Another great idea from Mozilla Labs (Aza Raskin, to be more precise). Like the Aurora I posted about a couple of weeks ago, this is also a nice vision of what web-browsing should be all about. Check it out in the video below:

I like the idea of having everything available through a few clicks in the browser. The fact that we’d stay within the same application interface is good, as I find jumping from window to window tiresome sometimes, so the idea scores big points right there. If you prefer to read, here’s an in-depth blog post about Ubiquity that goes into the details of what the concept is all about and how it works.

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Adaptive Path have taken things pretty far with their new initiative for designing the new browsing experience for the users of tomorrow. Aurora is indeed a magnicent site on the web horizon. The whole thing is still just a concept, being developed in association with Mozilla Labs, but the video they released, the first in a series dealing with Aurora, is quite an interesting vision of the future. The movie “Johnny Mnemonic” comes to mind, when Keanu Reeves searches for the sent fax from Japan, on a VR terminal in a computer shop in New York (okay, I like SciFi, what can I do).

Basically, Aurora allows for a browsing experience where information is organized according to time and usage. The less you use something or the older it is, the farther “downwards” it lives on the Z axis (perpendicular to screen). The words “out of sight, out of mind” truly have a literal meaning here. The interface looks very interesting, and I especially like the little touch device in the end, which helps you take the information you need or like with you.

Anyway, here’s the video:

Key components of Aurora project (from official site):

- Natural interaction: Spatial, visual, and physical engagement with the Web
- Continuity: Seamless, consistent Web and browser experience across devices
- Multi-user applications: The Web as a space for collaboration, sharing, and remixing
- Context awareness: Products that know where you are and what you’re doing, both physically and virtually

Who knows what it will eventually be like, when the time comes to introduce it as a product, but so far it’s looking very interesting.

[Via: TechCrunch]

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Firefox is treading into mobile browser territory, and it was about time. Although the concept (Mobile/FennecVision) of porting Firefox to the mobile platform is not that new, this is the first time I’ve seen an actual concept presented to the public. Aza Rask, head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, has posted a screencast on his blog, discussing the new concept of Firefox mobile. The actual product, once delivered to the public may end up looking quite different than this, but it shows some very interesting solutions to providing a near desktop/laptop browsing experience on a mobile phone.

Looks very interesting and promising, with some nice features as well. While Opera does a good job with Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, and Digia (which announced a beta download of their latest mobile web browser during June 2008), it’s good to have another option for mobile web browsing.

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VIA has released the open source notebook project - the VIA OpenBook. It’s not a product you can buy at the local electronics dealer, but rather a unique approach to mobile computing. VIA has opened the architecture of its latest product design to the public, making CAD drawings available. Basically, if you’ve got the resources to manufacture the casing, and put together electronic components, you can build your own custom tailored open source notebook.

Some of the specifications are:

• Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
• Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
• Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
• HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
• Screen: 8.9″ WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
• Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• webcam, and more…

Here’s the video in which Richard Brown (VIA Technologies) explains how the idea of an open source notebook came to be:

It would take a hell of an enthusiast engineer to put this together as an individual, but the project will allow small manufacturers to make some very interesting variations of the new notebook. I am guessing some pretty interesting products are about to hit the market, and for a low price as well. BTW, the new notebook can run Windows XP or Vista, and most (or all) Linux distributions.

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Google released Friend Connect, which is a neat way to add social networking to your site. Basically, it comes down to embedding some JavaScript into wherever you want the widgets to appear. The main thing however is that this tool allows webmasters to use it as a social promotion tool, having people comment on the content and spread it amongst their friends on the various networks that the Friend Connect communicates with - Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Orkut. Basically users can log in through the widget with an existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID account, but it also does data retrieval through APIs from Google, Facebook and MySpace.

Here’s a video presentation of what Friend Connect can do for a website that’s missing the social networking dimension:

Although Friend Connect couldn’t be easier to implement on a web site (simply cut and paste), there are things that can be viewed as limitations or issues - Friend Connect works from an iFrame on the page, so basically the webmaster has no control over the way it looks at all. There is thus far no way to mix the tool with other applications to create a more unique richer experience, basically you’re stuck with what you get … so far anyway. Then there are privacy/security issues - how do users from wherever access information that they may not have permission to access (we’re talking about social network profiles). Users will have to be given the option whether to expose sensitive information to other sites or not.

The goal was to allow sites without a social dimension to use the benefits of social networking, and this is definitely a great start. The ultimate goal is to allow people to connect from wherever they are with everyone else regardless of the social network they are on.

Here are a couple of good posts to see about this, giving an in depth look into Friend Connect:

Google Friend Connect (Google)
Google confirms Friend Connect (TechCrunch)
Google brings Friend Connect to the Masses (news.com)
Google Friend Connect tries to strangle the social (ReadWriteWeb)
How Google Friend Connect will affect SEO (BlogStorm.co.uk)

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StomperNet decided to open up again. Las year it was for 72 hours, this time there is no specific time frame. This video features the cases of several sites (one of which a newbie at the time), and a site that did quite well and raked in plenty of organic traffic from Google, and then was dropped from the Google index, causing its traffic to reduce by about 50%. The site pulled through, but not only that, it increased its revenue and client base as well. This was done through a unique approach to PPC advertising - by doing all the wrong things! Check it out, and BTW it’s about 53 minutes, so grab a coffee and concentrate (trust me, when the ball starts rolling you’ll have to make an effort to keep up):

Interesting stuff in there! For example, the OCI (Online Commercial Intention) tool developed by Microsoft was a great reminder. Also, a few nice pointers when doing PPC campaigns for your site, like the AdWords Triangulation Method (quite interesting).

I’m thinking of making a “Video of the Week” category, in which I’d post a video I thought was an interesting to watch for whatever practical reason (fun included). There have been a few in the past months that are worth mentioning. I don’t know, I’ll see how things go…

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