RSSMozilla: Tell us how you see the future of Web browsing
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published August 5, 2008, 6:29 PM
With new versions of Firefox adding welcome features but no radical changes to the way people live and work, its producers are wondering whether the general public may have better ideas about Firefox' future than their own engineers.
After the production of a new and not-so-fanciful proof-of-concept video for Mozilla Labs by San Francisco-based software design consultants Adaptive Path, the Mozilla organization has put out an open call for anyone and everyone to create similar videos that could offer glimpses into a future browser, unlimited by the confines of its operating system.
"You don't have to be a software engineer to get involved, and you don't have to program. Everyone is welcome to participate," reads a blog post today from Mozilla engineer Chris Beard. "We're particularly interested in engaging with designers who have not typically been involved with open source projects. And we're biasing towards broad participation, not finished implementations."
Specifically, Mozilla is looking for ideas that visually answer the question, where does the browser go from here? Last June, a concept video by engineer Aza Raskin depicting a possible future Mozilla browser for mobile devices -- maybe Firefox, maybe something else -- met with very positive response after being distributed by Mozilla.
Today, the organization added to its roster of possibly-indefinite-maybe concepts with the distribution of a set of high-definition videos, complete with human actors, assembled by a team led by Adaptive Path's Jesse James Garrett.
The videos depict not so much a browser but a complete operating system, called "Aurora," which borrows some concepts from both Mac OS X and Windows Vista, where all documents including those produced by the user and those retrieved from the Web, are represented by thumbnails that appear to float in three-dimensional space.
 |
| A screenshot from Adaptive Path's concept video for Aurora, produced for Mozilla Labs. Here, the user's history appears in the left of the frame, and most frequented items appear in the right. Shortcuts take up the top segment, while a "wheel" catalog of various other items scrolls left-to-right or right-to-left from the bottom segment. In the middle, a sea of contextually related items float in three-dimensional space. |
That open space of interrelated contexts only appears when the user is looking for documents. In the meantime, the open page fills the screen. When the user needs to retrieve a document or some other object, or launch an application, in place of the desktop, Aurora uses a four-sided frame that surrounds the open page as it recedes slightly into the distance.
But that frame only contains elements the user has either bookmarked, or has used frequently or recently. When looking for other stuff, the user casts aside the open document window to reveal the 3D space. Here, thumbnails relate themselves to one another by their proximity, and are grouped together in hazy clouds with colored borders, like galaxies in a contextually related universe. Clouds with older items, Garrett explains in the video, recede further into the distance; although conceivably, clouds with both old and new items may find themselves widely dispersed across the z-axis.
Finding items in these galaxies is not a self-explanatory process, as even the user in the video herself proclaims in confusion: "It's gotta be here somewhere." With those words, she pulls up a text-based search line with which she places a query for the item she's looking for. Aurora takes her to the closest match, complete with zooming effects and a singing, awe-struck chorus in the background.
Mozilla is looking for individuals who would be as willing as Garrett's and Raskin's teams to produce similar concepts to be distributed through Mozilla Labs, though the organization isn't promising to do anything more with them than merely distribute them and talk about them. It advises participants that they should be willing to utilize either a Mozilla Public License or a Creative Commons License to distribute them, the latter of which would mandate that, although users may copy and make derivative concepts of these videos, the creator of the ideas embodied in those videos must be accredited.
Under such a license, if Mozilla itself were to use the concepts embodied in Garrett's Aurora or Raskin's "Fennec," it too would have to give proper credit to their creators. While Mozilla appears perfectly willing to do just that, it's possible that its own MPL might need to be tweaked if it ends up making such dreams into reality.
the unfortunate future of web browsing is one that will be filled with endless advertisements and ploys.
Score: 0
So what you're saying is that...
The future is NOW!
//sorry... stopped drinking coffee. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Score: 0
Call me a half full kinda person, but browsing the net is not bad for me. I have my pop up blocking browser and my Adblock add on. Browsing is a breeze. Didn't know how bad it could be though until i went over a friends house who still has ie 5 and it was like being in ad banner hell. Don't know how he can use the net the way it is now for him.
Score: 0
the unfortunate future of web browsing is one that will be filled with endless advertisements and ploys.
the web servers will be ruled by monopolies and information that is otherwise considere public and free will be provided to you for a cost.
Score: 0
that's how it was going to be.
but people fought back and it's ours.
we fought back with ad blockers, pop-up blockers, and the learned that if they want our approbation they had to be gentle. or we boycott.
we have the RIAA on their knees.
even the most powerful monopoly can't take control of so much information. there was a time when a lot of websites granted access with a cost. we choose the free ones and abandoned the other ones. the internet is ours.
Score: 0
we have the RIAA on their knees.
Thanks for the laugh. The only people who actually believe that have a rather loose grip on reality.
Score: 0
Just make it lean and fast. Cut all the bloat. Let the add on developers bloat it up for those that want it. When I check my resource usage, I don't want to see FF at the top of the list. That doesn't make it a winner in my eyes.
Score: 0
An option i would like to see is this. To be able to choose whats in the context menu when you right click on a page. Put that in the options. I don't like most of the items there like view background image.
Score: 0
For Sven123456789,
Just in case you did not know about this extension, Menu Editor - it will do what you want:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/710
Score: 0
Tanks, I haven't browsed deeply in the add on site in awhile. This one slipped past me.
Score: 0
I'd like to see a combination of voice and touch screen technology used. For instance you can say "firefox go to betanews" and it'll go there, but when you want to read an article or download a file you just touch on it. Now you can either point to the article or just read the first word or two of it to go to it. You can just lay back and relax in your chair and browse the web without using the mouse and keyboard, plus it could get rid of the physical interface until you move the mouse giving you more real estate. Ultimately I think Windows should be all done with voice.
I know Opera does something like this but its not as well done as I think it can be done. Instead of having to press a button you should just be able to say something to activate the voice command system.
Score: 0
Maybe one should clarify with the common BN reader that Mozilla did not ask to post such comments in the BN forums but on their site (the one with the upside down condom) mentioned above:
http://labs.mozilla.com/...-call-for-participation/
Score: 0
Lets have HD Video, more toolbars out of the box, how about embedding the Linux Kernel inside of the browser??
Actually, why not just focus on supporting the standards and becoming leaner and meaner? FF is a bit of a slug at the moment.
Score: 0
Focus on passing the acid3 test and improve the efficiency / speed of the browser.
Integrating a media player sounds like a good idea eventually....I guess the next logical steps in that area would be teaming up with Sun and Adobe to improve the performance of Flash, Acrobat Reader, and Java in Firefox. Some of the most useful extensions could become part of the browser code.
Score: 0
^This^ but plugins shouldn't become part of the browser code, and it shouldn't have a built in media player.
Just make it lighter and zippier every other version.
Score: 0
Whoosh!
This entire article isn't about what you want the future of Firefox to be, but what you want the future of the WEB to be. I.E. Web 3.0 and web 4.0, technologies that'll change the way we use the internet.
Score: 0
The problem is that we don't see/want the browser experience changed. That's why we say what Mozilla needs to do instead of raving. :P
Score: 0
Yes, I also think that Java should be better integrated and optimized.
Score: 0
Woosh!
Someone missed the first sentence:
With new versions of Firefox adding welcome features but no radical changes to the way people live and work, its producers are wondering whether the general public may have better ideas about Firefox' future than their own engineers.
...and the title:
Mozilla: Tell us how you see the future of Web browsing
..or the article:
Specifically, Mozilla is looking for ideas that visually answer the question, where does the browser go from here?
*laughing*
Thanks for playing, try reading the article next time you want to tell someone what it's about.
Score: 0
"maybe Firefox, maybe something else"
Keep living up to your name.
Score: 0
the woosh reply was hilarious! n1
Score: 0
lmao...
"maybe Firefox"
Keep trying to back out of the hole you dug. It's fun to watch.
Keep living up to your name.
-10 to originality, bud. At least when I rip you a new one, it's original, poignant, and topical. Calling me a "tool" shows no motivation, creativity or effort...why even bother?
Man, first you fail spectacularly at reading comprehension, and then you manage to throw that pathetic troll in there as well? Well, at least you excel at something, even if it *is* failing.
Score: 0
This is a combined response to a few of the responses to my original post...
First of all, it's not Mozilla's job to single-handedly invent new innovative web standards and new paradigms. That's the job of the W3C. Mozilla's main job is to invent things that make web browsing more convenient....like tabbed browsing did back in the day.
My main point was that Mozilla should focus on getting their browser to be fully compliant with existing standards and improving performance before they put a lot of resources into "the next big thing". There are already a lot of good ideas in the optional extensions. If a few of the most useful extensions were carefully selected and integrated into the browser code, then the code base really wouldn't grow very much and the browser would work more efficiently than the current incarnation of the browser with those extensions installed.
Score: 0
There are already a lot of good ideas in the optional extensions. If a few of the most useful extensions were carefully selected and integrated into the browser code, then the code base really wouldn't grow very much and the browser would work more efficiently than the current incarnation of the browser with those extensions installed.
Never going to happen. Not in Firefox, anyway. Their whole "experience" was supposed to be a fast, lightweight, vanilla browser that could have functionality added to it via extensions.
...not that I wouldn't mind TMP being part of the code-base...
Score: 0
The ability to use any kind of font the creator could need for the interface. that the font would be stored in a server, also those fonts in another language, for example chinese websites that when you enter them, you have to select what kind of character rendering is appropiate, that selection process has to go somehow.
also, themes. the websites need to be more integrated with the desktop. some websites offer you the capability to select a theme, which is good, but you have to select a theme for every website that has that capability. what if websites could have the capability to detect what kind of theme you're using on your desktop and that the website uses the theme you selected, like if you have a windowblinds theme, the same color or textures would be applied to your favorite websites.
also we need to get rid of the square, or at least let it be optional for websites designers. how about some instructions in the CSS that a table would be skewed 30 degrees to the right? or have some curvatures specified every 10% of the table length? we live in a square world, houses, screens, let's get out of it.
Score: 0
But the first request is better directed to the site developers. They should set character encoding in their code. When they fail to do so we have to adjust it manually as you say. I don't want an IE5-6 clone that adapts to developer lack of knowledge, skills or simply sloppiness.
I don't like site integration with desktop. I want the content be clearly differentiated from the browser/OS.
Firefox 3 supports radius. That developers don't use it is another thing. :P
Score: 0
thanks for your reply ^_^
I would like the second option tho
I guess is a matter of choices
Score: 0
I think that all that we want is for Mozilla Firefox to continue to be optimized, take advantage of new technologies such as using GPU for either graphics related tasks (or GPU for CPU offloading), and perhaps the best thing that they could do is focus on their XUL interface further to make it easier for developers to develop these 'dream' user interfaces and more efficient plugins.
I love Mozilla as it is and believe that Mozilla.com needs to remain responsible for a core browser technology and browser API toolkit.
And yeah, I'd like to see them get Thunderbird and Sunbird finished up. I'd like to see a Mozilla Mobile. And I'd like to see Mozilla take on OpenOffice and Microsoft Office.
Score: 0
I agree with most of what you said, but as for Mozilla "taking on" OO or MS Office, I don't know of any spreadsheets or word processors coming out of the Mozilla camp. Maybe you were specifically referring to Outlook? OO doesn't even have a mail client or calender that I've seen. Personally, I would love to see the usability of FF increased a a good deal more. The bookmarking and RSS systems specifically need work. I'd love to see a more intelligent Bookmarks Toolbar (auto-width on dropdowns, anyone?).
Score: 0
Agreed, psycros.
Score: 0
i want to surf the net like they did in the movie Johnny Mnemonic. that'd be freakin sweet LOL
Score: 0
Well I concur to the statement below. It is just fine as is. We do not need a confusing and bloated interface. Keep it fast and simple. Tabs certainly changed the browser world. The ie7 I could never use as the fonts are too small, and once reset to use your own size, some sites are way to large. Now FF and Opera use the Minimum Font to View as a choice, which is just right. Both FF and Opera pretty much nail it for ease of use and a nice compact design, once tweaked a bit. There a few add-ons, like Gmail and Yahoo Mail watcher, which could be standard on install, but then again, that's just my opinion. I always use No Scripts too.
Score: 0
I only expect a browser (and a mail client so far) from Mozilla. No need to change Firefox into a collaboration madness. And of course, I don't want a Vista like browser. Tons of resources and useless visual effects.
The browser for me it's a tool for my work and research. Not a game.
Score: 0
i think things are just fine as is, mozilla have done a great job... i mean, how much do you expect things to really change? really, only so much can be done.
Score: 0
To Mozilla:
"Nothing you propeller-beanied amateur devs could come up with".
Score: 0