Google exec gives harshest rebuke yet of iMessage lock-in effect in push for RCS on iOS – We can’t replace SMS texts without having one standard for messaging

SMS text messaging is an archaic, expensive, and limited messaging standard. Yet it remains in place as the de facto standard for notifications because everything else is a walled garden and cut off from other messenger services. WhatsApp does not send to Telegram which does not send to Signal, etc.

Apple has deliberately withheld iMessage from non-iOS platforms, so that has never been considered as an option. To replace SMS though, the messaging has to be baked into the phone OS (not to be voluntarily installed or uninstalled by a user), and this is where the RCS standard came in, which also needed mobile carrier support. As it stands, RCS has been adopted by most major carriers and Android devices… but it has zero penetration on iOS because Apple won’t adopt it.

It’s time Apple faced up to this and sat around the table with the other players to discuss a solution that benefits all users. We can’t move on from SMS unless there is a proper alternative that is fully adopted.

See https://9to5google.com/2022/01/08/google-android-rcs-imessage-lock-in/

#technology #RCS #SMS #interoperability #apple

#Blog, ##interoperability, ##mobile, ##rcs, ##technology

Matter was a major star at CES 2022, but can it maintain its shine? The soon-to-be smart home standard gained momentum in Las Vegas

Two years ago, on the floor of CES 2020, there was a lot of buzz about a chip — not the latest AMD or Intel announcement, but a new alliance of major tech companies that called itself Project Connected Home over IP, or CHIP for short. Its promise was to develop an open-source smart home standard that would make every connected home device work together, simply and securely, regardless of who made them.

In all, close to 30 companies showcased their involvement and / or pledged their support for the new smart home standard backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and others. Many of whom represent a broader slice of the industry — Tuya Smart, an IoT development platform service provider based in China that supports over 446,000 developers with over 1,100 smart home products, said it will support Matter. We also saw a number of new products debut with Thread, one of the main protocols of Matter.

This issue of upgradability of existing devices is still an area Matter has largely skirted and one that it really needs to address. But, based on many of the announcements coming out of CES this week, it is looking increasingly like creating a Matter smart home is going to require users buying a fair number of new gadgets. As Mitch Klein of the Z-Wave Alliance told me late last year, “We can’t leave devices behind, or this whole program won’t work. The idea that everyone has to throw everything out and start again is just not going to work.”

See https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/8/22872311/matter-smart-home-ces-2022

#smarthome #technology #interoperability #matter

#Blog, ##gadgets, #interoperability, #smarthome, #technology

old, repeat: #eff on #interoperability (the few good elements still left at @eff after the 'purge') https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/future-interoperability-not-big-tech-2021-review

The Future is in Interoperability Not Big Tech: 2021 in Review

2021 was not a good year for Big Tech: a flaming cocktail of moderation failings, privacy breaches, leaked nefarious plans, illegal collusion and tone-deaf, arrogant pronouncements stoked public anger and fired up the political will to do...

The internet was designed around principles of openness, simplicity, and decentralization, but Big Tech’s private networks and protocols threaten the ‘net, say internet registries

So says a Study on the Internet’s Technical Success Factors commissioned by APNIC and LACNIC – the regional internet address registries for the Asia–Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean regions respectively – and written by consultancy Analysys Mason.
The document states that “a significant fraction of global IP traffic now consists of data that is moved between the datacentres and edge networks of large internet companies.” Those companies’ needs, and growing networks, lead the analysts to suggest that “over time, we could see the internet transform into a more centralised system with a few global private networks carrying most of the content and services.

Another risk is that when private networks break, many users suffer. Exhibit A: yesterday’s AWS brownout, which hurt Netflix and Disney+, among others.

Yet, if you look at nearly all the alternative social networks springing up, you’ll see decentralisation, openness, interoperability, chronological feeds, no Big Tech…

See Big Tech’s private networks and protocols threaten the ‘net

#technology #interoperability #BigTech #openstandards #decentralisation

APNIC and LACNIC worry about who will set the rules of future internetworking

#Blog, #rss- - - - - -

https://gadgeteer.co.za/the-internet-was-designed-around-principles-of-openness-simplicity-and-decentralization-but-big-techs-private-networks-and-protocols-threaten-the-net-say-internet-registries/

Digital Markets Act - the FSFE calls for Device Neutrality

"On the imminent voting of the Digital Markets Act - the latest EU proposal on internet platform regulation - the FSFE demands device neutrality as a fundamental element for safeguarding consumer protection in open, fair, and contestable digital markets."

➡ https://fsfe.org/news/2021/news-20211122-01.html

#Europe #Europa #EU #EuropeanUnion #DigitalMarketsAct #DMA #Regulation #FreeSoftware #OpenSource #Linux #OpenFormats #Formats #OpenStandards #Standards #Interoperability #Portability

Digital Markets Act - the FSFE calls for Device Neutrality - FSFE

On the imminent voting of the Digital Markets Act - the latest EU proposal on internet platform regulation - the FSFE demands device neutrality as a fundam...

Get to know XML, a strict yet flexible markup language used for everything from documentation to graphics, and the basis of most government open standard formats

XML is a hierarchical markup language. It uses opening and closing tags to define data. It's used to store and exchange data, and because of its extreme flexibility, it's used for everything from documentation to graphics (or for interchanging data between different systems or applications).

Reading the sample XML, you might find there's an intuitive quality to the format. You can probably understand the data in this document whether you're familiar with the subject matter or not. XML is also extremely flexible. Unlike HTML, there's no predefined list of tags. You are free to create whatever data structure you need to represent.

See What is XML?

#technology #openstandards #XML #interoperability

XML is a hierarchical markup language. It uses opening and closing tags to define data. It's used to store and exchange data, and because of its extreme flexibility, it's used for everything from documentation to graphics. Here's a sample XML document:

https://gadgeteer.co.za/get-know-xml-strict-yet-flexible-markup-language-used-everything-documentation-graphics-and-basis

What is XML?

XML is a hierarchical markup language. It uses opening and closing tags to define data. It's used to store and exchange data, and because of its extreme flexibility, it's used for everything from documentation to graphics. Here's a sample XML...

OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.3 Approved - brings support for digital signatures for documents and OpenPGP-based encryption of XML documents as the main features

Open Document Format is the official document format of many governments for the reason that it is interoperable across different office suites, is not locked into any brand or vendor, and is an open standard which can providing reading and editing compatibility in the future decades (for archiving).

One of the best known office suites that supports it by default is LibreOffice, but Microsoft Office and Google Docs also provide some measure of support, but more as an afterthought than as their primary format standard.

See OpenDocument Format 1.3 Approved As OASIS Standard - Phoronix

#technology #interoperability #ODF

Phoronix is the leading technology website for Linux hardware reviews, open-source news, Linux benchmarks, open-source benchmarks, and computer hardware tests.

https://gadgeteer.co.za/opendocument-format-odf-13-approved-brings-support-digital-signatures-documents-and-openpgp-based