Microsoft's Bill Gates took centre stage at yesterday's software developer day in London to convince UK software developers to stick with Microsoft, even though Longhorn, its next-generation operating system platform, is two to three years away.
Putting his trust in Moore's Law, Gates planned to exploit the full potential of future generations of PC processing power in Longhorn to support technologies such as instant messaging and speech synthesis and recognition.
He said, "Longhorn is a significant step forward for us." One of the key concepts in Longhorn is the stateless PC, a form of computing designed to combine the benefits of thin client computing with rich clients, where software can take advantage of functionality on the PC.
Gates added, "We are fudging the line between the client and the server." Given the speed of the network he said, "It will be possible to run the client PC in a stateless way," where user data and applications could move back and forth between a network server and desktop PC running Longhorn.
News source: Computerweekly.com
Putting his trust in Moore's Law, Gates planned to exploit the full potential of future generations of PC processing power in Longhorn to support technologies such as instant messaging and speech synthesis and recognition.
He said, "Longhorn is a significant step forward for us." One of the key concepts in Longhorn is the stateless PC, a form of computing designed to combine the benefits of thin client computing with rich clients, where software can take advantage of functionality on the PC.
Gates added, "We are fudging the line between the client and the server." Given the speed of the network he said, "It will be possible to run the client PC in a stateless way," where user data and applications could move back and forth between a network server and desktop PC running Longhorn.
News source: Computerweekly.com
What's New in This Release:
· Fixed some bugs with OGM files
· Fixed -asX command line option
· If for ex. second audio stream was choosen and next movie has only one audio stream there was no sound, fixed
· 'Add directory' playlist command, didn't add custom defined extension, fixed
· Fixed problem with taskbar
· Fixed bug with subtitles in Matroska files (part of previous subtitle was visible)
· Fixed bug with 'scrambled' subtitles and OSD when 'Draw to overlay surface' option was enabled
· In full screen skins when you move mouse over seek bar, it now shows time and % instead of only %
· Window moving should be more smooth under Win9x now (like in 0.86 versions)
· Added support for (SRT) subtitles embeded in AVI files (created for ex. with AVIMux GUI)
· Added option to choose file name in 'Export bookmarks' dialog
· Added support for multiple audio streams in MPEG files
· It's now possible to assign double click to actions
· Added option to load custom fonts for skins (look in .Baseskin.ini file for syntax)
Fudging?!
"Fudging" is another term for "Shafting"!
Unless that's what old Billy means...?
This means, now were are running all kinds of services on out client OS, you thought RPC was a problem?
I`ll stick with XP for a *long* time methinks...
There are going to be hundreds of Longhorn articles coming up in the next couple of years. Listening to you idiots drone on about DRM in every single one makes one wonder why the posters even bother putting up these articles.
No, I don't think it has yet been shown that DRM curtails fair use. First of all, there is no such think as fair rights. You probably meant fair use rights, but they don't really exist either. You see, without the ability to protect a copyright, it's hard to have copyrights. Without copyrights, you can't really have tack-on rights associated with them. So, you need DRM (or some form of protection of digital assets), for copyrights to be worth something.
In case it isn't obvious enough, I agree with Jagged.
So you're telling me the process of logging into a website to be able to view certain content is not a form of digital rights management? It's digital, isn't it? It's a way of managing your rights on this site to post comments, isn't it?
You're the one who's lost touch of reality.
Why do people always see the bad things about Microsoft and it's DRM, not the good?
Why? Because as microsoft pushes this way, they will be able to make it so you cannot buy any of their software.
Youll have to subscribe to each piece of sw each year. So know you have a subscription base software where MS (or any other company) is controlling what and how you use the software on your system. If MS decides they dont like you, they turn off your software and now you can no longer use your system...
Or, at any given point they could arbitrarily decide they want everyone to upgrade to the latest version of Word, say. So.. they simply turn off everyones copy of word, and send you an email stating "We're sorry, but you need to purchase a new subscription to Microsoft Word for an additional cost of 100$ per year."
This has tat least two bad points....
1. Hey! I just purchased my sub for 100$ two months ago, now you want me to resub again???
2. 100$ per year for word, 100$ per year for Excel, 100$ per year for Access, 175$ for Windows itself, 200$ for Visual Studio, now MS is collecting nearly 700$ a year from what is a minimal development machine. Little steep for my tastes.
Im sorry, but once i buy Word, for example, i should be able to hold on to that and skip the next 5 versions if i want to without having to shell out again every single year.
This is only one, quite obvious, application. All these ideas (like DRM and its ilk) are good in theory, because they protect 'artists'. But in reality all they do is allow corporate entities to milk people on both sides of their supply chain. There are many other ways this type of technology can be used (and hence will be used) against consumers which are less obvious and infiltrate more deeply.
(Note: all numbers are made up, and this applies to other companies as well, only MS was cited for brevity)
Activation is something different. It is DRM at a much smaller, limited level. Activation does not collect personal information, nor does it limit use of the application. It mearly prevents a person from using it on more than one computer at a time because it must be activated. However, with the concept of DRM, much more power can be given over use of the program, restricting the rights of the user.
Please people, consider the possibility of abuse and don't blindly trust companies!
wtf are you talking about? I was talking Independent software vendors.. you know the little guys that write custom software for places... it does not come cheap... most of the places we work with want $10,000 for some of their packadges and they arn't big companies like MS or Adobe, mostly places you never heard of because they are industry specific... and all the money does go to them... if they would have an app pirated or someone install more copies then they licensed at their business thats a huge hit on the company
I doubt it will even do that.
Net PC again? Really hope not
With SQL Server as a layer to your file system, applications will be able to store/manipulate data locally and/or on the server.
Peace,
James Rose
New York City
God, I hope not. It does sound reminiscent of dumb terminals. I'm just fine with keeping state local, thanks. I hope he's only speaking of Longhorn in the enterprise. Hopefully home users won't have to deal with that crap. Bill, make stateless optional!
Of course i could be wrong.
as with activation, it only hurt the little guy. it didn't stop piracy, didn't even slow it down. matter a fact piracy increased.
the loyalists to Microsoft can not see what is wrong with anything they do. its sad that these people trade their rights away and dont think a second about it. the rest of the industry is slowly turning away from a Microsoft based Monarchy.
drm if a part of longhorn, will not slow anything down. only the loyalists will be dealing with it. enjoy loyalists
juan
not a loyalist
/flame on loyalists
and has failed in that task
sp1 they tryed to plug the hole,
and failed in that task
now everyone who wants to use xp without licences has and can not be tracked
claim all you want about activation the facts are its dead jim
now drm will not stop piracy either, it will only be a problem for legit users. everyone else will just step around the problem and not look back. what it will do is help nail a lid on microsoft's coffin from legit users of the drm
and i was just stating it didnt work
I like to do things legally, but sometimes i get annoyed by people who complain about piracy to protect companies and artists. First, because I think often they earn more money because of piracy, because people pirating often wouldnt buy in the first place, so its like trialware. There is also that abstract argument about the market value of information being $0 because of lack of scarcity. But, on a less abstract level, it may be that our art and our culture would be better off with different laws. People have long argued that commercialization damages art, because people create art for money rather than interest, and certainly there are critics of popular culture. And certainly artists should be paid, but they don't need millions of dollars as pop stars do, the popularity that causes this salary aided by institutions like the media and entertainment industry that people feel don't like. So don't be so ideological about this. And besides real issues like piracy, there there are many ways that copyright law is becoming defended to extremes. Museums find loopholes around public domain laws to restrict images of public domain art, and the same is true with public domain movies and cartoons. If you use corporate records to criticize their policies on legal grounds you can be sued for copyright infringement. One group of protesters was talked about recently in a NY Times article The Tyranny of Copryight (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html) . But there are other times that copyright laws protect the little guy inventors and some corporations have bypassed the copyright laws to steal inventions. And I think some of the competition and standards created by non-opensource software like Microsoft's has benefits for the industry; one of the main arguments against Linux is that it doesnt have interface/or other types of standards or integration. So I don't really don't have a strong sense of what should be done, I'm just open to this and don't automatically launch into a moral argument against stealing. There's a reason why many people don't feel guilty about copying music files; its not just because its easy, its easy to kill someone. People just aren't so morally sure of this.
.. anyway of the two reasons people are being concerned about Longhorn , one has been mentioned; copyright issues. Probably another one is fears that WinFS will bloat the system and also make it less secure.
For example, currently users have a choice on how to organize their files: (example follows)
a) Have directories named for each vacation that they take, and in each vacation, there would be pictures, and video clips, and perhaps audio clips, and maybe confirmation emails for travel plans, etc.
or
b) Have directories for pictures, and have them sorted by trip. Have directories for audio clips, sorted by trip. And so on for each "type" of media or information.
Now, which method choose will depend on how you think you will need to access that data. If you want to do slideshows of all of your trips, you use file structure b). If you prefer to organize by year (tax purposes?), you use system a).
It is hard to manually re-sort this data if you had it set by system a), and now want to use system b). (my example isn't too tough because it is by filetypes, but if they were all pics sorted by who was in them, or by exposure settings, it would be a NIGHTMARE).
WinFS is supposed to take the organization, and make it flexible. Horizontally-arranged file sstructure, to Vertically-arranged, to sort ony for certain attributes (night-time photos).
If you are familiar with both Windows and Linux philosophies for organizing programs, this makes a lot of sense. Windows puts all program files in one folder, with everything thrown in there (system a, above). Linux puts all the binarys in their own folder, all the man pages in their own folder, all the source code in its own folder (system b, from above).
The flexibility to arbitrarily choose how you want this data to be indexed, sorted, filtered, and output to you can be an amazing feature!
(P.S. If I have this WinFS system mis-understood, then someone else should develop this! - Just wait until I patent it, though)
Interesting.. I personally think this is the way forward, and have to say Bill is bang on for focussing on this. Definitely will give MS a headstart if they jump onto this wagon..
first os that gives me the things im looking for ill move too
yes. but at first this sounds as if it might not be that different from ideas like NetPC. its interesting but i think many people dont feel comfortable not having their applications (let alone files) local on their disk. Some type of managed scenario would be better which allows you to have control over the process. Do you know how far Microsoft wants to take this where it wants to draw the line
Maybe because you're a dumbass who can't read a single sentence about Longhorn without mentioning DRM.
is it becuase you have nothing?
Maybe because it's one huge gaping flaw with Longhorn? Why do you come here if all you want is to keep living in your peaceful little Longhorn bubble. If you have anhthing to say yourself about DRM, maybe you should at least try to come up with a reason to why it's good for common people purchasing hardware instead of resorting to trolling.
Well we're gonna need to get faster broadband here in Australia for that to ever work properly!
From what I have sse nat th emoment I'm impressed wit the design and structure of the OS and if it runs as stable as they say it is then I shall propably buy it... If the price is right mind...
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