for all gamers out there. Hopefully there’s at least one thing worth getting you in the gaming mood.
But first, a moment of silence. Voice actor Robert Culp died last week at the age of 79. He voiced character of Dr. Breen in Valve’s Half-Life 2.
As far as everything else that’s been going on, take a peek peek after the break. Read more…
Individual Flight – How Science Fiction Failed Us
Recently, my readers have been asking me to pursue a different line in the idea of how science fiction failed us: the empty promise of high technology in the early 21st century. Examples, of course, would include flying cars, robot assistants and Jaws 19 (I swear I heard it’s in development somewhere…). While it would deviate from the form of this series to direct my attention to the things we have failed to steal from our works of Science Fiction, I think I would be remiss in my duties to ignore the will of the people (take notes Congress). So, rather than address how Sci-Fi failed us, I’ll look at how these things can go horribly wrong.
The Apple iPad: To Preorder or to Camp Out? That is the Question.
The big Apple news this past weekend was the fact that those who didn’t preorder the iPad earlier in March may not have their long-awaited tablet arrive on April 3rd as they had originally expected. It seems the much anticipated tablet computer has surpassed even the most conservative of expectations by reportedly pre-selling around 240,000 units, since going on presale on March 12, 2010.
Schmaps: The Twitter Friendly, Sociable Alternative to Foursquare
I am a fan of Foursquare, in fact I think I have more Mayorships than anybody else in the small city in which I live. I’m also a member of Twitter who tweets on a frequent basis. As a result, I truly enjoy the many relationships I have with my Tweeps. Both Foursquare and Twitter are ways for me to connect to people. While Foursquare has allowed me to communicate my status, via Twitter, that has been pretty much the limit of its integration into the social media giant that is Twitter. As a result, they both remain completely separate tools, when I think of social networking. For me, there was a void in cleanly combining the two. Fortunately, for me and many other social networking-obsessed technophiles, Schamps has come to the rescue.
Recognizing Hardcore Geeks with Hobbies
It is no surprise that most of the distinguished visitors here at Geek Shui Living are…well…geeks. On a daily basis, there are recreational computer users who do happen upon the site, via Google News, a search query, or just by sheer luck. Those who return habitually, though, are predominantly geeks looking for geeky stuff.
Of the geeks, some are recreational geeks, who simply love gadgets, obsess over social media and circumnavigate the web like a pro. Generally, they don’t often wander into the deep end of the technical pool. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the Michael Phelps type geeks. These are the ones that rarely get out of the technical pool. The better part of their lives are spent surgically assembling hardware, weaving magical code and directing symphonic-like computing operations. At the end of the day, their neuron ends are almost always packet-logged and wrinkled.
High Speed Internet: How Science Fiction Failed Us
Well, faithful readers, here we are yet again to explore how we’ve been duped by the Science Fiction we created. It’s almost ironic how we glean the best of what our imagined future has to offer, while neglecting to plan for the possible side effects. Of course, overlooking possible side effects is what humans do best, though, right?
That brings us to the topic of this article: High Speed Internet. It occurred to me as I was coming up with a topic for this article that none of the previous topics would even be relevant (or even possible) without the advantage of High Speed Internet. I can’t imagine anyone waiting 20 minutes to a Wikipedia page to open so that they can find out who the second king of Siam was. They would just find a geek to ask, or open an encyclopedia (remember those?) to get the answer. And for those of us who actually played games over dial up connections, I can guarantee you that there wouldn’t be over 11 million people playing World of Warcraft[1] if it took 30 minutes to load the raid. Finally, keeping in mind how much slower phones are compared to PC’s anyway, imagine trying to get turn by turn directions on your phone over an analog data connection. You’d might as well walk there, it’d be faster.
ATM Hacker Sentenced to Twenty Year Prison Term for Credit Card Theft
Both companies large and small, as well as home computer users, lose millions of dollars a year, thanks to the electronic theft of credit card information. A bane for businesses who risk incurring the ire of consumers, the number of reported cases only continues to increase, as technology becomes more and more embedded into our daily lives. In a small victory for all parties involved, accused hacker, Albert Gonzalez, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after entering a guilty plea regarding the credit card theft crimes with which he was charged.
A Miami, FL native and 28-year old college drop, Gonzalez admitted his part in the operation of a credit card crime ring whose reach circled the globe. Among the list of companies affected, at least in part, by his hacking activities, is TJX Cos Inc (the operator of such well-known stores as Marshall’s and TJMaxx), Barnes & Noble, and BJ’s Wholesale Club. Gonzalez and his accomplices managed to steal somewhere around 40 million payment card numbers, by breaking into the company’s websites.
