HTML5 is a Web standard!

The W3C HTML5Apps team is very proud to relay the good news that HTML5 reached the W3C Web standard status today!

HTML5 defines the fifth major revision of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the format used to build Web pages and applications, and the cornerstone of the Open Web Platform.

“Today we think nothing of watching video and audio natively in the browser, and nothing of running a browser on a phone,” said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and Web inventor. “We expect to be able to share photos, shop, read the news, and look up information anywhere, on any device. Though they remain invisible to most users, HTML5 and the Open Web Platform are driving these growing user expectations.”

HTML5 brings to the Web video and audio tracks without needing plugins; programmatic access to a resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which is useful for rendering graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly; native support for scalable vector graphics (SVG) and math (MathML); annotations important for East Asian typography (Ruby); features to enable accessibility of rich applications; and much more.

Web standards for the future

For news on what’s next after HTML5, see W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe’s blog post on “Application Foundations for the Open Web Platform”.

Find out in less than 2 minutes why Web Standards for the future are important by watching the  Web standards for the future video.