Adobe has a new exciting product out called Air. Air allows developers to create web applications that run on your desktop without the need of a web browser. Actually, they work as both desktop or in-browser applications. It is cross platform so you can write one set of code that will work for both Mac and PC (I’m not sure about Linux), and you can use Flash, Flex, HTML and Ajax to create your application. You can find some AIR applications here.
Adobe also released Flex 3.0 under the open-source Mozilla Public License. Flex has already been becoming more popular in the corporate world for RIA development and this should push it farther ahead. Also, Flex is supposed to have more accessibility (for example, working with screen readers), which is my biggest gripe with Flash and Flex applications, but I haven’t looked into it and I’ve seen a few complaints already.
Adobe announce another application in development called Thermo. Thermo works with Flex to allows easy integration of Photoshop items. Thermo should allow designers to create interactive Flex-based applications without coding and then giving those applications to the coders who can load the file directly into Flex Builder complete the development process.
At our discussion on information visualization last week we looked at We Feel Fine – a web application dedicated to exploring emotion using data from the blogosphere. The creators of that site, Johnathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, now have an interactive visualization installation at the MoMA in New York City entitled I Want You to Want Me. It is currently part of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition
The visualization explores love and online dating, chronicling the online profiles of people from various dating websites. The data taken from the profiles is presented in the form of balloons floating in an interactive touch screen sky. Users can change the weather and explore the profiles. The piece has five movements Who I Am (showing sentences that start with “I am…”), What I Want (showing sentences that start with “I am looking for…”), Snippets (looking at openers, closers and taglines), Matchmaker (an algorithmic match-up of profiles) and Breakdowns (showing the most popular turn-ons, first dates, desires, self-descriptions and interests). You can find more information about the installation at their site.
Some other interesting web applications by Johnathan Harris include:
Lovelines (Johnathan Harris and Sep Kamvar) – exploring the landscape between love and hate using data from blogs.
Universe – exploring modern mythology in the form of the night sky and constellations
10 x 10 - exploration of images and words in the news.
Wordcount - an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words.
Whale Hunt – interface for telling the story of a traditional whale hunt in Barrow Alaska
Here at Yah we’ve all become quite interested in mashups and quite disappointed at the lack of open API’s in China (or the lack of quality APIs). With the number of open APIs in the US on the rise, I’ve been wondering when China will follow suit and it may bet that Taobao might be the ones to start the trend.
Taobao, an online shopping site, announced their plans to open an API in the latest issue of CEO & CIO online magazine in an effort to increase traffic to their site. Let’s hope that the opening of their API will encourage other large internet companies to follow.
Uncategorized — sadie on 14 February 2008 at 5:58 PM
Almost every search engine in China now offers an mp3 search (Baidu, Sougou, Gougou, etc.) and it looks like Google is going to follow suit… with caution.
The first mp3 search engine in China was provided by Sougua in 2001 and Baidu, China’s top search engine, followed in 2002. Music search engines in China aren’t particular to whether the download is licensed or not, providing access to pirated versions. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google plans to launch an MP3 search, allowing users to search free and licensed music downloads. They state that this will allow Google to better compete with Baidu whose mp3 search (which does not filter for license). The proposed venture would offer downloadable mp3s with a “digital watermark” that would make the files traceable and provide data on downloads for record labels participating in the search.
In a country where most people users don’t think twice about whether their music is pirated or not, I’m not sure how much of a competitor Google’s mp3 search in China will be, but it might provide a new direction for the international music industry to go.
There are a few music search engines in the US market, but they are quickly becoming targets of the recording industry, as in the case of SeeqPod, a flash-based music search engine that is being sued by Warner for copyright infringement. Songza is another search engine with a very user friendly flash interface and an ability to rate, email to a friend, Twitter and embed any file.
Awhile back Microsoft announced a new multi-touch technology called Surface.Surface is a table-top computer without mouse or keyboard. The concept is that the computer becomes integrated into one’s reality.
Microsoft states that Surface will break barriers between people and technology. Users have direct interaction and can literally “grab” digital information with their hands.Surface provides a multi-user experience and also has object recognition capabilities – making transfer of digital content very easy.
It uses an acrylic tabletop for the screen, an LED light source is aimed at the screen and movement is read by infrared cameras and a rear-projection DLP light engine.The underlying operating system is a modified version of Microsoft Vista.
Surface won’t hit the commercial market until spring of 2008 although they will begin putting the machines in hotels bars and restaurants.
Have a look at some of the videos on the Surface website.
