The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Text Module Level 3. This CSS3 module defines properties for text manipulation and specifies their processing model. It covers line breaking, justification and alignment, white space handling, and text transformation. Comments are welcome through 07 November. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Audio Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Audio API. This specification describes a high-level JavaScript API for processing and synthesizing audio in web applications. The primary paradigm is of an audio routing graph, where a number of AudioNode objects are connected together to define the overall audio rendering. The actual processing will primarily take place in the underlying implementation (typically optimized Assembly / C / C++ code), but direct JavaScript processing and synthesis is also supported. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Google have announced that all their searches are now encrypted. All of them. Every single one. This means no more keyword data will be passed back to site owners.

Anyone watching keyword search activity to their site will already have noted that the ratio of “[not provided]” keywords has been steadily rising for years. With this latest release, your only keyword information will be from non-Google searches.

Debate about the impact of these changes (as well as the real motivation behind them) is already in full swing.

In what may be yet another effort to point users to Google+, the company has also rolled out hashtag searching (the G+ community has had this since May).

When a user submits a hashtagged search in the familiar Google search field, they not only get their regular results, but also, in a column on the right, live scrolling results from Google+ content.

Additionally Google’s ‘Hummingbird’ tech update tackles something much more exciting than Caffeine, which jolted the internet marketing world when it rolled out in 2010. While Caffeine improved indexing speed and delivered fresher search results, Hummingbird promises to drastically raise the bar on search sophistication.

Rather than parsing users’ searches word-by-word, the new algorithm allows Google to intelligently and quickly analyze full questions. Google’s search engine has begun to understand concepts, relationships between concepts, and even more complex questions.

We may at last, have arrived at the point where manipulating a page to pack it with keyword terms is pointless. If this is true, it means we can get back to crafting well-written, informative content. We can once again produce work to share and create value, and to communicate ideas.

Will hashtag searches persuade you to join Google+? Will Hummingbird kill-off the keyword? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, hummingbird image via Shutterstock.

1,500+ John Forsythe’s Professional Photoshop Text Effects – only $19!

Light Point Security: a Software 'Jail' for Malware?

The results of the UMBC Homecoming Spirit Office Decorating Contest were revealed last night at the Faculty/Staff Social. More than 30 offices participated this year and the CSEE Department’s entry took first place in the Judge’s Choice category, which was based on site visits by a panel of judges from the UMBC alumni association, and third place in the People’s Choice category, which was determined by an online vote. The first place showing in the Judges Choice competition comes with a trophy and ten tickets to the Homecoming community picnic.

Congratulations to the CSEE staff for the great job of decorating the ITE325 suite for UMBC’s Homecoming. See pictures of their Maryland Beach Picnic themed display and stop by ITE325 during the rest of this week to experience the full multimedia effect and let the Department’s staff know what you think of their effort.

MD cyber security firm CEO wins Outstanding Alumni of the Year

By Denmark Luceriaga
Contributing Writer

The UMBC Alumni Association has selected Jeehye Yun (BS Computer Science, ’97) as the 2013 Outstanding Alumnus for Engineering and Information Technology. She will be presented with the award on October 10 at an awards ceremony in the Albin O. Kuhn Library.

Yun is the founder and CEO of Secured Sciences Group, LLC (SSG), one of the many cyber incubator resident companies based in the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. With a goal of becoming a top-tier cyber security company, SSG’s mission is to help clients by offering world-class technology services and policy compliance management solutions.

SSG developed the compliance management software, Surveillant, that reduces the amount of information schools and businesses have to look at in government grant applications and contracts. This technology allows SSG to streamline the verification of a client’s policy compliance by eliminating redundancies in government applications. SSG makes life easier for their customers as they spend less time worrying about policy compliance.

Some features of Surveillant include recommending other policies that apply to the organization, tracking and managing evidence as proof of compliance, and tracking user activities and remediation. Along with compliance management, SSG also provides professional service in the areas of management support and information technology services.

As a member of bwtech@UMBC’s Cyber Incubator program, SSG utilizes business support services from bwtech@UMBC’s experienced entrepreneurial services team. Recently reaching full capacity, the incubator also provides office space, mentors, resources and collaborative opportunities for small startup companies like SSG. In 2012, SSG was a finalist in the Maryland Incubator of the Year Awards in the Cyber/Homeland Security category.

Along with other like-minded business in the program, Yun is attracting investors by bringing her company’s technology to mobile devices. SSG is taking advantage of its close proximity to federal agencies in Washington D.C. and is paralleling the growth of investment in the industry for security products for both government and commercial sectors.

After finishing her undergraduate degree in the late nineties, Yun taught a practical security course at UMBC, educating students about the practical aspects and pitfalls of security. She also worked with the Division of Information Technology as a systems programmer and administrator.

Before founding SSG, Yun served as Director of Computing Facilities at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) where she managed the teams supporting infrastructure of various research labs.

Continue reading at http://www.retrieverweekly.com/technology/md-cyber-security-firm-ceo-wins-outstanding-alumni-of-the-year-1.3075552#.Ulag5FPP6Sq

With so much going on in the industry, there is probably that one topic that you’d love to finally understand but never had time for. Or your company has a problem, and you aren’t sure how to address it? Well, we’ve got your back with a line-up of hands-on full-day workshops in London and Berlin — just for you.

Workshops in London, UK

	Visual Design Essentials by Dan Rubin Action and intent—that’s what the great designers focus on. In this workshop, you’ll learn techniques on how to manage the process, translate ideas into designs and even how to deliver a constructive critique. Read more…
	Responsive Design by Vitaly Friedman In this workshop, Vitaly will present practical techniques, clever tricks and useful strategies from real-life projects that you will definitely find quite useful when working on any responsive design project. Read more…
	The Front-End Warrior by Addy Osmani This is a workshop aimed at front-end intermediates who want to learn more about how modern front-end tooling can help save their time and improve (nay, automate) their front-end development workflow. Read more…
	Adaptive Interfaces by Aaron Gustafson By being flexible in our approach and embracing the unknown, we can create user experiences that are intended to vary from device to device, browser to browser, and network to network. Read more…

More workshops in London →

Workshops in Berlin, Germany

	Node.JS by Remy Sharp This workshop is a fully packed day of learning resources and exercises to get you quickly up and running with all the fundamentals you need to create your own Node.js-backed application. Read more…
	RWD Workflow by Stephen Hay This workshop is geared toward designers who aren’t afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone, as well as front-end developers who are heavily involved in the design process. Read more…
	Shipping Your Product by Rachel Andrew In this workshop you will learn from Rachel’s experience in launching a product, creating an action plan tailored to your own product idea, listing the things you will need to do to launch your own product, and more! Read more…
	Prototyping For Designers by Dan Rubin With the help of Dan’s workshop, you’ll learn how to prepare for and perform a basic usability test, and tips on how to incorporate testing into your existing design workflow. Read more…

More workshops in Berlin →

This isn’t the final list, though. Even more Smashing full-day workshops are underway — please stay tuned! It would be our great pleasure to personally meet you at one of the workshops. If you, your colleague, boss, relative, neighbor or anyone else has a question, feel free to drop us an email. We aren’t going anywhere, you know.

Cheers, and stay smashing!
Cat, Nadja, Jan & Markus

Front page image credits.

© Cat Clark for Smashing Magazine, 2013.