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Gary Edwards

Growing pains afflict HTML5 standardization | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    The World Wide Web Consortium's return to HTML standardization after years of absence has produced tensions with the more informal Web Hypertext Application Working Group (WHATWG) that shouldered the HTML burden during that absence. Some examples of language that's cropped up this month on the W3C's HTML Working Group mailing list: "childish," "intolerable," "ridiculous," "shenanigans." And there's a concrete manifestation of the divisiveness: The WHATWG and W3C versions of the HTML5 specification, though both stemming from the same source material, have diverged in some areas. Some of the differences are relatively minor, and there are strong incentives to converge the two drafts of the HTML5 specification so that browser makers and Web developers aren't faced with the prospect of incompatibilities. In the meantime, though, the overseers of the Web are clashing during a time when their important new standard is just arriving in the spotlight.
Gary Edwards

Google urges Web adoption of vector graphics | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Interesting discussion about SVG, and the push Google is making with their SVG Conference. excerpt:  Vector graphics describe imagery mathematically with lines, curves, shapes, and color values rather than the grid of colored pixels used by bitmapped file formats such as JPEG or GIF widely used on the Web today. Where appropriate, such as with corporate logos but not photographs, vector graphics bring smaller file sizes and better resizing flexibility. That's good for faster downloads and use on varying screen sizes.
Gary Edwards

Father of CSS plans for Web publishing future | Deep Tech - CNET News - 1 views

  • "You paint a layout with ASCII art," a sort of visual design made out of text directly in the CSS code, Lie said, "then fill content into that. It's an experimental specification, but one I think has that compactness and terseness and minimalism that's part of CSS but still allows you to do quite advanced layouts."
    • Gary Edwards
       
      What???  Why not use SVG!
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    After years of relative obscurity, the Web formatting standard called CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets has come into its own, taking a starring role as the mechanism for building a new generation of interactive, elaborate Web pages. CSS is growing in new directions now, and the technology's original creator believes its next direction for improvement will be dealing with more complicated Web page layout chores. "There is important work left to be done for layout," Håkon Wium Lie, who is also Opera's chief technology officer, said in an interview here. The new CSS3 under development now can handle multi-column text arrangements, "but you couldn't replicate a printed newspaper in CSS."
Gary Edwards

Eucalyptus open-sources the cloud (Q&A) | The Open Road - CNET News - 0 views

  • The ideal customer is one with an IT organization that is tasked with supporting a heterogeneous set of user groups (each with its own technology needs, business logic, policies, etc.) using infrastructure that it must maintain across different phases of the technology lifecycle. There are two prevalent usage models that we observe regularly. The first is as a development and testing platform for applications that, ultimately, will be deployed in a public cloud. It is often easier, faster, and cheaper to use locally sited resources to develop and debug an application (particularly one that is designed to operate at scale) prior to its operational deployment in an externally hosted environment. The virtualization of machines makes cross-platform configuration easier to achieve and Eucalyptus' API compatibility makes the transition between on-premise resources and the public clouds simple. The second model is as an operational hybrid. It is possible to run the same image simultaneously both on-premise using Eucalyptus and in a public cloud thereby providing a way to augment local resources with those rented from a provider without modification to the application. For whom is this relevant technology today? Who are your customers? Wolski: We are seeing tremendous interest in several verticals. Banking/finance, big pharma, manufacturing, gaming, and the service provider market have been the early adopters to deploy and experiment with the Eucalyptus technology.
  • Eucalyptus is designed to be able to compose multiple technology platforms into a single "universal" cloud platform that exposes a common API, but that can at the same time support separate APIs for the individual technologies. Moreover, it is possible to export some of the specific and unique features of each technology through the common API as "quality-of-service" attributes.
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    Eucalyptus, an open-source platform that implements "infrastructure as a service" (IaaS) style cloud computing, aims to take open source front and center in the cloud-computing craze. The project, founded by academics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is now a Benchmark-funded company with an ambitious goal: become the universal cloud platform that everyone from Amazon to Microsoft to Red Hat to VMware ties into. [Eucalyptus] is architected to be compatible with such a wide variety of commonly installed data center technologies, [and hence] provides an easy and low-risk way of building private (i.e. on-premise or internal) clouds...Thus data center operators choosing Eucalyptus are assured of compatibility with the emerging application development and operational cloud ecosystem while attaining the security and IT investment amortization levels they desire without the "fear" of being locked into a single public cloud platform.
Gary Edwards

Why Google Android is winning | The Open Road - CNET News - 0 views

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    Nice article from Matt Asay, who is now the COO at Canonical, the company behind Linux Ubuntu and Google's Chrome OS. excerpt:  As ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn remarks, "Just as the Internet takes friction out of the distribution and development process, open source for Google removes friction from the business process." In Android land, this means making it easy for device manufacturers and wireless telecoms to evaluate, develop on, and ship Android-based devices. And ship them they are, to the tune of 60,000 Android devices per day. As Wired noted after the recent Mobile World Congress: This year at the Mobile World Congress is the year of Android. Google's operating system debuted here two years ago....This year, Android is everywhere, on handsets from HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and even Garmin-Asus. If this were the world of computers, Android would be in a similar position to Windows: Pretty much every manufacturer puts it on its machines. There is one key distinction, though: Android is open source. It makes all the difference.
Gary Edwards

More details on Microsoft's free Office: Crippled Business Processes | Beyond Binary - CNET News - 0 views

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    Microsoft's free "Office Starter" suite will be able to fully open and display complex OOXML - 2010 MSOffice documents.  But they will not be able to execute macros or edit embedded logic such as Scripts, Macros, OLE, and ODBC connectors.  That's a killer for workgroup-workflow oriented business documents.  A category of "compound documents that includes forms, reports, compound documents and workflow logic. As for what users can do with the applications, Capossela said that Word will be capable of opening and displaying even the most complex documents. However, Office Starter users won't be able to use macros, create automated tables of contents, or add comments, though they will see comments added by others. The approach with Excel is similar, with users able to view and edit documents, but not create their own pivot tables and pivot charts, for example.
Gary Edwards

Key Google Docs changes promise faster service | Relevant Results - CNET News - 0 views

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    Jonathan Rochelle and Dave Girouard: Google's long-term vision of computing is based around the notion that the Web and the browser become the primary vehicles for applications, and Google Docs is an important part of realizing that vision. The main improvement was to create a common infrastructure across the Google Docs products, all of which came into Google from separate acquisitions, Rochelle said. This has paved the way for Google to offer users a chance to do character-by-character real-time editing of a document or spreadsheet, almost the same way Google Wave lets collaborators see each other's keystrokes in a Wave. Those changes have also allowed Google to take more control of the way documents are rendered and formatted in Google Docs, instead of passing the buck to the browser to make those decisions. This allows Google to ensure that documents will look the same on the desktop or in the cloud, an important consideration for designing marketing materials or reviewing architectural blueprints, for example.
Gary Edwards

Google coding tool advances cloud computing | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Google has released a programming tool to help move its Native Client project--and more broadly, its cloud-computing ambitions--from abstract idea to practical reality. The new Native Client software developer kit, though only a developer preview version, is designed to make it easier for programmers to use the Net giant's browser-boosting Native Client technology. "The Native Client SDK preview...includes just the basics you need to get started writing an app in minutes," Google programmer David Springer said Wednesday in a blog post announcing the SDK, a week before the developer-oriented Google I/O conference. "We'll be updating the SDK rapidly in the next few months."
Gary Edwards

Adobe proposes standard for magazine-like Web | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Adobe Systems has proposed a standard that could make it easier to create Web pages with fancy layouts seen more often in magazines. The company proposed a technology it calls CSS Regions (PDF) yesterday to the World Wide Web Consortium, which standardizes the Cascading Style Sheets technology widely used to control formatting on Web pages. Adobe also described the technology at a CSS Working Group meeting in Silicon Valley. "This proposal is intended to support sophisticated, magazine-style layouts using CSS," said Arno Gourdol, director of engineering for runtime foundation at Adobe, in a mailing list posting.
Gary Edwards

Adobe's Web Typography design work lands in WebKit browser | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Adobe has contributed the first "CSS Regions" patch to the OS WebKit project.  CSS Regions is at the core of Adobe's flowing Web Typography work, and has been submitted to the W3C CSS standardization effort.   No mention yet as to what kind of CSS3-HTML5 authoring and publication tools Adobe has in the works, but the inclusion in WebKit will no doubt shake things up in the world of visually-immersive packaging (FlipBoard, OnSwipe, TreeSaver, Needle, etc.) excerpt:Today, the first bit of Adobe-written code landed in the WebKit browser engine project, an early step to try to bring magazine-style layouts to Web pages using an extension to today's CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology. Adobe calls the technology CSS Regions. The move begins fulfilling a plan Adobe announced in May to build the technology into WebKit and--if the company can persuade others to embrace it--furthers Adobe's ambition to standardize the advanced CSS layout mechanism. WebKit
Paul Merrell

Chrome extension enables remote computer control | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

  • Months of work on "chromoting" have reached fruition with Google's release on Friday of a new Chrome extension to let a person on one computer remotely control another across the network. The Chrome Remote Desktop beta version, which arrived Friday, is a browser-based equivalent of remote desktop software for conventional operating systems. Such software is handy for IT administrators managing employees' machines, people taking care of their relatives' computers, or individuals getting access to their own machines from afar.
Paul Merrell

Tech advice from Tim Berners-Lee | Rafe's Radar - CNET News - 0 views

  • "I'm worried about anything large coming in to take control, whether it's large companies or government."
Paul Merrell

Working to Fulfill our Legal Obligations in Europe for Windows 7 - Microsoft On The Issues - 0 views

  • Earlier today CNET reported that Microsoft had sent a memo to computer manufacturers and retailers about our plans for Windows 7 in Europe.  We’re getting quite a few calls on this, so we thought it would be helpful to explain our plans.
  • In January the European Commission provided its preliminary view that Microsoft’s “bundling” of Internet Explorer in Windows violated European competition law.
  • Windows 7 will be offered in Europe in all of the versions that will be available here in the United States, both 32- and 64-bit, with an “E” at the end of the product name (for instance, Windows 7 Home Premium E).  The E versions of Windows 7 will ship at the same time as Windows 7 ships in the rest of the world, and they will be available in 23 European languages. What does this mean for European consumers?  The E versions of Windows 7 will include all the features and functionality of Windows 7 in the rest of the world, other than browsing with Internet Explorer.  Computer manufacturers will be able to add any browser they want to their Windows 7 machines, including Internet Explorer, so European consumers who purchase new PCs will be able to access the Internet without any problem.  Consumers will also be able to add any Web browser to their PCs, to supplement or replace the browsers preinstalled by their computer manufacturer.  Most importantly, the E versions of Windows 7 will continue to provide all of the underlying platform functionality of the operating system—applications designed for Windows will run just as well on an E version as on other versions of Windows 7. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Our decision to only offer IE separately from Windows 7 in Europe cannot, of course, preclude the possibility of alternative approaches emerging through Commission processes.  Other alternatives have been raised in the Commission proceedings, including possible inclusion in Windows 7 of alternative browsers or a “ballot screen” that would prompt users to choose from a specific set of Web browsers.  Important details of these approaches would need to be worked out in coordination with the Commission, since they would have a significant impact on computer manufacturers and Web browser vendors, whose interests may differ.   Given the complexity and competing interests, we don’t believe it would be best for us to adopt such an approach unilaterally. 
  • In January 2009 the Commission sent Microsoft a “Statement of Objections.” In it the Commission advised Microsoft of its preliminary view that the inclusion of Web browsing software in Windows violates European competition law. The Commission said in this document that it intends to impose a fine for this. The Commission also said that, with hindsight, the remedy adopted in its 2004 decision was not effective because there was very limited consumer demand for the versions of Windows without media player. We were, of course, disappointed to learn that the approach we took in September 2008 would not adequately address the Commission’s concerns. Microsoft filed its response to the Commission’s Statement of Objections in April. We believe we made a strong showing that including Internet Explorer in Windows is lawful so that no remedy is needed. We hope that the Commission will ultimately agree with us. In the meantime, we have to move forward with final planning for the release of Windows 7, so we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately. As noted, we will continue to discuss browser issues and other matters with the Commission.
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    Note the emphasis that this is a unilateral move by Microsoft and a different remedy may still be forthcoming from DG Competition. In particular, not only the remedy as to bundling may be different, but other related issues remain, such as Opera's complaint that Microsoft had been undermining Open Web standards with inadequate support.
Gary Edwards

Are the feds the first to a common cloud definition? | The Wisdom of Clouds - CNET News - 0 views

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    Cisco's James Urquhart discusses the NIST definition of Cloud Computing. The National Institute of Technology and Standards is a non regulatory branch of the Commerce Department and is responsible for much of the USA's official participation in World Standards organizations. This is an important discussion, but i'm a bit disappointed by the loose use of the term "network". I guess they mean the Internet? No mention of RESTfull computing or Open Web Standards either. Some interesting clips: ...(The NIST's) definition of cloud computing will be the de facto standard definition that the entire US government will be given...In creating this definition, NIST consulted extensively with the private sector including a wide range of vendors, consultants and industry pundants including your truly. Below is the draft NIST working definition of Cloud Computing. I should note, this definition is a work in progress and therefore is open to public ratification & comment. The initial feedback was very positive from the federal CIO's who were presented it yesterday in DC. Baring any last minute lobbying I doubt we'll see many more major revisions. ....... Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is comprised of five key characteristics, three delivery models, and four deployment models.
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    Gary, NIST really is not "responsible for much of the USA's official participation in World Standards organizations." Lots of legal analysis omitted, but the bottom line is that NIST would have had to be delegated that responsibility by the President, but never was. However, that did not stop NIST from signing over virtually all responsibility for U.S. participation in international standard development to the private ANSI, without so much as a public notice and comment rulemaking process. See section 3 at http://ts.nist.gov/Standards/Conformity/ansimou.cfm. Absolutely illegal, including at least two bright-line violations of the U.S. Constitution. But the Feds have unmistakably abdicated their legal responsibilities in regard to international standards to the private sector.
Paul Merrell

Google building Skype-alike software into Chrome | Deep Tech - CNET News - 0 views

  • Shortly after releasing software for audio and video chat as an open-source project called WebRTC as open-source software, Google is beginning to build it into its Chrome browser. The real-time chat software originated from Google's 2010 acquisition of Global IP Solutions (GIPS), a company specializing in Internet telephony and videoconferencing.
  • If Google and allies succeed in establishing the technology and building support into multiple browsers, that would mean anybody building a Web site or Web application could draw upon the communications technology. In other words, anyone could build a rival to services, such as Skype, with just a Web application.
Gary Edwards

Google building Skype-alike software into Chrome | Deep Tech - CNET News - 1 views

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    So, this is why Google let Microsoft buy Skype!  Open Source WebRTC. excerpt: Shortly after releasing software for audio and video chat as an open-source project called WebRTC as open-source software, Google is beginning to build it into its Chrome browser. The real-time chat software originated from Google's 2010 acquisition of Global IP Solutions (GIPS), a company specializing in Internet telephony and videoconferencing. The obvious beneficiary for the project is Gmail, whose audio and video communications ability today requires use of a proprietary plug-in. Gmail chat is getting more important as Google's VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) efforts mature and integrate with the Google Voice service.
Paul Merrell

Securus, that phone tracking company, has reportedly been hacked - CNET - 0 views

  • That didn't take long. Securus -- you know, that company that lets cops track phones in real time with what amounts to a "pinky promise," according to US Sen. Ron Wyden -- has reportedly been hacked.The hacker, according to Motherboard, was able to get away with, at a minimum, a spreadsheet containing 2,800 logins and poorly encrypted passwords, some of which had already been cracked. Motherboard says it tested a number of logins to corroborate the hacker's story.Securus on Friday confirmed in a statement that "a subset of certain non-consumer administrative user account information (e.g., usernames, email addresses, and phone numbers) had been unlawfully accessed" and said it's launched an investigation into the breach. It's found no evidence that the breach is related to its location-based services, but it's disabled location-based data in the meantime "in an abundance of caution."Last Thursday, The New York Times revealed that Securus Technologies, which monitors calls to US prison inmates, has been used by a former Missouri sheriff to monitor people's phones and track their location. Wyden has called on federal authorities to investigate the company and its practices as they relate to people's privacy.
Paul Merrell

Rural America and the 5G Digital Divide. Telecoms Expanding Their "Toxic Infrastructure" - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization - 0 views

  • While there is considerable telecom hubris regarding the 5G rollout and increasing speculation that the next generation of wireless is not yet ready for Prime Time, the industry continues to make promises to Rural America that it has no intention of fulfilling. Decades-long promises to deliver digital Utopia to rural America by T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T have never materialized.  
  • In 2017, the USDA reported that 29% of American farms had no internet access. The FCC says that 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans living on tribal lands do not have 4G LTE on their phones, and that 30 million rural residents do not have broadband service compared to 2% of urban residents.  It’s beginning to sound like a Third World country. Despite an FCC $4.5 billion annual subsidy to carriers to provide broadband service in rural areas, the FCC reports that ‘over 24 million Americans do not have access to high-speed internet service, the bulk of them in rural area”while a  Microsoft Study found that  “162 million people across the US do not have internet service at broadband speeds.” At the same time, only three cable companies have access to 70% of the market in a sweetheart deal to hike rates as they avoid competition and the FCC looks the other way.  The FCC believes that it would cost $40 billion to bring broadband access to 98% of the country with expansion in rural America even more expensive.  While the FCC has pledged a $2 billion, ten year plan to identify rural wireless locations, only 4 million rural American businesses and homes will be targeted, a mere drop in the bucket. Which brings us to rural mapping: Since the advent of the digital age, there have been no accurate maps identifying where broadband service is available in rural America and where it is not available.  The FCC has a long history of promulgating unreliable and unverified carrier-provided numbers as the Commission has repeatedly ‘bungled efforts to produce accurate broadband maps” that would have facilitated rural coverage. During the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on April 10th regarding broadband mapping, critical testimony questioned whether the FCC and/or the telecom industry have either the commitment or the proficiency to provide 5G to rural America.  Members of the Committee shared concerns that 5G might put rural America further behind the curve so as to never catch up with the rest of the country
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