[X3D-Public] WebGL in B2B Commerce

[Joshua Smith]

Hey folks. I thought you might be interested to learn that one of our customers has made the leap to all-WebGL for 3D on their web site. Goodbye Java applets…

http://www.ciena.com/products/6500/tab/3d-demo/

This is working in all the major browsers, including IE11. (Although in Safari, you have to enable WebGL, which is off by default.)

Interestingly, it is also working in Firefox and Chrome on newer Android devices. This is a major development, since Java applets have never worked on Mobile, so we are now able to provide a 3D experience right on a web site on mobile for the first time ever. (If you want to see this, you’ll need to switch to the “Full Desktop Site” because they don’t have the 3D content on the mobile-layout site right now.)

On iOS we redirect you to get the native app to see 3D, since WebGL isn’t turned on in mobile Safari yet. I’m hoping that the fact that WebGL works on Android devices now might be the kick-in-the-pants Apple has been waiting for to turn this on. (It’s been ready for a couple years — they just haven’t enabled it for some reason.)

This is part of a new strategy we are rolling out at Kaon, where we provide the same app for all devices online & offline. Web, Mobile (iOS, Android, Kindle Fire HDX), Desktop (Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebook), and Kaon v-OSK and v-Rack (large touch-screen Kiosks) from a single source, with a single update mechanism. Our first app to fully engage this platform is this Ciena app. (Their web site it just showing you pages from within the larger app.)

If you want to play with it across different devices, you can get the right app for each device from their share card: http://m.kaon.com/c/ce

(This isn’t an ad. I doubt anyone who reads this list would be a potential customer. I just thought you might think it was cool.)

-Joshua