Re: And once this happens, watch the customers leave.

WTF are you on about? Why is Netflix going to lose the majority of its customers for staying with DRM? The facts show that Netflix streaming is growing at a huge rate so you're just letting your idealist rhetoric get in front of the facts, which is that they are coining it and DRM has marginal impact.

Re: I don't think it's a good idea...

I don't think "our essential freedom to use the web the way it was intended to be" included watching hi-definition streaming video. The very idea would have seemed preposterous.

Have you never considered that allowing you to save offline content skews Netflix's business also? They want to measure when and how things are watched and this affects what they pay for licenses and how much they can dictate to the content providers. If you download everything and watch it at your leisure, they lose this information.

They could change their model but why should they when streaming is the way the world is going this decade?

So why not just get an overreaching global license directly from the content creators

I'm sure that's want they want, and are trying to do -but the content creators won't play ball. Some content comes to the UK at the same (or very close to) time as in the US, others is years behind.

Re: Not surprising

I never claimed to be defending IE7/8 - they were clearly inferior for general consumers to FF/Chrome. In my view IE10 has finally caught up for the typical user while being the only big enterprise player. I run Chrome on one monitor and IE10 on the other (multiple gmail accounts still don't play too well in the same session) and the difference is small these days although I don't really see much change from IE9 in everyday use.

Re: Overpriced.

Why are you blaming MS that companies are charging £6-800?

Re: @AC 07.59

Didn't Chrome get hacked as readily as IE at the last hack-fest thingie? I know ChromeOS came out pretty unscathed but the Chrome browser didn't.

Re: DRM mince

Did you not read the article? Netflix simply do not want to sell downloadable content. You might not like streaming-only services so you can go to another provider, but Netflix's success is proving you are in something of a minority and either the cost/profit predictions of offering this are not worth it, or they feel it would dilute their brand. It's their choice and you are perfectly free to go elsewhere.

Re: We want to BUT....

Is it not possible for Chrome and FF to build DRM capabilities into their Linux browsers? Or does something about DRM make it incompatible with GPL/GNU/etc?

Re: the one thing that we are doing right now, which is to go global.

As Rikkeh saya, Netflix aren't able to dictate which countries see which content. They are beholden to the content owners who demand it is licensed separately in different regions.

@Tom 7

Tom you are very narrow minded if you think DRM "can't work" if some people can get around it. The aim is not to make it impossible for you to rip it - as you say this is not feasible - but to make it hard enough that 90% of people don't know how to do it, or are put off doing it by the need to install and configure a bunch of extra software.

That doesn't help if sale of drones is unregulated and millions of the things start being used in this illegal manner... how is PC Plod going to tell who is operating the damn thing when someone reports it keeps bothering them? Hell how's he going to tell who is controlling it if he happens to be there when the drone appears? Users could fly the thing to knock off the copper's helmet with impunity!!

Though I want a drone, I can see blocking them at source is potentially the way this might go. Thought waiting for it to BE a problem first would be preferable in case it's very rare.

Re: @Vimes

"There are perfectly good reasons for using a drone around a home"

I never claimed otherwise. I suggested banning them flying over others' land would be a problem as would using them to spy into others gardens from above your land.

Re: Celebrity self interest

If someone flies a drone into your property, I wonder if you're allowed to shoot it down - maybe yanks will start buying shotguns rather than pistols.

@Mark 65

"@jdx: with your fit woman example where do you draw the line? If I could be upstairs in my house ogling her or hovering a drone above my property is that still allowed"

If you could see her from your house, she can expect to be observed and should shut her curtains.

Hovering a drone high above your own land... well you would not be allowed to build a high viewing platform on your garden which allows you to overlook neighbours, as far as I understand it, so I'd say this falls into that category.

Re: He's just upset that ... @JDX

Your camera ha to be pretty bloody high to see into my back garden over the roof of my house. Google sees nothing a lorry driver doesn't.

@Vimes

Thanks. Simply banning drones from flying over peoples' houses would be fine in my view... if you live in a city you'd have to take it elsewhere to fly, in the country or a village you could fly it from your garden out across the fields.

@The First Dave

"one of the biggest complaints regarding Street View is that the camera is about 9 feet up, and therefore able to see over the top of normal sized fences and hedges - just like a flying drone."

Yes but that's no different from anyone driving a lorry or sitting on the top deck of a bus. If your garden/window is viewable from the road, but only in those situations, you should expect people can sometimes see in.

If you have a secluded back garden or your house is not overlooked, you do not expect any possibility of anyone looking in.

Re: Nothing new

True, but it's only recently become a mass consumable cheap device anyone can buy off the shelf. A few people doing it, it can be treated under existing laws. Millions doing it, easier to bring in specific legislation.

Re: I can, therefore I should

You have a very naive view of humanity. You don't think a guy who gets a drone for 'honourable' (nerdy) purposes who realises a hot woman sunbathes naked in her private garden or showers with the curtain open in her un-overlooked bathroom, would abuse that? It's very easy to say people won't BUY drones to perve, and I agree (mostly). But that doesn't mean they won't use them for that...

Re: He's just upset that ...

His cars can't go into your back garden.

Re: He is still correct @Eadon

There is a difference taking static photographs on a car traversing public roads anyone could see, and flying a drone over my garden to look through my windows.

Does anyone know the legal ownership of the air above your land? If a person can hover 2" above my lawn are they 'in' my property? 2 feet? 20 feet?

Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

That's what I was going to post... however I agree with his comments in this case even though I think drones are incredibly awesome and I really want one. They are such an open opportunity for perving and so on - I shouldn't have to close my curtains if my window is not overlooked.

I fear they may be banned before they properly take off (!) as a toy.

It's a bit odd with cars, but in the drug war this happens all the time with super-spec speed boats; an "arms race" between smugglers and coastguards.

Re: @Velve

As he said, women can drive and wear western clothes, in Dubai. But not in Saudi.

Re: Just what I want

And yet we all have smartphones which need a daily charge rather than weekly as used to be the case (well my Lumia lasts nearly a week but I don't use it heavily).

Re: Its true.

If you make decisions on "because they're Apple/MS/Google" rather than on the product being offered then you deserve what you get.

I did find it interesting that nobody in that article mentioned Android, suggesting nobody in the real world gives a toss about the OS... Android phones are often customised so maybe punters don't even realise it's the same OS?!

Re: If they had a time machine...

It's nice you can tell what their time-machine would show them without having a time-machine yourself, or an advanced academic background in history.

Re: Oh they would so love to do it ...

Rumours were the PS4 would do this too. It doesn't.

@Philippe

Btw, your Apple Market share comment is totally irrelevant.

One buys a computer every 5 years versus a 2 years upgrade cycle on phones.

Um, that makes it TOTALLY irrelevant? You buy a phone 3X as often as a PC, but the fact it took Apple DECADES to even get to 10% of the laptop market isn't relevant?

Re: The benefits to streaming

Netflix HD (or superHD as they seem to call it now) is really quite good. I'm sure it's not up to blu-ray quality but on my 42" TV I never notice any artifacts or anything. So being able to get 2X as much data seems likely to make a big difference for streaming, at least.

Who outside of a movie theater even WANTS 2k or 4k video?

If people think they need 1080p on a 4" smartphone, probably quite a lot of people. The newer iMacs are already at 2K or above and iPad Retina, Chrome Pixel and so on are just about there.

Re: Ah, another patent encumbered format @ Spaniel

I take your point Peter but if I make something I want to sell, the fact you use it in software you choose to give away isn't really my problem - give your software away for free but I don't want you giving away mine.

Re: Sticky Wicket

now try searching "maps"

Not sure when Google last prevented me from viewing Streetmap, though

"Not sure when Google last prevented me from viewing Streetmap, though, which kinda undercuts their argument for abuse of market position."

Not if you have the slightest understanding of the subject. MS did not stop you installing an alternative browser to IE.

Re: Perfect phone

Thanks a lot James, I appreciate that.

Re: Ah noooooooooo

How is android with 20 different OS versions and thousands of different hardware combinations less fragmented?

Re: Cheapest place is Tesco

It seems shortsighted to say a market cannot turn around. How many years did Apple languish at 1% of the laptop market? How dominant were Sony for cool personal audio?

As for FF OS... please, you're joking right?

I saw quite a lot of modern Nokias in Finland too, and advertised in pride-of-place in shop windows. Not that this makes Nokia less of an also-ran, but there are probably more places where it's doing better than the UK. It's not to be underestimated how much things differ between countries so basing it on the UK/US is not accurate.

Or a .ml?

Re: Ah, another patent encumbered format

I've looked at the H.264 license when we developed software using it and it hardly seemed crippling. I also see no particular reason why something that represents man-decades of work shouldn't require payment as long as that payment is reasonable.

The roots of the OSS movement, Stallman at least, were NOT about software being free but about it being open source so you could buy/license software and get the source-code in case you needed to alter it. That model of OSS is better in my view than the "software shouldn't cost anything" view most take now... I have no problem paying for software.

Re: Perfect phone

Could you comment on how slick it is at switching between apps, loading web-pages, etc? I have the 610 and like it but it doesn't support Skype (too little memory) and can be slow - if the 520 is better than the 610 I'm very interested.

Oh and also... does it work with iPlayer? Windows Phone 7 apparently does not but perhaps IE10 fixes that?