Adaptive Path Blog

In the future, everything will be better. No, really! For the Aurora project, we assumed steady and significant improvements in every relevant aspect of computing technology. We didn’t speculate about the means by which these advances would be achieved, because our focus was really on the experiences the technologies delivered, not the technologies themselves.

More processing power means the browser could do more sophisticated on-the-fly analysis of user behavior patterns. More storage capacity would enable the browser to have a longer memory, potentially recording the user’s every interaction with the Web at a high level of detail. More bandwidth would mean both processing power and storage capacity could be supplemented across the network. (Of course, the privacy and security implications of these advances are not insignificant; we projected, optimistically, that there would be improvements in these areas as well.)

One particular area that we thought would have a significant impact was the improvement of graphics capabilities in computing devices. After years of high-performance graphics processors being specialized tools for games and 3D artists, developers are starting to discover the power of these processors for other applications. Apple has applied animation, transparency, and other visual effects for years to give OS X its high-gloss sheen. (Microsoft’s recent effort to follow suit with Aero, the interface for Windows Vista, was met with less enthusiasm.) For Aurora, these graphics capabilities meant the experience could be more dynamic and visual than the Web we’re used to.

Tomorrow on the Adaptive Path blog: Creating the look of Aurora!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Aurora. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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