thomas fitzgerald.net

The New York Times has a good piece on why the iPad doesn’t have flash

Numerous developers and executives that I interviewed for my story said there was a trend toward offering users an alternative to Flash video, the predominant video standard online, in the form of HTML5, an open standard.

Senior-level managers from many of the top video sites online, including YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv and Flickr, all agreed that video online is starting to splinter, and as some test out HTML5 for video distribution, many will begin offering both formats as the iPad makes its way onto the market.

There’s been a rumour doing the rounds the last few days that really doesn’t make sense. It started when some analyst (I think it was on techcrunch) said that they’d heard that Apple plans to offer people the ability to put their iTunes collection “in the cloud”. Basically, it would allow people to access their music anywhere in the world. CNET are now reporting that Apple have been talking to the record labels about the possibility. Needless to say the mac rumour web has jumped on this. I have doubts though. There’s one aspect in particular that just doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example From 9-5 Mac:

I’ve been running my various blogs off wordpress fore years now, and over that time I’ve tried various themes. Originally I used free themes and then progressed to using some premium ones. But even then I was never really happy. Then I discovered Woo Themes. Woo is a purveyor of premium wordpress themes, but they do it really really well. What impressed me about the company was not just that they created some really nice and high quality themes, but that they gave them a really good back end, and that they continued to upgrade them. But what I really like is the way they structure their themes.

Unless you’ve been living under a very large, internet free rock lately, you’d be hard pressed to have missed the launch of the “google phone”. The much anticipated (and leaked) “Nexus One” was finally released to the public yesterday. The first cell phone from the search giant, developed in conjunction with HTC, is also the first time the company has used their own android operating system on their own hardware. Slated to be available on T-Mobile initially or contract free in the US (with Verizon to follow) or on Vodafone in Europe, the launch has unsurprisingly attracted lots of media attention. With that attention of course come the inevitable comparisons to the iPhone and the equally inevitable labelling of the Nexus One as a potential iPhone Killer. I doubt however that Apple has anything to worry about.

Bono apparently has a new mission in life. Not content with defeating the scourge debt in Africa and avoiding taxes in his home country, the musician turned saviour is now going to rescue the music industry by (effectively) criminalising the entire world. Yep that’s right. The poor oppressed multi-millionaire is shocked by “rich service providers” making “swollen profits that perfectly mimic the losses of the music industry”. His solution, track everything on the internet, comparing the struggle to the fight against child pornography and calling it “Reverse Robin Hooding” (Isn’t that robbing from the poor to give to the rich – and isn’t that the music industry’s current modus operandi ?)

For those of you out there who are running their blogs on Wordpress then you probably already know this but 2.9 has been released, and it seems like a major upgrade. Of biggest interest to me is the new image tools (especially for my little photo site!) although there is a lot more they need to do on that front. Anyway, I haven’t heard of many issues with it yet, so I’d say it’s fairly safe to upgrade. I use a lot of plug-ins on this site so I’m a bit weary, but I’ll probably brave it later today.

Check this out, this is really impressive. Parallax scrolling done entirely in CSS. Look ma, no flash.

The Popular UK newspaper launches an iPhone App. It looks pretty slick and certainly easier than trying to read it in the normal browser.