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My initial impression is that this is not good news, that this is a further sign of W3C abandonment of XHTML. The announcement that the WG will be closed by implication means that all CDF WG projects are coming to a standstill. The CDF WICD profiles currently have no profiles developed for spreadsheets and presentations albeit feature-rich enough to serve for web display of presentations. WICD profiles are at version. 2.0, with each 2.0 profile a superset of the 1.0 profiles. They are feature-lean in comparison to desktop word processors. The Compoound Document by Incorporation Framework  is an even more immature document, not nearly ready for prime time. All of which suggests that the Compound Document by Reference Framework itself may be the only WG work product with a shot at survival. HTML 5 and browser quirks mode wins; the world loses. Blech!

Wow, watch the video!  The Web rules because it is the first universally available platform to combine communications with computing.  Finally though we are seeing devices designed to truly take advantage of the Web's unique communications and collaborative computing capabilities.  An iPAD with WebEX demonstrates the future.  I hope Google is paying attention.  Every business needs this.

HTML5 development company appMobi is releasing a new browser today called MobiUs that will give mobile Web apps the same type of functionality that now is currently only enjoyed by native apps for platforms like iOS and Android. AppMobi thinks of MobiUs as the replacement for Flash in mobile - it renders mobile websites like a Flash extension would and gives developers device access in ways previously unavailable to in HTML5. MobiUs is technically a mobile browser. That is not the way appMobi thinks it will be used though. The company expects it to be function more like a browser extension. Like Flash, users will be prompted to download it once and from then it will just run in on the device.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation just dropped an incredible bunch of articles on the world in the form of their "2014 Year In Review" series. These are major contributions that place an awful lot of information in context. I thought I had been keeping a close eye on the same subject matter, but I'm only part way through the articles and am learning time after time that I had missed really important news having to do with digital freedom. I can't recommend these articles enough. So far, they are all must-read.  

HTML5 and Flash are two technologies that are getting measured constantly.HTML5 vs Flash is like comparing oranges and apples.

"Free themes are a great way to get a blog or website off the ground. You might want to start writing about a topic but don't want to invest the money in a custom site design on top of hosting and a domain. And once your site is up and running, there's nothing to stop you dissecting them, building on top of them and learning from them. In this article we've selected some of the very best WordPress themes for you to use in your projects. Each is not only free to use and open to the public but also offers something special and unique. For all our WordPress articles, click here"

"GroupDocs Viewer is an online document viewer that lets you read documents in your browser, regardless of whether you have the software that they were created in. You can view many types to word processing documents (DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, ODT), presentations (PPT, PPTX), spreadsheets (XLS, XLSX), portable files (PDF), and image files (JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF). For each file, you get a high-fidelity rendering, showing the document just as it would if you opened it in the software it was created in. Layout and formatting is retained and you see an exact copy of the original. GroupDocs Viewer lets you really read the document. You can search text documents, copy text and even embed the document - GroupDocs Viewer and all - in a web page. You can print or download the file from GroupDocs Viewer if you need to work with it offline."

"the core of Crocodoc's technology is a rendering engine that can reproduce pixel-perfect versions of native documents in a format that any Web browser can understand. You've probably seen a Word or PDF document displayed in a Google Docs browser window; that's actually just a big, fuzzy, graphical image of the original document. "It loads slowly and it doesn't look very good," says Damico. To create high-fidelity version of a native document that still loads quickly, you have to understand the structure of the document at a deep level, Damico says. "What is a heading, what is a paragraph, what is the kerning, what is the spacing?" Then you have to tell the browser how to reconstruct the document using nothing but style sheets and the other tools of HTML5. "We think everyone is going to be using HTML5, so we are focused on building the Ferrari of HTML5 document viewers.""

Methinks the Open Web is getting a bit too open.

"In a massive new research report, analysts at investment bank Citi take a close look at 10 technologies they say will disrupt the way we do business.  They've dipped into practically every sector you can think of: energy, entertainment, IT, manufacturing, and transportation among them. Some of these technologies have been with us for awhile, but are poised to get better or cheaper. Others have only recently surfaced, but will be ubiquitous in a matter of years. This is what they say the future is going to look like."  (Slide Deck of Disruptive Technologies with Titles listed below) .... 3-D Printing .... e-Cigarettes .... Genomics and Personalized Medicine .... Mobile Payments (idiots didn't include Dwolla - the most disruptive technology in this sector .... Energy Exploration Technology .... Oil to Gas Switching  (Compressed Natural Gas - CNG - for Vehicles) .... Streaming Entertainment .... The SaaS Opportunity - Software as a Service (Check out the Graph! Projected to be an $18 Billion market led by Google Apps, Microsoft 365 and Amazon Web Services (?) .... Software Defined Networking -SDN-  a projected $3.7 Billion market .... Solar Photovoltaics  -Semiconductor generated electrical current within solar panels  

And so there will be only three major web page rendering engines, webkit, mozilla's gecko, and MSIE. with only webkit in the ascendancy. 

Good video demonstration of Mailbox, the new iOS app that will be released in the future for Android and the desktop.  Excellent Productivity issue discussion, as the founder of Mailbox explains what they are trying to do.  An excellent video coupled with a great interview and explanation of mobile productivity.   excerpt: "He asked himself, "What are people trying to do with email? What are the goals?" He started with Apple's Mail app for iPhone, which people were already familiar with, and injected elements of to-do apps he liked, since increasingly people are using their inboxes as to-do lists. The point was to create an experience that was distinctly mobile - an app that would let you take meaningful action while you're in line at Starbucks. Mailbox needed to intelligently display emails so you can parse and deal with them as quickly as possible. Most email apps require two or three taps to archive an email - perhaps the most common action you take on emails while you're mobile - but Mailbox only requires one: a swipe to the side. "Our biggest a-ha moment was when we realized that the primary use case of email on the phone is triage," Underwood says. Mailbox takes the reality of people using their inboxes as to-do lists and and builds on what Mail and Sparrow did right (push notifications and nicely threaded messages, respectively). SNOOZING MESSAGES To conserve space, Mailbox turns email conversations into SMS-like bubbles, which lets you quickly fly through an entire email chain. Once you've read a message, it shrinks in size so skimming threads is a snap. "Email will feel more and more like chat, and we'll continue to iterate towards that," Underwood says. "EMAIL WILL FEEL MORE AND MORE LIKE CHAT, AND WE'LL CONTINUE TO ITERATE TOWARDS THAT." Mailbox introduces a few other gestures, such as a swipe to the left that lets you "snooze" a message to be reminded about later. You can choose between a few snooze options: Later Today, This Eveni

Another HTML5 Application Platform for Cloud Computing.  Provides secure data connections to existing business systems and workflows.  Not an Open Web Platform. summary: Mobile Helix is an enterprise application and data security platform provider focused on enabling unrestricted enterprise productivity. We are redefining endpoint computing by evolving and extending existing IT infrastructure and standards rather than reinventing them. At our core are three fundamental principles that are at the center of everything that we do: 1) we are application- and data-centric - we embrace the blurring lines between phones, tablets and laptops, permitting IT to relinquish control of the endpoint device entirely and embrace a bring-your-own-anything policy; 2) we provide unmatched yet unobtrusive security for sensitive corporate data by intelligently securing the data rather than the devices; and 3) simplicity is embedded into the DNA of our products, our designs and our communications. Our solution, Mobile Helix Link, is the industry's first pure HTML5 platform that combines unparalleled data security, a unique HTML5 application development and delivery platform, and breakthrough patent-pending performance enhancement technology.