Tag Archives: Samsung

April 18, 2023 · 19:45

The choice of options

Part of this started yesterday when I saw a message pass by. I ignored it because it seemed trivial, yet today ( a few hours ago) I took notice of ‘Google rushes to develop AI search engine after Samsung considers ditching it for Bing’ from ZDNet (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-rushes-to-develop-ai-search-engine-after-samsung-considers-ditching-it-for-bing/) and ‘Alphabet shares fall on report Samsung may switch search to Bing’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/4/17/alphabet-shares-fall-on-report-samsung-may-switch-search-to-bing). In part I do not care, actually this situation is a lot better for Google than they think it is. You see, Samsung, a party I disliked for 33 years, after being massively wronged by them. Decided to make the fake AI jump. It is fake as AI does not exist and when the people learn this the hard way, it will work out nicely for Huawei and Google. There is nothing like a dose of reality being served like a bucket of ice water to stop consumers looking at your product. I do not care, I refuse any Samsung device in my apartment. I also dislike Bing, it is a Microsoft product and two years ago I got Bing forced down my throat again and again through hijack scripts, it took some time blocking them. So I dislike both. I have no real opinion of ChatGPT. As we see the AI reference. Let’s take you to the Conversation (at https://theconversation.com/not-everything-we-call-ai-is-actually-artificial-intelligence-heres-what-you-need-to-know-196732) I have said it before and they have a decent explanation. They write “AI is broadly defined in two categories: artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI). To date, AGI does not exist.” You see, I only look at AGI, the rest is some narrow niche for specific purpose. We are also given “Most of what we know as AI today has narrow intelligence – where a particular system addresses a particular problem. Unlike human intelligence, such narrow AI intelligence is effective only in the area in which it has been trained: fraud detection, facial recognition or social recommendations, for example” and there is an issue with this. People do not understand the narrow scope, they want to apply it almost everywhere and that is where people get into trouble, the data connected does not support the activity and adding this to a mobile means that it collects massive amounts of data, or it becomes less and less reliable, an issue I expect to see soon after it makes it into a Samsung phone. 

For AI to really work “it needs high-quality, unbiased data, and lots of it. Researchers building neural networks use the large data sets that have come about as society has digitised.” You see, the amount of data is merely a first issue, the fact that it is unbiassed data is a lot harder and when we see sales people cut corners, they will take any shortcut making the data no longer unbiassed and that is where it all falls apart.

So whilst the ‘speculators’ (read: losers) make Google lose value, the funny part is that when the Samsung connection falls down Google stands to up their customer base by a lot. Thousands of Samsung customers feeling as betrayed as I was in 1990 and they will seek another vendor which would make Huawei equally happy. 

ZDNet gives us “The threat of Bing taking Google’s spot on Samsung phones caused “panic” at Google, according to messages reviewed by The New York Times. Google’s contract with Samsung brings in an approximate $3 billion annual revenue. The company still has a chance to maintain its presence in Samsung phones, but it needs to move fast” I see two issues here, the first is that the NY Times is less and less of a dependable source, they have played too many games and as ‘their’ source’ might not be reliable, as such is the quote also less reliable. The second source is me (basically) they weren’t interested in my 5 billion revenue, as such why would they care about losing 3 billion more? For the most, there is an upside, when it falls down (an I personally believe it will) Samsung could be brought back on board but now it will cost them 5-6 billion. As such Samsung would have to be successful without Google Search for 3 years and it will cascade into a collapse setting, after that they will beg just to return to the Alphabet fold, which would also make this Microsoft’s 6th failure. My day is looking better already.

Am I so anti-Whatever?
No not really. When it is ready and when the systems are there AI will change the game and AGI is the only real AI to consider. As I stated before deeper machine learning is awesome and it has massive value, but the narrow setting needs to be respected and when you push it into something like Bing, it will go wrong and when it does it will not be noticed initially until it is much too late. And all this is beside the setting that some people will link the wrong parts and Samsung will end up putting its IP in ChatGPT and someone will ask a specific question that was never flagged and the IP will pour straight into public domain. That is the real danger for Samsung and in all this ChatGPT is free of blame and when certain things are found the entire setting needs to be uploaded into a new account. When we consider that a script with 65,000 lines will have up to 650 issues (or features, or bugs), how many will cause a cascade effect or information no one wanted, least of all the hardware owner? Oh, and that is when the writers were really good. Normally the numbers of acceptability are between 1300-2600, as such how many issues will rise and how long until too many patches will make the system unyielding? All questions that come to mind with an ANI system, because it is data driven and when we consider that the unbiassed data isn’t? What then? And that is before we align cultural issues. Korea, India, Japan and China are merely 4 of them and seeing that things never aligned in merely 4 nations, how many versions of data will be created to avoid collapse? As such I personally think that Google is not in panic mode. Perhaps Bard made them road-wise, perhaps not. 

I think 2024 will be a great Google year with or without Samsung and when Microsoft achieves disappointing yet another company its goose will be royally cooked on both sides of the goose no less. We have choices, we have options and we can mix them, but to let some fake AI make those choices for us is not anything at all, but feel free to learn that lesson the hard way.

I never liked Samsung for personal reasons, and I have been really happy with my android phone. I have had an Android phone for 13 years now and never regretted having one. I hope it stays that way.

Enjoy the day and don’t trust an AI to tell you the weather, that is what your eyesight can do better in the present and the foreseeable future.

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April 10, 2023 · 00:55

And the lesson is?

That is at times the issue and it does at times get help from people, managers mainly that belief that the need for speed rectifies everything, which of course is delusional to say the least. So, last week there was a news flash that was speeding across the retina’s of my eyes and I initially ignored it, mainly because it was Samsung and we do not get along. But then Tom’s guide (at https://www.tomsguide.com/news/samsung-accidentally-leaked-its-secrets-to-chatgpt-three-times) and I took a closer look. The headline ‘Samsung accidentally leaked its secrets to ChatGPT — three times!’ was decently satisfying. The rest “Samsung is impressed by ChatGPT but the Korean hardware giant trusted the chatbot with much more important information than the average user and has now been burned three times” seemed icing on the cake, but I took another look at the information. You see, to all ChatGPT is seen as an artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI. But I think it is something else. You see, AI does not exist, as such I see it as an ‘Intuitive advanced Deeper Learning Machine response system’, this is not me dissing OpenAI, this system when it works is what some would call the bees knees (and I would be agreeing), but it is data driven and that is where the issues become slightly overbearing. In the first you need to learn and test the responses on data offered. It seems to me that this is where speed driven Samsung went wrong. And Tom’s guide partially agrees by giving us “unless users explicitly opt out, it uses their prompts to train its models. The chatbot’s owner OpenAI urges users not to share secret information with ChatGPT in conversations as it’s “not able to delete specific prompts from your history.” The only way to get rid of personally identifying information on ChatGPT is to delete your account — a process that can take up to four weeks” and this response gives me another thought. Whomever owns OpenAI is setting a data driven stage where data could optionally be captured. More important the NSA and likewise tailored organisations (DGSE, DCD et al) could find the logistics of these accounts, hack the cloud and end up with TB’s of data, if not Petabytes and here we see the first failing and it is not a small one. Samsung has been driving innovation for the better part of a decade and as such all that data could be of immense value to both Russia and China and do not for one moment think that they are not all over the stage of trying to hack those cloud locations. 

Of course that is speculation on my side, but that is what most would do and we don’t need an egg timer to await actions on that front. The final quote that matters is “after learning about the security slip-ups, Samsung attempted to limit the extent of future faux pas by restricting the length of employees’ ChatGPT prompts to a kilobyte, or 1024 characters of text. The company is also said to be investigating the three employees in question and building its own chatbot to prevent similar mishaps. Engadget has contacted Samsung for comment” and it might be merely three employees. Yet in that case the party line failed, management oversight failed and Common Cyber Sense was nowhere to be seen. As such there is a failing and I am fairly certain that these transgressions go way beyond Samsung, how far? No one can tell. 

Yet one thing is certain. Anyone racing to the ChatGPT tally will take shortcuts to get there first and as such companies will need to reassure themselves that proper mechanics, checks and balances are in place. The fact that deleting an account takes 4 weeks implies that this is not a simple cloud setting and as such whomever gets access to that will end up with a lot more than they bargained for.

I see it as a lesson for all those who want to be at the starting signal of new technology on day one, all whilst most of that company has no idea what the technology involves and what was set to a larger stage like the loud, especially when you consider (one source) “45% of breaches are cloud-based. According to a recent survey, 80% of companies have experienced at least one cloud security incident in the last year, and 27% of organisations have experienced a public cloud security incident—up 10% from last year” and in that situation you are willing to set your data, your information and your business intelligence to a cloud account? Brave, stupid but brave.

Enjoy the day

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December 12, 2022 · 10:44

Dopey and Grumpy, still dwarves

That is the setting and it is a strange setting, but it relates to ‘When it rains we call the kettle black’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/11/when-it-rains-we-call-the-kettle-black/) which I wrote two days ago. Yet I did not know there was more, and just now I come across ‘Saudi Arabia demanded defense firms set up in country by 2024. So far, most seem unmoved’ (at https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/saudi-arabia-demanded-defense-firms-set-up-in-country-by-2024-so-far-most-seem-unmoved/), to be honest, I had heard some stuff in that direction, but I was unaware of how deep it went, and now I see “as long as it is related to the government contracts, they will have to have their regional headquarters here”, with the added “analysts said that the biggest players appear confident they can find workarounds — including the use of local partnerships and subsidiaries, as they’ve done in other countries — to keep the market open” and there the stupid factor comes into play. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had enough of fake allies, fake commitments and now China is ready to make commitments and as the KSA is moving towards the 2030 mark of 50% in country defence and China is willing to play nice, the US is set to lose a whole lot of revenue. So there is your workaround, greedy and stupid working in cahoots like Grumpy and Dopey, both sides of a currency that has no meaning where they are, it is the sales prospects that counts and they are giving it all to China. You can only be the biggest player if you sell and there were markers for sale events and now there is a clear understanding in strategic papers no less that China is moving into sales column A. So when we think through what Breaking Defense gave us on December 8th, the US better realise that the age of pretending to do something and doing something else as a workaround is ending and it is ending really quickly. So when we see the larger players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Leonardo, Thales, and General Dynamics. What happens when the representative $27,000,000,000 goes to China? Twenty Seven Billion no longer to the US, the dollar will take another dive and more importantly, the design of their stealth planes required some Saudi Funds, when they go to the Chengdu J-20, the impact will be seen all over the US, EU and NATO. I made mention of these dangers as early as September 2021. The fact that some American Fat Cats were playing stupid with a customer paying billions is a little new, but there is no surpassing the union of stupid and ego, it makes for a nice package, one that China could be enjoying a lot more than they figured on. And there is a chance that the strategic union between Saudi Arabia and China will go that far. Not only will the US lose their Middle East stage, they will in that same action lose whatever benefits they had in Egypt as well. And just to remind you on a speculative side. If China buys in this deal 2 million barrels a day from the American stack, the US is in deep manure. It does make the grass grow in Texas, but that is pretty much all it does. 

As such the last week has given us all kinds of revelations via several media sources. But the larger news is that State secretary Pompeo gives us ‘Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia a result of “bad American policy”’ and the bad news merely stacks. Yes Saudi Arabia is not squandering the connections with the US, their words and they are right. The US themselves are squandering it to China by playing chicken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to appease their ego’s, and that is what is clearly in place and will shown over the next 13 months. You see, there will not be any 11th hour changes, if these regional HQ’s are not in place by December 2023 China will end up with a massive chunk of Saudi defence spending. China is happy with it, will the US be? I doubt it, but they catered to ego, so there you have it. It does not matter who Dopey and Grumpy are, in the end they were merely dwarves and as I see it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is willing to make a large change and it will cost the US, it will cost them so much. I wonder how they will spin this loss, because at present that is exactly what it will become. A loss to their ally list, a loss to their economy and a loss of income. All handed to China for the mere satisfaction of ego. Government handed partnerships to players like Microsoft, Sony, Samsung and a few other players for the cumulative sum of a mere 1% of that, did you think the Saudi Government wasn’t keeping tabs? Silly bunnies!

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March 13, 2022 · 16:12

Yes! I get to have fun

This happened this morning and it was based on an article that was published yesterday (at https://www.phonearena.com/news/galaxy-s22-plus-s22-ultra-only-if-google-pixel-6-pro-did-not-exist_id138958). The article titled ‘Galaxy S22, S22+, S22 Ultra: Only if Google Pixel 6 Pro didn’t exist…’ in the article I get to have a go at my long time enemy Samsung. You see, I hated them forever (around 1990), so a little over 30 years, but then I mastered holding a grudge like forever, so there is a setting of happy glee feelings here. The reason does not matter (a water under the bridge issue). What does matter is that the Google Pixel 6 Pro overall beats the Galaxy S22, the S22+ and S22 Ultra all by itself. The article gives you a really nice rundown. The rundown gives us a nice setting, the S22 has a better price, but only by $100, it loses pretty much on all other fronts here. The others are more expensive and cannot deliver the 512 ppi that Google has and it does not end there. Only the S22 Ultra has 108MP, the Pixel has 50MP, but wins on all other fronts in all resolutions on all other stage against the three phones. It has a more powerful battery but takes a little longer to charge. I see only benefits for the Google Pixel 6 pro and even as we see pricing it also beats the new Huawei phones. As far as I can tell, from my point of view it makes Google the new king of the mobile mountain. And as I personally see it, Apple with its $2000+ phone can go jump in the lake, especially when Google offers a phone $500 cheaper with twice the memory. But it is not about Apple, it is about Samsung and the one proud brand is no longer king of the mountain (for me it never was). Google has surpassed it and in the upcoming stages Google might find that it can offer a much larger venue on a mobile phone and that should make them happy. How happy? Well, I reckon we will be able to see when they get to the Google Pixel 7 series. No idea when it is coming but as my phone is getting closer and closer to replacement, I need to remain alert and see whether I am forced to upgrade sooner instead of later (I prefer later).

And let’s not forget a brand rises and falls with the next model, in this Google Pixel is a rising star, but the next model? We just have to wait and see. In the meantime read the Phonearena article Martin Filipov (@martintweets) did a really nice job here and it is worth your time, especially if you were planning to get a Samsung S22 model (any model), I leave that up to you. 

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November 7, 2020 · 23:25

A cloud-less future

Yup, it happens, it is not intentional and it will happen to us all. This started for me as I was listening to my iPod, I am enjoying a band called The Sweet, a British band I really liked in the 70’s. So listening to their greatest hits was something I had not done for a long time, yet for some reasons somewhere between Ballroom Blitz and Blockbuster cogs started to turn, it was that time of the day again as I was setting my creative cap on, you see, I had the idea for the MD net drive in the early 90’s when I saw one of the first Mini Disc drives. Consider that this small disk had the option to store an entire CD, in a time that a Bernoulli drive with a disc 20 times that size could only story up to 90 MB. I talked to Sony about it, but they waved the idea away, it would never catch on. Little did they realise just how long they ended up to be. Yet these idea’s are giving me the thought of a new generation of devices. 

Consider the iPad, iPod, Mobile phone, they all have items that you use all over, they all have a setting that is almost transparent, perhaps even trans parent. Now consider that we might rely on the cloud in some cases, but that cloud will soon become less and less reliable. Even now, the last week I have had all kinds of congestion issues with YouTube, friends in the UK have had other data related items, nothing major, there was no loss, but there was also no clear connection, things went bump into the night (and next morning).

Now consider how small an NVME SSD drive is now, a 1 TB drive fit into my hand, so what happens when we look at the KingstonSSD drive that is a mere 42 mm large? They will get smaller, but for now it is small enough, and 240GB is small enough to be an ejectable drive tht can go from device to device. Your music inserted in whatever device you need it to be. Yes, the cloud does this too, but how long until the cloud costs more than you bargained for? What happens when the congestion increases, net neutrality is off the beaten track through Service Level Agreements that you either sign up for (for a fee) or lose? 

Now is the time to have alternatives, if only to avoid the lack of 5G in France and Germany or perhaps the fact that 5G in the US is only 13% of the speed of 5G in Saudi Arabia, you think it will not hit you at some point? You’re dreaming, the question is will it affect you, for the most there is little doubt, it will not hinder you, but there is every chance that it will aggravate you, when the 3rd or 4th song stagnates, freezes or just stops, your mood is gone. This is what happened to you with CD’s and it will hit you again. Yet the setting is not so bad, we can void it all at the beginning of the station. What if these factors would never hit you? 

There is no doubt that there will be an option to have a NVME port. Perhaps a MNVME (Mobile NVME) port, even now we see the Orico GV100 512GB NVMe Portable External SSD, which is the size of a USB stick, it is 3.78 inch long, but almost 1/3 is for the key holder, so that thing can already be smaller, and it is $179, in consideration a 2TB drive for the PS4 is $97, so there is room to manoeuvre and when these drives become popular, prices go down. 

Yet the foundation is that we need all kinds of devices, that all link to one drive, a drive we have on us. Soon it will have crypto parts, biometrics data and we keep it on us, a validation for all kinds of matters. We have no option but to move in this direction, several factors will push us, some good, some required and some because it is just a form of laziness. Consider that the drive has the 2 Netflix movies you downloaded last night, so you can enjoy whatever you binge on the train to work? It is destined to happen, and some of the companies are most likely already looking into this, I predict ted in 2012 (after seeing a stack of patents by Samsung and Apple) that the stage of mobile devices was changing. The hardwire became more transparent and nondescript (fitting multiple directions), it was the software that was pushing a direction, yet in all this the data (your music, your movies, your games) remains open to direction and I reckon that the setting of mobile name will deal with that direction, some will be generic, some will be branded. It is the generic part that has the highest stage of usage, because people do not believe in one direction, they embrace the freedom of choice, there are plenty who all really on Apple, but Apple will take care of that part, it is portable and mobile data that will set in the third wave. Why?

Because the people think that others will take care of it, just like they did when Google created search (and they latched on for a free ride) and now they are all crying like little bitches: “boo hoo hoo, Google is so nasty”, to them I tell, go cry me a river, you get ahead of the curve or you stop being part of the process and when the data part is very soon coming up for debate, it is those who allow for larger portability that will get the podium, not some Azure service agent, giving you some version of “Get Started With Free Credit To Try Any Combination Of Azure Services. Build Your Next Idea”, yes but it is still set to the Azure Frame (Apple and Amazon having their standards), it is those who allow for a larger frame of open choice, they will win, because data requires open stages (a copy me, I want to travel) idea, whilst others have one system, one cloud and when you get conflicts these salespeople stop talking when you get to the part that is not inherently theirs, it makes them no money. 

It is there where we see a the stage where a billion people will want to move and as some business types will sell their children for a slice of that cake, what do you think your value will be when you are the one holding that cake? And all that I even before governments get clued in on what data they are missing out of. 

There will always be need of a cloud, there are however more and more moments when the cloud is overrated and more of a hindrance, that is where mobile data will become a key player in the hardware that people will buy. It will be a consumers market where the buyer decide where they want to go, not the seller telling the buyer where they need to go, that is the frame in 3-5 years.

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May 6, 2020 · 01:28

Nature of the beast

There was news on how Samsung failed the net mobile options, the news was given ‘Exynos 990-powered Galaxy S20+ flops hard in gaming’ what I read came from NotebookCheck, and it is important that even as I am no friend of Samsung (due to their own doing in 1985), I tend to not be a Samsung hater. Let us not forget that I love Nintendo and I personally hated the WiiU, I also accept that sometimes a failure precedes a success like the Nintendo Switch, so Samsung might optionally be down,but they are not out. In the end the article lets out that it is basically not the fault of Samsung, but the chip (and its makers) is the cause of all the viewed hardship. The Exynos 990 seems to be below par on a few fields as such depending on that chip caused the project to go pear shaped. This is the direct result of choices, sometimes they blow back on us (WiiU anyone?). Yet in the field the hidden message is often missed. As stated ‘after 10 minutes of running PUBG Mobile, the galaxy S20+ was dropping frames to 50fps (something some recent consoles could not maintain), and as low as 40fps by the 20 minute mark’ the story is nowhere near over and Samsung has time to get up to speed in more than one way.

The writer goes on stating how it is that a $200 solution called Redmi Note 8 Pro did so much better. It is interesting that merely one example was matched. Still it is a mark on the status list of Samsung for now, yet a firm that is in the top 5 of most registered patents in the last years does not have merely one push towards the top and even as (for now) the S20+ is not likely to be a pushing power to the top, Samsng has had its share of true innovative successes and as such it will bounce back, it has done that a few times, and I have no doubt it will do so again.

They are not alone, even as Apple has no recorded future failure yet, it seems that not unlike the time of the PowerMac, they face a new chiprace. The news is that Intel just cannot get their response rate right and as we see that, Apple is considering a new path, one that is RISC or ARM, if it is the RISC, we see a return to happy times (ME: happy happy joy joy), yet that is because I am not a chip man and I know little of the ARM, I merely remember the good times of the RISC (I still have my RISC G5), that systems outdid anything available in those days and made no noise. Still that is not enough for you to rely on. In my mind I see another field starting up, all the APP developers relying on little INTEL options to get whatever they made go faster will have to rethink their options, there will be a weeding in the ranks of APP developers soon enough at that point, not to mention the people making PC games and including Apple as an option, it sets the optional parameters that the design for Apple needs to be truly for Apple. These two matters are a larger stage, last year the Irish Times reported on the collaboration between the two in regards to the iTunes movies, but I wonder if it stops there, Samsung has a much stronger infrastructure, Apple has a few unique designs and a following of millions, I wonder if there is not a larger space for more between the two, they must realise that the changed setting of Covid requires a different stage of thinking for the near future, their approach to almost unaffordable phones is nice, but millions of people are getting laid off, people who used to buy their products and that is off the table for the next two years, if not even longer. 

The changes that we are seeing will demand the largest players to find symphony and chorus between them instead of relying on the powerful solo acts that no one can afford. As such we will see a few more surprises in 2020 and 2021. Some might think that the markets will settle again, but they all forgot that to appease Wall Street too many companies were on a 90% stage with no reserves, now it shows as the bankruptcy numbers are going through the roof, even smaller players like Virgin are running for their life laying off thousands of people, without reserves there is no continuance for any of them, they ignored the common setting for keeping reserves and a 2 month shutdown was enough to make most of them buckle and it will get worse, the EU (those pulling the strings) have achieved in delaying Basel III for another year due to Covid implications. The FSB stated in one of their reports “Funding markets have been under strain amid extreme demand for cash and near-cash assets” it is a stage that is escalating, mainly because of a lack of reserves and it hits back at Samsung as well. This one failure is optionally no biggie, but when you consider that the next two years will be washed from larger revenue and profit in a stage where the time was not great to get a failure to deal with is not great, it is all about the reserves and to appease the markets too many players left ‘margin’ on the side for good reporting, it stands to reason that bad news will rule the news on several fields and it seems that Samsung will join that group that ends up having not great news, and optionally they have marginally good news that will get a downward revision up to 60-120 days later, can’t have the current quarter down, can we?

We can look and see how separate events do not add up and that would be fair, there is however a much larger field in sight and in that field the S20+ failure comes at a bad time, yet they are not alone Apple is in a similar place and forgoing individuality for 2-3 years and set combined products might be the good path for those two players. Samsung could revert to another path but overall they are not in charge, their shareholders are and they fear recession like the black plague. This is merely because 2-3 years could result in a stage of no reserves with a much stronger push towards a 3-5 year stage of no consumers and the shareholders fear that much more than anything. 

Is it not interesting how shareholders make a large company much easier to anticipate?

I have no doubt that Samsung will survive this era, just like it did in 1985, so far history has proven me right again and again, yet the entire Corona escalation is new to too many players and to me too, as such there is a lot we cannot see in a stage of feigned ‘non-panic’, even as these people have no idea just how bad things can get, and they need their shareholders to have faith, as such there remains an unknown. 

Time and profit are the ruling elements of the beast that devours, for the most it devours profit, yet what will it resort to when there is no profit?

 

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March 23, 2020 · 15:36

Playstation is Go!

Yes, the console war is off to a nice start. It is important to you (the reader) to know that for whatever reason, I am a Sony guy, hence, take no offense and if you are a dedicated Xbox person (no offense taken) then you might not like this article.

The event started last saturday when I saw this article that was massively Microsoft minded and how the new Xbox would be 30% faster, that person went on by throwing teraflops at us and making all kinds of speculated boasts, fair enough, I merely glanced at it and disregarded it to the largest extent. There will optionally be differences between the two, but the difference will be less than 50% (personal conviction) of what that person claimed. In the end, the PS5 will be a huge step up from the PS4 and a decent step up from the PS4 pro.

CCN (at https://www.ccn.com/sony-ps5-reveal-beats-xbox-series-x-without-trying/) gives us “Sony’s PS5 reveal video gets more views than the Xbox Series X trailer after being criticized for being boring and technical“, yes that was always going to be the case, in the end there are two parts, the technical superiority and the games, the first one we can see and anticipate, the second one we can hope for and in coming towards our hopes and dreams the PlayStation has been a lot more rewarding than its counterpart ever was. The one time the other one stood out was when the date was October 27, 2017 and that was the day that Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins. Even as a Sony person I have to give voice to the amazement that the Xbox One X brought at that time. Assassin’s Creed Origins blew my socks off, and as a 4K title it was overwhelming. Yet that was pretty much the only time that the Microsoft console truly shined. As the self-proclaimed most powerful processor system it was surpassed by Nintendo, which with the Switch has the least powerful processor of the three, so that is the impact of superior hardware.

As such CCN gives us “The PS5 video has 13.5 million views compared to the 10.6 million views on the Xbox Series X reveal. This suggests that Sony may not have to try very hard to make the PS5 more successful than the Xbox Series X.” My response would be, Sony listens to its gamers, Microsoft only claims to do so and then does what the bottom dollar presented tells them to do, the gamer is not a consideration (proven twice over), that is how I see it (Die hard Microsoft console fans are allowed to disagree).

For me it is a much more interesting field, even as I am considering two IP’s on the matter, I can clearly see that the advantage that Microsoft created with the Xbox 360 has gone. My personal achilles issues is that the entire matter of storage has not now, not ever been properly addressed by Microsoft since the first One was released, that is 8 years ago. In all that time it was about being online, about being able to download, all whilst we see that on a global play there is a bandwidth issue, it is to such a degree that some people see how some players (YouTube and Netflix) decided to limit the video quality so that they won’t congest the internet in Europe in this Corona beer environment. It had grown to such a degree that Brussels decided to talk to Netflix on reducing internet congestion (at https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-in-talks-with-netflix-about-reducing-internet-congestion/) and the quote “Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton today spoke with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to discuss ways to help reduce internet congestion, a Commission official told POLITICO“, as such a case I saw coming years ago (not on the how it would happen) is seen three days ago in the article, there is congestion and in that environment Microsoft wants to be an ‘Always Online‘ player? As such the Sony solution with their secondary internal drive (SSD) might be a slightly limiting factor, but as it would (speculated) fit the 2tb and 4tb drives from Samsung, the Playstation 5 will have a great situation, and the 2tb SSD version is now $325, which is not required in the initial year (unless the games become really big) I reckon that Microsoft has a lot more to lose, superior processor or not. Even as they come again with their ‘most powerful processor‘ song, the moment the gamer chorus starts with ‘Yet where can we store our shit‘ they will fall silent very quickly, 1TB in 4K/8K gaming will do that. Sony has a similar start but you can add a drive to enhance player needs and 2tb/4tb will do that nicely. I expect that the 2tb drives at the end of the year will be $250-$300, so there is that too.

The larger issues is not merely that, Tom’s guide (at https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ps5-release-date-rumors-specs,news-26954.html) gave us “In his Road to PS5 talk, Cerny gave more details on the SSD again, with the key spec that it could load 2GB of files in 0.27 seconds. That should make for some unnoticeable loading times once game devs get to grips with the new console.” in this consider a Bethesda RPG where the load times in between locations becomes almost zero, the additional joy we get by replaying Fallout 4 and Skyrim, this evolution is one I anticipated, although not the “load 2GB of files in 0.27 seconds“, that is just the icing on the cake. The idea that Elder Scrolls: Restoration (see several other articles) becomes a technical viability opens up a lot of doors for RPG games, in this I wonder what Guerilla games could make of Horizon Zero Dawn 2. It is almost beyond belief and that is before we consider other franchises that offer us more and more. 

You see in the end it is not about Sony or their Playstation, it is about the gamer and gamemaker and it seems that Sony is facilitating to an amazing degree to those two, as I personally see it Microsoft is merely facilitating to those embracing Azure, in lesser degree to the game makers and last to the gamers, it is another setting entirely. Gamers are the first priority, Sony learned that lesson when they launched on 3 December 1994, a first try to debunk Nintendo as the king of gaming, they succeeded. So whilst we are all in folds on how much it is going to cost, consider that the Xbox360 was $699 and we all shelled out because we were going to get an awesome experience. That was proven true by Microsoft and I never regretted buying a second one when the red rings of death came to ring my front door bell (two days before Fallout New Vegas was released).

It seems to me that Microsoft forgot about what gamers need and they seem to listen to those who want gamers to take a certain direction, it is not the same. Still there are options where Sony could improve too, not the gaming side, but the connected social media side where we share what we want to share, that side is up for a tremendous amount of improvements, and when they do this considering that people are not always online (consider rural France and Germany) they might just wipe Microsoft out of existence, they don’t seem to care what happens to those gamers without excellent digital path access. As i Personally see it, it is due to a population of gamers without a global scope on the matter. 

The Sony presentation (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg) is nice, but as CCN told us a little boring, still boring or not Google told me that it is #20 most trending videos at present, so boring is nice. Yet the presentation is also important as the OS is part of all this and the improvements in social media we will see before 2022, is lacking at present. As I personally see it both have that weakness and just like I was correct in storage, I expect that the social evolution on sharing becomes a much larger issue down the road and it seems that both are not ready for this part, even as it is not part of the console, it will be part of storage and synching (when possible), as such the console needs a pass through need that developers would have to adjust for and that is at present not a given. Even if it is easy, getting this in place BEFORE the console releases gives the makers of games a lot more to be ready for and I believe that it will impact the success of any of the consoles. 

How am I right?

This is much simpler. We have our friends and our social circles, at times we want all our friends to be aware, yet we have gaming friends and a social circle. They are not the same (for the most in Europe and America they are very different), I think that Sony did not consider this, or rejected this even as their PS3 presentation years ago gave sight of their plans. It was in that case a rejected plan that is now on their plate.

I am not talking about some marketing play, I am talking about gamers talking to their other gamers in an actual way, not pushing them messages (what happens too often). In this Google Plus had solved a few of the issues in the very beginning. Having circles solves it. Circles of connections playing the same game, playing a type of game and the individual messages that you can direct. So another game gets some of the messages and if that person is curious he or she can come look at YOUR wall where you see everything. So you basically have several walls, your wall, your shared wall, and circles and a message will be on some or (ill advised) all walls, your friends can select from your wall what they are interested in, and as you gain gaming fame they will optionally want to see more. It makes for a much easier social media, and that is the foundation of the dictionary “applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” it is not about pushing content, but sharing content and like in any conversation, when the other party is not interested, they cut off the conversation, that part is often ignored because some players in social media need the traffic and the advertisements to go through, actual social media is about connecting and conversing (via sharing). It is a lesson that Microsoft (for the most) never learned in the last 8 years. Sony did not learn it either, but their solution was not about pushing marketing (to the degree Microsoft did) and as such we were a lot more happy, as well as the fact that we were not required to be online all the time, the system synched when we were (most often when synching achievements).

As this approach is matched with the games, we can select for games where the information goes (all to our wall) but then we can select per game where it goes (those who have the game too), when it is a genre we can also share it with those sharing that interest. So Fallout 5 is initially shared with those who have Fallout 5 and an interest in RPG, these players can then disregard (optionally temporary) Fallout 5 materials or disregard your material. That is a reality too, I have several friends and we shared Mass Effect 3 multiplayer gaming, but only that, as such my achievements in Mass Effect Andromeda was not interesting to them. In this I mentioned ‘optionally temporary‘ as a person starting in a game might not be interested in someone’s achievements who is at 90% (for means of spoilers and optional envy). This too makes for a much nicer experience in social media.

It is the side effect of any facilitating system of news events and achievements.

I believe that the PS5 will have a large base growing much faster if the social media template is set to facilitate to a much larger degree to gamers. Whether it is done or not will not affect the initial need and desire for the PS5, but I feel certain that over time it will be a much larger facilitating and desired part of any console. I also need to emphasize the win that Nintendo had on the switch with the calendar, I am amazed that none of the others see that part. You might not want to share your calendar, but an overview of achievements gained over a week is not something a gamer is not interested in, and the option to keep that calendar for years (an option the Switch does not seem to offer). I believe the option for gamers to open this part (per game) to the developer will be much more interesting to the makers too (as the gamer decides whether to inform others). It allows for an optional  deeper connection between maker and gamer. 

This allows for two elements the first being a direct gauge where the maker can inform (once) the gamer on season passes and DLC options. The second is that we can be aware of updates required on games we have, not blindly updating a game we haven’t touched for weeks (Microsoft actually has a much better system in play here than Sony does).

As we see that the PlayStation is Go! (Thunderbird pun) we see that no matter how great any system is, there will always be space for improvements. Sony however seems to have been listening to its gamers for the longest of times, lets see what the PS5 brings and what the second wave brings. This time around there are benefits and disadvantages for Sony. The last time around the Nintendo Switch was not a factor, this time it is and no matter how strong any system is, gaming is about joy and that is a lesson Nintendo has taken to heart every single time, they did this long before the Nintendo 64 (at $699 in those days) became a reality.

Even as the PS5 players will adjust to “We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5“, we see that the ‘truth’ of the matter is that the largest Sony base will initially be interested in less than 200 of them, especially if they upgrade from the PS4 and never had a PS4pro. 4K will be the larger reason for that. As such even the makers will benefit from the setting where someone did not buy it initially, their title was good on what was and optionally now will be a great added title (especially with patches in place). 

It is still early days, for the most, I am merely anticipating what is and what we will get, not what might optionally be missing. In that regard the Playstation family has never disappointed us (apart from the day one games on PS4) and it is still 9 months away, as such I believe that there will be a lot more information coming our way soon enough, most of that is most likely around the time this year’s virtual E3 hits us.

 

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March 20, 2020 · 14:54

Gaming towards isolation?

We have so much to look forward to, especially now as Sony has revealed much on their PS5 (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/mar/19/playstation-5-specifications-revealed-but-design-is-still-a-mystery), the first thing I checked for was storage, and there we see “the PS5’s 825GB model is promising faster throughput, with 5.5GB/s as opposed to 2.4GB/s on Microsoft’s machine. PS5 will also offer an expansion slot so that users are able to plug in a secondary SSD“, and it also gives us the Microsoft part “the Xbox Series X will include a larger capacity drive at 1tb“, as such I wonder if the Xbox will allow an additional internal drive? They still have not learned anything, the 1TB drive was not sufficient on the oldest Xbox One and with two generations the storage requirements merely increased with 4K, but the Microsoft executives have the idea that their consumers will accept what THEY consider wisdom, well as I personally see it, they do not.

And I get it, 1TB is enough to start with, but at the end of the first year we need more. Now, let’s be clear, I do not know if that internal drive can be upgraded like the others, We did not have that information on the PS4 until the first week of the PS4, so the Sony situation might actually be better, but even then, in this situation a secondary internal drive might fit the bill. And optionally we can select the Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 2.5″ SATA III SSD for $325, which gives us the additional 2tb that gets us a comfortable 3tb in total. The nice part here is that we do not need to do it on day one and for a while enjoy the PS5 as is. Don’t get me wrong I never regretted the 2TB drive in week one, but there is a benefit to this setup, and Microsoft in 8 years has not learned this lesson (or refused to learn it). 

There is an additional win, this time for Microsoft: “Microsoft has confirmed the machine will be able to play games from each previous generation of the machine, while Sony is only currently talking about backwards compatibility with PS4 titles“, it’s a fair win, yet at present I cannot remember when I even considered playing a PS3 game in the last 36 months, all whilst the games I love will be playable on the PS5 (Skyrim, Last of Us, God of War, Elite Dangerous), and now that I will be able to replay them in 4K mode, I will get a secondary WOW feeling from games I have had for years. 

As such we are in for a little larger christmas list this year around, as the PS5 (I reckon the Microsoft contraption as well) will get the best from a 4K 120Hz TV, as well as some of the 8K TV[‘s (for the rich bastards among you folks), we get to have the nicest digital christmas for a while. In my perception (at present) the Sony X8000G 65″ 4K UHD is a great buy at $1300, and even then I realise that it is not as cheap as some models in the same size offer, in that field players like LG and HiSense offer models for less than $1000. They all have 4HDMI ports, so that is not the achilles heel to worry about, I reckon that there are automated features in Sony I kinda love, when I switch on my Sony Bluray player, the TV also goes on, when I switch on my PS4, the TV reacts as well, all things other brands do not seem to have and that is fine, they are minor points that do not take away from the joy of a TV. I reckon that the one thing we all will need to enjoy the console a lot more this time around is a soundbar, there are plenty of solutions and even as there optionally might be benefit to having the same brand as the TV, there is not one person that can convince me that there is an actual contender to whatever Bang and Olufsen or Bose can bring, I heard the B&O solution this week and it almost literally blew my socks off (I found them 30 minutes later). That would be one hell of a way to hear what the Sony PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D Audio engine brings to the table. Now, I get it, you can get that part later, or get it when there is a sale going on, yet I reckon that you want it the first time you hear that distinction, because it will be a much larger distinction. Lets face it, you were getting a TV, it has its ups and the sound no matter how great it is with Blu Rays, will not compare what a 3D audio engine brings to the table. Will you essentially need it on day one? Absolutely not, it is actually better to get it later, the WOW factor is pretty awesome, but once you have it, you won’t enjoy sound without it, no matter if it is a bluray or a game, the soundbar brings a lot to the table.

Yet in all this I am aware that we do not all have the coins to get it on day one and in that regard it is now the time to start looking for that 4K TV, or at least saving up for it (a decent 8K TV starts at $9,000), and you need not go for the larger brands, one option was a nameless brand giving a 50″ 4K TV for $450, consider the $79 for additional warranty (an extra 3 years) and you are set for 3-4 years. Then we get the target of our desires (the PS5) and here we see that they are still not giving us a price, but I reckon that $550 gets you there, as such you see a $1100 need by the end of the year. The additional $800 (soundbar and additional drive) is set to a later date giving you a year’s respite and you will end up having upgraded your gaming experience to almost the  highest end. 

In the end we can get all geeky with “CPU: x86-64-AMD Ryzen Zen 2, eight cores, variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA 2-based graphics engine, variable frequency, up to 2.23 GHz (10.3 Tflops)“, yet in the end, we gamers want to see our socks blow off when we restart Diablo III, God of War IV, Skyrim and a few other titles and wonder how we were ever happy playing it on a standard day one version of the PS4, that too is the adaptation towards new technology. And all that before you see the impact of a PS5 game. We can argue and speculate all we want, but until there is a launch trailer and official release date, I am discarding all the rumours. CD Projekt Red already gave the goods that Cyberpunk 2077 will be a PS4 title, not a PS5 release, it will optionally look better on the PS5, but it will not be designed specific for it as such, the same tale applies to the microsoft version. It is an important distinction as we will see that the best experience on either console will be CD Projekt Red with both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a distinction that sets them apart and ahead of all the other AAA developers. If getting a new console is about the best gameplay you could experience, it needs to include a CD Projekt Red (Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077) game. I am not discounting the joy that Skyrim or Fallout 4 brought, I will want to replay them in 4K mode, but the distinction that the best feelings in gaming will be available on day one if you have any of these games is just a little too awesome for anyone’s good.

In all this we see that others are in their own world of hurt (no need to kick a developer when they are down). If there is one speculation that cannot be ignored, then it is the coming of a Harry Potter RPG to the PS5. An important distinction here is that in all the text none of them are making any ‘exclusive’ noise, as such I reckon that both the Microsoft and the Sony console will get this title, even as all the references only include the PS5 mention, the absence of ‘exclusive’ gives the larger rise that it will be on both platforms.

So whilst we wonder what will be coming to either console, the fact that most of us have the greatest games already on the PS4 and some will be getting the Last of Us part 2 (presently on 29 May 2020), we see an abundance of new WOW feelings as we replay the games we already had (for those who had no PS4 pro). 

For that too is a side of gaming we forget. The idea that we played Skyrim, but did we see it? Try it in 4K and see if you can play the game without finding your lower jaw on the floor, I dare you! The same can be said for Fallout 4. In that same trend, if Witcher 3 blows us away in 4K mode, what will Cyberpunk 2077 do? The boys (girls also) at CD Projekt Red were very distinct in the fact that they want to surpass Witcher 3, as such, whatever more time they need, I will not be offended. I merely hope that William Gibson (writer of Neuromancer) will be there at the launch to see the world he wrote about becomes as close to reality via a console, as he wrote it in 1984, the technology did not exist to blow him away, Sony needed a little longer for that, now that the time is here, I wonder what his thoughts will be on what the in his mind created world became in the hands of CD Projekt Red. 

Even as we are isolating ourselves in gaming, the setting is not that far away, if this Coronavirus (not the beer) is here to stay, alone time with the console will set us free. Lets face it, in this day and age, we see an absurd amount of reflection on something that we cannot avoid. 

OK, I get it, what had an initial mortality rate of 3.2% is now 4.1% as such our survival rate goes allegedly down, yet the amount of people is still well over 95%, so we should not worry, or if we do get a PS5 at the end of the year and celebrate our life in another way. 

Gamers have enjoyed this style of life for decades, are we crying? Nope!

How do we game towards isolation? In fact we do not, when Facebook started groups and gaming groups got involved, we saw an uncanny amount of new connections, this is likely to repeat itself when the PS5 (and Microsoft contraption) comes out. I even speculated on an upgraded version of console dependent social media (on the consoles), yet even as the previous versions were already in that mindset, the makers (both Sony and Microsoft) took too limited a view on it and as such both lost out. It is clear that we want to shout our achievements out at times, we also want to share a lot more, but the station at which both offer that is mindlessly limited to a larger degree. Both systems forgot to think things through and even as Microsoft is ahead of that game, both still think on how THEY can profit visibility, the thought of how the gamer benefits is seen that as they can approach the gamer, the gamer wins, which is the wrong attitude to have. In this they merely had to look towards Google Plus and learn from what was there, they did not. 

I believe that the next gen consoles will have a much larger stage as they embrace ‘true’ social media (not brand and profit driven media), as such we see that both systems have a much larger field to enjoy. I am not stating that any profit driven option is out of bounds, but to have 50% of your homescreen limiting itself to advertisements (Xbox issue) is just stupid, the home screen is where you start your game and see 50% removed for usage is just silly (on more than one level). Yes, the new platforms could ring in a few stages that embrace connections, will they? I honestly do not know and even as the PS3 had the advantage, the PS5 can recreate that advantage and see a much larger boost, in the opposition Microsoft might decide to wake up and do something about it all, will they? 

I do not know, but the lost connections and the stage where it could optionally lead to better revenue is just silly. Yes, I am all for non-profit-driven-players, yet I am not saying that to some degree it should not exist. 

For example, we have social media and we have the PS3 situation of PS Home. Consider that you have your one environment, for example it comes with the next Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed game, for example the Montefiori villa. You get to have one location for yourself (the villa) you can set the main game you are playing and how far you got. in some of them, you get to have a note board where people leave links to their mail and messages, screenshots and you decide who gets to leave those (Google Plus feature). As you chose the location that provider will have a place to advertise new things (and they alone). You get to walk around your place looking at the news and at the interactions you decide on, the previous version never had that. Will it be the Montefiori Villa, a Watchdogs location, the Batcave, a last of us house, or a house in Skyrim, and there is still the community wall where you get a better sense of what is placed there and you can decide. All elements that make for a much larger stage, a stage largely ignored at present, or at times too overwhelming. It requires filtering for some and almost none are there and both players have this issue. And to be honest, I would have thought they would have done a much better job of it (ever since the PS3), both players had the wrong hat on and in the end it makes the wall a ‘whatever!’ experience. 

I believe that the PS5 (and Microsoft equivalent) have a new stage in 2021-2022, as 5G is playing a much larger stage, there will be a larger stage for people to feel comfy in, it applies to gaming as well. Even as we are all in it for the game, the stage where we are comparing and reading about other gamers will become a lot more distinct. Perhaps it is the one field where the Google Stadia could rule in the end. 

I believe that it shows a much larger community that is out there. Some gamers do not want to talk to all their friends, they do not want to read about all the others, but he or she might want to look at something specific and it will differ per game, neither Microsoft or Sony considered that for almost three generations. None of them gave the right focal point on filtering, they merely dumped it all on the player, who ignored it in a hurry.

Forbes gave us 4 days ago “Stadia has been struggling to make waves and capture the interest of harder core players who were willing to pay for Founder’s Editions or the paid tier. But now with everyone stuck indoors, it seems like the right time to introduce the free tier” (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/16/coronavirus-quarantine-seems-like-the-right-time-for-google-stadia-to-release-its-free-tier/#e60fd00b168f), I believe that the issue goes beyond that. Yes the article reads easier when we see ‘the free tier‘, yet the truth is that this is the stage of cash strapped people, the gamer has another need, to see what they want to see and that is not addressed, by none of the providers, they merely dump a shitload of items and issues, with no filtering, or at most limited filtering.

Even as we are all gamers, we all have distinct needs or interests. I am interested in some of my friends on how far they get, one of them is a Witcher virtuoso, so seeing where he gets at is interesting, some games have nothing to contribute to me and some gamers are seemingly in it to get achievements. i cannot directly see which gamer is in it to enjoy Skyrim and who is in it to run through Skyrim. Filtering of users, friends and game specific items became apparent and it has been that way since the PS3/Xbox360, yet the makers did not really catch up, not in almost 15 years, how peculiar. There is always the option that they did not think it worthy of their attention, but that choice is dwindling down in light of what 5G offer and what the hardware can currently deal with.

It is a stage where we force our bodies into isolation, yet the mind is globally available and that is how it has been with gamers almost 30 years (M.U.L.E.) that is one of the first games that had enough multiplayer sides for people to take a much larger interest and the CBM64 (with an actual 300 bit modem option, no less) took that to another level (in those days). 

We (the people at Sony) seemingly forgot to take that into account and even as the world premiere on the PS3 implied it, it never really came to the degree we all desired, yet this time around, the isolation phase in the Coronavirus might give them pause to think on what gamers need and desire and adjust the system accordingly. The fact that most is software arranged implies that the systems will not be impeded and it could all be finished and better adjusted to when the console launches. I believe that whomever adjusts to that has a much larger audience to cater to when that part is realised. We might (to some degree) be in denial of that, yet I believe that the lockdown and self imposed isolation out there will push these issues to the surface and I believe that it will happen just in time. I reckon that the 2020 Olympics will add to that flavour of realisation as well. No matter whether the Olympics will be delayed for up to a year, or that Wimbledon will push that part to the upper reaches, it is a field where we see growth of a different nature, 5G already has the ability to set things in faster mode, but gamers have not been so lucky and we need to consider this, in the past where it was all PS2, the world consisted of 150,000,000 gamers, now that number has grown to well over 500% and now, as we see that 1,000,000,000 people want to reach out, now we see that the proper addressing on how they can reach out will matter, even as Facebook ignored it for far too long to cater towards advertisers, we see that consoles have a much larger game to play here. 

I merely hope that Sony (and others) take notice when it can still impact them in a positive way, the next two years will show where it ends. Will it end well? I cannot say at present.

 

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February 26, 2020 · 16:02

The defining moment

We all have seen it, we all have experienced it, yet what happens, if the definition does not align to what a government or a funded overreaching group likes? I am referring to those small grocery stores like the EU and the WHO, and should you doubt it, then consider the following part that has been published in several papers and online sources.

WHO mission director warns world is ‘simply not ready’ for pandemic, as well as ‘prepare for a potential pandemic‘. This was the news today, yet when we consider “A pandemic is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide“, I raised it in the beginning of the month (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/) with ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!‘. In that piece I wrote “there are now close to two dozen nations with confirmed cases. The one from Sweden is perhaps the most illustrative one. “The patient is a woman in the Jonkoping region of southern Sweden who had visited the Wuhan area of China. She sought medical attention after arriving in Sweden on Jan. 24. “One case doesn’t mean that we have a virus outbreak in Sweden,” said the agency’s Karin Tegmark Wisell, who added that the country’s health-care is well prepared to deal with the virus.” I do not disagree with Karin Tegmark Wisell, yet she was a carrier and passing on the disease before the patient knew she was a carrier, as such she would have been in Arlanda (most likely), then a train or a car with stops and for some time she was unaware that she was sick. There is every chance that she infected 3-50 people” in the meantime the disease has now grown the amount of infected in 20 countries (Italy, Japan, Iran, USA, Bahrain, Germany, Algeria and Australia) that implies a growth of the infected on 6 continents. So when exactly will the WHO (or the EU) decide that this is a pandemic?

All whilst the media is happy to report “prepare for a potential pandemic as the outbreak spreads across Europe“, this is a much larger issue, an issue that is bigger than the media, we are being sold a bag of goods and there are players who are too scared for their value when the ‘pandemic’ becomes official and they are willing to sell the world population down the drain to protect their profits (a personal assumption).

And now (as per 16 seconds ago) the situation is “total number of cases in mainland China to 78,064, and 2,715 dead“, whilst the new deceased numbers include China (the bulk) and South Korea, Italy and Iran. So when will it become a pandemic? I believe it already is and it is not the worst pandemic to face, this part we get from a fatality surpassing 3.4%, these facts are available (at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/), the fact that these numbers also appear in the Guardian (and a few other sources) validates them for me. 

Yet there is one nice epitaph to my consideration of Pandemic, it is found in Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic) and gives us “Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu.” Yet it gives us a much larger setting too. 

With the header ‘Economic consequences of pandemic events‘ it introduces us to “In 2016, the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future estimated that pandemic disease events would cost the global economy over $6 trillion in the 21st century – over $60 billion per year. The same report also recommended spending $4.5 billion annually on global prevention and response capabilities to reduce the threat posed by pandemic events“

That is an amount that scares Wall Street (and therefore the US administration) to a larger degree. The economic part we get from ‘The Neglected Dimension of Global Security‘, that document gives us a lot more too (added atthe end). Even as the preface introduces us (again) to “After the outbreak was recognized, the international response was slow and uncoordinated. Mechanisms for the establishment of public–private partnerships were lacking. For example, the development of lifesaving medical products was reactive, rather than proactive.” It is seemingly the smallest stab to the Ebola event in West Africa, yet the goods on page 23 gives us “National public health systems are essential components of resilient health systems and the first line of defense against the threat of pandemic disease. Robust public health capabilities and infrastructure at a national level are thus the foundation of a global health risk framework” and here is the first pebble that starts the avalanche, on a global scale the stage was to do as little as possible as there were no budgets, the US, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France have been showing larger failures for several years. Germany is not far behind, yet still in a slightly better position and the less said over failing Greek healthcare, the better (at present). 

In this environment a pandemic is a larger issue for the people in and connected to Wall Street as they need to be ahead of the curve and not trailing it. As such pushing the statement ‘We have a Pandemic’ back further is for them essential, it is at present more likely than not that the Coronaviirus will be seen as a pandemic AFTER the fact, especially after the greedy people have their profit ducks in a row.

The weird part here is that this is not a new issue, Pandemics were the focal point in writing as early as 1350 (Decamerone), films and TV took the subject as early as 1957 (7th seal) as well as several games on PC, consoles, iOS and Android. Enough people knew of the dangers that this issue brought, it even made it to the comic books, although there the setting was warped massively beyond reality as we know it (the Extinction Parade). 

In all this the references make sense, it is seen on that same page when we see “Public health objectives can only be achieved within a highly-functioning and resilient health care system with effective primary care delivery (WHO, 2008)“, a statement seen 12 years ago gives rise to the dangers that nations have brought onto themselves and those remembering that 12 year old statement are now not ready to answer the questions from voters when the ‘pandemic’ is made official, in a more healthy style we could argue that political heads will roll when that news comes out a little too soon to their needs. This is more true when one considers “both sets of capabilities and infrastructure are necessary to prepare and respond to the threat of infectious diseases. A primary health care system without the support of strong public health capabilities will lack the ability to monitor disease patterns and be unable to plan and mobilize the scale of response required to contain an outbreak. A public health system without strong primary care capabilities will lack both the “radar screen” to pick up the initial cases of an outbreak and the delivery system to execute an effective response strategy“, in all this China has shown a decent degree to deal with it, and as such we see in the Guardian ‘Expert tells nations to access the expertise of China and prepare for a potential pandemic as the outbreak spreads across Europe‘. The move makes sense, but the larger issue is not the reactive side, it is the proactive side and most of Western Europe is seemingly not ready. In all this Western Europe is the second stop as International travel is the highest there and what is in one nation could hit a dozen nations a week later, basically one infected person in an international airport could in theory be the global exporter on the spot. If Virgin calls a $130,000,000 loss and a large chunk of that is the Coronavirus, could it be possible that the $60 billion a year seen earlier might be somewhat optimistic? In that consideration look at Virgin and its size, with the fact that this one company is 0.1% of that annual number, and this is not my imagination. 

Only 4 hours ago the New York Times gives us ‘Wall Street Is (Finally) Waking Up to the Damage Coronavirus Could Do‘ (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/upshot/coronavirus-wall-street-analysis.html), in all this, all the issues I filed over a month, with connections to reported issues 12 years ago and now we see: “there has been a strange divergence among those trying to predict what coronavirus might mean for financial markets and the world economy“, “People in the trenches of global commerce — supply chain managers, travel industry experts, employers large and small — warned of substantial disruptions to their businesses. And public health authorities feared that the disease could spread far beyond Wuhan in China” with the closing phrase of “financial markets and most economic forecasters projected the virus outbreak wouldn’t do much harm to the economy and corporate profits” where we need to notice that ‘corporate profits‘ was the centre of attention, as such we now get to live with the image “last Wednesday, the S&P is down more than 7 percent. And on Tuesday, yields on 10-year United States Treasury bonds fell to their lowest levels on record“, Wall Street is finally waking up having to reek the shit they shovel. All whilst the New York Times also gives us “if the virus becomes a global pandemic that causes meaningful pullback of commerce across major economies” it is the setting we needed to see, certain influencers do not want the claim of ‘pandemic’ to become reality, they are just not ready to see all their long plays become shorted stocks, the fallout would be massive for some players and they are not ready to adjust their economic game play. In all it seems that all over the world, medical centres are nowhere near ready and even as we admit and should realise that this can never be the case, the spreading of any pandemic is likely to hit all over the place and fighting one is not set to what we can do, but to what we can detect. It requires a larger proactive engine and as we see in the UK (NHS), as well as the US, they are lacking in proactive stages and as such, the statement of pandemic will require two elements the first is to find the real cases (any pandemic is likely to cause a panic in equal measure) and to deal with the real cases, it is there where we see that those running with a panic end up running into a disease spreading cluster (an acceptable speculated situation). 

When we see the facts and the situation where this had been going on for two months, CNN gives us ‘Trump claims coronavirus is ‘going to go away’ despite mounting concerns‘, as well as ‘Spread of coronavirus in U.S. appears inevitable, health officials warn‘ (Washington Post), as such we have a larger issue. The numbers give us that the US only had 57 cases and no additional ones since then, they only show 6 recoveries, so what happened to the 51 others? they might still be sick and more importantly there is no telling who the 57 infected, the lack of reporting there leaves a lot to be desired. That part is seen when we look at the CDC (at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html), here we see only 14 confirmed cases, now that does fit better with the 6 cured ones, yet the discrepancy of 57 and 14 is important, it also gives rise to larger clusters of people unknowingly affected. 

In all this we are still ‘heading towards’ a pandemic? I think the pandemic hit us all in the beginning of the month and too many are eager to hide (or oppose) that part and they hide themselves with numbers. In all this, we can argue left, right and centre, yet the definitions were clearly set and a paper with references to facts 12 years ago make for a larger case that politicians are too much in denial of the hardship hitting their lives, their welfare and their economy. A side that the Guardian reported on a week ago with “The coronavirus could cost the global economy more than $1tn in lost output if it turns into a pandemic“, as such, Samsung might end up seeing its stock shorted sooner rather than later, they did get help though, 1146 people with COVID-19 helped the forecasted need to short the stock, I wonder where those 57 Americans were and how Wall Street is optionally setting a different stage, one that has them seemingly unaffected by a so called optional pandemic that is set in China.

When these defining moments surpass the expectations of the people with stocks against the people with expected sick relatives, at that point will we see a first engagement of what Wall Street states versus the impact of the victims, the victims that could get not be cured in time because the proactive medical needs were numbered away by other means. Consider that against the fact that some of these white papers and warnings have been out for years, at that point reconsider the culling of funds in healthcare. There are too many related factors and they all survive as their test for ‘pandemic’ is not passed.

Neglected-Dimension-of-Global-Security

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