The Death of the Extender for Windows Media Center | We Got Serv As you may have seen on Gizmodo this week, both Linksys and HP have confirmed that they’ve dropped their Extender for Windows Media Center products, and other than a prototype device from Toshiba announced at CES this year, it looks like the category is pretty much dead in the water at this point. Regular readers may remember that my crystal ball pretty much predicted this when I wandered around the show floors at Las Vegas this year. Networked TVs and DLNA support from the CE guys as well as Microsoft in Windows 7 ultimately will provide most of the functionality you need to enjoy music, videos and photos on your TV from your PC or home server without the need for an additional (and historically underpowered) extender device. For the likes of Linksys and especially HP, Extenders were a niche product within a niche category and I guess the volume just wasn’t there (or likely to develop) to make money. For more perspectives, check out GeekTonic and Ian Dixon.
Resources Broadcast TV is dead. Long live TV! Despite declining numbers in broadcast TV viewership, consumption of TV Shows and online video is growing faster than ever before. With every Network and their dog madly rushing to provide a second screen experience via native applications, few compelling cross-platform TV experiences exist on the web. [iframe width="500" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/inrIvwGys7g? This presentation covers a few lessons and guidelines to demystify the Z-dimension - what a stacking context is, how events are distributed, how transforms (3D & 2D) are handled by the browser, and how to untangle a vertical mess. [iframe width="500" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xFtgUguXHMw? Thanks to open APIs and emerging technology, JavaScript can now empower devices and technology in our day to day life. [iframe width="500" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NcpfIQPjqVc? ES6 is here and it's bringing some awesome new features to Javascript.
Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters Steve (GRC) Gibson's Blog | Steve's Public Brain Dumping Ground LabMice VB versus Java John asks a question that gets me thinking about it. John Pusatera wrote to me with this question, "I am not a professional programmer, but I always wondered how the professional community viewed Visual Basic compared to Java." A “professional developer” has one rule that overrides all the others: “Do what the boss wants done.” If the boss needs Java development, that’s what you do. If the boss needs VB, do that instead. Update!! But getting back to my original blog ..... If you’re talking about just having fun, it’s VB all the way for me. The comparison of .NET to Java, however, is more one of guessing about what the future may bring. So why use .NET? I like to think in terms of analogies. One way to classify real estate investments is to decide whether you’re going to go for a relatively cheap piece of property and hope it turns into something grand; or buy something that is already pretty grand and expect it to get even better. What's your opinion?
david mccandless TechCrunch Hyper-Threading At the recent Fall 2002 Intel Developer Forum, Intel announced that their upcoming 3.06GHz P4 processors and beyond will include Hyper-Threading (HT) technology. Earlier rumors suggested we wouldn’t see Hyper-Threading in desktop CPUs until mid-2003 with Prescott, Intel’s .09 micron (90nm) processor that implements the next level of advanced 32-bit x86 microarchitecture. Obviously, Intel determined that desktop HT technology could be released sooner, since operating system support is stabilizing with Windows XP SP1, and application tuning and support is well underway. Also, competitive pressures from AMD likely helped push up the release schedule. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have performance data for the desktop 3GHz Hyper-Threaded P4 because the product is not formally released. Hyper-Threading Platform Requirements Intel specifies a P4 3.06GHz or higher processor is required to support Hyper-Threading on the desktop. Hyper-Threading Benefits
Linux in Hollywood The First Linux Movies Conference SidebarsA Sampler of Linux MoviesSome Motion Picture Studios Using PrimarilyLinux A Brief History of Open Source and the Movies For Star Wars: Episode II, Linux made Yoda a lightsaber-wielding action figure. In short, the big news in Hollywood about Linux is it is no longerbig news. At the software level, studios are using Linux versions of some ofthe leading commercial applications for 3D animation, compositing,special effects, and rendering — Alias Maya, Apple Shake, andPixar RenderMan. Linux began in 1991 as grad student Linus Torvalds' personal hobby.How did it become a professional graphics powerhouse in the mostdemanding of CG industries? Linux got its commercial boost as a platform to serve web pages.During the Internet boom Linux captured a third of the ISP servermarket on its effectiveness powering Apache web servers. Linux got its big Hollywood break in 1997 when Digital Domain (D2)used Linux to render the special effects for Titanic.
Why Facebook’s Community Pages Could Give Brands a Headache A couple of weeks ago I received a worried call from a friend working in PR for a large company. Her opening question went something like: “What the heck are Community Pages on Facebook, and why is there one for my company?” Community Pages 101 Facebook's Community Pages are an initiative from Facebook to create “the best collection of shared knowledge” on a wide variety topics. In theory these pages should be a good thing for companies. “Generate support for your favorite cause or topic by creating a Community Page. So, if your Facebook Page falls into “owned media” in our social media ecosystem, Community Pages would fit more into “earned media.” Over time, Community Pages would reduce the number of errant brand-related pages set up by individuals — a good move from a brand's perspective. Causing Headaches for Brands Here's the problem, though — alongside generic causes and topics, Facebook has also created Community Pages for many well-known brands. “But we already have a Facebook page!
TWiT Network {Leo Laporte} Technology Review Presentation on Tweeting the Bible « OpenBible.info Blog Here’s a presentation I just gave at the BibleTech 2010 conference about how people tweet the Bible: Also: PowerPoint, PDF. I distributed the following handout at the presentation, showing the popularity of Bible chapters and verses cited on Twitter. It displays a lot of data: darker chapters are more popular, the number in the middle of each box is the most popular verse in the chapter, and sparklines in each box show the distribution of the popularity in each chapter. (Genesis 1:1 is by far the most popular verse in Genesis 1, while Genesis 3:15 is only a little more popular than other verses in the chapter.)