Apple Shorts Macs In Favor of iPad and iDevices
Over the course of the 2010 one trend from Apple has become clear – Apple is short-changing its Mac line-up of desktops and laptops in favor of its iPad and ilk [aka iDevices]. The evidence is compelling – from the Adobe Flash attack to no touchscreen or multi-touch on the Mac lineup, Steve is asking the Mac fans to take not one for the Gipper but several short changes in favor of his new iDevices.
In January, Steve did his prestidigitation and out popped the iPad without Flash and with only the barest of connectors to hook up an iPad with other Macs. In June he announced the new iPhone4 with major iOS4 upgrade and redesign. In July the Mac lineup got an upgrade to the new Intel i5 and i7 processors, new ATI graphics processors plus bigger screens.
Today, Steve announced major new versions for 3 iPods and the Apple TV. That means iDevices are getting about 4 times more attention than the Mac line up and it shows. More telling – big features like AirPlay for the new AppleTV only work with iDevices, Macs are cut out of the circuit. In fact, most of the changes to the iMac and MacBook line up have been simple trade-ups on Intel and ATI chips plus a new SD card connection. In contrast, all the iDevices got major software and hardware upgrades.
But Apple continued with more bad-side blessings – the Magic Trackpad For three years and counting, Apple has been delivering multi-touch+gestures but only on iDevices. For all those rabidly loyal Mac users the only sightings have been the multi-touch enabled MacBook touchpads, the Touch Mouse and some multi-touch patent applications. However the graphics and design work that these Mac Loyalists do would really really really profit from direct on screen multi-touch + gestures. So then this summer the Magic Trackpad effectively made it official: Apple would not be delivering multi-touch+gestures to Mac screens anytime soon. In fact Engadget saw the Apple Magic Trackpad as the Beginning of the End for Mac OS X. But for Mac creatives, missing out on simple touch screen operations which Windows 7 delivers [but not multi+gestures] – this is one of the most galling of Apple shortcomings.
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Apple Leads Halfway to Display Only Computing
With the iPad, Apple created the 1/2 of the DOC – Display Only Computer, a highly portable, light, full day of work device. The iPad is targeted for media play, gaming and Web surfing. The key innovation was no keyboard or mouse attached to this iBeauty – multi-touch and gestures would do thank you very much.
In the process, Apple collected a hoard of pursing Android tablets and slates which hoped to also have “a wonderful, magic” touch to offer their customers. In sum DOC-Display Only Computing , smacked of a major change in personal computing that will have wider application and a huge opportunity set.
This vision would have an iPad [or one of its Android impostors], being docked and acting like an ordinary PC with keyboard and mouse with Wifi, Bluetooth, and/or USB 3.0 connections to printers, ultrafast SSD hard drives, and other peripherals. But at a Batagong signal, this ordinary PC could drop its work day peripherals and be transformed into a Super DOC – Display Only Computer. This is Sun’s Client Java Workstation of the late 1990′s made light, portable and pragmatically dual purpose.
And these DOCs are versatile. One could take your iPad or other DOC-Display Only Computer to a day of lectures with all the class textbooks and material right on board. At the lecture one could could record the audio of the proceedings and maybe translate it into text. Through Google Mail or Skype you could talk /message with friends. One could have App powered computing power on the go.
Consider the potential goldmine in the office workplace . Staff can unhook their DOC Android or iPad and take the machine home, to a presentation, or a meeting. Now being the secretary recording the minutes of the meeting has not only computer help but the power of “what was said”. Instead of laptops, users take their multi-touch DOC-devices everywhere – no power worries. But if they need to get work done, then pound away at your office or home docking station. And with Wifi+Touch one could pickup all the meeting materials in a touch. There are huge market opportunities here.
But the iPad only gets you halfway there.
The docking capabilities of the iPad are paltry - just a special connector to a keyboard-only power recharging+docking station. Despite having WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular connections, the iPad and devices are spartan. No extra USB connections [the docking station port supports one special USB connector], no network port, no HDMI , no SD memory chip ports.
In contrast, the Samsung Galaxy Slate [one of the first of the wave of Android OS powered, multi-touch tablets coming down the pike] provides a USB port, SD card slot, HDMI and Android 2.2 Froyo which supports Flash and much improved Dalvik processing speed. There will be many more tablets coming from Acer, Asus, Dell, HTC, LG, Lenovo, Samsung and others with more screen space, connectors, and docking station capabilities. Take the Fifth fully expect to see a docking station enabled tablet from these players – particularly Dell and Lenovo.
As for Apple, Steve Jobs may yet deliver full docking-capable machine – but likely next year with the iPad refresh in late Spring. But will it have business orientation. There is certainly need. Organizations are tired of being tied to Microsoft Window’s roller coaster reliability, Patch-Tuesday security with constant headaches, and sometimes extortionate pricing. With power sipping dual processors, Virtual Machine capabilities, and the move to Cloud Computing imminent – change on the client side desktop is becoming evermore compelling. Its an open question of whether or not Steve Jobs wants to court this marketplace with its customizing and big software admin support demands. If Steve takes a pass, this won’t be the first-time that Apple pioneers a market and then misses the big and lucrative business side of the market place.
The Empire Strikes Back
Microsoft has decided to strike back at Apple. One cannot forget the Apple ads that derided the PC so effectively over the past year or two - Windows Vista presented such an inviting target. But now with Windows 7 improvements and Mac prices going ever higher relative to the equivalent PC, Redmond has launched its own counter ads – just as the back-to-school and off to college computer buying season gets started. And clearly the ad above shows the demographics Microsoft is shooting for.
Apple Stings Microsoft Vista
As expected, Microsoft hammers the 3 biggest selling points in favor of Windows :
1)more programs are not just available for the PC but likely to be found and needed on the new school scene[yikes, turning the tables on Apples constant bragging about its app advantage on the iPhone/iPad front];
2) lack of cross platform compatibility of the existing Mac programs and file formats puts users in jeopardy of falling behind at school [the pot calling the kettle black ass];
3)there is a notably large learning curve getting up to speed in the Mac for users familiar with a PC [how soon Redmond forgets the learning curve for Vista and Windows 7 moving from Windows XP].
Yes, it is the old fear and dread campaign only a Republican could love. But the ad has positive inducements including more Windows fun and games, greater TV and media features["how dare they- media friendly was practically invented on Macs!"], better security features ["what, encryption is mandatory only if you have a PC, not so a Mac"] and full touch screen operations["why the blighters, Apple created multi-touch operations and brought it to full fruition on the iPhone and iPad"]. Takethe5th was surprised that Redmond has not mentioned in the ads two other large PC advantages:
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North Korean “Art”
The New York Times has an intriguing story about an major art exhibition in Vienna of over 200 pieces from the North Korea Art Gallery Pyongyang. “North Korea you say … what art do they have ? -Its is all propaganda.” And you would be right as this slideshow demonstrates – the picture above is one of 100 distressingly familiar examples of how art as well as life in North Korea is molded to a state view.
So why have the exhibit in the first place?
This is the question raised by the NYTimes. They explore the motives behind the exhibit in Vienna Museum of Applied Art and its director, Peter Noever . On one hand, Mr Noever is given credit for being astutely clever in his exhibits. On the other, he is implicitly criticized for the scale of the show, the lack of real dialogue as the North Koreans will discuss the show only once at its end, and none of the North Korean artists were allowed to come to Vienna to see and/or discuss their artwork. Inevitably, the show has garnered some varied but also harsh criticisms. Given North Korea’s chequered history, such critiques are not unexpected.
The recent history of totalitarian family rule in North Korea has been totally despotic. Kim Il-sung had his sone Kim Jong-il installed and now the recent belligerence of the North Koreans including the torpedoing of a South Korean coast guard ship with 46 sailors killed – is the handiwork of Kim Jong-un as he grasps for power. But the despotism has had terrible consequences including developing and spreading nuclear weapons, military expansion helping to trigger a lethal famine, known as the Arduous March in North Korean propaganda parlance. This famine left 2-3 million dead in the late 1990s and continues to have nutritional and health repercussions in North Korea. The night time picture taken by satellite to the left sheds light on the economic depredation of North Korea relative to China to the North and South Korea on the lower half of the Korean peninsula. The art exhibition absolutely whitewashes the stark realities of North Korea during the era when they were painted/created.
However, Jane Portal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts defends the exhibit -
“However much we may think of it as a joke or odd,” she said, “we’ve seen it all before in terms of communist and totalitarian societies — from the Soviet Union to the Nazis to China. This is the last remnant of that, the last bastion of this kind of thinking that’s bound to disappear. That’s why it’s so important for it to be seen and collected for posterity.”
Takethe5th thinks all of the above could be accomplished by a much smaller exhibit of perhaps 15-25 pieces with an ongoing lecture series and other scheduled exhibits on “national art” under different political regimes. In sum, if you must show the propaganda art, show it in context.
Progressive Disillusionment
Progressive disillusionment are the bon mots used today to describe the state of Obama supporters and liberal/progressives in general. It is not pretty as there is great discord and apathy among Democrats and Progressives as seen in the quotes below. This, despite the fact that the President and Party have managed to pass major Health Care Reforms, significant financial regulation, rescued the car industry with payback. On the downside, the Obama administration has gotten embroiled further in Afghanistan with a horrid Karzai regime that is distinctly corrupt and ready to turncoat at a moments notice, failed to deliver an energy plan or successful climate change policy [both domestically and internationally], and with the active hindrance of the GOP, the Banks, many key industrialists and his own key economic advisors [think in particular, Bernanke, Geithner, Summers]- been unable to create the essential ingredient for recovery – more jobs. This death spiral of disillusion is reflected by the US Chamber of Commerce which has worked actively and for long stints to sidetrack healthcare, financial reform and other business legislation but then actively bleats that business can’t move forward because of so much “time and uncertainty” in financial and heath care policy. With no-friends like these – who needs enemies.
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Reagan Republican: How GOP Destroyed the US Economy
Marketwatch’s Paul Farrel is at it again – speaking his mind. Paul has taken former Ronald Reagan Budget Director David Stockman’s article in the NYTimes and played it back again and has come up with the most popular posting on Dow Jones Marketwatch today. Paul minces no words, just like David Stockman:
Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats’ Keynesian policies. But what an indictment by a GOP party insider — someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology — says about America, helps all of us better understand how America’s toxic partisan-politics “holy war” is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish….
Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: “If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt … will soon reach $18 trillion.” It screams “out for austerity and sacrifice.” But instead, the GOP insists “that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.”
Linux Takes the Desktop!?
Okay, a slight exaggeration; but the announcement this last Thursday that Google Android [a Linux variant] has won the top spot among smartphone OS may be a precursor of what is to come. This Fall, a wave of Android slates, netbooks, pads and tablets are going to arrive on the scene – and change the balance of power on the desktop. Linux through Android becomes not the marginal 1-2% desktop client player but more like a 5-9% player and growing. And the fundamental reasons that the Android version of Linux will do well is because it will deliver 4 things that Microsoft has failed to deliver: Continue Reading →
1)a multi-touch user interface which like Web 2.0 is revolutionizing computer interaction as users demand much better user-computer interactions. UIs must now be simple, intuitive, easy to to learn and remember how to use. Gone except in Brobadingnangian apps are the huge 3-5 level deep menus and Mayan glyph-like icon-bars that demand big learning curves, slight hope for most mortals of knowing a fraction of an apps feature set, and/or demanding large swaths of “getting reacquainted” time.
2)a UI housed in a light, bright, and highly mobile form factor. Long battery life and easy to carry, and connected to the Web, other devices, and a broad set of peripherals by high performance connections including Bluetooth, Wifi, USB 3.0 etc.
3)a desktop UI that is open source. You don’t like the pace or direction that Google is taking Android Linux in – then fork it. Or add your own extensions, development software, and/or performance, security, and/or reliability fixes. As major users, hardware providers, corporate sponsors now know [a broad variety of stakeholders in Android], they have much more self-control over the direction and utility that Android provides them then has ever been possible with Microsoft Windows. The biggest advantage – stakeholders have access to the Android source code.
4)a desktop OS that is NOT constantly growing in price, size and becoming ever slower/less reliable. Microsoft used to announce with pride that “Windows is 50 million lines of code and growing”. No more as the sheer size of the code has made it impossible for Microsoft to carry its core Windows code into mobile and tablet markets quickly. For example Redmond has had to resurrect Windows XP for netbooks because Vista and a severely stripped down Windows 7 just don’t fit. Also problems like .DLL hell, persistent memory leaks, a constant supply of zero day hacks and gradual degradation over usage in a day forcing reboot persist as wicked problems which are very hard for Microsoft to fix.
RIM Defense
RIM is the Rodney Dangerfield of smartphone providers - it gets no respect. Need an example – here is the killing lines from the Gizmodo review of the recently announced Torch 9800 with the new Blackberry OS6 driving it:
The distillation of this grand mishmash of observations and scenarios is this: BlackBerry isn’t good enough anymore if you’re comparing it to other smartphones. What does it do better than the rest? That’s the fundamental question. And the answer is that for most people, in most situations, compared to Android and iPhone, not a whole lot….People who love BlackBerry exactly the way it is will like the Torch and BlackBerry 6, because it’s pretty much the same. It offers a lot of marginal improvements in a lot of places—like the browser—even if it makes a mess of some things. That said, in a few months, they might like it a lot less. Nielsen numbers show that half of BlackBerry users are thinking about switching. This won’t change their mind. And even with all of those corporate accounts locked down tight, it’s hard to say that’s not a problem.
Maybe RIM’s too big, too entrenched to build the kind of phone that’ll make people want a BlackBerry again. But they could’ve at least given the damn thing a better screen.
Not pretty. But Engadget, the other major creative gadget website is bit more subtle in its slitting of RIM:
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Manufacturing Jobs, Manufacturing Jobs, Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing Jobs, Manufacturing Jobs, Manufacturing Jobs is finally emerging, 3 years after the great financial debacle, as the number 1, number 2, and number 3 economic and social problems facing not just the US but most developed countries in the World. And its not easy - just ask the Japanese who had to suffer the Lost Decade of 1992 to 2001 due to a similar housing and banking bubble. The latest jobs reports for the US indicates how daunting the task can be – 2 years of $3 trillion in additional government spending with effectively 0% interest rates during that period and the US has official unemployment at 9.6%, unofficially at 17% underemployment, and jobs still on the decline – down by 131,000 for July. Yet banks are hoarding funds with foreclosures continuing to rise plus small and medium size businesses unable to get operating let alone expansion loans. Even worse, taxes have declined in state and local governments so they are cutting off services and laying off more jobs.
This gives the US and the World the following economic choices:
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Google Waves Goodbye
Google waves goodbye to Google Wave – a technical note on the Official Google Blog by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow officially declares Google Wave as uhhh … not dead … just discontinued.
…. despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.
The timing was right, this same day NPD confirmed what Nielsen and others were saying, Google Android had taken the lead in smartphone sales in the US – wresting the title from RIM who just announced their new Torch. So as you can see there is a lot more than Net Neutrality going on and so the retiring of Google Wave means 4 things:
1)Catching Twitter and Facebook is going to be much more difficult than any combination of Google Wave, Google Buzz, iGoogle, Orkut, and other social networking Google Forays might be able to accomplish just by making a Google Appearance. All of these social networking “experiences” have been characterized by Google just tossing the new freebie out onto the Web to an unsuspecting public and letting people discover them in virtual adhoc fashion. This is the Open Source variation of Fire – Ready, Aim.
Yet social networking is vital to Google because a)more and more discovery, search, and ratings are being done on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social Web media. And they are getting eyeballs and attention to match or exceed Google’s own. And both Facebook and Twitter will soon have many and exclusive ads taking big chunks of revenues from the Google ad stream. Worse – businesses large and small are starting to congregate on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter not any Google Property but You Tube.
2)Delivering the type of instant character by character messaging interaction envisioned by Google Wave is very hard to do technically and specifically in a “net neutral” environ. So eventually Google is going to have to come to terms with the contradiction that operation of its services may require a)abandoning net neutrality in order to deliver in a timely fashion services/experiences that customers are demanding or b)having to charge for premium levels of service and features which also will tax Google’s loyalty to net neutrality as Google’s own cost of delivery rises.
3)The drag and drop plus instant messaging experience of Google Wave will have to morph with the various media being delivered and the UI-User Interface experience expected by customers. Light and easy and multi-touch and multi-input are changing the equation of man-computing interaction at a very rapid pace that is outrunning not just PC’s menus and iconbars; but also Flash cross platform programmable designs, animations, and rich media; plus the new darling:”Open HTML5″ which [HORRORS]is already obsolete and [HORRORS AGAIN]permeated with hardware platform specific implementations and [HORRORS YET AGAIN]growing with browser specific versions while Steve and Steve tell the World to embrace their versions of “Open HTML5″. The development world has seen this Chuckie Horror story of Killing Open with Proprietary “Defacto Standard” Extensions too many times over. So the great ideas of Google Wave will have to expand and change into a broader UI context that will have many powerful, proprietary advocates. And you thought Net Neutrality was in danger. Google has to recognize it has ambiguous if not conflicting self-interests at stake here.
4)”Reculer pour sauter mieux” – step back in order to leap forward better is very hard to do. How Urs Hölzle and the Google Staff manage the redirected Google Wave team, aspirations and efforts will say a lot about how well Google will be able to innovate in the market going fast forward right now. Redmond has proved to have Great Waves of Internecine Warfare that has allowed the company to squander mindshare and brand position in the past ten years such that Redmond is now coming from behind in UI, mobile and non-silo-ed IT computing systems and services. Meanwhile Cupertino is run by a “magical dictator” who has a penchant for getting a huge and brilliant conceptually driven lead only to blow it in the final execution. Given the change in smartphone marketshare, Apple’s Steve Jobs may be doing it again.
So in saying Goodbye to Google Wave, the Google team must recognize it is not just doing a poker-smart fold; but also has got a Google Wave of new problems to ride through.
Apple Magic Trackpad: UI Revolution ?
Apple’s Magic trackpad is getting more coverage and print than a simple pointing device seemingly deserves. Takethe5th sees it as a delay in game penalty for Mac OS/X. Gizmodo sees the Magic Trackpad as a precursor to the displacement and end of Mac OS/X and the emergence of a new OS4-inspired OSMac operating environ with a whole new UI-User Interface experience driven by multi-touch ; drag, swish, and drop ; other rich gestures; and context sensitive objects with flyout iconbars and menus. But Gizmodo sees a problem with this touchscreen world with monster 27″ and larger Apple screens being too fatiguing for the Cupertino devotees. Their affinity for huge screens will quickly lead to fatigue and stress as they try to manage touch screens all day long. Hence the need for a trackpad.
Takethe5th agrees and disagrees . First, a big point of agreement – for sure there is going on right now a UI “see change”[okay, a poor pun] marked by smartphones from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android plus the iPad phenomenon with a wave of Android and other tablets arriving this Fall. These touch-smart gadgets mark the end of the old apps with their 3-5 levels deep menubars and their cryptic rows of Mayan glyph-like toolbars. These old GUI interfaces will largely break up and become attached to the various objects and panels on the screen as context sensitive menus, flyouts and a gesture controlled UI. Instead of Image | Adjustment | Resize – pinching the object will cause a resize. For precision control graphics apps touchsmart screens may leave the property bar with precise adjustment fields available if required or a bounding crawling-ant border for touch adjustments. But the new fashion in UI is simplicity and ease of use.
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Apple Shorts Touch Screen for Mac Desktops and Laptops
A few moments of conciliatory silence for the legion of Apple Mac Desktop and laptop users. They will have to wait maybe for Christmas or maybe the NewYear for their multi-touch screen computers. There was no touch+gestures in the MacMini announcements this past May . Ditto again for yesterday’s iMac announcements.
This is what Mac users got – a Magic Trackpad.
Oh and Mac users got Intel’s more beefy Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 CPUs – a little behind most PCs which have had them for 3-5 months, but welcome because graphics design really eats up CPU power. Not quite a touch screen and the productivity that is implied with that type of interface – no hand eye coordination required with touch screen in contrast with a mouse or even trackpad.
But there may be valid reasons for this delay in bringing touch screens to Macs:
1)Fingers may be too fat for graphics using touch screen and the precision of a stylus or lightpen pointer may be a)incompatible with current touch screen technology or b)too expensive;
2)software vendors [including Apple itself with its Final Cut Pro, Aperture and many other graphics oriented programs] may have to make major adjustments to support touchscreen operations;
3there is a master plan for bringing touch screen + gestures to the Mac masses and that time is not now.
Whatever the reason this leaves an opening for Microsoft and Google and the thousand one tablet vendors to beat Apple on the laptop/netbook borderline. Currently, the iPad with full touch screen operations is the Apple line of defense against netbooks and laptops encroaching on it light, touch-enabled market leadership. But what if the 1001 Google Android powered tablets or a Windows 7 Touch screen land on store shelves in the Fall and in time for Christmas? Will iPad be enough to blunt this PC and smart tablet onslaught? Clearly somebody in Cupertino is a)betting that is so or b) has his own touch screen surprise up a turtleneck sleeve.
Super Talent UltraDrive MX SSD
Want to supercharge your laptop? Then do consider the Super Talent UltraDrive MX SSD. This Solid state drive comes in 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities [prices not available util early September. Current 64GB UltraDrives using SATA-only are in $140 range]. The UltraDrive also has both SATA and USB ports so users can mount it internally [be sure to have a laptop expert for this task] or externally through a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port. Users may want to consider getting a USB3.0 upgrade for greater throughput. Or when upgrading a laptop , ensuring it supports USB 3.0. Disk I/O is seen to improve by a factor of 2-4 times using the external USB 3.0 connection .
China View I:
China has become the 2nd largest economy in the World today; and will become the largest if the government and people maintain there pact -”authoritarian one party rule in exchange for rapid economic development”. Takethe5th will link to articles that illuminate the progress China is making towards achieving that end. This first article originates with Marketwatch and of course deals with the economic challenges faced by China. It is very ironic that Marketwatch is calling for an often much maligned “social safety net” for China.
After an unprecedented three decades of 10% annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP), in which hundreds of millions of its people were lifted out of poverty as the country became the workshop of the world, China faces a more difficult second act.
Its government must spread the wealth beyond the great coastal cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to deep in the interior. It must find work for its young people while providing for a growing number of retirees. It must encourage people to spend more and save less to “rebalance” the economy away from exporting and towards domestic consumption.
How the Communist Party-run government handles this transition will determine whether it will retain the support of the Chinese people, despite its inherently undemocratic nature, and avoid the social upheavals that are the bane of all authoritarian states. It will also decide how great a power China will become. …. China needs to develop a stronger social safety net, raise incomes in the rural areas, and boost employment in the service sector. We certainly saw evidence of the latter on our trip. A growing army of hotel and restaurant workers serve tens of millions of visitors from inside China and abroad.
The safety net is key. Right now, many Chinese retire early — often with government pensions. But by 2015, there will be some 200 million Chinese aged 60 and over and a shrinking population to support them, thanks to the one-child policy instituted in 1978. With the Communist-era benefits dismantled, Chinese feel they must save more to take care of living and medical expenses in their old age.
The article provides an on-the-scene view of some of the major current economic and political issues percolating in China. Well worth the read.
Enabling Web Encryption Easily
One of the major security problems is that data on the web often runs naked. This is due to two reasons – 1)the HTTPS protocol can be more difficult and costly to implement and 2)there is a notable performance hit to be taken in most situations. Network World is reporting work done at Stanford University that would embed encryption at the lowest TCP layer a)without incurring a large performance hit and b)without incurring huge development penalties. Well worth the intro read here at Network World and the surprisingly accessible Stanford-led original paper here. This is potentially a huge step forward in basic Web security just waiting for a Perfect Security Storm to get implemented.