The Next Video Game Consoles

Right now, we're years into the Xbox 360's and PS3's lifespans. The Wii is going to come out with a successor soon, but what of Microsoft and Sony?

Unlikely. They've both said they want to have around 10-year lifespans, and so have some life in them yet. And it seems to be a good bet.

In fact, speaking of bets, I'd like to look into my crystal ball and come up with a few of my own.

My Bet: Sony and Microsoft not only aren't anywhere near done with their hardware designs, they are still working on utter fundamentals of the machines.

Right now, phones are starting to get dual-core processors. Computers with 4 cores are more common, and even some tablets are getting in on that action. A console maker doesn't want to make a console that is going to be outdated almost immediately, but they also want to not have tremendously expensive state-of-the-art parts.

As mentioned in my previous post, telecoms are being asshats and trying to keep us from downloading everything under the sun despite it being increasingly cheap for them to provide us with that. The offshoot of this, especially for Microsoft, is what to do about games. Are they to be download-only? This seems to fit in with the current nickel-and-diming that we see from DLC as of late. If every person or every box that has a game has to have paid for it, then resales (and thus lost money to the publishers) effectively goes to zero. But there might be a backlash from gamers who want to share games with friends, which also would affect the publishers' bottom lines. And we know Gamestop would be devastated if such a thing came to pass.

But, while Microsoft would likely love to make everything download-only, citing faster loading from the lack of moving parts, saving space in the console itself, and cheaper memory as reasons, they are probably wondering about the telecoms right now. Xbox Live is a wonderful thing, but if you have to download gigs and gigs for every game PLUS online gaming's bandwidth above it, people might hit their caps and be displeased, and disinclined to tell their friends and family to buy a console that will cost them more from their ISP.

And conversely, Sony owns Blu-Ray, which Microsoft likely doesn't want to back seeing as they lost a format war to that very format, and their primary competitor in the console wars. Sure, a Blu-Ray has way more storage than a DVD, but if you could just download a game regardless of its size, surely that would be better, right?

It's not a solved issue, I'm nearly certain of it. Physical media are surely going the way of the dinosaur, but I think due to the actions of telecoms in particular, and pressure from gamers and companies like Gamestop to allow resales and sharing, the disk is not going away just yet. Once others like the Amazon Kindle or iPad or other e-readers figure out a system of borrowing and sharing that works well and makes everyone happy, I feel we can transition away from physical media. But until then, we're keeping our discs.

Microsoft and Sony both want their consoles to last another few years, at least. And last they shall. Not just because they want a 10-year cycle, but because they don't know what way to go on even basic hardware specifications yet.

Bad Telecoms

Right now a war is being waged. A slow one, one that may shape the face of the Internet in what I feel is a negative way.

Telecom companies are bringing faster speeds to us, bringing broadband to those that never had it before, increasing profits, and all doing so at a cheaper cost than ever before. Yet, they are fighting for, and getting and implementing, capped bandwidth.

Right now, most ISPs will allow for unlimited bandwidth for each customer. They might throttle back people who likely are torrenting things, sure, but for the average Joe Schmo who just wants to watch Netflix all day, he can.

But not for long, not if the telecoms get their way. With bandwidth caps, you're not only paying more for your bandwidth (that gets cheaper for the telecoms to give us by the day) but you are limited to the amount you can download. But why? Why cap us if they have the infrastructure to provide us all? Why not just keep the abusers of the networks from hogging it all?

Because they can get away with it. And because they're scared. Those are the two big reasons.

Most towns and cities have a very limited ISP list. Some often have just one Internet provider. Near-monopolies or monopolies are bad for business, or rather, bad for consumers. They can raise the prices and cap our bandwidth (and charge us even more when we will inevitably go over) because we have noone else to turn to.

The average person did not use nearly the same amount of bandwidth a few years back. Before the advent of online gaming, HD streaming video like Hulu or Netflix, Youtube and more, we all didn't download as much. Now with these services we download a heck of a lot more. And it'll increase more as time goes on. More video services will be in HD. More people will use Skype to communicate with their families, or their wifi networks and FaceTime with their iPhones, or downloading games or playing those online.

And with these bandwidth caps, we as a people are going to start running into those caps, one by one, more and more of us. And when we do, and are punished for using the services we pay for, we will stop using those services. And that is precisely what the telecoms want.

Netflix is in near-direct competition with cable providers for our entertainment dollar. You can watch tons of shows and movies, many of which are streaming, for around $9 a month. Or, you can pay $40 a month for a fairly-standard cable package, most of the channels of which you aren't watching anyways.

Telecoms are pushing through legislation and forcing upon consumers policies that are going to stifle the development of the Internet, all to try and force competition out of business and line their pockets with gold.

Just thought you should know.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the privacy invasion

OK. If you're at all like what feels like 99% of the population, you are freaking out about your phone, car, computer, and more. Why? Because they're tracking you! Without your consent!

Recently, Apple has been in some hot water for tracking users, in a manner of speaking. The phones keep a record of nearby radio towers and wi-fi hotspots.

Less recently, Google has been in a bit of hot water for their StreetView cars taking down wifi hotspots, as well.

Cellphone customers are outraged their phones might be tracking them, or that their search providers online (Google, as the main example here) "remembers" what sites you've visited to give you targeted ads.

"Oh NO! How DARE they!" Everyone exclaims. "Our privacy is being invaded!"

This coming from the masses that put tons of pictures of themselves online on Facebook, let alone their personal information and much much more. This coming from the multitudes of people that use Google Maps and are happy about the traffic information it provides, culled in part (at least) from anonymous users reporting their speed and location when they use the service. This coming from people who have grown accustomed to the notion of privacy as if Apple having an ID number for your phone being completely equal to Jason Bourne tracking your every move, about to kill you because he can.

Look, people, stop worrying. Stop caring. Yes, privacy in some respects is a very vital and important thing. But are you really fighting the right fight here? No, I think not.

If you allow your phone to let Google or Apple know where you are, are you going to be abducted? Is ANYTHING bad going to happen? NO! Think, for a moment, and ask yourself what is actually going on there. What negative effect is there? None. Instead, we reap free benefits instead. Google uses location data from phones to better serve us with their maps and live traffic information that is crowdsourced from us all. Apple wants to do the same thing.

And lets talk about ads for a second, here. If Google knows what sites I visit when logged in to my username, and uses my search history and history of sites visited to deliver better ads to me, how the heck is that a bad thing? Would you really prefer to see a bunch of useless irrelevant ads on websites? I know I sure would rather see things that I'd want and care about.

The point is, these big multinationals may be evil and scary and whatnot, but you really are getting upset about the wrong things. Instead of worrying about some secret operative tracking you personally all day long, which is not the case, how about not putting your entire life on Facebook where people can see every last detail about you?