pffft General_Specific that's just Win2k/XP using DesktopX

i have seen pics of longhorn a while ago and if it ends up looking like tha i certainly won't be upgrading

heh, yes, a windows news item. bring out the microsoft bashing. actually, its the same for a linux news item. not that im advocate for m$, i hate em as much as anyone. im just getting sick of all the corporation bashing that goes on in comments to news items instead of useful productive information. cs post = valve bash etc.

anyway, yeah. that screenshot is a desktop x theme, thanks for continuing to spread the misinformation by just posting it without explanation.

"a 3D-enabled user interface" isn't true. at least not the way you would think of 3d interface, the faq or the road to longhorn article linked off it has an interesting link to microsofts 3d GUI research team called TaskGallery. seems like itd be a bit weird to control as it is, but with a VR situation it could be what will happen.

it's interesting what it says about the concept being desirable for taking advantage of our spatial memory processes. i think that's very true, like trying to remember the structure of a website isn't as intutitive as say finding where abouts a certain section of a book is, yew flip through the front or the back etc.

longhorn will use 3d acceleration through dx though, and take advantage of more alpha blending, anti-aliasing (cleartype) etc. sounds all good to me, why not take advantage of it when everyone is rapidly getting 3d accelerators. even people (offices) who never use them are getting them with new systems. and it will fallback to 2d where support isn't there

palladium is a two edge sword in my mind, it would be nice to gain some of those features. like reduction (if not totally stopping) spam, virus and trojans, more secure net payments. then there is fear of it being microsoft and i think its quite obvious bill wouldn't mind ruling the world one way or another. he reminds me of what pacino sez in devil's advocate, i dip my fingers into everything. or something like that. meanwhile gates is bring out a global wireless inet system in a few years (which will be good cause no doubt our broadband will still suck arse). he has passport for hotmail and is gathering more supporters of it all the time, i saw it on telstra's PC to phone trial. tell me that isn't just freaky and weird, a MS passport to take part in a telstra trial? and now pallidum. put all 3 together and you can see, gates wants to the own the internet.

he already tried to subvert it and get everyone to use MicroSoft Network (MSN). Now that has basically become Messenger and is signing up ppl all the time. Saint and Bad now use it I believe and actually advocate it over ICQ, i find that really funny. but it's just showing it's getting more support, and ppl will install it to talk to their friends. so those ppl already have a passport, they can access all the sites that microsoft have partnered with and will partner with, i think i heard they got yahoo! but i might be wrong. they only really need a few key companies like that, say if they got something like amazon.com.

it wouldn't suprise me, infact it'd surprise me if the opposite occured, if yew needed a passport to access his global internet system (and if yew needed a windows o/s to do it too, perhaps by forcing palladium). so yes, gates is evil, but for f*** sake stop the just outright moronic bashing

ah i missed a bit, the other fear i was going to say regarding palladium is that it has the potential to stop software piracy and media piracy (music/movies), read about the digital rights management part of it. which of course would be a good thing right... *looks about for admins* noooo my warezzzzz!

oh yeah, and the xbox has net access built in...

I don't belive palladium will stop spam. Palladium is perfect for pay to play systems. Imgaine the happiness of Blizzard knowing that they could use Palladium to make sure people dont use rouge battlenet servers.

Palladium was built for the big corperations not for the people, that is for sure.

explain how it would be able to stop ppl using rogue battlenet servers and not be able to stop spam? its all about digital signaturing using dual key cryptography. it's pretty damn appliable, which is why there is that list of things palladium can achieve. they started out just looking for a way to distribute music safely (i.e. stop napster) and worked out all these other things. have yew read about that? or are yew just assuming its not for ppl and its for big corporations cause m$ = evil

Sounds pretty interesting; I'm becoming more and more a proponent of things like palladium - internet anonymity is all very well and good until people start using it to be f***wits, which is, unfortunately, what they do most of the time. I'm still investigating legal recourses for going after people that do things which I consider 'petty crimes' on the Internet - things that are probably illegal based on the cyber crimes act, but are rarely policed or enforced due to the sheer amount of offenses that occur and the difficulty in policing them.

Everyone loves the Internet and has enjoyed the free ride so far, but the simple fact is it is basically just anarchy when it comes to people behaving and getting along - everyone sits on their PC thinking they're in some sort of throne of invincibleness and acts however they want, doing whatever they want, stealing whatever they want. As someone that is frequently at the receiving end of people screwing around, I'm really sick of it. At the same time, I don't want the Internet to turn into a police state... but I simply don't think people are capable of using it responsibly, which in the end is going to screw us all (case in point, this thing).

damn, i had this big reply written out and the forums went down a mintue and i lost it :( now ill have to make it sure, cause im pissed off.

anyway, i read a really interesting article about it on ars technica. where he explores the impact of such a system on the culture of the internet, and how it would be imprinting today's society on tomorrow's emerging online one. And asks whether or not we would really want this, its great to see this kind of analysis and forethought for a technology instead of just whether or not its feasible and how much itll cost.

well f*** it, thats about it really. oh and if piracy was stopped completely, it could get interesting. most companies wanting to stop it get fed bulls*** projections of lost revenue and rub their hands greedily. but if it was stopped completely, then competition would increase and prices would have to be pushed down. and if that would occur then most people wouldn't have a problem paying for the the things they pirated in the first place. games for instance are f***ing expensive and how do yew know if your going to like it. sure the big games with all the hype you just have to have. but where do the little guys come in, piracy is actually used quite often as a try before yew buy thing, especially for games that don't offer demo's (actually, more so for applications then anything)

not that im advocate for m$

:D

In his presentation to the analysts, Gates outlined Microsoft's strategy over the next few years, saying the software giant would look to migrate customers over to Web-based computing and services, its broad .Net initiative.

mmm .net, thats how much he wants to rule the net, and he might yet

shotty, heh, i did read a short story joke thing that was exactly that, and the borg were microsoft laywers

p.s. PA rawx me