A little over a year ago, when Google announced the launch of a new Web “Browser” I had to scratch my head and ask why? The market already had several excellent options, including Firefox, Safari, and Opera to name just a few. So what would Google get out of putting effort into their own, especially one as anemic as Chrome appeared to be, with few of the bells and whistles of the others? The Answer was obvious almost immediately to me. This was no browser. This was a stealth OS.

Well, it turns out I was right. Although it was announced for a few months, Google made it official yesterday, launching the new Google Chrome OS.

Gizmodo did an excellent write up on Chrome OS, covering the important points as to why this matters.

Tags: Future, Web Development by jason
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South by South West Interactive (SXSWi) is looking for a few good speakers, and I’m hoping to be amongst the chosen again this year. I have two sessions up for consideration, and although I can only present one of them, I’m asking very, very, VERY nicely to consider voting for both of them so that I have the best chance of going to Austin.

Thanks for your help!

Fluid Web Typography: Many Types, Many Faces

Are you tired of using the same old fonts in your Web designs? The type you use can say as much to your audience as the actual words on the page, but until now, Web designers have had an extremely limited palette of fonts from which to choose—essentially, Arial (yawn), Times (yawn), and Georgia (yawwwwwn). Design is about overcoming the limitations of a medium, and Web design is no different. In this session, Jason will show you how to use fluid typography, browser-safe fonts, and type over images to create robust scalable designs to achieve great typography without resorting to typing in images or Adobe Flash. You’ll also learn how to use CSS to download any font you want to use in your Web designs, and to use downloadable fonts, despite the limitations of some browsers.

Vote for It!

The Trusted Filter: Finding Your Cronkites Online

There is just too much information in the universe—too much to know—for one person to experience even a small fraction of it it all first hand. We have always turned to the people around us to help sift through and synthesize data (turning information into knowledge) and to help us learn what’s going on (turn knowledge into understanding). We have always relied on our trusted filters.

However, at every major shift in the way technology is used to transmit information, we see a parallel shift, not only who our trusted filters are, but also the very nature of what it means to be a trusted filter. With the rise of the Internet, and the shift away from the one-to-many paradigm of trusted filters to a many-to-many paradigm, some alarmists are sounding the fall of civilization as we know it. However, we must view the period we are in now as one of transition—a transition that may last several decades—and consider it against the background of other significant historical shifts in culture and technology. Doing so, you’ll realize that the future of communication, knowledge, and understanding our children will know will be nothing like what we know now.

The Trusted Filter examines where the shifts in culture and technology we are currently experiencing have developed from, the implications they have on how we gather and process information, and where these changes may be leading us. Neither reactionary nor Pollyanna, The Trusted Filter will acknowledge the downsides of the “New” media, but will equally acknowledge that the devaluation of “Traditional” media is not a bad thing.

Vote For It!

Tags: Conferences, Future, Typography by jason
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Over in my other blog, JasonSpeaking, I’ve posted an analysis of the news from Google that Google Chrome OS is in Beta, with a final version to be released sometime (they say mid) next year.

From a Web design standpoint, the news of Google Chrome OS is of little interest and of great interest.

Because Google Chrome uses the Webkit rendering engine—the same rendering engine that Apple Safari uses—it means that there is little difference between designing for Safari or designing for Chrome. There have been a few inconsistencies between the browsers—depending on the build of Webkit they deploy in their live browser—but, for the most part, these differences are cosmetic. We can safely assume that this will continue to be true for Google Chrome OS

However, Google chrome OS could be a game changer in the arena of operating systems, and we may well see more applications that are currently run on the desktop migrate to the Web. As the Web becomes increasingly a place where we interact with each other and information (rather than just consuming it) Web designers are going to have to work more and more in the real of User Interface design. After all, Google Chrome will take care of the chrome.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tags: Future, Web Design, Web Development by jason
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Last year, I was a speaker at the New Riders Voices That Matter conference in Nashville, TN. While there, I was interviewed by Nikki McDonald, with whom I discussed everything from getting blackballed by gGogle, to how to protect yourself online, to the future of communication. Check out the interview on the Peachpit Web site: How to Protect Yourself in the Future with Jason Cranford Teague. (Notice the clever Yuri’s Night product placement on my T-shirt.)

Tags: Conferences, Future, Internet by jason
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