Technology – Page 26 – Chris Koerner

A Quick Rant on Formats and Content

Do you know what I find to be the most frustrating thing about this whole Flash vs HTML5 thing?

Anyone using Flash is in the content creation racket. I’m not just talking about video, but navigation, apps, games you name it. And if you’re creating content you’re most likely concerned wether or not people can see what you’re creating.

I do a lot of browsing on my Mac and iPhone and you know what happens when I come across a flash doohicky that doesn’t work?

I leave.

I don’t bookmark for later. I just walk away.

As someone who develops web content, if people are walking away from the stuff I’m trying to get out there because I have some egotistical hang up about the openness of (insert framework,language,codec here) then I lose customers, I lose relevance and I lose the job.

If you’re a content creator and you can walk away from however many iPhone users and iPad users there are, great. But I don’t know too many people who can afford to do that.

(Sidenote: Do you know which application is in the iPhone/iPad/iPod dock by default? Not the App Store, but Safari. What does that mean?)

Hipstamatic

I’m totally digging the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone. It’s a recreation of a camera developed in the great wilderness of Wisconsin in the early 80s by two brothers. The whole story is being kept alive by the older brother of the two Hipstamatic creators.

The app is very slick and plays a great homage to the cheap all-plastic cameras of yore. With the tiny viewfinder, different films and lenses and the always different results it’s a blast to watch your photos ‘develop’.

The best thing about the app for me is the high-pitched whirring of the flash when you turn it on. Perfect.

A Post in Which I Claim to Have Predicted the Future

Nearly a year ago I wrote a blathering rant about how the common aspect ratios of video is largely irrelevant on the web. To quote myself:

Television has set the standard of common resolutions and aspect ratios for years, but not everything seems as smooth as it should. For one as we are becoming increasingly more web-centric in our distribution models why are we sticking by these ancient limitations of size and shape. Isn’t there something inherently more flexible with the web? Let’s challenge those norms and create something new with video.

And then today I saw these:

Interesting, no?

Update: I clicked around a littler further and found the blog of the creator of the second video. On Jesse Rosten’s blog he shares very similar thoughts regarding nontraditional video.

The Courier That Never Arrived.

Microsofts Courier digital journal: exclusive pictures and details

Gruber:

It’s a demo of a concept. I’d wager money that we’ll never see an actual product from Microsoft that works like this.

I think the Courier demo is really, really neat. Watching that video makes me want one, now. Unfortunately it will never be as cool as what we’re seeing in these videos.

That’s a big difference between Apple and other tech companies. They demo a product a few months before it ships, in it’s near final form. Microsoft announces products years beforehand and by the time it arrives it’s behind the curve.

Getting the Word Out About Palm

Palm’s CEO wrote an internal message to the company’s employees after finical forecasts were deemed to be less than what was hoped. My favorite quote:

“You may have also seen a growing number of Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses, and subway stations—all getting the word out about Palm.”

No mention of online advertising or even television? What is Palm doing in the advertising channels potential customers might actually see?

I really would like to see Palm succeed, they have a nice product and a great history.