html5

Be careful venting your frustrations with modern technology when using the latest version of Google Chrome, released today. Chrome 11 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) comes with the ability to convert your speech to text, which could prove to be a big boon to people who have difficulty with keyboards as well as providing on the go translations when used with Google Translate.

The new feature, based in HTML5, requires a microphone icon embedded in the Web page. Click the icon and then speak into your computer's mic. The input records as text, and the browser automatically inserts the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As Microsoft works to woo Web developers to its tools, it is subtly trying to wean them from one product that the company once touted as the answer to advanced graphics development: Silverlight.

The first day of Microsoft's Mix11 conference here, the company's annual gathering of Web developers, included demonstrations and talk about HTML5, the emerging Web standard. HTML5's promise is to make developing Web applications that use video and animation easy, much the same thing for which Microsoft created Silverlight.

But Silverlight was largely missing in action today. The technology was never mentioned in either … Read more

Adobe Systems today announced a service it hopes will give TV companies a way to let people watch their video where they want--for example, cable TV subscribers who'd like to see a show on their computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

Such sharing has been difficult because of rights management issues: those who create premium video content are leery of seeing it spread willy-nilly, and supporting a multitude of devices is complex and expensive.

The Adobe Pass service--key to an "industry movement known as TV Everywhere," Adobe says--is designed to smooth over these issues using a combination … Read more

In September, Google said it hoped to bring its then-new Google Instant search feature to users of the Opera browser "shortly." A half-year later, there's still no sign of it.

Google still is working on it, though.

"We've encountered some technical barriers that are temporarily preventing us from making Instant available for Opera," Google said in a statement yesterday. "It's difficult for us to estimate when we will overcome these barriers, but we want to bring Instant to as many browsers, platforms and regions as possible."

It's not clear exactly … Read more

Standards groups are unwieldy and slow-moving. But when it comes to expanding what browsers can do, they turned out to be a faster way for Google to bring a handful of features to the Web than its Gears plug-in.

So it comes as no surprise that Google, after letting the Gears project spin down over the last year and a half, is removing the software altogether from its Chrome browser.

"It's finally time to say goodbye to Gears," said Gears team member Aaron Boodman in a blog post. "There will be no new Gears releases, and … Read more

In an effort to bring its Web video technology to a browser that doesn't support it, Google has released an IE9 plug-in to play WebM video.

The move won't bring an end to the industry scuffle over the best way to build video into the Web, but it will mean that allies behind Google's preferred mechanism will be able to reach beyond the three browsers that support WebM today, Google's Chrome, Opera Software's Opera, and Mozilla's Firefox. Apple's Safari and Microsoft's brand-new IE9 support the rival H.264 video codec (though IE9 … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Just one year after it initially previewed its new Internet Explorer 9 browser, Microsoft formally launched the software today at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW), bringing in representatives from launch partners from The Huffington Post, Foursquare, Groupon, and Pandora to demonstrate an experience that looks less like the Web as we know it and more like the app ecosystem of a smartphone or tablet.

"We're used to the Web getting better because of everything other than the PC," Internet Explorer's Dean Hachamovitch said of how the most innovative kinds of Web development have, … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Jeff Jaffe's job requires both patience and impatience.

Patience, because the World Wide Web Consortium--of which he's been chief executive for nearly a year--is an unwieldy standards group trying to encompass the disparate agendas of dozens of companies.

And impatience, because if the W3C doesn't move fast enough, the Web will move on without it.

It was clear from an interview with CNET that Jaffe is trying to strike the right balance. The W3C is tackling a range Web standards from the newer idea of augmented reality to the politically charged overhaul of HTML, the … Read more

Facebook is going to start showing movies (and making you buy credits), Microsoft is staking Nokia $1 billion to distribute Windows Phone 7/Nokia love children, and Sprint may buy T-Mobile USA and create a massive mobile carrier third head. Plus, in data porn, Android tops the U.S. smart phone market, AT&T dominates on downloads, and the iPad 2's dual-core processor is apparently not all that. But iOS 4.3 is! Also: vote for Asian Usher! --Molly