April 29, 2010

Briefly Noted for April 29, 2010

IMLS UpNext Wrapping Up with Discussions about the Workforce and What’s Next — The IMLS UpNext project has entered its final two weeks with open forums on two new topics. In the first, Joanne Marshall of UNC leads a discussion of the shape of 21st century library and museum workforce. In the second, Larry Johnson of The New Media Consortium considers how the conversations started this spring at UpNext should move forward in the weeks and months ahead and encourages each of us to be the change we wish to see (my words—actually Gandhi’s—not Larry’s). Join in to let IMLS know where you think the museum and library fields should be headed.

Paleofuture on NPR — Anyone interested in the history of science and technology, cultural history, science fiction, or the crackpot fantasies of generations past should subscribe to Paleofuture. To get a sense of what you’ll find there, have a listen to this recent segment of NPR’s All Things Considered with the blog’s author, Matt Novak.

Flash Support Coming to Android — It seems the death of Flash has been greatly exaggerated. Apple’s refusal to support Flash on the iPhone and iPad have been cited by some as signaling the demise of Adobe’s much loved and hated web development and display environment. Now comes news that the next version of Google’s quickly growing Android mobile operating system will fully support Adobe Flash. This is not only the latest salvo from Google in its tiff with Apple (though the timing of the announcement just after Apple’s announcement of iPhone OS4 is certainly intended to tweak the folks in Cupertino). It’s also important news for the hundreds of educational and cultural websites built in Flash and currently inaccessible to users of the latest generation of smartphones. I’m not a great lover of Flash (in fact quite the opposite), but I also find Apple’s refusal to support the technology on the grounds they are defending open standards more than a little specious. Moving forward, I’d rather see dynamic websites and video delivered via open technologies like HTML5. But for now I’m happy I’ll be able to visit the many educational and cultural websites already built in Flash on my Nexus One and that those institutions may not feel compelled to choose between a hasty reworking of entire swathes of their content or being lost to the growing numbers of mobile web visitors.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.