WebProNews

Tag: HTML5

  • IAB Launches Simple HTML5 Ad Validator Tool

    IAB Launches Simple HTML5 Ad Validator Tool

    The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of a new HTML5 ad validator from its tech lab. It calls this a “first-of-its-kind” online tool for quick and easy testing of mobile and desktop creative. It tests against the IAB Display Creative Guidelines, which you can peruse here.

    The tool takes multiple inputs (zipped ad packages or JavaScript ad tags) for validating ads and examines recommendations for guidelines for file weights, file requests, shared libraries, progressive video, and ad load (including sub-load criteria).

    The tool also gives insights into what the IAB considers additional factors that are relevant to optimizing creative. These include things like file types in the creative (images, JavaScript, HTMLS, etc.); breakdown of file types by weight; all URLs accessed by the ad; snapshots of how the ad displays at one-second intervals (to show progression over time); click tags or links (to specific landing pages/redirects); and CPU usage.

    “As the industry rallies around the need for optimal user experience, the HTML5 Ad Validator will play a vital role,” said Scott Cunningham, GM at the IAB Tech Lab. “Ads that are designed with load time, file weight and other key elements top-of-mind will break through the clutter across digital screens.”

    “HTML5 is at the foundation of today’s cross-screen creative,” said Anna Bager, SVP and GM, Mobile and Video at the IAB. “The combination of the HTML5 Ad Validator and the update to the HTML5 for Digital Advertising paper will prove to be powerful assets for the industry, as consumers demand better user experience across screens and advertisers require seamless creative to support that demand.”

    The validator is now available here.

  • Google Says No More To Flash Ads

    Google Says No More To Flash Ads

    Google announced that it is phasing out Flash from ads entirely. As of June 30th, advertisers will no longer be able to upload Flash ads into DoubleClick Campaign Manager, Bid Manager, or AdWords.

    Beginning on January 2nd, 2017, Flash ads won’t be able to run through DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick Bid Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, or the Google Display Network.

    Google has already given advertisers tools to help them build HTML5 ads, and HTML5 will be required as these dates approach.

    “Advertisers who currently use display ads built in Flash in their campaigns have several easy ways to navigate the transition, ensuring your creative continues to reach people successfully,” says DoubleClick product manager Karin Hennessy.

    Google encourages advertisers to check out this Mobile and HTML5 Overview site, which features Google Web Designer, AdWords Ready Ad Gallery, and DoubleClick Studio Layouts. These are considered “HTML5 authoring or plug-and-play solutions”.

    In other “death of Flash” news, Adobe launched Animate CC, killing off the Flash Professional name.

    Image via Google

  • Facebook Makes Videos HTML5 By Default

    Facebook Makes Videos HTML5 By Default

    Facebook announced that its videos will now use HTML5 by default as Flash continues its slow demise.

    The company’s chief security officer made headlines a while back when he called for the death of Flash, and even since then, Adobe dropped Flash from Flash Professional CC.

    Facebook’s Daniel Baulig says, “We recently switched to HTML5 from a Flash-based video player for all Facebook web video surfaces, including videos in News Feed, on Pages, and in the Facebook embedded video player. We are continuing to work together with Adobe to deliver a reliable and secure Flash experience for games on our platform, but have shipped the change for video to all browsers by default.”

    “From development velocity to accessibility features, HTML5 offers a lot of benefits,” he adds. “Moving to HTML5 best enables us to continue to innovate quickly and at scale, given Facebook’s large size and complex needs.”

    The company points to development velocity, testability and accessibility as the main benefits to HTML5.

    It also says that as a result of the switch, videos play faster on Facebook, and people like, comment on, and share more videos now.

    Read this post for some discussion about challenges Facebook had to overcome to make the switch.

    Image via Facebook

  • Adobe Drops the ‘Flash’ From Flash Professional CC (At Least in Name)

    Adobe Drops the ‘Flash’ From Flash Professional CC (At Least in Name)

    Adobe announced that it has shipped its latest Creative Cloud desktop updates and announced some new developments across its portfolio of tools and technologies.

    Most notably, Adobe is reanaming Flash Professional CC to Adobe Animate CC to “more accurately reflect the content-formats produced by this tool.”

    Explaining the move on the Adobe Flash Professional Team Blog, Rich Lee writes:

    For nearly two decades, Flash Professional has been the standard for producing rich animations on the web. Because of the emergence of HTML5 and demand for animations that leverage web standards, we completely rewrote the tool over the past few years to incorporate native HTML5 Canvas and WebGL support. To more accurately represent its position as the premier animation tool for the web and beyond, Flash Professional will be renamed Adobe Animate CC, starting with the next release in early 2016.

    Today, over a third of all content created in Flash Professional today uses HTML5, reaching over one billion devices worldwide. It has also been recognized as an HTML5 ad solution that complies with the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standards, and is widely used in the cartoon industry by powerhouse studios like Nickelodeon and Titmouse Inc.

    He notes that Animate CC will continue to support Flash (SWF) and AIR formats as “first-class citizens”. `

    “This has to do with Adobe’s successful pivot in the capability of its tools to support HTML5,” IDC software development research program director Al Hilwa tells WebProNews in an email. “The renaming of Adobe’s animation tools reflect that it now emits HTML5 and is widely used for this purpose and so the new name reflects this important change in the capability and usage patterns seen by its users. With respect to the other tools, it is good to see that some of the important features have found homes in Dreamweaver and other Adobe apps.”

    “With respect to the new wave of updates, I think Adobe is living up to its Creative Cloud promise of more regular feature enhancements and deliveries compared with a box program,” Hilwa adds. “They remain a successful case study of the transformation to cloud delivery for desktop software.”

    Adobe also introduced new desktop app features including precise Dehaze in Lightroom CC, expanded support for UltraHD in Premiere Pro, a new Shaper tool in Illustrator, and the ability to create realistic 3D models in Adobe Fuse CC (preview) and easily import and work on them in Photoshop CC.

    There is also news we have some news around the future of Adobe Edge Tools & Services, and Adobe is working on a new HTML5 video player for desktop browsers. More on all of this here.

    Image via Adobe (YouTube)

  • IAB Opens Updated HTML5 Ad Guide For Public Comment

    The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a new update to its HTML5 For Digital Advertising Guide to help ad designers understand how to effectively leverage the technology.

    This couldn’t come soon enough. A recent study from Sizmek found that advertisers are still running a ridiculous amount of Flash ads despite the fact that they default to static displays on mobile device (which means fewer clicks).

    The updated guide considers asset optimization, use of shared libraries, text and fonts, video details and recommendations, and expanded/detailed animation recommendations. The IAB says the entire guide has been streamlined for ad designers.

    In addition to updates to the guide itself, its resource wiki also got some updates with more technical details. It includes a list of potential tools for using in aiding HTML5 ad development, info on browser compatibility, a list of shared libraries in common use, and links for evaluating the compatibility of specific ad creative components.

    The updated guide is meant to serve as a companion to the new IAB Display Creative Guidelines.

    “The transition to HTML5 is paramount for improving user-experience online,” said Scott Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Technology and Ad Operations, IAB, and General Manager of the IAB Tech Lab. “The one-two punch of an overhaul to the ‘IAB Display Creative Guidelines,’ followed by this update to the ‘IAB HTML5 For Digital Advertising Guide,’ represents just the beginning of the IAB Tech Lab’s planned output on consumer experience solutions and standards – all designed to create an ad-supported digital landscape that people can enjoy without lengthy ad load times and clutter.”

    “There is a reason that HTML5 has rapidly become the industry standard: It enables deeply immersive and responsive consumer marketing experiences that render gorgeously and easily across screens,” said Cory Hudson, Senior Director, Creative Technology, AOL, and Co-Chair of the IAB HTML5 for Digital Advertising Guidance Working Group. “Still, HTML5 is fairly new to a number of key stakeholders in the space, and this revision to the ‘IAB HTML5 For Digital Advertising Guide’ will be an important resource in providing best practices and helpful information, as ad designers and creative technologists maneuver their way and learn to take advantage of this powerful technology.”

    You can review the updated HTML5 guide here. The public comment period will end on October 30.

    Image via IAB

  • YouTube Deprecates Flash Embeds, Flash API

    YouTube Deprecates Flash Embeds, Flash API

    Google announced that it is now defaulting to the HTML5 player on the web for YouTube embeds, moving to iframes. Along with this, they’re deprecating the “old style” of Flash <object> embeds and their Flash API.

    The company is encouraging all embeddes to use the iframe API, which as it notes, can inelligently use whichever technology the client supports. Google says in a blog post:

    Four years ago, we wrote about YouTube’s early support for the HTML5 <video> tag and how it performed compared to Flash. At the time, there were limitations that held it back from becoming our preferred platform for video delivery. Most critically, HTML5 lacked support for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) that lets us show you more videos with less buffering.

    Over the last four years, we’ve worked with browser vendors and the broader community to close those gaps, and now, YouTube uses HTML5 <video> by default in Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and in beta versions of Firefox.

    The benefits of HTML5 extend beyond web browsers, and it’s now also used in smart TVs and other streaming devices.

    Google credits technologies like MediaSource extensions the VP9 codec, encrypted media extensions and common encryption, WebRTC, and Fullscreen with progressing HTML5 video. As it notes, other companies like Netflix, Vimeo, Microsoft, and Apple have all embraced HTML5.

    Google also credits HTML5 with enabling new classes of devices such as Chromebooks and Chromecast.

    The company tells developers to support HTML5 by using the iframe API everywhere you embed videos on the web.

  • Netflix Streams In HTML5 On Mac OS X Yosemite

    Netflix Streams In HTML5 On Mac OS X Yosemite

    On Monday, Apple revealed its newest version of Mac OS X – Yosemite. It’s available to developers now, and will be available for everyone in the fall. You can also sign up for an upcoming beta program.

    Netflix announced on Tuesday that it is offering HTML5 streaming in Safari on Yosemite.

    “We’ve been working closely with Apple to implement the Premium Video Extensions in Safari, which allow playback of premium video content in the browser without the use of plugins,” Netflix’s Anthony Park and Mark Watson write in a blog post. “If you’re in Apple’s Mac Developer Program, or soon the OS X Beta Program, you can install the beta version of OS X Yosemite. With the OS X Yosemite Beta on a modern Mac, you can visit Netflix.com today in Safari and watch your favorite movies and TV shows using HTML5 video without the need to install any plugins.”

    “We’re especially excited that Apple implemented the Media Source Extensions (MSE) using their highly optimized video pipeline on OS X,” they add. “This lets you watch Netflix in buttery smooth 1080p without hogging your CPU or draining your battery. In fact, this allows you to get up to 2 hours longer battery life on a MacBook Air streaming Netflix in 1080p – that’s enough time for one more movie!”

    Netflix also streams in HTML5 in Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1, as it announced nearly a year ago, when it said it expects premium video on the web to continue to shift away from using proprietary plugin technologies to using newer video extensions.

    Netflix also announced on Tuesday the release date for its upcoming animated comedy series BoJack Horseman.

    Image via Twitter

  • HTML5 Devs Can Now Sell Their Apps On The Amazon Appstore

    HTML5 is the future, or so says open Web proponents. Everything you can do in native code on Android or iOS, they claim you can do in HTML5. While that may be true, you couldn’t make money with a HTML5 app on the Amazon Appstore until today.

    Amazon announced this morning that HTML5 app developers can now resubmit their Web apps to the Amazon Appstore today and charge for it. Previously, all Web apps were required to be free before being allowed on the Appstore. There’s no reason stated behind the policy change, but it’s most likely due to Amazon seeing some success with Web apps on its Appstore.

    So, how does this all work? If you’re new to the Amazon Appstore, you simply need to name a price on the “Availability & Pricing” tab under their Developer Account. After doing so, just hit publish. For those who already have a published HTML5 app on the Amazon Appstore, you need to name a price on the “Availability & Pricing” tab. After doing so, your app will now have a price attached to it on the Amazon Appstore.

    Amazon also announced this morning that HTML5 apps are now eligible for the Free App of the Day promotion. It’s been shown in the past that being part of the Free App of the Day promotion helps increase sales of your app over time so HTML5 app developers looking for extra sales will want to let Amazon know they’re interested.

    If this news has you wanting to start building HTML5 apps for the Amazon Appstore, you’ll want to start your journey here.

    Image via Amazon Developer Console

  • Adobe Brings Native Canvas Support To Flash Pro

    Adobe Brings Native Canvas Support To Flash Pro

    It’s been said time and time again that HTML5 would replace Flash sooner or later. That may yet happen, but it looks like Adobe isn’t interested in a war. Instead, Flash wants to get along with HTML5 to make both better.

    Earlier this month, Adobe announced that Flash Professional CC now supports HTML5 canvas. For those unaware, Canvas is the Web technology that helps HTML5 mimic the animation features of Flash.

    So, what does native support for Canvas in Flash Pro mean for developers? It means that you can now create HTML5 Canvas content from within Flash Pro CC using all the tools that Adobe gives to Flash content creators. This should allow content creators to make HTML5 content without having to learn a new toolset.

    For more information, check out this video from Adobe on it:

    To learn more about this new feature, you’ll want to check out Adobe’ extensive documentation. If you want to try it out for yourself, you can download a free trial of Flash Pro CC here.

    [Image: Adobe/YouTube]

  • Mozilla, OTOY Introduce ORBX.js, Brings Cloud-Based Graphics Processing To The Web

    In 2010, OnLive introduced a revolutionary idea – leverage the power of the cloud to stream PC games to any PC regardless of its specs. Now a number of Web companies are taking that idea even further with a new Web technology that does the same thing in any browser.

    Mozilla announced today that it has partnered with OTOY and Autodesk to bring a new HTML5 tool called ORBX.js to the Web. The Web technology allows HTML5 applications to leverage AWS to deliver graphics-intensive applications to any modern Web browser. Think of it like OnLive for the Web, but it can be used for more than just games.

    At the moment, ORBX.js is only available to AWS customers. That means those who use AWS can integrate the new Web technology into their app to deliver high-quality graphics-intensive applications to any compatible browser. One such application is Octane Cloud Workstation – Autodesk Edition – a Web app that will allow designers to create sophisticated 3D models without having to own their own powerful workstation. All the work is done on AWS’ servers and is then delivered seamlessly to the user’s PC or other compatible device.

    “Designers and engineers have an increasing need to be mobile, accessing the tools they need anytime, anywhere and from any device. Simple viewing and mark-up of documents is no longer sufficient – they need to be able to access powerful 3D design applications, be able to do real design work and not worry about sacrificing performance,” said Jeff Kowalski, Chief Technology Officer at Autodesk. “This is now possible with technology developed by Autodesk, AWS and OTOY.”

    Here’s a video demo of Octane Cloud running in Firefox:

    Despite the main emphasis of this technology being on graphics-intensive applications, like 3D modeling software, it’s said that ORBX.js can also be used to deliver state-of-the-art gaming experiences to people over the cloud.

    On a final note, OTOY is also offering a subscription service that gives users access to a top-of-the-line workstation PC over the Cloud for $9.99 a month. The demo you saw above was using the same cloud workstation PC to run Adobe Creative Cloud and Unreal Engine 4. You can find out more over at OTOY’s Web site.

    [Image: firefoxchannel/YouTube]

  • Mozilla’s Open Web Apps Have Made Great Progress

    When building apps for Firefox OS, developers use modern Web tools like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS to deliver apps with near native performance on mobile devices. Now Mozilla is helping those same developers bring their Firefox OS apps to other platforms.

    A while back, Mozilla introduced a new technology called Open Web Apps that would help developers bring HTML5 apps to platforms like Android, Windows and OS X. The best part was that these apps would require no additional development as Mozilla’s tools would automatically convert the HTML5 app into a native app upon being downloaded to a non-Firefox OS platform.

    Here’s a video demo that shows how an app built for Firefox OS is automatically converted into a native app on Android, Windows and Mac OS X.

    Mozilla notes that privileged apps will also seamlessly install from the Firefox OS marketplace to an Android device. Just like in the Google Play store, the app will ask for a number of permissions upon being installed. All of this is accomplished without any further code being written.

    So, what about Open Web Apps on iOS? At the moment, that’s not possible as Open Web Apps requires a platform that supports Gecko, Mozilla’s Web rendering platform. The non-profit does not, however, that it’s working with Cordova to allow Open Web Apps packaged by Cordova to run on iOS. You can read more about that here.

    The above video demo may have you itching for a native app experience for your Open Web Apps, but Mozilla isn’t quite ready yet. At the moment, it only supports hosted, unprivileged apps on desktops using Firefox 16 or newer, and mobile apps on Android via Mobile Firefox Aurora. Mozilla notes that the native app experience is not available on Android just yet, but it should hit Mobile Firefox Nightly in December.

    [Image: Mozilla Hacks]

  • Full Screen Mario Attracts The Ire Of Nintendo

    In 1990, John Carmack ported the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3 to the PC to prove that side-scrolling graphics could be done on the platform. He then presented this breakthrough to Nintendo, but the company wasn’t interested in the PC market as it was still rolling in the dough thanks to the NES. That rejection ultimately led to the creation of Commander Keen, and id Software changed gaming forever.

    I open with the tale of the founding of id Software because a similar situation is happening again. A college student by the name of Josh Goldberg has recreated Super Mario Bros. in HTML5. Much like side-scrolling on PCs in the late 80s, something like Super Mario Bros. being recreated entirely in HTML5 is entirely new. Unfortunately, Nintendo isn’t as docile regarding its intellectual property anymore.

    According to The Washington Post, Nintendo is seeking to have the game, which can be found at fullscreenmario.com, to be shut down. The company says it “respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to respect ours as well.”

    It’s certainly reasonable for Nintendo to protect its IP, but it’s not like Goldberg just uploaded a ROM like so many Flash developers do with classic Nintendo games. Instead, he built the entire game piece-by-piece in HTML5 himself just to prove he could. It’s Nintendo’s right to have it taken down, but it’s a shame to go about it this way. Nintendo should work with Goldberg to encourage his development skills and maybe even have him create an entirely new game for Nintendo’s new Web Framework development tools. Throwing a C&D letter at him doesn’t foster creativity – it hinders it.

    As you would expect, the debate over Full Screen Mario has also reawakened the debate on corporate copyright. Under the current law, corporate owned copyrights are valid for 95 years. In other words, the original Super Mario Bros. won’t enter the public domain until 2082. Everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators examined the issue in further depth today:

    Once again, nobody here is arguing that Nintendo is wrong for wanting to see Full Screen Mario wiped off the face of the Internet. It’s entirely within its right to do so. In doing so, however, Nintendo is also killing a growing community of coders and aspiring game designers who are contributing to the open source project with code and custom levels. To kill it now would be a giant middle finger to all those who grew up with the game and now want to make it better.

    [Image: FullScreenMario.com]

  • TogetherJS Is Mozilla’s Real-Time Collaboration Tool That Works Anywhere On The Web

    Real-time collaboration is an important part of the modern Web. In fact, you could argue that it’s the most important aspect of any modern Web app – just look at how much emphasis Google Docs puts on working together. Unfortunately, such collaboration is only currently possible in Web apps built specifically with that in mind, but Mozilla wants to change all that.

    Mozilla Labs announced today that it’s releasing TogetherJS to the world. It’s an HTML5-based collaboration tool that adds the same kind of tools that you see in Google Drive to any Web app or site. While it may be focused on collaboration, TogetherJS is also a communications tool that enables text and audio chat between two or more people via WebRTC.

    Here’s a full list of the features currently enabled by TogetherJS:

  • See the other person’s cursor and clicks
  • See scroll position
  • Watch the pages a person visits on a page
  • Text chat
  • Audio chat using WebRTC
  • Form field synchronization (text fields, checkboxes, etc)
  • Play/pause/track videos in sync
  • Continue sessions across multiple pages on a site

    • And here’s a video of it in action:

    You may have noticed by now that TogetherJS is a carbon copy of TowTruck – a real-time collaboration tool that was released by Mozilla Labs in alpha back in April. As it turns out, Mozilla changed the name to TogetherJS last month, but said that the underlying technology remained the same. The reason for the name change was solely due to Mozilla realizing that TowTruck quickly outgrew its original ambition and it needed a new name to reflect this reality.

    If you want to know more about TogetherJS, check out Mozilla’s excellent technology overview. If you want to contribute, you can find its GitHub page here.

    [Image: Mozilla Webmakers/YouTube]

  • Google Web Designer Launched In Public Beta

    Google announced on Monday that it has launched Google Web Designer, a new HTML5 design tool, in public beta.

    The tool is geared toward ad creation, but can be used for webpages. It lets you create animated HTML5 creative, view and edit code with a WYSIWYG editor, build creatives for DoubleClick and AdMob (or publish them elsewhere).

    It’s free, and must be downloaded. It’s available for Mac or PC. It also receives automatic updates.

    This follows another ad creation tool Google launched last week with Ready Creatives, which lets advertisers add their URLs, and generate display ads based on images from their websites. Elements like text, font, color, images, headlines, etc. can then be adjusted and customized.

    Google also commissioned a study looking at HTML5 and “the holdup” for adoption. You can take a look at that here.

    “By now, it’s evident that multi-screen consumption is the way of the future; mobile and tablet devices are becoming consumers’ first screens, so the content that is developed needs to work seamlessly across these screens,” says Google Web Designer lead engineer Sean Kranzberg. “There are already more end-users in HTML5-compatible environments than there are in Flash-compatible environments, and HTML5 ad spend is expected to overtake Flash spend within the next two years. But until recently, advertisers didn’t have the tools they needed to easily develop content fit for today’s cross-screen experiences.”

    “HTML5 is a universal language for building beautiful, engaging content that can run across desktops, smartphones, and tablets,” says Kranzberg. “We think that Google Web Designer will be the key to making HTML5 accessible to people throughout the industry, getting us closer to the goal of ‘build once, run anywhere.’”

    There’s a guide for using Google Web Designer available here.

    Image: Google

  • Amazon Appstore Now Accepting HTML5 App Submissions

    Do you go native or HTML5? It’s a question that’s becoming increasingly harder to answer as HTML5 flourishes into a mature platform. There are still a lot of advantages to going native, but HTML5 requires you build an app only once and it works across a number of devices. You can now add the Kindle Fire to those devices.

    Amazon announced today that it’s now accepting submissions of HTML5 apps and mobile optimized Web sites. These apps will be sold alongside native apps on the Amazon Appstore for both Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore for Android.

    To start, Amazon has opened up a new section on its developer portal called Amazon Web App Resources. The Web site not only includes the tools needed to monetize your Web apps, but it also includes what it calls the Web App Tester. This tool will allow you to test your app to make sure it runs smoothly on both the Kindle Fire and Android devices. You can grab it for free here.

    Of course, all of this wouldn’t be possible without updates to the Kindle Fire in the form of a new Web runtime based on Google’s Chromium project. This allows for GPU accelerated graphics performance in HTML5 apps so that your Web apps will have nearly native performance. You can read up on the new Web runtime here.

    So, how easy is it to submit a Web app? Amazon says you just need to sign in to the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal, go to My Apps and choose “Submit a New Web App.” It’s a simple as that, but you can check out some more information here if you need help.

  • Firefox OS Launches In Poland Tomorrow

    Firefox OS is already out in Spain thanks to Mozilla’s partnership with Telefonica. Now the new mobile OS will be coming to more of Europe with the help of Deutsche Telekom.

    Deutsche Telekom and Mozilla announced today that Firefox OS will launch in Poland on July 12 through T-Mobile. The mobile OS will also be made available in Hungary, Greece and Germany this Autumn.

    “Our cooperation with Mozilla once again demonstrates how we at Deutsche Telekom offer our customers innovative products and services ahead of anyone else,” explained Claudia Nemat, Board member for Europe and Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “With Firefox OS we are expanding our existing portfolio with a new operating system that is open, developer-friendly and reasonably priced.”

    Through Deutsche Telekom, potential Firefox OS customers will be able to get their hands on the Alcatel One Touch Fire. The device comes equipped with a 1.0GHz CPU, a 3.5-inch 320×480 display, 256 MB of RAM and expandable memory up to 32GB. It’s not a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination, but the phone isn’t meant to be.

    The relatively low power of the device allows T-Mobile Poland to sell the One Touch Fire for 1 zloty, or .30 cents USD. Combined with what it calls a “very attractive tariff” and the One Touch Fire may be the cheapest phone available to Polish cell phone users looking to upgrade to a smartphone.

    “The mobile Internet is now becoming a reality for everyone”, says Christian Stangier, Senior Vice President of Terminal Management at Deutsche Telekom. “With this offer, we’re making smartphones affordable for all our customers. We’re selling the Firefox phone across all customer segments in Poland.”

    With these announcements, it looks like Firefox OS will be in a lot of Europe before the end of the year. Unfortunately, we still have no idea when to expect Mozilla’s new mobile OS in South America, or North America for that matter. Both markets could use a cheap competitor to shake things up, but Mozilla might want to beef up its hardware a little more before launching in more power-conscious markets like the U.S.

  • The New Opera Is Out Of Beta And Available On Windows, Mac

    Earlier this year, Opera said that it would be ditching its own rendering engine in favor of Google’s Blink. The new browser launched in beta in May, but now a final version is available for all who want to try out a new, faster Opera.

    Opera Software announced today that the new chromium-powered Opera is available to download today for Windows and Mac. The browser vendor hopes that its long time fans and newcomers embrace this new browser for its speed and better compatibility with emerging Web technologies.

    “The world of fascinating web content is expanding faster than space, and we’ve delivered a browser that helps you to truly discover it,” says Lars Boilesen, Opera Software, CEO. “Get inspired by new ways of exploring web horizons, and stay tuned for some of our most beloved features, as we continue to develop the next generation of Opera.”

    Here’s what you can expect from the new Opera:

  • New Speed Dial: Speed Dial shortcuts can now be gathered into folders and easily filtered with the drag and drop option.
  • Discover: Get fed articles based on your interests right in your browser and all in one place.
  • Stash: Easily save and compare websites by collecting them into your Stash.
  • Search: You can search directly from the new combined address and search bar.
  • New look: Includes a modern, sleek deeply integrated interface integrated with the platform and built from the ground up.
  • Off Road Mode: Opera Off-Road mode now supports SPDY protocol, which enables faster loading of webpages, even in the toughest of network conditions.

    • To coincide with the launch, the team at Opera have created a launch ad featuring very little Web browsing and a lot of base jumping:

    If you want to try out the new Opera browser, you can grab it here.

  • Firefox 22 Adds WebRTC, 3D Gaming Standards

    The past few releases of Firefox have been pretty solid as far as new features go, but its latest release is an even bigger step forward.

    Firefox 22 launches today, and with it comes WebRTC support alongside new tools that will make HTML5 games an even more viable alternative to Flash and Unity-based Web games. It also features a number of smaller fixes that improve the experience for Windows and Mac OS X users.

    First up is WebRTC – a new HTML5 standard for voice and video communication over the net. In essence, it’s Skype for your Web browser, but completely open source and possibly free of NSA snooping. The new communication standard has been available in Firefox for a while, but the latest release marks the first time that it’s been enabled by default. Check out Mozilla’s post on it to learn more.

    For gamers and game developers, Firefox 22 introduces a “supercharged subset of JavaScript (asm.js) that enables developers to create high-intensity applications, like 3D games and photo processing, directly on the Web.” Mozilla showed this off earlier this year with an Unreal Engine 3 demo running natively in Firefox without any additional plugin support:

    The smaller updates include better scaling options on Windows machines, a new Download progress in Dock application icon on Mac OS X, and the ability to change HTML5 audio/video playback rate.

    For more info on the latest release, including developer updates, check out the full changelog.

    Desktop users can grab Firefox 22 here, and Android users can grab Firefox 22 for Mobile here.

  • Developers Can Get Their Hands On Firefox OS Dev Units Next Week

    Until now, developers interested in getting their hands on actual Firefox OS hardware had to either attend a workshop or install the OS on their Sony android device. Now Geeksphone is finally ready to start shipping out Firefox OS dev units.

    Engadget reports that Geeksphone will start selling the Keon and Peak Firefox OS dev units next week. The Keon will retail for €91, while the Peak will retail for €149. It seems cheap, and that’s because developers will be getting cheap phones. The hardware isn’t going to win any awards and it isn’t meant to. Firefox OS hardware is targeting developing markets, and the cheap price reflects that.

    If you do want at least a little power, you’ll want to go with the Peak. It’s a mid-range smartphone with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and a 4.3-inch display. The Keon only has a Snapdragon S1 so developers will have to get a little creative when designing apps around the lower end of the hardware spectrum.

    Thankfully, Geeksphone will be selling the phones worldwide instead of just in the countries where Firefox OS will be launching. Developers in the U.S. will be able to build apps to take advantage of the increasingly lucrative smartphone market in developing countries.

    If you can’t afford or don’t want one of Geeksphone’s smartphones, you can always use the Firefox OS simulator. The simulator piggybacks off of your Firefox desktop installation to emulate the Firefox OS experience on the desktop. From there, you can test and debug any HTML5 apps you may have in the works.

  • Netflix To Start Testing HTML5 Streaming This Year

    Netflix made Samsung Chromebook owners happy last month when it brought instant streaming to Chrome OS through the power of HTML5. It was finally able to do so thanks to a few recent developments made to the Web standard. Now it’s ready to start moving all browsers to HTML5.

    In a post on its tech blog, Netflix says that its starting the move to HTML5 because Microsoft is putting Silverlight out to pasture in 2021. That’s not the only problem though. Some browsers, especially on mobile devices, don’t support plugins. This makes it hard for Netflix to deliver streaming video content to every browser on every platform. The move to HTML5 should readily fix that.

    Of course, moving to HTML5 does present its own unique obstacles. For one, HTML5 is an open platform, and Neflix, as per its agreements with studios, must implement DRM on its streaming content to prevent people from pilfering the content from its site. Silverlight makes streaming DRM easy, but it’s a bit more complicated with HTML5.

    Still, Netflix is moving forward with what it calls “HTML5 Premium Video Extensions.” In short, it’s DRM for HTML5 that comes in three extensions – Media Source Extensions, Encrypted Media Extensions and Web Cryptography API. The first two are already in effect, but the third is still being developed. In the meantime, Netflix is using its own Pepper Plugin API to take the place of the Web Cryptography API until it’s implemented in Chrome.

    So, when will we start seeing HTML5 in broad use on Netflix? The company says that it will start testing HTML5 in Chrome once the Web Cryptography API is complete. Unfortunately, the test will only be available for Windows and Mac OSX computers. Those on Linux are left out, and those users are already voicing their displeasure in the blog comments.

  • Mozilla Is Now Working On A Web Payment Standard

    Mozilla is all about Web standards. The non-profit has made it clear that it wants to move the Web away from plug-ins and third party services to Web APIs that will work across any browser. It’s latest venture tackles a service that many probably never thought needed fixing – Web payments.

    So, what’s wrong with our current Web payment services? Sure, services like PayPal can sometimes be a pain, but it’s not like the entire system needs to be uprooted, right? Mozilla objects to that line of thinking and offers three reasons why the current Web payment system is broken:

  • Users cannot choose how to pay; they have to select from one of the pre-defined options.
  • In most cases, the user has to type in an actual credit card number on each site. This is like giving someone the keys to your expensive car, letting them drive it around the block in a potentially dangerous neighborhood (the web) and saying please don’t get carjacked!
  • Merchants typically have to manage all this on their own: payment processor setup, costly processing fees, and possibly even PCI compliance.

    • To help solve these problems, Mozilla has introduced navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS. Mozilla says the JavaScript API was inspired by Google’s Wallet API, but contains a few modifications that support multiple payment providers and carrier billing.

    Here’s how navigator.mozPay() works in its current incarnation on Firefox OS:

    When a web app invokes navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS, the device shows a secure window with a concise UI. After authenticating, the user can easily charge the payment to her mobile carrier bill or credit card. When completed, the app delivers the product. Repeat purchases are quick and easy.

    If that sounds interesting to you, you can start testing it out right now on test builds of Firefox OS. The API can’t accept payments just yet, but Mozilla encourages developers to start working on implementing the API into their Firefox OS apps now.

    Interested developers can check out the Web payment API documentation here. If you want the code libraries, Mozilla currently has them available in Node.JS and Python. Other libraries for more languages are on the way.