Question: Given today’s press release from Nokia, are Adobe going to be outmanoeuvred by Microsoft’silverlight on mobiles ?

Answer: Pull the other one, it repeats “I’m a Flash killer” in a squeaky voice

Sparked by Daren Waters over at dot.life blog

The next stage in the evolution of the mobile web has become clearer [this] … announcement is a powerful message to the internet industry. Because Nokia’s phones, and specifically those running the S60 operating system, have a dominant place in the market, with more than 53% of the market share.

It means that Silverlight could well become the standard platform for web development on a phone and that in turn could have a knock on effect on the PC because smartphone sales will overtake laptop sales any day now.

Fair enough, if it was an exclusive deal – but it isn’t. In Nokia’s own words they are: “Adding support for Silverlight” which “will extend opportunities for developers”

Today S60 developers can use: C++ (using native Symbian OS APIs and Open C providing subset of standard POSIX libraries), S60 Web Run-time (supporting standards-based web technologies such as Ajax, JavaScript, CSS and HTML), the Java(TM) language, Flash Lite from Adobe, and Python.

FlashEarth, the marvelous mashup of online mapping services by Paul Neave from the UK, has broken into new territory, thanks to Valery Hrosunov and Barry Hunter.

“What if the current view in Google Earth was quickly viewable in other maps, such as those made accessible by FlashEarth? Well, now it is. As you move around the globe a little white arrow follows you around, simple click it to get an approximation of the current view in FlashEarth in a popup balloon”. #

First, Valery posted to the Google Earth Community that you could include FlashEarth within a placemark bubble – if you are using GE 4.2 on Windows. Then, using the new capability of Google Earth to embed Flash into placemark bubbles, Barry Hunter has produced a KML network link. Open it in Google Earth, and a white arrow will appear in the center of the screen. Click on the arrow, and a bubble will pop up giving you the Flash Earth choices of imagery for that area.

Layers available in Flash Earth are

* Google Maps
* Microsoft Virtual Earth (VE) Aerial
* Microsoft Virtual Earth (VE) Labels
* Yahoo Maps
* Ask Maps
* Ask Aerial
* Open Layers
* NASA Terra (Daily)

via | gearthblog

Previous post on FlashEarth:
Flash Earth adds NASA satellites

“The open source engine of your personalizable applications. Simple and free technology that you can use to realize your own personalizable interfaces. Participate in the development of the POSH engine, used in many applications like Portaneo.com.”

There is a screencast on webdeux.info where Eric Mathieu of Portaneo comments –

“…the functionality is forcibly different (from NetVibes) in that it depends upon an open source code that can be freely used by other sites/tools who wish to provide more personalisation without reinventing the wheel.”

I’m not sure how it matches up to the other main players but Portaneo.com seems to have all the usual suspects – module management etc. It could prove helpful to developers and interesting for those who would like to see what a personalised start-page engine actually looks like under the bonnet.

Portaneo will be targeting companies with their Enterprise Edition to follow shortly so I take it the Open Source Home Page is freely available for none profitable activity, although there is no mention of it, as far as I can see – which isn’t very far these days I grant you.

via | webdeux.info

The Frenchman was quoted recently as saying “Browsing RSS is kind of boring right now…It should be sexy.”

So wot ye got ?

1. A new integrated RSS reader (similar to Google’s reader)
2. Users will be able to share customized modules among friends so that with just one click, a user can send either a full content module or a tab within a module via e-mail or instant message. This seems to be in foot with the PageFlakes – portable Flakes – idea.
3. A new set of modules offering site-specific searches.

via | netviber

Well, nothing that would get the Thames out of her bed, I grant you.
But then I don’t see how you can make reading XML titles sexy, however they mix it up.

Nether the less, there is more on its way from NetVibes. Soon to come is a Universal API (ooh, you’re getting warmer!) which will let module developers port their widgets onto other platforms. I reckon the good folk at FOWA will see a few laptops tremblin’ to that one.

Pete Cashmore from Mashable called it “Myspace plus Netvibes on steroids”, Sam Sethi from Vecosys “An extremely powerful tool for creating and remixing web pages”.

Squeezing this UK start-up into a nutshell isn’t easy. It seems to be a lot of things in one place. Webjam give you three pages to start with, when you sign up. These include the Homepage, which follows the model of a personalised startpage. You can chop and change modules/widgets and RSS feeds. There is also the Profile page to which users can add a blog complete with WYSIWYG editor and RSS feed subscription. Then there is the Main Site which is intended to be a community site, which you can knock up from scratch or simply copy stuff from other Webjam sites if those sites users’ settings allow it. These privacy settings can be applied to web pages as well as individual modules so you can have the world and its sister visit your pages but have certain modules on those pages like photos, kept out of sight.

But, you don’t have to stop there, you can continue adding more sites – private, community or otherwise. With all these possibilities and more, it’s a good job Webjam offers well garnered tutorials & vids. There is also a simple video tutorial on YouTube for a quick gist of the feel of it.

via | vecosys