WHAT'S NEW in 2013?

The Challenge of Keeping up with New Web Technologies!

Web technology is changing, we are moving to HTML 5 and responsive web sites that shrink and expand to fit different devices that include desktops, tablets and mobile phones. In addition, because Apple has refused to support Flash (perhaps because this technology overtook Quicktime), the limited support on mobile devices is affecting the use and popularity of Flash and streaming Flash video. It means we now must add 4 different video types to support all the browsers and we looking at making animation using new techniques and software. Even browser popularity is changing rapidly as Google Chrome has taken the lead over Internet Explorer and Firefox. Internet explorer 9 still does not support many of the new HTML 5 features - why Microsoft's web browser is lagging so far behind is anyone's guess and if they don't do something quickly the fate of Internet explorer will likely be similar to that of Netscape.

One new solution to create web animation is to use a brand new program called Adobe Edge Animate. This program is still under development and can not synchronize sound with the animation, but it appears to be the best cross over solution for the time being. In short, building web sites is becoming more complicated requiring a combination of HTML 5, CSS3 and Javascript technologies. Content management based web sites like those using Wordpress are also growing in popularity, but they too require a significant investment in time to learn.

The good news is there is rapid growth of instructional Youtube videos on a wide variety of topics. Another major advancement on the web is the ability to embed 360 spherical movies. This technology has been around for over 10 years, but due to restrictive patents held by IPIX, software development was held back until the company went bankrupt in 2006. Also digital cameras have improved rapidly and costs have come down with the Nikon D800 now offering 36 Megapixels which is about 4X greater than the resolution of 35 mm film. Spherical imaging is becoming more popular on the web and is being promoted by Google. Most of the spherical movies are currently published as flash .swf files, though a few software companies (e.g. kprano) permit the movies to be published as HTML 5 animations so they are visible on mobile devices and tablets. As a web developer and teacher I am required to keep up with as many of these technologies as possible. I love to learn new techniques, but it seems to be getting harder to keep up and I have to be more selective in determining what technologies, programming languages, and software I invest my time in in the future. Change is inevitable and I know it can lead to opportunity, the one thing that is certain is that anyone working on the web has to invest in ongoing education. One of my students put it this way - "Dr. Berdan all this learning makes my brain hurt". I can relate to what he is talking about it. :-)

Sincerely

Robert Berdan Ph.D
Last Updated January 10, 2013
403 247-2457
Calgary, AB, Canada

360vrmultimedia - a New Company January 1, 2013

Robert Berdan in partnership with Ahmed Kassim and Yury Rybalskiy now offers 360 spherical panoramas, inside, outside and even from the air. This type of photography is suited to to creating virtual tours and provides a realistic impression of being there and is suitable for a wide variety of businesses, tourism and higher centers of learning. To view this new type of photography please visit: www.360vrmultimedia and view many of the virtual movies.

360 VR Multimedia specializing in spherical panoramic photography