01.16.10
Posted in Programming at 11:08 pm by thomas
The number of changes to HTML and CSS that are now showing up in browser rendering engines as part of the general push towards HTML5 are quite astonishing. If you are a web developer and you are not spending all your time right now learning new technologies, then you are probably doing something wrong.
Among the many changes there is one element that has been implemented in Internet Explorer for years, but only now has made the official cut with HTML5 and now slowly finds its way into other modern browsers: Ruby Annotations.
In short, ruby allows the addition of a short annotation, like a pronunciation guide, to a word in a text. Ruby annotations have been used in East Asian languages in print for a very long time, so this new feature will certainly improve the acceptance of standards-based browsers in Asia.
But it will be interesting to see what other uses web developers will find for these new elements – they allow for interesting layout solutions around online translation, language learning and developmental training that are certainly worth exploring.
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01.13.10
Posted in Programming at 11:45 pm by thomas
The Web as we know it is based for the most part on ten year old technology.
There are many features that web designers have been craving for since the early 2000s that have been stuck in standardization limbo for many years and still now, in 2010, the web community has to support ancient browsers that just won’t go away. Internet Explorer 6 is now nine years old. NINE YEARS!
Every time somebody builds a big commercial website, some 5-10% of the HTML development time is spent on making the site work on IE6, and there are many cool features that are still regularly cut from designs since IE6 or IE7 or even IE8 do not support them.
But there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Even with Microsoft dragging their feet on every new feature, the Web is slowly changing. HTML5 is not an official standard yet, but there are many features that have already been implemented by Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome – and for some of them there are adequate workarounds for IE7 & 8 that allow us finally to stretch a little bit, try something new… to experiment.
Here is a HTML5/CSS3 Cheatsheet that I’ve created mostly so that I don’t have to look up the syntax on random web sites every time I want to use one of these. There’s text shadows, box shadows, rounded corners, inline SVG and Canvas support. Many of these things will make the web a better looking place (and I’m sure we’ll also see many anti-usecases in the near future!), and if you are a web developer you may find a use for these, too!
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01.09.10
Posted in Culture, Good Stuff, Media at 12:10 am by thomas
Alex Roman has spent a year creating one of the most astonishing CG short films that I’ve seen in a long time: The Third & The Seventh (HD version at vimeo).
The film can be best described as a meditation on architecture, photography and the sense of space and depth in the world around us.
Alex Roman recreated several modern buildings as 3D renderings and then uses some quite amazing craftsmanship to give the viewer a sense of depth with very subtle animations where the virtual camera slowly floats through the buildings, with ever so slight changes in focus.
Many of the effects are so subtle, especially in the first half of the film that I didn’t even believe that I am looking at CG rendered versions of the buildings. Alex has a great sense for lighting and clearly must have spent many hours tuning the lighting set ups to create extremely photorealistic settings. Only in the second half of the film, when he introduces surrealistic effects, does it become apparent that we have been looking at computer graphics all along.
Here is a video with some of the scenes as compositing breakdowns in case you want to see a peek under the hood of several of the scenes in the film.
It should be mentioned that Alex also created the soundtrack for the film, making this all around a major tour de force.
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