10 Things You Hadn’t Expected HTML/Javascript Would Do

By Zef Hemel

- 1 minutes read - 199 words

About 14–15 years ago my uncle took me to the university at which he was studying at the time. He had something to show me. He sat me behind a computer in the computer room and started a program called “Netscape”. He typed in an internet address ending with .au. I saw my first website and it came all the way from the other side of the world. It looked like crap, loaded incredibly slow, but it was cool.

I could have never have guessed that HTTP, HTML, CSS and Javascript would once not become the main way to access information, but also replace a lot of desktop applications. The abilities of the new HTML5 and other web technologies like SVG never cease to amaze me.

Here are 10 things I had not expected these open web technologies would be able to, but can in 2010:

  1. Interactively render physics of a cloth

  2. Live motion tracking

  3. Play YouTube videos without Flash

  4. Collaboratively edit source code in a browser IDE

  5. Do weird interactive stuff like this

  6. Animate simple 3D landscapes

  7. Read books in a mobile browser, while disconnected from the internet

  8. Play Wolfenstein 3D

  9. Play MarioKart

  10. Render flash files using Javascript/SVG

Found this post interesting? You will love the new book I'm working on entitled “No More” — possibly including this (no spoilers), and many similarly disruptive ideas. Check the book page for more info and sign up for updates.