As you know, Google puts “doodles” on the front page of their search site to commemorate people and events. I find them almost universally entertaining or interesting. You can see all the past doodle here (time sink warning – if you go there it could be an hour before you return). Some of the logo’s are interactive. There was a guitar you could play and even a PacMan game.
Today’s doodle isn’t notable because of what it pays tribute to, or how cool it looks or even the kind of interaction it offers. This one is special because it is built with HTML 5. I think this signals the beginning of mainstreaming of HTML 5.
What is HTML 5? Simply put, it’s a open standard for programing multimedia on the web (sound, graphics, movies). In the past you needed to use proprietary tools like Flash or Quicktime. HTML 5 is an effort to open and standardize and open these tools. Should you care? Probably not, most of us don’t write code. But I think it’s notable because it represents to movement away from proprietary to open, and I think that is great.
HTML 5 is new and isn’t included in the most popular browser yet (Internet Explorer), but it is in Chrome and Firefox. If you go to Google.com with IE you will just see an impage, if you use Chrome you will be able to play with the image.