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Firefox will stop supporting web plugins (except for Flash) by the end of 2016
Horrible browser plugins used to offer extended multimedia features for website, often at the cost of a much worse overall experience -- thankfully, they're going the way of the dodo. Chrome recently banished plugins like Java and Silverlight (and made auto-playing Flash ads disabled by default), and now Firefox is doing the same. Mozilla just announced in a blog post that nearly all old-school plugins will not be supported in Firefox by the end of 2016. That's a long ways away, but it's still good news.
Google Earth's third-party app support is going away, for now
Google Earth's technology has led to some pretty cool third-party projects over the past six years, but you may not see many of those efforts for at least a little while. Google has announced that it's retiring Earth's app programming interface within a year. Any mapping software built using that kit will stop working on December 12th, 2015. As the company explains, it's simply a matter of security. Chrome and Firefox are phasing out support for the old, vulnerable Netscape plugin format that Earth uses for third-party web apps, and Google doesn't want to leave people open to attack. This isn't necessarily the end for broad Earth support, mind you. Google notes that "3D is in [its] blood," and is teasing that there's more in the pipeline. It's not clear that this includes a new toolbox, but you may not have to worry about a dearth of clever maps just yet.
Google's Native Client focuses on apps and games, brings Bastion to the browser (video)
In case you missed it, Google's Native Client launched at the end of the summer, promising to ease cross-OS deployment by letting developers run x86 code natively in Chrome. Early adopters have had a few months to tinker with Google's new trick, and now the outfit is eager to show off their best work. Supergiant Games, for instance, has ported Bastion to the Native Client, opening up the Xbox Live hit to Mac, Linux and Chrome OS users. Google's Christian Stefansen says Native Client makes porting existing code bases written C, C++ or C# easy, citing Spacetime Studio's Star Legends -- an MMO with over half a million lines of code -- as an example of a large project that was ported in as little as two weeks. Google touts application middleware ports (such as Unity, Moai, Mono, fmod and more) and easy distribution to the Chrome Web Store as a major boon to developers, and encourages interested studios to check out its new Native Client site to help them get started. Interested? Hit up the links below, or simply skip past the break to hear Mr. Stefansen's spiel for yourself.
Google's Native Client almost 'ready for takeoff,' ready to make ActiveX look visionary
We're almost there, almost to the release of the Native Client we first got wind of last May. It is, basically, a way to run native code within a browser -- low-end stuff capable of delivering performance good enough for 3D games and the like. Christian Stefansen, a Google Product Manager, said that the stuff is getting closer to delivery, that the team behind it has reached an "important milestone," that code will be "as portable and secure as JavaScript." It was of course security, or the lack thereof, that derailed Microsoft's plans for this sort of functionality in Internet Explorer via ActiveX, a stigma that technology has still yet to escape from. Will Native Client do better? Will Crysis ever be available in the Chrome Web Store? Could a Cr-48 run it anyway? Questions questions...
