HTML 5 - plug-ins not required

Without HTML, the web would not exist. It provides the structure of every web page you see on the internet. However HTML's current structure is no longer enough to support the media and rich interactivity that users have come to expect from the web.

Thankfully, HTML is a constantly evolving creature. A new revision of the standard is currently being proposed by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It's called HTML5 and it has already gained a great deal of support from the broader web community.
 
The aim of HTML5 is to give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and to enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications. At the heart of the new revision is a change to the semantic way the web is described, with many new specific elements being defined to replace generic elements. For example a <div id='header'> generic tag would be replaced by a <header> tag, a <input type='text' /> generic type replace by a <input type='email' />.
 
Some of the most exciting aspects of HTML5 are the new features it will support including:
- Canvas (2D vector based drawing & animation - similar to Adobe Flash)
- Drag & Drop (Recently implemented by Gmail for file attachments)
- Video & Audio Embedding (Trial currently being run by YouTube - no Adobe Flash or Quicktime required)
- Geolocation (Programmatically detects the user’s physical location)
- Offline storage database

Once the province of proprietary plug-ins, native support for these functions will mean more stable web sites and shorter development timeframes.
 
However, it's not completely smooth sailing. Web browser support of HTML5 is a key issue. While current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera all support the new proposed standard to a fair degree, the current versions of Internet Explorer don’t.

The great news is that nearly all mobile devices, which have recently been released (including iPhone, iPad and Android), do support HTML5 and soon it is anticipated Internet Explorer 9 will be able to support HTML5 as well.