Comment: fix bugs in VP8 please! (Score 1) 158
VP8 implementation in chrome is a bit buggy and periodically crashes a tab - I suspect it doesn't get widely used or these issues would get solved more quickly.
Comment: that will help (Score 1) 95
by
SkunkPussy
(#44037181)
Attached to: Cerulean Studios Releases Trillian IM Protocol Specifications
Lets deal with protocol fragmentation by introducing another protocol.
Cerulean Studios Releases Trillian IM Protocol Specifications 95
Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
from the hey-we're-still-alive dept.
from the hey-we're-still-alive dept.
Runefox writes "Cerulean Studios, the company behind the long-lived Trillian instant messaging client, has released preliminary specifications to their proprietary "Astra" protocol, now named IMPP (Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol), which provides continuous client functionality as well as mandatory TLS encryption for clients. According to their blog, Cerulean Studios' motivation for the release is to promote interoperability among the throngs of IM services and clients available by allowing others to also use the protocol. Future concepts include federation with XMPP. While the documentation is in an early state and the protocol is claimed to still be in development, it is hoped that it will help decentralize the very heavily fragmented messaging ecosystem. It's implied that, in turn, greater options for privacy may become available in the wake of the PRISM scandal via privately-run federated servers, unaffiliated with major networks, yet still able to communicate with them."
Comment: irrelevant industry (Score 1) 73
Industry is irrelvant, if your customers are being actively exploited you are or ought to be liable if you don't fix it as fast as possible
Xbox One: Cloud Will Quadruple the Power, Says Microsoft 400
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the silver-lining dept.
from the silver-lining dept.
New submitter geirlk writes "Toms Hardware reports that 'Group program manager of Xbox Incubation & Prototyping Jeff Henshaw recently told OXM that for every console Microsoft builds, it will provision the CPU and storage equivalent of three Xbox One consoles in the cloud. This allows developers to assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game. Thus, developers can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players.'"
Microsoft's Most Profitable Mobile Operating System: Android 309
Posted
by
timothy
from the profit-through-judo dept.
from the profit-through-judo dept.
puddingebola writes "Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has a piece of commentary discussing Microsoft's profit from their patent claims on Android. From the article, 'To some, Windows 8 is a marketplace failure. But its flop has been nothing compared to Microsoft's problems in getting anyone to use its Windows Phone operating systems. You don't need to worry about Microsoft's bottom line though. Thanks to its Android patent agreements, Microsoft may be making as much as $8 per Android device. This could give Microsoft as much as $3.4 billion in 2013 from Android sales.'"
Coursera Partners With Chegg To Offer Gratis, DRMed Textbooks for Courses 91
Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
from the first-hit-free dept.
from the first-hit-free dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news on Coursera partnering with publishers to give students access to more textbooks. From the article: "Online learning startup Coursera on Wednesday announced a partnership with Chegg, a student hub for various educational tools and materials, as well as five publishers to offer students free textbooks during their courses. Professors teaching courses on Coursera have previously only been able to assign content freely available on the Web, but as of today they will also be able to provide an even wider variety of curated teaching and learning materials at no cost to the student."
Zero cost, but not without cost: "Starting today, publishers Cengage Learning, Macmillan Higher Education,Oxford University Press SAGE, and Wiley will experiment with offering versions of their e-textbooks, delivered via Chegg’s DRM-protected e-Reader, to Coursera students. We are also actively discussing pilot agreements and related alliances with Springer and other publishers. ... The publisher content will be free and available for enrolled students for the duration of the class. If you wish to use the e-textbook before or after the course, they will be available for purchase."
BT Begins Customer Tests of Carrier Grade NAT 338
Posted
by
timothy
from the party-line-but-with-less-yelling dept.
from the party-line-but-with-less-yelling dept.
judgecorp writes "BT Retail has started testing Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) with its customer. CGNAT is a controversial practice, in which IP addresses are shared between customers, limiting what customers can do on the open Internet. Although CGNAT goes against the Internet's original end-to-end principles, ISPs say they are forced to use it because IPv4 addresses are running out, and IPv6 is not widely implemented. BT's subsidiary PlusNet has already carried out CGNAT trials, and now BT is trying it on "Option 1" customers who pay for low Internet usage."
Comment: what makes it fun (Score 4, Insightful) 1078
Its exactly that kind of stuff that got me into chemistry in the first place
Paul Thurrot Predicts November Debut, $500 Tag For Xbox 720 232
Posted
by
timothy
from the luckily-not-one-of-my-needs dept.
from the luckily-not-one-of-my-needs dept.
New submitter inkribbon writes that Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott has now predicted that Microsoft's Xbox 720 console will actually hit the market this November. Thurrott offers a mix of what he considers cold, known facts and "clearly identified conjecture" about the upcoming device. Important to users is this confidently offered claim about the price: "Microsoft will initially offer two pricing models for the console: a standalone version for $499 and a $299 version that requires a two-year Xbox LIVE Gold commitment at an expected price of $10 per month."
Comment: Re: How come we have media support? (Score 1) 226
I just tried to find some more info about it and found this page (http://wiki.debian.org/MultimediaCodecs) which doesn't really answer my question, but it amused me how much they're at pains to point out that you might have problems if you use unofficial codecs (3 times in a few cms of text).
At the bottom of that document is http://www.debian.org/legal/patent, which says "Debian will not knowingly distribute software encumbered by patents". But debian apparently distribute mp3 and h264 codecs and I'm completely certain that these are encumbered by patents, which is in direct contradiction to that statement.
So who knows what they're up to?
Comment: How come we have media support? (Score 1) 226
Have they finally come up with a free solution for media playback? Or have they compromised on their principles?
Low Levels of Toxic Gas Found To Encourage Plant Growth 103
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger dept.
from the what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger dept.
olsmeister writes "Hydrogen Sulfide is a toxic, flammable, foul-smelling gas that some theorize may have been at least partially responsible for some of Earth's mass extinctions, including the Permian-Triassic event, which killed well over half of the species on the planet. Now, thanks to a fortuitous accident, doctoral student at the University of Washington seems to have discovered that very low doses of the gas seems to greatly enhance plant growth, causing plants to germinate more quickly and grow larger. The finding could have far reaching implications for both food and biofuel production."
Comment: innovation failure (Score 1) 168
by
SkunkPussy
(#43472837)
Attached to: Foxconn Signs Massive Android Patent Agreement With Microsoft
It irritates me that Microsoft, having consistently failed to innovate a phone that anybody wanted to use, is now able to extract money out of other people's efforts. Its an innovation tax. Don't bother innovating, as failed innovators will help themselves to the profits of your innovation.
Comment: Re:remote desktop vs windows (Score 1) 197
Incorrect.
The X application that you run remotely has no clue that it is going over an ssh connection. It looks at the DISPLAY variable as normal, then it finds that it points to a particular local port. This port has been opened by ssh which also set up the DISPLAY variable in your shell. ssh -X does the magic but it wouldn't be possible without a network transparent protocol.