HTML 5

HTML 5 is not exactly the new kid on the block. However, it’s the only version of html to come out since the turn of the new millennium. It’s been around for a while, but like most mark-ups it takes some time before we really see what’s really possible. The result is in no way disappointing. Just check out The Wilderness Downtown, a rich personalised video presentation that incorporates video, animation, music, text, and a throng of interactive elements as well as Google street view. As a Chrome Experiment, you’ll need to be using the Chrome browser.

It is, simply, stunning. Pop-up boxes appear and disappear like moving pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. Animation bleeds over from box to box. The interactivity is seamless and unending- never do we return to static webpage.

The real strength of HTML 5 is what it doesn’t need. No more Flash, no more Silverlight, no more Google Gears. We no longer have to use third party plug-ins to tackle complex animation and page interaction. Drag-and-drop and video playback don’t require plug-ins either. HTML 5 handles these things independently.

I imagine those at Adobe are going to be miffed about these developments. Apple products do not support Flash, which means iPhones and iPads won’t display Flash items.  When it comes to surfing the web through mobile this can be acutely frustrating. You just want to view a Youtube video, but you can’t, unless you use the specific app for it.

I don’t think this means the end for Flash. Games, for example, would pose a far greater challenge with HTML 5. But for the mobile web, HTML 5 is offering a very nice platter indeed.

HTML 5 offers new elements such as <nav>, <footer>, <header>, <audio>, and <video>. The latter negates the need for programs such as Windows Media Player, Flash or Quicktime, in order to view video content. Its relevant APIs reflect the coming trends of interactivity en masse and connection to the real world. The canvas API allows dynamic generation of graphics, whilst the Geolocation API allows the locations of users to be found and logged.

Previously you needed Firefox, Chrome, or Opera to take advantage of this greater capability. But Internet Explorer has recently upped the ante through a hardware accelerated HTML 5. At the present, HTML 5 runs faster in IE9 than in Opera or Chrome, and is relatively equal with Firefox. That’s a bit of a surprise- Internet Explorer usually lags behind on the latest and greatest. Will IE maintain the advantage? Only time (and the interactive experiences to come) will tell.