Two days ago Adobe released a pre-release beta of the upcoming Flash 10.1 plugin for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It features better CPU management and GPU decoding, sadly the latter only applies to the Windows counter part. Anyone that has a Mac knows that Flash runs like a dog, hogs a ton of CPU power and drains the battery life of any portable.

To this end I spent a bit of Tuesday making a point to deliver content on open standards using HTML 5. Using AAC , OGG, H.264, and Theora I am able to give people content without the use of flash. This is possible in most browsers (even the iPhone and possibly Android), except for all flavors of Internet Explorer. Although you can install the Google Chrome plugin to get some HTML 5 functionality. Yesterday, Microsoft announced Internet Explorer 9 which might bring support to HTML 5 but it’s only three weeks into development. It might be while until it shows up.

While this was a proof of concept and I was able to do this fairly simple, adoption is still a bit away from the masses. Hopefully the upcoming WordPress 2.9 adds this option natively until then I will continue to a hack/plugin solution. If you would like to see the Test Page click here.

Also for those that use Safari and enjoy Youtube there is a plugin ClickToFlash that forces it to load the H.264(MP4) version which is easier on the CPU and on your battery.