geekosystem

Yahoo!, once the darling of the early Internet, has fallen on hard times. In the past few years, the company has tried a number of new paths to make it more relevant to the modern web, but none of them have been able to recapture the company's glory days. Now, Yahoo! has unveiled a new visual-based web browser called Axis for iPad, iPhone, and as a desktop browser-plugin designed to unify your online experience between all your devices.

Everybody talks trash about Internet Explorer. It's just what you do. And yes, Internet Explorer might not be quite as bad as it used to be, but you'd still be hard pressed to find a loyal fan. Those of us who are loyal fans of other browsers might have something to start worrying about. Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8 designed for use on tablets, effectively cripples all third-party browsers, and will force hapless users to go crawling back to IE whether they want to or not. Unsurprisingly, Google and Mozilla are less than pleased, and are making their opinions known.

Any web developer or child of computer-owning parents will tell you how much they dislike Internet Explorer. It's not just that it is seen as an inferior browser, but that whenever anyone comes into contact with it, there's a good chance it is a years-old version, out of date by a few full version numbers. Microsoft realized that it is almost 2012 and it is time to put a stop to Internet Explorer 6.0 and its cohorts, and will begin rolling out automatic updates for Internet Explorer sometime soon.

Corey from Probably Interactive has created a game in HTML5, dubbed URL Hunter, the entirety of which takes place in a web browser's address bar. The game uses ASCII art in the address bar to form the characters and environment. The player takes control of "O," and has thirty seconds to use the arrow keys to move around and the spacebar to murder the little "a" characters once "O" is sitting on top of them. The only reward for smooshing the little guys is a point (displayed in the browser tab) and a faster completion time, but even though the game is pretty basic, it's taking place in your browser's address bar. The game makes use of browser history, so play it in a new tab or window so the back button won't mess anything up. Also, check out your browser's refresh button while the game is running. Poor guy is working overtime.

(via Geek.com)

We've previously covered the video game demake trend, wherein modern gazillion-bit games are reimagined as 8- or 16-bitters; why not apply that aesthetic to the Web? Neven Mrgan's Pixelfari does just that, transforming Apple's Safari browser into a blocky, 8-bit looking experience.

Enjoy chunky fonts, blocky graphics, and a general sense of giddy inefficiency. Spearheaded by yours truly and developed by a very clever friend. Free+fun!

(Pixelfari via Kottke | Neven Mrgan on Twitter)