DigitalOutbox Episode 47
In this episode the team discuss Facebook, iPad and HTML5.
Playback
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Shownotes
3:31 – Facebook Privacy Mess
– In an attempt to reduce concerns about user privacy, Facebook has inadvertently opened a security hole that let 3rd parties view your friend requests and your private messages sent through the chat system.
– In trying to do the right thing… they still get it wrong!
– And they believe ignorance is bliss for their users
– Ethan Beard, director of Facebook’s developer network – Facebook Blames Riot Over Privacy On Media, Says Users “Love” The Changes
– “the reason that people use Facebook is to share information with their friends and to connect with things that are important to them.”
– My biggest issue is that there is no way to extract your information from facebook and the speed of privacy changes has happened too fast for people to keep up to date.
– There has been a change of stance to a default of locked down, to an assumption of openness.
– If something is made public by a policy change, you do not have the any option to completely remove previous content. Event “De-activating” content does not remove it. Facebook have also made changes so that whereas content was time-limited in the past, they now have the option to keep all content for as long as they want, regardless of whether you want to de-activate or not.
– Evolution of privacy on Facebook – http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/
10:09 – Microsoft Cancels Courier
– At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The “Courier” project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.
– Gutted.
11:55 – HP Kills Slate
– Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.
– HP may also be abandoning Intel-based hardware for its slate lineup simply because it’s too power hungry. That would also rule out Windows 7 as an operating system.
– Wow
– Surely not – only site to report this and HP Slate was shown to investors after Palm acquisition
– iPad and Android the only real options?
– Chrome OS
– Other Linux mashups designed for different form factors.
– Can Linux react quick enough to offer a controlled tablet/touch focused interface?
15:16 – UK iPad Priced
– pre-order May 10
– release May 28
– £429/£499/£599 for WiFi
– £529/£599/£699 for 3G.
– Orange pricing
– http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/32979/orange-reveals-ipad-3g-rates
– Pay as you go, daily, weekly and monthly. With the PAYG option, each MB will cost 5p, up to a maximum of £40 in a month (so 800MB in total). This will appeal to users who will only use their iPad for emails or a bit of light surfing when out and about.
– Next up is the daily option at £2 for up to 200MB worth of data for you to use before midnight, this can be bought on an ad-hoc basis. The weekly option takes this limited data plan a bit further – £7.50 for 1GB’s worth of 3G data. It might be an idea to try out these plans before deciding whether you need to opt for the final option – the monthly plans.
– Orange has put two packages in place – Monthly 15 and Monthly 25, naturally costing £15 and £25 per month respectively. The major difference between them is either a 3GB limit or a 10GB limit, but both also grant access to 750MB Wi-Fi when away from home via BT’s Openzone
– Importantly, the iBook store will also be there for the May 28th launch
23:41 – Google Flurry
– Google Editions book
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10098111.stm
– Google book store
– Not tied to single device
– To date Google has scanned over 12 million books, both in-print and out-of-print, giving it a greater selection of material than either Apple or Amazon.
– Works on any web enabled device
– books will be purchased directly from Google and also from retailers who will keep the majority of the money earned.
– Out in the summer
– Google buys BumpTop
– http://gigaom.com/2010/05/02/google-buys-bumptop-3-d-multi-touch-tablet-interface-on-the-way/
– For Android tablet?
– I tried it and didn’t like it as an interface
– However…for a touch driven device…maybe
– Looks nice. Some nice interface ideas. But surely power hungry for a tablet/touch device? Reminds me of Microsoft Surface.
– Google brings back Gmail to the UK
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10096107.stm
– Bye bye Googlemail.co.uk, hello gmail.co.uk. Long dispute finally resolved with uk owner of gmail.co.uk. Originally wanted £27 million from Google but no details of how much Google finally coughed up.
– Google Search changed
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-metamorphosis-googles-new-look.html
– Streamlined
– Flattened logo
– Left hand side navigation – mostly hidden
– Also applies to mobile site
– Chrome Update
– http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/05/pedal-to-chrome-metal-our-fastest-beta.html
– Another speed jump
– Not only bookmakr sync, preference sync as well
– HTML5 features – geolocation, file drag and drop
– First beta to have Flash baked in and updated via auto-update mechanism
– To finish off, IE falls before 60% market share
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/internet_explorer_market_share_decline/
– 15 months to drop 10%
34:19 – Microsoft Stands with Apple on H264
– Microsoft said Thursday that Internet Explorer 9 will support the variety of Web video Apple built into Safari but not the one embraced by Firefox and Opera.
– “In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only,” Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post.
– His reasons for the support: the format is widely used in the computing industry, from video cameras to Google’s YouTube, it benefits from hardware decoding support that improves performance, and there are questions about the rights to use H.264’s chief rival today, Ogg Theora.
– Google’s Chrome supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora.
– The lack of one format being used across all formats undermines the move from Flash, costs website hosts and devs more cash
– But H.264 patent encumbered and is licensed by the MPEG-LA, with Apple and Microsoft members with patents in the patent pool so it’s in their financial interest to promote H.264. Licences don’t transfer downstream which may be a real problem for consumers in future.
40:36 – Scribd scrapping Flash moving to HTML5
– Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.”
– Documents will simply become very long Web pages. A new bookmark feature will help you keep your place in especially long documents. Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly.
– Instead of downloading a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser. Pinch and zoom to make the text bigger. No download necessary. The books and other documents are stored on the Web. They can be shared via Facebook and Twitter, or sent to a mobile phone.
– Documents and video moving away from plugin, especially Flash, dependancy
– Flash won’t die – just be less widely used, focussing more on interface, games, interactivity which it should do
– http://www.scribd.com/documents/30964170/Scribd-in-HTML5 – test page
43:10 – Dropbox API
– Android app
– Native iPad app
– Mobile API – Dropbox Anywhere – Desktop API later this year
– Dev’s could integrate DropBox into their app’s via API – very exciting for mobile dev’s
– Why didn’t Apple include this – every iPhone/iPad owner gets 2GB of web space?
46:06 – Skype 5 Way Video Calling
– Within next week
– Windows first, Mac later this year
– Free for first three to four months, they paid for
– Great for our podcast 🙂
Picks
Ian
Halo Reach
– Fantastic update
– Single player and co-op is good
– Multiplayer is quite awesome
Henry
Cupidtino
– Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products!
– Find the apple fanboy/girl of your dreams.
Chris
Movie Peg
– £5 a lot for a bit of plastic for sure… still.
– Like the idea.