IT Technology

Naysayers point out that we've been putting tags together to form Web pages since the beginning of the World Wide Web. HTML5 has simply added new ones. But while HTML5 looks similar to old-fashioned HTML, the tasks it accomplishes are dramatically different. Local data storage, <canvas>, and <video> make it possible to do much more than pour words and images into a rectangle. Plus, the new HTML5 WebSockets spec defines a new way to conduct full-duplex communication for event-driven Web apps. And with Adobe's decision to end development of mobile Flash, an entire sector of the Web development industry is going to retool as we move to HTML5 from Flash -- a tectonic shift for Web developers.

Desktop virtualization faltered for two reasons: It requires continuous connection between client and server, as well as a beefy server to run desktop VMs. Client hypervisors solve both problems. Install one on an ordinary machine and leverage the processing power of the client. Laptop users can take a "business VM" with them containing the OS, apps, and personal configuration settings. That VM is secure and separate from whatever else may be running on that machine -- including malware accidentally downloaded -- and you get all the virtualization management advantages, such as VM snapshots, portability, and easy recovery. Client hypervisors point to a future where we bring our own computers to work and download or sync our business VMs to start the day.

he more collaboratively minded developers among us like the way continuous build tools like Jenkins, Hudson, and other "continuous integration" servers help us work together for the betterment of the whole. These tools put all code through a continuous stream of tests, alerting developers about problems with code they checked in some 10 seconds ago, keeping everybody moving toward the same goal.

Tools like Hudson or Jenkins aren't new -- there have been a number of slick proprietary continuous integration tools for some time, but the emergence of open source solutions encourages the kind of experimentation and innovation that comes when programmers are given the chance to make their tools better.

Assuring security at the highest application level requires verification at every layer, including the physical construction of the computing device. Enter trust on a chip.

The TPM (Trusted Platform Module) from the TCG (Trusted Computing Group) was the first popularly adopted hardware chip to assure trusted hardware and boot sequences. Last year, Intel combined the TPM chip and a hardware hypervisor layer to protect boot sequences, memory, and other components. Any software vendor can take advantage of it. Hardware trust solutions aren't perfectly secure, as the Princeton memory freeze and electron microscope attacks showed, but they beat software-only protection solutions. The hardware protection schemes will only get better. Soon enough, every computer device you can use will have a hardware/software protection solution running.