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it could also be that they don't want to host a 4gb dvd for one game....just saying

You shouldn't humor him. I happen to be an expert on lossy video coding.

So how about explain how it's a fail instead of just throwing out condescension. Educate the poor guy/gal!

So much fail.

The VP9 codec can reduce the bandwidth needed to play a video by up to 35 percent, according to Google. This means that a user who was previously relegated to watching 480p video should now be able to watch 720p, for example.

No, it means no such thing. 480p -> 640x480 -> 307,200 px; 720p -> 1280x720 -> 921,600 px. Both are the same framerate. So 480p is not 65% of the bandwidth of 720p, it is 33.3%.

The main holdout for VP9 is now the Safari browser on iPhone/iPad devices. All the other browsers can play VP9 either natively or by cheating a little by installing a plugin (IE and Safari on OSX.)

Don't mind me

thanks brah

Well, luckily the laser has not been installed yet. So its a tomorrow class laser, rather than a today class laser.

Fine. No problem. Let us give that a try... test the theory... if all else fails we shall summon a Rod from God

Running with NoScript will keep the plugin mostly disabled. NoScript shows a static placeholder in its place so that, if you decide that you want it, you can easily activate the one specific element by clicking it.

OS-specific Flash download page
https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

Flash is something that's occasionally unavoidable, and yes, it should be disabled unless it's really wanted. Online casinos are all Flash-based, for instance, and HTML5's DRM'ed video hasn't yet replaced Silverlight and Flash for 'premium' video streaming (Netflix and co).

Completely agree. I reinstalled linux few months ago and completely forgot to install flash. Didn't even realise it was not there until I read this article.
Flash = RIP

you are better off just uninstalling flash if you can or disable it if can't be removed. most everyone has switched to html5 players so unless you are a flash game junkie, there is really no reason to have it anymore.

I doubt that today's lasers from orbit, through the whole atmosphere could even give you a mild tan. :-)

Just give them the coordinates, and let them shoot from space. That way you can have a plausible alibi. Maybe like commit a minor crime at the same time so the cops are your alibi. Instead of the cops going, Hmm, which house with a giant laser melted those cars?

What? The ISS needs a laser?? Whst about me? One of these could be great to deal with the doof doof cars in the neighbourhood

The ISS is only solar powered. What is their storage capacity? How long does it take to 'recharge'?

It's pretty misleading in general. This is a beefy processor for beefy systems. There is nothing saying they won't release another line for smaller more conservative systems in a few months.

MBA logic: these laptops will be more expensive than most non-pixel chromebooks, which means there may be more of a profit per unit. I don't know why they have to dedcide between chrome and windows. They just make the processors and let OEM's put them in whatever systems they want.

Also, key quote from article:

PC makers are considering the new Carrizo chips for Windows laptops, not for Chromebooks, said Adam Kozak, marketing manager at AMD.

So, its OEM's and not AMD specifically? Maybe. Other parts talk about all the windows 10 specific stuff they did with the chips. So who knows. In any case, I prefer to run linux on real laptops with more on board storage space than chromebooks. So maybe this is a win for me or at least the windows tax status quo? Not sure. I guess I'll have to wait to see what the secure boot settings are.

Perhaps we will see an increase in the number of everyday users who can implement a null route to force windows update to fail :)

I just built a test machine with updates enabled. It borked itself on the first two machines. Twice. Two screwups from a base install. Only on the third go did it actually work correctly. Microsoft updates are a nightmare. I have been nutted by updates in the past on Windows 7 and XP. Forced updates? Can anyone else hear millions of people scream as they watch their pc crash? I hope everyone in the world can handle a few hundred MB when the net is turned on.

I don't think they're giving Win10 away because Win8 tanked. They're giving it away because that's what Apple is doing now, and because their MBAs have decided it's a better business strategy to push users into subscription models for other services like Office 365 and Cloud services, etc.

Yes, Win8 tanked, but I don't think this is an issue of cause and effect.

Automatic updates will be pushed only for Win home users. Considering that most of Windows users do not have a clue what they are doing, that is probably a good thing.

I'd say the ability to control which (and when) updates you want installed is a fairly important one. Especially seeing as how awful QA on recent Microsoft patches has been recently.

Then there's the whole "Metro" thing where they strip away your ability to customize the interface (like, say, re-arranging the order of your start menu). The general "dumbing down" of the interface, taking away vital controls and information, is not welcome.

POP3 support in a mail client would be nice too.

As far as I know the only things that really have been stripped out are Windows Media Center, DVD playback, gadgets and some games. The other stripped-out stuff can be downloaded separately (games or floppy drivers for example).

Media center can be easily replaced by several alternatives (XBMC for example), VLC will do the DVD player.

Unless I missed something, I am missing your point.

I vote for it to be anyone who is an admitted liar belonging to a group who have declared perpetual war against the rest of humanity. The up side is that after throwing a few million of them to Mars the planet may be more suitable for human life. The down side is that those living there will be the scum of the Earth.

Windows 8 has tanked so badly Microsoft is giving away its next OS to millions of people for free, and they decide to go with it over Chrome? Wow. On the other side, obviously they missed the recent announcements about what has been stripped out in Windows 10.

The founder & president of The Ocean Cleanup provided an item-by-item list, responding to all the criticism of the idea:

http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-critics.html

I blame the Ferengi. Those little bastards steal anything not nailed down

Heinlein had a few good ideas about this

As long as I get to choose which fifth.

Most the time it's enough to put in the disc and leave it for a few minutes, before even turning on the TV.

This doesn't work if there's, say, a language prompt before the unskippable ads, but they're fairly rare.

I thought something like this had already been deployed, decades ago -- what happened to that?

and one for space too.

Here's a classic infographic illustrating the difference between watching a legitimately paid for video, vs watching a pirated video. Hint: watching the illegal video is a hundred times easier because all the consumer-antagonistic stuff has been stripped out.

http://boingboing.net/2010/02/18/infographic-buying-d.html

Guess Netflix never saw it then, or were blinded by the glare of gold bullion glinting off their lawyers ...

Now we just need one for air pollution and the party can continue unabated.

We have one fifth of the worlds population to spare. The only question is how to ship them there. I wonder if there are millions of virgins on Mars..

I'm still using the original Netflix delivery method: Physical discs mailed to me once a week.

Sure, there are previews and other types of bonus material on DVD/Bluray discs, but they can be easily skipped with the method I use to watch them.

frankly i'm glad we have not sent a manned mission to mars because the people that went would have died on the way from radiation. believe it or not, we have learned a lot in the last 50 years by sending our technology instead of people with tools. sure we could have pushed harder but the world is littered with humans that become distractions. in the mean time our technology has improved an absurd amount and humans are still noisy distractions but we becoming more forward thinking even as some drag their feet or kick and scream.

we will get there eventually but what's more important than going is making a way to stay there permanently. this means we need to up our genetic engineering game so that we can make some plants grow on mars after we melt mars' polar cap of dry ice using machines.

in short, it's one thing to throw a corpse onto the surface of another planet, it's another thing to make a second world.

In 50 years we have not gone that far. Not even to sending manned missions to Mars. Only recently did we start reaching for the stars again. This planet is our only egg basket

Well, for the record. With At&t uverse they have a decent kids package without ESPN. I like ESPN, but not at the price of packages that include it. I'd pay $5 a month during football season for it, but that's about it.

I don't mind after-show ads, but putting anything longer than 5-10 seconds before something is just batty.

Three things will happen:

1) Most people will attempt to access sites outside the UK, thus putting heavy financial pressure on those businesses affected inside the UK to fight it
2) The average consumer will click, pause then click somewhere else and for those who haven't already, they'll learn that bypassing the censors is actually easy (the tighter you squeeze slip fingers, dark side, cookies something)
3) The angry Internet trolls will abuse and hack the new system to expose or frame people in charge

Hihi. when you said "M*A*S*H" I got curious... how long would it take for me to find it on a torrent site... Result: Less than a minute. All 11 seasons complete. Not that I would ever download something like that.... not my genre. ;-)

When cable TV was first introduced, we were promised no commercials because the revenue was coming from the monthly fee, and the channel selection would attract more customers and revenue. Well, there were two bad effects from that. First, the content providers very quickly went to commercials, I suppose instead of raising rates, and worse we ended up getting forced to buy content we don't want. Although I dropped cable over 15 years ago, and satellite about 5-6 years later, I never appreciated having to pay for ESPN. I'm sure the programming is fine, but I'm not interested in sports, but there was never an option to not pay for it.

Now Netflix is in the same boat. Obviously, they are looking to generate more revenue, but given that selection isn't a big draw, no commercials is a major feature. If they want to use commercials, they need to offer an option out with a higher-priced tier. I don't watch a lot of movies on Netflix (because the selection isn't so great, but there's a lot of cool older stuff on there), I mostly watch old TV shows (right now I'm reliving "M*A*S*H"), which I really enjoy and find it a great value. I _will_ pay more for no commercials if I have to, and if I can't, I'll consider dropping Netflix.

I certainly like the stated goal of making users feel more responsible and involved, but I don't think the idea would work very well, as described.

Citizendium did a better job than I can, explaining why Wiki's don't work out:

* no coherent narrative
* disconnected grab-bags of factoids
* degraded by minor ill-judged tweaks
* intelligent laymen are often mistaken
* "squaters" always win
* blatant and shameless levels of bias
* Vandalism is a headache
* part anarchy, part mob rule
* disputes sometimes go on interminably
etc.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Why_Citizendium%3F

Frankly, stories are fairly ephemeral, so those obsessed with (minor) typos just need to relax. Monitoring user-submitted edits would sap all kinds of extra time & effort, instead of saving any.

I don't think |. has anything like the same problems as /. so it's not necessary to try and fix their problems, over here.