Fully immersive 3D environments accessible through your Web browser is the promise of Majua, a technology developed by Japanese company Premium Agency. (Have to love those Japanese names, or their translations at least).

Now, being a huge Papervision and Alternative3D fan, I’d argue that we already have 3D in a browser. And a browser-based 3D environment that still requires a plug-in is…well, it’s a client that happens to run, to my view.

Regardless, Majua has certainly taken things in the right direction, base don the following video. (I love how the drab geeky guys in the video, using Second Life, are drawn over to the happy girls using Majua).

Virtual World News reports that “Premium aims to replace thick client worlds that require downloads like Second Life with the browser without losing any sense of realism.”

Based on the Premium Web site, they’ve been working on a bunch of 3D technologies and pipelines, and it seems like Majua brings these together in on engine, which will primarily be used for custom work and B2B opportunities (no, no user generated content).

Reports VWN:

“[Majua] is technology for rendering 3-D mesh data with advanced shading techniques within an internet browser,” explained Robert Conkey, Producer, Premium Agency, via email. “At some point we do tend to implement a licensing business model, but for starters we’re going with a work-for-hire B2B model, where a client tells us their needs and we use Majua to custom-develop according to those needs.”

It’s a pretty impressive piece of work in the videos and stills. But it’s still a download. And it’s a download, for now at least, that:

- Has instructions in Japanese off of an English download page.
- Requires you to change the security settings of your ActiveX controls
- Crashed me three times
- Leaving me unable to tell you what the actual application and demo looks like.

For now, I’ll stick with believing that the platform for a browser-based virtual world will be built on Flash. And will also stick with believing they should have QAd it a little better before sending out press. Hey – at least with Linden Lab they don’t announce glitches and log-in closures, it just happens.