Chrome Gets 3D Browsing Capability

3D environments on a 2D desktop have always been intriguing.

I am not aware of any 3D GUI that has had sticking power and made an impact on the way we use a traditional computer today. Google, however, is apparently playing with an idea that would enable Chrome to work as a 3D environment, most likely in a version of Chrome OS.

The idea is based on Offscreen Tabs, which allows a user to display and interact with multiple open tabs at the same time, even if they are not in the immediate visible field. Imagine a scenario in which tabbed pages are displayed as actual pages, similar to a New Tab page in Chrome. In this case, however, those static pages would be active. Chrome developers recently added texture API and WebGL support to Offscreen Tabs, which allows the creation of 3D interfaces with distorted pages that are shown perspective or animated perspectives. For example, Google is showcasing the idea as a book whose pages consist of active web pages. Users would be able to flip those dynamic pages, while they are displaying, for example, a video.

The Offscreen Tabs code is live in the current Chromium 16 developer builds, but there is no application or new tab page that takes advantage of this capability yet.