Well yeah that was my point to start with. They, like a lot of big industry players, are IN the MPEG-LA patent pool so why wouldn't they use h.264 over some Google thing where Google refuses to indemnify against possible patent suits ? It benefits no one but Google and maybe a handful of Linux desktop partisans that amount to a rounding error in the global view.
"The focus of Greenpeace's ire is a new data center in North Carolina. North Carolina's electricity grid is largely powered by coal and according to the group Apple's decision to locate the data center there shows "a lack of a corporate commitment to clean energy supply for its cloud operations"."
Christ, now Apple's to be held responsible for how the electricity on the grid is generated too ? Where will this madness end ?
Adventure games rock on an iPad. I really enjoyed playing through Monkey Island 1 and 2 again on mine. I really want to try Sam & Max for iPad too but I haven't found the time yet.
That's in the context of a particular piece of hardware which happens to produce an H.264 stream. The Skype blog post cited by Wikipedia doesn't say anything about H.264 being used preferentially for full high definition video calls and doesn't imply that a web cam which produces a full high definition VP8 stream wouldn't be supported. You're reading too much into it.
Hrm, I was relying on that wikipedia entry for my info so I'll concede that that I may be wrong on that point. It doesn't change the fact however that Skype does now support h.264 and webcams are implementing h.264 in hardware in order to prevent burdening the CPU like the other codecs do. Further more it seems Skype had to go h.264 in order to support a variety of portable and embedded devices :
"Skype’s decision to adopt H.264 was made because it has become the de facto codec for video delivery across a wide range of devices. Due to hardware acceleration built into low-powered devices such as TVs, Blu-ray players and mobile handsets, video publishers have increasingly turned to H.264 for video playback."
Rather than moving away from it, Skype has been adding support for VP8 over the last year:
Yes, they upgraded from V7 to it's newer version WebM, née V8, + h.264. Wikipedia :
"VP7 is used for versions prior to Skype 5.5. As of version 5.7 VP8 is used for both group and one on one standard definition video chat and H264 is used for 720p and 1080p high definition group and one on one video chat."
And of course this was reported as Skype moving to WebM. That's technically correct I guess (the best kind of correct) but you'll see that where there was one, there are now two and the part that's the future, HD quality video, is in h.264. That that's counted as a win is indicative of just how much WebM advocates are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
My list was a list of licensors, yours one of users (and includes some pretty small time freeware at that). A list of h.264 users would take up the page. Secondly, your list is padded: several Google entities listed in there separately for example. Others aren't even tech companies but advocacy groups. Thirdly, I see a lot of companies that may have provided documentation but to my knowledge haven't implemented anything, like all those processor manufacturers on the list. And finally some, like Skype are simply legacy users that were using this codec before it was open sourced (V7 in this case) and have since actually partially moved away from it (h.264 for HD chat).
List of H.264 licensors : Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Canada IP Holdings Company, Cisco Technology, Inc., DAEWOO Electronics Corporation, Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, France Télécom, société anonyme*, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. , Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd., JVC KENWOOD Corporation*, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., LG Electronics Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Polycom, Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sedna Patent Services, LLC, Sharp Corporation, Siemens AG, Sony Corporation, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Toshiba Corporation
List of companies supporting WebM: Google, Mozilla
All the above companies can make use of H.264 knowing they won't get screwed because they are on the inside. What guarantee do they have they won't get screwed by some patent covering some of WebM ? A lot are competing directly or indirectly with Google, what guarantee do they have Google won't screw them ? A lot of those companies are developing hardware right now that has existing H.264 hardware decode and/or encode support (already an industry standard), what would they gain by throwing that away and starting from scratch and coming to market god knows when ? Face it: WebM hasn't got, and never had, a shot. Either it's a cheap viral marketing campaign for Google or someone up there is pretty deluded about their clout in the tech world.
Not to mention the fact they are incessantly trying to solve yesterday's problems. I guess it makes sense seeing as FOSS started as a re-implementation of existing tech in the first place, still it's a shame they haven't been able to outgrow their roots.
I have some bad news for you: if you own a smart phone you already have paid because it contains a H.264 hardware decoder that's licensed. Now what's wrong with Mozilla using that existing hardware to get some decent performance instead of using an outside codec that will lead to lousy performance and worse battery life on the meagre content that's available to it ?
Those companies didn't have to implement WebM because they already had implemented H.264. In format wars Johnny-come-lately = also-ran. Plus why use a competitors' format, WebM, when you can use your own ? People are quick to call "patent trap" when Microsoft releases something "open", but when it's Google everyone has to trust blindly ?
It's a fair point although I think you are overstating the importance of the information they can get from this. Tracking a download back to its source is tricky at the best of times as Slashdot keeps pointing out again and again in MAFIAA discussions.
A child is not "more innocent" than the man in question. They are no less obligated to protect him (following your reasoning).
Yes it is. The child was not in possession of illegal images nor is it capable of defending itself if it were in an abusive relationship with the parent. It is more vulnerable that its father and therefor its rights must take precedence.
My comment was poorly worded. How's this : if there is an indication a crime may have been committed (like the presence of child porn) the police has to gather the necessary evidence and take reasonable action to prevent the defendant runs away or potentially commits further crimes until such time as the courts have decided if there is a case and prosecute, at which time the jury should proceed with an assumption of innocence. Not as snappy. Now if you want to argue that not leaving the guy alone with his daughter is excessive compared to the risk that would be a valid point (though not one we could make based on our limited knowledge of the particulars), but doing nothing is not an option.
This was my thought too. Even worse, if it was a set-up then the police would certainly come knocking one day and find you'd destroyed the evidence which looks pretty bad. Still, I probably wouldn't have called the police myself.
It's the court's job to assume you are innocent until proven otherwise, it's the police's job to assume you are guilty and find the evidence to support that and make sure you are at the court's disposal.
It's common sense for the police to treat the man as if he's lying. If the police assume he's telling the truth they risk putting a child in danger (and failing in their duty to protect the innocent) but if they assume he's lying then they can take measures.
Slashdot Mirror
Why they were even bothering with the unlock screen rather than just slurping up all the data on the phone with a UFED is beyond me.
Because cops are idiots and the only reason the system works is because criminals are usually even dumber ?
Well yeah that was my point to start with. They, like a lot of big industry players, are IN the MPEG-LA patent pool so why wouldn't they use h.264 over some Google thing where Google refuses to indemnify against possible patent suits ? It benefits no one but Google and maybe a handful of Linux desktop partisans that amount to a rounding error in the global view.
"The focus of Greenpeace's ire is a new data center in North Carolina. North Carolina's electricity grid is largely powered by coal and according to the group Apple's decision to locate the data center there shows "a lack of a corporate commitment to clean energy supply for its cloud operations"."
Christ, now Apple's to be held responsible for how the electricity on the grid is generated too ? Where will this madness end ?
Adventure games rock on an iPad. I really enjoyed playing through Monkey Island 1 and 2 again on mine. I really want to try Sam & Max for iPad too but I haven't found the time yet.
That's in the context of a particular piece of hardware which happens to produce an H.264 stream. The Skype blog post cited by Wikipedia doesn't say anything about H.264 being used preferentially for full high definition video calls and doesn't imply that a web cam which produces a full high definition VP8 stream wouldn't be supported. You're reading too much into it.
Hrm, I was relying on that wikipedia entry for my info so I'll concede that that I may be wrong on that point. It doesn't change the fact however that Skype does now support h.264 and webcams are implementing h.264 in hardware in order to prevent burdening the CPU like the other codecs do. Further more it seems Skype had to go h.264 in order to support a variety of portable and embedded devices :
"Skype’s decision to adopt H.264 was made because it has become the de facto codec for video delivery across a wide range of devices. Due to hardware acceleration built into low-powered devices such as TVs, Blu-ray players and mobile handsets, video publishers have increasingly turned to H.264 for video playback."
Rather than moving away from it, Skype has been adding support for VP8 over the last year:
Yes, they upgraded from V7 to it's newer version WebM, née V8, + h.264. Wikipedia :
"VP7 is used for versions prior to Skype 5.5. As of version 5.7 VP8 is used for both group and one on one standard definition video chat and H264 is used for 720p and 1080p high definition group and one on one video chat."
And of course this was reported as Skype moving to WebM. That's technically correct I guess (the best kind of correct) but you'll see that where there was one, there are now two and the part that's the future, HD quality video, is in h.264. That that's counted as a win is indicative of just how much WebM advocates are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
My list was a list of licensors, yours one of users (and includes some pretty small time freeware at that). A list of h.264 users would take up the page. Secondly, your list is padded: several Google entities listed in there separately for example. Others aren't even tech companies but advocacy groups. Thirdly, I see a lot of companies that may have provided documentation but to my knowledge haven't implemented anything, like all those processor manufacturers on the list. And finally some, like Skype are simply legacy users that were using this codec before it was open sourced (V7 in this case) and have since actually partially moved away from it (h.264 for HD chat).
List of H.264 licensors :
Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Canada IP Holdings Company, Cisco Technology, Inc., DAEWOO Electronics Corporation, Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, France Télécom, société anonyme*, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. , Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd., JVC KENWOOD Corporation*, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., LG Electronics Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Polycom, Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sedna Patent Services, LLC, Sharp Corporation, Siemens AG, Sony Corporation, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Toshiba Corporation
List of companies supporting WebM:
Google, Mozilla
All the above companies can make use of H.264 knowing they won't get screwed because they are on the inside. What guarantee do they have they won't get screwed by some patent covering some of WebM ? A lot are competing directly or indirectly with Google, what guarantee do they have Google won't screw them ? A lot of those companies are developing hardware right now that has existing H.264 hardware decode and/or encode support (already an industry standard), what would they gain by throwing that away and starting from scratch and coming to market god knows when ? Face it: WebM hasn't got, and never had, a shot. Either it's a cheap viral marketing campaign for Google or someone up there is pretty deluded about their clout in the tech world.
Not to mention the fact they are incessantly trying to solve yesterday's problems. I guess it makes sense seeing as FOSS started as a re-implementation of existing tech in the first place, still it's a shame they haven't been able to outgrow their roots.
I have some bad news for you: if you own a smart phone you already have paid because it contains a H.264 hardware decoder that's licensed. Now what's wrong with Mozilla using that existing hardware to get some decent performance instead of using an outside codec that will lead to lousy performance and worse battery life on the meagre content that's available to it ?
Those companies didn't have to implement WebM because they already had implemented H.264. In format wars Johnny-come-lately = also-ran. Plus why use a competitors' format, WebM, when you can use your own ? People are quick to call "patent trap" when Microsoft releases something "open", but when it's Google everyone has to trust blindly ?
They'll be dropped in an open way.
That depends on how well it's handled by the authorities. It seems the kid is always with either her mother or grandmother so she'll probably manage.
It's a fair point although I think you are overstating the importance of the information they can get from this. Tracking a download back to its source is tricky at the best of times as Slashdot keeps pointing out again and again in MAFIAA discussions.
They should've called you Dorothy instead of Dave because you sure love straw men.
A child is not "more innocent" than the man in question. They are no less obligated to protect him (following your reasoning).
Yes it is. The child was not in possession of illegal images nor is it capable of defending itself if it were in an abusive relationship with the parent. It is more vulnerable that its father and therefor its rights must take precedence.
My comment was poorly worded. How's this : if there is an indication a crime may have been committed (like the presence of child porn) the police has to gather the necessary evidence and take reasonable action to prevent the defendant runs away or potentially commits further crimes until such time as the courts have decided if there is a case and prosecute, at which time the jury should proceed with an assumption of innocence. Not as snappy. Now if you want to argue that not leaving the guy alone with his daughter is excessive compared to the risk that would be a valid point (though not one we could make based on our limited knowledge of the particulars), but doing nothing is not an option.
This was my thought too. Even worse, if it was a set-up then the police would certainly come knocking one day and find you'd destroyed the evidence which looks pretty bad. Still, I probably wouldn't have called the police myself.
Everybody who is in possession of child pornography will need to prove they are innocent, even if self-reported, yes. How is that a bad thing ?
It's the court's job to assume you are innocent until proven otherwise, it's the police's job to assume you are guilty and find the evidence to support that and make sure you are at the court's disposal.
It's Pascal's wager for cops :
A) Guy's a pedophile
Do nothing: a child gets abused, serious reputation damage for police
Do something: child is OK
B) Guy's not a pedophile
Do nothing: child is OK
Do something: minor reputation damage for police
Not difficult to see which option the police should be choosing there.
It's common sense for the police to treat the man as if he's lying. If the police assume he's telling the truth they risk putting a child in danger (and failing in their duty to protect the innocent) but if they assume he's lying then they can take measures.
As an Amiga user I used to laugh at stories like that from DOS users. Of course I didn't get the last laugh.
It is on OSX.
Yeah I remember Frontier: Elite 2 came with a manual, star chart poster and a booklet of short stories set in the Elite universe. Good times.