Well, the media hype has mostly died down surrounding the iPhone, at least in the U.S.



However, what I find lacking about the current iPhone is that it only integrates or interacts with one core product in Apple's repertoire: the many iterations of the Mac (Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, Macbook, iMac). What about integration with Apple's other consumer-oriented products, like AirPort Extreme?



Or better yet, did it ever occur to Apple's engineers that the iPhone (or the iPod touch) would integrate well with the Apple TV? Perhaps, as a touchscreen remote?



Well......it looks like they had caught a fleeting glance of it back in...what? 2005, you say? In the USPO, you say?



No, I don't fully expect for Apple to make use of this patent in the next iteration of either the Apple TV (which doesn't have iPhone's bluetooth) or the iPhone (which doesn't have AppleTV's infrared). But, in my honest opinion, it would push for a more diverse purposing for the iPhone:

• songs and movies (and even games) bought through iPhone's iTunes Wi-fi Store can be streamed (or, to use the Zune's parlance, "squirted") to Apple TV - useful if you want to see/hear/play it on a TV screen
  
  
• more interactive controls on the iPhone for Apple TV playback
• User-chosen YouTube (and other web video hosting service) videos can be downloaded on the iPhone and streamed, again, to the Apple TV

Think of it as being a more handheld, mobile replacement for the Mac (well, that's what Macworld said in October), being able to use the iPhone more with the Apple TV than you would use your Mac or PC.



This is what hasn't been fully explored.



Sources and useful links:

• TUAW
• intomobile
• MDN
• MacNN
• IOSPIRIT's Remote Buddy for iPhone/iPod touch, which is the closest that we'll get to the iPhone-as-remote-control idea for now.

This question has been asked before: should Opera, the Internet client from Norway that you've probably used on the Nintendo Wii's Internet channel, go open source like its closest cross-platform competitor, Mozilla Firefox?



It's become a common complain with Firefox junkies, that Opera isn't a viable option for web browsing because of the proprietary ownership of its company (Opera Software ASA).



However, IMO, Opera has an advantage in its proprietary approach to software, in that its developers can construct and deconstruct their own layout and scripting engines from behind closed doors without having to make sure that it works well with a slew of development APIs. To date, Opera has used at least 3 different layout engines, including the current Presto engine.



Meanwhile, Mozilla possesses a long history with third-party developers. Until recently, Firefox was simply the icing on top of the "Mozilla platform", a stack that included the following sub-browser features:

• Gecko
• Gecko is a standard-based layout engine designed for performance and portability.
• Necko
• Necko provides an extensible API for several layers of networking from transport to presentation layers.
• XUL
• XUL is the basis of user interface. It is an application of XML that defines various user interfaces elements, mostly widgets, control elements, template, etc. It is similar in many ways to HTML.
• XBL
• XBL allows one to define his/her own widget for use in XUL.
• XPCOM
• XPCOM is an object interface that allows interfacing between any programming language for which a binding has been developed
• XPConnect
• XPConnect is the binding between XPCOM and JavaScript.
• XPInstall
• XPInstall is a technology for installing small packages like extensions and themes into Mozilla applications in form of installation archives known as XPI.
• Web services
  
  
• Mozilla includes built-in support for popular web services standards XML-RPC, SOAP (dropped since Gran Paradiso Alpha 7^[1]), and WSDL as well as a simple XMLHttpRequest object similar to the one in Internet Explorer.

This allowed for third-party developers to plug into the processes which made applications like Firefox and Thunderbird work and look like they do.



This also resulted in "feature creep" and "code bloat", two controversial terms which no developer wants to hear or talk about. Besides becoming a poster boy for the emergent FOSS ideology, Firefox - in fact, almost all applications which have been built upon the Mozilla platform - also became quite infamous for the attitude of its developers to the growing anger over the application's regular consumption of memory.



However, no matter how angry the users have become with Firefox's outstanding issues, the Mozilla developers have consistently expressed their desire for incremental improvement, rather than total abandonment of such oldened processes like Gecko and XPCOM, due to the reliance of third-party developers upon these technologies.



This leaves the Opera browser with a technical advantage over Mozilla. There is much less of an audience of third-party developers who depend upon the underlying platform of the browser, which is only licensed to software companies such as Adobe for usage in their Dreamweaver product.



What about the future of either browser?



I think that Opera Software is, at present, planning to phase the browser further into the background as their widgets platform, which is mostly based on web-standard technologies like CSS, SVG and eventually Theora, becomes bigger and more prominent.



However, the Mozilla corporation, with its recent moves (such as ditching Thunderbird, leading to accusations that Mozilla Corp. has become the "Firefox Corporation"), may also head in a similar direction as well. Mozilla has expressed an interest in the advancement of web services and web applications which will make use of Firefox-specific, rather than Mozilla-specific technologies; it sounds similar to the widget



Does this mean that Opera and Firefox are on their way to competing as browser-based application platforms?



So when should Opera go open source?



In my opinion, Opera should only go open source once their business and development initiative is no longer focused exclusively upon the browser, but rather on the applications which depend upon the browser and the technologies which stand upon it, rather than its runtime, for function purposes.



When that time comes, they will no longer be focused upon incremental improvement of the already-established underlying runtime technologies which allow for the widgets to function, and would need help from outside.



Furthermore, open-sourcing the browser and its technologies will allow for other browsers and widget platforms to stand upon the shoulder of a formidable giant, one which is designed for designers rather than developers. This will lead to greater adoption of these standards in consumer markets. Open-sourcing Opera, in the long run, will benefit the WWW more than it may benefit Opera.



However, that is a long ways off from right now, when Opera and Safari are far in front of the other, larger browser vendors and their technologies.



Firefox, as long as it rides on the coattails of the Mozilla platform rather than realize its own, will remain in lockstep with the platform's failures and shortcomings.

When a group of individuals known as the OpenDocument Foundation (not associated with the format except by promotion of it) annouced their intention to drop their support for ODF in favor of the Compound Document Formats, the uproar in response was rather loud. Even those who said that CDF might be a better format (actually, its a container for other XML-based formats rather than being a format itself) also stated that they would still support ODF because of the "need" to uniformly combat the dominance of MS Office in the workplace.



So...this is all about Microsoft again?



Frankly, this is the software world example of how the Democrats opposed Ralph Nader from running for president - twice. Or the South Carolina Democrats opposing Stephen Colbert's mock campaign for president.



What is this - tactical voting again?



Plus, why is it that we simply *have* to prop up the word processor software genre? Isn't it old hat already?



We have web browsers now, so we can view documents. We have wikis and blogs, so we can edit documents. Why do we need word processors or word processor formats in 2007 (maybe 1985, but in this day and age?)? Why can't I view either an ODF document or OOXML/Word document in the web browser?



More or less, this fight between ODF and OOXML (or openOffice.org and MS Office) is a battle for the hearts and minds of big business, big government and big education, all of whom are still hopelessly dependent upon word processor documents for communication within their specific infrastructures.



This, IMO, is not a battle for the web-based grassroots, who, if it wasn't involving the likes of Microsoft, would have very little ill-informed opinion or hot air to spout.



I think that, if it is simply a container for already-available web document formats and syntaxes, rather than being an all-in-one format that needs a bunch of extensions and hacky thingamajigs to be compatible with other formats and syntaxes (like ODF and OOXML), then CDF might have a technological heads up over the other two formats.



Plus, I like diversity. I like confusion, choice, duplicity, subversion and treason. Therefore, the third-party, whenever possible, will get my vote.

The above title, of course, is my subversion of a quote from George Orwell.



Everyone is looking for the truth, or thinks that they are in full possession of it already (and market themselves or their venture as if they have more of it than the last "authority"). Personally, I don't believe in truth, and I question the truth whenever I can.

Why?



Because I think that truth requires belief, and that belief requires faith. And faith leads us to go batsh*t religious/fanboyish, with no regard for any other alternative answer or solution.



And that holds all of us back, IMO.



So my description of Wikipedia is not as a repository of universal truth, but as a growing repository of every lie and truth ever recorded, as long as it has cited sources. To me, that's a good thing; it keeps us from drinking too much of any particular flavor of Kool-Aid.



ALSO:



At YouTube, Obama's no longer a candidate for the Anti-Christ position:

I have a question: why is it that ethnic Judaists were violently persecuted in both countries whose governments espoused a conservative, nativist, pro-religious ideology and countries whose governments espoused a liberal, Marxist ideology?



The ethnic Judaists of Germany were massacred by the country's Nazi, virulently anti-Communist government back during the first half of the 20th century, and were oppressed by the Communist, anti-Nazi government of the Soviet Union.



Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, oppression was visited upon the ethnic Judaists of South West Asia by both Islamic conservative and Arab socialist governments, which led to a massive exodus from that region to Israel from the 1960's to the 1980's.



In both types of government, the ethnic Jews were condemned for espousing or associating themselves with contrary, anti-government ideologies: in Nazi Germany, they were lumped together with gays and communists in the concentration camps, while in the Soviet Union, they were lumped together with gays and conservative religious figures in the gulags.



Within Israel, today you have a clash of Jewish conservatism and Jewish liberalism, which has only progressed since the establishments of the first Labor Zionist kibbutz in Israel in the 1920s. This has been seen in numerous misunderstandings between progressive social activists (who often advocate for peace and a two-state solution) and conservative religious activists (who advocate for greater recognition of Jewish law and tradition and the fight against Palestinian militants), including calls for prosecution, assassination, deportation, or divestment of political office.



A flashpoint in the battle between religious conservatives and social liberals in Israel is the debate over civil rights for the country's LGBT minority, which has led to violent incursions at venues such as the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade.



The battle between conservatism and liberalism has also been felt in the Palestinian territories, most recently in the violent split between the social democratic nationalist Fatah in the West Bank and the religious conservative nationalist Hamas in the Gaza Strip.



But then back to the question: why is it that the Jews were persecuted by both avowed "leftists" and avowed "rightists" for being in cahoots with the opposing ideology of the time? Why is that the only Jewish country in the world comes under criticism from avowed leftists and rightists? And why is it that Jewish leftists and Jewish rightists have assaulted each other over the same or similar rifts and issues of which their forefathers were often accused in their former home countries?



It's very ironic, and weird.