Not likely. Bill Gates offered 'name your price' and a golden pony to them, but old Yamauchi declined the sale. Apparently, japanese companies tied to national identity are impossible to buy (for foreigners at least).
I don't have any - I've read it in 'Game Over' book about nintendo, though if you google around for 'microsoft buying nintendo' there are a slew of stories about it.
Doesn't make sense to me. They've already got their own game platform, and devices that are connected to the TV. Why try to integrate a completely different platform into a gaming ecosystem that's already thriving?
As a side note, I'm surprised that that site's FAQ appears to be advocating computer use on the treadmill but makes no mention of static discharge. In the winter, our treadmill becomes a giant Van de Graaff generator, unpleasant to use if you don't constantly ground yourself on a handrail. I gather this has not been a problem for you?
It would be ironic if they actually did the attack considering their current government website is about as sophisticated as a circa 1999 mom and pop e-tailer.
I was born in 1955, on the same day as James Gosling, inventor of Java.
But I was not an outlier. I was pretty much a regular person from a middle class family who went to public school and aspired to be the first in my family to graduate college. Here's the problem with being born "too soon":
I graduated high school, college, and graduate school without ever having touched a computer. Think about that. Neither of my colleges even had a Comp Sci department. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, far from the leading edges of Boston and California. Nobody, I mean nobody knew anything about computers. They were giant machines that sent your electric bill. Period. Unless you were fortunate to be close to the geek counter culture of Northern California or had parents with millions of dollars, forget it.
I graduated with an MBA and got a job as a restaurant manager (1978 was a lot like 2009). Then I picked up a COBOL book and practically memorized it for a difficult to get programming interview. I got the job and the rest is history.
I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had been born 10 or 20 years later. But it's a wasted thought. What if I had been born 10 or 20 years earlier. I'd probably be a retired car dealer now.
The great thing is that now it just doesn't matter. I took a while to get here, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Maybe that's why I'm here so often: making up for lost time.
For that era anyway...it could be that 1990-1992 is another "golden age" of birth years, but those kids are still 17-19, so we'll have to wait a few more decades to spot the trend :)
The next big user interface: your car windshield. The windshield communicates with billboards that look empty from outside your car to beam images appropriate for your consumer tastes and demographic. In addition you will be able to interact with various mediums: webmail, ipod, video conferencing etc when your car is fully stopped. It goes on from there.
