The Web is constantly changing. Although HTML5 will have likely have huge impact on the web the change is more in how we use the Internet. The traditional approach of building web sites was to have a server-side code (web components) that that generates HTML for display in a browser. Because it is not good to mix content with code, the HTML will include lots of stuff from content management systems (CMS) or some other source. The output is an HTML for the browser. The simplicity and ubiquity of the browser made it this ideal choice. Now we are seeing the shift to apps and APIs.

The rise of the apps is driven by mobile smartphones and the popularity of JavaScript as well as the emergence of HTML5. User experience code is executed client side while the logic is behind APIs. The rise of APIs is driven by the need to open web sites for programatic access. Full circle once again to client-server.

The App goes Native

With the success of Apple‘s iPhone, the app has gained much popularity, especially on devices like phones and now tablets. The benefits of apps are well-known as these are nothing new. However, what Apple did was to create a distribution model, an on-line App Store that made this possible. The App Store is to apps and devices running them, what iTunes is to the iPod and music. The real success behind apps is the App Store and Apple’s business model that drives developers (Apple takes 30%, developer 70%). All billing is taken care of by Apple.

Apps work well for specialized functionality and in particular, games. As the quality standards are high, the design of the apps needs to be good. For functionality where the services of the device are necessary (geo-location, accelerator etc), apps are choice. For apps that just use the web, good apps implemented in JavaScript and HTML5 can be as good as native apps and have the benefit of running in all browsers. We must realize that JavaScript is an app.

The Rise of the API

One reason people talk about the decline of the web is that the web turned into APIs. Companies offering services on web sites realized that by opening up their APIs, others would innovate, create new services and make the site more popular. Facebook and Twitter are perfect examples.

The key to these APIs is to have them simple and lightweight. This explains the popularity of REST and message format such as Json. REST is simple HTTP (or HTTP used right) and Json is compact and easy to use with JavaScript.

JavaScript is back, now with HTML5

With better and more usable JavaScript libraries, apps written in this browser-based language are becoming more attractive. Furthermore, open source JavaScript apps are available as embedable gadgets.

HTML5 is the next step in the markup language. This version has many interesting additions. Perhaps the most interesting are the APIs specified. With HTML5 several APIs are part of the standard, including Canvas 2D API for drawing, media playback, document editing, geo-location, and drag-and-drop, to name some. This takes the language from being a simple markup language to becoming an application environment. You can build apps in HTML.

Conclusions

Technology evolves in cycles. With the Web the processing went back to the server side, moving from the heavy desktop client of the client-server era. Now with the popularity of the App the pendulum has swung to the client side again. However, the server-side this time is the cloud.

When the iPad came out it generated the usual but always amazing amount of press. Even before its release this device was keeping the press and bloggers busy talking. When out, reviews were mixed, some people loved it, others failed to see any point in a device of this kind. Now, few months into the decade of the tablets, we are seeing how the iPad effect is playing out. The iPad is already starting to disrupt the laptop market. Even corporations are buying iPads. And we have not even seen the impact of the low cost clones yet.

Apple is selling a lot of iPads. In the first 80 days the firm sold 3 million units which is more than any other product in the same time. Two points I want to make about this. First, the iPad is a cool device. It can even make people look cool with it (but that might be temporary as it is new and not so common yet). Second, and more importantly, it is actually a useful device. One point that I made in my report on the iPad Effect is that the iPad is a consumer device. When I want to browse the web for news or look up something, I grab the iPad, turn it on, slide and I’m there. If I would turn on my Windows 7 Dell laptop I’m lucky with 5-6 minutes. My MacBook Pro is a little faster. Neither of them match the iPad.

The iPad is a disrupting technology. According to an RMR report (discussed at PadGadget) 49% of iPad owners said they don’t need to buy an e-reader since they have the iPad. Similarly, 38% would not consider buying a potable game device, and 32% say they don’t need a laptop or netbook. If this is any indication, iPad is surely disrupting other devices.

We are seeing history repeat itself. As with the first PCs many years ago, reviews were mixed. Low-cost, low performance and simple device. Now we are seeing the iPad disrupting laptop sales. The Silicon Allay Insider reports that the iPad is starting to invade the corporate market. Companies are buying iPads. And this is making some people sweat. SAI lists some reasons. Apple has made the iPad corporate friendly with good Exchange integration and security, it is easy to carry to meetings and showrooms, it is cheaper than laptops. I would like to add the importance of the cloud also. As more and more of data is stored on Internet servers accessible using a browser or an app, adopting a device like iPad poses no limits.

The interesting thing is that the iPad is only the first player in this new market. The iPad could be the high-end. We are seeing an avalanche of new, cheaper devices coming. It is likely that Android will be a big player in the tablet market just as the Google OS is gaining smartphone shares. Quick research shows that Samsung, LG, Velocity, and more, are coming out with tablets this fall. The race to the tablet market has begun.

Looking at this development from the perspective of technology trends, we are seeing a new era in the history of computing. The “device in the middle” is getting adopted by the market. Something between a portable computer and a smart phone, a handy device for simple browsing and playing.

Video games are getting more realistic. Long gone are the days of simple 16-color EGA graphics that made games like Sierra Online King’s Quest possible. Today computers have powerful graphics chips that allow processing for each pixel on the screen in real-time. As demands for virtual environments increase the challenge is to use this power to generate realistic scenes. One important feature is the weather in outdoor scenes.

Elvar Örn Unnþórsson, a student in my 2010 New technology course wrote a paper titled, The possibilities of a virtual weather engine that addresses this topic. This is the abstract:

Weather is an important feature in any virtual environment that strives to be realistic with outdoor scenes. This includes virtual environments created for computer games and 3d simulations or environments for motion pictures, music videos, advertisements, etc. So far developers have had to create their own solutions for each weather phenomenon that was desired in their environment which is time consuming and costly. By providing developers with a powerful and yet simple tool that can create different weather phenomena; much time, money and effort will be saved during the development of virtual environments. This paper takes a look at the possibilities that such a product has including features, potential market, users, impact and future. This paper will give the reader a good understanding of the possibilities that lie with such an engine.

The paper is here: The possibilities of a virtual weather engine (PDF).

When the Internet first came into the mainstream the most amazing thing about it was how global it was. I could, using my desktop computer in Reykjavik, Iceland, view web pages coming from a server in Brisbane, Australia. I could get the home page of a restaurant in San Francisco to see the menu. I could read the local news paper in Eugene, Oregon. With Amazon, I could order books and with Classic FM, I could listen to classical music. The Internet was global and made the world a single united place. Now we are seeing more and more indications that the Internet is getting local. Laws are slowly destroying the global Internet.

As I mentioned in a previous post (see The State of the Internet) the law is changing the Internet for the worse. Let’s take few examples. I subscribe to Audible, a site with audio-books. Usually when I find an interesting book to buy, it ends in a disappointment. As soon as I sign in, the book is nowhere to be found. The reason is that Audible cannot sell the book in my region so it does not come up in a search. This restriction makes Audible much less interesting and practically useless to me and my credits just pile up.

UK based Classic FM stopped working one day and displayed this message:

“Unfortunately, due to music-licensing laws, we aren’t permitted to allow non-UK users to listen to our stations online.”

Hulu has a similar message:

“Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights.”

Music site Pandora has this:

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.”

There are many more examples.

What makes the Internet so special and a wonder-the-of-world is slowly being killed by old and outdated laws that don’t keep up with the way people use technology. International agreements take even more time to adjust. It is not that people outside US or UK or wherever the content is located, don’t want to pay their share to the authors of the content. If I buy a book on Audible, it is not like my money would be any different than a person in the US. The problem is that someone owns the rights to distribute the content in Europe or even in Iceland. The site mentioned above do not want to violate that right and be subject to litigation.

This shows how the laws are outdated. Now that we have technology which allows a music site like Classic FM and TV station like Hulu to have international customers and expand their revenue base, limitations due to physical distribution prohibits this. With the Internet the distribution is not a issue as distribution itself has no value, yet the laws protect those that have rights to distribute. The real problem however is that there might not even be any will to change this. The law is destroying the Internet – it should be the other way around.

Singer Prince made the news headlines earlier this month due to his comments that the Internet is over. A tsunami of reactions followed where people rejected this ridiculous claim coming from a singer who distributed his new album on a plastic disk with a printed newspaper. While people made fun of the singer, at least he got some exposure. But there is actually some truth in what Prince is saying. The Internet might be too important to die and disappear, but there are strong forces that are slowing killing the way we use the Internet.

Predictions that the Internet is over are not new. In the 1994 Nov/Dec issue of Internet World magazine (see Internet in a Box) Joel Snyder talks about how the Internet is choking. In his article titled Internet: Going South,  he claims that too many people are using it. Discussions are difficult to follow since too many people are posting useless comments, directory listings are getting too large and that it is difficult to find anything anymore. Mr. Snyder was right. The Internet of that time was going away. By going mainstream in 1994-5, the crowd was killing the way we used the Internet prior to 1994. Later we would get sites like Yahoo! and Google help us use the web and the Internet just continued to grow.

The Internet is always changing. Today it is not the result of too many people crowding up the network. Today there are two professions that are mainly killing the Internet as we know it: politicians and lawyers. The problem has to do with law and the lawmakers cannot keep up with the rate of change introduced by the Internet. This is causing all sorts of disruptions. Even worse, it is not clear if the politicians really understand the Internet and the way people are using it. The net-generation has adopted a totally new way to use content, yet this generation has no representatives making laws.

Unfortunately the results are that laws are passed that try to control the network instead of allowing people to use it. Content owners like big music labels have for years used the law to control their music with only limited success. Governments in countries like Germany and the US have banned all Internet betting and yet, people still bet on illegal sites that happily take all the profit and pay no taxes to the country of the punter. Many countries have or are considering adopting a three strikes rules where content owners can complain to an IPS about illegal downloads – and the offender’s Internet access is revoked.

The Internet is a living thing, constantly changing. As with many new technologies it proposes new business models and new opportunities. The problem is when the incumbent businesses and governments do not want to understand the technology and try to take laws that worked prior to the technology and try to apply them in totally different environment. Just like Mr Snyder’s Internet from 1994 is gone, chances are that today’s Internet will also die to be replaced by new uses and new rules.

Most people love cool new electronic gadgets. The iPad tablet is an example. Beautifully designed, pretty powerful and fun to use. Importantly, it is also easy to use. People are finding out that they can fulfill most of their computing or surfing needs with tablets like the iPad. Indeed we are seeing that the tablet is beginning to disrupt laptop sales.

There are indications that tablets will be popular this year and in the coming years. Tablet sales are expected to reach  15 million units in 2010, and 28 million in 2011 (see Report: iPad, tablets to cannibalize ‘Wintel’ laptops). While this will introduce new users to computers, this will also take a some cut out of the market share of laptops and netbooks. This is a very good example of disrupting technology.

This trend is not surprising since computers are moving from being technology products to becoming consumer devices (see the iPad Effect). This is a normal evolution of technology. As products become less technical and more functional, the market usually increases and the majority of people can start to use the product.

Another interesting thing is that we are seeing new types of operation systems grow in market share. iOS from Apple is on millions of devices and Android is a popular tablet OS available to anyone and growing fast according to some reports. These operating systems are based on real systems like the MacOS and Linux, but they are simpler with simpler interfaces (see Human Computer Interaction. This could have impact on operating system vendors, in particular Microsoft, makers of Windows.

The tablet is causing a new shift in computing and disrupting the current form of computers. If you compare tablets to personal computers, they may be lower performance and cheaper, but many disruptive technologies have this attribute. The personal computer itself a good example. History is again repeating itself.

Many lotteries have not taken the opportunity to expand their market, increase their portfolio and offer online games. Many lotteries in Europe and in particular in Scandinavia have experienced online success, without seeing major decline in terminal revenues.

The online world cannot be ignored. Today’s consumer isn’t just online; (s)he is online on the move and if we’re being serious about extending business strategies to cater for our consumers and in turn, maintain a sustainable, scalable business, then this fact cannot be ignored.

See the full text of the article here in PDF: Your online future needn’t be a lottery

Saturday 29th of May, the Icelandic Gaming Industry (IGI) and Reykjavik University (RU) hosted a half day conference and awards ceremony. The purpose was to introduce a cooperation agreement between IGI and the university.  The awards ceremony was the first annual IGI Awards.

With the agreement, IGI and RU team up to bring together the industry and the academia. The university has built up world-class research labs in computer science. One example is CADIA, the center for analysis and design of intelligent agents. This research is very applicable for games.

IGI Awards was established last fall and several workshops took place over the winter months to assist potential game developers. Elven entries were submitted to the competition with some 30 people participating. The winner was a game called Path to Ares. This is a single player game and a tactical role playing adventure with a twist of horror and mystery as you battle against hopeless odds, in a world that grows increasingly more dark and eerie with each step.

Another game was given special extra awards, Fly on the Wall. In this game, the player – as a fly – must try to survive in an environment with a man that does not like flies. So the fly must try to bring viruses to the man to kill him before he kills the fly.

Finally, the awards committee gave special inspiration awards to three games. Preschool for developing games for small children, Music Missile, an iPhone game where music and games are used in an innovative ways, and The Adventure of the Blue Pigeon simply for a fun game with good humor.

Videos from the event (in Icelandic) are here: IGI Awards

Thomas Hahn wrote a paper on HCI as part of my New Technology course. In this paper he addresses some of the current trends such as touch, motion control and speech recognition.

This is from the abstract:

Human Computer Interaction in the field of input and output techniques has developed a lot of new techniques over the last few years. With the recently released full multi-touch tablets and notebooks the way how people interact with the computer is coming to a new dimension. As humans are used to handle things with their hands the technology of multi-touch displays or touchpad’s brought much more convenience for use in daily life. But for sure the usage of human speech recognition will also play an important part in the future of human computer interaction. This paper introduces techniques and devices using the humans hand gestures for the use with multi-touch tablets and video recognition and techniques for voice interaction. Thereby the gesture and speech recognition take an important role as these are the main communication methods between humans and how they could disrupt the keyboard or mouse as we know it today.

The paper is here: Future Human Computer Interaction with special focus on input and output techniques

The semantic web is an interesting topic people have talked about for years, and are still talking about has the next big thing. It is still not clear how this will develop.

The documentary raises more questions than it answers:

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.