Two things happened last week: news leaked that Opera are planning to launch a new browser based on WebKit; and the new discussion tool, Branch, came out of private beta. As an experiment, I want to talk about the first on the second, so I invite you to read and participate in my branch Opera Ice: New browser for Android and iPhone coming Februa….
Inspired by Anna Debenham’s report on the Nintendo DSi browser, I thought I’d write a short review of the browser on my Kobo Touch eReader. The browser is hidden away under Settings > Extras, below a big bold note that says it’s not officially supported; but as it’s there, let’s review it.
As I’m sure you’re aware, Opera recently released a preview build of their browser Mobile Emulator which is notable largely because they’ve aliased a group of -webkit- prefixed properties, effectively supporting another vendors supposedly proprietary code in their own.
I just watched a great documentary called The Invention of Dr. Nakamats*, and loved the style of the titles and credits (Vimeo video) by The Ronin. I thought I’d have a go at doing them in CSS, and you can see my first attempt here:
It uses 3D Transformations so needs to be viewed in Safari for the full effect, but degrades quite gracefully. I had a go at adding some animations to it but it didn’t feel right, so I’ve left that out for now. That aside, I’m happy with the way it looks and it was really easy to make. CSS has come a long way.
* If you’re in the UK you can currently watch this on 4OD.
I recently became the owner of an Android phone* and found that, despite it being listed as a feature of the browser, the HTML5 video element didn’t work for almost all of the examples I tried. I’ve just done some experimentation with this and think I’ve found a solution, so this post is offered in the hope that it helps anyone who may be tearing their hair out over the same problem.
Sitepoint’s Web Design blog featured an article this week called Create A Studio Style Backdrop In Photoshop, which provides instructions for making a glossy, reflective surface effect, similar to what you often see in adverts.
As the title makes clear, the tutorial is for creating the effect in Photoshop — but really, the same effect is fairly easily achievable with some bleeding-edge CSS. That said, it won’t work in every browser, so currently it’s just a proof-of-concept piece.