Re: Meta Browser
Opera Mini.
4790 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2009
I remember ActiveX depressingly well, thank you. I even remember in-browser vbscript although to do so makes my neck spasm.
Microsoft were wrong about ActiveX (due to security issues) but I can see where they grew the idea from. It's exactly the sort of thing that somebody who doesn't think about security would see as an evolution of cgi-bin, moving the grunt-work to the client and thus getting the whole idea of http completely arse-backwards.
Still, it did give us XmlHttpRequest without which it would be a very different world.
> ActiveX is back, this time restricted to the MS App store In the hopes of avoiding the security problems that orignally plagued the idea, I suppose.
Getting your FUD in quick, are you?
I see no ActiveX. You can already write Metro apps in HTML+JS so there's very little difference. I suspect this "packaging" would merely enable the damn thing to print or launch your default email client, for example.
I don't see much point to the packaged Web Apps when the platform has a full browser. The saving grace of Windows Tablets was regardless of "app gaps", real or perceived, one could use the browser and render anything your PC could. Maybe it's for corporates to deliver web-based code to the desktop with nice icons and stuff.
We'll see.
is that another Android-only "Android Wear" device?
If so, no sale.
Thing is, you see, the important thing is....
I like watches. I like my watch to last for at least ten years. If it's a really nice watch, I'd like it to be working well long after my own ticker has stopped forever so that my sons can fight over it.
A watch which is crippled if you don't buy $PARTICULAR_PHONE_OS is useless to me because I might want to change my phone OS in the next year or so while I buy a watch to actually last.
> There aren't any universal apps at the moment.
There are plenty. The framework's been in place since VS2013 Update 2 and you can write apps which are compatible with controlled interface changes between Win8.1 and WP8.1 without any extra effort.
Want an example? XBox Video.
The rest of your point stands.
All you really need to do is make iPlayer demand a code on your (physical or virtual) license in order to work at all.
This would raise revenue considerably because you could make licenses available world-wide, safe in the knowledge that overseas viewers would actually be paying for the BBC and not just freeloading it.
.NET Core is .NET from now on. You run .NET core and install any other bits you need via nuget.
The 4.x framework isn't fully open source yet - and it may never be fully - but that's not really the point. Everything you need to develop new code is open and you shouldn't be using 4.x (after VS2015 is fully released) for anything except supporting old code.
> They did not opensource .NET, just parts of it
Yes, actually they did. All of it. See for yourself. Quit it with the FUD.
> Is it any wonder given the style of headlines that appear hear when there is a story even remotely connected to 'crapple'?
That's become more extreme over the years, largely as a result of Apple snubbing the Reg at all available opportunities if I'm any judge.
They used to be a bit snide about Apple, then there was the combination of "jagWAH" and refusing to kiss Steve Jobs' ringpiece in every article and the resulting blacklisting. Since then, I guess the Reg's editors figure "why not? What harm can it do? And we already know that Steve Davies 3 will do the requisite ass-kissing in the comments anyway...."
@Indolent Wretch -
I think there's a case to be made for review shows (sort of like the Gadget Show only for actual kids) where reviewers have no pressure to actually sell anything. That gets the message out there but without the black voodoo of advertising fucking with your kids.
A £10million ad campaign aimed at a 1630Hrs timeslot though - that's pretty much the definition of "blandly evil".
the W3C never formally recommended Touch Events. There were moves to do so but then Apple threatened them with the possibility that the entire API was covered by restrictive Apple patents, which Apple made it clear they had no intention of offering on a royalty free basis. I further note that Apple are now saying there are no patents but this was pre-Samsung case. Maybe they were aiming to go after Samsung super-hard.
Anyway, it was at that point that MS developed Pointer Events and Mozilla and jQuery got on board. Pointer Events is written to be patent and royalty-free.
What Google are doing is... well, it's complicated. Apple are being dicks but you expect that. Google are probably just enjoying the opportunity to be dicks to people who use Windows touch devices - and what with touch-screen laptops, there are a whole fuckload of those out there - while blaming Apple for it and Mozilla are still aiming for workable web apps, which is obviously damaging to Apple and Google's "App Store" revenue so unlikely to be welcomed with open arms.
MS' motives in developing and offering Pointer Events for free? I don't know. Good experience for Windows tablet users? Hard to find a cynical reason although I really am trying.
@Kubla Cant
I'm in the UK but EU law and US law are fairly agreed on the concept. A "natural" monopoly arises from the market. Everyone got MS DOS and then Windows, nobody got OS/2 because bleh, OEMs bundled Windows because of consumer demand* short of ordering MS to make their product worse or withdraw it from sale, that's how it was.
The obligatory flawed car analogy is that if everyone buys Hondas and all the other manufacturers go bust or become tiny minority players, hey, good for Honda.
What is illegal is attempting to leverage an existing monopoly into a horizontal or vertical market. This is what MS was accused of doing with Internet Explorer (the merits of the case remain debatable - Netscape Navigator cost money and was notably inferior and there was never any effort made by MS to monetize their new leading browser market share or prevent users from choosing Navigator or Opera). This is also what Google have been accused of doing with selling subsidiary services by inflating their Search rankings and what Apple somehow failed to be accused of in leveraging their iPod/iTunes monopoly (by market share) into phone handsets and then tablets.
Leveraging an existing monopoly horizontally is illegal. It's also what's now become known as "ecosystem".
* wah, wah windows tax wah don't wanna wah linux wah wah wah monopolist wah - there, that saved you some time. Yes OEMs bundled Windows by consumer demand starting with IBM themselves. You might not want it but generally businesses on that scale don't go around doing stuff that pushes their cost per unit price up just to annoy nerds.