Major Shakeup for the Internet?

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Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/32561.html



Partial quote: "Microsoft may alter its dominant Internet Explorer Web browser following a ruling against it in a Chicago court earlier this month. That is according to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an industry standards body, which said on its Web site that the Seattle giant had told the group that changes to the software may be in order. It was in mid August that Microsoft lost a civil case brought against it by Eolas Technologies and was ordered to pay the company $520.6 million for infringing on patents relating to Internet Explorer (IE)."



This could mean some fairly major changes to the internet.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    snoopysnoopy Posts: 1,901member
    As I understand it, not just IE infringes on these patents, but all browsers. The case was brought against MS since they are the biggest. If MS thought they could contest these patents, they would. Since MS is talking about making changes, I suspect the patents will hold. These patents appear to affect some fairly common things, like browser plug-ins, and major changes would need to be made to avoid using the patents.



    Edit Add: Maybe it is not a 'major' change, but the article says it affects a lot of web pages.
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  • Reply 2 of 8
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Specifically, Eolas patented a method for embedding plug-in content in web pages, and (successfully! ack!) sued MS for infringement.



    Now, think about every Mac browser that embeds QuickTime - not just for movies, but for PNGs, GIFs, JPEGs, even Flash content.



    Oddly, what it might end up doing is driving everyone toward XML-based web applications. The web might end up rolling back to about 1996, content-wise (although the markup will be a lot prettier) and pushing more sophisticated uses to dedicated applications (as is already happening with e.g., iTMS, RSS feeds, etc.).



    Even more interestingly, the more the web becomes services fed to specialized applications rather than laid-out pages with embedded content, the friendlier it becomes to handheld devices.



    So it's quite possible that lemonade will be made from this ruling. But I still can't muster any respect for Eolas.
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  • Reply 3 of 8
    snoopysnoopy Posts: 1,901member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amorph





    . . . Even more interestingly, the more the web becomes services fed to specialized applications rather than laid-out pages with embedded content, the friendlier it becomes to handheld devices. . .







    Does this mean if someone wishes to view, say, a QuickTime movie trailer, they would need a QT Player of some kind on their computer, separate from the browser? I'm guessing this would work, but would be less convenient than it is today?
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  • Reply 4 of 8
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Um, am I totally missing something? That has been used for quicktime for years. All the little buttons that say you need download Quicktime 5/5 to view this on all Apple's trailers. Well, that installs QT and a plugin for your browser.



    I just woke up and can barely see the screen but I hope what I just typed made senesce.
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  • Reply 5 of 8
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by snoopy

    Does this mean if someone wishes to view, say, a QuickTime movie trailer, they would need a QT Player of some kind on their computer, separate from the browser? I'm guessing this would work, but would be less convenient than it is today?



    Notice that Apple's been moving toward standards; so an older QT movie would require a separate QT player, but an MPEG-4 movie only requires an MPEG-4 player. These already exist for mobile devices, so all Apple would have to do (if they haven't done this already) is move the QT Trailers page to MPEG-4.



    For desktops, yes, it's not quite as convenient to have a separate player pop up. But unless this ruling is overturned on appeal, it will happen: Nobody wants to pay the fees for MPEG-4 and whatever toll Eolas wants to charge for reinventing SOM/OpenDoc.
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  • Reply 6 of 8
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by snoopy

    Does this mean if someone wishes to view, say, a QuickTime movie trailer, they would need a QT Player of some kind on their computer, separate from the browser? I'm guessing this would work, but would be less convenient than it is today?



    Apple could just make links to QT movies launch QT. This is how Real and WMP work on the Mac.
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  • Reply 7 of 8
    So whats going to happen to flash content?
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