Fresh from the Mozilla labs, Ubiquity looks like one of those plugins that might seriously change the way we do stuff on the web, or rather: in our browsers. It’s a new user interface that comes as a Firefox plugin, and it allows you to “ask” your browser for stuff by text. Sounds kind of… lame, or old-school? Maybe. But seriously, in this case I don’t think it is. I haven’t found the time to check it out more thoroughly, but take this video as a token; I’ll take it for a spin asap.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Update: I’ve been testing Ubiquity for a few days now. First of all, it’s becoming more and more clear to me that a smart, language-based interface like this can be extremely powerful. The whole idea of on-the-fly mashups is pretty amazing. That said, it has a long way to go, just as it can be expected from an early prototype. (Ubiquity is a 0.1 alpha version.) The interface isn’t too powerful yet and doesn’t always get what you enter, emailing can be a bit awkward at first. However, the potential is clear from the very beginning. As of now, it’s something for what Robert Scoble calls “the passionates“. If you consider yourself a more settled down type of consumer, then you’d better wait for a while. If you’re one who enjoys tinkering, then what are you waiting for? Go get it and take it for a spin!
