I know what opensource is . But you forget the Golden Rule ,Those that have the Gold make the RULES , therefore as I said (if you can read in context)anything worth big money will not be FREE or OPEN

Can you get more clueless than you? You clearly have no idea what open source means, and what sourcecode is, so thanks for your input, you should become senator or something..

Are you foolish enough to think Corporations do not rule this world ? Then you must also be foolish enough to think anything worth watching or hearing will be totally FREE ! Open source will not be used if it's not full of DRM with a way for the Corps. to charge you for it or limit it's use. Wise Up.Get real.

There is every reason to use Linux. I only use windows for Netflix. The rest of the time my computer boots to Ubuntu, my favorite flavor of Linux.I try to protect myself as much as possible, and that's no easy. There are several Firefox browser plugins and I have tried several. If you block third party cookies in flash, most flash apps don't work. As far as Netflix, the only info they see is the same info over and over since I use Linux for everything else.If you want to use the internet it's almost impossible to be invisible. The best we can do is minimize our footprint, which is what I try to do.
I do find it kind of funny is all the software I consider the best is free.
At one time I used to really like Google,now I consider them evil. You just can't win because greed will overcome every internet (and related)business. The only relative safety we have is people not trying to profit, and that's open source.

Steve T, the main reason why Apple is "backing HTML 5" is because it gives them a pseudo-righteous reason to ban their iPhone / iPad users from installing Flash (which would let those users get apps without going through the Apple store).

The secondary reason is that Apple is a member of the MPEG LA patent pool, and profits from H.264 royalties.

If Apple really cared about "open standards", they would be backing Theora and / or VP8 as the official HTML 5 codec. Instead, they specifically said they would refuse to implement any codec other than H.264 (as did Microsoft - coincidentally, another member of MPEG LA).

So yes, this is another front against Apple (and Microsoft, and Sony, and several other corporations) in the war for a royalty-free web video codec.

It has very little to do with Flash; Apple's war with Adobe is about control over applications, not video (a lot of Flash video is actually encoded in H.264, and can be served directly to Apple's decoder, if the server strips the FLV headers).

@Sambucus Nigra Thanks a lot for that link, interesting read, and funny quote that "This is just like Internet Explorer 6 all over again — bugs in the software become part of the “spec”!"
It does leave questions open though, but it's nice questions are on the table at least.

@Scott If you are willing to install MS crap like silverlight then why bother using linux at all? That reminds me about plugins for firefox that enable ActiveX, sigh, so idiotic.
As for privacy, you seriously think netflix isn't spying on you massively anyway? (There's an addon for firefox that deletes flashcookies btw), I'm sure they log IP's and viewing behavior completely separate from any cookies or if you use flash, and flash only has the flashcookies but I shudder to think what silverlight does, there's a reason why sites use it for such things, because it harvests even more valuable data than just what you watch and IP I bet, knowing MS it probably also gathers the serial numbers of your HD's and the MAC addresses of your network equipment and such stuff, their WGA crap broadcasted HD serial # every day to MS and they stated so on their site and they felt that was 'not private'.

My only real concern is that it be open source, if that would happen it could work with Mac, Windows and Linux. The only reason I keep Windows on my computer is it Netflix, does not support Linux. Do you think MS will make Silverlight for Linux?
Open would be faster smaller and most of all free. So many people would be able to improve on it. I like os x but don't care for itunes. Media player calls home with everything you play.
I know linux has an app to replace silverlight but it can't get it to work with netflix. I don't like flash player because it keeps track of everything you do. More lack of privacy.

Going to ?taiwan, heres booth with Demo for Red'r.

In 2010, SHARKOON will participate in the Computex Taipei for the first time and introduce a variety of new and innovative products.

You will find SHARKOON in booth no. J309, Nangang 1st Floor.

Over the past several months we have expanded our line-up of creative products and will be demonstrating them at this year’s Computex. Particularly noteworthy this year are our new headsets for consoles - which we will be presenting live at our stand.

In addition, we take our pioneering role in USB3.0 terminals in 2010 seriously and present new, innovative storage devices with USB3.0 interfaces, which have been certified by Gigabyte.

To set an appointment please contact global@sharkoon.com.

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

SHARKOON Technologies GmbH

newsletter@sharkoon.com.
: SHARKOON Technologies GmbH - Siemensstr. 38 - D-35440 Linden
www.sharkoon.com
BTW theres Video Protocol 10 or 10 bit video. Supposedly works as good as 48 pixel bits, by emulating. Now that'll be day. RainBow C Peeping.
Tell 'em drashek sent ya.LOFROFL Xb/s as Predicted by Ultee' usb3 onfi2.2 is 200 Mb/s NOT 200 Gb/s

Hmm...if this H.264 thing was to be adopted as a web standard, when the MPEG-LA noose starts to tighten in 2015, the world could collectively exclaim:

"Wow, I could've had a VP8"

...as they dig around for cash to pay the tax man/men/persons. I pay quite enough taxes now, thanks just the same.

That is the whole problem with H.264, it IS patent-encumbered. MPEG-LA is playing coy by saying that "most" small-time users will not have to pay royalties "until 2015". So they are acting "nice" right now to try and get h.264 approved as "the" standard for web video, after which they can charge whoever whatever they want for royalties.

And MPEG-LA's decisions are made by the various patent holders that it represents. You may begin to see the problem here...Big Money (like Microsoft, Apple, and Big Media) can squeeze small companies or users out of existence by raising H.264 patent royalties (in 2015) to levels which only THEY can afford. They can control all users on the web, and control all distributed video content. They can turn a "blind eye" to some users, but suddenly litigate those they do not like out of existence. What an appealing thought (if you were a power-hungry company like Apple or Microsoft, which seems to value control over users' rights).

Just because a company licenses patents from MPEG-LA does not mean they have to commit to ramming H.264 down the world's throat. Google is an H.264 patent holder, but instead is donating the VP8 codec to the world for free, no strings attached.

I don't think that it is a "coincidence" that Google timed this VP8 announcement to coincide with today's announcement by the EU on its Digital Agenda for Europe, which speaks to the importance of "interoperability" and "open architecture". Proprietary formats (like H.264, and the various Microsoft document formats, including MSOOXML) hinder the open exchange of information. At least the EU has the gumption to put the rights of their citizens -- and the citizens of the world -- ahead of the special interests of Big Business:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/200&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Unfortunately, VP8 seems to bear a heavy patent burded and is not really competitive with H.264. :(

In-depth analysis by one of the main x264 developers here:

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377 .

Google never announced [as you said last month] that it will open vp8

Hey Lawrence, please do a follow up on this. Answer Steve's question, provide the details for the format, get technicial even!
Browser support, plug-in needed? potential blocking/firewall issues, can it carry malicious code? can we filter by content tags? yada yada.

...but does that call home also?

Apple and Adobe are battling over HTML5 vs Flash video playback (BTW, newer Flash encoded video is also H.264 format), so VP8 is going to be a new front in this battle?

Providing VP8 isn't subject to patent challenges and can be hardware accelerated I'd guess that Apple couldn't give a damn if it's included in the HTML5 spec. Adobe on the other hand get it in the shorts either way.