Technology never sleeps with the continued evolution of the Internet. And with that, we now have HTML5. Many people probably hear “HTML” tossed around in conversation, and with good reason. This stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and without it the Internet just wouldn’t be the same. HTML5 is the next cycle of the Internet and how it works – so yes, it’s a pretty big deal.
Behind almost every Internet site, you will find HTML. It could be considered the backbone of these sites, and it just got a nice little face-lift. In the previous version, HTML4, it struggled with plug-ins as they created obstacles for multimedia integration. Now with the new HTML5 launch, added features provide a better user experience.
Two of the most anticipated capabilities are its’ media playback and offline storage features. While HTML4 did offer the ability to play music or show a video, a Flash was required. One major issue that came of this was the lack of support from Apple, especially on mobile devices; it quickly dropped the support completely as a way to provide better functionality and reserve battery life. Now with HTML5, sites can directly embed media within the HTML tag such as: “<video>” or “<audio>”, no plug-ins required.
Additionally, its offline storage feature is attracting a lot of attention. As most desktop applications require an Internet connection, HTML5 avoids this obstacle. With the support of Google, users can now create files in Google docs or an email draft that will be automatically synced upon their next sign-on.
HMTL5 also included advanced drag-and-drop features now available in Gmail, that allow users to do just that: drag-and-drop. No more searching through files on your computer to figure out which attachment is correct; find it and drop it into the email message.
Many users may not even realize it, but they are already using HTML5 – browsers such as Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox 3.6 already support it. The movement from Flash to HTML5 has begun, and time will tell what the future holds. Nothing suggests that Flash will disappear yet, as it is still widely used and supported. However, now is the time to be prepared for the future of the Internet because its already prepared for us.
