Google To Host International SVG Conference

stelt writes "On Oct.2–4 Google will host the international conference on Scalable Vector Graphics at its campus in Mountain View, California. The SVG Open conference schedule shows developers and designers of various backgrounds. Major brands, open source projects, universities, and individuals are presenting on a variety of subjects like interactive scientific visualizations, mobile web animation art, internationalization and localization in print, geo-systems, etc. A couple of weeks back we discussed Google's adding SVG support to IE, and details of this project will be presented during the keynote 'SVG in Internet Explorer and at Google.'" Early-bird registration has already ended for this conference, but the pricing is not steep.

Comments

Re:Really, about time.

[derGoldstein]

You may want to look up previous postings on /. regarding SVG.

Here's a quick list:
1) The complete SVG standard is huge. While every modern browser "supports SVG", they really only support certain subsets, and these are not consistent between the different browsers.
2) You need development tools for designers in order for it to take off. Since Adobe bought Macromedia (and thus push Flash like crack), few companies have the manpower/skill to create a dynamic (animation-friendly) design/development environment targeted at web *designers*. You need SVG to be adopted by graphic designers, not just programmers.
3) Flash.
4) Flash.
5) Canvas is a much simpler and smaller standard, and it's much easier to implement. Browsers that integrate Canvas usually implement it in its entirety, and then they can place the "supports Canvas" sticker on their list of features. To do so with SVG would take too long and would require a lot more resources.

The path of least resistance is not SVG. It's a very promising standard, and programs like Inkscape have done wonders with it (and so has KDE), but in browser-land there are simpler solutions that are more widely supported.