Smarter Geek

There has been a lot of talk from Microsoft lately (see Native HTML5: First IE10 Platform Preview Available for Download ) about Microsoft saying they now support “Native HTML” with the release of the developer preview of IE10. However some people don’t seem to realise that this is in fact a very good thing… Microsoft are now saying that they fully embrace the idea of having only code a page once using “Native HTML” and have it work the same now and in the future on all browsers.

This video below was a excellent example why we need this…

In my previous post “Microsoft shows off IE9 hardware acceleration still trumps Chrome 7 performance” I showed you a video of the performance difference of IE9 to Chrome 7 with hardware acceleration turned on. Now Microsoft’s IE Blog has published an article explaining how implement “Full Hardware Acceleration” unlike the other browser makers.

“Based on their blog posts, the hardware-accelerated implementations of other browsers generally accelerate one phase or the other, but not yet both. “

Needless to say I am very excited to see what other surprise’s Microsoft may have when they reveal the beta version of IE9 on September 15th.

Source The Architecture of Full Hardware Acceleration of All Web Page Content – IEBlog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

This is a very funny video done by Microsoft showing just how easy it is to be tricked into giving out your personal information.

Here is a funny video from Microsoft Australia evangelist Andrew Coates… Quite a funny take on the evolution of cloud computing.

Source: The Platform Story–now available as an animated Feature – Andrew Coates ::: MSFT – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Now I am no lawyer however I recently found out that Google Earth cannot be used for anything except for private user. This made me realise that there are MANY organisation that Many may not be aware that they are using organisations currently using the program against the terms and conditions of the program.

I did some digging and as you can see below the usage table for Google Earth clearly states “Personal use” and the Google Earth Pro versions usage is “Consultants and businesses of ALL SIZES, including site-wide installations”. 

Update: On the same page there is also a question that states “If your business is looking to use Google Earth for any external purpose, you will need to licence Google Earth Pro”.

There is also a clause in section 1 of the Google Earth licensing agreement that states “Any animations, movies, prints or screen outputs generated with the Software are for your use only.”.

I think the take away from this is that if you have deployed/installed Google Earth to any of your computers that is used for work then be very careful as you may have broken the licence agreement.

OK… So how does this compare to Bing?

Again I am not a lawyer… but taking a look at the Bing Maps Code of Conduct http://explore.live.com/code-of-conduct?mkt=en-au you are restricted to "use Bing Maps for any bulk printing or downloading of imagery or data” or  “Copy, save, download, distribute, transmit or manipulate the photographic imagery.”. So while there are some restrictions it does not seem to be as restrictive as the Google Earth licence.

Either way if you are using maps from any online service then I would strongly recommend that you fully understand the licensing agreement before using it for any work propose.