Firefox 3.1 will soon become available for download at Mozilla’s website and under the development of the latest version it has showed off some of the new features of FF3.1. During a presentation at SCALE (Southern California Linux Expo) Chris Bizzard from Mozilla revealed how they have been working on supporting new technologies for creating Internet-based applications. Many of the news that are coming are for handling videos and Firefox 3.1 comes well prepared.
The perhaps most interesting is the support for HTML 5 video elements which enables developers to integrated video files directly into websites. The videos can then be controlled through JavaScript and Firefox 3.1 will be shipped with Ogg Vorbis and Theora support, for both audio and video, where the video material is integrated directly into the website. With Theora you can get MPEG4 equivalent image quality, but HD video will have to wait for a while.
A video of Mozilla’s video has appeared at YouTube, and it shows an interesting use where you get help from so called Worker Threads, that in realtime, could read motions in a video sequence, integrated into the website.
Firefox 3.1 is no revolutionizing update from 3.0, but it still looks to bring interesting changes to the game, and offer a nice preview of coming Internet technologies.
