html5media Enables The HTML5 Video Tag In All Major Browsers

Earlier today I posted a tweet regarding this new project I found on Google Code, html5media. With only two lines of code in the <head> of your webpage html5media allows you to use the <video> tag in almost every browser by simply calling two .js files.

From the wiki page:

“The html5media script scans your page for video tags, and checks whether your browser is capable of playing the files they contain using a HTML5 media player. If the browser can play the contents of the video tags, then the script does nothing.

If your browser does not support HTML5 video, then the offending video tags are dynamically replaced with a Flowplayer instance, providing the same functionality as the original video tag.”

This makes me think how ridiculous is the debate on keeping the current Flash alive. There’s something better out there, even for you porn aficionados.

Alfred, Blazing Fast Quick Search

Quicksilver. LaunchBar. Google’s Quick Search Box. These are all applications designed to put instant information at your fingertips. For those having been on the Mac for a while now, you’re probably using Quicksilver - it’s really one of the first applications that brought this kind of instant power to us. Some users have moved on up to LaunchBar, which combines even more powerful features into a slim search box - it’s a power user’s dream. Then we have Google’s Quick Search Box, which is half quick search, half application launcher. All of these applications however, either offer too much or too little. Quicksilver has a confusing plugins pane and lots of features still need updating. LaunchBar offers features that the casual user won’t even touch. And Google’s Quick Search Box forces you to succumb to the Google singularity (and it’s not as fast).

However, today I’m going to show you the quick search solution for everyone. I’d like you to meet Alfred.

Read more

Sneak Peek: Laterstars, the Faved Tweets Manager. 25 Invite Codes Up for Grabs.

Do you know what @Digeratii, @mosspuppet and @jackamick have in common? They share the highest ratio of favorited tweets in my account. I don’t know what’s wrong with those guys, I seriously can’t help but hitting the fave button on their tweets. Follow them on Twitter and you’ll find out why but remember - you heard it here first.

Anyway, it’s not like everyone on Twitter follows @Digeratii (though he once confessed he plans to surpass Ashton’s followers someday) and wants to hear about the adventures of his smart dog Kona; people seem to use the favorite feature as a way to save links for later. And I must admit it, I do it as well sometimes. Rather than emailing the tweet to myself, saving it to Read It Later or just retweet it, I can fave it (because I like it anyway) and open it later. Works good, it’s fast and it gives a little more information about you and the stuff you like.

Now, I think the Laterstars guys have been as smart as Kona in developing their web application. Laterstars is a self-updating container and organizer for the tweets you’ve faved, packed in a sexy and usable UI.

It’s in the closed beta stage, but we got 25 invites for you. Keep on reading.

Read more

Mozilla Introduces Their Next Gen JS engine, Partially Based on WebKit JS: JägerMonkey.

Link

“So what we’re doing in our 2nd generation engine is to combine the best elements of both approaches:

We’re using some chunks of the WebKit JS engine and building a full-method JIT to execute JavaScript code. This should get us fast baseline JS performance like the other engines. And most important, it will be consistent – no more jumping on and off trace and spending a huge amount of time in interpreted code.

We’ll be bolting our tracing engine into the back of that machine code to generate super-fast code for inner loops. This means that we’ll be able to still have the advantages of a tracing engine with the consistency of the method-based JIT.

This work is still in the super-early stages, to the point where it’s not even worth demoing, but we thought it would be worth posting about so people understand the basics of what’s going on.”

Rediscover Your Music with Attic. Review and Giveaway.

My music setup is pretty heterogeneous. I have a decent vinyl and cd collection, a 160GB iPod Classic that syncs with my digital iTunes collection, a Spotify Pro membership. This setup allows me to listen to my favorite artists wherever I am, whenever I want - especially since I bought the iPod Classic I can enjoy my collection while driving with my car through the beautiful landscapes of Italy. Ok, maybe we haven’t got that landscapes here.

But anyway, I missed something: I wanted to have another device that allowed me to play some stuff while working, without having to open iTunes or put a disk into my superdrive. I thought syncing only some music to my iPhone was a good idea after all. I mean, the iPhone is always next to the MacBook during the day, I could just copy some of the albums I’m currently into and periodically update the playlist. And it worked, as you may have seen from the screenshots I posted on Twitter last week.

But being that music nerd that I man, the “iPhone Weekly” playlist ended up in being a 2GB monster sitting in iPod app and, even if the selection of artists was limited, I wasn’t really listening to some of them. But fortunately, I got accepted into the beta testing group of this new application called Attic which, in the words of the developer, was aimed at changing the way you listen to the music you have on your iPhone. Rather than offering a new UI for browsing music (I don’t know if that’s even possible) Attic helps you in re-discovering the songs you have but haven’t played recently.

After some weeks of testing and daily usage, here’s our review of Attic. And also, we’ve got 5 promo codes to give away.

Read more

Site News - Twitter Username Change, @storiesofmac Is Now @viticci, Official Account @MacStoriesNet Goes Live

If you’re following me on Twitter you should have read that I was thinking about changing my Twitter username.

Now, @storiesofmac has changed to @viticci. So, if you want to mention me be sure to use the @viticci username. You don’t have to re-follow me again.  As for the much requested official MacStories account, we’ve finally activated the @macstoriesnet account we created a while ago.

If you want to follow MacStories’ posts, the stuff I daily discover and my random thoughts about things - you can follow @viticci. If you just want to stay updated with the posts, @macstoriesnet is the way to go.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the Apple A4 Chip: The iPad as Wii

Link

“In the end, I keep coming back to the idea that Apple has stayed quiet about the A4 because any real magic or “wow factor” that the iPad delivers will come from the software—the efficiency of the OS, the user interface design of the OS and apps, and the snappiness of the overall experience all come from the software team.

Perhaps an even better analogue for the iPad is Nintendo’s Wii, which is another product that relies for its success not on its processor, but on its novel interface and broadly accessible software.”

Couldn’t agree more. But there’s one thing in the iPad / Wii analogy that Stokes doesn’t consider - 3rd party developers relations. Just think of a “Nintendo App Store-only” Wii. Now you get the idea.