Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 3rd Dec 2010 22:14 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
"In a keynote presentation at the Silverlight Firestarter event this morning, Corporate Vice President in Microsoft's developer division, Scott Guthrie officially announced Silverlight 5, and outlined its new features and 1H 2011 beta availability. Silverlight 5 adds more than 40 new features to the Web application framework that focus on improving its streaming media functionality for users and on improving application development for engineers. Some of the new streaming additions include: GPU-accelerated video decoding, variable speed playback which allows for user-defined, pitch-corrected slow motion, improved power saver awareness to prevent screensavers from turning on during playback, and native remote control support."
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Member since:2005-07-08
They are not the only ones.
When I was working at CERN, the groups that were part of the experiment I was working on, each had their own threading library.
One of the main discussion points in some of our meetings was when would all groups would use the same library, but they could not agree which library would win being the one.
That is what happens when you mix politics with software development.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.More Features »
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2009-12-10
When trying to understand Microsoft it is important to realize that the different divisions inside Microsoft effectively act as separate companies within the company.
In particular its important to realize that the .Net team is not the same team as the Windows team and they may not even share the same goals. In the same manner the Office team is also doing their own stuff and having their own agenda.
As an example of this the Office team initially invented the ribbon bar and introduced it in Word 2007. This was done entirely with their own code base and in their own way. Since the ribbon idea seems to be a great success, the upper management of Microsoft probably decided to make it an official OS feature and told the Windows team to implement it. The result is that the ribbon API introduced in Windows 7 has nothing to do with the original ribbons in Office and likewise nothing to do with .Net or WPF. It uses COM, Common Controls and XML.
A different example of this is the UI Automation API (System.Windows.Automation). It was originally created by the .Net team as their way of doing UI automation and accessibility. Windows itself did have an API for this already (called Active Accessibility) but at some point it was decided this new API was superior and should replace the old one. The Windows team therefore once again created official APIs for it and added it to Windows 7. It uses COM, like things always do when it comes from that team.
I don't think anyone at Microsoft really think you should use the old common controls API anymore. It is pretty obvious they only update those controls whenever the shell team needs a new feature and they barely document those new features anyway. I am sure they'd remove them from Win32 if they could, but obviously they cannot since half their own products (and anything based on MFC) uses them.
So what to use instead? Well, I'm pretty sure that if you ask the tools team, they'd answer WPF, because that's what they wrote for you. The office team uses their own controls and technologies. What the Windows team would answer? Now that's the good question. I haven't got a clue.