Dave

hyprtext

So, the first post to hyprtext. Guess I better explain…

This is going to be a blog about the web. Talking about the new web services, Web 2.0 and all that stuff. Yeah, I know, another one. But I’m hoping this is going to be a little different.

One of the differences with this blog is that I don’t want to write it all. I really want other people to contribute. So, anyone email us to register then with the blog and allow them to submit an article. Please do so.

In addition to this, while we’ll be bringing you news of all the latest happenings in the world of the web, we’ll also be offering the occasional comment piece, full of reflection and wild predictions.

Also, we’re happy to host stuff for people. So, if you would like to start a blog, then get in touch. I’m sure I could sort something out here. I guess that’s true of other types of site like wikis, too.

Thanks to WordPress for being great as usual, and Mike Lococo for the original theme which I’ve hacked up a bit.

Blair’s capitulation

Oliver Kamm on the government’s craven actions over the BAE fraud enquiry:

Our overriding foreign policy goal is the defeat of aggressive terrorism. So pursuing an inquiry into corruption in an arms deal worth billions of pounds would risk disrupting a relationship with Saudi Arabia crucial to achieving those goals. Mr Blair placed emphasis on the national interest in vague terms so we have no idea what the interests are, because he did not say. The tacit assumption must be that the Saudis might withhold intelligence co-operation, and withdraw from the arms deal. Our security interests would suffer; so would British commercial interests.

This is not only the best defence but also the only conceivable one for a decision taken directly by the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it is pitiful. The lamentable closure of the SFO inquiry encapsulates the method and reasoning of the banana republic. It jettisons the central principle of democratic government. The SFO said this week that: “It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest.” To say that this is illiberal scarcely covers it. It is the lowest point in Mr Blair’s Government, and will be a defining one. It gives cynicism a bad name.

John Naughton and Simon Dickson also comment on the story

Google Phone

From The Observer:

Google is on the move. The internet giant has held talks with Orange, the mobile phone operator, about a multi-billion-dollar partnership to create a ‘Google phone’ which makes it easy to search the web wherever you are.

The collaboration between two of the most powerful brands in technology is seen as a potential catalyst for making internet use of mobile phones as natural as on desktop computers and laptops.

I’ve often thought that the future of the web is mobile: a Blackberry sized thing with a reasonably sized screen and keyboard. Let it boot straight up into a Firefox variant and then connect to web services. It doesn’t have to be through Google, Zoho have a perfectly good selection of apps, too. Everything is done online through the browser, which would mean no more synchronising of mobile devices with desktop machines.

Before this becomes a reality though, a better platform than AJAX needs to be employed, as Bill Thompson has pointed out:

There is a massive difference between rewriting Web pages on the fly with Javascript and reengineering the network to support message passing between distributed objects, a difference that too many Web 2.0 advocates seem willing to ignore. It may have been twenty years since Sun Microsystems trademarked the phrase ‘the network is the computer’ but we’re still a decade off delivering, and if we stick with Ajax there is a real danger that we will never get there.

Spotted at Google Operating System.

[tags]google, orange, observer, google operating system, zoho, bill thompson[/tags]

WP Tiger Administration v3.0

Steve Smith has updated his Tiger Admin plug-in. What does it do? It makes the WordPress admin screen look very nice indeed. Good job!

[tags]wordpress, WP Tiger Administration, steve smith[/tags]

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