I won't duplicate the other comments about Chrome being run by a huge, well resourced company. But it is!
However, it is worth stressing that Chrome had the advantage of no prior baggage, and the benefit of hindsight. So the architecture of Chrome was built from the ground up to resolve issues that afflicted other browsers including Firefox, and at the same time, did not have to be compatible with existing add-ons/extensions. Mozilla presumably have a tougher time resolving existing issues, whilst maintaining compatibility with a *huge* number of add-ons. If they did massively break compatibility, they'd be kissing goodbye to one of the main advantages to Firefox.
and STILL no official MSIs, or AD templates
^ this
Sometimes I'm not sure Mozilla are really helping themselves though! It strikes me that this would be relatively easy to resolve, so I'm not sure what's gone wrong with the Mozilla world domination team.
Certainly H.264 has a greater install base right now, but relative to the potential market for web based video, it isn't such a big deal. For example, the mobile phones that support H.264 have mostly arrived in the last 2 years, and the smart phone market is still rapidly expanding.
And despite H.264's current install base, I'd say most web-video is consumed via Flash plugins (whilst accepting that those in turn use H.264 data).
There's other parts to the deal though, like MS getting access to Nokia's Navteq mapping tech, so that was never going to be free either.
My guess though is that Nokia needed to choose something and MS was desperate. If MS didn't swing Nokia, WP7 would very likely be looking dead in the water, and so too would be Balmer's position. I've no idea if the later had any bearing, but if Balmer was at all involved in the negotiations, it would've perhaps had some impact?
I did wonder if Nokia was getting WP7 for free for X years, or N units, but the problem with anything like that is that the other licensees would be upset. That said, they can't be too pleased with Nokia being allowed to tweak the interface more than they can.
My biggest concern with all this is that MS will eventually buy Nokia and leverage their IP in some evil way!
Yeah, there's not much in the way of information about the Linux client. I've been thinking about investigating Google video chat. Anyone have any thoughts on if it's better? Or indeed, more open?
For absolutely years I've wanted to have a local mail server process to download email from various sources and store copies locally, and then I could just use a simple IMAP client to access the local email store.
This would mean I only have to backup my local mail server and could ignore the email client(s), and it would allow me to try out alternative email clients easily. At the moment I use Thunderbird, which is okay... but I wouldn't say I absolutely love it or anything! But to try alternatives risks downloading a bunch of emails and then having some data stuck in one client and some in another, and having a lot of work to do to sort it out. It's that "not enough hours in a day" problem that leaves me using Thunderbird rather than risk anything else.
Following this train of thought through, why do email clients like Thunderbird etc, do the mail download/storage/search *and* client front-end bits? If they separated it so the client was just an IMAP front-end, it would surely be better?
In fairness to MS, the update was "designed only 'to improve the software update process itself'", and in that sense it is a success -- by bricking these phones, the surface area for future problems has now been reduced! Plus, the bad publicity will likely have a small impact for future sales which *also* will reduce the problem surface area. Well done Microsoft!:D
The GP did only say "effectively" so perhaps they were referring to the fact that they have been licensed royalty-free, as noted here: http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html#vp8
Quoting the linked page, it says:
"In 2010, Google acquired On2 and published the video codec specification and a sample encoder and decoder as open source. As part of this, Google also "opened" all the patents that On2 had filed on VP8, by licensing them royalty-free. (This is the best you can hope for with patents. You can't actually "release" them or nullify them once they've been issued. To make them open source-friendly, you license them royalty-free, and then anyone can use the technologies the patents cover without paying anything or negotiating patent licenses.)"
Whilst some _may_ consider the broad-reaching, unrestrained violence somewhat extreme, I'm quite sure that the recipients* of your attention would certainly appreciate the creative flourish of using Gates and Ballmers skulls in your plans^H^H^H^H^H art installation.
* Not "targets", not "victims"... no, they're "recipients"; and they should be grateful too!;)
This is useful, although as another post notes, there are a few sites that don't accept that as a valid address... including the UK Government Gateway!
You can't be certain of future prices for h.264 -- not trying to FUD this up or anything though! I know it is unlikely the price would ever be anything other than "nominal", but there is no certainty. Also note, this affects content producers too!
AFAIK Google were paying to have H.264 in Chrome -- feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that! But that being the case, and since there is now a free alternative, they're switching to that. You don't have to use Chrome.
The silent auto-update is pretty useful for most Windows users I suspect! I don't know if there is a "corporate" management option somewhere.... I would've though many companies would want that before even considering deploying Chrome. Certainly under Ubuntu, Chrome updates via the system update mechanism.
Unfortunately, that means you don't get H.264 on Linux as its a proprietary codec that requires some form of (paid) licencing.
Sorry but I don't follow. Some enterprising company could develop a H.264 framework and people could pay a small nominal fee to download and install that framework.
I think the GP's point was that H.264 can't be bundled with a free Linux (or browser) download since there's a cost involved. You're right that it can be paid for via a nominal fee that (to quote yourself) "should not be a problem for most people", but surely a completely free base line would be better? That would be good for *all* people.
Luckily it's not either/or - we can have both. Google's recent moves with Chrome and WebM plugins appear to be to encourage WebM.... i.e. to establish this completely free base-line. It's not going to kill H.264 though!
Mmmmm tasty.... they should prolly bring back the Dodo too. Apparently they tasted good, although that might be because the few people who ate them had been on a boat for weeks (or months maybe?).
You do understand that you seem to be equating shooting people as a good thing?
Don't get me wrong, if I were being attacked, I'd be glad if I had a firearm to hand (and could use it), and were able to see off my assailant, but I'm not sure I'd be at all happy if I actually killed said assailant.
Not trying to take the side of the "criminal" here, but these are people too and don't necessarily deserve to die.... obviously, we could take an emotive subject such as a "criminal" trying to rape someone's daughter in which case I'm sure many of us could at least understand the desire to kill said assailant, but for the most part, the criminals you're likely to face are petty criminals -- theives/burglars. Not that being a victim of such a crime isn't an awful thing, but what you're advocating is the idea that everyone should be armed so that they can make a split-second decision that could very likely result in the death of either party.
So, specifically, when do you think it's okay to kill people?
An alternative way to look at this is to not look at specific cases as we tend to empathise with the victim, but just look broadly at the idea that criminals do their thing, and is it a good idea to arm everyone to prevent that? It doesn't appear to prevent it. Criminals are more likely to bring their own firearms and shoot first -- plus they generally have the upper hand since the "crime" whatever it is, is their initiative. So overall, I think it likely that more people will die as a result. Yeah, obviously, if it were me, *of-course* I'd be able to keep a cool head, and only shoot if it were necessary... in exactly the same way I'm the best driver in the world too. Shame about all those other idiots. But you still think they should be armed too?
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However, it is worth stressing that Chrome had the advantage of no prior baggage, and the benefit of hindsight. So the architecture of Chrome was built from the ground up to resolve issues that afflicted other browsers including Firefox, and at the same time, did not have to be compatible with existing add-ons/extensions. Mozilla presumably have a tougher time resolving existing issues, whilst maintaining compatibility with a *huge* number of add-ons. If they did massively break compatibility, they'd be kissing goodbye to one of the main advantages to Firefox.
and STILL no official MSIs, or AD templates
^ this
Sometimes I'm not sure Mozilla are really helping themselves though! It strikes me that this would be relatively easy to resolve, so I'm not sure what's gone wrong with the Mozilla world domination team.
I've detected a delay on your intertubes!
I think you'll find they own your soul. You did _read_ the EULA right?
I wonder if these issues are related to the build quality issues -- I seem to recall poor thermal paste being one of the build problems?
Certainly H.264 has a greater install base right now, but relative to the potential market for web based video, it isn't such a big deal. For example, the mobile phones that support H.264 have mostly arrived in the last 2 years, and the smart phone market is still rapidly expanding.
And despite H.264's current install base, I'd say most web-video is consumed via Flash plugins (whilst accepting that those in turn use H.264 data).
Bet you're kicking yourself now for not advancing the date by *TWENTY* years, 'cos then you could still be running it! :D
The Register hinted that $1bn was to keep Nokia from choosing Android.
There's other parts to the deal though, like MS getting access to Nokia's Navteq mapping tech, so that was never going to be free either.
My guess though is that Nokia needed to choose something and MS was desperate. If MS didn't swing Nokia, WP7 would very likely be looking dead in the water, and so too would be Balmer's position. I've no idea if the later had any bearing, but if Balmer was at all involved in the negotiations, it would've perhaps had some impact?
I did wonder if Nokia was getting WP7 for free for X years, or N units, but the problem with anything like that is that the other licensees would be upset. That said, they can't be too pleased with Nokia being allowed to tweak the interface more than they can.
My biggest concern with all this is that MS will eventually buy Nokia and leverage their IP in some evil way!
To be fair, this is either going to result in a new world record OR a flying car... so we can't lose really! :D
Because we can?
Yeah, there's not much in the way of information about the Linux client. I've been thinking about investigating Google video chat. Anyone have any thoughts on if it's better? Or indeed, more open?
Anyone got a link to somewhere describing (in very simple terms) how to do this?
For absolutely years I've wanted to have a local mail server process to download email from various sources and store copies locally, and then I could just use a simple IMAP client to access the local email store.
This would mean I only have to backup my local mail server and could ignore the email client(s), and it would allow me to try out alternative email clients easily. At the moment I use Thunderbird, which is okay... but I wouldn't say I absolutely love it or anything! But to try alternatives risks downloading a bunch of emails and then having some data stuck in one client and some in another, and having a lot of work to do to sort it out. It's that "not enough hours in a day" problem that leaves me using Thunderbird rather than risk anything else.
Following this train of thought through, why do email clients like Thunderbird etc, do the mail download/storage/search *and* client front-end bits? If they separated it so the client was just an IMAP front-end, it would surely be better?
I'm still polishing my SATA cables - it makes the sound soooo much better. And my spreadsheets come out nicer too which is handy.
In fairness to MS, the update was "designed only 'to improve the software update process itself'", and in that sense it is a success -- by bricking these phones, the surface area for future problems has now been reduced! Plus, the bad publicity will likely have a small impact for future sales which *also* will reduce the problem surface area. Well done Microsoft! :D
The GP did only say "effectively" so perhaps they were referring to the fact that they have been licensed royalty-free, as noted here:
http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html#vp8
Quoting the linked page, it says: "In 2010, Google acquired On2 and published the video codec specification and a sample encoder and decoder as open source. As part of this, Google also "opened" all the patents that On2 had filed on VP8, by licensing them royalty-free. (This is the best you can hope for with patents. You can't actually "release" them or nullify them once they've been issued. To make them open source-friendly, you license them royalty-free, and then anyone can use the technologies the patents cover without paying anything or negotiating patent licenses.)"
I have an Android, but I have to agree that the Nokia 1100 is a fantastic phone. I also like that it switches on fast.
Whilst some _may_ consider the broad-reaching, unrestrained violence somewhat extreme, I'm quite sure that the recipients* of your attention would certainly appreciate the creative flourish of using Gates and Ballmers skulls in your plans^H^H^H^H^H art installation.
;)
* Not "targets", not "victims"... no, they're "recipients"; and they should be grateful too!
This is useful, although as another post notes, there are a few sites that don't accept that as a valid address... including the UK Government Gateway!
Probably just be a coincidence, but I note that Scott Prevost, "Microsoft's principal development manager for its Bing search engine" has left for pastures new.
Anonymous would've gone ahead... but their mum's wouldn't let them out!
You can't be certain of future prices for h.264 -- not trying to FUD this up or anything though! I know it is unlikely the price would ever be anything other than "nominal", but there is no certainty. Also note, this affects content producers too!
AFAIK Google were paying to have H.264 in Chrome -- feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that! But that being the case, and since there is now a free alternative, they're switching to that. You don't have to use Chrome.
The silent auto-update is pretty useful for most Windows users I suspect! I don't know if there is a "corporate" management option somewhere.... I would've though many companies would want that before even considering deploying Chrome. Certainly under Ubuntu, Chrome updates via the system update mechanism.
Unfortunately, that means you don't get H.264 on Linux as its a proprietary codec that requires some form of (paid) licencing.
Sorry but I don't follow. Some enterprising company could develop a H.264 framework and people could pay a small nominal fee to download and install that framework.
I think the GP's point was that H.264 can't be bundled with a free Linux (or browser) download since there's a cost involved. You're right that it can be paid for via a nominal fee that (to quote yourself) "should not be a problem for most people", but surely a completely free base line would be better? That would be good for *all* people.
Luckily it's not either/or - we can have both. Google's recent moves with Chrome and WebM plugins appear to be to encourage WebM.... i.e. to establish this completely free base-line. It's not going to kill H.264 though!
Mmmmm tasty.... they should prolly bring back the Dodo too. Apparently they tasted good, although that might be because the few people who ate them had been on a boat for weeks (or months maybe?).
You do understand that you seem to be equating shooting people as a good thing?
Don't get me wrong, if I were being attacked, I'd be glad if I had a firearm to hand (and could use it), and were able to see off my assailant, but I'm not sure I'd be at all happy if I actually killed said assailant.
Not trying to take the side of the "criminal" here, but these are people too and don't necessarily deserve to die.... obviously, we could take an emotive subject such as a "criminal" trying to rape someone's daughter in which case I'm sure many of us could at least understand the desire to kill said assailant, but for the most part, the criminals you're likely to face are petty criminals -- theives/burglars. Not that being a victim of such a crime isn't an awful thing, but what you're advocating is the idea that everyone should be armed so that they can make a split-second decision that could very likely result in the death of either party.
So, specifically, when do you think it's okay to kill people?
An alternative way to look at this is to not look at specific cases as we tend to empathise with the victim, but just look broadly at the idea that criminals do their thing, and is it a good idea to arm everyone to prevent that? It doesn't appear to prevent it. Criminals are more likely to bring their own firearms and shoot first -- plus they generally have the upper hand since the "crime" whatever it is, is their initiative. So overall, I think it likely that more people will die as a result. Yeah, obviously, if it were me, *of-course* I'd be able to keep a cool head, and only shoot if it were necessary... in exactly the same way I'm the best driver in the world too. Shame about all those other idiots. But you still think they should be armed too?