These ideas are interesting but why is it limited to a drop-down from the taskbar? You could make the entire window pane work like that.
The last example, where the user is browsing search results, is just a recapitulation of the entire browser concept inside a taskbar dropdown, with more animation and tear-off results. The animation and tear-off results are an interesting idea, so why not apply them to the whole browser window?
But the main idea here is that different verbs work in the taskbar now. We can imagine that the address bar has always had the implicit verb "go to"; now we'll do other things, like "translate".
Of course the next step is to make the translation provider configurable, and maybe you even get to choose certain providers, just like Mycroft (the search box on Mozilla browsers). But for configurability, you can't beat HTML. If you think of HTML as "interface configuration downloaded instantly" it becomes the ultimate end of all customization efforts.
So maybe what this is proposing is an interface that isn't configurable, that's deliberately constrained. Just like Mycroft forces all the search engines to work in the same way, at least in how the service is requested, but then afterwards it's all HTML pages. I think Aza would prefer to keep control over how the service makes a request and how it presents results, but the easier & simpler way might be to just make Mycroft-like services, where we are just requesting HTML from somewhere, but in a way that's more convenient for a specific task. That also gives service providers an economic model, if they can include ads or other upselling in the results. We can't assume it's always going to be Google's largesse.
This is fairly easily done already with many sites, if they accept an HTTP GET argument, using bookmark keywords... you can set up a bookmark to say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s and then visit "w Firefox" to go to the Firefox Wikipedia page...
I'm not sure its useful for anything beyond search or direct navigation though...
A few examples:
1. Compose and email to a friend in gmail. Type an address, then select it. Bring up taskfox, type "map this" (without hitting enter). A preview from Google Maps will appear. Scroll & zoom the preview to where you want it, then click "Insert". The map image will be inserted into your email.
2. Navigate to http://www.nec.co.jp/ . Highlight some text you are interested in. Invoke the "translate this from japanese to english". The text is translated in-place, on the page.
Choosing different providers is embedded deeply and transparently. The default commands can be disabled individually, and new commands are subscribed to (similarly to RSS) from any website that wants to post them. Try watching video #5 on that page. I currently have several commands subscribed from a couple sources other than the default Mozilla feeds, and they work identically.
Edit: direct link to demo: http://vimeo.com/1561578
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[ 6.9 ms ] story [ 29.8 ms ] threadThe last example, where the user is browsing search results, is just a recapitulation of the entire browser concept inside a taskbar dropdown, with more animation and tear-off results. The animation and tear-off results are an interesting idea, so why not apply them to the whole browser window?
But the main idea here is that different verbs work in the taskbar now. We can imagine that the address bar has always had the implicit verb "go to"; now we'll do other things, like "translate".
Of course the next step is to make the translation provider configurable, and maybe you even get to choose certain providers, just like Mycroft (the search box on Mozilla browsers). But for configurability, you can't beat HTML. If you think of HTML as "interface configuration downloaded instantly" it becomes the ultimate end of all customization efforts.
So maybe what this is proposing is an interface that isn't configurable, that's deliberately constrained. Just like Mycroft forces all the search engines to work in the same way, at least in how the service is requested, but then afterwards it's all HTML pages. I think Aza would prefer to keep control over how the service makes a request and how it presents results, but the easier & simpler way might be to just make Mycroft-like services, where we are just requesting HTML from somewhere, but in a way that's more convenient for a specific task. That also gives service providers an economic model, if they can include ads or other upselling in the results. We can't assume it's always going to be Google's largesse.
I'm not sure its useful for anything beyond search or direct navigation though...
2. Navigate to http://www.nec.co.jp/ . Highlight some text you are interested in. Invoke the "translate this from japanese to english". The text is translated in-place, on the page.
3. Twitter without even opening a new tab!
etc.
http://vimperator.org
It's a FF extension that gives FF a Vim-like interface. I very highly recommend it.
Color me underwhelmed.