Home
 
Drupalcon



Yesterday, Mozilla Labs introduced Ubiquity, "An experiment in connecting the web with language". It's a lot like Launchy or Gnome-Do, except different.

Install Ubiquity into Firefox and then hit the shortcut keys to launch Ubiquity, and then start typing. You can search Google, post to Twitter, send an email - all through an intuitive command-line interface. It's not for everyone - if you spend all your time pointing and clicking, you may not like using the keyboard this way. But for those of you who use the mouse only when you really need it, this may revolutionize the way you use your browser.

Remember, the browser knows a lot about you. If you're signed in to Gmail, for example, and you find a great webpage you want to share with your friend, you don't have to know your friend's email. Just type, "email " and then your friend's name - Gmail will find the address, and copy the url for the page into a new email to your friend.

And this is just the beginning - there are already tons of user-created scripts available, and it's pretty easy to create your own. There's even a tutorial.

And lest you think I forgot to get in a dig on Microsoft, ye of little faith, let me remind you that this is the sort of functionality that will be in Internet Explorer 17, due to be released around the time your great-great-grandchildren are colonizing Mars.

If you're in Firefox now, install Ubiquity now. If you aren't, get Firefox first, then install Ubiquity. And if you find or write any really cool scripts for it, be sure to let me know.

Posted in

We're about a year off from

We're about a year off from the machine just doing this on its own. Instead of typing "email jon" the computer will just do it for you.

Next, of course, comes the robot revolution. That's a few years off, though, so why worry now?

I'm looking forward to when

I'm looking forward to when the computer can do my job for me. There's bound to be some lag between when the technology is available and when my boss realizes the technology is available, and that time is going to be sweet.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

T-Shirts!
Support This Site


Nano
  • Nanowrimo 2007 Winner
  • Nanowrimo 2006 Winner
  • Nanowrimo 2005 Winner
  • Nanowrimo 2003 Winner
  • Nanowrimo 2002 Winner

Other