No Flash Forwarding to HTML5

I'm on the record as having never been a fan of browser plugins and proprietary "standards." And with the number of browsers I have installed on multiple platforms, the need to update any given browser's version of Flash Player pretty much every time I start up a computer is becoming an increasing nuisance.

But when you consider that Flash is installed on 98 percent of Web-browsing computers,Canada Goose Expedition and that 85 percent of the most heavily visited sites use it, it's hard to deny that, like it or not, Flash is a Web-browsing standard. Today, with Adobe withdrawing future support for mobile Flash, we saw the beginning of the end, but don't expect the technology to disappear in a flash, as it were.

Warning Signs
Even while emphasizing this 98 percent browser penetration, Adobe has been making a push for HTML5 development tools, highlighting its new tools' ability to target sites to multiple mobile devices. So perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise that the company would discontinue Flash support on those mobile devices. The upcoming Adobe Edge tool,Belstaff Jacket still in development, is basically a Flash-building tool that outputs HTML5 rather than actual Flash.

Edge lets Web developers create "those little gems" that have spruced up animated logos and other striking and interactive Web page elements. The widely used Dreamweaver Web development tool, too,Belstaff Jacken now can build sites using HTML5 mainstays like the <video> and <svg> tags, and supports the standard's companion page-design language CSS3.

HTML5 Still Has a Long Way to Go
I'm thrilled about the non-proprietary future of HTML5, but it will take time before the hundreds of billions of sites already out there have updated to HTML5. And people tend to forget that the standards themselves don't move as quickly as many would like.Canada Goose Anyone remember how long it's been since we've had a new HTML version? HTML4 was officially published by the W3C in 1997—that's 14 years ago!—and its successor still isn't firmly in place.

Sure, you can watch some YouTube videos in a browser that supports the right combination of HTML5 features, but video in HTML5 just isn't there yet. Features that major content providers need, such as monetization, subscriptions, content protection, and adoptive bandwidth handling just aren't there yet, though Adobe itself is attacking this problem, with HTML5 video features in its Flash Media Server 4.5.

A Gift to Apple
In the end, Adobe's withdrawal from supplying Flash for mobile devices is a great gift to the Apple ecosystem of iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches. Competing mobile platforms will lose a big advantage over these iOS devices. The irony, of course, is that this gift comes to a company that publicly slapped Adobe in the face!

In his blog post on the mobile Flash withdrawal, Adobe's vice president and general manager of Interactive Development, Danny Winokur, writes, "Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores." But sometimes I just want to view the MLB.com site, rather than having to install, optionally pay for, and launch a separate app, as I have to on Apple's iPad. Many smaller sites, like those for hotels and other travel sites, can only be viewed if you have Flash capability.

What About Android?
I use an Android tablet, and its ability to display Flash sites is one of the major attractions of the platform for me. Whenever I've used an iPad for an extensive period, I've gotten frustrated with how many sites didn't display correctly. But Adobe isn't in the dark about the kind of dominance the iPad holds in the tablet market.

One can only imagine Google's (non-public) reaction to today's Adobe news. Not only was Flash a buying point for Android mobile devices, Flash player was built into its Chrome browser—despite Google being arguable the biggest promoter of HTML5. Winokur states that Flash development will emphasize 3D hardware-accelerated gaming and premium video. But 3D hardware acceleration has already shown up in HTML5, and as I mentioned, Adobe itself is working on ways to do premium video in HTML5.

So, while today's announcement on the face of it may seem like a clean break and the end of Flash as we know it, what happens from here will be anything but instantaneous, and even Adobe's seemingly clear message leaves a good deal of ambiguity. Winokur's closing remark that "There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come" gives you some idea of the company's lack of a concrete vision.

Greek Leaders Reach Deal to Form a New Government

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, left, and Antonis Samaras, the opposition leader, met with President Karolos Papoulias on Sunday.

ATHENS — Prime Minister George Papandreou and his chief rival agreed Sunday night to create a new unity government, under a new prime minister, that will move ahead with the country’s debt-relief deal with the European Union and then hold new elections. Mr. Papandreou agreed to resign once the details are completed on Monday. Canada Goose
The agreement appeared to break a political deadlock that had paralyzed Greece in the face of an acute financial crisis that threatened to infect other euro-zone nations, especially Italy. European leaders see the debt-relief deal struck with Greece on Oct. 26 as crucial to containing the crisis in Greece and insulating Italy, a much larger economy whose political leaders have also struggled to cut budgets and deal with heavy debt.Canada Goose Jakke

The agreement in Greece could not have come soon enough for its European partners, who have pressed the country hard to forge a broader political consensus behind the debt deal. But it was not clear whether the agreement would provide the certainty that skeptical investors are demanding to calm turbulent financial markets. Canada Goose Parka

The debt deal requires that the Greek Parliament pass a new round of deeply unpopular austerity measures, including layoffs of government workers, in a climate of growing social unrest. It also calls for permanent foreign monitoring in Greece to ensure that it makes good on its pledges of structural changes to revitalize its economy, a requirement that many Greeks see as an affront to national sovereignty.

With a narrow and eroding majority in Parliament, Mr. Papandreou’s Socialist government found that it could not unify to push through such measures on its own, but Antonis Samaras, the leader of the conservative New Democracy party, opposed many of the debt deal’s provisions and demanded Mr. Papandreou’s resignation and a snap election. After days of frantic political wrangling, Mr. Papandreou survived a confidence vote in Parliament on Friday, setting the stage for Sunday’s compromise.

The new unity government is widely expected to be led by a nonpolitician, and to govern for several months, long enough to implement the debt deal and pass a budget for 2011. The name of the new prime minister and the composition of the new cabinet are not expected to be announced until Monday, when the leaders will meet again, according to a statement Sunday night by the Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, who moderated the talks on Sunday.

In a statement early Monday morning, the Greek Finance Ministry said that delegations from the Socialist Party and New Democracy met on Sunday “to discuss the time frame of the actions” to implement the debt deal, and added that the two parties regarded Feb. 19 as “the most appropriate date for elections.”

In reaching the agreement, Mr. Papandreou agreed to meet Mr. Samaras’s demand that he step down as prime minister, while Mr. Samaras agreed to back the debt deal and a seven-point plan of priorities proposed by Mr. Papandreou that would essentially commit the new government to the terms of the debt deal.

Mr. Samaras is not expected to play a role in the unity government, but would be New Democracy’s candidate for prime minister in the general election.

In many ways, a new interim government for Greece buys time for European leaders to put together a stronger bailout mechanism that would protect larger economies from the risk of default, chief among them Italy. High debt, low growth and the diminishing credibility of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have made that nation increasingly vulnerable.

“The decision is very positive, because it will appease the markets and because it shows that Greek authorities are doing what foreign leaders want them to do — to get on with implementing the conditions for the E.U. debt deal,” said Athanassios Papandropoulos, an economist and commentator for the conservative Greek newspaper Estia.

Still, he said, he saw little chance that a unity government could get Greece back on the road to economic, political and social recovery. “I don’t think it will work,” Mr. Papandropoulos said. “It will last three months, then we’ll have elections, and then we’ll have the same problems all over again.”
In an unusually direct ultimatum to Greece, the European Union commissioner for economic affairs, Olli Rehn, said Sunday that finance ministers from the 17 countries in the union that use the euro were expecting the announcement of a unity government before their meeting in Brussels on Monday. Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek finance minister and a key figure in the Socialist government, is scheduled to attend the meeting.

In his efforts to head off the fall of his government and to maneuver Mr. Samaras into backing the debt deal, Mr. Papandreou proposed last week that the debt deal be put to a popular referendum. After the plan threw financial markets into turmoil and European leaders reacted with fury, Mr. Papandreou withdrew the idea, but won a reversal from Mr. Samaras on the debt deal.

One name being mentioned as a possible leader of the new unity government is Lucas Papademos, a former governor of the Bank of Greece and a former vice president of the European Central Bank. He has been teaching at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard since 2010, when he retired from the European bank, and has also been an informal adviser to Mr. Papandreou; he turned down an offer to be finance minister last spring, preferring to remain above the partisan political fray in Greece.

The new unity government will have its work cut out for it. Among the items on the seven-point plan Mr. Papandreou presented are completing the legal and financial terms of private sector involvement in the Greek rescue, in which banks holding Greek debt agree to voluntarily forgive much of its face value, to avoid a default.

The government also faces the challenge of securing the release of a new installment of 20 billion euros ($28 billion) in foreign aid that Greece needs by the end of February to stabilize its finances.

And it must approve the austerity measures that Mr. Papandreou’s government accepted in its talks with the “troika” of foreign lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The layoffs and other cutbacks of Greece’s public sector are likely to generate more angry street demonstrations.

The new government’s success “will depend on the stance labor unions will take,” said Babis Papadimitriou, a political analyst for the daily newspaper Kathimerini and for Skai television. “This will be, maybe, one of the most interesting developments: what will be the relations between unions and the main parties.”