Silverlight Cometh via Windows Update

[Jason Dunn]

I have all my PCs set to notify me when new Windows Updates are available, rather than the default of auto-installing, so I tend to see what's being offered as important and optional patches. Today, or recently at least, Microsoft started pushing <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/" target="_blank">Silverlight</a> down the Windows Update pipe:<br /><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1204072288.usr1.gif" alt="" /><br /><em>(pardon the crappy screen capture, it seems Windows Vista's Snipping tool defaults to 2-bit colour for GIFs)</em><br /><br />Silverlight is a cool piece of technology, though I can't help but feel like they dropped the ball by not supporting h.264 right out of the gate - it could have given Flash 9 a run for it's money, but now with Flash 9 supporting h.264, it's going to become even stronger in the world of streaming video (and maybe YouTube will finally offer higher-quality videos). Oh well - maybe they'll add it in <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/22/first-look-at-silverlight-2.aspx" target="_blank">version 2.0</a>.

[freitasm]

More than Adobe Flash... Silverlight direct competition is Adobe AIR, which was just released yesterday.

Silverlight won't be anything until Silverlight 2.0 hits the streets.

Until then Adobe AIR will be supreme.

As for h.264... I am still waiting for this on Media Centre, and if Microsoft hasn't added this to the main product yet... What can we expect?

[Tim Williamson]

What's the difference between Silverlight and Flash/AIR (hadn't heard of AIR before freitasm's post)?

[freitasm]

Think of Silverlight with Adobe technologies (Flex, Flash) and AJAX instead.

http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ for more information.

Adobe AIR has been on beta for a few months now and was released as 1.0 yesterday. There are some applications already out there, and I like the Google Analytics one.

[Filip Norrgard]

Well, Adobe's AIR is better: supports wide array of operating systems and browsers here and now. :) Microsoft's Silverlight will have a challenge as they don't support Opera and other browsers, plus the Linux version (Moonlight by the Mono project) is still bareboned compared to the Windows version. And it is a shame that I can't use C# with AIR just yet...

[freitasm]

Actually not. Silverlight runs on Windows and Mac OS X. A version for Linux is available in Alpha.

Adobe AIR is not available for Linux yet.

Silverlight does not have to support a browser, because like Adobe AIR it can run standalone apps, based on WCF, .Net framework.

[Filip Norrgard]

Silverlight does not have to support a browser, because like Adobe AIR it can run standalone apps, based on WCF, .Net framework.

I haven't seen the possibility to run Silverlight "web pages" as standalone applications, at least in the way demoed by AIR -- straight from the browser. However, Microsoft states on their Silverlight page when using Opera that "Microsoft Silverlight may not be supported on this browser.". Furthermore, Opera with the Silverlight plugin installed doesn't seem to work since there is a some javascript blocking/not checking for Opera and allowing the Silverlight content to start (from what I've read on a forum). And, Microsoft only lists Firefox and IE as supported on Windows, Safari on Mac OS X.