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[jeff_rigby]

Looking forward to tomorrow Oct 11th.

Sony Video store HTML5 preview app to be released Oct 11th.
GT5 update Oct 11 Several improvements could be related to PS3 OS Changes

Photo Travel Mode updates
Shortening of load times and improved menu response
Improved car physics simulation, further evolved A.I.
Improved and enhanced user interface
Support for the Logitech G25/G27 steering wheels
New features in the Online Lounge

It's a Tuesday....typical firmware update day

Edit: no update but GT5 DLC postponed till Oct 25th. Again, a typical firmware update day.
Oct 18th, Firmware update 3.73 which was a Gstreamer update (FF&REW do not lockup with some movies using DLNA), maybe more updates but not noticeable.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

How are the bolded related to possible PS3 OS enhancements?

 

[magawolaz]

I don't think Spec II has anything to do with the firmware (or browser ) since you can download the patch without upgrading the firmware.

 

[Metalmurphy]

Looking forward to tomorrow Oct 11th.

Sony Video store HTML5 preview app to be released Oct 11th.
GT5 update Oct 11 Several improvements could be related to PS3 OS Changes

It's a Tuesday....typical firmware update day

Sorry jeff, but no improvement will be related to any OS changes.

 

[Benjamin1981]

Taking away Jeffs hope

 

[Mush]

I don't think Spec II has anything to do with the firmware (or browser ) since you can download the patch without upgrading the firmware.

It all makes sense now. The PS3 needs this new firmware to handle all the awesome, yes, why I didn't I see this before?!

 

[jeff_rigby]

How are the bolded related to possible PS3 OS enhancements?

The PS3 OS changes in the last two firmware updates have improved the responsiveness of the Hard Disk and XMB menu. "Shortening of load times and improved menu response" Zero Copy and improved Hard Disk access speeds are two possibles in the last two updates. More webkit features may be in the next update (GT5 Lounge) and Playstation Video Store App.

At this point I don't think any delays in releasing new webkit updates (for games) are related to new Firmware updates or "finishing" the Browser. It's an internal timetable as I believe developers have already received the SDKs supporting webkit calls in game. I.E. Sony tells developers when these new features can be used even though they are already supported in the OS. Good reasons for this as there might be changes at the last minute. So Oct 11 might not have a firmware update if no changes need to be made but if at the last minute there did need to be an update it's a scheduled day.

Both the Xbox and PS3 will get major ecosystem updates for this buying season. These updates and advertising must occur soon to allow the advertising to create the buzz so they can be purchased as Christmas gifts. October is traditionally the start of this.

The PS3 hack might have Sony waiting for JITMono to be ported to the PS3 to secure the webkit browser (frontend) and applications ported from the Vita. My belief is that the Vita OS is the same as the OLPC with one difference, instead of using Python script (unsecure) Sony is using Mono script which can be secured. Both Python and Mono have bindings to GTK/Gnome.

 

[kvn]

Looking forward to tomorrow Oct 11th.

Sony Video store HTML5 preview app to be released Oct 11th.
GT5 update Oct 11 Several improvements could be related to PS3 OS Changes

It's a Tuesday....typical firmware update day

...like...how?

 

[I3rand0]

Looking forward to tomorrow Oct 11th.

Sony Video store HTML5 preview app to be released Oct 11th.
GT5 update Oct 11 Several improvements could be related to PS3 OS Changes

It's a Tuesday....typical firmware update day

 

[funkystudent]

...like...how?

well its one of 2 things.

ether A the ps3 FW was updated like Jeff says and they "improved the responsiveness of the Hard Disk" and now PD have more power to improve stuff.

Or B which is far more likely which was GT5 was not optimized well and felt rushed and PD have been spending a year slowly fixing it and the latest update is just another in a long list of performance improvements PD have been making to the game since launch.


Jeff probably didnt know what has been going on in GT5 since launch and all the little improvements they have been doing. Dude has some interesting stuff now and again but somethings like that GT5 comment was probably just a random guess.


Webkit ps3 is the real SuperPS3! I WANT TO BELIEVE!

 

[Oni Jazar]

http://i54.tinypic.com/24pkvmh.gif

lol...yeah....

 

[snoopeasystreet]

This might just be my favorite GAF thread. Someday Jeff will be correct and his tapestry of seemingly crazy posts will become clear to us all.

 

[jeff_rigby]

well its one of 2 things.

ether A the ps3 FW was updated like Jeff says and they "improved the responsiveness of the Hard Disk" and now PD have more power to improve stuff.

Or B which is far more likely which was GT5 was not optimized well and felt rushed and PD have been spending a year slowly fixing it and the latest update is just another in a long list of performance improvements PD have been making to the game since launch.

Jeff probably didnt know what has been going on in GT5 since launch and all the little improvements they have been doing. Dude has some interesting stuff now and again but somethings like that GT5 comment was probably just a random guess.

Webkit ps3 is the real SuperPS3! I WANT TO BELIEVE!

Why did you drop Zero Copy? The PS3 is a game console with all the same hardware or known hardware. OS Optimizations can be supported on it when not possible on a PC. Snapshot booting, snapshot swap to hard disk, Zero Copy + always loaded Gnome + webkit libraries in the application side. Gesh, Intersect Software, the Atari ST software company I and two others started did snapshot swap AND compression to a hard disk in 1985. We called it Revolver because it shot the apps into the ST, it was nearly 20 times faster than the Atari ST OS took to load an application (8 sec vs 1.5 minutes).

If you read what has to be done in hand-held OS platforms because of limited power both battery and CPU-GPU and lack of hard disk and apply it to a Console or Linux PC you get drastic improvements in performance. This is being done in the PS3. If you keep your eye on the HD light and know what to expect with these different optimizations, you can make a good guess as to what's happening.

Edit: There is a Microsoft patent for Zero Copy techniques and parts of it must be invalid as the process is obvious and in the normal course of programming for embedded systems would be a common feature as it is now.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Good God. I'm still waiting on Super PS3 with Super Web Browser to Super blow my mind with Super features and Super upgrades.

Super.

 

[onQ123]

faster load times is also a part of the Home Update (beta ) will that's what I read anyway , so maybe something has been updated in the OS to allow better load times in games.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Good God. I'm still waiting on Super PS3 with Super Web Browser to Super blow my mind with Super features and Super upgrades.

Super.

A word of caution, the XMB and HD access we see now is all we are getting. The way the Netfront web browser loads is how the webkit browser is going to load but perhaps instead of 3 seconds, 1 something seconds; insignificant difference. New apps and chat will load just about as fast. What the Vita is getting we will eventually get.

What I expect is eventually a new version of the playstation video Preview app will load much faster than the current 2009 version. We may not get a new version till next year. There is no way to tell if Sony is releasing "finished" final apps now or they will wait for JITmono on the PS3.

faster load times is also a part of the Home Update (beta ) will that's what I read anyway , so maybe something has been updated in the OS to allow better load times in games.

Yes, something like that. I expect upgrades to Home preparing it for Mono and eventually on PS Suite platforms. Home Client 1.4 I think was updated to LuaGnome for the scripting and with Home Client 1.5 the game engine was upgraded to use the Havok physics engine which could be Sony's Phyre as the upper level engine for scenery.

 

[androvsky]

Looking forward to tomorrow Oct 11th.

Sony Video store HTML5 preview app to be released Oct 11th.

The first major Ultraviolet-enabled release is also supposed to happen on the 11th. So far I'm not seeing anything on Android or PC to support it, but Sony's one of the big backers so hopefully they'll have a way to redeem it tomorrow.

faster load times is also a part of the Home Update (beta ) will that's what I read anyway , so maybe something has been updated in the OS to allow better load times in games.

Faster load times is something every developer is always working on, doesn't necessarily need an OS upgrade. There's almost always room for improvement, especially for something that's a mix of online and local data like Home is.

 

[Cruzader]

faster load times is also a part of the Home Update (beta ) will that's what I read anyway , so maybe something has been updated in the OS to allow better load times in games.

Home team update the Home core clients every year or so. They operate in Europe somewhere. Scej is in charge of the ps3 fw and OS. I'm positive both operate separately and independently from each other.

I wish future OS/fw development would be given to western branches as they have more experience and are quicker to release patches and updates.

 

[jeff_rigby]

During TGS, Sony announced that the development kit for the cross-platform PlayStation Suite program would be released in November. During a panel at GDC Online today, SCE's Shigeru Sugimoto clarified the timing of that release.

Vita development will be added later, when Sony expands into an "open beta." Later, in addition to Sony Ericsson Android devices and PS Vita systems, the Suite will support PS3. "We are targeting devices from other manufacturers as well," Sugimoto said, referring to other Android phones.

EDIT: If applications ported from Vita to PS3 are Mono scripts which seems likely then applications for the PS3 will wait for PS3 JITMono or Sony can include a modified non-JIT Mono VM in the application which would bloat the application only by about 2-3 megs (Non-JIT Mono VM is/was available for PS3 Linux).

Edit: The Joystiq article was changed from: "Suite will support PS3" to "the Suite may support PS3 -- it's one of the platforms "under evaluation."" This is messed up.

 

[Hanmik]

for one second I thought that Jeff Rigby, would try to combine the new "PSN Hack" with some news of the rumoured big web upgrade..

 

[jeff_rigby]

for one second I thought that Jeff Rigby, would try to combine the new "PSN Hack" with some news of the rumoured big web upgrade..

No, I consider what I've posted about the GTKwebkit upgrade a Fact and androvsky agrees. I've gone beyond that

first with the XMB being rewritten as a Gnome desktop in 2009 and that is confirmed as far as I am concerned (androvsky disagrees with this). The Charles Ying post confirms cairo and gstreamer in the PS3 (2009) and highly optimized (SPU-GPU). The Firmware 3.0 2009 XMB "What's New" functionally looks like it is using parts of Cairo (Pixman). androvsky's answer to this is Sony could be using code they wrote rather than Cairo. This is possible but highly unlikely considering Sony developed a "Highly optimized framework" (Cairo and Gstreamer with Cairo bindings) to use with webkit....why wouldn't they use the same "Highly optimized framework" for the XMB and everything else too! Then you have a statement from Hirari that Firmware 3.0 was a complete rewrite to support Media and Networked Media. Networked media is gstreamer. In addition before his comment he played an older video made by Sony which essentially stated: once video is digitized it can be manipulated and overlayed = augmented reality = gstreamer with Cairo bindings.

Second I've speculated that PS Suite is MONO (with GTK/Gnome mobile bindings). androvsky has stated he thinks it possible that PS Suite would use the Gnome libraries that support the GTKwebkit mentioned in this thread. It's a fact that some VM using C# with API support for Gnome Mobile libraries is going to support PS Suite. IF Sony didn't write their own then it's probably Mono.

Neither of the above require any advanced knowledge. The Mono speculation is not original to me. In reading through threads with Mono or PS Suite as key words I came upon the following. It's notable because it predicts months in advance of a Sony release what started this thread..

Simply, Sony should release a virtualized Mono/C# based SDK.

Hacking a VM is very difficult, it would be like trying to hack the PS3 via the PS1 emulator. A Virtual machine using C# or Java, could be made very VERY secure.

Hacking a secure VM would literally be like hacking the PS3 via a buffer overflow in the PS1 version of FFVII, you would crash FFVII and gain full access to the emulated hardware, but that is it.

The OLPC eLinux + Gnome Mobile OS UIs used Python scripts calling Gnome Libraries. Vita UIs may be Mono doing the same. (Mono is more efficient/faster with more security for IP but incurs a Fee for it's use.) IF this is true then any applications written for the Vita with Android in mind are directly portable to Android PS Suite. (This is what Sony says.)

Everything I have read about Mono and Moonlight (would use Gstreamer instead of MS Codecs) works as a possible for PS Suite. Moonlight as Mono requires Cairo for drawing, it used to require IE or Mozilla browser APIs and now I think can use webkit and must use gstreamer instead of MS Codecs. And this is what is in the 2011 Networked Sony Blu-ray player and TVs. (Busybox, glib, gstreamer, cairo, Pango (fonts), JSC (webkit Javascript engine)) Add Mono and you have a secure environment for PS Suite applications.

The PS3 with the GTkwebkit port and the 2009 3.0 Firmware update has the same libraries as in 2011 Sony networked TVs and Blu-ray players and I think the Vita (confirmed webkit but not GTKwebkit). From Sony statements that Vita and PS3 are going to share libraries, the similarity between OLPC Neighborhood and Vita Near as well as Sony stating the Vita OS derives from a Game OS (OLPC is an educational game OS) I think it likely that the Vita = eLinux + gnome mobile + GTKwebkit = OLPC. A difference might be OLPC uses Python and Vita uses Mono for security.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Faster load times is something every developer is always working on, doesn't necessarily need an OS upgrade. There's almost always room for improvement, especially for something that's a mix of online and local data like Home is.

Yes as always correct but when applications don't come in two years and/or Home is NOT optimized to reduce load times you must suspect something is keeping it from happening.

Speeding up Hard Disk access can only produce a relatively small increase in speed. Creating a snapshot plugin standard for Home sites would result in a MASSIVE decrease in load times but require more hard disk space. Since Home is still considered a Beta and I believe the "Beta" designation is accurate since I think it's going to be ported to PS Suite eventually and use the VM and game engine PS Suite uses, they can not do this yet.

RE: Home, think this is the same Home Game engine we had at the beginning of the year? Could it be the same one coming with PS Suite? As of Home client 1.5, Home is using the HAVOK Physics engine middleware and Sony's Experia Play Android OS phone now has 3 Havok physics engines (May use something like Sony's Phyre for the upper level game engine). Last change could be a conversion from Lua to Mono for the script. Load times for the client would reduce if Mono like the other Gnome libraries are always/already loaded and a snapshot plugin for the home sites would have those reduce in load time. And of course everyone can understand that changing the game engine might result in different asset requirements which would require rewriting Home sites so combining this with a "Total Redesign" of Home makes sense. Is PS3 JIT Mono done?

Anyone remember how long it used to take to load the Netfront browser? Compare that to current load times. Hard Disk speedups can not account for the difference. Again, optimizing the program can only result in a relatively small decrease in load times.

With a closed platform with known hardware and FINISHED OS with fixed or known address and register locations, snapshot swap and loading of known - part of OS programs, can easily be done. (Read about Linux systemd.)

Edit: Off the top of my head with snapshot swap, the PS3 OS can directly write to the Hard Disk using outer tracks (faster) optimized interleave and a separate disk (head) chosen for webkit and the temp swap partition (eliminates Seek). This might break with SSD disk driver software causing the reported issues.

Game side, Sony has probably released a series of SDKs on the memory blocks and registers to use to enable Hard Disk snapshot swaps for webkit and other features available in the PS3 OS like "Live". In addition the technique for doing Snapshot loading from the Hard Disk is probably going to be used by games. IF Sony includes a game engine in the PS3 OS then Games using that engine would load faster, be smaller, swap OS features to the Hard disk.....see the implications in a standard Sony game engine on multiple platforms. Sony Phyre engine released in 2008, look it up.

Sony has always used a snapshot boot for the PS3 and does the same for other products. Using snapshot loading of other programs or applications after the initial boot has not been done until recently. This is an educated guess with past experience in doing the same thing on an Atari ST 25 years ago. The ST had an optional Hard Disk but booted from a ROM which meant it had a fixed OS and hardware.

Up to 20X speed increase with snapshot loading! OS Hard disk optimizations 30% speed increase Want to bet the max time targeted for swap is 3 seconds for 30 megs and everything tweaked to get there. Look at the Netfront browser load time of 3 seconds, I think slightly less than 30 megs in size with relatively no initialization time. Webkit swap in game less than 3 seconds, that's a user tolerable delay time.

There are massive implications in the changes seen in the last two PS3 firmware updates.

Snapshot booting or swap, we called it Revolver and it's still being talked about. Our first product Interlink then Music Construction Set which we sold to EA for $35K finally Revolver. Piracy and small userbase killed us.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv3n11/juggler.html

Besides the ability to load and use more than one program, Revolver provides functions for saving (Rollout) and loading (Rollin) a partition from a disk drive in a tremendously compressed format (when I tested Revolver, a one meg partition created a 383K disk file). This file is an exact picture of the memory contents, including the 68000 registers. By loading the rolled-out file back into a partition (which must be as large as the partition it was rolled out from) you return to the exact point at which you rolled the partition out--thus providing an undo or game-save feature.

Another advantage to using Rollout/ Rollin is speed. My word processor takes almost two minutes to load its dictionary and set it up in memory. However, once it has done so, rolling that partition out to the disk lets me load the "picture" of memory later with my word processor and dictionary already set up. This saves over a minute in load time.

We never had a roll-in partition that took more than 10 seconds and the above review while positive we felt had multiple Bias errors in it in favor of Juggler. We felt Roll-in and out was the big feature not partition switching. You already had a memory limitation on the Atari ST (max 2 megs) why compound that. FYI the first developer ST we got from Atari had 512 K memory and a 5 meg Segate hard disk that had a severe bearing whine which was considered normal by Seagate. Some months later we upgraded to a 20 meg hard disk and I soldered another row of RAM chips on top of the existing chips with two pins bent up RAS and R/W with each soldered to a wire and connected to the second bank pins on the MMU, we now had 1 meg machines and we didn't know what to do with all the extra memory <grin>.

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://www.ps3trophies.com/forums/s...dk-other-gaming-platforms-should-worried.html I provided another link to someone else quoting the Joystiq article to prove it wasn't me editing it.

Joystiq edited Sony Quotes why?

"the Suite will support PS3" to "the Suite may support PS3 -- it's one of the platforms "under evaluation."" This echos Jack Tretton announces (and then un-announces) PlayStation Suite for PS3.

Paul: Will PlayStation Suite games run on the PlayStation 3?

[Long pause] Yes, they will. Yeah.* [Note: almost instantly refuted. Keep reading.]

Ross: Is that something planned from when the Suite launches? That it would be on the PS3?

Yeah, I think the hope is... and I shouldn't say yes we will. I mean, it's gonna vary. I think the intention is and the public statement today is, NGP PlayStation Suite available... on whatever Android phones we select and all NGP. So PlayStation Suite will work on NGP, some Android phones, and [with] PlayStation 3 I might've misspoken.

[The PR rep notes that she wouldn't see why not but will find out for us.]

During TGS, Sony announced that the development kit for the cross-platform PlayStation Suite program would be released in November. During a panel at GDC Online today, SCE's Shigeru Sugimoto clarified the timing of that release.

Vita development will be added later, when Sony expands into an "open beta." Later, in addition to Sony Ericsson Android devices and PS Vita systems, the Suite will support PS3. "We are targeting devices from other manufacturers as well," Sugimoto said, referring to other Android phones.

In November, the SDK will be released as a limited beta, or a "tech preview," including the Android version and a PC-based "simulator" allowing those without Android phones (that last group includes everyone) to develop for Suite.

Vita development will be added later, when Sony expands into an "open beta." Later, in addition to Sony Ericsson Android devices and PS Vita systems, the Suite may support PS3 -- it's one of the platforms "under evaluation." "We are targeting devices from other manufacturers as well," Sugimoto said, referring to other Android phones.

Evaluation=? native language rather than Mono

Mono may never need to be ported to the PS3 as it already supports Gnome, is a closed platform and has PS1 and PSP emulation. For convenience and marketing Mono may be ported to the PS3 so any PS Suite application can be run on any Sony certified Platform including the PS3 but that's a management decision.

PS3 Piracy concerns?

 

[jeff_rigby]

"Home is all scripting (LUA), and all the 3D stuff is being done (developed) in Maya. So it's super-easy," Buser explained. "You can have teams of literally one person. Usually team sizes vary between 5-10 people. You can create a full-on game the scope of Sodium in six months. That's just not possible in traditional console development."

Home Technology & Future Plans

Lua for Script => Phyre engine as of 3.0 supports Lua for high level scripting. Home Client 1.5 and later may be using Phyre and 1.55 and later the Havoc Physics engine.
Game Engine = Havok Physics tools (middleware) plus Phyre game engine? Phyre is an upper level developer-terrain and lighting engine but requires middleware like Havoc for physics and behavior.
Developed using Maya

Home is similar to Second life but Second life is slightly ahead in development. Both started out using a slower scripting language and now Second life is using Mono for scripting (2008). Second life started using Havoc middleware for physics simulations and now Home is doing the same. If PS Suite is based on a Mono VM then I expect Home to convert to Mono (same as second life) and some version ported to multiple PS Suite platforms. PS Suite MUST provide native language: a game engine plus select Havoc Physics middleware native language engines (or some other Physics engine if PS1 games support physics) and in addition to a Mono VM, Gnome Libraries for applications and a DRM (Sony purchased the rights to Playready from Microsoft). IF Home uses the same native language game engines in PS Suite then Home is also a cross platform PS Suite Game.

PS Suite game = Mono Script plus collada game assets file that plugs into native language openGL game engines. Games can in addition through the Mono VM call Gnome application libraries below.

PS Suite Application = Mono script that calls Gnome native language APIs (Gstreamer, glib, Pango, webkit) with Mono using CairoGL for rendering.

Performance benchmark tests show that Mono is up to 220 times faster than LSL2. The benchmarks were math-intensive scripts typically used to evaluate performance. For ordinary scripts, the performance gains are much more humble. (Mono is typically 3X faster than Python and Python is faster than Lua (All script engines).

You can think of the speed of languages as a progression (and here am taking a few liberties, but this is just for illustration purposes), roughly it goes like this:

Assembler (fastest).
Compiled Static, unsafe languages C/C++.
JITed Static, safe languages (C#, Java).
...
A large performance gap goes here.
...
JITed Dynamic, safe languages (IronPython)
Interpreted dynamic, safe languages and mainstream (Python, Perl, Javascript).
In-house custom languages.

Mono uses more memory than the typical LSL bytecode. It offsets this by introducing dynamic memory allocation. LSL2 allocates a full 16KB for all scripts, even simple "Hello, Avatar" ones. Mono allocates only the memory it needs. In tests on typical regions it turns out that the combination of Mono using more memory, but allocating memory better, is about a wash as far as overall memory footprint goes.
In some extreme cases Mono scripts can use up to four times the memory as LSL2 scripts. To maintain backwards compatibility, the script size limit has been increased from 16KB to 64KB.
Mono tip: Mono can do bytecode sharing. Thus multiple copies of scripts with the same asset id will only take up as much room as one instance. Imagine some script that you use a dozen times on your land. If each of the objects containing the script is separately compiled from text source, you will use up a dozen times the script's size of memory. But if instead you simply drag a copy of the single, already compiled script into each of the dozen objects, then no matter how many copies exist they only take up the size of one script (plus data) in memory.

Zero copy and sharing code is a feature in Gnome (Mono is also a Gnome technology).

Reference post with support

The only issue in my speculation is my previous post where both Shigeru Sugimoto and Jack Tretton both appear to announce PS Suite on the PS3 and then backtrack. If Mono is on the PS3 to support PS Suite then using Mono for scripts in Home makes sense as it's MUCH more efficient. In my opinion Mono is coming to the PS3 and most likely the Vita applications are Mono scripts calling Gnome libraries so porting them to the PS3 requires Mono on the PS3.

Remember "Zero copy and sharing code is a feature in Gnome (Mono is also a Gnome technology)". A script calling Gnome libraries to create an application can be VERY powerful and small at the same time. It can load almost instantly if GNOME libraries are already in memory and those Libraries only need one copy in memory with Zero Copy.

Lua is free and requires no disclosure (good reason for it's initial use in Home). Mono either requires disclosure or a fee for it's use. In addition JITMono for the PS3 was not available and a project to develop JITMono for the PS3 native language (Cell OS) could not be started until the PS3 OS was finished (NOW). JIT Mono for the PS3 is now under development. Will they run into problems developing JITMono for the Cell OS, is this the issue with Shigeru Sugimoto and Jack Tretton comments?

The same is true for the PS3 JITjavascript engine in the PS3. If the PS3 is to support webGL which is necessary for 3-D viewing and games then it must have a webkit JIT engine. A webkit JIT engine needs a "Highly Optimized" OpenGL framework for rendering which according to the PS3 GTKwebkit javascript engine disclosure is CairoGL and Gstreamer. The Charles Ying post confirms this "Highly Optimized" framework was in the PS3 in 2009 probably with Firmware 3.0. The PS3 JITjavascript engine JIT part needed the OS framework before it could be created.

Now that the PS3 OS is finished (Gstreamer 1.0 and GTK3.2) and it appears from the XMB and Hard Disk speed increases in the last two firmware updates that final OS Optimizations are being done (had to wait for finished versions before this could be done) then JIT Mono which needs to call Gnome library APIs (Gstreamer, GTK, Pango, glib) and Cairo can be now developed for the PS3. Edit: Gstreamer 1.0 is not officially done ("later this year") but a development snapshot (features frozen) has been done in preparation for 1.0 final release.

It would seem to me that the JITjavascript engine which uses/calls the same Gnome libraries that Mono will call would confirm JITMono is possible on the PS3. I can understand Jack Trettons pullback in Jan 2011 but Shigeru Sugimoto's comments were recent which bothers me.

Can someone confirm my above speculations so I don't get jumped on.

 

[jeff_rigby]

The following is a blog by the guy who co-created Gnome and Mono and the president of the company that will create the JITMono engine for the PS3.

https://plus.google.com/105179816987111146812/posts

examples:

Miguel de Icaza - Jul 19, 2011 - Public
10 years ago, on July 9th we announced the Mono project: http://ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2001/07/09/mono.html

Mono Unveiled - O'Reilly Media
This is a tech article about Mono, an open source .NET project


Miguel de Icaza - Jul 18, 2011 (edited) - Public
Today we announced our partnership with Attachmate/Novell/SUSE where Xamarin got broad rights to all of Mono's intellectual property, including all the tasty mobile products: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jul-18.html

And from this blog: https://plus.google.com/102685577232574798386/posts

Alexander Kahoun - Sep 15, 2011 - Public
Sony announces a new SDK, called PS Suite SDK, for all PlayStation devices powered by the Mono flavored C# language. Check out the Engadget article with the press release.

PlayStation Suite SDK beta coming in November, offering new games in spring 2012

Alexander Kahoun - Sep 15, 2011 - Public
Great blog post by +Miguel de Icaza explaining WinRT in Windows 8. There's been a bit of confusion about it among developers that are watching the Windows Build event and this clears it up quite a bit.

Don't forget, you can follow live by going to http://www.buildwindows.com/. +Phil Haack has a presentation starting at 9am PDT today.

WinRT demystified - Miguel de Icaza which links to the blog at the top of the page

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/BPS-1006 is a video giving what Windows 8 WinRT is about and multiple languages supported by Visual Studio from C++, C#, Java and Javascript. Visual Studio can be used for Sony platforms. C++ support by Sony for Visual Studio, C# (Mono would have to match the latest version of .NET support) and Javascript output is cross platform for the most part.

 

[Angry Fork]

Why does it seem like every new post here gets further and further away from the initial point which was just PS3 getting a new browser lol. I don't think anyone has known what's been going on in this thread since like page 10 except this Jeff guy who seems to know a shitload about the inner workings of PS3/browser development.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Why does it seem like every new post here gets further and further away from the initial point which was just PS3 getting a new browser lol. I don't think anyone has known what's been going on in this thread since like page 10 except this Jeff guy who seems to know a shitload about the inner workings of PS3/browser development.

My first post on NeoGAF and I got jumped on for bumping the thread.

Page 6 outlines what I have been trying to bring in this thread. ==> This is an Index to important points. <==

"Webkit requires support not in the PS3 now => XMB OS overhaul required with multiple Open Source libraries added to the PS3. <= PS Suite to PS3 application porting requires"

Webkit is the back end for a browser and also a kit of web tools that can be used outside a browser to support IPTV (streaming audio and video applications). Firmware 3.5 contained the HTML5 javascript engine out of webkit (partial webkit port). It's really not possible to summarize beyond that. Read and follow the links: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27697080&postcount=410

Webkit requires support not in the PS3 now => XMB OS overhaul required with multiple Open Source libraries added to the PS3. <= PS Suite to PS3 application porting requires

Sony is using/going to use the Gstreamer library (200-500K) (it's in the Sony SNAP Developer library). The video editor on the XMB may be a Gstreamer based app. For video chat and messaging; See Farsight based on Gstreamer http://farsight.freedesktop.org/wiki/

And on this page: http://gstconf.ubicast.tv/categories/conferences/

Lectures about using Gstreamer to:
1) integrating-video-conferencing-into-everyday-applications/
2) challenges-of-video-editing-in-your-pocket/
3) 3d-stereoscopic-and-gstreamer/
4) videos/webkit-html5-and-gstreamer/

It appears that with Gstreamer (Open source library) in Sony platforms, it's relatively easy to write applications with advanced features.

Linux and embedded hardware (handhelds, Cell phones, TVs, Tablets, game consoles and more) based on Android, QT or GTK toolkit or whatever have Linux (POSIX) as a base kernel and multiple Linux affiliated organizations are pushing to develop Open Source libraries and STANDARDS. This is all coming together in 2011 with October as a release date to the public but for profit organizations like Nokia, Sony and others can fund development for public license and get early access to libraries for their products.

It's now October and as I predicted everything is nearly done except JITMono which I think is needed to port applications from Vita to the PS3 and that may include the front end for the new PS3 GTKwebkit browser.

 

[Hanmik]

But what about that new (non mandatory) firmware update 3.73 Jeff..?

 

[jeff_rigby]

But what about that new (non mandatory) firmware update 3.73 Jeff..?

Just quickly after updating to 3.73 I noticed that FF (Fast Forward) now works with all videos using DLNA. Before it used to lock up with some videos when trying FF or REW.

So either DLNA or the Gstreamer player or both have been upgraded.

Browser is still Netfront and I'll have to play with the PS3 to see if I can find any other differences. It seems the videos accessed with Netfront on-line play faster/start faster cleaner. Again I can be imagining that. To test the browser I've been going to Google.com, it will not display correctly with the Netfront browser.

I get the point....and I did say nearly done, It's still October <grin> and it looks like we got another Gstreamer update. Just looking at the progress bar it looks like this update touched many of the PS3 OS and applications which would be the case if it was a gstreamer update with API changes which would happen with Gstreamer 1.0.

Edit: Gstreamer 1.0 is not officially done ("later this year") but a development snapshot (features frozen) has been done in preparation for 1.0 final release.

Gstreamer is not only the core but plugins also. API changes would affect the Gstreamer GST plugins used in Video editing and the Gstreamer player

So Officially with 3.73 "System stability during use of PS3 format software and network services has been improved."

 

[jeff_rigby]

Jack Tretton of SONY at the WEB 2.0 conference

This afternoon on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, I shared some very exciting news that I know the PlayStation Nation has been anticipating since we unveiled PlayStation Vita back in January. For those looking to get their hands on the ultimate in handheld entertainment, I’m thrilled to let you know that starting on February 22, 2012, PS Vita will be available at major retailers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

Video of interview with Jack Tretton
0 to 6 min Demo of Uncharted game
9:00 Home mentioned
10:30 Web 2.0 data collection and matching gamers

Link to the WEB 2.0 summit where the future of the Web is discussed.


Web 2.0 is defined as:

The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content and social networking.

The term "Web 2.0" (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design,[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities (Home), hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.

and Sony is into this in a big way. Witness both picture and Movie Clips up-loadable to the Internet from within games. Social sites and Chat programs being supported on Vita and we hear from Sony, also ported to the PS3 from Vita.

The Video Clip of Jack Tretton at the Web 2.0 conference was primarily about announcing the Vita release.

Gstreamer Conference Oct 25th. 25th is a Tuesday and typical firmware update day, it's also the last day in October for my guess to be correct. In any case the Collabora conference has information that applies to the PS3, Vita and most likely PS Suite. GT5 DLC was also delayed till the 25th.

GStreamer 1.0
WebM and VP8
Pulse Audio development report
Designing complex pipelines with GStreamer
Blu-ray playback and GStreamer
Updates on latest Xiph.org and Vorbis developments
GStreamer, Webkit and HTML5
Case studies on GStreamer deployments

Checking the SNEI Open Source Disclosure site daily now.

XBOX360 update rumors Nov 10 or 25th The dashboard update is expected to mark 10 years of Xbox with a radical shift in user interface.
3DS getting major update Nov 4

No rumors in the news for the PS3 but we do know from this:

that a UI change for the PS3 is coming and that Sony considers it super_secret.

Linux support for ARM processors (Vita) includes Linaro, a group started to share code for Arm SOC similar to the method used for Webkit. This is what made it easy to create the Vita and easier to write an OS and port toolkits to create an OS.

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://planet.igalia.com/ (Main GTKwebkit maintainer/developer)

I linked to the above blog site from Beyond 3D for my Post Will the PS3 have an XMB desktop that has Browser abilities which with the Charles Ying post and recent developments would seem to be confirmed. HTML from the XMB is still up in the air but the XMB is most likely a Cairo surface (Since 2009) which can support "What's New" as well as Webkit calls using Cairo, I.E. a Gnome Desktop. (XML with Cairo bindings)

GNOME = GNU Network Object Model Environment, I.E. it uses Network libraries to support a Desktop environment; GTKwebkit support libraries.

While many people envision that the next desktop will be the browser, many more do use Web applications almost exclusively, already today. The traditional separation between Web and Desktop app development is blurring. Browsers have become powerful platforms for running complex applications, and this situation is speeding up with the broad and increasing adoption of HTML5 standards by major browsers.

On the other hand, we have D-Bus (in Glib-part of Gnome, in the PS3 as it's required for the GTKwebkit), a freedesktop.org standard that is at the core of almost every GNU/Linux system out there. It is the de-facto IPC mechanism on which your applications talk and share. D-Bus allows us to write a program in any language, and export its usefulness over a standard channel. Also allows us to write differentiated UIs (e.g, Qt vs. GTK+ vs. NCurses) to interface a common functionality. Yes, one bus to bind them all! (Fling negotiation from Android to PS3 is D-BUS, In Android with 2.2)

Joining these two pieces together is just the next logical step. A step towards bringing together the best of two contexts: the ubiquity of the Web and the inter-process collaborative nature of the Desktop.

This is, in my opinion, what Gnome is about; with GTKwebkit (Coming to the PS3) the Gnome Mobile programs/libraries (+ Cairo-mobile or Clutter -desktop) are used to create a browser and browser applications for the desktop in an efficient inter-process manor, they talk to each other and share data. The Gnome Shell is an efficient browser desktop and application platform because the basic cross platform libraries are used over and over again and are designed with mobile platforms in mind. (Good choice for the PS3)

There are problems in the Gnome world mainly because it's evolving and has not settled on standards to allow developers to write applications. The move from Cairo to a more powerful Clutter for rendering and the API changes in Gstreamer 1.0 are examples of this. Gnome 3.2 where the default browser will be built entirely from Gnome libraries is the first step. Gnome 3.4 with Gstreamer 1.0 and Clutter used for the browser and Desktop should be the standard rather than 3.2's use of Clutter for the desktop shell but still using Cairo for the browser. (The PS3 is using Cairo for everything at this time. The PS4 might support Clutter.)

We need to write applications that you can host and use securely and reliably not only in your computer, but anywhere in the Planet where you happen to have a browser plugged into the Net; whether it is your laptop, mobile phone, tablet or your neighbors’ PS3. We also need to encourage application developers to export the logic of their programs over D-Bus, to allow other platforms (like the Web!) to reuse it. Telepathy is a good example of such program (subsets of Telepathy in Glib). (OLPC, collaborative games, VITA to PS3 everything)

Almost identical applications in terms of functionality are written for FOSS environments like GNOME, KDE, MeeGo, Android, etc; yet many times only the user experience and the technologies used to build it are different. I think there is room for a wider code-reusing culture if we come back to the original Unix philosophy:

Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface. (example is XML, PS3 XMB is XML with Cairo bindings)

Going back to the Planet Igalia site and the Most recent post The Next Million Apps talks about Gnome, Webkit and apps.

A new array of solutions designed to build web applications (packaged, delivered to the user, run locally) is being created as we speak. From Tizen’s endorsed WAC, to Mozilla’s OpenWebApps, to Chrome’s Applications the list keeps growing in expansionary fashion, but all the specs share the same father: a thin layer (shell) on top of HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, bridging the gap between the W3C standard’s and the needs of the apps. As the standards grow, those (shell) platforms will shrink, and it is likely that in good time a reasonably standardized solution will emerge.

Why is this relevant for GNOME? Never mind iOS, never mind Android, one thing is clear: most of the next million apps written will be web applications. Some huge players like Microsoft are already moving there as fast as they can, and the rest will follow sooner or later. Native apps won’t go anywhere for a long time, but developers willing to maximize their reach will, increasingly, prefer web applications over anything else. At least as their first choice. This brings us a great opportunity. If we jump on this bandwagon, support web applications as first class citizens on top of world-class runtimes, and accept and even encourage people to run their web apps on our operating system we can maximize our reach with a fraction of the effort of fighting in the native SDK war against Apple and Google. I think being smart in how we spend our scarce resources is important, and I believe this is a fight that we can win if we put our minds to it: let’s not forget our own platform, but let’s embrace the web as it is emerging.

Most of this was shared with those present at this year’s GNOME Boston Summit (in Montreal), and although there was a lively debate my impression is that most of it was well received by the core hackers present. We at Igalia believe that this is a promising way forward for GNOME and we happen to have the skills necessary to make it happen, so we are committed to keep investing in the foundational platform bits like WebKit and to bring Web Application support to our OS: our plan for the next months is to explore all the new technologies I have mentioned, and start to implement a well integrated runtime to run the next generation of web goodness at home.

The Gnome core libraries are still overwhelmingly written in C (and compiled to native language as they should be), but most of the new generation applications and UI modules are being written in higher level languages (finally?!) (Vala, Python, Mono)

Windows 8 applications will be built using HTML and JavaScript. You don’t get more mainstream than that.

The Gnome Mobile Libraries in the PS3 to support GTKWebkit can/will support multiple PS3 applications; thus the PS3 APP store!

Microsoft's Silverlight and the Mono .NET clone Moonlight use API calls to various Web Browsers and Mono now supports Webkit calls. Mono (an apx 3 meg VM Gnome technology and much more) can be thought of as an upper level script UI and shell that can call webkit and Gnome as well as protect IP by running only where authorized, a form of DRM.

Currently Sony has a Shell to support IPTV apps and we do not know what comprises that shell. The Charles Ying post calls the Sony Video app development platform + Shell = Trilithium. AN internal name that only tells us that the team has a sense of humor and are Star Trek Fans.

There were rumors of a Silverlight (HTML5) version 5 early 2011 but that gave way to Windows 8 and other subsets for multiple different platforms in their ecosystem. Reports indicate the Xbox is going to support Windows 8 applications ("Windows 8 applications will be built using HTML and JavaScript"). Sony's version is based on Gnome + webkit + Cairo + custom shell that might give way to Gnome's Mono (also requires Cairo + webkit + Gnome libraries) for Sony's PS Suite ecosystem.

This is the future for both Linux and Sony platforms! It's why Sony chose to go with Gnome in 2007-2008 and it's in the PS3 in 2009 (Firmware 3.0). Any applications written with the Gnome libraries can be easily ported to the PS3, Vita, PS Suite and Sony 2011 TVs and Blu-ray players or between any of those platforms as well as future platforms built with Gnome like the PS4.

Personal Rant
"Will the PS3 have an XMB desktop that has Browser abilities" with Shifty & jonabbey comments is a two page microcosm example of the viewpoints of some in this thread; Who cares, claims of wild speculation or Sony can write their own code. I've tried to point out "the next million apps will be web applications" and cross platform ecosystem support were important reasons for rewriting the XMB but hadn't put together at that time that Sony had already started the move to Gnome, Cairo and webkit with PS3 Firmware 3.0 in 2009.

It was not possible to accurately speculate until closely examining the Nov 2010 Sony webkit javascript engine disclosure and understanding what Gnome and the libraries/programs in Gnome make possible. One or the other has been keeping others from seeing what I see.

The web is the future + examining & understanding the Sony webkit disclosure + Sony ecosystem + Sony is not stupid = Gnome

Really very simple but delete something to the left of the = sign and you can't see it. androvsky would probably say that it makes sense but you haven't proved it and he would be right. Parts of this have proof and while other aspects still await proof, I think this is now most likely what Sony is doing and any statements that it's not should be considered wild speculation, turnabout <grin>.

When will we get the new browser or see significant changes to the XMB? Since the Sony March 2011 webkit disclosure (version 1.41) which required Cairo 1.6, we now have Cairo 1.8, Webkit 1.6 with parallel versions of webkit and webkit2 released and soon Gstreamer 1.0 (end of year). At some point Sony, when libraries reach where they are targeting, will take a snapshot of the Gnome and Webkit development libraries and release a new MAJOR firmware update with a GTKwebkit browser. I'm guessing this has Oct 25th (Gstreamer conference) as the soonest (we have already gone past last year's Sept 28th for PS3 3.5 which contained the javascript engine, this year Gnome 3.2 was released on Sept 28th) and the Torne update (Dec 17th 2011) as the latest date for this. Torne uses Gstreamer, Cairo SVG and a browser so the Torne update to allow streaming to the Vita will probably include updates to all of Torne including the browser.

PS3 4K monitor viewing of pictures in 4K resolution early 2012 might be targeted by Sony for PS3 Firmware 4.0. They might sacrifice PS3 sales this Christmas season to keep attention on the Vita and keep attention on it till after the Vita launch outside Japan Feb 22, 2012.

The new Xbox360 Dashboard launch is occurring Nov 2011 and I think this might impact when Sony releases the new XMB and browser....again a guess, it's up to Sony.

 

[jeff_rigby]

More on when:
https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTKStableReleases
http://trac.webkit.org/browser/releases/WebKitGTK

Gnome 3.2 stable release September 28th 2011 & GTKWebkit 1.6.0 (two weeks old)

The main idea is that the WebKitGTK+ release schedule is (almost perfectly aligned with the GNOME release schedule. We do one stable release every 6 months, at the same time than the stable GNOME release. There's a number of reasons for this, but the main ones are:

We generally agree with the idea of time-based releases.
Many of us work on upstream GNOME modules, some of them using WebKit, so it's natural to choose the GNOME schedule. The GNOME schedule can be found at http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable.

On top of that, some modules that we maintain are closely tied to WebKit (Epiphany in particular) and developed together with it, so it's extremely convenient to release all these modules at the same time.

Release Timing

So this is what you can expect in terms of releases:

One unstable, preview release, of WebKitGTK+ with each GNOME unstable release until the UI freeze. These will generally be in the form 1.X.1, 1.X.2, 1.X.3, etc. X is an odd number.
At UI freeze (which is about one month before the release), we'll branch and start to stabilize the code as much as possible. The first release of this branch will be in the form 1.X.90, to signify that we are approaching the end of the cycle. This is exactly what GNOME does, and we'll do the same to avoid potential confusion for downstream.
A stable release, of the form 1.X+1.0 at the same time than the GNOME stable release.

Going forward, Sony will be loosely tied to this schedule for major updates.

Edit: Vita to support Javascript 1.7 but no Flash

According to an article published in this week's issue of Weekly Famitsu in Japan, the Vita's web browser will support cookies, JavaScript 1.7, and part of the HTML5 standard when it launches in Japan next month.

Is that Javascript 1.7 or webkit version 1.7 because as of 10/31/11 WebKitGTK+ 1.7.1 released

A new WebKitGTK+ unstable release is available. The 1.7 unstable
series of WebKitGTK+ starts with this 1.7.1 release.

If Javascript version 1.7 that's a 2006 version.

1.5 November 2000 ECMA-262 3rd edition 6.0
1.6 November 2005 1.5 + Array extras + Array and String generics + E4X
1.7 October 2006 1.6 + Pythonic generators + Iterators + let
1.8 June 2008 1.7 + Generator expressions + Expression closures
1.8.2 June 22, 2009 1.8.1 + Minor updates 3.6
1.8.5 July 27, 2010 1.8.2 + ECMAScript 5 Compliance

If Webkit 1.7 then a GTKwebkit release on multiple platforms (PS3 - Vita) could be soon.

 

[MrPliskin]

Is this thread seriously still alive on nothing more than theory and random speculation?

Face it folks, the PS3 has been out for 5 years, and maybe has 5 waning years left. It doesn't benefit Sony in the slightest to update / upgrade the web browser beyond where it's at now. The commercial gains aren't there. Any webkit work going on is almost certainly to remain exclusive to the Vita and a "next generation" home console.

 

[The Lamonster]

yeah why are we bumping this thread repeatedly when as far as I know there hasn't been a PS3 web browser update...ever? Am I missing something here?

 

[jeff_rigby]

Is this thread seriously still alive on nothing more than theory and random speculation?

Face it folks, the PS3 has been out for 5 years, and maybe has 5 waning years left. It doesn't benefit Sony in the slightest to update / upgrade the web browser beyond where it's at now. The commercial gains aren't there. Any webkit work going on is almost certainly to remain exclusive to the Vita and a "next generation" home console.

Nope, it's not speculation. Sony has already announced the GTKwebkit and the Charles Ying post has confirmed the Hardware accelerated support for a WebGL browser has been in the PS3 since 2009. Most of the "theory and Speculation" has been confirmed.

Since this has been confirmed, I will point out using your logic that Sony is going to make money on a new browser for the PS3. The 2009 WebGL game patent is a possible use for a new WebGL browser.

yeah why are we bumping this thread repeatedly when as far as I know there hasn't been a PS3 web browser update...ever? Am I missing something here?

Webkit browser = Front end & chrome + Webcore (two parts javascript engine and core) + support libraries.

Partial webcore (javascript engine) update with Firmware 3.5 and the disclosure of a complete PS3 GTKwebkit browser March 2011 (Includes the front end chrome). Support libraries Gstreamer & Cairo for instance have been getting updates this last year.

When it will be released has not been announced, that's a guess. Should be soon now. Portal 2 probably used/required Javascript core and webcore but didn't require the chrome (browser front end).

 

[androvsky]

Is this thread seriously still alive on nothing more than theory and random speculation?

Face it folks, the PS3 has been out for 5 years, and maybe has 5 waning years left. It doesn't benefit Sony in the slightest to update / upgrade the web browser beyond where it's at now. The commercial gains aren't there. Any webkit work going on is almost certainly to remain exclusive to the Vita and a "next generation" home console.

Download the Video Unlimited preview app. Check the "about" section. Even includes a link to the webkit source Sony's using for the PS3. Most of the last several pages of this thread is about other stuff.

The only questions left are will it be usable on regular web pages with so little system memory to work with; and if so, when will they swap out the Netfront browser, or will Sony just use webkit for apps?

 

[jeff_rigby]

Download the Video Unlimited preview app. Check the "about" section. Even includes a link to the webkit source Sony's using for the PS3. Most of the last several pages of this thread is about other stuff.

The only questions left are will it be usable on regular web pages with so little system memory to work with; and if so, when will they swap out the Netfront browser, or will Sony just use webkit for apps?

What he said <grin>

Edit: Confirmed in the "About" section in the 2009 Video unlimited app.

libcurl => client-side URL transfer library
libxml2 => XML C parser and toolkit developed for the Gnome project
openssl => Secure Socket layer
webkit Disclosure site= http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/ Same javascript engine now in the PS3
zlib => Compression library
jsSHA (Brian Turek)

1) Same webkit disclosure site for the PS3 GTKwebkit browser which means the same javascript engine which REQUIRES Cairo version 1.6 and gstreamer.
2) There is no Cairo or Gstreamer disclosed in the Video unlimited app, in fact no library to write or display AV.
3) There is in addition, a shell program that must be Sony custom developed for the PS3.
4) It's possible that in addition to Sony code, commercially purchased code could be in the Video app like a DRM Gstreamer player from Fluendo which would plugin to the existing hardware accelerated "Highly Optimized" framework (Gstreamer core) also purchased from Fluendo.

The above was written and compiled in 2009. Today, most of the app would be called from the PS3 OS and would be smaller and load faster. Everything listed in the Video app's "about" heading is either a required webkit dependency (except zlib compression & jsSHA) or webkit it'self.

The Charles Ying Post announced the Video Unlimited app he worked on for Sony in 2009.

The Trilithium Platform

Trilithium’s strength comes from taking full advantage of the PS3 hardware and existing well-optimized frameworks to do everything from graphics to video playback, leaving the decisions about the high level application to a very flexible JavaScript core API.

We built Trilithium for several reasons:

Make good use of the complex 8-core + GPU PS3 hardware without killing ourselves.
Give this power to our UX developers and designers.
Let partners easily build their own PS3 apps with little knowledge of PS3 architecture.
Rapidly develop with a flexible environment.

True, there’s no hyperlinking and Trilithium isn’t open (for now).

But Video Unlimited, Hulu Plus, and future Trilithium apps do show what’s possible when you bring the best parts of web and native technology together.

"will Sony just use webkit for apps" Why include chrome in the PS3 GTKwebkit disclosure and why have the GTK toolkit at all if just using the core for apps?

Sony PS3 GTKwebkit disclosure site http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_webkit.shtml

Going way back Androvsky posted about and confirmed it's coming. His attitude about the "Other Stuff" has not been impacted by my posts, it will probably require a developer leak. I have respect for androvsky as he reads the posts in this thread and does the work to respond intelligently; this puts him in a different class.

"when will they swap out the Netfront browser" "Swap out", you noticed that too! It appears from a Beta tester post regarding a EU (BBC) PS3 IPTV app that the IPTV webkit javascript engine can be partially accessed from controls for the Netfront Javascript engine. This supports a Swap will occur. This might be necessary to support the same control structure for older games when the swap occurs.

"so little system memory to work with" Don't think it's going to be an issue. Virtual memory is available and the Hard Disk appears to be MUCH faster.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Searching for information on the Gstreamer Conference 2011 I found the Christian Schaller Blog; Gstreamer and Collabora news and more In it it mentions the Videos of the conference will not be available for another month.

We did a Collabora booth during the LinuxCon and Embedded Linux days that followed the GStreamer Conference. Our demos showcasing a HTML5 video editing UI using GStreamer and the GStreamer Editing Services and video conferencing using Telepathy through HTML5 using the Web RTC api was a great success and our big screen TV running the Media Explorer media center combined with Telepathy based video conferencing provided us with a steady stream of people to our booth. For those who missed the conference all the tech demos can be grabbed from this Prague-demo Ubuntu PPA.

So as you might imagine I was quite tired by the time Friday was almost done, but thanks to Tim Bird and Sony I got a really nice end to the week as I won a Sony Tablet S through the Elinux Wiki editing competition.

Items in Bold above could be supported on Sony platforms (PS3, Vita, Android with PS Suite).

"HTML5 video editing UI using GStreamer and the GStreamer Editing Services" , I take to mean the UI is HTML which would make it totally cross platform and the gstreamer libraries native language callable libraries. Would work on the PS3 and any PS Suite platform if Sony provides the gstreamer GST editing libraries. PS3 browser desktop would be very powerful with applications like the above.

Looking for "Tim Bird and Sony" brought up eLinux and Android conferences sponsored in part by Sony. Most applicable to this thread was the Qualcomm (make Sony Phones) Alljoyn P2P open source standard. It's based on D-bus (in glib required for the PS3 GTKwebkit) similar in idea to Telepathy and available on Android 2.2 and later. Android 2.3 and later is necessary for PS Suite and Android 2.3 and later support native language applications also necessary for PS Suite.

Alljoyn appears to be the standard to be used Vita to PS3 and Android to PS3 as well as Sony Camera to PS3, any near blu-tooth or wifi ad-hoc connection.

qualcomms-alljoyn-simplifies-peer-to-peer-mobile-gaming

Video demo: http://www.tested.com/news/qualcomms-alljoyn-simplifies-peer-to-peer-mobile-gaming/1856/

qualcomm-demos-alljoyn-peer-to-peer-sharing-gaming-technology (Video demo available, toward the end mentions local ad-hoc gaming and something like "near".)

Video from 6 month old Android Developers conference on Alljoyn Notice the conference is Sponsored in part by Sony (on first slide). Tony Bird of Sony also lectured at the same conference. From the video: Alljoyn is based on D-Bus and is a parallel implementation with small changes. Special consideration for latency in multi-player games was a consideration in Alljoyn. Alljoyn is application to application not platform to platform, the libraries are native language callable by applications. Blutooth support for Alljoyn must be installed by the platform developer but Alljoyn wifi support can be added later.

Introduction to Alljoyn.

Enabling real-time multi-player gaming is another example of how AllJoyn might be
used. Figure 1 shows how a multi-user game may be accomplished using different
device classes and different underlying network technologies. The details of the
infrastructure management are all handled by AllJoyn, allowing the game author to focus
on the design and implementation of the game, rather than dealing with the complexities
of the peer-to-peer networking

As the AllJoyn ecosystem expands, one can imagine any number of applications. For
example:
&#61550; Create a playlist consisting of music, and stream the songs to an AllJoyn-enabled car
stereo system, or store them on a home stereo (subject to digital rights
management)
&#61550; Sync recent photos or other media to an AllJoyn-enabled digital picture frame or
television upon returning home from an event or trip
&#61550; Control home appliances such as televisions, DVRs, or game consoles
&#61550; Interact and share content with laptops and desktop computers in the area
&#61550; Engage in project collaboration between colleagues and students in enterprise and
educational settings
&#61550; Provide proximity-based services like distributing coupons or vcards

As mentioned, AllJoyn is a platform-neutral system that is designed to simplify proximity
networking across heterogeneous distributed mobile systems. Heterogeneous in this
case means not only different devices, but different kinds of devices (e.g., PCs,
handsets, tablets, consumer electronics devices) running on different operating systems,
using different communication technologies

Many of us have assumed that some of the Sony ecosystem features would be based on DLNA 1.5 and D-buss but it appears that Alljoyn might be the primary API. Applications like the browser would have to advertise their service seen in the Qualcom demo then browsers on multiple platforms can share the same photos or URLs. The same would be true for other ecosystem applications. What this means is all ecosystem applications need to be written with this in mind. Older applications that implemented a D-Buss or Telepathy framework should be easier to upgrade to Alljoyn.

Alljoyn was at 1.8 in the video and 2.0 was due "soon", this was 6 months ago. Edit Alljoyn 2.1 available 8/10/2011 Alljoyn website https://www.alljoyn.org/docs-and-downloads

Alljoyn support for C++, Java, Javascript, Python and speculated support for C#

 

[BosSin]

Wow this thread is still going on....
I thought you guys would have uncovered the truth behind the Illuminati by now

 

[RobertM]

Just so you know, jeff_rigby, you are my hero.

 

[Liquid Helium]

Confirmation Bias: The Thread

 

[onQ123]

Introduction to Alljoyn.




Many of us have assumed that some of the Sony ecosystem features would be based on DLNA 1.5 and D-buss but it appears that Alljoy might be the primary API. Applications like the browser would have to advertise their service seen in the Qualcom demo then browsers on multiple platforms can share the same photos or URLs. The same would be true for other ecosystem applications. What this means is all ecosystem applications need to be written with this in mind. Older applications that implemented a D-Buss or Telepathy framework should be easier to upgrade to Alljoyn.

Alljoy was at 1.8 in the video and 2.0 was due "soon", this was 6 months ago.

Enabling real-time multi-player gaming is another example of how AllJoyn might be
used. Figure 1 shows how a multi-user game may be accomplished using different
device classes and different underlying network technologies. The details of the
infrastructure management are all handled by AllJoyn, allowing the game author to focus
on the design and implementation of the game, rather than dealing with the complexities
of the peer-to-peer networking

As the AllJoyn ecosystem expands, one can imagine any number of applications. For
example:
&#61550; Create a playlist consisting of music, and stream the songs to an AllJoyn-enabled car
stereo system, or store them on a home stereo (subject to digital rights
management)
&#61550; Sync recent photos or other media to an AllJoyn-enabled digital picture frame or
television upon returning home from an event or trip
&#61550; Control home appliances such as televisions, DVRs, or game consoles
&#61550; Interact and share content with laptops and desktop computers in the area
&#61550; Engage in project collaboration between colleagues and students in enterprise and
educational settings
&#61550; Provide proximity-based services like distributing coupons or vcards

As mentioned, AllJoyn is a platform-neutral system that is designed to simplify proximity
networking across heterogeneous distributed mobile systems. Heterogeneous in this
case means not only different devices, but different kinds of devices (e.g., PCs,
handsets, tablets, consumer electronics devices) running on different operating systems,
using different communication technologies

maybe AllJoyn is part of the Network Wrapper Library that they are talking about in this slide.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Maybe AllJoyn is part of the Network Wrapper Library that they are talking about in this slide.

It's probable; I'm still investigating. D-bus and telepathy extensions were used by Collabora to support the OLPC Sugar Interface (written in Python by Redhat in a day) for Collaborative educational games. OLPC had a Neighborhood mode similar to Near on the Vita. I believe the Vita OS is based on the OLPC model. But Qualcomm makes the Sony-Ericsson Phone and Qualcomm developed Alljoyn. Qualcomm is also very "into" Virtual reality as is Sony.

androvsky in past posts seems to think Sony would write their own custom ad-hoc multi-platform plug-n-play interface since the PS3 & PSP had one. IF the Sony ecosystem were just Vita and PS3 this might be a possible but it contains Android devices, Cameras, Walkman and more. Alljoyn provides support for multiple devices and application cases not found in the OLPC mesh network or PS3 to PSP ad-hoc networking.

In any case something like D-bus and Telepathy would be used even if Sony wrote their own P2P ad-hoc networking support (See the Aljoyn PDF in the link above, "Why reinvent the Wheel" use D-bus). Do they want to close off their ecosystem from everyone else?

Alljoyn is a VERY new Standard announced Feb 2011 and only two months ago, Stable on Android devices. There is very little Alljoyn activity on the Internet which might indicate it is not being accepted. In any case reading about Alljoyn and watching the videos gives one an idea of how supporting low latency ad-hoc gaming must be accomplished.

Alljoyn as a project was conceived late 2009 by Qualcomm. PS3 Firmware 3.0 had or was soon to be released, augmented reality and multiple ecosystem platforms were in the works from Sony in 2009. Google and Sony were collaborating and Qualcomm probably was part of the loop.

So Qualcomm makes Sony-Eriksson phones and ST-Ericsson is using Gstreamer in their Android Phones Oct 2010 Power point Sony Google TV (Android) and other Networked TVs and blu-ray players also include gstreamer, Cairo and glib.

Sony Google TV disclosure site Has the latest version of Cairo but a 2009 version of Gstreamer libraries:

cairo-1.8.6.tgz ( Sept 5,2011 version )
glib-2.12.13.tar.bz2 (2007 version)
gstreamer-0.10.22.tar.bz2 (2009 version http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/src/gst-plugins-base/)
pango-1.24.2.tgz (2009 version)

The reason Gstreamer has not been updated may be related to API changes with Gstreamer 1.0.

The PS3 disclosure site has not yet been updated.

Edit: When again

Vita to support Javascript 1.7 but no Flash

According to an article published in this week's issue of Weekly Famitsu in Japan, the Vita's web browser will support cookies, JavaScript 1.7, and part of the HTML5 standard when it launches in Japan next month.

Is that Javascript 1.7 or webkit version 1.7 because as of 10/26/11 WebKitGTK+ 1.7.1 released That's the unstable pre-release of the Stable 1.7 version.

A new WebKitGTK+ unstable release is available. The 1.7 unstable
series of WebKitGTK+ starts with this 1.7.1 release.

If Javascript version 1.7 that's a 2006 version.

1.5 November 2000 ECMA-262 3rd edition 6.0
1.6 November 2005 1.5 + Array extras + Array and String generics + E4X
1.7 October 2006 1.6 + Pythonic generators + Iterators + let
1.8 June 2008 1.7 + Generator expressions + Expression closures
1.8.2 June 22, 2009 1.8.1 + Minor updates 3.6
1.8.5 July 27, 2010 1.8.2 + ECMAScript 5 Compliance

If Webkit 1.7 then a GTKwebkit release on multiple platforms (PS3 - Vita) could be soon.

FFmpeg Gstreamer plugin released as stable version (Nov 2, 2011). The PS3 uses this plugin (contains codecs) and the Gstreamer core (previously released as Stable) for basic AV. This is part of the Gstreamer 1.0 NEW improved version.

Insomniac Games is looking for a Flash programmer yet the Vita and most likely PS3 GTKwebkit port will not support Flash at release. Delays in porting Flash 11 or no Flash support at all as it appears that even Microsoft's Explorer will eventually not support Flash?


Pulse Audio Linux and POSIX platforms

 

[jeff_rigby]

Sony Google TV disclosure site Has the latest version of Cairo but a 2009 version of Gstreamer libraries:

cairo-1.8.6.tgz ( Sept 5, 2011 version )
glib-2.12.13.tar.bz2 (2007 version)
gstreamer-0.10.22.tar.bz2 (2009 version )
pango-1.24.2.tgz (2009 version)

eglibc-2.12.2 (2011 version of the embedded version of Linux glibc)

Google TV released in Oct 2010 but is using a Jan 2009 version of Gstreamer? Gstreamer not updated yet but Cairo is updated with the latest version (Sept 2011).

When the above is tied to the Charles Ying post which states the same "Highly Optimized framework" is in the PS3 as in 2009 (PS3 firmware 3.0 was 2009) leads to speculation that Sony on multiple platforms is still using that same 2009 version of Gstreamer; this most likely for API compatibility across all of Sony.

I would guess that Sony is going to update all platforms to Gstreamer 1.0 soon and all will be compatible with the same API.

Again, that Android (Google TV) which has it's own AV library and Skia (SVG) drawing library has Sony including Gstreamer and Cairo (SVG) on a Sony Google TV platform for some other reason. I've speculated (androvsy confirmed in part) it may be for Sony Media and apps like Playview or Music and Video Unlimited. Hirari stated Google TV may support PS Suite but there is no GTK library, no Mono, no game engine listed in the disclosure; coming? There is also that it's a CairoFB not OpenGL so PS1 games would struggle on this platform.

New Sony Phone xperia dual core (from ST Ericsson instead of Qualcomm) with 12 Megapixel Sony EXMAR R camera. ST Ericson has released Oct 2010 Power point white papers about providing gstreamer for Android phones based on their chipsets. Edit: Now confirmed PS Suite support

Just one of many Android Job listings with gstreamer & Pulse audio.

This senior multimedia software engineer position will be part of the SoC Software Enabling Group (SEG) in Intel Corporation. In this position, you will work on Intel SoC products like mobile devices and smart Internet TVs. You must have experience in developing device drivers for audio and the entire audio stack. You will be proficient in A/V codec internals (e.g. H.264, MPEG-2, AAC, MP3), OpenMAX IL and multimedia middleware on Linux variants (e.g. Android AudioFlinger, GStreamer). You must have a good understanding of ALSA, and PulseAudio, and the rest of the Linux/Android audio stack. You should be adept at C/C++, debugging tools and power/performance profiling tools. Behavioral traits for this position include: be a team player and focused on delivering quality code on schedule is required.

Using information gleaned from NeoGAF on Intel going 22nm and then 14 nm, because of a more efficient Atom chip at those die sizes, might be gearing up for more market share.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Read and follow links, lots of information on HOT web topics like Augmented Reality.

"HTML5 video editing UI using GStreamer and the GStreamer Editing Services" Description and videos.

*************************

DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) is what the Gstreamer player used by the PS3 supports. There is a new standard coming called 3GP DASH for streaming 3-D high quality video over a IP Network. This is the next iteration in Video streaming technology coming from Sony that we will see on the PS3. (Requires Gstreamer 1.0)

Sony is going to update all platforms to Gstreamer 1.0 soon

Edward Hervey pointed out to me this morning that there are some nice articles online about an effort between ST Microelectronics and Frauenhofer, around the 3GP DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) standard. There is for instancethis article in Thinq magazine and this article on TMCnet. What you might not know and which is even cooler is that Emanuele Quacchio will be speaking this GStreamer based DASH implementation at the the GStreamer Conference

Semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics and research behemoth Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute joined forces to create the prototype, which is the first device to implement the MPEG-DASH standard for reception of 3D video streams over HTTP with automatic fallback for 2D-only devices.

I expected androvsky or someone to comment on my API incompatibility statements between Gstreamer 1.0 and current players and applications using older versions of Gstreamer. Gstreamer 1.0 is parallel install-able with the 2009 version so both are most likely in the PS3 at this time (now or very soon as the Gstreamer conference usually is announcing Finished projects. The above article announcing ST Electronics developing 3GP DASH hardware prototypes is proof of this.). Eventually after new versions of applications like Torne, Eyepet or the Quriocity unlimited Video application are available we will be forced to upgrade and Sony can remove the older Gstreamer core and plugins. As has been stated in the news, Torne will be "Updated" to stream to the Vita and this puts a timetable for Gstreamer 1.0 in the PS3 and active for NEW/updated applications using Gstreamer 1.0 before Dec 17th 2011.

These Gstreamer 2011 Conference Talks are starting to leak into the News. Still waiting for the Official Videos and Slides of the conference.

And for those of you who would complain that this does not apply to the browser update; we were told a year and a half ago that the new browser would support 3-D video.

 

[jeff_rigby]

FFmpeg Gstreamer plugin released as stable version (Nov 2, 2011). The PS3 uses this plugin (contains codecs) and the Gstreamer core (1.0 previously released as Stable) for basic AV. This is part of the Gstreamer 1.0 NEW improved version.

FFmpeg contains more than 100 codecs [28] most of which do not just store uncompressed data. At least all codecs that compress information could be claimed by patent holders.[29]

Such claims may be enforceable in countries like the United States which have implemented software patents, but are considered unenforceable or void in countries that have not implemented software patents. Furthermore, many of these codecs are only released under terms that forbid reverse engineering, even for purposes of interoperability. These terms of use are forbidden in certain countries. For example, some European Union nations have not implemented software patents and have laws expressly allowing reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability.[30]

Most GNU/Linux distributions include a stripped version of FFmpeg only including certain codecs to avoid legal complications, instead contributors maintain unofficial repositories containing such software.

Which explains how Torne can be released in Japan but can't be released in the US.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Just put this stuff on a blog and stick it on N4G, they'll eat this shit up over there. You might be able to make a buck or two while you're at it.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Just put this stuff on a blog and stick it on N4G, they'll eat this shit up over there. You might be able to make a buck or two while you're at it.

Sites like NeoGAF, in my opinion, are to allow discussion and in the case of this thread and my posts, to speculate and support those speculations with logical arguments and cites. It's understood that anyone who does not believe the speculations accurate will post their counter arguments. I.E. a peer review.

Unfortunately the proof requires an understanding of Gnome Functionality, a basic understanding of Webkit, a careful read of posts and the expenditure of mental energy in thinking it through. This will not be what most N4G readers will do. They and others will wait for some recognized authority to make a statement. Problem is Sony will probably never announce this and developers have to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. So who does that leave?

Sony programmers consistently give us clues to what they are doing. For instance "What's New" has features that spell out Pixman and Cairo for PS3 Firmware 3.0, the new Home client has a new game engine and the Beta is showing Foliage which is a touted feature of the Sony Phyre game engine. Subtle yes and sometimes too subtle to count on as proof but when tied to other clues, a picture is built of what's being used (the PS3 GTKwebkit disclosure and Sony SNAP site were BIG-HUGE in providing information for this).

boommoob1 on Beyond 3D has been very vocal in criticizing Sony Management with Shifty and others making statements that Sony needs to provide an OS for the PS3 to support applications. This just last week. They are two years behind Sony management and nearly one year behind the proof posted in this thread that Sony Management is providing an OS (Gnome) to support applications.

So who is the recognized authority that will settle this? There is none...so either you take my statements on faith which you shouldn't do or you confirm for yourself which you should always do for everything in life but that takes effort.

So I'm here on this thread providing subtle after subtle proofs which appear cyclic and an occasional BIG one like the Charles Ying post. I'm disappointed that androvsky couldn't see what that post proved. The Ying post proved Cairo and Gstreamer were in the PS3 in 2009 to support webkit. Other posts like Hirari's provide subtle proof that Cairo and Gstreamer were being used for the PS3 OS for Firmware 3.0 (2009) not just for a future webkit browser 2 years later or IPTV applications using a Webkit javascript engine which came a year later.

Why provide a "Highly optimized framework using the Cell SPUs and RSX" (Gstreamer and Cairo - WebGL) a year before needed for webkit and not use those Highly optimized frameworks for the PS3 OS????? To my mind this is 100% proof or as much proof as we will ever get.

Massa and androvsky's main argument against this is LGPL disclosure is required for Gstreamer and Cairo. Gstreamer rights (at least the core, DRM Player and some plugins) can be purchased but Cairo can't. This might explain Eyepet, Torne, PlayTV not being allowed in the US. It also might explain Playview not being released outside Japan.

Such claims may be enforceable in countries like the United States which have implemented software patents, but are considered unenforceable or void in countries that have not implemented software patents. Furthermore, many of these codecs are only released under terms that forbid reverse engineering, even for purposes of interoperability. These terms of use are forbidden in certain countries. For example, some European Union nations have not implemented software patents and have laws expressly allowing reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability

After the March 2011 PS3 LGPL Cairo disclosure, Home looks like it converted to use Cairo with Home Client 1.4. Sony waited till after a disclosure to convert Home to rendering with Cairo. But it looks like Sony bent the rules and used Cairo for limited features in the PS3 OS with Firmware 3.0. As soon as Cairo was released as stable (useable for WebGL webkit which was also declared stable with version 1.4) Sony disclosed Cairo. But between October of 2010 and March of 2011, Sony was in violation for using Cairo with the webkit javascript engine and IPTV applications. One might ask why the Sony Video Unlimited Preview app which was written in 2009 was not available to us till 2 years later...the answer in part is because it had to wait for disclosure and for Sony to put the infrastructure in place to sell movies.

In 2009 the Video unlimited preview app was available (using the Javascript engine we have now (same disclosure site listed but we may now have a slightly upgraded April 2010 version of javascript with no change to the DIFF file needed) and the 2009 version of the Gstreamer Marlin DRM adaptive streaming (DASH) player was available which was needed for playing the movie selected with the app. This early version had a limited FF and REW ability which has improved with the current version in the PS3. Look at the app and compare the control options given to FF & REW at the bottom of the screen in the app to the control we have now with IPTV and DLNA, it's changed with the "PS3 Format Software improvements".

The Unlimited Video app includes a javascript engine and the older (2009) Marlin DRM gstreamer player but links/plugs into a gstreamer core in the PS3. A newer improved Gstreamer Marlin DRM DASH player is now in the PS3 and used for IPTV; It's also being used with non DRM video for Home. As stated previously, I expect that to also be upgraded soon to support Gstreamer 1.0 and 3-D. Sometime after this happens a new Video Unlimited app will be released and the current app will no longer Play (API changes with Gstreamer 1.0). I.E. They had a limited window to show this existing app before it would no longer work. All other IPTV apps and applications like Torne, Eyepet, PlayTV will have to be or have already been updated to use the new Gstreamer 1.0 core.

For the present both the 2009 version or API compatible version of the Gstreamer core and now or soon the Gstreamer 1.0 version will be parallel installed in the PS3 to support both older and newer gstreamer applications.

Edit: How do I know that Cairo isn't in the Video unlimited app and doesn't plug into a OpenGL ES framework in the PS3 like the Gstreamer DASH player which is in the Video unlimited app and plugs into a Gstreamer core in the PS3? I rely on the App disclosure which does not mention Cairo and the Gstreamer DRM player can not be open source so it does not need to be disclosed <grin>. Slightly hypocritical in that I state Sony bent the rules in one case but followed the rules in the other. There is no other way for this to be possible given the Ying post. androvsky?

 

[jeff_rigby]

I think this confirms the PS3 OS is Free BSD.

Charles h. Ying Resume

Development Environments and Platforms:

XCode, Visual Studio, GNU C/C++, Eclipse IDE, CodeWarrior ARM C++
Borland C++, Watcom C++, Borland Delphi,
Rational Purify, Rational Quantify,
iOS, iPhone OS, Mac OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, Linux.

Sony Corporation of America, June 2009 - June 2010 (Nick Trotta)
Principal Engineer. Lead design and development of Trilithium, a rapid application development framework for PlayStation 3. Trilithium includes hardware accelerated graphics and animation; HD video streaming playback; and a simple API for rapid development. Sony's Video Unlimited and Hulu Plus for PlayStation 3 are applications developed with Trilithium.

*************************************

 

[jeff_rigby]

Vita to support Javascript 1.7 but no Flash

According to an article published in this week's issue of Weekly Famitsu in Japan, the Vita's web browser will support cookies, JavaScript 1.7, and part of the HTML5 standard when it launches in Japan next month.

Is that Javascript 1.7 or webkit version 1.7? The 2006 version 1.7 javascript engine does not support HTML5 or WebGL so the article must be in error and its a GTKwebkit 1.7 version.

And this might be related and explain the above No Flash pluggin at the release of the Vita and the need to wait for Webkit 1.7. Should apply to the PS3 webkitGTK+ also.

WebKit2 GTK+ MiniBrowser ported to GTK+ API!

MiniBrowser is a small web browser application for testing WebKit2. MiniBrowser for the GTK+ port has been working for some time now, but it was implemented using the C-based WebKit2 API. WebKitGTK+ 1.7.1 introduced an initial high level GTK+ API for WebKit2 more similar to the current WebKit1 GTK+ API. This week, Igalia's WebKit team started to port the MiniBrowser code to use the new GTK+ API.

This new GTK+ API is far from complete compared to the WebKit1 API, but it's already possible to implement a small application with basic features, and we have plans to create a webkit2 branch for epiphanysoon. API is already documented in the code, but the html generation is not available yet. We are already working on it so that WebKitGTK+ 1.7.2 will generate the API documentation when compiled with --enable-gtk-doc and --enable-webkit2 and it will be available on the WebKitGTK+ website too.

Thanks to the multiprocess architecture, WebKit2GTK+ solves the problem of using flash (or any other plugin using GTK+2) with GTK+3. The UI process depends unconditonally on GTK+3 and the plugin process is always built with GTK+2. And of course, flash will never crash or block your web browser. Plugins are broken in WebKitGTK+ 1.7.1 due to a bug that has already been fixed, so in order to try it out you need to either wait until 1.7.2 is released or build WebKit from current git master.

Version numbers don't follow math notation.

GNOME uses a version number system that is very common on the net now: it's also used by the Linux kernel, the mutt mailer, and several other large applications. It's three numbers separated by dots, in an x.y.z format. Start with the first number. If it is 0, the app is probably still in development: it may be stable, but it may not have all the features planned yet. If it's 1 then look at the second number. Odd numbers mean it's unstable, at least nominally, or a development version. Even numbers (or zero) mean it's stable. So the gnome-core-1.1.z packages were unstable. When they became stable, they were released as gnome-core-1.2.0. The third number is simply a minor increment, denoting bug-fixes or small improvements. Note that it is not a decimal number. When you get to 1.1.9 in a package, the next number is quite likely to be 1.1.10.

According to the notation 1.7. anything will be an unstable version with 1.8.0 being the stable version of 1.7 that should be used.

Edit: 1.7 is adding much Webkit2 support to GTKwebkit. As mentioned previously webkit2 might be what Sony is waiting for before porting to the PS3.