As far as I can tell, all that needs to be done is to implement a system-wide Windows Media Foundation component to render Theora, and IE will pick it up if it sees a Theora video.
For HTML5 video IE9 only allows H.264 and WebM regardless of whatever other codecs are installed. Originally it was H.264 only. Then, after Google's announcement and release of WebM, it became H.264 and WebM. Microsoft cites security, consistency and legal concerns as their primary reasons for restricting the number of codecs available for HTML5 video. Here are some posts from the IE blog which chart the changes:
It's a shame that Microsoft hasn't joined the WebM CCL yet. Dean Hachamovitch (corporate vice president for IE) called for the creation of such a body, it was created, and Microsoft still haven't joined for some reason. As far as I know they haven't yet said why they won't join.
And then we can finally stop the H264 vs WebM battle, because IE9 will only support H264.
Internet Explorer 9 supports both H.264 and WebM. No other video codecs are supported by IE9. WebM support is added by installing the media foundation components:
When you give consumers a product that they want, at a price they find fair, in a form factor (format) that is convenient for them, in a location that is convenient for them, they are happy to pay for it!
The hard part is making that happen in the first place. From the article:
Louis CK used the $500,000 to pay off several costs, including the $170,000 it took to produce the show, and the $32,000 he spent on building and editing his own website.
Leaving aside the possibility of people acquiring the video without paying for it, he had $300,000 of costs (they don't indicate where the other $100,000 went, maybe the $202,000 figure mentioned was the up front cost and the next $98,000 was distribution). Sure, he could have perhaps found a lower cost way to distribute it but it's still $170,000 in production costs. Part of the deal with publishers of any kind is that they're taking on the risk of producing it. If it doesn't sell it's them who will be losing money, not the author or act or band, etc. In this case, Louis CK put himself in a position where he would potentially lose $170,000 at the minimum. It's only established acts who have the opportunity to take that sort of risk.
It may not be endorsed by W3C, but that does not mean it is not an open standard.
Initially you said "I'm not seeing how they are trying to push developers away from W3C standards" and now you agree that the audio and video formats that Apple deem suitable for the Web are incompatible with W3C standards. Good. We are in agreement. As I said and as you now agree, it would be nice if Apple showed more commitment to an open web.
Have a read. Note that the W3C insists on standards that can be implemented on a royalty-free basis. Anything that does not meet that test cannot be considered a web standard.
You can't simply redefine the word "open" when it suits.
Sorry, but that's precisely what you're doing. There's no value in arguing semantics here. In the context of the Web when someone describes something as being "open" they always mean both open and royalty-free. I know that's what they mean. You know that's what they mean. We all know that's what they mean.
TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, CSS, JPG, PNG and now even GIF are all both open and royalty-free. There's nothing so special about audio and video that they can't be the same and the troubled history of GIF is the only cautionary tale required. The MPEG LA could contribute to a better Web tomorrow by making H.264 royalty-free but they won't. They are only interested in the Web insofar as it offers them profit by the proliferation of formats they manage the license for. That kind of mentality is bad for everyone on the Web.
I'm not seeing how they are trying to push developers away from W3C standards given the work that has gone into getting Webkit to support those very standards you accuse them of trying to suppress.
One example is that Apple doesn't support open, royalty-free video and audio formats in Safari out of the box. This is quite amusing given that Siri uses Ogg Speex. It'd be nice if Apple showed more commitment to an open web. Even if Apple is still scared of WebM, there's no reason in the world why Safari couldn't have Ogg Vorbis support by default on the desktop and in iOS.
The problem is ultimately that Firefox was out-Firefoxed. Chrome is what Firefox was in its beginning
No. Chrome can't out-Firefox Firefox because it never has been and never will be what Firefox is. Firefox exists to promote the interests of Web users. Chrome, in contrast, exists to promote the interests of Google.
Corporations are only useful insofar as their interests coincide with your own. With Chrome, Google will decide that its interests trump the end user's. A simple example is Chrome's new in-browser advertising. In-browser advertising is only useful to Google and is utterly useless to me as a Web user. I prefer not to use adware so I don't use Chrome.
So, from what I understood, we were going to have releases from often so that we could get more features more frequently. We got nothing! Or almost nothing.
It was bundled with Skype updates a while back. I don't know if it still is. Adobe bundled it with Adobe Reader recently. I'd be interested to know how much of Chrome's growth can be attributed to deliberate and inadvertent installation when it gets delivered with other, perhaps more popular, software like Skype and Reader.
I think you're focusing on the wrong part of the GP's post.
It was the only part of the GP's post.
True, but that's not an argument for updating your web browser today.
Luckily, I didn't advise him to update his web browser today. I advised him to update his web browser on the 20th of December i.e. around about when Firefox 9 will be released.
Does it show the URL in the status bar when you hover over a link to make sure it's not Goatse? (Oh, wait, the Fx UX team doesn't think I need a status bar.)
Yeah! It'll run that synthetic benchmark 5 nanoseconds faster! Rock on!
No. Comparing Firefox 9 to Firefox 7.0.1 on my system the SunSpider benchmark isn't much changed but Firefox 9 runs the V8 benchmark about 40% faster and the Kraken benchmark about 100% faster. Very much more than 5 nanoseconds. Broadway.js (an H.264 video decoder implemented in JavaScript) runs about 130% faster on my system in Firefox 9. Try the Broadway.js demo. It's interesting to consider that implementing video codecs in JavaScript may be practical sooner rather than later.
I'm looking forward to the JavaScript engine improvements in Firefox 9. I tried the Broadway.js H.264 video decoder (github page, demo page) in Firefox 7.0.1 and Firefox 9 Aurora. On my system it ran about two and a half times faster in Firefox 9.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.23) Gecko/20110920 Firefox/3.6.23 - Enough said.
It could be that enough has been said, but it's unclear what you're saying. The latest version of Firefox runs faster and is more capable than Firefox 3.6. There's no downside. You really should try Firefox 8. If you're still too fearful of Firefox 8, then wait until Firefox 9 is released and try it. Firefox 9 brings big improvements to the JavaScript engine.
Not really. The difference is that in the case of nuclear disaster the effects happen in a very small timeframe, whereas with e.g. coal plants the effects accumulate over time. That's why it SEEMS like nuclear is the worse choice of the two.
I wasn't comparing it to coal. The original claim that "nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source" is difficult to reconcile in comparison to hydro or solar power. As for the timeframe, parts of Fukushima will be affected for decades. I don't consider a quarter or a third of a lifetime a small timeframe.
Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source
Yet tens of thousands of people from Fukushima are unable to return to their homes. The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong it tends to go very wrong. The economic and human cost of nuclear power failures can be huge. 80,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Fukushima meltdowns: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3343819.htm
Its the same reason I doubt you'll be seeing any companies opening their hardware anytime soon, as AMD bent over backward, even hiring coders to help the FOSS driver guys and opened their specs as wide as they could, and what did they get? every forum filled with guys saying "Herp derp, buy Nvidia"
With regard to GPUs, I currently have a (aged) Nvidia GPU but my next GPU will be the top end Intel Ivy Bridge. I'll be going Intel because I want a newer and faster CPU, the Ivy Bridge GPU will be fast enough for me, and most of all because the open source Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge support from Intel is strong now and improving. Intel seem like they'll hit the ground running for Linux support when Ivy Bridge is released. I want strong, out-of-the-box, open source GPU drivers for Linux and that's what Intel will deliver.
Firefox 4, Firefox 5, Firefox 6 and Firefox 7 beta have all been quite consistent in terms of the user interface. More releases hasn't equalled huge change in the UI in my experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if we could just get Mozilla to play better with the enterprise.
The first Extended Support Release is based on Firefox 10: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/. The FAQ outlines the life cycle for the ESR builds.
Google is paying Mozilla around $100 million of commissions per year.
It's now around $300 million a year.
As far as I can tell, all that needs to be done is to implement a system-wide Windows Media Foundation component to render Theora, and IE will pick it up if it sees a Theora video.
For HTML5 video IE9 only allows H.264 and WebM regardless of whatever other codecs are installed. Originally it was H.264 only. Then, after Google's announcement and release of WebM, it became H.264 and WebM. Microsoft cites security, consistency and legal concerns as their primary reasons for restricting the number of codecs available for HTML5 video. Here are some posts from the IE blog which chart the changes:
H.264 announced as the only supported HTML5 video codec: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx
Explanation of exclusion of other codecs: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx
WebM support announced: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/19/another-follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx
Video format support demo published, only interesting as a convenient test page for WebM in IE: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/16/html5-video-update-webm-for-ie9.aspx
It's a shame that Microsoft hasn't joined the WebM CCL yet. Dean Hachamovitch (corporate vice president for IE) called for the creation of such a body, it was created, and Microsoft still haven't joined for some reason. As far as I know they haven't yet said why they won't join.
The Theora folks could do Theora as well that way.
No, the only codecs supported by IE9 are WebM and H.264. You can, however, shoehorn Theora support into IE with an Active X control:
http://cristianadam.blogspot.com/2011/01/activex-controls.html
And then we can finally stop the H264 vs WebM battle, because IE9 will only support H264.
Internet Explorer 9 supports both H.264 and WebM. No other video codecs are supported by IE9. WebM support is added by installing the media foundation components:
http://tools.google.com/dlpage/webmmf/
You can test WebM support in IE9 with Microsoft's IE9 test drive video support demo:
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsupport/default.html
When you give consumers a product that they want, at a price they find fair, in a form factor (format) that is convenient for them, in a location that is convenient for them, they are happy to pay for it!
The hard part is making that happen in the first place. From the article:
Louis CK used the $500,000 to pay off several costs, including the $170,000 it took to produce the show, and the $32,000 he spent on building and editing his own website.
Leaving aside the possibility of people acquiring the video without paying for it, he had $300,000 of costs (they don't indicate where the other $100,000 went, maybe the $202,000 figure mentioned was the up front cost and the next $98,000 was distribution). Sure, he could have perhaps found a lower cost way to distribute it but it's still $170,000 in production costs. Part of the deal with publishers of any kind is that they're taking on the risk of producing it. If it doesn't sell it's them who will be losing money, not the author or act or band, etc. In this case, Louis CK put himself in a position where he would potentially lose $170,000 at the minimum. It's only established acts who have the opportunity to take that sort of risk.
It may not be endorsed by W3C, but that does not mean it is not an open standard.
Initially you said "I'm not seeing how they are trying to push developers away from W3C standards" and now you agree that the audio and video formats that Apple deem suitable for the Web are incompatible with W3C standards. Good. We are in agreement. As I said and as you now agree, it would be nice if Apple showed more commitment to an open web.
No, they really don't.
Yes, they really do. Please, this is beyond tedious. Here is the W3C's patent policy:
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/
Have a read. Note that the W3C insists on standards that can be implemented on a royalty-free basis. Anything that does not meet that test cannot be considered a web standard.
You can't simply redefine the word "open" when it suits.
Sorry, but that's precisely what you're doing. There's no value in arguing semantics here. In the context of the Web when someone describes something as being "open" they always mean both open and royalty-free. I know that's what they mean. You know that's what they mean. We all know that's what they mean.
TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, CSS, JPG, PNG and now even GIF are all both open and royalty-free. There's nothing so special about audio and video that they can't be the same and the troubled history of GIF is the only cautionary tale required. The MPEG LA could contribute to a better Web tomorrow by making H.264 royalty-free but they won't. They are only interested in the Web insofar as it offers them profit by the proliferation of formats they manage the license for. That kind of mentality is bad for everyone on the Web.
I'm not seeing how they are trying to push developers away from W3C standards given the work that has gone into getting Webkit to support those very standards you accuse them of trying to suppress.
One example is that Apple doesn't support open, royalty-free video and audio formats in Safari out of the box. This is quite amusing given that Siri uses Ogg Speex. It'd be nice if Apple showed more commitment to an open web. Even if Apple is still scared of WebM, there's no reason in the world why Safari couldn't have Ogg Vorbis support by default on the desktop and in iOS.
The problem is ultimately that Firefox was out-Firefoxed. Chrome is what Firefox was in its beginning
No. Chrome can't out-Firefox Firefox because it never has been and never will be what Firefox is. Firefox exists to promote the interests of Web users. Chrome, in contrast, exists to promote the interests of Google.
Corporations are only useful insofar as their interests coincide with your own. With Chrome, Google will decide that its interests trump the end user's. A simple example is Chrome's new in-browser advertising. In-browser advertising is only useful to Google and is utterly useless to me as a Web user. I prefer not to use adware so I don't use Chrome.
So, from what I understood, we were going to have releases from often so that we could get more features more frequently. We got nothing! Or almost nothing.
There have been many features added between 6 and 10. If you want to know what those features are, look at the feature tracking pages: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Release_Tracking https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Release_Tracking/Archives The two features I'm particularly looking forward to are type inference in Firefox 9 and OpenGL acceleration in Firefox Mobile 10.
It was bundled with Skype updates a while back. I don't know if it still is. Adobe bundled it with Adobe Reader recently. I'd be interested to know how much of Chrome's growth can be attributed to deliberate and inadvertent installation when it gets delivered with other, perhaps more popular, software like Skype and Reader.
Both astronomer and porn star? What are the odds?
Astronomical.
I think you're focusing on the wrong part of the GP's post.
It was the only part of the GP's post.
True, but that's not an argument for updating your web browser today.
Luckily, I didn't advise him to update his web browser today. I advised him to update his web browser on the 20th of December i.e. around about when Firefox 9 will be released.
Does it show the URL in the status bar when you hover over a link to make sure it's not Goatse? (Oh, wait, the Fx UX team doesn't think I need a status bar.)
Yes. When you mouse over a link the URL pops up at the bottom of the window. This page may help you: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/what-happened-status-bar. Your complaint isn't a valid one.
Yeah! It'll run that synthetic benchmark 5 nanoseconds faster! Rock on!
No. Comparing Firefox 9 to Firefox 7.0.1 on my system the SunSpider benchmark isn't much changed but Firefox 9 runs the V8 benchmark about 40% faster and the Kraken benchmark about 100% faster. Very much more than 5 nanoseconds. Broadway.js (an H.264 video decoder implemented in JavaScript) runs about 130% faster on my system in Firefox 9. Try the Broadway.js demo. It's interesting to consider that implementing video codecs in JavaScript may be practical sooner rather than later.
I'm looking forward to the JavaScript engine improvements in Firefox 9. I tried the Broadway.js H.264 video decoder (github page, demo page) in Firefox 7.0.1 and Firefox 9 Aurora. On my system it ran about two and a half times faster in Firefox 9.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.23) Gecko/20110920 Firefox/3.6.23 - Enough said.
It could be that enough has been said, but it's unclear what you're saying. The latest version of Firefox runs faster and is more capable than Firefox 3.6. There's no downside. You really should try Firefox 8. If you're still too fearful of Firefox 8, then wait until Firefox 9 is released and try it. Firefox 9 brings big improvements to the JavaScript engine.
Yeah, just like no one will ever die in production of solar panels or there will never be some mishap at a nuclear plant....
Congratulations. You've conceded my point.
Not really. The difference is that in the case of nuclear disaster the effects happen in a very small timeframe, whereas with e.g. coal plants the effects accumulate over time. That's why it SEEMS like nuclear is the worse choice of the two.
I wasn't comparing it to coal. The original claim that "nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source" is difficult to reconcile in comparison to hydro or solar power. As for the timeframe, parts of Fukushima will be affected for decades. I don't consider a quarter or a third of a lifetime a small timeframe.
Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source
Yet tens of thousands of people from Fukushima are unable to return to their homes. The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong it tends to go very wrong. The economic and human cost of nuclear power failures can be huge. 80,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Fukushima meltdowns: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3343819.htm
Its the same reason I doubt you'll be seeing any companies opening their hardware anytime soon, as AMD bent over backward, even hiring coders to help the FOSS driver guys and opened their specs as wide as they could, and what did they get? every forum filled with guys saying "Herp derp, buy Nvidia"
With regard to GPUs, I currently have a (aged) Nvidia GPU but my next GPU will be the top end Intel Ivy Bridge. I'll be going Intel because I want a newer and faster CPU, the Ivy Bridge GPU will be fast enough for me, and most of all because the open source Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge support from Intel is strong now and improving. Intel seem like they'll hit the ground running for Linux support when Ivy Bridge is released. I want strong, out-of-the-box, open source GPU drivers for Linux and that's what Intel will deliver.
Here's a recent article from Phoronix which bencmarks Intel's progress with its Sandy Bridge\Ivy Bridge drivers for Linux: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_sna_maturing
Firefox 4, Firefox 5, Firefox 6 and Firefox 7 beta have all been quite consistent in terms of the user interface. More releases hasn't equalled huge change in the UI in my experience.
I read the article but the summary spoiled it for me.