The article seems to evaluate Wasm as it were a framework upon which apps are built. It's not that, it's an orthogonal technology allowing CPU optimisations and reuse of native code in the browser. Against that expectation, it has been a huge success despite not yet reaching bare-metal levels of performance and energy efficiency.
One such example: audio time stretch in the browser based upon a C++ library [1]. There is no way that if this were implemented in JS that it could deliver (a) similar performance or (b) source code portability to native apps.
We absolutely do need regulation of this harm by the law. It's how we stand together as a society, otherwise one child's rules will seem draconian against their friend's lax parents. There's plenty of precedent in other threshold ages at which children can start indulging in other potentially harmful vices.
The vulnerable elder population is more difficult to define by a simple age threshold. We all decline at different ages and different rates.
You can't use spaces to align because you can't assume a monospaced font will always be used. You can't use tabs either for that matter. If you need structure, use the language's punctuation and line breaks.
That's no excuse for YouTube because (a) audio processing can be done in JS/WASM and (b) they have the influence to improve browser playbackRate implementations to something better [1].
Besides, their Android and iOS apps do slow music as bad if not worse than on web.
If you're learning guitar, drums, piano, trumpet, etc, you'll want to start playing along at about 75% speed then work up until you can play 110% faster than you need to. YouTube's built in audio time stretch makes this a painful exercise.
Suppose I deem it safe and useful for my 6yo to drive for a while, using his Xbox controller from the passenger seat.
It is illegal in many countries for a device (or anything else) to obscure any part of the driver's forward view (area swept by wipers). So even without actually controlling the car, we have an unlawful vehicle.
Bungee is our audio stretching library. It can change music tempo and pitch effortlessly in real time on all common devices and browsers.
Bungee is unique in its quality, performance and controllability. Every media player, DAW, video editor should use something like Bungee for smooth scrubbing and audio slomo.
Absolutely you can. With WebAsm SIMD you have near-native DSP performance. Downsides from my experience [1]:
- You are at the mercy of the browser. If browser engineers mess up the audio thread or garbage collection, even the most resilient web audio app breaks. It happens.
- Security mitigations prevent or restrict use of some useful APIs. For example, SharedArrayBuffer and high resolution clocks.
Intel, AMD and others also have chips for training that perform close to or sometimes better than Nvidia's. These are already in the market. Two problems: the CUDA moat, and, "noone gets fired for buying green".
One such example: audio time stretch in the browser based upon a C++ library [1]. There is no way that if this were implemented in JS that it could deliver (a) similar performance or (b) source code portability to native apps.
[1] https://bungee.parabolaresearch.com/change-audio-speed-pitch