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Protocol 5 posted:I don't know if it's funnier that you think I don't know about the sex industry or that you honestly believe there aren't any dudes who would rather gently caress a totally compliant sexbot than a human. 
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Oct 8, 2014 12:57
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Protocol 5 posted:Just wait til someone perfects lifelike fuckable robots. It'll be pandemonium, I assure you.
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Oct 8, 2014 17:00
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Samurai Sanders posted:I'm sure someone has...to be demonstrated at a press conference and never actually used in someone's bedroom. I had a fun conversation with a group of older Japanese people a few months back who I had a hell of a time convincing that Japan was not really special when it comes to robotics technology. They were very incredulous because, "c'mon, Japan is the land of robots! Robot anime! Asimo dancing on stage!" Then I showed them videos of the Boston Dynamics BigDog and Petman. I think you're right that it's pretty much all PR or maybe a proxy for bragging about robotic manufacturing processes in factories. It strikes me that the big advances in robotics technology have come on the software side, and Japan traditionally has not been fantastic when it comes to the software side of computer technology. All those stage demos of robots in Japan feel so stiff because they're essentially trying to solve the problem in hardware by making moving sculptures. They're approaching it as a simple physical engineering problem. Increasingly, the modern approach to autonomous robots, though is to pack as many gyroscopes and sensors into it as possible then figure it out in software. *edited because "credulous" is not "incredulous" ErIog fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 02:16
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The Japanese government sure knows how to say thank-you to its Nobel laureate s: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/09/national/companies-to-get-credit-for-inventions-rather-than-employees-if-merit-system-in-place/
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Oct 10, 2014 03:06
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ErIog posted:I had a fun conversation with a group of older Japanese people a few months back who I had a hell of a time convincing that Japan was not really special when it comes to robotics technology. They were very credulous because, "c'mon, Japan is the land of robots! Robot anime! Asimo dancing on stage!" Then I showed them videos of the Boston Dynamics BigDog and Petman. Show them an Amazon warehouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs
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Oct 10, 2014 03:14
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mystes posted:The Japanese government sure knows how to say thank-you to its Nobel laureate s: Blue led creators original compensation for revolutionizing light industry: ~$200. He managed to litigate it up to 8.1 million.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:19
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Samurai Sanders posted:I'm sure someone has...to be demonstrated at a press conference and never actually used in someone's bedroom. A sexbot tech demo? Gonna be one hell of a conference.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:26
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adhuin posted:Blue led creators original compensation for revolutionizing light industry: ~$200. He managed to litigate it up to 8.1 million. Which makes the stated goal of "reducing litigation" shamefully transparent in its intent.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:57
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ErIog posted:I had a fun conversation with a group of older Japanese people a few months back who I had a hell of a time convincing that Japan was not really special when it comes to robotics technology. They were very credulous because, "c'mon, Japan is the land of robots! Robot anime! Asimo dancing on stage!" Then I showed them videos of the Boston Dynamics BigDog and Petman. Still, when it comes to attitudes, we still think of robots more in the likes of Terminator rather than Wall-E. And that isn't probably going to chance for some time with the advent of military drones. (btw, aren't most robotics projects done in the US funded by the US military?) In that sense the openness the Japanese have for robotics is still pretty unique.
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Oct 10, 2014 07:44
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Rexroom posted:Still, when it comes to attitudes, we still think of robots more in the likes of Terminator rather than Wall-E. And that isn't probably going to chance for some time with the advent of military drones. (btw, aren't most robotics projects done in the US funded by the US military?) In that sense the openness the Japanese have for robotics is still pretty unique.
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Oct 10, 2014 10:12
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Rexroom posted:Still, when it comes to attitudes, we still think of robots more in the likes of Terminator rather than Wall-E. And that isn't probably going to chance for some time with the advent of military drones. (btw, aren't most robotics projects done in the US funded by the US military?) In that sense the openness the Japanese have for robotics is still pretty unique. They were but then google brought them all up. Of course you can argue google will change its name to 'Skynet' in any moment.
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Oct 10, 2014 13:51
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whatever7 posted:They were but then google brought them all up. Depends if you still believe in their mantra of not doing evil.
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Oct 10, 2014 15:09
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Rexroom posted:Depends if you still believe in their mantra of not doing evil. I have ported my phone numbers to google, I can't afford to think otherwise. 
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Oct 10, 2014 16:07
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adhuin posted:Blue led creators original compensation for revolutionizing light industry: ~$200. He managed to litigate it up to 8.1 million.
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Oct 10, 2014 18:33
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whatever7 posted:I have ported my phone numbers to google, I can't afford to think otherwise. Evil or not, better to be friends with the self-aware network entity than on its poo poo list.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:44
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Rexroom posted:Depends if you still believe in their mantra of not doing evil. They actually stripped that from their charter.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:06
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TheBalor posted:They actually stripped that from their charter. No they didn't. They also claim to have no plans to be a military contractor (no plans doesn't mean it won't happen ofc), although the current boston dynamics contracts will be fulfilled. quote:Japan traditionally has not been fantastic when it comes to the software side of computer technology. "not been fantastic" is understating it imo. Not sure what exactly should be done but I think a nice starting point would be if Japanese IT corporations would pay salaries in even the same ballpark as the international companies that are taking all the good engineers. Google in tokyo pays something like 1.5-3x as much for comparable positions, I would imagine FB/MS/Amazon/etc are similar; literally the only reason for a skilled Japanese dev to not try and join one is if they can't speak English (and they don't need that much English either). Of course, this would be predicated on these corporations realising that bad software is actually a problem.
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Oct 12, 2014 07:00
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Bad software is a cultural thing. Japanese companies are bad at work for a open platform and open protocal. For something that's closed, propritery from 1 company, its competitive. For example, some of Japanese game studios can still make top tier games, although its getting rarer.
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Oct 12, 2014 08:04
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whatever7 posted:Bad software is a cultural thing. Japanese companies are bad at work for a open platform and open protocal. For something that's closed, propritery from 1 company, its competitive. For example, some of Japanese game studios can still make top tier games, although its getting rarer. Games aren't really comparable to other software development though. The vast majority of game studios are using one of 4 or 5 middleware packages and basically creating art and string assets plus doing a bit of scripting. Developing enterprise software is a whole different ballgame.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:44
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:Games aren't really comparable to other software development though. The vast majority of game studios are using one of 4 or 5 middleware packages and basically creating art and string assets plus doing a bit of scripting. Developing enterprise software is a whole different ballgame. There are a large number of game studios in Japan that are/have building their own engines.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:41
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It's apples and oranges really. I'm not any kind of software/hardware guy, but the difference between programming game engines for smartphones/consoles/PCs and programming bespoke inventory/logistics/fulfillment management systems, assembly line control systems, or CAD tools for widely varying platforms that need to be compatible with ancient legacy systems due to bureaucratic inertia seems pretty self evident. The design requirements are not even remotely comparable.
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Oct 13, 2014 23:10
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The New York Times had an article today on Japanese textbooks but unfortunately they didn't mention Abe's weaselly answer to a question in a House of Representatives budget committee session on the 1st of the month that implied that new textbooks would be expected to change their description of the comfort women issue based on the Asahi Shimbun's retractions, although I guess that may already have been the plan with the new textbook standards anyway.
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Oct 14, 2014 01:11
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Games might be the one area where Japanese companies can turn out something that appears to be decent as long as it doesn't ever interact with the internet or a PC at any point. Pretty much every other software-related experience I have had in Japan has been incredibly dodgy. In recent years even the Japanese supremacy in game software has pretty much gone away. They manage to keep up with the games from other countries, but they tend to do worse with anything that has anything to do with the internet or UI. If you live in Japan, I hope you like being limited to 8-10 character alphanumeric passwords! Don't worry if you forget your password, either. Conveniently, they'll send it back to you verbatim if you use the "Forgot Password" link. That's such a step up over the other companies that will snail mail your password back to you. We care about protecting customer data! We said so in our press release! Kenishi posted:There are a large number of game studios in Japan that are/have building their own engines. They were late to the party on engine re-use in the first place, and now they still lag behind. While each Japanese studio is building their own engine to re-use, Western publishers are buying up devs with good engines and using them across multiple studios and multiple types of games. ErIog fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 01:13
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:Games aren't really comparable to other software development though. The vast majority of game studios are using one of 4 or 5 middleware packages and basically creating art and string assets plus doing a bit of scripting. Developing enterprise software is a whole different ballgame. The inability to use middleware or write reusable middleware is precisely the reason every Squareenix Japan developed game is 2-4 years late. Pretty much only Capcom has competent modern game coding practice.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:05
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whatever7 posted:The inability to use middleware or write reusable middleware is precisely the reason every Squareenix Japan developed game is 2-4 years late. Pretty much only Capcom has competent modern game coding practice. This is all across software in Japan, not just games. I suspect a lot of it is the language gap since there just isn't anything like the amount of information/discussion/documentation in Japanese as what's available in English. At least I hope that's what it is.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:55
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Stringent posted:This is all across software in Japan, not just games. I suspect a lot of it is the language gap since there just isn't anything like the amount of information/discussion/documentation in Japanese as what's available in English. I'm pretty sure that this is the reason. I suspect documentation and developer support in Japanese for stuff like Unreal Engine was not great, and there's a lot of institutional inertia towards Not Invented Here syndrome. This is also the reason I've heard as to why a lot of Japanese companies got on board with Games for Windows, and ignored Steam. GFW had Japanese developer support while Steam didn't. There was also a significant lag last generation between when Unreal was available for licensing, and when it was actually robust. Developer support and documentation was terrible for a long time even in English. Japanese companies actually got better about re-using their engines last generation, but by the time UE was fully viable for them they had already developed their engines. It seems like stuff is quite a bit different in that regard for this generation. It was recently announced that the new Kingdom Hearts game is moving to Unreal Engine 4, and I can only assume that happened because somebody on the Square/Enix Europe(Eidos) side was able to spend a lot of time convincing someone on the Square/Enix Japan side that they would have a lot of in-house support for doing so. ErIog fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 06:03
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Stringent posted:This is all across software in Japan, not just games. I suspect a lot of it is the language gap since there just isn't anything like the amount of information/discussion/documentation in Japanese as what's available in English. If that was the case you'd expect the rest of Asia and mainland Europe to be software blackholes but they aren't. I think its a uniquely Japanese situation, as far as developed countries goes.
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Oct 14, 2014 13:33
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Cliff Racer posted:If that was the case you'd expect the rest of Asia and mainland Europe to be software blackholes but they aren't. I think its a uniquely Japanese situation, as far as developed countries goes. Uh most of Asia is a software black hole by most estimations.
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Oct 14, 2014 13:57
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LimburgLimbo posted:Uh most of Asia is a software black hole by most estimations. China is very good at developing feature clones even if they're highly protectionist. And for S. Korea, at least Samsung isn't unusuably bad, although some people certainly do not like Touchwiz et all.
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Oct 14, 2014 14:02
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If you simply compare android firmware/skin/user apps, China > South Korea > Japan. Even lovely China OEM like Lenovo or ZTE have better software than Sony.
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Oct 14, 2014 14:16
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The horror stories from the Korea threads about the random required "security" software (ActiveX controls to access your bank's website ... nice) and lovely Ahnlab software that constantly bluescreens your computer are pretty great. Korea at least gets that they're terrible at designing things and brings in foreigners to do their innovation (Samsung does this a lot, I hear - there are towns that have huge Norwegian expat communities because those dudes are basically running Samsung's cell phone design) instead of Galapagosing it up like Japan. LimburgLimbo posted:Uh most of Asia is a software black hole by most estimations. I think Korea has at least a chance at redemption since they are willing to import innovation instead of stealing it (China) or refusing to do anything without gaiatsu (Japan). Dunno about SE Asia, I'm sure Singapore and HK are comparably alright thanks to British influence. Sheep fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 14:22
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Sheep posted:Korea at least gets that they're terrible at designing things and brings in foreigners to do their innovation (Samsung does this a lot, I hear - there are towns that have huge Norwegian expat communities because those dudes are basically running Samsung's cell phone design) instead of Galapagosing it up like Japan. Hyundai does this too, I knew a few engineers who worked at Hyundai Motors and Hyundai Heavy Industries. They bring in westerners to design things and solve the problems that crop up, and Korean engineers do the implementation.
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Oct 14, 2014 14:32
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whatever7 posted:The inability to use middleware or write reusable middleware is precisely the reason every Squareenix Japan developed game is 2-4 years late. Pretty much only Capcom has competent modern game coding practice. 
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Oct 14, 2014 14:55
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If Konami's coders was so good they wouldn't have nuked the original Raiden game and hired Platium studio to make another one from scratch. Kojima is also the Japanese business example of old guys hoarding their positions and resources forever and the young guys will never have a chance to have their own creative output in an extremely dynamic business. Al least kojima can get away with it for being an auteur.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:20
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Stringent posted:This is all across software in Japan, not just games. I suspect a lot of it is the language gap since there just isn't anything like the amount of information/discussion/documentation in Japanese as what's available in English. I think a lot of it is just the way that the Japanese software development industry evolved. Japan was (and still is in some ways) a leader in embedded software development during the 80s and 90s, and a lot of their industry was oriented toward that end. The skillset doesn't necessarily transfer well though--programming for a bare-metal microcontroller is a lot different than programming for computers where the hardware is obfuscated by several layers with the OS. Generally what you tend to see is that the further away from the metal a given Japanese program is, the crappier it's likely to be. You see that sort of "embedded programming" style creep into their general purpose software a lot too--to use the earlier game example, Japanese Windows games are liable to be heavily dependent on the environment they were developed in, relying on arcane version-specific DirectX calls or use of a very specific subset of graphics cards. Use any even slightly differing hardware/OS configuration and it's liable to flat-out not work. I think this old blog post I read a while back has something of a good summary--while some of it is silly (comparing the NES to the PC-88/PC-98, for example) the "appliances vs. computers" part is pretty spot on I think. That fits right in with an industry that's primarily focused on embedded software development rather than general-purpose computing. You still see that even today--Japan has lots of electronic "gadgets" that are quite well programmed, and plenty of people still forgo using a general-use computer, preferring to access the Internet solely through their cell phone, for example. Japan's falling behind rapidly though worldwide because so many Japanese companies are set in their old ways and refuse to change, when the open-environment general-computing model is becoming increasingly dominant.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:48
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computer parts posted:And for S. Korea, at least Samsung isn't unusuably bad Genpei Turtle posted:I think a lot of it is just the way that the Japanese software development industry evolved. Japan was (and still is in some ways) a leader in embedded software development during the 80s and 90s, and a lot of their industry was oriented toward that end. Eh, that's really not true at all - when you look at embedded devs in Japan - and they're a tiny minority of devs there, just like in other countries - they're all old as hell, because the skills aren't being taught at all (pretty much no Japanese people working in IT have any sort of educational background or even long-term interest in the field, it's people who first touched a computer at university and then ended up in a developer after graduating) - their electronic engineering is absolutely fantastic though. ookiimarukochan fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 19:11
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I think talking about video games when it comes to software is a bit of a red herring. Japan is probably "good" at video games because they have a legacy of it being a big thing for their industry. This would also explain why they are godawful at PC or genres that have little history in Japan. also something something $100 for a new game something something
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Oct 14, 2014 21:27
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ookiimarukochan posted:Eh, that's really not true at all - when you look at embedded devs in Japan - and they're a tiny minority of devs there, just like in other countries - they're all old as hell, because the skills aren't being taught at all (pretty much no Japanese people working in IT have any sort of educational background or even long-term interest in the field, it's people who first touched a computer at university and then ended up in a developer after graduating) - their electronic engineering is absolutely fantastic though. Right, I didn't mean to say that's the way it is now, just that that's how it was for a really long time. Since computer adoption in Japan in general was so low until after Y2K or thereabouts there wasn't really any room for a significant IT industry in the traditional sense prior to that time. While other countries have been full-on the general-purpose computing bandwagon for 30 years, it's only in the past 10-15ish that it picked up steam in Japan in any significant sense. In the West you've got plenty of devs who grew up using computers (hell, I could probably count as one and I'm practically 40) whereas in Japan most people won't have touched a computer prior to university as you mention because they weren't in any significant use until then. Also I'm kind of considering electronic engineering and embedded development as two sides of the same coin, which might be muddying the issue. I'm talking about the guys who develop and program the software for the vast number of electronic appliances and gadgets that Japan churns out. There are plenty of those guys out there, and they're not all ancient. (at least not in my experience, but a large part of my experience with Japanese IT is in the context of a sizable consumer electronics company so taking what I say with a grain of salt may well be warranted) ed: Also on a tangent when it comes to Japanese IT, they're absolutely horrible when it comes to legacy stuff. Stuff I've seen includes a sizable publishing company using a version of QuarkXpress that only works on Mac OS 9 in 2009, and an admittedly smallish pharmaceutical company using an old version of Visual FoxPro in 2010. Genpei Turtle fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 21:44
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A big flaming stink posted:I think talking about video games when it comes to software is a bit of a red herring. Japan is probably "good" at video games because they have a legacy of it being a big thing for their industry. This would also explain why they are godawful at PC or genres that have little history in Japan. Consoles are for video games. PCs are for smutty visual novels and other R-18 stuff.
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Oct 14, 2014 22:58
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Genpei Turtle posted:(at least not in my experience, but a large part of my experience with Japanese IT is in the context of a sizable consumer electronics company so taking what I say with a grain of salt may well be warranted) If said company starts with a "S" or a "P", they're known for absolutely god-awful software, its destroyed the control of all sorts of markets they used to have. If you're talking about a company that starts with an "N", the main one or one of its' many tentacles, the actual proper embedded devs they have - especially if you're talking about firmware etc, rather than pure apps - are few and far between and old enough to be my father (and I turned 35 today) - I worked on a number of projects for various "N" companies over 7 or 8 years, and they were typically shocked by how young I was. Japan is a country where devs are just trained monkeys and you're expected to leave the field by the time you hit 30-ish (one of my friends was transferred from being a senior dev to an HR manager for instance, just because of his age)
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Oct 15, 2014 00:39
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