* Posts by Renato

122 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Sep 2009

Bot attacks Linux and Mac but can't lock down its booty

Renato
Big Brother

@Ubuntu Is a Better Slide Rule

and on

C) on a hypervisor <http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2006/06/introducing-blue-pill.html>;

D) on firmware <http://www.phrack.com/issues.html?issue=65&id=7> and <http://www.phrack.com/issues.html?issue=66&id=11> for starters;

E) on CPU microcode.

Anywhere else I forgot?

Ahh, the low level stuff... Being wonderful as ever.

Renato
Gates Horns

Windows XP other

That means Windows Embedded Standard (aka XP Embedded) used on point-of-sale terminals and bank ATMs?

Interesting...

Facebook: Why our 'next-gen' comms ditched MySQL

Renato
Grenade

Billions of dollarpounds changing hands

> cruel realities of mmap() and fsync()

What mmap() and fsync()?

AFAIK, there are no such functions in Java/PHP.

Oh yes, maybe it's why they need a lot of iron.

Google accused of hard-coding own links in search

Renato
Stop

Sigh!

I really want those times when people didn't think Google equals the Internet or the computer back.

Google alerts users to Facebook contacts 'trap'

Renato
Thumb Up

Interesting wording.

Google is very funny. I don't know why "I recognize that I won’t be able to export it back out" remembers me of that old joke about e-mail attachments being sent erroneously and the receiver being requested to send them back. Still laughing.

Next joke, please!

Microsoft holds Androids hostage in open source wars

Renato
Stop

Boot Camp

Boot Camp is just a tool to ease partitioning to the common folk. I did install Linux and Windows without using it. It's a matter of reading man files to resize the HFS+ partition, using a real EFI bootloader (rEFIt) which gives you a nice console and rebooting the machine to install the OS of your choice.

Same x86 processor, same EFI firmware, same HDD interface, etc of your PC box.

And actually the MacOS X they sell is a licence for a upgrade only. Even if technically it is a full installation.

Remember, you can install any OS on your device. You could install Linux on your iPhone if you wanted to. The device is yours, you own it. You just don't own the OS/firmware/whatever. The same happens with Linux, *BSD, Windows et al.

Renato
Boffin

Re: Except that Apple aren't a fully closed shop [but they wanted to be]

In fact, WebKit was a KDE's KHTML fork and worked on by Apple. There were issues backporting Apple's code into the original KHTML version, but it worked nonetheless. This thanks to the LGPL.

Regarding GCC and Apple, they wanted to release Objective-C as a binary-only object file to be linked with GCC, like nVidia's proprietary driver on Linux. But thanks to the GPL, it is free software.

Note that I'm not a GPL fanboi, just showing the facts.

Firefox engine speeds past Chrome after Jager shot

Renato
Thumb Up

Faster?

Let's hope it doesn't get its speed using 100% CPU on all cores.

Google Android chief smacks Steve Jobs with Linux speak

Renato
Jobs Halo

Re: A couple of comments

Regarding your point #2: Darwin (Apple XNU + GNU and BSD userland) was open-sourced by Apple, not nicked by them and closed. What was _never_ open is the XNU kernel modifications made to run it on ARM devices. Still, you could run Darwin x86 back then when MacOS X was PPC only. Go ahead and port XNU to ARM, it's open source after all.

Somewhat like Darwin & Apple, XviD is a fork of an open source DivX version that was cancelled by DivX and carried on by the XviD people. They went distinct paths and IMHO XviD performs better than DivX (the MPEG-4 ASP, mind you).

Regarding your point #4: MacOS X != iOS. MacOS X is a general Darwin-based *nix operating system which I can play around freely and introduce any kernel panics I might make by creating an unsigned driver -- based off an Apple open-source driver available on http://opensource.apple.com, create workarounds and unorthodox solutions, and sudo rm -rf / my box anytime I want.

OTOH, iOS is also a Darwin-based *nix operating system, designed to a specific _consumer_ hardware which happens to have a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM and storage. Its public is not the same as a regular computer consumer: while many hate computers, they love their iPhone/Android because it is easy to access YouTwitFace and specially _it doesn't crash or give some 0xDEAD0666 error because the luser did something idiot_, and they need this controlled sandbox environment to make money and to give a consistent experience to the user.

I don't have and expect (nor I want) this consistent experience on any computer box I own, being it MacOS X, Linux, Windows, BSD, Haiku or any other OS. But I expect my mobile phone to be reliable, have long battery times and a good interface. Preferably hackable when I want, but this is the geek's desire only. The general public out there just want a phone that access YouTwitFace, takes pictures, plays music, makes calls and is shiny enough to show off to the mates.

MacOS X user/hacker, Gentooist and Windows Mobile user. No, I won't buy the iPhone (nor an Android) because it doesn't allow hacking and I will wait for a MeeGo phone. Just 'cos it have bash. Or if it doesn't right out the box, I can compile it.

Renato
Linux

missing just one teeny step

Even if you can open a shell and do a

$ mkdir android; cd android; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git; repo sync; make

can you plug your phone on a USB port and do a make install to upload your fresh Android build WITHOUT hacks like I used to do with cooked Windows Mobile images?

Mind you, I'm not talking about the Nexus One or the G1, but about the Motorolas and Samsungs out there.

Android devices are open like a jailbroken iPhone. Darwin source is open source too.

Court strikes down Facebook probation

Renato
Big Brother

Oh the future!

Back then my parents grounded me. Now it's the judges' job.

Indeed, we are living in interesting times.

IBM Java defection leaves Apache sourcers shellshocked

Renato
Pint

Please enlighten me

"The TCKs are important. ASF said it was unable to test Harmony to prove it complies with the official spec for Java Standard Edition (Java SE) because the TCKs are closed source code."

Shouldn't be a matter of running "java -jar tck.jar" and it spits out "You have passed yay!" or "Your project failed 'cos division by zero @ blablabla.class, line 666" or something along this to be conformant to the spec?

I see that the TCK being free software is a good thing, but I don't understand ASF saying they can't certify their project because the TCK is closed.

Please enlighten this non-Java developer. Thanks

vBulletin sues ex-devs over 'from scratch' competitor

Renato
Alert

Re: requirements

As per PHP's own documentation (http://php.net/safe_mode):

"Warning

This feature has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged."

So XenForo requiring safe_mode off IMHO is not a strange requirement.

Yes, I know the current state of shared servers, and the majority of hosting plans uses safe_mode.

(Warning icon, as the quote starts with "Warning")

Twitter turns entire accounts into ads

Renato
Pirate

Open Sauce

Many Twitter API clients are open sauce, so anyone can add some bits to identify ads on the stream and don't show them to the user.

Yes, it would be like AdBlock+ on Firefox: not all people use it but the tech savvy, which isn't the regular customer anyway (or the fool which would click on an ad)

And even if a Twitter client is banned using oAuth, what is the technical difficulty to hack into their own web client and get the updates from there directly?

Pirate -- 'cos even if it is free, it's better if we pillage it.

Multi-touch iMacs prepped in Cupertino?

Renato
Jobs Halo

Re: thanks troll

And why would Apple bundle its machines with Blu-Ray players if in the future they can sell the same 1080p movie via its own store? (or now, I don't know iTMS at all as they don't have a store down here in Brazil)

And why BR for storage if you can have an external HDD/SSD with so much more capacity? Even flash drives today have their 64GB.

OpenOffice files Oracle divorce papers

Renato
FAIL

Re: "setting it up properly?"

I didn't have to enable a systray quickstarter to use MS Office (or Abiword for that matter) and they load a MS Office document way faster than OOo.

And why in the fscking hell I'd want a Java environment on my office suite?

Anyway, if I had to configure it properly it isn't a product ready for end-users.

OOo is bloated. Period.

Is US prudishness ruining the internet?

Renato
Flame

Cut'em connections!

So isn't it time to cut US' connections to the rest of the world? We don't need them!

Null route them like the chinese!

Flames: this is what those optic fibre cables need!

AMD to dump ATI brand

Renato
Pint

What about Intel?

Now AMD will be recognized as the company that makes great CPU and video cards, but Intel as a CPU manufacturer which makes crappy video cards.

And certainly many more people are going to buy AMD CPUs plus AMD GPUs because "if they are from the same company, they are better if together" or something along this line. Double win for AMD.

Porn and pirates hide Android's money maker

Renato
Happy

Re: Minimum pricing because customers are paying more on another platform?

Is it overpriced? Don't buy it then.

Is it a half-cooked widget that just farts? Don't buy it then.

It is that simple.

Facebook leapfrogs Google's Orkut in India

Renato

Orkut

So the only market Farcebook don't have penetration with the masses is Brazil. Although all the cool kids® use Farcebook now.

Google dubs Oracle suit 'attack on Java community'

Renato
Linux

OIN

I just took a fast search on the OIN website, and it seems no JVM or anything related to Java runtimes are protected by their definition of "Linux System". Android is not Linux. It is Linux + Java + Android framework.

Conroy, Family First isolated on Oz internet filter

Renato
Stop

Re: incorrect political opinions

> "Just sitting them in front of a computer, even with a filter (a challenge to get past for them) is even worse that sitting them in front of the TV."

And when I was a child, I sat in front of a computer without filters *shudder* to the Internet and I don't seem to have any problems. And we had access to IRC and all those "Anarchist" Geocities pages teaching how to make a floppy disk bomb. Or when we had to sneak to the computer after bedtime to pay cheaper telephone tariffs. Later I even got a computer on my own room!! Unacceptable!

The point is, my parents told me "don't take candy from strangers". Just apply this on the online world too.

Deviant Google Android probes Linux kernel re-entry

Renato
Stop

Re: Time to get realistic

So why did Google use a Java VM instead of using, say, native applications on, say, Maemo? Apart from CPU independence (cheap Chinese MIPS-based tablets anyone?), they have the option to stop using Linux if it becomes too uncomfortable or expensive to them (although that's something I doubt will happen).

Face the reality: Linux already had drivers and ARM/MIPS support, there are some bootloaders for ARM/MIPS, manufacturers had board support packages for their devices and there you go: a already common embedded platform to run your JVM. *Linux is just an accessory to their platform*.

Can you install Maemo/Meego on your Nexus One? Can you install Maemo applications on Android? Both Android and Maemo/Meego are Linux, right? Thought so.

As an Android developer you don't make an app for Linux. You make one for Android.

They could have based Android on NetBSD and it would still be Android/Java apps, not NetBSD ones.

Google Slides away from Wave FAIL with social network buy

Renato
WTF?

Googly's Social Network

And there is a social network from Google: orkut. Although only Brazilians use it.

It seems Google doesn't know what products/services they have.

Google boss turns Wave demise into success of sorts

Renato
Coat

The future

"But to Schmidt at least, 'true transparency and no anonymity' is the future."

I would like to know if Mr. Schmidt is going to be transparent regarding his life, including banking details etc etc. Yeah, right.

"True transparency" for those who don't have the money and/or power not to be.

Mine's with what else in pocket? 1984, shirley.

Next Gnome delayed until 2011

Renato
Linux

Oh well!

At least I'll have till 2011 more spare CPU & RAM.

Oh wait! I use Fluxbox.

Google discovers Chrome can (really) block ads

Renato
Thumb Down

@AC

And interestingly enough, many pages with a certain Mountain View company ads/analytics/"cached javascript" (which is another story) do seem to have a delay. And yet they say they have a lot of bandwidth and datacenters to provide their ads.

Because of this delay on page loading caused by bad javascript programming led me to use AdBlock. I want contents, not some random ad. Then when I needed to use Internet though my EDGE smartphone, those pesky multiple domain lookups, connections and redirects combined with EDGE's high latency do really add up to this delay.

The Reg guide to Linux, part 1: Picking a distro

Renato
Thumb Up

OSX is great *nix too!

As a fellow MacOS X user and an old timer Gentooist, I can say I got tired of tinkering with Linux on my spare time. Sometimes I need something that just works®. Ubuntu (or other distros, for that matter) are in fact Linux, and for me, they need ye olde terminal screen. I do not know how to fiddle with their GUI config tools or some "user-friendly" thingy. And I don't want to. And they aren't user friendly enough.

On the other hand, Terminal.app on OSX is always loaded with at least some 5 tabs doing something, and there is so much fine-tuning and hacks as my old Gentoo box had. And having POSIX/BSD support, which when needed I can compile any regular Unix-like software, OSX is a great *nix box for tinkering and just working.

For now, when I need Linux, I boot a Arch Linux VM (as that old Gentoo box was given to my mother as part of our "agreement" when I bought this Macbook, which in turn her computer became my file-server) and SSH into it.

Mozilla's next Thunderbird gives Gmailers hope

Renato
Grenade

RAM

So according to your idea, I should have more than 4GB of RAM: 1GB for e-mail, 1GB for web browser, 1GB for IM, and 1GB for media player, etc etc ad infinitum.

I really do hate when programmers think my machine is dedicated to just his/her program and expect this on their crappy designed software. Some 40 years ago multitasking was invented! *shockers* Even if Apple says their iOS doesn't multitask, it does on the background *OOOH!* They're lying! *terror!*

And yes, there is a reason a computer is limited to say, 4GB of RAM: it just have 2 memory slots and its chipset only supports 2GB sticks max., etc.

And show me any phone bearing 8GB of RAM, mister.

Apple adds 'make the web go away' button to Safari 5

Renato
Boffin

Not DOS, but unix!

At least a green text on black screen won't chew my battery off. And if you spent years making the web capable of eating CPU cycles and RAM just to do something "funny" which could be simplified and optimised you should have an wrist slap at least.

What is the amazing thing on the web you say? What all the fuss about those rich internet applications is? If you want to make a user interface with ease, you should have gone for at least XUL, which _is_ a user interface markup language. HTML is a markup language created for formatting *text* and displaying images. JavaScript was introduced later for doing simple things.

As a simple test, I have created a Word document on Office Live, typed some words cursing RIA and as I typed, it ate 100% CPU and reached 88MB RAM usage, on MSIE 8. Then I opened Word 2010 Beta: max 8% CPU and 20MB RAM usage while monkey typing. This on Windows 7.

Another test: Outlook 2010 Beta eats ~50MB to display inbox+email, while a single message on Gmail needs 95MB, on IE 8 and a little less on Firefox with AdBlock. Apple OS X's Mail uses 61MB, while Gmail on Safari uses 130MB. I won't test it on Firefox/OSX because I have lots of plugins installed. Oh, and I can also read my mail when I'm without internet connection.

And I leave a question: how those cloud/RIA applications would do any better than any native application on netbooks/internet tablets/smartphones if they are such resource hogs?

Mountain View delivers Google Analytics opt-out

Renato
Grenade

Latency

Just using AdBlock+ to disable those Google "tools" makes pages load way faster. If Google's servers hiccups (which for adsense, analytics & co. it does rather frequently), there's a perceptible delay on page load. And hell, those "developers" who think using Google AJAX API hosted on Google's servers (or Yahoo's) is a good idea should be killed.

Google: Android fragmentation isn't fragmentation

Renato
Jobs Halo

it's fragmented? defrag it then

The major advantage Apple has with its iPhones its that they are a somewhat standard platform: you have the same OS and underlying libraries on all devices as they are updated, except hardware support (e.g. GPS and processor speed etc). Its guaranteed that the software I made will work on older models -- in fact it is software for iPhone, period.

Now with Android, it's worse than Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile's updates were far away, and as they basically use the same API, software from WM6 works correctly on WM5 with no problem.

I would like to see how WinMo would behave on a system with lots of RAM, like those new shiny googly smartphones. Despite my Axim x50v having only 64MB, which WinMo eats at least some 40MB, it has a somewhat acceptable performance.

Google turns on SSL encryption for search

Renato
Thumb Down

SSL Strength

It is interesting to know both Google and my *bank* use RC4-128 and VeriSign certificates to secure their communications while my own server use a self generated certificate and AES-256.

Jobs drops hint on Google open video codec

Renato

h264, x264, standard & implementation; VP8

Some of you doesn't seem to notice that MPEG-4 AVC (aka h.264) is a _standard_ which happens to have a reference implementation, which ISN'T x264. x264, instead, is an _implementation_ for the video encoding process compatible with the h.264 standard.

And AFAIK, x264 doesn't pay any royalties nor licences the h264 spec from MPEG-LA, despite their willing to do so in the future and sell their licences to anyone willing to use their encoder commercially, as the h264 MPEG-LA licence states the free (as in gratis) use is non-commercial only.

Also, some of you doesn't notice that like x264 (the encoder) and many h264 decoders (e.g. ffmpeg's) are in fact open-source and free, much as VP8 is. But they aren't patent-free, as they publicly encode/decode bitstreams compatible with the h264 standard. On the other hand, VP8 claims to be it is patent-free, but it couldn't be because no one made a patent trial yet.

Regarding VP8, I think Google would do better if they paid developers to work on Dirac standard/Schroedinger codec and develop a next-gen codec/standard.

Dev goes 'Wild' with H.264 Firefox

Renato
Boffin

Nope

As I have analyzed Firefox's code to do the same thing this dev is doing, I can say that it is possible, but you would have to do some hooks and hacks to get it working.

Instead of using libraries already installed on the system (or dynamically loading them), Mozilla has opted to bundle libvorbis and libtheora on their code. They have gone as far as setting the accepted media mimetypes on code, not someting to be loaded from an external source (on Firefox 3.6.3 source, it can be found at firefox-lorentz/content/html/content/src/nsHTMLMediaElement.cpp:1112 onwards).

Some have said they have done this on purpose to avoid (or difficult) the creation of add-ons to add h264 (and other codecs) support and keep their so called mandated free software stance (as if Debian doesn't consider it as free software due to branding and image copyrights... pot'n'kettle maybe?).

Maybe Moz rushed to add media support to Firefox and didn't implement GStreamer, DirectShow and QuickTime (yes, you have to add those three frameworks to support *nix, Windows and OSX) and just implemented Vorbis and Theora (plus WAV) due to easiness of integration. And they didn't integrated ffmpeg's libavcodec due to patents on software. But that's just me speculating.

State senator eyeballs smut during abortion debate

Renato
Coat

Browser

At least he uses what seems to be Firefox if I'm not mistaken.

And I noticed that the dog video was loaded on what seems to be YouTube. Shouldn't it be blocked from access on their proxy (with content filtering against pr0n and malware inflicted websites etc) or he was using his own 3G connection?

Coat, with USB flash drive in pocket containing my VPN certificates, which coincidentally listens on 53 UDP. And putty. Sometimes it's easier to just SSH.

iPhone code ban facing antitrust inquiry?

Renato
Jobs Halo

Flash

Apple could have done this quietly: search for some common string (or binary code) on the Flash's interpreter/VM, then if found, reject the app based on that it contains a interpreter which could run executable code. Like when they rejected that C64 emulator (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/commodore_itunes/).

No EULA changes, no press bitching, no inquiries.

Or they could check if it eats a lot of CPU and did nothing useful. 99% of those apps would be Flash based.

No Jobs fanboi here. Just another Flashblock user who hates piece of shit software draining my batteries.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 shuns open video

Renato
Stop

Re: Why hard-code codecs into the browser?

> All the browser needs to do is say, 'This codec isn't installed, you can get it from here', similar to Firefox's plugin installer.

Or the browser can just use the underlying operating system's media framework (DirectShow on Windows, QuickTime on OSX, libavcodec on *nix) and the user won't even need to know what a codec is.

Nerd alert: First Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

Renato
Linux

Linux

Linux Is Not Ubuntu with X. Now there's your acronym.

Madoff geeks charged for writing book-cooking code

Renato
Coat

Stop in the name of the law!

If those programmers were put into the gaol for making software that Madoff used to falsify information, I think all Microsoft Excel's should be too! Most banks and finance companies use Excel to do part of their accounting.

Coat, with passport and tickets to some Caribbean Island for ...er... vacations.

Visual Studio 2010 - chunky but has a great personality

Renato
Thumb Up

Subversion versus TFS

As the person responsible for setting up the versioning system for my team on the lab I work, I choose Subversion over TFS because I already had previous experience (coming from a *nix background) and we had a spare Linux box with some free space.

When another team which was using TFS saw versioning working correctly for us, without any corrpution specially when power went out (we still don't have a UPS, so...), the next project they had they set up a Subversion server and voila, it works.

iPad pitch to the Wall Street Journal laid bare

Renato
Alert

Add-on

If Mozilla/Opera isn't bundling a h264 decoder on their browsers, how about using the underlying OS libraries? I mean, you got QuickTime on MacOS X (and Apple pays MPEGLA the licence), DirectShow (or the name Microsoft named that nowadays, and also paid the licence -- if not, there are plenty of codecs to be used). If the user is running Linux or another OS, assume he/she paid the licence to use libavcodec (or another lib) to decode the h264 stream, just don't bundle it with the browser.

Hell, the bloody technology ALREADY EXISTS, FFS! Just implement it! Don't reinvent the wheel! Simple as that!

Open source - the once and future dream

Renato
Pint

Monkeys

Not just contributing to the Linux kernel, the monkeys are everywhere typing furiously with their typewriters.

Javascript is taking the role that once were of the servers. A browser is a (X)HTML renderer plus JS interpreter. Today a website (and I'm talking about all Google's services) needs JS to process some shite and create the element with some content. Then the browser renders the page. What's the matter with processing on the server and serving the content already processed? And see a JS code made by some monkey. Hell, it is as inefficient as it can be! Seems someone got the code and run into a deoptimisator!

And going back to the realms of real computing, nowadays nobody knows how a computer works, only a few know a bit of low-level languages (Assembly and C -- note, not C++ (I know C is not that low-level, but you get the point)) and computer architecture to know how to optimise the code.

Beer, cos today is Monday and my university classes are some hours apart.

Microsoft chucks bargain bin at world's youth

Renato
Thumb Up

Software list

I got here Windows 7 Professional and Windows 2008 Server. But it might be my university's deal with MS.

Apple cops to defective MacBook drives

Renato
Thumb Down

Apple juicy lemonade

Don't forget the case cracks, both the hairline edition(TM) and the crack-on-palmrest(R) caused by closing the lid.

Although apparently Apple is fixing those cracks.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/04/08/apple_addressing_cracks_on_white_macbooks_casings.html

Well, I might try calling Apple Support and see if they are willing to fix my Macbook.

Google Buzz bug exposes user geo location

Renato
Pint

El Reg

Well, sir, this is El Reg. AKA We bash anyone.

If this respectable organisation were to buy this "wehategoogletheyaretrulyevil.co.uk" domain, it would need to buy "wehateappletheyaretrulyevil.co.uk", "wehatemicrosofttheyaretrulyevil.co.uk", "wehatehptheyaretrulyevil.co.uk" and so on.

Back in topic, well, surely you are a good person and would do no harm to the children (whom nobody seems to think of!) neither you cause that $deity damn global warming. Good person. Good.

Beer, it's lunch time here and carnival ended yesterday. I'm in Brazil btw. OH MY! I LEFT MY GEOLOCATION ON EL REG! (as if they don't have the IP address I'm using right now)

Only Apple can get away with App Stores

Renato

Flash

> If flash animations can bring old computers to a standstill and give netbooks pause, then they will surely clobber your average smartphone available today-- or in particular, the phone from 2-3 years ago when these decisions were first made.

Old computers my arse! A Core2 Duo playing a flash video will reach 100% CPU usage easily (not quite 100% but you get my point). Even a 1 GHz ARM processor based device would suffer with Flash. Not because of processing power, it has plenty of, but a smartphone isn't designed to run with the CPU at 100% forever. It is designed to run with the CPU idling most of the time.

And remember, radio usage eats lots of battery. When you add radio + CPU @ 100% because of some useless flash thingy and the device lasts for some 2 hours before being fed from the mains again, you'll understand why Apple/Google/Microsoft/etc doesn't bundle Flash with their mobile OSes.

Adobe to Jobs: 'What the Flash do you know?'

Renato
Flame

Flash & CPU

For those whining "Oh my! Why do you want to save CPU cycles if you have a powerful almighty dual core processor?": Hell, I do have wi-fi (and 3G) and a notebook! I want to surf the Intarwebbs for 3 hours without plugging any wires. But without Adblock+, Noscript, Flashblock and the eventual Greasemonkey script it's fscking impossible due to Flash's bad performance (and dodgy javascript too). And AFAIK CPU usage is related to both lap heating and short battery duration.

Flames, 'cos that's how my laps feel after watching a youtube video.

H.264 video codec stays royalty-free for HTML5 testers

Renato
Flame

Plugin

Actually, many. One of those is QuickTime, and I use YouTube Perfect script with Greasemonkey, which use a well established way to play non-html content: using the EMBED tag.

For a free version, check VLC plugin. AFAIK mplayer has one too.

iPad forces operators to shave their SIMs

Renato
Jobs Horns

Oh mighty Apple, why MicroSIM?

That's easy to answer: one can unlock a mobile phone using a TurboSIM card, which is the size of a MiniSIM card. And there's no TurboSIM for MicroSIMs as far as I know.

So baseband processor is locked tighter, no TurboSIM exists for MicroSIMs and there's a win for the operator.