December 22, 2010

RIP Delicious

Because its code-base has been so deeply integrated with several of Yahoo's systems, a sale of Delicious is unlikely. The days of the bookmarking-service seem to be numbered.

With all its shortcomings and updates which made Delicious less rather than more relevant (e.g. lesser social metrics), I have used the service myself for the past 5 or 6 years on a daily basis. Parts of Delicious seem to experience more and more downtimes since the past two weeks. Maybe it's time to move on -- heck, maybe I even switch back to manage my bookmarks offline.


RIP Delicious

Die tiefe Integrierung von Delicious mit verschiedenen Systemen von Yahoo macht einen Verkauf des Bookmark-Service unwahrscheinlich, die Tage der Website scheinen gezählt.

Trotz seiner Mängel und der Updates, die die Relevanz der Seite eher gesenkt als gesteigert haben (z.B. weniger einsehbare soziale Metrik-Daten), habe ich Delicious in den vergangenen 5 - 6 Jahren täglich verwendet. Mittlerweile scheinen Teile des Service häufiger auszufallen; vielleicht ist es an der Zeit sich anders zu orientieren -- vielleicht fange ich sogar wieder damit an, meine Bookmarks offline zu verwalten.

November 07, 2010

Proof that Flash decreases battery life

Yep, you heard it before -- but what's the news here? The memory footprint of Flash doubled or tripled after upgrading from Flash-player 9 to 10 last or last-last year (from my own observation on a Mac). It's not uncommon that a complex Flash-app will immediately kick-start the fan.



Flash verkürzt Batteriezeit
Ja, das gab es neulich häufig zu lesen -- aber ist das wirklich neu? Der Memory-Footprint von Flash hat sich beim Upgrade vom Flash-Player 9 zur Version 10 letztes oder vorletztes Jahr verdoppelt oder verdreifacht (von meiner eigenen Etnwicklerarbeit auf einem Mac aus gesehen). Nicht selten startet auf dem Mac beim Aufrufen einer komplexeren Flash-Anwendung direkt der Lüfter.

November 03, 2010

Why Unity won't suffer from hardware-accelerated Flash

Adobe will deliver hardware-acceleration for 3D for Flash in the first half of 2011. They are going to add a new Adobe Labs-page about this key-feature in the next months.


I read a comment on Gamasutra that this spells trouble for Unity3D next year. I beg to differ, mainly out of three reasons:


First: Market-penetration

Of course Flash has a dominant market-penetration with its installed plug-in base. But new hardware-accelerated features will require the latest Flash-plugin (probably version 11). Moreover, Unity seems to have a different approach to its plugin-architecture: more logic seems to be inside compiled code, rather than in the plugin itself; the upgrade from Unity 2.6 to 3.0 did not require any new plugin installation. Furthermore, Unity also caters to the gaming-console-market.


Second: Unity is focussed

Flash is a great all-round-tool, while Unity concentrates on 3D-media and -games. Flash is capable of a lot more, but Unity is better at the things its meant for. Just compare the working-metaphors of Flash and Unity: since the advent of AS3, the mode of operation for Flash changed more and more to "do everything in code" (especially when working with Flex). Unity uses a lot of drag & drop and so-called "exposed properties", which accelerates many production steps.


Third: the production-pipeline counts

Integrating a good production-pipeline is crucial for working with 3D and games. Unity has the edge over Flash here: you simply drop more or less any file-format into your working folder and it immediately becomes usable in Unity. That's a huge difference to the hoops you need to jump through to import complex 3D-assets into one of the large 3D-engines for Flash like Away, Sandy etc. I have written VRML-parsers myself for Sandy and Away in the past years, switching to Unity was a real eye-opener for me.



Warum hadwarebeschleunigtes Flash keine Konkurrenz für Unity ist


In der ersten Hälfte 2011 gönnt Adobe Flash endlich Hardwarebeschleunigung für 3D. In den nächsten Monaten wird es für diese Funktionalität einen neuen Adobe-Labs Bereich geben.


In einem Bericht von Gamasutra las ich den Kommentar, daß Unity sich im nächsten Jahr einigen Schwierigkeiten gegenübersehen wird. Ich sehe das anders, und zwar aus drei Gründen:


Erstens: Marktdurchdringung

Sicher hat Flash gegenüber Unity einen gewaltigen Vorsprung was seine Plugin-Marktdurchdringung angeht. Aber für die neuen 3D-Hardware-Fähigkeiten wird man den neuesten Flash-Player (vermutlich Version 11) benötigen. Zudem: Unity hat offenbar eine andere Philosophie bei seinem Plugin als Adobe -- es scheint mehr Logik im kompilierten Code als im Player zu stecken; so war z.B. beim Umstieg auf das brandneue Unity 3 kein Plugin-Upgrade nötig. Außerdem eröffnet Unity Zugang zum Marktsegment der Konsolenspiele.


Zweitens: Unity ist fokussierter

Flash ist ein Allround-Tool, Unity konzentriert sich auf 3D-Medien und Spiele. Sicher "kann" Flash mehr, aber Unity ist besser in den Dingen, für die es gedacht ist. Das zeigt sich für mich z.B. in der Arbeitsmetapher: seit dem Umstieg auf AS3 ging die Arbeitsweise von Flash immer mehr dazu über, alles durch Programmierung zu lösen (vor allem wenn man mit Flex arbeitet). Bei Unity kommen Drag & Drop und "Exposed Properties" zum Einsatz. Damit lassen sich einfache Arbeitsschritte sehr schnell erledigen.


Drittens: die Produktions-Pipeline zählt

Der Einsatz von 3D hängt stark von der Qualität der Integration der Produktions-Pipeline ab -- und hier hat Unity eindeutig die Nase vorn: man kann ein (fast) beliebiges 3D-Objekt in den Projektordner ziehen und dieses steht dann in Unity zur Verfügung; ein Riesenunterschied zu den Problemen hat, aufwendigere Objekte in einer der gängigen 3D-Flash-Engines (Away3D und Konsorten) zu verwenden. Ich habe in den vergangenen Jahren selber VRML-Parser für Sandy und Away geschrieben. Der Umstieg auf Unity war da ein echter Augenöffner.

September 28, 2010

Unity 3 is here

Rejoice, the long awaited release 3 of Unity3D is now publicly available.


Unity 3 endlich erhältlich
Seit heute ist endlich das 3er-Release von Unity3D öffentlich erhältlich.

September 10, 2010

Hell freezes over

Wer hätte das gedacht: Apple machte gestern bekannt, daß sie von nun an doch cross-kompilierte Inhalte für iPhone und iPad zulassen werden -- dies hatte Apple vor einigen Monaten in einem ihrer SDK-Agreement-Updates blockiert:
"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."
Man darf gespannt sein, ob sich nun eine Flut von Flash-Apps anbahnt.



Hell freezes over
Lo and behold! Apple announced just yesterday that they are going to relax their rules for cross-compiled content on iPhone and iPad:
"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."
It'll be exciting to see if there will be a flood of Flash-Apps and how this going to influence the future of HTML5


August 27, 2010

Philippine sniper

Philippines bus siege police sniper. More at BBC.

Philippinischer Scharfschütze
Ein Philippinischer scharfschütze während des Geiseldramas. Mehr bei BBC.

April 10, 2010

Apple drops nuke on Adobe and developers

The day before yesterday, Daring Fireball's John Gruber was the first to point out that iPhone OS 4 SDK bans cross-compiled applications, promoted as a key-feature for Adobe's upcoming Flash CS5:
"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
"What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D...
Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple."
As the dust starts to settle, it does not seem to be clear though, if this was a move by Apple solely to kick Adobe in the sternum. AppleInsider reports today:
"But if Apple were simply trying to block Adobe from cross-compiling Flash to create iPhone apps, it could have added the changed text to its existing license agreement and spoiled Adobe's CS5 party immediately, rather than just threatening change that appears fated to kick in when Apple delivers iPhone 4.0 in June...

The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple's plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn't behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.

'[The operating system] can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS,' wrote one reader under the name Ktappe."
Personally, I am more interested if Unity3D will be affected by this rule as well (as expressed by many other users in the Unity3D-Developers' Forum). In a posting at Unity's official blog, CEO and co-founder David Helgason points out today:
"Here at Unity, we are working hard on getting good information, and working to understand whether – or how – the new changes could affect the developer community and others. We have reached out to both official and unofficial contacts at Apple, we are talking to other companies in a similar situation to us, and we’ve been diligent in reading the ToS to get to the best legal (and business-wise) analysis of it.

We haven’t heard anything from Apple about this affecting us, and we believe that with hundreds of titles (or probably over a thousand by now), including a significant proportion of the best selling ones, we’re adding so much value to the iPhone ecosystem that Apple can’t possibly want to shut that down.

Our current best guess is that we’ll be fine. But it would obviously be irresponsible to guarantee that. What I can guarantee is that we’ll continue to do everything in our power to make this work, and that we will be here to inform you when we know more – as soon as we know more."
It's hard to say how Unity3d might be affected; it produces Xcode and Objective-C source files more like a pre-processor rather than a cross-compiler. But then again, Unity-developers are coding in C-Sharp and Javascript, which seems to violate the point of "only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs." This might be an issue, but could probably be fixed with a Unity-update; Unity3D's team is known for such fixes, as Helgason points out:
"In the ancient days of the App Store (July 2008), Apple changed the kernel to disallow JIT (just-in-time) compilation. We worked around this by changing Mono to AOT (ahead of time) compile scripts instead (this is why some dynamic constructs in our JavaScript doesn’t work on the iPhone). It was a lot of work, but we made it work to enable all these amazing Unity games to be sold in the App Store..."


Apple torpediert Adobe und Entwickler
Vorgestern wurde bekannt, daß Apples neues iPhone OS 4 SDK cross-kompilierte Applikationen ausschließt; eines der langerwarteten Features von Adobes neuester Flash-Version CS5. Daring Fireballs John Gruber berichtete als erster darüber:
"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
Flash-Guru Lee Brimelow zeigte sich in seinem Blog verärgert:
"What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D...
Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple."
Während sich die ersten Staubwolken legen, scheint es nicht völlig klar zu sein, ob es wirklich Apples Hauptintention war, Adobe in der verlängerten Rücken zu treten. AppleInsider berichtet:
"But if Apple were simply trying to block Adobe from cross-compiling Flash to create iPhone apps, it could have added the changed text to its existing license agreement and spoiled Adobe's CS5 party immediately, rather than just threatening change that appears fated to kick in when Apple delivers iPhone 4.0 in June...

The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple's plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn't behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.

'[The operating system] can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS,' wrote one reader under the name Ktappe."
Ich bin persönlich eher daran interessiert, ob Unity3D ebenso von dieser Regelung betroffen sein wird (genau wie viele weitere Nutzer im Entwicklerforum). Heute reagierte CEO und Gründer David Helgason in Unitys offiziellem Blog:
"Here at Unity, we are working hard on getting good information, and working to understand whether – or how – the new changes could affect the developer community and others. We have reached out to both official and unofficial contacts at Apple, we are talking to other companies in a similar situation to us, and we’ve been diligent in reading the ToS to get to the best legal (and business-wise) analysis of it.

We haven’t heard anything from Apple about this affecting us, and we believe that with hundreds of titles (or probably over a thousand by now), including a significant proportion of the best selling ones, we’re adding so much value to the iPhone ecosystem that Apple can’t possibly want to shut that down.

Our current best guess is that we’ll be fine. But it would obviously be irresponsible to guarantee that. What I can guarantee is that we’ll continue to do everything in our power to make this work, and that we will be here to inform you when we know more – as soon as we know more."
Es ist schwer abzuschätzen, inwiefern Unity betroffen sein wird. Unity erzeugt Xcode und Objective-C-Quelldateien und verhält sich eher wie ein Prä-Prozessor als ein Cross-Compiler. Andererseits schreiben Unity-Entwickler Code in C-Sharp und Javascript, was eventuell die Bedingung "only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs" betrifft. Dies könnte ein Problem darstellen, allerdings ließe sich das vermutlich in einem weiteren Unity-Update fixen. Das Unity-Team ist durchaus bekannt für solche Workarounds, wie David Helgason klarstellt:
"In the ancient days of the App Store (July 2008), Apple changed the kernel to disallow JIT (just-in-time) compilation. We worked around this by changing Mono to AOT (ahead of time) compile scripts instead (this is why some dynamic constructs in our JavaScript doesn’t work on the iPhone). It was a lot of work, but we made it work to enable all these amazing Unity games to be sold in the App Store..."
:) <- Lutz

February 07, 2010

Facebook silences Hong Kong Opposition

South China Morning Post yesterday broke news about how Facebook repeatedly deleted groups of political opposition in Hong Kong:

"A Facebook group with 84,298 members formed to oppose the pro-establishment DAB was deleted

Kelvin Sit Tak-O, who runs a discussion group that opposes the pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said his group’s Facebook page was shut down without notice on Thursday. The group had 84,298 members and was aiming for 100,000... The closures could have been triggered by opponents flagging the group as “abusive” with Facebook administrators, Mr. Sit speculated. A spokesperson for Facebook was not immediately available for comment."

As blogger Joanne Ooi cites:

"'Apart from my own group, I've heard that other groups with an anti-DAB message have also been closed. We've written complaint letters, but we've only received standard replies about how [Facebook] is working on this case,' Sit said. ...

Kelvin told me that although the original page is still down, he relaunched a new page, which has already hit 50,000 members since it launched 3 days ago."

Hong Kong's DAB is a pro-Beijing political party. Party leader Ma Lik denies the Tiananmen massacre, as Wikipedia has it.


Hong Kongers have always seen themselves as China's last bastion of free speech -- it's sad to see how this is jeopardized by Facebook's supposed anticipatory obedience.



Facebook beschneidet Redefreiheit von Hong Konger Opposition


South China Morning Post berichtete gestern drüber, wie Facebook wiederholt Gruppen der politischen Opposition in Hong Kong gelöscht hat:

"A Facebook group with 84,298 members formed to oppose the pro-establishment DAB was deleted

Kelvin Sit Tak-O, who runs a discussion group that opposes the pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said his group’s Facebook page was shut down without notice on Thursday. The group had 84,298 members and was aiming for 100,000... The closures could have been triggered by opponents flagging the group as “abusive” with Facebook administrators, Mr. Sit speculated. A spokesperson for Facebook was not immediately available for comment."

Blogger Joanne Ooi ergänzt:

"'Apart from my own group, I've heard that other groups with an anti-DAB message have also been closed. We've written complaint letters, but we've only received standard replies about how [Facebook] is working on this case,' Sit said. ...

Kelvin told me that although the original page is still down, he relaunched a new page, which has already hit 50,000 members since it launched 3 days ago."

Hong Kongs DAB ist eine pro-Peking Partei. Parteichef Ma Lik hat laut Wikipedia das Tiananmen-Massaker geleugnet.


Hong Konger sehen sich gerne als Chinas letzte Bastion der freien Meinung. Schade, wie das von Facebook (vermutlich in einem Akt von vorauseilendem Gehorsam) torpediert wird.


:P <- Lutz

January 13, 2010

If you write, you stay

Google reported cyber attacks to its network, originating from China and reportedly targeting email-accounts of Chinese human rights activists, as David Drummond, Google's Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer writes:
"In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google...

...we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists... Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves."
Drummond concludes that Google will react by not un-censoring all results on Google.cn from now on, which might even lead to shuttering their service in Mainland.

An impressive reaction -- with only a minor flaw. Google never had a substantial footing in China; according to various sources its market penetration is around 30%, whereas Baidu -- China's largest search-engine has a share of over 90%. I am guessing that their revenue from Mainland is insubstantial. I don't want to sound cynical, but it's a convenient moment to push human rights if it doesn't cost you anything. Google might even utilize this opportunity to exit the Mainland market without loosing their face before they fall flat like Facebook.


Wer schreibt der bleibt
Googles Netzwerke wurde von China aus attackiert, wie David Drummond, Googles Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer berichtet. Insbesondere wurden die Emailkonten von chinesischen Menschenrechtlern zum Ziel:
"In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google...

...we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists... Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves."
Drummond berichtet, daß Google als Reaktion die Zensorvorgaben für Google.cn von nun an nicht weiter befolgen wird -- was eventuell sogar zur Schließung der Google-Seite in China führen könnte.

Eine beeindruckende Reaktion, mit nur einem kleinen Schönheitsfehler: Google war nie ein größerer Erfolg in China beschieden. Die Marktdurchdringung von Google in China liegt -- laut verschiedenen Quellen -- bei etwa 30 Prozent, während der Anteil von Baidu, Chinas größter Suchmaschine, bei über 90% liegt. Ich vermute, daß Googles Geschäftseinnahmen in der Volksrepublik immateriell sind. Ohne zynisch erscheinen zu wollen, ist es ein bequemer Augenblick, für Menschenrechte einzutreten, wenn es einen nichts kostet. Google könnte diese Gelegenheit sogar beim Schopfe packen, um aus dem chinesischen Markt auszusteigen, bevor es sein Gesicht verliert und auf die Nase fällt -- wie bereits bei Facebook geschehen.

:) <- Lutz