This is why I push Linux. You can be sure that Apple will support such restrictions in short order as well.

You Bastards.

TECHNOLOGY: Microsoft Pushes Opium: "On the eve of a long-awaited new OS release, codenamed 'Longhorn' by Microsoft, you may need to upgrade your monitor. This is all due to OPM (pronounced 'opium'), a new content creation protection built into the new OS.



In short, almost every single monitor on the market today is going to be obsolete in a few short months. It's not going to render your monitor useless, but what you can see will be limited.

So what will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re ‘lucky’, the content will go through a resolution constrictor. The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.



That’s LUCKY?



It sure is — when the alternative is a black screen. If OPM determines that your monitor falls below the security restrictions (i.e. isn’t DVI or HDMI w/HDCP), you could be greeted with a ‘polite message explaining that [your monitor] doesn’t meet security requirements.’



Who determines when you get the restrictor and when you get the black screen? You guessed it: the content owner does.

(Written by: FuzzyDice)

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(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)