Media Blog

The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.

While the language itself is almost fully baked, HTML5 won’t fully arrive for at least another two years, according to one of the men charged with its design.

“I don’t expect to see full implementation of HTML5 across all the major browsers until the end of 2011 at least,” says Philippe Le Hegaret, interaction domain leader for the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), who oversees the development of HTML5.

He tells Webmonkey the specification outlining the long-promised rewrite of the web’s underlying language will be ready towards the end of 2010, but because of varying levels of support across different browsers, especially in the areas of video and animation, we’re in for a longer wait.

Most web pages are currently written in HTML version HTML 4.01, which has been around since the late 1990s. The web was mostly made up of static pages when HTML was born, and it has grown by leaps and bounds since then. Now, we favor complex web applications written in JavaScript like Gmail and Facebook, we stream videos in high-definition, we consume news in real-time feeds and generally push our browsers as far as they’ll go. These developments have left HTML drastically outdated, and web authors have resorted to using a variety of hacks and plug-ins to make everything work properly.

HTML5 — which is actually a combination of languages, APIs and other technologies to make scripted applications more powerful — promises to solve many of the problems of its predecessor, and do so without the hacks and plug-ins.

We’re already close. All the major browsers are providing some level of support for HTML5.

“There’s strong support already in Firefox and Safari. Even Microsoft IE8 has some partial support,” says Le Hegaret, referring to some code within HTML5 that enables the browser to pass information between pages.

Browser makers are approaching support incrementally, adding features little by little with every subsequent release. Some, like Mozilla, can build new features into the next release in a matter of months. For others, like Microsoft, it takes much longer.

Google Chrome is maturing extremely quickly and already supports most of HTML5. This is mostly because Google didn’t start from scratch — the company chose to use the open source Webkit rendering engine, the same one used by Safari. Still, this doesn’t mean both browsers support HTML5 equally.

“Video support between Safari and Chrome, despite the fact that they are both using the same underlying engine, is totally different because video support is not part of the Webkit project at the moment,” says Le Hegaret.

It’s actually this very issue — support for playing videos inside the browser — that continues to be one of main factors blocking the broad adoption of HTML5.

The way the specification is written now, website authors will have the ability to link to a video file as simply as an image file. The video plays in the browser without using a plug-in, and the author can create a player wrapper with controls.

But browser vendors are stuck arguing over which video format to support. Mozilla, Google and Opera are interested in the open source Ogg Theora video format. Apple has substantial investments in its Quicktime technology, so it’s pushing for the Quicktime-backed H.264 format. Microsoft wants people to use its Silverlight plug-in, so Internet Explorer isn’t supporting native video playback in the browser at all.

Google has voiced support for Ogg, but it has also recently made a bid to purchase On2, a company that makes a competing video technology. Rumor has it Google might release On2’s video technology under an open source license once the sale is complete.

Until these issues are sorted out, consumers and content providers alike are forced to rely on plug-ins. Le Hegaret says that while these plug-ins have certainly helped the web arrive where it is today, they continue to be a burden on the user.

Setting up any browser to support both H.264 and Ogg Theora requires at least one plug in, which harms the user experience.

“It’s hard today to ask people to install a plug-in unless the payoff is huge,” he says. “What’s driving the most successful plug-in, which is Flash, is video support. If you can’t see YouTube, your life on the web is pretty miserable. You’re missing a lot.”

Plug-ins aren’t just harder on web users, but they’re hard on web developers, too.

“Building with Flash or Silverlight in a way that lets you share information between the content appearing inside the plug-in and the rest of the page presents some challenges,” says Le Hegaret.

Unlike its predecessor, HTML5 has been designed with web applications in mind. The current HTML5 specification includes a media API that makes it easier to connect animations or video and audio elements — things traditionally presented within a Flash player — with the rest of the content on the page.

“You get a smoother application if you use HTML5. You’re not crossing a software layer. It’s all part of the same application.”

Unfortunately, the YouTubes of the world aren’t going to make a baseline switch from Flash to HTML5 unless they know there’s strong support for it in the browsers.

But they are testing the waters: Wikipedia is experimenting with HTML5 video support by serving Ogg Theora video to browsers that can handle it, and Flash to everyone else. YouTube and the video site Dailymotion have also set up special demo pages using this technique.

Le Hegaret says we’ll be in this period of transition — a dual-experience web where content sites serve HTML5 video along with a Flash fall-back — for a while.

“Web developers will continue to have to understand that not everyone is using the latest generation web browser, and that’s OK in the short term.”

As far as being able to make the switch to a pure HTML5 web altogether, Le Hegaret says that’s only possible once browser vendors sort out their differences.

Once that day arrives, the final switch to HTML5 will be in the hands of the content providers. It’s up to them to begin coding for HTML5 standards and ditching support for old browsers.

“There are still a significant amount of people out there using IE6,” says Le Hegaret. “As a developer right now, you can’t really ignore it. Hopefully, in two or three years, you will be able to start ignoring IE6.”

See Also:

• Tim Berners-Lee Sees Promise, Challenges in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML 5
• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Mozilla Pushes the Web Forward With Firefox 3.5

The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.

While the language itself is almost fully baked, HTML5 won’t fully arrive for at least another two years, according to one of the men charged with its design.

“I don’t expect to see full implementation of HTML5 across all the major browsers until the end of 2011 at least,” says Philippe Le Hegaret, interaction domain leader for the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), who oversees the development of HTML5.

He tells Webmonkey the specification outlining the long-promised rewrite of the web’s underlying language will be ready towards the end of 2010, but because of varying levels of support across different browsers, especially in the areas of video and animation, we’re in for a longer wait.

Most web pages are currently written in HTML version HTML 4.01, which has been around since the late 1990s. The web was mostly made up of static pages when HTML was born, and it has grown by leaps and bounds since then. Now, we favor complex web applications written in JavaScript like Gmail and Facebook, we stream videos in high-definition, we consume news in real-time feeds and generally push our browsers as far as they’ll go. These developments have left HTML drastically outdated, and web authors have resorted to using a variety of hacks and plug-ins to make everything work properly.

HTML5 — which is actually a combination of languages, APIs and other technologies to make scripted applications more powerful — promises to solve many of the problems of its predecessor, and do so without the hacks and plug-ins.

We’re already close. All the major browsers are providing some level of support for HTML5.

“There’s strong support already in Firefox and Safari. Even Microsoft IE8 has some partial support,” says Le Hegaret, referring to some code within HTML5 that enables the browser to pass information between pages.

Browser makers are approaching support incrementally, adding features little by little with every subsequent release. Some, like Mozilla, can build new features into the next release in a matter of months. For others, like Microsoft, it takes much longer.

Google Chrome is maturing extremely quickly and already supports most of HTML5. This is mostly because Google didn’t start from scratch — the company chose to use the open source Webkit rendering engine, the same one used by Safari. Still, this doesn’t mean both browsers support HTML5 equally.

“Video support between Safari and Chrome, despite the fact that they are both using the same underlying engine, is totally different because video support is not part of the Webkit project at the moment,” says Le Hegaret.

It’s actually this very issue — support for playing videos inside the browser — that continues to be one of main factors blocking the broad adoption of HTML5.

The way the specification is written now, website authors will have the ability to link to a video file as simply as an image file. The video plays in the browser without using a plug-in, and the author can create a player wrapper with controls.

But browser vendors are stuck arguing over which video format to support. Mozilla, Google and Opera are interested in the open source Ogg Theora video format. Apple has substantial investments in its Quicktime technology, so it’s pushing for the Quicktime-backed H.264 format. Microsoft wants people to use its Silverlight plug-in, so Internet Explorer isn’t supporting native video playback in the browser at all.

Google has voiced support for Ogg, but it has also recently made a bid to purchase On2, a company that makes a competing video technology. Rumor has it Google might release On2’s video technology under an open source license once the sale is complete.

Until these issues are sorted out, consumers and content providers alike are forced to rely on plug-ins. Le Hegaret says that while these plug-ins have certainly helped the web arrive where it is today, they continue to be a burden on the user.

Setting up any browser to support both H.264 and Ogg Theora requires at least one plug in, which harms the user experience.

“It’s hard today to ask people to install a plug-in unless the payoff is huge,” he says. “What’s driving the most successful plug-in, which is Flash, is video support. If you can’t see YouTube, your life on the web is pretty miserable. You’re missing a lot.”

Plug-ins aren’t just harder on web users, but they’re hard on web developers, too.

“Building with Flash or Silverlight in a way that lets you share information between the content appearing inside the plug-in and the rest of the page presents some challenges,” says Le Hegaret.

Unlike its predecessor, HTML5 has been designed with web applications in mind. The current HTML5 specification includes a media API that makes it easier to connect animations or video and audio elements — things traditionally presented within a Flash player — with the rest of the content on the page.

“You get a smoother application if you use HTML5. You’re not crossing a software layer. It’s all part of the same application.”

Unfortunately, the YouTubes of the world aren’t going to make a baseline switch from Flash to HTML5 unless they know there’s strong support for it in the browsers.

But they are testing the waters: Wikipedia is experimenting with HTML5 video support by serving Ogg Theora video to browsers that can handle it, and Flash to everyone else. YouTube and the video site Dailymotion have also set up special demo pages using this technique.

Le Hegaret says we’ll be in this period of transition — a dual-experience web where content sites serve HTML5 video along with a Flash fall-back — for a while.

“Web developers will continue to have to understand that not everyone is using the latest generation web browser, and that’s OK in the short term.”

As far as being able to make the switch to a pure HTML5 web altogether, Le Hegaret says that’s only possible once browser vendors sort out their differences.

Once that day arrives, the final switch to HTML5 will be in the hands of the content providers. It’s up to them to begin coding for HTML5 standards and ditching support for old browsers.

“There are still a significant amount of people out there using IE6,” says Le Hegaret. “As a developer right now, you can’t really ignore it. Hopefully, in two or three years, you will be able to start ignoring IE6.”

See Also:

• Tim Berners-Lee Sees Promise, Challenges in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML 5
• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Mozilla Pushes the Web Forward With Firefox 3.5

The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.

While the language itself is almost fully baked, HTML5 won’t fully arrive for at least another two years, according to one of the men charged with its design.

“I don’t expect to see full implementation of HTML5 across all the major browsers until the end of 2011 at least,” says Philippe Le Hegaret, interaction domain leader for the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), who oversees the development of HTML5.

He tells Webmonkey the specification outlining the long-promised rewrite of the web’s underlying language will be ready towards the end of 2010, but because of varying levels of support across different browsers, especially in the areas of video and animation, we’re in for a longer wait.

Most web pages are currently written in HTML version HTML 4.01, which has been around since the late 1990s. The web was mostly made up of static pages when HTML was born, and it has grown by leaps and bounds since then. Now, we favor complex web applications written in JavaScript like Gmail and Facebook, we stream videos in high-definition, we consume news in real-time feeds and generally push our browsers as far as they’ll go. These developments have left HTML drastically outdated, and web authors have resorted to using a variety of hacks and plug-ins to make everything work properly.

HTML5 — which is actually a combination of languages, APIs and other technologies to make scripted applications more powerful — promises to solve many of the problems of its predecessor, and do so without the hacks and plug-ins.

We’re already close. All the major browsers are providing some level of support for HTML5.

“There’s strong support already in Firefox and Safari. Even Microsoft IE8 has some partial support,” says Le Hegaret, referring to some code within HTML5 that enables the browser to pass information between pages.

Browser makers are approaching support incrementally, adding features little by little with every subsequent release. Some, like Mozilla, can build new features into the next release in a matter of months. For others, like Microsoft, it takes much longer.

Google Chrome is maturing extremely quickly and already supports most of HTML5. This is mostly because Google didn’t start from scratch — the company chose to use the open source Webkit rendering engine, the same one used by Safari. Still, this doesn’t mean both browsers support HTML5 equally.

“Video support between Safari and Chrome, despite the fact that they are both using the same underlying engine, is totally different because video support is not part of the Webkit project at the moment,” says Le Hegaret.

It’s actually this very issue — support for playing videos inside the browser — that continues to be one of main factors blocking the broad adoption of HTML5.

The way the specification is written now, website authors will have the ability to link to a video file as simply as an image file. The video plays in the browser without using a plug-in, and the author can create a player wrapper with controls.

But browser vendors are stuck arguing over which video format to support. Mozilla, Google and Opera are interested in the open source Ogg Theora video format. Apple has substantial investments in its Quicktime technology, so it’s pushing for the Quicktime-backed H.264 format. Microsoft wants people to use its Silverlight plug-in, so Internet Explorer isn’t supporting native video playback in the browser at all.

Google has voiced support for Ogg, but it has also recently made a bid to purchase On2, a company that makes a competing video technology. Rumor has it Google might release On2’s video technology under an open source license once the sale is complete.

Until these issues are sorted out, consumers and content providers alike are forced to rely on plug-ins. Le Hegaret says that while these plug-ins have certainly helped the web arrive where it is today, they continue to be a burden on the user.

Setting up any browser to support both H.264 and Ogg Theora requires at least one plug in, which harms the user experience.

“It’s hard today to ask people to install a plug-in unless the payoff is huge,” he says. “What’s driving the most successful plug-in, which is Flash, is video support. If you can’t see YouTube, your life on the web is pretty miserable. You’re missing a lot.”

Plug-ins aren’t just harder on web users, but they’re hard on web developers, too.

“Building with Flash or Silverlight in a way that lets you share information between the content appearing inside the plug-in and the rest of the page presents some challenges,” says Le Hegaret.

Unlike its predecessor, HTML5 has been designed with web applications in mind. The current HTML5 specification includes a media API that makes it easier to connect animations or video and audio elements — things traditionally presented within a Flash player — with the rest of the content on the page.

“You get a smoother application if you use HTML5. You’re not crossing a software layer. It’s all part of the same application.”

Unfortunately, the YouTubes of the world aren’t going to make a baseline switch from Flash to HTML5 unless they know there’s strong support for it in the browsers.

But they are testing the waters: Wikipedia is experimenting with HTML5 video support by serving Ogg Theora video to browsers that can handle it, and Flash to everyone else. YouTube and the video site Dailymotion have also set up special demo pages using this technique.

Le Hegaret says we’ll be in this period of transition — a dual-experience web where content sites serve HTML5 video along with a Flash fall-back — for a while.

“Web developers will continue to have to understand that not everyone is using the latest generation web browser, and that’s OK in the short term.”

As far as being able to make the switch to a pure HTML5 web altogether, Le Hegaret says that’s only possible once browser vendors sort out their differences.

Once that day arrives, the final switch to HTML5 will be in the hands of the content providers. It’s up to them to begin coding for HTML5 standards and ditching support for old browsers.

“There are still a significant amount of people out there using IE6,” says Le Hegaret. “As a developer right now, you can’t really ignore it. Hopefully, in two or three years, you will be able to start ignoring IE6.”

See Also:

• Tim Berners-Lee Sees Promise, Challenges in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML 5
• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Mozilla Pushes the Web Forward With Firefox 3.5

The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.

While the language itself is almost fully baked, HTML5 won’t fully arrive for at least another two years, according to one of the men charged with its design.

“I don’t expect to see full implementation of HTML5 across all the major browsers until the end of 2011 at least,” says Philippe Le Hegaret, interaction domain leader for the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), who oversees the development of HTML5.

He tells Webmonkey the specification outlining the long-promised rewrite of the web’s underlying language will be ready towards the end of 2010, but because of varying levels of support across different browsers, especially in the areas of video and animation, we’re in for a longer wait.

Most web pages are currently written in HTML version HTML 4.01, which has been around since the late 1990s. The web was mostly made up of static pages when HTML was born, and it has grown by leaps and bounds since then. Now, we favor complex web applications written in JavaScript like Gmail and Facebook, we stream videos in high-definition, we consume news in real-time feeds and generally push our browsers as far as they’ll go. These developments have left HTML drastically outdated, and web authors have resorted to using a variety of hacks and plug-ins to make everything work properly.

HTML5 — which is actually a combination of languages, APIs and other technologies to make scripted applications more powerful — promises to solve many of the problems of its predecessor, and do so without the hacks and plug-ins.

We’re already close. All the major browsers are providing some level of support for HTML5.

“There’s strong support already in Firefox and Safari. Even Microsoft IE8 has some partial support,” says Le Hegaret, referring to some code within HTML5 that enables the browser to pass information between pages.

Browser makers are approaching support incrementally, adding features little by little with every subsequent release. Some, like Mozilla, can build new features into the next release in a matter of months. For others, like Microsoft, it takes much longer.

Google Chrome is maturing extremely quickly and already supports most of HTML5. This is mostly because Google didn’t start from scratch — the company chose to use the open source Webkit rendering engine, the same one used by Safari. Still, this doesn’t mean both browsers support HTML5 equally.

“Video support between Safari and Chrome, despite the fact that they are both using the same underlying engine, is totally different because video support is not part of the Webkit project at the moment,” says Le Hegaret.

It’s actually this very issue — support for playing videos inside the browser — that continues to be one of main factors blocking the broad adoption of HTML5.

The way the specification is written now, website authors will have the ability to link to a video file as simply as an image file. The video plays in the browser without using a plug-in, and the author can create a player wrapper with controls.

But browser vendors are stuck arguing over which video format to support. Mozilla, Google and Opera are interested in the open source Ogg Theora video format. Apple has substantial investments in its Quicktime technology, so it’s pushing for the Quicktime-backed H.264 format. Microsoft wants people to use its Silverlight plug-in, so Internet Explorer isn’t supporting native video playback in the browser at all.

Google has voiced support for Ogg, but it has also recently made a bid to purchase On2, a company that makes a competing video technology. Rumor has it Google might release On2’s video technology under an open source license once the sale is complete.

Until these issues are sorted out, consumers and content providers alike are forced to rely on plug-ins. Le Hegaret says that while these plug-ins have certainly helped the web arrive where it is today, they continue to be a burden on the user.

Setting up any browser to support both H.264 and Ogg Theora requires at least one plug in, which harms the user experience.

“It’s hard today to ask people to install a plug-in unless the payoff is huge,” he says. “What’s driving the most successful plug-in, which is Flash, is video support. If you can’t see YouTube, your life on the web is pretty miserable. You’re missing a lot.”

Plug-ins aren’t just harder on web users, but they’re hard on web developers, too.

“Building with Flash or Silverlight in a way that lets you share information between the content appearing inside the plug-in and the rest of the page presents some challenges,” says Le Hegaret.

Unlike its predecessor, HTML5 has been designed with web applications in mind. The current HTML5 specification includes a media API that makes it easier to connect animations or video and audio elements — things traditionally presented within a Flash player — with the rest of the content on the page.

“You get a smoother application if you use HTML5. You’re not crossing a software layer. It’s all part of the same application.”

Unfortunately, the YouTubes of the world aren’t going to make a baseline switch from Flash to HTML5 unless they know there’s strong support for it in the browsers.

But they are testing the waters: Wikipedia is experimenting with HTML5 video support by serving Ogg Theora video to browsers that can handle it, and Flash to everyone else. YouTube and the video site Dailymotion have also set up special demo pages using this technique.

Le Hegaret says we’ll be in this period of transition — a dual-experience web where content sites serve HTML5 video along with a Flash fall-back — for a while.

“Web developers will continue to have to understand that not everyone is using the latest generation web browser, and that’s OK in the short term.”

As far as being able to make the switch to a pure HTML5 web altogether, Le Hegaret says that’s only possible once browser vendors sort out their differences.

Once that day arrives, the final switch to HTML5 will be in the hands of the content providers. It’s up to them to begin coding for HTML5 standards and ditching support for old browsers.

“There are still a significant amount of people out there using IE6,” says Le Hegaret. “As a developer right now, you can’t really ignore it. Hopefully, in two or three years, you will be able to start ignoring IE6.”

See Also:

• Tim Berners-Lee Sees Promise, Challenges in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML 5
• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Mozilla Pushes the Web Forward With Firefox 3.5

Mozilla’s Weave, a free add-on for Firefox that syncs your personal data across multiple PCs and mobile devices, is just about to graduate from a lab experiment to a stable, ready-for-primetime add-on.

The latest release of Weave brings the add-on to 1.0 status, though for now it remains a beta release. Weave 1.0 isn’t significantly different than the Weave 0.8 release we covered earlier this month, but Mozilla does say that the latest version is significantly faster than earlier releases thanks to yet more refinements in Weave’s incremental syncing tool.

The new syncing process happens in “chunks,” which means even if you’re syncing hundreds of pages at once, Weave shouldn’t slow down your normal Firefox browsing. That said, we did experience a bit of a slow down on the initial sync. However, once Weave has uploaded your data, it runs transparently in the background and has little, if any impact on Firefox’s performance.

Weave 1.0 also improves its integration with Firefox’s preference pane, adding some sync options when setting up your Weave account. Instead of simply syncing from the PC you’re using, Weave now gives you the option to sync from the current PC, to the current PC or merge to current PC with existing data.

Syncing itself has been tweaked slightly as well using what Mozilla calls an “interestingness” algorithm. The process is similar to how the Awesome Bar works in Firefox — pages you visit frequently and those you’ve visited recently will sync ahead of less used pages in your history. For other data like bookmarks, the frequency data is combined with where the bookmark is stored. So, items visible in the bookmarks toolbar are ranked as “more important” and will sync before other bookmarks.

Weave 1.0 still carries the beta tag, but in our experience Weave is stable enough for everyday use. If you’d like to give it a try, head over the Mozilla Add-ons page and install Weave.

See Also:

• Update Moves Weave Closer to a Starring Role in Firefox
• Mozilla Updates Weave for Faster, More Reliable Syncing
• Weave Update for Firefox Syncs Your Web Identity
• Mozilla’s Weave Ties Your Desktop and Your Personal Web Together

Mozilla’s Weave, a free add-on for Firefox that syncs your personal data across multiple PCs and mobile devices, is just about to graduate from a lab experiment to a stable, ready-for-primetime add-on.

The latest release of Weave brings the add-on to 1.0 status, though for now it remains a beta release. Weave 1.0 isn’t significantly different than the Weave 0.8 release we covered earlier this month, but Mozilla does say that the latest version is significantly faster than earlier releases thanks to yet more refinements in Weave’s incremental syncing tool.

The new syncing process happens in “chunks,” which means even if you’re syncing hundreds of pages at once, Weave shouldn’t slow down your normal Firefox browsing. That said, we did experience a bit of a slow down on the initial sync. However, once Weave has uploaded your data, it runs transparently in the background and has little, if any impact on Firefox’s performance.

Weave 1.0 also improves its integration with Firefox’s preference pane, adding some sync options when setting up your Weave account. Instead of simply syncing from the PC you’re using, Weave now gives you the option to sync from the current PC, to the current PC or merge to current PC with existing data.

Syncing itself has been tweaked slightly as well using what Mozilla calls an “interestingness” algorithm. The process is similar to how the Awesome Bar works in Firefox — pages you visit frequently and those you’ve visited recently will sync ahead of less used pages in your history. For other data like bookmarks, the frequency data is combined with where the bookmark is stored. So, items visible in the bookmarks toolbar are ranked as “more important” and will sync before other bookmarks.

Weave 1.0 still carries the beta tag, but in our experience Weave is stable enough for everyday use. If you’d like to give it a try, head over the Mozilla Add-ons page and install Weave.

See Also:

• Update Moves Weave Closer to a Starring Role in Firefox
• Mozilla Updates Weave for Faster, More Reliable Syncing
• Weave Update for Firefox Syncs Your Web Identity
• Mozilla’s Weave Ties Your Desktop and Your Personal Web Together

As promised, Adobe has released beta versions of both Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. Originally announced earlier this year at Adobe’s MAX conference, the goal of Flash Player 10.1 is to create a unified platform that works on every operating system, both on the desktop and on mobile platforms.

Unfortunately for the mobile platforms, the key enhancements to the current beta release are limited to desktop environments. However, an Adobe spokesperson tells Webmonkey that support for Palm’s webOS will arrive later this year with Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian and Nokia support arriving in early 2010. Due to Apple’s developer restrictions, Flash will not be available on the iPhone.

The final release of Flash Player 10.1 is expected during the first half of 2010.

For now you’ll have to content yourself with improvements to the Flash desktop experience, and fortunately there are several welcome new features in Flash Player 10.1:

• Support for multitouch and gestures — Flash Player 10.1 understands gestures on hardware that supports touchscreen interfaces. However, since the mobile support is still lacking, we’re having a hard time seeing where multitouch is useful beyond Windows 7 devices with touch screens (which are scarce).
• GPU acceleration for H.264 video in Windows — This is good news for Windows users, but leaves us scratching our heads as to why the same isn’t available for Mac and Linux when plenty of other apps on both platforms already offer GPU-based acceleration.
• Support for local microphone access — This may well be the best news for developers since it paves the way to create online audio editors capable of the same sort of sophistication we’ve seen with online image editing apps.

The GPU acceleration is particularly noteworthy since is means that underpowered PCs like netbooks will be able to offer smoother video playback while also cutting down on the battery drain. Flash Player 10.1 also offers much improved buffering that lets you drop offline and still keep watching a video.

However, while Flash Player 10.1 offers some new features, this beta release is almost as significant for what it doesn’t include. Although Adobe says it’s in the works, you won’t find support for 64 bit operating systems, nor, if you happen to be on Mac or Linux, will you be able to take advantage of the new GPU acceleration.

Adobe already plans to have several updates to the beta before Flash Player 10.1 is officially released, but with mobile support still not ready and Flash Player 10.1 features varying considerably by platform it’s obvious that Flash still has a long way to go before it will fulfill Adobe’s goal of making Flash work everywhere.

And that’s an important goal, since there’s a new player in the multimedia world of the web that also plans to work everywhere: HTML5.

HTML5 has been touted as a “Flash killer,” making the ubiquitous plug-in unnecessary with new tags to embed video and create animations directly within HTML. The only problem is that HTML5 is not finished and browser support is far from complete.

But judging by today’s beta release, Flash Player 10.1 is also far from complete. If Adobe hopes to continue fending off HTML5 — which has strong support from the likes of Google and Apple — the pressure is on to deliver something more impressive than this beta by the time final release in 2010.

While Flash may be struggling a bit, Adobe AIR 2, the company’s runtime environment for making web-like native apps on the desktop and on mobiles, fares much better in this beta release. In fact, the new version of AIR, has some welcome new features and none of the cross-platform confusion.

In this release, AIR, which is perhaps most notable for its Twitter clients like TweetDeck, Alert Thingy or Twhirl, gains a very nice a native process API that will enable AIR apps to communicate with OS-native tools.

For example, TweetDeck could tap into Spotlight on Mac OS X to deliver search results from your system’s hard disk. The nice thing for developers is that the native process API means that the application itself is still cross platform. Also welcome is the ability to deliver OS-specific installers like .exe, .dmg, or .deb instead of the somewhat confusing .air installer.

AIR applications can also now detect and use attached USB devices — for example, plug in a USB stick full of photos and an AIR-based image editor can now import them for you.

Other AIR improvements include support for drag-and-drop file exporting, a faster version of WebKit (for AIR’s HTML support), as well as the same microphone and multitouch support found in Flash Player 10.

Webmonkey editor Michael Calore also contributed to this report.

See Also:

• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Adobe Debuts New Flash Tools for Building and Tracking Social Apps
• Google Throws Its Weight Behind HTML 5
• How HTML 5 Is Already Changing the Web

As promised, Adobe has released beta versions of both Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. Originally announced earlier this year at Adobe’s MAX conference, the goal of Flash Player 10.1 is to create a unified platform that works on every operating system, both on the desktop and on mobile platforms.

Unfortunately for the mobile platforms, the key enhancements to the current beta release are limited to desktop environments. However, an Adobe spokesperson tells Webmonkey that support for Palm’s webOS will arrive later this year with Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian and Nokia support arriving in early 2010. Due to Apple’s developer restrictions, Flash will not be available on the iPhone.

The final release of Flash Player 10.1 is expected during the first half of 2010.

For now you’ll have to content yourself with improvements to the Flash desktop experience, and fortunately there are several welcome new features in Flash Player 10.1:

• Support for multitouch and gestures — Flash Player 10.1 understands gestures on hardware that supports touchscreen interfaces. However, since the mobile support is still lacking, we’re having a hard time seeing where multitouch is useful beyond Windows 7 devices with touch screens (which are scarce).
• GPU acceleration for H.264 video in Windows — This is good news for Windows users, but leaves us scratching our heads as to why the same isn’t available for Mac and Linux when plenty of other apps on both platforms already offer GPU-based acceleration.
• Support for local microphone access — This may well be the best news for developers since it paves the way to create online audio editors capable of the same sort of sophistication we’ve seen with online image editing apps.

The GPU acceleration is particularly noteworthy since is means that underpowered PCs like netbooks will be able to offer smoother video playback while also cutting down on the battery drain. Flash Player 10.1 also offers much improved buffering that lets you drop offline and still keep watching a video.

However, while Flash Player 10.1 offers some new features, this beta release is almost as significant for what it doesn’t include. Although Adobe says it’s in the works, you won’t find support for 64 bit operating systems, nor, if you happen to be on Mac or Linux, will you be able to take advantage of the new GPU acceleration.

Adobe already plans to have several updates to the beta before Flash Player 10.1 is officially released, but with mobile support still not ready and Flash Player 10.1 features varying considerably by platform it’s obvious that Flash still has a long way to go before it will fulfill Adobe’s goal of making Flash work everywhere.

And that’s an important goal, since there’s a new player in the multimedia world of the web that also plans to work everywhere: HTML5.

HTML5 has been touted as a “Flash killer,” making the ubiquitous plug-in unnecessary with new tags to embed video and create animations directly within HTML. The only problem is that HTML5 is not finished and browser support is far from complete.

But judging by today’s beta release, Flash Player 10.1 is also far from complete. If Adobe hopes to continue fending off HTML5 — which has strong support from the likes of Google and Apple — the pressure is on to deliver something more impressive than this beta by the time final release in 2010.

While Flash may be struggling a bit, Adobe AIR 2, the company’s runtime environment for making web-like native apps on the desktop and on mobiles, fares much better in this beta release. In fact, the new version of AIR, has some welcome new features and none of the cross-platform confusion.

In this release, AIR, which is perhaps most notable for its Twitter clients like TweetDeck, Alert Thingy or Twhirl, gains a very nice a native process API that will enable AIR apps to communicate with OS-native tools.

For example, TweetDeck could tap into Spotlight on Mac OS X to deliver search results from your system’s hard disk. The nice thing for developers is that the native process API means that the application itself is still cross platform. Also welcome is the ability to deliver OS-specific installers like .exe, .dmg, or .deb instead of the somewhat confusing .air installer.

AIR applications can also now detect and use attached USB devices — for example, plug in a USB stick full of photos and an AIR-based image editor can now import them for you.

Other AIR improvements include support for drag-and-drop file exporting, a faster version of WebKit (for AIR’s HTML support), as well as the same microphone and multitouch support found in Flash Player 10.

Webmonkey editor Michael Calore also contributed to this report.

See Also:

• Adobe Fights Off HTML5 Threat With New Flash Player 10.1
• Adobe Debuts New Flash Tools for Building and Tracking Social Apps
• Google Throws Its Weight Behind HTML 5
• How HTML 5 Is Already Changing the Web