Today’s PSA about Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is widely known to have many issues.  The one that we at Nxtbook Media usually talk about the most is the fact that it tends to corrupt Flash Player, requiring the user to re-install Flash Player.  Because of these issues, we always recommend that people use any other browser besides Internet Explorer.

But, today comes news of an even greater reason to move away from IE.  Security experts are advising Windows users to not use Internet Explorer at all until Microsoft can fix a very serious security flaw in the browser.  For those of you who don’t have another web browser installed, here are some excellent choices:

Firefox

Chrome

Safari

Opera

Adobe Releases Flash Player Update

Adobe has released an update for Flash Player that addresses some critical vulnerabilities in cases where unscrupulous individuals would try to deliver malicious code through a SWF (Flash file).  Since Nxtbooks are only created by Nxtbook Media and its resellers, no malicious files or code will ever be distributed through Nxtbook Media’s sites. However, most of us come into contact with Flash files many times throughout the day, so it’s always a good idea to protect yourself with updated versions of software.

On a more upbeat note – and far more relevant to Nxtbook publishers and readers – this new version of Flash Player also includes some new features, including better audio and video support.  From Adobe’s release notes:

Of key importance, this update adds H.264 video and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio codec support that opens up a broad ecosystem and selection of standards-based video — up to HD quality — that developers can leverage in their applications. The update also features hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced, full-screen video playback for high-resolution viewing across major operating systems and browsers.

So, what are you waiting for, upgrade Flash Player now!

Adobe Releases a Patch for Flash Player

Adobe has released a patch for Flash Player that addresses a critical vulnerability.  Please make sure to upgrade to the latest version to make sure you are protected.  This vulnerability can only be exploited by an attacker who gets the victim to download a malicious SWF (Flash file).  Since NXTbooks are only created by NXTbook Media and its resellers, no malicious files or code will ever be distributed through NXTbook Media’s sites.

Flexible, Full-Color Displays Are Here!

Sony just announced a prototype of the first full-color, flexible OLED display. The display has a size of 2.5 inches, a resolution of 120×160, and supports 16.8 million colors. It is built on organic thin-film transistor (TFT) technology and is only 0.3 mm thick. This technology is still a ways off, just like the other e-paper and thin displays I have been writing about on this blog, but this new announcement is more evidence of how the technology is steadily advancing forward.

E-Paper Devices Face an Uphill Battle

A few weeks ago, Guardian Unlimited posted a good article about the experience of using an e-paper reading device.  I believe it is probably a fair assessment of the devices currently available for consumers. I have been thinking a lot about these e-paper devices and here is what I believe needs to happen before they will get any kind of penetration in any market: they need to be very cheap or have additional uses besides just reading.

Here is the problem that e-paper devices need to overcome: with other media, such as music, movies, TV shows, etc., we have always had to buy a device to watch that media. Televisions for TV shows, DVD players for movies, and cassette/CD/MP3 players for music. But printed media has never before required a device to read it. The device (paper) always comes with the content. Therefore, getting people to buy a device in order to read printed content will require changing a mindset that is very well ingrained in the consumer psyche.  I believe that those obstacles can only be overcome if the devices are very inexpensive (much less than the current $200-$300 price tag) and/or the devices contain other functionality beyond reading, such as playing MP3s,  PDA functions, or video playback.  If consumers don’t need to pay much or feel they are getting a device that performs tasks that they are used to paying for, then I think adoption of such devices could happen very quickly.

Devices that have e-paper features will eventually make roads into the consumer market, but it will take a few years before they can overcome the obstacles that I listed above.  That being said, you should pay attention to the development of this technology because it will eventually have a big impact on how we consume print media.

Roll Up Those Digital Publications

I realize this news is a couple of weeks old, but it is so exciting that I couldn’t not write about it. Polymer Vision, a Dutch company specializing in rollable displays, and Telecom Italia, a mobile operator in Italy, have announced that they will be jointly developing the first mobile device with a rollable display. The device itself is smaller than most mobile phones, but has a screen that can extend up to 5 inches. Newspapers and books will be delivered via Telecom Italia’s mobile network and stored on the device’s 4GB+ memory (which I assume is flash). The device will also be able to play music, podcasts, etc. If only this device could display color and not just 16 grey levels, it would be an amazing mobile device! But, from all appearances, it will still be very useful and convenient.

Polymer Vision’s rollable displays are based on technology from DuPont Teijin Films, SiPix, and E Ink. We have discussed E Ink’s technology many times before; their technology seems to be involved in almost all the new reading-focused display technologies that are being developed.

Linux Users Rejoice!

On Tuesday, Adobe released a Linux version of the latest Flash Player, which is currently at version 9.0.  Linux users had been without an upgrade to the ubiquitous player since Flash Player 7 was released for Linux a few years ago.  It is a good sign of the commitment Adobe has made to make Flash applications truly cross-platform.

Flash Player Taking the Web by Storm

The FlashForward mini-conference started Monday at MacWorld.  Aral Balken attended and has a great writeup of the interesting content from the keynote.  A small, but important, bit of information that Aral noted from one of the presentations:

Flash Player 9 is projected to reach over 70% penetration in its first six months. In comparison, Flash Player 8 took 9 months to reach over 80% and Flash Player 7 took twelve months to break 70% penetration. Basically, the adoption rate of the Flash Player is accelerating with each player release and continues to do so with Flash Player 9.

As Ryan Stewart notes, that is an incredible increase in the adoption rate of a new version of Flash Player.  It is a great indicator of how important Flash is becoming for web sites, web-based applications, and other online activities.

PDFs just became dangerous (at least for now)

There are reports all over the blogosphere today of a significantly large security hole in Acrobat Reader (versions 7 and below), which will allow a web site to perform a cross-site scripting attack when a user views a PDF from the site in a browser window. Symantec has a good summary of the vulnerability, which includes the versions of Acrobat and the web browser versions that are vulnerable to this method of attack.

Until Adobe releases a fix for this problem and you have downloaded and installed the patch, it would be best to avoid viewing any PDFs (including digital magazines in PDF format) from any sites in which you do not have complete trust. I should also point out that the NXTbook technology is not based on PDFs, but on Flash, so this vulnerability will not affect NXTbooks at all.

Update: Adobe released a security bulletin on Tuesday. The summary of their response is to upgrade to Acrobat Reader 8 and if you can’t upgrade to version 8, then you should upgrade to version 7.0.9. You can do your upgrading from this page: http://www.adobe.com/go/getreader. Those of you who are using Acrobat Reader 6 or below and are not able to upgrade to versions 7 or 8 are out of luck for now and will still need to be careful about where you are downloading PDFs.

Plastic electronics?

Plastic Logic, which I mentioned briefly in a previous post, just announced that they will be building the first factory to mass produce plastic electronics.  The first products that they will be cranking out are flexible active-matrix display modules for electronic reader products.  These modules are based on E Ink technology (which I have discussed before) and will be very thin and light.  In other words, they will be getting closer to the feel of paper than any other current technology and will be much better than the Sony Reader display.

These first display modules created in the Plastic Logic factory will most likely be grayscale, but it is very exciting to think that we are that much closer to a commercially-produced display that will be able to replicate the actual physical size and feel of a magazine or newspaper.

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