Ads on Your Desktop from MSFT?

John, what ever you do, DO NOT use that lame Final Fantasy joke on TWiT, the fanboys will eat you alive.

From Wikipedia:

“In the mid 1980s, Square entered the Japanese video game industry with simple RPGs, racing games, and platformers for Nintendo’s Famicom Disk System. Though a couple games were successful in North America, most were not popular and the company faced bankruptcy. In 1987, Square designer Hironobu Sakaguchi headed development of a game to prevent the company’s financial ruin. Sakaguchi chose to create a new fantasy role-playing game for the cartridge-based Famicom, and drew inspiration from popular fantasy games: Enix’s Dragon Quest, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda, and Origin Systems’s Ultima series. As Sakaguchi planned to retire after completing the project, he named it Final Fantasy.[62][63][64] Despite his explanation, publications have also attributed the name to the company’s hopes that the project would solve its financial troubles.[62][65]
The game indeed reversed Square’s lagging fortunes, and it became the company’s flagship franchise.[32][62] Following the success, Square immediately developed a second installment. Because Sakaguchi assumed Final Fantasy would be a stand-alone title, its story was not designed to be expanded by a sequel. The developers instead chose to carry over only thematic similarities to its predecessor, and some of the gameplay elements, such as the character advancement system, were overhauled. This approach has continued throughout the series; each major Final Fantasy game features a new setting, a new cast of characters, and an upgraded battle system.[5]“

Another case where he makes up his mind before he finished reading the headline…..these are just themes that you can go and download if you like. It’s not like brands haven’t done this before, it’s just that MS will offer them via their own website.

As a Ducati owner, I tried the Ducati theme and rather like it.

If you don’t like it, you have to take this action: none. Just avoid accidentally going to the personalization site and clicking “Download”.

@#4 You are missing the point. It is fine for you to go and get Ducati theme from Ducati site or Ducati Fan site. MS is neither. MS should provide well designed OS and capabilities of customization. Maybe MS promotional themes as well. But as soon as they even conduct other companies promotions through their system – they are abusing us, users. This can be acceptable only if they don’t charge anything for the OS. As long as I pay for the OS, I don’t want to see any commerce done on my back, be it voluntary or not – same thing. Because that commerce relies upon the fact that I have purchased something… MS can’t sell ad-space (voluntary or not) on non-existent platform. Presently I am paying for OS and what I am getting is voluntary ad platform for MS to earn money based on the fact that there are so many users who have it and certain percentage of them are suckers who’ll get the ads). Despicable.

#6. Agreed. If they are using my hard drive space for anything other than the OS. Then they owe me.

This is bullshit.

Could somebody please burn Ballmer before he terminates MSFT?

#6 Your words will be lost on the average sheeple. See #7 for the perfect example of a sheeple fighting to be screwed. And I thought stoopid fans could only be found at mac.

#9 They’re just saying “there’s a new moron out in the streets everyday. Whomever gets it, pwns it” And there are plenty of morons out there, eager to be pwned. Sheeple are sad.

kind of wrong their its important to under stand the facts.

First off this is not a new its been known a long time since tmbc discovery of shader exploit.

First off its proberly out the reach of most you as you have proberly been upgraded to the nxe if you haven’t then you might still have a chance.

What you have to understand is that all your xbox privlages like singeing a game content as well as your consoles id are stored in special area on your xbox nand called KV or Key Vault.

What happens when your banned your key vault becomes invalided and their for unable to preform function to use xbox live.

In order to unban your self you will need some things.

1.CPU KEY (unlike per box)
2.A Valid Keyvault to replace with.

You cpu key is need to singe your new keyvault. In order to get your key vault you will need to preform a timing attack.

The timing attack is used as a brute force technique to guess the key vault which usually takes a few hours. it works simply by change the singe of a few files on your nand required for bootup. The attack works beacuse the system takes longer to respond due a wrong character being given.

Once you have got your your cpu key you will then be able to singe a new key vault.

As for getting the keyvault on your box you will need to xell (Linux for the xbox 360) which involve use the kk exploit and a jtag to inject your code.

#13 Nice rationalization about being pwned (and proud of it). You’re what, 25? As long as you get your fix of kewl things, you don’t care if you’re pwned by a company.

Last attempt to hammer knowledge into willfully ignorant whiners and I’m done.

You guys are just like Adam, repeatedly reacting to a misunderstanding of the story.

You obviously do not understand what MS is actually doing here. They are not “running” ads on your desktop. JCD got it wrong, because he didn’t read past the headline before spewing an opinion.

I want to know EXACTLY how MS is “pwning us” by placing themes on their own website that will not be on your hd unless you go off and download them. Tell me. Tell me now.

If you put a sticker for a product you really like on your car, have you been “pwned”? (You would likely be crass and tasteless, but that’s not the question.) And in this case, no one will likely even see it except for you. “Oh, man, you have been so screwed by the man! You have pictures from Bing on your desktop.” Um, whatever.

(BTW, “pwned”? Really? Are you 16, and typing this between raids in your basement? I’m old enough to not want to hire people who use “pwned” and “kewl”.)

Explain exactly in clear English how it hurts one to have downloaded a theme. Clearly, not in insults, but in clear words. What is the damage? How is is abuse to offer a theme?

But you can’t answer because what you’re complainign about isn’t actually happening.

MS is not putting this in W7.
They are not running ads on the desktop.
They are not using up your hd space.
You are railing against a nonevent.

Enjoy your moment of “standin’ up to the Man” by freaking out over something that isn’t happening. Be happy and ignorant too….and panic again next time JCD jumps to a conclusion.