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Return to the bad old days Many of Apple's demos rely on "experimental" CSS3 properties to work. The exact implementation of these properties has yet to be hammered out, so browser vendors must use their best guess to determine how they should be rendered onscreen. Because of the ambiguity this introduces, it is the custom for browser vendors to attach a vendor-specific prefix to the CSS property names. Firefox uses "moz," while Safari uses "webkit," named for the browser's WebKit rendering engine. This means Web developers who want to use a specific experimental CSS feature must include the vendor-specific properties for each browser they want to support in their style sheets. It's a less than ideal situation, but the actual coding required is trivial. Apple chose not to bother for its HTML5 demo site. That would be bad enough. But Apple's demos don't work on Google's Chrome browser, either -- and Chrome also uses the "webkit" prefix for its experimental CSS3 properties (because it's also based on the WebKit rendering engine). Rather than detecting browser capabilities and degrading the user experience gracefully where features aren't supported -- as is the accepted best practice on modern browsers -- Apple chose to deliberately screen out any browser that doesn't self-identify as Safari. That's right: By forcing my browser's user agent string to identify as Safari 5, I was able to view many of the demos just fine in Firefox 3.6 on Windows. Seriously, Apple? I thought we left elaborate browser-detection scripts behind in the bad old days of the 1990s. I can't imagine anyone would want to start up the practice again, let alone one of the leading companies in the development of next-generation Web standards.

Neil McAllister provides a good intro to HTML5 and what it will mean to the future of the Web.  It's just an intro, but the links he provides are excellent resources for deep dive. excerpt:  "Among Web developers, anticipation is mounting for HTML 5, the overhaul of the Web markup language currently under way at the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). For many, the revamping is long overdue. HTML hasn't had a proper upgrade in more than a decade. In fact, the last markup language to win W3C Recommendation status -- the final stage of the Web standards process -- was XHTML 1.1 in 2001. In the intervening years, Web developers have grown increasingly restless. Many claim the HTML and XHTML standards have become outdated, and that their document-centric focus does not adequately address the needs of modern Web applications. HTML 5 aims to change all that. When it is finalized, the new standard will include tags and APIs for improved interactivity, multimedia, and localization. As experimental support for HTML 5 features has crept into the current crop of Web browsers, some developers have even begun voicing hope that this new, modernized HTML will free them from reliance on proprietary plug-ins such as Flash, QuickTime, and Silverlight."

Matthew Papakipos, the engineering director for the Chrome OS project, and Eitan Bencuya, from Google PR. Over the course of the interview, Papakipos and Bencuya go into considerable detail about topics that range from big-picture perspectives on how Google develops software and where it sees the Web going with HTML5, to the nuts and bolts of what Chrome OS is slated to offer in specific areas. In short, we cover the following ground: ... How and when the Chrome OS project was conceived... The relationship between Chrome OS and Android... How Google is trying to tackle the same "file handler" problem as Windows OLE and the registry, but in the cloud.... Who Google sees as the target audience for Chrome OS, how did they decide which projects and features to pursue... The convergence of the phone and the computer... Nuts and bolts details, like native client execution, security, and UI issues... The significance of Chrome's built-in media player

Kaazing WebSocket Gateway is the world's only enterprise solution for full-duplex, high-performance communication over the Web using the HTML5 WebSocket standard. Designed to be the next evolutionary step in web communication, HTML5 WebSocket addresses the problems inherent with traditional Ajax and Comet solutions today. True real-time connectivity in the browser and on mobile devices is now a reality thanks to this exciting new standard. Kaazing WebSocket Gateway delivers these features and benefits with the performance, scalability, robustness, and security that enterprises demand.

Excellent guidelines for developing crossplatform smartphone apps in HTML5-CSS-JavaScript.  Covers Appcellerator, Sencha, jQuery, and Drupal.  Great resource!

The HTML5 Bible

The stripped down "HTML Author" version of the 900 page HTML5 specification.   The bulk of the spec targets "implementers" such as browsers and editors.  It's very exacting and should provide for an unprecedented universal interoperability. Introduction:  This specification provides the details necessary for producers of HTML content to create conformant documents, and for others to wcheck the conformance of existing documents. It is designed: to describe the syntax and structure of the HTML language to describe the semantics of HTML elements and their attributes (that is, to describe what the elements and attributes represent) to be clear and unambiguous to be as concise and readable as possible Certain purposes are intentionally out of scope for this specification; in particular, it: does not provide any conformance criteria for HTML consumers; in particular, it does not attempt to define how Web browsers and other user agents process documents does not define any APIs related to processing of HTML content by HTML consumers. does not attempt to be a tutorial or "how to" authoring guide

Is Adobe AiR a Virtual Desktop?  We expect a VD to run an alien OS and those OS specific applications.  With AiR 2.0 it seems Adobe has ditched the "OS" component of a VD, and the OS specific applications, but is quite capable of running AiR based applications and information services that would otherwise have been designed for a specific OS environment.   Another way of looking at this would be to say that VD's are designed to run existing OS and OS specific applications, while AiR is desinged to run newly written OS independent applications that have one very important advantage over legacy applications and information systems;  AiR speaks the language of the Web 3.0.   This is WebKit HTML5-CSS3 with an advanced but Air specific version of JavaScript called "ActionScript".  What Adobe doesn't do is provide support for other critically important aspects of the WebKit interactive Web 3.0 model: support for Canvas/SVG!  Adobe continues to push the proprietary SWF interactive vector graphics format.   Note that Microsoft's Silverlight universal runtime does not support anything in the WebKit Web 3.0 model!  It's all proprietary. excerpt: For the first time since 2007, Adobe has updated its Air platform, released recently in beta with a slew of new features. The features include support for detection of mass storage devices, advanced networking capabilities, ability to open a file with its default application, improved cross-platform printing, and a bunch of other things that you probably won't really notice in any other way other than your Adobe working significantly more efficiently and smoothly than before. The 2.0 version of Air also will be able to support HTML5 and CSS3, due to an upgrade of its WebKit. Developers will also be happy to know that they can create Air applications that can be installed through a native installer. Air's changes have seen it morph into something of an 'operating system sitting on an operating system'. According

HTML5 and Flash are two technologies that are getting measured constantly.HTML5 vs Flash is like comparing oranges and apples.

A "Living Standard?" Sorry, WHATWG, but "standard" has a legal definition and minimum requirements; you're operating outside the law. WHATWG chooses what they think they can get away with and ignoring competition law.

Ext JS, said Mullany, includes numerous UI elements and handlers that are built entirely from CSS 3, HTML5 and JavaScript. As a result, the applications built with Ext JS can be run on any WebKit-based browser. Both Android and the iPhone use WebKit-based browsers, and RIM should soon offer one as well for BlackBerry users. Mullany said each interface element is built on top of CSS, and can therefore be skinned and modified by designers after creation. He also said this limits the size of the code that must be embedded in each page with Ext JS elements. Ext JS is available for free under the GPL. For commercial users, the software will cost US$1,000 per developer per year.

Great links to HTML5-CSS tools and tricks excerpt: 3. Use Multiple Stylesheets for Device Support Including a mobile-specific stylesheet on your main site with certain parameters that add or subtract features, based on what device is being used, can be an elegant and effective way to serve content across multiple devices. Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote a great article for A List Apart last year that covers some of the basics and also links to some of the most common parameters for handheld support. Dave Shea included his own solution back in 2008 that is still pretty usable for lots of devices. More recently, Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks discussed how to add in screen size and browser support via CSS or jQuery, and he includes his own downloadable examples. Dave Calhoun has some excellent suggestions in his series on mobile web development.

Advanced XML, HTML5, XHTML CSS3 editing with conversion to PDF, PDF/A and SVG.  Excellent stuff.  Good Case Studies.  Lots of tools and document source code examples.

Modernizr is a small and simple JavaScript library that helps you take advantage of emerging web technologies (CSS3, HTML 5) while still maintaining a fine level of control over older browsers that may not yet support these new technologies. Modernizr uses feature detection to test the current browser against upcoming features like rgba(), border-radius, CSS Transitions and many more. These are currently being implemented across browsers and with Modernizr you can start using them right now, with an easy way to control the fallbacks for browsers that don't yet support them. Additionally, Modernizr creates a self-titled global JavaScript object which contains properties for each feature; if a browser supports it, the property will evaluate true and if not, it will be false. Lastly, Modernizr also adds support for styling and printing HTML5 elements. This allows you to use more semantic, forward-looking elements such as , and without having to worry about them not working in Internet Explorer. Another great catch by Marbux!  He's on fire today.

[Blush.] Should be mentioned that Modernizr comes with an MIT-BSD dual license. So compatible with both GPL and proprietary apps.