In the News

What’s the deal with Flash on the iPhone?  There have been many reports that a lack of Flash support for the iPhone will continue.  This is despite the fact that more mobile devices including Blackberry, Palm, and even Google Android (custom installs with wide support coming next year), are building up support for the web technology.  Whether you love Flash sites or hate them, Flash is a prevalent technology, meaning that users require some sort of support on popular user agents, and if no support, then a good explanation for its absence.

According to Adobe, the developers of Flash have been attempting for over a year to work with Apple to get Flash loadable on iPhones, but are not getting the support from Apple that they need.  And why not?  According to an article from PC World Magazine, speculation includes two main reasons now.  One, a lack of support for Flash on iPhones based on their one-app-at-a-time functionality, which could make users unable to access other features in Safari or other web browsers on the iPhone.  And two, far more likely also, is Apple’s heavy involvement with the development of HTML 5, which promises to make plugin applications a thing of the past, ultimately.  They’re already testing HTML 5 in browsers.  It is important to note that Apple has not come out and said there will be no Flash support on the iPhone, but chances are, it’s going to take a long time if it comes at all.

So Adobe has come up with a solution.  In an effort to keep Flash relevant, usable, and adaptable on the Internet, according to an article in yesterday’s Computer World, an announcement was made at the Adobe Max conference that Adobe Systems has developed a workaround for Flash developers who want to work with the iPhone.  It will not be able to run in the Safari browser due to Apple’s license terms, and will not be able to compile runtime code.  It will, however, allow Flash developers to compile things written for other mobile devices, and reinterpret them as standalone applications for the iPhone.

According to news released on the official Google Blog this morning, Google Apps is finally, truly out of beta.  This includes Google Calendar, Docs, GTalk, and of course GMail.  The "beta" is being removed from all logos today and the party hats are going on.

The Google folks aren't resting on their laurels for long though.  According to an addition Google Enterprise Blog entry, Google's efforts to be adopted by small to middling business companies will be strengthened in the coming weeks, with additional enterprise features for Premier accounts, such as email delegation (send or filter emails on behalf of another person) and email retention (so that IT admins can determine when a corporate email should be purged) currently in serious beta, to be rolled out soon.

According to W3.org, the Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) Working Group and the Web Access Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group yesterday released a final draft of "Relationship Between MWBP and WCAG."

This document is one of several new writings to come out of W3 regarding the mobile web and content accessibility standards.  As more and more mobile devices gain access to the interwebs, more standards arise. 

cross-posted at my education blog, Drexel LibWebmaster

This past Sunday, an article on Consumerist.com brought to light a new aspect of Facebook's Terms of Use

"Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed 
an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the 
original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore. Now, 
anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way 
they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.  Want to close 
your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do 
whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense 
it if they want." -Chris Walters, Consumerist.com 

According to an article on Wired, Facebook has debuted Facebook Connect, a one-stop sign-in for social networking and interaction sites including Facebook, Digg, and Vimeo that could give OpenID a run for its money.

So what’s the big deal? Like so many other things with Facebook, it’s not as innocent as it seems.

By making a deal with these connectors–several of which include US universities–Facebook is able to gather even more data than you willfully give it every time you log in and “Become a fan” of things. Think those targeted ads are eerily personal now? Just wait a few months.

cross-posted at my education blog, Drexel LibWebmaster

When the going gets tough, the tough complain on their Twitter feeds. According to the Boston Globe, C. C. Chapman wrote a complaint on his Twitter account about his nonexistent Internet connection when Comcast was unresponsive. Within a few hours of posting his complaint, C. C. had received communication from Comcast proper and his Internet was up and running.