If you only put Theora videos on your site, they won't be viewable in Safari (using default Quicktime components), iPhone or Android.
If you install the Xiph Quicktime components you will be able to view them in Safari. Supporting locked platforms like the iPhone, Android, or WebOS is a matter of your personal ethics. I personally file it in the same bin as supporting software patents myself.
Why is Paypal freezing their account? Paypal isn't saying and Wikileaks doesn't know? If Paypal is selectively freezing accounts of NGOs and charities, as the article suggests, why is that so?
First, as many people have noted, these stripes could easily be due to events that have world-wide interest, and the spikes due to regional events. Without knowing the site involved there's not much point in speculating.
Second, if I was the admin at the unnamed site I'd be pissed that he'd disclosed firewall trace information to a data-mining company.
Third, not disclosing his relationship to the graphing company is pretty dodgy.
I already have a perfectly good place for temp data... my Clie. I'm sure that whatever handheld you use, whether it's a phone or a PDA, has a similar function built in. Now it's not as handy as it once was, in that I can no longer depend on being able to beam notes to co-workers back when everyone was using PalmOS or Windows CE (both of which supported Palm's IR beaming), but it's still an order of magnitude more convenient than a sticky note or a big clunky tablet.
I entirely agree with you, however it's irrelevant to the fact that if Mozilla doesn't provide a way for people to license other codecs if they want they're going to watch their market share go back to where it was ten years ago.
Right now there's two bad choices if you want to watch Yotube videos. You can use a proprietary plug-in that's already had a devastating effect on web usability (to the point where one of the most popular browser plugins is Flashblock), or you can use an open API that incidentally requires you to have a license for the video codec that Youtube chose to use. Almost all end-users already have licensed versions of this codec in their video cards and media players, AND hooks that let you use these implementations from the browser. Using those hooks, including FFMpeg, will let people use HTML5 video on Youtube without anyone being subject to patent lawsuits.
Currently, most of the web (Flash excluded) is free to generate. I can make an HTML document, or a tool to generate HTML documents, and render those HTML documents without paying or owing anybody anything. To legally generate H264 files, you must pay for a license. To build software that generates H264 files, the software company must pay for a license. And (possibly) after 2010, a viewer or viewer software may have to pay for a license to watch the content. These are some pretty huge issues to overcome.
Why would you use H.264 instead of Ogg Theora to create your videos? What we're talking about here is how you would play videos created by someone like Youtube. The standard doesn't mandate H.264. It just fails to mandate Ogg.
Yes, I read the patent page too. If you compile ffmpeg with the options I listed, you're not going to be using any such algorithms. If you provide a general plugin mechanism and ship a non-encumbered version of FFmpeg then people are free to license other codecs on their own.
Now a lot of things Steve says are pure marketing noise, but he was right on the money back in 2003 when he said:
The problem is, is that that has nothing to do with technology. And so when the Internet came along, and Napster came along, they didn't know what to make of it. A lot of these folks didn't use computers -- weren't on e-mail; didn't really know what Napster was for a few years. They were pretty doggone slow to react. Matter of fact, they still haven't really reacted, in many ways. And so they're fairly vulnerable to people telling them technical solutions will work, when they won't.
Because of their technological ignorance. Because of their technological innocence, I would say. When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.
Of course, music theft is nothing new. Didn't you listen to bootleg Bob Dylan? Of course. What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.
The ONLY thing that's making people think DRM will work for movies is that, just for the moment, movies are too big to throw around on the net like MP3s. But that's short term, and already eroding. It's like the first video games came out that needed CDs instead of floppies, you couldn't easily copy a CDROM, and CD images were too big to download over your dialup modem. That all changed, as media became bigger and bandwidth became cheaper, and downloading a CDs worth of data has been trivial for a long time. It's already happening to DVD, and it's going to happen to Blu-Ray as well.
Since the LGPLed FFmpeg library supports H.264 among other codecs, all they need to do is support it as a plugin. They can ship Firefox with a version compiled without "--enable-gpl" and without "--enable-nonfree".
Possibly, for some people, but it's like predicting that public transport will replace the private automobile. I would like to see that happen, and for many people they do, because the cost of getting that personal automobile is significant, or their specific circumstances make a private car inconvenient (eg, they live in New York or London). But where people can afford the private car, they get it. And the price differential between a general purpose computer and a collection of specialized devices that each do part of the job actually goes the other way. Maybe once the acquisition cost for entry level versions of any and all of these devices drops below $50-$100...
The article says that one of the designers "deliberately seeks out the uncanny" by making his robots buzz and click, by making them incomplete.
What this is doing is keeping them firmly on the "cartoon" side of any such valley. If it exists or not, robots that are deliberately avoiding it aren't evidence one way or the other.
I would personally agree that MySQL is not of the same quality as even PostgreSQL, but people ARE using it for business- and performance- critical applications regardless of its shortcomings.
Besides, even if we were to seriously consider, for the sake of argument, that Oracle would kill MySQL, I would say 'good riddance'. MySQL is a piece of crap, a toy database engine, and the world would be a better place if people would use decent alternatives instead.
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Quantum black holes are unstable. Now if they manage to create a tuned string we need to start worrying.
I'm just objecting to your so what.
If you only put Theora videos on your site, they won't be viewable in Safari (using default Quicktime components), iPhone or Android.
If you install the Xiph Quicktime components you will be able to view them in Safari. Supporting locked platforms like the iPhone, Android, or WebOS is a matter of your personal ethics. I personally file it in the same bin as supporting software patents myself.
Why is Paypal freezing their account? Paypal isn't saying and Wikileaks doesn't know? If Paypal is selectively freezing accounts of NGOs and charities, as the article suggests, why is that so?
First, as many people have noted, these stripes could easily be due to events that have world-wide interest, and the spikes due to regional events. Without knowing the site involved there's not much point in speculating.
Second, if I was the admin at the unnamed site I'd be pissed that he'd disclosed firewall trace information to a data-mining company.
Third, not disclosing his relationship to the graphing company is pretty dodgy.
Bad civic hygiene? So what, companies are supposed to tell the government "no" on their own?
No, the people are. That's the so what.
Why do everybody concentrates on blaming IE and Microsoft.
When I say "you shouldn't use IE", I'm not saying that to punish Microsoft, I'm saying it to help you.
why the hell was anybody using IE inside Google?
Oh, you understand that as well. Good.
I already have a perfectly good place for temp data... my Clie. I'm sure that whatever handheld you use, whether it's a phone or a PDA, has a similar function built in. Now it's not as handy as it once was, in that I can no longer depend on being able to beam notes to co-workers back when everyone was using PalmOS or Windows CE (both of which supported Palm's IR beaming), but it's still an order of magnitude more convenient than a sticky note or a big clunky tablet.
I entirely agree with you, however it's irrelevant to the fact that if Mozilla doesn't provide a way for people to license other codecs if they want they're going to watch their market share go back to where it was ten years ago.
Right now there's two bad choices if you want to watch Yotube videos. You can use a proprietary plug-in that's already had a devastating effect on web usability (to the point where one of the most popular browser plugins is Flashblock), or you can use an open API that incidentally requires you to have a license for the video codec that Youtube chose to use. Almost all end-users already have licensed versions of this codec in their video cards and media players, AND hooks that let you use these implementations from the browser. Using those hooks, including FFMpeg, will let people use HTML5 video on Youtube without anyone being subject to patent lawsuits.
Currently, most of the web (Flash excluded) is free to generate. I can make an HTML document, or a tool to generate HTML documents, and render those HTML documents without paying or owing anybody anything. To legally generate H264 files, you must pay for a license. To build software that generates H264 files, the software company must pay for a license. And (possibly) after 2010, a viewer or viewer software may have to pay for a license to watch the content. These are some pretty huge issues to overcome.
Why would you use H.264 instead of Ogg Theora to create your videos? What we're talking about here is how you would play videos created by someone like Youtube. The standard doesn't mandate H.264. It just fails to mandate Ogg.
Yes, I read the patent page too. If you compile ffmpeg with the options I listed, you're not going to be using any such algorithms. If you provide a general plugin mechanism and ship a non-encumbered version of FFmpeg then people are free to license other codecs on their own.
Now a lot of things Steve says are pure marketing noise, but he was right on the money back in 2003 when he said:
The ONLY thing that's making people think DRM will work for movies is that, just for the moment, movies are too big to throw around on the net like MP3s. But that's short term, and already eroding. It's like the first video games came out that needed CDs instead of floppies, you couldn't easily copy a CDROM, and CD images were too big to download over your dialup modem. That all changed, as media became bigger and bandwidth became cheaper, and downloading a CDs worth of data has been trivial for a long time. It's already happening to DVD, and it's going to happen to Blu-Ray as well.
The fact is that if I stop paying my license I would eventually face prison time and a criminal record. Is this right?
No, only if you wanted to watch TV.
In the past 30 years, the only time I have watched TV is when a relative or friend I was already spending time with wanted to watch something.
Just throw a DirectShow interface at the video player and quit shipping codecs.
How do you propose they do that on OS X or Linux?
The general idea is a good one, but FFmpeg is probably a more generaly useful approach.
Since the LGPLed FFmpeg library supports H.264 among other codecs, all they need to do is support it as a plugin. They can ship Firefox with a version compiled without "--enable-gpl" and without "--enable-nonfree".
I don't know if the artist is deliberately satirizing tulip bulb bubbles or not, but I think we all know what art is involved.
In the meantime you can buy The Art of the Con a good deal cheaper.
I hope the last buyer puts a teardown video on Youtube for Ars Technica types.
Can you think of any other interface that comes as close to this as the IPhone's?
My Handspring Visor, back in 2000.
... because I couldn't even stream the videos without jitter. :)
Possibly, for some people, but it's like predicting that public transport will replace the private automobile. I would like to see that happen, and for many people they do, because the cost of getting that personal automobile is significant, or their specific circumstances make a private car inconvenient (eg, they live in New York or London). But where people can afford the private car, they get it. And the price differential between a general purpose computer and a collection of specialized devices that each do part of the job actually goes the other way. Maybe once the acquisition cost for entry level versions of any and all of these devices drops below $50-$100...
But no-one doing so would have considered Oracle as an alternative. Ergo, no overlap.
I dearly wish you were right, but I've been to the meetings where decisions like this were made.
The article says that one of the designers "deliberately seeks out the uncanny" by making his robots buzz and click, by making them incomplete.
What this is doing is keeping them firmly on the "cartoon" side of any such valley. If it exists or not, robots that are deliberately avoiding it aren't evidence one way or the other.
Can someone please SERIOUSLY (no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
Nothing. It's just the next evolutionary step of the model Palm introduced in the '90s. It doesn't make sense for a tablet.
Now if they were to bring back the Newton scroll, that would be interesting.
I would personally agree that MySQL is not of the same quality as even PostgreSQL, but people ARE using it for business- and performance- critical applications regardless of its shortcomings.
The version of MySQL that Oracle can even potentially shut down, the dual-licensed one you pay for, does.
Sure, people who are happy with the GPL version aren't going to be using Oracle... but that version is out of Oracle's control.
(yes, I know that right now both of these are the same code base)
Besides, even if we were to seriously consider, for the sake of argument, that Oracle would kill MySQL, I would say 'good riddance'. MySQL is a piece of crap, a toy database engine, and the world would be a better place if people would use decent alternatives instead.
I have to admit you have a point there.