Adobe Systems is dropping support for Apple's older PowerPC G3 hardware in its Flash Player, the company said Thursday.
The news came in a note on its support Web site alerting users to an updated version of the Flash Player that fixes several security issues. Adobe said the next version of the product, Flash Player 10.1, will be the last to support PowerPC-based G3 computers. The new Flash Player is expected to be released in the first half of 2010.
Adobe's move will probably not affect very many people. The last PowerPC-based G3 was produced in the summer of 1999, when it was replaced with the Power Mac G4.
Dropping support for older products is something companies do regularly, in part because it enables them to take advantage of new technologies and push their products forward. Indeed, Adobe said in the support note that it is dropping support for the G3 "due to performance enhancements that cannot be supported on the older PowerPC architecture."
Adobe already requires a multicore Intel processor in order to run its flagship product, Creative Suite 4, so the company is no stranger to dropping support for older Apple machines.
Apple itself dropped support for all PowerPC-based computers with the latest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard. Even Apple's iLife consumer product no longer supports the G3 processor.
Apple began the transition to Intel-based processors in 2005, when Steve Jobs said during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote speech that the company would be moving away from PowerPC.
So what, exactly, is Google planning to do with On2 Technologies' video software?
The search giant isn't saying. The planned $106.5 million transaction isn't going to make too much of a dent in Google's coffers, but the transaction comes during a hot debate about which future technologies will power Web video. CNET News' Stephen Shankland and Tom Krazit pondered the implications of the deal, and here's what they thought:
Shankland: When I heard about the acquisition, I immediately wondered if the move could tidy up the mess that is that Web video or clutter it up even more.
On2 offers video compression technology that's used, among other notable places, in Adobe's Flash software and the Hulu video site. The company licenses various "codecs"--the software used to encode video so it's compact enough to squeeze down a narrow Internet pipe, then to expand it at the other end. It's a major technical challenge--one that's getting more important people to spend more time watching online video and more companies to attempt to profit from that.
Krazit: Well, it all depends on what they do with it, right? Google's being coy about this particular acquisition, but there really are only two reasons to do this: open-source the codec and throw a third wrench into the HTML 5 video tag standards debate, or bake it into existing technologies like YouTube--in hopes of getting that business to start making money--or mobile software.
At the moment, my bet is on the YouTube-mobile option: does Google really want to risk holding up HTML 5 adoption any further, regardless of the hint they dropped in the press release that "video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform"?
Shankland: Those alternatives aren't mutually exclusive. Google might just be buying trying to lower its costs by sidestepping YouTube's current streaming technology, which uses Adobe Systems' Flash software. Dan Rayburn, executive vice president at StreamingMedia.com, says Google doesn't have to pay Adobe fees to use Flash at YouTube. But Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics, believes that using On2 technology could trim YouTube's network bandwidth costs.
In the long run, though, getting On2's technology accepted as a built-in Web video standard could help both YouTube and Google's grander ambitions for the Web.
Google controls Chrome, of course, but getting the other 97 percent of the browser world to move will be harder. When it comes to building support for Web video straight into the Web, rather than using a plug-in such as Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight, Apple's Safari uses H.264 while Mozilla and Opera use a license-free alternative called Ogg Theora. Chrome will support both, but Internet Explorer doesn't have any support at all.
Right now, that video variety has been a thorny issue for the effort to hammer out HTML 5, the next incarnation of the Hypertext Markup Language that's used to describe Web pages. Even though the video tag looks like a big part of HTML 5, specification author (and Google employee) Ian Hickson so far isn't naming a codec.
Krazit: "Thorny issue" seems like an understatement. Why would injecting a third standard (that not everyone believes is necessarily a superior option) make sense, at this point? I suppose that there's a Clintonian "third way" argument to be applied here, in that if Apple and Mozilla are lining up on opposite sides of the debate over H.264 versus Ogg Theora, a freely available version that has clear patent ownership collected in one place might solve some of the sticking points on either side. Still, we'd be once again dependent on Google's "Dude, you can totally trust us. We're Google!" argument that it won't later subvert the standard with patent claims.
Not to mention the fact that Microsoft and its Internet Explorer are still unlikely to play ball, no matter what Google proposes.
Shankland: Well, one way Google could win over Mozilla at least is by releasing the codec as open-source software. That may or may not be possible, depending on what On2 has had to license, but Google apparently isn't happy enough with Ogg Theora's quality to bring it to YouTube, according to Hickson.
But I wouldn't rule out Microsoft quite so fast, even though I'm sure that it would like to get as much royalty revenue as possible through Silverlight video streaming and its own video codecs. Google has an affinity for open-source licenses such as Apache that permit use of code in proprietary software. That could reduce the philosophical barriers to Microsoft. And if Google can offer a high-quality codec in the HTML 5 standardization effort, maybe making On2's codec into open-source software could help coax the Internet Explorer team on board.
Let's not forget that HTML 5 is under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and they don't like standards encumbered by royalty constraints.
Also, if I were writing standards, I'd favor codecs such as On2's that also work on mobile devices. The iPhone doesn't support Flash, and I'm sure that Google wants YouTube on as many handsets as possible.
Krazit: Google's trying to pull off a lot these days, when it comes to making the Web the future platform for developers. It's a huge proponent of the HTML 5 push, devoting an entire day of Google I/O in May to explaining why this move is so important, and preaching to developers about how open standards and browser-based development are the wave of the future.
But you'd think that at some point, the company would start thinking of ways to differentiate its own products against the rest. Chrome and the forthcoming Chrome OS are ostensibly being developed with the hope that they will gain traction in the market. How will they do that, however, if they are just cookie-cutter versions of the same standards-based technologies on which everybody else jumps?
One way would be through offering excellent video performance that isn't widely available to the rest of the world, i.e., keeping VP8 and future On2 codec derivatives either in-house or available for a fee. Is Google going to open-source everything it ever develops under the strategy that anything that gets people on the Web ultimately comes back to its bottom line? Surely, that can't scale.
Shankland: No, Google won't open-source everything--and stop calling me Shirley. The company loves improving the Web as a foundation for applications, an effort that needles companies such as Microsoft or Apple that have their own developer ecosystems to nuture. But when it comes to the applications themselves--Gmail and Google Docs, for example--Google isn't so into sharing.
So I guess that some of this On2 situation comes down to the extent to which the video codec work is an end or merely a means to an end, like Chrome.
Krazit: Google isn't saying, at least for now. There's little doubt that online video is a crucial component of the future Web (CBS' David Poltrack is telling television critics this week that big money is coming to online video), and something will need to assume a role as the future technology enabler of Web video.
In the end, however, it must be nice to be able to make $100 million bets with relative ease. Nothing could come of On2's technology, and Google would hardly be worse off than it was a day ago.
Updated 1:24 p.m. PDT with new information about Flash licensing and YouTube expenses.
Google's Matthew Papakipos touted HTML 5 features including the video tag at the Google I/O conference Wednesday.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Google has begun supporting a new HTML feature to show video in its Chrome browser as an alternative to Adobe Systems' much more widely used Flash, but the technology overall remains rough around the edges.
The support comes in Chrome 3.0.182.2, a developer preview version that on Wednesday inaugurated work on the 3.0 generation of the Google browser. HTML video is one of a handful of technologies in the still unfinalized HTML 5 standard that Google hopes will transform the Web from a collection of relatively static sites to a foundation for full-blown applications that rival those on PCs.
The "video" tag in HTML already is available in various versions of Apple's Safari, Firefox, and Opera, which at least in theory makes handling video on the Web as easy as handling images. But the HTML 5 standard that includes video isn't finalized yet, so don't expect a coding revolution yet.
The video tag can be used to show video that today would show up in a conventional box, just as with Flash or Microsoft's competing Silverlight plug-in. But it also enables deeper integration with a Web site. For a good example, watch Paul Rouget's demonstration of HTML video in which images, text boxes, and videos are overlaid on another video, with a JavaScript program dynamically changing the appearance.
In a talk Wednesday at the Google I/O conference, Matthew Papakipos, a Google engineering director, said HTML 5 video will permit close integration with the Web site's programming, so for example various actions on the Web site can trigger different videos to start or stop.
The video tag tucked in Daily Motion's Web site could be a harbinger of significant changes on the Web.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)HTML 5 video still faces many hurdles to adoption, and browser support being just the first. Next come resolution of browser compatibility problems, upgrades by browser users to support the feature, and real-world use of the technology on Web sites.
The challenge is illustrated by video entertainment site DailyMotion, which on Wednesday announced plans to make 300,000 videos available through the HTML 5 video technology by the third quarter of 2009. DailyMotion recommends the Firefox 3.5 beta version to watch videos, which indeed worked for me, but the newest Chrome developer version and the Safari 4 beta reverted to Flash.
DailyMotion touts its use of HTML 5's video tag to show videos encoded with Ogg Theora technology--but the feature doesn't work with the Safari 4 beta or the latest version of Chrome.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)One issue is the technology used to encode and decode video. Firefox supports the Ogg Theora format for video (and the Ogg Vorbis format for the related HTML 5 audio tag), for example, and that's the format that DailyMotion is using.
More common in the real world, though, is the H.264 standard. Papakipos said Chrome will support H.264 video and AAC audio as well as Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio format.
As part of the Streaming Media East conference in New York, Adobe has unveiled "Strobe," the "open framework" for its Flash video player that the company first announced last month. It's expected to be available in the third quarter of this year.
Since you were probably wondering: No, Adobe is not tweaking the pronunciation of "Strobe" so that it rhymes. Thank goodness.
But here's what it is: Strobe is a product and architecture for accompanying plug-ins based on Adobe's Flash technology that lets a company build a custom video player more easily, should it want to host online videos in-house rather than relying on YouTube or its ilk.
While Adobe's ActionScript language is "very flexible," explained Jennifer Taylor, director of product management for Flash distribution, "everybody's sort of had to recreate that from scratch, and as a result it's taken people longer than they've wanted to to to get their video players up to get their video online."
The meat of Tuesday's announcement at Streaming Media East is that a host of big new partners are on board, from content delivery networks to analytics firms. The full list of supporters is Adap.tv, Akamai, Blip.tv, Brightcove, CDNetworks, Digital Smiths, Eyewonder, GlanceGuide, Grab Media, Incited Media, iStreamplanet, KickApps, Level3, Limelight Networks, Multicast, Nielsen, Omniture, Panache, PointRoll, ScanScout, Thumbplay, Visible Measures, and YuMe.
Strobe is "taking the mystery out of creating video players, and also streamlining and simplifying that process, so people can do it much faster than they could before," Taylor said. She added that ComScore statistics have said that Flash is used to serve up 80 percent of all online videos.
Adobe is calling Strobe an "open framework" and is inviting developers to contribute, but has not finalized the way that it will be licensed. There may, for example, be an open source version that developers are invited to try out, test, and build on, but the version that will be downloadable at Adobe.com may haev a different license. This, Adobe representatives said in an e-mail to CNET News, would "take all the best pieces of the open source code, bundled with plug-ins," but that it would be protected to "prevent modifications, breaking plug-ins and prevent competing branding."
Company representatives followed up later on Tuesday to clarify that "the intent is to work with a license that allows for liberal use and innovation."
But regardless of license, the Strobe framework will be free, and Adobe does not have plans to charge for it. "Our intent is to not monetize Strobe directly," Taylor said. "Obviously, we anticipate and hope that Strobe will help accelerate the adoption of Flash video, and the rising tide helps all boats: it's going to help our partners and those who provide plug-ins for the framework."
This post was updated at 1:43 p.m. PT to clarify the use of open source technology in Strobe.
As more entertainment content makes it way online, Comcast is looking for new ways to remain relevant to its subscribers.
Specifically, the cable giant is launching a bunch of new initiatives to bring more interactive content to its services and keep its subscribers hooked on cable. First on the list is the company's proposed free online video-on-demand service. The service, which will be offered as part of Comcast's Fancast video site, has been discussed publicly for the past couple of months. But the company has kept the details, such as when it will launch and what content will be offered, under wraps.
What is known is that Comcast expects to offer the service free of charge to its existing cable TV customers. In a recent interview with PC World, Karin Gilford, the Comcast Interactive executive in charge of the cable provider's Fancast video site, said with a user name and password, subscribers will be able to access any standard or premium cable content that their cable subscription entitles them to watch.
The service will let users watch TV on their laptops or computers, and eventually it might even be available on cell phones. What will make the service different from other online video sites, such as Hulu.com or TV.com (which is owned by CBS, publisher of CNET News), is that it will feature premium cable content from sources like HBO, ESPN, and CNN. This content has largely been off-limits to free online video aggregators.
But because Fancast online video-on-demand viewers must subscribe to cable TV, the new service won't act as cable replacement. In other words, it's simply an extension of Comcast's existing cable service. This is an important element of the service, because it ensures that Comcast doesn't cannibalize its own lucrative paid TV business.
Apps, to boot
In addition to online video, Comcast is also dipping its toe into online application waters. The company announced earlier this week that it is working with Adobe Systems to embed its Flash technology on set-top boxes used by its TV subscribers. Sree Kotay, senior vice president and chief software architect at Comcast, recently told the Web site Contentinople that the company plans to enable widgets and other Flash-based applications on its set-top box.
Kotay said he sees Flash as a software platform that could allow the company to quickly add new applications to the set-top box. And he said that these applications could be built by Comcast or they could also be built by third party developers. The company was showing off the new set-top box at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas this week.
Kotay hinted at potentially creating an application storefront akin to Apple's iPhone App Store. He said that the App Store was a good example of how companies can maintain control over applications to ensure quality and also easily distribute them to consumers.
But he stopped short of indicating whether Comcast would provide a monetization mechanism through its own customer relationship. This would be easy enough to do, considering that Comcast has a direct billing relationship with consumers and could easily provide one-click purchasing. But Kotay said it was still too early to discuss business models.
For now, Comcast is still in the exploratory phases of how it can keep pace with the online world. It will be interesting to see if subscribers use the Fancast video on demand site and what kinds of applications and widgets will be developed for the TV.
A mock-up of what Adobe Flash for TVs would look like.
(Credit: Adobe)From the PC to the TV, Adobe Systems wants to bring rich Web animation and video into consumers' living rooms.
The company will on Monday announce its latest version of its Flash multimedia platform that will essentially put its technology in Internet connected TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, and other digital home devices. The main purpose of the TV and consumer electronics optimized Flash is to allow viewers to see high-definition video, interactive applications and new user interfaces right on their TVs.
As part of the announcement, the company revealed a number of partners that plan to use the technology, including, Intel, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Netflix, Atlantic Records, and the New York Times Company.
Until now, Adobe's Flash Player has mainly been used on computers to make animation and video from Web sites like YouTube available in a Web browser. And the company has been very successful in this market. About 80 percent of online videos worldwide are viewed using Adobe Flash technology, according to comScore.
The company has also adapted its technology to create a mobile version of Flash that is used on smartphones. The mobile version lets people watch Flash-enabled video on the go. Now Adobe is turning its attention to the living room and big screen HD TVs. This means that people could have full access to the entire YouTube library of video on their TVs instead of a subset that has been specially encoded for TV viewing.
"There are some products and services that offer a subset of online video for TVs," said Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development for Adobe's Flash Platform Business Unit. "But they don't provide all the content. For example, a lot of devices play back YouTube content. But they can't offer all the videos on YouTube."
Developers will also be able to create "widgets" for TVs to help bring Web content onto the TV screen. Widgets are specially designed Web applications that can easily be added to consumer electronics devices.
Yahoo is also offering widget technology for TVs, which it co-developed with Intel. The Yahoo Widget Channel provides access to Flickr, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather and Yahoo Finance, USA Today, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks, among others. Motorola, Samsung, and Toshiba are all planning to add Yahoo Widgets on some of their new TVs.
Murarka said that Yahoo is not really competing with Adobe. He pointed out that both Adobe and Yahoo are working with Intel, and he said the Flash technology was actually complimentary to what Yahoo is doing with its Widget Channel.
"Yahoo supports Flash on desktops and our hope is that they will support Flash in TVs as well," he said. "We see Flash as being valuable in a number of new frame works."
Murarka wouldn't say which consumer electronics makers plan to use the new version of Flash, but the technology is available to device makers and application developers now. And Flash-enabled TVs and set-tops should be out later this year.
Some subscribers of Major League Baseball's streaming-video service are complaining that the new player, powered by Adobe Flash, isn't ready for the big leagues.
After receiving plenty of favorable reviews from technology blogs, some MLB.com subscribers have complained about stuttering and stalling video while watching on Monday, opening day for baseball. Some of the same problems continued on Tuesday, according to reports. Subscribers of MLB.com's GameDay Audio service also reported that archived games haven't been accessible since Monday.
The irony is that Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), the unit that oversees the streaming service, discontinued using Microsoft's Silverlight player because of chronic glitches and disagreements over how the player should function, CNET reported on Monday. In the story, Bob Bowman, CEO of MLBAM declined to go into detail about why he dropped Microsoft but said baseball is engaged in an ongoing dispute with Microsoft "because of the significant problems" the league encountered last year.
"I wonder how long before Adobe gets the boot," Timothy Thorson told CNET. Thorson said he is a longtime MLB.com subscriber and listens to the games from his home in Germany, where he works as a pianist and translator. "Baseball is one of the things I miss most about the U.S. There are others like me who get up in the morning and want to listen to the game and now we can't."
The glitches affected less than 1 percent of the company's 500,000 subscribers and were not caused by Adobe's player, said Matt Gould, MLBAM's spokesman. Gould added that as of Wednesday evening, eight games were in progress and three were completed and there were no complaints. "We didn't bat 1.000 on opening day, but there are 2,200 games remaining in the major league season. We look forward to providing the most engaging high-def experience for our subscribers."
Adobe said in a statement: "We've been in regular contact with MLB.com, and have heard nothing but praise about the Flash platform."
Gould said the malfunctions were relatively minor and were far fewer and less severe than last season, when many subscribers were unable to even log in. That was when MLB.com was using Silverlight. Gould said that delivering true high-definition streaming video is a complex task and baseball is only now working out the kinks because it couldn't fully test the video feeds from major league ballparks until opening day. Teams don't play in their home stadiums during spring training.
"We've had very small window to do end-to-end testing," Gould said.
As I discussed the situation with Gould on the phone, Charlie Wagner, a CNET photographer overheard me. He told me he was prevented from seeing a ninth-inning rally by his favorite team, the Minnesota Twins, Tuesday night when his MLB.com video player broke down.
"The video froze on me in the ninth inning," said Wagner, who has subscribed to the service for three years. "I couldn't see the finish until ESPN came on... I was mad."
Despite the problems, he Wagner said he thinks the picture quality is better.
As for Silverlight, the company declined to comment but on a blog post, Steve Sklepowich, a Microsoft executive, did challenge one of Bowman's assertions about Adobe. Bowman suggested that Adobe was a better fit for baseball because of Flash's wide consumer adoption.
"While Flash 9 may have high penetration," Sklepowich wrote, "the Swarmcast NexDef plug-in that helps power MLB's HD experience has virtually no adoption. Ubiquity here is a red herring. What customers really want are high quality solutions. Silverlight has been doing that since its inception and already supports the ability to deliver true HD using IIS Smooth Streaming with no additional plug-in required."
Perhaps Bowman described the situation best this week when he said that streaming video on the Web isn't as trustworthy yet as television. "You turn on the TV and it just works," he said. "(Internet video) still has a ways to go."
Screenshot from MLB.com's new Flash player.
(Credit: MLB.com)The thwacking sounds of bats striking balls will once again fill stadiums, as Monday is opening day for Major League Baseball. This year, Microsoft will watch from the sidelines.
MLB.com no longer uses Microsoft's Silverlight to stream games to its 500,000 subscribers. This season fans will watch live and on-demand video via Adobe's Flash player.
In November, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league's tech unit, announced it would discontinue using Silverlight, the browser plug-in that MLBAM had signed up for barely a year earlier. The decision was not insignificant. MLBAM not only runs the profitable MLB.com streaming-video service, the Web's most successful subscription service, but the group is also influential with other leagues and sporting events. MLBAM handles much of the back-end operations for CBS' Webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and this year will do the encoding for the 2009 Masters golf tournament (CBS is the parent company CNET News).
Baseball never detailed the reasons for dropping Silverlight but sources close to the negotiations between the league and Microsoft said it was a series of glitches and conflicts between the companies that led to the split.
First, baseball wanted Microsoft to make it possible for users to download Silverlight without having to possess administrative rights. When people are at work, it's often the company that possesses those rights and employees would need authorization to download the player. That frustrated plenty of MLB.com subscribers, according to the sources.
The other major issue was that baseball considered Silverlight too unstable. There were some high-profile glitches, including last year's opening day, which saw many MLB.com subscribers struggling to log in and others who were unable to watch games. The malfunctions lasted several days. The rift between Microsoft and MLBAM began to grow and hasn't stopped, said the sources, adding that lawyers for each side are still arguing over Microsoft's responsibility.
Through a spokeswoman, Microsoft declined to comment but did point us to plenty of other sporting events for which Silverlight was chosen, including NBC's Webcast of the 2008 Summer Games and CBS's online presentation of the NCAA basketball tournament. NBC also recently announced that it will broadcast the 2010 Vancouver Olympics using Silverlight.
But Silverlight was also suspected by many Netflix users of being the cause for a recent series of glitches that occurred with Netflix's streaming-video service. Microsoft appeared to acknowledge that its player was the cause of at least some problems when it said last month that Silverlight 3 could help Netflix customers who run lower-end computers and were experiencing dropped frames and poor viewing quality. Netflix has said that most of the feedback on Silverlight is positive.
Bob Bowman, MLBAM CEO, also declined to detail what happened with Silverlight. He did, however, acknowledge that MLBAM "has an ongoing dispute with Microsoft because of the significant problems we encountered last year." What Bowman wanted to discuss was Adobe Flash and the successful marriage of baseball and the Internet.
Q: How much better is your video player this year?
Bowman: The experience has been everything that we did not have a year ago...Nobody has seen true high-def before on the Web. (With this year's player) you can put it on any screen you want, there's no degradation at all. It has all the bells and whistles, picture-to-picture, DVR-quality pause, rewind, fast-forward, real-time highlights. The meat-and-potatoes of it of course is the picture quality itself and it is eye popping."
Q: How come your on-demand video subscription service appears to be more profitable than the other leagues?
Bowman: The nature of our game, we play every day, we have fans who watch us on Tuesday, talk about us on Wednesday, listen to us on Thursday and maybe go see us on Friday. They touch baseball every day. They just do it in different ways based on how much time they have. Today's society, the interactive-digital society, can stay in touch with baseball better than they've ever done before. That keeps getting better. The iPhone's MLB At-Bat application is one example of that.
It isn't because we're different or smarter. Baseball is just better. It's better suited for this kind of daily, hourly interactive conversation. Then you get the video and people have 15 minutes. You better give them the very best product you have.
Bob Bowman, CEO of baseball's technology unit
(Credit: Major League Baseball Advanced Media)
Q: How much harder and more expensive is it to do high-definition streaming?
Bowman: First of all it's based upon what the park does. Probably only 70 percent of the games are in true high-def. About 30 percent of the games aren't in high def even on your TV. It's roughly doubling in terms of the costs. The infrastructure is more certainly more expensive obviously. But the daily coding and redistributing almost doubles the cost. It isn't arithmetic. As you know the video is even more than doubling, but you get rates and expenses by the time you're done it roughly doubles the cost.
Presumably the costs will come down. They are certainly moving in that direction for the last several years. But for us it was a relatively straight-forward decision to give our fans the very best.
Q: What did you see in Flash that impressed you?
Bowman: You see several things. You see a high-grade product that's in some form on 99 percent of the browsers. You've got something that's got mass usage. Secondly you see with Adobe a company committed to the customer experience in video with the Flash Player. We see a partner that continues to invest in their product. They have the same desire that we do. They want the Flash Player to be the best thing anybody has ever seen and we want that. When you partner with people like that, it's not a philosophical discussion. We know where we want to be now how do we get there.
The big entertainment companies refuse to give up on USB drives for media delivery. Sony announced on Monday that it was loading movies and albums on flash drives.
Michael Jackson fans can obtain the 25th Anniversary edition of the album Thriller for $19.99 or the feature films The Da Vinci Code or Men in Black for $29.99 each.
I can understand trying to sell flash drives for digital movies. Downloading big movie files can still take hours depending on the speed of the Internet connection. I'm not quite sure why anyone would pay $30 for catalog titles just because they're on a USB drive. Sony's press release doesn't say whether there are any added features.
As for offering music on flash drives, well, it's been tried and the public yawned. It's just too easy to download music from iTunes or other music stores and store them on digital music players. If you absolutely require a physical media-delivery system why not just buy a CD?
But Sony Music has struggled lately. For more on that read this story.
Microsoft is losing MLB.com, Major League Baseball's online unit and one of the Web's most successful subscription services, as a Silverlight customer.
MLB Advanced Media said Monday it will use Adobe's Flash Platform to deliver all live and on-demand video starting next year.
The deal, announced at the Adobe Max conference running in San Francisco this week, hands Adobe one of the largest and likely most profitable video services out there. MLB.com has signed up more than 1.5 million subscribers since 2003 and streams more than 2,500 regular and postseason games annually. Moreover, MLBAM has been a technological leader and is influential among Web video services.
"Microsoft has appreciated the partnership of MLB.com," said Microsoft Vice President Scott Guthrie. "Microsoft continues to be very pleased with the success of Silverlight. We have a great ecosystem that includes more than 150 partners."
Adobe's Flash Player is by far the largest video platform, installed on more than 98 percent of Web-connected content, the company said.
"Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works," said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLBAM. "We want it to be flexible so we can add features...and it's got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it's got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else."
Bowman was tight-lipped when asked to provide specifics for how Adobe's Flash outperforms Microsoft Silverlight. "I'm going to reserve all my comments on Silverlight and suggest any comments I have, positive or negative, will be discussed at a later date."
Adobe's news comes on the same day that Guthrie posted a blog announcing a few details on Silverlight 3, which is due out next year.
