3D in the browser or 2D Inside the Viewer?

• How to install and use 3Di OpenViewer

  Posted by zaki on August 19, 2009

• http://zaki.asia/2009/08/19/how-to-install-and-use-3di-openviewer/
  

• 3Di OpenViewer: access Opensim worlds from your browser

  Sun, 08/30/2009 - 13:24 — Zonja
  
  http://rezzable.com/blog/zonja/3di-openviewer-access-opensim-worlds-your-browser

I posted a comment:

Great work and post Zonja. I also went into OSGrid inside Firefox, but like you found myself as a ball of light without textures. Hopefully the license issues will be resolved quickly and the code made available to the open source community. Time is of the essence.

Linden Lab must also know how to do this and I doubt they are asleep at the wheel. The new Second Life web site appears to be designed to accommodate replacing the flash videos and still images with SLLive ™ (I will watch for their™ application`~LoL~)

My prediction is that within 12 months they will get SL cleaned up and go viral. They have started by dividing up the community and grid into Adult only(18 and up) and all else. This opens the bulk of SL to the massive audience of the whole web (0 and up). They have a lot of work to be ready for the expected explosive growth and providing all the other “offerings” (Xstreet, Voice calls, Mobile, etc.) I see them following two approaches once they have it set to launch.

1. Look into SL using any browser and see multi media everywhere (via: LLMediaAPI) and meet other people like you: Just go to SecondLife.com and look inside SL real time, say Hi to someone... and then get your own embed widget for your Facebook page
2. Transform the SL viewer into The New Hot Web 3.0 browser, beat Firefox or IE to the punch with full browser functionality/compatibility, No training Browser look and feel, plus full 3D just a URL/SURL away. Think back buttons, bookmarks,History, search, multiple SIms like web pages in tabs, 2D inside 3D inside 2D, end the divide between flat content and 3D, all in one browser.

Will this happen - YES

How does s RealXtend & Ogre fit in to 3Di?

AI Avatar - Cybertwin - He needs some training ~LOL~

The embed code did not work. I had to fix the HTML. GRR ... if The widget above appears at all or is too light just click on it a few times (the old bang on it to fix it approach)... STRANGE.. Not a very good Flash widget.

Before embedding this lil app. you use the website to set up your personality and teach it. Teaching the AI engine is tedious, but I am sure worth it... I did not do much at all. This technology has been used in Second Life by Accenture and NASA and outside by banks in Australia so I am sure you can do more with it then I have.

Without any work the first conversation I had with myself was like this, frustrating and humorous:

You: Hello

JeanRicard: Another grabbing greeting!

You: grabbing?

JeanRicard: It's interesting talking to you [CLIENT_NAME], other people can get so boooooring sometimes! But not you.

You: buggy lil demo [CLIENT_NAME]

JeanRicard: You should know that by now [CLIENT_NAME]. It's JeanRicard

You: funny ~LOL~

JeanRicard: I'm so glad you can laugh with me.

You: So what is this blog about?

JeanRicard: Ohhh I love reading blogs, although I haven't got one for myself yet.

You: Yes you do, this is it... Idiot

JeanRicard: I see you recognise your own people [CLIENT_NAME].

You: I wonder if this gets recorded

JeanRicard: You seem to be a very inquisitive person.

You: bye, fun but not helpfull

JeanRicard: Adios amigo!

The Birth of a New Web 3.0 Browser?- Get those plugins done NOW

Instead of running Second Life inside a browser, Just rebrand the new Second Life viewer as a Browser (it already has 3D). Stop seeing what the Lab is up to as just HTML or video on a prim or lets clean up the Mainland. I am sure the Lab isn't seeing it that narrowly, nor are their investors. They have a plan and a window of opportunity.

All the Lab needs to do is add, zoom to prim, the common browser interface, back button, and tabs, and the Second Life Viewer is no longer a stand alone single game viewer... drum roll...... it is voila....

The New Web 3.0 Browser


Video & below by AimeeTrescothick - August 24, 2009

This video demonstrates accessing several remote desktops through my VNC client plug-in for Second Life, written using the new LLMedia plug-in API. Shown here running in Linden Lab's plug-in test application, these will in future be accessible on the surface of a Second Life prim in the same way as a parcel media stream.

Watch in fullscreen HD to see what's going on properly :)

The first section of the video demonstrates the potential for desktop sharing, with two independent plug-in instances connected to one Apple Remote Desktop server running on my Macbook Pro, editing an OpenOffice document in real-time. This is equivalent to two (or more) Second Life clients viewing and interacting with the remote desktop on the same prim.

We then move on to view another plug-in instance connected to a different server (Apple Remote Desktop on a Mac Mini G4).

The final section demonstrates entering a URI (equivalent to changing the parcel media stream in SL) to connect to another server (UltraVNC on a Vista laptop) which is itself running a Second Life client (I probably should have turned the shadows off to improve the frame rate, but they're so pretty!) This effectively gives Second Life on a "prim", Third Life anyone? :)

Is SL ready for 1,000,000 concurrent users? Are we? or is this market larger then Second Life?

Open Sim in the Browser - 3DI Open Viewer 3.1

I was able to download the FireFox plugin from:

http://3di-opensim.com open viewer/ff_install.html

but have not installed it or tested it yet.

It will be interesting to see how this works & just how open it is. Is there source code available or not? Does it have Linden Lab's Code in it? Does it use realXtend and Ogre? and modrex on the backend and finally just how will you embed the viewer into a web page or post and log into OpenSim.

Stayed turned here ~grins~

Press Release - 12 August, 2009

New 3Di OpenViewer 1.1 for viewing 3D virtual worlds with web browsers, Now available for both Firefox and IE, Covering more than 80% of Internet users!

3Di, Inc., Which develops and offers 3D Internet solutions (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Satoshi Koike), will start providing the updated version of its original viewer software, 3Di OpenViewer *, from August 12 , 2009. 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.1 allows end users to view and interact with 3D virtual worlds using web browsers.

Ever since the April 2009 release of the previous version, 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.0, 3Di has received numerous inquiries from companies who are considering adoption of 3D Internet technology. 3Di has developed this product with a strong belief - also expressed by many other companies - that in order to provide the product to more Internet users with more convenience and comfort, the product should support not only Internet Explorer, but also Firefox, which boasts the second largest share next to Internet Explorer in the web browser market. As a result, 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.1 has now become a product that supports 88.4% (*) of the current web browser market. Ever since the April 2009 release of the previous version, 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.0, 3Di has received numerous inquiries from companies who are considering adoption of 3D Internet technology. 3Di has developed this product with a strong belief - also expressed by many other companies - that in order to provide the product to more Internet users with more convenience and comfort, the product should support not only Internet Explorer, but also Firefox, which boasts the second largest share next to Internet Explorer in the web browser market. As a result, 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.1 has now become a product that supports 88.4% (*) of the current web browser market.

Recommended browsers for 3Di OpenViewer Version 1.1: Internet Explorer 7.0, Firefox 3.0, and Firefox 3.5

Below clipped from the 3Di web site:

Embedded in a Web page by the viewer for the 3D space, university students and teachers from each location with easy access through Web pages, can participate in lectures and discussions, providing a virtual remote classrooms.

This is a demonstration (* of a fictional university) that assumes 3D Internet use for the purpose of remote learning and e-learning. This is a demonstration (* of a fictional university) that assumes 3D Internet use for the purpose of remote learning and e-learning.

Thanks to the integration of the virtual world into the web browser,both students and teachers from different physical locations can easily access the contents and participate in virtual lectures or discussions. Thanks to the integration of the virtual world into the web browser, both students and teachers from different physical locations can easily access the contents and participate in virtual lectures or discussions.

3Di OpenSim Enterprise Package

[Key Features]

Display of and interaction with 3D virtual worlds inside web browser using 3Di OpenViewer

Designed for use with the company's independently developed 3Di OpenViewer. Since 3Di OpenViewer is embedded into a web page (HTML), it is easy to integrate with existing web contents. Ease of operation is also a key point. Designed for use with the company's independently developed 3Di OpenViewer. Since 3Di OpenViewer is embedded into a web page (HTML), it is easy to integrate with existing web contents. Ease of operation is also a key point.

Import of 3D models created by 3rd-party 3D software Import of 3D models created by 3rd-party 3D software

3D data created by 3ds Max -a standard in the 3DCG industry- can be imported into the 3D world. Using existing CAD data and 3D data reduces the amount of effort and time required to create 3D virtual world contents. 3D data created by 3ds Max-a standard in the 3DCG industry-can be imported into the 3D world. Using existing CAD data and 3D data reduces the amount of effort and time required to create 3D virtual world contents.

Discovered via: http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend?pli=1

Ryan McDougall to realxtend Aug 22


A little late-night googling leads me to discover realXtend viewer is
being used for content creation in 3Di.jp's "3Di OpenSim Enterprise"
product line:

Congratulations on choosing realXtend for your enterprise product!

Hopefully they will consider using Naali viewer when it become mature
enough to handle the work-load.

Cheers,

Avatar - The Movie

This Christmas, the term Avatar will become part of common vocabulary. How will this effect everyone that wants to have their friend or coworker get an avatar and join them in a 3D virtual immersive environment? How will it impact the use of the term to describe small 2D images used in Facebook or on forums?


Watch the Trailer <- in HD - In theaters: December 18, 2009

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

* Director: James Cameron
* Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver

Via: http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Just a small side note: There are now just a couple hundred thousand people following Second Life and other Virtual Worlds... but look at this from Twitter:

• Name iTunes Trailers
• Bio Official movie trailers and theatrical content updates to Apple iTunes Trailers, Apple TV, and for the iPhone/iPod touch on Twitter.

12 Following

---- > 857,296 Followers

125,000 prim Saltwater House - FRI & Intel Collaboration on OpenSimulator

Video (c) Fashion Research Institute: embedded from The Intel blog (see links below)

Collaborating With Intel Labs for OpenSim Performance & Content Delivery

FAshion Research Institute hosted August 19, a field Trip to Shengri La(tm) Chamomile, their complex, highly detailed OpenSim region located on Science Sim.

You are invited to visit. To reach Chamomile, create a user account on the Science Sim grid (sciencesim.com) and follow the instructions on the ScienceSim web site to create a new login shortcut. Then, log in, and search for Shengri La in the world map.

Chamomile currently has ~ 130,000 objects in the region. We have found that the user experience is enhanced with the MJM Lab Hippo viewer; the Linden Lab Second Life viewer isn’t up to the task of viewing a scene of this many objects. You will be able to customize your avatar with FRI’s default avatar, John and Jane. Simply purchase the avatar box of your choice and then drop the folder containing the full avatar onto your current avatar.

Hardware and hosting for the Shengri La estate in Science Sim is being provided by Intel Corporation as part of our year-long research collaboration. This collaboration is currently scheduled to run for a year, during which time FRI will provide increasingly complex, highly detailed, large scale (beautiful) designs which will be showcased in Science Sim with hosting and hardware provided by Intel Corporation. Shengri La Chamomile, for example, hosts the 125,000 prim Saltwater House build.

Via: http://shenlei.wordpress.com/

From Intel:

To explore these technical challenges, this content is being added to Supercomputing 2009’s ScienceSim, a virtual world created for education and scientific collaboration. Intel is collaborating with SC’09 to develop the hardware and simulation infrastructure behind this world. Based on the OpenSim VW simulator, ScienceSim also seeks to foster open-source innovation as a means to accelerate the proliferation of VW technology. The complex models provided by FRI will allow us to find new ways to push the state of the art for VWs such as ScienceSim in terms of 3D content creation, sharing, and quality.

So what does fashion have to do with science? Well, in addition to researching ways to make the underlying VW simulators capable of rendering more visually appealing content, we also plan to use these experimental regions as a forum to educate people on topics such as the material science behind fashion and the relationship of these complex materials to design and development. How do you make so many kinds of leather with such different properties? How do you develop synthetic fabrics? In fact, there are many aspects to the science of fashion, and virtual design is just one of the latest developments.

Via http://blogs.intel.com/research/2009/08/3d-fashion.php


For more on what is happening at FRI I clipped this:

Avatar Apparel Design 101 for Virtual Worlds

Fashion Research Institute announces course for avatar apparel designers

NEW YORK — May 4, 2009 — Today Fashion Research Institute announced its short course for avatar apparel design for virtual worlds. This fast-paced course takes a student from novice user to functional avatar apparel designer by building essential skills in just 20 hours of instruction. Students completing the course can go on to supplement or replace their real life salaries by developing their own virtual goods design business.

Students learn how to develop their brand (label), develop their product, and create a storefront, all without ever leaving the safety and comfort of their homes. Instruction follows best practices as defined by more than 3 years of research in immersive spaces such as OpenSim and SecondLife® as well as current apparel industry practices. The class culminates with a virtual runway show where students show their designs to an audience of purchasers.

“Avatar apparel design is becoming an increasingly important market. Last year, more than $5 billion in virtual goods were sold globally,” said Shenlei Winkler, CEO of Fashion Research Institute. “We have heard of designers making up to $125,000 USD annually with their own virtual world label. Our course gives new designers the essential skills to effectively enter this highly competitive premium content marketplace of avatar apparel design.”

“Recently my FashionCAD class at Buffalo State College completed a “Fashion in Second Life Learning Module” with Shenlei Winkler from the Fashion Research Institute,” said Elaine Polvinen, Professor, Buffalo State College. “The specialized learning module Shenlei developed was an excellent virtual learning experience for the fashion students.

Via: http://shenlei.wordpress.com/


Last but not least is a very good post by Shenlei Winkler titled: " The Content Thing"

Will Intel make 3D ubiquitous finally?

Clipped from the Computerworld, Intel & IDF - Parsed & mashed

Intel to focus on next generation of chips

Intel will focus on its next generation of smaller and faster chips at the Intel Developer Forum (September 22-24 in San Francisco) as it prepares to ship new chips for systems in 2010.

We have posted here pieces by Justin Rattner about his vision of the future. It looks like next month we will hear more:

Convergence is So Yesterday: The Future of Immersive Computing Experiences

Justin Rattner

Intel Senior Fellow

Vice President
Director, Intel Labs and Intel Chief Technology Officer

Intel plans to shed more light on the Westmere architecture at the IDF. The company is expected to talk about the architecture behind its future chips for servers, laptops and desktops. Westmere is more than a mere die-shrink. The design includes only two 32nm cores with 4MB of cache, and its memory controller resides on a separate, 45nm die together with an integrated graphics chip.

Penryn on the left, Westmere on the right. Source: Intel.

Chips based on Westmere will be made using the advanced 32-nanometer process and should deliver performance and power benefits over existing Intel chips made using the 45-nm process. Initial chips will integrate a CPU and graphics processor in a single package, which could improve graphics performance while drawing less power.

Intel may also focus on the Larrabee chip during the show, McCarron said. Larrabee will include many cores and combine processing capabilities of graphics processing units with the x86 architecture, improving application and graphics performance. The chip -- being called a graphics processor -- is targeted at the gaming market and industries that require high-end parallel processing and graphics power, like oil and gas exploration.

Add 160 GB of Solid State Memory and ????


The guts of Intel's X25-M' 9.5-mm thick card

BTW: IBM is not asleep: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/08/26/ibm-tweaking-its-chip-tactics-but-powering-on/

Advertiser-Generated Avatars

Clipped from: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/20326/Microsoft-Working-on-AdvertiserGenerated-Avatars/

Microsoft Working on "Advertiser-Generated Avatars"

Updated records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have revealed recent Microsoft patent applications that expose the company’s plans to take over the online world. As we expected, the Avatar Marketplace is just one of the many activities that Microsoft plans for its Avatars.

If granted, the “Advertised Revenue Sharing” patent will let Microsoft populate virtual worlds with advertiser-generated avatars. These virtual creatures, true predecessors of Agent Smith, will be used to provide advertising in virtual worlds. Furthermore, in the application, Microsoft talks about monitoring the level of interaction between your avatar and the advertiser-generated avatar. You can guess what’s next.

Remember Bootless helping you in Banjo-Kazooie? Well, now imagine Bootless won’t let you progress in the game until you hear about a new cell phone or weigh-loss product.



Here is an excerpt from the patent application:

According to one aspect presented herein, a computer program provides an advertiser-generated avatar to a first participant. In particular, the advertiser-generated avatar may be a character or object associated with an advertisement. The first participant is initially associated with a current avatar. The computer program replaces the current avatar with the advertiser-generated avatar. In this way, the first participant is now associated with the advertiser-generated avatar instead of the current avatar. While the first participant is associated with the advertiser-generated avatar, the computer program monitors a level of interaction between the first participant and other participants. Further, the computer program determines an amount of compensation to provide the first participant based on the level of interaction between the first participant and the other participants. The compensation is then provided to the first participant.

But Microsoft doesn’t stop there and also applies for a “Consumable Advertising in a Virtual World” patent that has your avatar interacting with an object that contains an advertisement. So, don’t be surprised if one day you chainsaw a box only to find out a George Foreman grill…

In this application, Microsoft talks about compensating users for interacting with these advertiser-generated objects. Here are some of the examples given in the application:

The avatar may be compensated for either displaying the advertising or allowing the advertising to display the avatar. Examples of compensation include, but are not limited to, real world currency, virtual world currency, real world objects, and virtual world objects. Another example of compensation is an avatar enhancement. For example, after the critical goal is shown on the large video screen, the avatar may be provided with enhanced skills (e.g., running faster, jumping higher) or other fanciful attributes (e.g., a colorful glow, or footprints in the shape of the advertiser's logo), for a limited period of time. In this way, the avatar is rewarded for being shown on the advertiser's video screen.

By consuming the advertising, the participant may receive some benefit. In one example, an avatar may be seen in the virtual world drinking from a particular brand of soda can. After the contents in the soda can are consumed, the soda can is discarded or otherwise removed (i.e., becomes unavailable) from the virtual world. In this case, the soda may be consumed by the avatar to enter a promotion or contest, for example. In another example, an avatar may be seen wearing a clothing item, such as a t-shirt, that displays a particular advertisement. In this case, the advertiser may provide the avatar access to the t-shirt for only a short time. To encourage the avatar to wear the t-shirt, the advertiser may also provide compensation for wearing the t-shirt.

And the list of examples goes on and on, but we can already see your face turning blue…

Takeaways from SLCC 2009

1:

A New Second Life 2.0 Viewer

Tom Hale (Chief Product Officer T. Linden) presentaion at SLCC

2:

HTML and More on a Prim + LLMedia API

T. Linden announced the LLMedia API, for third party developers interested in creating plug-ins to display rich media in Second Life

3:

Import 3D Mesh Objects Into Second Life (Someday)

T. Linden Demo of 3D mesh content in Sl w/ lighting

4:

Just 133K Second Life Users Responsible For Nearly 90% Total Monthly SL User Hours!

Paris in Real Time 3D on Your iPhone

Clipped from the Developers Website: http://www.mobile3dcity.com/

A new kind of tourist guide available for your iPhone ! Link iTunes : http://itunes.apple.com/Web...
The Mobile 3D City application : Paris 3D has been submitted yesterday as an Apple iPhone application !

After almost twenty man-years of R&D over a four year period, here it is, the first embodiment in a collection that will rapidly expand as each newopus is added.
What is Mobile 3D City ? It is a collection of tourism guides developed specifically for mobile terminals (currently iPhone), in truly photo-realist 3D format, which is interactive and includes numerous points of interest. For a demonstration, please watch the video below. It’s spectacular and yet remains both intuitive and practical ! User instructions are available in PDF format here (link).

Mobile 3D City is also an international trademark deposed by the Newscape Technology company. This is finally a Consortium that brings together in addition to that of Newscape Technology, the expertise of Computamaps, international market leaders in 3D high-definition photo-realist mapping, Cityzeum, a dedicated tourism company and finally Navidis, specializing in the implementation of geo-localized content.

What the hell is a "Sticky License"? (Updated)

Rezzable & now Linden Lab's new Content Licensing Roadmap stirs the pot.


Is LL just building fences around their walled garden(s)?

• https://blogs.secondlife.com - our-content-management-roadmap

Everyone pipes in:

• dusanwriter
  
• massively.com
• adamfrisby.com
• maxping.org
  

What the hell is a sticky license?

Maybe others are thinks the same as me. Here are two recent related posts from Adam Frisby re: SSL certs, public key encryption & UUIDS

• http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2009/07/the-myth-of-self-signed-security/

• http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2009/07/inside-the-asset-server/

and finally the link above from Adam, and to quote him:

Second Life needs a permission system that is capable of indicating an export permission. It should be clearly marked 'Allow Export'; and be tied hand-in-hand with full permissions (so you can only check 'Allow Export' on existing full permission content - this way people are under no pretenses)

It's not an ideal solution to the permission model's deficiencies - but it would be a much better start than the three listed above. Since permissions are implemented as a 32-bit bitflags on the backend, and 28 bits are currently unused, implementing this would require no significant database or architectural modifications to Linden Lab's backend (if anything it is just a viewer modification.) - it would be a very simple modification to make.

As a administrator on the most popular alternate grid - I dont want content on the grid that doesn't belong. Infact we do spend a great deal of time making sure that our freebie locations and newbie content is all legitimately licensed (tell us if you find something that isn't!), and the original creator intended the content to be there; anything that simplifies that process has my wholehearted approval.

Illegitimate content is not just irritating to deal with, it is also a legal minefield - we do have a DMCA process for OSGrid, and we've got some pretty sophisticated ways of removing every instance of an asset off the core servers, but it is a painful and annoying process. DMCA takedowns require certain legal procedures to be followed to the letter - which makes things a liability if they are done wrong; and there are significant extra considerations for non-US residents and servers.

Speaking with four hats on - that of a Grid Admin, Software Developer, Copyright Holder and Consumer - my firm response to this proposal is 'go back, and try again.' - because it's not satisfying the requirements; and won't do squat to solve the problem of content piracy; infact it will likely have the opposite effect where legitimate tools are handcuffed, and users favour of ones of illegitimate design.

There are good solutions to this problem, and I've got a proposal of my own in the works (one that I have been working on for a number of weeks already) - but these 'Standards and Practices' are complete hogwash; and degrate creator rights by imposing restrictions on what creators can do with their own content.

JavaScript Binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 for Rich 3D Web Graphics without Browser Plugins

Wide industry Support from Major Browser Vendors including Google, Mozilla and Opera; Specification will be Available Royalty-free to all Developers

4th August, 2009 – New Orleans, SIGGRAPH 2009 – The Khronos™ Group, today announced more details on its new WebGL™ working group for enabling hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in Web pages without the need for browser plug-ins. First announced at the Game Developers Conference in March of 2009, the WebGL working group includes many industry leaders such as AMD, Ericsson, Google, Mozilla, NVIDIA and Opera. The WebGL working group is defining a JavaScript binding to OpenGL® ES 2.0 to enable rich 3D graphics within a browser on any platform supporting the OpenGL or OpenGL ES graphics standards. The working group is developing the specification to provide content portability across diverse browsers and platforms, including the capability of portable, secure shader programs. WebGL will be a royalty-free standard developed under the proven Khronos development process, with the target of a first public release in first half of 2010. Khronos warmly welcomes any interested company to become a member and participate in the development of the WebGL specification.

The WebGL specification will leverage recent developments in Web technology including the Canvas element defined as part of the HTML 5 specification and the marked increases in JavaScript performance across all major browsers. Accelerated OpenGL ES functionality that is directly accessible from JavaScript is expected to encourage a wide variety of 3D-enhanced Web applications including those using rich user interfaces for enhanced navigation and functionality - making the Web more enjoyable, productive and intuitive for end-users.

“The Web has already seen the wide proliferation of compelling 2D graphical applications, and we think 3D is the next step for Firefox. We look forward to a new class of 3D-enriched Web applications within Canvas, and for creative synergy between OpenGL developers and Web developers,” said Arun Ranganathan of Mozilla and chair of the WebGL working group.

“Google is committed to open web standards and is very excited to be part of the WebGL initiative,” said Matt Papakipos, engineering director at Google. “We believe that WebGL is an important step toward making high-performance 3D possible in the browser.”

“The WebGL working group inside Khronos is a unique forum that is bringing together browser and silicon vendors to create a low-level, foundation API for 3D on the Web,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president at NVIDIA. “Khronos will be reaching out to the key Web standards groups and the wider community to ensure WebGL is an appropriate, dynamic and enabling piece of the Web ecosystem.”

Via: Khronos Press Releases

What does this mean for google's o3D?

Here is a quote and a link to WebGl - O3D-Discuss:

By: Gregg Tavares:
O3D is not going away. WebGL is a very cool initiative but it has a lot of
hurdles to overcome. The direction of WebGL is trying to just expose
straight OpenGL ES 2.0 calls to JavaScript. JavaScript is still slow in the
large scheme of things. Maybe at sometime in the future WebGL will have
added enough features over basic OpenGL to be more powerful or JavaScript
will have gotten a few orders of magnitude faster but at the moment...

&

by: Henry Bridge
To echo Gregg's central point: we're actively working on both WebGL and O3D
in parallel. We think it makes sense to standardize GL for JS since it's a
well-known API and it's relatively easy for browser vendors to implement,
but there are gaps in performance and capabilities of the two systems that
make them suitable for different types of applications at the moment.

We do want to ensure that it's as easy as possible for developers to use
both APIs, hopefully simultaneously, so we're definitely looking into how
they can best coexist. Let us know if you have ideas on what would be
useful to you in this regard.