Firefox, Google and The 3D Web
March 27th, 2009 
Art, Augmented Environments, Business, Innovation, New Media, Research, Second Life, Social Media, Video, Virtual Worlds 
Mark Kizelshteyn
This past week the Khronos Group, working with Mozilla (creators of Firefox) and Google, announced an initiative to create an open standard for accelerated 3D Web browsers. The group is leading a 12 month initiative aiming for release as part of the Canvas3D extension for Firefox 3.5.
As Virtual World News points out, “there are plenty of other developers and organizations trying to bring 3D to the Web, but most rely on plug-ins to do so, whether that’s the near ubiquitous Flash, a quickly growing Unity3D, or their own proprietary technologies. The benefit of the new standard, if it’s successful, would be that designers could include hardware-accelearated 3D graphics in their websites without forcing users to download a plugin. With OpenGL, JavaScript, and hardware acceleration available on pretty much all platforms, it could also make it easier to develop apps and environments across multiple contexts.”
People are expecting more and more of their online experience as we witness the shift from static desktop applications to dynamic web applications. The addition of 3D will add an array of new user experiences to the web app platform. Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester, states: “…If you think about the traditional browsing experience of flat pages and links this is not a natural way to interact. People are much more used to walking around and picking things up so a 3D browser could lead eventually to a more naturalistic way of interaction…”
This standard could offer a significant shift in the 3D web by breaking down the end user barriers of entry. With the increase in web applications, people are reluctant to download bulky plug ins or software, but if the 3D environment is native to one’s browser, the potential is incredible. This team of developers and thinkers are industry leaders — allowing them to trail head this initiative will undoubtedly yield industry shifting results. I look forward to the release.
Tags: 3D, 3Dweb, Facebook, Firefox, Google, Mozilla, Second Life, Social Media, Virtual Goods, Virtual Reality, Virtual World, Web2.0
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