Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Browsers, Web
Firefox 3.6 to recognize if your computer is tilted
by Brad Linder Oct 13th 2009 at 3:30PM
Accelerometers serve a number of purposes in laptops and tablets. In some cases, they can be used to shut down a hard drive if your computer is falling so that less damage occurs when your laptop hits the floor. But they can also be used to add motion-sensitive controls to some applications. And starting with the next generation of the web browser, Firefox will be one of those applications.
Mozilla developer Christopher Blizzard has published a short video showing the new feature in action. Mozilla is releasing an API that allows web publishers to support the feature. Enabled web pages will be able to respond as your computer moves, allowing you to play web games with motion controls or just to rotate your screen and read web pages in portrait mode.
Support has been added for Mac, Linux, and some Lenovo Thinkpad models.
[via CNet]
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
pat_boy2008 said 3:57PM on 10-13-2009
WOW! This is great since I always tilt my computer when web browsing!
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Jordan said 4:14PM on 10-13-2009
This is the most useless waste of time they spent encoding for this. Why not make the browser less crappy so it starts up faster?
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Sean said 8:07PM on 10-13-2009
"This is the most useless waste of time they spent encoding for this..."
I do hate it when they waste time encoding for a web browser. Makes the pages all pixelated when they use a low bitrate...
Jordan said 8:07PM on 10-13-2009
Haha, my bad, but you know what I meant
iofthestorm said 10:12PM on 10-13-2009
It was mainly for Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, and they found that it was easy enough to add to the desktop versions so they did it.
Harsh said 4:50PM on 10-13-2009
Don't be such idiots. This is a web developer api, not something an average user will notice when they're on some random website and happen to tilt their laptop. This api was added to gain parity with webkit, which has had it for quite some time (think spirit level widget). Those websites in the video were specially altered to make use of the new api.
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Raffi said 5:00PM on 10-13-2009
It's also to prevent you from cheating at pinball.
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RG said 8:07PM on 10-13-2009
This feature will make me finally switch from IE ;)
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scheckley said 8:27AM on 10-14-2009
gimmick
they should have just made this an add-on and focus on performance and security.
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