Mozilla CEO: Virtual-reality Firefox could be game-changer

SAN FRANCISCO—Mozilla has started letting outside developers use a test version of its Firefox browser with new virtual-reality technology that could make surfing the web more like watching movies or playing video games.

If the beta version of the technology checks out, Firefox users may soon be able to create a customized, fully-interactive online experience using VR devices such as Facebook's Oculus Rift.

A San Francisco-based non-profit foundation with more than 1,000 workers globally, Mozilla is hoping its new MozVR software can help Firefox better compete against Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

"If 'web video' gets turned into 'web VR,' it could be a game-changer," Mozilla CEO Chris Beard told me Tuesday evening at an event to demonstrate the technology.

While many within the software industry see virtual reality primarily as a platform for gaming or education (and training) apps, others see much broader uses for the technology.

Some are now planning for a day when VR becomes the next big consumer-platform battleground, just as PC operating systems, desktop web browsers and mobile browsers have been.

That includes Facebook, which acquired Oculus for $2 billion in July 2014, and Microsoft, which took the covers off its HoloLens device in June.

Mozilla secretly joined the fray two years ago with a team led by Vlad Vukicevic, a Mozilla engineering director in Toronto who previously led development for WebGL, a tool for rendering complex graphics on the web.

"VR is too big to be left just to (gamers)," says Josh Carpenter, a user-experience designer in Mozilla's San Francisco office who's been working with Vukicevic on the project.

Mozilla sees a wide range of consumer VR uses, including one for prospective home buyers or renters using virtual reality tours that mimic the experience of touring a property.

After I put on an Oculus Rift headset, Carpenter guided me through a tour of websites that artists, designers and others have developed using the MozVR beta toolkit.

Soon, rather than sitting in a chair on the first floor of Mozilla's office, I was experiencing a helicopter flight over a steep desert canyon or an iceberg-filled bay in Alaska.

Looking straight down or panning far to one side revealed objects not previously visible, giving the experience a realistic feel.

Another website allowed me to interact with a 3D rendering of a human head, whose fluid shape could be changed, as with a clay object, by manipulating it virtually with my hands.

Other demos included one that made the experience of using Wikipedia more akin to walking through a holographic version of the reference website.

Mozilla has made going into VR mode as easy for developers as enlarging a web video into full-screen mode, Carpenter says.

"We used the 'full screen request' API," he told me.

The technology could soon make web-based virtual reality tours more like watching the movie "A Night at the Museum," in which once-static characters and objects are brought to life.

Firefox is either the No. 3 or No. 4 most-popular web browser in the world, according to StatCounter, depending on whether its mobile version is included in the numbers.

Its new virtual reality software could be a key asset in the browser market, along with Firefox's strict privacy policies and its ease of customization for foreign users, Beard says.

Mozilla, which previously had confined the project to a small group of engineers, is now getting feedback from developers and bolstering the MozVR research team with more people, Beard says.

"We want to lead development of an open VR platform," he says.

The beta version can be found on the web at MozVR.com.

John Shinal has covered tech and financial markets for more than 15 years at Bloomberg, BusinessWeek,The San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and others. Follow him on Twitter: @johnshinal .