But, why?
Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
21–30 of 63 posts
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#22Smart move on Mozilla's part to start working on VR. The desktop browser space has been saturated for so long, but making a bet on a new space might help them get a toehold on a whole new world.
This doesn't mean they are not focused on desktop, but strategically this is a solid bed that may or may not pay off, but will be key for long-term survival.
EDIT: plus having commercial sponsors for the eventual Servo-in-VR (as noted elsewhere, not shipping yet) will be key to getting Servo itself ready for production.
EDIT 2: Can we get material properties on HTML elements please? I want s with bump-mapping and specular highlights. :)
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#23Cool, going to try this on my Daydream setup right now.
Chrome on Daydream presents a super simplified UI. I'd love to be able to open a few tabs, move them around spatially, adjust the size, etc.
There is so much potential for improving browsing experiences in VR.
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Along with a deal to embed a proprietary eye-tracking service that will then be bought out by Mozilla once they realize that they've done it again.
They will publicly pretend they bought the eye-tracking service, but they will actually just hold some minority investment, like they did with Cliqz.
Then they’ll collect all your personal data and sell it to the highest bidder to target ads at you through your web browser and they’ll build anti competitive features in and break standards so the web only works with their browser and users are stuck with it... oh wait...
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#25Why would they deal with HTC and not just Steam in general. I have had Vive since day 1. I am never touching anything HTC again. I'm happy enough with the device and technology I have- but the HTC software is horrendous and there's no place for it. I've heard just horror story after horror story of HTC customer service / repair, wanting $200 for a new controller etc. Vive Pro is a complete joke, in price. HTC hasn't…
You might notice HTC Vive seems to be distancing themselves from Steam, including focusing pretty much entirely on their own Viveport platform. Though I'm not sure why, that seems to be the mentality behind their current direction.
A commonly voiced complaint about current VR gear is that it's too expensive for mainstream adoption. HTC doesn't have a Facebook backing it, so it can't just subsidize the hardware to build market share - unless it finds another revenue stream. The obvious candidate (see game console economics) is the complementary good [1]: VR software. Hence HTC Studios and Viveport.
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
They will publicly pretend they bought the eye-tracking service, but they will actually just hold some minority investment, like they did with Cliqz.
Then they’ll collect all your personal data and sell it to the highest bidder to target ads at you through your web browser and they’ll build anti competitive features in and break standards so the web only works with their browser and users are stuck with it... oh wait...
It's cool if they do that, as long as they stop pretending they care about my privacy and that they fight on my side :)
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#27Smart move on Mozilla's part to start working on VR. The desktop browser space has been saturated for so long, but making a bet on a new space might help them get a toehold on a whole new world. This doesn't mean they are not focused on desktop, but strategically this is a solid bed that may or may not pay off, but will be key for long-term survival. EDIT: plus having commercial sponsors for the eventual Servo-in-VR…
In particular, Firefox Reality is just a consumer of GeckoView.
Working on Firefox Reality has beneficial effects on Gecko's general ability to be embedded.
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#28Cool, going to try this on my Daydream setup right now. Chrome on Daydream presents a super simplified UI. I'd love to be able to open a few tabs, move them around spatially, adjust the size, etc. There is so much potential for improving browsing experiences in VR.
That's what I've been wanting since VR started. I just want to be able to place browser windows around me in space, and enter input into whichever one I'm looking at. Bonus points when I can also have a VLC window somewhere, file browser, etc, but mostly just want a stable usable VR-space window manager for now.
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#29But, why?
Because both AR and VR still have the possibility of enormous growth.
Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefox Reality is the brand we're using for the suite of browser products across VR and AR devices. Today, Firefox Reality is available for standalone VR devices (like the HTC Vive Focus) and is a native Java application that talks to the GeckoView library, which is made up of components from the mobile version of Gecko, the Firefox web engine. Firefox Reality for desktop will similarly be based off of the Firefox D…
Probably worth mentioning, Firefox VR is also going targeting Magic Leap: https://blog.mozvr.com/a-new-browser-for-magic-leap/ IMHO the strategy of unlocking a lot of VR and AR content via a browser makes a lot of sense. The ongoing Rustification of Firefox, things like Web GL, WASM, etc. It all makes sense for VR/AR applications to build on that. Solving the empty room problem where there is no meaningful content or…
Shameless plug, but for WebXR on Magic Leap github.com/webmixedreality/exokit has been the go-to for a while.
I wrote it because I found browsers too slow to move on features like html to texture (powered by webrender) and multi-site blending, which become quite manageable if the browser core is written in JavaScript.