I want one - badly!
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The recent launch of two brand new 3D shopping sites could signal the beginning of a new era of online spending.

Gemsta.com, which launched in December last year, was developed by real world architects, landscapers, interior designers and programmers to create a photo-real world across a number of ‘islands', complete with light reflections on rippling water and the sound of rustling palm trees. Using the latest Flash animation technology, visitors can travel through different virtual arenas, browsing various shopping categories and clicking on brand ‘posters' to be taken through to that retailer's website. 

At Gemsta, you can buy everything from mobile phones and insurance to women's fashion, homeware or gifts. The first ever 3D Virtual Farmers Market (vfmuk.com), which launched this January, takes care of your food and drink. Using the latest games technology, this site lets you ‘stroll around' a 3D farmers market and ‘meet' the producers behind the products.

So whats the future?
In an era of iPlayer, Xbox and Playstation, when we take virtual exercise on our Nintendo Wii and watch movies such as Avatar in 3D, it seems only natural that we should be able to shop online in the same intuitive way. On Second Life, the virtual world, users interact and carry out activities via avatars, which they can send in to shops to pick up and try on items of clothing and pay with virtual money. While Gemsta and Virtual Farmers Market are not quite at this stage yet, at the rate technology develops, such an experience - but this time using real money and buying real items - cannot be far away.

The future of shopping - to be continued.

 

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JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

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One of the growing topics ive noticed popping recently has been around phasing out IE6. This browser certainly takes the oscar award for being a terrible browser to build web applications around. The browser as its stands has many rendering bugs and lacks support for so many things that is simply a nightmare to work with. Im sure there are millions of developers out there that all feel the same.

The amount of time and money wasted in supporting this browser across the web is staggering. As a project manager this is not the best use of your resources as most of their time is spent on hacking layouts ensuring that everything looks right.

So is it right to kill off IE6 once and for all?

There was a time not so long ago when all web developers wanted to be using IE6. The goal back then was to kill off IE5. So now we are facing a similar history of behaviour to IE.

We yearn for the more modern versions, only to end up hating those same versions later on. This will not change with the death of IE6. Soon, it will be IE7 that we are trashing, and then IE8 will be the bane of our existence.
So while we celebrate the death of IE6, let us not forget that there will be a new thorn in our side to take its place in short order. IE7, you're next.

 

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A new online archive of TV shows has been launched called Seesaw. A number of broadcasters have signed up including BBC and Channel 4. It will feature current shows and old ones. The whole site will be supported by unskippable adverts and there are a number of brands that have already signed up including BT and Diageo. There will, in the future, be a premium service with micro payments for shows and no adverts. This sounds a lot like Spotify for TV and a very good way to monetise old TV shows without running an expensive DVD production. I'm just wondering if they take requests; I want to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy again. Head here for the full story and here for the website itself.
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