It seems Google’s WebM “open standard” video format is getting some unwanted attention; this time from the MPEG LA. From The Verge [emphasis added]:

When the WebM project was announced back in 2010, one [of] its selling points was that it was open and free of the licensing needs imposed by competitors like H.264. That may have been slightly overstated, however, as Google and MPEG LA have just entered into a licensing agreement covering the video codec at the heart of the format.

I think the words they were searching for are: Totally bogus.

From ReadWriteWeb:

Having failed to carve out a place for itself in the post-PC era, Hewlett-Packard is now taking drastic measures — by adopting Google’s Android operating system to run a series of upcoming mobile devices.

I’m puzzled. I understand Microsoft has been distancing some OEMs by making their own tablet and loaning Dell $2 billion to go private, but what will this move away from Windows accomplish? Android device sales are dominated by Samsung, at least in smartphones, who has to spend billions on marketing in order to do so. In tablets, the Google Nexus and Amazon Kindle lines rule the roost with Samsung following.

My question is, what makes HP think it can even compete in the Android market?

Amazon will begin charging sales tax to CT residents starting in November.

That’s what AirAsia X is calling their new section of economy seating reserved for passengers 12 years old and up.

More of this, please.

CBS is on a roll and not a good one—more like a string of Lance Armstrong’s blood tests kind-of-roll. The latest is their banning of a SodaStream commercial from the Super Bowl. Will Burns, for Forbes:

CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.

Please pause and read that sentence again.

This, just weeks after forcing its CNET staff to disqualify the Dish Hopper DVR from being Best In Show at CES, even though it had already been voted as such, because CBS is suing them, then banning CNET from reviewing it at all, and finally having the Consumer Electronics Association drop CNET as the selector of the CES Best In Show award in response.

They’re doing it to themselves.

What’s puzzled me the longest has been RAID 5. How can one drive allow for data redundancy on a five drive array? Now I get it.

This works because all digital data is stored as either a 1 or a 0. Imagine a 3D checkerboard—let’s make it 5 stories high. Look down on the top left square and count the number of checkers on that square for each of the top four layers. If they total an odd number, put a checker on the same square on the bottom layer. If they total an even number, don’t put a checker on the same square on the bottom layer.

The Next Web:

Polaroid plans to open at least ten new retail stores this year focused on getting people to print and edit the photos saved on their smartphone, or uploaded to social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Picasa.

A photo printing bar. Really? Right now, I’m wondering how many times Polaroid can actually go bankrupt. It appears that they have another one left in them.

Ars Technica reviews the new entry-level 21.5” iMac. Steps forward: new enclosure is lighter, quieter, and runs coolers than its predecessor. Steps backward: only leaves room for slower 2.5” hard drives, worse speakers, and no user upgradeable anything. That is, unless you don’t mind getting hosed at order time.

The 21.5-inch iMac can be upgraded to 16GB of RAM at purchase for $200; 16GB of RAM in two 8GB DIMMs costs about $60 on the open market.

It’s just sad to see that, even in a desktop computer, we’re entering an age of hyper-inflated, OEM-defined RAM prices that end users can’t choose to fight by purchasing their own upgrades.

It’s not just RAM either. Want the new hard drive performance hit to go away?

It will also completely disappear if you opt to add a Fusion Drive to your new iMac, which sounds like a no-brainer until you consider that you’ll be paying $450 for the upgrade—$200 to pay for the high-end 21.5-inch configuration and $250 more for the 128GB SSD itself.

All of this is to say the cheapest iMac you can buy with a solid-state drive of any kind on board costs $1,749 before tax. This is a world where the MacBook Air starts at $999 and includes standard SSDs across the line.

I’ve always upheld that iMacs are the best Mac value around. I’m struggling to say this now.