Acrobat innovations, Al-jazeera by SMS, megapixel photo phones

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Neil W. Van Dyke" <neil () neilvandyke org>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 12:14:57 -0400
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Acrobat innovations, Al-jazeera by SMS, megapixel photo
phones

> Adobe releasing new Acrobat suite which is compatible with minimal-RAM
> devices
[...]
> Acrobat Reader gets a name change as new Acrobat features extend
> platform and interactivity options for pdf docs
> Official press release
> http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200304/040703Acrobat
> Family.html
>       In the next version of the popular Adobe pdf creation program
> (v6.0) the viewer will be known as Adobe Reader (instead of Acrobat
> Reader. Not only the face of reader will be new. The new suite of
> Acrobat products will allow web browsers to render pdf documents in
> HTML format when the page being viewed is XML compatible.
>       PDF docs will also be able to display within its native content
> any sections of web pages which are XML compatible.
>       Currently, XML in tandem with CSS style sheets and PHP database
> query strings make for smaller web-page coding (translates to
> faster-loading) which is more agile and most importantly - easily
> scalable in size.
>       Think: PDAs will soon readily be formatted for PDA, Web TV and
> even game console viewing.

That description seems a little muddled by multiple marketing
translation layers, and doesn't make a technical argument, but permit me
to suggest two reasons why PDF generally seems a poor starting point for
this kind of thing:

1. PDF has its origins as an imperative fixed-format presentation
   language, oriented around low-level constructs that are traditionally
   used as the *output* of a document formatter (e.g., instructions to
   print individual words and letters in specified fonts at specified
   positions on a print page).  PDF is great for precisely rendering a
   full-page magazine ad to a laser printer.  At the same time, PDF was
   not designed the kind of structural/semantic encoding that naturally
   lends device and modality independence, and it's somewhat hostile to
   software agents.  Integrating the XML buzzword into the brochures
   does not automatically confer the intended benefits of XML to a
   format that was designed for fixed-format presentation.  If you
   instead want PDF purely as a transformation target of XML, then that
   makes sense in some cases, but see my second point...
  
2. To some extent, PDF remains a proprietary format.  Even close to a
   decade after PDF's introduction (when it was adapted from
   PostScript), many ostensible PDF files will not display correctly in
   non-Adobe PDF readers.  So documents purporting to be PDF format are
   often effectively Adobe-Only format, whether the content provider
   knows it or not.

   Now, first let me note that Adobe seems to be a good company (not
   known for ruthless underhandedness like notable others) that has
   produced several best-of-class applications.  However, media formats
   are becoming too central to civilization to grant control of them to
   single companies.  Companies are motivated to retain an effective
   monopoly position on the media formats/codecs/tools, and to leverage
   that position to competitive advantage in other markets.  I assert
   this tends to put them at odds with the goals of the technology
   adopters who have invested in the proprietary media formats, at least
   once the adopters are locked in.

   We're already seeing attempts by some companies to quietly push
   consumer-hostile measures into their media tools.  For example,
   there's a long history of privacy invasion, going back to Netscape,
   Real, etc., of video player and Web browser tools quietly logging to
   central servers every video you play or page you view.  There's also
   current active attempts to force heavy-handed "digital rights
   management" measures into media tools and devices, impeding
   legitimate fair use, artificially making "protected" media more
   ephemeral than print or a physical CD/DVD, and potentially creating
   an unauditable playground for security/privacy intrusions (aided in
   the US by anti-tampering legislation in the last few years).

Avoiding The W3C goes to pains to keep their media standards open and
non-proprietary, and designs the standards from the start with a fairly
consistent Internet-oriented vision in mind.  I think most content
providers will generally be best off (both short- and long-term) with
solutions based on open W3C layered XML standards, increasingly relying
more on open W3C standards like CSS and XML transformations, and moving
away from proprietary formats and print-oriented technologies.

-- 
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/


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