(TV) Uncle Bill threatens world peace (again)

[Keith Allison <keith@marquee.demon.co.uk>]

Anyone following the news of the bid by The World's Richest Geek to
capture the mp3 market? Windows Millennium will contain a new media
player featuring Bill's new wonder format, .wma. Despite lining up MOR
rock hacks like Mick Fleetwood to claim that the sound quality is
superior to mp3, the wise money is sticking with mp3 as the sound
quality is still, apparently, measurably better to the discerning ear.
The Windows player will play mp3s but _not_ encode them and the wma
format will only encode up to 160 kbps (but that's OK - we all just
listen to MOR crap anyway, right?). And, will of course, not allow you
to infringe copyright. And quite right too!

So, it won't really be any use to anyone, but we'll all get it shoved
down our throats. Reminds me of when Microsoft came up with the TrueType
font format. No self-respecting designer that I ever knew used them but,
hey, they were free, so what the hell...? Before you knew it, we had a
new "industry standard" (really?) that we all knew was second-rate. Sums
up everything that's wrong with Microsoft to me - grab the market and
dumb it down to their level.

"Windows Millennium"?! Jesus, Windows 3.1 doesn't work properly yet!

OK - end of rant!

Keith
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Keith Allison
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http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk
"The Wonder - Tom Verlaine, Television & Stuff"
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