Windows Live Sync now Mesh; online storage strategy still a mess
Microsoft has renamed Windows Live Sync to Windows Live Mesh. Redmond often rebrands its Windows Live products, but there's more than a simple name change to today's announcement.
Windows Live Mesh will support syncing hidden files and will show a list of files that might be missing in a synced folder. Complaints that 2GB is an insufficient amount of storage have resulted in 5GB becoming the cloud storage limit again. Microsoft has also been working on cutting the application load time in half, speeding up syncing large numbers of folders or adding multiple devices to a sync folder, and optimizing memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as when idle.
Windows Live Mesh has had two previous names. Microsoft bought FolderShare from ByteTaxi in November 2005 and released it in March 2008, renaming it to Windows Live Sync in December 2008. The "Windows" moniker isn't the best, since Sync (as well as Microsoft's other online services) is available for the Mac.Â
These name changes remind us that Microsoft's syncing/storage strategy is a mess. When the Windows Live Wave 4 beta arrived two months ago, we were happy that Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh were being merged. Microsoft would finally be offering just one product (Sync/Mesh) and just one service (SkyDrive, for uploading photos, files, and documents for sharing) that would happily work together, right? Wrong.
Although SkyDrive is integrated better than it was previously, users still don't have access to its entire 25GB for sync (remember, Microsoft just went from 5GB, to 2GB, and back to 5GB).Â
"While we merged Sync and Live Mesh in this release, we did not merge the online storage system used for Live Mesh with the one used for Office or Photos on SkyDrive," explains Microsoft. "This means that each system has different storage limits and is optimized for different scenarios." Maybe the merge will be complete by Wave 5?
Microsoft should have its syncing/storage strategy ready for this year's Windows Phone 7 release, but it won't. Windows Live Mesh will not support mobile phones when it's released. This would be tolerable if the original Live Mesh didn't support syncing between PCs and devices, but it did. With Wave 4, though, Microsoft eliminated mobile support and won't say when it's coming back.
Currently we have 25GB of space for SkyDrive, an infinite amount for Hotmail, 200MB for MyPhone, and so on. Why not offer 100GB on SkyDrive and make it accessible via all of Microsoft's products and services? That's so simple it just might work.
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RockPlayer brings FFmpeg video playback to Android
Playing video on an Android device can sometimes be a bit of a chore. The platform's native media framework has very limited support for mainstream formats and can really only play H.264 video that is in an MP4 or 3GP container. If you are using an mkv container or your video is encoded with wmv or xvid, it isn't going to play unless you reencode it or use a third-party video player that doesn't rely on Android's media framework.
After testing a number of third-party players, I finally found one called RockPlayer that performs relatively well and handles a broad enough selection of formats to satisfy my needs. Created by Chinese mobile software vendor Redirect Intelligence, it uses the excellent open source FFmpeg library to handle video decoding.
The free version of the program is fully-functional, but ad-supported. The advertisements will only show up when the playback controls are active. This means that you will sometimes see ads at the bottom of the screen when you are seeking, for example, but not while you are simply watching a video. It will also display a little red RockPlayer logo in the top left-hand corner at all times, including during regular playback. Users can remove the ads and the persistent logo if they pay $9.99 to upgrade to the full version.
When you launch RockPlayer, the program will show you a simple file manager interface that you can use to navigate to the video files that you have stored on your device's SD card. When you select a video in the built-in file manager, it will start playing.
You can tap the screen to toggle the visibility of the playback controls, which include a play/pause button, a seek slider, fast-forward and rewind buttons, a button that will optionally stretch the video to fill the screen, and a button to display information about the file that is currently playing. When the controls are visible, the current time and the percentage of remaining battery life will show up in the top right-hand corner.
RockPlayer is simple and predictable. It will handle pretty much anything that is supported by FFmpeg and it offers reasonable playback performance on standard-definition content, without the stuttering that I have experienced in some of the alternatives. It didn't fare particularly well with a 1080p clip, however. The $9.99 asking price for full activation is a little bit too much, but I'm pretty satisfied to use the free version with the logo. One free alternative that looks promising is arcMedia, but it's not quite as mature yet. For now, I think that RockPlayer is best choice for xvid and mkv support.
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Microsoft cofounder drops patent bomb on Apple, Google, Facebook
Paul Allen, entrepreneur and cofounder of Microsoft, has filed a lawsuit against 11 companies for infringements on his Web search patents. Announced on Friday afternoon, the suit names Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, and Microsoft partner Yahoo as defendants for violating four Interval Licensing LLC patents, though the court will likely have to weigh whether the patents in question are "obvious" or not.The patents revolve around three main concepts: browser use for navigating through information, managing a user's peripheral attention while using a device, and alerting users to items of current interest. They collectively address the general concept of presenting searched-for information to a user along with related news articles, media (such as music or videos), status updates from friends, or data (such as stock or weather info).
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PR firm settles with FTC over alleged App Store astroturfing
Public relations agency Reverb communications, hired by iPhone game developers to promote their App Store offerings, has reached a settlement with the FTC over accusations that company employees posted positive reviews for the games the company was hired to promote. The FTC levied charges against Reverb for violating rules that require the sellers of products and those posting information about the products online to disclose any connection they might have.The FTC first began looking into practices of "stealth marketing," which seeks to build product buzz via blogs, social media, and word of mouth by quietly paying "ordinary" people to promote the product, in late 2006. Eventually the FTC imposed new rules in 2009 that require anyone writing about products and services online to disclose any financial connection with the sellers, including "payment in kind" of free products or other gifts. These rules also apply to public relations and advertising agencies hired by the seller.
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