Making websites accessible to users with disabilities — things like poor vision, blindness, limited dexterity — has been central to the mission of the web’s overseers since the dawn of the browser.
There are a few browser extensions out there to help the disabled surf the web comfortably. Google has posted this video to show us what the company is doing to improve the accessibility of its browser, Chrome. The video highlights a few of the extensions that have already been built for this purpose, like Chrome Vis and Keyboard Navigation.
There’s also some advice for extensions builders interested in accessibility, like remembering to include text color, text size and keyboard shortcuts options in your extensions. More here.
Cliqset completed a significant upgrade to its social sharing website Wednesday.
The site now fully integrates Twitter, and it has refined its aggregation system so you get a much more streamlined, easy-to-digest view of your friends’ activities across multiple social sites.
There are literally dozens of changes, both visible and behind-the-scenes, in the new Cliqset. We’ve been testing out the new version (the company is half-jokingly calling it “Cliqset 2.0″) since midday Tuesday, and we’ve found the site has been given a significant boost that makes its aggregation features both more usable and more useful. The changes should be appearing for everyone on Cliqset sometime Wednesday morning.
Cliqset is a social network in itself, complete with followers, status updates and media sharing. But its sweet spot is as an aggregation service. It funnels all of the posts from the people you follow on the web into one single stream. It pulls in Twitter tweets, photos from your Flickr contacts, posts from your Tumblr network, updates from your friends on Facebook, Google Buzz, Yelp, YouTube, Google Reader — Cliqset connects to over 80 services in all.
It sounds, looks and works a lot like FriendFeed. But unlike FriendFeed, which was acquired by Facebook last year and has largely stagnated since, Cliqset continues to innovate.
Here’s one really cool new innovation: When you’re following somebody across multiple social networks and aggregating their posts in one place, you’re going to get a lot of duplicates. The new Cliqset filters out those dupes.
“If somebody’s on three different networks, we’ll know that,” Cliqset co-founder Darren Bounds tells Webmonkey. “We’ll consolidate their posts, de-duplicate the posts, refine them.”
YouTube has some bad news for those of you hoping the site would soon ditch Flash in favor of HTML5 video tags: It isn’t going to happen any time soon.
That’s message from the YouTube developer blog which cites half-a-dozen areas where Flash trumps HTML5 and explains why “the <video> tag does not currently meet all the needs of a site like YouTube.”
The emerging HTML5 standard, which is quickly being adopted by browser manufacturers and developers, offers native video-playback and animation tools that don’t require Adobe’s Flash plug-in. However, while HTML5 handles the basics of video, it lacks many of the extra features that sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu currently offer through Flash-based video players.
To switch to pure HTML5 video would mean YouTube would have to give up features like live streaming, dynamic video quality control and the ability to allow users to jump to specific points in a video.
While YouTube claims to be “excited about the HTML5 effort and <video> tag,” the post makes it pretty clear that HTML5 isn’t going to take over the site any time soon. The video-streaming site Hulu has previously said the same thing: HTML5 lacks the extra features Flash enables.
YouTube has been running an experimental HTML5 version of the site for more than a year, and it remains an opt-in choice for those who want to avoid Flash. The site also continues to serve raw H.264 videos to mobile devices like the iPad, but don’t expect the main browser version of YouTube to make the same changes.
The YouTube developer blog lists several things Flash can do that HTML5 video tags cannot:
Google’s Chrome web browser has, for the first time ever, surpassed Apple’s Safari browser in the United States according to some new browser share data released Monday by StatsCounter.
Chrome now accounts for 8.97 percent of U.S. web traffic, putting it ahead of Safari which is used by 8.88 of U.S. web surfers. In the worldwide arena, Chrome has had the lead since September, 2009.
That’s not much of margin, and it may well be that when Safari 5, released at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference earlier in June, is added to the numbers, Chrome will slip again.
But considering that Chrome has been around less than two years and Safari has over seven under its belt, even matching Safari’s numbers is impressive.
Of course the two titans of the internet have little to fear from either browser. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still lays claim to 52 percent of the market with Firefox picking up the slack at 28.5 percent.
The numbers come from StatsCounter, which also has global statistics that put Chrome well ahead of Safari. But, as with any market share survey, take these numbers with a grain of salt. Browser usage routinely fluctuate from month to month and it may well be to early to say Chrome is really ahead of Safari. Here’s StatsCounter’s methodology, if you’re interested.
This does possibly mean good news for Google’s WebM video codec, though. Given that Safari is now the only browser lacking support for the new open WebM video codec, Chrome’s rise may mean that early adopters of HTML5 video will treat WebM as a “works-everywhere” solution.
After all, Safari’s tiny market share is in the same range as the number of users without JavaScript, and clearly that group is routinely ignored.
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.6.6, an incremental update which tweaks the way the browser handles misbehaving plug-ins, giving Flash and other plug-ins 45 seconds to respond, or else get shut down.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Firefox 3.6.4 was released. It included a new Crash Protection feature that keeps plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight isolated into separate processes. If a plug-in hangs or crashes, it won’t cause the entire browser to crash with it. Firefox only lets the plug-in remain unresponsive for 10 seconds, then it shuts the process down. (This feature is only available in the Windows and Linux version of Firefox, Mac users will have to wait for a future update).
Firefox 3.6.6 extends the amount of time Firefox will wait before terminating unresponsive plug-ins. Mozilla upped the limit to 45 seconds. Apparently, the 10-second timeout limit proved too short for many users — Flash routinely hangs for more than 10 seconds without crashing.
Isolating plug-ins is actually just the beginning. Mozilla’s larger plan is to apply “out-of-process” handling, as the more general feature is known, to all add-ons and even tabs, making Firefox considerably more stable. Once that feature is enabled, each web app would be cordoned off inside its own tab. If one page or app crashes, that single tab simply closes and the rest of the browser keeps cooking along as usual.
Isolated tabs won’t arrive until Firefox 4, which is slated for later this year.
This feature was popularized by Google Chrome, and it’s now being added into other browsers. It also started becoming a standard feature across browsers just as Flash began feeling the renewed heat over performance issues. Even though Adobe recently released a new version of its Flash Player software specifically to address many of these issues, it remains under scrutiny thanks to Apple’s decision to ban Flash from the iPad, and its campaign to get web developers to build rich apps using web standards instead of Flash.
Firefox 3.6.6 was released over the weekend, and it should be an automatic update. If your copy of Firefox hasn’t automatically applied it yet, you can force Firefox to update using the “Check for Updates” menu item, or head to the Mozilla downloads page and grab the latest version.
Firefox fans, your tabs are headed for the top of the browser. Opera started it, Safari flirted with it, Chrome brought it to the masses and now Mozilla is falling in line as well — Firefox 4 will feature the tabs above the URL bar by default.
Before you panic, bear in mind that the location of tabs will still be a preference. No one is forcing you to use the new tabs on top look, but that will be the look for new installations of Firefox.
Frankly, after watching Faaborg’s video, which outlines the four main reasons that led to Mozilla’s decision to switch, we’re hard pressed to offer a counter argument. As Faaborg says in the video, the change is less about a trend and more about the evolution of the web as a platform.
Here are Mozilla’s reasons for moving tabs above the URL bar:
Conceptual model — The URL bar contains state information about the tab, therefore it makes more sense to place the URL bar within the tab. Visually, having the tab above the bar makes the URL bar part of the tab.
App tabs — App tabs are smaller, semi-permanent tabs designed to hold web applications you want to keep open all the time — Gmail, Facebook, Pandora, etc. App tabs are coming in Firefox 4. Because app tabs don’t really need a URL, having tabs on top makes it easier to display the app tab without a URL bar.
The new tab-based Firefox UI — Firefox 4 will move Firefox’s dialog boxes into the browser window itself. For example, the add-ons manager is now just a page displayed in a tab. As with app tabs, there’s no need to display the URL bar.
Notification — Firefox 4 will have a new panel-based notification system. Small overlay windows drop down from the URL bar giving you an easy way to log in to sites or authorize geolocation requests. Tabs below the URL bar will be hidden by these overlays, making it impossible to see or interact with other tabs at the same time.
While Faaborg doesn’t mention it and the mockups he uses don’t take advantage of it, tabs on top also use less screen real estate — at least if they’re designed like those in Google Chrome. Because Chrome’s tabs are nearly flush with the top of the application window, there’s a bit of extra room on the screen. It’s not a huge amount of space, but it really can make a difference on small netbook screens.
Still not convinced? Well, you’ll always have the option to revert to the old, tabs-below-the-URL-bar look, but check out the video below to see if Faaborg doesn’t convince you that tabs on top are the way to go.
Keep in mind that everything Faaborg shows in the video is still in the mockup stage and will no doubt change a bit before it works its way into Firefox 4.
Adaptive Blue has announced a new iPhone app and a partnership with publishers to allow users of the Glue social network to earn stickers for their favorite books and authors.
Glue is a social network, but not in the normal sense. Glue has a destination site, GetGlue.com, but a great deal of the social activity happens through a browser toolbar or mobile app. The toolbars analyze the pages you’re looking at as you browse around the web and, when relevant, show you what your friends thought of the things you’re looking at. As you poke around on Amazon or some other web store, you get product recommendations based on your friends’ browsing and purchasing habits.
The service started out as an add-on for Firefox, and it was one of the first consumer-facing apps to rely on semantic web markup to power a social backend. Now, Facebook is pushing the same idea by trying to get site owners to mark up their pages with semantic data to better map its Social Graph.
Glue recently morphed into something a bit more like Foursquare, using terms like “check in” and creating rewards — stickers that appear on your profile — for letting the world know what they’re reading, listening to, watching, drinking or even talking about. So if you’re a fan of Weeds or you really like Haruki Murakami’s books, you can earn stickers that show off your tastes.
The newly updated iPhone app (App Store link) for Glue is considerably easier to use, particularly when it comes to cross-posting info. Every time you check in with an item on Glue, you’ll have the option to pass that info on to Twitter or Facebook, making Glue fit nicely into your existing social networks.
Once you’ve checked in, much like Foursquare, you can earn points and get stickers to decorate your profile. The stickers comes from Glue’s new partners — Universal, Showtime, PBS, Random House and even O’Reilly Hacker Essentials, so you can show off your web developer cred.
In fact, there are Wired stickers.
What you have to do to earn a stickers varies somewhat, from very simple tasks — check in to say you’re reading that particular book for example — to more complex things, like you’ll need to check in with five separate O’Reilly hacker books before you get that sticker. Once you earn a sticker for something, you increase the level of interaction with other users who are fans of that particular movie, book or TV show. Adaptive Blue tells us there are around 500,000 people using its Glue social plug-ins and apps.
Twitter is launching some new tools that let you easily add your Facebook friends and your LinkedIn connections to the list of people you follow on the social network. If your friends from Facebook and LinkedIn are on Twitter, you can use the Twitter’s official apps on those social networks to start following them with one click.
This should be a boon to people who are interested in homogenizing their online social experiences, because it lets them follow everyone they know across three of the major social web platforms out there. Of course, some prefer to keep their chocolate and peanut butter separate — they can just ignore these tools and keep on livin’.
Our Facebook app… now shows which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and lets you follow them instantly and save them to a list. The app also lets you post your Tweets to your Facebook profile and now, to one of your Facebook pages too. With the Tweets application by LinkedIn, you can see which of your LinkedIn connections are on Twitter and follow the ones you choose right from the app. The app also lets you save your LinkedIn connections as a list, post your Tweets to LinkedIn, and add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile.
These enhancements to the Facebook and LinkedIn tools should be listed in Twitter’s Find Friends section soon.
Nothing fishy about IE9's hardware acceleration: This demo shows an animated fish tank rendered using Canvas.
Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 9 platform preview 3, the latest pre-release version of the company’s next web browser.
Curious developers running Windows can download platform preview 3 starting Wednesday afternoon. This version of IE9 features expanded support for specific HTML5 elements that can take advantage of the browser’s new hardware-acceleration abilities.
“Most computing tasks on the web only take up 10 percent of the PC’s capabilities,” Microsoft’s Ryan Gavin said at a press event Wednesday. “We want to unlock that other 90 percent.”
The new IE9 platform preview has expanded support for HTML5′s native video and audio capabilities, as well as expanded support for the Canvas element.
“Showing how well we handle these HTML5 elements is the point of this release,” says Microsoft’s Rob Mauceri.
Microsoft has taken a fair bit of heat in the browser world for being slow to adopt HTML5. Though not yet finalized, the emerging specification is already widely supported by Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Microsoft’s current version of Internet Explorer, IE8, is woefully behind these other browsers when it comes to support for HTML5 and other standards like CSS 3.
With IE9, due around the end of the year, the company hopes to get back on the right path.
Microsoft has engineered this version of the browser to take advantage of the latest multicore processors and GPU chips shipping in the newest hardware. Several of Microsoft’s hardware partners — AMD, Asus, NVidia and Dell — were on hand with their newest, fastest machines at the press event to show the browser preview running through some Microsoft-built demos.
The company first showed off a hardware-accelerated preview of IE9 at a developer event last year, and then upped those capabilities with the second platform preview in May. But Wednesday’s release of IE9 has some updated code to access the hardware and an updated JavaScript engine to make scripted animations smoother. Continue Reading “New Hardware-Accelerated IE9 Preview Arrives” »
The grandfather of online photo-sharing sites is rolling out a revamped design. Photo pages on Flickr have been redone to feature larger images, maps, and a much cleaner, more intuitive interface.
For now, the new look is opt-in, but Flickr plans to make the new page design the default some time next month. To see the new photo page in action, log in to your Flickr account and visit any photo page. You’ll see an option to test the new look. You can also use links provided by Flickr to switch between the two experiences.
Flickr's old look: Click for larger.
It’s been a long time since Flickr did anything major to its main photo pages. Flickr started with a limited set of features and has been bolting new features onto the old design ever since. The result has been a slightly cluttered collection of buttons, tools and bits of data that can distract from the main point of the site — your photos.
The new look changes that, streamlining the navigation and tools while “embiggening” your photos (as Flickr refers to it).
The first thing you’ll notice is that the primary image is much larger. The long edge of your image is now 640 pixels across, a 30 percent increase. If that’s not big enough for you, just hover your mouse over any image and you’ll notice the icon changes to a magnifying glass. Click the image (or the new button between the Newer and Older buttons) and you’ll enter what Flickr calls the Lightbox view.
Similar to popular JavaScript slideshow tools, Flickr’s Lightbox view enlarges the image and overlays your screen with a slightly transparent black background. The nice thing about the new Lightbox view is that you can browse through photos without closing it, as well as leave comments and favorite photos.
Perhaps the single most-useful enhancement to casual viewing found in Flickr’s redesign is the addition of new keyboard shortcuts — yes, left and right arrow will now flip through photos just the way you’d expect. The keyboard navigation works in Lightbox mode as well.
The new look consolidates all the tools previously scattered around the page — adding notes, viewing EXIF data, editing images and a dozen more — into a single Actions dropdown menu. The result is a far less-cluttered page that still offers easy access to anything you’d like to do with your photos.
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