new earth online

After three successful and acclaimed XBox games featuring Master Chief, an RTS called Halo Wars, Halo:ODST and the forthcoming Halo: Reach it is obvious that this has turned into an incredibly profitably franchise for Bungie and Microsoft and it shows no sign of slowing. This latest entry into the franchise is a collection of seven animated stories available on Blu-ray and DVD.

The first story, Origins (by Hideki Futamura), is actually a tale of two parts and is a retrospective of the story of Halo and what has led up to the point of the Earth - Covenant war. The first half focuses primarily on the story of the ancient race of Forerunners and how they were faced with a threat they were not prepared for - the parasitic species known only as The Flood. Eventually the threat of the flood got so bad they they constructed the Halo weapon which wiped out all life in the galaxy and was then re-seeded automatically using samples the perished forerunners had collected beforehand. It was a last ditch attempt at wiping out the parasitic species, one which they gave their own lives to destroy to protect the younger civilisations.

Cortana, who is telling the story whilst adrift in space after the events of Halo 3, also casts a critical eye over humankinds lust for war and how it has driven the species forward at the same time as finding new ways to kill each other. We see a brief history of human conflict throughout the ages, and how our species ran out of space and so started to colonise other worlds and continued to fight amongst ourselves until we encountered a coalition called The Covenant. The Covenant saw humankind as heresy to their gods and sought genocide until both sides were attacked by a re-emerging threat - The Flood. The story then continues into the events of the games and how the Halo's were discovered and fought over.

The third story, "The Duel" (produced by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa), uses a very different style of animation which looks like animated oil paint to create a very impressionist look and feel. Rather than focussing on the story of the humans it takes a look at the lifestyle of one of the species in the Covenant and the life of an Arbiter. This particular Arbiter, Fal, doesn't agree with what the Covenant is doing and is going to openly oppose them to keep his honour. In the way the clothing and belief system is structured it is given a very Samurai sort of feel, and to maintain his honour Fal is drawn out into battle whilst his wife is killed. When Fal realises this he faces her killer in duel which neither combatant survives. During this final duel their are some rather unique animation styles used which although the characters are not moving for most of it the style provokes a senses of fast, precise movements; similar to what you would expect from samurai.

Homecoming (directed by Koichi Mashimo and Koji Sawai) uses more traditional animation techniques to the story of the Spartan-II recruitment program as a series of flashbacks during a battle in which the Spartan-II known as Daisy provides backup for some of the UNSC soldiers who are trying to fall back from their positions. During the flashbacks we learn that the Spartan-II program took children at a young age and replaced them with "flash clones" which were short lived and imperfect, so that no one would question the disappearance of 75 candidates. Over the following years they are trained and augmented with biological and mechanical enhancements to turn them into super soldiers capable of quelling the insurgencies and later the Covenant threat.

For a while Wordle has been a popular tag cloud generator, but it has recently come under attack for allegedly infringing on an existing trademark filed by Mark Koeff of California. Whilst I know very little about IP law, I'm fairly certain that for a trademark to be infringed it has to fall under the same category and the Wordle website does not fall under "Paper goods and printed material" so is unlikely to cause any sort of brand confusion either. I have a feeling if the plaintiff's claims make it to court they will be dismissed as soon as the filed trademark is brought up.

As you'd expect from the online community these days it has not taken long for the news to hit Twitter and has now started a #savewordle campaign which hopes to raise awareness for the creator's plight and hopefully an IP lawyer who can defend the site pro bono. It's good to see communities rallying around individual developers to defend them and I hope this is one battle which is won by Jonathan Feinberg and the community supporting him.

UPDATE: The Wordle website is back-up, and on the Wordle blog the author mentions that a lawyer is now helping him to resolve the issue - fingers crossed!

James Cameron's latest science fiction epic introduced the world to how digital 3D movie making could be used to enhance the viewing experience, and broke box office records to become the highest grossing film of all time in both the US and UK. With success like this it is bound to get a sequel produced in the near future.

A land rich in rare resources is sought after by a technology advanced people who want to force out the native population so they can mine to their hearts content. The military are eager to move them by force, but there is some hope for diplomacy and so send one of their own in amongst the natives who capture him. The Chieftain's daughter is then made to teach this stranger their ways and in the process the two fall in love and fight back against the invading forces. Amazingly this plot outline could have described the Walt Disney version of the story of Pocahontas, the Native American princess, or James Cameron's Avatar.

I know a lot of people have referred to this story as "Dances With Smurfs" or have drawn similarities with Ferngully, but I think it's most obvious influence has to be that of Pocahontas. I don't think it's a bad thing it was used as inspiration, though for a sequel I would hope for a little more originality. I think when writing the story they must have seriously struggled during the creative process as the rare element they're after has the imaginative name of "Unobtainium". The Na'vi are a tribal species who seem very similar to Native Americans tribes who worshipped nature and even have similar dress sense, accents amongst other cultural similarities.

I think the Na'vi are a fairly cool species due to their agility and the way they interact with the other species and plants on Pandora. Their symbiotic relationship with their world is a popular theme in science fiction and in this case also leans towards the Gaia theory though surpasses it with the suggestion that the planet itself retains the knowledge of The People and has a collective will of it's own. What I found interesting was not just the references to the Gaia theory, but also it's namesake, the Greek Goddess Gaia. When an oath was sworn in the name of Gaia it was said to be the most binding, and that is kind of referenced in Avatar with how the mate they choose is for life, as is the joining with a Mountain Banshee (Ikran).

In my opinion it's harsh to say the film lacks story or originality, as you can say that about a great many good films. Take Star Wars Episode 4 for example, it is a film packed to the brim with references to old movies such as Dambusters but no one cares because it's the characters and the way the story was used that mattered. Having read a number of reviews before seeing the film, including from people whose opinion I value I went into the film expecting it to be a bit boring and lacking in story. I think what the problem people have with this story is that they've seen people comment on how bad the story is and feel they need to follow suit, but the story really isn't that bad. In using a story very similar to Pocahontas they're showing something which really does happen - history repeats itself. This is why so many stories often have similarities with other stories even if only seen at their basest level.

It's not been that long since data.gov.uk was opened for all to use and already an iPhone application has made it to Apple's App Store which utilises a small portion of this data. The ASBOrometer uses data from the 2009 Place Based Survey to which is a record of the percentages of people who think anti-social behaviour is a problem in that area.

After downloading the application you are then asked whether you agree to let it use your current location. If you do then it will show a report for the current constituent based on the aforementioned report. My current location was detected as "Oadby & Wigston" which is in the East Midlands and reported this as 14.9% which is a low-level of anti-social behaviour. It also provides simple statistics for the area such as the population (reported as 56,800), the police force, and the number of ASBOs issued. You can then view further statistics for categories such as "Eviction Orders issued" and "Demotion  Orders issued" which show a nice quarterly graph to show how these have changed over time. The way these statistics are named it kind of makes me feel like they're computer game statistics for a game like Grand Theft Auto.

In addition to these location-aware statistics you can also use a built in Google Maps tab to view all the data on a map which can then be viewed by selecting push-pins. If you're not very good at knowing the geographic location of places you want to check then you can also view a list of searchable areas which show the percentage score in the list also, and a tap goes to the detail view.

In a strange sort of twist it also features a leaderboard which shows them in descending order with the top one being the one with the highest percentage of ASBOs. Overall the application may seem quite strange, but it does two things. Firstly it demonstrates practical usage of open data provided by the Government in a fairly detail application. Secondly it is useful for those who are moving home and want to see what the area they're moving to is going to be like in terms of the level of perceived anti-social behaviour. The application is also available for Android phones.

Edge of Darkness is not just a remake of the 1980's BBC TV mini-series but is also a re-imaging of it, transplanting the characters to the United States. This story is a thriller about a Boston cop's daughter being murdered in front of him, and him tracking down her killers to take his revenge.

I went into this film having not remembered that I'd already seen a trailer for it, one which had the laughable line of "I'm the guy with nothing to lose" - it's a line which is so cheesy you know you'd struggle not to laugh if you heard someone use it.

The film is about Detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) welcoming his daughter home just for her to be shot dead in front him. The Boston media assume that her father was the intended target and he uses this to his advantage to allow him to work on the case. Before she dies she shown signs of some sort of illness due to a nose bleed and vomiting, shortly afterwards we learn she was a nuclear research assistant which pretty much tells you what the rest of the film is about - it's obvious she was suffering from radiation poisoning, but Craven doesn't realise this until he goes to her apartment in Massachusetts.

Whilst there he comes across a Geiger counter amongst her possessions and realises the lock of hair he took whilst visiting her body in the morgue is radio active. This then sends him on a mission to the company where she worked in an attempt to track down her killers and what it was she died for. It's pretty obvious when you see the CEO of the company that he's going to be the bad guy - he just looks evil, especially after him asked Craven how it felt to lose his daughter. Of course he could have just been a bit insensitive because he's not good with people, but alas he was the villain of the story. The company Craven's daughter worked for was a government contractor which dealt with nuclear stockpiles to produce dirty bombs that used non-US parts so they could make a hit look like a terrorist plot. That sort of plot-line is an obvious play to those who don't trust the US government and think 9/11 is shrouded in conspiracies. Personally I think it's daft to think the government would do such a thing as the thing about lies is that they tend to get found out, and when they do it's usually possible to prove them beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It's quite amusing to then see Craven avoiding the companies goons who are out to kill him, and along the way he encounters Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) who is there to stop people like Craven from connecting A to B. I think based on the investigative ability of Thomas Craven I think that whatever government organisation Jedburgh really worked for he didn't really need to do much though I think Winstone had the best performance in the film. His role is as a cold and calculated killer whom you never actually see kill anyone until the very end when he "wraps things up". It does seem like Jedburgh pities Craven and is seen to help push him in the right direction in places. Following the scene in the doctor's surgery it suggests that Jedburgh has an inoperable brain tumour which probably explains why the film ends the way it does.

BBC are planning to start releasing mobile applications starting with a BBC News application for the iPhone followed by applications for Blackberry and Android devices. Once their first application is released they are planning on developing further applications for Sport news and iPlayer.

The problem however is that most newspapers are opposing the plan and are petitioning to the BBC Trust to cancel their plans. From the newspapers point of view they get their revenue by charging people for the news and have not yet managed to find a suitable business model that works in a digital world. There are already iPhone apps for news such as the free on from the Daily Mail, and the paid-for one from the Guardian. I think the newspapers are worried that people associate the BBC brand with good quality and so think that if they can get good quality and up-to-date content for free then why would they want to pay for it. That is a good question though, in a connected world why pay for news when you can get it for free?

Personally I don't see their problem - most people have a web browser on their phones these days and could easily access the BBC's data using either RSS or by visiting their site. By making an iPhone application they are making it easier to access, and hopefully will be enriching it with better search options at the least.

Interestingly, overseas I think it will be possible for BBC to charge for their applications which could be tricky for them to deal with if they chose to. The argument for charging for the apps in the US and other countries if they are made available is that in the UK the BBC's programming is covered by the license fee and so are not allowed commercials or paid-for content over the air.

There's a lot of iPhone applications for keeping track of fitness and for keeping track of where you go. Applications such as Runkeeper keep track of your activity on a map and will produce handy statistics about your run or bike ride. On the other side of the spectrum you can get hiking applications such as Trailguru which is orientated more towards people who are out and about and wanting to keep track of where they've been rather than how quick they've done it.

EveryTrail is another application in this vein and comes in both Free and Pro versions. The website for this app also lets you manage trips from there and there are versions available for other platforms: Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile so no matter what smart phone you have you're bound to be accommodated.

When you open the iPhone application for the first time you will be asked to either register for a new account, log into an existing one, or to just try the application without storing the details online. With the free version, once you've done this you will see the "Home" view with options to track a trip, to upgrade to Pro (to remove ads) and a view of popular nearby trips. I think "near by" has to be a very relative term as it's second trip listed was one from London to Bath, but I live 100 miles from London. Using the search tab yields far better results for nearby trips and will allow you to order results by rating, journey length, and proximity after having the choice of searching what the proximity should be relative to (default is current location), the radius from that location, and the type of activity.

There is also a map view which is handy should you need to check your current location, and a saved tab for storing your trips in. The settings tab has various settings such as associating the application with your EveryTrail account, social media options for sharing on Twitter and Facebook, GPS configuration for distance threshold and  accuracy threshold, the unit of measurement, and picture taking options.

When you start tracking a trip it does warn the user not to close the application down (since Apple doesn't support background tasks in their iPhone OS) and will then show updates on the map view as you move. If you tap on the details navigation button you can enter further details such as a story, any tips you may have for people using this trail, and the option to take pictures to associate with the trail.

It's one of the best applications in this style that I've used and has many nice touches which make it all the better for using and so far I've not been able to fault it as a lot of common faults with these applications have been thought through and dealt with. It even works with other trip applications such as Trails, Gaia GPS, TrailCompanion and EasyTrails GPS.

Since the iPhone's release the only real choice for browsing with has been Safari. If Opera get their way though this may soon change as they prepare an iPhone version of Opera Mini. An official announcement should be made this weekend at the Mobile World Congress.

Opera's plan is to include their tabbed browsing amongst other features such as their password manager and the "Speed Dial" for quickly accessing favourite and frequently visited websites. The Speed Dial feature is one which has also been copied by Google for their Chrome browser and is certainly a nice feature to have.

If Apple accept this browser into the App Store it opens the way for other browser developers to do the same which means we could see Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox following suit before long. At the minute I think it's unlikely that Microsoft would produce a mobile version of their browser to run on the iPhone due to them not having a current Mac version of their browser. It may also change the course of the current round of browsers wars so that their resources may become further divided between their desktop and mobile versions (with the exception of IE which is bound to stay behind the pack for some time yet). I think it will be interesting to see how mobile browsers change now and how they will converge towards their desktop counter-parts.

Pixar, a company started by George Lucas, has been responsible for some amazing pieces of computer animated features including the Toy Story trilogy, The Incredibles, and Wall-E. In their most recent DVD & Blu-ray release, Up, they push the boundaries of computer animation once more and combine it with their usual great story telling to produce another instant classic.

The film starts with a young boy, Carl Fredricksen,  in a cinema watching a black and white documentary about his favourite hero, the adventurer Charles F. Muntz who was renowned for his exploits in South America but was shamed after accusations of forging a skeleton. On his way home he stumbles across a run-down house where he meets another Muntz fan called Ellie. The two of them make a promise to one day fly to Paradise Falls and it is then that Carl falls in love with her.

Time then moves quickly and we see that the couple marry and move into the house where they met after renovating the place. We also see their chance for a family taken away from them and their hopes of going adventuring to Paradise Falls slipping further and further out of reach. Eventually we seem them as an elderly couple, having never fulfilled their dreams of going to Paradise Falls. One day Carl buys plane tickets to go there but before he can show Ellie the tickets she collapses and is taken to the hospital. After giving Carl her "Adventure" book Ellie passes away, leaving Carl on his own once more.

I think this sequence is incredibly powerful at giving an insight into why Carl seems so sad and why he's keeping the world out of his life and doesn't want to move on - he misses his wife and the times they had together. The sense I got of the character at this point is he's given up on life, he's just keeping to himself and is waiting to die. Every time he steps he steps out his front door he is confronted by the world changing around him and business men wanting to tear down his beloved house to make way for new impersonal skyscrapers. When his postbox is accidentally knocked down he becomes distraught and in trying to protect it accidentally hits one of the workers on the head. After some court proceedings he is advised to take up residence at care home for the elderly.

Still determined to not leave his home behind he comes up with a plan to avoid the care home and attaches an amazing number of helium filled balloons to his house so that it can take off. Not long after take off he finds that the Wilderness Explorer who had pestered him earlier was on the porch. Intending on letting him go Carl starts to free some of the balloons so that he can be dropped off but they encounter a storm which causes Carl's belongings to become endangered.

It may only be a plan for the US at the minute, but Google are moving one step closer to world domination by announcing plans to roll out their own broadband network across the United States. Their plan is to provide a 1Gbps connection to around 500,000 homes by building their own fibre-optic network. What is surprising however is that Google wants the price to be competitive with existing ISPs who offer slower speeds.

Apparently their overall plan isn't to go after customers themselves but to just install the infrastructure for doing so that third-party vendors and governments can go about finding users for it themselves. This means they are becoming an infrastructure supplier which is capable of inching it's way into many organisations and government departments which it otherwise may not have easily done. If they're using Google's broadband why not offer the organisation the use of Google Apps? I think this is likely to be how they'll sweeten the deal for organisations they want under their banner.

If you combine this with their many other areas of business such as the Google Search Appliances they sell to Enterprise customers, their email / apps, an operating system, a new HTTP protocol, a browser, a mobile platform and many more including their most obvious product: search; it means that Google are now well on their way to having their fingers in every aspect of our daily lives on the Internet. From a consumers point of view the advantage is that they can use a brand name which is recognisable as producing quality products with the added bonus that Google products have a habit of working faster when used together (a good example of this is how much better Google Wave runs on Chrome browser).

Google might not yet rule the world, but I think they're well on their way...

Today's announcement from Google was the unveiling of their new social networking tool, Google Buzz. This new tool is available for use inside Gmail (though has only been rolled out to a small number of accounts so far) and from your mobile when visiting the Google Buzz website.

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there's always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don't have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you're sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.

What this means is that it is treating your email client as a social network platform and the people you email the most will be the ones who you connect with automatically using Buzz. You can share whatever you want to with either everyone (the world) or just people on your contacts list and works with existing platforms such as Twitter, Flickr and Google Reader.

When you use this from your mobile phone you can also use Geo-location services to see what Buzz's are near your current location which brings a similar location-aware social networking feel as programs such Tweetie do for Twitter. It's also possible to comment and "like" people's Buzz's similar to how you can do this with RSS items in Google Reader. It also expands out to having a custom layer for Google Maps and appearing as a shortcut on all your Google pages though at present you can only use the full range of features on the iPhone and Android phones.

Unfortunately I've not yet been able to try this in Gmail as I'm not one of the fortunate ones who has had it enabled, but I've tried it on my iPhone. I haven't been able to do much on my iPhone either as it can't find anyone using it nearby, it's not bringing up anyone talk to using Gmail (and won't let me add new contacts to it), and won't let me post anything new to it. These problems are likely to be because my Gmail account doesn't have it, so now I just have to eagerly await it's activation before I can see if I can find a use for it.

I've seen people comment that it's trying to be the next Twitter and that there are already a large number of social networking aggregators out there that pull in feeds from different networks. I disagree with this - why does it matter that there are already alternatives out there? With more alternatives to chose from it breeds competition and with Google entering the social networking game it means that we're likely to see a pretty heated competition. I don't think Google want to replace Twitter either though, what they want is for emailing to become a social experience much like what they're trying to achieve with Google Wave.

UPDATE: Last night I was finally able to get access to Buzz from my Gmail account and at the same time was able to use the mobile interface. To start with it tells you which people you are auto-following and which ones are following you and then suggests you review these.  The interface for adding and removing but it's disturbing that it auto-follows people. I know Google are trying to be helpful but I don't think it's a particularly nice feature. Some people have commented that this breaks privacy laws because of this initial setup but I think the real problem is that you can't block users from following you which means the difference between a private buzz and a public buzz is essentially just trivial.

The interface for viewing buzzes can also contain feeds from other places and looks like a combination of Gmail and Google Reader due to the way the messages can collapse and expand, and the way the like / comment feature works. One annoyance though is that when people reply to any of your buzzes you get this appear in your inbox. So if like me you have IMAP set up on your iPhone to synchronise with your Google Mail account then it could mean a lot of email alerts on your phone. Fortunately there is a way of avoiding this and that is to set up a filter which automatically archives messages containing "Buzz" in the subject so they "skip" the inbox (thanks for the suggestion Lena!). 

The mobile interface isn't too bad but it could certainly be a lot better - I think the main problem is that difference in the way it is displayed making it harder to track what you have and haven't already read.

Once again the eyes of the world are on San Francisco, where Apple have invited the world's press to reveal their latest creation. For a long time there has been much speculation about an Apple tablet in the works, and most people think it a certainty that this time it will be uncovered. The event started as normal with Steve Jobs presenting their latest sales statistics for devices such as the iPod and the number of applications that they now have in their App Store.

They didn't waste any time then explaining how the face of mobile computing has changed and what mobile devices are used for and that a device between a laptop and a phone are needed - such as a netbook, but the problem with them is they are slow and have low quality displays. This is when they announced the iPad, a device which is coined as being better than both Macbooks and iPhones. One of the most pleasing features is unlike the iPhone you can customise your homescreen to have different wallpapers, and the screen turns round as you turn the device round so it doesn't matter which way it's facing. It's designed to be able to read newspapers easily, and includes a nicely sized QWERTY virtual-keyboard. It also features a lock screen similar to the iPhone, and recognisable applications such as Maps, Mail, Contacts, Calendar and iPhoto to name a few. All of these applications have undergone design changes specifically for the iPad, and they look kind of cool - as though they're now resembling the items they're "replacing" more closely.

It has a 9.7" IPS multi-touch display (1024 x 768 native resolution with 132ppi), and is only 0.5" thick and weighs around 1.5 pounds. The CPU is a 1GHz Apple A4 and comes in 16Gb, 32Gb, and 64Gb versions. Connectivity isn't too bad with it supporting Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. In addition to the GPS it also includes accelerometer and compass which means the battery life could never be expected to be great considering the screen size, and they're reporting it to be around 10 hours. So this means in practice you're probably looking at around 6 hours.

The best thing for developers is that all existing iPhone applications should work on the iPad, but it will mean developers who want their app to run on this new platform will need to take scaling into consideration. Apple have made some provision for this though in that existing applications can be run at either the same size as the iPhone, or using the "double-pixel" mode where it enlarges everything. They have also released a changed SDK so that developers can take advantage of the increased screen size. As you'd expect the App Store is available on the iPad, just as iTunes and the iTunes store can be used.

They've not been content with squishing the netbook competition either - they're setting themselves up to take over the eBook market as well with their new iBook application. To supplement the iBook app there is also an iBook Store where you can buy your books from. They mentioned some of their biggest names publishing books through the iBook Store include Penguin, Macmillion, Simon & Shuster; though there are also many more names. The format for the books is ePub - the same as what the Stanza iPhone app uses.

They haven't stopped there though, they have also ported iWork to work on the iPad. Personally I didn't find this particularly interesting, but I guess I may think differently after I've seen it in action properly. It does however include some new custom keyboard layouts which are designed to help increase productivity by speeding up data entry. Each program which makes up iWork will be priced at $9.99.

The 3G comes with various different plans for 250mb/month for $14.99 and unlimited for $29.99 a month. I'm hoping a 3G plan isn't required as if I choose to get one of these then I'll only really need the Wi-Fi option. Presumably this will be the case as you can set up the data plan from the iPad itself, and is contract free and are not locked to any network even though they're pushing AT&T. The SIM is an international microSIM The shame however is that these are not going to be available internationally yet, and aren't likely to make it to the UK until about July. Even though the 3G offers aren't going to be available just yet, the devices themselves will be available worldwide in 60 days, and the 3G models in 90 days. The pricing is as follows:

• 16Gb - $499 (or $629 with 3G)
  
• 32Gb - $599 (or $729 with 3G)
  
• 64Gb - $699 (or $829 with 3G)

Also announced were a number of accessories to help make the iPad experience better - a dock, a keyboard dock, and a case.

I think considering the price it's going to sell very well, but I think I may wait until the next generation of the iPad to see how it evolves over the next year or two. A lot of people seem quite interested in a future version including a front and rear camera for both taking photos and for use in video chat. Of course another missing feature is multi-tasking, so we can only hope that one day Apple add this. The design I think looks great, and I can't wait for the local Apple store to start stocking them so I can see how it feels. I'm also interested in seeing first hand what the video and sound quality is like as this will determine how appropriate it is for a mobile media device, though the fact it's going to be perfect for reading is probably one of it's best features.

I'm now waiting to download the updated SDK and the iPad simulator and will report back ASAP.

It was proposed a few months ago that the use of non-latin characters should be allowed in domain names to mean that countries who don't use the latin character-set an use domain names in their own characters. After a few months of consideration ICANN have now approved the use of "foreign"characters and may be offering domains using this new system later in the year. Apparently the first TLD's to use this new system will be in Arabic and Cyrillic.

Some people have complained that this will herald a more complicated Internet, but I don't think that is true. If you're native tongue is Arabic and have never learnt English then I think the existing system would be an awful lot more confusing than the ability to type in domain names using Arabic characters. This opens up the Internet to being a more interesting and culturally diverse place where the English language (or other languages using latin characters, such as French, etc.) isn't a requirement.

I hope maybe this may be a sign that more companies will be more accepting of other languages and cultures. However there have been some initial concerns that the use of similar characters in domain names (if you can mix and match character sets) it may open up the Internet to far more phising possibilities. Some people have also commented that if TLDs are added for other languages should the same also happen for programming languages?

Mozilla today release version 3.6 of their popular Firefox browser. Included in this new release was the former Mozilla Labs development, Personas which allows you to customise your browser easily skin your browser with thousands of pre-made skins and to develop your own. At the minute my favourite Persona features Totoro from the Studio Ghibli film, "My Neighbour Totoro". One thing I like about the way Personas works is you don't have to apply a Persona to test it - you can just hover over it on the Personas website.

In addition to a brand new feature is a small increase in JavaScript performance, but no where near as big an improvement as the one made between version 3 and 3.5; but any improvement is a positive move. Here are some of the other improvements they've made:

• Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
• The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
• Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
• Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
• Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow for more interactive web pages.

On the subject of out-of-date plugins I was expecting there to be some of the ones I use that would not be ready for the new release as there always are a few. Unfortunately, despite hoping otherwise, I was right and a number of plugins did indeed fail to work. Amongst the ones I use which don't work in Firefox 3.6 are:

• Gmail Manager
• Google Gears
• Html Validator
• Live HTTP Headers
• Page Speed
• SEOpen
• Tamper Data
• TAW3 en un clic

Some of those plugins I'm quite disappointed to see weren't ready, especially considering the release period for 3.6 was extended. Of course it's possible to edit the plugin to change the maximum version number they can be run on but it's not something you should really have to do. So because of third parties, and not Mozilla, I'll now be putting off upgrading Firefox on my Macbook Pro as I use some of those for debugging purposes.

UPDATE: One annoyance I've found is that I can no longer paste into Google Wave, presumably because Google Gears no longer works.

In the past week it's been a tough time for Internet Explorer. It all started when it was revealed that there was a critical vulnerability in the browser which meant applications could be run remotely. This flaw was revealed after Google's were attacked and this was shown to be the likely culprit. Such an announcement from a rival browser manufacturer is never a good announcement to be made, but it's also one which will prove hard for Microsoft to fix due to it's tight integration with the Windows environment. So, ironically it's the same thing Microsoft were originally brought up on for unfair practices that is now causing them further pain. Due to the nature of the flaw it is one which is not present in rival browsers.

Following that announcement came another from the German government (from their Federal Office for Information Security) advising their citizens that they should not use any version of Internet Explorer and should instead use an alternative. I think when this announcement was made it brought a ray of hope to those web designers and developers who shun the browser's quirks which normally causes more development time. Swiftly following this initial announcement was another announcement from the French government department CERTA was a similar sort of message and to also disable JavaScript and ActiveX.

TechRadar have reported that this was then followed by contact from Microsoft UK's Head of Security and Privacy whom stated that users who switch will risk using a less secure browser.

The net effect of switching [from IE] is that you will end up on less secure browser," insisted Evans.

The risk [over this specific] exploit is minimal compared to Firefox or other competing browsers… you will be opening yourself up to security issues.

He then goes on to say he thinks IE8 is a more secure browser than Firefox and that they're only talking about one vulnerability - granted that may be the case at the minute but it is a pretty major vulnerability. If Microsoft are going to start pointing fingers at other browser manufacturers they should back up their accusations with proof and should do something about fixing their own browser.

In light of these recent announcements I don't think it's going to make a major difference - most users who know about other browsers and may want to change most likely have already. If the UK government was to follow suit and issue a recommendation it is likely that although some users may make the switch that the government itself would delay a browser switch themselves due to the logistics of rolling out a browser to all their systems. Fortunately some of the government is ahead of the curve and have already made the jump to an alternative, more secure browser.