Microsoft joins SVG working group Microsoft announced that they took a seat on the SVG working group.
This good news for the SVG format, as a lot big players are backing it now.

NiXPS has been supporting SVG for almost two years now. It is an interesting technology, but it practice it was being let down by a lot of broken/missing/poor support in various software components (Webkit SVG has a few issues, Internet Explorer support is laky, Adobe has an on/off relationship with SVG, etc...).

It is good news that Microsoft has decided to back the format more officially, it might improve Windows support for it, and make it a much more dependable format for the future.

Here at NiXPS we will keep following it closely.  ¶ 17:08 0 Comments

  HP Slate - platforms, platforms and some more platforms
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer showed a prototype of a new Tablet PC like device designed by HP, and running Windows 7: the HP Slate.
With the rumour mill going in overdrive about an imminent Apple Tablet-like product, and a large part of the industry totally ecstatic about 'touch computing', this is hitting all the right buttons.

I kinda think the device looks very nice - a bit like an oversized iPod Touch, which is a good thing.

The last couple of years a lot of attempts are made to open up a new categories of computing devices:

• Smartphones. with poster child Apple, and runners up Nokia and Blackberry - and since a few days also Google with its Nexus One. There is a blurry line between regular mobile phones and smartphones, but I think it would be reasonable to say that smartphones are defined by the fact that it's fairly easy for 3rd parties to develop software for.
  
• Netbooks. Invented by Asus, very popular small laptops. Here the blurry line between netbooks and laptops. But here the defining factors are size and prioce, typically Atom powered.
  
• Smartbooks. A new category - it's a netbook that is not based on an x86, and runs some other os than Windows. Typically ARM and android combo.
  
• E-books. Small computer to read books - typically a special screen technology to make reading more pleasant. People tend to forget, but these machines already exist for 10+ years.
  
• Tablets. Laptop like computers that have a large touch screen, that can mostly be swiveled so that the device looks to be 'only screen'. Also already in existence for 10+ years.
  

And people still buy desktop PCs (and Macs) and laptops, of course.

I'm not quite sure where to fit in the iPod Touch. It's a touch based, tablet like computer. But it's smaller than your typical tablet. I like it, as it is really portable, but makes more sense in it's iPhone incarnation (if it wasn't for the price).

These are a lot of computing devices, with a lot of different architectures.
Intersting times ahead for small, independent software vendors ;-)  ¶ 09:13 0 Comments