| Mozilla caves, will support H.264 to avoid 'irrelevance' Mar 19th 2012, 21:02  It looks like Mozilla is ready to throw in the towel in its battle against the patent-laden H.264 video codec. Over the last week or so, the software foundation has struggled publicly with whether or not to support the MPEG-LA-owned format. Now several of Firefox's biggest players have all come out in support of the move and all that's left is to actually bake the appropriate code into the browser. Both chairman Mitchell Baker and CTO Brendan Eich embraced the decision this weekend, however begrudgingly, in blog posts. Both admit that success in the mobile space requires them to abandon the quest to make WebM the standard for streaming video in HTML5. Even with Google's support, at least on the desktop, VP8 was never able to seriously threaten the entrenched and battery-friendly (not to mention, Apple and Microsoft backed) H.264. For more details check out the source links.
Mozilla caves, will support H.264 to avoid 'irrelevance' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  Inquirer |  Mozilla Hacks, Mitchell's Blog | Email this | Comments | | Sharp intros underwhelming RW-T110 Gingerbread tablet with NFC, not much else on board Mar 19th 2012, 20:21 Last year, we saw Sharp bust out an array of 7-inch Android slates, including that NFC-packing RW-T107. Now, the Japanese company is adding a slightly larger member to the family, dubbed RW-T110. This 10.1-inch Gingerbread slab (sorry, Ice Creamers) is sporting a 1GHz TI OMAP processor alongside 1GB of RAM, 8GB of onboard storage, a 1280 x 800 display as well as an NFC chip. Additionally, the biz-oriented slate is powered by a 6,240mAh battery, which promises to get you up to nine hours of continuous video payback time. The RW-T110 will be hitting Japanese shelves on March 27th, and while there's no info on whether Sharp plans to launch it in other markets, we doubt you'll miss this run-of-the-mill "Big Pad." Sharp intros underwhelming RW-T110 Gingerbread tablet with NFC, not much else on board originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Akihabara News | Sharp (Translated) | Email this | Comments | | Android study finds privacy and security risks related to in-app advertising Mar 19th 2012, 19:53 Android has certainly taken heat for malware-related bits in the past. Now, a recent study by computer scientists at North Carolina State University reveals that over half of the 100,000 apps from the Android Market Google Play include so-called ad libraries, which are essentially handed out by Google or third-party devs to retrieve ads from servers and launch them on your phone. Of these, 297 were classified as "aggressive," as they're allowed to run code from a remote server. Furthermore, Dr. Jiang along with his squad of researchers found that more than 48,000 of the apps put to the test could track location via GPS, while other accessed info could range from call logs, contact numbers, to the apps list on your device. It's unclear if this also applies to Android slates, though this particular study conducted only included handsets. Continue reading Android study finds privacy and security risks related to in-app advertising Android study finds privacy and security risks related to in-app advertising originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | NCSU News | Email this | Comments | | Seagate releases GoFlex Satellite firmware update: improved battery life, WiFi passthrough Mar 19th 2012, 19:27 There's nothing quite like under-promising and over-delivering, and it seems that we've got just that scenario in the case of this here rumor-turned-reality. After hearing that Seagate was planning to update the firmware on its GoFlex Satellite streaming hard drive, the company has indeed released version 1.3.5.015 today, a 51MB file that makes quite a few succulent changes. For one, it improves battery life (from five hours to seven), and it also "lifts the restriction on the number of devices that can connect to the drive at one time." Lastly (and perhaps most importantly), it provides a pass-through for internet access when connected to the drive. As you'd expect, the new bits and bytes are available gratis, and they can be downloaded there in the source link. Seagate releases GoFlex Satellite firmware update: improved battery life, WiFi passthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Seagate | Email this | Comments | |
