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He may not, but I do:

http://www.live.com/

Now there is something on the .NET platform that Microsoft is making called "Atlas". It builds on AJAX but allows a developer to write ASP.NET server controls that render AJAX-ish code. At least that's the concept, I believe. Will be nice to see how it pans out.

For what it's worth, Live.com (and Start.com before it) uses Atlas. Building Gadgets for Live.com/Start.com is a good way to get your feet wet with Atlas, though they could do a better job of providing documentation.

And writing emails to these guys doesn't help.

And writing emails to these guys doesn't help.

Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/compat/0.082 305.0-private/AtlasCompat.js: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 218
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/runtime/0.10 0305.0/AtlasRuntime.js: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression window.attachEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/bindings/0.1 01005.0/AtlasBindings.js: TypeError: Undefined value
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/js/App.js?v=1.0.4.201.1: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 3
Error: http://www.live.com/: TypeError: Undefined value

Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/compat/0.082 305.0-private/AtlasCompat.js: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 218
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/runtime/0.10 0305.0/AtlasRuntime.js: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression window.attachEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/bindings/0.1 01005.0/AtlasBindings.js: TypeError: Undefined value
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/js/App.js?v=1.0.4.201.1: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 3
Error: http://www.live.com/: TypeError: Undefined value

Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/compat/0.082 305.0-private/AtlasCompat.js: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 218
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/runtime/0.10 0305.0/AtlasRuntime.js: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression window.attachEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/bindings/0.1 01005.0/AtlasBindings.js: TypeError: Undefined value
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/js/App.js?v=1.0.4.201.1: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 3
Error: http://www.live.com/: TypeError: Undefined value

Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/compat/0.082 305.0-private/AtlasCompat.js: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 218
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/runtime/0.10 0305.0/AtlasRuntime.js: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression window.attachEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/bindings/0.1 01005.0/AtlasBindings.js: TypeError: Undefined value
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/js/App.js?v=1.0.4.201.1: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 3
Error: http://www.live.com/: TypeError: Undefined value

Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/compat/0.082 305.0-private/AtlasCompat.js: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 218
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/runtime/0.10 0305.0/AtlasRuntime.js: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression window.attachEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/extern/atlas/bindings/0.1 01005.0/AtlasBindings.js: TypeError: Undefined value
Error: http://stj.live.com/live/js/App.js?v=1.0.4.201.1: SyntaxError: Parse error at line 3
Error: http://www.live.com/: TypeError: Undefined value

I've just typed "what is windows live" at http://www.live.com/
The result is http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=LIVE&q=wha t+is+windows+live

And guess what the Microsoft(R) AdWord(R) for that search is?

"SPONSORED SITES
Windows Problems? - www.yourtechonline.com
Get professional computer help now. Fast, friendly techs standing by. Call now for a free consultation and repair estimate...."

It really speaks for itself...

If you go to www.live.com and click on "Top Feeds", Slashdot is the #1 feed!

I'm glad Microsoft is getting involved, competition is good thing. But as long as there is some improvement or change from version to version. I saw the http://www.google.com/ig website as a marked improvement over start.com. I currently dont see http://www.live.com/ as an improvement over Google's, though I understand that may not be the main purpose. The real interesting part will be if Google decides to up the ante and improve their portal or if they decide to leave it as it is, just happy that they distracted Microsoft long enough and had them use up resources to get to a point they were already at.

My sentiments exactly except I don't think they even tried to extend it. It's a somewhat anemic version of the Google Personal Homepage with nary a hope of ever catching up. I am confounded by the "Windows Live" aspect, but in fairness it is in Beta. Perhaps an Internet based bootable OS is right around the corner. From Microsoft I mean. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAHAHAHHAHAH!!!!

Have you even tried using Live.com? Sure, it's superficially like Google's personalized home page, but it does more than that. First off, Live.com is from the Start.com project, which has been around longer than Google's personal page (as others have already pointed out), and thus Google is copying Microsoft. BWAHAHAHA. Ahem. Second, Live.com is more "slick", for lack of a better word. You can change the number of columns (want 2 columns instead of 3? only 1 long column?), and the interface just feels "smoother" than Google's (not sure if it's the colors, fonts, icons, or what, and I'll agree that this is really personal preference).

Third, and probably most importantly, Live.com is much more customizable than Google's page. Sure, you can add or remove certain canned items or create a new "section" from a search or a feed on Google's page. You can do that on Live.com as well. However, you can also write your own "gadgets" to add on to the page that are not just RSS feeds. I'm sure Google has the knowledge and talent to be able to do something like that, but you can't deny that Live.com does things Google Personal doesn't.

As for the name "Windows Live", the Slashdot article title is just completely stupid. This is not an "Internet Version of Windows", but a companion. The "Live" naming obviously comes from Xbox Live, which is not an "Internet Version of Xbox" but a companion service that allows you to communicate and interact in new and interesting ways with your Xbox ("new" and "interesting" as applied to Xbox, as online gaming, voice chat, and friends lists have all obviously been done elsewhere before Xbox Live). "Windows Live" is obviously aiming at that same idea. Whether they get there or not is still yet to be seen, but at least they're trying. That the beginning looks like stuff we've already seen (though to be fair, we did see it from Microsoft before Google) isn't the point. Go to Windows Live Ideas and look at some of the stuff that's coming. Live Mail is just parity, but Windows Live Safety Center looks pretty cool, as does Windows Live Favorites (okay, so it only imports from IE and not Firefox, but a) it is Beta, and b) it is still Microsoft ...). And it sounds like this is just the beginning. Maybe the whole Windows Live thing will fizzle out with nothing more than a neat portal and a modern web mail client, but it could also turn into something really cool.

Microsoft is back!

Troll me, if you will, but nobody really saw this coming, at least none of the Google and Apple fanboys on /. And did you see all the features and the fact that you can build on top of it.

Oh, and for those who don't know, Microsoft Start.com development has supported Mozilla based browsers for over a year. Anyway, it's good for innovation.

I dont really feel like this is directly competing with anything google has atm. The Google personalized portal thing is (as many people have already said) basically the same as start.com, both of which bring your internet to one page - frequent sites, news, mail etc. This new windows live seems more like its going to bring together your local pc and your internet life. Granted, it doesnt do much of this at the moment, but the ideas page mentions pc files. Make it easy enough to use, and slap an icon on the windows start menu they could easily make this the way people do basically anything with their pc. (Want to work on a word document? Fire up the Windows Live page!)

Given how limited it is at the moment though, google still has enough chance to make up something that similarly makes you think Google whenever you have a task/problem.

Personally though, i dont really care who wins, aslong as its not just one company. Whatever google (and yahoo and everyone else) comes up with doesnt need to be a Microsoft killer, it just needs to be something Microsoft cant kill. Otherwise in ten years, microsoft will be going bust and we will all be complaining google has a monopoly over our internet browser office suites with few companies able to use an alternative because of the big discounts google is giving them and the new propriety format meaning it doesnt always look the same. Still, we can always hope one state will demand all departments use Suns version because it uses an open format. And of course, microsoft will start to turn around when they release a new portable device (with a web store) thats more expensive than the current unpopular ones, but it looks soo good... And its ok that they build a monopoly on this device, because they are the good guys and google is the evil empire.

You can find it on this page: http://ideas.live.com/ What it gives you Previews of your messages you can read without leaving your inbox Drag-and-drop organization One-click control over junk and scam e-mails Right-click power--reply, delete, and forward 2 GB of storage (2 GB = 2,000,000,000 bytes) Will it be like myname@wmail.com? :-) Looks very familiar... can't remember where I saw a similar e-mail service... with ~2GB inbox...

Yeah, it's called multicast, a router level ip broadcast protocol. It was shot down by (most of) the isp's because of the belief that it would lead to more bandwidth usage and because of the (slightly) higher hardware costs (and costs of upgrading hardware). It's the right way to do it that was not persued due to financial reasons. Now, they have to deal with duplication of unicast streams which use up much, much, much, much more bandwidth.

Actually, since I use the excellent mplayer with live.com RTSP streaming, I don't care if its Real, or WMP, or Quicktime. All three are over my crapware threshold, so I run Linux! (Although Real is the absolute worst piece of spyware, QT is real bad, and you can't get rid of WMP if you try).

Is there a Linux alternative?

Recent versions of MPlayer can play realaudio streams if you compile with Live library support. MPlayer will even let you save a stream to disk with the -dumpstream flag, which is nice if you want to do timeshifting.

Eh? No, LGPL.

1. mplayer -v [path/url to mov-file]

1. mplayer -vid [video track nr] -aid [audio track nr] [path/url to .mov file]

...and other high-bandwidth LANs: vobStreamer

Ok - when you look at the page, you want to find the EMBED tag that holds the movie, so try the following command:
curl http://www.apple.com/trailers/columbia/charliesang elsfullthrottle/large_trailer.html | grep EMBED
Looking at the embed tag, you will see that it references two quick time movies, one as a SRC argument, and one as a HREF argument. If both are given, you want the HREF, otherwise, you want the SRC.
here is the link from the HREF option. It is the reference file for the movie.

Now, download it and run strings on it. You will see several instances of "url" on one line, and a url on the next line. These are the movies that the reference movie points to. Almost always, the first several will be to inform users that they have too old of a version of quick time (they usually have a quicktime version embedded in the name. ) skip over them.

at the end of the file, you will see this: ca2_fullthrottle-tlr_m480.mov - that is the relative path to the real movie file.

Take the URL for the reference file, and replace ca2_fullthrottle-tlr_481.mov with ca2_fullthrottle-tlr_m480.mov, and you will have this - the url for the actual movie data file.

This technique should work, even if Apple changes their convention of just adding a m before the size of the movie, to indicate the real file.

This also only works if the movie is being served over http. If it is over rtsp, you will need some extra tools.

I hope this helps. If you get confused, here is a decompiled version of the reference file, so that you can see in plain text what all of the embedded urls are for.

There is an RTP encapsulation format for MP3 (two of them, in fact), so you can multicast it or RTSP it. But Shoutcast/Icecast pseudo-streaming is so entrenched that virtually no one is interested in standards-based MP3 streaming.

Currently, realplayer still seems to be the only option for those wanting to play realaudio streams. Quite annoying, especially when trying to record internet radio. mplayer still can't do this, for example. live.com has some info on this. Seems the protocol is undocumented.

So, I'm wondering whether the Helix server or possibly client contains code documenting RDT, which would allow either integrating that code into the live.com libraries, or at least reimplementing it.

(And yes, it's all open source.)

(But no, it doesn't do the Real Networks challenge-response either :-(

Not quite true. MPlayer now has support for RTSP/RTP streaming.

> I've installed mplayer on two SuSE 8.0 linux machines, and it's amazing.
> You can see DVD's, AVI's and even look at at microsoft media streams.

Even better, mplayer can now play open standard RTSP/RTP streams.

I really like my Vaio, thought the price was fair for the features 18 months ago and the screen is great.

But now I have 802.11b set up and wanted to take my laptop to the local coffee shop with no-fee WiFi service. Got there only to find myself with a "Battery less than 10% charged...shutting down" message on bootup. Oddly the battery showed 100% charged when I left home but I'd never tried to use the battery before.

Calling the Sony support line I got the same "Pay us $20 before we'll talk with you" message. They don't even stock the battery on the website by now (18/19 months after purchase) and other stores want at least $183.

Fsck Sony! But are other companies all that much better? MS, Dell, HP, Sun have all been slammed here in the recent past. Laptops are not really build at home projects after all. Fsck them all!

See this link.

Also, source code libraries for multicast streaming (using RTP) are available here ("LIVE.COM Streaming Media")

try checking out this article linked to from bawug. I do this at home already (FreeBSD, Lucent Orinoco Silver card.

Having worked for and help start a company that did multicasting. There is not a lot of support for multicasting on the big DSL companies. Part of the reason is the way their infrastructure is built. Basically they run a pipe, (T1/DS3/etc...) out to a pop. Then they build atm pvc's (at real low bandwidth) to each one of their customers, all the way back to their noc. So their is no benefit to multicast enable their equipment. A couple of the bigger cable ISP's are either multicast enabled now, or will be very shortly once the DOCSIS 1.1 stuff roles out onto their networks. If you are stuck on a non-multicast network and would like to play, take a look at livegate from http://www.live.com. It should be useful in getting you connected. You may get lucky with a smaller dsl provider, but most of the time, there aren't that many people that know how or care to enable multicast, and also not all of the Backbone providers support it.

Hope this Helps,

Patrick

ps. Why don't all /. articles go on the front page? Most readers probably don't even know that non-front-page articles (like this one) even exist.

One benefit over "Obsequium" is that liveCaster implements RTCP (RTP's companion status reporting protocol), and (optionally) sends SDP announcements for its session. liveCaster also optionally supports an alternative, more loss-tolerant payload format.

liveCaster (and the RTP plugin for Winamp) is built from the Open Source "LIVE.COM Streaming Media" library.

One benefit over "Obsequium" is that liveCaster implements RTCP (RTP's companion status reporting protocol), and (optionally) sends SDP announcements for its session. liveCaster also optionally supports an alternative, more loss-tolerant payload format.

liveCaster (and the RTP plugin for Winamp) is built from the Open Source "LIVE.COM Streaming Media" library.

One benefit over "Obsequium" is that liveCaster implements RTCP (RTP's companion status reporting protocol), and (optionally) sends SDP announcements for its session. liveCaster also optionally supports an alternative, more loss-tolerant payload format.

liveCaster (and the RTP plugin for Winamp) is built from the Open Source "LIVE.COM Streaming Media" library.

For more details, see http://www.live.com/wireless /un ix-base-station.html

Serendipity. This discussion appeared on Slashdot just hours after I'd finished writing this document, which describes how you can use a Unix (including Linux) computer as a 802.11 wireless base station.

"TheSync" wrote:
---------
Mark told the webcasting mailing list that scaling meant:

"how economically and gracefully a server delivering a stream scales...its easy to deliver 100 simultaneous streams, it gets a lot harder delivering 100k simultaneous streams and more. So its how the server scales, how the server interacts withother servers and with users and what kind of programming interfaces are available to enable all of this"

I believe that Mark is thinking in his own terms of Broadcast.Com, which needs to be capable of serving a potential 100k streams. MP3 would have to be packaged in something like Shoutcast or Icecast that is dependable and scalable to this level. It isn't...yet.
-----------

True, although the "scalable" part, at least, is beginning to be addressed. For instance, check out "liveCaster", which streams MP3 using multicast. This allows a single outgoing 'pipe' - even a modem connection - to reach a potentially unlimited audience (provided, of course, that they are on the Multicast Internet (aka. "MBone")).

For example, you can use a program like " liveCaster " to multicast your MP3 streams. (There's a Linux version.)