Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 22nd Feb 2012 15:24 UTC, submitted by Ajeet
On my mark... Get set... Start not caring! Adobe has announced it plans to discontinue the stand-alone Flash Player for Linux, instead focussing all its effort on the version available through the Pepper API - which, besides Chrome, no one else is going to support.
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RE[6]: Pepper for Firefox
by Erunno on Thu 23rd Feb 2012 14:12
in reply to "RE[5]: Pepper for Firefox"
Member since:2007-06-22
Forgot to add this: Mozilla added the necessary changes to NPAPI to support CoreAnimation in Flash in Firefox 4. [1] Again, no sign of Pepper. I'm seriously suspecting that you are confusing here different technical matters but I'll gladly be taught otherwise.
[1] implement Core Animation NPAPI drawing model for Mac OS X, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=497225
Edited 2012-02-23 14:13 UTC
RE[6]: Pepper for Firefox
by zima on Tue 28th Feb 2012 06:08
in reply to "RE[5]: Pepper for Firefox"
Member since:2005-07-06
Mozilla is the only organization which believably fights for an open web
Opera doesn't have a bad track record with it at all... also steadfastly pushing for open web. In this case, Opera even proposed HTML5 video tag (and in its more open variant)
But I guess it's also typical for Opera to be forgotten ;p (also how they, say, open the web for hundreds of millions of so called "feature phones" ...while Mozilla, in the past abortive mobile efforts, essentially said "we'll wait for more powerful (and rare, in the big picture) smartphones")
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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2007-06-22
Since version 10.1 Flash uses CoreAnimation and a bunch of other OS X frameworks to implement part of its functionality like drawing. How does NPAPI (pepper or not) plays into it exactly? Citation for your claims please. Here's an article from a Flash engineer and it doesn't say anything about NPAPI (pepper or not): http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html
https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=NPAPI:Pepper&oldid=275848
Where exactly? This the last version before the page was blanked.
Actually, I would since Apple's WebKit engineers flat out refused to accept the necessary changes to support Dart just a few weeks ago. Google wanted to make WebKit language-agnostic and allow multiple concurrent scripting engines (currently only JavaScript is supported and only one engine at a time). Part of the reason for the refusal was the added code complexity and therefore maintenance burden. Another part was that Dart is not a web standard and WebKit's own mission statement says "[...] using standards-based technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and the DOM" and they want to avoid adding to the current fragmentation.
I'm not saying that Dart in WebKit might not happen at one later point if the decision of the engineers is overridden by higher management but currently the magic eight ball says "Unlikely".
Windows Vista/7 users had to endure a very non-native looking interface until just recently (Firefox 4) so it's not like OS X is the only one suffering from that, especially if you consider that most developers are apparently using Mac or Linux. It simply boils down to lack of manpower, especially since large parts of Firefox codebase is currently being rewritten.
Which is unfortunate and very short-sighted since Mozilla is the only organization which believably fights for an open web. Whatever organizational failures Mozilla displayed in the past (and there were far too many), at least they got their priorities straight.
I can't really argue against this. Even if taking into account that most of the remaining leaks are caused by extensions, Mozilla was far too lenient for far too long towards misbehaving extensions despite using them as a unique selling point for Firefox. Classical case of wanting to keep their cake and eat it. At long last they are tightening their rules for extensions to be hosted by Mozilla and started developing tools to help developers with finding leaks.
Edited 2012-02-23 14:03 UTC