Firefox 1.5
Several hours ago, Firefox 1.5 was finally released. The feature that I was most looking forward to is its canvas> support. Canvas is a HTML element that can be used to programmatically draw and render graphics using JavaScript.
When I saw the Canvascape demo, it struck me much in the same way that Google Maps did when I first dragged a map across the screen: Wow.
When they write the history books, I think that Google Maps and the experimental demos the likes of Canvascape will be seen as pivotal shifts in our expectations of thin client behavior. In the case of Canvascape, you’re using the browser to run a “First Person Walking” game natively. The data that makes up the 3D maze is as much a first-class citizen on the web page as the text within a set of HTML
tags.One of my favorite quotes is William Gibson’s famous line:
“The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”
And yes, while Apple invented the Canvas tag, and has provided Canvas support in Safari for a while, I think that this is a case where Firefox takes the “future” and simply “distributes it more evenly”.
I know that it’s a bit early for 2006 predictions, but I’ll go on the books that one of the “Next Big Thing”(s) will be fueled by the Canvas tag support in Firefox, and that the Firefox 1.5 release will go on the books as a landmark event in the evolution of online data visualization.
]]>