The World Wide Web Consortium has published a draft of an interface that browsers can use to manipulate files better, one of a series of steps aimed at gradually improving the sophistication and polish of Web site interfaces.
The draft File API (application programming interface) defines a number of ways that browsers and Web sites can handle files better. One big part of it: being able to select multiple files for upload, such as on photo-sharing sites or Web-based e-mail, a task that often relies on Adobe Systems' Flash today.
But there are other aspects, too. For example, the Files interface governs the use of "blobs," or packages of raw binary data such as video files. Google has touted blobs for its Gears browser plug-in as a way to divide large videos into small chunks so that uploads can be more easily resumed if a network problem interrupts the process.
Another benefit: files are handled asynchronously, which means the browser won't freeze up while a file is being uploaded or otherwise handled, and the browser reports progress on file transfers.
The technology is one example of work to transform the Web into a better foundation for interactive applications, a move that usurps some power from computer operating systems such as Windows and that's embodied most boldly in Google's Chrome OS project.
Here's one example of use of the Files interface provided by Mike Smith, who works for the W3C on matters relating to HTML--Hypertext Markup Language, the language used to describe Web pages:
A user uses a Web-based application for reading and sending e-mail. She wants to attach multiple files to particular messages. The Web application provides an user interface that allows her to select multiple files to attach at the same time. After she selects the files, they are uploaded to the Web application asynchronously, allowing the user to perform other actions while they are uploading (for example, finishing the rest of the message she was composing before you added the file attachments). As the attachments are uploaded, the Web applications shows progress bars to indicate how much of the contents of the files have uploaded thus far.
The interface can work in conjunction with various standards including the drag-and-drop support in the HTML 5 now under development and the Web Workers technology that lets browsers better perform multiple operations simultaneously.
The interface also can help Web applications process the contents of files. For example, Smith describes a lyrics finder:
A user has on her local file system a playlist file from her favorite desktop music player. The playlist contains a list of song titles and information, and she wants to be able to easily fetch the lyrics for particular songs without needing to manually search for the lyrics on the Web. So a site can provide a Web-based application that allows her to upload her playlist. The Web application then parses the file and then presents a user interface to her, show in the contents of the file as a hyperlinked, sortable list. She can then retrieve the lyrics for any given song just by clicking on a particular song title.
Arun Ranganathan, Mozilla's standards evangelist and chairman of the WebGL working group, wrote the specification, according to Chris Blizzard, Mozilla's director of developer relations.
Standards for the Web are advancing rapidly with W3C representatives including Microsoft working in conjunction with a parallel effort, WHATWG. New standards require actual implementation in browsers before they are accepted as finished, a fact that can lead to some chaos but that helps ensure the new ideas are tested in the real world.
Firefox 3.6, in beta testing now, will support most of the Files API, according to Blizzard.
Iron Mountain, a longtime provider of physical- and digital-records management, on Wednesday announced a cloud storage API that enables developers to take advantage of Iron Mountain's off-site storage facilities.
Despite the recent issues related to T-Mobile/Danger/Microsoft's data loss, cloud-based storage is not only here to stay, it's a good use case for organizations that don't have the internal processes or means to deal with off-site data management.
And while you can never know all of the things that can go wrong with your data (meaning that no one would have expected Danger to lose the T-Mobile data), established vendors like Iron Mountain have not only the customer base to support their abilities but also the processes to support customers effectively.
Iron Mountain's cloud storage application programming interface is the next evolutionary step beyond a cloud NAS (network-attached storage) that we've seen from providers like Mozy and others. The cloud storage API is similar in function to Amazon's Simple Storage Service interfaces, enabling developers to access data using restful interactions.
... Read more
Amazon Payments today launched a new service that brings the company's payment processing tools to mobile devices. Amazon Mobile Payments Service (MPS) includes a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow mobile developers and merchants to provide payment options to their customers within mobile Web sites and applications--including the convenience of Amazon's 1-Click checkout system.
There are already a number of mobile payment providers, but Amazon is the big dog of the e-commerce world with an enormous amount of customer accounts already in use. This could be an excellent option for companies that offer mass-market mobile applications and are looking for ways to easily accept payments.
The service will automatically detect the request origin, meaning a Web or mobile browser, or a mobile application so that developers don't need to re-work their applications.
... Read more
myfaves300DPI_270x460.jpg)
T-Mobile G1, the first phone powered by Google's Android software
(Credit: T-Mobile)Attention coders: Google has released version 1.0 of the Android software developer kit.
The kit lets programmers create applications that will run on Android phones, even before T-Mobile starts selling the first Android-powered G1 on October 22. The biggest difference from the previous Android SDK 0.9: software built with version 1.0 will actually, not just probably, work on those real-world phones, according to the SDK release notes.
Google hopes its Android operating system project will help spur the mobile phone industry into a more enthusiastic embrace of Internet technology. Google of course profits from ads next to search results, and Google Maps opens up other advertising possibilities that are more closely tied to a phone user's physical location.
A major part of the Android effort is Google's attempt to woo outside programmers into writing their own applications for Android phones, because Google hopes to bring the easier innovation of the PC market to the relatively closed mobile phone industry. The SDK is a key part of that effort, as is a forthcoming application download site called the Android Market. That market won't necessarily let people sell Android applications at first, though.
Also in the SDK release notes, Google called out some specific changes, such as some new abilities to make use of Android phone sensors, handle audio files, and use Wi-Fi networks. Serious programmers can look at Google's catalog of API (application programming interface) differences.
Google couldn't help adding a little nerd humor to the release notes:
"We regret to inform developers that Android 1.0 will not include support for dot-matrix printers."
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--On Friday, 300 programmers will descend upon Sunnyvale, Calif., to plant the seeds of what Yahoo hopes will be an answer to Google's Internet might.
Yahoo co-founder and Chief Yahoo David Filo
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)The event is called Open Hack Day 2008, and at it the coders will be the first from outside the company to get their hands on a number of programming interfaces Yahoo is releasing in an attempt to enliven its stodgy but still powerful Internet properties.
There's no guarantee that the release, a key step in what the company calls its Yahoo Open Strategy, will improve Yahoo's financial misfortunes. But it holds promise a strategy that could help Yahoo without having to try to out-Google Google.
That's because YOS marries the best of what Yahoo is with the best of what's happening on the Internet today. More than 500 million people come to Yahoo sites each month, 300 million of them registered users who log on, and they're coming for Yahoo's content and services. Yahoo may not be able to match Google's search engine and accompanying search ad money machine, but YOS ultimately could help improve Yahoo's assets, attract new partners, and bolster the company's advertising revenue.
"We believe openness is going to happen with or without us. We'd rather be at the center of it," said co-founder David Filo in an interview.
Here's an example of YOS in action that Ash Patel, head of Yahoo's audience products division, showed Thursday. The Yahoo home page, which is being revamped to show content customized for each user, houses an application from Netflix showing the movies a user ordered and new recommendations. Yahoo search is augmented to let people order more movies straight from the search results. And an application within Yahoo Mail could let users rate their movies and chat with Netflix members on their buddy list who've already seen it.
Ash Patel, head of Yahoo's audience products division
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)
The pressure's on
Here's the rub, though: YOS will take time to build, and time is not on Yahoo's side.
Yahoo, faced with near-term pressures from Microsoft and activist investor and now board member Carl Icahn, would have preferred a quick fix to its business, and perhaps a cash infusion from Yahoo's search-ad partnership with rival Google will help in that regard.
YOS is a longer-term strategy, though. It's taken months to rewire the company's infrastructure to accommodate the vision. It'll take more months to coax programmers and business partners into using it. And still longer to attract Yahoo users to adopt the new features.
As Yahoo languished in recent years, new online services squarely in Yahoo's back yard, such as Facebook and Twitter, had time to put down serious roots. And of course Google has encroached, too: its search-ad revenue has funded any number of affronts to Yahoo, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google News, Google Finance, Orkut, and Blogger.
Of course, Yahoo believes that its clout on the Internet will give it the necessary leg up. So the next start-up, for example, could get traction quickly by drafting off Yahoo's page views and user base.
Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)"Yahoo allows developers to create applications for the world's biggest audience," Patel said. "And they're able to do monetization for advertising. Those two are huge value propositions."
The company is betting the money will come its way, too. Yahoo expects to gain better insight into what users are doing, and consequently better predict what sorts of content or advertising the users want. "The better signals you have, the better you can serve the right content," and being able to target ads better means Yahoo can charge higher rates, said Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh. "We expect lots of material benefit."
What's coming Friday
So what will be new on Friday? For those programmers who made the Hack Day cut, a pizza- and soda-fueled opportunity to toy with two broad categories of new Yahoo APIs (application programming interfaces), said Neal Sample, chief architect for Yahoo's platforms.
First is a collection of social APIs that let programmers use data such as a Yahoo user's address book contacts, status messages, profile information, and news feed items. Second is the Yahoo Application Platform (YAP), which will be used to write the applications that actually will run on Yahoo Web pages. YAP has some similarities to the OpenSocial project initially begun by Google but now supported by several others, including Yahoo.
The first Yahoo property to get the application support will be a redesigned profile page, a "control panel" site where people can record personal information, update their status, and see their social connections, Sample said. "We're going to get to the point where all our profiles can start coalescing so you have the concept of a single identity on Yahoo."
Neal Sample, Yahoo's chief architect for platforms
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Over this year and into 2009, the support will extend to the My Yahoo personalized home page, Yahoo Mail with its 270 million users, and the Yahoo front page that's being redesigned with a customization feature called the content optimization engine.
If all goes according to plan, the collection of new interfaces and applications will "light up a user's social graph," building Yahoo more deeply into a person's online interactions, for example by spotlighting a person's most important contacts in Yahoo Mail.
Fresh air
Yahoo will call Open Hack Day a success if it produces developers happy with the company and feedback about the interfaces, said Chris Yeh, head of the Yahoo Developer Network. But there's something in it for Yahoo, too: a breath of fresh air. "Big companies do become insular at times...We do everything we can to try to avoid that."
Programmers not at Open Hack Day will only be able to see the API documentation at first, but the final APIs will be public soon. "In a few weeks, we're making them generally available," after Yahoo gets feedback from the early testers, Sample said.
These new programming interfaces will join other parts of YOS already released recent months: SearchMonkey lets people write applications that spruce up search results with elements such as LinkedIn profiles or restaurant reviews. BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) lets others build their own search engines on Yahoo's, reordering or modifying results however they want and sharing search ads or revenue if they get popular.
Chris Yeh, head of Yahoo Developer Network
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Newest is Fire Eagle can keep track of a person's location information, including a mechanism to let users control what services may employ that information.
A few other APIs are planned for later release, Sample added, including some for geographic services.
Proceed cautiously
Embracing openness--standards, open-source software, open interfaces--is a tried and true way technology companies try to leapfrog incumbent competitors. But retrofitting openness to a company that's been closed is difficult, and Yahoo clearly is concerned about breaking what it's built by moving at start-up speeds.
"Getting it right with hundreds of millions of users is harder than if you're starting from scratch," Filo said.
And it's not just about revealing APIs and doing some marketing. "We have to get the platform right so we can ensure the applications don't degrade the user experience," Patel said, for example by caching applications on Yahoo servers so pages load fast. "It is stuff that does keep us up at night."
Consequently, Patel said, the company will vet applications before letting them onto Yahoo sites--especially for Yahoo Mail site, where so much personal information resides.
Venkat Panchapakesan
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Yahoo also wants to ensure users are in control when it comes to the permissions they grant to applications, said Venkat Panchapakesan, leader of Yahoo's audience technology group.
So it's tricky work for a lumbering giant. If successful, though, Yahoo will be able to reclaim some of the Internet initiative it once had in spades, potentially rearranging today's competitive landscape.
"Yes, we have lots of competitors," Filo said. "In some ways, we're opening up new level of competition by letting people build on top of us. Ultimately, this is good for the consumer and the Internet."
See also:
• Yahoo gives a taste of its 'open' overhaul
• David Filo: No browser for Yahoo
• Yahoo makes the case for Google search ads
• Yahoo 12-month price target cut
• Yahoo announces social networking app for iPhone
• Top Yahoo sales execs: One in, one out
Google on Monday released the first beta version of its software developer kit (SDK) for Android phones, a significant step in the company's hope for "open" phone technology.
Google, which is leading the 34-company Open Handset Alliance to create the largely open-source Android software stack for mobile devices, already had released an "early look" SDK in November 2007. With the new beta SDK, though, the company is telling programmers they can get started in earnest creating software that will work on Android phones due to start shipping later this year, though stopping short of promising full compatibility.
"Since this is a beta release, applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0," Google developer advocate Dan Morrill said in a blog post.
Google's promised advantages of Android.
(Credit: Google)Among changes in the new SDK are the addition of the phone's new home screen as well as some new applications for controlling the camera, playing music, setting alarms, viewing pictures, and dealing with SMS and MMS messages.
Android phones, notably HTC's Dream, are due to ship in the fourth quarter.
Google had hinted in May that the new Android SDK was imminent, but the company ended up sharing it only with finalists in an Android programming contest until Monday. The Android Developer Challenge is awarding $10 million to coders to try to jump-start development efforts; on Monday, Google said a second challenge will be announced later this year that "will give developers a chance to build polished applications once hardware is available."
Google hopes Android phones will be open to run innumerable applications, not just locked down to handle a relatively small number of authorized packages. To achieve this promise though, one key step is helping programmers to write that code. And SDK does just that, for example, by providing a software emulator that can run Android applications without an actual Android phone.
... Read more- prev
- 1
- next
