Reading List
- HTTPS Usage – since 2015, from Chrome users who share usage stats.”Secure web browsing through HTTPS is becoming the norm. Desktop users load more than half of the pages they view over HTTPS and spend two-thirds of their time on HTTPS pages. HTTPS is less prevalent on mobile devices, but we see an upward trend there, too … the prevalence of HTTPS has increased quickly in Russia compared to Japan, which has seen slower growth of HTTPS usage.” Also, and a list of top sites (“By our estimates, the list of sites below accounts for approximately 25% of all website traffic worldwide”) and their HTTPS status.
- The Web is not Fashionable “or: How I Learned to Love the Web:, by Ada Rose Edwards, who always talks sense.
- Connecting Virtual Worlds: Hyperlinks in WebVR – interesting UX experiment by Mozilla’s @mozillavr team.
- Pointing the Way Forward – a nice overview of Pointer Events, which unifies listening to mouse, touch and stylus in one model and one API. It’s been a long and winding road to getting them in Blink, but they’re coming next Chromium version. Yay!
- VR & accessibility – “there are people who will simply never be able to take part in VR as it currently exists … But other barriers are avoidable, through the right design considerations – through accessibility.”
- SVG Authoring Guide by Doug Schepers (W3C) and Chaals McCathie Nevile (Yandex). Looks pretty blumming good.
- Async functions – making promises friendly by Jank Architect. I was reading up on this as I saw it’s newly in Firefox Nightly and, like a massive fool, I thought it was something to do with
<script async src="…">. (It’s not.) - Results of the 2016 GOV.UK assistive technology survey – ZoomTet is most popular screen magnifier; JAWS (38%), VoiceOver (21%), NVDA (12%) are more popular screen readers; “many assistive technology users found PDFs hard to use”
- The TAG’s concerns about the Digital Object Architecture and the Web – The W3C Technical Architecture Group gets grumpy at a proposal to replace/ compete with URL standard called “DOA”.
- Nightmare scenarios with WebMIDI – in which Stoyan Stefanov argues that WebMIDI should require a user permission
- 10 principles for smooth web animations – “The complete guide to getting 60fps animations on your website”. Interesting, seems sensible but haven’t tested.
- #Datamustfall reaches Parliament – Major networks in the house today after Tbo Touch appeals to MPs – South African celeb, Tbo Touch, started a hashtag to complain about high data costs. In September, it took him to Parliament. From one presentation to parliament: “Your whole life as student at UWC‚ if you do not have data‚ it comes to a standstill. With the rape culture‚ it’s not safe to access the library at night. It’s extremely unsafe for us to access the library”
- Facebook passes 1 billion mobile-only monthly users but even so, its stock price fell by 7% over fears of slowing growth. It’s identified developing nations and “Asia-Pacific region as an area that continued to be promising for future user growth”.
- Facebook forces Admiral to pull plan to price car insurance based on posts – Admiral planned to offer discounts if their Facebook posts met algorithm’s assessment that they were responsible drivers.
- Alarmed by Admiral’s data grab? Wait until insurers can see the contents of your fridge
- India in mobile fast lane, but rural areas lag – “research shows that once a woman starts using a mobile phone, the impact is much greater than when a man starts using one, so recommends the government target women first in its campaign to expand mobile penetration in rural areas.”
- Is WebVR Ready? – a look at the support of the various necessary APIs in browsers.
- IP Bill Is Most Extreme Surveillance Law Ever Passed in a Democracy – “Open Rights Group director Jim Killock says ‘Snooper’s Charter’ is unprecedented.”
- Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data? – on the challenge to UK government snooping at European Court of Human Rights.
- Thailand encourages users to spy on each other to block ‘inappropriate messages’
- World’s first self-driving taxis cruise Singapore streets
- How bad is Scotland’s Computer Science Exam? – Terence Eden takes the Computer Science exam that Scottish 16 year olds sat recently, finds it harder than he expected, but an “excellent foundation”.
- The New Digital School – An Alternative to Design Education – interesting kickstarter to set up a school with a different kind of digital education. Definitely needed.
- Pinna’s illusory intertwining effect – a hideous optical illusion, done with CSS by Ana Tudor. Look if you dare.
- The emperor isn’t naked, but he’s wearing his underpants on his head – mail to the CSS Working Group calling for CSS to be replaced with “PCP” (“Paint-Can Precedence”).