WebProNews

Tag: HTML5

  • Flash to HTML5 Converter from Adobe

    Adobe Labs has released a tool for converting Flash FLA files to HTML5. The tool, called “Wallaby“, is simply a preview of an experimental technology that Adobe’s engineers have been working on for this purpose.

    “This allows you to reuse and extend the reach of your content to devices that do not support the Flash runtimes,” Adobe explains. “Once these files are converted to HTML, you can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, or by hand if desired. You can view the output in one of the supported browsers or on an iOS device.”

    “Please note that not all Flash Professional features are supported in the HTML5 format,” the company adds. “The Wallaby Release Notes describe what features are supported, what differences we have already discovered between the various browsers, what device variations have been found, and any currently known issues.”

    The list is pretty big, so I’ll let you peruse that on your own. It is only available in English currently.

    “Having come here specifically to build standards-based Web animation software, I’m delighted to see this release and a ton of other HTML5 initiatives from Adobe,” says Adobe’s John Nack. “As long as the company puts solving customer needs ahead of politics, I predict good things.”

    Adobe stresses that Wallaby is not currently part of either Adobe Creative Suite or Flash Professional. Wallaby is available as a free download on Adobe Labs.

  • Bing Takes Advantage of IE9’s Capabilities

    As you probably know, Microsoft launched the Internet Explorer 9 (beta) publicly today. It can be downloaded here. 

    The company also took the opportunity to show off some new enhancements to Bing, to accompany its new browser. Taking advantage of the HTML5 capabilities of IE9, they’ve added some nice new features that are exclusive to Bing use in that particular browser (at least initially). 

    The coolest of the new features, while having little to do with search, is what Bing has done with its homepage. It uses HTML5 to replace the homepage image with a homepage video or an image that you can zoom in and out of. You can see this in action (along with the other new feature) in the following video.

    Bing Gets New IE9-Specific Features

    Other features are more related to search. These include:

    – Smooth transitions from one screen to the next, as you search

    – Previews of images, videos and text are bigger and bolder

    – Bing has an IE9 "jump list", which lets users search various Bing categories like travel or shopping right from the Windows 7 taskbar. 

    – New smooth scrolling that keeps a search box in place and related searches at the side, in case you need to refine as you scroll. 

    – Quick Tabs and Visual Search transitions in a new app-like experience

    The new Bing features for IE9 will be available in preview format for users of IE9 soon. No exact time table was given, but there will be a preview site that users will be able to play around with later this month.

    Are the new Internet Explorer features enough to get you to use Bing? Are the new Bing features enough to get you to use the new Internet Explorer? Are you using both? Neither? Share your thoughts.

  • Adobe Releases HTML5 Pack for Illustrator CS5

    Adobe has launched an HTML5 Pack for Illustrator CS5. The pack provides initial support for HTML5 and CSS3, and extends the scalable vector graphics (SVG) capability in Illustrator itself.  The company says the pack makes it easier to design, deliver and optimize compelling content for mobile devices and the web.

    "By delivering this extension and supporting open standards, Adobe helps developers, publishers and designers to make their own choices about how to create, distribute and access content," a representative for Adobe tells WebProNews.

    Adobe Illustrator cs5 Gets HTML5 pack

     

    "Producing graphical web content that can be viewed across mobile devices has been tricky, with devices varying greatly when it comes to screen size and performance," said Lea Hickman, senior director, Creative and Interactive Solutions at Adobe. "The HTML5 Pack for Illustrator CS5 gives designers and developers the power to deliver high-quality graphic content for the web that can look great, no matter what the screen."

    The HTML5 Pack extension is available for both Mac OS X and Windows. It’s free and available here. 

    It’s worth noting that Google recently started indexing SVG files. 

  • Google Shows off Games in Chrome Web Store

    We’ve known Google has been taking a new liking to social games lately, as evidenced by recent acquisitions. It was unclear, however, just what Google’s plan was in this space. While we still probably don’t have the whole picture, the company did show off one aspect of its plans at GDC Europe, this week.

    That aspect would be browser-based HTML5 games at the Chrome web store, first revealed at Google I/O  in May.

    1up.com talks about the presentation, shows slides, and provides the following video of part of the presentation from Google game developer advocate Mark DeLoura and Chrome developer advocate Michael Mahemoff.

    The store will use Google Checkout for purchases and apps will come with customer reviews and friends’ ratings. There is also apparently no approval process for getting content posted to the store.

    When the store launches in October, it will offer free and paid apps with support for free trials as well as subscriptions. There is no revenue share. There’s only a processing fee, and use of other in-app payment platforms is permitted. In the first half of next year, Google expects to include multi-currency support and in-app transactions.

  • Vimeo Launches Player For iPhone And iPad

    Vimeo Launches Player For iPhone And iPad

    Video sharing site Vimeo, a division of IAC, said today it will release a universal player that allows people to watch embedded videos on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPad using HTML5.

    Andrew-Pile "With the latest generation of browsers and devices, we’ve had huge demand for an embeddable player that works with HTML5 and on devices like iPad and iPhone," said Andrew Pile, Vice President of Product and Development for Vimeo. 

    The embeddable player works by the detecting the capabilities of the browser and will offer a player version (Flash, HTML5, or native) with the corresponding video definition (HD, SD, mobile).

    "The new embeddable code is highly scalable and allows us to continue to add support as new browsers and devices are released, for example serving HTML5 to IE9 and our Flash mobile player to Android phones running Flash 10.1," said Pile.

    Vimeo has also added a watch later feature into all versions of its players that allows users to mark a video for later viewing. People can access their watch later videos by going to the watch later album on Vimeo, the Vimeo channel on their Roku box or the Vimeo mobile site.

     

  • Gmail: The Game

    A Googler, by the name of Paul Truong (Creative Technologist) has created a game based on his love for Gmail. The game was created with HTML5, and runs a little choppy in Firefox.

    The Gmail game is a throwback to arcade games of yesteryear in which you’re a spaceship flying around, shooting various flying objects. You know the kind – Galaga, Stinger, Lifeforce, and probably dozens of others.

    The boss is some Android-looking object made out of a bird cage that swings spiked balls at you, though doesn’t appear to be able to get to you if you’re at the bottom of the screen. Not incredibly challenging, but I don’t think they intend to turn this into a moneymaker.

    Gmail Game

    Gmail Game

    "Webmail has come a long way in the past few years but it’s all too easy to take for granted practically unlimited inbox capacities and responsive interfaces backed by the power of search," says Truong. "While I’m not on the Gmail team, I felt a little celebration of how far we’ve come was in order, so I wrote a little HTML5 game, in part as a ‘thank you’ to the Gmail team for their ongoing work to improve the webmail galaxy. If you’re into games, or just like the idea of flying m-velopes that shoot bad guys, give it a try (make sure you’re using a modern browser that supports HTML5 first)."

    Part Gmail promotion, part Chrome promotion, part waste of time (no offense to Truong). Check it out if you’re really bored.

  • Google Offers New HTML5 Tools and Resources

    In June, Google launched a new HTML5 resource site called HTML5 Rocks. They’ve now added a bunch of new content to it.

    On this page there are numerous resources for reference and tools. This page has tutorials.

    In addition to all of this, there is a new component of the site called HTML5 Studio. This is a place where you can view a number of demos that show off interesting uses of HTML5, CSS3 and related technologies.

    On the Chromium Blog, Paul Irish with Google’s Chrome Developer Relations department says, "If you want to not only get up to speed, but understand the browser differences and techniques for a robust implementation, please take a look through the new guides for implementing HTML5 video, understanding ‘offline,’ auditing your webapp with the Chrome developer tools, and using web workers and @font-face."
     

    HTML5 Rocks - A new site from Google

    There is also an RSS feed now.

    Google showed off another use of HTML5 via a Gmail game on Friday.

  • Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 1 Has Been Released

    Recently Mozilla unleashed Firefox 4 Beta upon the world, and most of us couldn’t be happier. The latest edition, of the world’s second most popular browser, has been in discussion for well over a year now… but the wait is finally over, you can download it here.

    Are you downloading the Beta version? Let us know.

    Firefox Beta 4

    What makes Firefox 4 Beta so special, compared to its earlier editions? Not only did Mozilla redesign the user interface they’ve also incorporated a ton of new features. Check out the list below from Mozilla’s release notes.

    • Tabs are now on top by default on Windows only – OSX and Linux will be changing when the theme has been modified to support the change.
    • On Windows Vista and Windows 7 the menu bar has been replaced with the Firefox button.
    • You can search for and switch to already open tabs in the Smart Location Bar
    • New Addons Manager and extension management API (UI will be changed before final release)
    • Significant API improvements are available for JS-ctypes, a foreign function interface for extensions.
    • The stop and reload buttons have been merged into a single button on Windows, Mac and Linux.
    • The Bookmarks Toolbar has been replaced with a Bookmarks Button by default (you can switch it back if you’d like).
    • Crash protection for Windows, Linux, and Mac when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.
    • CSS Transitions are partially supported.
    • Full WebGL support is included but disabled by default at this time.
    • Core Animation rendering model for plugins on Mac OS X. Plugins which also support this rendering model can now draw faster and more efficiently.
    • Native support for the HD HTML5 WebM video format.
    • An experimental Direct2D rendering backend is available on Windows, turned off by default.
    • Web developers can use Websockets for a low complexity, low latency, bidirectional communications API.
    • Web developers can update the URL field without reloading the page using HTML History APIs.
    • More responsive page rendering using lazy frame construction.
    • Link history lookup is done asynchronously to provide better responsiveness during pageload.
    • CSS :visited selectors have been changed to block websites from being able to check a user’s browsing history.
    • New HTML5 parser.

    It should be noted that this is just a Beta preview, and some bugs will happen… as Mozilla wants to catch all errors now before the final product is released.

    If you’ve downloaded Firefox Beta 4 – Let us know what you think about it.

  • Google Shows Its HTML5 Love with New Site

    Google has created a new resource for developers looking to use HTML5 in their work. The site is called HTML5 Rocks and has launched with nine tutorials on HTML5 features.

    In addition to step-by-step tutorials, HMTL5 Rocks features an interactive presentation and a code playground where you can experiment with APIs.

    HTML5 Rocks - A new site from Google

    The site keeps a running tab of latest additions to the tutorials section, right on the front page, and points to additional HTML5 resources for developers.

    The site, the code playground, and the presentation are all open source, and Google encourages people to contribute themselves.

  • Akamai Launches Open Video Player for HTML5 Toolkit

    Akamai Launches Open Video Player for HTML5 Toolkit

    Akamai has released a new Open Video Player for HTML5 <video> developer toolkit, aimed at simplifying the task of creating flexible HTML5-based video player applications for delivery of HTTP content. 

    "The goal of the Open Video Player for HTML5  <video> is to provide a foundation to allow customers to quickly implement world-class solutions for cross platform/device/format video applications, providing their users with a consistent, high-quality experience through Akamai’s rich media management, delivery and measurement solutions," a spokesperson for Akamai tells WebProNews.

    OVP for HTML5 <video>Akamai explains why this is important to the industry: "The iPhone is unique because it has rapidly become ubiquitous and the iPad is quickly following, with more than 2 million devices already sold. Akamai is working with many of our content owner and broadcasting customers on mobile delivery models. They are finding that when offering live or on-demand content they can quickly expand their available viewership by tens of thousands of global viewers by efficiently and seamlessly developing video experiences designed for these devices."

    "With adaptive bitrate video technology that automatically adjust video quality levels based on a user’s connection speed (wifi, 3G, Edge) consistent security and analytics – all part of Akamai’s HD Network – content owners can deliver the highest possible quality video experiences – even 24×7 TV channels – on the portable devices," Akamai continues. "This toolkit will make it easier for them to create these experiences for the iPad and iPhone and better service their audiences through a portable, ‘best possible screen’ viewing approach."

    The player provides a code library supporting industry best practices and standards such as CSS, JavaScript, HTML/HTML5 and Yahoo! Media RSS 2.0. Akamai says that this means customers can dramatically reduce the time it takes to create an HTML5 <video> based experience to support Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), as well as other browsers/devices supporting HTML5 <video>.

    The toolkit can be found here.

  • AdMob Launches SDK, 2 Ad Formats for iPad

    AdMob Launches SDK, 2 Ad Formats for iPad

    AdMob, which was recently acquired by Google, has announced the launch of its iPad App SDK (software developer kit). A representative for the company tells WebProNews, "AdMob was one of the first companies to launch ad units for both iPhone and Android applications, and now it is driving innovation on the iPad and helping developers start monetizing their iPad applications."

    The SDK is available for all publishers. It runs across all devices using the iPhone OS, and supports tow ad formats in native iPad apps: text & tile ads and image ads, both of which are available in the three IAB standard ad sizes: 300×250, 728×90, and 468×60.

    iPad formats from AdMob

    "As part of its commitment to innovation on mobile platforms, AdMob is also giving a sneak preview of the creative potential of iPad ads using HTML5,"  the rep notes. This can be viewed in a video embedded in this blog post. 

    According to AdMob, 38% of iPads are already outside of the US, after the initial international release only occurring last weekend. The top five countries, according to AdMob data for May were the United States (58%), Japan (5%), United Kingdom (4%), China (4%), and Canada (3%).

    Publishers can download the iPad SDK by logging into their AdMob account and selecting ‘Add Site/App’ from the ‘Sites & Apps’ tab in the navigation bar located at the top of the page.

  • Steve Jobs Talks More About Not Supporting Flash

    Steve Jobs starred in the latest episode of the soap opera about Adobe, Apple, and the future of Flash. He appeared at the All Things Digital  D8 Conference, discussing a variety of topics, but of course the subject of Flash came up.

    The discussion of Apple’s non-support of Flash was escalated a while back when Jobs posted on open letter about his "thoughts on Flash." Adobe then retaliated with an ad campaign. Then Google I/O happened and Adobe had a strong presence there, with Google’s full support and taking plenty of jabs at Apple themselves. Adobe actually had some announcements around HTML5, which Jobs sees as the alternative technology to Flash, and will focus on going forward.

    At Google I/O Adobe Sr,. Director of Engineering Paul Gubbay talked with WebProNews about how both technologies have a place together going forward:

    Jobs is still not convinced, however. "Flash looks like a technology that has had its day but is really is waning," he said at D8. "And HTML5 looks like the technology that looks like its on the ascendancy right now."

    "We’re trying to make great products for people," Jobs said. "And we have at least the courage of our convictions to say, ‘We don’t think this is part of what makes a great product. We’re gonna leave it out.’ That’s what a lot of customers pay us to do – is to try to make the best products we can, and if we can succeed, they’ll buy them. And if we don’t, they wont’. And it will all work itself out."

    "So far I have to say, that people seem to be liking iPads," he added.

    All Things Digital has a bunch of videos of Steve Jobs talking here.

  • Adobe Talks Future Innovation with Both Flash and HTML5

    There were a lot of announcements to take in during Google I/O last week, but among them were some HTML5 efforts from Adobe, illustrating the company’s dedication to utilizing the technologies it sees playing significant roles in the future of the web.

    Of course a widely publicized tiff between Adobe and Apple over HTML5 and Flash came about from Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissing Flash, and painting HTML5 as the way of the future, and resulted in Adobe carrying out an ad campaign in response. Adobe made it abundantly clear at Google I/O that HTML5 is very much a part of its plans, and that Flash is as well.

    After the keynote in which Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch talked about the company’s HTML5 offerings, WebProNews spoke with Adobe Sr. Director of Engineering Paul Gubbay about them, as well as he co-existence of HTML5 and Flash:

    "It’s important for folks to remember that Flash and HTML have always coincided together," says Gubbay. "They’ve always lived together. And now with HTML5, we’re starting to see new features and other things that certainly start moving towards some of the territory that we’ve typically seen Flash do. And that’s great. That’s innovation. I mean gosh, it’s been quite a while since the browsers have really started to innovate at the level we’re seeing now. It creates fantastic opportunities to build great tooling for HTMl5 and services on top of that, which is what we’re doing."

    "We’ll also see Flash innovate and continue to innovate. There’s a bunch of things you just can’t do in HTML5 today consistently across browsers. People will continue to use Flash for those. They’ll continue to use Flash for the other types of innovations we’ll see there. I personally have always seen HTML as fantastic. There’s a lot of things you can do with it. And Flash has always sort of been a blueprint for the things you can’t do, but probably will be able to do in the future. And it’s going to continue to build that way. So I absolutely see a world where both play in, and I think it’s Adobe’s job to show how that works, and to bring value to folks wherever we need to."

    Do you agree that Flash will continue to innovate and act as a blueprint for things you can’t do with HTML? Share your thoughts.

  • Adobe Announces HTML5 Solution at Google I/O

    We’re out at Google I/O in San Francisco, and Adobe announced here that a new HTML5 solution is immediately available to web designers and developers. This comes in the form of an HTML5 Pack extension to Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, the recently launched version of the company’s HTML authoring, web design program.

    Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch is showing off the extension in the keynote, but WebProNews had a chance to speak with Adobe’s Senior Director of Creative Solutions, Lea Hickman about the release. She tells us what when Adobe does a lot of its product development, it has The "web pro" in mind. These are the company’s key customers, and this extension is really an extension of that philosophy.

    Adobe says the extension provides more creative options to users – so they can more easily create, deliver and optimize compelling content consistently, across the widest array of screens, to maximize revenue streams and forward their businesses.

    "Adobe prides itself on delivering industry-defining tools and being compatible with the most popular web programming languages, formats, APIs and libraries," says Hickman. "We continue to move forward to support the leading edge of work in HTML, enabling our customers to deliver creative content taking advantage of the latest in HTML capabilities.”

    Adobe and Apple have of course had something of a falling out over Flash, as Apple sees HTML5 as the future moving forward. While Adobe has been pretty insistent that Flash isn’t going away, today’s release shows that Adobe isn’t denying progressive technologies just to stick with its own. In Adobe’s eyes there is room for both.

  • Will YouTube Be the Place to Rent Movies?

    YouTube has made a couple of big announcements. First of all, they are going to start renting movies. They are kicking off this initiative by partnering with the Sundance Film Festival, making five films from 2010 and 2009 available for rent for U.S. users. This starts Friday and will run through Sunday January 31.

    In addition to those five films, another small collection of rental videos from other U.S. partners across different industries (including health and education) will be made available in the coming weeks. "We’re also excited to put out the call for more independent filmmakers to join the rental program as part of our ‘Filmmakers Wanted’ campaign at the festival," says the YouTube team.

    Trailer for one of the five Sundance films

    "These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option," the team adds.  "Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights."

    This could lead to something huge for the movie rental industry. If major movie studios get on board with this…just imagine. YouTube is far and away the biggest video site on the web. What if you could just rent all of your movies from there? That could give even Netflix a run for its money, especially as Internet-ready televisions become more mainstream. Going that far is only speculative of course, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

    To rent the movies YouTube will be offering, users can use Google Checkout to pay (what a great way for Google to drive more people to that too).

    YouTube also announced that it is introducing an experimental version of an HTML5-supported video player. "Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback," says YouTube engineer Kevin Carle. "This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin."

    "Our support for HTML5 is an early experiment, and there are some limitations," he adds. "HTML5 on YouTube doesn’t support videos with ads, captions, or annotations and it requires a browser that supports both the video tag and h.264 encoded video (currently that means Chrome, Safari, and ChromeFrame on Internet Explorer). We will be expanding the capabilities of the player in the future, so get ready for new and improved versions in the months to come."

    The HTML5 experiment can be found here. If you’re interested, you can join the experiment, which will enable HTML5 video for your browser, if you use one of the ones mentioned.
     

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