CSS 3 has some awesome new animation capabilities for web developers — rotating objects, fading them in and out and more — but writing the code is a bit more complicated than most CSS rules. To make your animating job a bit easier, developer Matthew Lein put together Ceaser, a handy code generator that outputs CSS snippets for animations.
Ceaser will look familiar to anyone who’s ever used Robert Penner’s easing equation in Flash (and later JQuery) since it includes approximations of most of Penner’s equations.
To use Ceaser, just pick a preset, set a time for the transition (the default is 500 milliseconds) and then pick a property to apply it to — width, height, opacity, etc. You can also create your own easing curve using the drag-and-drop graph tools. Once you’ve got everything working the way you’d like, just paste the CSS output into your stylesheet and you’re done.
CSS 3 transitions work in any modern browser. For browsers that don’t understand transitions (I’m looking at you IE 9) you’ll need to fallback to JavaScript. Using Modernizr you can detect support for CSS 3 and then serve up some JS transitions to browsers that don’t support it. If you’re only worried about IE, you could try using IE’s proprietary filters, though be aware that most MS filter properties have a heavy overhead and can slow down pages considerably.
The Google Chrome team has pushed out a new beta release of the Chrome web browser, which adds support for the nascent Speech Input API. Yes, now you can talk to the web, it just might not exactly understand what you’re saying.
The Speech Input API is designed to give developers a way to write web apps that allow full speech recognition — the transcription from speech-to-text occurs on a speech server after your voice is recorded.
Chrome 11 beta is currently the only browser that supports the brand new Speech Input API and in my testing the results were mixed. So long as you raise your voice the app generally gets things right, though “Webmonkey” was interpreted as, ahem, “wet monkey.”
It’s worth noting that I did my testing using a built-in mic on my MacBook Pro, which is perhaps not the best sound source, especially since others seem to have had better luck. But, like most software that uses voice input, clearly the transcription in Google’s sample app is far from perfect.
However, as the Speech Input API gains more support it will open an entirely new set of possibilities for web apps, enabling everything from online speech-to-text services, realtime video transcriptions, voice chat logs or song lyric generators. Voice input could be particularly helpful on mobile devices and would go a long way toward making web-based apps as compelling as native apps. Voice input also opens up a whole new range of possibilities in creating a more accessible web — fill in forms via speech, browse by voice and so on. Not all of these features are specifically addressed in the new API or Google’s demo, but it’s not hard to imagine creative developers finding a way to make them possible.
Unfortunately, based on this early, very experimental example of the Speech Input API it’s going to be a while before you’re talking your way around the web.
With over 7 million downloads and counting, Firefox 4 looks on track to match, and possibly surpass, the launch of Firefox 3. Firefox 3, which was released in 2008, saw some 8 million downloads in its first 24 hours and earned Mozilla a Guinness World Record for number of downloads in a 24-hour period.
Yesterday’s launch of Firefox 4 lacked the “download day” publicity stunt aspect of its predecessor — perhaps because, despite the record setting numbers, the launch of Firefox 3 brought Mozilla’s servers down and caused upgrade delays for many users — but that hasn’t stopped Firefox fans from upgrading in a hurry.
Firefox 4 is also likely the last time we’ll see a big release like this from Mozilla. The company is transitioning to a rolling release schedule like that of Google Chrome — less fanfare perhaps, but with more features arriving in less time.
Internet Explorer 9, which also launched with much fanfare this month saw 2.35 million downloads in the first 24 hours, according to a press release from Microsoft.
Of course all of these numbers are meaningless in the long run, what really matters is that the web has two new, much-improved web browsers. That means developers can start using more of the new tools in HTML5 and users will find the web a faster, more exciting place.
Just because you own an iPad 2, it doesn’t mean you have to purchase the Apple-official Smart Cover—but it’s likely that you’ll still want to take advantage of its (incredibly cool) auto-wake feature. So we’ve rounded up all the third-party iPad 2 cases with magnetic sensors, just for you. More »
Bill Gurley thinks that Android is an unstoppable freight train that will prevail against all its rivals. For Google, Android is not even a product with a business plan. It’s just a weapon at the service of their master domination strategy, a way to destroy any potential threats that may eventually kill their search monster. This is how they are doing it and the potential consequences.More »
Firefox 4 is set to launch next week, Motorola says the Wi-Fi-only Xoom will cost $599, and YouTube launches a talent search a la “American Idol” called YouTube NextUp. Natali Morris reports.
CSS 3 has some awesome new animation capabilities for web developers — rotating objects, fading them in and out and more — but writing the code is a bit more complicated than most CSS rules. To make your animating job a bit easier, developer Matthew Lein put together Ceaser, a handy code generator that outputs CSS snippets for animations.
