Unreal 3 engine in Firefox.
Screenshot: Webmonkey.

Mozilla has partnered with Epic Games to bring the Unreal 3 gaming engine to the web. The result is a high-end gaming engine that could change the way you think of web-based games.

The Unreal 3 engine has previously been ported to Flash, but this is the first time a plugin-free (and therefore mobile-friendly) version has been built for the web.

Mozilla is hoping this project will help turn the web into a more serious gaming platform capable of running top-tier console titles.

Combining WebGL, Emscripten, a tool for compiling C++ apps into JavaScript, and the brand new asm.js, Unreal 3 for the web can, according to Mozilla, “rival native performance.”

While the Unreal 3 port is incredibly cool, there are still some stumbling blocks on the path to the web as a top-tier gaming platform, not the least of which is that load times for most games would be massive. Think hours, not minutes, to stream the complex graphics from a server to your mobile device — probably not something anyone particularly wants to sit through.

In other words, while Mozilla and Epic have made some impressive progress bringing Unreal 3 to JavaScript, it’s still going to be a while before you’re playing your favorite console games on the web.

However, Mozilla says it is “working with premium game publishers such as Disney, EA and ZeptoLab who are using the same technology to bring performance optimizations to their top-rated games.” The company is also hoping other browsers will make it possible to run the Unreal engine in their own JavaScript engines. The Chromium project is already discussing just how to do it.

For more on the project and to catch a glimpse of Unreal 3 running in the browser, check out the video below.

Google has graduated three popular Gmail Labs tools to proper Gmail features: reply to all, quote selected text and, the most useful of the bunch, the “Send and Archive” button.

Unlike some new features for Google Apps, these are available right now in Gmail, though all three remain off by default.

To enable the popular “Send and Archive,” which turns the Send button into a dual-function button that sends your reply and then archives the conversation, head to settings and look for the new “Show ‘Send & Archive’ button in reply” option. While you’re in Gmail’s settings you can also change the default reply mode to reply all, though frankly that seems like asking for trouble.

The quote selected text feature is not a setting, it’s just the new behavior for replying to messages. Select a block of text in an e-mail, click reply and only the selected text will be included in your reply.

Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Google has renamed its Google Docs applications and made them available as apps in the Chrome Web Store.

To make things a bit clearer — and perhaps to differentiate them from other office suites — the apps formerly known as Google Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations are now called simply Docs, Sheets, and Slides and can be installed as shortcuts in Chrome.

If you’d like to install them, head over to the Chrome Web Store and grab the new Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps. Once they’re installed you’ll see the icon links every time you open a new tab in Chrome.

The change helps bring together the Chrome browser and Chrome OS, making both just another way to connect to Google Drive, the company’s cloud storage service that forms the basis of Google’s take on cloud computing.

Preview your website in Responsivator. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Showing off responsive designs to clients can be tricky. Do you arrive with a bag full of devices in tow? Or open dozens of browser tabs running emulators? Resize a browser window and hope that the stuttering, @media-induced reflows don’t make clients question your sanity?

How about using just one browser tab that gives a quick preview of what a site looks like at any screen size you’d like?

That’s exactly what Responsivator does. Plug in a URL and Responsivator will load it up in a series of iframes set to whichever screen dimensions you specify. The default sizes cover common devices like the iPhone, iPad, Nexus 7 and desktop, though it’s easy to add anything you’d like to the list.

Responsivator is the work of developer John Polacek from Draftfcb, which also made the BigVideo jQuery plugin we featured previously. Responsivator builds on some similar, earlier efforts like Matt Kersley’s responsive web design testing tool and Benjamin Keen’s responsive design bookmarklet, but has some nice added features, like the ability to navigate your site within the various iframes.

Like Responsivator, but want to run your own custom instance? No problem, Responsivator is an open source project available on GitHub; just grab the code and fire up your server.

Size matters: Flickr's lightbox view now offers much larger images.

It’s been nearly two years since Flickr last redesigned its photo pages to display larger images. Since then screen resolutions have only improved, and when it comes to viewing photos you don’t have to be a pro photographer to know that bigger is better.

To make your uploaded images look better — especially when you’re browsing in fullscreen mode — Flickr is introducing two new photo sizes, 2048 and 1600 pixels.

Right now you’ll only see the new larger images when you enter Flickr’s “lightbox” view with its darker, photo-friendly interface (just click an image to enter lightbox view). At the moment the regular photo pages remain unchanged. However, the Flickr blog reports that the larger images will soon be available through Flickr’s API and “a few other places over the next couple of weeks.” While the new image sizes are probably too large for the default photo pages, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Flickr refresh the photo page layout with larger images in the near future.

The larger of the two new photo sizes also seems like a future-friendly choice since it works well with very high-res screens like what you’ll find on Apple’s latest iPad. Although Flickr does not appear to be doing so just yet, serving the larger images to the iPad would make for sharper photos on the iPad’s high-resolution screen. [Update: The Flickr team tells Webmonkey that it "just enabled hi-res photo sharing to the new iPad this morning."]

Naturally, to take advantage of the new larger image sizes Flickr is now creating, you’ll need to be uploading photos at least that large. But given that most phone cameras produce images in that pixel range these days, there’s a good chance you already are.

Flickr Pro members can control how large their images are displayed; just head to the new image size settings page. By default Flickr sets this to “best display size,” though if you want to stop people from downloading high-res copies of your images you can limit the display size to 1024 pixels. The new image size setting doesn’t affect who can download your original files, just those created by Flickr. But since the sizes Flickr creates are larger than what most original images would have been back when Flickr first launched, the new setting makes sense.

One thing to note with the new image sizes: they only apply to photos uploaded since Mar. 1, 2012; older images won’t be resized. The other thing to know is that if you upload something with a long edge of less than 2048 pixels, Flickr won’t upsize it so there’s no need to worry about small images being pixelated.

The new image sizes may not win over fans of filter-happy, low-res image sharing websites, but for Flickr aficionados it offers a compelling reason to stick around.

Editing your Flickr photos in Aviary. Image: Aviary

Flickr is swapping out its existing Flash-based photo editor for a new HTML-based app that will work on any device.

Aviary, as the new editor is known, will start appearing as an editing option for your photos today, though some users may have to wait since Yahoo is staggering the rollout over the next few weeks.

Part of the change is out of necessity. Flickr’s previous photo editor was Picnik, which was purchased by Google in 2010. Google has since announced it will shut down the service Apr. 19 and roll its features into Google+.

To use Aviary to edit your Flickr photos, just head to the photo page, click the Actions tab and select the new “Edit photo in Aviary” option. That will open up the image in the Aviary window as an overlay. From there you can crop, rotate, add effects, adjust brightness and contrast and other editing basics.

Obviously Aviary is not aimed at people who takes their photo editing seriously, but for the casual user who just wants to crop an upload or add some punchier contrast, it works well. The learning curve is almost nil and it more than handles the 80 percent use case for casual Flickr users.

In that sense Aviary is a step up from Picnik, which was more of a Photoshop-inspired editor than an amateur-friendly option. However it’s surprising to see Flickr continue to ignore the Instagram-inspired trend of one-click image effects, which are not part of Aviary’s arsenal. Some may decry Instagram’s retro-inspired results, but there’s no denying the simplicity and popularity of its filters.

While Flickr obviously had to replace Picnik since Google is shutting the service down, Aviary offers another huge advantage over Picnik — it doesn’t use Flash. Dropping the Flash requirement means that Flickr users can now edit their photos on iOS devices and upcoming Windows Metro tablets, neither of which run the Flash plugin.

Attention Delicious bookmarking fans, time is running out to transition your bookmarks to the updated, launching-soon Delicious website.

Current Delicious users have until September 23, 2011 to transfer their data and accept the new terms of service. If you don’t move your data by then your bookmarks will disappear forever.

After years of languishing at Yahoo, Delicious, the original king of online bookmarking, was purchased by AVOS, a new company from YouTube creators Chad Hurley and Steven Chen.

The transfer of ownership means that existing users need to agree to the new terms of service before Delicious can relaunch. You can read over the new terms on the AVOS website. If you prefer not to be part of the new Delicious, but would still like to grab your bookmarks before they go poof, you can do so using Delicious’ export tools.

See Also:

• Yahoo Looking to Sell, Not Shut Down Delicious
• Epicenter: YouTube Founders Rescue Delicious, to Build ‘Information Discovery Service’
• Xmarks to Continue Syncing Bookmarks, Thanks to Loyal Fans

The offline Gmail web app

Offline Gmail does, however, require the Google Chrome web browser. In fact, the offline version of Gmail is an entirely separate app you’ll need to install through the Chrome Web Store. The Web Store app is based on the Gmail web app for tablets and uses a widescreen layout that will look familiar to anyone using Gmail on an iPad or the new three-pane mail interface.

Unfortunately, the offline app for Gmail is just that, a separate web app. You won’t be able to use Gmail offline simply by clicking a button in the regular web interface. Rather you’ll need to install the offline Gmail app and switch over to that interface whenever you’re offline.

And that’s not the only downside to this release. Offline Gmail will only give you access to the last three to seven days’ worth of email (the exact amount will vary depending on how many messages you get each day). All of your starred messages will also be available, but beyond that you’re out of luck — there’s no way to, for example, download a specific tag or set of messages for offline use.

Things are even worse in the offline version of Google Docs which, for now, is limited to read-only access — not exactly helpful when you’re trying to finish that report sans wifi.

Google says these issues are temporary and that the offline support is a work in progress, but given the extremely limited functionality one wonders why they were released at all. Of course Google’s motto is release early, release often; clearly they’ve released early, hopefully the often will kick in soon.

In the mean time if you need offline access to your email, we suggest a traditional desktop client.

See Also:

• Gmail Gives in, Offers Up Traditional Three-Pane Mail Interface
• Gmail Features Graduate From Labs to Big Leagues
• Gmail Mobile Is Always on the Move