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Ray Tracing To Debut in DirectX 11 219

Posted by CmdrTaco from the directx-11-is-confusing-to-my-brain dept.
crazyeyes writes "This is breaking news. Microsoft has not only decided to support ray tracing in DirectX 11, but they will also be basing it on Intel's x86 ray-tracing technology and get this ... it will be out by the end of the year! In this article, we will examine what ray tracing is all about and why it would be superior to the current raster-based technology. As for performance, well, let Intel dazzle you with some numbers. Here's a quote from the article: 'You need not worry about your old raster-based DirectX 10 or older games or graphics cards. DirectX 11 will continue to support rasterization. It just includes support for ray-tracing as well. There will be two DirectX 11 modes, based on support by the application and the hardware.'"

Comment Re:Why switch? (Score 0) 314

by KeyserDK (#22676122) Attached to: Little Demand Yet For Silverlight Developers
I think you mixing formats into the discussion. Flash players still suck. Yes the old embedded media players (realplayer/windows media player/(totem)) sucked even more (since they forced a certain UI). But today they are better at handling streaming than any flash player i've met. They probably rely on the same code from flash itself ;). Flash based video get out of sync, has horrible time-scroll(bar?) handling and sucks even more on anything that isn't windows. Flash is not the future. It's the same as if everybody had to use the same browser.

HTML5 video element is probably our best hope. But i hope firefox developers don't get trapped in "we can handle streaming ourself" and avoid using platform libraries (Gstreamer,Directshow,quicktime). Or maybe gstreamer as an option on all platforms since it's cross platform and can already handle these issues very well ;).

Somebody else mentioned it. html/css/js/js-canvas/svg/html-video-element should be the way forward. Lets hope that combo wins ;).
Sony

Sony Announces DRM-Free Music at Amazon 293

Posted by Soulskill from the not-as-dumb-as-we-thought dept.
sehlat brings us a New York Times report that Sony has agreed to start selling DRM-free music from Amazon's MP3 store. This comes days after Sony revealed plans for physical MusicPass cards that would allow DRM-free access to a small portion of Sony's library. Now that all four major record labels are on board with Amazon, some are expecting Apple to make moves away from DRM as well. From the NYTimes: "Sony's partnership with Amazon.com also underscores the music industry's gathering effort to nurture an online rival to Apple, which has sold more than three billion songs through its iTunes store. Most music purchased on iTunes can be played only on Apple devices, and Apple insists on selling all single tracks for 99 cents. Amazon, which sells tracks for anywhere from 89 cents to over a dollar, offers the pricing variability the labels want."
Software

OpenOffice Online Goes Beta 114

Posted by kdawson from the at-your-service dept.
Stony Stevenson sends word of the beta availability of a software-as-a-service version of OpenOffice 2.3, brought to us by Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval. According to Ars, this package "easily offers the most features of any online office suite," though it "lacks the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace." "To create this feature-rich environment, Online OpenOffice.org requires a modern browser with JavaScript and the Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.4+ plug-in. The setup has been tested in Firefox 1.5 and above, IE6 and 7, and even Safari, though Ubuntu users are specifically warned that they must be using the Sun Java (Sun JRE) plug-in or the current implementation of Online OpenOffice.org won't work."
KDE

KDE and KOffice Rebuke OOXML, GNOME Dithers 398

Posted by Zonk from the ooffice-politics dept.
Peter writes "Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman and ITWire have praised KDE and KOffice developers for taking a principled stand against OOXML, while raising serious concerns about the GNOME Foundation's decision to give credibility to Microsoft's broken format. This comes on the heels of GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza's depiction of OOXML as a 'superb standard', and GNOME Foundation director Quim Gil's stonewalling of the patent-free Ogg Vorbis / Theora format on behalf of Nokia. Will the GNOME Foundation's indifferent response to Richard Stallman's appeal drive him to throw his weight behind KDE?"
Google

Free IMAP On Gmail 440

Posted by kdawson from the bout-time dept.
A number of readers are writing in to tell us that Google is rolling out IMAP support for Gmail accounts. Several people say that some of their gmail accounts offer the IMAP option (in Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP) and others do not.
Graphics

ATI Releases AIGLX Linux Driver 113

Posted by kdawson from the making-compiz-sing-and-dance dept.
Michael writes "A month after AMD released a Radeon HD 2000 'R600' Linux driver based on their new Linux driver codebase, they have now released another driver that provides AIGLX support used for Compiz and Compiz Fusion. In addition to this long-awaited AIGLX support, this driver also addresses issues with previous Radeon product families, performance improvements, AGP fixes, and added features to their graphical control panel. Phoronix has a review of the 8.42 Linux driver with all of the details about this much-anticipated release."
Linux Business

Novell Linux Business Spikes Since Microsoft Deal 147

Posted by Zonk from the there's-a-linux-that-works-with-windows-now dept.
StonyandCher writes "Novell's divisive deal with Microsoft has apparently resulted in some financial success for the company. PC World is now reporting that the company's Linux business has risen about 250% since the deal was announced last November. From the article: '[Novell director of marketing Justin Steinman] said part of its growth was directly related to the Microsoft deal, adding that Novell has billed more than US$100 million in business through its Microsoft relationship. He added that the growth was also due to the halo effect of the arrangement. "When we're out there competing with Red Hat, [our salespeople] are saying, 'Our Linux is recommended by Microsoft,' and customers that already have a Windows investment say it seems to make sense to pick the Linux that works with Windows."'"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft loses antitrust appeal in Brussels (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
chris_sawtell
chris_sawtell writes: "The Guardian is reporting that: "The European commission today hailed a key ruling by the court of first instance, Europe's second-highest court, that upheld its March 2004 decision to fine Microsoft a record 497m (£345m) $US690m for abusing its dominance of the software market and force it to share critical information with rival companies.

"After securing a comprehensive victory in its nine-year battle with Microsoft, Brussels is now free to pursue other high-profile cases against hi-tech companies such as Intel and has emerged as the world's leading antitrust authority. The company founded by Bill Gates will have to alter its business model as it faces stiff competition on new markets from the likes of Google and Apple."
Google

Google Shows Off Ad-Supported Cell Phone 290

Posted by Zonk from the gotta-love-freebies dept.
taoman1 writes "Today Google showed off a ad-supported cellphone that the company plans to offer for free to interested parties. The product could reach the marketplace within a year, and will offer Google search, email, and a web browser. 'The move would echo another recent product launched by a phone industry outsider, Apple Inc.'s iPhone. But Google's product would draw its revenue from a sharply different source, relying on commercial advertising dollars instead of the sticker price of at least US$499 for an iPhone and $60 per month for the AT&T Inc. service plan. Negotiating the fairest way to split those advertising revenues with service providers could be a big hurdle for Google, one analyst said. Another problem is the potential that consumers could be scared off by the prospect of listening to advertisements before being able to make phone calls, said Jeff Kagan, a wireless and telecommunications industry analyst in Atlanta.'"
Operating Systems

Video Interview With Linus On Linux 2.7 178

Posted by kdawson from the surprising-stability dept.
daria42 writes "ZDNet Australia has put up a video interview of Linux creator Linus Torvalds talking about the kernel development process, explaining why the unexpected resilience of kernel version 2.6 has delayed the move to 2.7." From the interview: "One of the original worries was that we would not be able to make big changes within the confines of the development model... I always said that if there is something so fundamental that everything will break then we will start at 2.7 at that point... We have been able to do fairly invasive things even while not actually destabilizing the kernel... Having stable and unstable in parallel: I think it used to be a great model, and I think we may see that the kernel has actually become more mature and stable and it just doesn't seem to be that great a model, for the kernel."
United States

Submission + - Saddam Hussein to be executed within hours

Submitted by
Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: "Numerous news sources are reporting that Saddam Hussein will be executed before Sunday. From the CBC article:
U.S. and Iraqi officials have met to set the hour of Saddam Hussein's execution, a lawyer said hours after a Baghdad judge announced that the ousted Iraqi president would be hanged before Sunday.

... Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports a top Iraqi official as saying Saddam will be executed before 6 a.m. local time Saturday, or 10 p.m. ET Friday.

... The Pentagon said U.S. forces in Iraq are braced for the aftermath of the execution, which could increase the fighting between the country's Shia Muslim majority and the Sunni Muslim minority.
"

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