The problem I have with the article is that it is pretty easy to get misled by what's being said, probably because the author wrote the article more to generate a reaction, than to outline what is actually wrong with the mobile web.
The first mistake that the author makes is to suggest that the mobile web is somehow a 'scaling out' of the desktop web. It isn't. A mobile phone has a particular set of properties which make it significantly different to a desktop browser web experience. It's not just a smaller screen that's attempting to present exactly the same web application as the desktop but in miniature. May people fail to make this distinction, and their web sites/mobile apps reflect that failure.
If you think this, then you fall into the trap of not recognising the mobile as a unique type of device. For one thing users don't want to spend extended periods browsing on a mobile device, supported technologies are not likely to support 'desktop' level performance, mainly because of the trade-off between battery life and performance. With the current range of mobile devices, the network connections aren't reliable, unless you're fortunate enough to always have a wifi connection. There will always be memory and performance constraints with mobiles, at least for the foreseeable future verse the desktop, thats just the nature of the beast.
If you know anything about web browser evolution, you'll know that even when just two browsers had most of the market share, serious compatibility issues were everywhere, built for IE, built for Firefox, best experienced in Opera. These days its not as bad for desktop browsers, but it'll take a while for mobile browsers to get compatible with other mobile browsers, let alone desktop browsers as well.
Can existing web technologies handle it,... probably if you're a CSS black belt, anything else apart from plain html and your really gonna struggle.
So, back to the original 'sad state of the mobile web' bit. Does it matter that much at the moment? Probably not. The main options you have are use your desktop browser if a task takes more than a few minutes to complete, or 'there's an app for that' - you just have to find it.
Strange as it may seem, mobile phones aren't just about mobile web. They're about the convergence of a number of technologies, internet connectivity, phone, sms, music, camera, video, GPS/location, touch and interaction on the move. There's whole new vistas of opportunity for creating new experiences, tools, and services because of what you can now carry around with you in your pocket.
Sure, you can spend your time worrying about how you're gonna squeeze Amazon.com into the latest version of webkit for the Nokia, or you can spend your time creating solutions you could only have dreamed of a few years back. The mobile web may indeed be sad, but some of us are not that bothered.
If "suspicion" is the issue here, then what this proposed law introduces is effectively a ban on anything that you do on the net that your isp cant account for. Because if you isp doesn't know what you're doing then you're under suspicion.
So moving large amounts of data around using encryption, or an anonymizing service effectively becomes illegal because in the context of this law its suspicious activity. Unless of course you prove that what you were transfering wasn't illegal music/films etc, which of course undermines the reason why you used encryption or an anonymizing service in the first place.
Hmmm, I'm sure that when they pass this law, they'll be able to use it for all sorts of 'added value' situations. If they were really smart, what they would do is merge the proposed provisions with the UK Regulatory Investgatory Powers Act (RIP) 2000 which made it law to imprison people in the UK if they encrypted data and wouldn't/couldn't produce the key when asked by government agents - IIRC the default imprisonment was 2 years.
I guess in these dangerous times with the War on Terror n'all its better to clamp down on all these potential terrorist file shares, and make these measures law... after all if you do nothing wrong, you've nothing to worry about.
The really sad thing is that its kind of obvious where all this is going...little step by little step. The standard course of action is to contact your Member of Parliment (MP) whose first obstacle is to understand anything about the nature of the issue. The second problem the MP has is managing to get excited about opposing the intoduction of a measure which gives the government and by association the MP more power. But then I guess thats the nature of democracy and why the rest of the world really needs our type of freedom.
Basically you're wrong. Look at the implementations..Net has one from Microsoft, Java has many. Look at the various tools and technologies available, all.Net technologies are closed and owned by Microsoft, various companies build competing Java/J2EE infrastructures and many are open source and part of the Apache project itself - I know I use them.
Regarding.NET and Apache, the only reason its happening is for Microsoft's benefit, period.
Anyone for Microsoft DRM infrastructure powered by Apache!
I recently bought a mindstorms set along with the core mindstorms book. I've found it all great, but the standard Lego software only works with Win98/ME. Under Linux the problem is that the Robot Invention kit 2.0 only has a USB infrared tower to download programs to your lego brick - v1.5 and 1.0 had serial towers where were easy to access from Linux.
The setup I've got currently is Linux with VMWare 3.1 Running Win98 - that way I can get transfer programs using the USB support from the Win98 and USB support from VMware 3.1.
Its not a great setup but it means I only have to run one program, the lejos transfer program in my Win98 sandbox. (I couldn't get the main lego program to run under VMWare/Win98 - when it attempted to access the usb I just got segmentation violations and vmware disappeared!)
There is a project at sourceforge - legousb.sourceforge.net to add the usb support for the lego tower to linux but its not very advanced.
Overall if you know java, then programming mindstorms using lejos is a breeze. The book for me has been an excellent guide to both java/mindstorm programming, and the types of extra equipment such as sensors that make everything more enjoyable. There are even projects in the book to build distance sensors using the Sharp GP2D12 sensor and a compass sensor.
The book also touchs on Behavior Control Theory and Navigation theory, and shows how the lejos java API provides you with classes that implement these concepts.
If you know java and want to use mindstorms, then this book is a must.
Microsoft came out with.Net is because Sun invented java and java became popular for building a variety of small and large scale platform independent systems and was particularly good at internet related services. Microsoft needed a response.
If.Net catches on in a cross-platform way, then Microsoft will be free to cut off the air supply of any non-windows ports when it feels like by changing the way the latest Microsoft implementations work - same as its always done.
Look at examples of Microsoft's previous half hearted attempts at making its technology cross-platform - http://www.activex.org. Sure its different this time, Microsoft is betting the farm on.Net - just like they did with Windows 98 ME,2000,XP etc etc.
Sure there are a few nice features in.Net, but the basic ideas come from Java - anyone remember a few years back when Billg had to dampen down enthusiasm for Java within Microsoft 'cos they wanted to use it throughout their core infrastructure because it was cool - well that enthusiasm has simply transformed into the.Net platform and architecture.
Its the same old story - technology invented elsewhere gets re-badged by Microsoft and sold as Microsoft innovation.
... is that Sklyarov was arrested because his program infringed DMCA. But surely the vendor of the compiler he used to build the program which committed the infringement also violated DMCA by allowing Sklyarov to circumvent the Adobe copy protection.
Given an MS Windows platform, presumably the co-conspirator compiler vendor must be Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem I have with the article is that it is pretty easy to get misled by what's being said, probably because the author wrote the article more to generate a reaction, than to outline what is actually wrong with the mobile web.
The first mistake that the author makes is to suggest that the mobile web is somehow a 'scaling out' of the desktop web. It isn't. A mobile phone has a particular set of properties which make it significantly different to a desktop browser web experience. It's not just a smaller screen that's attempting to present exactly the same web application as the desktop but in miniature. May people fail to make this distinction, and their web sites/mobile apps reflect that failure.
If you think this, then you fall into the trap of not recognising the mobile as a unique type of device. For one thing users don't want to spend extended periods browsing on a mobile device, supported technologies are not likely to support 'desktop' level performance, mainly because of the trade-off between battery life and performance. With the current range of mobile devices, the network connections aren't reliable, unless you're fortunate enough to always have a wifi connection. There will always be memory and performance constraints with mobiles, at least for the foreseeable future verse the desktop, thats just the nature of the beast.
If you know anything about web browser evolution, you'll know that even when just two browsers had most of the market share, serious compatibility issues were everywhere, built for IE, built for Firefox, best experienced in Opera. These days its not as bad for desktop browsers, but it'll take a while for mobile browsers to get compatible with other mobile browsers, let alone desktop browsers as well.
Can existing web technologies handle it, ... probably if you're a CSS black belt, anything else apart from plain html and your really gonna struggle.
So, back to the original 'sad state of the mobile web' bit. Does it matter that much at the moment? Probably not. The main options you have are use your desktop browser if a task takes more than a few minutes to complete, or 'there's an app for that' - you just have to find it.
Strange as it may seem, mobile phones aren't just about mobile web. They're about the convergence of a number of technologies, internet connectivity, phone, sms, music, camera, video, GPS/location, touch and interaction on the move. There's whole new vistas of opportunity for creating new experiences, tools, and services because of what you can now carry around with you in your pocket.
Sure, you can spend your time worrying about how you're gonna squeeze Amazon.com into the latest version of webkit for the Nokia, or you can spend your time creating solutions you could only have dreamed of a few years back. The mobile web may indeed be sad, but some of us are not that bothered.
If "suspicion" is the issue here, then what this proposed law introduces is effectively a ban on anything that you do on the net that your isp cant account for. Because if you isp doesn't know what you're doing then you're under suspicion.
...little step by little step. The standard course of action is to contact your Member of Parliment (MP) whose first obstacle is to understand anything about the nature of the issue. The second problem the MP has is managing to get excited about opposing the intoduction of a measure which gives the government and by association the MP more power. But then I guess thats the nature of democracy and why the rest of the world really needs our type of freedom.
So moving large amounts of data around using encryption, or an anonymizing service effectively becomes illegal because in the context of this law its suspicious activity. Unless of course you prove that what you were transfering wasn't illegal music/films etc, which of course undermines the reason why you used encryption or an anonymizing service in the first place.
Hmmm, I'm sure that when they pass this law, they'll be able to use it for all sorts of 'added value' situations. If they were really smart, what they would do is merge the proposed provisions with the UK Regulatory Investgatory Powers Act (RIP) 2000 which made it law to imprison people in the UK if they encrypted data and wouldn't/couldn't produce the key when asked by government agents - IIRC the default imprisonment was 2 years.
I guess in these dangerous times with the War on Terror n'all its better to clamp down on all these potential terrorist file shares, and make these measures law... after all if you do nothing wrong, you've nothing to worry about.
The really sad thing is that its kind of obvious where all this is going
Basically you're wrong. Look at the implementations. .Net has one from Microsoft, Java has many. Look at the various tools and technologies available, all .Net technologies are closed and owned by Microsoft, various companies build competing Java/J2EE infrastructures and many are open source and part of the Apache project itself - I know I use them.
.NET and Apache, the only reason its happening is for Microsoft's benefit, period.
Regarding
Anyone for Microsoft DRM infrastructure powered by Apache!
I recently bought a mindstorms set along with the core mindstorms book. I've found it all great, but the standard Lego software only works with Win98/ME.
Under Linux the problem is that the Robot Invention kit 2.0 only has a USB infrared tower to download programs to your lego brick - v1.5 and 1.0 had serial towers where were easy to access from Linux.
The setup I've got currently is Linux with VMWare 3.1 Running Win98 - that way I can get transfer programs using the USB support from the Win98 and USB support from VMware 3.1.
Its not a great setup but it means I only have to run one program, the lejos transfer program in my Win98 sandbox. (I couldn't get the main lego program to run under VMWare/Win98 - when it attempted to access the usb I just got segmentation violations and vmware disappeared!)
There is a project at sourceforge - legousb.sourceforge.net to add the usb support for the lego tower to linux but its not very advanced.
Overall if you know java, then programming mindstorms using lejos is a breeze. The book for me has been an excellent guide to both java/mindstorm programming, and the types of extra equipment such as sensors that make everything more enjoyable. There are even projects in the book to build distance sensors using the Sharp GP2D12 sensor and a compass sensor.
The book also touchs on Behavior Control Theory and Navigation theory, and shows how the lejos java API provides you with classes that implement these concepts.
If you know java and want to use mindstorms, then this book is a must.
Microsoft came out with .Net is because Sun invented java and java became popular for building a variety of small and large scale platform independent systems and was particularly good at internet related services. Microsoft needed a response.
.Net catches on in a cross-platform way, then Microsoft will be free to cut off the air supply of any non-windows ports when it feels like by changing the way the latest Microsoft implementations work - same as its always done.
.Net - just like they did with Windows 98 ME,2000,XP etc etc.
.Net, but the basic ideas come from Java - anyone remember a few years back when Billg had to dampen down enthusiasm for Java within Microsoft 'cos they wanted to use it throughout their core infrastructure because it was cool - well that enthusiasm has simply transformed into the .Net platform and architecture.
If
Look at examples of Microsoft's previous half hearted attempts at making its technology cross-platform - http://www.activex.org. Sure its different this time, Microsoft is betting the farm on
Sure there are a few nice features in
Its the same old story - technology invented elsewhere gets re-badged by Microsoft and sold as Microsoft innovation.
To (mis)quote a popular sci-fi series -
"It Java Jim, but not as we know it".
J.
... is that Sklyarov was arrested because his program infringed DMCA. But surely the vendor of the compiler he used to build the program which committed the infringement also violated DMCA by allowing Sklyarov to circumvent the Adobe copy protection.
Given an MS Windows platform, presumably the co-conspirator compiler vendor must be Microsoft.
So why aren't they in court as well?
Microsoft: So what we'll do is split the market so you get to put Netscape/Mozilla on Unix + PS2 etc and we'll only put IE on Windows platforms.
AOL: OK.
:-)
I can't believe nobodys picked up on the privacy issues of digital tv.
Checkout Interactive TV spies on Viewers
also checkout
ACTV SpotOn Technology - which has recently received funding from OpenTV - a major player on Sky Digital.
J.