Thomas Claburn of InfromationWeek calls this "one of the last major deficiencies of the web browser as a platform for application delivery." In fact it is Mozilla, creators of the Firefox browser who contacted the Khonos Group to get the wheels in motion.

In response, Khronos has created "Accelerated 3D on the web," a working group that is chaired by Mozilla itself. A public release is targeted for within the next year.

“With more and more content moving to the web and JavaScript getting faster every day, the time is right to create an open, general purpose API for accelerated 3D graphics on the web.  Google looks forward to offering its expertise in graphics and web development to this discussion,” said Matt Papakipos, engineering director at Google Inc.

You don’t have to be a Google or an Apple to get involved though. Any interested company is welcome to join Khronos to make contributions, stand for chair, influence the direction of the specification and gain early access to draft specs before any public release.

“The industry has been searching for a way to bring dynamic 3D content to everyone’s web browser for many years,” says President of the Khronos Group, Neil Trevett. It will be interesting to see where this goes. More info here.

According to the press release, the Khronos Group already had over 100 members, including Epson, Fujitsu, Panasonic, and Qualcomm. Yet “this significant growth in membership, together with the announcement made today that the OpenGL ARB has voted to bring control of the OpenGL standard under Khronos, reinforces Khronos’ position as the preeminent body creating open, royalty-free standards for the authoring and acceleration of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms.”

Dr. Jon Peddie, president of the Jon Peddie Research market research firm, gave his opinion of the group. “Khronos has been leading the charge in media standards for the mobile industry for over four years,” he said. “Khronos has truly become the place to be if your company has any interest in open standards for dynamic media and graphics on any platform.”

Acrodea, DAZ3D, Gremedy, Codeplay, and S3 Graphics also joined the Khronos Group. Andrew Richards, the managing director and chief software architect at Codeplay, was quoted in the press release. “It will be a privilege to work alongside other industry leaders in what is the pre-eminent standards setting body for the embedded graphics software world,” he said.

A Khronos representative, in the form of Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president of embedded content at NVIDIA, was equally gracious. “We welcome all our new members as their expertise and market presence ensures that Khronos can accurately create standards that meet the needs of the entire industry,” he said.

“Khronos has now has the widespread industry participation needed to effectively leverage synergies between established and emerging media platforms – and so create new market opportunities for both,” Trevett stated.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.