HTML5 will likely be the future of online programming. But on the web, like at Muppet Labs, the future is being made today, and you can see awesome examples of the power of this new HTML protocol on dozens of websites. It’s hard to select the best, but here’re my votes for the most amazing examples out there.
7. Google Gravity
Seems like a simple thing, doesn’t it? Break out the iconic Google screen and let the elements flop around in a gravity-based environment. Well, it is, and it isn’t. Conceptually, it’s a masterwork, to take the elements that we take for granted as existing in the virtual world and giving them very real-world qualities, such as weight, inertia, and more. It changes our relationship with these icons and makes them real objects.
6. 360° Langstrasse
This one goes in the opposite direction: taking something real and making it virtual. It takes the real street of Langstrasse in Zurich. It allows you to tour the district and visit businesses of all types both in the day and night. It might give us a glimpse of the future of virtual tourism and advertising—you can easily see how this might interact with a wearable computer like Google Glass—or it might just be a really cool way for communities to document themselves.
5. Universeries
This interactive catalog of TV creators is kind of addicting to explore. You can look at all the different series made by different creators and see how the creators are connected with each other. It’s not as good as the Marvel Universe 3D graph, but you don’t need a subscription to access it, and it shows the benefits of HTML5 nicely.
4. The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator
This cool comic style interactive game will make you easily forgive that it’s a promo for Internet Explorer. There are all kinds of great spaces to visit and cool things you can do there to help this mystery/horror writer overcome the hardest of all enemies: writer’s block!
.3 Canvas Cycle
Want to waste your time wandering through a world of virtual landscapes, varying from the beautiful to the peaceful to the epic to the epically and beautifully peaceful? What else was the Internet created for? As a demo for game backdrops, this little site succeeds wonderfully. Scroll through and find the one that is best for your mood.
2. 100,000 Stars
The simple title represents its epic achievement nicely. A 3D map of the nearest 100,000 stars in our galaxy, with a host of information about each of them. You can zip around our local star cluster with tremendous ease, or just relax and enjoy the beauty of them all in their cosmic dance.
1. Timelapse
This joint effort between Google and Time takes the power of data and uses it both for entertainment and for a political agenda. The sequential satellite photos show you some of the most important changes going on in our world, but they also allow you to just look at how your hometown has grown over the past 30 years. An amazing tool.
Why HTML5?
From a developer’s point of view, there are lots of reasons why HTML5 offers advantages in simpler code and better syntax, but you don’t have to be a developer to appreciate two of HTML5’s biggest advantages.
First, HTML5 for the first time allows great interactive graphics capabilities without plugins. That’s right, no more Flash, which means no more updating Flash, no more Flash crashes, and no more Flash drag in site loading.
Second, HTML5 is completely compatible with mobile browsers, which means that a website programmed in HTML5 will be readable by all types of mobile devices. HTML5 makes it easy for us to create fully scalable websites for your business, so no matter what devices your customer is using, you know they will be able to see and interact with your site.