Mozilla takes the Web 3D with Oculus Rift VR experiment

With WebGL and fast JavaScript, the browser is becoming a viable gaming platform. Mozilla has been promoting it as capable even of graphically rich 3D gaming. A new Mozilla experiment is making that 3D a little more real.

Mozilla developers are working on experimental support for 3D virtual reality within the browser. The initial prototype supports the Oculus Rift Developer Kit to provide stereoscopic 3D output and lets scripts use the headset's orientation sensors for input.

The work is only in its early stages, and there's no relevant specification—yet—for how browsers should expose this kind of VR hardware. However, the developers working on it plan to integrate it into the mainline Firefox codebase and are using this early experimentation to guide the design of the API.

Mozilla wants the browser to be the app platform. While the browser was cut off from the hardware underlying it, this experiment is the latest way in which the browser is starting to embrace and have access to the hardware, joining 3D, sound, touch, and gamepads before it.