Guns don’t kill people, the bullets do that (unless you pistol-whip someone to death, which means you probably ran out of bullets). Similarly HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and even Flash aren’t dangerous on their own, but in the wrong hands and with the wrong motives they can do harm. I wrote…
You may recall from my post in February, WebM, H.264 Debate Still Going, that the H.264 video codec is considered patent-encumbered (which resulted in its dismissal from the HTML5 specification) and Google has argued that its own WebM / VP8 codec is made up of patents it owns, releasing it…
This photo represents some of the technologies (pint glasses) that HTML5 (t-shirt) is thought to encompass (drink). The horror of that concept is represented by the hands (defensive wounds coming).I had the pleasure of sharing some pints with Bruce Lawson and Chris Mills last week in London. While discussing what…
It’s only been 13 years, but CSS version 2.1 is now officially a W3C Recommendation — essentially meaning the specification is final. Which of course means you are now all free to use it in your web pages. CSS2 became a W3C Recommendation on May 12, 1998, over 13 years…
Nearly two weeks ago I wrote up a post outlining the W3C decision to no longer require the alt attribute on images in HTML5: Image alt Attributes Not Always Required in HTML5. I was genuinely surprised to see that was the most popular post on this blog and garnered the…
It has long been accepted that the alt attribute of the <img> element, while not a perfect method to provide a text alternative to an image, is still a necessary attribute to provide at least some level of access to the image content for users who cannot see the image…
There is so much buzz now and in the past week that it’s hard to pick out only a few items to address. I still have an opinion on just about everything going on with the spec, W3C, WHATWG, additional specs, the “pundits,” and many other things that could lead…
The W3C has rolled back its definition of what the new HTML5 logo represents: This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications. In case that isn’t clear, which it might not be, the FAQ gets far more specific on the inclusion of CSS3 in the logo definition (emphasis…
Start Rant With all the debate about elements, attributes, semantic meaning and who really owns HTML5, it’s thrilling to see that the W3C has risen above all the chaos to release something which should truly unify HTML5 and foster its widespread adoption (as soon as it is finished) across the…
W3C The W3C is pretty good about posting news when new HTML/CSS-related documents undergo updates, status changes, or generally move forward. On Friday the W3C HTML Working Group announced the publication of eight new documents. The brief release provides an even briefer overview of each, or you can see the…
If you pay any attention to the plodding chaos that is the development of HTML5, then you’ve probably seen the discussions around the video element and how best to encode videos. Over a year and half ago Ian Hickson gutted the video and audio portions of the HTML5 specification to…
I can’t turn on the TV, surf the web, or peer into my Twitter feed without stumbling into another year-end wrap-up of 2010. These dime-a-dozen contrivances abound like the proverbial lemming to the cliff (lemmings don’t really do that, it’s also a contrivance). However, there have been enough of some…