Chrome 71 Beta Offers Low-Latency Canvas Contexts, International Relative Time

With Google Chrome/Chromium 70 having debuted last week, promoted now from dev to beta is Chrome 71.

Chrome 71 Beta introduces a new JavaScript interface for an international relative time format with support for multiple languages/words/phrases for handling relative time measurements. The new beta also has new full-screen options for Android, the full-screen API itself is now un-prefixed, new TextEncoderStream and TextDecoderStream APIs, various interoperability improvements, and other developer changes primarily around JavaScript and some CSS.

One of the changes interesting me from the graphics side is support for low-latency HTML5 canvas contexts. The low-latency canvas contexts make use of native OpenGL rendering for 2D or WebGL and serve as a replacement for the deprecated NaCL/PPAPI solutions. The low-latency mode will work out for code that doesn't need to synchronize the graphics with the rest of the DOM so it can bypass several steps of the rendering process and go straight from the offscreen canvas to scanning out to the display. But this low-latency context runs the risk of possible tearing and mostly intended for web applications needing high interactivity with the canvas.

More details on today's Chrome 71 Beta via Chromium.org as well as the features listed on Chrome Status.