Comment Re:Mozilla's public disclosure (Score 1) 154
What alternative do you propose?
Password Hasher: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3282/
Comment Re:Great Work! (Score 1) 200
So you'll have no problem posting all your passwords, social security number, bank account numbers, and so on publicly, then. Right?
No, like most people who say that
Anthropomorphising governments and corporations, are we?
Comment Re:Hmm (Score 4, Insightful) 237
I wanted something like this for quite a while, except my primary use cases are for preventing inactivity-related actions: 1) don't lock the screen if I'm still at the computer, regardless of the inactivity timeout; and 2) don't dim the screen if I'm looking at it. I'm probably reading and I like the brightness level just the way it is.
Comment Re:Counter argument (Score 1) 483
The iPhone and iPad notwithstanding, Flash is beginning to show up on other mobile device platforms.
Exactly 1 single other platform : Android. All the rest are only promises for some time in the future.
Both you and the article author are somewhat misinformed. Flash has been running on mobile platforms for quite a while, albeit in the form of Flash Lite, which is not on par with the desktop version.
My 4-year old Nokia N80 can run older Flash content from the web (I think up to Flash 7), but more importantly it runs "phone applications" written in Flash.
You're of course correct with the rest of your arguments -- I'm not too fond of Flash myself.
Comment Re:Getting ready for the MS bash (Score 1) 205
All I can say is a subjective "smooth enough". And it's been actually supported for quite a while by all major browsers except IE. And IE9 will come with hardware-accelerated canvas (it was covered on
Comment Re:Getting ready for the MS bash (Score 5, Insightful) 205
Playing devil's advocate -- it's pretty trivial to make a Silverlight interface to pan and zoom around a giant image like this. It's less trivial to do the same thing with, say, JavaScript or Flash.
Actually you're trolling more than playing devil's advocate. There's a sh*tload of zoom & pan-enabled image viewing libraries, both in JS and Flash, all using tiles just like Silverlight -- try to google some.
And for that matter it's trivial to DIY from scratch using canvas, which of course IE conveniently doesn't support, but that problem was solved too long ago. OpenLayers, which you might have seen at work at OpenStreetMap, includes a VML rendering backend, besides canvas and SVG.
The really funny part about your "advocating" is that MS has an Ajax library that does exactly the same thing as its Silverlight counterpart: http://www.seadragon.com/developer/ajax/
SeaMicro Unveils 512 Atom-Based Server 183
1sockchuck writes "Stealthy startup SeaMicro has unveiled its new low-power server, which incorporates 512 Intel Atom CPUs, a load balancer and interconnection fabric into a 10u server. SeaMicro, which received a $9.3 million government grant from DOE to develop its technology, says its server uses less than 2 kilowatts of energy — suggesting that a single rack with four SeaMicro units and 2,048 CPUs could draw just 8 kilowatts of power. Check out the technical overview, plus additional coverage from Wired, GigaOm and VentureBeat."
Submission + - Google Open Sources VP8 Video Codec (openvideoalliance.org)
soDean writes: Google, Mozilla and Opera announced a new open video format today called WebM. As part of the WebM project, Google is is freely licensing the VP8 compression technology. This new open video format will use a modified Matroska video container (.webm). WebM format support is available today in Firefox, Chromium, and Opera development builds. All videos that are 720p or larger, uploaded to YouTube after May 19th, will be be encoded in WebM. The Open Video Alliance has the full scoop.
Submission + - Google releases VP8 video codec
atamido writes: Google has released On2's VP8 video codec to the world, royalty free. They are packaging in with Vorbis audio, in a subset of the Matroska container, and calling it WebM. It's not branded as an exclusively Google project — Mozilla and Opera are also contributors. Builds of your favorite browsers with full support are available here.
Comment Re:Botnets (Score 2, Interesting) 563
Now there's an interesting idea. Someone should code a botnet that only downloads and shares copyrighted content, nothing else malicious.
Comment Re:Rebuttal of the "RFTA, it's distributed" respon (Score 1) 295
The "metaserver" can be just a tracker. And if you're scared of a central server needed for authentication, look no further than kerberos.
First Full Science Results From Herschel 22
davecl writes "Today the first full science results from the Herschel Space Observatory were released, including results ranging from the formation and evolution of galaxies to the detailed physics of star formation. Details can be found from The European Space Agency, the BBC, and the Herschel mission blog that I help maintain. Briefer reports, covering rather more of the science, can also be found under the #eslab2010 hashtag on Twitter."
Open Source Developer Knighted 101
unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"
Comment Re:Much faster clone time (Score 1) 536
People still don't get it, however. The WePad thinks it can compete with the iPad with hardware features but will run Linux... which is a server or desktop OS.
You mean Linux... which is a server, or supercomputer, or desktop, or laptop, or netbook, router, TV, camera, handheld, media player, embedded device, [...] OS.
A very long time ago it was a server OS. Now it can be tailored for everything, and it is everywhere. Except on toasters I guess, those are BSDs.
Don't confuse the kernel with the graphics / widget libraries. Which by the way are cheerfully getting to that level of adaptability as well.
Submission + - The ARM, the PPC, the x86, and the iPad (neosmart.net)
An anonymous reader writes: With the release of the iPad, and more specifically, its use of the new ARM-based A4 CPU, a lot of questions are being asked about x86 and ARM, and where they're used. NeoSmart Technologies takes a lengthy look at the underlying architecture of the iPad, Apple's rumored purchase of Intrinsity, and explains the differences between the CISC x86 and the RISC ARM/PPC architectures. Incredibly informative, and easy to understand even if it's all new stuff.
