Here's a 7500x7500 (56 megapixel) image of the fractal: http://seadragon.com/view/fnr.

Quicktime runs on two platforms: OS X and Windows, and many Windows machines don't have it. It sorta runs on iPhone but the codec support and user interface is completely different. Flash runs on four platforms: OS X, Windows, Linux, and Solaris, and is commonly installed on all of them. Flash isn't as cross-platform as the web itself, but it's better than any other video plugin.

As for your "et al." Windows Media player is obviously platform specific, and there are no other widely-deployed video plugins. Also, the WMP plugin for non-IE browsers is no longer shipped with Windows as of Vista.

Not sure what you mean by that. Sure, there are differences between browsers, but they're nothing like the differences between Quicktime and Windows Media Player.

So you're seriously suggesting that instead of the video tag we should have many competing video plugins with different UIs, APIs, and supported codecs, which users should choose and install based on their preference, and then every website should support all of them to enable user choice? Now that I think about it, I guess that's actually a pretty accurate description of the way things worked before Flash video. Minus the "every website should support all of them" because that never happened.

A) You're entitled to your opinion, but you're wrong.
B) Flash can and does do all of these things; that's why the video tag is better than Flash. However, Flash does have the advantage over other video plugins because it's so widely used it's almost always already in RAM before the user visits your page, so you don't get the loading delay.
C) The reason to believe it won't is that it doesn't. Have you even tried it?
D) Complete non sequitur. I'm sorry, but the video tag doesn't feed the hungry or bring world peace either.

A quick Google search for "flash z-index" will prove you wrong. I can only assume you've never written a lot of code dealing with plugins because frustrations and limitations are everywhere. Also, the Quicktime plugin doesn't support fullscreen at all. Never has. The WMP plugin does, but the default UI doesn't even provide a button for it. You just have to know to double-click or right-click.

According to Adobe, >90% of browsers have Flash 10 with H.264 installed. >99% of browsers have Flash 9 with at least VP6, and some number in between (likely on the high end) have Flash 9 with H.264. That's only 2 codecs you need to worry about, and in reality likely only one.

You asked for it...

Playing video in an embed tag requires the user to have a platform-specific plugin installed. The user interface you get depends on the specific plugin used and can only be customized in a plugin-specific way. The Javascript API offered by the player is also plugin-specific and probably not as useful as the standard API provided by the video tag. Loading the plugin will often freeze the user's browser for several seconds and/or cause crashes. Plugins don't play nice with CSS opacity and z-order and are often buggy with respect to positioning, resizing, full-page zoom, and DOM manipulation. New advanced CSS features like transforms and animation are not likely to play nice with plugins either.

Flash took over from embed because it provided a customizable UI, consistent API, workable fullscreen mode, and reliable codec support. The video tag has the first two of these and is likely to get fullscreen support soon. Unfortunately codec support is a sticking point...

There will soon be much less need for 3D from 2D hacks, because there's a new technology coming that produces 3D pictures directly: Time-of-flight cameras. Today they are really expensive but they're going to become much cheaper very soon. This is what XBox's Project Natal is based on.

If you want browser control over animations, then take a look at WebKit's CSS Animation proposal. Instead of driving animations with opaque Javascript you can specify them declaratively in CSS, and as a side effect the browser gains control over the implementation.

The difference is VRML sucked. OpenGL doesn't suck.

If you want more detail: VRML was based on a scene graph. Scene graph APIs have proven over time to be the Wrong Way to do real-time graphics. They are complex to implement, inflexible, and slow. The alternative is immediate mode rendering APIs like OpenGL and Direct3D, which are fast, flexible, and relatively simple to implement, and have been very successful. For an analogy to 2D graphics, VRML is like SVG, while OpenGL is like the Canvas element in HTML 5.

The difference in quality you saw was due to the LCD panel, not the backlight. There's a very wide range of quality in LCD panels, and the make of the display does not necessarily indicate the quality. Manufacturers usually buy their panels from third parties, and in some cases even displays with the same model number can have different panels.

Even good LCD panels have nowhere near enough dynamic range to be properly called "HDR", let alone a 5 million to one contrast ratio.

No, it's why anyone who made cell phones for the US market had to ask permission from and pay money to Motorola until the patent expired in 1992.

I didn't mean that it would be *actually* as bright as the sun; that would obviously be dangerous :-) There's a big difference between "uncomfortable to stare at" and "as bright as the sun".

Also, though defining HDR solely in terms of contrast ratios is pedantically correct, it isn't actually useful since any emissive display that can turn off completely has an infinite contrast ratio when viewed in darkness. I wouldn't call such a display "HDR" unless its peak brightness level at least matched other common displays.

It turns out that this doesn't work because LED-backlit HDTVs use a row of LEDs along one side of the display shining through a diffuser. (On some laptop panels you can actually see alternating dark and light spots along the edge where the LEDs are.) The actual point of LED backlights is that they are more efficient and reliable than CCFL tubes, and can adjust in brightness continuously and instantly.

Now, there are HDR displays that work in exactly the way you describe, but you won't find them at Best Buy yet because they cost $50,000.

The simplest, most trivial web service ever to become virally popular, that any decent web developer could bang out in a week, is being sued for patent infringement. If this doesn't prove the patent system is bullshit, nothing will.

Completely incorrect. A device infringes a patent if it fulfills the claims of that patent, regardless of whether it's been further improved. You can file a separate patent for the improvements, and in that case the device will be covered by *both* patents.

That's "dynamic" (i.e. fake) contrast. A display with dynamic contrast can turn down its backlight when displaying a black screen, which artificially increases the ratio between the brightness of a white screen and a black screen. However, that trick can't be used when displaying an image that's half white and half black, so the "real" contrast ratio you see most of the time is much, much lower.

Backlight brightness adjustment is a good feature but it doesn't compare to real high dynamic range. It's easy to see that the "dynamic" contrast ratio is a meaningless measurement: all you have to do is completely turn off the backlight when displaying a black screen and your dynamic contrast ratio is infinite! A real high dynamic range display could display an image of the sun as seen from space where the sun was so bright you wouldn't want to look directly at it, but space itself would be so dark that in a dark room you wouldn't be able to perceive the edges of the display.

I really don't think the hardware is good enough yet. To run smoothly and efficiently robots will need joint motors that are springy and compliant just like human muscles. All of the robot limbs I've ever seen are far too stiff (with the possible exception of BigDog's legs). Just look at this guy's head and arms shake while he's running; there are huge shock forces being transmitted from the feet directly up to the torso through all those stiff joints. Not only is that likely bad for the robot, it means that tons of energy is being wasted. For example, instead of letting the knee swing forward naturally during a step this robot has to run its servos to force the knee to rotate forward.

According to the contest rules the winning algorithm will not be exclusive to Netflix but will be published to the public, so we all win.