HTML5 Video, Captioning, and Timed Metadata

Christopher Giffard, from Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations will speak on "HTML5 Video, Captioning, and Timed Metadata" at the Web Standards Group meeting in Canberra, 2pm 14 March 2012. This will be followed by '“Accessibility – that’s just for blind people, right?” - Dealing with different attitudes to accessibility' by Kim Chatterjee and Ruth Ellison.

Documentary in HTML5

The documentary One Millionth Tower was made using animation in HTML5, as described in "Here’s How You Make a Documentary Only Using HTML5 and WebGL Graphics" (By Adrian Covert, GIZMODO, Nov 6, 2011 11:30 AM). Like many documentaries, this one relies on panning and zooming over still images. In theory, using HTML5 should make this more efficient as a still image can be downloaded, along with the instructions for how to pan and zoom it. But in this case the documentary is 163 Mbytes for 6.5 minutes, making it 25 Mbytes per minute, which is not small.

How to make an ebook with free tools

The free "A beginner's guide to ebook development for e-Learning" (by Scripture Union Queensland, 2011) has been released as part of a government funded Flexible Learning Framework Innovations Project. This describes how to produce e-books inEPub and HTML 5 formats for mobile devices, Calibre and Sigil.

This is a useful guide, but producing educational content this way is still more difficult than it need be. As I have noted when preparing my ICT Sustainability course notes, the e-learning formats, such as IMS Content packages are very similar to e-book formats. It should be possible to create free open source conversion tools for converting between Moodle books, IMS Content Packages and EPub e-books.

ps: It is odd a report on how to make an e-book has been published only in PDF format, not in the EPUB format being advocated for use.

Tablet Computers Prescribed for Business

Gartner Inc. forecasts 54.8 million tablet computers sold in 2011, due to the popularity of the Apple iPad. Gartner recommends least "concierge" support for executive iPad users in organisations and widespread support by mid-2011.

Helping executives with their iPads is a good idea for IT staff of organisations. Staff are going to buy iPads and use them regardless of the official procurement policy of the organisation. Junior staff can be disciplined for use of unauthorised equipment, but executives cannot, so IT support should put in place a "harm minimisation" scheme. This will reduce the risk of the iPads to the security of the organisation's IT system.

iPad support could include executive information systems, similar to those provided in the late 1990s. These provided essentially prepared slide shows on computer to senior executives. A similar service for the iPad would minimise the need for access to critical and sensitive corporate systems.

Rather than a policy of widespread iPad support, I suggest organisations should look at how mobile computing can be used. This should include smart phones, tablet computers and net books. Unless there is a compelling case, "Apps" which run on only one platform (such as the iPad) should be avoided. Instead web based software, including elements of HTML5, can be used to provide applications on a wide range of mobile platforms as well as conventional desktop web browsers.

If tight vertical integration is required, organisations should look beyond the iPad. As an example, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is porting its "Tactical Situational Awareness Application Suite" (TactSA) to Google Android.

US Military Use Google Android

The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is asking industry for a Google Android, Internet and web technology for the "Tactical Situational Awareness Application Suite" (TactSA). This is to provide a peer-to-peer wireless network, moving map display, instant messaging, chat, multicast file transfer, whiteboarding and video in a device small enough for a soldier to carry.

The system will use Internet protocols and XML. While not mentioned, HTML5 would be an obvious inclusion. Ironically, responses to USSOCOM must be provided in Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word format (XML and HTML not accepted).

It should be noted that US special forces have some latitude to select their own equipment so this solicitation does not necessarily indicate that the rest of the US military will do the same. While not mentioned in the solicitation, one area the Android based system could assist with is in battery use, by rationalising the different devices currently used. This approach could be taken further by using the approach of the French Fantassin à Équipement et Liaisons Intégrés (FÉLIN), which treats the solider like a sensor platform and equipping them with a data and power network, for the devices they carry.

Solicitation Number:

SORDACKP10202010

Notice Type:

Sources Sought

Synopsis:

Added: Oct 21, 2010 11:03 am

Tactical Situational Awareness (TactSA) Application Suite

USSOCOM is seeking sources with the demonstrated capability to engineer a Tactical Situational Awareness (TactSA) software suite that will provide reliable and standardized data between battery operated micro-computers over Mobile Ad hoc Wireless Networks (MANETs). The data will traverse peer-to-peer networks without centralized servers or syncs. It will consist of numerous video streams, file transfers, Position Location Information (PLI), and whiteboarding collaboration tools.
TactSA display Application: Currently SOF has a FalconView-based SA display tool that provides the necessary capability on Windows platforms. Due to the shift in commercial hardware to mobile, battery powered systems, it is necessary to extend the SA capabilities to lighter devices that utilize the Android operating system. With the standardized data structure design described below, the user requires the ability to transition from a windows based system running FalconView to an Android based system running the TactSA display. The computing device will be connected to a GFE MANET dismount radio via USB or Ethernet. The TactSA display shall be the core moving map display for the display of all information available on the network.
Sub Applications: Additional applications and features are necessary to launch from the TactSA display that also utilize the tools, structures, protocols and mechanisms identified below for peer-to-peer networks. In addition to the dynamic SA mapping application the vendor must provide a chat application (Instant Message and chat room), reliable multicast file transfer, multi-touch whiteboarding aka John Madden tool, and ability to display multiple H.264/MPEG 4 video streams individually and simultaneously. These applications shall also recover from network outages and substantial packet loss.
Application reliability: At present many applications are developed for wired networks that do not handle network outages and retransmissions well. They rely on TCP, which has been proven not to be well suited for wireless networks. The government requires that fault tolerance be built into the TactSA, Chat, PLI and file transfer applications. The overall solution should be light enough for ultra mobile personal computers and tablet systems that cannot buffer large amounts of data. It shall provide an automatic data structure repair.
Reliable Multicast: The tactical MANET shall consist of at least two MANET networks connected via a commercial router. At any point each MANET must function independently to transfer the data seamlessly to the end client devices. As data flows within one over to the other network, packet-loss due to RF effects will occur. It is necessary to provide a Durability and Retransmission mechanism for application reliability. Such a protocol shall provide end-to-end reliable transport of data streams over generic IP multicast routing and forwarding services as described in RFC 5740. Due to the real-time nature of the data, multicast dissemination is critical to the effective use of the networks.
Application security: Although the radio systems provide encryption capability over the air, it is necessary to provide a second layer of security at the application layer. Third party VPN/IPsec technologies do not natively support multicast and do not provide peer-to-peer topologies. The encryption scheme shall utilize Suite B algorithms for protecting the data prior to traversing outside of the computational device. The approach shall have to be explained and designed for Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) accreditation for FIPS PUB 197.
Data structure: Due to numerous Graphic Information System (GIS) display applications it is necessary to utilize RFC validated protocols and extensible markup languages such as XML and derivatives to standardize the data. The objective capability is a seamless data architecture that delivers the network traffic to numerous GIS display technologies such as FalconView and Google Earth. The structure will be defined in a document as well as implemented in the TactSA suite.
Demonstrated capability to perform the work described (such as tangible examples, experience or past performance) are more desirable than novel approaches, although both will be given due consideration. No format for the response is specified and no questions will be answered. Please limit the technical approach to ten (10) pages and the entire submission (including supporting information) shall not exceed thirty (30) pages. Only electronic submissions in Adobe Acrobat 8.0 (or higher) or Microsoft Word (1997-2007) will be accepted (no hard copies). Potential sources must possess an active Facility Clearance (FCL) or be eligible to obtain an FCL at the SECRET level. ...

From: "Tactical Situational Awareness Application Suite" (TactSA), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), 21 October 2010

Open Source Web Conferencing for Distance Education

Just came across "Big Blue Button" which claims to be open source web conferencing for distance education. This might be a useful alternative to Wimba Classroom and DimDim. It seems to have much the same features. I joined the demo conference and it worked okay on my low power netbook. The source code is available.

However, BigBlueButton, Wimba Classroom and DimDim all use Flash and all assume that the presenter is showing Powerpoint, PDF or similar documents. DimDim does have a limited function for sharing web pages, but does not exploit this fully. There is scope for a product which genuinely works with web pages. Perhaps this could be done with HTML5 and could be tightly integrated with Moodle. This would simplify the software needed and reduce the resources needed to use the system. Essentially the system would be reduced to a small amount of code to knit together the web, audio and text chat functions.

World Congress By Smart Phone

The organisers of the World Computer Congress 2010 have provided a service for delegates with smart phones. This gives conference information about sessions, locations and times. The service also allows delegates to comment on sessions in a Twitter-like way. Each speaker was issued with an account so they can upload questions for their audience. The "Live Zone" for my presentation is now active (4PTR1200, 12 noon 23 September). This has a "Shout Box" for Twitter like comments, Speaker Polls (where I can ask questions) and "Presentation Evaluation Form" (where the audience can rate me). This is a good idea, but there are a few problems with the implementation.


What do I ask delegates?


When giving a presentation I don't usually expect to ask the audience questions: I expect them to ask me questions. Ideally the presentation is provided in advance, so delegates at read it and ask questions I can answer on the day (my presentation on Green ICT is online). So I will need a little more guidance as to what questions I can ask the audience.

Accessible Mobile Web Design


The mobile service for WCC2010 is separate to the main web site. I can understand the logic behind this, with the mobile service mainly for people at the event and introduced shortly before the opening of the congress. It would be very difficult to redo the entire web site a few days before the event to fit on a mobile phone. However, if designed for mobile access in the first place the main web site could have been a better design for everyone with a desktop browser, as well as being usable during the event on a smart phone.

The mobile site is in HTML5 (I checked it with the W3C Markup Validation service). Unfortunately it had some accessibility problems when tested with the TAW automated accessibility test: eight Priority 1, two Priority 2 and one Priority 3. Also it appears to have an excessive number of images for a small simple mobile page. The page scored only 70% on the W3C Mobile OK Checker. That is not a good score for a web page designed specifically for mobile phones.

Moodle for iPhone and Android

Unfortunately I missed the keynote presentation for Moodle Moot Au 2010 as I was still trying to get my slides to work. So my first session was Mobile Learning
with "Moodle Mobile" by Romain Mallard, Angela Branco Moreno and Cesar Barizon (Digital SK), followed by myself with "Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smartphones" (ANU) and "Moodle4iPhone project" by Julian Ridden (Pukunui Technology). All three of us had a similar message: don't build special phone "apps" for Moodle, instead make sure the web features used are compatible with smart phones, including the Apple iPhone and Google Andriod.

Julian talked about the Moodle4iPhones project, which has expanded to now include Android phones as well as iPhones. New code is due shortly. Limiting smart phone development to iPhone and Android seems a reasonable compromise, until there is more HTML5 standard support on smart phones.

Julian pointed out that a link to the Moodle content could be placed on the Apple iPhone front page, so it looks just like an App, without needing to develop an app. One issue the
presentation raised was that it can be assumed there is "Flash" on all devices, except Apple iPhones and iPads. Given that Apple devices are so popular, there will need to be a way to support them. Moodle4iphone uses th clever workaround of replacing the flash video file extension with a mpeg4 one automatically if the user has an Apple iPad or iPhone. This
just requires the content creator to remember to provide a version of their video in both flash and Mpeg 4 formats (should be possible with configure video creation systems to do this automatically). I did wonder if a simpler solution was not to use Flash in the first place.

My takeaway message from this was not to worry about software for mobile devices, just worry about suitable course design for mobile users and assume Moodle will be able to support them. This still raises issues about how a student is likely to use a mobile device in a course compared to a desktop computer. This has implications for course design.

One issue I raised in my presentation and not addressed by the other speakers, was what to do about offline access. An app (or even a printed book) has the advanatge that once you have it you do not need Internet access. As discussed in my presentation HTML5 has an option for off-line access. It should be feasible to easily enable this for mobile and other browsers. HTML5 seems to be progressing much quicker than I was expecting, and, as an example, my conference presentation was done using HTML5, not Powerpoint.

An interesting unrelated comment was that Moodle 2 is taking up a lot of the time of Moodle developers.

Wold first Moodle Moot HTML5 Presentation

Greetings from Moodle Moot Au 2010 at the award-winning Melbourne Convention Centre. My talk on professional e-learning went okay. There were some anxious minutes when in the well equipped (and staffed) speaker's preparation room I found my Slidy based presentation was not compatible with the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 being used. Instead of carefully crafted web slides, I got a blank blue screen. With a quick update to HTML Slidy, I got this to work. As my web page was using HTML5 (a hot topic at the conference) I am claiming this as a world first for a Moodle Moot presentation. My presentation was in the mobile Moodle session and there seemed to be broad agreement that the way to go was with HTML5 tweaked slightly for Apple iPhone/iPad and Google Android, not using "Apps". More on that in the next post.

By the way during my talk I mentioned how I saw US Marines doing "mobile computing" on a warship: they used gaffer (duct) tape to hold their laptops in place. After the talk I bought a coffee at the convention centre cafe (just to the left as you enter from the main door). As well as coffee, the shop sells items for people setting up exhibition standards., including duct tape, which I took as a good omen.

Removing Validation Errors from Google Blogger With HTML 5

Since I teach accessible standards compliant web design it was embarrassing to have pointed out that my own Blog had dozens of validation errors and accessibility problems. It is difficult to generate valid HTML code using Google's Blogger, but after considerable work,I think I have managed it now. The Blog posting in question now passes W3C HTML Validation with no errors (i hope).

I changed to a new version of Blogger recently, which may have been a
mistake. I assumed by now that Google would be generating HTML code
without errors in it. But when I replaced my hacked template with one of
Google's new ones, instead of dozens of errors, I got hundreds.

After looking at some articles on the topic, the way to avoid validation
errors seems to be to avoid Google generated code. So I cut away most of
the Google template.

At the same time I thought I would try out HTML 5. This seems to reduce
the amount of custom code Blogger generates for fixing idiosyncrasies in
particular browsers and so reduces the amount of code with validation
errors in it.

does not seem to be finding as many errors as the I am not sure if less code is being generated because HTML 5 is a better standard, more standardised browsers have been created, or so few are using it the problems have not yet been found. Also the HTML5 validationXHTML one, perhaps because HTML 5 is less rigid in its syntax, because the checker is better (not finding spurious errors) or is worse (not finding real errors).

Apart from HTML validation, there are still problems with my blog for CSS validation and Mobile compatibility (the blog only scores 64% for Mobile Web compatibility). Some of these I can't fix, such as Blooger inserting a style sheet with an error in it and settings in the HTTP header. Perhaps it is time to change to a more standards compliant blog system.

HTML5 the new desktop operating system?

The Defence CTO is reported to be interested in thin client computers linked to database applications hosted in data centres, but able to be used offline for mobile users. This would allow expensive, difficult to manage, power hungry desktop computers to be replaced with low cost units. The data could be in remote data centres under careful management, which appeals to Defence's needs for security.

Building thin client applications is easy: it is what we used to call "client server". I was part of a defence-industry project to build such applications in the early 1009s (I even published a scholarly letter about it: "Remote Presentation Client-Server More than Just Screen Scraper", Worthington T., Australian Computer Journal, Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Pages: 16-16 Published: FEB 1995). However, just as we got the graphical user interface to work for the remote client, along came the web and made such an interface a commodity item.

Using the web as the user interface for a remote database application is now an everyday application of technology. However, allowing the client to function while disconnected from the central database is very much more difficult. This requires having part of the application running in the client, along with some form of database.

Having an offline application would have required a complex bespoke software setup in a desktop computer and would have not been feasible in something which could be called a "thin client". However, in a review of the new HTC Desire Android mobile phone, I noticed that it used the Android 2.0 operating system, which has improved support for HTML5, including:

• Database API support, for client-side databases using SQL.
• Application cache support, for offline applications.

This is what is needed for building offline applications. It should be noted that this is in a mobile device, so building the same support into low cost desktop devices should be feasible.

The Defence CTO's desire for offline thin client applications now does not look that difficult: Use HTML5 for the user interface and provide local database and cache support. This will require as much hardware as a $400 netbook computer, running some sort of cut down Linux operating system, such as Google Android.

However, there are still some difficult issues for designers of such applications. Not all data can be made available "offline" as this would require each thin client computer to have as much storage as Defene's largest data centre. Security considerations would also limit access to offline data. One of the benifits of a thin client computer without offline storage is that when it is offline it contains little or no sensitive data. Thin clients with offline storage will have to be protected the same way as other computers holding sensitive data. Defence issues very detailed instructions on how to protect data, including how to destroy the devices (including what type of hammer to use when the enemy is at the gates).

Also with offline data there is the issue of synchronising with the central database. There is no foolproof what to solve this problem and each application will have to be designed accordingly.

Lastly a thin client computer is "thin" because it is not as powerful as a "thicker" one. There will therefore be some applications not suited to these devices.

Validating themes for Wordpress

George Bray has a new blog "Electric Telephone: Letters home from the high broadband future". One of the postings was on a 3G Wireless Antenna. While the content was good, the formatting of the blog was technically awful, with thousands of HTML: markup errors (inlcuyind hundreds of surplus ) and unnecessary CSS. George responded that he had used one of the supplied themes and a quick search showed there was a whole industry around fixing up poor Wordpress themes. I had assumed it was just Blogger which had non-standard poorly designed themes.

Also I found a W3C MobileOK Wordpress Plugin. It seems a shame that having a design which is quick to download, works reliably and is easy to read seems to be treated as an optional extra, rather than essential feature by the Blogging community.

Government Lobbyist Analysis Tool

LobbyClue was judged the Best in Show at the Australian Government 2.0 GovHack. It shows the relationships between lobbyists, companies and government portfolios as tag clouds and diagrams by analysis of contract data. The results are remarkable and may well scare some of the lobbyists.

As an example, here is part of the tag cloud generated for lobbyists:

INTECH STRATEGIES PTY. LTD. J K ELIX & J A LAMBERT PTY LTD ENHANCE CORPORATE PTY. LTD. AUSTRALIAN PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS PTY LTD THREE PLUS PTY LTD INTERCAPITAL GROUP MACGREGOR PUBLIC RELATIONS PTY LIMITED KMK Consulting Pty Ltd BELMAN CONSULTING Pty Ltd MCCORMACK FAMILY TRUST SPECTRUM PLANNING SERVICES PTY LIMITED MANIDIS ROBERTS CONSULTANTS THE CLIFTON GROUP Bredhauer Consulting Services Pty Ltd NEATCORP PTY LIMITED DAN CASS MARKSTONE GROUP PTY LTD MICHAEL HITCHENS CONSULTING ...

Clicking on a lobbyist displays a diagram showing all the companies the lobbyist works for. One problem is that the diagrams use Flash, which is a bit slow on my netbook. A HTML5 version suitable for iPhones and Blackberries could prove very popular in Parliament House. A simple indented list of text should do in place of the fancy graphics. This could also be made compatible with web accessibility guidelines.

Future of web standards

Ivan Herman and Mike Smith from W3C are touring eastern Australia from
12 to 20 May, presenting on the future of web standards, HTML5, XHTML and Semantic Technology. There are industry public and research presentations in Brisbane 12 May, Sydney 13 May, Canberra 15 May, Hobart 18 and 19 May, Melbourne 20 May. The tussle between XHTML (lead by the academics) and HTML5 (promoted by the browser writers) is an interesting one. The semantic web has similar issues.

Web Pages for Mobile Phones

The W3C is continuing to progress with how to get web pages into a suitable format for mobile phones and other handheld devices. They have released "Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0" (W3C Working Draft 14 April 2008). These were prepared by Jo Rabin, mTLD Top Level Domain (dotMobi) and describe how web pages can be automatically transformed to make them more suitable for mobile devices.This can be done by a proxy server in between the web server and the web browser, or it can be done by the web server itself or even by the hand held device.

Of course content which was prepared without any thought that it might be read on other than a desktop computer is not going to necessarily transofrm well. The Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 - Basic Guidelines suggest what a mobile device will need and would help in doing the web pages well in the first place.

But a looming problem is that the mobile people are working on XHTML standards and meanwhile a different group is working on HTML 5. This problem becomes apparent in devices such as the Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch, which the designers believe can render desktop web pages themselves and so do not activate mobile CSS style sheets.

Web Browser Support for Print and Screen Presentations

Robert O'Callahan, from Mozilla.org, gave a brilliant talk in Canberra, 4 August 2007 about the development of the Firefox. This was a mix of the business and politics of web browser competition, the social aspects of how to do open source development with a global community and the very technical details on how to do better code.

Some of the points I found of most interest were about the value of "Fuzz Testing", the way Firefox is very popular in vertical slice of Central Europe, running from Finland, down to the Mediterranean (for no obvious reasons, which must be a good topic for someone's PHD).

I asked Robert about HTML 5 versus XHTML 2. The W3C's approach of revising XHTML has not found favor with web browser developers at Mozilla, Apple or Opera. The issue, as I see it, is that the browser developers want to built features for interactive applications into their browsers, so that so many non-standard plug-ins and extensions are not needed. But I want to be able to do plain, old fashioned web based static documents which scale and print well. This is so I can use web pages in place of Powerpoint and PDF. I can't see that this would be very difficult to implement.

At present web browsers do not do a good job of printing, tending to break images and paragraphs across pages and not supporting new CSS features for formatting pages. Also web browsers do not do a good job of supporting CSS features for screen presentations.

As a result I have to do three versions of each document: HTML for online viewing, Powerpoint (or Slidy web pages) for a presentation and PDF for printing. If browsers supported formatting just a little better, then I could do it all with HTML, perhaps with just the one HTML file.

Many do not bother with separate versions of documents, and so there are vast numbers of PDF documents clogging up corporate and government web sites. These documents are hard to read on screen, large to download and hard to read by those using accessibility aids and on hand held mobile devices. Most of the documents use no fancy formatting and if the browsers supported web standards just a little better HTML versions would display and print adequately.

Robert argued that doing page breaks and layout well were very difficult problems. But , I don't want it done really well, just a little bit better. How hard it be for the web developer to avoid breaking up and image or a paragraph across a page boundary?

Another quibble I had was the insistence of web developers to include a requirement for quirks and backward compatibility in the HTML 5 standard. As a web author I don't need to know about strange things people did with HTML in the past. Browser developers may well choose to support features and quirks which old versions of HTML had, but I should not need to know of them, as I will not be using them.

If this old baggage has to be in HTML 5 for some reason, then we need "HTML 5 Lite", with them left out (just as there is XHTML Basic). This is not because we want to stop browsers rendering old documents, but have something simple for web designers to use.

I did make an attempt to put some of these points in the relevant W3C forums, but was essentially told: "We browser developers will dictate what the web standards are from now on.".

HTML 5 V XHTML 2 web schism

The HTML 5 Editor's Draft, 28 June 2007, was prepared by Ian Hickson at Google and David Hyatt at Apple:

"This specification defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, HTML. In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability."

HTML 5 appears to be a philosophical split from XHTML 2. Whereas XHTML 2 is for representing documents on screens and print, HTML 5 seems to be for interactive computer interfaces. For example:

"XHTML2 [XHTML2] defines a new HTML vocabulary with better features for hyperlinks, multimedia content, annotating document edits, rich metadata, declarative interactive forms, and describing the semantics of human literary works such as poems and scientific papers.

However, it lacks elements to express the semantics of many of the non-document types of content often seen on the Web. For instance, forum sites, auction sites, search engines, online shops, and the like, do not fit the document metaphor well, and are not covered by XHTML2. "

Much of the philosophy of HTML 5 seems to be embedded in the Apple iPhone. But that device can use ordinary old HTML web pages with CSS to adapt web pages for iPhones and other smartphones.

Also the tone of the document, especially the editor's comments, seem to be much more confrontational, than XHTML's academic style. The HTML 5 editors are essentially saying that they are going to produce a usable standard and so everyone either needs to get on board or get out of their way. An example is:

"Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways. Vendors interested in implementing this specification before it eventually reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage should join the aforementioned mailing lists and take part in the discussions."

Much of what the authors are saying makes sense, but the way they are saying it is likely to not go down well in consensus based forums.