Firefox developer Mozilla wants to allow internet users access to any service they want anywhere online in its latest project, rather aptly called 'Ubiquity'.
Users will be able to pull up maps, email, translations and anything else they might need up on any web page they happen to be on, a massive development on Microsoft's latest features unveiled this week in Internet Explorer 8 beta 2.
Ubiquity beta already allows immediate access to Wikipedia, Google, Twitter and the like.
Mozilla's blog describes the user's need for such a service as follows: "You're writing an email to invite a friend to meet at a local San Francisco restaurant that neither of you has been to. You'd like to include a map.
"Today, this involves the disjointed tasks of message composition on a web-mail service, mapping the address on a map site, searching for reviews on the restaurant on a search engine, and finally copying all links into the message being composed.
"This familiar sequence is an awful lot of clicking, typing, searching, copying, and pasting in order to do a very simple task. And you haven't even really sent a map or useful reviews - only links to them."
Remixing the web
Hence Mozilla Labs are experimenting with "connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily."
'Ubiquity' promises to empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions (users merely type what they want to do) and to enable "on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs, allowing everyone - not just Web developers - to remix the Web so it fits their needs."
Intriguing stuff, for sure. Stay tuned for more on Mozilla's world domination plans shortly.
