HTML5 or the Web 3.0 era?

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The recent press release of Adobe about ceasing Flash Mobile development is one of the biggest IT news this month. It probably will cause Flash technology to disappear from the web. Companies cautious to start new projects based on Flash (Flex and co.) And those who have already invested raise hackles, Adobe will reassure them with an extended support. Of course, this is my opinion, subjective certainly, but it may be what will happen in the future.

Alongside this, there are some rumors that Microsoft is going to abandoned Silverlight soon. Microsoft has not denied yet, and above all, they promote HTML5 for IE10.

Is HTML5 responsible for this web transformation ? I must say yes when looking at the general enthusiasm and it will not be just a fad ! Microsoft and Adobe have finally admitted it, joined the opinion of another giant and strong supporter of the project since its inception, I am talking about Google.

However, let’s back to reality… Almost in 2012 and some of us still have to build IE6 compatible applications (11 years now, it’s not the end of the world, but it looks like !), HTML5 sounds pretty far ! Besides IE6 will be supported by Microsoft for at least 2 years.

Fortunately, what is true for the business world is not always true with broader public. The web evolves quickly for personal use.

To convince you, I invite you to visit these websites showing impressive HTML5 demos. I recommend the using of Google Chrome / Chromium browser which is the fastest browser for HTML5 at this time.

• http://www.html5rocks.com/
• https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/chrome
• https://html5demos.com/
• http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

A few years ago, you would probably never imagined doing such things inside a web browser, and without adding plugin. Not bad ! No ? When will we start programming a management application with HTML5 and NoSQL (but to the Caesar or nothing !) ? What ? In 10 years ? Uh, ok, I go back to Java 5 and my IE6 GUI tests…

The web is constantly changing. A few years ago, we were talking of Web 2.0 or “social” Web. Social networks, blogs, communities, everyone interacts with everyone now, we are in a world of sharing. Actually, the change was more functional than technical (remember that Ajax is a new way to use existing standards).

Are we now entering a new era ? I would say at the dawn of a more dynamic Web 3.0, where the capabilities of your computer are fully exploited by the browser. The graphic card helps improve the fluidity of the pages and videos, your speakers to listen to music, your microphone and webcam to communicate. Conversely, your hard drive will not be essential, all your data will be stored in the Cloud. Steps to Web 3.0 seems primarily technical.

Finally (if we simplify a little), does it mean that we put the operating system on the back burner (e.g. just to start our favourite browser) ? You certainly know the Chrome OS project from Google, launched in 2009. Google has always been a forward-thinking company.