Firefox enters the realm of virtual reality with the Oculus Rift

By -

Firefox enters the realm of virtual reality with the Oculus Rift

Summary:Mozilla has added support for virtual reality apps running on the Oculus Rift headset to an experimental version of the Firefox browser.
Users of an experimental build of Firefox will be able to explore virtual reality inside the browser after Mozilla added support for the Oculus Rift headset.People running Firefox Nightly will be able to use the Rift to experience 3D environments inside web pages, following the addition of support for the WebVR API.
Virtual reality allows users to traverse 3D spaces by donning a headset that tracks their head movements and allows them to look around a 3D computer-generated world.
While VR content on the web is scarce today, WebVR could eventually see VR scenes embedded into web pages, for example a car maker could embed a 3D 1:1 model of a vehicle for people to explore.
VR headsets are also yet to go mainstream, but towards the end of this year production is expected to begin of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift - the headset credited with kickstarting a resurgence of interest in VR.
The final version of the Rift is expected to have a resolution of at least 2560 x 1440 and to improve on the already impressive head tracking of the developer versions. Realising a high resolution is seen as important to reducing the 'screen door' effect when using the headset - the name given to the gaps between pixels that are visible when the user's eyes are right next to the screen.
Available now is the Samsung Gear VR, a headset that enables the user to snap in a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone to create a VR head-mounted display.
At about $200 for the headset and close to $1,000 for the phone the Samsung Gear VR is not the cheapest option. Those who want a taste of VR on the cheap can try Google Cardboard, which allows you to build a headset by slipping an Android phone running Jelly Bean 4.1 or newer into a cardboard headset costing as little as $2.
As browsers implement support for WebVR it should allow them to run VR apps on the Oculus VR, Gear VR, Google Cardboard and future headsets. Apps can be written in JavaScript and render two views of a 3D scene side-by-side using WebGL.
To try out virtual reality in Firefox Nightly users need to download the browser, install the WebVR Oculus Rift Enabler and open a dedicated browser window, referred to as a non-e10s.
Mozilla plans to add support to the beta and mainstream Firefox versions at a later date.
In a presentation from earlier this month Tony Parisi, from VR specialists Vizi, described WebVR as not ready for primetime on the Oculus, saying that latency is still an issue and software installation and device setup is clunky.
However, WebVR works "great" on Google Cardboard headsets and experimental version of the Chromium browser, according to Parisi, able to output smooth 3D images at 60fps. By Parisi's reckoning close to 500,000 Cardboard headsets have been shipped.
Tools for designing VR apps on the web are still "rough", he said, "especially compared to pro-tools like Unity and Unreal".Other ways of creating VR web apps include GLAM (GL and Markup) - which allows apps to be built using a markup language and CSS.
WebVR support has also been added to certain builds of the Google's Chromium browser, the open source browser that Google Chrome draws its source code from.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Hacker steals data of millions of Bulgarians, emails it to local media

By -
Image
  Source of the data breach appears to be the country's National Revenue Agency A mysterious hacker has stolen the personal details of millions of Bulgarians and has emailed download links to the stolen data to local news publications. The data's origin is believed to be the country's National Revenue Agency (NRA), a department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. In a  message posted on its website  on Monday, the NRA said it was working with the Ministry of the Interior and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) to investigate the hack. "We are currently verifying whether the data is real," said the NRA. Hours after this article's publication, the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior  confirmed the hack . HACKER STOLE 110 DATABASES, LEAKED 57 According to reports from local media [ 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ], who received part of the data, the hacker said they stole the personal details of over five million Bulgarians, of the country's total populatio
Read more

​Linux totally dominates supercomputers

By -
Image
It finally happened. Today, all 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux. Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list . Today it finally happened:  All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux . The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the  November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list . Overall, China now leads the supercomputing race with 202 computers to the US' 144. China also leads the US in aggregate performance. China's supercomputers represent 35.4 percent of the Top500's flops, while the US trails with 29.6 percent. With an anti-science regime in charge of the government, America will only continue to see its technological lead decline. When the  first Top500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993 , Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its masc
Read more

Microsoft tries to stem its self-made collaboration-tool confusion

By -
Image
Microsoft is using this week's Ignite conference to try to help clarify its collaboration-tool strategy. Here's how SharePoint, Teams and Yammer figure in the mix. Choice is good. But too much choice, especially when it comes to collaboration tools, has been a problem for Microsoft. This isn't news to customers, partners or Microsoft execs themselves. But at the company's Ignite IT Pro conference in Orlando this week, Microsoft execs took a step to try to clarify the company's strategy and messaging in this area. Microsoft Office 365 Marketing chief Ron Markezich kicked off the conference this week with a slide entitled "Microsoft 365 Teamwork: Where to Start a Conversation." That slide attempts to do what  Microsoft initially attempted with a 60-plus-page whitepaper : Clarify which collaboration tools customers should use when. The slide, which features SharePoint -- and its files, sites and content storage at the center -- is broken down into t
Read more