HTML5 is finally starting to show its capabilities. We’ve already talked about SublimeVideo and Sketchpad, two beautiful examples of what the future has in store for us. Today’s demo might not be as sexy as the others, but it’s worth a mention nevertheless as it could seriously revolutionize the way we see information on the web. I don’t know how old is this and if the developers are still working on it, but I haven’t found any reference anywhere so I decided to talk about it here.

It’s called Cartagen and it lets you make maps with a simple stylesheet. Let me embed a few quotes from the official website:

“Cartagen (http://cartagen.org) is a vector-based, client-side framework for rendering maps in native HTML 5. Written in JavaScript, it uses the new Canvas element to load mapping data from various sources, including OpenStreetMap.

Maps are styled with Geographic Style Sheets (GSS), a cascading stylesheet specification for geospatial information – a decision which leverages literacy in CSS to make map styling more accessible. However, GSS is a scripting language as well, making Cartagen an ideal framework for mapping.

Cartagen can display maps that change based on live data streams.

It also offers the possibility of rendering OpenStreetMap data which is not currently efficient with tile-based systems - such as authorship and time data. A simple but useful example is that Cartagen can show live OpenStreetMap data – in the sense that viewers see edits occurring in real time, with no rendering load on the server.”

Basically, it’s based on a stylesheet that supports geographical information and renders maps in HTML5. Maps can change according to live streams (news, updates, whatever you can think of) and the user can interact with them. Now, just sit down and let your imagination run wild: huge possibilities, reliability and support for the major desktop and mobile browsers. Very promising, though I know I’ll soon discover something better. That’s the beauty of progress.

Cartagen Wiki

Stylesheet Gallery

Link

• Spotlight integration;

• Address Book support;

• iCal;

• Drag to dock;

• Safari to Postbox links;

• iPhoto integration;

• Dictionary Lookup

Still based on Mozilla’s engine though. An important update anyway, you might want to give it another spin. I did.

HTML5 is the future. Developers using HTML5 today are pioneers.

Ten days ago I posted an article (and so did John Gruber) about SublimeVideo, a promising HTML5 video player which already has features other HTML5 based videoplayers (Youtube, Vimeo) don’t have. Today it’s time for another HTML5 online “demo”, it’s called Sketchpad and it’s a painting / drawing application. Go check it out here.

You see? It’s got a beautiful Pixelmator-like interface made of floating panels. Sketchpad has all the basic features like the bucket tool, eraser, gradients and text - and it even lets you save your creations. (when you hit the save button the browser displays the image you’ve designed and returns a URL like this: data:image/png;base64. Interesting.)

Sketchpad

Sure it’s rough and nothing more than a techical demo of what HTML5 is really capable of, but it’s the concept behind it that matters. Applications are moving to the cloud, because technology allows that. I think that during 2010 we’ll see hundreds of projects like this, projects that will anticipate what’s coming in 2 / years.

We’d better get ready.

One Week App has finally launched. With OWA Sahil Lavingia, well known iPhone developer of Color Stream (our review) and Twizzle, aims at creating a fully functional and working iPhone app in just 7 days. The app has already a name, it will be called “Dayta” (day + data) and it will be a data management application.

From the official website:

“Your weight, your kill-to-death ratio in a first-person shooter, your daily intake of water (eight glasses a day, they say!), or your daily workout which you must… not… missed, again. There are individual apps for all of these things. But why? Think about this: tracking your weight is recording down a single number, daily. So is your kill-to-death ratio. So is your daily intake of water. So is whether or not you go to the gym today (either a 0 or a 1). If you reduce activities down to the numbers that represent them, it’s easy to see that one app can manage them all.

Meet Dayta.”

The concept is really interesting, and Sahil is continuously posting status updates on the OWA blog. These include sketches, early mockups and videos.Be sure to follow, give him suggestions and feedback and keep an eye during the week.

Do you remember Caffeinated, the app I called “the next big thing in RSS readers for Mac”? Of course you do. Well, I’ve just received another preview from the developer and I’m even more impressed.

This app is coming up huge guys: it’s beautiful, it’s slick, it’s fast. And by fast I mean “blazing fast”: I don’t know how Curtis managed to achieve this, but refreshing Google Reader took me 2 seconds. Really, 2 seconds. It’s even faster than Reeder on the iPhone. The theme has been improved and tweaked a little bit, and tons of new features are being added.

Caffeinated App Mac

Still, no release date has been confirmed. In the meantime, be sure to follow @caffeinatedapp to get the chance to test it once the closed beta testing group will open.

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Turns out the rumors were about the wrong company. And the wrong OS.

That guy is a little bit creepy, by the way.

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“Linotype has released a major update to its professional font management tool FontExplorer Pro. The user interface has been updated and streamlined, a new wide-screen mode enables the user to set the Preview area off to the right, a new transparency mode can be used to overlay and preview fonts in a working document, and printing is now enabled. Also, users can now tag their fonts for easier organization.”

Ars

Sure.

Shutup, the custom stylesheet from Steven Frank that automatically hides the comments section of many popular websites, is now hosted on Github. You can contribute to it by adding features or a bug fix. Thanks to Maximilian Schoening (@mschoening) from Bylinebreak and Steven (@stevenf).

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