• Simple Questions for Google Regarding Chrome’s Dropping of H.264

    // Gradly // blog, google, News, Rants & Raves 5 Responses

    Google Chrome

    Regarding Google’s stated explanation for dropping H.264 support in Chrome:

    Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

    These changes will occur in the next couple months but we are announcing them now to give content publishers and developers using HTML an opportunity to make any necessary changes to their sites.

    1. In addition to supporting H.264, Chrome currently bundles an embedded version of Adobe’s closed source and proprietary Flash Player plugin. If H.264 support is being removed to “enable open innovation”, will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why?
    2. Android currently supports H.264. Will this support be removed from Android? If not, why not?
    3. YouTube uses H.264 to encode video. Presumably, YouTube will be re-encoding its entire library using WebM. When this happens, will YouTube’s support for H.264 be dropped, to “enable open innovation”? If not, why not?
    4. Do you expect companies like Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo, Major League Baseball, and anyone else who currently streams H.264 to dual-encode all of their video using WebM? If not, how will Chrome users watch this content other than by resorting to Flash Player’s support for H.264 playback?
    5. Who is happy about this?

    [via: daringfireball]

  • Apple’s busy diary for 2011

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, News, Rants & Raves, Tech. 2 Responses

    Mac App Store

    January

    * Mac App Store opens for business
    * Apple introduces the iPad 2.0 — faster, thinner, new cameras, shipping “by April”.
    * Apple reports Q1 results — confirm huge Mac sales growth, stellar iPad sales and extremely strong iPhone statistics.
    * iWork 11 makes App Store debut.
    * News Corp. ships ‘The Daily’ magazine

    February

    * Aperture upgraded
    * First million apps downloaded from Mac App Store, iWork and a variety of free gaming apps see huge success.
    * iAds spring partners unveiled, though Apple skips discussion of revenue.
    * iTunes update brings TV show streaming and subscription services. Cable company shares take a dive.

    March

    * iPhone hits Verizon
    * White iPhone ships, but supplies deeply constrained
    * iBookstore update brings the Web to books
    * iBookstore/iTunes Extra title creation tool revealed, will this be part of future iLife suite?

    April

    * Apple upgrades MacBook Pro range, some models lose optical drives and gain SSD as standard. “We said this is where mobile computing is going, we still believe this,” says Jobs.
    * Apple reports Q2 results
    * iPad 2.0 hits retail for the first time, over a million sold on day one.
    * Final Cut Studio upgrade is 64-bit and integrates powerful iAd and virtual environment creation features.
    * iMac update now ships with Magic Trackpad as standard.

    May

    * iPad 2.0 achieves six million sales in first two months.
    * Logic Studio upgrade ships, now offers additional features for live performance mixing, including automated level controls for live desk recording.

    June

    * Steve Jobs keynotes WWDC
    * iPhone 5 debuts at WWDC
    * WWDC sees beta release of OS X Lion to developers.
    * Safari 6 offers improved Flash support — Flash now an optional extra.
    * OpenJDK Project announces first fully-tested public beta of Java for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard systems.
    * iOS 5 offers plethora of features, including new mapping and location-sensing tools. Apple focuses its pitch on easy-to-use and understand privacy controls for location and usage information.

    July

    * iPhone 5, iPad 2.0 reaches new countries
    * Apple reports Q3 results
    * Apple desktop products upgraded, now ship with Magic Trackpad as standard. Mac Pro now boasts LightPeak connectivity.

    August

    * Apple hosts special music event, introduces new products which ship in September (see below).
    * Apple introduces Android emulator for iPhone, “There’s some good apps on Android, now iPhone users can run them on their iPhone, unless they use Flash,” says Jobs.
    * Hell freezes over, iTunes app lets Android users purchase music from their favorite music store.

    September

    * iTunes 11 ships, offers cloud-based music locker service. “We’ve been working on this for a while,” admits Steve Jobs as he introduces the service.
    * New iPod touch ships, chassis is more like the iPhone 4, capacity increased.
    * iPod nano replaced by iPhone nano, worn like a watch and equipped with an A4 processor and the capacity for voice calls, this smaller cheaper iPhone is feature-limited but lets you Tweet, Facebook and email on the move.
    * iPod classic gets speed bump.
    * Apple TV gains latest (A5?) processor.

    October

    * Mac OS X ‘Lion’ ships
    * iOS 5.1 debuts, extends iOS/OS X integration.
    * iLife 12 appears, equipped with additional ‘cloud’-based features this is the first version of iLife to be made available exclusively via the App Store.
    * Apple reports Q4 results.

    November

    * iOS 5.2 upgrade ships

    December

    * App Store downloads now reach 5 billion
    * Mac App Store downloads reach 100 million
    * Apple confirms 5 million iPhone nano sales, cuts price for Christmas market.

    [via: computerworld]

  • Creepy Guy Destroys iPad, Delivers It To Steve Jobs

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Humor, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    SayHiToSpace.com

    I don’t know what’s going on with mysterious website SayHiToSpace.com. Sure, there’s a countdown in there and even links to email and Twitter, but it’s their Youtube channel that creeps me out. Basically, the first video from SayHiToSpace went viral as it featured a creepy guy finding out that the iPad lacked a camera, then destroying it making a hole in the middle of the device with a water jet.

    Here’s the first video:

    A follow-up to that has been posted on Youtube, featuring the same guy — who actually sent the broken unit to Steve Jobs at Infinite Loop. To prove it, the DHL tracking number of the shipment was posted online.

    As you can see on Youtube, the video description says the “iTablet” will be sold on eBay starting December 9th. I guess the piece that has been removed will be sold on eBay, meaning that the lucky winner will share a piece of the same iPad with Steve Jobs.

    Awesome? Creepy? Check out the video yourselves.

    [via: macstories]

  • Playstation 3’s experience near-global glitch – #ApocalyPS3

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, PS3, Rants & Raves No Responses

    It seems that, so far, the only consoles affected are the older, "fat" models.

    Sony was really starting to get it right it seemed. They were steadily gaining momentum in the US with titles like Heavy Rain freshly released and games like God of War III and MLB 10: The Show on the horizon, it seemed like the PS3 could finally leave third place sales in this console war in the past, but then something catastrophic happened.

    Sometime on Sunday, a glitch occurred in the Playstation 3 system which set clocks back to December 31st, 1999. Many believe that this is a glitch that came packaged in the latest update, but others believe that it is related to the turnover between February and March.

    The glitch doesn’t seem to be tied with the Playstation Network, as players can still browse the Playstation Store, download demos, and browse the web (if they choose to browse the web with Playstation 3’s browser). The problem comes when players try to play a game that requires they connect to the Trophy network. When players try to play a game that connects to the Trophy network, players will receive an error message and will be unable to continue to the game. included in this list of games that cannot be played right now is Sony’s heavy-hitter, Heavy Rain.

    Many players have attempted to change the internal date of the PS3, either by internet, or by manually going onto console itself and switching it, but either way, when the Playstation 3 system is powered on, the date will switch back. This will occur whether the player is connected to the internet or not, which signals its a hardware issue at this point.

    So how does this affect games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band? For Rock Band 2, affected consoles cannot access downloadable content, Lego Rock Band imports or even imports from the original Rock Band. People are reporting that more recent Guitar Hero games are having difficulty accessing downloadable content as well.

    So what is Sony doing in terms of damage control? Well, not too much. They have instructed everyone to follow their Twitter account for the “latest updates”, but the latest update, as of now, is a Tweet from over 13 hours ago stating that PS3 Slims seem to be unaffected.

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