By Tim Kridel

By next year, annual sales of smartphones that support HTML5 should hit 1 billion worldwide, says the research firm Strategy Analytics. Even today, there’s a healthy installed base of HTML5 phones: at least 336 million, based on 2011 sales.

That market momentum is one reason why HTML5 skills are increasingly important. We recently spoke with Mike Richmond, a technologist in Intel’s Open Source Technology Center who focuses on HTML5, about what to keep in mind when working with the language. [Disclosure: Intel is the sponsor of this content.]

Why should mobile app developers begin mastering HTML5 if they aren’t already proficient? Does HTML5 enable them to develop app features that they otherwise couldn’t, or target certain segments such as browser-based Web apps?

Mike Richmond: Applications developed in HTML5 are easier to move between target environments. And because HTML5 and CSS are so visual, it can be much easier to do user interfaces that are scalable between platforms rather than doing the same UI in native code. Web apps can also be delivered outside of an application store.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever — a one-minute video of individual atoms repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

 

Bunch of Canadian animators get sticky together. It's not as kinky as it doesn't sound.

 

I've dropped many a log whilst watching and not watching (mostly not watching) NFB films about lumberjacks.

Denial is a mask, a shroud, a garment we wear when nothing else seems to fit.  It’s what keeps us in place, holding on long after we forgot why we were holding on in the first place. Denial represents protection against the unknown. What we fail to recognize is that denial is just another form of perception.  It forces us to face our fears hoping to garner some control over any loss we are all destined to face.

My mom and animator Phil Hunt like wool. You will too. I think I do.

Italy’s largest computer graphics conference is now ready to accept applications for entries in four contests: VIEW AWARD, VIEW SOCIAL CONTEST, VIEW AWARD GAME, and ITALIANMIX.

Nifty ode to Montreal from animator, Sebastian Laudenbach.

My friend, Bob Archer says that depression makes him laugh so hard he gets an erection. Reminds of Steve Martin's sneeze-gasms in Lonely Guy.