Google is now taking Canvas2D a step further by enabling the new Chrome 18 web browser to leverage hardware-based GPU acceleration.
“We’ve enabled GPU-accelerated Canvas2D on capable Windows and Mac computers, which should make web applications like games perform even better than a pure software implementation,” Google explained on the Chromium blog.
Hardware acceleration for Canvas is something that other HTML5-compliant vendors could benefit from as well. As a web standard Canvas is also being leveraged by Mozilla for their BrowserQuest online game, which was released earlier this week. BrowserQuest is a full in-browser massively multi-player online game.
Security Fixes
Chrome 18 also provides at least 9 security fixes, and three of the issues are rated as high impact. There are no critical fixes for the Chrome 18 updates.
One of the high impact flaws is a Use-After-Free memory issue with the SVG graphics library. The other high impact flaws include a memory corruption and a type sanitizer vulnerability.
All told Google is paying security researchers $4,000 for flaws fixed in the stable release of Chrome 18. That said, Google noted in its release notes that it had paid out an additional $8,000 in awards for bugs that were reported and fixed before Chrome 18 hit the stable release channel.
Read the full story at Datamation:
Google Chrome 18 Accelerates Canvas
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.