I managed to get through 30 minutes without committing social hari kari or making too bigger tit of myself. Pat Lauke was in full on Opera and HTML5 brainwash form, but energetic and interesting enough to be different from Chris Mill’s session at Leeds. The coup de grâce was obviously Simon Collison of Erskine Design, with his In the Pursuit of Magic presentation, and fair play to him for being drugged up but persevering and putting on a really thoughtful and inspiring presentation.

I really enjoyed my 30 minutes of fame and cannot believe how quick the time flew by. Starting at slide 1, with a counter at 00:01, it’s quite scary, but I felt that after a few slides I got into step quick enough. I’d seen Andy Clarke at Leeds, and had heard that Elliot Jay Stocks and Andy were coming to the Liverpool session. No pressure then! Fortunately, I’d had a few beers with Elliot in Manchester a couple of weeks before, and he turned out to be a thoroughly down-to-earth nice bloke, and we share a lot of common ground with our musical tastes.

There were *loads* of things I’d tried to remember to say, but completely forgot, but also quite a bit I just threw in on the spot. Preparation made this possible, and knowing your subject material!

A bit about why I chose my subject matter, to give you some idea of the decision making as a speaker. When writing the presentation, I didn’t know how the room was going to be split, in terms of designers, front end devs and coders, which is why I asked for a quick show of hands. That made it clear that front end devs were out in force, so hopefully I pitched that well.

I was also aware that I was merely the warm-up act for this gig, and it was my first time speaking at a conference for a long time, so I couldn’t afford to be too esoteric or banal (no, I’m not suggesting Colly was!) but knew I had to be fairly straight forward, but be competent in what I was presentating.

So thank you very much to Dan Donald and Rich Clark for organising the Speak The Web events and inviting me to be part of it all, and thanks to everyone who said hello on the evening, and to all those who’ve followed me on Twitter. I hope you stick around…

Here’s my presentation from the night, and you’ll find Pat and Colly’s on the slideshare.net site.

I run a business (well, Pete does most the business end stuff, but you know what I mean) and all this talk about HTML5 <video> tags has kinda riled me a little bit, because it’s getting so much exposure, and to be honest I think it’s already shot itself in the foot.

I emailed Bruce Lawson my points of view after we had a rapid fire exchange via Twitter. I was playing devil’s advocate a little bit by countering OGG/h.264 with a flippant “Flash video FTW” type of comment, but that led to a good exchange, with Bruce citing accessibility options in the new <video> tag as a major bonus. However, Bruce slept on it, and asked me the next morning if he could write it up as a blog post, because in his usual musings he doesn’t get to give my perspective much thought.

Currently, the best way to serve video online is via Flash. That’s a given. With the advent of HTML5, a new tag was born to specifically handle video. This would play video natively in a browser, with no need for plug-ins, and allow interaction with Javascript, standard CSS controls and further advancements like annotations etc. It does sound really good, and certainly one of the areas of HTML5 I’m looking forward to exploring. There was quite a bit of coo-ing over this Sublime video page, which is a good indicator of how it’s going, but as Tom Leadbetter points out, it doesn’t work in Firefox. WTF?

This is because there was a small issue of which codec the browser vendors would support for the <video> spec. Apple and Google favoured the h.264 codec, while Opera and Mozilla favoured the open-source OGG video standard.

Of note, Apple faced a similar decision when choosing to create the Apple Lossless codec. They chose not to use FLAC, which is an established lossless format, and opted to make their own. I remember reading at the time that it may be to FLAC not being immune to unforeseen patent issues in the future, which funnily enough is very similar to the OGG video format right now.

Right at the first hurdle, we’re getting shafted, because this means if I want to make video available for all visitors, I need to encode two versions.

If that were for a few videos of my band (what band? I can’t play *anything*) or of my family, it wouldn’t be an issue really, leave ‘em encoding over night, upload and use twice as much space, and reference both files in the <video> code.

But for a business, this means I have to charge a client twice for encoding the same piece of video, and if they’re dealing with a lot of video footage, the time plus storage aspects have just been doubled. This is just crazy. A savvy client will decline the niceties of doing the right thing of going with HTML5 and say encode it once and deliver with Flash. Job done.

Oh, but the iPhone and iPad don’t support Flash!

Think around the problem. Flash can stream h.264 .mp4 files, and the very same .mp4 will run in the Quicktime player on the iPhone, so it appears we’re covering a lot of bases with just using h.264.

Furthermore, the h.264 standard is supported by both dedicated hardware encoders and embedded chip sets for decoding, like in set top boxes or mobile handsets. More on the mobile in a bit, but the hardware encoding is the *only* way to go for anyone dealing in large amounts of video. YouTube anybody? Combined with the smaller file sizes and comparable if not better quality, it’s no wonder Google chose h.264. (I was going to link to Chris DiBona’s blog and the relevant article, but it’s a bad UX with the menu *under* the Google Ads box, and I couldn’t be arsed digging. face palm.)

“Oh, but not everyone is Google.” No, no they’re not. But other people use video too. One of our clients who do use a lot of video is D&AD. A quick look through the 2009 Awards submissions shows not only four or five dedicated video sections, but browsing round other areas, such as installations reveals more video. There’s gonna be a lot of media on there, and that’s just 2009… there’s 323 videos for that year alone, with a total of over 1,500 videos for five years of awards. This figure is only gonna go upwards as the 2010 awards are added, and the years before 2005 are added as D&AD work their way back through previous awards for a more complete history.

Going back to mobile again, this is one area of the internet use we’ve seen absolutely massive growth in over the last few years. The market is enormous, and it’s spreading across the globe and bringing access to those without computers or landlines, with enterprising individuals in Africa renting time out on mobiles for internet access.

A growing number of mobile devices are sporting h.264 hardware chipsets as standard, the iPhone, T-Mobile G1 and Android are notable examples. The explosion of mobile browsing is driving the adoption of the h.264 standard as a hardware spec, and I think that’s going to be quite the defining factor.

I would have thought Opera with it’s Mobile and Mini browsers would be an excellent match up for these new devices, but OGG does not reap the benefits of these hardware accelerators. Opera won’t support h.264 due to “obscene patent licensing costs” (which have yet to be levied for content creators, but it’s still $5 million for a browser to include a h.264 decoder. Thank you for the correction, Bruce), yet they themselves will license out their browser technology to companies like Nintendo… I mean, Firefox, fair enough, it’s open source. Obviously, I do not have the faintest grasp of the in’s and out’s of such dealings, or the figures involved. This is almost thinking out loud from me, and can probably be answered quickly by one of the Opera crowd.

Anyway, if you’ve stuck with me this long you deserve a round of applause. Golf clap. The long and short of it is that I can’t see HTML5 video becoming a real-world standard for online video for a while, until these codec issues are sorted out and there is a clear winner. Certainly for me as a professional dealing with clients concerns and costs, we have to be realistic and say at the moment, we’re going to use Flash. And that’s a real shame, as a lot of work has been done to bring HTML5 into the world, and there’s so much to look forward to, but this situation just boils my piss.

Now please excuse me while I go sell that cunt of a garden ornament Lawson his hub-caps back…

The iPad will not support Flash.

Just like the iPhone before it, the Flash plug-in cannot and will not run in the iPad’s browser. Apple say it’s because the Flash plug-in is the single biggest cause of Safari crashes. I can’t say I’d blame them for being pissed. The window to the internet on your default install can be crippled by a third party proprietary plug-in. Not cool.

So, because Apple have a closed platform in the iPhone and iPad they can choose who plays ball.

A lot of web folks are predicting the end of Flash. It’s on it’s way out. along with HTML5 putting the boot in and promising to handle streaming video (possibly Flash’s biggest single use online) with acceptable CPU levels on a Mac, there will be a decrease in the plug-in, whilst this may be true, I don’t see a funeral anytime soon.

If you also look at who’s screaming til they’re blue in the face, we see something interesting. It’s mostly (if not all) Mac using standards authors who’re quick to announce Flash’s passing. Mac users. A minority group who’ve been consistently bummed by Adobe and their plug-in technology for over a decade. We’ve been second-hand citizens for years with both the Flash authoring app and the web plug-ins. I know people who, years ago, turned from Mac to PC, because their core skill was Flash, and that was an utter cluster-fuck on a Mac.

Even today, watching a 2.something GHz Mac CPU tilting at 50% when running a YouTube video isn’t fucking funny. It’s obscene, and a slur to all Mac users. Adobe should not be surprised the oppressed masses are now turning.

But really, that’s just the technology, what about the software and possibilities it presents?

I have a long history with Flash, which has to some extent tailed off in the recent years. I remember being completely confused by FutureSplash, before it was acquired by Macromedia. I saw my whole world change with the introduction of ActionScript, not the clicking of option boxes, and the fear that I might not “get it”.  I was invited to the launch of Flash 5 with Subnet, in London with a handful of other companies such as Kerb and Razorfish, teams of young talent who’d been reared on video games and enjoyed creating something new. I’ve written chapters and articles, tech reviewed, demoed and taught Flash. I know it pretty well.

If Flash goes, we’ll lose important things on the web. Diversity, experimentation, inspiration and art. Flash is the single quickest way for a designer to do something quirky, with audio and animation, to tell a story or create an experience, then publish it to the internet. While I’m not Flash’s biggest fan, I still think it has it’s place, and more so now that it’s being used to create elements of a site rather than doing whole sites within Flash.

I don’t think Flash will die, and really I hope it doesn’t, because the bar for entry into web authoring for young designers and coders may be raised so high, and focussed so narrow, it will stop a lot of abstract and creative talent getting involved.

So just be careful what you wish for.

But wait, you were out on Monday night too… what gives, Smith?

Ok, I will come clean. Monday’s drinking was less about the drinking (hah!) and more about talking with Chris Mills and Patrick Lauke about presenting, presentation material and subjects around validation and general geekiness. We did not at one point mention any rumour or conjecture about the iPad, which I feel is very important to mention. Leffe and Hoegaarden were order of the evening!

However the Transmission 3 (#tx3) event was different. It was all about the mobile web, the pleasure and the pain of being in this field. There were 3 speaking slots, starting with Chris Mills from Opera giving an overview of mobile to date. Peter-Paul Koch of Quirksmode whose done a ridiculous amount of research on the state of mobile browsing. Finally, two likely lads from down south, Polls and Mills from usTwo, would look at the world of iPhone app dev.

Developing for Mobile Platforms – The pleasure and the pain (ker-tsscchhhhh!)
The talks kicked off with a good overview of mobile history from Chris Mills, the beginnings of mobile browsing, the reasons why it’s prevailant and reasons why it’s a current fave for marketing folks. Good content from Chris, like WAP, earliest networks and general do’s and dont’s about developing for mobile platforms. Interesting to be reminded how far we’ve come with mobile browsing in a short space of time.

PPK on the state of mobile browsers
The amount of time PPK has put into testing mobile browsers is insane. He’s tested, prodded, poked and broke pretty much every flavour on every device. A very interesting sentence from PPK was something along the lines of “on the mobile web, IE does not matter”. IE on mobile is so utterly shit, everyone who has it instantly goes and gets something like Opera Mobile.

The mobile browser usual suspects usually fall into one of two camps, Opera or WebKit. However, that’s not quite as simple as that sounds, there’s about 10 flavours of WebKit browsers, running various Javascript engines, with different switches set at compile time. Still, 95% of what you do in a browser will work on all WebKit devices.

PPK also got quite excited about Widgets and their future potential. Supported by Opera, a widget is a collection of HTML, images, CSS and JS, which is zipped and the extension changed to .wgt. His main gripe is that at the moment wdigets are not allowed device level access, to things like GPS, address book etc, as it’s a massive security concern, but if this can be solved, it’ll be quite the revelation, apparently.

usTwo and a story of iPhone how not-to’s
Polls and Mills were the only iPhone specific talkers of the night, and they had some stories to tell! Completely self-depreciating, the lads put a very funny spin on all the things the did in terms of marketing that would do amazing things like generate sales of… 150 apps.

They build the apps out of pure love, as they don’t spin much money, but as a marketing tool, they get their name out and in the press and chip chip chip away at the media. The apps are cool toys to show current and prospective clients, and open the door to branding and promotional opportunities.

They openly admitted they from a design background, and didn’t talk technical, but their approach to everything was very funny, beating themselves up, but with the underlying current of “yeah, but we’ve learnt loads in the process”.

Comedy moment, when they were talking about their Ben10 MouthOff app, I had bought it a week earlier while sat on the couch on a saturday morning with my son. I fired the app up and had it ready when they asked if anyone had seen it, it was only right to respond with the MouthOff app over my mouth!

Conclusion
All in all, tx3 was great. Very insightful, very inspiring and an area that we as JP74 are actively getting into, very important. More of this please, Digital Sparks!

Speak The Web aims to break down the barriers that prevent a lot of people getting to the bigger conferences. Travel, time off work, hotels and the bar bill can all be quite prohibitive, so the lads have started a grass roots collective of local talent and are hitting four venues in the North.

Being a scouser, they asked me if I’d be interested in the Liverpool venue, and of course I said yes.

The tickets are all very reasonably priced, and the whole atmosphere is hoping to be more like a gig than a conference, with speakers hanging round for beers and chat after the shows. I intend to get to the other three, as all the speakers are insightful.

Find out more info at the speaktheweb.org site, or follow them on Twitter, #speaktheweb. See you there!

Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Xenophanes
Silversun Pickups – Swoon
Street Sweeper Social Club – self-titled
Josh Freese – Since 1972
Rancid – Let The Dominoes Fall
NIN – Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift

I have to put NIN in because of how this free release has come about, especially the video.

“On January 7th, 2009, over 400Gb of video from the Victoria, Portland and Sacramento shows from the same tour were unofficially released by the band.

“By working together, the Nine Inch Nails fan community have created “Another Version of the Truth” – a 3 disc release bringing together numerous editors, designers, and web programmers to create a professional digital film, followed by a physical release created by fans for fans.”

Head over to This One Is On Us to find out more and grab a version of the video in everything from iPod to Blu-Ray.

But damn, only six. Let’s hope that every band I like was busy writing material for this year…

Anyways, there was a question on the gaming forum I use a lot for chatter and buying/selling, NTSC-uk, asking what your Top 10 Games of the Decade were. Wow, that got me thinking. It’s actually a pretty tough question, and it’s hard to date some games in your head, as when you look ‘em up they were too early in many of my cases. So we chatted about it at work and with friends on Twitter, but it’s taken me all day to get this down.

Here it is, in no specific order.

Phantasy Star Online (DC)
Crazy Taxi (DC)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Call of Duty Modern Warfare2 (PS3)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
Mario Kart DS (DS)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)
Katamari Damacy (any version/any system)
Orbital (iPhone)
Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)

So, explain yourself, Smith!

Some of these are here because they were novel, or a breath of fresh air, like Katamari and Guitar Hero. Some are there because of the memories I have from playing at that time, Phantasy Star Online. Some are there because half way through playing I caught myself saying out loud “Goddamn… I love this game!”—Batman Arkham Asylum.

Notice there’s no Xbox games in the list, since I’ve never owned one, thus Xbox games simply can’t be in my top 10.

Try as I might, I could not bring myself to put Super Mario Galaxy in there. As Dan at work said, there’s no real difficulty curve to the game, it’s the same all the way through, which I think is true in many respects. Maybe it’s due another play.

I’m guessing a few of you will be wondering why I’m including Orbital on the iPhone in this list (and since a few people are linking here, including Orbital’s creators) I guess I’ll pen a few words about that too. The game is ridiculously addictive, which is always a good starter for 10. The graphics are neat, very like Galaxy Wars, and the controls are sublimely simple. You click the screen to fire the ball. It’s not an earth-shattering development in gaming, but it’s the a great example of crafting a great little game for the medium it’s delivered on, the iPhone. You can fire it up for a quick go, it saves it’s state when you hit the home button, and you end up simply blaming yourself when you cock up. You never feel cheated by the game. Orbital’s onsale for 59p at the time of writing, so get it bought if you’ve not done so already!

‘Artley asked me shortly after what my Top 5 Games of the last 30 years would be, which funnily enough I found a lot easier! Mine would be Bubble Bobble, Metal Slug X, Tempest2K, Crazy Taxi, Super Mario World!

After talking about Emulation in the last post, I thought it might do well to video it and show some of the different handhelds running the Mega Drive emulator.

It’s the first bit of video I’ve done for the blog, so please excuse anything you think to be crap… and I was full of cold, so kept the voice over to a minimum!

It took many years for things to improve, but even then I felt cheated, using a £1,200 laptop to play a 20 year old game that I had in the attic that would run without the problems… but with recent handhelds, thankfully, there’s been a better way.

I have a PSP with hacked firmware so I don’t need to carry about 6-7 UMDs with me when travelling to Spain, and have tried the Megadrive emulator, PicoDrive on that. Works ok, but still stutters and jumps at times.

I tried a GamePark GP2X. Getting better, open source community was pretty good, lots of emulators, ran on two standard AA batteries, was about the same size as a PSP in overall dimensions, looked and felt a bit cheap to be honest. Also only used a 2GB SD card, so it got cramped on there quick.

The GP2X was second in a series of small, portable, open source software powered PMPs, or Personal Media Player (I think), which has originated in the East in places like China and Korea. Following the GP2X was the Wiz and Dingoo, aiming to improve on the hardware and offering more options for media consumption.

After reading a lot of reviews, forums and watching of YouTube videos, I went for a Dingoo. As standard, it comes with 4GB built in memory, and a microSD slot, of which I’ve got a 2GB card in currently. It packs a 2.8″ screen, FM Radio, headphone socket, video out, standard button set up of 4 directions and 4 buttons, plus start/select and shoulder buttons, so it’s gagging for some SNES action.

The form factor is great, a nice small slab of plastic. Battery life is amazing, recharged by USB, and the unit doesn’t feel too cheap, they haven’t tried to be clever with the design. Flat face, available in black or white. Someone’s learning…

So onto the emulation. The standard pre-loaded emulators do a good job. Neo Geo, Megadrive, SNES and more are all available out of the box, you just need to add your own, legally owned, ROMs to via USB and you’re away. However, there’s been an amazing push by the open source hacking community to open the Dingoo up even further. This has lead to a whole Unix based OS, Dingux, that means a *lot* of emulators can be ported instantly. This is brilliant. For example, PicoDrive runs much faster, and doesn’t suffer from the same graphic tearing that the included Megadrive emulator does.

Yes, the Dingoo runs plenty of other emulators well, and I’ve played some of the JAMMA and Neo Geo games I used to own via MAME, but for me, I’m only really interested in Megadrive emulation at this moment, as that’s my favourite retro system, and the Dingoo seems made for it. Certainly saves me trekking to the loft and digging out the big plastic boxes containing all my old Megadrive games!

Looks like I have to make room for a permanent addition to the travel entourage!

I love this video! Great imagination and shows what a bunch of brothers and friends can do! Swound! – Predator 3. You can buy it from iTunes here…

What’s more, my little boy loves the video too! He has a shirt like Joe, the singer, and when he sees it, he starts singing and doing the actions from the video, like kicking a ball, rolling on the floor and playing his guitar!

Check him out…

If you like the song, you can check out the Swound! site, submit a challenge and download their first EP, “Hello Future, Our Name is Swound!” for nothing!