3pointD.com

Via VRoot comes an interesting article in APC magazine about the “Linux of the future” and Novell’s XGL framework, “which provides modern 3D accelerated rendering and features to X Windows via OpenGL.” To demonstrate how this actually looks on your Linux desktop, Novell provides some brief videos. This is similar to what Microsoft’s Robert Scoble described to podcaster John Swords and I recently as being part of Windows Vista. Just what people will find to do with these kinds of capabilities in Windows or Linux remains to be seen, but as the APC article rightly points out:

At first, these features are mainly going to be used for eye-candy. While not a bad thing by any means, the initial applications of the technology will do very little to convince serious power users to try it, and even less to encourage developers to utilise it. Over time, however, people on both sides of the divide will hopefully think up some uses for the technology which aren’t just for show.