So unless you’ve had your head under a rock for the past year or so you’ll have heard about HTML 5. But what’s to be expected in HTML 5 and when can we start using it? Well, you could start using it today in theory, however the full HTML 5 spec isn’t quite finished meaning browsers haven’t rolled out all the features. So who’s on board and what exactly can you do?

Well all major browser developers are on board INCLUDING Microsoft. This is great news, and it’s good to see Microsoft beginning to show support for these standards and putting in the effort to get IE6 + 7 users to upgrade to version 8. Thank you Microsoft!

Instead of me rambling on about what’s coming and what’s currently supported, I’ll show you a video from FOWA London 2009 of Bruce Lawson from Opera talking about HTML 5 and demoing on various browsers.

So many of the HTML 5 features are out and running in some browsers. However, the fact is until the modern browser uptake is greater we’d just be needing to code 2 sets of scripts, one for old and one for new. So at least for the next few years there is not a huge advantage in jumping onboard the HTML 5 train.

Useful Links:

• http://html5doctor.com/
• http://html5demos.com/