The Times: Tech column - Fruit-machine odds/iTunes/Fast TCP
By David Rowan
This column has always striven to avoid stereotyping computer geeks as obsessive types who will, for instance, spend hours stuffing coins into pub fruit machines. So let's instead focus on the week's hottest piece of IT research, which has been prompting heated debate on the techies' bulletin boards. It involves emulator programming and microchip analysis to answer that most urgent question of modern science: just how likely are you to win a payout from the local pub's fruit machine?
A bunch of British games enthusiasts decided to find out, by extracting the software that controls a number of popular fruit machines on to a standard desktop PC. Using an emulator - a program that allows the computer to run in the same way as a coin machine, but without the coins - they investigated the sequence of spins that followed various combinations of nudges and gambles on "Higher" or "Lower".
By frequently reloading the computer's memory, they could examine what would have happened if the player had pressed different buttons. The results, they say, prove that the machines are programmed to make you lose whatever choices you make.
"In every possible scenario, the machine has completely predetermined the outcome," say the researchers, whose findings have just been published at the FairPlay Campaign website (www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk), along with some emulators for you to download. "The player's input has no effect whatsoever, except inasmuch as it is possible to collect the winnings before the machine forces you to lose."
When the machine has decided that you are ready to lose, it will return a low number when you press "Higher", and vice versa. It is not a "gamble" at all, the researchers say, but rather "institutionalised corporate robbery". The campaign wants Parliament and the UK Gaming Board to take up the fight for justice, and the matter has apparently reached Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
++++
The music industry continues to see lawyers as its best hope against unauthorised file-swapping. Perhaps it should instead offer consumers a cheap, efficient, legal song-downloading service that they would actually use. The strategy has worked brilliantly for Apple since April.
According to a leaked account of a private Apple presentation last Thursday, it has sold 3.5 million songs through its iTunes Music Store in just six weeks. At 99 cents (63p) a song, that suggests the makings of a very healthy business, with independent labels now being targeted to add to the 200,000 tracks available. Nine out of ten sales are to customers who store credit-card details on the site so that they can buy songs with one click, and almost half of the tracks are bought as part of an album. The service is run by editors who care about music and do not appear biased towards the major labels. There is just one problem: unless you are a US-based Mac user with the latest operating system, Apple will not serve you.
Still, there is always Morpheus or KaZaA.
++++
Forget the broadband internet - scientists at the California Institute of Technology have transmitted data hundreds of times faster. Using a system known as Fast TCP, they have achieved speeds of 925 megabits per second between California and Geneva, and 8.6 gigabits using ten simultaneous paths. The process monitors how long data packets take to arrive, and predicts how fast they can be sent without loss of quality. Disney and Microsoft are said to be interested in the prospect of the "five-second movie download", but don't throw away the VCR yet: standard modems will take years to catch up.
(The Times, June 10 2003)
This column has always striven to avoid stereotyping computer geeks as obsessive types who will, for instance, spend hours stuffing coins into pub fruit machines. So let's instead focus on the week's hottest piece of IT research, which has been prompting heated debate on the techies' bulletin boards. It involves emulator programming and microchip analysis to answer that most urgent question of modern science: just how likely are you to win a payout from the local pub's fruit machine?
A bunch of British games enthusiasts decided to find out, by extracting the software that controls a number of popular fruit machines on to a standard desktop PC. Using an emulator - a program that allows the computer to run in the same way as a coin machine, but without the coins - they investigated the sequence of spins that followed various combinations of nudges and gambles on "Higher" or "Lower".
By frequently reloading the computer's memory, they could examine what would have happened if the player had pressed different buttons. The results, they say, prove that the machines are programmed to make you lose whatever choices you make.
"In every possible scenario, the machine has completely predetermined the outcome," say the researchers, whose findings have just been published at the FairPlay Campaign website (www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk), along with some emulators for you to download. "The player's input has no effect whatsoever, except inasmuch as it is possible to collect the winnings before the machine forces you to lose."
When the machine has decided that you are ready to lose, it will return a low number when you press "Higher", and vice versa. It is not a "gamble" at all, the researchers say, but rather "institutionalised corporate robbery". The campaign wants Parliament and the UK Gaming Board to take up the fight for justice, and the matter has apparently reached Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
++++
The music industry continues to see lawyers as its best hope against unauthorised file-swapping. Perhaps it should instead offer consumers a cheap, efficient, legal song-downloading service that they would actually use. The strategy has worked brilliantly for Apple since April.
According to a leaked account of a private Apple presentation last Thursday, it has sold 3.5 million songs through its iTunes Music Store in just six weeks. At 99 cents (63p) a song, that suggests the makings of a very healthy business, with independent labels now being targeted to add to the 200,000 tracks available. Nine out of ten sales are to customers who store credit-card details on the site so that they can buy songs with one click, and almost half of the tracks are bought as part of an album. The service is run by editors who care about music and do not appear biased towards the major labels. There is just one problem: unless you are a US-based Mac user with the latest operating system, Apple will not serve you.
Still, there is always Morpheus or KaZaA.
++++
Forget the broadband internet - scientists at the California Institute of Technology have transmitted data hundreds of times faster. Using a system known as Fast TCP, they have achieved speeds of 925 megabits per second between California and Geneva, and 8.6 gigabits using ten simultaneous paths. The process monitors how long data packets take to arrive, and predicts how fast they can be sent without loss of quality. Disney and Microsoft are said to be interested in the prospect of the "five-second movie download", but don't throw away the VCR yet: standard modems will take years to catch up.
(The Times, June 10 2003)
<< Home