Tag Archives: google

September 3, 2021 · 12:48

When one and one remains one

Two things crossed my path, as perhaps a lot of you too. They are not related, but they gave me food for thought. The first are the floods all over NY city. I looked at a lot of YouTube videos and I agree, we have never seen this before, will we see more of that? Time will tell. Yes, it could be due to global warming, but it is not a given. We have tornado’s and we have storms and this one went towards New York. Now, I am not stating that it isn’t due to global warming, but to point the finger from the start is not a good idea. I do believe that global warming is part of the storm surge and as global warming continues there will be more storms. There is no denying that. One can lead to the other, but one is not the definite cause of the other. That setting is here too. So whilst those with a sub-level apartment, they now have a swimming pool. I am not making fun of them, that would be wrong, but it is important to consider that New York has never dealt with this before and it is now August. It will take months to dry, so we are in a setting with thousands of a basement apartments and when the frost sets in, these houses will become death traps. November and December will be close to unbearable and in January if the frost sets in these apartments will be a different setting. It is also a more important setting, if snowfall comes early this December, thousands of places to live will become close to unsurvivable and New York better get ready for that stage, it could kill a lot of people. Is it a given? No, it is not, but the floods are clearly visible, if the subway is flooded, how will these houses fare? And that is only the start, the water brought all kinds of mud and other health threats, so cleaning these places will be an almost titanic task. Then we get to the damaged electrical systems, and all this is before we realise that plumbing and  water will take a while to become decently reliable again. A stage we saw in part, but how much of these dangers did the people see?

The second is not related, but it had my attention. Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/article/amazon-tv-usa/amazon-to-roll-out-its-own-tv-in-u-s-by-october-business-insider-idUSKBN2FZ00D) gives us ‘Amazon to roll out its own TV in U.S. by October’, this implies that there is another statin on US minds, Amazon will have more than Amazon Prime Video, they are now setting the stage to TV and there is no attack, there is no issue. Yet the stage of them offering  TV with a twist is not out of the question. It is a clever move from Amazon, they have the option to take advertising to a whole new level and it is THEIR TV channel, so the essential attacks on Amazon will not be as effective as the attacks that Apple and Google are facing. But is that what it is about? No, it is not merely the TV part, it is the shifting economy that Amazon gets to push for. This is not meant in a negative way, but consider that thousands will be dislodged, thousands will need a job, a home and Amazon who is out to hire 55,000 tech jobs and that news is a mere 22 hours old. People have relocated for a lot less and that gives Amazon more than a leg up, it gives them a furlong head start in 2-3 venues and in this setting of bad news they become a shining light and optionally a larger staged beneficial noise to a lot of people. The part that New York might not like is that there is a setting where (depending on Amazon choices) 20-30 thousand people vacate for sunnier shores and in light of what happened in the last few days, with the added workforce taking a step in an optional other direction. We will see a larger stage of the economy changing in New York, one New York never anticipated before. So we see the tech jobs, TV and a lot more and Amazon is at the heart of that. These events are not connected, yet the stage of a larger change becomes apparent, or perhaps I need to say ‘speculatively apparent’. because it is speculation from my side. A stage where Amazon gets to promote their jobs, their positions, their TV, their goods at base pries is an advantage that few ever have and thousands are looking for jobs and that advantage is likely to increase over time. I am merely looking at the pharmaceutical side, the retail side and the job side and there we see Amazon having an advantage thrice over. And as I see it, they are not doing anything wrong. They merely take a versatile set in a post covid era and they are decently ahead of the rest. 

So consider what I write, consider what you think and see where you can prosper, because someone who hires 55,000 tech jobs has a larger plan in place and that is not something you should ignore, especially when Amazon takes that setting on an international level. It gives them a larger advantage over several players who aren’t even close to doing what Amazon is claiming to start over the next 4 weeks.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

August 25, 2021 · 19:50

Maximising digital exploitation

Yes, that is what you all fear is it not? To get digitally exploited and would you believe it, governments and politicians are making it happen. The first one to do so is South Korea. The news (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-antitrust-tech/s-korea-parliament-committee-votes-to-curb-google-apple-commission-dominance-idUSKBN2FQ05V)  gives us ‘S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance’ and here we see “a key step toward banning Google and Apple from forcibly charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases” and it is not just that, we also get “the amendment bans app store operators with dominant market positions from forcing payment systems on content providers and “inappropriately” delaying the review of, or deleting, mobile contents from app markets” As I personally see it, this is what organised crime has been waiting for and South Korea just made it happen. So as you ponder ‘or deleting, mobile contents from app markets’ consider that one infected app maker can now make claims rejecting deletion (or massively delaying it) and as such thousands of tablets and mobile phones will get infected and spreading the backdoor. There was a reason for the jumps that Apple and Google had made, in this we were decently safe. Now consider that we become the infection point because we were told that brand X is 25% cheaper, gives 50% more credit and is just as fast. That short sighted thinking will get you slammed, will get you hammered and could cost you your device. So as other sources give you “We do not expect any issues”, or “We are not aware of any issues at present” consider the carefully phrased denials and the consequences for your hardware. And whilst you remain in denial of this all being for consumer good. This all got started by some greed driven upstart that was making $5,100,000,000. So how much extra do you get? When you consider that one player has V-bucks (their currency) is at 1000 for £6.49/$7.99. When did they give you more for the same amount? They did made over 5 billion last year alone. So when we get to the quote by someone we care not for we see “Dominant app store operators with large platforms should by now look to profit from value-added services, not just taking a cut from apps sold on its store”, yes, so how stupid was that? Now the value added services like security, testing and storing must be paid for, as such the small players will soon stop existing, all to help out the multibillion app players. In the old setting all developers had a decent chance, that will now seize and as the damage to consumers start stacking, the larger failing will be seen in 2022, or as soon as you suddenly get a message that you became a DDOS agent. So whilst you get rid of all the games and utilities, it will be too late. You will need to factory reset your device hoping it will be enough (it might not be). Yes that was real clever thinking and when we regard “the rushed process hasn’t allowed for enough analysis of the negative impact of this legislation on Korean consumers and app developers” which is given to us by Wilson White, a policy director at Google. We will need to ascertain a few issues. In the first when this is pushed through we can no longer hold Apple or Google accountable when we get transgressed upon, we will get to drag these politicians into courts and in front of the camera and we can advertise just how stupid and shortsighted they were, it is the smallest reward for days and optionally weeks of our devices not being able to function because short sighted people thought they knew what they were doing. As I see it a ‘sorry’ statement will not be any defence and that is the larger setting, these politicians will openly ignore the damage done to the people, they will deny catering to organised crime and we are left with the damage. Yet they too will feel that impact hen EVERY developer will have to pay to be on the Appstore. When 10%-25% fall away, the larger players who were greed driven will merely shrug with a ‘so what’ and the rest will be looking for a job and that will have a few larger impact settings as well. The Appstore settings as they are for now will enable developers to get decently quality systems to develop. When that comes with the additional $750 annual bill that falls the developers way. Consider the impact when you consider that there are 23 million Apple developers and well over 6 million Android developers. When they get the additional bills it will push a whole lot of them out of that field, the impact will be seen and felt in almost all walks of life. As I personally see it there is every chance that 2022 will become the year of the digital exploiters and in that setting it will not be about Apple or Google, but I will leave you all to figure that part out and be sure to feel the pain of what happens when you go to any other app store to save a dollar or two. The impact will be seen and felt almost everywhere. 

So as we see that South Korea got there first, the US is right behind them. They are hiding behind the quote “a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google”, so when the damage hits, it will hit hard and it will hit almost complete. Consider that I am wrong and consider these advertisement statements we see and how much deceptive advertising you have seen on your phone or tablet? And that part has been around for almost a year. If these politicians cannot even keep the advertisement section clean, how much use are they when you get infected? That is the setting none of them are willing to stay around for. 

That is the danger and it is not merely on a simple setting, when the app store can be ‘avoided’, we will get to see headlines like “Mobiles Hacked for 5th Time in 2 Years in Latest Breach; Nearly 150 Million Affected”. You think I am kidding? Last week Newsweek reported that something similar happened to T-Mobile with only 50,000,000 victims. So there if you are an American there is a 1 in 6 chance that you are one of them, so how often do you want to lose control of YOUR data?

That is the larger danger and that danger is currently rapidly increasing. 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 24, 2021 · 19:11

When two makes a good three

I was watching some movies when a thought dropped in on me. The thought was driven by a few factors and they include a former boss, the setting we see now and the larger station of keeping some of our thoughts (and data) private got me on this journey. 

I am making my thoughts public domain because I do not own any of the IP and this evolution benefits my IP, as such I am a nice guy. The issue is not merely having an USB drive, the problem is keeping that data secure. The cloud is less of a solution and as we se the largest IT corporations hacked, their solutions are not much use either, so you need an optional alternative.

So when we see the USB key, w consider that there is more to have. Now that they have 2TB solutions, the options to keep larger solutions out of reach of other hands, we need to consider what is possible. There are drives with some keypad and you can direct a code there, but these solutions will always be hacked. I saw some of the most ingenious security settings and I saw a man (not me mind you) look at it, consider it, look at his friend, they looked at each other, they tried a few things and less than 25 minutes later they had a 12 byte solution and the security was avoided. That is the real setting we face, so we need to split the solution.

So when we consider the split solution, the drive and the key, e also need to set a larger security, the stage where we do not have the options, but the makers have a website, and we get one option to initialise the drive with the key, once that drive is initialised, only THAT key will unlock it. There are all kinds of of disadvantages, I get that. But at some point you need to consider that if you lost your drive the data would be lost too. So why hand the data to the other player when the other player could end up with all the efforts without the payback.

I merely wonder why no one else took this setting to the next level. It is not unheard of to have a set of drives that require a hardware key, I just think they should not be on the same device. So the USB drive, the security key and you could make a great three and so far no one offers it to anyone (or so it seems), why is that?

The need for secure data is largely increasing and it will increase a lot more soon enough. With an almost daily barrage of hacked players many need an alternative and the cloud is seemingly not that much of a secure solution. So when we look at what is out there, we also see that combining two good ideas could make a decent combined product and I am merely wondering with millions of seeking a secure place for their data, why the larger players who already have the solutions never jumped on it.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT

Tagged as , , , ,

August 1, 2021 · 20:07

COMPUTE BigTechPlotGoogle = ‘Lost’.

Yes, we all have to create variables to set a larger stage. We know that age gives us a lot, but the 15 people of age 18, the 7 with age 19, the 3 with age 20 are useless, yet when we group them in an age classification of 18-23 we get a lot more information out of our data. This is not new, this is. setting that market research has walked on for decades. Even before some programs added ‘functionality’, the people behind programs like Quantum were already on top of mentioned groupings. So when I see Google 9 to 5 giving us “Google is adding five games to Stadia Pro for August 2021”, I wonder if they have any clue what thy are doing. Apart from the fact that we also get “Killer Queen Black, inspired by the hit arcade game, Killer Queen, let’s you fight for your hive with three ways to win. Will you claim your victory by hopping on the snail, hoarding berries, or wiping out the enemy’s queen?” As well as “Stadia Pro is Stadia’s premium subscription service and your gateway to the best that Stadia has to offer. With an active Stadia Pro subscription, you get a variety of perks, including free games, exclusive game discounts, and top-tier visual and audio quality”. Here we now see a setting where Google is not merely fumbling the ball, it is giving the court to Amazon. There was always a risk of that, but to do it in such a direct way is rather silly. There is no Google Stadia without decent games and by confusing gamers by giving them “there’s Killer Queen Black ($19.99), Valkyria Chronicles 4 ($49.99), It Came From Space & Ate Our Brains ($14.99), and Epistory – Typing Chronicles ($14.99)” we see a stage where Google will not be part of any gaming stage soon enough. Any platform needs traction, any platform, especially streaming systems will need a cluster of gamers, that like grapes suck your soil dry for EVERY game possible, the numbers and exclusivity decide the winner. So when I saw this last Friday, I had to ponder what this means, not only does the setup implies that Amazon Luna will rule the streaming environment, it also implies that Google would fall dead last behind Microsoft. A stage I had not expected to happen. Not only should Google be first, it should be way ahead of Amazon, which is apparently not going to happen, so when we get “The count now stands at 29 titles” leaving us with the implied setting that at present Amazon Luna is wielding a games list three times the size of Google, how was that EVER a good idea? It also leaves us with the implied stage that Amazon will soon be the number 3 system behind Sony and Nintendo and it gets to be better, in that setting there is a larger stage where the Luna could be seen as accepted NEXT to the Playstation 5 gamer and Nintendo Switch gamer, optionally we will see households with these three systems. This changes the future for Amazon in a few ways, should they think this through, they can offer a new level of social networking, offering a link to Sony and Nintendo players, so that they can partake on the social scene, they can offer a much larger stage that would offer the Kindle to a large population who have ignored it (for whatever reason) and set a new level of consumer staging. In this there is an optional chance that a new Triumvirate could be created. In line of the old version where the world was ruled by Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. This version will be one that gamers want, because they are getting hat THEY want, not what makers think they want. Sony, Amazon and Nintendo will get a larger stage to unite and perfect gamers needs, the rest will merely watch on the sides as they are trying to figure out what gamers (according to their marketing department) need. It will set their agenda’s back for close to a decade and in the mean time these three will excel in giving us gamers what we truly want. This is not a given, but when we unite the news from different sources, there is every chance that we go in that direction, and it would make me happy, especially if that puts Microsoft dead last in that field. Serves them right! Huh!

OK, that might not be called for but my ego took over for a moment. And there is a larger stage, a stage that goes beyond what we merely think can happen, there are options for Amazon to make it happen, will they? That is hard to say, streaming needs a good internet connection and there is time, but in the next year this war will be settled on the streaming winners and Amazon does seem to be in pole position here, I am not writing off Netflix, but I have no idea where they are at and how they want to offer services, in addition Netflix is also seen as a competitor with the Sony streaming services, a setting that Amazon does not have, so Sony would be eager to add to their functionality without impeding the Playstation and Luna is no threat there, more interesting the Luna, Switch and PS5 can easily sit next to one another and that would sit well with all three, a triumvirate in the making and that is where the others fall away.

I have no idea whether this will really happen, it largely depends on the actions by Amazon and their Luna to show it can be done, but the other two will happily accept a brother in gaming that is not taking the wind out of their sails and Google forgot to see and centre their view to the larger ocean instead of calibrating to whatever coastline they are ogling. That setting of wrong focal point is more likely than not, the stage that will cost them the streaming gaming war, it was up to them and they chose (very) poorly as I personally see it. To be honest, I thought that it would take until early 2023 when 5G is more widely spread for the streaming consoles to set their battle lines and now it seems that at present, with the information given to us, Amazon Luna is all but a decided winner even before the race is off. Considering that they were up against Google and Microsoft, it is an achievement that should not be underestimated. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 30, 2021 · 23:07

Iterating towards disaster

Yes, that happens, we all consider it, but did anyone thought it through? You see, innovation is essential in staying ahead, iteration tends to give you a 2 year advantage, innovation gives you a 5-7 years leap. That is not new, it has been a ‘fact’ of life for 3-4 decades. Yet that premise is about to change, it will change a lot and it will change towards the bad side of the pool. To see this we need a few items, the first is an article, an article that the Guardian gave us with ‘I’m sorry Dave I’m afraid I invented that: Australian court finds AI systems can be recognised under patent law’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/30/im-sorry-dave-im-afraid-i-invented-that-australian-court-finds-ai-systems-can-be-recognised-under-patent-law), you see there is a danger here, even as the Guardian gives us “Allowing machine inventors could have numerous consequences, both foreseeable and unforeseeable. Allowing patents for inventions churned out by tireless machines with virtually unlimited capacity, without the further exercise of any human ingenuity, judgment, or intellectual effort, may simply incentivise large corporations to build ‘patent thicket generators’ that could only serve to stifle, rather than encourage, innovation overall.” This we get in the article from Australian patent attorney Dr Mark Summerfield, and he is right, you see, there is a larger danger here. It is not merely that only a few companies can AFFORD such an AI, the larger stage is that if we combine this and we add a little statistics to the pile, we get a new setting. 

SPSS (now IBM Statistics) has something called the conjoint analyses. To understand this, we need to take a look at the manual. There we see:

Conjoint analysis presents choice alternatives between products defined by sets of attributes. This is illustrated by the following choice: would you prefer a flight that is cramped, costs $225, and has one layover, or a flight that is spacious, costs $800, and is direct? If comfort, price, and duration are the relevant attributes, there are potentially eight products:

Product Comfort Price Duration
1 cramped $225 2 hours
2 cramped $225 5 hours
3 cramped $800 2 hours
4 cramped $800 5 hours
5 spacious $225 2 hours
6 spacious $225 5 hours
7 spacious $800 2 hours
8 spacious $800 5 hours

Given the above alternatives, product 4 is probably the least preferred, while product 5 is probably the most preferred. The preferences of respondents for the other product offerings are implicitly determined by what is important to the respondent. Using conjoint analysis, you can determine both the relative importance of each attribute as well as which levels of each attribute are most preferred.

This is all statistical science and it works, but the application can be changed. If data is the only premise here, we see the application in another way. What if the AI is taught the categories that enable a unique stage to own ANY patent field. Consider that this is not about a flight, what if this is about a processor.

Product Speed Processor Sampling
1 X Sycamore Bozon
2 X Sycamore Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial
3 X Tangle Bozon
4 X Tangle Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial
5 Y Sycamore Bozon
6 Y Sycamore Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial
7 Y Tangle Bozon
8 Y Tangle Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial

I am merely making a fictive sample with existing names, but what if the math of conjoint is tweaked to cover the quantum field to a larger degree, a computer can do this faster than any person and it can even start making the documents, so the AI can create a set of patents that cover the entire field, with a setting where less than 20 patents will stop commercial competitors to get traction in this field and this is not merely speculation, I feel that this is where we go to and now the big tech companies will own it all and the AI’s will have the entire patent field. Yes, there will be holes in the beginning, but as patent filing will overturn normal filings, the patent field will end up being owned by Google, IBM and Amazon. I have nothing against any of these three, but this is not what I (or anyone else) signed up for. I might just put all my 5G IP online making it all public domain, just to temporarily deflate the AI premise.

And personally, there is no way that either of the three had not considered this application, making the AI patent field a lot more debatable and I reckon that the larger law field is looking into that. In 2012 a total of 1,892 filings were made, now consider that an AI could cover a larger field with a mere 300 filings. That is not out of the realm of considerations, as such the Australian case we see in the Guardian could well end up with all kinds of nasty surprises if the stage of “The decision by the Australian deputy commissioner of patents in February this year found that although “inventor” was not defined in the Patents Act when it was written in 1991 it would have been understood to mean natural persons – with machines being tools that could be used by inventors” is not overturned. Will it? I cannot tell, but it opens a whole range of doors and some of them will end up being rather nasty.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 30, 2021 · 01:53

In retrospect

I (for the most) react to facts, as I do now, but the results are not anticipated new facts, what comes next is pure speculation, no matter how correct I think I am, it is speculation and that needs to be said up front. Even as I start now, my mind is racing through speculative ideas and options in other realms (science realms no less), but I digress. The thoughts started with a Reuter article called ‘Analysis: Biden’s COVID-19 strategy thwarted by anti-vaxxers, Delta variant’, the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-covid-19-strategy-thwarted-by-anti-vaxxers-delta-variant-2021-07-29/) gives us “Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the Biden administration’s acknowledgement of the “terrible impact” of the anti-vaccine movement was important, but he said the government could do more. “Anti-science is arguably one of the leading killers of the American people, and yet we don’t … treat it as such. We don’t give it the same stature as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation and cyber attacks,” he said”, it might be a mere quote, it might be the paraphrasing from the article writer, which is not a negative view, but it got me thinking. When we see the anti-vaxxer movements in the US and EU, they are uncannily effective, they are almost too effective. For the most and proven since the 90’s, the anti-vaxxers are either religiously inclined like the Dutch people in Giethorn (their ‘sort of’ version of Amish) or loons (often people who are one shade away from being absolutely bug-nuts). In the first, these people are driven and they are also self isolationists, it is merely about them and their community, it makes them a danger to themselves, not to others. The second group is a danger to all, but often so stupid they merely hit other stupid people. These anti-vaxxers are driven, not merely by intelligent people, no, they are driven like they are terrorist tools, like biological DOS agents and they are growing. These people are not accepting any scientific evidence, they forward non-scientific papers as ‘their’ evidence and they are not merely more effective, they are almost centrally driven by a similar source. 

In the UK the Guardian is giving visibility to Kate Shemirani, in the USA we see Alabama Curt Carpenter and the list grows. Someone is somehow fuelling this, yes this is speculative and this is not merely the power of social media, someone had months to prepare the weaker minded and target them in a direction, limelight seeking nobodies all wanting their limelight with as large as an audience as possible. The evidence is not clear and as such this is speculation, yet consider the timelines of each of these Anti-vaxxers, what their audience was a year ago and each month after that. This goes beyond buying likes on places like Facebook. Some people are fuelling these ‘bright’ illumination spots and they are not done, even as they are retracting their ‘assistance’ there is still a digital footprint and it is now diminishing. Yes, I admit upfront that my view is speculative, but my speculation fits the profile, are the US and the EU under attack from bio-terrorists? You might think that they are not the same, but there you would be wrong. In this I grasp back to a writing from 2012 called ‘A Proposed Universal Medical and Public Health Definition of Terrorism’. Here we see “We propose the following universal medical and public definition of terrorism: The intentional use of violence — real or threatened — against one or more non-combatants and/or those services essential for or protective of their health, resulting in adverse health effects in those immediately affected and their community, ranging from a loss of well-being or security to injury, illness, or death”, in this, if even one of my speculations are proven, these anti-vaxxers become complicit in acts of terrorism. Did you even consider that? Now, there is a dangerous fence. I am not debating THEIR right to be anti vaccinated. If they die, they only have themselves to thank, just like Curt Carpenter. Yet by attacking science by non-science and debunked non-facts, the setting changes and that is where we are now. What should have been a straight path to recovery is now a much larger issue. The delay is not on President Biden, and now that we can optionally see that the US is yet again under terrorist attack his priorities need to change, attacking big-tech is futile and counter productive, the laws needs adjusting free speech, it needs to be validated by accountability. 

And for the love of god, can some well trained data analyst please take a look at the timeline of these anti-vaxxers? I think it is time to look at timelines here and that is when my brain went into some sort of overdrive. It goes back when I designed an intrusion system that stayed one hop away from a router table between two points and to infect one of the routers to duplicate packages from that router on that path, one infection tended to not be enough, 2-3 infections needed to be made so that the traffic on that route between two points could be intercepted, I called it the Hop+1 solution, I came up with it whilst considering the non-Korean Sony hack. That  thought drove me to think of an approach to find the links. In the first we most likely need to find on where and when they accessed the dark web, then we see another part, because if we can find their access, we can optionally see others too, when we have that list and we can correlate it to other anti-vaxxers we have an optional pattern for action. No matter how this is seen it will be staged towards my speculation, something that needs proof, proof is required to give validity to actions that follow. I believe that I am correct, but I admit that it is a speculative push in a path towards thinking something is what I personally think it is, not a path towards evidence, evidence needs to be found and the evidence that is made to fit the solution, is no evidence, it is like stating that there is a linear relationship when you only have two plot points. A pattern of evidence is required, it is always about the patterns. 

So when I look at the ‘in retrospect’ part, I am wondering when the connections were there in the early stages and I also wonder why the others are not on that path yet (or seemingly yet). The media is only partly to blame, yes they give limelight, but that was their job from the early days, like the people exploiting Google cookies, the media can be exploited too, seeking the limelight is not a crime, but in conjunction with a terrorist agenda we are on new shaky grounds, and that is the problem, any law eagerly over-quick created is pointless whilst inaction is useless, caught between two rocks whilst the floor is not lava it is the ever exploiting media, exploiting for clicks, for visibility and circulation, whilst calling it ‘the people have a right to know’. This has the option of heading into a really bad direction soon enough. Will it? I have absolutely no idea.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 26, 2021 · 01:38

Refraining

It happens, sometimes we need to stop ourselves from acting, from jumping, from engaging. It is not that the action is wrong, it is because it is wrong at that stage. I do not know what pushed the act, yet the stage is larger and as I almost decided to trot on the novel I am still working on, optionally by giving away in another setting what comes afterwards, I was able to stop myself from doing what should not yet be done. 

It might also be the impact that Dracula (the Claes Bang edition) has on me. It was probably the first time that marketing drove me to watch anything. The ad (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIEr1Pcu03Y) and it is not merely the billboard (which was all kinds of perfect), it was not merely the cast Claes Bang and Dolly Wells are beyond believe, it is the way the story is set, it is a new and novel gander into the path of the undead, all whilst exposing us to all kinds of fears and in this the vampire fear is actually not the worst one. It pushes the envelope and it pushes us all to  surpass ourselves. Yet whilst doing that, we need to refrain from overacting on our impulses. It is a sort of balance between 2 innovations on one side and 4 iterations on the other. We want to be the 2 innovation side, but over reacting, reacting without some level of self discipline and we become mere iterations of the same. 

In this I created an approach to one game in my article ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo 2019’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/10/electronic-entertainment-expo-2019/), yet there I merely considered the approach to one game. 

Yet in the larger stage we create a very new kind of sandbox. Where every coloured ball is a new addition, a new DLC if you must that is added to the game, making the game a lot larger over time, so what I started with the teaching of Islamic religion using Medina as a centre stage, could evolve into another direction, a sandbox game that allows your person to evolve, to increase into a larger game where religion now becomes a segment, as we added new forms of gameplay, we didn’t alter religion, we merely enlarged the stage, a side of exploring, a side of economy, allowing you to get a house (in the game) and interact with others, whilst exploring the knowledge that is given to you, teaching you history and economy in new ways, altering what you know by letting you see what others saw. But in this, refraining becomes a much more essential stone. It is not like some Americans do, adding and adding. Sometimes more is not more, it is merely clutter and the overall experience is lessened. But how to go about it?

This is where QA becomes the essential side of developing any game, in the streaming world we will be able to create more, but it becomes a lot more important to create better and that is an essential lesson a maker like Ubisoft never figured out, not over at least a decade and I have no time to hold their hands, but the right people can take lesson from what I say, they can create and optionally create the right way. And my bonus is that Microsoft is equally not on the learning side, they are all about their azure and it will cost them, the sales of their latest Xbox One series X-file is so far proving me right. Between all the ‘hidden’ numbers, we see that the PS5 has well over 250% more consoles sold than its Microsoft counterpart and that difference is merely increasing. Yes, their golden boy talks a good talk but they are faltering in the field, all about cloud gaming now, optionally deserting the gamers on what they call the most powerful console in the world. There is an acceptable understanding that games need to evolve and that exclusive games take the cake (one Microsoft cake versus 15 Sony cakes), and we see that streaming will be the long term battle, but there they are falling hopelessly behind Amazon all whilst Google remains a player in that field and Netflix is yet to show it serious intent. And as we look at the options out there, they are also optionally restricting their stage and setting. All whilst I (mere little old poor me) came up with three games, one with the optional stage for up to 1,000,000,000 interested players and one stage where I redesigned three AAA+ games in new editions. And why is Microsoft failing? They have seemingly no alternative options to show in any direction. One UK newspaper gave us three hours ago “GAMES with Gold subscribers are getting closer to the official reveal of the free Xbox games for August 2021, but will Microsoft add a new Xbox Series X optimised game to the lineup?”, with all the careful leaks we see, this list is apparently more secure than the Windows source code, odd, is it not?

And these races are important too, you see, these races show the essential gaming experience that streamers can have, the consoles have too many ‘more of the same’ titles, all of them, even as we accept that there are markets and exclusives, but they are not the full range, mere icing on the cake, in a world where the three big cakes are the taste makers, two are too much alike and that is the market where the streamers and cloud games can rule. This why the Google decision on Stadia made no sense and I reckon that Amazon is loving that approach, it gives them a massive advantage. To be honest, I am a little shocked, 2 years ago I had no view on Amazon Luna, they were mostly one of the lot, a position 3 or less, now there is a decent indication that the Amazon Luna could evolve into the second best system in less than 4 years, that is impressive, they have a chance to overtake Nintendo by 2023, Sony will take longer, but if they push innovatively, they could be the ruling system by 2025 a setting I would never have anticipated in January 2020. That is the second marvel of gaming, true gamers are always on the edge of technology, a setting a few makers forgot about. Amazon apparently did not, is it a given, no it is not, but the fact that this stage is entertained implies that Amazon got a lot further than anyone anticipated. 

Is this till about refraining? To some extent it is, Amazon is not alone, even as the story of Microsoft can be dumped overboard, their story remains the same in the end, Google could change if they alter their current course and Netflix remains an unknown for now. So, Amazon Luna has the stage, it is what they do over the next 6 months that will decide how large their cake might be. Google sees (in their search) that refraining is merely another word for abstinence, a big mistake, refraining is halting action, stopping to act, it is also a setting to pause and reconsider, a tactical move to oversee what can be done, what is the best path to go and an optional form of balance between the fastest road and the shortest road, because these two are not always the same. I will need to keep my eyes on Amazon Luna for now, I wonder how close they end up getting to what Sony has achieved. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

July 24, 2021 · 13:45

The power to teach

I wrote about the idea in the past, I wrote about it specifically on one side, yet it dawned on me (whilst watching Star Wars) that I wasn’t looking at the larger picture. This happens, you, me, we all tend to focus on our own street. Yet the streamers (Google, Amazon and optionally Netflix) allows for a new setting of teachings. Just as I saw my mind create a game based around the Vatican, there is nothing stopping a nation like Saudi Arabia to create a game of education around the Quran and Islam, Israel a game around the Torah and the Jewish teachings. And these are games for all. Consider people actually learning about the Quran through playing a game, To walk the streets of Medina (optionally Mecca too) whilst rebuilding the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. And as we unlock conversations, as we unlock teachings and historical figures, we also unlock more of the Quran, and this is not something I can do, this Neds to be done by Muslims, together with Muslim clerics to give the proper allocation of passages allotting to the entire Quran, a true face of islamic teachings. If we accept that the statement “Islam is a major world religion, with over 1 billion followers worldwide (1/5 of the world population). It is considered one of the Abrahamic, monotheistic faiths, along with Judaism and Christianity. Although usually associated with the Arabs of the Middle East, less than 10% of Muslims are in fact Arab. Muslims are found all over the world, of every nation, colour, and race. The most populous Muslim country today is Indonesia, a non-Arab country”, an educational game with an interest base of 1,000,000,000 and optionally growing. Why didn’t anyone else think of this? The same for Christianity and all the other religions. 

But I personally feel that teaching people about Islam and the Quran will be an option to fight Islamophobia. Fight religious discrimination through a game, who considered that application of streaming systems? There is nothing stopping the games coming up on other consoles, but the exclusivity applies strongly to streaming solutions, and this is not a game that is done in a year and it will take growing steps, it is a large undertaking, no matter what religion is the focal point. 

Quran App

This all started longer ago when I was trying out the Quran App, I needed to learn a little more about the Quran, I do not trust any source that is one sided telling me what is true, so I tried to learn more, but having an app with the Quran is not a decent way to teach about Islam, a lot more is needed and games are an excellent form of teaching. I have that seen to be a reality for decades, I am merely surprised that no one considered teaching the young and old more about religion this way. There are a lot of questions that I cannot answer, for one, I do (only recently) know that there are no images of the prophet, but who else in the non-Islamic community knew that? If we know that, the French secular move to have a teacher show the images of the prophet is not educational, it is merely insulting against Islam, games can offer a better stage, a global stage and in all ways an educational and optionally a cultural stage. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Religion

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 21, 2021 · 23:54

Two to plenty

I have had enough of looking at covid numbers, and I have had enough of several things. As such, I feel the most at ease giving service (I did it for more than a quarter of a century) and creating new IP.  And as I was playing a personal favourite, I realised that Microsoft was holding two massive trump cards and to overthrow that, the other makers need to consider taking a leap, a leap that will make the Microsoft position shaky, very shaky indeed. This solution will optionally fit Amazon the best. Netflix has a chance, but if Google does not change its position, then they are up at the mercy of the developers. It is a choice they made. 

So what is out there? You see, I always knew that our lives revolved around creating places to live, kill things and eat (let’s not forget about the food). Minecraft drilled into that brilliantly and as Markus Persson, Jens Bergensten, and Stephen McManus played on that brilliantly, they sold it to Microsoft in 2014 for two point five billion. Then there was Bethesda who created Skyrim on 11/11/11. A game that for a very long time avoided (not completely) the levels of grinding. And Microsoft offered $8,500,000,000 to the makers. Yes a brilliant move, but it also implies that if someone makes a game like these two for Amazon, the Microsoft gaming share will drop by a decent amount. And it is a tall order, to make something alike and different enough not to be seen as a copy. It can be avoided to some degree. For one, the building materials can be set to marble sorts (Romans and Greeks), giving us all kinds of other challenges and achievements. In a lot of ways Minecraft was brilliant and close to perfect, but it can be done in other ways too and the Minecraft setting will require a streaming solution, which get us to Amazon Luna. But they are not the only player, anyone picking these ideas up can design something for Google Stadia. And it matters, with the massive amounts of revenue to be seen in the next two years, would you turn away a billion dollars? I wish I had been more pressed as a programmer in my youth, I would have done it myself. Alas, I made choices, I have no regrets, but if I was a decent programmer, I could have had more (not in a greed driven way). And now I get to spout other non 5G ideas to the world giving them a chance to take a slice away from the Microsoft pie. 

I will leave it to you, but consider that Skyrim has over 15 million players, Minecraft has 126 million players. Do you still think it is a bad idea? And as the gaming frontiers are changing, as Microsoft is trying to sell THEIR Microsoft Cloud all over the place, the gaming dimension polarises, Microsoft only respects what their board of directors tell others what matters and I have no intention of seeing my devices being overrun by some Azure thin client. As such I see the need to set my dreams and non 5G IP considerations towards public domain, to let you all grow on non Microsoft fields. Azure might have the advantage, but that does not mean that Google and Netflix are out of the race. It is merely a speculative idea and I will let you consider where the race takes us all.

So when you are creating YOUR version of a sandbox game, you can focus on building (and you need to), yet the stage of that can be done in various ways. You can focus on how the Greeks and Romans did it, so you need to create a place create income and become part of an economy. Anything else and you face the dangers that it is too much like Minecraft. As you grow your status and economy, you can opt for one side in game one, the other in game two and every iteration opens up the free game to a much larger extent. If you are in Volos, Larissa or Ladochori (Greek places) you will have to employ different solutions, but in a sandbox game, location is not the key, it is the surroundings you face. A setting that shapes all your decisions. You can only go with the flow and create, and seek, and pillage, and murder and explore. And in all this pillage and murder remains open to addition or choice, but in a sandbox game you make the decisions, you set the tone and you become your own legend (sanctified by Amazon, Google and/or Netflix).

If I feel up to it I will draw out a much larger setting towards real social media for gamers, not marketed messaging for large corporations.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 16, 2021 · 21:58

What one reads

We all have that what one reads can be the opportunity for the other. I wrote about this in the past. On June 4th in ‘The left corner’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/04/the-left-corner/). Today, Reuters gives us ‘Facebook says Iranian hackers used site in spying on U.S. military personnel’ (at https://reut.rs/3rbz5Uf), and yes that is the direct result from Digital Direct Marketing. They all get to have a bite, so when I see “Facebook said on Thursday it had taken down about 200 accounts run by a group of hackers in Iran as part of a cyber-spying operation that targeted mostly U.S. military personnel and people working at defence and aerospace companies” I am not that surprised, I am just giggling that it took them that long. On the other hand there is a chance it took Facebook this long to wake up, either way is possible. Yet that also gives the opportunity for Cocoon to grow their marketshare, by a lot. Consider that one in the cocoon pays the $40 a year, no matter what the size, no matter what the trade. And in all this time no one in the Defence department (not even the DARPA boffins) made clear consideration to adapt Cocoon for military messaging. A stage that was out in the open when Google created Google+ in 2011. Yup the uniform people did seemingly not catch on. So when we see optional a whole range of security issues, is it that much of a stretch to set the IP of Cocoon to a much larger base (it will piss off Facebook, but who cares). A stage that is international is governmental and as we see it, there is an almost boundless level of custodians and customers and they all need privacy. So, as we see the setting of the digital sun on some, we can hide behind “Facebook said the hackers mostly targeted people in the United States, as well as some in the United Kingdom and Europe, in a campaign running since mid-2020”, whilst hiding behind the spoof “its head of cyber espionage Mike Dvilyanski said it was notifying the “fewer than 200 individuals” who were targeted”, yet this is Iran (and others), do you really think that they are merely hitting 200 people? Even at 1-3 per day it implies that in 2021 alone 197-594 would have been targeted, as well as their family members to find leverage. And all that time there was an alternative. 

And let’s be clear, this is not on Facebook, they did what their solution intended to do, Iran merely saw more and it is time to change that, Cocoon came at the right time and they have the inside track to a lot more. 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Military, Science

Tagged as , , , , ,