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HTML5: It's Already Everywhere, Even In Mobile
electronic convict writes: Tom Dale has never been shy, and in a Q&A with Matt Asay on ReadWrite, the EmberJS co-founder and JavaScript evangelist makes the outspoken claim that open Web technologies are already everywhere, even in native mobile apps, and that it's only a matter of time before they catch up to "all the capabilities of a native, proprietary platform." Take that, Web-is-dead doomsayers.
Dale has plenty more to say, calling Google an "adolescent behemoth" that's belatedly embracing open-Web technologies in mobile, lauding Apple's Nitro JS engine and belittling the idea that Web apps have to look and feel the same as native apps for the open Web to triumph. His bottom line: "[I]t's not hard to see that the future of the Web on mobile is a happy one."
Dale has plenty more to say, calling Google an "adolescent behemoth" that's belatedly embracing open-Web technologies in mobile, lauding Apple's Nitro JS engine and belittling the idea that Web apps have to look and feel the same as native apps for the open Web to triumph. His bottom line: "[I]t's not hard to see that the future of the Web on mobile is a happy one."
It's basically just a bunch of new features that are wrapped up into a bundle with the label "version 5" slapped on it. It's usually accompanied by CSS3, which adds new features for styling stuff.
There are two reasons people like HTML5, in my experience. Firstly, the canvas element lets you do arbitrary drawing with javascript, opening up a large range of applications for pure-HTML that used to rely on stuff like Flash or Applets (most notably games). Secondly, HTML5 does a lot of stuff natively, that used to have to be added (somewhat hackishly) by javascript and UI libraries - form validation, colour pickers, date selectors. When you add CSS3 into the mix, you can make quite rich UIs with very little (if any) use of javascript.
Basically, HTML5 will let us retire a whole bunch of crufty old legacy hacks from the bad days (Javascript everywhere, Flash, Applets, etc)
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I don't know about modems - they do have their uses (getting around internet censorship - interestingly because things like FidoNet generally are uncensored because they take place through phone calls). Short hauls are more likely point to point WiFi or Ethernet.
Tubes still have a purpose - high power amplification and switching where even modern semiconductors perform poorly. If you're a radio station with even moderate power, your finals are most likely going to be a tube because high power semiconductors are not only extremely expensive, perform worse, and you'll need a lot more of them, they don't last as long and have troublesome requirements.
AM radio also has its uses - besides being extremely easy to demodulate without a power source, AM transmissions have characteristics that are superior to FM, which is why aircraft use AM to communicate. FM communications suffer from the "capture" effect, where the strongest signal is the one demodulated by the receiver - weaker signals simply disappear. AM signals though, if you step on someone else, the receiver knows it (the receiver squeals). It's not all useless - if you have a powerful transmitter, you can still "break through" the noise to be understood (ATC towers generally transmit on the order of hundreds of watts, while an aircraft is on the order of tens of watts). However, the ability to detect a collision is extremely important and that's inherent in the AM system. FM systems don't have collision detection mechanisms and can lead to dangerous situations if someone steps in at the wrong time.