Netflix has caught my interest here recently. We were on vacation, and a relative wanted to use my laptop with his Netflix account. I was forced to reboot into Windows to make it work.
Here recently, I have heard some buzz about how that may change. Netflix appears to be pushing to move from Silverlight to HTML5. The big deal is that Silverlight will never work on Linux at least with respect to the DRM required by NetFlix. HTML5 is already built into Chrome already on Linux.
The latest update I have heard is that a plugin exists right now on some of the Chromebooks, but it doesn’t seem active, yet. So, it’s not here yet, but it seems close.
You can read my sources here:
- Chrome Story: Samsung Chromebook Gets Netflix Plugin
- The Chrome Source: Netflix Plug-in Appears on the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook
- Google Groups: Chromebook Central: Netflix
The cool part about Google’s technology is that even if you don’t use it, it sends ripples through the industry. I think that is the case here. I don’t think Chromebooks will meet my needs as a developer any time soon, but the technology they are bringing to my laptop is very nice.