Impressive 3D JavaScript Demo Debuts for New Palm webOS 1.3.5

This week Palm released webOS 1.3.5, the latest firmware update for its Palm Pre handset, and within days it also released the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the new version, entitled Mojo SDK v1.3.5 Build 368. Showcasing the capabilites of this new firmware, a playable 3D demo is available which uses JavaScript and the HTML5 Canvas tag to achieve some amazing effects!

Palm’s latest OS update has provided developers with some important changes, including the removal of the application limit, the ability to download updates over a 2G connection, and now we find out that 3D applications which use JavaScript and the HTML5 Canvas work, which is something that wasn’t possible before the update.

The 3D demo was written by Ben Joffe and is available at his site at BenJoffe.com. It was created as a test using the Canvas tag to demonstrate its capability. In addition to this one, there is a short list of Pre3D demos, as they are being called, at this site.

While these demos fall flat as games, they are a good indication of what’s to come with the Palm Pre. With this new update, they have shown what developers on the PreCentral forums have remarked about as “the beginnings of openGL-ES which will later on let them utilize the GPU. With GPU support you’ll see games/3D app’s that will look just as good as the Iphone, and you’ll even get shader support, which is something not even the Sony PSP has. The Pre has a POWERVR SGX which should have: pixel, vertex, and geometry shader hardware built in.”

Look for more updates in the next week, as Palm is expected to release an announcement about its expanded gaming capabilities for WebOS in a presentation they will give at the CES conference on January 7th. Good things to come!