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Comment Re:Hmm (Score 1) 265

by Qwerpafw (#30846760) Attached to: YouTube Offers Experimental Opt-In HTML5 Video
ogg is not hardware accelerated on your laptop, and if you're still using a PDA then you're a couple generations back anyways.

All modern smartphones (anything that runs android, pre, iPhone, even most of RIM's stuff) play H.264 and have hardware acceleration for it, many "dumbphones" even play H.264.

Netbooks all have H.264 hardware acceleration...

sorry that your decade old 3Com Palm Pilot doesn't play HD video, don't blame google for that one.

Comment Re:Should be a selling feature... (Score 1) 265

by Qwerpafw (#30846700) Attached to: YouTube Offers Experimental Opt-In HTML5 Video
To clarify, from the site

Additional Restrictions (we are working on these!)

*Videos with ads are not supported (they will play in the Flash player)

Ads will still play, and will in fact inflict flash on you. There's really no good way right now to force people to watch advertisements if the whole video is H.264 (since you could just scrub past the ads), so I can understand this, even if I don't like it.

What they'll probably eventually do is break the video up into a bunch of shorter videos, with ads in between. Then they can load each part in sequence, and enforce a timer on the ad portion so even if you scrub through the ad you still have to wait for the timer.

Comment This is fantastic news (Score 1) 265

by Qwerpafw (#30846604) Attached to: YouTube Offers Experimental Opt-In HTML5 Video
I've been using ClickToFlash with safari for a long time now, which suppresses the flash in youtube videos and plays them in H.264 (when possible) directly. This is a tremendous CPU boon on a netbook - I can't play flash, HD or otherwise, fullscreen, but quicktime plays H.264 just fine. Flash is a horrible monster, and with all the vulnerabilities and instability that it brings along with it, the faster youtube moves away from it, the better.
Security

SSLStrip Now In the Wild 208

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-the-marisa-tomei-kind dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Moxie Marlinspike, who last week presented his controversial SSL stripping attacks at Black Hat Federal, appears to have released his much-anticipated demonstration tool for performing MITM attacks against would-be SSL connections. This vulnerability has been met with everything from calls for more widespread EV certificate deployment to an even more fervent push for DNSSEC."
Input Devices

Brain Control Headset for Gamers 152

Posted by CmdrTaco from the get-out-of-my-brain dept.
gbjbaanb writes "Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone. Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le [president of US/Australian firm Emotiv] said the Epoc was the first consumer device that can be used for gaming. 'This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp,' she said. 'It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars.'" Wait until the government can get warrantless wiretaps on the logs of those things.
Programming

Microsoft Releases Office Binary Formats 259

Posted by kdawson from the this-way-lies-madness dept.
Microsoft has released documentation on their Office binary formats. Before jumping up and down gleefully, those working on related open source efforts, such as OpenOffice, might want to take a very close look at Microsoft's Open Specification Promise to see if it seems to cover those working on GPL software; some believe it doesn't. stm2 points us to some good advice from Joel Spolsky to programmers tempted to dig into the spec and create an Excel competitor over a weekend that reads and writes these formats: find an easier way. Joel provides some workarounds that render it possible to make use of these binary files. "[A] normal programmer would conclude that Office's binary file formats: are deliberately obfuscated; are the product of a demented Borg mind; were created by insanely bad programmers; and are impossible to read or create correctly. You'd be wrong on all four counts."
It's funny. Laugh.

Obsolete Technical Skills 603

Posted by kdawson from the morse-code-will-never-die-oh-wait dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Robert Scoble had an interesting post on his blog a few days ago on obsolete technical skills — 'things we used to know that no longer are very useful to us.' Scoble's initial list included dialing a rotary phone, using carbon paper to make copies, and changing the gas mixture on your car's carburetor. The list has now been expanded into a wiki with a much larger list of these obsolete skills that includes resolving IRQ conflicts on a mother board, assembly language programming, and stacking a quarter on an arcade game to indicate you have next. We're invited to contribute more."
Space

Milky Way Is Twice the Size We Thought 301

Posted by kdawson from the everything-you-know-is-wrong dept.
Peter writes to tell us about a research group at the University of Sydney in Australia, who in the middle of some calculation wanted to check the numbers everybody uses for the thickness of our galaxy at the core. Using data available freely on the Internet and analyzing it in a spreadsheet, they discovered in a matter of hours that the Milky Way is 12,000 light years thick, vs. the 6,000 that had been the consensus number for some time.
OS X

Submission + - New Mac Pro and Xserve released (apple.com) 1

Submitted by
TwilightSentry
TwilightSentry writes: "Apple's released the latest revision to the Mac Pro and Xserve (Which, the last time I checked, use essentially the same mainboard). Seems that they've upped the clock-speed, and they claim to deliver "twice the performance of its predecessor." I'm guessing that that means that they've moved to a newer chipset with faster busses..."
Businesses

Submission + - WSJ just wants to be free (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wall St. Journal to drop subscription model.
Education

Submission + - Education for masses in India

Submitted by
parvez1
parvez1 writes: "dear Slashdot, What is the best way to educate masses in developing countries?Read this idea by Sam Pitroda from National Knowledge Commission of India.Is this a model that can be replicated by other developing countries?What is the best way to say reduce opposition to such moves in a democracy and a country ruled by a different form of government?How does the common person benefit more in developing countries from such moves and yes the suggestion of this idea itself takes guts?My only defense here is nothing ventured nothing achieved.Your take-let the discussion begin! Sell off BSNL to fund education, says Pitroda Chetan Chauhan New Delhi, January 13, 2007 A day after the Report to the Nation 2006 was presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the National Knowledge Commission chairperson Sam Pitroda said that the public sector telecom major BSNL could be sold and the proceeds invested in education. The Prime Minister had, on Friday, identified education as a sector which needed reform to provide knowledge access to all. Pitroda said the BSNL could fetch Rs 80,000 crores which should be enough to take care of the immediate needs of the education sector. "I don't understand what business the government has in the telecom sector. It could sell BSNL and invest the money in the future of the country through education," Pitroda said. Pitroda who laid the foundations of India's telecom revolution 20 years ago, said BSNL is bound to lose its value with the private sector's market share increasing. "By selling it now the government will fetch good money," he told HT on Saturday. But, he admitted that such a 'bold decision' would require 'a lot of guts'. Such a decision could also help increase the GDP for education to six per cent as promised in the National Common Minimum Programme. "There is no system of education in the world that is not based on significant public outlays," he said in the report. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1899225,000 8.htm http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/"
Nintendo

Submission + - Woman dies after "Hold your wee for a Wii cont

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "A 28 year old woman was found dead of water intoxication hours after taking part in an Entercom-owned radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest:
Can you hold "it" in for a long time? We're having you drink water every 15 minutes! And the last person to go to the bathroom wins the Wii!
According to Wikipedia: "Water intoxication can be prevented if a person's intake of water and electrolytes closely matches his or her losses. The body's regulatory mechanisms provide a very generous margin of safety if the two are imbalanced, but some extreme activities (such as heavy, prolonged physical exertion), as well as disease states, can overwhelm or impair these mechanisms.""
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Faux Klingons sendings real Americans to war

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to US Congressman David Wu (D-OR), a cabal of "faux Klingons" have seized control of the White House {YouTube} — The "President has listened to [...] the so-called Vulcans in the White House, [... b]ut unlike the Vulcans of Star Trek, [...] these guys make [decisions] on ideology. These aren't Vulcans. There are Klingons in the White House." If you're in disbelief over this clear case of pandering to the 1337 wing, check the transcript in the Congressional Record.

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