Category Archives: Laboratory
Jeremy:
I have no issue with curtailing intellectual-property theft, but this legislation goes about it in the wrong way. It has the very real potential to cause severe harm to the future of the Internet by undermining the unquestionable authority & legitimacy of the DNS system.
Gary:
Reach out to your congress representatives. It's easy: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Mauro:
I'm blown away that bills like this even go to a vote. Let's all hope it's not passed. Follow Gary's example and call your congressman!
Jeremy:
I'm much more excited to see developments in mobile web browsers, technologies, & APIs (like Sencha) that allow for true "write once, run anywhere" applications, than in any one mobile operating system. But I hope Microsoft does very well in their new
partnership.
Gary:
I have been jazzed about Windows Phone for quite some time but it seems that app developers have been slow to take it on. Hopefully Nokia will help grow the user base and turn developers onto it with tools like Titanium.
Mauro:
So more people are interested in making Windows 7 apps. When do those apps show up in their store?
Jeremy:
I'm sure this will result in several more thousands of dump trucks worth of cash being dropped off at 1 Infinite Loop. But I'm not a big iTunes user, so this service doesn't really affect me at all.
Gary:
iTunes Match is a great offering if you're interested in getting your own music anywhere. However, I think it's worth a few more dollars for access to Spotify's full library.
Mauro:
Features like this are what make owning Apple products so enjoyable. All of your devices feel like one.
Jeremy:
This seems very cool. If the API really is "jQuery for <video>/<audio>" we will hopefully start seeing a lot of rich content on the web that is more than just video. The potential for education in particular is really exciting to me.
Gary:
It's unfortunate popcorn.js doesn't support IE yet but the ability to add events to rich media looks awesome!
Mauro:
Glad to see more practical demos of html5. Could see this library used in many different ways. Sill, without IE support it's hard to justify
Jeremy:
I think it's a shame that Adobe hasn't been able to maintain Flash's dominant position in the development of interactive content. ActionScript is a great language, I hope it survives.
Gary:
I think this is a great opportunity for Adobe to move it's resources to HTML5. There's no reason AS3 couldn't be applied as an OO approach to complex Canvas/JavaScript
Mauro:
I welcome the html5 future, but will always have a crush on AS3 development. This is looking like the beginning of the end.
Jeremy:
This is really early news, but Mozilla developing a mobile OS is pretty exciting. I'll be very interested to see how this develops; the potential seems huge.
Gary:
While I am irritated by yet another OS player Mozilla seems to be playing it right and may force iOS and Android to introduce Web-based apps to their respective stores.
Mauro:
Mozilla should stay in the browser business. They've done so much to push browser tech, they should just keep it up.
Jeremy:
Google's video sample for a local bike shop highlights the kind of cool ability for smaller businesses to foster communities, but it's not something I'm too excited about.
Gary:
I'm glad that Google is fleshing out their Google+ offering just as it's becoming a little stale.
Mauro:
I'm on the fence. I know many businesses were asking Google to have pages, I just don't think it's worth anyone's time.
Jeremy:
I'm glad to see more tablets coming out at the sub $300 price point & I appreciate B&N's support for ePub book formats, but I'm not a Nook fan. The design is terrible and the hardware always seems slow.
Gary:
It seems like B&N is making a knee-jerk reaction to the Kindle Fire. While Amazon has an exciting browser on ho-hum hardware, B&N has ho-hum software on ho-hum hardware.
Mauro:
Not interested at all. With limited access to the Android App store, it's just a tablet on crutches. Also it's pretty terrible looking.
Jeremy:
Twilio is an API that I *literally* have never complained about. It's a phenomenal service, and it's always nice, as a programmer, when everything just works as advertised.
Gary:
I've become a little ho-hum about this service since it was first announced only because I haven't seen much come from it that isn't expected.
Mauro:
They keep rolling out great new features, and I can't wait to see where they take this service.
Jeremy:
I'm a bit of a Google fanboy & I'm also a huge fan of clean, simple design. So I'm pretty excited about this Gmail refresh, both for its aesthetics & added features.
Gary:
Overall I think the GMail changes are a step in the right direction. However, I wish Google had taken the themes a bit further.
Mauro:
Gmail has always been the perfect email client, and these updates just make it that much better.
Jeremy:
"Ice Cream Sandwich" is kind of a big deal. Google's tablet OS didn't make a big splash, but the features in v4.0 are exciting. Voice-to-text & facial recognition!
Gary:
This is the first time I feel like Android has really put on the polish with Ice Cream Sandwich. Add that to sleek hardware and you had me at Super AMOLED
Mauro:
Count me in. I'm sick of 3rd party phones loaded up with crap apps. I've been wanting a clean Android phone for a while.
Jeremy:
Welcome to the Woooooorld of Tomorroooow! Siri is a game-changer in terms of human-computer interaction. I want this on every electronic device I own.
Gary:
I purchased an iPhone 4S almost exclusively because of Siri. While she has her ups and downs it's an amazing technology overall and the start of another Apple-led revolution.
Mauro:
Pretty jealous of iPhone owners. Hopefully Google will put something similar out for Android without getting sued by Apple.