Author: Nick Hodge

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Panasonic does a deal with Connexion, specifically so you can GSM/GPRS whilst Qantas flights.

Peter Jackson to direct “The Hobbit” movie? Oh the horror!

Parallels for Mac is now at build 1910. For those who want to keep their feet in both worlds, you can run Windows XP and Vista at the same time.

Vista RC1++ (alias build 5728), the “show and shine” / “spit and polish” or most correctly, the Rule#12 “Fit and Finish” releases have started.

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta (and the followup Beta 2 Technical Release) is now available for Australians to download. Australia was missing for the first month or so.

I may have killed SVG off too soon, or at least taken an “Adobe-centric” view; and AndrewS comments that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Flash is bogus. Reading some of the posts from the FlashForward Conference, the current, modern mechanism is to use SWFObject.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Deprecated.

RIP Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

Deprecated equals don’t use it. The momentum in the web-world has slowed to grinding halt.

Whilst SVG is a W3C technology, not owned by Adobe, the original specification came from PGML.

Sad, there was much potential for SVG. All it would have taken was Adobe to make a standard programming model and builder application and SVG really could have taken off. SVG is an example of good technology becoming cannon fodder, lost in the charge to an enemy: rather than technology being used for good.

Today, we have two XML-based model for generating rich interfaces: MXML and XAML. One is in the operating system and a part of a download, the other requires a bolt-on application in the browser.

SVG pre-dated these technologies by some years. A standardised widget library; extension into 3D and co-operation by large companies could have advanced the world of rich, connected applications.

Standard file formats invite competitiveness in software applications. Consider open, standardised file formats like world-free trade. The most efficient and best survive. A darwinian selection for the best.

Better luck next time.

Desktop metaphor, Gone Wild!

Some months ago, BumpTop appeared from Anand Agarawala. “Physical Desktop Interface” using physics to replicate and show what will be possible in the future.

Today, Sony has this cool video demonstration of the future of the desktop expanding from the laptop screen to the desktop.

With the emergence of devices such as holographic projectors, the ability to show light outside a device without heavy and battery draining optics will drive the user-interface beyond the flat screens we have today.

TechZone recently published an article looking at games technology, and its application to the desktop.

My opinion is that we have yet to see the next “metaphor”; the power and the base abilities are there in the operating systems; but the application is languishing behind what is possible.

Here comes the future.

Our Valuable Virtual Meta-verse Future

In 1988 Mitchell Waite sent me a small paperback to read: Vernor Vinge‘s True Names. I was a mere, lowly Hypertalk programmer from Adelaide, South Australia. He was an important person.

This book has stuck in the neurons, and now the virtual is becoming real. It really goes to show how hard science fiction depicts a future that current living humans will not see. Based on some work I was doing to Tricks of the Hypertalk Masters, creating what would be now known as a “skin” over CompuServe; the book was just science fiction.

True Names published in 1981, describes a world called “Other Plane” were people interact online. The premise of separating your online from your physical indentity; and the concept of a future Singularity pervade my personal world-view today.

Thanks Mitch.

Now, what does this have to do with today?

Second Life. It’s more than the technology; it is also about the platforms involved. It is also how it impacts real people: such as Dave Wallace. Second Life is what I visualised as “Other Plane”

Watch the first half of this video: Jim-Cory-SecondLife.wmv, Lang.NET Symposium.

The first half of the video is light on technology; but heavy on the economics, and wider-world impacts of the virtual world. The user creation rate (Writeness in the Read/Write equation) is over 60%; compared to the web which is less than 10%.

A key reason seems to be the economic value attached to virtual objects scripted in Second Life. As items in the SecondLife virtual world are intellectual property; an item can be created, sold and purchased.

Ensuring that intellectual property is valued is going to be one of the toughest challenges for upcoming generations.

Is the scripting in Second Life the new HyperCard?

On10.net

On10.net.

Microsoft on design; but more than slicing and dicing Photoshop. The big kahuna/picture. More than what it looks initially too.

I am an avid watcher of Google’s EngEd videos (eg: Grid-based Integrated Bioinformatics Systems for High Throughput), and Microsoft’s Channel9 videos (eg: Model driven development in Dynamics AX); these provide a visual perspective on from people who are involved in stuff you may not ever need to know about. But learning is good.

Now waiting for Channel 11 that goes up to 11.

Dancing Sons of Fishermen!

Do your Mitochlorians dancing to a Flamenco rythym?

Bryan Sykes, geneticist and author of “The Seven Daughters of Eve” has found that a majority of the Celts emigrated from Spain to the British Isles 6000 years ago.

A central theme of Bryan’s research and books is that we are all more closely related to each other than we realise, and you inherit your Mitchondrial DNA from your mother.

If you have yet to read either of his books, put them on your Christmas wish list.

NASA Conspiracy Theory #475658

Atlantis Landing Delayed: Mystery Object in space. From what I can see, NASA is now dumping plastic bags in space. Let’s hope some that some hyper-intelligent inter-galactic space whales don’t accidently mistake the trash as zero-gravity squid monster and beach themselves on the dust of the moon.

Conspiracy Theory #475658. NASA wants to destroy the planet, so it’s leaving its trash behind. NASA will then be forced into working out how to populate other parts of the galaxy. This will require more budget from the US Congress.

Next time, use reusable shopping bags.