Posts filed under 'Internet'
YouTube increases video limit size to 2GB
| Written by Jon Worrel | |
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Allows for more HD content The YouTube team has also implemented embedding and direct linking to HD versions of video clips. By appending “&hd=1” to the end of the URL, a video will start playing in HD as soon as someone follows the link. There is already speculation as to what the next update will introduce. Perhaps the maximum HD video resolution (853×805) might be expanded to fit a more conventional resolution of 1280×720, or a live broadcasting service feature similar to Justin.tv and Qik.com. Only time will tell. |
Add comment July 2, 2009
Firefox 3.5 debuts at last
Just over a year after the arrival of Firefox 3, Mozilla has finally unleashed the next major release of its popular web browser: Firefox 3.5. The final version has become available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in “over 65 languages.”
In case you didn’t pay attention during the protracted development cycle, here’s what Firefox 3.5 brings to the table, in the words of the official release notes:
- Support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio.
- Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
- Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- The ability to share your location with websites using Location Aware Browsing.
- Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
- Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Support for new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.
TraceMonkey and the updated Gecko engine are probably the most noticeable changes for day-to-day browsing, since they bring about serious speedups compared to Firefox 3. The Mozilla folks are definitely catching up to their rivals at Google and Apple in the performance department.
Otherwise, HTML 5 support lets you play some embedded videos without using the Adobe Flash plug-in or clumsy Java-based players. DailyMotion already has a pre-beta site up with nothing but HTML 5 videos. (Thanks for TR reader SH SOTN for the links.)
Add comment July 1, 2009
Free Internet over in five years
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| Written by Nick Farrell | |
IAC chairman claims The days of free surfing are fast coming to a close with a payed internet just five years away, according to the chairman and chief executive of IAC. Barry Diller, who runs IAC, which operates a collection of more than 30 Internet sites which produce $1.5 billion a year in revenue said that the world wide wibble is passing from its free days into a paid system.Talking to the Advertising 2.0 conference in Manhattan he said that not every single thing will be paid for, but anything of value. The only reason it has been free so far is because of “an accident of historical moment that will be corrected,” he said. This is a period of “creative chaos” that will span the next three to five years. This will change as the big player decide to sit behind pay walls even it if means cutting back on hits. Diller said people will pay, if it is quality they’re buying. |
Add comment June 15, 2009
Firefox 3.5 previews
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| Written by Nick Farrell | |
Better and faster The Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox 3.5 preview version is now available for download and we have had a few hours playing with it.Firstly it is a bit faster than earlier versions, although all the browsers on the market these days, such as Opera, Chrome and Safari are faster than the earlier generation. But the new browser has a few things which are more interesting including the use of open-source video standards, geo-location capabilities, and a few nice graphics tricks. With 3.5 it is possible to run a video player based on the open-source video formats Ogg Vorbis and Theora. What is cool is that by using HTML5 links and other interactive elements can easily be placed inside videos. What is interesting is that it can do things that Flash can’t, and if it is supported by websites it could send Adobe packing. Ogg Theora is supported by Daily Motion so it is not too far from being a possibility. Have a look at the demo video here |
Add comment June 10, 2009
Mozilla working on multicore-friendly Firefox build
| Written by Jon Worrel | |
| More responsiveness, security, overall stability Mozilla is currently working on a new implementation of its popular web browser that will allow it to run individual segments of the entire program over the span of several processes at a time. The goal is to provide a stable and more efficient load structure and a higher level of security, all while making more use of those idle CPU cores we have sitting around in our machines. The project, coordinated by Mozilla expert Benjamin Smedberg, consists of four or more development phases, with the first scheduled to be completed this summer on July 15th. Phase I highlights the initial bootstrap concept that will be hacked together fairly quickly, consisting of a simplistic page with a URL bar. Phase II will focus more with interactions between the user interface and web content and is aimed for November. Early next year, we can expect Phase III to come around, which focus on adapting the APIs for extensibility, accessibility, and performance. This is speculated to be the first usable release. Phase IV will wrap up the majority of the development process and extend the previous development to support several content processes at a time. Time will tell what we can expect from this interesting Firefox project. Perhaps we may even see the start of a multi-process web browser competition among big players that could even light some ideas for GPGPU implementations. All in all, we won’t have to dream anymore about hardware efficient web browsing once this project begins to mature. |
Add comment May 11, 2009
WGA dubbed Windows Activation Technology with Windows 7
Product activation and validation in Windows 7 is built off the same Software Protection Platform that was introduced with Windows Vista. Microsoft claims the technology is much better than the one in XP: Vista is harder to pirate. However, in response to customer feedback, Windows 7 will give users more informative notifications when it comes to activation. For example, unlike in Vista SP1, if Windows 7 is not activated during the login process, customers will no longer have to wait 15 seconds to click the “Activate later” button, and instead they will be given more information on activation.
Joe Williams, general manager of Worldwide Genuine Windows at Microsoft, today gave more information on what is coming for activation and validation in Windows 7. The most noticeable change is that the technology is being renamed from the rather well-known (and hated) Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) to Windows Activation Technologies (WAT).
It’s worth quoting the reasoning behind this change in full:
[T]he technology used in Windows Vista and Windows 7 is fundamentally different from that used with Windows XP. It consists of new code and the latest methods for protecting Windows in ways that can only really be achieved with the components that are built in to both Windows Vista and now Windows 7. For that reason the anti-piracy features in Windows 7 — and future versions of updates of the technology for Windows Vista — will be referred to more accurately as Windows Activation Technologies. We will continue releasing Window Genuine Advantage updates for Windows XP-based systems. We also spent time thinking about how we could make activation and validation easier for enterprises. For example, we think IT professionals will appreciate support in Windows 7 for virtualized images and volume activation technologies. When Windows Vista was being developed, virtualization was primarily a server scenario, but today many companies have it in their production environment on both the server and the client. We listened and adapted our management tool for organizations by making them more easily available.
I find it very interesting that Microsoft is moving away from “genuine advantage” to “activation technologies.” In almost every WGA story that I’ve written, the same comments keep appearing: users demand that Microsoft explain what the “genuine advantage” is to activation. It looks like the PR department has started to pay a bit more attention and wants to make the technology’s aim more clear. I guess the most popular comments will now be “What’s WAT?”
Add comment May 8, 2009
Pirate Bay Judge slammed again
| Written by Nick Farrell | |
Another conflict of interest Tomas Norström, the judge who presided over the Pirate Bay trial, has been accused of bias once again.After the Pirate Bay trial it was revealed that he was connected to several pro-copyright and intellectual property organisations. His decision to throw the book at the Pirate Bay people was seen as a surprise and some think it was as a result of some bias. While a higher court thinks about what to do about Pirate Bay it seems that Norström has got himself in trouble over another trial. BMW brought a small company from Gothenburg called Wheels Spare Parts to court for making rims too similar to their own. They were convicted in October 2008 by Norström. In this case it is because Norström was active in the same organisations as the prosecutor lawyer, and did not tell this to the court before the trial started. The defense lawyer in this case has now made a formal complaint, what this leads to remains to be seen at a higher instance of court. |
Add comment May 8, 2009
Apple might buy Twitter
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| Written by Nick Farrell | |
How to be smug in 140 characters Fruit themed toymaker Apple has been rumoured as a potential buyer of Twitter.The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a yarn which says that Jobs’ Mob is about to pay $700 million for the social notworking site. The deal is expected to be announced at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference after Steve Jobs finishes his hormone replacement therapy. Twitter turned down a $500 million offer in cash and stock from Facebook, in part because Twitter’s investors couldn’t agree on whether Facebook’s stock was worth as much as Facebook claimed. Apple is likely to pay cash and it would be hard for Twitter’s board to say no. Quite way Apple would buy the site is anyone’s guess. Most of the Apple fan bois seem to think it is to stick it on the iPhone. But Apple gets those users whether or not it owns the outfit or not. Apple has very little in the way of web expertise and its Safari product lags as an also ran in the market. Apple is also closed secretive and paranoid while Twitter is open. In short we don’t think this rumour has legs. |
1 comment May 7, 2009
Twitter hacker gets job
| Written by Nick Farrell | |
After crashing the site The kids who crashed the social networking site Twitter have not only come clean about their antics but have apparently asked the outfit for a job. “Mikeyy” and “StalkDaily,” crashed the tweet-fest for the first time over the weekend, leaving thousands of unwanted messages in its wake. Messages directed users to StalkDaily.com and said things such as “Mikeyy I am done.,” “Twitter please fix this” and “Twitter hire Mikeyy.” It looks like while Twitter will not hire Mikeyy, someone else has thought it a good idea to give 17-year-old Michael “Mikeyy” Mooney a job. The teenage programmer told ABCNews.com that after claiming responsibility for the attacks, two companies contacted him with job offers. The New York teen said that he started programming in the sixth grade and over the past few years he’s developed about five computer worms. Mooney said that he created the Twitter worm, to show the social networking site that there was a problem. |
Add comment April 20, 2009
