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In depth technical discussion about Flash, HTML5, H.264, and Google's VP8.  Excellent.  Read the comments.  Bottom line - Google has the juice to put Flash and H.264 in the dirt.  The YouTube acquisition turns out to be very strategic. excerpt: The internet has been filled for quite some time with an enormous number of blog posts complaining about how Flash sucks-so much that it's sounding as if the entire internet is crying wolf.  But, of course, despite the incessant complaining, they're right: Flash has terrible performance on anything other than Windows x86 and Adobe doesn't seem to care at all.  But rather than repeat this ad nauseum, let's be a bit more intellectual and try to figure out what happened. Flash became popular because of its power and flexibility.  At the time it was the only option for animated vector graphics and interactive content (stuff like VRML hardly counts).  Furthermore, before Flash, the primary video options were Windows Media, Real, and Quicktime: all of which were proprietary, had no free software encoders or decoders, and (except for Windows Media) required the user to install a clunky external application, not merely a plugin.  Given all this, it's clear why Flash won: it supported open multimedia formats like H.263 and MP3, used an ultra-simple container format that anyone could write (FLV), and worked far more easily and reliably than any alternative. Thus, Adobe (actually, at the time, Macromedia) got their 98% install base.  And with that, they began to become complacent.  Any suggestion of a competitor was immediately shrugged off; how could anyone possibly compete with Adobe, given their install base?  It'd be insane, nobody would be able to do it.  They committed the cardinal sin of software development: believing that a competitor being better is excusable.  At x264, if we find a competitor that does something better, we immediately look into trying to put ourselves back on top.  This is why

Excellent but light weight and breezy review of the Flash-Silverlight-Open Web HTML5 battle for the future of the Web. excerpt: At the top of the org chart, Apple's deprecation of Flash technology is all about politics. Apple doesn't want its mainstream video delivery system controlled by a third party. So Mr. Jobs backs up his politics with tidbits of technical truths. However, discovering the real truths about HTML5 and Flash is a bit harder, as this survey shows. On February 11th, I wrote an editorial, "What Should Apple Do About Adobe?" Part of the discussion related to Adobe's Flash Player on the Mac, updates and security. Inevitably, the comments escalated to a discussion of Steve Job's distaste for and blocking of Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The question is: is Apple's stance against Flash justified? Of course, any political argument needs only the barest of idealogical arguments to sustain itself. More to the point is, can Apple fight this war and win based on the state-of-the-art with HTML5? Again, Apple's CEO must believe he can win this war. There has to be some technical basis for that, or the war wouldn't be waged.

Good quotes.  The Wired article is also worth reading.  The important take away being that Apple is fully committed to native browser HTML5.  So is Google.  But, i found out at the Web 2.0 - WebKit party in 2009, there is quite a bit of tension between Apple WebKit and Google.  The problem being that Apple is doing all the work while Google is pumping up HTML5, Web Sockets and Native Client; all of which are essential to WebKit, but also to Chrome OS, Chrome, Android and the Google Apps push. excerpt:  According to Wired, at an Apple "town hall" meeting after the introduction of the Flashless iPad, Steve Jobs unloaded on Google, calling the search giant's "don't be evil" motto "bullshit," before rounding on Adobe. "They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things, but they just refuse to do it," he said. "Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy... Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash...The world is moving to HTML5."

Quick LinksGet a TrialEnterprise On DemandEnterprise On PremiseFAQHelpContact UsWhy Adeptol?Document SupportSupport for more than 300 document types out of boxNot a Virtual PrinterMultitenant platform for high end document viewingNo SoftwaresNo need to install any additional softwares on serverNo ActiveX/PluginsNo plugins or active x or applets need to be downloaded on client side.Fully customizableAdvanced API offers full customization and UI changes.Any OS/Any Prog LanguageInstall Adeptol Server on any OS and integrate with any programming language.AwardsAdeptol products receive industry awards and accolades year after year  View a DemoAttend a WebcastContact AdeptolView a Success StoryNo ActiveX, No Plug-in, No Software's to download. Any OS, Any Browser, Any Programming Language. That is the Power of Adeptol. Adeptol can help you retain your customers and streamline your content integration efforts. Leverage Web 2.0 technologies to get a completely scalable content viewer that easily handles any type of content in virtually unlimited volume, with additional capabilities to support high-volume transaction and archive environments. Our enterprise-class infrastructure was built to meet the needs of the world's most demanding global enterprises. Based on AJAX technology you can easily integrate the viewer into your application with complete ease. Support for all Server PlatformsCan be installed on Windows   (32bit/64bit) Server and Linux   (32bit/64bit) Server. Click here to see technical specifications.Integrate with any programming languageWhether you work in .net, c#, php, cold fusion or JSP. Adeptol Viewer can be integrated easily in any programming language using the easy API set. It also comes with sample code for all languages to get you started.Compatibility with more than 99% of the browsersTested & verified for compatibility with 99% of the various browsers on different platforms. Click here to see browser compatibility report.More than 300 Document T

While HTML5 developers are working directly with JavaScript, SVG, CSS, and other technologies, Flash designers enjoy a high-level environment with timelines, drawing tools, easy control of animation effects, and more. With Edge, released in beta Sunday, Adobe is striving to bring that same ease of use to HTML5 development. The user interface will be familiar to anyone who's used Flash or After Effects; a timeline allowing scrubbing and jumping to any point in an animation, properties panels to adjust objects, and a panel to show the actual animation. Behind the scenes, Edge uses standard HTML5. Scripting is provided by a combination of jQuery and Adobe's own scripts, and animation and styling uses both scripts and CSS. Pages produced by Edge encode the actual animations using a convenient JSON format. Edge itself embeds the WebKit rendering engine-the same one used in Apple's Safari browser and Google's Chrome-to actually display the animations.

Good article with excellent URL references.  Bottom line is that the W3C will support the advance of HTML5 and controversial components such as "canvas", HTML + RDFa, and HTML microdata. excerpt: The key question is: who's going to get their way with HTML5? The companies who want to keep the kitchen sink in? Or those which want it to be a more flexible format which might also be able to displace some rather comfortable organisations that are doing fine with things as they are? Adobe, it turned out, seemed to be trying to slow things down a little. It was accused of trying to put HTML5 "on hold". It strongly denied it. Others said it was using "procedural bullshit". Then Berners-Lee weighed in with a post on the W3 mailing list. First he noted the history: "Some in the community have raised questions recently about whether some work products of the HTML Working Group are within the scope of the Group's charter. Specifically in question were the HTML Canvas 2D API, and the HTML Microdata and HTML+RDFa Working Drafts." (Translation: Adobe seems to have been trying to slow things down on at least one of these points.) And then he pushes: "I agree with the WG [working group] chairs that these items -- data and canvas - are reasonable areas of work for the group. It is appropriate for the group to publish documents in this area." Chop! And that's it. There goes the Gordian Knot. With that simple message, Berners-Lee has probably created a fresh set of headaches for Adobe - but it means that we can also look forward to a web with open standards, rather than proprietary ones, and where commercial interests don't get to push it around.

Despite initial comments in support of HTML5 as an option standard, Adobe has taken action to sabotage the open specification in an effort to support its existing position with Flash. Ian Hixie, a member of the HTML5 working group and an employee of Google, reported this week that "the latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public (despite yesterday's promise to make it so)."

And the winner is .... [drumroll] ... HTML5

Very detailed and well organized discussion comparing HTML5, Flash and Silverlight. excerpt intro: Over the past week, I had a slew of press inquiries about the future of Flash, driven largely by the Apple iPad announcement - an event in which Flash was conspicuously absent. Of the top of my head, I put together some key points in the conversation, presented below. As I mull these talking points over and discuss them with colleagues, some of these will likely end up in a research note, along with actionable advice. For now, here are some aspects of a multi-faceted situation.

Use Backboard to collect feedback on your projects, and facilitate communication and collaboration in your company. Use embedit.in to embed any file into your website or blog. Uses Adobe Air/Flash runtime.  Excellent feedback and comment interface.  Documents are uploaded and "viewed" through custom viewers.  Backboard can gather feedback on documents (Word (DOC/DOCX), Excel (XLS/XLSX), PowerPoint (PPT/PPTX), WPD, ODT, ODP, ODS, RTF, PDF, TXT, HTML, SQL and JS), images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP and PSD), vector graphics (AI, EPS, PS), web pages or other URLs, and free-form text. Backboard also works with iWork documents (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) by using the Backboard Plug-in for iWork '09. I liked the viewing/comment interface, but have not tested the various documents for fidelity!  No direct interaction or collaborative editing of documents!!!!!!  Just a view and feedback.

Interesting development in the world of real time Web Apps.  Looks like Business processes and services in the Cloud are embracing HTML5, and moving fast to replace legacy client/server.  Note this is not Flash or Silverlight RiA.   excerpt: Telax Hosted Call Center, a leader in cloud contact center solutions announced the release of its HTML5-based Call Center Agent (CCA) today. Key to the development of the browser-based CCA was Websocket, a component of HTML5 that provides a bi-directional, full-duplex communication channel over a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) socket. Websocket is currently supported by the latest versions of Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Firefox, making Telax's new CCA compatible with the most popular browsers in Mac environments. Before HTML5, real-time unified communication software was typically deployed as a local client because its browser-based counterparts were unable to deliver an acceptable user experience. Some browser-based clients use 3rd party software such as Adobe Flash or Sliverlight to operate adequately, but both solutions require software installation and are not mobile friendly.

Excellent must read!  Best explanation of what is currently driving Silicon Valley.  Charlie puts all the pieces in context, provides expert perspective, and then pushes everything forward to describe a highly probable future.  MUST READ stuff! excerpts:  I've got a theory, and it's this: Steve Jobs believes he's gambling Apple's future - the future of a corporation with a market cap well over US $200Bn - on an all-or-nothing push into a new market. HP have woken up and smelled the forest fire, two or three years late; Microsoft are mired in a tar pit, unable to grasp that the inferno heading towards them is going to burn down the entire ecosystem in which they exist. There is the smell of panic in the air, and here's why ... We have known since the mid-1990s that the internet was the future of computing.  With increasing bandwidth, data doesn't need to be trapped in the hard drives of our desktop computers: data and interaction can follow us out into the world we live in. .....Wifi and 4G protocols will shortly be delivering 50-150mbps to whatever gizmo is in your pocket, over the air. ......  It's easier to lay a single fat fibre to a radio transciever station than it is to lay lots of thin fibres to everybody's front door.... Anyway, here's Steve Jobs' strategic dilemma in a nutshell: the PC industry as we have known it for a third of a century is beginning to die. PCs are becoming commodity items. The price of PCs and laptops is falling by about 50% per decade in real terms, despite performance simultaneously rising in real terms. The profit margin on a typical netbook or desktop PC is under 10%.  At the same time, wireless broadband is coming. As it does so, organizations and users will increasingly move their data out into the cloud (read: onto hordes of servers racked up high in anonymous data warehouses, owned and maintained by some large corporation like Google). Software will be delivered as a service to users wherever they are, via whatev

SDK - OpenGL Developer tool for crossplatform development of iOS and Android Apps.  Much better performance than Flash.  Check out the KWiK add-ons for Adobe Photoshop for writing visually immersive books and magazines.  Corona is a must watch technology. excerpts: High-performance graphics. Corona was built from the ground up for blazing-fast performance. Built on top of OpenGL, OpenAL, and Lua, Corona uses the same industry-standard architecture as top-selling mobile games from Tapulous, Electronic Arts, and ngmoco. Develop across platforms. Corona has the only complete solution for developing across platforms, OS versions, and screen sizes. You can write once and build to iOS or Android at the touch of a button, and Corona will automatically scale your content from phones to tablets.

Excellent report on Crocodoc and their ability to convert MANY different document file types to HTML5.  Including all MSOffice formats - OOXML, ODF, and PDF. " Crocodoc, and took on the much larger problem of allowing groups to collaborate on editing a document online, no matter what the document type: PowerPoint, PDF, Word, Photoshop, JPEG, or PNG. In the process, they had to build an embeddable viewer that could take apart any document and reassemble it accurately within a Web browser. And as soon as they'd finished that, they had to tear their own system apart and rebuild it around HTML5 rather than Flash, the Adobe multimedia format that's edging closer and closer to extinction. The result of all that iterating is what's probably the world's most flexible and faithful HTML5-based document viewer: when you open a PDF, PowerPoint, or Word document in Crocodoc, the Web version looks exactly like the native version, even though it's basically been stripped down and re-rendered from scratch. When I talked with Damico in February of 2011, the startup had visions of building on this technology to become a kind of central, Web-based clearinghouse for everyone's documents-a cross between Scribd, Dropbox, and Google Docs, but with a focus on consumers, and with prettier viewing tools. In the last year, though, Crocodoc's direction has changed dramatically. Damico and his colleagues realized that it would be smarter to partner with the fastest growing providers of document-sharing services and social business-tool providers than to try to compete with them. "The massive, seismic change for us is that we had a huge opportunity to partner with Dropbox and LinkedIn and SAP and Yammer, and let them build on top of Crocodoc and make it into a core piece of their own products," Damico says. In other words, every time an office worker opens a document from within a Web app like Dropbox or Yammer, they're activating a white-label version