The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.

IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfiguredat the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.

The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”

Microsoft echoes Apple: 'future of the Web is HTML5'

Microsoft has bought a first-class seat on the Flash Bashing Express with an official statement on its IEBlog. Apple’s sometimes-friend, sometimes-foe echoed ideas that Apple CEO Steve Jobs expressed in Thursday’s Thoughts on 

Flash essay and put its own stake in the ground for the future of Web technologies.
Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s General Manager of Internet Explorer, cut to the chase rather quickly, by stating “the future of the Web is HTML5.” He also said that Microsoft has been “deeply engaged” in the HTML5 process with the W3C, the standards body that drafts the specifications for how HTML5 should work. The company’s Internet Explorer 9, now in beta for Windows users, features HTML5 support. Hachamovitch says that while the W3C does not specify a video format for video embedded in HTML5 sites, Microsoft has joined Apple in supporting H.264, and H.264 alone.

In a potential move to soften the blow to an already upset Adobe, Hachamovitch does end his piece with an acknowledgement that “despite [some] issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web.”
Of course, with the rise of the portable devices that don’t support Flash—and especially the popularity of the iPhone and iPad—major publishers and content providers have quickly accelerated the adoption of HTML5 and H.264 to provide Flash-less video delivery. Or, in other words, while Flash may be the Web technology of today, don't think it will necessarily by the Web technology of tomorrow.

Besides taking sides in a contentious battle over the future of Web and desktop technologies (don’t forget AIR, Adobe’s bridge for delivering Flash applications to Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops), Microsoft’s announcement is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the company competes directly with Flash and AIR with its Silverlight technology, which can be used to deliver multimedia via the Web or the desktop. Furthermore, it’s the only technology which developers are allowed to use to build applications for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.
Second, there’s no mention of Microsoft’s own Windows Media video codec; Redmond could be hinting it plans to abandon Web aspirations for its own proprietary technology, or at least relegating it to any niches it already occupies.

Microsoft siding with Apple in the war on Flash could put a serious dent in future prospects for Adobe’s technology, especially where the hot new market of portable devices is concerned. While Silverlight may live on as a platform for building apps for Windows and Windows Phone (assuming those devices catch on), Microsoft’s embracing of HTML5 and H.264 could do a lot to help grant Apple’s wish of “leaving the past behind.”