Hottest IT News: Opera Next, CSS Frameworks, JavaScript Pro, Internet Trends 2013 and Much More!

What is the freshest news from the world of informational technologies? Find out in our weekly digest from the 31^st of May.

Top Seven News

Opera Next

Let’s meet the first Opera Next 15 for PC and Say Hello to Opera’s New Browser. Opera 15: release channels and cycles in more details. A couple of reviews are here and here + Discover Opera Next video review.

WordPress 10 years’ Anniversary

One of the most popular CMS in the world used in such projects as CNN, TechCrunch, Dow Jones, UPS, NBC Sports, TED, and many others, celebrates its 10 years’ anniversary + 10 Years WordPress Infographic.

CSS Frameworks

This week, a static library called Pure which is a set of small adaptive CSS modules that can be used in any web project and is compatible with jQuery, Bootstrap and YUI, was presented to Yahoo! developers at CSSConf. Some more technical details are here. In addition, you can look at Gumby 2, a framework that actively uses Sass and Compass as well as topcoat,  a static framework for the clean and fast web applications.

JavaScript Pro

Meet the fresh tutorials on popular JS-technology: Real Time Web with Node.js, tutorial series on Ember.js, as well as some taste of CoffeeScript Part 1, Part 2.

Web Service or App?

The web is already powerful enough to create services comparable in comfort and functionality to desktop applications. We offer you a selection of such services.

Pegman Story from Google

If you have ever used Google Street View in Google Maps you certainly know this sign in the form of pegman. The history of this yellow icon can be found in this post.

Internet trends 2013

You are urged to sample the global Internet trends where you can learn about the steady growth of mobile traffic (which accounted for about 15% of all Internet traffic in 2012), China, social networks, and that the real power of smartphones is started to be realized just now.

News:

1. WordPress turned 10 years old on Monday — a decade ago the first official release of WordPress became available. Initially started as a little-known fork of the small blogging platform b2/Cafelog, WordPress has become the largest CMS in the world with 70 million websites that currently run WordPress. Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress has written his own nostalgic blog post devoted to software he has grown up with + 10 Years WordPress Infographic.
2. Samsung beats others in smarphones sales while Apple remains to be a leader on profit — Apple is still No 1 on profit from smartphone sales, but the same time the company lost its positions to Samsung as Koreans brought in more smartphone related revenue than Apple did. Samsung received $23.62 billion from smartphone sales in Q1 2013 while Apple got only $22.95 billion for iPhone sales in Q1. The change in position is explained by heavy demand for Samsung’s LTE enabled innovative models.
3. Microsoft tends to give rewards for watching TV and ads — Achievements seem to be one of the most important features introduced in the last generation of videogames. Thus, Microsoft is thinking to take its achievement system in completely new direction. The company release a new patent titled Awards and Achievements Across TV Ecosystem. It will be used to award those who watch TV shows, movies and commercials with achievement points on their Xbox Live account. It is unclear yet where exactly the patent will be used, but the Xbox One seems to be the first device we are going to face it.
4. Unity is supporting Linux-based platform Tizen — Unity Technologies, the provider of the Unity multi-platform engine proclaimed its intention to support the Linux-based open source mobile operating system called Tizen. The currently developed deployment tools will allow Unity’s community of developers to create games to Tizen OS-based smartphones and tablets and publish them via the Tizen Store soon.
5. Microsoft officially comments changes in Windows 8.1 — one of the main goals of Windows 8.1 is not only to respond to customer feedback, but to add new features and functionality in key areas like personalization, search, the built-in apps, Windows Store experience, and cloud connectivity. Windows 8.1 will also include big bets for business in areas such as management and security. The author of the post unveils Windows 8.1 innovative features and describes some of the improvements and changes customers will see soon.

Google news:

1. Google unveils new Gmail interface — on Wednesday Gmail team announced a new inbox that will be available soon for both the desktop and Google’s mobile apps for iOS and Android. The update will become active not later than next week. Innovative UI now includes categories and tabbed interface for easier organization of email messages. According to Alex Gawley, Google’s product manager for Gmail, currently the tabbed interface does not work with the Priority Inbox feature or any other non-default Gmail view, but in future he hopes it will.
2. Partner pilot program to succeed in business online with Google products — on Monday Google announced “Google Partners”, an innovative pilot program launched in Canada. The initiative will allow entrepreneurs to connect with experts and advertising agencies on the web easily and efficiently. In other words, Google will provide the selected marketing companies with the special badge “Google Partner” in order to assist businesses get setup with Google Ads and other Google products to maximize their further success on the web. According to Google the program will make “it easier for agencies to access Google resources, training, and support all in one place”.
3. Updated navigation for cyclists in six European countries from Google Maps — according to Kai Hansen, Product manager at Google, Google Maps team updated unique routes and navigation for fans of healthy ride in six more countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein. The offered routes are created in such a manner to take cyclists away from drivers and to keep them on approved routes till the very end of their destination. Google even cooperated with some of the European cycling organizations to add to the data it obtained itself.

Xbox One news:

1. Xbox One Internet connection requirement promotes innovation, Microsoft confirms — a week ago Microsoft unveiled its Xbox One that was rumored to demand the steady Internet connection. For the most games it is really so and the console’s innovative functionality indeed requires users to be online. But not always. According to the President of the Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick, the console requires to be online every 24 hours. This option was integrated to get the Xbox One away from the technical limitations of the present day society, but to follow the tendencies of the upcoming innovative technologies.
2. Microsoft states Xbox One to have extensive independent developers support — according to Don Mattrick, the leader of interactive entertainment development at Microsoft, Xbox One will have a special program for indies created to give them the resources to develop innovative apps for the new device. He states the company will sponsor the project providing the creators with all necessary tools for development.
3. AMD-Microsoft deal for Xbox One worth more than $3 billion — the former AMD vice president of Strategic Development and a current vice president of Technology Licensing at Nvidia Bob Feldstein revealed in his blog recently that a deal between Microsoft and AMD for the Xbox One is worth more than $3 billion. Commenting the post Microsoft senior vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business Yusuf Mehdi stated that Microsoft predicts XBox One sales to hit not less than a billion units in the nearest future.

Mozilla news:

1. Smartphones running on Firefox mobile OS to be launched by Foxconn soon — according to Mozilla spokeswoman after uniting with their team Taiwanese company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd is going to launch a mobile device based on Firefox OS. Note that Hon Hai, a contract electronics maker is still Apple’s partner responsible for assembling gadgets and other work for American company, but faced reduction of income in Q1 2013 due to slow sales of iPhones and iPads.
2. Foxconn and Mozilla to present a Firefox OS-based tablet on 3rd June — according to the Taiwanese source being the main partner to produce iPhone and iPad for Apple, Foxconn in partnership with Mozilla is ready to present an innovative tablet based on Firefox OS on June 3. Any other details of the deal are not unveiled yet. So we are looking forward to know more soon.

Apple news:

1. iPhone 5S is rumored to have Retina display with twice as many pixels — it is currently rumored in China that iPhone 5S is going to get a new display with 1.5 million pixels. It is more than twice more in comparison to 730,000 pixels in the existing iPhone 5 Retina display while the size of the display will remain the same but with greater resolution. Such a step is easily explained by the rapid activities of competitors who already offer 1080p displays in the world market of mobile devices. In addition, iPhone 5S that is going to be released in autumn 2013 is rumored to have better cameras both front and back, a faster processor, and fingerprint sensing technology.
2. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO promises new game changers the company needs so much soon — at conference in California Tim Cook assured investors that the company is not going to lose its positions having faced decline in profits for the first in 10 years. Without going into details Apple’s CEO promised Apple to release new products and hinted that wearable computers could be among them.

Browsers:

1. Opera Next 15 for PC is finally released — in general, new Opera Next 15 beta seems to be the redeveloped version of Opera’s desktop browser. The release is based on Blink engine and includes many features from Opera 14 for Android which was released last week. Meanwhile, there is plenty new in Opera Next 15. Thus, Opera Next 15 UI is simpler with a single bar for URL and search, similar to those found on Chrome and Safari browsers. In addition, a user can turn on the suggestions from the privacy settings and choose among multiple search providers + Discover Opera Next video.
2. Say Hello to Opera’s New Browser — a browser maker from Norway made its new Opera Next 15 product from scratch turning it to be powered by Chromium engine. The latest improvements in the current beta include easily filtered Speed Dial shortcuts, Discover feature that allows a user to be fed with new articles from certain location, Stash the heart icon in the address bar to collect websites for comparison, the Search option to search directly from the new combined address and search bar.
3. Opera about release channels and cycles — just after its release on Tuesday Opera 15 received a great amount of negative comments for the lack of customization options and various missing features. In response Opera officials published a post commenting the remarks as well as describing the things to come soon. The first thing of note is that Opera will add another release channel to the development process. Previously, only stable and Next versions of the browser were made available. The new release stream offers such channels as Opera Stable, Opera Next, Opera Developer. The frequency of updates for the channels is not confirmed yet, but Opera representatives promise to do them more often then before.
4. Preview the new browser features of Opera Next 15 — rebuilt from the ground Opera Next version currently known as beta is available for Windows and Mac, with a Linux version to come later and bring an innovative design and a number of new features that will make user’s browsing experience glossier and easier than ever before+ Opera Next 15 short user review.
5. Tabs, Speed Dial, Extensions and much more in innovative Next Browser for Android — GO Dev team from China enters the market of Android browsers with its new invention called Next Browser. The browser looks similar to the mobile version of Chrome, with an only field for search, tabbed browsing and a customizable “speed dial” start screen. But the Chinese product also brings some well thought-out features to Android users, such as extensions which includes support for Evernote, Facebook and Pocket among others. There are gestures to navigate tabs, a top sites area for accessing your most frequently used websites and even in-built voice search.
6. Major compatibility changes coming for Firefox 25 — it is planned to include significant changes that may require add-ons processing in Firefox 25 release, scheduled for October 25. Such a decision is taken due to the fact that Firefox 24 will have the status of ESR-release (Extended Support Release) with long term support. Therefore, the changes affecting the compatibility are better to be included in the issue following the ESR.
7. In-App Payments feature is added to Chrome via Google Wallet — according to François Beaufort, Google employee, Google Inc. has officially announced that the In-App Payments feature via Google Wallet has been successfully integrated into the Chrome browser. Note that in the middle of the current month at Google I/O it was announced that Google Wallet payment system was integrated with Gmail. Thus, now users can send money to their friends and relatives using their Gmail accounts.
8. Are we componentized yet? — an option to trace the implementation of Web Components in Chrome/Webkit.

Amazing Websites’ Design:

1. Everest: rivers of ice — an interactive website from GlacierWorks and Microsoft.
2. brandongenerator.com — a promo website that shows capabilities of modern browsers (in particular, IE9).
3. bjork.com — Björk’s website, the same strange as the singer.
4. Piano website.
5. universeries — non-standard navigation with visual connections between objects using canvas.
6. familyoffish — a website with nice parallax effects.
7. findandform.com — an advanced site of web studio.
8. discovershadow.com — a website with interesting vertical effects.
9. Kick my habits — a funny website with interactive animation, devoted to bad habits and their budget.

Design It:

1. Principles of Flat Design.
2. Rageskitching Facebook 2013 Edition: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world.
3. New and inspiring examples of flat web design you should see + fresh examples of flat web design.
4. Logos: Inspiring logo designs featuring cars, Inspiring examples of negative space in logos, Effective simple logo design for your inspiration, a collection of clever designs of Lemon logo.
5. Photoshop: Best Photoshop text effects tutorials.

A Bunch of Design Freebies:

1. Web & graphic design freebies, Freebie Monday: Icons, UI Kit and Bootstrap theme.
2. PSD templates: 30 Photoshop mockup including wine bottle mock-up, iPhone holding hand templates and many others, 45 PSDs templates including vector ones, 20 very well design PSD navigation menu bar.
3. Textures: Watercolor textures, High quality hair textures.
4. Fonts: Useful puffy fonts from Kingthings Bloone to Overmuch TrueType.
5. Vector: 20 best vector icons sets.
6. Icons: 48 beautiful and unusual icon sets for commercial use, 12 flat icon sets, Freebies: social media icon set.
7. Brushes for Photoshop: 21 sets Of retro brushes, a collection of free scratch brushes.

Services:

1. 30+ web-based alternatives to traditional desktop apps for Chromebooks and PCs.
2. screensiz.es — a service with popular sizes of display screens, filters and popularity rating.
3. The top 10 realtime web apps.
4. Iconvault — a simple, custom Icon-font generation.
5. picksumipsum — an original placeholder text generator.
6. API Status Board.
7. 15 best free online image editors.

Demo:

1. Roll It — a new Chrome Experiment.
2. Light bulb in CSS.
3. Reactive CSS transitions.
4. Fizzy-Cam — a tech mashup, using webgl with three.js, custom webgl shaders, WebRTC and headtracking using headtrackr.
5. Scrolling effect and the game of chess (never tested on animals or Internet Explorer).
6. Kosmos — a virtual 3D universe in your web browser.

Development:

1. Open standard color font fun for everyone from Google.
2. WebRTC at Google I/O 2013.
3. Building Windows Store applications with jQuery 2.0.
4. The state of responsive web design.
5. Video: building awesome HTML apps in Blend for Windows 8.
6. Fresh static frameworks: Gumby 2 – a framework that actively uses Sass and Compass, topcoat – a static framework for “clean and fast web applications”, pattern lab from Brad Frost.
7. BookBlock — the content flip plugin.
8. 4 ways to convert your site to Retina.
9. Using the Page Visibility API.
10. 3D button parallax.
11. Paul Irish on awesomeness.
12. How they did it: Flickr redesign.
13. Common misconceptions about responsive design.
14. The playground vector animation process.
15. Mobilizing Atari Arcade in HTML5.
16. 5 HTML5 Features you need to know.
17. Apply Flash principles to HTML.
18. Building Faster Websites by Ilya Grigorik.
19. Using HTML5 prerendering to speed up a multi-page registration process.

CSS:

1. Flexin with Flexbox.
2. Sass style guide.
3. Pure — a set of small, responsive CSS modules that you can use in every web project.
4. Create modern CSS3 hover effects.
5. A set of simple round icon hover effects with CSS transitions.
6. CSS attr, content, and L10N.
7. css3.mikeplate — a visual online generator of CSS3 properties.
8. Ideal line length in ems.
9. Background on <body>.
10. Responsive Web Design Easter egg.

JavaScripts:

1. Writing Modular JavaScript with AMD, CommonJS & ES Harmony.
2. Using Jquery fadeIn, fadeOut, fadeToggle and fadeTo in asp.net.
3. Real Time Web with Node.js.
4. A taste of CoffeeScript Part 1, Part 2.
5. Tutorial series on Ember.js.
6. WideArea — a small plugin to expand textarea.
7. Easy responsive tabs to Accordion.
8. React — a JavaScript library to build user interfaces.
9. Cytoscape.js 2.0.1 — a JavaScript graph library for analysis and visualization.
10. vnc-over-gif — Serves screen updates as animated gif over http.
11. jQuery 1.10.0 and 2.0.1 released.
12. 7 powerful jQuery image map plugins.
13. Interactive world JavaScript map.
14. imagesLoaded — “You images done yet or what?”, a script to display the process of images upload.

Fun & Entertainment:

Google:

1. Google Search Easter Eggs.
2. Inside Google’s secret lab.
3. Google defends listing extremist websites in its search results.
4. The 14 things every Google employee must do before they quit.
5. Hackers get root access on Google Glass ahead of retail release.
6. Google said to deploy Wi-Fi blimps in Africa and Asia.
7. Google Chromebook Pixel review.

Other:

1. $15 million iPhone 5 puts all other models to shame.
2. Pegman from Google: the story of that little orange icon that tells you where you are in Google Maps.
3. 4 ways to find out the name of that elusive song.
4. Most children would prefer to ask Google if they have a question, but not their parents.
5. Workplace Woes: the ‘Open’ office is a hotbed of stress.
6. KPCB Internet trends 2013.
7. The soldier of the future. Who is he?
8. How to prevent the online invasion of spyware and adware.
9. Twitter wins Round one in spammer lawsuit battle.
10. Sky is hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.
11. Google said to deploy Wi-Fi blimps in Africa and Asia.
12. Lego and Sony are experimenting on toys-to-life tech.
13. Top 10 Electric Car makers.