Here's a great example of 3D running in the browser via a company called 3DVia.
http://armdevices.net/2010/12/11/das...at-leweb-2010/

Very slick! I wonder if they're using a plugin or if they're using WebGL.

One thing that I'm very interested in seeing is NaCL support for Chrome OS. I am running the dev version of Chrome as my default browser, and it is FAST. I'm astonished to think that javascript performance is going to be doubled in some cases with the official Chrome OS version 'Crankshaft'.

However, even the blazing fast V8 Javascript engine doesn't hold a candle to the speeds native code can achieve. Also, native binaries offer the benefit of using whatever development environment or language that you want. NaCl has the same benefits so long as a .nexe is compiled in the end. The end result? Web apps that literally run as fast as traditional OS code (some cases slower, and in some cases faster due to an unforseen CPU code caching benefit).

I've tested NaCL and subjectively it's fast, very fast. It's supposedly executed in a very secure way (similar to virtualization -- using the same mechanisms of isolation). It also leverages many OS level APIs and HTML 5 APIs for well rounded capability. In short, almost any native application that you can dream of can be run in the browser and at full speed (not entirely true, apps that leverage non-standard hardware are currently not possible, though this could change), but delivered via the cloud and without the need to VNC.

Apparently many common POSIX utils were ported to NaCl with little fuss. I would like to see ports of common linux GUI apps, as well as a general compatibility layer. Who wouldn't want to be able to run something like Inkscape or Blender from within the browser sans installation? Best of all? The apps are 100% sandboxed and security is much less of a concern.

Wikipedia has a nice little writeup about Native Client:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Native_Client

It's of note that almost all major browsers support the technology including: Chrome/Chromium, Firefox, Safari and Opera across OSs on multiple x86 varients. Sadly (or not so sadly), IE is left off of the list.

There's also an ARM port in the work, and a variant called PNaCl that uses LLVM as as a architecture independent bit-language! So, certain NaCl apps will work on your N900s/Galaxy Tabs/etc, just as they do on your desktops!

It's an exciting time for OSS!

Here's a video of Quake running in NaCl in the browser.. They're actually running 9 of them (try doing that with Javascript!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_zbFuaB2wc

Pointless, but fun.

This should give Nokia fans mixed feelings. Here is a QT port to NaCl:

http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2010/06/25/...lient-preview/

Very interesting indeed! It seems that web apps are about to get a LOT more functional. With rich toolkits like QT, building apps will be a snap, and in many cases [more] easily portable between online and offline platforms.

Another reason devs will jump on Native Client and Chrome OS, is that code can be hidden in the binary rather than exposed as obfuscated Javascript.

There's likely to be a large developer push into this area as it promises much simpler distribution. The low cost of entry also implies that there will likely be much more competition!

Here's a lovely video showing one of the benefits of cloud computing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo

It's for the lay person, but I expect many can appreciate the benefits of this.

In a pretty gutsy move, Google has declared that it will be removing H.264 from the list of codecs officially supported by Chrome!

It is focusing on all open codecs instead (WebM/VP8 and Theora).

http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/htm...in-chrome.html

Very interesting. Not entirely unexpected, but I guess Google isn't going to take the MPEG-LA's bait.

It'll be interesting to see what their next move will be.

I expected this of Chromium, but Chrome is somewhat surprising to me.

It seems that this will be a polarizing point for browser video support. On the one hand you have Firefox, Chromium and Opera, and on the other you have IE9 and Safari.

MS will determine if there is a skirmish. If they can translate IE6 users to IE9, then this will be a point of contention.