Canvas is an element originally introduced by Apple to create effects like wet floor and cover flow in iTunes. It has been adopted by the HTML5 working group and subsequently been added by Opera and Firefox. There's also a library to emulate the behavior with SVG in Internet Explorer.
Questions Answered:
What is the canvas element?
How do current browsers support it?
There are only a couple of attributes for canvas in HTML5. Where does the fine-tuning come from?
To what extent is it compatible with Internet Explorer?
Why don't you use Flash to achieve the same?
Apart from wet floor and cover flow, what else can be done with a canvas?
Are there any libraries to create the coordinates of polygons?
Is canvas more than a fad?
Is it possible to use JavaScript libraries like YUI or jQuery for events, effects, and animation in a canvas?
When there are hundreds of copies of an image, doesn't it use a lot of resources?