Microsoft has announced that IE is to start automatic upgrades across Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

It’s brilliant news.

Users will be automatically updated to the latest version of IE for their version of Windows (IE8 on XP, IE9 on Vista and 7) ensuring that they will be experiencing the web at it’s best. This is also great news for website owners, managers and developers, who will need to support fewer old browser versions.

Users user’s home page, search provider, and default browser will unchanged when the browser updates, and if users prefer not to update, they can use an Automatic Update Blocker to ensure they only update when they are good and ready. Good news for Microsoft’s enterprise customers. Users can also choose to uninstall the updated if they wish.

The main benefits of this move are cited as security, a better experience for users and less development overhead for website stakeholders.

Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s senior director for Internet Explorer explains:

“We want to make updating to the best protection possible as fast and simple as we can for Windows customers. IE is how millions of Windows customers connect to the Web, so keeping that part of Windows updated at all times is critical to keeping them safe online. With automatic updates enabled through Windows Update, customers can receive IE9 and future versions of Internet Explorer seamlessly without any “update fatigue” issues.”

“Wider deployment of the most up-to-date browser benefits the Web in other ways as well. Developers and online businesses can rely on better browsers to deliver richer and more capable Web experiences. We built IE9 with a focus on modern web standards and interoperability so that developers could spend less time coding for specific browsers and spend more time building the next big thing on the Web. More of the Web running an HTML5 capable browser, vs. something built ten years ago, is a great thing for developers and the businesses they support.”

This move will help reduce the amount of people on IE6, something Microsoft are promoting, as discussed in Suzanne’s article, Be Browser Smart.

This is a win-win situation for everybody. Huzzah!

Read more on Microsoft’s blog

Being someone who is probably a little more more obsessed with typography than most a couple of great HTML5 sites have appeared recently that have caused just a little friendly competition in the studio.

This kerning game is not only infuriatingly addictive but a great demonstration of what’s now possible in HTML5 using the latest web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and also multitouch devices such as tablets and smart phones.

Instructions
Your mission is simple: achieve pleasant and readable text by distributing the space between letters. Typographers call this activity kerning. Your solution will be compared to typographer’s solution, and you will be given a score depending on how close you nailed it. Good luck!

The studio best score is 95% so do let us know if anyones beats it as you’re obviously a typographic genius.

As well as the kerning game there is another challenge based around the shape and form of characters where you have to complete the letter shapes concerned. Again, wonderfully addictive and provides a real insight into how type foundries and type designers really have such an amazing eye for detail to craft the multitude of typefaces that designers are able to use in their work.

Responsive Web Design is the term given to an approach to design and development where a site should respond to the environment it’s being viewed upon. This in turn means responding to the user’s screen size, viewing platform and orientation.

To try and clarify the above let me set out a scenario of how a user may interact with a website over a period of time. Firstly someone may browse a website at work on their desktop/laptop, then while travelling may visit the same website on their smart phone and then later that evening maybe visit it again on a iPad.

So there we have a set of varying devices to think about, each with its own intricacies. The desktop computer may have one of the many popular web browsers; Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer (not to mention any of the multiple versions of each), Smartphones have different operating systems and mobile browsers and the same again with tablet computers. Confusing as it may be this is becoming a real aspect of designing for the digital realm.

Often clients ask about having an ‘iPhone’ version of their site which is fine given the amount of people who actually own such an Apple device but where should they stop? Creating specific versions of a website for multiple platforms/resolutions would be impractical, there is hardly time to keep up with the march of technological development let alone researching the intricacies of each device/platform to design a site specific to it.

For years web designers and developers have been used to creating their pixel perfect web designs in specific resolutions and testing them so they work and look amazing with the multitude of desktop based web browsers (leaving IE6 out of the equation) and have become very good at it. Now, mobile browsing is growing at an astonishing rate and bringing with it another set of considerations.

So do you really know how your audience will engage with your website? Right now you could check your website in over 100 different configurations and still not be done so the answer is probably no.

Obviously in context certain businesses know their target audience and can safely create a great website that works on a desktop computer and works well enough on mobile platforms but could responsive website design be an answer to the ever changing landscape of web design?

Building one responsive website could eliminate the need for multiple design and development phases for each new gadget that comes onto the market.

An example of responsive web design is shown below. The 8faces website responds to the device the you are browsing on displays a version of the site to suit, therefore enhancing the users experience of the site on their particular platform. The website designs go through a reductive process, removing imagery, etc to display content at a more legible size on devices with smaller screens thus serving up the information the user needs and nothing else.

So in conclusion I think websites need to become more responsive and therefore so should digital designers, after all technology will continue to develop ever faster and we need to adapt to how the relevant audiences are consuming media and deliver a greater user experience whatever it’s consumed on.

So I’ve seen an increasing amount of my Social Media friends tweeting that they have been crowned Foursquare “mayor” of this place or another. As well as feeling a tad spammed, my initial reaction was “well, that’s a bit pointless and geeky”.

On closer inspection, Foursquare is a location-based game which reveals your whereabouts to your Foursquare friends and Facebook/Twitter followers (if you choose to). You “check-in” to a location and can then review or give tips on the location, viewable by other Foursquare users. I suppose it is a modern guest book with bells and whistles.

And useful. Avoid a duff meal in a restaurant you have never been into as people suggest the best thing on the menu. That obscure old-man ale you like to drink and can’t find anywhere? Well it’s served in that bar over there. And if you are wondering whether that art gallery show is any cop before you hand over you hard earned cash then it’s good for that too. Been stood up by someone? No problem. Just tune in to see which of your friends are nearby and join them to avoid Billy-no-mates syndrome.

I also like that you are encouraged to be adventurous, exploring your city or checking into multiple locations in one day, earning you further status badges.

So other that being a rather handy user-generated mini-review forum with bragging rights, what’s the point? Well, as a user, you earn points for each location you check into. Get the most points for a particular location and you become the mayor of that location. A mayor will often be rewarded with vouchers or discount incentives. Kind of like a loyalty reward scheme, and my Boots Advantage card will testify that schemes like this keep customers loyal. Big time.

Business owners with their fingers on the pulse are actively promoting Foursquare to get people talking about their establishment and offering rewards. As users become addicted and want to maintain their mayor status of a certain location, say a coffee shop, their active promotion of a certain location can only be good for business.

This is also a marketers dream; incredibly useful for researching consumer patterns and targeted advertising and messages. Analytics are now available to businesses that get involved, and the future holds a whole host of messaging based on real-time events.

The cynics will say that this is the playground for stalkers, burglars and adulterers but you can choose who to disclose your location to – just your Foursquare friends or the whole of Twitter. So you have some sort of control on who knows your whereabouts if you are worried about someone casing your property!

Foursquare is not exactly a revolutionary concept. There have previously been a few other location-based social networking apps that have been slow on user uptake (or fallen flat) but it is the additional incentives and status features which Foursquare offers that is the addictive cocktail, earning them the most interest and a strong foundation to build upon. As more and more cities are added to the service then it can only grow bigger and better. As I write this, 15 year old Parker Liautaud has just been the first to check in at the North Pole, earning the coveted Last Degree badge. Now that is seriously cool in more ways that one.

Anyone who follows anyone who could be described as a geek on Twitter has probably seen the hashtag #sxsw this week and may have wondered why it was so ubiquitous. South by Southwest (SXSW) is an interactive conference that takes place in Austin Texas every March – literally thousands of geeks descend on the Lonestar state to meet and discuss the myriad of opportunities in the tech world. Doesn’t sound terribly fascinating to those who don’t live and breathe digital media, but because of its reputation for being the place for tech start-ups to launch themselves, it’s definitely the place where you’re most likely to see the Next Big Thing.

Last year it was Foursquare, a location based social networking service that allows users to tag where they are (and was dubbed in some quarters ‘the burglar’s friend’!). This year it’s stickybits, which involves tagging objects in the real world with little barcode stickers available from stickybits (or using the existing barcode assigned to an object), and then uploading all kinds of content and attaching it to the object using the free stickybits app on their iPhone or Android. Users can also view what other people have attached to a barcode by scanning it with their phone.

Now, on the face of it sticking a barcode on an item and then uploading information to that barcode seems a bit pointless: so I put a sticker on Suzanne’s coffee mug and upload a picture of Suzanne. It’s nice, but why would you bother? But imagine if you could scan a barcode sticker on your fridge or washing machine and get instant access to the user manual, guarantee information and energy usage statistics. Now that would be handy.
Other real world applications of stickybits are already flying around the TechBlogs, here are just a few

• Stick a barcode on a birthday card and upload a video greeting to your Mum.
• Never lose the assembly instructions for your Ikea bookcase (because you know you’ll need them again one day); just scan the barcode and there they are (and in video format too, for extra help).
• Get the benefits of online shopping offline by swiping the barcode with your phone and getting instant access to user reviews and ratings, not to mention discount vouchers and special offers.
• Create a box inventory by taking a photo of the contents and then sticking a barcode on the outside and uploading the picture to it – could make unpacking after a move a whole lot easier.
• Run a competition where people attach their favourite recipe involving cornflakes to the barcode on the packet.
• A simple barcode added to your brochure or business card could give new customers access to more company and product information quickly and easily.

At the moment stickybits is just starting out, but I bet in a year’s time you’ll be seeing their barcode stickers appearing on all sorts of things and the ability to ‘read the story’ of an item will become second nature. Meanwhile, SXSW will have moved on to the next Next Big Thing.

Onomatopoeia was today’s word of the day on www.visualthesaurus.com.

hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, splash!

I love words that sound like their meaning.

quack, bark, roar, meow, whoop!

Why am I writing about this? Well, it is relevant to marketing and design: Onomatopoeia has been used in advertising lots over the years. Snap, crackle, pop springs to mind. And in Art, Whaam (1963) by Roy Lichenstein is a great example.

Onomatopoeia are useful when sound is important to your message, or when you want to create a mnemonic. They can make for really fun, hard hitting copy and headlines. Pow!

Another word springs to mind–Autological.
According to Wikipedia, an Autological word is “An autological word (or homological word, or autonym) is a word that describes itself”

tiny, seventeen-lettered, lowercase, written, red.

So, a homological is the opposite, a non self-descriptive word.

mono-sylllabic, red, misspelled, oral, big.

I think there is potential for some great headlines using Autological or homological words, using some great typography. And using some artistic license, one can start to see more words that look like their meaning.

For example the word bed in lowercase looks a bit like a traditional bed, with the ascenders making the ends. I think CD looks a bit like a Compact Disc.

Then using some nice typography, you can add visual meaning to words to back-up or contradict their meaning, for example, thin set in a  light typeface, or a  bold typeface.

Of course you can go much further with this idea, there have been many designs that use this form of visual link very effectively. Just tucking this away for when the right brief comes along…

There is no denying that more and more people are on Twitter, and at first it seemed to be an extension of Facebook’s pointless profile updates, where you discovered the delights of what people were eating that morning, how hung over they were or what their cat was doing. It got a bit irritating to be honest.

Now it is practically mainstream, Twitter has found its way into our lives and is proving itself to be very useful and potentially essential. In its primary form of micro-blogging, the sharing of knowledge, links and user-driven news is invaluable. From knowing what model of printer to buy to saving your lumpy custard to latest job listings – Twitter holds the key to it all.

Yes, we have seen some little experiments in the past; the invention of a house plant watering warning system, Botanicalls, that sends you a tweet when your plant is too dry or an office chair that tweets when it detects natural human gas. But what about something really important or interesting? As the first flakes of snowfall fell this winter, people were not looking at the weather reports for what may or may not happen in their area of the country, instead referring to a live plot of snowfall in the UK where people could send a tweet with part of their postcode and a score of snowfall which was then plotted on a map. Is it the future of weather reporting? The Albion Café in London have installed a Baker Tweet which alerts followers when a tray of their favourite goodies have just come out of the oven. This could be useful for any business that relies on real-time information, such as stock levels, latest offers and new products. Maybe not groundbreaking in these subtle uses, but I think it shows the beginnings of something bigger and better.

This year I’ve noticed a shift in seeing Twitter in use away from our screens and around our environment. Standing at my bus stop I noticed I could get an update for the next three buses due at the stop, and I thought what a great use that was for it. Looking into it, Twitter’s future is set to be more mobile and location specific than ever before with the introduction of Geotagging and the start of deals between Twitter and mobile telephone companies.

These mobile and location specific aspects could benefit and help us immensely. I would love to see users on Twitter offering restaurant reviews, available property to rent, local transport times and routes, tourist tips and where to get aunt Judith a green silk scarf in the middle of Swansea, in real-time to other readers on the ground.

Search is another feather in Twitter’s cap. Google now offers real-time search listings for tweets. This means that being on Twitter is actually important for businesses in jostling for better search rankings.

Twitter is currently free to use, but talks for fee payment for more in depth information like Twitter campaign analytics is looking likely. The amount of information generated on Twitter is vast and methods on how to analyse and collate specific information will be useful for many different sectors of businesses and individuals.

2010 could really see Twitter take off in a new direction.

The VGroup Interactive team recently attended the highly-acclaimed dConstruct 09 conference, which Brighton is lucky enough to host. Local residents looked bemused as the city suddenly became over-run with GPS/iPhone wielding, satchel/black rimmed glasses wearing, super-brainy but slightly lost-looking geeks.

With a raft of speakers and delegates from all over Europe, Scandinavia and the US, we certainly feel lucky to have this thought-provoking event on our doorstep in what is fast becoming one of Europe’s most respected digital communities.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Designing for Tomorrow” – by which was not meant simply visual/graphic design, but systems, paradigms and concepts. And while there was a LOT of talk about robots :-), there were some surprisingly grass roots outputs from some of the world’s most influential digital innovators.

There was a lot of talk – good talk – about getting the web off the web and into the real world. People have all the information they need when they are online – but what about when they are not?

Mobile is very clearly the future – but when leading mobile interaction designer Brian Fling delivered his predictions of the future of mobile, he pointed to a base set of front-end languages (albeit new versions) that are the tried and tested building blocks of everything on the web, and that digital media practitioners use every day; HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and XML. (VGroup Interactive’s Lead Developer Mark Perkins delivers the low-down on HTML5 here)

This got me thinking about what innovation really is. Innovation, in any industry, tends to be associated with more – more technology, more features, more complexity, more detail, more speed etc.

But innovation can also mean taking things away. Less complexity, fewer features, less detail … revising everything we’ve been experimenting with to give people what they need, something that works well and nothing else.

It amazes me sometimes how many things that have been around for ever still do not work very well, despite the fact we can (supposedly) take man to the moon. We really need to work on this.

We shouldn’t build things that don’t need to be built. We shouldn’t try to re-invent the wheel. We should look at what’s there and make it better – more user-friendly, less complicated and more accessible.

The future is about making digital media more human.

(For a nice collection of things that geeks think should be preserved for the future, check out the dConstruct09 Time Capsule on Flickr.)

PS: We’d love to hear your thoughts on what’s important in the future!

Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman shows off his unique bike design which he not only says will be common in 20 years but is also theft-proof and features puncture-free tires. The futuristic-looking creation boasts a complete carbon fiber body with a built-in locking anti-theft mechanism which can only be activated by the touch of the bike owner’s fingerprints. Addition features include a calorie monitoring system, battery-powered assistance, and aforementioned puncture-free tires that have the ability to self-inflate.

Boardman had this to say:
“It could be built now if there was a will. All the technologies are already there, it’s just that nobody’s put them all together before.”

I spotted this Boardman concept bike while reading a recent blog. Being Theft-proof is quite a claim but one that would interest any cyclist in the world if it was true but I feel anyone who rides in any large city in the UK would probably be pessimistic as to its accuracy. Why don’t they lock one up in the middle of Soho and see how long it stays there for?

HTML is the foundation of the web, the core language that all web pages are written in. Like all coding languages it has gone through a series of revisions, and currently stands at version 4.01 – where it has been stuck since 1999.

So HTML 4.01 has been around for 10 years, which is a long time when it comes to the internet. Things have moved on a lot since then – the web is now increasingly interactive and many sites are more like applications than sets of pages, as they were predominantly back in 1999. And, as the web has progressed, it has increasingly been straining the bounds of what is possible with the current HTML specs, which is why the long-awaited next revision, HTML 5, has been getting a lot of people (read: developers) excited recently.

What will an HTML 5 web look like?

HTML 5 offers the promise of native support for video and audio playback, something that currently requires proprietary browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight to achieve. Why does this matter? Because the web is built and has succeeded due to its use of open, non-proprietary standards, and these browser plugins break that paradigm. What happens if Adobe goes bust and stops developing its Flash Player? Or decides to start charging for its usage? With native support for audio and video, the web is no longer reliant on one commercial entity, which is a very good thing. It also includes native APIs for doing drawing on the web, via the <canvas> element.

HTML 5 will also bring in a new era of accessibility tools which will greatly benefit web users with disabilities. It also includes better tools for the developing of web applications and user-interaction elements of pages such as web forms, all of which will eventually lead to a greatly improved experience for users.

And last, but by no means least, HTML 5 will allow developers to mark up their documents in a more semantic manner than is currently possible. Whilst the average web user wont notice the difference, this is an important step in keeping the web well structured and as accessible as possible to both people and entities such as search engines and whatever tools appear in the future to help us navigate the vast pool of knowledge that exists on the internet.

There is a lot more to HTML 5, but that about covers the highlights.

So when will HTML 5 be ready for use?

Well, currently the spec is in ‘working draft’ form, and the bad news is that it’s expected finalisation date is… 2022. Yep, in thirteen years time. But don’t worry! The majority of browser vendors are already implementing parts of the draft spec (with the newly released Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.0 leading the pack), and in the next couple of years we will start to see plenty of sites starting to use elements of HTML 5. In fact, sites such as uxlondon.com are already sporting a shiny new HTML 5 doctype. And our own VGroup site will soon be getting a bit of a revamp to incorporate some HTML5 goodness, so keep watching this space!