Google, Microsoft and Samsung are among a handful of tech companies that have banded together to financially support one of the most significant development repositories created.

Open Web Docs is a collaborative project that’s been established to fund and resource the Mozilla Development Network (MDN) Web Docs repository, widely considered the definitive industry handbook for web development.

This group, comprising Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Coil, W3C, Samsung and Igalia, has been formed to support the community of technical writers behind the strategic creation and long-term maintenance of web development documentation.

Created in 2005 by Mozilla, MDN Web Docs serves as an all-encompassing repository for developers working in HTML and JavaScript among other languages to build web-based apps and platforms.

The repository’s future was threatened when Mozilla made a round of 250 job cuts last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however. This has sprung a number of large tech companies, including Mozilla, to establish a new model for funding and maintaining this critical resource used by developers across the industry.

Although Open Web Docs is a broad initiative that’ll support various documentation resources, the group’s current priority is garnering contributions to support MDN Web Docs, according to its Q&A.

“Open Web Docs was created to ensure the long-term health of web platform documentation on de facto standard resources like MDN Web Docs, independently of any single vendor or organization,” said global lead for programs and initiatives, web developer relations, at Google, Robert Nyman.

“Through full-time staff, community management, and our network of partner organisations, we enable these resources to better maintain and sustain documentation of core web platform technologies. Rather than create new documentation sites, Open Web Docs is committed to improving existing platforms through our contributions.”

The group has received more than $500,000 (approximately £366,000) in funding so far from its founding sponsors Coil, Google and Microsoft and others, as well as individual donations from the wider development community.

Technical writer and documentation engineer Florian Scholz joined the project in November 2020 as its content lead and will work with stakeholders to define the initial pathways Open Web Docs will pursue.

The immediate priorities for 2021 will centre on supporting Mozilla’s MDN writers and engineers in an infrastructure transition, as well as progressing key documentation work. This will involve building up the community of contributors around web technology documentation, browser compatibility data, and improving JavaScript documentation.

The rehabilitation of prisoners is a complex and often politically charged process. Helping reformed offenders to rejoin society after a prison stint is an incredibly difficult task, and there's no guarantee that the process will be a successful one.

As it stands, some 50% of prisoners in the UK go on to re-offend, which has a huge cost to the economy, society and family relationships. In monetary terms, re-offenders are said to cost the UK economy between 14-15 billion a year.

Research has shown that the chance of reoffending is lowered when a person is offered meaningful employment, giving them a base upon which to build new skills and industry connections. Unfortunately, there are plenty of companies that will not employ people with criminal records, which leaves ex-criminals in a form of limbo that paves the way for them to fall back on a life of crime.

While prisoners are offered work while incarcerated, it's not often linked to the skills and jobs they'll need once released. And nearly half of UK prisoners have no work at all while serving at Her Majesty's pleasure.

As such, there's a perfect storm of a lack of skills, prospects and opportunities for prisoners to put to use to when granted their freedom, which creates a slippery slope to reoffending.

Code 4000 aims to change that.

The non-profit organisation looks to break the cycle of crime with a programme that trains prisoners how to code, with the goal that upon their release they will have the knowledge today's job market is crying out for amid a shortage of digital skills.

Having drawn inspiration from the Last Mile project in California's' San Quentin prison, Code 4000 had been trialled at HMP Humber. But thanks to a recent injection of 1.2 million from the Department of Digital Culture, Media and Sport, Code 4000 is now looking at expanding into other UK prisons.

"We are giving offenders the opportunity to engage in learning a highly marketable skill which allows them to enter the job market and earn a decent salary, which many would otherwise not be able to achieve," Code 4000 founder and chairman Michael Taylor tells IT Pro.

"Earning a salary, increasing your self-confidence and feelings of personal value along with being able to support your family and contribute positively to the UK economy and be accepted as a worthwhile member of society are all things that positively encourage offenders to turn away from crime."

Cell coding

As the only organisation of its type in Europe, Code 4000 needed to take a careful approach when introducing coding skills to prisoners.

While it is arguably a straightforward process to learn code under one's own steam through accessing online resources, for prisoners unable to access the internet this sort of teaching needs to be done in a secure and closed environment.

Responding to this challenge, Code 4000 came up with a form of virtual machine which provides a digital work environment that's installed on a host machine, be it Mac or Windows. Those machines have an offline curriculum copied onto them for prisoners to study in workshop sessions. The company works alongside industry volunteers to keep this curriculum up to date, adding the latest languages and new forms of teaching each week. The workaround has meant prisoners are effectively able to learn just as they would in the outside world, only in an environment that's not dependent on a network connection.

Code 4000 uses Ubuntu to power its isolated network

Built on open-source operating system Ubuntu, the virtual machines are connected to an on-site server that hosts GitLab, which provides an environment where prisoners can store the code they write and, as part of a second stage, work on real-world open source projects, again without internet access.

Alongside the digital curriculum, volunteers will help teach the prisoners in the workshops, sharing the skills they have developed and honed from industry experience. Such expertise is necessary as while the HMP Humber trial has been successful, offering its offline curriculum to the global prison education community will require a tailored approach.

"Different populations will require slightly different approaches and we will work flexibly to design programmes that meet the needs of prisoners in each prison that we work within," explains Taylor. "We are launching our second workshop at HMP Holme House on 4 April with plans to work with a female prison and young offenders as well as a third Cat B/C prison by the end of this year."

Empowering the incarcerated

The HMP Humber trial saw prisoners complete a programme over the course of just over four months. Following successful completion of these initial stages, prisoners are then given the chance to work alongside clients on site as part of a managed day release. From its first intake, seven prisoners have since been released, with four of these now working full time after having either started their own business or working with Code 4000 on the next steps of their coding journey.

"When I started teaching in prisons I thought that if I could change just one life, turn one person away from crime then I have achieved something truly marvellous," Neil Barnby, a workshop instructor for Code 4000, tells us. "Code 4000 workshops are reducing re-offending at a measurable rate because we keep in touch with our graduates. We are constantly seeing success after success."

That's not to say all prisoners will embrace the coding education, but for Taylor, it's essential that such opportunities are made available to a population that is often at a disadvantage when seeking employment.

"Coding is a new skill for many of the prisoners we work with and we try hard not to exclude anyone from having a go to see if it is a skill that 'speaks' to them," explains Taylor. "This means that some will only stay on the programme for a relatively short period, if they find that coding isn't for them, but it's incredibly important to open opportunities for as many people as possible to find out for themselves, what they can do."

One could worry that equipping prisoners with coding skills could give them with the fledgling abilities to pursue cyber crime. But Taylor highlights that criminals with a history of cyber fraud are excluded from the programme and that teaching a prisoner a skill doesn't mean it will be used for nefarious purposes.

"Teaching an offender cleaning as a skill - doesn't mean that on release the offender will enter a home or premises to clean it and then steal whilst there," Taylor quipped.

Skills success behind bars

For one former prisoner, providing only the name Ash, the Code 4000 course proved to be life changing for both himself and his family. It was during a four-year sentence at HMP Humber that Ash was offered the chance to take up the coding challenge - something he snapped up in an attempt to become a better role model for his young son.

"I began studying a part-time degree in business and management and attending any course available to me within the prison. When I heard of a computer coding workshop, I had absolutely no idea what it was or what it entailed. What I do know is that it was a chance for me to learn something new thus assisting me on leaving the old me in the past," he tells IT Pro.

Despite this lack of prior coding knowledge and being one of the first prisoners to enrol in the programme, Ash took Code 4000 curriculum in his stride, though he had a few challenges to overcome.

"Personally, I found the curriculum very well set out and I learnt a lot while I was in the Code 4000 workshop," he explains. "The CSS and HTML, which is where this course starts, I found very straight forward. I found learning Javascript a bit more challenging, especially remembering what I had learnt once revisiting it when not using it for a while, as Javascript is a lot more technical than the previously learnt languages, however, it is somewhat more fulfilling because it is more difficult."

HTML and CSS are taught early on in the course, although prisoners are offered a choice of languages

Ash spoke highly of the support and skills he received and acquired through the programme, and said he would recommend the Code 4000 curriculum to all prisoners despite it seeming to offer a niche set of computer-oriented skills.

That comes as no surprise given that, upon Ash's release, and with the assistance of Code 4000, he found accommodation in London and began a software engineering apprenticeship with startup Bulbshare.

"I also opened my own business as a freelance developer building websites, which I do in my spare time and is still going quite well," he added.

While some companies may remain reticent to hire ex-offenders, there remains a pressing demand for coding and digital skills in the UK. Much like the efforts of organisations like Crucial Academy, which supports military veterans with digital skills courses, Code 4000 has tapped into an isolated population that's crying out for meaningful employment. This not only helps reform lives, but serves to address the growing skills gap.

Ash believes his experiences with the Code 4000 programme have been truly life-changing. Not only has he been able to avoid a life of crime, but legitimate employment has redefined his relationship with his son.

"I can say wholeheartedly that the Code 4000 course has changed my life astronomically," Ash tells us. "If this can be the result from assisting me following some 50+ offences and 30+ convictions, Code 4000 definitely stops the cycle offending and gives prisoners the ability change, become employable and get back into work.

"Most importantly, I have grown from a prisoner and into a good man that my son can be proud to call Dad."

Google Chrome will begin blocking 90 per cent of the web's Flash content from next month.

The announcement marks the latest step in Google's move away from Flash and towards the much more stable and versatile HTML5 standard.

"You'll see an improvement in responsiveness and efficiency for many sites," promised Anthony LaForge, Google's head of Flash in Chrome.

"This is similar to a change we made last September, when some Flash content became click-to-play with Chrome 42," LaForge wrote in a blog post announcing the change. "This had an immediate, positive impact for our users by improving page load times and saving battery power."

Chrome build 53, coming in September, will begin blocking Flash by default, and in December, build 55 will block it altogether.

The only exception will be for sites that only support Flash, in which case the user will have to consent to running Flash when the page first loads.

Flash has fallen significantly out of favour in recent years. While it used to power much of the rich content seen in the early days of Web 2.0, it has now been superseded by more capable technologies.

It has also been repeatedly proven to be insecure, and security experts have been calling for its retirement for the past several years. Given that most of the web now runs on HTML5, they argue, having Flash enabled is more of a security risk than a benefit.

Google itself has been rapidly phasing Flash out of its services. Last September, it started blocking Flash ads on Chrome, and in June it stopped accepting Flash-based advertising across the board. Rival web companies such as Mozilla have also followed suit, blocking the format on its Firefox browser.

Adobe rebranded its animation software from Adobe Flash Professional to Adobe Animate CC recently, saying it did so to signify that two-thirds of all content created using the software is in the HTML5 format, rather than Flash.

Google is not hanging Adobe completely out to dry, however. "Flash helped make the Web a rich, dynamic experience, and shaped the modern set of web standards," LaForge wrote. "We continue to work closely with Adobe to ensure that your web experience is as fast and secure as possible and to help the Web transition to HTML5."

Google is to ban the use of Flash in ads it carries from this June.

The search engine giant said in the blog post that display ads on its network will be 100 per cent HTML5 from 30 June this year.

It said that over the last few years, "we've rolled out tools to encourage advertisers to use HTML5, so you can reach the widest possible audience across screens".

"To enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices, the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Digital Marketing are now going 100 per cent HTML5," the firm said in a statement.

It said that from 30 June this year, display ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing. From 2 January 2017, display ads in the Flash format can no longer run on the Google Display Network or through DoubleClick.

It urged advertisers to update display ads to HTML5 before these dates. But Google did say that video ads using Flash will still continue to work and be served.

Last year, Google took the step of automatically converting Flash ads to HTML5 when displayed on mobile devices that did not support the technology.

The banning of Flash in Google's ad network is the latest in a line of setbacks for the deeply insecure technology. Last December, Adobe took the step of renaming its Flash Professional product Adobe Animate CC in a bid to distance the software from its Flash origins.

Firefox made the move to block Adobe Flash Player automatically in its browser following the discovery of various cybersecurity issues inherent in the software. Since January last year, YouTube has made HTML5 the default way to play videos on its website rather than use Flash.

Google is about to make mobile adverts less frustrating by automatically converting Flash ads into HTML5.

The search giant made the decision due to the fact many mobile devices don't support Adobe's Flash, making adverts from Google Adwords and third parties annoying to watch.

"Over half of time spent online is now spent on mobile devices," Google wrote in a blog post. "This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to reach their customers throughout the day, whenever they may be browsing.

"With this new tool plus our best practices and versatile mobile ad formats, we're making it easier for marketers to deliver beautiful display ads that just work regardless of screen or device ensuring a better experience for both consumers and brands."

IT Pro first reported that YouTube would be switching from Adobe Flash to HTML5 in January, with work on the change apparently beginning four years ago.

Previously, adoption of HTML5 had been blocked by its lack of support for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR), but Google's Swiffy tool will now convert Flash ads to the coding language.

"Over the last four years, we've worked with browser vendors and the broader community to close those gaps, and now, YouTube uses HTML5 video by default in Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and in beta version of Firefox," engineering manager Richard Leider said in a developers blog.

On Google's page for users wanting to determine which format their ads are running in, the company warned that not all Flash ads can be converted to HTML5.

"To see whether your Flash ad will convert, upload it to the Swiffy tool," the page read. "If this tool is able to convert your ad, then your ad will be automatically converted when it is uploaded to AdWords.

"To see in your AdWords reports whether your Flash ad was converted, segment your ad table by devices. If you see mobile or tablet impressions for a Flash ad, then your ad was converted."

YouTube now uses HTML5 to play videos by default, putting another nail in the coffin of Adobe Flash.

Work to transition to HTML5 began four years ago. One of the key barriers engineers had to adopting HTML5 was the initial lack of support for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR), which cuts down on buffering without compromising video quality.

"Over the last four years, we've worked with browser vendors and the broader community to close those gaps, and now, YouTube uses HTML5

by default in Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and in beta versions of Firefox," explained Richard Leider, engineering manager in the YouTube engineering and developers blog.

The switch to HTML5 is important because it works across web browsers and other streaming devices such as Smart TVs. Lieder also claimed it's helped Google to usher in products like the Chromecast and Chromebook.

Other benefits of HTML5 include support for the open VP9 codec, which provides higher quality video resolution at a third of the bandwidth. This means users will have access to 4K and HD videos at 60FPS, which will load up to 80 per cent faster.

Leider also gave a shout out to Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Vimeo, companies which have all helped to drive forward the HTML5 standard.

"You can support HTML5 by using the everywhere you embed YouTube videos on the web," he added.

Adobe has taken the wraps of a new set of tools and services designed to help developers create content using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

The software vendor launched its new Edge Tools and Services products at an event in San Francisco yesterday, and announced the immediate availability of Adobe Edge Animate 1.0, Adobe Edge Inspect 1.0, Adobe PhoneGap Build 1.0 and Adobe Edge Web Fonts.

The company also confirmed that Edge Animate, which will allow developers to create animated content for web sites using HTML, JavaScript and CSS, will be given away for free to encourage adoption by web designers.

The products will also be made available to users of Adobe's Creative Cloud service.

"We are excited to put a powerful new set of HTML5 tools into the hands of Web designers and developers and can't wait to experience the beautiful websites, digital content and mobile apps they'll create," said Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager of interactive development at Adobe.

"[This] is why we're contributing to the web platform and making the Edge Tools and Services available for free, including the first release of Edge Animate."

Renee James, SVP of Intel's software and services division admitted that the industry has overhyped HTML5, but the firm still fully behind the technology.

Software developers are usually forced to choose between platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone as developing apps from scratch for each platform is time consuming and costly.

James noted that on average 63 per cent of apps make than less $5,000 per month.

HTML5 is designed to be a cross-platform technology, but it has been overhyped.

Therefore Intel is keen to push HTML5 and allow developers to benefit from multiple revenue streams. The firm suggest 40 per cent of developers it has surveyed are already using HTML5, and another 40 per cent looking to use it.

"HTML5 is designed to be a cross-platform technology and I know there are a lot of differing opinions, [but] we all agree it has been very overhyped. Like most new technologies early on, it has had some struggles. We believe it is emerging as a credible solution for transparent computing," said James at IDF.

"We're committed to making sure that HTML5 remains open, cross platform and has the right performance. We want to make sure it doesn't go the way that other promised languages have gone."

With HTML5 allowing developers to include video, 3D, audio and full interactivity, then deploy apps across multiple platforms, it looks likely that it will deliver on its promise, especially when backed by the might of Intel.

Salesforce.com today made a host of additions to its social collaboration service Chatter, as well as adding HTML5 capabilities for mobile apps delivered on the company's platforms.

This morning at Dreamforce 2011, a wide range of new Chatter features were announced many focusing on the social aspect of company operations.

"Chatter is becoming the leader in employee social networking," chief executive of Salesforce.com Marc Benioff said.

One major new addition is presence. Chatter Now will show when colleagues are online, allowing for instant communication and screen sharing.

For those who have been watching HTML5, it's as important as HTML when it first came out.

Customer Groups within Chatter will allow businesses to interact with others outside of their organisation via private groups, including customers.

The Approvals feature, meanwhile, will let users take action on anything to do with the approval process within Chatter. Approval processes will contain "context" as well, to help make better decisions at the sales level.

Chatter Service combines one of the vendor's big money earners the Service Cloud with the social collaboration tool to provide a simpler portal for customer interaction. The feature hooks up with major sites like Facebook so customers can get in touch via a "familiar social feed."

The Chatter contact pages have changed too, pulling in all contacts from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, helping to build "social profiles," just as the newly-announced Data.com is attempting to do.

The Service and screen sharing additions will be generally available in 2012, whilst the other features will come out in early 2011.

Chatter Service and screen sharing will also come with separate pricing, with the others supplied free for all Chatter customers.

More Chatter for developers

Salesforce.com also announced a number of other Chatter enhancements aimed more at developers.

Chatter Connect will allow developers to create custom and third-party apps for the social collaboration service. The new Chatter REST API, meanwhile, lets users integrate Chatter into other applications, such as intranets.

Chatter for SharePoint allows for embedding of Chatter feeds into the Microsoft-run collaboration product, as well as share documents across the two services.

Chatter Connect is available today for free, whilst the SharePoint addition is scheduled for release in late 2011, also for free.

Adding HTML5

Salesforce.com does not want to miss out on the shift to HTML5 either, announcing Touch.salesforce.com for mobile devices.

The app means users will be able to access Salesforce.com services, whether they be apps provided by the cloud company or customer created applications, via their touch devices.

"Improvements in hardware are being complemented by huge shift in software. For those who have been watching HTML5, it's as important as HTML when it first came out," Benioff said.

"We were huge believers in HTML in the beginning - it's a no-brainer to rapidly bring in HTML5. How you use Salesforce on these mobile devices is going to change."

According to Salesforce.com, the app will work with any mobile platform.

It's hoped the service will inspire developers to create improved mobile-oriented apps too.

Adobe today announced a preview release of its Flash alternative Edge, an HTML5 design and animation tool.

Flash has been seen by some as a dying piece of software, in particular by Apple, which prevented the tool from working on iOS devices.

Adobe has chosen to release the HTML5 tool on the Labs website earlier than normal for a development cycle as it wants as much user feedback as possible.

Edge will work with browsers in iOS devices, as well as with other modern browsers.

"Over the last year Adobe has delivered on several significant HTML5 milestones including contributions to jQuery, submitting code to WebKit, and enhanced HTML5 output in Creative Suite 5.5," said Paul Gubbay, vice president of design and web engineering at Adobe.

"Now, with Adobe Edge, we're taking our HTML5 tooling to a whole new level and look forward to getting some really useful feedback from the community over the next few months, as we refine the product."

Farhan Mirza, principal at consulting firm AT Kearney, said Edge would be important for Adobe to keep it "in the new world."

"Although Edge has been under public review for almost a year, the launch of v1.0 has come a bit earlier than expected. Which is good because developers need certainty on the products and tools they will invest in and use," Mirza added.

"Edge is an authoring tool that creates a Flash like environment for animation - something that developers will recognise and adapt to quite easily. And which plays to Adobe's strengths from its Illustrator and Photoshop products."

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is nearing the end of its HTML5 standard, one of the board members has confirmed.

Paul Cotton, co-chair of the HTML working group at W3C and partner group manager at Microsoft, said the last issues had to be put to him before 24 May, when his final report on the new standard had to be completed.

"This technology is mobilising very, very quickly and is being adopted and put into all the browsers you use laptop or mobile very, very quickly," he said yesterday during the launch of the W3C's UK and Ireland Office at Oxford University, attended by IT PRO.

"It might start to impact how you build websites or how you use them."

Getting to this stage hasn't been easy, however, and continuing arguments around the likes of video codecs have delayed the process.

Referring to Google dropping the H.264 codec from its Chrome browser, Cotton said: "There is still a lot of controversy over video codecs and the working group has agreed to disagree this is not a nice situation."

However, he believed this was the best path to take, using the debate around image files from early HTML to support his point.

"At the time the most popular [format] was .gif shown to be very well encumbered," added Cotton, "or we could have settled on .png. Do you think that would have been good?"

He added: "The reality is if 10 years ago we had settled on a fixed image format, we wouldn't have had the [compatibility]. The same needs to happen in the video and audio area."

It is not all over yet though. Despite reaching what W3C calls the "feature complete" stage in May, there will still be more steps around implementation until the standard is totally finalised.

All of the latest browser releases from Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and Google have included HTML5 capabilities.

Internet Explorer 9, the latest version of Microsoft's web browser, is now one step closer to its final, finished form with the release candidate now available.

One new feature in this latest build of IE9 is Tracking Protection which should prevent advertising companies, as well as more unscrupulous characters, from tracking users and their surfing behaviour as they go from site to site.

Unfortunately, the interface isn't immediately obvious.

Users can subscribe to a list which automatically blocks trackers, or they can choose to block them on a case-by-case basis, but it's not clear exactly how this can be achieved.

There have also been tweaks to the user interface the tab bar which sits to the right of the location/search box by default can now be moved so it sits beneath the box. It's also possible to start searching for a web page immediately from the location box, instead of searching your history and bookmarks, by typing a question mark and then keywords.

The ability to pin websites to the Windows taskbar so they act more like locally installed programs has also been tweaked. For sites that support it, users can now adjust various options such as their appearance or which options appear in the site's taskbar jump list. This can be done from a settings dialogue box or a setup wizard the first time you run the site after pinning.

Microsoft claims to have boosted JavaScript performance even further and graphics hardware acceleration is now only enabled for sites that can take advantage of it. Support for additional HTML5 features, such as finding your location based on your IP address, has also been added although this geolocation feature didn't work on our wireless network.

Due to the improved security features in Vista and Windows 7 required by IE9, the new browser won't be available for Windows XP users. Microsoft's advice is for XP users to stick with IE8, which won't be discontinued.

This release candidate should be the last build before the finished version is released, but Microsoft representatives were unwilling to commit to a release date.

Microsoft has created an add-on for Google's Chrome browser, providing support for H.264 video playback.

With the extension, Windows users running Chrome will be able to enjoy support for H.264, a codec recently dropped by Google.

Google decided to ditch H.264 support for HTML5 in order to focus on its own WebM format, but the move led to questions over whether the search giant had committed an act against openness.

Future versions of Chrome will not come with H.264 support for HTML5.

Microsoft created a similar add-on for Mozilla's Firefox browser towards the end of last year, as it looked to push H.264 - still the most widely-used video-playback codec around.

The Redmond giant, which was one of the creators of H.264 alongside Apple and others, has now called for an open dialogue on the future of web video.

Microsoft said it was agnostic when it came to the video format support for HTML5, claiming the Google decision to drop H.264 would bring about instability.

"Setting aside the speculation about the reasons and objectives, this announcement has created instability and uncertainty around video on the web," said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet Explorer, in a blog.

"To get back on track, technical enthusiasts, developers, businesses, and consumers need consistent and sustainable answers to many questions about WebM. These groups also deserve to be part of an open discussion."

Google did not wish to offer comment on Microsoft's moves at the time of publication.

"Consumers and businesses want confidence that video on the web will continue work and that they will not face legal risk for using it," Hachamovitch added.

"Google's decision to drop support for H.264 from its browser seems to undermine these goals."

The announcement and subsequent comments will only serve to increase the tension between Microsoft and Google.

Earlier this week, the search giant claimed Bing results were directly copied from Google, which Microsoft staunchly denied.

The HTML5 standard has been described as not being ready for production by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for developing it.

Ever since the new standard for browser webpage design was first formulated, it has been surrounded by hype and controversy.

Much of the excitement around HTML5 derived from expectations it would be able to to embed video playing capabilities across various browsers in the near future.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs was a great proponent of HTML5, allegedly because of his dislike of Adobe's Flash video browser add-in. His resistance to the Adobe software was only recently eroded when he decided to give way to customer pressure and allow for Flash to work on Apple products.

Maybe that's just as well because it appears that both Flash and the Microsoft Internet Explorer technology Silverlight will be with us for a few more years.

The W3C said that it will be two or three years before HTML5 is ready for full deployment. Philippe Le Hegaret, leader of the W3C Interaction Domain and responsible for HTML5 development, has been extensively quoted this week for admitting to video interoperability issues between browsers causing delays.

"I don't think it's ready for production yet. The real problem is: can we make it work across browsers? And, at the moment, that is not the case," said Hegaret.

Remy Sharp, developer and owner of Left Logic in Brighton, has his doubts about full compatibility at any point in the future.

"How many times do we have to go over this? For the specification to be ready', it needs to be implemented fully in two browsers. I don't think this is going to happen either soon or otherwise," he wrote in his blog.

To support his doubts about cross-browser compatibility, he cited the case of the widely adopted Cascading Style Sheets (CCS) 2.1.

"This specification is not ready'. It's not implemented fully in any one browser. IE8 is missing one property and Opera (last I checked, so I could be wrong) is missing two properties. That's the closest we get," he stated.

Sharp went on to point out that HTML5 is similarly a toolkit and that some tools will never get used but others can be employed now.

"I'm asking you, the developer, to look at the technology that's available to you and choose the solution that suits your problem best. If that happens to be an HTML5 technology, or a non-HTML5 API, or even Flash, you've chosen the individual, specific technology, not a ... buzzword," he added.

YouTube has overhauled its mobile site to give customers better video capabilities on the move.

The Google-owned site has been enhanced for those using HTML5 on their mobile browsers, providing faster loading times.

The look and feel has been updated, with a new UI for the iPad has also been introduced.

Along with these deeper features, added extras such as the ability to make video playlists, add videos to your favourites or like/unlike videos have been incorporated into the new site.

There are also built-in sharing features to link out videos to Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz.

Announcing the services, Google said: "YouTube launched on mobile devices in 2007 with about 1,000 videos available on the mobile site. While this suddenly opened up the possibility to access videos on the go, our site, mobile browsers and the hardware had limitations that prevented the mobile experience from keeping up with YouTube on the desktop."

"Today, more than ever, YouTube knows that you want to be able to find and access your favorite videos wherever you are. That's why YouTube's rolling out an updated version of the mobile site."

The new site can be accessed by visiting m.youtube.com.

The latest "preview" update for Internet Explorer adds new hardware-accelerated video and layout options, support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) standard, and the latest version of JavaScript (ES5), along with further performance improvements.

The third platform preview of IE 9 is available for download and as well as HTML 5 Video and Audio tags, the browser engine now supports the Canvas tag which Microsoft had not previously announced as part of its Internet Explorer plans.

Two of the sample Web apps on the IE9 Test Drive site use Canvas to lay out and animate elements on the page for an interactive Amazon bookshelf and HD trailers from the IMBD site, delivered in the HTML 5 video format.

Both Canvas and the Video tag - which supports H.264 video in the preview but will also work with Google's WebM VP8 codec in the final version of IE9 - are GPU-accelerated, something Microsoft group program manager Rob Mauceri suggests will give IE9 a performance advantage.

"If you look at today's PC, with the GPU and multicore processors, browsers use about 10 per cent of the power available We're very excited about Canvas, Audio and Video; we think they're a great match for the power of the GPU. IE9 really puts the whole power of your PC on the web."

Mauceri added that Microsoft had not previously announced support for Canvas because the vendor "wanted people to be able to see it and try it for themselves before we started talking about it."

The preview also adds support for two key ways to embed fonts stored on a server in web pages, WOFF and font-face. Fonts delivered this way will also be rendered by the GPU with sub-pixel placement for speed.

Improvements to IE9's Chakra JavaScript engine take its SunSpider speed test score down to under 350ms.

"We're now faster than Chrome 4," says Mauceri. "We're faster than the shipping version of Firefox, we're within 20ms of the recently updated Safari 5 and we're not done yet." He said that Platform Preview 3's score on the controversial Acid 3 test has gone up from 68 to 83. "We're not done yet here either", he added.

Mauceri says there have been two million downloads of the IE9 platform previews. The third platform preview meets Microsoft's promised eight-week deadline for updates but it still has no browser interface for everyday use and there is no news on the beta rumoured to come in August.

Safari 5 was unmentioned in Steve Jobs' opening keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, which focused solely on iPhone OS 4.0, Apple's newly rechristened mobile platform.

Nonetheless, a few hours later Apple pushed out the latest version of its web browser with little fanfare. Surprisingly so, because even though Safari 5 plays catch-up with other browsers by finally introducing a proper framework for extensions to add new functionality, and marks yet another round of tireless muscle flexing performance statistics, there is one new feature that makes this update worth checking out.

That feature is called Reader and it's intended to make longer articles on the web a more comfortable and convenient experience. Once a page has finished loading, Safari tries to identify the portion of the page that brought you there - the real content amongst the chaff of ads and navigation. Part of its decision is based on the length of the longest flowing portion of text. Exceptionally short news items can escape its gaze, but for content that's worth the pixels they occupy, Reader does a good job of picking it up.

If it's successful, a button appears at the right side of the address bar that when pressed dims the normal page layout. The article appears in a layer on top of it, reformatted in a plainer serif font that's fairly easy on the eye. It retains pull-quotes, box outs and other illustrative material and flows the body of the article around them, so that you don't miss essential information that complements the thrust of the body copy.

Roll the pointer over the bottom of the page and a toolbar fades in, with controls to adjust the text size, email the article (along with a link to the original) and print it. The text size is a persistent setting, so you won't need to fiddle once you've found a comfortable size for your eyesight, but that's the limit of customisation. There's no way to change other attributes - neither the font used nor the line spacing. To our eyes Apple has done a decent job of picking the settings, but the opportunity to tailor them would have been useful, if only to get away from the harshness of black text on a white background.

If it seems odd that Reader should appear on the Desktop and not in the mobile version of Safari, we can only hope that it's being used as a test bed to first refine it based on feedback. The feature's unveiling was greeted with much kafuffle about the impact it might have on website visitor metrics, but as the visitor to a site, the ability to dismiss things you're not interested in brings a sense of empowerment - like a Flash blocker on steroids.

Even so, after the honeymoon we've found ourselves relying on Reader less, but it's useful for sites with headache-inducing typography and text that's spread across multiple pages. Reader recognises that, pulls it all together and reassembles it into one long piece, so you even get the whole caboodle in one click when you email or print a page. It's not perfect, though. For instance, sometimes it misinterprets linked Wikipedia entries and combines them.

Part of the lull in our use of Reader can be attributed to our reliance on services such as Instapaper to line up material for later consumption, and if you don't use something similar this could become an indispensable feature for your online research.

Enhancing functionality

Potentially more significant, Apple has finally decided to do something that other browsers have been doing for years and allow Safari's functionality to be enhanced with extensions that can be run on the Windows and Mac versions.

Right now, this infrastructure isn't even enabled by default - to turn it on, you have to go by the circuitous route of turning on Safari's menu bar, enabling its Develop menu and turning on Extensions there. That's most likely because Apple sprung the feature on developers at its recent conference, so it isn't yet ready to launch its public Extensions Gallery. That will open later in the summer to showcase the growing library of officially signed (but free to develop) extensions.

That should bring some genuinely useful tools, since eager beavers swiftly got to work within days of Safari 5's release. An index of examples can be found at safariextensions.tumblr.com, among which you'll find an Amazon.com search bar, a basic URL shortener and a tool that dims all page content except for the video you're watching.

No matter how long it has taken, it's a great move that makes Safari a more appealing alternative, not to mention a more realistic one if you've stuck with Firefox until now for this capability. It's still early days, though, and Safari has years of catching up to do.

Developers don't need to buy a Mac or any development tools to make extensions. As with other browsers, they require a good command of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and the tools to package them up for distribution are built right into the browser. When it comes to security, they're sand-boxed from the rest of the browser, a common theme with browsers these days, which Apple began to address with the release of Snow Leopard, on which the Flash Player plug-in is isolated to reduce the risk of it taking down the browser.

At least the dialog presents an obvious counter of updates that are waiting to be installed, which can be done individually or in one fell swoop, and automatically if you elect to tick that box. Still, the dialog really needs to sport better organisation tools if it's to avoid annoying you.

Search options

Even though extensions add the possibility of replacing enhancing, Safari's limited search options will make you sick to your stomach. Apple touts "even more search options with built-in Bing search." That's one extra option in addition to Google and Yahoo. A measly total of three, and though that includes the poster-child of internet search, Apple hasn't conceded ground on allowing you to switch to a regionalised version of Google.

Nor can you customise the list of search engines to add it or any others you want to use, as you can in Firefox. Apple may be concerned about malicious code injection, or it may see this as the domain of extensions, which should help limit such security implications thanks to their being sandboxed. A fully customisable search extension to replace the built-in search bar looks like your best hope. Or you can stick with Firefox.

The address bar is improved, too, and closer to what you'll find in Chrome. If you can only remember part of a previously visited page's title or address, typing it brings up suggested matches from your browsing history and bookmarks, even if it appears part way through either of those attributes. Again, it's a catch-up feature, but it makes Safari that little bit more flexible that you can begin to see it as a viable alternative to the competition.

Web standards

Safari 5 also sports better HTML5 support - no surprise given the recent spat between Apple and Adobe. In testament to the weight Apple has flung behind the emerging standard, Safari 5 supports 17 additional features of HTML5 on top of the existing seven. Among them, AJAX history, forms validation and geolocation are just the tip of the iceberg for promising future web applications. Apple may trail the competition when it comes to end-user features, but it's a frontrunner in terms of future web technologies.

Security

Aside from extensions being sand-boxed, it's disappointing to see that Java and JavaScript blocking remains a browser-wide setting. That overlooks the need to weigh up the usefulness of web applications to your business against the need to block such technologies talking to the outside world and posing a security risk.

Instead of implementing that in the browser by making site-specific allowances, you'll have to do it on your web or proxy server. The same goes for plug-ins - they're either all on or all off, and checking the preferences pane doesn't give any insight into what plug-ins are installed, never mind what the specific version numbers happen to be.

There are at least warnings for fraudulent sites and, tied into the HTML5 geolocation support, the checkbox that allows websites to at least ask for permission to use your location is turned on by default.

Hardware acceleration

Safari 5 can use hardware to speed up certain tasks. Even so, you'll need a DirectX 9-capable graphics card and a modest 64MB of graphics memory to use Top Sites, a feature that gets mixed reception for its performance. It was understandably slow on our first run, during which it filled its wall with page thumbnails, but faster on subsequent runs. The hardware requirement has an impact if you want to run Safari in a virtualised OS, though, with some such environments requiring as much as 256MB of RAM to be reapportioned to graphical tasks to ensure smooth running.

Speed

Apple's speed claims are less bold than in previous versions, claiming to be a mere three per cent faster than Chrome 5.0 when it comes to JavaScript performance. Results may vary depending on the configuration of your computer. Ours was a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with 27in screen and 4GB of RAM.

The only major hardware component that differed from Apple's quoted test spec is the graphics processor, a more powerful ATI Radeon HD 4850 instead of its NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. We tested on Mac OS X 10.6.3 and on the 32-bit edition of Windows XP SP3 (under Boot Camp)as our baseline for Microsoft's OS, so the slower results on that system reflect a likely worst-case scenario if your business is still in the process of migrating to Windows 7. On both systems we ran the SunSpider 0.9.1 test.

On Mac OS X, Safari led the pack by a relatively small amount, as expected. Its overall SunSpider score was 284.4ms, not too far ahead of Chrome 5.0 on 325ms and Opera 10.54 on 353.2ms. Firefox 3.6.4 trailed far behind with 791.8ms, which reflects Apple's quoted order of performance.

On Windows, Safari 5.0's score of 551ms is a marked improvement on Safari 4.0.5's 736.8ms. However, it was edged out by Chrome 5.0, the leader of the pack at 489.6ms. Opera 10.54's performance remained close to Apple's and Google's browsers with 540.6ms, while Firefox 3.6.4 again fell behind with 1139.8ms. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer 8 looked like an infant performing at the Olympics with its rating of 4053ms.

So, it's clear that Safari 5 is, for the time being, is a better option than the previous version for running JavaScript-based web applications on Windows, but we doubt it will lure you away from your existing browser, or from the temptation to switch to Chrome.

Verdict

Extensions are so new to Safari that they don’t provide a convincing reason to switch right now. Right now it's Reader that has the biggest impact on your reading. Even speed isn't significantly different to Chrome, though that's a virtue that makes Safari 5 worth checking out if you've discounted previous versions as being too slow with rich internet applications. Safari is a much better browser for Windows. But we can't really see an overwhelming reason to switch to it on Windows, especially when its most notable feature can be had in other browsers through a bookmark.

Apple has launched a new website promoting the HTML5 web video standard but only users of the company's own Safari web browser can view it.

Despite trumpeting HTML5 as a truly open video standard unlike Adobe's Flash, Apple appears to have fallen foul of its own marketing by snubbing all other browsers but its own despite the fact that many do already support HTML5 and the related CSS3 specification.

The site contains a selection of interactive material showcasing HTML5, but attempting to access the material using anything else but Safari returns a prompt to download the Apple browser.

"The demos below show how the latest version of Apple's Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript," the front page of the website reads. "Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards and the amazing things they enable web designers to do."

While this is true of Microsoft's market-leading Internet Explorer, alternative "modern browsers" such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome and Opera do support HTML5 to some extent.

While it later emerged that users of other browsers could in fact access the demo videos through the site's developers section, it made little difference to critics hailing the move as yet further evidence of what they see as Apple hypocrisy in its dealings with its rivals.

Mozilla vice president of engineering Mike Shaver put it bluntly on Twitter on hearing the news: "Having difficulty suppressing my contempt for Apple's arrogant and ridiculous HTML5 positioning today," he tweeted.

Apple has been actively pushing HTML5 since distancing itself from Adobe in the wake of criticism for its decision to block the software firm's Flash video technology from its products.

While the iPhone has famously always lacked Flash support, Apple's strategic opposition to Flash became public with the iPad's launch in January.

Adobe criticised the firm for "failing to co-operate" in finding a way to support its web standard on the tablet, sparking a public war of words that culminated in Apple pulling support for even third-party apps based on Flash in the latest iPhone SDK.

Despite admitting that this last act was motivated by personal factors, Apple boss Steve Jobs argues that for the rest, the move to oppose Flash is nothing more than a rational business decision.

"We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future," Jobs said at the D8 digital conference in California last week. "Flash looks like it had its day but it's waning, and HTML5 looks like it's coming up."

Microsoft has revealed a few more details about Internet Explorer 9, unveiling a platform preview at MIX10 in Las Vegas today.

The next version of Microsoft's browser will include support for HTML5, which is already supported by many of its rivals, as well as hardware-accelerated graphics, and a new JavaScript engine that takes advantage of multi-core chips, Microsoft said.

As part of its HTML5 support, IE9 will support CSS3, XHTML parsing, video and audio tags, and scalable vector graphics.

"Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser to take standard web patterns that developers use and run them better on modern PCs through Windows," said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of IE, in a statement.

A speed bump is of course on the menu, as well. Speaking at MIX10, Principal Program Lead Jason Weber reportedly said: "IE 9 is crazy fast... so crazy fast we're changing the way you think."

While its speed scores are still not as fast as some of its rivals, it is an improvement on IE8 of about ten to 11 per cent, Weber said.

While a date for a beta is yet to be released, those eager to test out IE9 can check out the platform preview here.