In all seriousness, if the SGI thing isn't vaporware (and given their
timetable, I suspect it isn't), it *does* change the landscape in
some real, qualitative ways. A well-funded product is likely to
increase public consciousness of VRML a lot, which is going to alter
the way the process goes. The level of experimentation is going to
rise, and a fair amount is going to be done by people who haven't
been on this list for the past eight months. All in all, the process
is likely to distribute a lot. And a lot of the new people aren't
going to be the scientists and hackers who have been driving it to
date -- I would be genuinely astonished if we don't start seeing
"virtual malls" popping up pretty fast. (Gimmick quality is quite
important to the commercial side of the Net, and this is a *great*
potential gimmick.)
All of this is probably for the better, assuming SGI doesn't pull a
Netscape and throw its weight around (and hasn't created a product so
broken that it turns people off); I'd say that VRML is at the point
where a wider audience will be useful. But it *is* going to change
things, make no mistake...
-- Justin
Who tries to bear in mind one of the more
important principles of advertising: in
some respects, people's *impression* of
reality is just as important (sometimes
moreso) than the reality itself...
Random Quote du Jour:
"You know you've been in hack mode too long when you complain in the
supermarket about your change and find out you computed it in hex."
-- Kristian Koehntopp