impl.emented» gaming

Chrome Add-ons, JavaScript Performance, a Web 3.0 Conference and More [Best of September '08 #3]

Jonas Bolinder — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:49:44 +0000

Chrome continued to be of interest this week, with a Web 3.0 conference as a bonus (September 15-21 2008):

The last word on JavaScript performance among competing browser engines has apparently not yet been spoken. This week it was reported that an updated version of SquirrelFish, dubbed Extreme, which is the native WebKit JavaScript engine, has regained the lead in JavaScript performance. Reportedly it was faster than both the V8 engine of Google Chrome and TraceMonkey of Firefox. The results suggest that Google should have stuck with the original SquirrelFish engine of WebKit, instead of developing their own V8. Can we expect a close comeback from the V8 team? Let the struggle continue!
Note however that performance reports like these must always be taken with a grain of salt. For example, it is quite easy to optimize the code to perform well on a specific test.
Tags: JavaScript, Chrome
Google Chrome will eventually support Add-ons and User scripts à la Greasemonkey, said Google Engineer Ojan Vafai at the Web 2.0 Expo last week. They hope to make a stable implementation, he said, referring to the less stable experience of Add-ons with Firefox. Personally, with Chrome I miss the Google Toolbar, with the Gmail notifier and the PageRank indicator. Hopefully it will be released for Chrome soon.
At the same Web 2.0 panel, Microsoft's IE platform architect Chris Wilson, hinted that IE might add support for vector graphics and the canvas element, a part of the HTML 5 standard I wrote about last week.
Tags: Add-ons, Chrome
If you want to stay on top with the latest updates to Google Chrome, you can join the Dev Channel and get access to more recent but potentially less stable updates to the browser.
Tags: Chrome
Google's embeddable 3D virtual world Lively, which I wrote about at launch in July, has hitherto received little attention. Nevertheless, Google has high plans for the service, revealed creative director Kevin Hanna at the recent Game Developers' Conference. They plan to open up the API further to allow for the creation of entire 3D games. In the long run, Hanna hopes that Lively will become part of the backbone of the Web, much like Java, Flash and HTML are today.
Tags: virtual worlds
A Pew Internet Project report shows that 97% of all (American) teens, ages 12-17, play some kind of video game on a computer, console or portable device. Further, nearly 50% of all boys visit game related web sites or forums, and 14% contribute to those sites. For girls, the corresponding figures are somewhat lower. The study also shows that about one third of teens play mature or adult rated games. Of those teens, boys are in majority, 79% vs. 21% girls. In conclusion: regulations will always fail, and boys are still boys (phew!).
Where I think the study fails, is that it does not distinguish online Flash-based games as a separate category, despite the fact that it is an important genre, and presumably popular by younger teens at least.
Tags: gaming
Finally a Web 3.0 conference, Oct 16-17, in Santa Clara, Ca. Jupitermedia is organizer and RWW is a sponsor. Semantic Web technologies seems to be a key feature of the event. Don't miss my Web 3.0 review from April, and the catch-up in July.
Tags: Web 3.0

Stack Overflow, HTML 5, Chrome Processes, Atmosphir and More [Best of September '08 #2]

Jonas Bolinder — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:23:38 +0000

An assortment of the most interesting posts this week (September 8-14 2008):

Stack Overflow launches, a Q&A site for programmers, who can ask questions and get answers from other programmers. The site is community driven, good answers get voted up and rise in the list of answers to a question. As a result, any discussions among the answers are discouraged, as these will be scrambled, explains Joel Spolsky, one of the founders. Community members can build a reputation by earning points and badges in response to good answers and other activity. Marshall Kirkpatrick liked Stack Overflow in his review, and I think it could be a useful service. Marshall requested subscribable feeds for answers to a question. I found a link to an Atom feed for each question, not sure if it is optimal though. There are also feeds for a users top answers and questions, and the top 30 questions for a specific tag. A chronological feed with all questions belonging to a tag would perhaps be more useful.
Tags: programming, web development
Webmonkey has an article about HTML 5, the next specification in works for the HTML language. The latest specification 4.01 was completed in 1999, and we probably will have to wait at least another 10 years for a completed version 5. In the meantime some browser vendors have implemented parts of the HTML 5 draft, e.g. the canvas element, and more recently the video element, as I wrote about last week. Browser extensions like Gears, and plugins like Silverlight and Flash also find a niche, where the current standard is lagging behind.
Tags: HTML5, web standards
Scott Hanselman writes about the use of multiple processes in the Chrome browser and in IE8. Separate processes create a greater degree of isolation between tabs: If one process/tab crashes, the other processes/tabs stay unaffected. The potential overhead of processes vs. threads, and the inter-communication between processes, are really no problem nowadays considering the rapid development of computer hardware.
Tags: Chrome, IE8
A new tool dubbed CookieMonster will soon be released to the public. It is able to get hold of user credentials submitted to secured sites via a man-in-the-middle attack. Several banks are identified as insecure. The tool utilizes a programming flaw, where the website developer has failed to designate the authentication cookie as secure.
Tags: security
Atmosphir, a 3D platform game creation tool, is currently in private beta but expects to open to the public at the end of the year. Atmosphir got one of the five jury selection prices at this years TechChrunch50. Hopefully it is fun for creative kids.

Tags: gaming

RESTful Programming Explained. DRM Leads to Piracy [Best of August '08 #2]

Jonas Bolinder — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:25:21 +0000

Interesting posts this week (August 11-17 2008):

Dare Obasanjo explains the essence of a REST-based architecture, some benefits over SOAP, and how it obeys to the architecture of the Web itself: "Don't fight the Web, embrace it." The ideas behind REST stem from a Ph.D. dissertation by Roy Fielding in 2000, and are a bit abstract and academic in their nature. But the essence seems to be to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by the HTTP protocol, such as using GET, PUT and DELETE wisely instead of fully relying on POST. For example, caching is a benefit offered by using GET.
Dave Winer chips in, and reminds us not to forget about XML-RPC, which on the XML-RPC home page is explained as "remote procedure calling using HTTP as the transport and XML as the encoding."
Tags: REST, web development
Josh Catone shares some insights into why people pirate software, as compiled by game developer Cliff Harris. Low game quality and presence of DRM, are important reasons for piracy, besides the obvious reason of saving money.
Tags: DRM, gaming
Twitter quietly announced an important new feature to their API, as noticed by Jesse Stay. It is now possible to reply to any specific message in the past, not just to the last one posted.
Tags: Twitter
My recent post on ECMAScript Harmony and the future of JavaScript and ActionScript.
Tags: JavaScript

February Highlights III: Semantic Web, Twitter, gaming and email

Jonas Bolinder — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:02:15 +0000

Here are the past week's most interesting posts:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Semantic Web is open for business – Paul Miller
Web inventor Berners-Lee says that all core pieces are in place to build Semantic Web applications. The data is "already there. It's in databases..." (though not always publicly available). He is also talking about a "Web 3.0 vision", where data and applications are independent and data is accessible.
Tags: Semantic Web, Web 3.0
How To Manage Your Online Reputation – Sarah Perez
Manage Your Online Reputation – Tamar Weinberg
Two posts on how to manage and improve your online reputation.
Tags: online reputation
Pulse of Open Source: A Look at Niche Conversations – Marshall Kirkpatrick
An interesting use of Twitter, aggregating messages of a community.
Tags: Twitter
Raptr Gaming Network Opens For Private Beta – Michael Arrington
A social network for PC-gamers, with a downloadable client that keeps games up to date and monitors game usage.
Tags: gaming
Three Human Interface Hypotheses Update: Email is Efail – Tantek Çelik
Tantek argues that Email is failing, while IM and Twitter are scaling. Two reasons: Point to point communications do not scale and emails tend to be bloated. Things worse than email: Phone calls and voicemail.
Tags: email