HTML5 Labs to test and set new web standards

Microsoft introduces HTML5 Labs where early HTML5 specifications will be showcased and web developers will be able to test them and share their experience of leveraging the new generation of web standards in their web development projects. Software companies and developers will be able to make suggestions on the possible ways to improve HTML5 standard, which will favour further development of web technologies based on HTML5.

Some of the draft specifications like IndexedDB, WebSockets are already on display in HTML5 labs for developers to review them. IndexDB allows storing large amounts of structured data, while WebSockets provides for enhanced bidirectional communications and W3C standardized API.

HTML5 is a web standard that accelerates web sites work, provides more articulate syntax and allows to discard the use of plug-ins and third-party APIs to manage graphics and multimedia. Dean Hachamovitch, the Corporate Vice President for Internet Explorer, pinpoints the necessity to make a clear distinction between HTML5 specifications under development and well-established standards.

Microsoft has also demonstrated its HTML5 prototypes with Christmas themes – Santa Workshop and HTML5 Blizzard. The corporation employs in its demos such technologies as SVG graphics, HTML5 audio, HTML5 canvas, CSS3 and Web Open Font Format fonts. Despite the fact that HTML5 and Silverlight are considered to be competing technologies, Microsoft is determined to develop both of them.

AndroidMarket: updated and simple

The online store of applications for Android – Android Market – has been updated. New ways of payment, new categories and some other features have appeared. Now if a user doesn’t like the application he can return it to the store only within 15 minutes, not within 24 hours as it was before.You can also find new sections – vidgets and ‘live wallpaper’ and in future the number of sections are likely to increase.

Moreover, all applications have been divided into several categories, such as ‘Video’, ‘Music’, ‘Business’, ‘Sport’ and some others, which, according to mobile application developers, will definitely simplify the search.

One of the interesting innovations is a possibility to pay using the operator’s account and not the credit card. However, this option is available only the AT&T subscribers. In future, as informed in Google, the same option will be negotiated with other operators.

Android OS for Motorola tablets is about to be rolled out

Soon after the announcement of Android 2.3. release Andy Rubin showcased a new version of Android for tablet PCs. Honeycomb beta version was demonstrated on a Motorola tablet in early December, while the full-fledged version is to be launched in February 2011.
Nevertheless, the tech community and mobile developers are still unable to figure out whether Android’s Honeycomb will become just an upgrade to Android 2.4 and will be regarded as a simple successor of its fellow Gingerbread version or mobile world and software companies will see the Android’s February launch as a new generation of Android OS (Android 3.0).
Andy Rubin highlighted some of new features of Honeycomb OS. First of all, Google has made some improvements to make it more user-friendly and customize it for tablet PCs – Honeycomb OS allows to make use of touch screen functionality to the full extent. As it was demonstrated on a dual-core 3D NVIDIA processor of a prototype Motorola device menu bar pops up on the device screen, thus, excluding the necessity of having physical buttons. Furthermore, Honeycomb supports 3D version Google maps, a new version of Gmail app, which ensures better user experiences for tablet PC users, and some other features. However, most of the new treats for Android users, Google keeps up its sleeve and will reveal them in early 2011.

Cloud computing: a hope for European economies and U.S. feds

In the near future cloud computing will drastically contribute to the development of 5 major EU economies (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the UK). According to the CEBR forecasts this technology is likely to bring €763bn revenue and create 2.4mln jobs in these national markets.
Cloud computing services are becoming commodities – nowadays more and more companies instead of maintaining the whole IT infrastructure choose more lightweight IT solutions. This technology provides IT services on demand via the Internet. Hence, various businesses may opt for serving their IT needs at reduced costs. Companies don’t have to invest wads of cash at once to get an IT solution and, instead, get a monthly subscription for software services and pay for them in installments. In this case a company shifts from a more flexible in-house IT solution to more scalable and powerful cloud computing services.
Currently the U.S. administration is also considering adoption of more cost-effective cloud technology – the Obama’s administration has set a goal to implement fewer proprietary IT projects and take advantage of cloud-based technologies. The federal agencies are to switch to a new system from 2012. For this purpose, US government has given software companies a chance to showcase cloud computing services on its online portal Apps.gov.

Rising popularity of Android OS

The distribution of Android OS is going on with a frightening speed. Already at the beginning of August, according to the general director of Google Erick Schmidt, the number of daily activations in the world was about 20,000. Since that time, the popularity of Android among the users of mobile devices has increased by 50%. According to the recent data, published in Twitter by the vice-president of Google Andy Rubin, now in the world about 300,000 Android smartphones are activated. This tendency can also be followed in the Android market where mobile application developers place their apps and the number of them is really high.

In comparison with this, every day 157,000 iPhones find their owners. Apple reported that the October sales of the company’s gadgets including iPhone smartphones, iPads and iPod Touch were 230,000.

Thus, Google has overtaken Apple mobile devices all together.

If the Android based smartphones are sold with the same speed, in a month the sales will reach 9 mln smartphones. Annual sales will be equal to 108 mln gadgets.

By 2012 Google platform is likely to become the dominating platform in the world.

Android-powered Nexus S – an attempt to rival iPhone4

Nexus S operating on Android OS will soon appear on the smartphone market. These devices built by Google in cooperation with Samsung are predicted to compete for the market share with the latest version of iOS-powered devices – iPhone4. Moreover, Nexus S user experience is planning to be enhanced by an upcoming release of Android 2.3.
Nexus S devices support NFC, which enables users to perform basic money operations and with the help of chips embedded in various posters and ads extract information and upload it to Nexus S phones. Nexus S provides an opportunity to make SIP calling as Gingerbread OS comes bundled with VoIP features – the users will have a chance to make calls over the internet in the range of any wi-fi spot.
Moreover, Android 2.3. for Nexus S ensures improved GUI interface. It is aimed at harnessing touch screen features of the devices and enhances greatly user experience. Apart from this, Gingerbread allows managing the work of mobile apps. Hence, Nexus S users will leverage the device’s capabilities in full.
Google will undoubtedly rejoice not only mobile users but also software development companies. As with Android 2.3. the process of mobile app development for Nexus S smartphones will be streamlined and speeded up by the use of NDK and other features as garbage collection and new APIs.

BlackBerries are to be enhanced with 3D design

Soon after QNX purchase and BlackBerry 6.0 OS release it was announced that new changes are about to come. BlackBerry mobile devices are going to be enhanced as a result of RIM’s collaboration with The Astonishing Tribe (TAT).
BlackBerry manufacturer strives to catch up with its main competitors on the mobile devices market – Apple and Google. Currently iPhones and Androids are more desirable among mobile users who prefer these devices twice more often than business-oriented BlackBerry smartphones. Thus, BlackBerry producer lays its hopes on the new partner in an attempt to gain enough share on this lucrative market and raise its sales.
TAT is a Swedish company that specializes in the development of visually appealing and intuitive user interfaces for various mobile gadgets. It has extensive experience in working with such well-known manufacturers of mobile devices as Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. The company has also worked on UI solutions for Androids.
New BlackBerry solution is mainly aimed at developing 3D-based design and enhancing user interfaces. The mobile manufacturer believes that this software company will help it raise BlackBerry brand popularity. Recently RIM has also introduced some changes to its app store, which gives better opportunities to mobile app developers to showcase their BlackBerry-based apps.

Microsoft announced Silverlight 5

Microsoft announced the release of the fifth version of the Silverlight multimedia platform.  At the conference Silverlight Firestarter 2010 Scott Guthrie, a vice-president of the Microsoft Developer Division, presented the new functions of Silverlight 5.

The new version of Silverlight has an improved support of HD video. Thus, according to Guthrie announced that using Silverlight plug in users will be able to watch HD video on the netbook screens with the reduced load on the system resources. It will contribute to a longer time of the offline work of the devices.

Thanks to the option Trickplay, users will be able to change the speed of music and video presentation and launch them in the reverse side. Also Silverlight 5 will have a remote control support.

The beta version of the platform as well as the corresponding plug in will be released in the first half of 2011. The final version will have been released by the end of 2011.

Silverlight is one of the main competitors of the Adobe Flash platform and is used for creating multimedia content and interactive elements for web pages. For reproducing the content, users have to install a special plug-in. The first version of Silverlight was released in December 2006. At present Silverlight exists in the versions for Windows and Mac OS X as well as for the browsers Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. Silverlight is very popular among web application developers.

‘Buy Full Version’ Button

According to the news from the YouNTC company, Google is planning to simplify the procedure of purchasing mobile applications for its users. First of all, it is going to change the order of purchasing full versions of applications.  At present mobile application developers work hard to produce more and more Android apps, the Android Market has a large amount of version of one and the same application and very often users have difficulties while searching and purchasing the desired full version.

Now it is announced that all the applications that are distributed on the commercial basis will have a special button ‘Buy Full Version’, which in its turn will exclude the necessity for the repeated searches in the Market Store and will save user’s time.

Google is planning to introduce this function in the nearest future and it is likely to appear simultaneously with Android 3.0.