Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World 358
no.good.at.coding writes "Google has launched a Windows-only, in-browser (you need to install a client first, though) 3D avatar world — Lively — that you can embed in websites and use to interact with other people. It's not as expansive as Second Life yet, but expect things to get better."
The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next, a program to install animated smileys to your Outlook e-mails?
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
I for one can't wait for google to replace their homepage search bar with a friendly, brightly colored, animated search assistant avatar. It'll be the next revolution in user interfaces!
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, honestly... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that it's cool now to hate google and all, but I have NEVER seen anything from them that I didn't admire at least somewhat, and for most things I find them unbeatable.
If they came out with gClippy I'd have to give it a try, and I'll give you 3:1 odds that it would be surprisingly useful.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I too have been running across a bunch of people who seem to really dislike google but I'm also finding that they just suck at using the search engine. It reminds me of how neophytes will come up with all kinds of things to put down computers and how they don't need them.
"gClippy", now wouldn't that just piss Bill Gates off. :-)
LoB
Re:Ok, honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's something else. There is something that makes certain people hate things that other people love if the first group sees the love as unreasonable.
I've seen groups of people with an unfounded hate for iPhones, VWs, Google, cell phones, text messaging, social websites, instant messaging, ...
So honestly, I think there is just a blind reactionary backlash when some people don't understand why a product, service, company or concept has "Fanboys".
I try to avoid both sides, but I admit that in the 70's-80's I felt a little irrational hate for VWs now and then (even though I've owned more than one). If you're talking this century I've got a hell of a lot of love for Google, and lately I get a little warm fuzzy for Apple every now and then--but I try to be realistic and criticize them as much as praise (something fanboys seem completely incapable of doing--I think that would be the definition of a "Fanboy", the inability to seriously criticize the target of your infatuation).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
"It seems to me that you are searching for porn"...
My I suggest you the "Kleenex Ultra Smooth" link?
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
The term "jump the shark" is so yesterday. The current correct term is "nuking the fridge".
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems right to me. I get that we, as computer geeks, are supposed to love the idea of having 3D virtual worlds, alternate/virtual reality, etc. But can someone please explain to me what benefits these things actually have? Whenever any of these are announced, it always seems like either (a) there's nothing to do; or (b) they allow you to do anything, but it's pretty complex to do anything interesting, and the world ends up filled with penises.
I can never figure out what you're supposed to do with these things if you're not a pervert.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the social site disappointment.
I use a 3D site (expo3d.com) to hold conferences with customers on product updates and use the 3D feature to really demonstrate what I'm saying, holding up objects, pointing at on the object with my avatar and can use my voice to offer more commentary than texting could accomplish. Texting is sooo 1990's. Use your voice. It really helps.
In my business, some customer updates are mandatory. We used to fly people in and out for the update meetings but now we can, for the smaller updates, use this software and in 15 minutes be done. We still all meet face to face a couple of times a year but it's not a monthly obligation.
We've had 100-200 customers routinely join us for our updates. We place our own teams in the audience to answer questions one-on-one via text or voice. We circulate documents. We post advertisements. And the customers love it.
So I've found a way to save money using this type of application with no perverts or gambling.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Real sharing (Score:5, Informative)
If there is an active open source project working on virtual worlds, we'd like to know, too.
You mean like this [opensimulator.org]?
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You know, it's much easier to call it an apathetic sausage fest... Wait, you meant literally?!
Eeeewww.... I knew I liked the real world better.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Informative)
You know, it's much easier to call it an apathetic sausage fest... Wait, you meant literally?! Eeeewww.... I knew I liked the real world better.
FYI, the real world is full of dicks too.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but we put them all in Washington D.C. so I can avoid them
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you nuts? With all the lobbyist assholes running free there, you have a faint idea what this could lead to?
Re:The Shark... (Score:4, Funny)
*sigh* Dick politicians and lobbyist assholes, and they still get it backwards!
Re:The Shark... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're not really the target audience. If you poke around in it or check out some screenshots, the design is really geared towards teenagers, much like IMVU.
There are benefits, but in my opinion they do not justify the relatively high overhead on the computer relative to a simple chatroom.
There isn't much persistence in Lively, it's just a 3D chat room. It offers context-conversations from the positioning. In a simple chatscroll all conversation is given the same weight and carried out in a linear fashion. However, for greater numbers of people there can be more than one topic within the room which interrupts all topics at hand. In the 3D chatroom, avatar-positioning provides context for who is included in the convesation and the chatballoons appear closer and in colors matching those in the immediate group. Of course a log is critical and a standard chatscroll is available on its own tab.
It's like carrying out a conversation everyone in a restaurant vs. carrying out a conversation with others at the same table.
Also, they are supplied with a few animations and inter-avatar animations. The visual aspect is pleasing, but not really useful. /me in IRC allows for much more variety. I also noted that :) and :O resulted in a corresponding animation from your avatar.
Aside from that, it has personalization of the chatroom space. While this is stupid to me, the others in my IRC chat have already "personalized" the text chatroom, pretending we're in a virtual terrarium/spa replete with cabana boys and fruity drinks. Some people might actually enjoy the room-building aspect.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well on a 2D webpage, your ad-space is limited... especially in the confines of a chat room.
Now a 3D window, you can fit many many more ads.
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Heck, they have lots of props; it'd be smart to sell "branded" versions of props. Coke or Pepsi instead of just a can of soda. They could even implement something where if a person designs something that includes a brand, they could find it and
restoring emotional cues to messages (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:restoring emotional cues to messages (Score:4, Insightful)
Except people will still say things they wouldn't say in real life because getting your avatar slapped isn't the same thing as being slapped in real life.
It's just not a good substitution. People like having flame wars and arguments on the internet. That's the only reason we haven't come up with something more "suitable" than emoticons to show nuances that are more complex than can easily be shown in text. People simply like having an excuse to argue and fight where it will have no bearing on their real lives. It's a form of entertainment for some, stress relief for others, and simple escapism for still more people.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
I see no reason why a "geek" should prefer a 3D interface. If anything, anyone but geeks would.
The best thing about a (well made) 3D interface is that it's intuitive. Now, no real geek would really need that. If anyone, Joe Average needs it. Anyone here who really needs KDE? Or would you be doing just fine with CLI? See? You know the commands, the mnemoics, you could bring a NIC up with ifconfig, couldn't you? Joe Average can't. He needs the clickable interface.
Hell, there's a good chance that it takes someone with knowledge longer to point and click rather than use the keyboard. There is a reason why pretty much every program has a way of accessing their command menues through ctrl- and alt- commands, and not only by point-and-click.
So if anyone, it's non-geeks that will be the first to jump the fancy 3D interfaces when they become popular (and when someone figures out an input device that's affordable and useable).
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I'm concerned they just did. When you install this, it installs a Windows *service* called Google Updater... set for automatic, running all the time, even when the "game" isn't running. I *DESPISE* that.
This is #1 on my "hate" list for apps. Followed closely be "calling home without asking", "not asking what directory to install to", and "installing widgets in the system tray".
GogMMOG (Score:4, Funny)
Re:GogMMOG (Score:5, Funny)
World of Pagerank?
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Not really... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me it's following their original corporate strategy: To make all things depicted in Snow Crash come to life.
Well, they already made the CIC database (Google Search/Video/Books/etc.), Earth (they even took the name from it), now the Metaverse.
Something tells me though that Google might be able to succeed in that realm where Second Life failed, just because they would seem more willing to integrate it with stuff like Android to get people to build their own apps for it.
Nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Can people interact as themselves rather than cartoon characters? Are there that many people into dolls and make-believe or are there too many people who are too depressed just being themselves? Then they don't need avatars, they need help.
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Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
"I mean, it is kind-of like chatroom v. 2.0 or something along those lines. But when it gets to be where you spend more time living in an imaginary dreamworld, then it's time to seek help."
Yeah, I hear there's a chatroom just for that.
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But when it gets to be where you spend more time living in an imaginary dreamworld, then it's time to seek help.
After my marriage broke up I did seek help (adjustment disorder with depressed mood), for me and my then teenaged daughters who their mother had abandoned. I was on Paxil for a while. But going to bars and writing about it at K5 did me more good than the psychaitrist and the Paxil.
If you see me writing fewer slashdot journals, you know my meatspace life is sucking a lot less.
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, many people are into what you call "make-believe" and what other people call fantasy or fiction. It's inherent to human nature. Novels, movies, games and comics are all 'make-believe': creating a fantasy world. The next logical step is to make such a fantasy world shared between more people. This is what a 'game' like SL or Lively does.
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Be who you want on the web pages you visit 7/08/2008 02:02:00 PM Posted by Niniane Wang, Engineering Manager
Of course, you can chat with each other, and you can also interact through animated actions. In our user research, we've been amazed at how much more poignant it is to receive an animated hug than seeing the text "[[hug]]".
I think the guys at Google need to stop eating at the office...
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Funny)
On the contrary. I'm very much looking forward to a big hug from an animated Wang.
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
I think something is wrong with my lively account.
The first time I logged in, some funny looking feller who looked like Colonel Sanders greeted me, "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the google. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here."
So, I punched him in the hoohaw with my Papa Smurf avatar and quickly logged off. Is thing still beta?
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
Do not try to comprehend the idea of a Google 20% application leaving Beta. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth: there is no Beta.
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I got bored waiting for it to load, then it crashed ff3 so I gave up.
There was an interesting loop [imageshack.us] in the waiting room though, displaying what I can only assume were search queries.
One query [imageshack.us] in particular confirmed this.
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It's from The Matrix: Retarded err I mean Reloaded.
If we rephrase it (Score:5, Interesting)
the way i see it, many of the people who label the online world as 'virtual' are rather emotionally challenged people. there is nothing 'virtual' in the online world. there is a person behind that avatar, just like you. s/he can make you laugh, make you angry, sad, engage in heated up philosophical conversation, or do stuff together. stuff done with other people in an online environment is no less valuable than stuff done in an offline environment. you can go get drunk in a local pub while talking or you can get drunk in front of the computer talking with same people the same stuff. there is no difference other than physical proximity.
if you NEED physical proximity to be able to feel connected with people, then i'd say that thats a sign of 'emotionally challengedness' in the form of weak empathy capability.
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That's such a delusion. People you talk to online are not anything like what you think of them. You're not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination, seeded with a few select facts or fictions from someone else.
If you really do feel connected to people you meet online, then you're actually not connected to anyone, and you're creating imaginary friends, like someone in a sensory deprivation chamber having lucid dreams.
Re:If we rephrase it (Score:5, Insightful)
That's such a delusion. People you talk to online are not anything like what you think of them. You're not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination, seeded with a few select facts or fictions from someone else.
do you think the people you talk with in offline (real) life, are the way they are, the way they talk with you ? how many people you have met in your entire life, that were just as they seemed to be, after you got to know him ?
in 'real' life you subject people to the test of time to know them better. only after some time, you can get to know someone. continuous exposure in a mutual environment eventually makes who they really are to come out.
this rule doesnt change in the real world. if there is someone that believes someone whom s/he knows from online communities for just 1-2 months is the way s/he is, you can easily say that that person is naive.
because same goes for online environments. its infallible. constant mutual online activity with a person eventually makes who they are to come out.
If you really do feel connected to people you meet online, then you're actually not connected to anyone, and you're creating imaginary friends, like someone in a sensory deprivation chamber having lucid dreams.
excuse me, but you already are in a deprivation chamber. everyone is. each conscious mind is a deprivation chamber, and the deprivation is only remedied by the extent of usage of sensory organs and interaction with the environment.
by definition, you use the same organs while seeing a bloke and sending voice signals to him on a street corner, and while video chatting with someone on the internet. there is no difference in technical terms.
each interaction produces impulses to your brain through your sensory organs, and invokes certain thoughts and emotions. and those thoughts and emotions are real. they do not differentiate between laughing to a joke told in a pub or a joke told online.
again, time is the only defining factor for personality of any person. nothing else. a person you know from 'real' life is no different than any person you know from online, until they persist through the test of time. and time passes in equal pace both online and offline. sometimes even faster online, as there is more interaction in online world due to the ease of use.
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By your argument.... (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case, since I am not in the habit of arguing with myself, I see no need to rebut the obvious fallacies of your argument — or perhaps you meant something else by "not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination"?
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Apparently you, too, feel that there's some value in these interactions, or you wouldn't have bothered to post this reply.
Honestly, I'm with you -- internet communications only show you a part of the people you communicate with, and it's good to be mindful of that. But
Re:If we rephrase it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm really 6'4", ripped with an 18" cock and squirrel ears.
obXKCD (Score:4, Funny)
Can people interact as themselves rather than cartoon characters? Are there that many people into dolls and make-believe or are there too many people who are too depressed just being themselves? Then they don't need avatars, they need help.
And that XBox of yours isn't a real musical instrument, either. Stop having fun! [xkcd.com]
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
In this space, there are professional-looking avatars...
do they have sticks up their asses?
... and things to pick up and examine.
sticks? to put up their asses?
Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you count all the people who logged in once and never again--and Linden Labs apparently does--Second Life has the population of a decent-sized country. I'd say it's got plenty of awareness.
The main problem is that less than a few hundred thousand think it's worth their time to stay.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
If more companies built stores in SL and sold real goods through it,
holy crap why? I can buy what I want from a good old 2D website faster than some half assed second life store that is impossible to navigate or get any real info about what I am buying.
Last thing I want is to go to a "virtual" dell store and wander around, I want to find the server, click on the options and click on buy.
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Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
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The main problem is that less than a few hundred thousand think it's worth their time to stay.
And even fewer yet who will pay money for something.
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People keep saying this, but it nothing like Second Life, at least not yet. This is an avatar-based chat system. Yes, you can use Second Life for that purpose and many do. But the interesting parts of second life are the virtual economy, the ability to build and script complex objects, the ability to buy 'land'.
It's rather like saying that an umbrella is the same as a jet-fighter because both can keep you dry when it rains. ..and if you don't like that metaphor - you're like a haddock in a hot air balloon
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
the interesting parts of second life are the virtual economy, the ability to build and script complex objects, the ability to buy 'land'.
The only interesting one of these is the scripting.
The rest is just side effects of using centralized servers. I am not interested in any virtual 3d world that isn't decentralized, meaning that anyone can set up their own server with their own rules, with the ability to easily and seemlessly travel between servers. Something like a 3d version of the www.
Second life is somebody's walled playground.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not interested in any virtual 3d world that isn't decentralized, meaning that anyone can set up their own server with their own rules, with the ability to easily and seemlessly travel between servers. Something like a 3d version of the www.
I second that 100%. A 3D-equivalent of the WWW would perhaps have many advantages (as usual, it is hard to imagine how we would really use it), but it needs to be as open as the WWW to be of any real use. So there needs to be an interoperable standard for avatars, and a standard protocol for your "browser" to interact with any 3d server. Why would I, as a company, invest in an online store inside second life, which is an environment over which I have 0 control, where some other company has the power to print money?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Look up OpenSim, a reverse-engineered version of the SL protocol. Runs a decentralized grid (well, allows for multiple, hetereogeneous server setups) and uses the SL client.
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Every time I see someone post this, it saddens me -- Communities.com (the folks that own the domain now are completely unrelated) aka Electric Communities built a secure, distributed virtual world (under the names ECHabitats/Microcosm), in the mid-to-late nineties. Most people didn't get it.
It's obvious that, having seen Second Life, people are starting to understand -- "Hey, having things on centralized servers kind of sucks. I want to run my own 'sim', and be able to connect it to other peoples'"
There a
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Why? What are the benefits, if any at all?
Does it scale? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does it scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to their track record, Google scaled reasonably well.
Re:Does it scale? (Score:4, Interesting)
"According to their track record, Google scaled reasonably well."
You mean google search. Orkut, for example, ran on 5 NT servers when it first came out and didn't exactly have the same subsecond response time that search did.
No use (Score:2)
Re:No use (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No use (Score:4, Funny)
Well log on to second life and make one.
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Those darn kids with their high pants and their rap music... they don't appreciate anything!
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I quite enjoy virtual worlds with a subject (MMORPGs, online shooters), if only for a while. However, things like Second Life are too open-ended for any real 'game' to take place. As for aiding in communication, virtual worlds don't even do that to any appreciable extent; it's all just text with a 3D avatar that doesn't do anything to convey tone any better than an emoticon would. About the only use of a 3D avatar is to show facial expressions, which no current MMO does.
In short: :(
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I had to tag this 'wtf', it's so unlike them (Score:5, Informative)
It even makes use of Facebook accounts [lively.com].
And Vista/XP only, while still being browser based.
Also, it's not really a Second Life competitor since you can't create stuff, part of what makes SL unique. It's more like just chat rooms.
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"Review" on Ars Technica (Score:5, Informative)
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It would seem that Ars Technica doesn't know what a Google "20 percent project" is.
expect things to get better? (Score:5, Insightful)
expect things to get better.
Like running on multiple platforms? Having a userbase that isn't all newbs checking it out for a couple minutes? Having suggestions on what to _do_ with it that can benefit meatspace unlike other 3d worlds?
No user-created content? Boring! (Score:2)
This looks like an online suburbia cartoon ... I mean even as a newb on SecondLife I looked way better than the avatars for this place.
Back to the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
I distinctly remember applications like this back in the 1998/1999 timeframe where you could install a client-side app and interact through avatars with others visiting the same web site. It was only 2D and I don't think it was ever widely used. It was supposed to be an extension of the chat rooms that were so popular back then...
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Microsoft Comic Chat [wikipedia.org]?
Of course, the most visited island? Sex Island (Score:3, Interesting)
1992 called: They want their Internet fad back (Score:2)
Other than the fact that this is 3D, tons of companies tried almost the exact same thing in two dimensions back in the '90s when the whole "avatar" concept was still a major part of the mainstream media view of "the Web." (Right along with movies like "The Net" and "Hackers," when Internet things were hip to the newly computer literate).
Of course, there is actually more to this story than that. Internet connections are more reliable, the "Web" is more usable, and the Internet has largely been demystified.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
What does this have that SL or any other project from 1992 didn't? It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
Even as a side project, this probably has more resources than the company doing SL.
Re:1992 called: They want their Internet fad back (Score:5, Interesting)
It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
1, it's 80/20, as in 20% of their time is supposed to be used for free exploration.
2, I've talked to some Googlers who say it's more like 100/20, as in you have a huge workload so if you want to stay after hours and do your 20% you can go right ahead, but only about 1% of engineers can be bothered to do so. Especially since Google owns your bright idea once you come up with it.
The irony (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a shit anymore. I'm glad that somebody was interested enough to do this, and that other people find it interesting, but I will be staying away. My workplace, which fancies itself as hip and smart, will probably make this mandatory, like they have with Facebook, which will simply be another pointless drain on my otherwise interesting day. Bah humbug!
ELVES!!! (Score:4, Informative)
I just took a look at the demo (And since I"m a Gentoo user, can't install the plugin) and why the hell does every female avatar in there look like a damn elf? I mean I don't know of any girl alive who has eyes like that. Do the guys at google masturbate to Bratz dolls or something? That's ridiculous.
Re:ELVES!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I just took a look at the demo (And since I"m a Gentoo user, can't install the plugin) and why the hell does every female avatar in there look like a damn elf? [...]
Fail.
Because elves are hot.
Expect things to get better... (Score:5, Insightful)
... because right now they're terrible.
I'm honestly surprised; Google's previous beta rollouts have, to my memory, been a lot more functional at first unveiling. This new system is seriously broken... I can't put more than one person in a room (no idea why, as others seem to have no trouble), it's slow, it's limited, and it has serious user interface design issues.
Google will have to move fast if they want to compete in this space. There are, quite frankly, too many options for social interactive chat right now; the only thing Google has going for it in this market is name recognition.
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"Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox
By using Lively you agree to these Terms"
Didn't click on the link, didja?
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Oops, I forgot I'm still using Windows 2000 at work.
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Re:Requires Winblows (Score:5, Informative)
We've all tired of posts with no redeeming qualities beyond bashing Microsoft, particularly in those cases where they haven't actually done anything.
Google, Microsoft's main competitor at the moment for those keeping track, released a tool to do something of dubious value to much of the Slashdot community. They have opted to release the tool on Windows first, probably because it has a larger install base than all competitors combined, but have stated there will be Mac and Linux versions "real soon now". Precisely which part of this story involves Microsoft doing something that could or should be criticized?
I'm all about making fun of Microsoft when they do something stupid, and Dog knows it happens plenty, but sadly they've done nothing mockworthy in this story.
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Well, I'm sorry that I didn't read the ars technica link posted at 1:54 before making my post at 1:52, but the question remains, why isn't this cross-platform to start with? I can't see anything there that isn't already available in Java games, so why does this need a plug-in, and why is it platform specific?