Re: Which MS Product is in decline?
The Zune.
Posts by StareClips.com
11 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Aug 2007
Google, Microsoft and Apple explain their tax tricks in Australia
Google AXES AndroidScript app used by 20,000 STEM coders WITHOUT WARNING
Move over Microsoft: RealNetworks has a GOOGLE problem
Monday 24th March 2014 17:19 GMT
Has this guy not heard of Google Drive? He keeps comparing their service to YouTube, talking about the ads. Well, if you're just wanting to store your personal videos and want to be able to watch/stream them from anything and don't want ads in them, you can do this by uploading your videos to Google Drive. It makes it streamable and doesn't add ads. You can also technically upload the videos to Google+ and not share them with any circles and they'll still be private, viewable by you, and with no ads.
This guy is pushing something that really isn't necessary, other than a "me too" service, which is fine, but he keeps pretending that RealNetworks is the only game in town.
Google, please DRILL through Great Firewall of China with your HTTPS LANCE
Tuesday 26th November 2013 09:30 GMT
This makes no sense whatsoever. Here are two statements that seem at odds:
"...given how essential Google’s services are to so many individuals and businesses, blocking the company entirely would have immediate and disastrous economic consequences..."
"...Google currently has less than a five per cent share of the Chinese search market..."
How could the blocking of a service that represents "less than five per cent share of the Chinese search market" have immediate and disastrous economic consequences? Unless, of course, those "disastrous economic consequences" would be to reduce Google's "less than five per cent share" to "zero" and give that share up to another search provider.
Google's stats show few Android tablets in use
Friday 7th September 2012 06:34 GMT
Re: Isnt this a sign
So, you're saying Samsung and Sony should pay attention to an OS that has gained even less traction than Android? Odd decision.
Executive #1: Ugh, our tablets only seem to be running on the #2 tablet OS.
Executive #2: I know, let's switch to the #3 tablet OS.
Executive #1: Brilliant!
Google defends native code Chrome play
Thursday 9th December 2010 00:49 GMT 
Chrome Frame
I think what is being missed here... the missing piece... that perhaps Google is keeping closely to its chest for now... is Google Chrome Frame.
Chrome Frame currently allows IE to run NaCl code by embedding Chrome within IE. You still have the IE interface, but the rendering engine becomes Chrome when it's needed.
This code, though only an add-on for IE currently, looks to have been tested with Firefox. So, as soon as it's ready for primetime, if Firefox doesn't cave in, Google will likely just release Chrome Frame for Firefox and any other browser that supports such add-ons.
Sure, there will always be browsers like that on the iPad, but people have already come to expect a lesser experience on the iPad since you can't add features to the browser and can't view Flash, etc...
Mozilla man blasts Apple and Google for HTML5 abuse
Friday 11th June 2010 15:45 GMT 
This article is short sighted...
At this point, an standards compliant IE is vaporware. Until it actually exists and is in the hands of many, it will be no more standards compliant than IE8 was promised to be. Even the "compatibility mode" in IE8 didn't actually render sites the same way IE7 used to, and this was the whole point of "compatibility mode" in the first place.
As for Google and Native Client... does this guy not understand that a Native Client plugin will exist for all other browsers. Sure, it's in Chrome... but it's in lock-down... under severe testing. It isn't in the stable release and on by default, so for that matter, he might as well say that Native Client isn't in *any* browser yet.
Once Native Client is officially in Chrome, it will automatically exist for IE via the IE Chrome Frame plugin. This plugin also technically works in FireFox, though it hasn't been officially released for it yet. As for Safari... well, I don't know what the story is with Safari.
At the moment, when using various HTML5 tests, the latest dev build of Chrome (in Windows, at least) is the MOST HTML5 compliant browser available... and this guy is griping about Google's talk of HTML5?
I wasn't *once* convinced by Google that Native Client is some sort of open standard. The reason Google likes HTML5 is because it makes web applications more like machine applications, with the local storage (allowing offline modes) and the deeper ability to interact with local interfaces. Native Client exists to close the gap, when the highest level of performance is needed from the CPU or GPU. For instance, you're not going to make QUAKE using HTML5, but it has already been ported to Native Client.
From my view, HTML5 and Native Client really *are* the future. Application developers who want to make, say, 3d games... can just write their games in C++... and, using Native Client, can get people to play their games within the web browser for a window (or in full screen mode, since browsers support this as well). No need to "install" or "uninstall" software. HTML5 gives all of the basic features any online/offline web-based application would need when it doesn't need the type of processing power that 3d games would require.
It sounds to me like this guy just wants to complain about everyone else and leave Mozilla's lack of true leadership out of the picture.
Watchdog backs Google antitrust complaint with (more) data
Thursday 3rd June 2010 08:47 GMT
Well...
It sounds to me like you're using the term "monopoly" as only meaning "market leader". Not all market leaders are monopolies.
There is plenty of competition in the market. Bing, for one. Whether you like to wax poetic and say, "That is not a knife... THIS is a knife", wielding Google to prove that Bing is just a switch blade... it really doesn't matter.
People have a choice. The choice is easy to make. You can switch search engines at any time. Heck, you can search google for "search engine" to help you make that switch if you were so inclined.
The reason Windows was a true monopoly and, as a result, Microsoft was barred from using this monopoly to give them an unfair advantage in other markets... is because as Windows became the de facto operating system of computers, more and more software was being written for Windows... so, as time passed, even though there were a couple of options, these options just didn't have the developer support, software support, third-party support, and hardware support of Windows. So, people were forced to either use Windows... or say goodbye to a bunch of software and deal with compatibility issues when dealing with the rest of the world. That was a true monopoly.
If you choose to start using Bing, this isn't going to make you incapable of opening a file I send you, installing some software I need you to use, etc... so, your hands aren't really tied... you'll just be getting inferior results (or superior results, depending on your opinion). At that rate, there isn't a monopoly going on... it's just popularity.
There are no ethical lines between a popular service promoting their other services.
Google hints at native code in Chrome Web Store
Friday 28th May 2010 14:15 GMT
People soon forget...
The Java versus NaCl debate is missing the point. It's not about whether NaCl is better than Java or Java is better than NaCl... it's all about programming language and existing code. Sure there's a lot of stuff written in Java and a lot of it is Enterprise based. This isn't about the Enterprise. This is about, initially, GAMES.
Most game engines are written in C. Rather then trying to convince all the game engine writers to take the time to rewrite their engines in Java (good luck with that)... they're just convincing game engine writers to take their existing C code and make a few tweaks, and boom... it's NaCl.
From Google's perspective, any Enterprise app will run just fine in Chrome as a web app. If you use the offline functionality of HTML5, you don't need to be online. However, for high powered games, people would be left high and dry... NaCl fills that gap.
If you want to use your Java applications in Chrome, those will STILL WORK. Chrome is not abandoning Java. NaCl is, again, just to fill in the gap between those who don't want to rewrite existing C code into Java. Others, who grow to like NaCl MIGHT rewrite some Java applications into NaCl... or MIGHT use NaCl in the future instead of Java... but this isn't about replacing Java per se.
Webmail-creating Trojan targets Gmail
Wednesday 15th August 2007 18:03 GMT
It doesn't need to be programmatic...
One method of bypassing CAPTCHAs, without needing complex programming, is to take the image being shown and to present this to someone else on a website that is owned. For instance, let's say there is a spammer who owns hundreds of generic porn sites that get lots of traffic. When attempting to view an image or a video or whatever, the user could be presented with a CAPTCHA that they must solve. Unknown to the user, however, is that this CAPTCHA actually originated from a spam-bot that needed it to be solved in order to sign up for an account on a legit site. In other words, it uses human-power to solve the CAPTCHAs from humans that otherwise don't know what they are actually helping to contribute to.
Another method could be to use humans who DO know what they are contributing to. Imagine a shop full of under-paid and/or under-age workers in some foreign country, solving CAPTCHA after CAPTCHA after CAPTCHA. Although this scenario is possible, it wouldn't be as effective as the method explained previously, that still uses human power, but from unsuspecting humans.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
