blog.

So... it’s all over again for another year... no more turkey, mince pies or mulled wine for another 12 months. We’re all agreed here that this is not entirely a bad thing! With Christmas over and done with, it’s time to look forward to the New Year!

Things we’re looking forward to in 2010:

• Google’s Nexus One Phone. Launching today – likely to well and truly divide the camp here. So long iPhone? The jury’s out as yet.
• Celebrity Big Brother. Or the backlash anyway. At the very least, we can be pleased that it’s the last one. EVER.
• Real – time search taking off. Still not sure whether I need to know everybody on Twitter’s opinion on my desired search term, but could be a giggle to start with.
• Onwards and upwards for Focus. We’ve had a great 2009, with a bit of a team reshuffle, and we’re looking forward to a cracking 2010. 

Rather impressed by the Google Wave demo, launched just before the weekend.  The product promises to revolutionise communication, and it very well may prove to do just that!

Elements we like:

• Real-time typing, together with the contextual spellcheck.  No more enigmatic pen shuffling nonsense - participants will see the message appear in the wave as soon as it is created. 

• Drag and drop features - where anything on your desktop, file or previous wave can be dragged into a new one, and edited by anyone connected to the wave.  

• The potential for collaboration.  This just takes Google Docs to an entirely different level! 

• Playback allows you to catch up on how the wave developed, following sequential additions from the whole group, or individual participants. This also facilitates accountability as each wave can be audited (inspired by version control).

Mashable have written a decent review of the initial presentation, and have even managed to gain developer access to the alpha version.  Both pieces make good reading.

Wave looks like a gigantic leap forward in terms of web development, with the race to create the first apps already well under way.  

Google Wave

Twitter was something we avoided as a company for quite a while for two main reasons: 

 1. Time and productivity can very easily get sucked away by hours of endless tweeting.

 2. No one's really interested in the minutiae of our working days (let's face it - we're not as important as this guy).

Thankfully, we finally overcame our reservations a while back and now use Twitter both as a quick way to link through to useful finds on the web and to update followers on our latest news and blog posts.  We're finding it most useful as a neat RSS feed for industry news.

Join us on Twitter.

Even though a European directive has required us  to recycle electronic waste since early 2007, the UK is still lagging desperately behind the rest of Europe, the BBC unveils today.  Apparently fewer than half of us recycle our electronic equipment, compared to 80% of Germans.

While this is an embarrassing statistic, I think the lack of kerbside collection and inner city recycling facilities for this type of waste could be to blame.  A quick postcode search for places designed to take this sort of rubbish reveals a disparate picture of sites well outside main conurbations.  With households containing:

"an average of 2.4 TVs, 1.6 computers, 2.4 games consoles, 3 mobile phones, and 2.2 MP3 players,"

the case for providing more urban recycling points and kerbside collections looks very strong.

Useful links:

Recycle Bank Locator
Envirowise

We've all been impressed by a new website launched by the British Red Cross this week.  Its main aim is to provide parents with free, simple, trustworthy advice on emergency first aid that could one day help to save their child or baby's life. 

What struck us was the level of accessibility incorporated into such a media rich site.  As well as including well-known text-resizing functionality, they have also added subtitles to videos and sensible title tags on navigational links. 

It's clear that they have thought about the whole range of potential site visitors, from the visually impaired to dyslexic and hard of hearing users.

What's slightly disappointing is that they fail to meet the basic validation requirements set out by w3c.  Hopefully this is just a 'work in progress' glitch - it is after all mentioned on their main website that accessibility is something they are constantly trying to improve.

At a time when all web developers should be getting to grips with the new WCAG 2.0 guidelines, this site is a lovely example of user inclusivity.

Microsoft reported last week that the internet will soon become the most popular medium for home entertainment in Europe, surpassing the TV by June 2010.

This certainly seems to ring true at Focus!  A quick straw poll found that everyone here uses the internet to view video and TV content to some degree, ranging from YouTube clips of parrots dancing to full feature films from 4OD.  Some don't even own a TV set, preferring to watch programmes provided online instead. 

Apart from new media geeks, it's generally young people between 18 - 24 years old who will most likely eschew the TV screen in favour of their computer monitor, preferring on-demand video to live TV programmes.  

Microsoft and New Media Age both agree that the web will be accessed more frequently via mobile phones. Games consoles such as the X-Box and PlayStation will also play a part in the decline of television use.

The real challenge will be how to effectively integrate all these different devices. Web developers will need to ensure their web applications are compatible across mobile, console and computer platforms.

A message from the Queen - if you've ever been lucky enough to receive one - would traditionally be in the form of posted letter.  High quality paper, HRH watermark, the Royal seal encrusting the envelope, all that jazz.  The kind of thing you'd frame, or put away for grandchildren to admire. 

Now you can receive emails from the Queen!  Fully embracing modern culture, our beloved HRH has recently sent a bunch of adoring fans a response to their various posts on the Royal website... electronically!

I suppose this makes sense.  A number of them live in the farthest flung corners of the Commonwealth possible, making postal deliveries rather difficult.  A 12-year old girl living in the Australian Outback received her email after inviting Queen Elizabeth to swap Buckingham Palace for a life on a remote cattle farm 200km from the nearest town.  I'm sure Lizzy managed to deal with this offer with the greatest aplomb - having a lifetime's worth of polite engagements to attend you would rather hope so!

I like the idea of our Queen embracing modern technology, although the day we see her sitting at her Mac, tapping Her Royal Feet to iPod 'choons' and emailing Philip using txt speak is still very far away!

I wasn't overly surprised at seeing today's leading article on the BBC Technology page.  Google's Streetview project has precipitated much debate on topics ranging from personal privacy to crime since its official launch two weeks ago.  In this instance, residents of a small town in Buckinghamshire physically blocked the passage of a Google streetview car, insisting angrily that the invasion of their privacy was too much to bear. 

I empathise, having felt a deep uneasiness at seeing my front garden two clicks into a Google search.  We are all well aware of increased surveillance and presence of cameras within city centres, but for me this goes a bit too far.

There are benefits to the service though, that I shall no doubt take advantage of.  It will make visits to unknown destinations much easier for a start, as you will literally be able to trace a virtual journey from your start point to destination.

The biggest question I have is what the real purpose of Streetview is.  How do Google propose to monetise this new feature?  I'm guessing a merge between Google Adwords and Local Business Centre (once they sort through their algorithm problems) will allow businesses to advertise their products and services from a virtual shop front, but surely this has already been done more effectively by Second Life?

With Microsoft's plans to launch a rival service later this year on beta, my head shakes with Luddite pensiveness.  This new technology could either take off and thrive in a social networking fashion, or wither away under a backlash of suspicion.  I'm not entirely convinced either way but will be interested to see what the general consensus will be once the launch hype has died down and people start experimenting with both Streetview and GeoSynth.

Windows 7 - Microsoft's beta version of the OS that will take over from Vista - has some promising features (easier ways to set up home networks, interact with external devices and a better toolbar to use along the bottom of the screen)  but is essentially taking elements from the Apple iphone and making them available for use on a pc.

These links make interesting reading on the subject:

Pros and cons of Windows 7
Microsoft fined $1.4bn by EU for anti-competitive behaviour

The W3C have recently brought out a new series of guidelines for web accessibility (WCAG 2.0) that we've been  digesting here in the office.  The most immediate change noticeable is the shift in how accessibility is defined.  There are now four principles that all have to be adhered to for conformance, rather than a series of levels you can choose to comply with or not.  The levels are whether your website is:

1. Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
2. Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable.  (This means that the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)
3. Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
4. Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

Ref: WCAG Introduction 

Although there are several improvements, the language is still very jargony, and an attempt to simplify some of the terms has actually resulted in making some areas more vague.