Bruce Lawson’s personal site : reading list

Archive for the 'reading list' Category

Reading List 283

Friday 12 November 2021

Google’s special Android for India revealed – Partnership with Jio brings 5.45 in touchscreen, 2GB RAM & 32GB storage, in-built translation into 10 Indian languages & read aloud, voice activation. 6,500 rupees (£64, $87) or instalment plan. Gamechanger? (Marketing site)
Photoshop’s journey to the web – Next time someone says “web isn’t powerful enough for my app”, show them Photoshop in the browser, or the Clipchamp video editor PWA
SQLime is an online SQLite playground for debugging and sharing SQL snippets. Kinda like JSFiddle, but for SQL instead of JavaScript.
The ADA lawsuit settlement involving an accessibility overlay: using an accessibility overlay is NOT a valid substitute for a real and valid accessibility strategy.
Less Absolute Positioning With Modern CSS – an interesting article by Ahmad Shadeed
Making data visualizations more accessible – “Researchers find blind and sighted readers have sharply different takes on what content is most useful to include in a chart caption.”
Let’s Talk about Native HTML Tabs – Spicy Sections! I approve both name and concept.
Line length revisited: following the research – Longer line lengths on screens no longer considered harmful
Enhancing the Manifest – Aaron Gustafson on some ideas for making PWAs almost as groovy as he is with some proposed additions to the Manifest
Accessible Writing with Ashley Bischoff – 1 hr video on writing accessible content
The State Of Web Scraping in 2021 – a look at some utilities available for scraping data out of HTML for processing in a structured way
AMP Has Irreparably Damaged Publishers’ Trust in Google-led Initiatives: as Bobo Berjon writes, a clear and dispassionate overview of the damage wreaked by AMP and the reason why it’s become very difficult to treat Google-led initiatives with anything other than intense suspicion.
Apple, Its Control Over the iPhone, and The Internet – “There is no open web on the iPhone, either — only the “iPhone web.””
Lena – a very thought-provoking short story in the form of a “wikipedia” article about the earliest executable image of a human brain.

Reading List 282

Friday 8 October 2021

Link o’ the week: The Future of CSS: Cascade Layers is a jolly useful guide by @bramus that’s helped me understand the syntax and subtleties
Apple to face EU antitrust charge over NFC chip – Only Apple Pay can use it because (checks notes) “privacy and security, absolutely not monopolistic behaviour. Who, us? Ha ha! Never!”
New study reveals iPhones aren’t as private as you think – “Android phones collect more data by volume, but iPhones collect more types of data, a study finds”
Make your PWAs Look and Launch Beautifully a presentation a by Önder Ceylan at PWA summit on the new developments on cross-platform icons, splash screens etc.
Making the whole web better, one canvas at a time – Uncle Brian on OffscreenCanvas
In Quest of Search – “On why I think adding a new HTML sectioning element for search is a good idea” by Sara Soueidan
Datasette Desktop – “Datasette was originally designed as a tool for data journalists, to help report on data-driven stories, crunch through large datasets and publish the results…Datasette can be used to power dynamic-static websites: sites that run on serverless hosting while providing dynamic data-backed functionality.”
Google found guilty of restricting Android forks in South Korea, fined $177 million
Me Me Me! corner: The F-Word Episode 13 – Does the iOS browser ban harm or help the web? Now with added Stuart Langridge!

Reading List 281

Friday 3 September 2021

Link o’ the Week: iOS Engine Choice In Depth – Big Al doing his forensics on Apple’s disingenuousness.
Australian watchdog considers regulating Apple and Google to boost app store competition = ” both companies faced very little competition in app distributions on their respective mobile platforms. The competition watchdog suggested the companies were stifling competition with their control over what apps could do on their platforms.”
Russia slaps Apple with warning over abusing dominant market position – “it was cheaper to buy goods on a seller’s website… Apple gets a commission from 15% to 30% for each payment in the App Store, yet users are blocked from being informed about the possibility of purchases outside of it”
After Apple rejections, FlickType gives up on popular iPhone keyboard for the blind – “Apple has thrown us obstacle after obstacle for years while we try to provide an app to improve people’s lives, and we can no longer endure their abuse.”
Postcodes.io – Postcode & Geolocation API for the UK. Free, Open Source and based solely on Open Data
A guide to designing accessible, WCAG-compliant focus indicators by Sara Soueidan
Good stablecoins, a protocol for money, and digital wallets: the formula to fix our broken payment system. Hurrah! Facebook’s ZuckCoin is about to launch. And apparently, anyone who doesn’t love the idea of Facebook knowing all about your “money in the MetaVerse” (really!) is “profoundly unAmerican”.
End of the line for Uber – Cory Doctorow on Uber’s probable demise. The saddest thing about Uber (and Airbnb) is they *could* have been good ideas if they actually were about real people’s spare capacity meeting some genuine excess demand. But (perhaps inevitably) they turned into hideous Silicon Valley monsters.
Goodbye, Michael Jones, the man who gave the power of maps in our hands – Obituary of Michael Jones, the man behind Google Earth, and his mission to democratize maps.

Reading List 280

Friday 30 July 2021

Link ‘o the week: Safari isn’t protecting the web, it’s killing it – also featuring “Safari is killing the web through show-stopping bugs” eg, IndexedDB, localStorage, 100vh, Fetch requests skipping the service worker, and all your other favourites. Sort it out, NotSteve.
Do App Store Rules Matter? – “half of the revenue comes from just 0.5% of the users … last year, Apple made $7-8bn in commission revenue from perhaps 5m people spending over $450 a quarter on in-app purchases in games. Apple has started talking a lot about helping you use your iPhone in more healthy ways, but that doesn’t seem to extend to the app store.”
URL protocol handler registration for PWAs – Chromium 92 will let installed PWAs handle links that use a specific protocol for a more integrated experience.
Xiaomi knocks Apple off #2 spot – but will it become the next Huawei? – “Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi is now the second largest smartphone maker in the world. In last quarter’s results it had a 17% share of global smartphone shipments, ahead of Apple’s 14% and behind Samsung’s 19%
One-offs and low-expectations with Safari – “Jen Simmons solicited some open feedback about WebKit, asking what they might “need to add / change / fix / invent to help you?” … If I could ask for anything, it’d be that Apple loosen the purse strings and let Webkit be that warehouse for web innovation that it was a decade ago.” by Dave Rupert
Concern trolls and power grabs: Inside Big Tech’s angry, geeky, often petty war for your privacy – “Inside the World Wide Web Consortium, where the world’s top engineers battle over the future of your data.
Intent to Ship: CSS Overflow scrollbar-gutter – Tab Atkins explains “the space that a scrollbar *would* take up is always reserved regardless, so it doesn’t matter whether the scrollbar pops in or not. You can also get the same space reserved on the other side for visual symmetry if you want.”
Homepage UX – 8 Common Pitfalls starring 75% with carousels implement them badly (TL;DR: don’t bother); 22% hide the Search field; 35% don’t implement country and language selection correctly; 43% don’t style clickable interface elements effectively
WVG – Web Vector Graphics – a proof of concept spec from yer man @Hixie on a vector graphics format for Flutter (whatever that is). Interesting discussions on design decisions and trade offs.

Reading List 279

Friday 9 July 2021

Using CSS to Enforce Accessibility – remember: always listen to Uncle Adrian, kids.
Another Big Win in the Domino’s Pizza Accessibility Saga – The judge issued an injunction ordering Domino’s to bring its website into compliance with WCAG 2.0, also ruled that Domino’s mobile app was covered by the ADA.
Tota11y instructions – I’ve finally written (and lavishly illustrated!!) instructions for the Tota11y accessibility visualisation toolkit thingie I released on Global Accessibility Awareness Day
prefers-reduced-motion and browser defaults by moi
react-native-network-logger – An HTTP network request monitor for React Native with in-app interface for iOS and Android with no native code
What’s NOT new in React 18
CMA to scrutinise Apple and Google mobile ecosystems – If you develop apps for iOS/ Android, UK Competition & Markets Authority wants your input into its investigation on the monopoly (or not) of app stores & experience of web vs native. You can be anonymous (they know many are scared of retaliation).
Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC — and that could seriously weaken the fledgling tracking system
Google delays Chrome’s cookie-blocking privacy plan by nearly 2 years -“Google is working on revisions to FLOC, too.”
Apple argues against sideloading iPhone apps as regulatory pressure mounts
EU’s Vestager warns Apple against using privacy, security to limit competition – Europe’s tech chief Margrethe Vestager on Friday warned iPhone maker Apple against using privacy and security concerns to fend off competition on its App Store, reasons CEO Tim Cook gave for not allowing users to install software from outside the Store.
The Open-Source Software bubble that is and the blogging bubble that was – I’m wary of orgs that base all their tech on OSS but never seem to commit anything back or offer any financial support to the projects they rely on.
OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations – another win for ‘Global Britain’
Crony Connect allows you to identify politically-connected individuals, using data from Companies House, the Electoral Commission and the MP’s Register of Financial Interests.
LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes data of 92% of users, including inferred salaries

Reading List 278

Friday 18 June 2021

The hidden world of aria-hidden – Steveo Faulko reports “The effects of aria-hidden are not consistent across browsers and screen readers”. Seems like a Chrome bug to me.
Bad Apple Safari update breaks IndexedDB JavaScript API, upsets web apps – Given Apple is currently pretending that it likes PWAs because of legal stuff, this would seem to be an accident rather than deliberate. And testing is hard, and Apple long gave up being a software company.
Meet :has, A Native CSS Parent Selector (And More) (and Can I :has() – Uncle Brian explains this new exciting CSS thingy)
Optical size, the hidden superpower of variable fonts – with mushroom examples.
CMA to have key oversight role over Google’s planned removal of third-party cookies, also Privacy Sandbox – CMA oversight role and how to engage – video.
Free, open source health icons
Creating Accessible React Native Apps – some useful actionable advice here
What my decade at Google taught me about Africa’s tech future
My Life in the Apple Ecosystem – “But change is coming, whether or not Apple wants it. And boy, Apple deserves having those changes forced onto it, given how badly they’ve treated their developer community for so many years.”
Huawei officially launches Android alternative HarmonyOS for smartphones – Yay, another not-Android (and not-Windows and not-Tizen and not-Ubuntu)

Reading List 277

Friday 21 May 2021

Building a resilient frontend using progressive enhancement (gov.uk) Government web sites need to be resilient and be available to all. That’s why they use HTML and JS properly. You should too.
Which Three Birdies?™©® – Birds! Maps! APIs! Open Source! Put ’em together and what do you get? Finally, a solution for encoding a location into 3 birds, and open sourced as a gift to the world from Stuart Langridge and me!
Chromium spelling and grammar features – “My first project has been implementing the new CSS spelling and grammar features in Chromium”. A deep dive that might help answer your question “How hard can it be to implement [my pet feature]?”
URL protocol handler registration for PWAs – Let installed PWAs handle links that use a specific protocol for a more integrated experience. Further steps to enhancing the capabilities and UX of web technology.
What’s New in Android Accessibility – TL;DR: Samsung and Google now collaborate on Talkback; You can now talk to Talkback. For deaf people: live transcription of conversations in 80 languages; an app to amplify certain frequencies of sound in real time (eg, a hearing aid); teachable app that can monitor environmental sound and alert you, eg of fire alarm/ dog barking/ your doorbell ringing. Lots of technology (crypto, surveillance, Facebook) makes the world worse, but the liberating tech on devices is a massive boon for people with disabilities.
An experiment in helping users and web publishers create deeper connections on Chrome – Google Chrome is trialling a new technology they’re calling “RSS”
Apple accused of breaking UK competition law by overcharging for apps – “The tech company has been accused of deliberately shutting out the competition in the store and forcing people to use its own payment processing system, generating “excessive” profits for itself in the process.”
The Enclosure of the Public Interest Internet – EFF

Reading List 276

Friday 7 May 2021

The F-word, Episode 11 – Vadim and I interrogate Miriam Suzanne about Susy and Sass, CSS Layers and CSS compatibility, Container Queries and CSSWG.
iOS 14.5 brings the new Safari 14.1 to PWAs and the Web Platform – PWA improvements, getUserMedia and “Privacy-Preserving Ad Click Attribution”, detective work by Maximiliano Firtman
Related: Why some developers are avoiding app store headaches by going web-only – “It’s hard to see Apple’s decisions here as anything but outright hostile to the web and designed to push developers into making native apps”
Progress Delayed Is Progress Denied – Do App Store policies harm developers? Is the web a credible alternative? A look at the data from the Dr Caligari of web standards, Big Al
:focus-visible in WebKit – April 2021 – thank Dawkins that someone is trying to enhance WebKit
Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities – a note from Sir Uncle Timbo’s barmy army (W3C)
Terror of the adtech industry iOS 14.5 has landed, and Siri can answer your calls … though she/he can’t hang up -“Good news for users with disabilities, though there’s room for improvement”
Finger spelling uses your webcam and machine learning to analyze your hand shapes so you can learn to sign the American Sign Language alphabet. Made by American Society for Disabled Children; “We believe that deafness is not a disability, but language deprivation is.”
Seeing the wood for the trees: demystifying markup in 2021 – Ian Lloyid’s HTML De-crapulator will at least allow you to scrutinise the ringpiece of the HTML produced by your framework, without the oozing haemorrhoids of its endless data-, class and onclick attributes.
Wix Launches First of Its Kind Accessibility Tool to Help Make The Web Accessible for Everyone – My old chums at Wix launched an Accessibility Wizard, providing Wix users with a step-by-step interactive solution that detects accessibility content issues on their sites and guides the user to resolve them.
Design Affordance Controls – Uncle Brian muses about HTML interactive controls and thingies
WebAIM Million – 2021 Update – TL;DR Everything’s shit, but not quite as shit as last year
The talent race is also an ethical race – “good candidates are increasingly dubious of Big Tech’s ethical credentials … technologists know the industry intimately and recognize that toxic companies can blight a résumé” by Cennydd Bowles

Reading List 275

Friday 23 April 2021

Container Queries are actually coming – yes siree!
CSS Container Queries – @rachelandrew explains all
No, Google! Vivaldi users will not get FLoC’ed – whether or not you use Vivaldi, this is a good intro into Google’s plans for FLoC once third-party cookies are gone.
How to fight back against Google FLoC – “To opt your site out of FLoC, you need to send the Permissions Policy HTTP response header. Permissions-Policy: interest-cohort=()“. Or there’s a WordPress plugin.
WordPress core: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern – WordPress Core developers are discussing a security patch to block FLoC by default, and potentially roll it out as a security fix
Chrome Extension to block FLoC from your chums at DuckDuckGo
Publishing a Progressive Web App (PWA) on the PlayStore – What works and what doesn’t (in 2021)
“Person, Shoes, Tree. Is the Person Naked?” What People with Vision Impairments Want in Image Descriptions
How to publish packages to npm (the way the industry does things) by Zell Liew
How to locally test an npm package – a good guide to using yalc, by Mae Capozzi
The WebPageTest API Has Gone Public
Building Blocks – What you should look for from open source code – Flaxen-haired FOSS Adonis @sil writes “When Isaac Newton made his point about standing on the shoulders of giants, he was actually talking about Github (probably).”
A list of connectivity indexes, maps, and reports “to help you better under who has access to communication infrastructure and on what terms” by Steve Song.
Browser Standards Rampage: Can We Have Nice Things? – JS Jabber talk with Jake Archibald about Portals, iframes, App Cache, Service Workers, HTML, Browser History and more. Wouldn’t it be lovely if all podcasts have transcripts?
Space Jam – an analysis of the original 25 year-old site and its replacement: “Although connection speeds and devices keep getting better and better, the web is actually getting slower. We see the increasing bandwidth as an invitation to use more and more stuff in our websites. More images, more videos, more JavaScript.”
They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War – “Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out” – A surprisingly interesting article.

Reading List 274

Thursday 1 April 2021

Link o’ the Week: Accessible Text Labels For All – Sara Soueidan “On improving eCommerce experiences for screen reader users without breaking them for speech-input users”
The F-word, episode 10 in which Vadim and I ruthlessly interrogate Eric Meyer about joining Igalia, what’s coming, CSS Nesting and Cascading Layers
Form design “Best practice, research insights and examples”
The End of AMP – “Google announcing that sites with passing core web vitals will receive a ranking boost on mobile. However, there is another important item in the update – the end of special treatment for AMP pages.”
Web in Play with Bubblewrap – Learn how to transform your Progressive Web App into an Android package with Trusted Web Activity and Bubblewrap.
The end of Applets – This year we bade farewell to Flash, and Applet APIs are to be removed from Java. Interoperable open standards for the win!
There’s no such thing as a website or web app that doesn’t need to be accessible – 100%
An opinionated guide to accessibility testing
Overlay Fact Sheet – Factsheet about deceptive accessibility “repair” overlays (signed by me and 300+ other people in the industry)
AccessiByeBye! – Chrome extension to block overlays like AccessiBe, EqualWeb, MaxAccess, and UserWay.
Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners #3 Results – “Web accessibility practitioners have notably higher average salaries on average than those reported on the 2020 Stack Overflow developer survey.” Personally, I do it for the drugs, groupies and glory rather than the riches.
Technology sector trust decline deepens – ” the main reason for the trust fall is the increasingly “complicated” relationship between the public and technology — including the spread of misinformation, rising privacy alarm and bias in artificial intelligence.”
Google, Apple Ties Are Target of Advertisers’ U.K. Complaint “Complaint asks antitrust authority to probe collaboration”
Is COBOL holding you hostage with Math? – “floating point math has blown lots of stuff up completely by accident.” why is it so hard to migrate legacy systems?
Chinese zoo embarrassed after attempting to pass off golden retriever dog as an African lion