Hello and welcome friends of the Wider Web!
As change is the only constant I’m making a few changes here at Transmutable News.
My usual method of journalism is to stay active in a variety of social media spaces, talk with practitioners, and read tech news sites and newsletters.
With the arrival of 🎉The Metaverse🎉 as a widely covered topic and the toxic dramas of crypto, I’ve found that these channels are increasingly ineffective as well as distressing and depressing. At the same time and despite the support of a few lovely patrons (you know who you are 💖) I don’t have the resources to drive more active journalism.
So, next week I’ll publish the final issue of the Transmutable News Weekly, bringing to a close a run of (if we include the Immersive Web Weekly) 88 lovingly prepared issues from me to you. Instead, I will focus on making WiderWeb.org an excellent hub for creators of a progressive future.
As always, I am trevor@transmutable.com and @trevorflowers@widerweb.org.
Put banana peels in Mr. Fusion, energize the flux capacitor, and race to 88 because it’s time for another issue of the Transmutable News Weekly!
News
Chartered territory
The W3C’s immersive web working group are the people who do the thankless work of administrivia with the goal of turning proposed Wider Web specifications into official specifications. They occasionally need to update their charter and it’s a great opportunity to see what aspects of XR may arrive sooner than others. This charter proposal has a “Normative Specifications” section that is a checklist for the future.
Zero to one is hard
Moses Turner wrote a summary article about bringing up hand tracking on Monado, the open and free implementation of the new standard API for XR hardware, OpenXR.
Search and you shall find
If you’ve seen my work then you know that I love the Memex so of course I follow Memex.Marginalia and so received news of their decision to open source the Marginalia search engine. There have been a few experimental search engines for WebXR content but perhaps this is an opportunity to add that capability to a more general purpose engine.
Duopoly to monopoly
Though this article buries the lede a bit and all browser share numbers are suspect, it’s still interesting to note that Chromium-based browsers are now handling more than 70% of all web browsing sessions with Google’s Chrome variants handling more than three times the next most popular browser brand, Safari. With Meta basing their browser on Chromium, we’re seeing a similar distribution solidify on the Wider Web.
Truth aside, a slick rig
Speaking of Meta, it would appear that schematics for their next headset (code name Cambria) have leaked. Even if they aren’t valid representations of the new hardware, they offer a tantalizing glimpse at the shape of next-generation hardware.
Stay open, friends.