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Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

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Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#51

Post by kdf83 »

fabrice_d wrote: post #46
earthscienceman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you're correct in your assessment, and I hope this comes to fruition, this same paragraph could have been written about Firefox OS. That said, I'm not a detractor, I wish Firefox OS had also worked out. And I'm certainly very glad that Mozilla is still willing to approach new ideas and markets, even after getting burnt.

The FirefoxOS legacy is alive in KaiOS which has 50M+ users now and is growing. Indeed a very poor decision from Mozilla's leadership to kill the effort too soon.

I have KaiOS on a Nokia phone that I intended to use for email and 4g hotspot. I didn't expect much but it literally a POS, super slow, impossible to customize (i.e. hotspot quick launch), and no apps in the marketplace. It would be more usable with a pre symbian OS in my opinion. People that rave about KaiOS I figure are like that those that endless recommend SICP or 'Clean Code' as the book of gods and probably never read it.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#52

Post by wpietri »

andybak wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was indeed wondering about how niche this was. Are there any reliable usage statistics for, say, how many people currently use a VR browser daily? (And to forestall the inevitable comment, I understand the potential of VR, and have since the 1990s VR wave. What I'm wondering about is actual sustained (that is, non-novelty) use.)

It's rather chicken and egg at the moment but if you believe in the web and you think VR is an important new medium it's important that the web doesn't get left out of the party. Something has to be the connecting tissue of the multiverse and we'd better hope it's not Facebook or something equally proprietary.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the theory that "VR is an important new medium" is exactly what I wanted empirical data to test. I was not asking about potential; I was asking about current sustained use.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#54

Post by Animats »

loa-in-backup wrote: post #9

Firefox from what I gathered will be used as the de facto browser in in-VR web browsing. If you read the VIVE promotion article on VIVE homepage you'd know that they are planning a kind of VR metaverse as an interface to the games you play - instead of picking an option from a flat surface you'll "walk" into the app/game. But of course this doesn't change the facts that web is flat so any in-app or in-game web will b…

Second Life has browsers in-world, and they're Chrome subprocesses. These allow you to put any web page on a surface in the 3D world.

Doing a "VR metaverse" is a big job. There are about a half dozen of them now, and they all have tiny user counts.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#55

Post by Vinnl »

konschubert wrote: post #42

I don’t know. They maybe hope they’ll be first on the next big thing which they think is VR. But who knows if VR is going to be big, who knows if it needs a browser and what keeps chrome from eating the cake anyways after Firefox has scoped out the territory. I think this is a very risky bet unless they make net money on this which they can funnel into more promising projects.

You and I have very different definitions of risky :)

Worst case, the effort of a relatively small team has been wasted, and Gecko and Servo will have received a few improvements as a result of their work. Best case, VR makes it big and Firefox is its go-to browser.

Then consider the case where they're not in the VR space early. Best case, they've saved a relatively small team's effort. Worst case, VR makes it big and Firefox is as marginally relevant as it is now on mobile.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#56

Post by konschubert »

Vinnl wrote: post #55
konschubert wrote: post #42

I don’t know. They maybe hope they’ll be first on the next big thing which they think is VR. But who knows if VR is going to be big, who knows if it needs a browser and what keeps chrome from eating the cake anyways after Firefox has scoped out the territory. I think this is a very risky bet unless they make net money on this which they can funnel into more promising projects.

You and I have very different definitions of risky :) Worst case, the effort of a relatively small team has been wasted, and Gecko and Servo will have received a few improvements as a result of their work. Best case, VR makes it big and Firefox is its go-to browser. Then consider the case where they're not in the VR space early. Best case, they've saved a relatively small team's effort. Worst case, VR makes it big an…

I don’t believe that being early as a browser gives you that much of an advantage in such an unexplored space. Differences between browsers in this space will be big for a while and people will switch back and forth.

Maybe the cost of this project for Mozilla is so small that it doesn’t matter, but I think it isn’t

Edit: also I said that the bet itself is risky, not that it’s putting Mozilla’s existence in jeopardy

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#57

Post by samllhands »

Animats wrote: post #53

Mozilla needs to focus on their main product. I finally "upgraded" Firefox on an old 4 GB Windows 7 machine. It's bigger, slower, and crashes every time it exits.

Hey i am using Windows 7 and Firefox as daily 'driver' here.the lastest firefox is rocking here as i can tell.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#58

Post by moosingin3space »

floatboth wrote: post #50
moosingin3space wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to offer a different explanation, but first, the standard one: Mozilla doesn't want to miss a paradigm shift, especially one where the only players currently in it are very proprietary. They learned their lesson with mobile. One thing that many of us, myself included, are very excited about regarding the Servo/WebRender/Quantum projects is the ability for a fast, parallel web rendering engine to open new po…

WR doesn't help much with DOM update related issues, WR comes into play after that, when it's pixel time. WR is pushing the envelope for creative (ab)use of DOM elements as graphics primitives, like in that spinning cubes demo :) but on a more serious note, leveraging the GPU makes a lot of sense because it's been sitting there mostly unused (only used for layer compositing) when browsing, and it's more efficient at…

In retrospect, you're correct. I should have said "WR reduces the cost of the paint/composite cycle".

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#59

Post by Fej »

tln wrote: post #40
Fej wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What device are you using? I'm using a Pixel 2 XL and had to sideload it because the Play Store shows it as incompatible. It is broken, though, can't type more than one letter. There's a ton of promise though. I haven't found a good VR browser yet. Somewhat considering actually working on the project, I know they're on Github but don't know if they are looking for help.

Pixel 2 XL also What else have you tried?

Just that. It appears that they are not supporting Daydream View or Google Cardboard headsets at this time. Just standalone VR devices.

Re: Mozilla Announces Deal to Bring Firefox Reality to HTC VIVE Devices

#60

Post by andybak »

wpietri wrote: post #52
andybak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather chicken and egg at the moment but if you believe in the web and you think VR is an important new medium it's important that the web doesn't get left out of the party. Something has to be the connecting tissue of the multiverse and we'd better hope it's not Facebook or something equally proprietary.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the theory that "VR is an important new medium" is exactly what I wanted empirical data to test. I was not asking about potential; I was asking about current sustained use.

Yeah. I was trying in a roundabout way to say "Current usage is probably low but this is why I think it's still an important strategic move". It's definitely about having faith in VR as a medium rather than "oh wow. Look how successful VR is already!" - because it isn't.
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