h264 shenanigans

Engadget has an excellent article that attempts to clarify the muddy waters of licensing and patents surrounding the h264 video codec. One of the snippets from the article, important enough that they list it in a side-box, is "using H.264 to distribute free internet video to end users doesn't cost a thing, and won't cost anything until at least 2015. After that, it's up in the air, and that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it — there's a chance the MPEG-LA could start charging a royalty for free video in five years."

Two parts of that sentence should cause any sane person cause for concern:

...won't cost anything until at least 2015.

That's only five years away. Just enough time to generate an awful lot of content that would take a lot of effort to get away from.

After that, it's up in the air...

That's not exactly something to be happy about. There's no point making extensive use on h264 and then hoping that it'll turn out ok, especially when there are perfectly workable alternatives.

The article does do a good job of dispelling a lot of the scaremongering that's been going on, but what's left is still distinctly unpleasant.

Labour Promote Political Sabotage

Now that it's blindingly obvious that the UK Labour Party is going to lose the General Election later this week, they've resorted to abusing the voting system in order to prevent their long term rivals, the Conservatives, from winning a complete victory. In areas where the Liberal Democrats are a larger threat to the Tories than Labour themselves, the advice is to vote Lib Dem in order to prevent them gaining the seat.

Does anyone else think that the system is broken?

Apple's vision of an 'open' web

Apple are certainly 'thinking different' when it comes to the definition of 'open'. In their spat with Adobe regarding Flash on Apple's mobile products, Steve Jobs responded almost convincingly about why Flash isn't on the Apple mobile product line. The primary reason? Openness. Flash is a closed platform, whereas JavaScript, CSS and HTML 5 are all open.

The 'but' here comes from the HTML 5 part, which includes a <video> tag that essentially renders Flash video obsolete, with decode and render available natively in the browser, rather than through a plugin. The standards committee overseeing HTML 5 still hasn't agreed on what format that video should be delivered in. The de-facto standard of h264, a high-quality, industry-driven standard that's nevertheless mired in patent and licensing issues that are really sticky. Or Xiph's Theora, which has been designed to avoid using techniques covered by patents, and is available royalty-free (which most of us think of when we think 'free').

When it comes to browser support, the big three unsurprisingly lend their weight to h264. Mozilla's Firefox—distinct from the others in being the only organisation that's an actual browser company and also non-profit—throws its weight behind Theora, with that crazy idea that participating in the web shouldn't involve licensing fees just to access it.

Of the corporations, Google has interestingly promised to open source the VP8 codec and, since they own YouTube, could theoretically swing the balance by offering VP8 support in Chrome and VP8 YouTube videos, especially if Firefox supported the same.

But, back to Apple.

Steve Jobs reckons that there's no such thing as a free video codec. Furthermore, he issues a threat to Xiph over Theora (without including useful specifics, which relegates it to FUD).

So Steve: get a grip. The i-whatever ecosystem is locked down tight, and you're free to do that to whatever extent your customers are willing to put up with, but don't hide behind a wall of righteousness when dissing other technologies. Your 'open' arguments are empty with a platform and environment that is increasingly developer hostile.

As for me, I've owned a G4 PowerBook and am typing this on a two year old Macbook Pro. With each statement from Jobs regarding criticism of his closed platform, I find it increasingly unlikely that I'll buy a third. So hey, Apple marketing-types: your CEO's statements are costing you a £1500 sale, and most likely not just from me.

Edit:

Apparently Apple once believed in a royalty-free Web, too. However, despite the original having lived here on apple.com for years, it's recently been pulled.

Thankfully, George Orwell's Memory Holes are a difficult thing to accomplish with an open Web.

Hat-tip to ZeroGravitas on Hacker News for the info (and to Create on the comments page for the Memory Hole reference).

Simple File Renaming in Emacs

I stumbled across this tip while browsing reddit/emacs. In summary, it allows for the possibility of having a 'write file' (C-x C-w) variant that deletes the original file, essentially performing a simple rename without having to invoke dired or fire up a shell.

Putting on my Emacs cap, I came up with something similar, shorter and (debatably) more 'emacs-y':

(defadvice write-file (around write-file-possibly-rename activate)
  (let ((old-filename (buffer-file-name)))
    ad-do-it
    (and current-prefix-arg
         old-filename
         (not (string-equal old-filename (buffer-file-name)))
         (delete-file old-filename))))

defadvice allows you to hook a new function up to an existing one, to be invoked either before, after or around it (around advice invokes the original function with its original arguments with ad-do-it, and can do that zero or more times). This form of advice is what hits the spot for this task. Subsequently, when write-file is called, this advice intercepts it, captures the current filename and then invokes the old behaviour. After the write has happened, it checks to see whether or not it should delete the old file, and does so if the preconditions are met.

This preserves the existing C-x C-w behaviour, creating a completely new copy of your file if you choose a different name. Invoked as C-u C-x C-w, however, it deletes the old filename, performing the same rename with less code and less duplication of the existing file-writing plumbing.

Gordon's Pledges?

Gordon Brown pledges 'five more years' as Prime Minister if Labour wins.

That's not a pledge, Gordon. That's a threat.

Institutional Abuse is not "Petty Gossip"

Cardinal Angelo Sodano has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by "petty gossip" about child sex-abuse allegations.

I find myself stunned.

The church faces far more than "petty gossip", at least as far as Giuseppe dalla Torre, head of the Vatican's tribunal, seems to be concerned, compelled as he was to remind us that the pope cannot be called to trial because he enjoys immunity as head of state. And yet here we have one of the most senior members of the Catholic church dismissing repeated charges of the most disgusting violations of trust and abuse as "petty".

Nothing quite reveals a man-made god as much as the dismissal of "petty" concerns.

PS3 System Update 3.21

Sony appear to be breaking new ground with the PS3: the only games console that loses features with firmware 'upgrades'. Yes, that's right: version 3.21 drops support for the 'Install Other OS' feature. This is almost on-par with the decision to drop software emulation of the Playstation 2, cutting off those large libraries of games that long-time users of Sony's console series have built up.

The best part of it is being held hostage: you can't use the Playstation Network with anything but the latest firmware, so those who stubbornly refuse to upgrade will find themselves stuck with local-only access.

Way to go, Sony! Really making your customers feel valued here.

Thankfully, George Hotz, who is similarly bemused has some advice: don't update. He's already hacked the PS3, and is looking to get a 3.21 firmware that doesn't lose the feature.

The strange thing is, he's the one that Sony will think is out of order.