The digest of interesting news and materials from the world of ayti for the last week

It is not the first year in the blog of our company that we make collections with links to interesting and useful, in our opinion, materials. If during the week someone missed something, then on Friday or at the weekend it can more than make up for it. We thought that such a digest might be interesting for the Habr audience, so we offer you a selection of this week.

Hot seven

Facebook buys Instagram for $ 1 billion

I did not have time to calm down the news about the release of the Instagram application for the Android platform, as Mark “I'm Excited” Zuckerberg literally broke the Internet with a message about buying this service on Facebook for the sum of $ 1 billion.

Google+ has launched a new design and features.

The developers of the social network from Google decided on a crucial step, changing the overall interface design. The result was ambiguous - on the one hand, navigation and a new photo display format were improved, and on the other, large areas of unused storage space became noticeable on wide screens.
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Mozilla showed browser video chat in Firefox

Developers from Mozilla presented a new unique functionality of the future version of their offspring, which, if successfully implemented, will be able to strike at Skype positions and become a new trend among browser creators.

Yandex.Disk - first look

Recently a new cloud service from Yandex was introduced. For those who have not come to an invite, or who are still deciding whether to get an account or remain on the dropbox, they can read the author’s review of this service and make the appropriate decision.

Export to HTML5 from Flash Professional

A team of professionals from Adobe, developing the next version of Flash, is working on a new functionality of its unique product - the ability to export flash movies to HTML5 format.

Useful links for learning CSS animations

The last six months, CSS animation is actively gaining momentum in the world of site building. This is especially true of the mobile web, where webkit browsers dominate. Be in trend - start learning animation now!

Introducing Parallax Scrolling + useful links

Parallax Scrolling is another trend of recent years. Find out the history of its origin, check out cool examples of projects that use this effect and bookmark the tools that help make such sites.

news

• The predicted popularity has fully confirmed itself - Instagram for Android downloaded 5 million times in 6 days
• Hipsters instantly responded to the news of buying Instagram on Facebook and began to leave the service, keeping copies of their photo archives, fearing global changes possible after the change of the company's owner
• It looks like a movement begins in the cloud storage sector, this time Dropbox announced its readiness to provide an additional 500 MB of disk space for each user invited to the service!
• A message appeared in the corporate blog of the YouTube service stating that the service starts automatically converting the videos stored on it into 3D-format.
• The future is coming - Google launched Project Glass in order to get user feedback on its concept

Browsers

• Developers from Mozilla presented a new unique browser functionality, which in the future could hit Skype positions and become a new trend among browser creators.
• In Firefox 14, new notable changes will be made related to memory optimization.
• Screenshots of new Firefox design have appeared in the network, which will become relevant in the nearest browser versions.
• The latest stable version of Google Chrome revealed problems - the browser does not allow users on Facebook and some of its own sites.
• In Google Chrome 19, the synchronization of open tabs appeared
• A selection of graphic works dedicated to the “Battle of Browsers”

Sites with interesting design and functionality

• titanic.q-music.be - deep dive site
• netlash-bseen.be - one-page site with parallax effect
• rapidboot.com - a site with several layers of clouds
• marklawrencedesign.com - site with interesting transitions between pages
• iutopi.com - a quality website with an interesting design
• assets.wwf.org.uk - wwf site with svg animation and dynamic elements
• planetpropaganda.com is a fun site with interesting navigation.
• noleath.com - site for a brand with a parallax effect
• wbrettwilson.ca - high-quality flash sites still live, and occupy a decent niche in their genre

Design

• Yandex has presented a new experimental design of the main page , which has not undergone major changes in a detailed study.
• "Typography through the song: an historical and epistemological journey" - an interesting report by Jessica Hische on typography
• Design of mobile sites and applications is developing, following this trend in the article Smashing Magazine discusses UI solutions dedicated to the components of search, sorting and filters
• We're in an icon-sharpness limbo - the article reveals a good question when creating a design for Retina-displays, what kind of icon implementation should I choose?
• Especially for Friday 13th is a selection of 15 dark web designs!
• In the continuation of the same topic another 30 similar examples of works
• PSD Covers - a portal has been created to help designers make covers, which contains automated tools to turn your 2D design into a 3D photo-realistic image in seconds in your favorite Photoshop!
• http://thecreativefinder.com/ - creative illustrations search service
• Logos with hands and pigeons, as is
• From lovers and connoisseurs of typography, a selection of fresh logos of masters of their craft
• A pack of lessons to create illustrations of characters

A selection of free designer cookies

• Regular is a free font that has already appeared in the Google Web Font service.
• Free Bobber Typeface An alternative slab serif
• Henry - font named after Henry Ford
• Silverfake free font Silverfake is a new contemporary slab serif wide free font designed by Alexey Frolov aka MRfrukta.
• Knowledge wants to be free! - this slogan was guided by the creators of the portal containing educational materials of elite professors and designers !
• I didn’t have time to appear on Facebook, as creatives have already taken advantage of quite original beats of available sizes and shapes and created 30 free-of-charge Facebook timeline covers.

Demo

• Actual before the Easter holidays demo, where CSS3 animation is actively used - Easter Eggs with CSS3 animation
• Awwation - demonstration of the editor for creating similar vector presentations , judging by the current state of the editor - it is rather damp, although the demo looks pretty impressive

Services

• Yandex.Disk - first look - a detailed review of the new cloud storage from Yandex
• html5bookmarks - a constantly growing collection of useful articles and links to useful HTML5 resources

Development

• Do you make a promo site and have a desire to revive it with a cool parallax effect? Check out how Ilya Shabanov solved this problem.
• For those who missed - video from J.Subbotnik in Novosibirsk November 19, 2011
• Lesson on drag and drop implementation using HTML5
• Paul Irish introduces twelve useful features of Google Chrome Developer Tools that you may not have known about
• The last six months, CSS animation is actively gaining momentum in the world of site building. Be in trend - start learning animation now!
• Parallax is another trend of recent years. Learn the history of its origin, check out cool examples of sites that use this effect and bookmark the tools that help make such sites.
• Another Sneak Peek dedicated to the new version of Flash Professional , which allows exporting to HTML5 canvas + JavaScript.
• Making a pagination for WordPress without the use of plugins
• A lesson dedicated to creating a lightbox for modern touch interfaces
• A selection of 10 cute sites created using jQuery Mobile
• SVG Stacks can already be used in Firefox, and in the near future - in Opera

CSS

• First long-awaited drafts of Variables in CSS published
• Simurai showed cool animation of SVG icons . Unfortunately, it works only in webkit browsers.
• Add CSS3 animations to your Media Queries , and a wow effect is provided.
• Webkit developers are introducing new CSS properties to front-end vendors.
• If you want to hide some CSS properties from IE8 and below, you may need this hack

Javascripts

• pep.jquery.js is a small plugin for kinetic-drag on mobile / desktops .
• jQuery 1.7 API Cheat Sheet .
• Direction-Aware Hover Effect - add a zest to your photo gallery .
• Design Facebook Timeline with jQuery and CSS .
• fc.tape is a small plugin that helps to organize sprite animation .
• Making a cool slider with jmpress.js .
• The Wookmark plugin will help to organize the layout blocks as it is done on wookmark.com.
• PageScroller - plugin for creating site navigation with smooth transitions.
• fool.js is a jQuery plugin that is ideal for hobbyists and will allow you to make fun of your site visitors in one of the ways provided in the settings.

Entertaining

• Sketch e54 - 100 seconds about Yandex
• Touchscreens of any shape and frameless may soon become a reality
• Google expands its art collection
• $ 35 Indian tablet will receive a new hardware stuffing and Android 4.0
• The effectiveness of the OLPC program was not very high.
• Ukrainian Internet Revolution

Entertainment

• Browser War 1994 - 2011
• CSS3 - Meowww - funny CSS3 cat.
• Funny Firefox Comic
• Project Glass prototype "spotted" on Sergey Brin
• Project Glass in Russia.
• Opinion of users - if the glasses were made by Microsoft

This week was remembered by a large number of interesting and unexpected news, and if this kind of digest will be received by the community positively (despite today's date), we will publish it here regularly.