Amiga pinball wizard.
To view the emulator, which was written by developer Rupert Hausberger, you’ll need a browser with support for WebGL and WebAudio, as well as a few other HTML5 APIs. I tested the emulator in the latest version of both Chrome and Firefox and it worked just fine.
If you’d like to see the code behind the Scripted Amiga Emulator, head on over to GitHub.
Happy Friday afternoon time wasting.
Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey.
HTML5 isn’t an official standard yet, but the move to what the W3C calls “Candidate Recommendation” (CR) status means that the spec is largely stable, features are frozen, and testing can begin. In other words, the W3C is on track to publish the final version of HTML5 by 2014.
While developers targeting modern web browsers are already using HTML5 and many of its accompanying APIs, the move to CR status is nevertheless important because it marks the beginning of the interoperability and testing phase. Testing helps ensure that HTML5 can be implemented compatibly across browsers, servers, authoring tools and the dozens, if not hundreds, of other potential HTML5 clients — think your television, your car, your refrigerator and beyond.
HTML5 will likely be the language of the fabled Internet of Things and the lengthy testing period — the W3C plans for testing to last through 2014 — is designed to make sure that everything in the web of the future plays nicely together.
To go along with HTML5′s progress, the W3C has also published the First Public Working Draft of HTML5′s successor — HTML5.1. Although the W3C has “modularized” much of HTML5 over the years, spinning off sections like Web Workers, WebSockets, Microdata and half a dozen others, which are all now separate specifications at the W3C, the group plans to continue with versioned releases as well.
At the moment there isn’t much to see in the HTML5.1 spec, but look for the HTML5.1 draft to grow as new ideas are proposed.
It’s worth noting that, while the CR publication is generally a good thing, there are still over 100 known bugs and not everyone is happy with the decision to move HTML5 forward. But moving forward it is. After the CR stage is finished, the next step for HTML5 will be “proposed recommendation” status. From there HTML5 will become a final standard — if all goes according to plan — in 2014.
Firefox OS’s lock screen, app screen and Twitter app. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey
Mozilla has released version 1.0 of its Firefox OS Simulator, a new add-on for Firefox that makes it easy for web developers to start building apps for Mozilla’s coming mobile Firefox OS.
Despite the 1.0 status, Mozilla’s Hacks blog still refers to the Firefox OS Simulator as a “preview” — largely because Firefox OS itself is still in development. The Simulator, however, is much less buggy than the release I tested last month (and the problems with the Linux and Windows builds have been resolved).
If you’d like to get started building apps for Firefox OS, the Simulator now has an official page on Mozilla’s Add-Ons site. Once it’s installed and running you’ll get a preview of what Firefox OS will be like on a mobile device.
Locked out of Apple’s iOS due to the platform’s developer limitations and only recently beginning to create a truly competitive browser on Android, Mozilla’s long-term mobile plan is to create its own mobile operating system built entirely on open web technologies.
Although the company has since switched to the “Firefox OS” moniker, the original name, Boot2Gecko, neatly captures Mozilla’s take on the mobile operating system — essentially turning the Firefox web browser into an operating system.
That means building apps for Firefox OS is just like building apps for the web. HTML, CSS and JavaScript form the foundation and emerging web standards like WebRTC help bridge the gap between Firefox OS and device hardware.
To run the Simulator in Firefox open up the “Simulator Manager” by selecting the Firefox OS Simulator option in the Web Developer menu. Once the Simulator Manager is running you’ll see controls to start and stop the Simulator and a JS Console option to see any error messages as you build your app. If you need help getting started, this video from Mozilla walks you through the process step by step:
For more on how to get started using the Simulator and building apps for Firefox OS, see our earlier post as well as the Mozilla Hacks blog, especially the very thorough tutorial from Mozilla community member Luca Greco, who walks through nearly the entire process of building and testing an app on Firefox OS.
WT Monkey is in your photobooth.js, changin’ hues. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey
The latest WebRTC hotness to catch our eye is developer Wolfram Hempel’s Photobooth.js, a JavaScript library for working with a device’s camera. Photobooth.js allows users to take pictures directly on your website, for example, to add an avatar. It also acts a bit like the OS X Photobooth app, offering real-time adjustments for hue, saturation and brightness (one word of warning, hue can really slow down Firefox).
Want to add a Photobooth-style camera app to your site? Just download Photobooth.js and add this code to your page:
myPhotobooth = new Photobooth( document.getElementById( "container" ) );
That’s it. Of course there’s a little more to do if you actually want to do something with your newly instantiated Photobooth — like capture images or resize and save them. But Photobooth.js makes the whole process pretty simple; see the documentation for more details.
Photobooth.js works in current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and any other browser that supports the WebRTC getUserMedia method. You can see a complete list of browsers that support getUserMedia over on caniuse.
Hempel’s code is available on GitHub (BSD license) and can be used as a standalone app or a JQuery plugin.
Mixing old school tape loops with the BBC’s Web Audio API demo. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey
HTML5 offers developers new ways to display and work with both audio and video on the web. The HTML5 <video> element tends to get more attention, but the HTML5 audio element is equally revolutionary, perhaps even more so thanks to the work-in-progress Web Audio API (currently in the draft stages).
Developers at the BBC recently set out to push the limits of what you can do with HTML5 <audio> and the Web Audio API. The result is a new audio playground site that recreates the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop using the Web Audio API. Note that right now only WebKit browsers support the Web Audio API. (Firefox supports the older, deprecated, Audio Data API, but plans to ship support for Web Audio in 2013.)
The BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop project is one part cool demo, one part tutorial. It’s fun to play around with, sure, but another reason behind the experiment is to document how to use <audio> and the Web Audio API. The developers also wanted to put the API through some real-world use cases, to see if there are any limitations that could be addressed before the Web Audio API becomes an official standard.
Each of the four demos has a thorough code walk-through showing exactly how it works and which elements of the Web Audio API are being used. There are a couple of dependencies, namely JQuery and Backbone.js, but most of the code is working directly with the Web Audio API.
If you’ve ever wanted to explore the Web Audio API, these demos make a great introduction to how everything works. For more background on the project, see the BBC’s Research and Development blog.
So far the code doesn’t seem to be available through the BBC’s R&D GitHub account. You can always copy and paste from the demo site, but it would be nice if it was available for easy forking and experimentation.
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