Dvorak gets this right - what if Microsoft played the mobile game the way they played the PC game twenty years ago?
Microsoft's key to success with a Zune Phone would be the addition of all sorts of screwball features. An easy way to do this is to do what Microsoft has always done: copy other people's work. In this case, the handset should come preloaded with 100 apps. It wouldn't take a lot of time to find out the top 100 iPhone apps. Clone them and pre-install them on the Zune Phone—or make them a part of the phone's basic functionality.
It's not as if they lack the resources to do that - they have money galore, and tons of talent. What they apparently lack is leadership.
The iPad’s built-in YouTube application strips both standard and HD videos to a dramatically lower resolution over the cellular data connection, something that iTunes Store video previews notably do not do, instead staying at a higher quality and consuming a greater amount of data. Other third-party applications, such as the ABC Player, refuse to work at all over the cellular connection, producing a notification pop-up that states, "Please connect to a Wi-Fi network to use this application. Cellular networks are not supported at this time."
So... if you had a Netbook and one of the 3G cards you can slap into a USB port, does this happen? I suspect not. Steve Jobs might want to hop on this, as it's clearly a bigger part of the experience than whether Flash supports touch well or not...
As the chart [link above] shows, in the past four quarters, the H.264 format went from 31 percent of all videos to 66 percent, and is now the largest format by far. Meanwhile, Flash is represented by Flash VP6 and FLV, which combined represent only 26 percent of all videos. That is down from a combined total of 69 percent four quarters ago. So the native Flash codecs and H.264 have completely flipped in terms of market share (Flash also supports H.264, however, but you don’t need a Flash player to watch H.264 videos)
Wow, I had no idea. I thought Flash was still the biggest player - but it looks like Apple has already won that battle. As one of the folks on the Smalltalk IRC channel pointed out: "h.264 won the day that youtube started using it"
This week's podcast is part one of our 2 part podcast with John Maloney, one of the members of the Scratch project at MIT, and John Mcintosh, the long time Smalltalker who's been developing the Squeak port to the iPod/iPhone/iPad. Recently, John's port ran into issues with Apple, and Scratch has been removed from the app store. As you'll find out in the podcast, that's not due to the new language restrictions - although those do raise a different bar. In any event, it was a fun podcast, and we learned a lot about Scratch, which is a great environment for teachin kids about software.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. Starting with Episode 186, you can also download the podcast in ogg format.
To listen immediately, use the player below:
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I mentioned in my last blog post about Xtreams that I wanted to devise a way of sending object messages between images while also allowing file transfers and other large data transfers to happen without interruption. This is not something that Opentalk has typically been good at - if you have a giant collection of data and you start returning it on your connection, that connection is locked up until you're done. I've started a new Xtreams-Xperiments addition which I'm calling Shared Substreams.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to open a workspace with your own text in it. To see the code in a Smalltalk environment, browse the class side examples in Workbook - click on the viewer below to watch it now:
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What she and many others who work with children see are exchanges that are more superficial and more public than in the past. “When we were younger we would be on the phone for hours at a time with one person,” said Ms. Evans. Today instant messages are often group chats. And, she said, “Facebook is not a conversation.”
If you jumped into the wayback machine to the 70's, there were plenty of people worried about the impersonal nature of phone conversations, and how it "just couldn't replace" face to face conversations. I suspect that this current worry is part of the ever present worry on the part of adults that the next generation is somehow being ruined by technology.
As I explained above, the problem CAN NOT be fixed by simply exporting your footage using OGV Theora, because by the time you decided you want to charge for your video, or upload it on a free streaming site with ads, or you used a non-licensed *decoder* to edit it, you're already liable. In fact, you've already made your decision which route to take by the moment you pressed that "REC" button on your camera! Theora (and any other Free codec) only helps you in one small part of the licensing minefield that MPEG-LA has setup in the last 20 years. It doesn't protect you in the whole chain of creation-editing-exporting-sharing, which is how MPEG-LA has locked us in for good.
If their reasoning is right, most people who have shot video and uploaded it to YouTube (et. al.) are in violation - because the streaming ads push it off "non-commercial and personal". Maybe, I don't know. Certainly if you charge for video in any way you could have a problem.
On the other hand, I can't see how the patent owners would enforce this now. Doesn't mean they won't try though - witness the idiots at the RIAA and MPAA....
According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools.
I thought the efforts against Microsoft were silly, and I think this is too - the market will (eventually) deal with Apple if they have gone too far. However, that's simply my opinion. Apple should be more worried about what the folks at Justice and the FTC think.
Prices vary per course, but Virtual-TA estimates the program costs a university about $12 per student per assignment. Six assignments for 20 students would cost $1,440. EduMetry graders receive from $500 to $1,000 a month, depending on hours worked, according to GlobalPost, a news service.
At one point, I might have worried about these sorts of jobs going overseas, but I've been looking at the cost of a University education (I have a teenage daughter a couple years away from that) - and the costs are absurd. The next logical step is streaming video to multiple locations from a single good professor - and when that happens, the cost of an education might finally leave the stratosphere.
I found these tow posts - one on Reddit, one on the "Code Bubbles" project - to be a fascinating contrast. Over on Reddit, someone flagged the release of GNU Smalltalk 3.2. This generated the all too common "image based development stinks - real me use code in files" argument. For instance:
Can this Smalltalk implementation use the typical file model and compile down code into native binaries, or does it use the g****** image model and require the interpreter to run any apps?
All by itself, that's not noteworthy - discussions around image based development often get heated like that. What I found interesting was this comment from the Code Bubble project:
Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets.
The UI metaphor you see in the video detaches code from files, and - more or less - simulates an image. Maybe we'll see convergence over time.
I loved the original StarCraft - I hope the sequel is as good as it sounds. It's hitting stores on July 27th; I think I'll have my credit card ready :)
There are reports that Apple might get an anti-trust investigation - over their developer policy, and the new ad platform they are ready to roll out. It would probably be simpler for Apple to back off, but after Jobs rolled out his "Flash stinks" letter, that's going to be a dificult climb down - as PC World reports:
Whether Apple will truly reverse its developer agreement remains to be seen. Apple believes it has good reason for its decisions, and the company may be reluctant to back down after Jobs' public defense of its policies.
Even if the lawyers recommend backing off (and who knows if they do) - Apple will have some egg on its face. I think it would have been smarter for Jobs to say nothing, so that his options could have remained more open. Now? It's in that emotional realm that's so hard to escape from...
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dropped to a historic market share low in April, according to Net Applications. The company estimated IE’s market share at 59.95% in April, which is about the range that was reached by Internet Explorer 4 more than 11 years ago in early 1999.
While Adobe does not have any Appleproducts on the show floor at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, the company is showing off prototypes of upcoming Android-based tablets. The Google Android Tablet, even in a pre-release form, is capable of running applications and features based on Adobe's Flash and Air codes.
What will be interesting is seeing what HP will do with their WebOS (Palm) based tablets, widely anticipated to debut next year. I expect they'll support Flash - in which case, we coud be seeing a rerun of the PC vs. Mac game. Apple has a head start this time with the app store, but the more open devices will have advantages as well.
No one knows what it is, or where it's coming from design-wise, or why it exists at all, but according to Microsoft's Xbox 360 press blog, it'll be available on May 18 for 400 MS Points, or $5. Before you get too excited, recall that Dragon Age Origins: Awakening--the last major expansion for the game--costs $40 in the store (equivalent to 3200 MS Points).
For that cost, it really can't be much; sounds like a new area for Awakening, maybe?
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to create a BlockClosure on the fly, based on user input. This screencast is based on a user request; the actual example is very dangerous! To download the code used, click here. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:
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You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Sometimes you run flat into a brick wall - you can usually resolve issues with the Smalltalk debugger, but - what if you're having problems at the VM level?
Well, there are two online resources that should give you some tips on getting started:
I ran across an interesting post from a guy who's made the move from Rails to Seaside - not because he has anything against Rails, but because he decided that Seaside was a better choice for him. You should really read the whole post - he goes through his learning process (yes, there were and are some hurdles to getting into Smalltalk) - but I really liked this bit:
A real debugger - in reality, most development time is spent editing code, and debugging. Debugging web apps has always been a tough thing. With seaside, it’s really a matter of going to a debugger on a crash, and inspecting the objects. You can edit the objects (and their methods) while they are live. While the system is running. you can also set breakpoints willy nilly, and inspect and edit the system on the fly. It’s hard to describe how alive the system is. You just need to try it.
People underestimate the importance of this a lot. In fact, you can find plenty of developers (including Rubyists) who will tell you that you shouldn't debug at all; tests will do it all for you. What that really means is this: debuggers in other languages are very, very different from what we have in Smalltalk, and when you get into Seaside, it's even more cool:
It's not just a debugger - it's a live editor of your code that happens to be debugging a live process
In Seaside, you can debug intra-hit
That latter part tends to throw people unless they see it; here's a screencast showing it off in Seaside, and here's another, showing it off in WebVelocity - which moves the entire Smalltalk environment into the browser itself - allowing for a seamless develop/debug/deploy chain. I like to describe it this way: normal debugers let you play the part of forensic pathologist - you get a dead body, and have to figure out what killed it. With Smalltalk, you're a surgeon - the patient is knocked out, but you can patch him up and send him off after you wake him back up.
One thing that I just noticed - I haven't done new versions of those videos in a bit - so I guess I have a couple of screencasts to do in the near future :) When I do that, I'll update this post. Anyway - they show off what I'm on about. Give WebVelocity a try, and see what Smalltalk can do for your Web Apps - it combines ActiveRecord with Seaside, along with the full support of the Cincom Smalltalk team.
How do you feel about walled French cities? Farmers? Roads? Cloisters? If you answered any of those questions with a full-throated rebel yell, then I'll presume you're already familiar with Carcassonne, the tile-based board game in which you lay out farms and cities and populate them. You'll likewise be glad to know that the game's making its way to the iPhone and, eventually, the iPad.
I haven't played recently, but I've invested many a happy hour into that game :)
Rob Fahrni asks a question that I haven't seen anyone else ask:
Yesterday, on Twitter, I asked “Can you develop XBox 360, Sony Playstation, or Wii apps using Flash?” There was a reason for that question. I was hoping someone would take the bait, but alas, nobody obliged. Once again I ask, can you develop XBox 360, Sony Playstation, or Wii apps using Flash? I’m fairly confident the answer is “NO.”
Consoles are pretty closed off development environments - but the technorati haven't been up in arms about that the way they have about the iPad/iPhone. I wonder why that is? Rob makes a number of other good points as well - go check his post out.
SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc, and the leader in Java application infrastructure and management, today announced that VMware has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GemStone Systems, Inc., a privately held provider of enterprise data management solutions based in Beaverton, Oregon
We'll have to wait to see what - if anything - that means for the Smalltalk business there. The focus of the acquisition seems to be Gemfire.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how debugging works for web applications built in Seaside. The cool thing - it works just like debugging for any other Smalltalk app. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:
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You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Tim Bray has an interesting post up on where the web is headed, and he starts off with this as one of his points:
The HTML specification process is controversy-laden , immensely ambitious, and is attempting to boil at least one ocean. There is no guarantee of success, no matter how you choose to measure it.
I'd suggest reading the whole piece. This assertion in the middle deserves some thought though:
The discovery, in the early Web browsers, that reasonably-typeset text which embedded simple forms and hyperlinks, and came equipped with a “Back” button, hit the biggest 80/20 point ever in the history of User Interfaces, couldn’t have been predicted by anybody; but it’s as true today as ever.
That was certainly true once; it's getting to be less true all the time. A ton of the apps I use don't work with the back button well (or at all) - Gmail being one of them. The dividing line between "web app" and "app" has been blurring for some time, and it's getting more blurry as time goes by. I expect HTML5 (or whatever comes down the pike) to continue that trend
Mark Cuban thinks that Video on Demand will beat things like NetFlix because it's so much simpler:
You know what is AMAZING about VOD ? It gives you thousands of choices and its already connected to your TV. It just works. You don’t have to buy another box. You don’t have to figure out how to connect it to your TV. You don’t have to stream from another device over your WIFI network and get all confused about how to pull video from the internet. It just works. That’s what you want when you unbox that great big flat screen TV. You want it to work…. like a TV. Easily. Quickly.
...
I just don’t understand why media pundits think that people are going to want to turn those BRAND SPANKING NEW HDTVs into PC monitors watching internet quality video. It’s a hassle. There is nothing that works out of the box.
Apparently, Mr. Cuban has never seen an XBox. Or a Wii. Or a PS3. You plug those in the same way you plug in a DVD player or cable box, hook up to the net (far simpler now than it was a few years ago, and something anyone can do), and bam - you have access to streaming media. No PC or laptop, no conversion cables, just a few clicks on your controller.
Cuban is arguing against a strawman that doesn't exist. I'll agree that it's a pain to hook a laptop up to a TV (for my Macbook Pro, I need a DVI to HDMI cable, plus a Y cable for audio). But... that's not the route that's winning. Wake me when Cuban tunes into 2010 instead of 2003.
All the PCs and laptops are basically not being used. All the Macs are not being used. All have been powered off. Everyone in the family is waiting for their turn at the iPad.
...
I don't think I'll be buying any more desktops going forward. I don't think I'll even be buying any more laptops going forward.
The big thing that a lot of tech folks don't get is that we aren't the target audience here. Apple built this for everyone else - the part they cast us in was "developer".
I know this much - since my wife got ahold of her iPad, her Windows PC has been sitting unused. She still uses her Macbook, but it looks like the iPad is getting more use. I still need a laptop, but I accept the fact that I'm an outlier in this :)
I read a cheery book recently - John Derbyshire's "We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism
". It's an interesting read - whether you agree with the author's politics or not, it's hard to argue with some of his pessimism.
If I had to categorize him, I'd say that he falls on the libertarian-ish end of conservatism. I tend to fall in that direction, so there's a lot in the book I agree with, but - your mileage may vary, of course. It's a short read, so you won't need to invest a ton of time on it. If nothing else, have a look at his section on education. Based on my daughter's tour through the local school system, I'm not quite as pessimistic as he is, but it's close. You want to get depressed? Next time your teenage kid has a few friends around, pull a bill out of your wallet (any bill, including a $1), and ask the lot of them to identify whoever is on it. If you haven't tried this before, prepare to be astonished.
Anyway, it is a polemic - if you don't agree with the author's viewpoint, you may well be infuriated by the book. It's not an angry book though, so if you bring an open mind to it, you'll at least see where people you don't necessarily agree with are coming from. In that light, I recommend the book.
Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of development effort going into web frameworks - increasingly in non-Java languages. In the early 2000’s, it looked like web development was going to be mostly Java/Java beans based, with a few “fringe” technologies competing at the margins. It didn’t really work out that way though; Java was just too hard to work with for most people. Over time, the web has become dominated by code written in Perl, Python, and Ruby (using Ruby on Rails).
Smalltalk has seen some of that resurgence as well with Seaside. Unlike previous web efforts in Smalltalk, Seaside is open, and works in every single major Smalltalk dialect - and it’s actively supported by the major commercial players (Cincom, Gemstone, Instantiations).
Ruby on Rails has been touted as a simpler route to web development - if you watch this long screencast exploring various web tools, it’s clear that using RoR is much more productive than the other alternatives explored by the screencaster. One thing that screencast didn’t look at was Seaside, which is too bad - because Seaside is optimized for writing Web Applications, and removes a lot of the “housekeeping” you have to do, even in Ruby on Rails. To see that for yourself, take a look at the Seaside version (using Cincom’s WebVelocity) used in that screencast.
Let’s break down some of the advantages Seaside has over Ruby on Rails into a set of bullet points. This isn’t to say that Ruby on Rails is terrible; the large user base argues otherwise. Rather, it’s to point out a few things about Smalltalk and Seaside that users of Ruby on Rails (and other web frameworks) simply may not be aware of:
Interactive Development. One of the things RoR is known for is interactive development. Make a change, refresh the browser, try again. Smalltalk has always brought that level of interactivity to development, and Seaside takes it one better - instead of a full reload, you can do exploratory development with partial iterations. Build what you understand, let the application break, and use the Smalltalk debugger. You may not fully “get” that statement without seeing it; here’s a screencast illustrating it.
Beyond Active Record. You can use Active Record for database connectivity in both RoR and Seaside, but that only takes you so far. Sometimes (especially with existing data models) you have to go “off the rails”. With RoR, you’re on your own there. With Seaside, you have the full power of Glorp - an open source object/relational mapper that is available across all the major Smalltalk dialects.
Speed. While Ruby is highly productive (for the same reasons that Smalltalk is), it’s not fast. Smalltalk, on the other hand, has been under active development for over 3 decades. The virtual machine technology behind Smalltalk is fast, and second to none in the field.
Connected to the Enterprise. Need to deal with enterprise libraries using industry standards like WS*? Smalltalk gets you access to the enterprise - and full support from commercial vendors. When you really need a fix now, that means you can get a real person on the phone.
Mature Development Tools and Libraries. Smalltalk has been around for over three decades - the class libraries supporting it are tested and stable, and the development tools are world class. Things like unit testing and refactoring were invented in Smalltalk - why not try the environment that spawned the entire TDD process?
Hollywood will soon have the power to remotely disable the analog outputs on your set-top box, under a decision by federal regulators on Friday intended to prevent home recording of new movie releases.
This is supposedly to allow releases of movies to cable while they are still in theaters, but - you know they won't stop there. Also, this is the FCC, so I have a question for all of you net neutrality fanboys: exactly why do you want to put internet rules under the FCC? What makes you think that you'll get responsible management with this sort of thing happening? Yes, I mean people like David Weinberger, who are practically salivating at the prospect of FCC rules over the net.
If that does happen, I expect a "shocked" reaction when the net becomes a shadow of its former self. For the children and copyright holders, of course.
I've had my doubts about the viability of a purely ad driven model, and I'm wondering whether the layoffs at Digg are a marker for that problem:
This morning we faced the difficult task of reducing our team by about 10%. This was an emotional and rough morning for everyone involved. Laying off dedicated and hard working individuals is extremely difficult, but we tried our best to treat everyone with the utmost respect and support.
It could mean plenty of other things as well; if they plan to go public soon-ish, or get acquired, that could also be the culprit - companies sometimes do strange things in the run up to that stuff. Back at ParcPlace in the mid 90's, we started turning down consulting work in order to make the percentage of revenue from product sales higher - because the lawyers taking the company public strongly urged management to do that. Weird stuff, never made sense to me - I kind of figured that money was all green regardless of where it came from :)