The Right Stuff

Whoever controls the high ground of cyberspace controls the Metaverse.

Anybody who doubts that virtual reality on the web is a good idea needs to start paying attention. Last Friday, over 800 attended  the SFHTML5 Meetup, shattering attendance records, to learn about browser-based VR and chat with a high-powered group of thought leaders. For two hours, Mozilla’s Josh Carpenter, Brandon Jones from Google, Leap Motion founder David Holz, DODOcase’s Patrick Buckley and I dropped beats about creating low-cost, accessible, no-download VR just using JavaScript and your text editor.

After the meetup, we rolled to the Upload party to see the latest VR hardware, killer demos and body-painted go-go dancers. It was a VR night for the ages. It didn’t bother me that 100% of the demos I saw at Upload weren’t web-based. Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier and faster right now to build a Unity or Unreal-based native app for Oculus and Gear VR. But as I’ve misquoted before: we don’t do these things because they’re easy, we do them because they’re hard. It’s going to take a while yet to roll out a VR web, but in the long run we think the effort will be worth it.

And so the intrepid group of warriors that kicked this night off brilliantly laid out. Virtual Reality is for everyone, not just the few: accessible, affordable and easy to create and share with the world. It’s our shared belief that VR will be on the web in a big way, and the web itself will have a VR interface in the not-too-distant future.

If you missed it, you can check out the video here.

 

 

 

Big Data

[text of my emcee rant from tonight’s cocktail social at HTML5DevConf]

I’m not actually here right now.

You’re seeing an incredibly powerful simulation, crunching petabytes of data at teraflops speeds. Combined with the right sensory hardware, we’re able to create illusions of size, shape, color and sound… even touch. Go ahead: touch me. Realistic, isn’t it?

This simulation is the product of the longest-running R&D experiment we know: evolution. Evolution: the first lean startup. Brought to you by the most powerful technology we’ll ever see: reality. Collisions of atoms, and sprays of electromagnetic radiation. Big data meets bright light.

So as we gather tonight to celebrate how freaking smart we are, let’s just remember where we came from. The internet is everywhere, on everything, in everything. But this is just the beginning. We have a lot farther to go before we can say that everyone and everything are truly connected.

BUT until then…

They said it couldn’t be done. They said HTML couldn’t be used for serious applications. First, they said it couldn’t do what Flash does. They were wrong. Then, they said it would never work on mobile. They were wrong again. As more new features hit native platforms, I’m sure they’ll say it again: HTML can’t do it; JavaScript isn’t fast enough; standards committees move slowly and stifle innovation. Yada yada. And they’ll be wrong again. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Video, audio, 2d graphics, 3d graphics, databases, threads, sockets… HTML5 is *the* platform for building content and apps across operating systems and devices. Not controlled by one vendor; write an application once, in one programming language, with one set of system services. What developer doesn’t want this? Coming soon, the browser will have virtual reality, new input devices, bluetooth networking, and real-time control – the *next* platform to power mind-blowing new experiences, new user interfaces, new control systems for connected devices.

HTML5 isn’t a technology so much as a mindset and a process. A mindset of sharing to create opportunity: grow the pie, and each slice grows bigger. A process of open collaboration and open development: stand together or fall apart. Without a standard platform, we’re trapped in silos of experience, and fall short of our true potential. With a standard platform, we’ll connect everything to everyone, and hit new heights. Big data meeting the bright light.