Karl Dubost, who has recently left the W3C, has a proposal for Data Independence And Survival Best Practices that he is looking for feedback on. If you are interested in this topic, please take a moment to consider his proposal and provide feedback to him (not me.)
A few weeks ago, Franck Martin emailed me to let me know that a group that he is working with is localizing Firefox into Fijian. If you’d like more information or would like to contribute to the Fijian Firefox, please contact Franck at Avonsys. We look forward to have Firefox in Fijian as an official localization in the near future.
The team is made up of ICT Officers Navishkar Rao, Atama Seru and Rupeni Joji lead by Chief Technology Officer, Franck Martin.
Rao says that a Fijian translated version can be useful in Fijian language studies and can be a great introductory tool to web browsing, “especially for those that may not have a great grasp on English”.
He adds that those unable to understand English will be able to navigate their way around the worldwide web just as easily as any other English speaking individual.
“We’ve just torn down the language barrier, allowing Fijian speaking users the privilege of navigating the web.”
Avonsys makes an alpha release of the world’s first ever Fijian Web browser
Ancient proverb: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Surprising news from South Korea – Google and Yahoo working together.
The Korea Times: Google, Yahoo United in Map Services.
This would be unheard of anywhere else in the world where Google and Yahoo are the fiercest of competitors. However in Korea, where Naver is the market leader (75% market share), and Daum second, Google and Yahoo are not relevant for most Korean web users (with perhaps the exception of Flickr, which is available in Hangul, and YouTube. UPDATE: not even YouTube is popular in Korea.)
The two global giants have been stressing the need for creating an “open environment” in Web services, obviously to compete with Naver’s massive walled garden, and Google Korea managing director Lee Won-jin said his company’s partnership with Yahoo is an extension of those movements.
“Korean Web portals have a reputation for their closed services, and this has been hurting innovation in the Korean Internet industry,” Lee said.
“The sharing of content between us and Yahoo could mark an important first step toward an open Web environment in the Korean Internet sector and inspire innovation,” he said.
Personally, I think the fact that there is only 1 web browser used in Korea is a larger issue than anything related to specific content. How do you launch next-generation web-based applications if the only browser you can code for is IE6/7? For example, maybe you have a new mapping application that has embedded videos (where have I heard this before?) but tests show that the service is significantly slower in Internet Explorer, even the shiny newest version. As a web/web apps developer you know there are browsers that are significantly faster or more standards-compliant or have add-ons functionality but your users in Korea can’t use anything but IE, because nothing in Korea works besides IE for any website that requires a secure connection.
So Korea, which was the earliest nation to launch real broadband, is now stuck in a sea of Microsoft-only operating systems and software. What kind of Internet is it when you can have 1 Gbps broadband in Korea with no choice of operating system or web browser?
If Korean Internet businesses were truly interested in an “open environment” in Korea, they would work together to change the monoculture of the web browser in Korea. Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer That Koreans are forced to use a particular computer operating system and web browser for the Internet is the true “walled garden” of Korea.