Rich 3D on browsers

Today, I have started my first recognition in the world of rich 3D web applications. What I am interested in are open source technologies that enable 3D rendering of complex scenarios on browsers, for purpose of conceptual modelling.
As far as I went to understand, the available options are based on two technologies, AJAX and Flash. On the AJAX (XML) side, I have discovered that there exists a consortium (Web3D) that is working on a specification, called Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML), now superseded by X3D.
The Ajax3D organization is currently focused on mixing AJAX with X3D-based open technologies. In the Ajax3D site, there are some showcases that can be played after having installed a browser plugin. I have installed the Flux player, that can be found at MediaMachines, but other available plugins can be found here.
A database of available tools and applications for X3D can be found here.


Technorati Tags: ajax, ajax3d, flash, vrml, web3d, x3d

GRDDL Working Draft has been released

The W3C Consortium has released today the First Public Working Draft of the GRDDL specification. According to W3C:

GRDDL is a mechanism to extract RDF statements from suitable XHTML and XML content using programs such XSLT transformations. GRDDL is ready to deploy, allowing powerful mash-ups at very low cost.

Incidentally, I want to mention a fresh article that has been released today from IBM's developerWorks that explores the major techniques, including GRDDL, that are used today to enable machine-human coexistence on the Web.

Technorati Tags: w3c, grddl, Semantic Web

What is your definition of Web 3.0?

So far I found three common definitions for Web 3.0:

• Second Life-like: the next-generation Web will permit users not only to produce and share content in the world but also to produce and share content that is confined in virtual worlds;
  


• The Semantic Web: an overlay of machine-understandable information that will allow automa to perform reasoning on user's behalf;
  


• A global "operating system" where all applications (from personal productivity to enterprise applications) are available on-line.
  

Can you share *your* definition of Web 3.0?

Technorati Tags: web2.0, web3.0

Sahana: an open source Disaster Management System

In his blog, Bob Sutor talks about Sahana, an open source Disaster Management System developed by engineers from Sri Lanka.
According to the the project's web site at Sourceforge,

Sahana is a secure Web portal that provides applications for coordination and collaboration in the aftermath of disasters. Applications include finding missing people, connecting organizations, reporting on the distribution of aid and services, matching donations to requests, tracking temporary shelters, and, overall, providing transparency and visibility to groups working in a disaster. Key features include GIS, biometrics, PDA support, and availability in the form of a live CD.

Bob urges the OS community to provide some contribution to the project. What do they need? Here follows a quote extracted from the project site:

Right now we would like more help in terms of pre-deployment to other nations, working with government and NGOs to adopt Sahana and prepare for potential disaster management situations. We also would appreciate any help on documentation, localization, and of course, donations and the occasional pizza or two . You are most welcome to build or modify modules as you see fit to target a specific need. Sahana uses a pluggable architecture, so an end deployer can pick and choose only the modules that would fit the need.

Technorati tags: disaster-management, open-source.

Technorati to support OpenID

Technorati has announced that it will provide to users the possibility to claim their blogs by relying on OpenID identification mechanism. Essentially, claiming a blog establishes that you are its owner.

On OpenID-enabled sites, Internet users don't need to create and manage a new account for each of them before being granted access. Instead, they only need to be able to authenticate with a trusted site that supports OpenID, called the identity provider or i-broker. Also, if an identity provider uses Strong authentication, OpenID can be used for all types of transactions, included banking and e-commerce.

Such a move from a Web 2.0 player of the size of Technorati will indoubtedly give a strong impulse to the adoption of OpenID by other community-oriented companies.


Technorati tags: Technorati, Web2.0, OpenID.

Situational Computing

Situational Computing is an emerging computing paradigm where the notion of a "software application" — the key value driver for decades — gets relegated to a secondary role in favor of a new concept, the "situation". In Application-centric computing, the user interacts with an application for some features (e.g. a word processor), with another one for other features (e.g. chat with people) and so on. Each application is a standalone feature-provider. The user adapts to the application, in terms that he/she has to choose the right application that serves his/her purpose. In Situation-centric computing the user interacts with an electronically augmented situation, that provides certain situation-specific capabilities, and that was composed (often dynamically) based on the real-world situation that the user currently is in. As a user's situation changes, the electronic augmentation of the then-current situation changes (often automatically).

A situation is simply what you see when you open your eyes. It's you, your environment, what you can do and what's going on. More formally: "A situation is the combination of people, things, information and capabilities that, together, have relevance to the user at a certain moment in time."

A Situational Software is a software that provides the electronic augmentation to the user's situation in (near) real-time as soon as the situation itself evolves.

Technorati tags: situational-computing