TechFlaps | Waves of Technology

Mozilla Labs has rolled out an experimental Firefox plug-in that promises to streamline the way Web surfers manage the mountains of information online. The technology will be called "Ubiquity," and is Mozilla's solution what it sees as a common and time-consuming problem Web surfers face when they try to compile information from the Web.

Mozilla Launches Ubiquity | Web Mashup Software

"Most people do not have an easy way to manage the vast resources of the Web to simplify their task at hand. For the most part they are left trundling between Web sites, performing common tasks resulting in frustration and wasted time.Ubiquity 0.1 focuses on the platform aspects while beginning to explore language-driven methods of controlling the browser."

Aza Raskin, Head of User Experience, Mozilla

Ubiquity is a new utility under development at Mozilla. It uses a command-line-like interface to let users more easily tie together content found on the Web -- e-mail, videos, maps, photos, etc. To make it work, users simply tell it what they want it to do, and Ubiquity takes it from there.

The main goal of Ubiquity is to simplify the time-consuming interactions that Web surfers typically perform on the Internet today, Raskin said. "It's even worse on mobile Relevant Products/Services devices, where limited capability and fidelity makes this onerous or nearly impossible," he added.

Browser users now must use cut and paste along with a separate Web site such as Babel Fish to translate foreign-language content on the Web. With Ubiquity, however, users simply highlight the text they wish to translate, then right-click to open a menu of commands that includes the "translate" option. The text is then automatically converted into English and inserted right onto the original Web page.

Ubiquity also features a separate command-line box that opens in the upper left-hand corner of any Web page whenever a user presses the Ctrl and spacebar keys simultaneously. The command line, Raskin said, empowers users to control browsers with language-based instructions.

Raskin expects Ubiquity to enhance the free flow of information that has become a trend with sites such as Twitter. However, that open conduit for information is largely in the hands of developers.

"We're going to see a continuation of that trend, but now we're going to take that power from the hands of developers and put it in the hands of users and users who don't have any technical expertise whatsoever," he said.

Mozilla Foundation

Website : www.mozilla.org
Location : Mountain View, California, United States
Founded : July 15, 2003
Revenue : $66.8 million (2006)

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operate key infrastructure and control trademarks and other intellectual property. It owns two taxable for-profit subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation, which employs several Mozilla developers and coordinates releases of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and Mozilla Messaging, Inc., which primarily develops the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

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