Firefox 3.5 is officially being rolled out of its beta tag and is moving onto the “preview” version which will soon be followed by the Release Candidate and the final 3.5. The preview version is a very stable beta and includes some very interesting updates like integration with the open source video standards and geo-location features.
Just like Google is the default search engine for Firefox, they have also clinched the deal for providing location based services, which are being touted as the thing of the future. Till now, location based services were criticized for their lack of privacy and having to install extra browser plugins and registrations processes. This is going to change with the new Firefox, because it is going to have location detection in built via Google services like Google Latitude etc.
But the most important update is that some new open source video formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora have been integrated into the browser, and they form the core of the inbuilt video player. The player works on the futuristic HTML 5 which means that links and other interactive elements can now be embedded inside videos and also videos can be played without using external plugins like Flash etc. Flash is currently touted to be installed in more than 90% of browsers worldwide, and if this HTML 5 update gets a good run, Flash could be a thing of the past.
You can visit youtube.com/html5 to see the HTML 5 video tag in action. The interesting bit here is that, it looks and acts like a regular YouTube player, but it will play fine even without the Flash player in your browser. You can use FF 3.5, Google Chrome or Safari 4 to view the above video. It won’t work on any Internet Explorer version for now. The simple line of code that was used embed this video clip onto the page is:
<video width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”file.mp4″ autobuffer>
<br>You must have an HTML5 capable browser.
</video>
We shall keep you updated on any further consequences of HTML5 in the near future.
interesting!
Hi, you might wish to look a little deeper into the issues of practical deployment, before reaching a conclusion such as the title…?
jd/adobe
Html 5 is a generally nice development. Improvements are usually welcomed. But to say an end to flash applications on the web? I don’t think so.