I've been shouted down in meetings for the depth of field thing so many times. So many people don't understand how inappropriate it is for an interactive experience. Film is about controlling the viewers experience, games are about allowing the player to experience on their own. Not only is depth of field a completely unnatural artifact, its presence in games is a misunderstanding and misuse of the medium. Drives me nuts.
Also, most of the things the talking head says during the demo are devoid of any meaning. There's truthfully not a great deal impressive about the demo itself; these guys are wowing people with great artwork and flawless technical execution, (which is still nice), but the hardware/software used isn't as important as they're going on about.

Anyone else freak out at the prospect of bubbles leaving that sticky shit on your hardware?

@ChaosEngine

Everything @newtboy said. I think you're exaggerating just a tad. You're not going to build a PC that runs newly released games at 1080p at 60fps and also includes a blu-ray drive , 500 GB HD, and wireless motion sensitive controller for under $400 US (current price of PS4 on US Amazon). Plus, you're almost certainly going to have to buy a 1080p monitor (since most people don't do their computing on their TV or keep their tower case in the living room), which will set you back $200 minimum even for a cheap one that's likely to ghost.

As far as games go, nearly EVERY major release will be on all platforms and in fact will likely come out on console first (GTA V). Sure, some kickstarter stuff like Pillars of Eternity won't be available but it works both ways--you won't get some awesome console exclusives on the PC (Mario Kart, Little Big Planet, etc.) either.

Plus as newtboy mentioned, you can rent and sell console games. Yeah, PC games drop to much lower price points as they get older (I usually pick up all the good stuff I missed at $3-5 during Steam sales) but reselling isn't an option for most stuff (yet). You can mod most PC games, though, so that's a plus for them.

Look, I play 90% of my games on my gaming PC. That's because I have the time and money to do so. I don't understand the attitude of looking down on people who don't have those luxuries or who don't want to spend the prerequisite time required pouring over tech forums, price comparing at hardware vendors websites like Newegg, and downloading proper drivers just to build a gaming PC on the cheap when they can just go to a store down the road and pick up something comparable with virtually no effort.

Mine: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gtx-770m/specifications

Doesn't really matter as I don't do any gaming anymore, but it can play the hell out of some YouTube videos, lemme tell ya.

Kinda looks like it's a rail shooter. That is unfortunate if true. A remake of the last arcade game. Awesome hardware though.

Could you imagine known shippables in other productions? Cars? Computer hardware? FIRE EXTINGUISHERS? Game breaking bugs should not be known shippables.

This video lacks a lot of salient details.

Yes, the F35 is aiming at the A10 because contractors want jobs (something to do).

However, the strength of the A10 is also its weakness. Low and slow also means that it takes you a long time to get to your troops. Fast jets arrive much sooner (significantly so). A combination of both would be ideal. F35 to get there ASAP, and A10 arriving later to take over.

It's not really worth debating the merit of new fighters. You don't wait for a war to start developing weapons.

Yes, our recent enemies are durkas with small arms, and you don't need an F35 to fight them - but you also don't even need to fight them to begin with - they aren't an existential threat. Terrorist attacks are emotionally charged (well, until they happen so often that you get used to hearing about them, and they stop affecting people), but they are nothing compared to say, a carpet bombing campaign.

The relevance of things like the F35 is to have weapons ready and able to face a large national power, should a nation v nation conflict arise with a significant other nation. In the event that such a conflict ever does, you don't want to be caught with your pants down.

Defense spending costs scale with oversight requirements.

Keep in mind that money pays people. Even materials are simply salaries of the material suppliers. The more people you put on a program, the more that program will cost.

Yes, big contractors make big profits - but the major chunk of their charges is still salaries.

Let me explain what is going on.

Remember the $100 hammers?
In fact, the hammer still cost a few bucks. What cost 100+ bucks was the total charges associated with acquiring a hammer.
Everything someone does in association with acquiring the hammer, gets charged to a charge code that's specific for that task.

Someone has to create a material request - $time.
Someone has to check contracts for whether or not it will be covered - $time.
Someone has to place the order - $time.
Someone has to receiver the package, inspect it, and put it into a received bin - $time.
Someone has to go through the received items and assign them property tags - $time.
Someone has to take the item to the department that needed it, and get someone to sign for it - $time.
Someone has to update the monthly contract report - $time.
Someone has to generate an entry in the process artifacts report, detailing the actions taken in order to acquire the hammer - $time.
Someone on the government side has to review the process artifacts report, and validate that proper process was followed (and if not, punish the company for skipping steps) - $time.

Add up all the minutes here and there that each person charged in association with getting a hammer, and it's $95 on top of a $5 hammer. Which is why little things cost so much.

You could say "Hey, why do all that? Just buy the hammer".
Well, if a company did that, it would be in trouble with govt. oversight folks because they violated the process.
If an employee bought a hammer of his own volition, he would be in trouble with his company for violating the process.
The steps are required, and if you don't follow them, and there is ever any problem/issue, your lack of process will be discovered on investigation, and you could face massive liability - even if it's not even relevant - because it points to careless company culture.

Complex systems like jet fighters necessarily have bugs to work out. When you start using the system, that's when you discover all the bits and pieces that nobody anticipated - and you fix them. That's fine. That's always been the case.



As an airplane example, imagine if there's an issue with a regulator that ultimately causes a system failure - but that issue is just some constant value in a piece of software that determines a duty cycle.

Say for example, that all it takes is changing 1 digit, and recompiling. Ez, right? NOPE!

An engineer can't simply provide a fix.

If something went wrong, even unrelated, but simply in the same general system, he could be personally liable for anything that happens.

On top of that, if there is no contract for work on that system, then an engineer providing a free fix is robbing the company of work, and he could get fired.

A company can't instruct an engineer to provide a fix for the same reasons that the engineer himself can't just do it.

So, the process kicks in.

Someone has to generate a trouble report - $time.
Someone has to identify a possible solution - $time.
Someone has to check contracts to see if work on that fix would be covered under current tasking - $time.
Say it's not covered (it's a previously closed [i.e. delivered] item), so you need a new charge code.
Someone has to write a proposal to fix the defect - $time.
Someone has to go deal with the government to get them to accept the proposal - $time.
(say it's accepted)
Someone has to write new contracts with the government for the new work - $time.
To know what to put into the contract, "requrements engineers" have to talk with the "software engineers" to get a list of action items, and incorporate them into the contract - $time.
(say the contract is accepted)
Finance in conjuration with Requirements engineers has to generate a list of charge codes for each action item - $time.
CM engineers have to update the CM system - $time.
Some manager has to coordinate this mess, and let folks know when to do what - $time.
Software engineer goes to work, changes 1 number, recompiles - $time.
Software engineer checks in new load into CM - $time.
CM engineer updates CM history report - $time.
Software engineer delivers new load to testing manger - $time.
Test manager gets crew of 30 test engineers to run the new load through testing in a SIL (systems integration lab) - $time.
Test engineers write report on results - $time.
If results are fine, Test manager has 30 test engineers run a test on real hardware - $time.
Test engineers write new report - $time.
(assuming all went well)
CM engineer gets resting results and pushes the task to deliverable - $time.
Management has a report written up to hand to the governemnt, covering all work done, and each action taken - documenting that proper process was followed - $time.
Folks writing document know nothing technical, so they get engineers to write sections covering actual work done, and mostly collate what other people send to them - $time.
Engineers write most the report - $time.
Company has new load delivered to government (sending a disk), along with the report/papers/documentation - $time.
Government reviews the report, but because the govt. employees are not technical and don't understand any of the technical data, they simply take the company's word for the results, and simply grade the company on how closely they followed process (the only thing they do understand) - $time.
Company sends engineer to government location to load the new software and help government side testing - $time.
Government runs independent acceptance tests on delivered load - $time.
(Say all goes well)
Government talks with company contracts people, and contract is brought to a close - $time.
CM / Requirements engineers close out the action item - $time.

And this is how a 1 line code change takes 6 months and 5 million dollars.

And this gets repeated for _everything_.

Then imagine if it is a hardware issue, and the only real fix is a change of hardware. For an airplane, just getting permission to plug anything that needs electricity into the airplanes power supply takes months of paper work and lab testing artifacts for approval. Try getting your testing done in that kind of environment.



Basically, the F35 could actually be fixed quickly and cheaply - but the system that is in place right now does not allow for it. And if you tried to circumvent that system, you would be in trouble. The system is required. It's how oversight works - to make sure everything is by the book, documented, reviewed, and approved - so no money gets wasted on any funny business.

Best part, if the government thinks that the program is costing too much, they put more oversight on it to watch for more waste.
Because apparently, when you pay more people to stare at something, the waste just runs away in fear.
Someone at the contractors has to write the reports that these oversight people are supposed to be reviewing - so when you go to a contractor and see a cube farm with 90 paper pushers and 10 'actual' engineers (not a joke), you start to wonder how anything gets done.

Once upon a time, during the cold war, we had an existential threat.
People took things seriously. There was no F'ing around with paperwork - people had to deliver hardware. The typical time elapsed from "idea" to "aircraft first flight" used to be 2 years. USSR went away, cold war ended, new hardware deliveries fell to a trickle - but the spending remained, and the money billed to an inflated process.

-scheherazade

Another ff I want to play, but you know, its kind of the first time the graphics are a "been there, done that". FF13 really raised the bar in doing excellent quality cinematic in real time, and square has gotten real good at making their worlds look good on low end hardware (ff10 pulls off a lot of tricks to make distant scenery look complex). If there was anything that stood out in this it was the trees actually looked kinda crappy.

The sad part is it will be a decade before we see this on the master PC with HBAO+.

There are a few things that seem off...mostly that I'd expect one hell of a lot more traffic if this were real. Doesn't mean it's manipulated, but I'm kind of leaning that way.

Although if it's real, I'd really like to know who paid for all the hardware.

I thought I'd comment about this extremely old video, in reflection. It's funny how many devices around me and others I know have changed dramatically. The PC AND the MAC are no longer near "the top" or need to be near the top (granted, Windows is still the platform to beat for personal PC's, but when it comes to mobile platforms...something that BARELY registered back when we were throwing insults around when this video was shown, it's amazing; and now it IS the thing to beat). Now it is all about Android, Apple, or Windows, with a few secondary OS "foundations" (sometimes with hardware) thrown in for fun.

I have one of everything now. My phone an Android, my tablet an Apple, and my PC Windows. Though I still have the one major gripe about Windows and Apple as I did back then; for Apple it is it's need to make self-related products that "you need" to make anything work--much like Nintendo's business model. Microsoft is extremely "information grabby" and they love to lock you down into a certain setup, depending on how you buy or bought your computer (for instance, if you put it together yourself, you can get away from most of these issues--which is what I do; but, most people don't have this luxury). To be honest, I find my Android run devices (my cellphone and my Roku--and as I go forward I imagine a few more will go down that road) to be the best of both worlds, and they typically get along with "both worlds" the most.

Not that Android doesn't have it's own (the Borg) problems, especially as we move into the future. But, as these posts show us, within five years something just like Android (Google) can become a powerhouse that has to be reckoned with. I can't wait.

I still hate Macs!

Actually the primary purpose of hardware store employees is to you stop you buying the cheaper but perfectly serviceable wrong thing and direct you toward the overpriced and completely unnecessary for what you need right thing

The problem with police in america is the culture. These people are drunk on power that increases with every passing year as they are given access to military hardware and told they are 'soldiers too' without having any of the training to use it.

Change the culture, remove the ever-increasing miltarization and shit might actually change. Until then every person who isn't white can live in ever constant fear that their lives are in danger every time they see a cop.

I think I'd have to see it in actual printed form to judge the readability accurately.

BUT, in terms of readability on a display, like the 40" 1920x1080 LCD I'm watching on ... it is quite poor in my opinion. I have a feeling that it would work much better in ink on paper.

33% ink savings sounds pretty good, assuming that the readability on paper is better than a display. That being said, encouraging printer manufacturers to have a more sane approach to refillable ink/toner reservoirs would have a better/bigger impact.

Here in Thailand, where respect for patents / IP is low, (SE Asia is notorious for fake manufactured goods, pirated "soft" media, and hardware hacks / bypasses) I'd guess that around 90% of inkjet printers sold have a tank system glued onto the side with ink lines running into the cartridges from big CYMK reservoirs. I never buy new cartridges unless the print head gets damaged/worn out -- instead, I just buy cheap LARGE bottles of the different ink colors and refill the reservoirs. (Image link of such a setup HERE)

That kind of mod would be a gray or black-market item in the West, but here the laissez-faire attitude about such things has some positive effects. At least, for a consumer (like me), or someone concerned about the environmental impact of all the waste packaging for ink carts (like the dude in this video).

The apparent unnecessary death of an individual, regardless of whether he was innocent or had committed a crime at some point prior is obviously wrong. The story however, should be about the larger issue:

1) Lack of police trust, presumption of culpability rather than belief that it was an accident.

2) Racially non-representative nature of the police force in the city relative to the populace that it is tasked with protecting.

3) Tone deafness of the city leadership in response to what is a public outcry, instead focussing on the criminal riot element that choose to take advantage of it.

4) Overt militarisation of the police force and overt use of military hardware in the face of largely peaceful protests.

Like every other case like this, the most likely outcome is the individual story will get disputed but the larger issues will be ignored. In fact, if anything, the riot will give credibility to the camp that wants to militarise the police.

Imagine the components that could be made though.

From Cameras to speakers. this style of device could be the next wave towards a true tri-corder device.
One device that transforms to the niche of every user. fully customizable hardware.

The best part is the consumer can upgrade the parts they care about the most. One person may remove the camera, the next will insert a 50megapixel zoom lens camera. It's up to the developing community to devise the components but the entire concept is sound!
Think of a musician, maybe they could snap in a mini keyboard, or an advanced Mic, or maybe some Bose speakers.
A doctor could snap in a mini scanner or blood testing device.
An engineer could have tools that he may need or there could be tools aimed at any job or hohby out there.

Fully customizable.....