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Silverlight 3.0 Released, Allows Apps Outside the Browser

Many different sources are reporting that Microsoft has unleashed the third major version of Silverlight to the masses. With 3.0 we see things like better 3D graphics support, the ability to offload tasks to a GPU, and the ability to run apps outside of the browser. "Silverlight's video capabilities have always been impressive when compared to Flash, and the new version boasts some new features that should keep the competition with Flash hot. It uses a media broadcasting technology Microsoft calls Smooth Streaming, an adaptive technology for playing the same H.264 video stream at the highest bitrate the device and its bandwidth limitations will allow. So if you've got a fast computer with an HD monitor and a wide open pipe, you'll see super high quality video at up to full 1080p HD. If you've got a dinky smartphone with mid-level data service, you'll see a constrained version of the same video."

5 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Great by V!NCENT · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    More crap from MS that nobody cares about, that people will hate, that will lead to lock in, that will add nothing new, etc.

    I am not the geeky/nerdy person that will throw parties whenever there's a new AmaroK release or something, but when Windows dies I will celebrate it with a party!

    C'mon Microsoft Yes Man (C)(TM)(R). Mod me down. Make my day.

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    Here be signatures
  2. Re:Linux? Microsoft anti-competitive move? by mozzis · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why should MS support their competition? Why don't you Linux whiners develop your own "integrated set of application programming tools for creating compelling applications, content, and video for every possible audience"?

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  3. Ah you are totally wrong. by tjstork · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

    Clone of Flash? Hardly? If you would have actually tried to implement something in Silverlight, you might have noticed that Microsoft actually blew off matching Flash in visual effects in order to have better server side connectivity and more developer features.

    Besides, I'd take C# over ActionScript, any day of the fricking week.

    And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

    First off, let me know when an HTML 5 browser actually -ships- that works. The best we have right now is a handful of -moz and -webkit extra tags for things like rounded corners and multicolumn text, which is cool, but, even rounded corners do not concurrently work with drop shadows in the latest Chrome.

    Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

    I program on both Linux and Windows. I have both, and use both, and while Linux has many strengths, I wouldn't be one to say that Windows is a dinosaur..

    Let me know when Gnome or KDE have file dialogs that don't suck:

    A user perspective breakdown of Windows 7 vs Ubuntu Linux, that's actually objective

    That's not to say Linux doesn't have its merits, it does, but if you want to see a dinosaur, go ahead and invoke FileOpenASuarus-Sux on any Linux box.

    Besides, if Linux is so great from stem to stern, why on earth did Google go out of their way to tell everyone that they got rid of the windowing system in Linux and wrote their own? Have you even thought that ChromeOS, if open, really means that X-Windows is dead, and every Linux will be using Google Desktop?

    That's going to be the Linux of the future, an FOSS of sorts but not exactly its ok Chrome OS gradually replacing woefully obsolete X windows with a stack that will likely be increasingly proprietary.

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  4. Re:I would call it a hypercompetitive move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Yo - fuckface - how's this for a reality check:

    Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5

    That's right. An OS that nobody's ever seen, and a spec that's not even been ratified yet. MS is desperately trying to compete with them, using version 3 of Silverlight. I want some of whatever it is you're smoking.

    If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s...

    Let me welcome you to 2009 motherfucker. In the year 2009, even MS themselves don't have any illusions of invincibility left. You can stop harping on incessantly about these stupid fucking standards-subverting conspiracy theories of yours.

    Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

    Hating Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to go outside and try to get laid. Or at least stop sucking Steve Jobs dick..

    Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0 [appleinsider.com]

    Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble [roughlydrafted.com]

    Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune [roughlydrafted.com]

    Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft [roughlydrafted.com]
     

    I hope you didn't wet yourself with those links that point back to your own site full of deranged shit? Win7 is MS's next Zune.. ZOMG! When are you going to grow the fuck up, Daniel?

  5. Re:H.264 licensing by jmorris42 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    > Moonlight will have H.264, but we are working towards our first beta of Moonlight 2.0

    You do realize that this is why you have failed. The only point(?) of Moonlight is to allow Linux/Unix users to access Silverlight content. So how many sites are still using Silverlight 1.0? And you might get 2.0 out the door and be working on 3.0 before Microsoft releases 4.0. Chasing the taillights of a corporation with an unlimited development budget is a losing game. If they aren't going to give you guys an inside track (under NDA perhaps?) so that you can release within a few months of a new 'upstream' release there isn't a lot of point to the effort. Or am I missing something?

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