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Browsing the Web with a wave of the hand

Imagine if you could pray to your computer to stop the beach ball of doom from spinning, the blue screen of death from staring you in the face.

Perhaps someday sooner than we think, such a simple, palm-to-palm gesture might actually serve to trigger a series of operations that would lead to an appropriate fix.

As reported by Engadget and Read, Write, Web, a group of students at MIT's Media Lab has hacked around with Microsoft's Kinect gaming technology, Google's Chrome browser, and Javascript to allow Web surfers to manipulate a browser with nothing more than gestures. … Read more

Mozilla Seabird agitates for better mobile phones

Mozilla doesn't plan to build a mobile phone, but it's hoping a new labs project called the Seabird unveiled yesterday will spur others to improving the ever more important devices.

"While mobile CPUs, connectivity and development platforms begin approaching that of desktops, the lagging ability to efficiently input information has grown ever more pronounced," said Billy May, the project leader who produced a a virtual tour of the virtual phone. "The Seabird, then, introduces a few possibilities into how user interaction might evolve with the advancing motion capture and projector driven innovation in the market.&… Read more

Ubuntu bringing multitouch to Linux

The next version of Ubuntu will get multitouch interface abilities, catching the Linux operating system up to Windows and Mac OS X in at least one domain.

"Every single major PC manufacturer has been asking for a touch story on Linux. This has been one of the major missing points for Linux in the PC ecosystem," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the company called Canonical that develops and supports Ubuntu. But multitouch support will arrive in the next version of Ubuntu, 10.10, aka Maverick Meerkat.

Adding multitouch isn't easy, particularly in the open-source world of Linux … Read more

Is Apple's Magic Trackpad a gesture too far?

Remember just a few years ago when Apple was lambasted for shipping a one-button mouse with its Macs, and there was constant speculation as to why the company stubbornly refused to offer a multibutton option? The given reasoning was that more buttons would confuse people, even though PC users seemed to do just fine with them. Not that Apple has always shied away from a bit of complexity in the mouse arena--just look at the first Mighty Mouse--but still, there has been something about one-button products that Apple has consistently liked; both the iPhone and iPad have only one button … Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 4: Flash for Android is officially here (podcast)

Flash for Android is released, AT&T's love/hate robot relationship, and a new slate of Motorola Droid offerings. Plus voice navigation tips, and a review of Google Voice. All that and more on this week's edition of the Android Atlas Weekly.

Stories

Flash Launches on Android

Droid X Twitter Feed

Droid 2 Gets a Surprise Hand-On

ios4 vs Android Multi-tasking

Android Team "Laser Focused" On The User Experience For Next Release

AT&T announces Samsung Galaxy Captivate

...and AT&T proceedes to neuter the Android OS in the process.

SlingPlayer Mobile launches on Android phones

Google Maps for Android adds train schedules, live Places info, more Latitude features

How may people are on which version of Android OS?

Google releases teaser video about Google TV… Read more

Google like it's 1981 with command-line tool

Google has released a tool to let command-line aficionados use several of the Net giant's services with the full glory of a text-based interface.

The tool, called GoogleCL, offers commands to control the contents sites of YouTube, Blogger, and Picasa, and the Google Apps sites of Docs, Calendar, and Contacts.

For example, people can create a photo album, change a document in a text editor, delete all blog posts mentioning a certain word, list all videos, or add a calendar appointment.

Command-line tools aren't for most folks--do you relish the prospect of typing "google youtube post --category … Read more

Mozilla shows Firefox on dialog box diet

The venerable dialog box, long a staple of software design, faces extinction or at least endangered-species status in Firefox.

Mozilla designer Stephen Horlander has published Firefox interface mock-ups that illustrate how the browser could look with some options set through a preferences tab rather than through a preferences dialog box.

The designs are experimental, but some of the work is proceeding already. For example, Firefox's new interface for managing add-ons uses this "in-content" interface, and Firefox's about:config controls have appeared in a browser tab for years.

Moving away from dialog boxes is by no means … Read more

Google: Not all geeks are created equal

There must be something in the water in Mountain View, Calif. Or maybe it's the backrubs.

Google, notorious for its engineering-driven culture, really shouldn't be able to consistently crank out consumer-friendly products. But it does.

No, it's not perfect, as its somewhat inept forays into social networking have demonstrated, but for a company filled with 20,000-plus geeks, its software is decidedly non-geeky.

What's the secret?

After all, the open-source world is also dominated by engineers, but we have historically been accused (often correctly) as developers developing geeky software for other developers.

How are Google's … Read more

Can Microsoft be lust-worthy?

Microsoft is far from dead, but it's hemorrhaging on all sides, and particularly in markets closest to consumers like mobile where it is steadily losing market share.

As one example, though a potent one for me, a longtime friend and Microsoft employee wrote on Facebook that he had finally capitulated and bought an iPhone.

This is a man who dutifully stuck to Windows Mobile while the rest of the world fled. He's a man who resolutely continues to promote Microsoft for many good reasons..

He's now gone to the "dark side." Or the cool side, … Read more

Can open source be consumer friendly?

Technology that requires a manual is technology that doesn't get used. At least, where mainstream users are concerned in the consumer and enterprise software markets. One of the lessons of the last 30 years of computing, and particularly in the rise of the consumer Web, is that ease-of-use trumps deep functionality most of the time.

That's what made Microsoft the billion-dollar behemoth that it is. It's what is driving Apple's iPhone into millions of consumers' hands. And it's what makes Facebook, Google, and other Web companies so successful.

They're easy. They're intuitive. They … Read more