One Millionth Tower Interactive Documentary & Death of Flash

[obsidian]

From the National Film Board of Canada, One Millionth Tower is an interactive documentary written with new web technologies like HTML5 and WebGL. It's probably the most ambitious use of HTML5 on the web today. You'll need to watch it on a relatively up-to-date browser like Firefox, Chrome or Safari. Really cool, check it out:

http://highrise.nfb.ca/onemillionthtower/1mt_webgl.php



It's also another nail in the coffin for Adobe's Flash in a series of what-you-can-do-HTML5-can-do-better. Adobe recently announced that as part of their restructuring (including layoffs) they are discontinuing development of Flash for mobile devices and focusing more on HTML5 and their core products - something they should have done years ago but tunnel vision prevented them from seeing this happening. Steve Jobs was right about Flash sucking on mobile devices and Adobe finally realized this and threw in the towel. Blackberry still says they'll continue to support Flash on their Playbooks (but only because Flash is their one and only selling feature).

Adobe still wants to rely on Adobe AIR, which I think they need to kill as well, but I suspect they are only doing this temporarily until they can transition to focus on HTML5. Flash development on computers is unaffected but it's only a matter of time before this is dead as well. I think Adobe needs to focus on integrating their current tools like Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver to help with HTML5 design and deployment rather than outputting to their own proprietary modules and I hope that's what they have planned during their restructuring.

Here's the article about discontinuing Flash on mobile devices:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mobiledia/2 ... e-devices/



Seriously, I picked up Macromedia Flash about 10 years ago when it was all the rage and people were putting up interactive websites with excessive annoying sound effects and flashy vector animations, and after a month of working with it I decided that it was pretty shitty and a fad that didn't bring much value to the web. If we look back at Flash's legacy for the internet, it has added streaming video for millions of emos on YouTube and annoying banner ads, both of which everyone hates.

[obsidian]

Oh, there's also rumours that Microsoft is thinking about discontinuing development of Silverlight, which is like the retard that even all other retards think is retarded.

[mrd]

Interesting. Tried checking out Canada on world of highrises, nothing appeared, so I checked the next best thing: Christmas Island. Looks like a sweet place to live.

[seremtan]

lol, this reminds me of a prediction some tech guru made some years ago that HTML was going the way of the dodo and that Flash was the future for websites

prolly the same guy who tells everyone that the PC platform is dead EVERY FUCKING YEAR

[bitWISE]

http://www.phoboslab.org/ztype/

[mrd]

http://www.phoboslab.org/ztype/

Oh god...

[obsidian]

Hey that's pretty fun, it's like R-Type meets Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.

[mrd]

Tricky stuff... got to level 13 on expert... I have a feeling this could become a new addiction

[mrd]

This fucking game is addictive as fuck!

[Eraser]

http://www.phoboslab.org/ztype/

oi that's pretty cool.

[Plan B]

Who gives a shit.
Just make my internets go fast, you fucking nerds.

[phantasmagoria]

http://www.phoboslab.org/ztype/

FFFFFFFFFUUUU

[obsidian]

In one study of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, and only 19 words per minute for composition. In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm respectively.

According to ztype, I'm averaging about 42 wpm at 94% accuracy. I guess I can be happy with that.

[mrd]

I'm averaging about 70wpm with about 95% accuracy. For some reason I thought I was faster but I guess this is a decently accurate way of measuring typing. My only gripe with the game is the way words stack which makes it tricky to see wtf you're doing. I guess that's part of the game aspect of it though.

[mrd]

ffffuuu---



Keep getting fucked around level 20.

[4days]

nowhere near as exciting or impressive, but still a nifty use of HTML5.
Look up unicode characters with http://shapecatcher.com

[cocov]

@z-type: Max points is 45204 (Level 104 or 105), at this point the little ship or whatever it is suddenly exploded as if being hit by an enemy although there were none close enough. Could be a bug, not sure though. Words/min: 294.8; accuracy:8%.

[bitWISE]