Geezus. Folks, if you haven't looked this over yet, DO SO. It's almost
a little frightening -- all the theorizing we've been doing over the
past year has just turned quite real.
Suffice it to say:
SGI, in partnership with Template Graphics, has just announced the
first commercial VRML viewer. Beta later this month, release next
month. Free unsupported version by FTP; supported for $49 (not a bad
price; I'd be likely to buy at that price, if it's well done). Judging
from the tone and slickness of these pages, I'd say that SGI is
*quite* serious about all of this. And they claim (briefly) that a
bunch of the major players on the Web have simultaneously announced
that they will support the standard. (Including both Netscape and
Spyglass.)
(And no, the viewer's not only SGI platforms; indeed, Windows is among
the betas.)
Very, very cool; if this software is any good, the VRML industry has
just gotten its first critical kick in the behind. My guess is that we
will start seeing dozens of sites within days of release, and hundreds
as soon as someone comes out with a decent VRML authoring tool. (Of
course, most of them won't *do* much yet. But I'd bet that this list
is going to grow quite a bit, very soon, as people start figuring out
what they want VRML to be able to do. Be ready for it...)
-- Justin
Encouraged by the notion that sometimes the
process *does* work...
Random Quote du Jour:
"6) The day of your event has arrived, you arrive at the site to discover
that the port-a-jon company you hired only delivered half of the privies
that you requested. Do you:
a) Announce that your event will recreate Lent, and everyone will fast
over the weekend.
b) Lace the drinking water with Kay-o-pectate.
c) Charge on admission fee and rack up what profit you can."
-- from the "AUTOCRAT ADAPTABILITY QUIZ"