WebGL is about to get some love from Apple, but not in the iOS sense that you may be thinking; instead, Apple will be making WebGL available to iAd developers. So while you won’t be seeing the technology implemented in apps and games, you may see 3D WebGL ads all up in your face the next time you launch an app that supports iAds.
According to the WebGL mailing list, Apple’s Chris Marrin made the announcement that “WebGL will not be publicly available in iOS 5. It will only be available to iAd developers.” So there you have it, directly from a mouth at Apple.
What is WebGL?
WebGL is a web-based graphics library that extends JavaScript to allow developers to generate 3D graphics within any modern day web browser (Firefox, Chrome, and beta Safari). The Library is based on OpenGL ES 2.0, and uses the HTML5 canvas element to make the magic happen. The library was originally put together by the Mozilla Foundation, and can now be found on the Khronos website.
Apple has a pretty large hate on for Adobe’s Flash technology for a number of reasons, one of which is security concerns for the technology. We’ve featured Flash security risks on this website quite frequently, so it’s with a little bit of trepidation that we’re writing about this WebGL news. Just yesterday Microsoft came out and announced that they believe that WebGL in its current form is too insecure for them to endorse. While you may mark that up as Microsoft trolling a little bit, you should also know that John Carmack, founder of Id Software, has come out and said the same thing.
Security Concerns
It has been reported that WebGL allows Turing-complete programs originating on the internet to access kernel level graphic drivers, and could be used in DoS attacks as well as cross-domain image theft. Currently WebGL could also be compromised and made to run arbitrary code. That’ a pretty big security concern.
Article Via CNET
