Smokescreen to Create Flash-free Ads

When it was officially announced that the iPhone would never have Flash player installed, Apple users moaned. When Steve Jobs denounced Flash and swore that the iPad would also be Flash-free, people began to become concerned. For animation and video, Flash currently reigns supreme on the Web, but it has not been and is still not the only option.

A company called Smokescreen has introduced a new technology (or rather a merging of old and new technology) to produce Flash-like animated ads using software that all platforms support (Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile operating systems). The ads use a combination of Javascript and HTML5 to create ads that are nearly identical to their Flash counterparts.

The Smokescreen website lists multiple demos of their product in action, although some of them still need to work out the kinks. Technology powerhouses like Apple, Google, and Mozilla are pushing for the adoption of HTML5 video, while Adobe hopes to hold onto its claim on web animation and video. One obstacle that HTML5 proponents must overcome is the inability for current HTML5 video to display dynamic ads. Several marketing firms are working quickly to develop solutions. Current YouTube videos using HTML5 do not display ads, and those videos that do use Flash only.

The Latest in the HTML 5 Saga

For the past year, we have been following the development of the HTML 5 standard, particularly as it relates to streaming video, an issue of importance for both web hosting providers and their clients. There are some new developments that may change the situation for the better.

Originally, HTML 5 video was supposed to support an open standard, such as Ogg Theora. Mozilla, Opera, and others were in favor of the standardization and began to support it. Apple and Google felt that the Theora codec was not mature enough and did not match the quality of H.264, a proprietary and patented codec. Mozilla, being a provider of a free and open source browser (Firefox), could not legally (or perhaps even ethically) support H.264, while Apple (in Safari) chose to only support it, and Google (in Chrome) supported both.

Not long ago, Google acquired On2 Technologies, the company that originally released the Theora format into the free software community. I speculated that it would be great if Google used On2 to improve Theora or create a new superior open format. Now it seems that Google is going to do just that, and Mozilla will support the new open codec.

Microsoft says IE9 will support HTML5

Just as we predicted, Microsoft has announced that their latest incarnation of Internet Explorer, version 9, will included support for some HTML 5 elements, including video. Much to the chagrin of Mozilla and other open standard advocates, however, the new demo build of the browser only supports h.264 video, following Google and Apple’s insistence on avoiding the open Theora codec.

Among the other improvements are support for scalable vector graphics (SVG), CSS3, and built-in hardware acceleration. It is not clear if Theora support will be added (Google Chrome supports both h.264 and Theora). Microsoft joins the list of browser makers that includes Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), and Opera.

For years, Microsoft neglected web standards and increasing security problems with their Internet Explorer 6 browser. The emergence of Firefox and other competitive browsers has encouraged the software giant to slowly adapt and reignite IE development. Nevertheless, up until now, Microsoft had resisted HTML 5 adoption, but with Google pushing it on YouTube and other sites like Vimeo following suit, they could not ignore it.

Microsoft may soon step up its HTML 5 game

Just days after we posted news about Google’s acquisitions that position it to make a large impact on HTML 5 video development, suspicion is floating around the tech world that Microsoft is planning a big announcement for Internet Explorer 9, the next installment of their declining browser.

If Microsoft intends to keep their commanding share of the browser market, they will need to continue to adapt to web standards. At their MIX 2010 developer conference in Las Vegas, experts predict that Microsoft will unveil a new IE version that takes into account HTML 5 elements, including support for vector graphics like SVG.

Even with IE 8, the current version, Internet Explorer is still far behind competitors like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera. If ever there were a time for Microsoft to make a game-changing play, that time is now.

Source: Webmonkey

The HTML 5 video debate revisted

Website owners should always be concerned about the latest news and developments with the web browser wars and Web standards. Decisions made by these third parties can directly affect how your website is presented to your viewers and whether you need to make adjustments.

Our original post centered around Apple and Google’s unwillingness to adopt the open Theora format, citing its inferior performance quality to the proprietary and patent-laced H.264. This is still the case with both Apple and Google producing browsers that support the video tag from HTML 5 but do not support Theora. Youtube has added support for it, but it does not work in Mozilla Firefox, which, as an open source browser, cannot distribute H.264 technology.

It seems dismal, and Microsoft has still added little to the discussion, although they have at least joined it. All of this, however, might be about to take an unusual turn for the better. The Theora format was created by On2 Technologies and then released as open source later. On 17th of February, their stockholders approved a merger with Google and possibly future development on open video formats. This could be good for all parties in the end.

Source: On2 Technologies

Mozilla to launch new data center

Mozilla, developer of the popular Firefox web browser, has plans to launch a new data center in Phoenix, Arizona, to keep up with its ever-growing computing needs. The facility will house 80 servers on six rack. In addition, to smaller satellite data centers have been set up in Amsterdam and Beijing.

According to Matthew Zeier from Mozilla Operations:

Since 2006, we’ve tripled the amount of data center floor space (and tripled our IT/Ops team), grew our user base 8.75 times and now push 18x the bandwidth. Sure, in comparison to other sites, this growth is small. It’s no Facebook. But it’s still a significant amount of infrastructure that supports 350 million users and the world’s most popular web browser (we’re at about one engineer to 43.7m users (or one to 800 servers).

The Phoenix servers are actually colocated in a much larger 538,000 square-foot (163,982 square meters) data center used by a number of other companies and organisations. The new systems are needed to keep up with Firefox’s phenomenal growth.

Source | Data Center Knowledge
Photo | Flickr

Apple, Google and the death of HTML 5 video

Who done it, with what, and where? Was it A) Microsoft, inside their security deficient, sub-standard browser with an over-hyped search engine? Was it B) Apple at its elitist developer conference with an exploding iPhone app? Was it C) Google in a YouTube video with a poison drop of lonelygirl15‘s blood? The answer is D) All of the above. From Microsoft’s refusal to participate in the process at all to Apple’s insistence on a patented, closed, proprietary format, the entire episode only serves to illustrate that the “browser wars“, however petty, are far from over.

While the W3C intentions were certainly noble, the entire ordeal is now spiraling out of control. The initial proposal was simple: create an open standard for streaming video playback on the web, something to replace the vendor-locked, resource hogging, proprietary Adobe Flash player. Microsoft’s abstention was disappointing but not surprising. But what is more disturbing is that, of the four main participants: Mozilla, Opera, Apple and Google, only Mozilla and Opera were willing to sign on to using the open Ogg Theora format. Apple and Google both insisted on H.264, which might be an outstanding video codec, but it is not open and is laced with patents, making it not much better than Flash player.

Google has stated that they will at least ship their Chrome browser with support for both Ogg and H.264, but Apple refuses to support Ogg at all. As a result of this childish bickering, Ian Hickson, the man responsible for the HTML 5 audio and video tags, has removed the codec specification, essentially leaving us where we began, with multiple formats and no packaged solution. It is a company or web site owner’s nightmare to have content on their websites that not all visitors can view, but it happens all of the time, partly due to web developer arrogance and partly due to the impassible situation in which browser makers and video codec patent holders have left us. The future looks grim indeed. Who done it? It was Apple, Google and Microsoft in the comfort of their corporate offices, with their egos.

Photo: Flickr