Web Development Live

Linux is set to make a major impact in the mobile computing realm, the executive director of the Linux Foundation stressed at a conference Monday morning.

Speaking at the Open Mobile Exchange portion of the O’Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) in Portland, Ore., Jim Zemlin, executive director of the foundation, touted the trends and technologies pushing Linux into a leadership position in mobile systems. He was followed by Jason Grigsby, Web strategist at mobile and Web design firm Cloud Four, who emphasized the coming influence of the mobile Web but countered that developers are not ready for it.

“It’s clear that Linux is going to be a leader in the mobile space,” Zemlin said.

Linux, according to Zemlin, offers a unified product platform, flexibility, and a software stack. It also has experienced an increase in the volume of software content, with the lines of Linux handset code doubling every year.

“Really, what’s happening in mobile is instead of having a hardware-up approach, you’re starting to see a software-down approach,” with the software experience driving the mobile marketplace, he said.

By supporting Linux, developers don’t have to contend with compatibility issues of supporting different platforms. The industry wants to get away from that, he said.

“It’s just a nightmare to support all these different OSes and try to maintain some degree of compatibilty,” Zemlin said.

Different middleware packages and application development frameworks are available for Linux. “There’s a huge freedom to mix the core Linux kernel,” he said.

Business drivers for Linux include reduced deployment costs, room to differentiate, and an ecosystem of development around phone platforms. “It’s obviously a royalty-free platform. That’s a huge business driver, Zemlin said.

“Linux really allows device manufacturers and new people to come in and create their own brand,” he said.

Symbian’s move to open source has had a negative impact on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows, leaving it the only royalty-based mobile platform, Zemlin said .

Linux application development is starting to coalesce around initiatives such as Google’s Android and LiMo, he said. Other Linux efforts are afoot such as Openmmoko, to create a smart-phone platform, and Ubuntu Mobile, Zemlin said.

“There really isn’t any major player from a corporate point of view who doesn’t have their foot in some way in the Linux camp,” other than Microsoft, Zemlin said.

Grigsby, meanwhile, emphasized that the mobile Web is coming, but Web developers are not ready yet.

He lauded the capabilities of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and what it has done for mobile computing. “The iPhone is really the Mosaic of the mobile Web,” opening people’s eyes to opportunities on the mobile side the way Mosaic did with browsers, Grigsby said.

But the mobile Web is being held back by UI issues and access to the device characteristics on the phone. Standards and performance also are issues.

Developers praised the programming experience and the potential of Google’s Android mobile platform at the Google I/O conference as the company emphasized its flexibility and showed cool new features.

There was a lot of buzz around Android at the conference, which covers all areas of Google development, and an “Introduction to Android” session was full. Google wants the technology to open up the mobile industry, where developers have faced hurdles getting applications ported to many different operating systems and approved by carriers. But Android will enter the fray as just one mobile platform among many, including the Apple iPhone SDK.

The latest prototype version of Android drew comparisons to the iPhone after it was demonstrated during a keynote session Wednesday morning. Google showed a home screen with colorful widgets similar to the Apple iPhone’s, plus a compass and a status bar that can be pulled down in any application to view messages. The compass, which could be built into a handset along with an accelerometer, would be able to orient maps according to which way the user was facing. As demonstrated with Google Maps Street View, it could show the exact view that a user was looking at, with street-name and address information built in to the map. Videos of the demonstrations were posted by the Android Community blog.

Aside from features on high-end phones, Android will reach far more people than the iPhone platform, if it meets its potential, said Atif Iqbal Chaudhry, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the conference. The platform could be extended to inexpensive phones with a smaller set of capabilities for average consumers, he said.

Android is an easy way to begin developing a mobile application, because Google provides all the pieces required, unlike some other platforms, such as PalmOS, Chaudhry said. He has been developing location-based applications through the PC-based emulator software for Android and said he is looking forward to trying out the software in the field on a real handset.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are pushing Android as more open than other mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session. In addition, there won’t be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators, he said.

Developers will also be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks that come with Android, such as the address book, Chen said. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. For users, that will mean being able to control their own experience by downloading their favorite third-party versions, Chen said.

Google expects the first Android-based devices to hit the market in the second half of this year and will make the finished software platform available to developers after that, so anyone can create their own phone platform, Chen said. The core elements of it will be released under the Apache open-source license.

Until all parts of Android are complete, Google won’t start translating the platform and documentation into languages other than English, Chen said in response to a question. The team doesn’t want translations to lag behind the current information, he said. But he welcomed an attendee to help Spanish-speaking developers by translating materials or participating in message boards.

Developers praised the platform, in which applications are written in the Java programming language and then compiled for the Dalvik virtual machine.

“It’s sweet,” said Free Beachler, owner of Longevity Software, in Boulder, Colorado. Beachler wrote an entry for the Android Developer Challenge, a competition to find the 50 best Android applications. His software, designed to store itineraries, contacts, destinations and other travel information for users on their phones, didn’t make the top 50. But he’s working on two projects for Android Developer Challenge 2, which will take place after handsets are out and the platform are complete.

Beachler, a Web developer, said it took time to learn to use Android but once he did it was logically organized and easy to use. He compared it to languages such as PHP for Web development.

Enterprises are asking R Systems International, a software services company in El Dorado, California, to write applications that work on any mobile platform, said Harsh Verma, vice president for global innovative research at R Systems. One way to do this is on browsers, but there are problems with that, including differences among mobile browsers and the need for a network connection, he said. Verma hasn’t yet started working with Android but believes it could reach a broad range of devices.

Speaking at the annual Thinking Digital IT conference in Gateshead, representatives from handset manufacturers and mobile operators argued that flat rate tariffs, greater interoperability and new technologies like GPS have accelerated usage and spurred the a new dawn for the mobile web

“This is the second chance for everyone to deliver on the promise of the late 90s,” said mobile strategist and ex-O2 executive, Bradley de Souza.

“Then, it was premature from a technology perspective, the marketing didn’t line up with what was being delivered and although there was collaboration from the developer community, the stars didn’t align.”

Mark Selby, vice president of sales and industry collaboration at Nokia, argued that the operators’ walled garden approach to browsing is also collapsing, leading to greater take-up of the mobile web. Some Nokia figures point to data usage on smart phones nearing 90 percent of total usage, he added.

“Our research shows that the amount of time people are browsing, accessing and uploading content is incredible,” said Selby.

Others commented that good content holds the key to the success of the mobile web. Vikesh Patel, European general manager for products at Motorola, said that uptake will rocket “if you get the content right and people want it”.

“There are a lot of people [in the industry] with different opinions,” he added. “The network operators don’t want to be just bit pipes but it really needs developers to feed the ecosystem to grow it.”

De Souza argued that mobile platform providers and other stakeholders need to be more open in order to facilitate and encourage the developer community.

“On the Symbian platform the developers can’t even get their test apps onto users’ phones to gauge their usability,” he added. “Microsoft has done well to [encourage openness] but it’s not well structured.”

Gerhard Grech, director of strategy and business development at Orange, agreed that content is king on the mobile, but argued that simplifying the presentation and accessibility to that content will be key to its popularity.

“You need to do something completely different in the way you present that content,” he explained. “Widgets are a good hybrid [technology] to catch people’s imagination – it’s where the interface, browser and service all comes together in a very compelling way.”

Motorola’s Patel added that widgets are a “great way to cut through the layers of menu” and open up the mobile web to users.

Live Mesh is both a development platform and a folder-sharing and synchronizing service for end users, according to Amit Mital, general manager of Live Mesh. From a Web-based Live Desktop, users can set devices or PCs to have access to different folders stored both on the devices and on the Web.

Using the desktop, users can set preferences for what machines or devices they want to make “a part of the mesh,” Mital said. Once they set a preference, software will be downloaded to that machine or device to activate it on the mesh.

Once a device or PC is activated, users can set what folders from that machine they want to be stored online. If they update folder content in Live Mesh, devices and PCs on the mesh will be updated with the changes the next time they are connected to the Web. Similarly, if information is changed locally on the device, then once the device goes online again, folders will be synchronized across devices on the entire mesh.

“The whole idea, from an experience perspective, is you still have access to documents online and offline, and we take care of the changes,” Mital said.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie first introduced the idea of a mesh that could leverage the Web to connect devices, entertainment, business and development at the company’s MIX 08 conference in Vegas in March. Microsoft is expected to officially unveil Live Mesh at the Mesh It Up event at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Users also can directly access and control any devices within their mesh through Live Remote Desktop, a feature of Live Mesh built on the capabilities of Windows Remote Desktop. For example, users can gain access to their home PCs from any computer by logging on to Live Mesh.

In addition to letting users set Live Mesh preferences for their own devices, people also can use the service as a collaboration tool, allowing people in their trusted network to access certain folders or files stored on their personal Live Mesh service.

Microsoft envisions Mesh as not only a helpful service to end users, but also a way developers can quickly build applications to enhance the experience of sharing and synchronizing files among devices, Mital said. As an example, Mital said an application built on the platform could allow users to establish a central storage place for data that they upload on various Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The scenario he presented Tuesday sounded similar to how developers can easily build applications for the social-networking site Facebook and allow users to share those applications across the platform. Mital said Microsoft built Live Mesh on Web development technologies that are emerging as standards for Web 2.0 development — such as representational state transfer (REST) and Atom Syndication Format — that any developer has access to and can use.

Facebook has found a viable business model in advertising-supported social networking, so it may be that Microsoft is planning something similar for Live Mesh. Mital said Microsoft is considering several possible business models for Live Mesh, including using online advertising to support it or charging users a subscription fee to use it.

Microsoft is giving 10,000 users access to the Live Mesh preview by invitation, through a Windows Live ID. Initially, the service will be available only for PCs or laptops running Windows XP or Vista; in a few months, Microsoft will make Live Mesh available for Mac users and also mobile devices, beginning with the Windows Mobile platform. Eventually, devices such as the Zune, Xbox and digital photo frames could also be part of Live Mesh.

Mital acknowledged that once mobile devices can be added to Live Mesh, user access will be limited to the presentation and application capabilities of the devices. Microsoft is also working on a way to display an image of a document, such as an Excel document, from Live Mesh on a phone’s browser so that users can at least view a document, he said.

SPIRIT DSP, a provider of voice and video software engines, has announced TeamSpirit Conferencing Engine for developers and publishers in the gaming market. Designed mainly for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), TeamSpirit Conferencing Engine, with its superior VoIP capabilities, enables game developers to satisfy the market’s requirement for in-game voice chat that is a must-have feature for MMOGs, claims the company. The engine contains a scalable SPIRIT IP-MR wideband codec, which can adapt to any bandwidth connection without transcoding. Smart conferencing manager Multi-PASS noticeably decreases voice traffic and preserves high speech quality for conferences, due to sophisticated active speaker selection algorithms.Spirit says that TeamSpirit Voice Conferencing Engine can handle 1200 concurrent connections on a dual-core Intel-based server, without any noticeable degradation of voice quality. At the same time, SPIRIT’s engine provides up to 20 percent improvement in voice traffic efficiency compared to similar solutions.”MMOGs have unique requirements that not all vendors can satisfy,” said Slava Borilin, VP Product Development at SPIRIT DSP. “A first-class solution must support diverse user terminals; it must provide superior wideband quality under adverse conditions; it must, as much as possible, reuse existing infrastructure to save investments; and it must be economical to purchase and maintain. Our Voice Conferencing Engine is the only one that satisfies all these requirements, and more.”SPIRIT is in discussions with several leading MMOG developers and publishers who see voice chat as the next level of gaming communication. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft game is powered by SPIRIT’s voice solution. Spirit Voice Conferencing Engine is also free of codec patent fees. TeamSpirit Voice%26Video Engine M-bile can also support potential migration of MMOG to mobile platforms.

Released on Tuesday,thefirst workingdraft for HTML 5is a result of work carried out bythe World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)HTML Working Group, which brings developers, browser vendors and content providers together.

In its final form by 2010, HTML 5 is intended to bring the markup language forward into today’s richer internet environments, with new APIs to control audio and 2D video content.

“HTML is of course a very important standard,” said Tim Berners-Lee, author of the first version of HTML, and W3C director. “I am glad to see that the community of developers, including browser vendors, is working together to create the best possible path for the web. To integrate the input of so many people is hard work, as is the challenge of balancing stability with innovation; pragmatism with idealism.”

The W3C HTML Working Group studied the web’s evolution and was driven by developments, such as the Ajax development process, to draw up the new standard for a web that is now far beyond a collection of static pages. New features in HTML 5 will mean that elements of today’s most popular websites can be standardised to promote interoperability. Ultimately, these elements will then proliferate as they begin to show up in authoring tools, experts have claimed.

HTML 5 will focus on client-side data storage to enable users to edit documents interactively. It will also address costs by providing concise rules on handling HTML documents correctly, alongside instructions for how to recover from errors. In line with these augmentations, new features are also planned to help bring familiar page sections and navigation elements to the screen. Written in either “classic” HTML syntax or an XML syntax, HTML 5is also intended to extend web-application interoperability outwards to the mobile platform.

Released on Tuesday,thefirst workingdraft for HTML 5is a result of work carried out bythe World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)HTML Working Group, which brings developers, browser vendors and content providers together.

In its final form by 2010, HTML 5 is intended to bring the markup language forward into today’s richer internet environments, with new APIs to control audio and 2D video content.

“HTML is of course a very important standard,” said Tim Berners-Lee, author of the first version of HTML, and W3C director. “I am glad to see that the community of developers, including browser vendors, is working together to create the best possible path for the web. To integrate the input of so many people is hard work, as is the challenge of balancing stability with innovation; pragmatism with idealism.”

The W3C HTML Working Group studied the web’s evolution and was driven by developments, such as the Ajax development process, to draw up the new standard for a web that is now far beyond a collection of static pages. New features in HTML 5 will mean that elements of today’s most popular websites can be standardised to promote interoperability. Ultimately, these elements will then proliferate as they begin to show up in authoring tools, experts have claimed.

HTML 5 will focus on client-side data storage to enable users to edit documents interactively. It will also address costs by providing concise rules on handling HTML documents correctly, alongside instructions for how to recover from errors. In line with these augmentations, new features are also planned to help bring familiar page sections and navigation elements to the screen. Written in either “classic” HTML syntax or an XML syntax, HTML 5is also intended to extend web-application interoperability outwards to the mobile platform.

According to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia general manager Patty Keegan the internet advertising industry is showing good growth, and, as a result, helping websites become more profitable. “The Australian online advertising market is continuing to grow steadily, and we expect to see 30 to 40 per cent growth over 2006 figures,” Ms Keegan said. “Advertising is pretty much the (revenue) model for the web. As more and more people use the web, and broadband speeds get faster, the ad dollars will follow.” She says she believes a good online advertising campaign is one that entertains the viewer and doesn’t annoy them. “(A good campaign) lets people play with it, have a laugh, and makes it fun, so that it’s not intrusive,” says Ms Keegan. To highlight the creativity of Australia’s online advertising industry, IAB Australia this week launched the 2008 Australia Interactive Advertising Awards. The awards are given to online advertising in five different categories: automotive, consumer goods, financial, travel and leisure and fusion. Ms Keegan says the financial, computing and automotive sectors are the biggest online advertisers. Last year’s winners GPY%26R and Tiger Spike went on to win Gold in the Mobile Platforms category of the 2007 MIXX Awards in New York for their Telstra Street Idol campaign. “There’s no doubt that Australia is developing some exceptional campaigns on par with our international competitors,” Ms Keegan said. “Given the strong growth in the online advertising market we fully expect to receive a significant number of entries across all the categories.”