Google has posted a proof of concept showing YouTube using HTML 5.
http://www.youtube.com/html5
I was able to view this with Safari. You will note that there is no Flash on this page. Apparently the video tag uses system video resources so if you previously installed a h.264 codec, it should just work. The controls are all HTML. Does this mean the end to dominance of Flash delivered video on the web?
I recently attended a 3-day “entrepreneur bootcamp” where angel investors taught how to pitch an idea to angel investors for investment capital. One of the first things they will want to know is how you protect your intellectual property. In the case of software, protection of algorithms is key and in the case of Flex your software secrets are protected from a right click “view source” since the application is contained within a compiled swf. Tools are available, however, that allow you to easily decompile the swf and look at the goodies inside.
Simplified Logic Inc has a product that uses a private key encryption method that stops decompilation of the swf. They also have developed a backend system that can manage licenses to your application. I have been developing a Flex application for use in teaching anatomy to students at the technical institute I work at. It has proven to be a powerful tool and there is opportunity to license this application to other institutions, but there is no infrastructure to do this. I have built a proof of concept using Nitro-LM to show that we can deploy this application on the web using a Software as a Service model without creating much of a deployment infrastructure on our end beyond what we already have in place.
The NitroAdmin AIR app is used to set up and manage the encryption and licenses. Videos and examples show how to integrate the system into your Flex app but I think they need to do a bit more work around this … perhaps a “wizard” or video that shows from start to finish the basic setup. It still took a bit of handholding to get me up and running (thanks Andrew). The proof of concept is doing its job of proving this works in a way that is unobtrusive to users. Now all that is left is the easy part: to build a business model around my application and then go out and sell it. That is someone else’s job.
Simplified Logic was a major sponsor of the recent 360 Flex conference in Indianapolis. I want to say thanks to them for supporting this event. It was a good one and I enjoyed the environs.
The conference in Indianapolis was fantastic and the sponge is full. Met so many fellow developers. Was accused of stalking Adobe employees, but I only said hi to Matt Chotin once. So much to experiment with. FlexUnit 4 is important. Degrafa looks compelling. Will definitely look into Axiis data visualization library. I am intrigued by Maté as a framework. OpenFlux … Yes!!!! ESRI has a new free mapping API … BAM. Lazy loading datagrid using cacheing and synchronization (props to Zach Pinter) … I need that. According to Jeff Tapper’s 7 golden rules of how not to code in Flex, I should have been fired 7 times. RSL’s! RSLs! RSLs! But my favorite session was by Doug McCune. He talked about stuff that re-inspired him as a developer.
This slide is about how Flex application development became a job, and nothing much more than that.
Doug’s live demo on head tracking in Flash. He showed an application that can be used for “Safe Sexting”. You can do whatever you want on the video and your face will be tracked and blurred. Big laughs on this one.
Doug had a unique take on how to push the concept of Augmented Reality. He gave himself boobs in this live demo.
That’s right. FITC has announced that they are bringing their conference to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on October 17-18, 2009. This is the city where Grant Skinner and Co. hail from and Grant has pulled in a lot of favours to get some GREAT speakers to come in for the event. It is also the city that I live in, and Grant has asked me to do a presentation as well. Edmonton has a very active Flash user base which is supported by Michael Graves’ great work with EFUG.I have it marked on my calendar already … it’s going to be a good one. I think he is going to bill this as one big mofo of an EFUG meeting.
