Mozilla Servo Team To Begin Focusing On VR / Mixed Reality

[PackRat]

Captain Picard: "Computer where is commander Riker?"
Supercomputer ai : "Commander Riker is on holodeck 4"

[mike44]

While I get a VR device for X-Plane, Alien Isolation etc., I don't think I'll use it for web stuff etc.

[haagch]

For the other readers:

While I get a VR device for X-Plane,

X-Plane has a beta with VR support but for literally no reason whatsoever they have not made a Linux version.

https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-11-20-vr-beta-instructions/

Alien Isolation etc.,

There was "native" VR support for an ancient Oculus SDK with the DK2.
Now there is VR support via a Mod that only works on Windows because it hooks into the windows renderer. The developer was mildly interested in porting it to the Linux version but wasn't sure if it was feasible.

https://github.com/Nibre/MotherVR/releases/

I don't think I'll use it for web stuff etc.

On Linux nobody is because it seems not even a company like Google can afford the resources to make a browser with VR support on Linux. Apparently both Firefox and Chromium are just missing some IPC on Linux to get a texture out of a tab process and into a VR runtime and both Google and Mozilla literally have not a single person who can spend some time to do it.

[coder]

While I get a VR device for X-Plane, Alien Isolation etc., I don't think I'll use it for web stuff etc.

With Web Assembly, maybe some new VR games will be web-based.

[kaprikawn]

I'm no expert, but I have to agree with the other posters. On the face of it this seems like a shocking misallocation of resources to a fringe technology.

[R41N3R]

I wish they would have announced to send more support to Servo, make the first release for Wayland, support GPU rendering, fix touch screen support, working on replacing OpenGL with Vulkan, ... I mean there are so many improvements Mozilla should focus on, but VR and mixed reality? It's still a browser and I cannot imagine to use VR for something simple as web browsing and watching YouTube :-)

[mike44]

haagch thanks for the links. X-plane will get Linux support when they've moved to Vulkan as steamvr needs that.
cb88 VR is no flop but getting really big. Only look into the X-Plane forum etc.
I might get a Samsung Odyssey or wait for Vive Pro.

[Maxjen]

I don't think there is any reason to worry. You should check out this thread on the rust reddit. It has some interesting comments from the actual developers. e.g.:

"Mixed Reality is interesting for Servo in two different respects. First, it’s a huge opportunity: it’s early days and content is brand new, so there’s no long tail of web compat to worry about; we can get products built on Servo to market relatively quickly. By putting open web tech on the cutting edge, Mozilla can help ensure that Mixed Reality doesn’t become yet another siloed technology.

But second, the constraints of Mixed Reality will help us push Servo technology to the limit: we need to achieve 75 or 90 frames per second per eye to make a workable product. The research advances here will pay huge dividends back in traditional browser engines like Firefox." (jntrnr1)

[coder]

By putting open web tech on the cutting edge, Mozilla can help ensure that Mixed Reality doesn’t become yet another siloed technology.

This is a really good point. You don't want to wait until Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and HTC have all these proprietary AR & VR apps, before finally creating open, standards-based APIs and protocols for doing it. By then, it's too late. You have to reach critical mass early, or else there's no incentive for these guys to let apps based on open standards into their walled gardens.

There's no reason why AR and VR can't be web-based. Sure, you'll often need a fair amount of local storage for caching textures & models, but a lot of the compelling AR & VR apps will be multi-user or involve some communication & interaction with the cloud. In such cases, there should be no technical reason not to make them web-based.

[haagch]

haagch thanks for the links. X-plane will get Linux support when they've moved to Vulkan as steamvr needs that.

SteamVR has been using EXT_memory_object_fd since http://steamcommunity.com/games/2508...70884003755867 to support OpenGL applications at full speed.