Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

MozillaLabs posts

Filed under: E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Mozilla, Beta

Mozilla Raindrop: don't call it another Google Wave

The lead designer for Mozilla Messaging describes Mozilla's new communication tool, Raindrop, this way: "Raindrop is not another email client. We started from scratch with fresh ideas about what a communication application should be ... " Sound familiar? That's the same promise we heard from Google Wave a few months ago. Raindrop is similar to Wave in some ways, but it takes a completely different approach to dealing with integrating different kinds of communication into one service.

Raindrop's main goal is to separate personal conversations from bulk email that's less relevant to you. To that it, it pulls out all of the notifications you get from various web services, as well as messages from newsgroups, and sorts them into separate places. It also brings in Twitter, and separates out replies and direct messages. Other social networks will eventually be integrated, and the UI is still in the draft stages, but Raindrop looks pretty promising for a version 0.1 product. It's not as hard to get your head around (or "revolutionary," depending on who you ask) as Wave, but its focus on the problem of bulk vs. personal communication might make it more useful to the average Internet joe.

[via Slashdot]

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Social Software, Browsers

On the cutting edge of geolocation with Mozilla Labs' Geode

geode

If you've been waiting for a browser than natively supports location-based services, here's your first taste. Firefox 3.1 is all set to include geolocation based on a new WC3 standard, but you can test it out now with a Firefox add-on called Geode, from Mozilla Labs. Geode lets websites request your location the same way they request to install add-ons or open blocked popups. The possibilities for this technology are immense -- mobile devices are already taking advantage of it, so why not laptops?

The first services to be compatible with Geode are the social network Pownce, Yahoo!'s location-management product Fire Eagle, and a demo food finder from Mozilla. Geode gets your location via wifi, using Skyhook's Loki technology, and you can pass it to a website as a city, a neighborhood, or an exact location. I'm looking forward to seeing the other uses developers come up with for this technology before it goes mainstream in the next version of Firefox.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse