dylan_k - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is HTML5 the future of book authorship? (oreilly.com)

Submitted by occidental on Thursday September 19, 2013 @05:12PM

occidental writes: Sanders Kleinfeld writes: In the past six years, the rise of the ebook has ushered in three successive revolutions that have roiled and reshaped the traditional publishing industry. Revolution #3 isn’t really defined by a new piece of hardware, software product, or platform. Instead, it’s really marked by a dramatic paradigm change among authors and publishers, who are shifting their toolsets away from legacy word processing and desktop publishing suites, and toward HTML5 and tools built on the Open Web Platform.

Submission + - Facebook faces high-level staff exodus (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Sunday August 12, 2012 @08:47PM

angry tapir writes: "It has been troubled times for Facebook since the social network's IPO in May. There has been speculation that Facebook could suffer a talent drain in the wake of the IPO, and now the organisation has lost four of its high-level managers the space of a week: Ethan Beard, director of platform partnerships; Kate Mitic, platform marketing director; Jonathan Matus, mobile platform marketing manager; and Ben Blumenfeld, design manager, have all resigned from the company."

Submission + - How Will Amazon, Barnes & Noble Survive The iPad Mini? (ibtimes.com) 3

Submitted by

redletterdave

on Sunday August 12, 2012 @09:37AM

redletterdave writes: "For about a year, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were almost completely alone in the 7-inch tablet market. It was nice while it lasted. The past few months have seen Google and Microsoft unveil their 7-inch tablet offerings — the Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface, respectively — and it looks like Apple is about ready to get into the mini tablet game, too. If Apple releases its first "iPad Mini" next month, what can Amazon and Barnes & Noble do to keep the Cupertino colossus at bay, as well as the other new competitors in the 7-inch tablet game?"

Comment Re:Hypertext fiction needs multiple authors (Score 1) 208

by dylan_k on Sunday February 26, 2012 @03:30PM (#39165831) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

I found one. It looks like the developers built their own software to help them write the story, program for contingencies, etc. It's called "radiant story". http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/17/the-technology-behind-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.aspx A tool like that exists for making video games, but I wonder if something similar might work for text, or for other artforms (installation art?).

Comment Re:Hypertext fiction needs multiple authors (Score 1) 208

by dylan_k on Saturday February 25, 2012 @05:28PM (#39160343) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

I like this idea. Does anybody know where I might find more detail about how the writing was done, for a game like, oh I dunno, Skyrim or something like that? Surely that type of writing involves many people and a plan for how they work together.

Comment Re:Making those decisions is the writer's job (Score 1) 208

by dylan_k on Saturday February 25, 2012 @05:19PM (#39160307) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

I wonder: are there still any active MUSHes anymore, or has everybody moved on to World of Warcraft?

Comment Re:Mac programs to create such documents? (Score 2) 208

by dylan_k on Saturday February 25, 2012 @04:10PM (#39159951) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

There's a program called Tinderbox for the mac that can be used to build hypertexts.

Comment Re:It's not dead, it just smells funny. (Score 1) 208

by dylan_k on Saturday February 25, 2012 @03:52PM (#39159865) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

I agree. It seems that when the idea was originally proposed, it couldn't have taken into account the kinds of electronic, or non-linear writing and media that would come after it. So perhaps it isn't dead, just redefined.

Comment Re:Pet Food (Score 1) 208

by dylan_k on Saturday February 25, 2012 @03:51PM (#39159853) Attached to: Is Hypertext Literature Dead?

I think that interface is a big part of the problem. Those new Apple iPad textbook things look promising as an example.

Submission + - Is Hypertext Literature Dead? (nocategories.net) 1

Submitted by dylan_k on Friday February 24, 2012 @01:18AM

dylan_k writes: In the 1990's and early 2000's, there was a lot of buzz about ideas like "hypertext literature" and "electronic literature". Nowadays, it's easier to create those things than ever before, and there are plenty of digital texts but it just doesn't seem like authors are writing any new "hypertext" literature these days. Why?

Submission + - Microgravity Coffee Cup (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @05:09PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "Despite the fact that astronauts have been eating and drinking out of tubes for decades, it's actually possible to drink from an open-top cup in space. Astronaut Don Pettit recently downlinked a video that shows him slurping coffee from a cup he kludged out of plastic sheet. It appears to work pretty much like a cup on Earth, even in freefall aboard the International Space Station, thanks to capillary action."

Submission + - Obama's Privacy Bill Of Rights: Just A Beginning (itworld.com)

Submitted by

jfruh

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @04:20PM

jfruh writes: "Last night the White House hastily arranged a phone conference at which a 'Privacy Bill of Rights' was announced. It's an important document, not least because it affirms the idea that our data belongs to us, not to companies that happen to collect it. But it has a number of shortcomings, not least among them the companies aren't required to respect the rules laid out."

Submission + - "Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Thursday February 23, 2012 @03:51PM

suraj.sun writes: A new Web standard proposal authored by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix seeks to bring copy protection mechanisms to the Web. The Encrypted Media Extensions draft defines a framework for enabling the playback of protected media content in the Web browser. The proposal is controversial and has raised concern among some parties that are participating in the standards process.

In a discussion on the W3C HTML mailing list, critics questioned whether the proposed framework would really provide the level of security demanded by content providers. The aim of the proposal is not to mandate a complete DRM platform, but to provide the necessary components for a generic key-based content decryption system. It is designed to work with pluggable modules that implement the actual decryption mechanisms.

Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/unethical-html-video-copy-protection-proposal-criticized-by-standards-stakeholders.ars

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