The presentation subsystem in “Longhorn” (code-named “Avalon”) provides powerful new APIs for input. This article gives an overview of these APIs: What services are provided to applications, the architecture of the input system, and how new input devices can be supported.
The “Avalon” Input System
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6361
I have not heard a long time ago something about TCPA (and the implementation projects as palladium, NGCSBA aso.).
The website http://www.againsttcpa.com/ tells how strange TCPA seems to be. (well, I paid more attention to the links to other sites you can trust like http://www.heise.de , and these infos are worrying enough)
Does anyone know something new what is going on now? Will it be really the new “future”?
Will it really be teh new “future”?
if you decide to keep using windows, i see lots of DRM in your future…
Interestingly some or many Windows users think DRM is “fair enough” and will wonder why MS waited so long…
Apparently (to them) there is no other kind of software.
Well, if using Windows. At Home I use Linux. 🙂
Accordingly to the website opensource will have it more difficult.
If Linux will be tcpa enabled to have also the possibility to buy music, new software must have a certificate. The costs are low enough little firms can buy it, but high enough that opensource projects can not pay for this (how should you want money from people who do work for free???).
Migration will be another major problem. As by theorie the firms will be able to bind the documents to the software. With the tcpa technic the reverse engineering to import tcpa-documents will then be impossible.
Well, to crack? Look at DCMA, this would be illegal (strange, illegal operation on the own created data).
Another problem is:
If this tech will be really secure, this will be the paradise for example for terrorists. Surely, USA does not want this, so there will be a backdoor. Do you want have controlled all your documents from some people?
hmmm…
I really enjoyed the article and the new input API. Input handling has always been a rather easy concept to grasp and to implement; but sorting and processing that input information into a form usable in the handlers and routing it to the handlers is more difficult. The old school approach is to slap everything into a set of C functions with a common signature and let the application programmer deal with the resulting mess of switch statements and conditional logic. Avalon’s API is definitely a step in the right direction, and I hope that the rest of Longhorn’s APIs show the same good design sense.