Today Microsoft made the announcement that SkyDrive had been updated to full HTMl5 glory. What does it mean for SkyDrive users? The service is a lot faster and easier to navigate, provided that a HTML5 capable web browser is used to access the service.

Performance and speed has been optimized considerably. Core tasks like opening folders or navigating photo albums have been improved, with Microsoft citing reductions of 6 to 9 seconds for those tasks. SkyDrive is now making use of hardware accelerated graphics, provided that the web browser and video card support the feature. Microsoft furthermore removed “anything that slowed the experience down or got in the way of a fast, clean site”.

The layout of SkyDrive has been optimized. It resembles the Windows Explorer layout of Windows 7 now, with menus on the side and top, and the folders and files in the center of the screen. Users should now be able to reach their destinations faster, be it files, folders or albums.

The photo viewer has been improved as well. It now utilizes HTML5 and displays in a clean and rich manner. Infinite scrolling has been added to eliminate page switching to see more photos.

Microsoft has added HTML5 video playback support of H.264 files to SkyDrive. The videos can have a size of up to 100 Megabytes.

Internet Explorer and Windows 7 users can utilize jumplists to pin Skydrive to the Windows 7 Taskbar for access to often used features and sections.

Here is a short video of the new SkyDrive demonstrating the new features and capabilities of the file hosting service.

You can check out SkyDrive at the official website. Everyone is free to join and will get the 25 Gigabytes of online space.

Windows users can use the Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer software to access SkyDrive directly from their desktop. (via HTML5 SkyDrive Now Available)

The free software program SkyDrive Explorer integrates the Windows Live SkyDrive storage space in Windows Explorer. It will display a new SkyDrive Explorer icon in the My Computer menu after installation. A login to Windows Live is required to access the data that is stored in Windows Live SkyDrive. The program will automatically display the login window with options to store the login data for easier usage.

SkyDrive Explorer currently offers the following functionality:

• View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive.
• View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format).
• Create new root folders and subfolders.
• Copy files into the storage.
• Delete files and folders.
• Copy files from the storage to the computer.
• Copy folders and subfolders from the storage to the computer keeping their structure.
• Use Drag & Drop for files operations.
• Rename files and folders.
• Create links to SkyDrive folders on your computer.

SkyDrive Explorer makes it easier to work with files that are hosted at the Windows Live SkyDrive service. It provides access to some features that are not offered by the web service itself including multi-file-operations like renaming, deleting or copying multiple files or folders. The standard Microsoft library for Windows Live ID services is used which means that the personal information are not passed to the SkyDrive Explorer engine. The traffic between the local computer system and the online storage uses the https protcol to protect against network snooping.

Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer is available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The program executables can be downloaded from the developer’s website.