Monday, January 29, 2007
The truth about Vista DRM
A few months ago a "paper, "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection", written by Pat Gutmann in New Zealand, began circulating on the internet. It made all sorts of claims about the DRM system used by Microsoft Vista, such as that playing protected content would then degrade all content displayed on the computer, even things like images, even images (for example) from medical scanners.
This seemed to be very well referenced, but heavily spun against Microsoft, and borderline FUD. I couldn't believe it to be true - it were, it was commercial suicide for Microsoft, and they don't do things like that.
I was waiting for a rebuttal from Microsoft and now here it is. Yes, it is true that unless you use a video card and monitor that both support HDCP, you will not get full HD quality playback for HD video. But why would someone want to use their computer to watch HD material? Are people really going to begin plugging their PCs into their large screen HDTVs? No, no more than people already do the same to watch DVDs - they buy cheap stand-alone players. If you do want to watch HD content on your PC, then you know what to do - use HDCP compliant equipment.
Other than that Gutmann's article is plain wrong - read the Vista blog post to see why.
This seemed to be very well referenced, but heavily spun against Microsoft, and borderline FUD. I couldn't believe it to be true - it were, it was commercial suicide for Microsoft, and they don't do things like that.
I was waiting for a rebuttal from Microsoft and now here it is. Yes, it is true that unless you use a video card and monitor that both support HDCP, you will not get full HD quality playback for HD video. But why would someone want to use their computer to watch HD material? Are people really going to begin plugging their PCs into their large screen HDTVs? No, no more than people already do the same to watch DVDs - they buy cheap stand-alone players. If you do want to watch HD content on your PC, then you know what to do - use HDCP compliant equipment.
Other than that Gutmann's article is plain wrong - read the Vista blog post to see why.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Electronic paper
Electronic paper is going into production (well, plants to produce it are being built). This is exciting
stuff - it's as easy and comfortable to read as paper, yet can update like a screen.
Just imagine that all the world's books were online (maybe they will be one day if Google Books
continues to make progress), and you could download any of it onto a wireless paper screen you could carry in your pocket.
stuff - it's as easy and comfortable to read as paper, yet can update like a screen.
Just imagine that all the world's books were online (maybe they will be one day if Google Books
continues to make progress), and you could download any of it onto a wireless paper screen you could carry in your pocket.
Microsoft's big year
I have to admit I find what Microsoft is doing right now is exciting (apart from the failure of the
Zune). IE7 is being widely adopted and is ushering in new functionality most internet users have
never encountered before, in particular tabs and RSS.
Office 2007 is a revolution and will make millions of people's lives a lot easier! I cannot recommend
it enough. It's great to see such a large company being such an innovator.
Finally Vista promises rock solid safety and security. As it becomes more common, I think we'll
see less and less malware and botnet problems. It's a pity it's High Definition playback is crippled,
but who would ever connect a computer to their big HDTV?
Zune). IE7 is being widely adopted and is ushering in new functionality most internet users have
never encountered before, in particular tabs and RSS.
Office 2007 is a revolution and will make millions of people's lives a lot easier! I cannot recommend
it enough. It's great to see such a large company being such an innovator.
Finally Vista promises rock solid safety and security. As it becomes more common, I think we'll
see less and less malware and botnet problems. It's a pity it's High Definition playback is crippled,
but who would ever connect a computer to their big HDTV?
