Opera: HTML5 is 'immensely critical' for web

[kgun]

Opera's Phillip Grønvold has told TechRadar that the arrival of HTML5 over the next few years is 'immensely critical' for the internet, and will change everything from how long our phone batteries last to how the entire web is structured.
Grønvold, a product analyst for browser specialists Opera, is already looking forward to the final HTML5 standards being set, something that is unlikely to happen for 18 months or so.
HTML5 will allow browsers to utilise the computer's hardware more, using things like graphics processors to speed things up and allowing us to phase out plugins like Flash and JavaFX


Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/opera-html5-is-immensely-critical-for-web-687893#ixzz0nF3ki0oy

[james113]

I looked at a set of specs on HTML5 last year. I see how it will help speed things up a bit. I can't wait to see the final specs. I really don't see the effects being very visible as a whole for a good 5 to 10 years after the final specs are established though. It will be interesting to watch how it unfolds.

[luigip]

HTML5 will allow browsers to utilise the computer's hardware more, using things like graphics processors to speed things up and allowing us to phase out plugins like Flash and JavaFX The sooner this will happen the better.

[NewOrleans]

NOT SO FAST. Here we go again. Proprietary technology (non-open standards) raises its ugly head again. The issue is the VIDEO ENCODING that is chosen to be the encoder of "choice" for HTML5. Right now Google is pushing H.264 as the default HTML5 encoding on videos at its property, Youtube. H.264 is a proprietary technology that requires a fee for use at some point in the delivery chain. If you as a user are encoding your videos in H.264 you have probably already paid a pass-along cost for the ability to use H.264 in the software that does that encoding. Google has also bought ON2, which has better encoders than H.264. But, if it is Google that begins to push HTML5 into supporting one defacto video encoding standard that they own the licensing rights to you may expect to see the licensing costs go up as soon as they see that everyone is dependent on that standard.

Firefox has been very supportive of HTML5 and supports it very well, except that now if you are using Firefox as a browser you will find that it is kicked out of Youtube! Youtube/Google is rapidly converting from the Flash model that allowed it its early success over to rather crappy players modelled after HTML5 BUT encoded with H.264 by default. In my own experience in the past few months it is the rare video that I encounter on Youtube that does not refuse to play in the Firefox browser. Because Firefox is supporting encoding with open standards such as Theora. Firefox has dug in its heels and said that it does not want to pay the licensing royalties or to become dependent on a video encoder/decoder technology to play HTML5 video such as H.264.

The video encoder/decoder compression technology is the other part of the HTML5 standard and it is NOT an Open standard if it requires a licensing fee. And if Google pushes all of us to use their proprietary video encoding/decoding technology so that we can make HTML5 work then this is not nearly as "open" as people are assuming and welcoming with open arms.

Once we have all adopted their video encoding technology so that we can play our videos in HTML5 then the browsers of the world must sink or swim, to be viable they will have to all come on board and say YES, Google, we will pay whatever you demand to charge us to SUPPORT the video encoder standard necessary to display HTML5.

Firefox has been saying that they DO support HTML5 but are supporting it as a truly open, non-proprietary standard that uses a video encoding developed in the way PHP has been without the need to license it to use it.

[Clarrie]

I don't agree, but oh well

Which bit don't you agree with? the original post, or a particular comment?

[NewOrleans]

I deal with online videos as a shooter and producer/editor/encoder and embedding them into websites as a website designer.

Yes, I would love to simply embed a video source the way I do a .jpeg and the browser does the appropriate thing, plays it. And by adding other tags I can provide a player interface for audio, and playback characteristics.

Flash as a video player has been a pain over the years because I cannot match up the characteristics of the player knowing that what I am specifying is going to match the end-user's local machine install of Flash Media Player vers ? The experience the user gets with my video depends on the Flash plugin, among other things.

But, Flash as ANIMATION? For years people have been talking about a "rich web experience" that primarily was expressed in its highest potential by Adobe Flash.

Microsoft's Silverlight is their attempt to mimic the animation features and "rich" experience of Flash as a website animation tool.

So, there is nothing in the HTML5 language now or in the next ten years that is going to extend into the area of Flash as an animation tool. When Apple dismisses support for Flash on the iPad in its bid to keep from integrating Flash into that platform when practically every other technolgoy will run then their argument is mighty thin---Flash consumes iPad's battery life.

Now, if Apple WANTED to they would open up their operating software for Adobe and their CONSUMERS to harness the operating system's functions in a more integrated fashion, reducing the power consumption of Flash. I would assume that for Steve Jobs to claim that he knows that deploying Flash on the iPad reduces battery life that Apple may well have tested just such a scenario in their labs.

But it is Apple's choice not to invite Adobe developers to design Flash for the iPad.

And it is an in-your-face snub of millions of websites that use Flash animation and a snub of their owners and webdesigners to say what a great thing our iPad is to surf the web, except that you will now have to develop an "iPad friendly" design that eliminates an animation toolset that you have relied on for years to present your message.

Flash as a website animation and presentation tool has no equals-- I acknowlege this even though I am not a Flash designer.

HTML5 is a great concept but it does not have the rich set of design capabilities that are bundled in Flash for presenting website animations.

These are two different things and for Steve Jobs to deliberately design a so-called "rich web experience" on the iPad while leaving off its most ubiquitous, most widely used animation player is arrogant and tyrannical and disdainful of all of us that enjoy or rely on the Flash plugin.