I have read that some graphic cards will do AO automatically if you switch this on in their driver. So it might be that such custom shader AO effects will become redundant in the future.
I really don´t think so. It could be a nice feature to improve the look of old games, but it would just be lacking control. And the information needed for it are anyways already there in a modern engine, thus it would most probably do things two times that way. What could make sense and most probably will happen that as always AMD/ATI and NVIDIA (and Intel) will each develope there own feature to help developing it and speeding it up. I never got the NVIDIA shadow mapping thingy to work somehow...
@Michael_Schwarz: it´s a nVidia 285GTX btw. the explaination with the overcast day is always a good one for (SS)AO
@BoH_Havoc: why not, we are all interested in getting fast, good-looking, easy-to-use (and -understand) shaders, but my current motivation for SSAO is nearly zero and I still have to clean up my code Give me some days to motivate myself, while doing something else - I´ll write you a PM in the next time
@Hummel No need to rush. Just let me know as soon as you want to touch ssao again
@Machinery_Frank: There is indeed an option in the nvidia drivers to turn on ssao for "every" game. But it's DX10 only and as far as i know it doesn't work that good. Haven't tested it myself though.
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The force shall free me."
I didn´t work on this shader since writing this post but I already thought about working on this stuff again (yesterday) what would make sense because my skills increased and so I could optimize the effect in speed and quality. BUT at next I´m going to write my first paper wich will be about the spherical light sources. I found only one paper about spherical and cylindrical lights and that one is not free to get -> chance for me
The SSAO Shader would be a nice contribution for development. It solves quite a lot of troubles in making a scene look better eluminated, when using a pure model based scene.
So if you find the time, would be great if you can continue an that.
btw. the explaination with the overcast day is always a good one for (SS)AO 
