The Oatmeal: "What I think Obama is meeting with Jobs, Schmidt, and Zuckerberg about."
On Google's Announcement That Chrome Will Drop Native h.264 Playback Support
I haven't written about what I think is the 2nd biggest news story of the week yet, but I've tweeted about it quite a bit. On Tuesday, Google announced that in a future version of Chrome, to come out later this year, they would drop h.264 playback support. And then, on Twitter, I announced that I would cease using Chrome & move back to Safari.
In short, I think this is an incredibly idiotic move on Google's part. I think this is a purely evil and corporate political move in order to try to do harm to iOS devices. I think that Google is outright lying when they try to claim the reason for this decision is a commitment to open standards and I do not think its a coincidence that they made this announcement on the day of the Verizon iPhone announcement.
Why do I feel all of these things? Rather than do a poor job of articulating my thoughts, as I am a horrible writer, I will instead link you to John Gruber's piece he wrote today. He called it, "The Practical vs. Idealistic Scenarios for the Near-Term Future of Online Video (OR: HOW GOOGLE’S DECISION TO DROP NATIVE H.264 PLAYBACK FROM CHROME SERVES TO PROP UP FLASH PLAYER)".
I see this as coming back to bite Google in the ass. I also see this as the final move, in a steadily crescendoing series of moves that Google has made in recent years that has made me completely lose trust in them as a company. Also on Tuesday I began searching for a way to migrate off of gMail (which I probably will do soon to MobileMe) along with other Google services I use. I no longer want to have anything to do with them as a customer. Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft is now the new IBM. And IBM is now an irrelevant behemoth of a bureaucratic consulting company that no longer makes anything of value. And I guess Apple is the new...Apple? See, horrible writer.
Brilliant! "An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google"
Tim Sneath nails it. "An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google".
Last night at home, and this morning as work, I've switched Safari back as my default web browser after using Chrome primarily for the past year. Sorry Google, it was good while it lasted. Your move is clearly a political decision and you're characterizing the decision as being one to foster "openness". Bullshit. You're anti-Apple hostility is obvious.
But Who Is Going To Setup Their Own Email Server?
Many many years ago, back in the days when Microsoft's email address had exclamation points, an internal tool was developed to permit Microsoft employees to view and update their Benefits information from the comfort of their very own offices. Welcome to the paperless office!
One of my friends noticed an odd sentence in the instructions for using the tool: "Before running the program, make sure you are logged onto your email server."
"That's strange," my friend thought. "Why does it matter that you're logged onto your email server? This tool doesn't use email."
Since my friend happened at the time to be a tester for Microsoft's email product, he tried a little experiment. He created a brand new email server on one of his test machines and created an account on it called billg. He then signed onto that email server and then ran the tool.
Welcome, Bill Gates. Here are your current Benefits selections...
"Uh-oh," my friend thought. "This is a pretty bad security hole." The tool apparently performed authentication by asking your email server, "Hey, who are you logged in as?" The answer that came back was assumed to be an accurate representation of the user who is running the tool. The back-end server itself was not secured at all; it relied on the client application to do the security checks.
My friend sent email to the vice president of Human Resources informing him of this problem. "You need to shut down this tool immediately. I have found a security hole that allows anybody to see anybody else's Benefits information."
The response from the vice president of Human Resources was calm and reassuring. "My developers tell me that the tool is secure. Just enjoy the convenience of updating your Benefits information electronically."
Frustrated by this, my friend decided to create another account on his test email server, namely one corresponding to the vice president of Human Resources. He then sent the vice president another email message.
"Please reconsider your previous decision. Your base salary is $xxx and your wife's name is Yyyy. Would you like me to remind you one week before your son's tenth birthday? It's coming up next month."
A reply was quickly received. "We're looking into this."
Shortly thereafter, the tool was taken offline "for maintenance."
MS Office for Mac 2011 Shipping in October
Microsoft announced today that Office 2011 for Mac would ship in October of this year. The release of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 will be simultaneous across 100 countries at the end of October. Two versions will be available, Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 and Office for Mac Home and Business 2011.
Starting today, if customers purchase Office 2008 for Mac, they will be able to upgrade to Office 2011 when it is available at no additional cost through the Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program.
The following editions will be available.
- Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac and Messenger for Mac, and it will retail starting at $119.
- Available in two editions — a single install for $119 (U.S. ERP) and a Family Pack for $149 (U.S. ERP) with three installs for families with more than one Mac in their household.
- Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac, and it will retail starting at $199 (U.S. ERP).
- It also will be available in two editions — a single install for $199 (U.S. ERP) and a Multi-Pack for $279 (U.S. ERP) with two installs for a user with two machines.
- Microsoft Office for Mac Academic 2011 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac, and it will retail at authorized academic stores and Microsoft for $99 (U.S. ERP).
HP to kill Windows 7 Tablet Project
Hewlett-Packard has killed off it’s much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.
The device was first unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 in January and was supposed to hit the market in mid 2010. But our source tells us that HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system and has terminated the project (something CrunchGear mentioned months ago).
HP may also be abandoning Intel-based hardware for it’s slate lineup simply because it’s too power hungry. That would also rule out Windows 7 as an operating system.
So what will HP use as an operating system? Look for Google-powered devices, which have already been announced. And HP really does seem determined to make a go of the Palm WebOS. They said how important it was to them yesterday, and they will likely experiment with porting it to a slate-type device.
Will WebOS emerge as a successful operating system for tablet devices? That seems very unlikely given the dominance of the closed Apple OS and the likely success of the open Android and Chrome operating systems from Google. To get traction from third party developers with WebOS HP will need to sell a lot of units. And it’s not clear what they’d gain from all that effort, anyway. HP knows how to build and sell hardware, not operating systems.
Lets see....JooJoo tablet? Dead. Microsoft Courier? Dead. HP Slate with Windows 7? Dead. And the assumed WebOS alternative for the HP Slate? Given that they only acquired Palm yesterday, they'll be lucky to ship something by late Q4 2010, probably Q1 or Q2 2011...right about the time that the iPad 2nd Gen comes out. Apple, yet again, has a huge lead on everyone else with a new product category.