3 ms·

I don't understand why they didn't create the app using Flash 9. There are some really impressive 3-D apps using Flash 9 and if they used Flash, it would work o

by ydavid 18y ago

I don't understand why they didn't create the app using Flash 9. There are some really impressive 3-D apps using Flash 9 and if they used Flash, it would work on Macs and Linux also. does_not_make_sense . I honestly expected that if anything, google would come up with some cool tricks to make it work without requiring any plugins at all, even Flash. Check out this amazing app called AlternativaPlatform (Disclaimer: They not friends of mine and I don't have any connection.) if you want to see what's possible for 3D using just regular Flash 9. It's the most impressive example that I've seen so far. The link goes to their blog, which contains a bunch of demos: http://blog.alternativaplatform.com/en/ http://blog.alternativaplatform.com/en/ This is another really cool Flash 9 - based 3D app: http://ecodazoo.com/ http://ecodazoo.com/ (Disclaimer: No personal or financial connections here either.) Maybe there are some technical requirements that I'm not aware of the necessitated using a custom plugin. Assuming that there was a good reason for it, why didn't they integrate it into an update for their Google Toolbar product or the Google Earth browser plugin? I'd be curious to hear any ideas on the subject.

dats 18y ago
Avi Bar-Zeev* talks about that and more in this blog post. http://www.realityprime.com/articles/google-lively http://www.realityprime.com/articles/google-lively "Ah, finally, we get to see the long rumored Google Virtual World, or one of them anyway. There’s also rumored to be another one with a remarkably similar aesthetic that’s only 2D and doesn’t require a plugin and install. [I imagine they could use this 3D technology on the server side to flatten their avatars into isometric sprites that could be rendered in Flash or AJAX, ala google maps on the client. Any bets?]" *Avi founded Keyhole which built what eventually became Google Earth
- ydavid 18y ago
  The rumored version sounds much more interesting than the current one. The time required to test out a service using flash/ajax is just as long as the page takes to load. With an applet it probably takes a minimum commitment of at least 5-10 minutes to get the thing to install properly. And I hope that it's well-tested so that it doesn't conflict with any of my Firefox plugins... An article linked from the realityprime.com article that you listed has an interesting quote: Our mandate was to get usage," Guymon (note: Mel Guymon, Google's Head of 3D Operations [and former There.com developer and IMVU Co-Founder]) said of his business plan. "The difference from the startups I’ve been in is that startups have to turn a profit or die. All the projects in Google are run as startups, but we’re given an incredibly amount of rope to be successful. We’re not about to run out of money and die. For Google it’s the opportunity to get into a space that we think is really going to be important in the long term. For me personally, I think this is going to make people’s online experiences richer and more interesting. For generations coming up from age 4, this is what they expect. For Google, that was really the stake in the road" http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/google-announce.html#more http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/google-announce.htm... Any thoughts? To me it sounds like they're a bit undisciplined. I'm not sure that it's a recipe for success to just throw money at a project. Constraints often help shape a product in good ways. In this particular example, it could have been a good thing if they didn't have enough programming resources to build and test their own plugin. They would have had to live within the limitations of the flash plugin, but that tradeoff could prove in retrospect to have been well worth it.
sadiq 18y ago
The best in-browser cross-platform 3D solution out there today is, by a long distance, Java. With something like JOGL or LWJGL, you get hardware accelerated 3D that's supported on Windows, Linux, OS X and Solaris and that will 'just play' in about 95% of surfers out there. If you want to see what you can do with it, Runescape's new HD client came out recently and it looks beautiful (and runs damned quick).
- ydavid 18y ago
  Even IF Java had a flash-level 98%+ adoption rate, the UI experience with Java applets in the real world has never been good in my experience. There is an annoying startup time before the apps load, Java sometimes crashes my browser, and the most ridiculous thing of all is that the last few 'advanced 3d' apps that I've tried running display a horrific security warning message saying that the app is untrusted. Apparently you can sign the apps to remove the warning, but why is it that people aren't always doing that? Is there some huge fee that Sun charges to sign your apps? I'm sorry but I'm not willing to give an untrusted browser app full access to my file system. Flash doesn't allow full access PERIOD (which definitely limits its usefulness in some applications) and I don't have to even worry before trying a new app. Anyhow, I still haven't seen any compelling reasons to use Java that are so incredible that they outweigh these serious shortcomings. I think it's just a total non-starter. And with Flash starting to now support hardware 3D acceleration with Flash 10, there is one less reason to use Java.

by ydavid 18y ago

dats 18y ago

Avi Bar-Zeev* talks about that and more in this blog post. http://www.realityprime.com/articles/google-lively http://www.realityprime.com/articles/google-lively "Ah, finally, we get to see the long rumored Google Virtual World, or one of them anyway. There’s also rumored to be another one with a remarkably similar aesthetic that’s only 2D and doesn’t require a plugin and install. [I imagine they could use this 3D technology on the server side to flatten their avatars into isometric sprites that could be rendered in Flash or AJAX, ala google maps on the client. Any bets?]" *Avi founded Keyhole which built what eventually became Google Earth

ydavid 18y ago
The rumored version sounds much more interesting than the current one. The time required to test out a service using flash/ajax is just as long as the page takes to load. With an applet it probably takes a minimum commitment of at least 5-10 minutes to get the thing to install properly. And I hope that it's well-tested so that it doesn't conflict with any of my Firefox plugins... An article linked from the realityprime.com article that you listed has an interesting quote: Our mandate was to get usage," Guymon (note: Mel Guymon, Google's Head of 3D Operations [and former There.com developer and IMVU Co-Founder]) said of his business plan. "The difference from the startups I’ve been in is that startups have to turn a profit or die. All the projects in Google are run as startups, but we’re given an incredibly amount of rope to be successful. We’re not about to run out of money and die. For Google it’s the opportunity to get into a space that we think is really going to be important in the long term. For me personally, I think this is going to make people’s online experiences richer and more interesting. For generations coming up from age 4, this is what they expect. For Google, that was really the stake in the road" http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/google-announce.html#more http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/google-announce.htm... Any thoughts? To me it sounds like they're a bit undisciplined. I'm not sure that it's a recipe for success to just throw money at a project. Constraints often help shape a product in good ways. In this particular example, it could have been a good thing if they didn't have enough programming resources to build and test their own plugin. They would have had to live within the limitations of the flash plugin, but that tradeoff could prove in retrospect to have been well worth it.

sadiq 18y ago

The best in-browser cross-platform 3D solution out there today is, by a long distance, Java. With something like JOGL or LWJGL, you get hardware accelerated 3D that's supported on Windows, Linux, OS X and Solaris and that will 'just play' in about 95% of surfers out there. If you want to see what you can do with it, Runescape's new HD client came out recently and it looks beautiful (and runs damned quick).

ydavid 18y ago
Even IF Java had a flash-level 98%+ adoption rate, the UI experience with Java applets in the real world has never been good in my experience. There is an annoying startup time before the apps load, Java sometimes crashes my browser, and the most ridiculous thing of all is that the last few 'advanced 3d' apps that I've tried running display a horrific security warning message saying that the app is untrusted. Apparently you can sign the apps to remove the warning, but why is it that people aren't always doing that? Is there some huge fee that Sun charges to sign your apps? I'm sorry but I'm not willing to give an untrusted browser app full access to my file system. Flash doesn't allow full access PERIOD (which definitely limits its usefulness in some applications) and I don't have to even worry before trying a new app. Anyhow, I still haven't seen any compelling reasons to use Java that are so incredible that they outweigh these serious shortcomings. I think it's just a total non-starter. And with Flash starting to now support hardware 3D acceleration with Flash 10, there is one less reason to use Java.