Weekend tech reading: Apple audit finds child workers at assembly plants, PC gaming DRM drama, and m

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Julio Franco

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Apple admits using child labour Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones. At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. Telegraph UK

The awful anti-pirate system that will probably work So, when I read that Assassin's Creed 2 for the PC would fight piracy by requiring a live internet connection all the time when you were playing, I thought it was a joke. Then I learned that, if your internet connection broke while playing it, the game would freeze. What's more, if the connection didn't return soon enough, the game would quit and your progress would be unsaved. Then I learned, as explicitly confirmed by Ubisoft representatives, no. Not a joke. Not at all. Jeff Vogel's Blog

Intel expands Atom line-up, introduces the N470 This new, faster Atom processor for netbooks has integrated graphics built directly into the CPU to help enable improved performance and smaller, more energy-efficient designs for the popular netbook category. The single core Atom processor runs at 1.83GHz, with 512k of L2 cache and DDR2-667 support. Intel PR

TigerText: The App for Spies and Cheaters If you've ever sent a text message that you've later regretted sending (Tiger Woods, I'm looking at you), then a new texting application just released for the iPhone could be your new best friend. Called TigerText, the texting app lets users set a time limit for text messages -- and when the time is up, the messages will self-destruct and be wiped from the original phone, the receiving phone, and the server. PC World

When American and European Ideas of Privacy Collide “On the Internet, the First Amendment is a local ordinance,” said Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University. He was talking about last week’s ruling from an Italian court that Google executives had violated Italian privacy law by allowing users to post a video on one of its services. NY Times

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"The awful anti-pirate system that will probably work" How stupid, It will be cracked on release day if not before the game is even released. It will only annoy legitimate customers. There is no way I would play one of Ubifsoft's games with that DRM crap in it with my awesomely unstable interwebz connection.

Edit: So maybe I should of actually read the article first before writing that. There are actually some good points in the article. But I still will not buy any product that has this or similar DRM implemented.
 
For Assassin's Creed 3, a Ubisoft employee will be standing behind you watching you play.

I guess they lost my sale.

Such *****s, there has not been a game released that is not cracked, with full functionality, before it hits store shelves.

And they forget, there are still some people out there who pay for either bandwidth of by the minute. Forcing them to use up their resources when not even playing online is a joke.
 
@ gwailo247 lol I was thinking about the same thing.

You know, I've been fed up with all the limitations and increasing amount of what I call "setup time"(any bull crap that stands between me and getting into a game) and a main attractions of consoles used to be four players on one box, But now it seems developers aren't so much up to the task anymore (I won't even get into whether they should or not) but the number of 4 player titles that I'm actually interested in anymore has dwindled. With the benefits of playing console over PC plummeting, I've become that much more serious about completely switching to PC gaming. But if the industry makes similar DRM implementations standard, maybe I'll just stick with consoles, where I'm guessing the future will be and enjoy 3 mins of ads before each round of game play because my online subscription is "so cheap!"
 
@mattfrompa

Actually they want the Onlive model for console/pc replacement. That is why so many publishers supported Onlive.
 
Sorry, I think Ubisoft-in-the-head doesn't deserve my support or $ anymore and rather than turning me into a Pirate, I will vote with my wallet and not buy their crap games with their draconian protection scheme.

At $ 60.00 a clip we're being forced to spend more time and money to keep a 24/7 connection going. Not in my lifetime, not on my dime. My computer is turned off every night, as well as any other parasitic appliance in my house. It's a well known fact this saves electricity.

I will not be forced by some greedy software company, to change my lifestyle nor will I contribute one red cent to their coorporate stupidity.
 
renrew said:
At $ 60.00 a clip we're being forced to spend more time and money to keep a 24/7 connection going. Not in my lifetime, not on my dime. My computer is turned off every night, as well as any other parasitic appliance in my house. It's a well known fact this saves electricity.

"fight piracy by requiring a live internet connection all the time when you were playing"

Someone didn't read. They aren't trying to force anyone to keep their computer on 24/7. Their policies are garbage, I agree, but what you're talking about is absurd. The connection only needs to be live while you're PLAYING, not while you're sleeping. lol :)
 
Ubisoft, EA, whos next on my never buy again list? And yes, using 15 year old labor is wrong but is that actually child labor?
 
@ guest,
well, for onlive to even be considered feasible you need a high quality network with a low ping and minimal jitter. I wouldn't hold your breath on MS, Sony, and Nintendo all trying anything like that.
 
Considering 9 out of every 10 games are stolen, I'm wondering how many of these "I'm never buying from Ubisoft again," posters have ever actually bought a game from them, yet have Ubisoft games on their hard drive.

You reap what you sow...
 
TomSEA said:
Considering 9 out of every 10 games are stolen, I'm wondering how many of these "I'm never buying from Ubisoft again," posters have ever actually bought a game from them, yet have Ubisoft games on their hard drive.

You reap what you sow...

So Tom..if 9 out of 10 people steal games, and we put you into a group with 9 other people, which group are you in? Basically you are saying that either :

A) You steal games
or
B) Everyone but you steals games.
 
TomSEA said:
Considering 9 out of every 10 games are stolen, I'm wondering how many of these "I'm never buying from Ubisoft again," posters have ever actually bought a game from them, yet have Ubisoft games on their hard drive.

You reap what you sow...

TomSEA, you're pulling numbers out of thin air again. To say that 90% of all games are pirated copies is ludicrous. In January 2010, a study showed that just 4 percent of gamers, representing just over 6 million consumers, indicated that they downloaded files from P2P networks. That's hardly 90%.
 
I don't steal games, Darkshadoe. Do you?

For Wendig0 - if you think that only 4 percent of 6 million gamers indicated they downloaded P2P networks, then I have a bridge and a lot of swamp land to sell you. Just like the those that post on these boards, you honestly think people are going to openly fess up to stealing games??

I've posted this before, I'll post it again. A well written and researched article on PC gaming theft by Mr. Koroush Gazi of TweakGuides.com. There's a slew of data in this article that gives you an indication of the extent of gaming theft.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

If you can't be bothered with reading the whole article, here's the portion that talks about how rampant piracy is, complete with verifiable figures:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html
 
TomSEA said:
I don't steal games, Darkshadoe. Do you?

For Wendig0 - if you think that only 4 percent of 6 million gamers indicated they downloaded P2P networks, then I have a bridge and a lot of swamp land to sell you. Just like the those that post on these boards, you honestly think people are going to openly fess up to stealing games??

I've posted this before, I'll post it again. A well written and researched article on PC gaming theft by Mr. Koroush Gazi of TweakGuides.com. There's a slew of data in this article that gives you an indication of the extent of gaming theft.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

If you can't be bothered with reading the whole article, here's the portion that talks about how rampant piracy is, complete with verifiable figures:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

The author in your article freely admits:

"there's no such thing as 'conclusive evidence' when it comes to piracy. Why? Because by definition piracy is an illegal activity, and thus is deliberately hidden from view."

He then goes on to say : "The problem lies in the fact that it's very difficult to accurately measure piracy, thus there is no conclusive data on piracy which everyone will accept. Instead, to piece together a broad but reasonably accurate picture of piracy we must rely on a wide range of relevant indicators and logical deductions."

In other words..He is guessing.

I looked into this guys credentials. Here is an article about his expertise:

"You get into some pretty complex stuff between the guides and your Windows Tweaking Companions. Are you self taught? What got you exploring these kinds of deeper optimization options?

Yes I'm self-taught, my University degree is in Economics & Political Science. I did do some formal study on computing in Year 11 and 12, but nothing more than learning some BASIC and Pascal, and a rudimentary knowledge of how PCs worked. I actually think being self-taught is a bit of an advantage, because it means I'm constantly reading and researching on various topics rather than just relying on my own existing assumptions, and I also think I can better relate to what the layman would likely want to know, and how best it could be explained to them."

http://www.gamecritics.com/interview-with-koroush-ghazi-creator-of-tweakguides-com

This guy has no formal training and is not an authority on internet piracy. He is a hobbyist. I'll give you that his article was well written and had a "slew" of data, that doesn't mean his information is accurate though.
 
TomSEA said:
I don't steal games, Darkshadoe. Do you?

For Wendig0 - if you think that only 4 percent of 6 million gamers indicated they downloaded P2P networks, then I have a bridge and a lot of swamp land to sell you. Just like the those that post on these boards, you honestly think people are going to openly fess up to stealing games??

I've posted this before, I'll post it again. A well written and researched article on PC gaming theft by Mr. Koroush Gazi of TweakGuides.com. There's a slew of data in this article that gives you an indication of the extent of gaming theft.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

If you can't be bothered with reading the whole article, here's the portion that talks about how rampant piracy is, complete with verifiable figures:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

As I said before, the 4% of gamers out of 6 million are the ones that "indicated" [actually admitted] to piracy. Read it again. I know for a fact though that there's not another 86% of those surveyed that actually pirate games and wouldn't fess up to it. To think such is completely asinine. I uderstand that there are high rates of piracy, but nowhere near the percentages you suggest. I tend to agree with Darkshadoe on this.

You can try to wrap DRM software up in a pretty bow to make it more attractive all you want TomSEA, but the fact of the matter is that the DRM Ubisoft has been using, SecuROM, is a nightmarish piece of software that has caused all sorts of headaches for people and their computers. Now, Ubisoft is replacing SecuROM with another SecuROMish piece of software that sounds, and most likely will be, even worse than before.
 
Darkshadoe, you're putting words into the guy's mouth. For example, your reference of, ""The problem lies in the fact that it's very difficult to accurately measure piracy, thus there is no conclusive data on piracy which everyone will accept."

You conveniently ignore the "which everyone will accept" portion of it. Mr. Gazi then goes on to provide pages of relevant data which you again, conveniently ignore.

Then you want to blow him off as some "hobbyist." He only runs one of the premier tech websites going that has won a number of awards and routinely is provided pre-released software to test and create user guides by Microsoft, Adobe, Linux, etc. So what are your credentials to stamp this guy as a "hobbyist?" And please provide us all a listing of "authorities on gaming piracy."

Lastly, answer the damn question - do you steal games?
 
not that many pirated games 9/10 WTF! more like 2/10. Y not sell it on Steam FFS! Piracy is bad people who pirate should shoot themselves or jump off a building.
 
LOL..Its easy to ignore his so-called data..its a guess just like anyone elses' data. Scammers on the torrents have been known to name a file the name of a popular piece of software, but the actual file be something totally different. For example, A person downloads a copy of Modern Warefare 2 and then finding out when they try to install it that it is a copy of Quake 2. (before you say "but the file size would be different", file size is not the point, files can be renamed) If 10000 people download this fake file, how can you use this incorrect data to say "Modern Warefare 2 has been illegally downloaded 10000 times?

Another way the data is skewed is that the majority of illegal downloads are in countries other than the United States (although we do our fair share of it). These companies use this inaccurate data to justify their draconian DRM methods and complain about profits. If their software isn't offered in Timbuktu, how can they say they lost the profits they claim when they weren't selling their software in Timbuktu to begin with?

"You conveniently ignore the "which everyone will accept" portion of it. Mr. Gazi then goes on to provide pages of relevant data which you again, conveniently ignore."

Obviously, not everyone accepts his data ,otherwise, we wouldn't be arguing about it would we?

"Then you want to blow him off as some "hobbyist." He only runs one of the premier tech websites going that has won a number of awards and routinely is provided software to test and create user guides by Microsoft, Adobe, Linux, etc. So what are your credentials to stamp this guy as a "hobbyist?" And please provide us all a listing of "authorities on gaming piracy."

LMAO...He IS a hobbyist. He admitted that in the article I posted. The guy that runs www.blkviper.com has been on TV and knows about what Windows services you can shut down to tweak Windows and is probably more famous than the guy who wrote your article..and HE is a hobbyist. Your guy may know a lot about tweaking programs, but he is NOT an authority on software piracy. Hes just like you and me..a computer user with an opinion about the subject. Until the data is accurate, there is no "piracy authority"

"Lastly, answer the damn question - do you steal games?"

Nope I use Steam. Its a great service. Where else can you get a good game like Stalker: SoC for $2.00 or Overlord for $1.50 when they run their specials? I bought both.

My original question was not a personal attack like you seem to be doing here. I was using your numbers to make the point how skewed your numbers really were. I could care less how you obtain your software.

Your "answer the damn question" really tells a lot about you Tom. If you don't like my questions or answers, I encourage you to please use the IGNORE USER on me if the forums have that function. Have a great day.
 
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