JavaScript and HTML5 Now

Book excerpt: A decade ago, Ajax took the Web out of childhood, and now HTML5 and JavaScript are moving the Web into full adulthood. This insightful overview provides striking examples of how these technologies have teamed up to give the Web a truly open platform. Author Kyle Simpson (HTML5 Cookbook) shows you how JavaScript unlocks the power of all of the new functionality in HTML5, giving web applications the capabilities developers have wanted for years. These technologies now provide the raw tools you need in the presentation layer to replace everything you used to do with Flash. You’ll discover how: HTML5 builds natively into the web platform things we find most commonly useful, such as audio, video, and drawing The Canvas element is changing graphic animations, games, audio visualization, charting, and video effects Geolocation has spawned “geofencing” and augmented reality Web Workers allows calculations to be performed in the background, rather than compete with the UI Web Sockets is enabling realtime communication for chat, live tech support, multi-user collaboration, and gaming Mobile device APIs will give web apps direct access the phone’s camera, vibration, and other capabilities