Web technologies are advancing at a breakneck pace. It’s absolutely amazing what you can accomplish exclusively using web standards. Both Google and the Mozilla Foundation showcase the amazing things that can be done with modern browsers. Here are a few of the coolest examples I’ve come across. All of these run purely in your browser and don’t use any plugins such as Flash.
BananaBread
BananaBread is a 3D first person shooter that runs on the web. This amazing demo really demonstrates the cutting edge of what can be done in your browser. The water reflects the surroundings, there are realtime lights and shadows, and it can run at up to 60 frames per second. Put simply, it’s incredibly amazing! They even allow you to download the source code and see how the entire game was built.
You’ll need a recent version of Firefox or Chrome to give BananaBread a try.
Ellie Goulding’s Lights
I really love this song, and this is a terrific exploration of what can be done with WebGL. You fly over an abstract landscape that changes in time to the song. Tweet the site to your followers and you’ll see your name and avatar appear in the landscape as you listen and watch. I’ve found this really pushes browsers, so you may need to view it with no other apps or tabs running at the same time.
For those of you interested in a technical description of how the site was built, you can check out this article from .net magazine.
If you’d like to check out some more cutting edge demonstrations, check out Chrome Experiments or the Mozilla Demo Studio.