Some companies are alright with this but yeah there’s always a catch with Apple.

I use a redirector extension for YouTube so PipedBot is useless and annoying for me. I’d rather someone just give me a YouTube URL and let the redirector extension do its work.

TL;DRbot is okay, I guess.

Tempted to throw Sam & Max on my iPad now…

Judging from this, it seems that they have a path forward and Sony is likely going the direct connection route. If not, there’s always iVRy, whose job has probably gotten much easier now that Sony’s basically removed some of the barriers.

Surprising if they’re going the wired route. VirtualLink has been said to be a dead standard (Oculus pipes video to the headset even if it’s plugged in) and NVIDIA stopped supporting it. AMD might, I recall a tweet from iVRy stating that if you plug the PSVR2 into your AMD GPU and it boots into cinema mode, it should work normally through any future means. Prior to this an adapter was needed to emulate the special DisplayPort modes to enable VR mode, but now that adapter is no longer required on AMD GPUs (still required for NVIDIA).

In any case, I’m not complaining. Means I don’t have to shell out hundreds for a Quest anymore.

Sometimes it might be sold off. I know LTT sold their Steam Deck to DankPods because Valve still haven’t brought it into Australia.

I dunno about non-driver anti-cheats like EAC but Genshin Impact’s kernel-level anti-cheat has been used to aid ransomware. Driver-level anti-cheat is certainly malware, that has been settled since Sony-BMG.

I use an iPad, am subscribed to Apple Music and also use a Hackintosh setup (aiming to replace it with a MacBook of some kind in the future).

• The tablet market is pretty much “ignore everything else and just buy an iPad”. There is no tablet really worth your time on Android, most of it is due to Google and the Android ecosystem practically abandoning the tablet form factor. Meanwhile Apple still supports the iPad to this day and there are plenty of great apps that support the iPad form factor, such as Mona for Mastodon
• I used to use Spotify for streaming, but found that it was getting increasingly annoying to use. So many long-standing bugs including one where if I download even one song on my phone that’s in my Liked Songs list, the entire app takes like 30 seconds trying to load it. Apple Music handles large lists so much better. The library management is also so much better than on Spotify too, with it basically just being “iTunes but as a streaming service” and I can have smart playlists for whatever purpose I want. Their consistency with regards to UX across the different target platforms aren’t great (iOS and Android can’t create or update smart playlists, Windows and Mac don’t have word-for-word lyrics) but even with all that, it’s the least annoying streaming service for me right now. (and yes, I maintain a local music library with MusicBee - streaming is helpful for discovery)
• I’ve been recently using my Hackintosh more and it was really comfy using it. I have issues focusing on a single task (which might be ADHD, might not be, idk) and the full-screen mode allows me to focus on the tasks on my screen.

As for your point on bloatware, this happens on Android too. I can’t remove Facebook, OneDrive or YouTube from my phone, only “hide” it. (Samsung btw)

There’s a theory going round that the PS5 is going to be that “breakout box” for a PC-based PSVR2 setup. I’m not sure if Sony wants to spend that much on getting people out of their ecosystem when it’d be better to have their own solution, or as Oculus had done, let Valve port Steam Link to their platform. This might be the most likely situation, as it gives access to SteamVR in a way that doesn’t require as much R&D from Sony.

That being said, I would love to have a native PCVR setup (even if it means piping a video through a wire as Oculus does to maintain compatibility with even NVIDIA) and if Sony goes that way somehow, I’ll be happy.

It might be “just USB-C” but it also does things outside of the standard. It asks for a set amount of power not part of the USB-C standard, actually it might have implemented VirtualLink which is considered a dead standard. Not to mention that NVIDIA GPUs also stopped having a USB-C port.

iVRy, who has hacked the PSVR1 to support PC, is in the process of hacking the PSVR2 and even they state that Sony’s solution might be just streaming to the headset because of the issues with implementing direct USB-C support. There might be wired streaming (similar to Oculus), though it’s still early days.

I get the hype (I have the headset myself) but I’m definitely going to temper my expectations until Sony releases more info on it.

I’d imagine it’ll work through something like Steam Link like the Quest line of headsets do. Which is still nice, but that means for me trying to invest in networking gear that may or may not work. 😩

(and I’ve tried powerline, I’ve gone through three of those things, they all have a habit of disconnecting unless I ping my router. Someone on Twitter suggested that I rewire my entire house as if I can afford to do that. 😐)

Jay Graber is the CEO, dunno about the investors but I don’t care tbh. If Bluesky does go to shit, the protocol lets me move away without losing my data.

Bluesky’s development has been pretty democratic, moreso than Mastodon where one guy basically leads the entire trajectory of the fediverse (at least from a mainstream perspective) from what I heard.

As for Jack, hasn’t been on Bluesky for a while now - he prefers Nostr. Even though he’s on the board, he’s not attended any meetings nor has he dictated how the platform should go. He just threw money at it and ran after the community didn’t take him seriously.

This all implies Bluesky can be considered a massive tech corp (which it honestly isn’t even with investors, definitely not compared to Meta, or even Mozilla at this point), and can even be monetised.

In the event that they do attempt that, users can move to a different PDS and not lose any of their data - that’s how AT was built. While on AP, it’s dependent on if the software powering the account supports migration, and even then I’ve not seen an implementation that carries over all of the user’s data (Mastodon only does followers/following, Lemmy has no migration whatsoever). That’s not to say it’s impossible, but I’ve not seen it happen.

I think the moderation will be an uphill battle for Bluesky. I haven’t seen a clear answer over how legal issues are going to be handled and generally, people want some form of moderation. Maybe not the extent that the fediverse has with its blocking drama.

But the resiliency against corporate capture and community ownership, meh I’m not really worried. I work with and use open-source projects that have been backed by corporations, Mastodon.social has already said they wish to federate with Threads, and there are corporations sponsoring (in the case of mastodonapp.uk) or outright owning instances (in the case of Flipboard, Mozilla Social and Vivaldi Social). Bluesky seems to be built on the notion that it too will be a possible adversary in the future, so the protocol is being built with that in mind.

Before I hopped onto Bluesky, I was one of those fediverse evangelists trying to get my friends onto it. Except, I couldn’t give a solid answer to the fediblock problem, and my friends definitely saw right through it or were confused about it. And I can’t blame them. They don’t want to worry about federation, or whether one instance will be blocked by the other over some drama. Meanwhile since Bluesky has been opening up more, I’ve only seen the fediverse grow more toxic towards Bluesky, to the point where it’s exhausting to be part of.

There’s no native iPad mode. 😩

Thankfully there is an app that’s iPad native named, uh, Skeets.

AFAIK, Bluesky started on ActivityPub at first, but then it was decided to make a new protocol which resulted in Atproto. It also started as an internal project at Twitter, was funded by Jack, but then as it got popular amongst a more regular audience, he left when he kept getting pestered with @ mentions and anti-crypto stuff. He hangs out at Nostr now and from what I’ve been told, isn’t really involved in Bluesky’s meetings.

There was an effort to bridge Bluesky/Atproto, ActivityPub and also Nostr together - Bridgy Fed - for when Bluesky started getting their protocol federating outside its own network. The issue was, the creator made it opt-out rather than opt-in. The AP fediverse collectively shat themselves, spreading their delusions about Bluesky, one guy called the creator a rapist for using public data and another threatened to sue/fine the creator. It was absolutely bonkers and that incident exemplifies a good part of why people find the fediverse to be toxic, moreso than anything involving Threads.

Yeah, from some cursory glances and following of AT devs, some things I understand the logic of and some things I’m thinking “isn’t this a bit over-engineered?”

Going to copy-paste the comment I posted on the cross-post:

I am going to temper my expectations a bit, since the article is specifically singling out their clause on accessing additional games. But at the same time, I am huffing the hopium since Sony has upstreamed PlayStation controller drivers to the Linux kernel, so they might be receptive to supporting SteamVR, Steam Link or something equivalent, if possible.

(No, before you ask, I’m not expecting Linux support on PSVR2.)