hamsterkill

joined 2 years ago
[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

As far as I know, browsers will only do Widevine L3. Meaning you won't get resolutions past 720p or maybe 1080p (depending on service). That's probably fine a small screen like the deck. Less fine for a 4k TV.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 month ago (12 children)

One question I have about the cube is will it be capable of doing full DRM streaming services like Netflix? Most living room systems have that, but doing it on an open linux system somehow would be novel.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Speaking for myself — no.

I had reasons for switching to using my dual boot desktop for Linux 95% of the time. Windows 11 became too annoying and bloated for me to want to deal with, and I found Proton could adequately run the games I play (including some old or foreign ones Windows struggles with).

I continue to use my Xbox because it's unladen with Windows' recent bullshit, and as a limited machine, it gives me less security concerns about trying games with connections to Russia, China, and Israel.

An Xbox running full Windows is one I would wecome existing but would never buy. I'd just be thankful all their games were PC compatible and use my Linux PC and streaming devices running Steam Link or Moonlight or even xCloud (until that service inevitably enshittifies).

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 month ago

Noto (Google) I thought was the most well-known.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Bethesda

That's Microsoft now. And they've never seemed gung ho about GOG (I can't think of any MS game that GOG listed while MS had control over it). Considering their "Dreamlist" thing and the status of Freelancer on it, I'm sure GOG has been lobbying hard with Microsoft to work with them, though.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago

The article does mention this problem and they claim to have been able to pull it off somehow.

“Mammalian cells are orders of magnitude more sensitive than algae cells, but even with those cells, we were able to detach them with no impact to the viability of the cell,” Vandereydt says.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

Not certain Sony counts as worldwide anymore since they seem to have retreated from the US.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 months ago

I'm sure what I'm about to say has already been echoed by others, but there are a few factors working against them. This is from a US/Canada perspective. Other countries may have more or fewer barriers.

  1. Mobile hardware - Mobile hardware has higher security. Some of this is by design for the user, since mobile devices are more likely to fall into wrong hands than e.g. a desktop. Some of it is corps preventing users from using their hardware in ways they don't want you to, though. The level of locked down mobile hardware has only increased over time.
  2. Carriers - This one is particular to North America, I think. Carriers here have a long history of meddling in phone hardware - from bloatware to SIM locks and everything in between. One of the things they do since LTE is require device makers to pay them to get certified to make calls on their network. Linux capable devices are too niche to be able to afford this. This is why Fairphone, for example, even with its Android-based OS, only works on one carrier here.

Those are the main two barriers here. Things like apps can have workarounds for those that would be interested in early adoption of Linux phones. But there's no way around the combination of carrier certification costs and limited options of only very locked down hardware.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago

I think there's some sort of a west coast trend towards immutable distros. Bazzite has the same kind of buzz. Haven't really met anyone that uses these distros around me, though.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/552558/tabletop-panic-tariffs-on-china-layoffs-bankruptcy-gama/

The U.S. has a very small industrial capacity for manufacturing tabletop games — especially board games.

“The news is bad from every angle, but especially so for card games and RPGs printed in China,” they said. “The choice seems to be either 1) a massive price hike to pay the new import taxes, or 2) go to a direct sales model that removes the hobby distributors from the equation.”

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 2 months ago (5 children)

There's currently not enough industrial capacity in the US to manufacture card games. Simple as that. Trying to do it would likely end up still being more expensive than the tariffs, and probably delay your product.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I... really wonder who in the administration is coming up with all these ideas. It's gotta be someone who has a staff, and that staff must feel like the most useless people in policy since their boss must be coming up with these ideas while cracked out and not running them by anyone...

 

Rant incoming:

This was spurred by having just read https://www.androidpolice.com/google-tv-streamer-questions-answered/ , particularly this bit:

When I asked directly, a Google representative told me they couldn't confirm which chipset powers the Google TV Streamer — essentially, Google declined to answer.

I've been noticing an increasing trend by device makers to not disclose the SoC their devices run on. I've been seeing it with e-readers, network routers, media streamers, etc.

It's incredibly frustrating to have devices actively exclude important information from their spec sheet and even dodge direct questions from tech news reporters. Reporters shouldn't have to theorize about what chip is in a released device. It's nuts.

If you're wondering why this infomation is important, it can be for several reasons. SoC vendor can have significant impact on the real world performance and security of a device. It also carries major implications for how open a device is as SoC vendors can have dramatically different open source support and firmware practices.

I've had to resort to inspecting the circuit board photos of FCC filings way too much lately to identify the processors being used in devices. And that's not a great workaroud in the first place as those photos are generally kept confidential by the FCC until months after the device releases (case in point the Google Streamer).

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