
Nidium – A new browser engine - paraboul
http://www.nidium.com/
======
paraboul
I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information.

In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of:

(1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine

(2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework

Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing
browser.

Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a fast and
unified look and feel.

So:

* Yes, it's a browser, in a sense that it can loads remote "apps/code" via HTTP using URLs (and somehow link them)

* Almost everything is integrated and highly customizable (like the integrated UI Framework)

* Cool APIs like plain-socket UDP/TCP (client and server), GLSL postprocessing on every canvas, layer, etc...

* We've made our best to be compliant with existing APIs (context2D, webgl, commonjs, etc...)

* It ditches HTML & CSS in favor of new things (NML and NSS, we will communicate on this later)

* Low Latency Audio and DSP (and yes, one of us come from the demo scene, hence the poor soundchip music ;-) )

We designed almost everything from scratch, but the whole thing is still at an
early stage.

And to relate with tranding topics today about "english accent", we made this
video a bit "old school" because we're not native english speaker (french) and
a bit afraid of making "talkative" videos.

We will post updates as soon as possible!

~~~
nine_k
There is a well-known engine with interesting graphics, audio, video, and
network capabilities, also programmable in JS.

It's installed on almost every PC for the last decade; it is called Flash.

Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and
desirable, instead of Flash?

Because we remember other nice engines of this kind, e.g. Silverlight.

~~~
coldtea
> _Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and
> desirable, instead of Flash?_

It being built on standard web technologies, instead of in a proprietary
engine, with a proprietary authoring environment, horrible security, subpar
performance and CPU utilization and crappy or no GUI support (so you have to
built everything on your own).

~~~
Millennium
Built on standard Web technologies except for HTML and CSS, you mean; these
are replaced by proprietary "equivalents." Which rather throws the "built on
standard Web technologies" thing into some rather severe doubt.

------
terhechte
I for one, like this. Now, the video & music are awful and definately do not
support the overall presentation, but from what I understood, this seems to be
pretty cool. Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop
application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in
the background. I do like this idea. Even better, it would allow to write
applications in ClojureScript or some of the other compile-to-javascript
frameworks). Of course, there're other frameworks that utilize javascript for
scripting needs or for desktop development
([http://www.tidesdk.org/](http://www.tidesdk.org/))
([https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/](https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/))
([https://github.com/appjs/appjs](https://github.com/appjs/appjs))
([http://www.appcelerator.com/](http://www.appcelerator.com/)) and of course
Adobe Air, but all of them just basically open a webview, give you some html
that looks a bit like native controls, and let you write html / css /
javascript in there with limited access to filesystem or, god forbid, the
graphics card.

What I understood this project is, is that it allows me to use javascript to
drive my native UI elements, access my full system resources, etc. Basically
full native development, only Javascript instead of C++. Maybe a bit like Qt
QML ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML))
(and I'd like to see a comparison between these two). I'm really looking
forward to this, though I have to admit that the website lacks details, and
the video isn't particularly good. This looks a bit too much like demo scene
hacking.

~~~
rorrr2
> _Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application
> development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the
> background_

You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D libraries.

~~~
coldtea
> _You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D
> libraries._

Sure, and you can even do it with a brainfuck to js transpiler.

But I think he meant do it EASILY, without first hacking a full GUI stack from
a 2D/3D primitives library.

~~~
rorrr2
If you want buttons and sliders, HTML and CSS are perfect for that. They are
way easier than Qt or any other framework. Let alone whatever that new browser
has in place.

~~~
angersock
Yeah, for 2D interfaces I think that HTML/CSS basically solved the problem,
finally, forever. Was soooo happy to switch to web development from doing Java
Swing or native toolkits and APIs.

------
sker
File I/O alone is a good enough reason for this kind of projects to exist.
I've always wanted to be able to use the power of the browser for standalone,
cross-platform desktop applications.

I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application
and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. Each
browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're far
from a complete solution. So far I have my eyes on node-webkit[1], which does
everything I need it to do, but I welcome every option in this space.

[1] [https://github.com/rogerwang/node-
webkit](https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit)

~~~
streptomycin
_I was shocked when I discovered I couldn 't write a simple JS/HTML
application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a
server._

You can access a database locally, at least as of the past couple years. It's
called IndexedDB. People quibble about the API, the features, the browser
support (Firefox, Chrome and IE10 only), etc... but it is a real database you
can use locally.

~~~
coldtea
Not locally: in the browser. He wants to connect it to a LOCAL db (on his
desktop).

~~~
streptomycin
In the browser is local. Local, as opposed to remote.

------
ThomPete
I find it saddening that the primary response from a crowd normally
considering themselves visionaries and pushers, seems to be ridiculing other
peoples hard work.

I cannot for the life in me understand how introducing a new browser engine
deserves this kind of welcoming.

~~~
duiker101
I think that people here are mostly confused. There is not really a clear
explanation of what this does or anything. We are just presented with a video
of things that are not exactly revolutionary and said that this is the future.
This leave most of the community puzzled I would say.

It is ok to create hype for a product that is not out yet but still we would
have to know what we should get hyped on.

~~~
ThomPete
I thought the up votes were meant to serve a way to filter out the good for
the bad. If something got to the front thats outright bad then it should be
flagged.

Otherwise questions can be asked.

~~~
duiker101
I think that people are interested, but still not sure what this is about so
they upvote in hope to have answers. (or vote rigging, but I prefer to have
faith in people)

------
binaryorganic
So the only thing clear from the comments is that the folks behind this are
going to have to work on their communication game. The video was obviously
created to tease the product a bit, which is hard when nobody knows exactly
what thye're looking at, but even when I went to sign up for updates I see:

"We will send you a maximum amount of spam as soon as possible."

~~~
chii
indeed - the video is flashy, but i only watched less than 1 minute of it,
because after 1 minute, i still have no idea what they are going on about, and
my time is more precious than that. Pressed stop.

~~~
kleiba
Right. You need your precious time to tell everyone on HN that you pressed
stop.

~~~
nine_k
...so that others don't sink their time, too?

Sounds legit.

~~~
kleiba
But what if someone else posts that they watched all the way to the end??

------
Refefer
I really don't get a sense of what NiDIUM actually _does_. Is it a framework?
A platform? A library? Where does it run? How am I supposed to deploy it? What
use case does it solve that doesn't already have existing solutions?

------
saejox
This does not look like a browser. It's a gui application framework, that
happens to be using javascript as the preferred programming language.

A lot like [https://github.com/rogerwang/node-
webkit](https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit)

~~~
pgz
They claim no HTML in the video though, so I expect to be more like
programming a GUI toolkit than a web application.

------
pwpwp
I recommend seriously shortening the intro to the video, and showing the goods
immediately.

Only really interested people on the web have the attention span to watch 30
seconds of uninformative intro.

~~~
bennyg
I wasn't really interested and I liked the video. As long as it looks decent
and isn't a powerpoint slide of stuff, I'm cool with it.

------
shadowmint
I'd venture to guess from the presentation and the site that this is basically
trying to be Node.js with a graphics engine attached.

ie. Throw away the browser DOM and provide a bunch of new apis (and maybe a
few existing ones which already seem ok, like the canvas stuff).

I'm curious what you get as a benefit of doing this instead of just using Node
itself and providing an api to work with the graphics/sound/whatever engine.

No HTML or CSS renderering -> A considerably more plausible project, and
certainly one that won't complete with existing browsers in the short term.

------
Gatsky
Just some feedback - This video reminded me of the demo scene circa 1990. This
might lead some to think that the project has been under development for 20+
years and is still in alpha...

~~~
zeroDivisible
Or it might be developed by the same guys who were doing demo scene then.

Either way, I'd like to wait and see that one in action - really like the
idea.

------
etherealG
is this any different from what mozilla are doing already with their open
source engine? why separate yourself from that? is your code available? if not
why not?

------
aeon10
Can someone please explain to me in short what this does?

------
lnanek2
It's great that people are trying to innovate in this area. That said, I write
a web app because I want the accessibility that anyone with a browser already
downloaded can come use it easily. It seems to me like this would require
downloading a thick client different browser to use web apps written for it.

If it could be rewritten to be started from a JS include on a web page, that
would be ideal. Second best would be if it ran from Flash, a plugin that is
still widespread. Next best is if it were a plugin itself, but very few users
are willing to install a plugin, so that is already unusable for me. Next best
is a downloadable separate app, but that's even worse in terms of the number
of users who will go through the trouble to use it, so again is not something
I would use at this point.

Good luck! I, for one, like the scene style demo vid! Although it didn't tell
me if the engine would be open source or not, which is also a big thing with
me. Coding for a closed source engine and being beholden to someone else to
figure out and fix bugs in it when my webapp is having trouble is very
painful.

------
xal
So this is supposed to be a portable browser engine that can be directly
embedded into (opengl) video games? This could be great.

~~~
skyebook
There's already a couple of these: awesomium (proprietary) and berkelium
(open) that basically render Chromium to OpenGL and pass it the HID events you
send.

That said, they seem to specifically say it's not an actual browser engine..

------
throwaway997
Most of the visuals in the video are webgl demos:

[http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0](http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0) apple by iq

[http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0](http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0) by tigrou

[http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html](http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html)
by paulo falcão

[http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particle...](http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particles3.html)

------
dkersten
It sounds to me a little bit like Qt Quick (ie QML + JS + remote QML files +
Canvas + SVG) with WebGL added on[1], perhaps designed a little more
specifically for remote files than Qt Quick is.

I really like Qt Quick, so this seems interesting too.

[1] Qt Quick supports OpenGL ES (the entire QML rendering system is written as
an OpenGL-based scene graph), but I don't think you can make direct OpenGL
calls without dropping to C++... You _can_ add shaders to components from
within QML though.

------
klrr
The web is weird, it feels like HTML is meant more for documents than for
actual social platforms and dynamic content... If you think about it, is the
web really sane?

~~~
mbrock
Nothing is sane, just more or less functional and workable. The web seems to
be ticking on just fine. There are problems, but also a lot of development.

HTML is designed for more or less static content, but the DOM itself seems
well adapted for dynamic content. Since it comes out of a tradition of
streaming over slow connections, it's made to be dynamically rendered. The
content layout is flexible and somewhat intuitive.

Compared to something like Swing or Cocoa, the only drawback seems to be the
paucity of widgets -- we basically just have basic inputs and scroll bars, the
rest is app-specific. But that also brings a certain flexibility. I think an
update to the table element would be great, perhaps with support for streaming
data and more flexible layout.

~~~
klrr
But if you want a program you can install one, why access programs through
bloated obscure web browsers? The web is a great place for sharing text of
information. But why not learn from the mobile phones which provides native
consistent programs for what many people have to access through some web 2.0
crap?

~~~
mbrock
I don't really understand your objection...

------
duiker101
I.... what is this trying to accomplish? Is it like a browser without all the
features except opengl? I am confused can someone explain?

------
drivingmenuts
It's interesting, but the trend toward making everything a web application is
even more disturbing to me, given the revelation of how deep the security rot
goes these days. The net is pretty much unavoidable, unless you're pretty
hardcore, but I, for one, am hoping for focus on pulling things back to the
user end at some point.

~~~
pcx66
I think the rush to make everything 'web' is primarily because we finally are
building an open, free, accessible, write-once-run-everywhere platform. That's
the most exciting part of the web, and privacy is a bug we still have to fix.

EDIT: When I say 'privacy is a bug', I mean the ability to provide privacy is
still immature, and susceptible of exploits.

~~~
drivingmenuts
That privacy is viewed as a bug is even more disturbing.

~~~
da_n
Linux on the Desktop was a bug until Mark Cuban closed it (controversially).
I'm not sure why referring to it as a bug is disturbing.

~~~
drivingmenuts
It implies that privacy is somehow wrong, as opposed to a perhaps fundamental
right.

~~~
da_n
The lack of privacy is a bug which needs to be fixed, I don't believe the OP
means a users right to privacy is a bug.

------
beyondcompute
It looks like a promising first step towards the great thing we clearly need:
an alternative to web. Get rid of HTTP, CSS, and HTML (well, HTML can be
useful when we deal with actual _hypertext_). It would be nice to support some
languages that are friendlier than JS (i.e., almost any one) though.

------
jordanmoore_
And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shots and shows a complete
lack of appreciation for the effort in a project such as this.

If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come
across as a bit of a dick. Thanks.

~~~
masklinn
And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shot and shows complete lack
of understanding for comments expressing confusion over a cryptic, unclear and
fluff-filled page.

If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come
across a bit of a dick. Thanks.

~~~
jordanmoore_
_Very_ clever, the ol' switcheroo.

I'm not talking about the comments from genuinely confused people, I'm talking
about the nastier snipes which seem to have conveniently disappeared after
myself and others called them out on it. Here's one that's still floating
around: "there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser
can't do".

And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that? Come on,
_please_. I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding
any value to the conversation either, I'm just saying we aren't doing much in
creating an environment where people are confident in sharing their work
without fear of hours of work being instantly dismissed by snarky commenters.
I'm sure you wouldn't like it.

~~~
masklinn
> Very clever, the ol' switcheroo.

There's little cleverness in reminding you of the plank you've got in your eye
when you're looking at the dust in your brother's, but thanks nonetheless.

> Here's one that's still floating around: "there's nothing in that horrible
> presentation that a modern browser can't do".

The presentation _is_ bad, and aside from this value judgement the comment
expresses confusion over the improvements of the project over existing
browsers.

> And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that?

I don't know, were you calling people dicks? So your comment was not just
advising, it was passive-aggressively insulting third parties?

> I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding any value
> to the conversation either

Indeed, have you considered practicing what you preach and leading by example?

> I'm just saying we aren't doing much in creating an environment where people
> are confident in sharing their work without fear of hours of work being
> instantly dismissed

There's little evidence of such a thing here, there's a marketroid video with
a fluffy and empty title.

Meanwhile a few links below on the front page (at this time) you've got
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730)
which shows an actual project with a number of interested comments, none of
them negative as far as I can see.

Even
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310)
which looks nothing special at first glance garners mostly positive comments
(or more neutral ones talking about the space/ecosystem, wondering about it v
alternatives, etc...) with a downvoted negative comment whose author readily
agreed being wrong when his mistake was pointed out.

> I'm sure you wouldn't like it.

I don't mind marketing copy and email harvesting schemes getting slammed.
Especially when advertised as a "show HN" with no show and little tell.

~~~
jordanmoore_
I find it amusing that you're happily sniping away while trying to appear all
holier than thou. There's not much point in us discussing what isn't there
anymore, it's just making my original point look irrelevant which you keep
alluding to. But again, you weren't there when the original sniping was going
on and promptly removed.

So save your "practice what you preach" and other cliches for someone else
because this pointless conversation is becoming a parody of itself.

~~~
masklinn
> I find it amusing that you're happily sniping away while trying to appear
> all holier than thou.

That's just you projecting.

> There's not much point in us discussing what isn't there anymore

Your comments are here and that's what we're discussing.

> it's just making my original point look irrelevant which you keep alluding
> to.

What I'm saying (not alluding to) is that your comment 1. lacks self-awareness
and 2. is wrong anyway.

> So save your "practice what you preach" and other cliches for someone else

Yes, I can see you care more for giving lessons than following them, eh.

~~~
jordanmoore_
And don't bother replying because you clearly have more time for this than I
have. You're just itching for an argument where there isn't one to be had, and
it's clearly killing you because you keep coming back.

------
lampe3
I just wanne know one thing: Will this work with older Browser? and with older
browser i mean the browser we have right now. How hard will it be to adapt
Browser vendors? or can i run it ontop like google chrome frame ?

------
asadotzler
How about some "native" browser engine video instead of Flash? Seeing all this
"native" browser stuff playing in the least native format possible is not
inspiring.

------
aeden
Interesting. I spoke about this concept at Speakerconf Munich in 2012. I'm
happy someone is working on it and at the same time surprised that someone was
bold enough to try. :-)

------
nanofortnight
If I were to guess this is a performance-oriented version of CEF with
additional functionality exposed to the JavaScript engine, would I be anywhere
in the right ballpark?

------
Siecje
) The problem I see with the browser is that: 1) It takes up hotkeys. (mouse
and keyboards) 2) It can look different for different browsers 3) You have
extra UI.

------
TeeWEE
All those demo's run very nice in my google chrome browser. What is nidium
exactly? Sorry for having a negative tone, but its a valid question isnt it?

------
leke
I'm not sure how to feel about this. In some ways, I think things like HTML5,
angularjs, node, and CSS3 has made coding in the browser bareable again.

------
thepumpkin1979
Interesting, I initially thought that Javascript was the bottleneck in the web
client-stack, not the DOM. May be both?

------
ris
Every place you see "native" in their video, substitute "security nightmare".

~~~
ris
Also, if you're going to create a "browser" that throws almost everything out,
why make javascript one of the things you keep?

------
GhotiFish
the site is clearly intended to MARKET this browser. Market. They are
marketing a browser.

I should hope the world has learned its lesson as to why a commercial browser
with that kind of branding is the worlds worst horse to bet on.

------
k4st
What is the memory model of the NiDIUM js with native threading support?

~~~
paraboul
The memory is obviously not shared (handling memory barrier / mutex in JS
would be too annoying). However, it uses inter-thread communication using
structured clone ([https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_s...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_structured_clone_algorithm)) or object stealing
where you send an object to a thread with a zero-copy advantage but lose its
content/ability to use it from the "sending thread"

~~~
k4st
Thanks for the explanation / link :-)

------
Fingel
Demoscene wetdream

------
rorrr2
Apart from local file I/O, there's nothing in that horrible presentation that
a modern browser can't do.

Good luck with the adoption of that thing.

------
angersock
So, this is basically Qt/GtK/<game engine here>, but in Javascript?

(Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind! Just would've been a lot
simpler than claiming to be a browser, and would've been less confusing.)

------
lukio
The future is here.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Based on the name, I'd say it's a web browser that uses crappy, old,
rechargeable batteries?

------
buro9
What makes the web great is that anyone can author a page.

We pushed the problem of handling these authored pages to the browser, and as
a result the web flourished as millions authored content.

Where will the content come from when the browser does not do HTML and CSS,
and is instead a native client for OpenGL?

The only way I believe this will work is for the authoring tools to lower the
barrier so far that anyone can create content for this.

