Denis’ Blog

On one hand, HTML and browsing have (positively) changed the world. On the other hand, HTML and the browser have killed productivity. People spend hours using poor HTML designed business applications or browsing dozens of pages than could be one.

Ajax and RIA techniques are one step to bring back productivity to the browser. We’ve seen in the last years many interesting innovations in that field, and we are gaining back, slowly, every minute lost.
In that battle, the Mozilla Labs, the R&D team of the Mozilla Foundation, has released Ubiquity, a software demonstrating one way they explore to bring back productivity while communicating & browsing. Ubiquity tries to connect the Web with language in an attempt in order for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily. With natural languages queries (well, almost…) and the help of public API of Web 2.0, Ubiquity helps users win back the minute they lost.

Have a look at it, it’s worth it.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Google today announced that Google Docs, the Web based word processor of Google, will go off line in the coming weeks

This is a long awaited news. Security and off line usage are two things that prevent Google Apps to go mainstream in business. Security is now managed with Google APIs that enable full integration with corporation Identity Management solution (especially SAML based). In a few weeks, you will be able to use Google word processor in the train, in the plane…well..anywhere…

Add on top of that that Firefox 3, the next release of Firefox due to June, will integrate off line mode, probably compatible with Google Gears, the Google off line engine (based on open source database SQlite), and you have a great view of what is coming. The great war.

Johnny Chung Lee, you rock !