On Tuesday, Google had a fancy new doodle, mouse avoiding bouncing balls. There was a lot of speculation on the internet, especially over Twitter about whether it was in HTML5 or not, and as I posted on Wednesday, it wasn’t done in HTML5.
And then it changed.
So it’s Google’s 12th birthday, and happy birthday to them. Today they released a bouncy ball doodle to celebrate, which is quite cool and very well done.
But contrary to the many many messages on Twitter (there’s too many to link to!) and reports of online magazines, it’s not HTML5.
Sure the Google page uses the HTML5 doctype, but it also uses the deprecated <center> element. The code had been reverse engineered by some and posted online, and it’s very clever JavaScript that moves and resizes standard HTML <div> elements.
But not HTML5.
It has, however, been reproduced in HTML5 by Rob Hawkes who uses HTML5, the canvas element and JavaScript to create Google’s bouncing balls.
This IS HTML5.
I’m quite surprised that Google didn’t use canvas and HTML5 since they’re actively pushing this technology. Maybe they were unable to do it. Rob coded it in a morning. Perhaps they should talk to him.
If in doubt though, ask yourself are Google’s bouncing balls HTML5?
Although it’s not actually part of HTML5, the Geolocation APi is still cool and therefore worthy of being experimented with. So I put together a small experiment/tutorial on how to use the Geolocation API to find and display a users location on a Google map. Bit of a long winded title there, but it does what it says on the tin.
One of the most eagerly awaited books on HTML5 is Introducing HTML5 by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. These two have become sort of HTML5 evangelists (especially Bruce) and you can follow them both on Twitter at @brucel and @rem respectively.
Enough about them, what about the book?