June 25th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
Why is it that when people talk about technology they reduce the concepts down to a black and white comparison? It’s always one technology against another or one product that’s good and one that’s bad.
This is case in point with the recent battle that’s emerged between HTML5 and Flash. HTML5 is being touted by developers, bloggers and press alike as the new “Flash Killer”. This angle seems to be based on the one-dimensional view that Flash is only used for video (rather than the full spectrum of game, 3D and application development it’s really suited for), and that the fast and reliable video support that’s offered with HTML5 will make it the new choice for developers. But don’t count Flash as dead yet, it still offers a number of unique features that are not yet supported in HTML5, such as live streaming, DRM, and rich video controls. Plus it has a much greater span of support than HTML5 does today. Read more on Why does it have to be HTML5 vs Flash?…
Tags: Flash, HTML5, Rich Internet Applications, Silverlight
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
June 21st, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
There was an interesting story today on Marketing Charts about the number of internet users that read newspapers online. Not surprisingly, ComScore Media Matrix states that three out of five internet users claim to read newspapers online each month. This means that nearly 123.9 million unique visitors accessed and read a newspaper online in May. By comparison, about 61% of the total online population in America relies on the web for their main source of news. This means that many of these contacts are reading online newspapers as part of their total news consumption.
Read more on Internet Users Reading Newspapers Online – Why Aren’t More Publishers There?…
Tags: ePublishing, Marketing Charts, online newspapers, publishers
Posted in ePublishing | No Comments »
June 9th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
Publishers are facing a very difficult market. Ad revenues are down, subscriptions are down and competition is heating up for the titles that are left to battle it out. While this leads to some funny parodies, it’s no laughing matter for publishers struggling to stay afloat. Combine this with the fact that technology is quickly changing and it’s easy to see how challenging it is for magazine and journal publishers to move quickly enough to keep up. Up until now, many small to mid-sized publishers have avoided publishing online, thinking that the barrier to entry was high, as it meant changing processes, and investing in technology. But getting started with online publishing is now quick, easy and cost-effective to do.
Read more on Getting Started with ePublishing: A Free Webinar – June 29, 2010…
Tags: digital magazines, ePublishing, webinar
Posted in Trends and Technology, ePublishing | No Comments »
May 26th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
If you’ve been to our website recently, you’ll notice a big change. We’ve recently completed a full site revamp, including new visuals, new content and a whole new back-end content management system (CMS).
A screenshot of the new www.INM.com site
Read more on Building Our New Website…
Tags: CMS, INM, website
Posted in General, Software Engineering | No Comments »
May 21st, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
As we get ready to celebrate the Victoria Day long weekend here in Canada, our president Vahe Kassardjian is packing up to join the delegation representing Canada at the 2010 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in Amsterdam. This event gathers business leaders, public officials, and opinion leaders from across the globe to discuss and build a vision of a connected planet with access for all. Vahe is one of 30 selected leaders chosen to join the Canadian delegation, led by the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry.
Read more on INM President Part of Canadian Delegation at World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT)…
Tags: INM, Vahe Kassardjian, WCIT
Posted in General | No Comments »
May 14th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
Back in the 1980’s IBM believed that the real technology value was in strategic hardware manufacturing. They stepped back and let Microsoft build the operating system, a mere component of the hardware that IBM viewed as insignificant. However, as we all know, the software wound up being the differentiating product that made Microsoft one of the largest companies in the world, while the hardware became a commodity. This lesson comes to mind again recently with Apple’s new Gianduia technology announcement, a client-side, standards based framework for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).
Read more on Lessons Learned from Windows 1.0…
Tags: Adobe, Apple, Gianduia, IBM, Microsoft, RIAs
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | No Comments »
May 11th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
It’s been a busy few weeks for project releases here at INM. On April 16, 2010 we unveiled a new touch screen kiosk that we built for the McGill University Health Center (MUHC). The kiosks are deployed in the emergency rooms of two of their centers to provide patients with an easy way to find clinics and pharmacies in their area. Patients simply enter their postal code and are shown an interactive map with marked locations for nearby resources. The map displays the local transit routes and provides details about the locations, including contact info and hours of operation.
While this was a pretty simple project for us technically, it was an interesting one for us from a user experience design perspective. Creating a kiosk that will be used by people of all ages and skill levels, particularly when they are not feeling their best, is a challenge. We focused on creating a simple, clean interface with targeted functionality. The user’s interactions with the screen are clearly identified and the application uses movement and transitions to help orient the user.
Read more on An Interactive Patient Kiosk for a Montreal Hospital…
Tags: INM, kiosk, muhc, RIAs
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, User Experience/User Interface | No Comments »
April 15th, 2010 by Frank Boissonneault
When you’re part of a company with over twenty years of experience in developing products and projects, making a change the very core of your company can be a big step, especially when you have a good track record and things are working pretty well. When we started toying with the idea of changing how we developed software a few years ago, we asked ourselves many questions about whether we really needed to make this change and how it would impact us. Now, a few years into it, we’re quite happy with the results. As with any change, there are a few bumps along the way, but would we go back? Definitely not.
Read more on Why We Adopted Agile Development Methodologies…
Tags: agile, Scrum, software development
Posted in General, Software Engineering | No Comments »
April 14th, 2010 by Paul Oros
As you may have already seen last week, Apple announced the iPhone OS 4 SDK, which brings forward a few new, interesting and useful features. New to the iPhone, that is.
Read more on iPhone OS 4 SDK and the Developer Agreement Changes…
Tags: Adobe, Apple, iPhone, licensing
Posted in Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
March 25th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
Late last week VIV Mag released its video demo of a new style magazine built with the iPad in mind. While the demo is impressive and visually stunning, I really question how feasible it will be for already struggling magazine publishers to invest the kind of time and money necessary to create this level of interactive content. Estimates on the cost of producing this issue are in the $100,000 range. This is for a single issue of a niche publication. How many publishers can really afford to bring out 12 issues per year at this cost, regardless of the extra readership that the iPad is promising to deliver?
Read more on The iPad is Promising to Save the Magazine Industry, But Can Anyone Afford to Build Content for It?…
Tags: Apple, iPad, viv magazine
Posted in User Experience/User Interface, ePublishing | No Comments »
