Monthly Archive:: March 2011

InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a four-part series devoted to the new features of HTML5. Each articles examines the evolving spec in-depth, focusing on canvas, video, audio, and graphics for display options, including the canvas and video tags, Scalable Vector Graphics, and WebGL; local data storage, including Web Storage, Web Database, and other APIs designed to transform Web pages into local applications; data communications, for cross-document messaging, WebSockets, and other HTML5 APIs that improve website and browser interactivity; and forms, for increasing control over data input and validation.

"After successful attacks on Safari and Internet Explorer 8 on Wednesday, the second day of Pwn2Own saw the iPhone 4 and then the BlackBerry Torch 9800 successfully exploited. The annual security competition allows researchers to win any systems that they successfully compromise, and also awards them cash rewards if those security flaws are still present in the latest version of the software."

"So many countries in need of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so little time! The US government, still trying to secure final passage for the drafted-in-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has already turned its attention to a new multilateral trade agreement that will bring the wonders of the DMCA to countries like Australia, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The new Trans-Pacific Partnership, like the ACTA before it, had its intellectual property chapter drafted by the US. Once again, the chapter was drafted in secret and has been classified for at least four years after negotiations end. The agreement exports (nearly verbatim) the DMCA's rules on digital locks, ISP liability, and subscriber disconnections, with a few extra goodies on the side." Sigh.

Over the past few decades, the software that enables us to be productive with our computers has become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Today's UI designers are faced with the challenge of devising graphical user interfaces that are easy to grasp and use, yet still provide access to a wide range of features. Here are some ideas about the nature of GUI complexity, followed by a couple of thoughts on simplicity that might just surprise you.

"Fully patched versions of Safari and Internet Explorer 8 were both successfully hacked today at pwn2own, the annual hacking competition held as part of the CanSecWest security conference. If a researcher can pwn the browser - that is, make it run arbitrary code - then they get to own the hardware the browser runs on. This year, not only did they have to run arbitrary code, they also had to escape any sandboxes - restricted environments with reduced access to data and the operating system - that are imposed."

"Google has issued a new stable release of the Chrome Web browser and is rolling it out to users. The new version introduces some noteworthy JavaScript performance enhancements, new plug-in security features, improved support for synchronization, and a new user interface for managing the browser's settings."

"Apple has released iOS 4.3 a few days ahead of schedule for iPhone 4 (GSM only) and 3GS, iPad, and 4th-generation iPod touch. The update, which comes via iTunes, brings with it the personal hotspot feature carried over from the Verizon (CDMA) iPhone, the ability to stream video and photos to an Apple TV via AirPlay, HD video out, and more."

"As Nokia has dropped MeeGo as its primary smartphone platform, the MeeGo architects have taken the opportunity to change some of their plans for the mobile Linux. In a posting to the MeeGo architecture lists, Intel developer Arjan van de Ven, said that "just not everything is clear yet around 'who' and 'what'", but that there were some final decisions the architects were prepared to make."

Leo Apotheker has big plans. HP (relatively) new CEO wants to transform the company, and is willing to break with almost everything his predecessor Mark Hurd set out. How about webOS on every computer shipped by HP?

The WebM project Blog has announced an update release of the VP8 Codec SDK codenamed the "Bali" release. The Bali release was focused on making the encoder faster while continuing to improve its video quality.

"A bug in the Caiaq USB driver, which could be used to execute arbitrary at the kernel level has been reported by Rafael Dominguez Vega of MRW InfoSecurity. The device drivers are vulnerable to buffer overflow condition when an USB device with an unusually long name (over 80 characters) is connected to the machine."

Well, how about some positive news to end this day? How about annoying the heck out of the Business Software Alliance? There's a new proposal for a directive on consumer rights in the EU, and in it, digital goods - software, online services, and so on - are explicitly defined as goods that are no different than any other good - like bread, watches, or cars. In other words, you would suddenly own the copies of software you buy, effectively declaring the EULA as a worthless piece of paper. Surprise - the BSA is not happy about this.

"How long have you been using FreeBSD. Months? Years? Decades? And you love using it because of whatever reason but at the same time you're feeling a bit guilty to use it all for free without giving anything back? Well now you'll have the chance to change that. We at FreeBSD are always in need of new people who are willing to spare some of their time and effort into FreeBSD development."

Since the web has a tendency to overstate things: no, Nokia is not selling Qt. Today, Nokia announced that Digia will acquire the Qt Commercial software licensing and professional services business from Nokia. So I repeat: Nokia is not selling Qt.