When One Word Is More Meaningful Than A Thousand
July 14, 2010 - By Niels Matthijs
With all the functional mumbo jumbo hidden away in HTML5, some of us seem to have forgotten what HTML is really all about. Native video support is considered way cooler than the new header tags, somewhat understandably, but from a semantic and structural point of view, these latter elements present the most valuable improvement.
Semantic importance got a serious boost when accessibility became a big deal to us Web developers. But its powers go way beyond making our content available to those lacking the skills to surf the Web in regular ways. For one, making content recognizable to all kinds of crawlers (but most importantly search engines) could greatly improve the results of search queries on the Web. Rather than wading through trailers, film websites and product pages, wouldn't it be much nicer to filter reviews directly and find out how a certain film has been received? Currently, no trustworthy mechanism exists to recognize or filter a broad range of content types, which is a serious loss for the Web as a whole.
Provant.be goes virtual with our 360° photography tool
June 17, 2010 - By Heidi Vannevel
The Province of Antwerp asked Internet Architects to build a 360° photography tool. And that is exactly what we did. Visitors of the ‘Provinciaal Veiligheidsinstituut’ can now have a real-life look at what the institute has to offer and experience the building floor by floor and from every angle.
This virtual tour is not just about showing 3D-images and photographs of the inside of the building. We took the design of the virtual tour to the next level and developed an interactive and informative online experience. True, you can just quickly have a look around the building, floor by floor. However, if you are curious and want to learn more about the institute, you can click any of the icons and listen to extra information, watch an embedded video or read the details on a safety subject.
Technically, we made it really easy for the Province staff to upload fresh images, video, sound and texts into their existing CMS in which we integrated this tool. This also means that soon you will be able to take virtual tours and learn more about other buildings and services of the Province of Antwerp.
We know nothing beats a life visit, but this comes very close. See for yourself at the virtual environment of het Provinciaal Veiligheidsinstistuut (The Safety Institute of the Province of Antwerp)