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Latest HTML5 working draft published despite claims of 'sabotage'

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 11:01pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Should the next version of HTML, the Web standard that embodies how pages are laid out and constructed, include explicit specifications for inline, 2D dynamic graphics? There's valid arguments on both sides. One side believes that the ability to plot charts and animations would have been part of the original HTML standard anyway, had the technology existed on the back end in the beginning; giving HTML 2D graphics now, they say, plugs a hole left open for too long. Another believes the HTML5 standard should simply specify an API for plug-ins, to let separate groups of engineers evolve a methodology for plotting graphics at their own pace, and on their own track.
From one angle, the debate appears as innocuous as this: Should graphics be considered within the scope of a markup language, or not? But any debate on the topic of Web standards development has never sustained continued viewing from one angle alone. From another angle entirely, one can't help but notice that the principal advocate of letting the so-called Canvas element be developed separately, is an engineer with Adobe, which has more than the average stake in the outcome of Web graphics development.
When the Adobe stakeholder appears to agree with the co-chair of the working group, who hails from Microsoft; and the author of the would-be Working Draft document has ties to Google, it's not long before someone from Opera Software, quite literally, cries "Sabotage!"
Last month, among members of the W3C's HTML5 Working Group, a dispute arose over whether the Working Group had the authority to declare the specifications for the Canvas element (not just the plug-in, but the component itself) part of HTML5. Adobe engineer Larry Masinter raised the point that he believed the decision had already been made to split Canvas 2D into its own First Public Working Draft (FPWD).
Indeed, there was evidence to back Masinter up on this point, as other W3C participants were either working under the belief that Canvas 2D was on its own track, or noting that a dispute on that issue had yet to be resolved. During a W3C presentation last month, long-time project leader Philippe Le Hégaret acknowledged that a specific difficulty remained before the Last Call Working Draft -- the next-to-last stage on the diagram he was showing the audience -- could be completed.
"If you take a specification like the HTML5 specification, it's still in the Working Draft status," reads Yahoo's official transcript of the presentation. "We still have several open issues opened against the document. In particular, several accessibility issues that need to be resolved before we can move the document to Last Call."
By "accessibility," Le Hégaret was using a keyword in the argument in favor of breaking Canvas out from HTML5: that letting a separate group handle it at its own speed, would make Canvas more accessible to its own developers.
In an interview published by the W3C just last Friday, Le Hégaret corresponded with HTML5 Working Group Co-chair Paul Cotton, who also manages Web Services Standards Strategy for Microsoft Canada. In an obviously leading question (like I've never asked a leading question myself), Le Hégaret asked Cotton to explain what HTML5 has evolved to become, in the broad sense. "I agree that many of us use the term 'HTML5' very loosely," began Cotton's response, obviously agreeing with someone in the room.
"First, I believe that most people use the term 'HTML5' to refer to the HTML5 specification currently being worked on by the HTML WG," he continued. "The HTML5 specification defines the syntax and the semantics of the elements and attributes in the HTML markup language and several of the APIs that are used to process HTML documents. Recently the HTML WG has started to break the HTML5 specification into more modular and separate Working Drafts -- e.g., HTML+RDFa, HTML Microdata, and HTML Canvas 2D Context. The HTML WG is also publishing two additional documents to aid users of HTML5: the HTML5 differences from HTML4 specification and HTML: The Markup Language which is aimed at developers that produce HTML5 output. Each of these additional Working Drafts are still part of 'HTML5' and are all on track to become separate but related W3C Recommendations or Working Group Notes. I believe that the content of these WDs taken together will define the part of 'HTML5' being worked on by the HTML WG."
That's how Microsoft's participant described the situation just last Friday. Last February 5, in the Working Group's public mailing list, Adobe's Masinter made it clear he believed Canvas 2D was being split into a separate Working Draft document, and that he disagreed with others' assessment that the WG's own director could somehow also include it concurrently within HTML5.
A diagram of the typical evolutionary process of a W3C Working Draft, from a February 2010 presentation by HTML5 Working Group member Philippe Le Hégaret.
The following Monday, it appeared as though Le Hégaret sided with the gathering consensus that Canvas is essentially already part of the understood scope of the broader document. However, he did suggest a kind of intermediate solution: the document modularization concept. "The scope of the [Working Group] charter says: 'This group will maintain and produce incremental revisions to the HTML specification,' and the deliverables indicates: 'a language evolved from HTML4 for describing the semantics of documents and applications on the World Wide Web.' I don't think it sets boundaries on what ought to be part of the HTML specification. Whether the figure, video, or data-* is inside the HTML5 specification or in an adjunct doesn't make a difference. We've been encouraged on several occasions to modularize the HTML specification itself, in fact. The Context 2D API was part of the HTML5 specification even before the creation of the charter and was accepted as such by the Working Group."
As the minutes of the public meeting of the Working Group from the following Thursday, February 11, indicate, when one of the meeting co-chairs -- Microsoft's Paul Cotton -- stated that the requested changes (the "diffs") were being worked into the Call for Consensus document -- implying that all was going swimmingly -- Adobe's Masinter interrupted. "Do I need to repeat objections?" he asked. "The co-chairs are aware of the formal objection," Cotton responded.
The other co-chair was IBM engineer and Apache contributor Sam Ruby. "It would be helpful to repeat the objection," Ruby said. "It would be helpful to people who aren't reading w3-archive e-mail," Cotton added, referring to the administrative mailing list for private issues among members -- usually points of order.
But here, Le Hégaret made a bold statement: "We won't approve the [First Public Working Drafts] until the [Formal Objection] is resolved." What formal objection? Wasn't there a dispute over whether there even was an objection? Cotton asked Masinter and Le Hégaret to forward their objections to the public list for everyone to read; they agreed.
Next: The search for a conspiracy theory...
The search for a conspiracy theory
So how deep was this problem? According to the HTML5 document's designated author, Ian Hickson, it was the standards world's equivalent of a Senate filibuster: "The latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public (despite yesterday's promise to make it so)," Hickson wrote. He cited a source who apparently wished to remain anonymous, for reasons he said had to do with belonging to "one of the secret W3C member lists," implying that the Working Group had a public agenda and a private one. This despite the fact that the differences between Masinter's and Cotton's perception of the matter may have been trivial at best.
Later, in a blog post entitled "Sabotage!" obviously intended to raise the eyebrows of would-be news aggregators, Opera Software engineer Anne Van Kesteren essentially alleged Adobe -- the manufacturer of Flash, a proprietary graphics technology -- was blocking the forward progress of HTML5 on a technicality: "The objection to HTML Canvas 2D Context is spurious in particular since it has been part of the W3C draft of HTML5 since the very beginning," Van Kesteren wrote. "The scope question for that API has been raised two years ago and was resolved back then, involving all the layers of W3C, including its Director. That it is now decided to publish it is a separate document does not change the resolution of this decision on scope."
But while the "sabotage" story was raging, the creator of the Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee, called upon the W3C to implement an "annotation" to the Working Group charter to enable the modularity that Cotton referred to. "I agree with the WG chairs that these items -- data and Canvas -- are reasonable areas of work for the group. It is appropriate for the group to publish documents in this area. On the one hand, they elaborate areas touched on in HTML4. On the other, these elaborations are much deeper than the features of HTML4, but also they form separate subsystems, and these subsystems have strong overlaps with other design areas. It is important (a) that the design be modular; (b) that the specifications be kept modular and (c) that the communities of expertise of the respective fields (graphics and data) be involved in the design process. I am asking the domain lead to annotate the charter in place to make these points clearer to newcomers."
Calling the entire substance of the blocking/filibuster allegation "hooey" in a personal blog post two weeks ago, Larry Masinter revealed not only that he followed through with his procedural objection, but he essentially got what he wanted: a change in the charter of the Working Group so that it did encompass Canvas 2D, rather than having a charter that appeared to contradict its own work. But then Masinter's retort took on the broader, and more timeless, topic of what the devil is going on here anyway.
"Updating the charter to say these things were in scope was always a way of bringing them into scope," Masinter wrote. "That W3C wanted to save face and call it an 'annotation' and skip the normal W3C rechartering process -- well, so many exceptions were made for HTML in the first place, that's fine. What makes a 'standard' process 'open' isn't just 'everyone can read the mailing list.' Trying to follow the HTML standard requires withstanding a 'denial of service' attack; thousands of e-mails, messages, posts, edits to track every single month. No one person can really follow what's going on.
"I've worked on scores (more than 20 and probably more than 40) different working group charters," Masinter continued. "I think I really understand why working groups have charters, how the words in a charter are chosen carefully, and why it's important to keep things in scope. Is that being nit-picky? Yes, but that's what I do. And, I claim, it's what makes good standards: Follow process, pay attention to details. My perspective is that what makes a good standard is very different than what makes a good implementation guide. Many otherwise good software engineers (even those with a great deal of experience) really don't see it, since their experience and intuitions have served them well in building complex software systems, or leading open source projects."
As of now, the HTML5 Working Drafts are officially published, with Canvas 2D among a handful of specifications broken out into modular drafts of their own, as Berners-Lee advised. And that prompted a note of applause last Friday from Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Program Manager Adrian Bateman: "Just like good software design, loose coupling and high cohesion are good principles for defining web standards. That doesn't make them easy to apply and there is still more work to do to reduce the coupling between drafts. The group is working on improving the tools used to generate the documents to improve the cross-references, which will help towards this goal."
Bateman's comments have contributed to blog posts today pointing to "rumors" that IE9, and Microsoft in turn, would come around to supporting HTML5. This despite the fact that its own man may be to thank for getting the whole draft put together prior to Microsoft's MIX conference next week.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
PC gaming service Steam ported to Mac, lets users buy titles on both platforms at no extra cost

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 9:18pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Valve Corporation's Steam is the leading digital distribution channel for PC games. With over 1,000 titles available for purchase, an integrated social network and database of open game servers, Steam has attracted more than 25 million users since launching in 2003.
Today, Valve officially announced Steam will be coming to Mac in April, along with Source, the 3D gaming engine used in popular games such as Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter-Strike.
Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve said, "Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac. Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."
John Cook, Director of Steam Development said, "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
10 things Microsoft did right in 2010 (so far)

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 9:06pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

It's throw-Microsoft-a-bone Monday, not that I can promise much meat on it. Microsoft may have fallen behind in mobile, been talking about a three-screen strategy off of two screens, and clumsily competed as usual, but some early 2010 actions deserve at least a little praise. So here's where I give it.
First, some context. There's doing right -- and there's doing right. Some of the stuff here I'll assert Microsoft did right I previously dinged the company for getting wrong. That's because what's right for Microsoft might be wrong in a greater competitive landscape, like taking right action A too slowly or not soon enough. With that introduction, here are 10 things Microsoft has done right in 2010 (so far), presented in no order of importance. Microsoft...
1. Started over with Windows 7 Phone Series. Microsoft was right to start with a fresh new mobile operating system (if it's really as new as claimed). Windows Mobile -- now called Windows Phone Classic -- had run aground. I called Windows 7 Phone Series a "lost cause" because new supporting handsets aren't expected until around the holidays. The time horizon is simply too long. But matters would have been much worse had v7 been a makeover v6.x and delivered (as rumored) next year. Microsoft made the tough decision of building new.
2. Put user experience before backward compatibility with Windows 7 Phone Series. I do hope this is a sign of more changes to come. For decades, Microsoft has prioritized back compatibility, often hobbling new products -- and so the developer and customer experiences. With Windows Phone 7 Series, existing 6.x devices will not be upgradable. From a Windows 6.x device sales perspective, the no-upgrade policy is nothing short of disastrous. That's a short-term sacrifice Microsoft makes now for possible long-term gain -- assuring a better user experience for Windows Phone 7 Series devices. Like many of the things in this Top 10 list, something done wrong also is something done right.
3. Took down the Waledac botnet. In late February, Microsoft wrangling gained a court order to shutdown nearly 230 Internet domains alleged to have been used by cybercriminals. Microsoft scored a major triumph against a major botnet.
4. Released Outlook Social Connector beta. Outlook is rapidly looking outdated, even with the spruced up user interface coming with Office 2010. Outlook Social Connector beta for Office 2007 mimics functionality built into v2010. The People Pane is a nice start, but Microsoft has got to expand its social circle beyond LinkedIn and in-company or outside-organization relationships exposed through Outlook (and other supporting Microsoft corporate software).
5. Filed a complaint -- and encouraged others to do so -- against Google in the European Union. Google is rapidly becoming a dangerous monopoly, more so than Microsoft in the 1990s. While the EU's investigation is at best preliminary, the complaints are potentially more dangerous than some Microsoft Watchers suggest. A single complaint, made by Sun in 1998, led to the Europe's Competition Commission 2004 ruling that Microsoft violated local antitrust laws. A second ruling followed, leading Microsoft last week to offer a browser ballot box in Europe. Microsoft's own experience is lesson enough how potentially beneficial a competitive complaint can be.
6. Killed Essential Business Server. EBS was a great idea in 2008 -- to offer midrange, midpriced server software for midsize businesses. But the weak economy and loss of the project's originator (from Microsoft to to the Federal Communications Commission) changed everything. Perhaps if Steven VanRoekel had stayed at Microsoft, EBS' fate would have been different.
7. Extended .NET, Silverlight and XNA development across three screens, including Windows Phone 7 Series. Microsoft already had development pieces in place for two screens -- PC and game console. By supporting Windows Phone, Microsoft creates opportunity for developers to create games or other applications one time for consumption on multiple devices.
8. Demonstrated Skinput. During last week's TechFest, Microsoft researchers showed off skin -- on the forearm -- as a natural user interface. Microsoft Research paper "Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface" offers a wonderful overview of the concept. My teenage daughter writes reminders on her arm nearly everyday. In California, seemingly everyone under the age of 35 has several tattoos. Why not use the skin even more functionally? The technology takes advantage of the varying acoustic properties of skin and bones. Skinput is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that gives hope about future Microsoft innovation.
9. Launched Mediaroom 2.0. Microsoft's living room strategy is a work in progress -- and has been since the debut of Windows Media Center nearly a decade ago. Slow progress is still progress -- and Mediaroom 2.0 offers much for telcos looking to deliver a television programming experience better than cable (as an AT&T U-verse customer I can attest to the better-than-cable experience). Then there is the coming Mediaroom support for Xbox. As aforementioned in No. 7, Microsoft already is preparing developers for delivering games across three screens.
10. Set Office 2010 business launch for May. The timing is just about right for the first big wave of enterprises to deploy Windows 7. Traditionally, larger businesses deploy new versions of Office and Windows at the same time whenever possible. Microsoft simultaneously released Office 2007 and Windows Vista. But slow -- or no -- enterprise Vista migrations meant that simultaneous Office and Windows release didn't equate to simultaneous deployments. By offsetting Office 2010 and Windows 7 business launches by about 8 months, Microsoft gave business customers time enough to test and qualify Windows 7. Meanwhile, a very public Office 2010 preview allowed for additional testing, too. Many more businesses will now have the more logistically viable option of deploying both products simultaneously or around the same time.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Verizon claims 5-12 Mbps 4G LTE service in 25+ markets, but where's the hardware?

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 8:47pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Still racing for an LTE launch in the second half of this year, Verizon Wireless has been testing its trial 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks in Boston and Seattle since last August.
Today the wireless network operator says it will be able to deliver speeds between 5-12 Mbps downlink and 2-5 Mbps uplink at launch.
"Our LTE rollout plan positions Verizon Wireless to be a global leader in 4G LTE deployment. We are on track to deliver an outstanding wireless data experience to customers in 25 to 30 markets covering roughly 100 million people by year's end," Tony Melone, senior vice president and chief technical officer at Verizon Wireless said in a statement this morning. "As device makers, manufacturers and others around the world begin to introduce newer and faster products to take advantage of these incredible new speeds, Verizon Wireless will be positioned to offer our customers new and exciting products on the nation's first 4G LTE network."
The first commercial deployments of LTE belong to TeliaSonera in Norway and Sweden, which opened for business last December. However, consumer equipment that can take advantage of the increased bandwidth continues to be seriously limited. Nokia announced it was the first to make an LTE modem, and TeliaSonera partnered with Samsung to offer a USB LTE dongle, but there are currently no smartphones or consumer devices utilizing the technology.
Last year, Verizon CEO Dick Lynch said LTE laptop modems and handsets won't be out until a year after the LTE network launches.
Meanwhile, the United States' fifth largest network operator MetroPCS expects its LTE network to be completed in the second half of 2010 as well. Like TeliaSonera, MetroPCS has partnered with Samsung for its first consumer LTE device.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
WiMAX radios aren't the business for Cisco any more

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 7:31pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In late 2007, Cisco Systems Inc. acquired a WiMAX company called Navini Networks, consuming the smaller competitor's 70 commercial WiMAX deployments, all of the network hardware, and its portfolio of Radio Access Network (RAN) patents. Though Cisco was never exactly hot on WiMAX as a wireless standard, the company saw that the 4G standard was maturing, and made its move into the WiMAX base station business.
At the time, Cisco senior vice president Tony Bates said, "Recently, the WiMAX radio systems to deliver broadband wireless have matured, customers are deploying live networks, and overall investment and demand has increased. Therefore, Cisco views this as the proper time to add licensed WiMAX products to our broadband wireless offer."
Not two years later, though, Cisco says it is halting that business to shift its focus away from radios.
A company spokesperson told FierceBroadbandWireless, "After careful review, our mobility strategy is to focus on providing a radio-agnostic IP end-to-end mobile multimedia services network. Cisco will continue to focus on the packet core and to also focus on investment in radio technologies such as femtocells and Wi-Fi. As part of this decision, we have decided to discontinue designing and building new WiMAX base stations. We believe the best way for Cisco to serve our customers is by delivering value at the edge and the core of our customers' networks."
Rather than focus on a single, isolated radio technology, Cisco is going to push the network-agnostic IP core technologies it acquired last October when it bought Starent networks. Starent's technology supports a much wider range of access technologies such as GSM, CDMA, UMTS, LTE and even WiMAX, and already has a significant number of customers. This way, Cisco can offer technologies to whichever network standards are out there without suffering if one becomes less popular than another.
Sai Subramanian, Director of Product Marketing for Cisco's Wireless Business Group recently said, "We expect to continue to be a significant player in the WiMAX market... just not in the access part of the network."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Who should buy the iPad? Hint: People of a certain age (and that's not you)

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 6:11pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

"Who will buy?" is the question to ask now that Apple has turned on the advertising spigot. I saw the first iPad commercial three times during yesterday's Academy Awards program. No one should underestimate the power of Apple marketing for generating millions of initial iPad sales. Advertising will differentiate iPad from ebook reader or tablet competitors.
For years, Apple advertised iPod unchecked. Competitors simply didn't aggressively advertise their MP3 players. So from about 2002 through end of 2004, iPod owned media player advertising -- at least in the United States. For a short time, Creative had a campaign, then nothing after 2005. No wonder so many people bought an iPod -- it seemingly was the only choice.
What other competitor will offer another choice to iPad through such aggressive marketing? You tell me. The first commercial is very benefits oriented, putting common PC-like functions in the lap instead of on the tabletop. Apple should be wary of consumer confusion. Some potential buyers might not easily understand the difference from iPhone or iPod touch. Whom that might be will become more apparent in a few paragraphs.
I predict that within a few months of release, unless there is a shortage of storage cards, Apple will reconsider the 16GB model -- as it did the original 4GB iPhone; 16GB is the new 4GB, but for different reasons. From the start, summer 2007, 8GB iPhone quickly outsold the lower-cost 4GB model. Buyers wanted more storage. At $499, I expect the 16GB iPad to easily outsell the $629 16GB 3G or 32GB WiFi model. But in short order, many iPad buyers will find that 16GB storage is inadequate. They'll want more storage, which they didn't get at first because of price -- how affordable is $499 compared to $629. There are reasons why retailers use prices like $19.99 or $599. The six in $629 seems so much more than $499. I expect Apple to make price adjustments by summer. Latest. But only after an iPod touch price reduction or introduction of 128GB model at $399.
All this meandering finally leads to the question posed by this post's title: Who should buy iPad? With no backing data -- but a good sense about marketing -- I can see four consumer demographic groups that should buy iPad. I'm ignoring institutional segments like education or training; none of the four groups would fit nicely into analysts' survey spreadsheets. They are:
People Steve Jobs's age or older. Apple's CEO may run a company producing hip products, but Jobs is middle aged. Jobs turned 55 on February 24. He's a Baby Boomer, and iPad is for his generation and that of his parents. It's computing made easy, with all the basics covered in a device simply and comfortably handled.
Yesterday, a friend asked if his 85 year-old dad should buy an iPad. "Absolutely," I said. He was surprised because of my post "12 reasons why I won't buy an iPad." The iPad will get the dad on the Web with email and other connected features, serve up ebooks and provide applications that are easily chosen, purchased, installed and used.
Apple's tablet isn't right for me, or many other people comfortable with technology and used to multitasking. In its first iteration, iPad is more a single-task device, which is right pace for many older folks (Hey, this isn't agism just the reality of aging). Among the Boomer-plus set, I expect iPad will appeal most to digital immigrants, meaning those people who didn't grow up with computers and aren't all that comfortable with them (Gen Xers tend to be digital resident aliens and the Millennials digital natives).
The iPad as a device for the old (55 and older) could be quite good for Apple. According to a recent AdMob report, 65 percent of iPod touch users are 17 or younger. By comparison, 72 percent of iPhone users are between 18 and 54. Neither device has much pull with those 55 or older, 14 percent and 5 percent, respectively. The 55 and over crowd is a desirable market segment. Marketers assume this group has more discretionary spending power because of savings and less pull by outside factors -- children, for example. Then there is the large number of Baby Boomers (in the United States about 77 million still living out of 309 million total population, according to Census data). The oldest Boomers reached retirement age in the Noughties.
The Mac faithful. It's often called the cult of Mac for a reason. Anecdotally, this group can be relied on to buy pretty much anything new with an Apple logo.
Mac wannabes on a budget. From a marketing perspective -- looking at Apple computing products as a range of features and prices -- iPad fills a gaping hole in the Mac product line between the $399 iPod touch and $999 MacBook. More importantly, iPad lets people pining for a portable Mac get one for less than $500. Suddenly, the cheapest, functional Mac portable is $499. The average consumer doesn't care about the operating system, whether iPhone OS 3.2 or Snow Leopard. Mac wannabes will care more about what the device can do for them. Apple has packed most of the basic, most appealing functions of the Mac portable -- including iWork -- into iPad. Then there's the App Store offering loads of fun applications that are cheap and easy to install.
Niche buyers. Singly, niche buyers won't amount to much. Combined, they could be a sizable buying segment. Among them I see people interested in ebooks, gadget collectors (especially those obsessed with geek envy) and artists.
To many artists, iPad should be a desirable canvas. Anthropologically, used together, the mouse and keyboard are an unnatural user interface. Human beings are tool users. We experience and interact with the world through five senses. The best tools are really extensions of the hands; the mouse and keyboard UI is neither. Hands, fingers and touch are especially important for experiencing and manipulating objects or surroundings -- and for artistry. Apple's tablet is the canvas for which many artists' hands will create. What will the hand and finger create on the touchscreen? Who knows, the answer might be a future iPad commercial.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Cablevision and local station battle could signify coming cable rate hike

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 5:35pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The dispute between Cablevision, the United States' fifth largest cable company, and New York ABC affiliate WABC-7 was tentatively resolved yesterday evening in time for the Academy Awards telecast, and the ABC blackout for Cablevision subscribers did not last 24 hours.
"ABC7 and Cablevision have made significant progress and have reached an agreement in principle that recognizes the fair value of ABC7, with deal points that we expect to finalize with Cablevision. Given this movement, we're pleased to announce that ABC7 will return to Cablevision households while we work to complete our negotiations," a statement from WABC-TV said yesterday.
Though resolved for the time being, this heated disconnection and re-connection is another example of the much larger-scale fight between content owners, local station affiliates, and the cable monopolies.
There are many who believe this fight will only result in all of our cable bills going up.
Broadcasters want to brace their weakened advertising revenue and shrinking viewership by negotiating higher retransmission fees from cable companies. These fees are frequently expressed as a per-subscriber charge, and the negotiating price thus far has been $1 per month per viewer.
That's the retransmission price that Fox tried to get from Time Warner Cable late in 2009, and reportedly the same price WABC sought from Cablevision. On New Year's day, Fox and Time Warner reached an agreement on the fees, but the amount of money was not disclosed.
Analysts at the time said the deal opened the door for a $5 billion increase in overall cable fees.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, "Every three years, broadcast stations must decide whether to demand carriage on local cable systems without receiving compensation or elect to negotiate a retransmission consent agreement. In return for allowing a cable system to carry its signal, a television station may require the payment of a fee or other consideration (for instance, carriage of another programming service or advertising time). Any new or additional costs incurred as a result of retransmission consent agreements may be passed through to cable subscribers."
Over the weekend, when it still appeared the Oscars would be blacked out for some New Yorkers, President and CEO of the American Cable Association Matthew Polka issued a statement, reading in part: "The Federal retransmission consent regime is a badly broken system that permits signal pulling and flagrant price discrimination against smaller cable companies that consumers should not be forced to tolerate."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
China denies it's in any talks with Google, wonders why

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 5:31pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

After a Reuters report on Friday cited China's Industry and Information Minister, Li Yizhong, as having told an indeterminate parliamentary body that the government was in talks with Google over its claims of having been hacked in early February by a Chinese malicious source, a vice minister for the same government agency issued a statement through China's Xinhua news agency denying any negotiations have taken place at all.
The denial was covered by Reuters as a request by the ministry for more information, so that China could prosecute Google's complaint. The Xinhua report itself (not a Google English-language translation of the report) states the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's position that Google never filed a complaint in the first place.
Last Tuesday, Xinhua quoted a spokesperson for a key Chinese political advisory body, Zhao Qizheng, as strongly denying Google's allegations of Chinese malicious hacking, specifically the implication that the government was involved. But being consistent, Qizheng and the Xinhua report were careful not to call Google's accusation a "charge."
If one reads the Xinhua reports at face value -- putting aside Reuters' interpretations of them -- they could represent China's attempt to call Google's bluff. Ever since the incident, the state-run news agency has reiterated that Google has threatened to pull out of the country, but has not done so. And a political cartoon published by Xinhua last Friday, entitled "Google and the Spooks," depicts the political association it would prefer Chinese citizens draw in their minds. It shows the familiar Google search page, with the logo embellished with Nixonian eyes and an American flag necktie bearing a National Security Agency seal.
The prevailing theory, put forth last month in The New York Times, is that the perpetrators of the alleged incident may have been vo-tech students of a certain Ukrainian professor who has been suspected of online mischief before. While on the surface that might appear to exonerate the Chinese government, the Times' source, a noted intelligence research analyst, warned readers not to draw that conclusion too quickly, saying the Chinese "have a different model" for exploiting targets. That source may have helped the Times uncover that Google had been working with the NSA to determine the source of the incident.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Suddenly Apple hates Wi-Fi

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 4:36pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Because removing porn from the App Store wasn't enough, now Apple's taking aim at software that helps iPhone, iPod touch and, soon, iPad users find Wi-Fi hotspots. Forgive me for cynically choosing to disbelieve the company's excuse -- that all of these apps use undocumented or private APIs and consequently must be removed for the sake of the platform's future. If Apple actually had a workable, believable strategy for approval, it wouldn't have approved any of these apps in the first place.
The apps are -- or, rather, were distributed under the trade names Sekai Camera, Wifi-Where, and yFy, among others; and they made it easier for owners of such devices to find Wi-Fi networks and thus avoid using their more costly and often congested 3G connections. In the bad old days of wardriving, we simply walked or drove along a public thoroughfare and constantly refreshed our network lists to identify convenient and often free hotspots. The process was manual and tedious, and these packages automated the process of discovery just in time for Wi-Fi to become table stakes on handheld devices. With more end users than ever before seeking safe havens to avoid busting their carrier-imposed 3G data caps, Wi-Fi finders, scanners, and stumblers had finally hit the big time.
Herding the subscriber sheep
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that Apple and its carrier-partners weren't particularly pleased with this trend. I'm going to assume the wizards at AT&T didn't much appreciate the potential long-term thinning of subscriber revenue, and quietly encouraged Apple to squash it before it became rampant. I'm singling out AT&T because it's such an easy target of consumer discontent, but this may as well apply to any other carrier in any other country. They're all cheering Apple's move because it tilts device traffic back onto their own wireless networks.
Never mind that developers have been begging Apple to open up the API so that they don't have to get in through the back door. Never mind that tech-savvy consumers now have another reason to jailbreak their devices. Never mind that this is yet another example of near-Draconian (or maybe full-on Draconian) control over a platform that, despite its extreme popularity, remains a prime example of the risks of leaving too much control in the hands of one provider.
What's to stop Apple from summarily choosing another category next week, or next month, or whenever, as a candidate for pruning? What's to stop Apple from deciding that developers, whose only option up to then was to creatively work around deliberately baked-in limitations in the SDK to bring consumer-friendly offerings to market, have gone too far and need to be taught a lesson?
To be blunt, no one can stop Apple from doing whatever it wants. I've said before that this is Apple's playground, which means it can make the rules, interpret them as it sees fit, and change them on a whim. And developers and other stakeholders have no say in any of this. They simply have to hope that the elephant they chose to sleep with doesn't roll over in the middle of the night and crush them.
I don't say this with malice or anger. It simply is what it is, and despite the platform's overwhelming success over the better part of the past three years, it leaves consumers and developers with a choice to either put up with Apple's model or seek alternatives.
Please hold that thought for a second.
A case of non-coincidental timing
All this comes just as Apple gets set to begin shipping iPads to an adoring public. Retail availability in the US is now set for April 3, and sometime toward the end of April in Canada. This means potential buyers are already deciding how much hard-earned cash to bring along when they wait in line overnight to buy one. Will they cheap out for the basic Wi-Fi version, or will they go full-on for a 3G-enabled iPad?
The timing of the latest app takedown is no coincidence: Apple and AT&T clearly want to influence potential buyers to stretch for a 3G-capable version to at least hold out the potential of ongoing subscription-based revenue. Think of this latest move as a scorched-earth strategy for wannabe-Wi-Fi-only iPad users. I'm betting that around this time next month, Wi-Fi-only iPads will be only slightly more difficult to find than two-headed Lincoln pennies, as Apple's carrier-friendly/consumer-unfriendly supply chain strategy snaps into focus.
Which brings us to the alternatives. As Microsoft is painfully learning, no platform remains dominant forever. Sooner or later, the conditions that allowed the market leader to become the leader in the first place will shift, and in so doing, will allow challengers to lay down roots and eventually outflank them. The incumbent's vulnerability to defeat in this manner can be influenced by how it treats its market. Do so with cooperative partnership and you stand a better chance of getting stakeholders -- namely developers and consumers -- to stick with you a bit longer. Do so with a cynical sense of arrogant protectionism, and they'll happily dance on your grave.
The crack in Apple's foundation?
Does this mean Apple's latest App Store move will lead to its ultimate demise? No. But does it shift a few more grains of sand in a different direction? I strongly believe that it does. And we all know how massive tectonic market shifts can begin with a few simple moves. It could be years before the rats begin to abandon any sinking ship with an Apple logo on it, but don't think for a second that seemingly small acts like this won't play an eventual role.
The iPhone/iPod touch/iPad universe remains the place to be if you're looking to build mobile apps. Google's Android is a distant second fiddle, and RIM is barely out of the gate. But Google's approach -- open source and decidedly less school marm-ish in its definition of what developers can and cannot do -- may yet be the kind of landscape that developers will target if Apple's mercurial form of relationship building becomes too onerous. Apple's Wi-Fi move is pushing things with this sensitive audience yet again. At some point, they may yet decide enough is enough.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010