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Google halts development of Gears, makes room for HTML 5
Well, we've known for a while that Google was throwing considerable weight behind HTML 5, and that one of the purposes of the markup language is to do away with plug-ins for Internet apps, so it makes sense that eventually Gears would go the way of the Dodo. But so soon? Linus Upson, the man in charge of both the Chrome browser and Chrome OS engineering teams, has announced that the company is done developing the software. "We are not driving forward in any meaningful way [on Gears]," the man said in an interview with PC Magazine. "We are continuing to maintain it, so that applications will continue to work; we don't want to break anything out there." If you listen to this guy, it sounds like this was the plan, all along: "When we started the Gears project, three years ago... we did it because we couldn't get the browser vendors interested in building offline applications." He then details the mind trick: Google ships Gears, and suddenly browser vendors are "very interested in adding capabilities to build offline applications," paving the way for the capabilities in the next version of HTML. Clever, Google. In the same interview, Upson stated the company's plans to move all its apps to standards-based HTML 5 APIs. Now that it's convinced the world that it wants -- nay, needs -- rich Internet applications, we hope that the company will promise to use its powers of persuasion for good, and not for evil.
VUDU gets official with some internet content
The VUDU fans who felt teased by the leak a few weeks ago can feel a little better today. Not only is VUDU offically announcing access to the previously discovered features, but in addition VUDU owners will have access to other on demand HD content from networks you've actually heard of like National Geographic and PBS -- other SD content will also be available, but really who cares about SD? What might end up being the most interesting in the long run though, is the fact that VUDU has brought this to market using its new VUDU RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform, which in the future will allow third parities to bring even more internet content to your living room. We'll have to hold our tongue on this idea until sometimes next year though, to see if anyone actually adopts it. These features are great and all, but how 'bout giving us access to our own content VUDU? Yeah we know, you're partners wouldn't like that very much, would they? The full release is after the jump.
Following Apple on the road to rich web apps
Roughly Drafted has an interesting (and long) article that discusses Apple, Adobe, Google and Microsoft, and their different approaches to developing rich applications for the web. The article is very readable for a non-technical audience, and well-researched, too. The article contrasts Apple's mature development tools and platform frameworks with Google's new open-source tools (like Google Gears). Further, it discusses closed frameworks like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, and why Apple is ignoring those in favor of open-source, standards-based development for both apple.com and support for the iPhone. Then it gets good. Daniel Eran Dilger writes about Charles Jolley's SproutCore, a JavaScript framework that Apple has adopted for its own rich web apps, based on a Cocoa-like model-view-controller foundation with bindings, key value observing, and view controls. Think JavaScript on Rails. SproutCore bares its teeth at Adobe's development tools, all ready to show off in Apple's upcoming release of Mobile Me. "That makes SproutCore a light Cocoa alternative for deploying web apps that look and feel like Mac OS X desktop apps," Dilger writes. It's a good read for a Sunday afternoon, and will get you thinking about the kinds of apps that you can build (more easily than ever) for the web. If you enjoyed Brett's earlier video about 280 North, you're sure to love this. Thanks, William!
