Viewpoints Research Institute is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 that conducts research focused on powerful ideas education, computing technologies, and user interfaces to aid learning. The organization's research is influenced by constructivism and seeks to apply theories from thinkers like Piaget and Papert to develop new educational tools and content. Key areas of research include teaching and learning powerful ideas, representing knowledge, interfaces for learning, and inventing new computing technologies to advance education. The goal is to help learners develop fluency in thinking, math, and science through new human-computer environments.
The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group aims to define client-side APIs for real-time communications like audio and video calling in browsers without plugins. This includes getUserMedia for media capture and WebRTC for peer-to-peer data sharing. Major browser vendors like Google, Mozilla, and Opera are implementing these APIs. Early demos show basic video calling, photo effects, and augmented reality applications built with getUserMedia, WebRTC, and WebGL. However, security issues still need to be addressed before these APIs are finalized and widely adopted.
WebGL enables 3D graphics and hardware-accelerated rendering within web browsers without plugins. This allows for rich 3D graphics and gaming experiences to be developed for the web. There are many experiments underway with WebGL across areas like science visualization, graphics demos, and games. Over the next few years, best practices are expected to emerge from a variety of approaches, lowering barriers to entry while also pursuing high performance. WebGL has the potential to significantly expand the scope of web development.