Tag Archives: google

Big news for web fonts and video today

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WebM Video

The codec wars around the HTML5 video element might be settled sooner than you think:

Basically, Google just open-sourced VP8, a video codec. VP8 is being combined with the Vorbis audio codec to create a new video format called WebM.

This wouldn’t be news at all except that a ton of groups have already pledged to support it, including Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Youtube(!). YouTube has committed to encoding EVERY video on their service to WebM, including the back catalog.

Given that kind of support, I would be shocked if it didn’t get back-ported into Safari, and then IE9 announced support as well. Whatever happens, this is worth keeping an eye on.

Typekit and Google

Google released a bunch of open source fonts (including the Droid fonts and Inconsolata, the finest monospace font I’ve ever used). They also released the Google Font API, which is really just Google doing all the @font-face generation and declarations, as well as encoding the fonts for all browsers.

Then Typekit announced that they were open-sourcing their javascript font-loading API, which fires events at various points in the font-loading process, so you can make a more consistent cross-browser experience. That library is now an open-source collaboration with Google, the WebFont Loader, and can be used through Google’s ajax library.

Pretty cool that Typekit would open their doors like this, and it speaks to their (and Google’s) commitment to making fonts easy to use for everyone, not just paying members.

Note: This was originally posted on my work blog, and I’m re-posting it here for archival purposes.

Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer

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Long story short, Google released a plugin for IE 6, 7 and 8 that will run Google Chrome (which uses webkit) inside a frame in the IE browser. Now IE6 can be standards-compliant, and all versions of IE get blazing fast javascript and HTML 5 support. Sounds great, but there are some problems, as lifehacker points out:

“The (most) obvious question: Why would I install this plug-in rather than switch browsers to Chrome? The folks at Google point to IT lockdown that won’t allow users to install a new browser; Ars wonders whether such restrictive IT departments would be any more likely to approve this plug-in. If nothing else, it’s a pretty bold move on the part of Google.”

If you’re interested, Jim Ray dug into the details of how it works. Personally, I don’t think this will solve anyone’s IE6 problems, but it’s a fascinating development, and worth keeping an eye on.

“The irony here, as I see it, is that an old, insecure feature Microsoft built to try to beat Netscape is now being used by Microsoft’s biggest current rival to patch IE.”

Note: This was originally posted on my work blog, and I’m re-posting it here for archival purposes.

Back on Deck

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The first day back in the office after a vacation is always a bit overwhelming. I’ve been in the office for over two hours now, and I’m just now getting all caught up so I can get some work done — and this was for a vacation when everyone else was out of the office, too.

While on break, I didn’t read email or check my feed reader. Upon returning I hardly had any email, but I had over a thousand unread items in google reader.

I wish I had been able to write more blog posts recently, but between the holidays, visiting friends and family, playing video games, and taking care of a sick baby, it just didn’t happen. I’ll be fixing that this week, and the December newsletter will be up by the end of the week.

Senate Passes Battle Royale Act

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Battle Royale Headline

When I loaded up Google News today, the top headline was about the Senate passing the War-Spending bill. The associated photo, however, was the logo from the Japanese film, Battle Royale, a dystopian story where the Japanese government has passed the “Battle Royale Act.” This law causes the military to take randomly chosen classes of high school students to an island, where they are forced to fight to the death. The secret goal of the act is to terrorize the population, theorizing that “…after seeing such atrocities, the people will become paranoid and divided, preventing an organized rebellion.”