tola - x3d

Vivaty defects to Flash for Vivaty Scenes Lite

tola — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:25:00 +0100

This is a very sad day for open standards on the 3D web.

I'm devastated to hear that the X3D poster child that is Vivaty has stooped to shoe-horning a feature-limited version of its service into a proprietary 2D graphics plugin as a misguided attempt at achieving cross-platform support.

Yes, I'm a Mac (and Linux) user who would like to be able to use Vivaty, no I don't want to use a stripped down version hacked into Flash.

I wonder what great things could have been achieved if the engineering effort put into hacking together a 3D application in a 2D graphics engine had instead been ploughed into supporting and improving Unix/Linux-based implementations of X3D, the ISO standard for 3D graphics on the web. The Web3D community would benefit considerably from Vivaty's contribution to standardising and promoting the innovations they have made with the Vivaty Player, AJAX3D being one example.

I'm not angry at Vivaty's misguided efforts which were no doubt driven by business decisions, I am instead disappointed that they felt that the open standards route was not a viable cross-platform option for a company which has previously championed the standards movement.

Call for Collaboration between Web3D Consortium and Browser Vendors

tola — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:49:49 +0100

About a week ago, a question was posed on the X3D-Public mailing list: "Is Web3D beyond its infancy?". The following is my belated response.

I'd like to answer this question from the point of view of someone who is very new to the X3D community.

In terms of technology I don't think it's fair to say Web3D is in its infancy, it's very mature by software timescales. X3D is an ISO standard with multiple implementations and has a good pedigree.

However, in terms of adoption I think X3D is very much in its infancy. The truth is, I've been interested in X3D for about 5 years and in that time I've not come across a single person who isn't a software engineer who has an X3D browser installed on their computer. Why is this?! People have Flash, Java and PDF plugins in their browsers, they even have limited support for SVG, but not X3D.

In my opinion, it has very little to do with how good the technology is. There are only two ways I can think of to raise X3D adoption significantly. One is the egg, and one is the chicken.

A killer Web3D app.
Collaboration with browser vendors (by browser vendors I mean Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, Google etc.) to get native support for X3D into existing web browsers

I'm sure that many members of the Web3D consortium are trying very hard on number 1 (Vivaty for example), but who is working on number 2?

Samuel Degrande touched on this in the thread [on the Web3D mailing list] about Khronos' new initiatitve to create a standard for accelerated 3D on the web. He said "the ultimate choice would be to have a native 3D renderer, just as SVG is natively embedded in Gecko".

I think there's an important lesson to learn from SVG here. SVG support is slowly getting native support in Gecko and Webkit based browsers, but unfortunately the demand isn't really there. In the case of SVG, a proprietary alternative (namely Flash) got there first. Flash is not only widely used for 2D vector graphics, but is also used for embedding video in web pages. Proprietary solutions - 2, web standards - nil.

There are many competitors to X3D out there for interactive 3D graphics on the web. Third party 3D engines for Flash, direct use of Java3D in an applet, Acrobat3D, a possible Canvas3D element in HTML5, Khronos' new initiative, a significant other I know of going on behind closed doors and lots of proprietary gaming plugins.

The one thing all the competitors seem to have in common (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that they use an imperative approach rather than the declarative approach taken by X3D. The XML-based solution implemented by X3D seems to me to fit much better with the architecture of the web. (The exception is that X3D has presentation and logic mixed in with content, whereas best practices have emerged on the web which create a clear separation between data, logic and presentation - namely XHTML, ECMAScript and CSS).

Many competing solutions take the approach of creating a JavaScript API which (to my untrained eye) looks very much like a slightly higher level abstraction of OpenGL! If you're going to bother creating a high level graphics language, then it seems much more worthwhile creating a declarative approach which operates in the descriptive realm of the content creator rather than the logical realm of the software engineer.

So what do you think? Should there be a "Mozilla X3D" or "Webkit X3D" project? I think such a project would massively increase the chances of X3D beating a proprietary competitor to the post.

I'm not sure which will come first on the 3D web - the chicken or the egg - but what I do know is that the chances of either coming about are greatly increased by the existence of the other.

3D Internet vs. 3D Web

tola — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:08:50 +0100

There are a couple of things I've found out about recently which I think are significant developments in the 3D web.

Second Life Architecture Working Group

The Second Life Architecture Working Group are publicly working on a defining a set of protocols which will open up the next generation of the Second Life "grid" to allow others to host Second Life style worlds. Second Life is a popular (the most popular?) online virtual world and currently has an open source client and closed source server. All servers are currently run by Linden Labs, but the company recognises that if Second Life is to become as ubiquitous as the World Wide Web, they have to open up the technology.

What I find interesting about this standardisation effort is the willigness of the group to investigate the use of existing open Internet standards where possible. Examples include HTTP, REST APIs, XMPP, FOAF, XFN and OpenID. I think this is a much more sensible approach than trying to define new protocols for every part of the technology.

The basic approach of the group currently appears to be to take each feature of Second Life and either match it to an existing open standard, or if none applies then define a new one. Meetings happen online, even inside Second Life itself, and the chat logs are available to view on their wiki.

Vivaty

Vivaty were previously known as MediaMachines who created the FluxPlayer for X3D viewing and FluxStudio for X3D authoring. Under their new brand they have recently launched a beta of a new 3D social networking service which uses X3D technology to provide online virtual worlds similar to Second Life, but with a greater emphasis on social networking. This is really a flagship for the X3D standard and it will be interesting to see how well it performs.

This new direction for the company appears to be an evolution from creating developer tools and implementations of Web3D standards, to providing end user web services which use those standards. I think this speaks volumes about the maturity of the technology.

3D Internet vs. 3D Web

What's interesting about contrasting these two developments is that they are both working towards building distributed online virtual worlds, but going about it in different ways. One is creating a 3D Internet and one is creating a 3D Web. Also, one is taking a commercial service and turning it into an open technology, the other is taking an open technology and turning it into a commercial service.

Here's my question. Are virtual worlds and the web different uses of the Internet in the same way that email clients and web browsers are different, or are virtual worlds one possible application of the 3D Web? It could be that both are true, similar to the fact that both email clients and webmail exist. In which case, the 3D Web is a web interface to virtual worlds. This then strays into the much wider debate of desktop vs. web browser as a software platform.

The Second Life client includes not only the real time rendering of interactive 3D vector graphics, but also a huge array of other technologies including authentication, instant messaging, prescense, friends lists and even currency. I would call this a rich Internet client, because it involves much more than just a web browser. It's something which implements many different protocols over the Internet and is designed to be installed on a desktop PC, separate from a web browser.

The pure 3D Web approach I envisage would be slightly different. The client (web user agent) would include only the downloading/uploading (over HTTP) and rendering of 3D scenes (in X3D), with a client-side scripting engine (ECMAScript). HTTP authenticaion might also be included, as it is currently included in web browsers, but application specific protocols like instant messaging, exchange of currency and friends lists would be left to server-side web services. An instant messenger client may well use the Jabber protocol (XMPP), but would not require the user to download an IM client, it would simply be used via a web interface much like Meebo. Currency? 3D PayPal perhaps.

The pure 3D Web option fits very neatly in the context of other web standards - we already have XHTML and the start of SVG implementations in web browsers, X3D could be the next step, with CSS and ECMAScript playing their parts.

XMPP for the 3D Web?

As an aside, one interesting idea which has been mentioned in the Second Life Architecture Working Group discussions is the idea of using XMPP not only as an instant messaging protocol but as a general purpose point-to-point protocol. I've thought about this before - the idea of using XMPP in place of HTTP to overcome the limitations and synchronous nature of HTTP. I know XMPP is extensible, but I don't know enough about it to know whether this would work. The 3D Web is surely going to be a big stretch for the hack that is AJAX and XMPP could hold the answer to truly interactive 3D scenes.

Lazy Browser Development is letting Flash Kill the Web

tola — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:59:10 +0100

Adobe's Flash technology which is fuelling some of the most innovative developments on the Internet is simultaneously putting the World Wide Web as we know it at risk.

The World Wide Web is ubiquitous

It has far surpassed the expectations of its creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and has come to embody what we think of as the Internet. But what gave the web such an explosive growth and universal appeal was not technology alone, it was the open-ness with which the technology was developed. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded to oversee the standardisation of the technology built on top of Internet technology already standardised by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). This meant that many developers could write software which implemented these open standards, giving us the diverse web servers and web user agents we see today.

The web is no longer just text and images

It is a multimedia platform with audio and video and the early stages of 3D virtual worlds. But if we look at how the multimedia web is coming about, we can see that it is being developed in quite a different way. Instead of the open standards and human-readable markup of XHTML, CSS and ECMAScript that underly the original web, the multimedia web is being built on proprietary technology called Flash. Flash is currently the only widespread way of delivery audio and video across the web in a cross-platform way and is behind popular web sites like YouTube and Flickr.

Flash is not like the rest of the web

Flash was created by Macromedia and is now owned by Adobe, one of the big software giants of the world. Flash differs from web standards in that it is a closed, proprietary format owned by one company and when flash appears on a web page it appears as a cryptic "binary blob" that can only be interpreted by Adobe's software.

Web standards like XHTML mean that any web user agent or search engine can trawl the web and interpret the data stored on it. Search engines can index web pages, multiple companies can implement web user agents and web servers and the web has a certain level of accessability for the visually impaired user. Flash has none of these properties, it is a closed proprietary technology owned by one company that doesn't play nicely with the rest of the web.

What we can do

If we care about the World Wide Web we should be supporting the same standards organisations that created it to drive innovation of the next generation. The problem is that often companies can develop innovative proprietary technology a lot faster than standards organisations can standardise technologies. If we're not careful, such standards will never emerge and the web will become hostage to large corporations, holding our data prisoner in proprietary, closed formats.

So what is Flash used for today that should use open web standards and what technology should we be supporting?

Audio/Video

Web sites like YouTube use Flash to embed video in web pages because it is currently the easiest way to deliver video across the web and reach the maximum number of people. This is due to an underlying problem with digital audio and video, every computing platform seems to use a different standard. Giants like Microsoft, Apple and Sony are in a standards war over digital formats. This has happened before with cassette tapes, VHS, CDs and is also now happening with DVDs.

But in the backgroud a few sane people have defined some open standards for these things. Formats like Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora and FLAC are as close as we can get to open, patent-free formats for audio and video.

We should be building native support for these open formats into web user agents like Mozilla Firefox so that video can be delivered over the web in an open way.

2D Vector Graphics

Flash is by far the dominant technology for static and animated 2D vector graphics. But the World Wide Web Consortium already has a standard for this, it's called SVG. Not a lot of people realise that SVG has an equivalent feature set to Flash and is an open XML based standard like XHTML and is a W3C recommendation. For some reason there is not yet a widespread full implementation of this standard in any web user agent (to Adobe's credit they have probably come the closest, but have recently announced they are going to stop supporting SVG).

Mozilla are working on implementing SVG in Firefox but progress is slow on implementing such a huge standard and for some reason it doesn't seem to be a high priority for them. We need to give organisations like Mozilla more help in implementing SVG natively in web user agents.

3D Vector Graphics

3D virtual worlds are in their early stages on the Internet and are predominantly made up of applications like Second Life which are very much like the AOL of the web, before it was more open. They have a walled garden of a virtual world controlled by one company.

Just today I've seen an announcement claiming that MetaPlace is going to make virtual worlds work like the web. They're going to "democratise" virtual worlds by allowing anyone to create their own virtual world. At first glance, this appears to be the true 3D web. But actually Areae who make MetaPlace are going to use Flash technology to deliver these 3D worlds to the web browser. This is not how the web is supposed to work.

The Web3D Consortium exists to standardise formats for the 3D web and they are developing the X3D standard, another XML based standard like XHTML. If online virtual worlds are going to truly work like the web, they will surely use an open standard like X3D. We need to work on implementing X3D in web user agents.

Applications

Flash is very popular for applications online because of its programmable properties and its cross-platform nature. An alternative exists in a combination of technologies known as AJAX. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a way of using existing web technologies to create highly responsive web applications.

By applying AJAX techniques to SVG and X3D as well as XHTML, we can create some really interesting software.

The W3C is standardising web application formats in the Web Application Formats Working Group. WHATWG are contributing to this effort.

In conclusion

We've become lazy with our web user agents. The truth is,standardising a computer format, implementing it and promoting its adoption is a lot of hard work. Developers can hardly be blamed for choosing proprietary options which already work today, they are pragmatists and simply use whatver works.

If we care about the open-ness of the web (and by that I mean the freedom of our information) then we need to put a lot more effort into developing web user agents for the next generation of the World Wide Web.

To borrow a phrase from the Mozilla Corporation's advertising campaigns:

Take Back the Web!

Bob's Perfect Virtual World as the 3D Web

tola — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:12:26 +0100

In this blog entry, I'd like to address Bob Sutor (of IBM)'s three blog posts about his requirements for a perfect 3D World, implemented as a direct extension to the World Wide Web, as described in my 3D Web design concept.

A pure offline Mode

I think this is part of a wider requirement for certain web applications to work offline. With the recently announced Google Gears and other projects from major industry players like Adobe's Apollo, Mozilla's Firefox 3 (and Parakey, currently vapourware), Django's Offline Toolkit, Microsoft's Silverlight and Joyent's Slingshot I think this is going to become an extremely hot topic. I think we're going to see the boundary between web server and web user agent blur considerably into "Web Servents". So in short, an offline mode can use the same technology as an online 3D web, with a local server or a local cache of data, logic and presentation.

A peer-to-peer model

By using web technology, we can take this for granted to the extent that anyone can run their own 3D web server and we can make hyperlinks between them. The peer to peer idea could be taken a lot further than this though, by users in the same virtual space swarming the data between each other. I don't know about that bit.

A model of many planets

Again, this is basically what the web is.

Much better zoning

This almost touches on the contraversial subject of the .xxx domain.

However, with Second Life the geography works in much the same way as First Life with blocks of land having permenant neighbours. This is a limitation of real physical space that while it might be nice to reflect in virtual worlds, is not necessary. We could have lots of areas of "virtual land" who's boundaries are defined only by their own content and then have portals (hyperlinks) which allow you to move into another space, there is no reason to have permenant neighbours because your neighbours are simply whatever you link to, which is under your control. In this way zoning just becomes a result of the links people make, which works reasonably well on the current web.

If you do want to build a planet with geography like the real world (like Second Life), you can still do so, but you could decide to ban certain activities in that particular planet. That way, if there's some content you don't like you simply don't link to it, and it is only as close as 6 degrees of separation dictate.

In-world Secure Chat

I would argue that secure chat in general isn't particularly widespread on the Internet yet, so this is an issue for the Internet in general. However, see later for more discussion on in-world chat. In short, XMPP encryption extensions.

AI

This would just be part of a web application. A 3D web application that is a 3D game may have AI controlling faux avatars and objects, a sales site may have an AI shop assistant or human-AI hybrid. Server side scripting languages and javaScript manipulating X3D files.

World-to-world communication

XMPP (Jabber) and either Jingle or SIP for voice (and video?) would be great for person to person chat. A couple of interesting points spring to mind:

Firstly, should the jabber client be part of the 3D Web user agent or should it just be another web interface like Google Talk in GMail? Especially with regards to advertising prescense or status of the user (available, away, busy, offline).

Secondly, how do we deal with the issue of hearing people around you in a virtual space and adjusting the sound as people move, in addition to person-to-person conversation between worlds. We certainly don't have standards for this yet so it wil be interesting to watch Linden Labs.

World to world teleportation

Hyperlinks.

Do I need a membership in the other world or is there a notion of guest?

We have the same issue on the web. I think distributed authentication like OpenID is a giant leap forward in this field.

How do I deal with cross-world identity?

By using a URI as a person's identity as in OpenID. You can still have your friendly screename in Jabber, but the URI uniquely identifies you.

Can I bring my money with me?

That's a good question, but I think the answer is that if you want some kind of virtual currency, it simply becomes a service like PayPal where you buy credits of some kind and they sort out "exchange rates". You could then use that currency in any world or any web site by using that service as a broker for payments. I'm obviously making this sound a lot more simple than it really is, nothing is straight forward where money is involved.

Can I bring my clothes with me?

Yes, your avatar and everything your avatar wears is hosted on an avatar server (just an 3D web server) and can simply be included into a scene. This only works if all the worlds use the X3D (or other) standard, which is one of the fundamental requirements of a 3D web in my opinion.

Can I bring more general objects between worlds?

The same as above, "objects" can be an X3D file hosted somewhere on the web which can be included into another X3D file dynamically. This requires a certain level of write access to all 3D web servers, which is probably going to cause all sorts of spam problems like we have on wikis. (Imagine a spamming company putting up billboards everywhere).

Search

Don't worry, Google will sort that out ;). Seriously though, it could work the same way as the web with spiders and giant indexes.

Device and world compatible link redirection

Now that is a very interesting topic which you could call the Device Independent or Multimodal Web. I think this can be solved with HTTP Accept headers and content negotiation. This is a major part of what my Webscope project is about, a Multimodal Web User Agent.

3D Web

tola — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:28:38 +0000

Synopsis

Browsing the world wide web as a three dimensional virtual world.

Rationale

Virtual online worlds like Second Life are like the AOL of the 3D web, they provide a walled garden in the virtual 3D world using proprietary software. Although the Second Life Client is now Open Source, the server software remains closed and only Linden Labs are able to run Second Life servers. Like AOL eventually had to open up user's access to the rest of the Internet, these innovative but proprietary solutions will eventually give way to a ubiquitous online space which is a direct extension of the web and uses web standards. Anyone will be able to host a 3D web server.

Features

3D Web Server

An existing HTTP server which serves 3D web pages to client requests with the relevent HTTP Accept header
Server side scripting
XML transformation if required
3D web pages or "spaces" written in X3D and ECMAScript (with hyperlinks between spaces).
Web interface to chat server

Chat Server

Chat server, possibly using the XMMP protocol

Avatar Server

A special type of 3D web server which holds a person's 3D avatar. This could optionally include a distribute authentication mechanism like OpenID which identifies a user securely to others in a 3D space. When a user visits a 3D space, their avatar is served to that 3D world so that they appear to other users.

3D Web Browser

(Could be part of a Multimodal Web User Agent).

Rendering X3D
Executing ECMAScript
Sending HTTP Requests with the relevent Accept headers to ask for a 3D representation of a resource

Implementation

Web3D Consortium
Metaverse Roadmap

Related Blog Entries

Metaverse Roadmap, Convergence at CES

tola — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 20:39:49 +0000

In a comment on my last blog post I mentioned that:

"I have a vision of something which basically *is* the web, but in 3D. In fact, I think the user should be able to choose how they wish to view a given web resource - in plain text, 2D shapes, 3D shapes, simulated speech etc. This can be done with content negotiation in HTTP. The same resource could be rendered by lots of different devices, from a light switch to a 3D headset."

I then found the Metaverse Roadmap, a "public ten-year forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies". They have a wiki where you can input your thoughts. I was going to add my own vision statement about how the 3D web could just be one mode of interaction with a multimodal web (as mentioned above). I found this vision statement which is a similar idea:

"The world will be the metaverse. People often think of Stephenson’s metaverse as an “other” place, and the web as a window onto cyberspace, but as Paul Saffo and Mike Liebhold of Institute for the Future note, the best model for the metaverse of 2016 may be an information-drenched world, where the 3D web is just one particular instantiation. Mixed reality is likely to be the dominant user experience. You will use virtual worlds when they are an appropriate mode of interaction, but they are not your primary mode of communication – you have your chat, your email, your augmented reality, your 2D and 3D browser, etc. While people will continue to use online spaces and media centers for particularly high quality 3D content, the pervasiveness of information access and augmented reality will give world itself new layers of “metaverse-itivity.” The ubiquity of small, portable Sidekick-like and wearable devices will enable immediate access. Voice will be used for many basic queries, but text, even IM text, is private and unobtrusive, so it will not disappear."

Someone also mentions the need for a new type of browser which will allow us to access "all our 3D access through one piece of software" and mentioned that "Open standards will be particularly important for this". I've downloaded FreeWRL, the X3D renderer I want to use for Webscope

In other news...

It seems CES is all about convergence again this year with Apple's iPhone being announced alongside the Nokia N800, Apple TV and Windows Home Server. The iPhone was inevitable but it sure is pretty now it's here, very nice design touches like motion sensors and multi-touch screen that I didn't expect to see yet. Note the lack of 3G and the presence of WiFi. This is the kind of hardware we should be thinking about for future web software development.

Second Life Client Open Sourced

tola — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:45:32 +0000

In my fourth blog post of the day, Linden Labs has Open Sourced the client for Second Life in a blog post entitled Embracing the Inevitable.

Linden Labs always said that Open Sourcing the code was part of the long term plan, I remember an interview on LUGRadio a while back. It's a shame it's only the client and not the server-side code, but they say they are staying open minded about that. One step at a time.

My dream (as I described in March) would be a distributed system where anyone could set up their own server. It would use web standards and would just be like a collection of 3D web pages in X3D. It might be difficult to attain the same kind of user experience you get with Second Life, but it would be a great extension of the web.

Update: I've started a wiki page posing the question "What would be required to create a 3D web with a similar user experience to that of online virtual worlds like Second Life?". You can log in with username:iwontspam password:ipromise or start a new account. I'd value input.

Multimodal Web User Agent

tola — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 19:59:11 +0100

Codename

Scope

Synopsis

A multimodal user agent for the web. Scope aims to combine a multimodal web browser and media player into a single application which runs in full screen mode by default. It will have a very minimalistic appearance and be able to render formats such as SVG, VoiceXML, X3D and multimedia as well as the traditional XHTML/CSS/JavaScript. The format used to represent a web resource will be negotiated between the user agent and web server using content negotiation. The user agent is intended to run in full screen mode on an information appliance or replace a traditional desktop environment and window manager, but can be run as a traditional desktop application if desired.

Rationale

The web is often assumed to be a collection of web pages, but really it is a collection of resources identified by Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs), a web page is only one representation of an abstract resource. These resources are not limited to being represented by text and images you "browse" on your "desktop". You should be able to walk around the web, listen to it, watch it, have a conversation with it, interact with it and change it. You should be able to carry it in your pocket and hang it on your wall. "A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about." -- Douglas Adams Scope aims to be a general purpose user agent which can render resources in many formats such as a vector image, voice synthesis, 3D environment and perhaps some kind of tactile interface in the future. The format used for representation can be negotiated with a web server using content negotiation.

Features

Rendering Engines

Content & Structure
- XHTML - Structured text (Gecko)
- SVG - Vector image
- VoiceXML - Voice synthesis
- X3D - 3D environment
- Binary Enclosures
  - PNG & JPEG - Image
  - MP3, OGG & FLAC - Sound
  - MPEG - Video
Layout & Style
- CSS - layout and style for the above
Logic
- JavaScript - logic for the above

Widgets

Back button
Forward button
Home button
Graphical address bar
Tabbed browsing
Command box/suggestion menu/progress bar combined
Clock
Power button
Error and notification message stripes

Content Negotiation

Scope will implement under-used parts of the HTTP specification for content negotiation to negotiate a resource representation format based on user preferences, abilities, environment or usage scenario. This feature will require server side logic on the web server where a resource may be transformed from a base format to the user's preferred format using XSLT or simply be stored in multiple formats. An implementation of XSLT inside the client itself for client-side transformation may also prove useful.

Natural language command line

Before graphical user interfaces computers were interacted with using a "command line", a series of text based commands of a strict structure where individual commands had to be memorised. Scope will include an experimental "natural command line" which could be represented as a text box or used in combination with speech recognition to enable a user to give commands to software in natural language. Example commands would be "email jack", "turn off the lounge light" or "play some classical music". The commands are input into the user agent which may require additional processing such as speech recognition. The command could then be passed as a string of text over HTTP with a URI such as: http://example.uk.home/?q=command goes here It is then up to a server side application to interpret this command and execute an action as a result.

Use Cases

Although the initial development will be for common desktop operating systems like Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux the primary intended platform is a new breed of "information appliances". This will include portable devices, television-like devices, touchscreens and a lot of other obscure hardware. Use cases include:

Voice interface for handsfree operation or for visually impaired users
The use of a 3D headset and hand sensors to navigate a 3D environment
Full screen video playback
Multi-modal interaction with a combination of web pages and voice
A screen on your fridge or TV
A media player on a small portable device

Implementation

See Webtop, previously Webscope