The Internet Virtual Machine was inspired by a desire to port a popular video game to a virtual machine, and eventually, The Internet. That game was Id’s Doom. That port was successful.  Doom runs on The Internet Virtual Machine at a good speed and is available for download. So that was our initial vision, to get Doom running on a virtual machine.

Having done that, and having built quite a base to work with, our dream is to make it possible to run video games and other types of entertainment straight off the Internet. An Internet where the latest, hottest, and absolutely kewlest new 3D action games are just a channel and/or mouse-click away!  And the games can run on all machines, including next year’s new high-speed graphics machines that do not exist yet!

To aid in that, the OpenGL 1.2  API was added to The Internet Virtual Machine. It was build in such a way that The Internet Virtual Machine is able to take advantage of hardware acceleration and other features that might be available on a particular platform. High-speed 3D graphics in a portable-object environment.  We think that is a MUST in The New Internet.

A concept we have toyed with is the idea of a Gamer’s Browser. Maybe a specialized version of Mozilla that contains the virtual machine ICVM that runs high-speed video games on the Internet. Maybe we will get time and resources to write it. Or maybe someone out there in open-source land may be inspired to do it. It is hard saying. But we think it is a good idea.

Of course this all makes just about anything else possible. Video games tend to be the most stressful of all applications, taking a platform to its limits of performance. Which means The Internet Virtual Machine is probably a bit of overkill for just about any other type of application.

So our vision of The New Internet includes standard home and business applications, all just a channel and/or mouse-click away.  On your browser, or on your television. Any type of program that has been written in C or C++ can be brought to the Internet with this type of approach.

And perhaps applications and games on The New Internet will find a very powerful source of revenue in long-term viewing of ads. Applications tend to hold their users attention for many hours at a time. A hot application or game could generate very valuable ad space, and hence, good revenues for the owner of that application, as well as the site owner. New opportunities for the innovative, as well as the creative.

We see The New Internet as the ultimate land of opportunity. A showcase that allows any business or individual worldwide, who has a new innovation or idea, to build it and present it to the world. A place where even the smallest developer can draw global audiences at the click of a button.

We also see at as a place where the talents of the open-source communities can shine their very brightest. A place where new applications and innovations of some of the most gifted minds of this new millennium can surface in a very visible and global way.

The open-source communities brought Linux, BSD, Apache, and a thousand other innovations. Always on the cutting edge, we wonder what will they bring to The New Internet.

To let you in on a little secret.. It was one person that created The Internet Virtual Machine. The virtual machine, the library ports, the compiler ports, the concept, the design, the programming… all one person.  Hard to believe? Not for us. We wonder what 100,000 brilliant minds around the world can do. Having posted open-source tools and virtual machine for The Internet Virtual Machine, we are curious to see what happens next….

Perhaps it will be the open-source communities that create the vision …

…The New Internet.