3D graphics became ordinary first in games, then in operating systems, and on Thursday, it took a significant step toward being built into Web browsers as well.
The Khronos Group, which oversees the OpenGL graphics interface, announced that its work with Mozilla to bring hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web has reached draft standard form. The standard, called WebGL, lets programmers who use the Web's JavaScript language take advantage of the fact that video cards can handle 3D graphics with aplomb.
The group now wants commentary from Web developers and others who might be involved with WebGL so it can be finalized. "I anticipate us moving toward a spec that is not provisional, not merely a draft, in early 2010, the first quarter," said Arun Ranganathan, chairman of the WebGL working group and standards evangelist at Mozilla.
Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser in terms of usage, but all four of its main challengers--Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and Opera Software's Opera--are working hard, sometimes in an informal alliance, to get ahead by advancing the Web state of the art.
WebGL fits into that effort, and not just academically. All four of those browser makers have endorsed WebGL, and developer test versions of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have it built in. Microsoft declined to comment for this story beyond reiterating its general support for standards.
Ultimately, building 3D support into the Web could advance user interfaces of Web applications--including games, the popularity of which can be a powerful incentive for upgrading to the latest technology.
It's not clear exactly how it will play out, though, Ranganathan said. The arrival of Canvas, an advanced 2D interface for browsers, has led to a blossoming of graphics work, and he expects a similar change with 3D graphics.
But don't hold your breath for Web-based first-person shooters that rival native applications. First, even if 3D is accelerated, there are plenty of other processing and user interface constraints on Web applications. Second, even after WebGL is standardized, it must be built into browsers, people must upgrade to those new versions, and programmers must learn how to support the technology.
WebGL isn't the only 3D Web work under way. Google has its own O3D project, which currently is a browser plug-in but that the company also is building directly into Chrome.
O3D is a higher-level interface, though, not a direct competitor. Details are technical, but O3D uses a retained mode approach to WebGL's immediate mode interfaces.
And of course, a decade ago there was VRML--virtual reality modeling language, a file format rather than interface. A VRML successor called X3D, though, can actually make use of WebGL, and indeed a project called X3dom aims to do just that.
Intel CTO Justin Rattner, wearing his 3D glasses.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--Intel may not have attained the same dominance in TVs as it has in personal computers, but the company remains convinced that interactive, networked, computing-intensive tasks will win the company a foothold in the world of video.
The company touted various elements of its plan Thursday at its Intel Developer Forum here, including a new Atom CE4100 processor for TVs, technology to automatically extract a highlight reel from a soccer match, companies moving PC games to TVs, and big-screen 3D video that Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner believes ultimately will arrive in people's homes.
"I've seen the future of TV," Rattner said. "It's going to take a lot of computing power to do that."
A particular focus was 3D TV, which requires hardware that can handle double the ability to transfer and process video data, not to mention entirely new hardware to display. In that area, despite demonstrations and promises of 3D LCD TVs from Sony and Panasonic in 2010, there's work to be done, he said.
"We've got sonic immersion down to a good science. What isn't here is the notion of immersive video, immersive pictures," Rattner said. "The technology hasn't been ready for that."
But it's coming, Rattner said, illustrating his point with help from 3eality Digital, which showed a professional camera that can shoot live 3D video, and Silicon Valley start-up HDI, which is working on laser-based 3D TVs.
Intel showed software that tracks soccer players, identifies them, and spotlights moments of high interest in the game for finding exciting moments.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)For its own part, Intel is sticking to its processor knitting, trying to persuade people that TV should be about more than just finding a show and watching it. Intel hopes its processors, for example, will enable elaborate interfaces for interacting with TV. By virtue of compatibility with other x86 processors such as Intel's mainstream Core line, its TV-oriented chips can run software written to run on Adobe Systems' Flash Player with relative ease.
It's no surprise Intel wants a piece of the action. Rattner showed statistics that said there are 12 billion devices in the world that can receive TV content via the Internet and 500 billion hours of video content on the Net.
What's not so clear is whether consumers will eagerly embrace TV tasks beyond selecting the show they want and watching it. "Don't make my TV act like a PC," customers told Intel after its earlier forays into TV, said Eric Kim, general manager of Intel's Digital Home Group, and Intel got the message. "It doesn't work. We tried it."
Intel argues that there's more that can be done to augment the experience of watching TV--drilling down into details about particular shows, using computer smarts to find new material people might be interested in, discussing shows as they play with friends over the network, and sharing shows.
Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.
"The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration," said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. "I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."
By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google's ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer's native processing power.
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Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--Google wants its Native Client technology to be a little more native.
Google Native Client, still highly experimental, lets browsers run program modules natively on an x86 processor for higher performance than with Web programming technologies such as JavaScript or Flash that involve more software layers to process and execute the code. But to use it, there's a significant barrier: people must install a browser plug-in.
However, Google wants to make the technology more broadly accessible in browsers through new technology coming to HTML, the standard used to build Web pages, and at the Google I/O developer conference Thursday demonstrated its work to make that happen.
Specifically, David Sehr, a tech lead for Native Client, showed off Web Workers standard to let Web pages assign different tasks to independent processing "threads," effectively letting a browser walk and chew gum at the same time rather than waiting for one chore to be finished before the next begins. Web workers are one element of the ambitious but still not finalized HTML 5 standard.
Why care? Because today your browser runs software excruciatingly slowly compared to native applications that run on your computer, but Google wants to speed them up tremendously, a move that would add a lot of muscle to its ambition to make Web-based software more competitive.
"We want to be within single-digit percentages of what you can do with the best desktop native code," said Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client (NaCl) project in a talk at Google I/O.
Examples of what can be done include decoding video, encrypting data, video game physics engines, and face recognition. More interesting, perhaps, is when Native Client can work in conjunction with another Google browser plug-in, O3D, that lets browsers take advantage of hardware to accelerate 3D graphics.
Google demonstrated a browser-based image editor built with Google Native Client.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)"With O3D, we think we'll be able to enable high-quality games, the kind you're accustomed to seeing on consoles, as well as CAD applications," Chen said.
Although Google is working hard to enable more powerful Web applications, it's not all altruistic. The company has a growing stable of applications including Google Docs, Google Maps, and Gmail that can become much more competitive with desktop technology such as Microsoft Office. For now, though, Google is trying to hammer out Native Client security issues before promoting it more widely among programmers, much less mainstream users.
Sehr said Google's browser, Chrome, will introduce Web Worker support, he hoped within the next couple weeks. Google has been touting HTML 5 features at Google I/O, and Chrome gives Google a way to advance the state of Web application art.
Though other browsers are building in Web worker support, too, for now the technology is rough and certainly not a foundation a Web programmer could expect widespread support for among browsers.
Google plans to support Native Client both through Web Workers and the plug-in, Chen said in an interview. Built-in support in the browser is helpful, but Chen said Web Workers have undesirable limitations for many chores. For example, the plug-in is necessary for applications that require a fast response to user input, he said.
One such example Google showed at the conference was a photo editor. With it, images could be rotated, zoomed, and have colors and tones adjusted with a variety of sliders. There are online photo editors available today, but they typically use Adobe Systems' Flash plug-in.
This fractal graphics demo showed off a forthcoming Chrome ability to access Native Client applications through the HTML 5 Web Worker standard.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)LAS VEGAS--It was fitting that in a city created as an elaborate fantasy world that a knight would get up on stage and tell us how to save the princess.
Sony's Howard Stringer takes the stage at CES Thursday for a keynote address.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)In this case, the knight is Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony (and Knight Bachelor, a title awarded by the queen of England), and the princess is the consumer electronics industry. And according to Stringer, one of the keys to slaying the monster of the recession is the convergence of networked entertainment and technology.
In his keynote address on the opening day of CES here, besides pushing various Sony products like OLED TVs, Blu-ray players, and PlayStation 3, Stringer outlined a series of principles he says will be necessary to create consumer experiences that, if followed, will sustain the consumer electronics industry. The industry is expected to see negative growth for the first time in seven years.
"I can promise you the consumer electronics industry will ultimately prevail," Stringer told the large crowd gathered in the Venetian Hotel ballroom Thursday. "Because everyone is still innovating."
The principles, or "seven imperatives" are fairly broad: Embrace the convergence of IT, CE, and entertainment. Focus on adding value with customer service. Make products that do more than one thing. Support open technologies. Embrace social networking and user-created content. Make products whose value builds on each other. Go green.
Clearly, it was not only directed outwardly at the rest of the industry, but is intended as a new mission statement for his own company. Some of those goals--open technologies, products that interact with those from other manufacturers--aren't things Sony is known for in the industry. But Stringer said he "intend(s) to make this the total Sony experience."
One of Stringer's "seven imperatives" for sustaining the consumer electronics industry.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)To demonstrate, he brought a parade of celebrities and industry leaders onto the stage to demonstrate Sony's reach into film, music, television, gaming, sports, and, of course, technology, including several new products the company is cooking up in its R&D department.
First up was actor Tom Hanks, star of a new Sony movie (Angles & Demons) who singlehandedly stole the show, mocking the scripted lines Sony had written for him detailing how much he loved the company's products. "They write the lies, I tell the truth," Hanks joked to loud laughs from the audience.
Hanks provided much of the entertainment at the morning's event with similar off-the-cuff jabs at Sony. It was welcome, as most of Sony's most interesting announcements actually occurred the previous afternoon at its annual pre-CES press conference.
But Stringer did reserve a couple of nifty products to announce, like its new Wi-Fi-enabled Cybershot digital camera, which allows users to upload pictures directly to the Web. Stringer said there would be a lot more where this came from. The company's goal is that by 2011, 90 percent of its product categories will connect wirelessly to the Internet and to each other.
Tom Hanks, next to Stringer, stole the show. Click on image for more photos.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)He also showed some concept products his engineers are working on, like the Wi-Fi clock radio. Partnering with Chumby, the maker of the too-cute-for-its-own-good hackable Wi-Fi gadget, Sony is working on a more elegant take on the idea, but keeping Chumby's open platform for which anyone can develop a widget.
Sony's been pushing Blu-ray for home video for a while, but it's also moving to promote 3D for movie theaters. Stringer brought out Pixar's John Lasseter and DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg to try to hype the two entertainment formats. There are three competing 3D technologies right now, and it appears based on the demonstration Thursday that Sony is partnering with RealD.
But the march of famous personalities didn't stop there: Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, baseball hall of famer Reggie Jackson--Sony is providing all the tech in the new Yankee Stadium--Oprah health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz, and finally Sony Ericsson-sponsored Usher, who sang one song to close the speech.
Sony's hurting right now, and many of the tasks Stringer laid out would call for Sony to change some of its most ingrained policies. It remains to be seen if these "imperatives" will still be an imperative after the world economy eventually recovers.
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