Can Mozilla save us & the web from the trunk? Again?

At LeWeb last week I asked Mitchell Baker, chairperson for Mozilla, whether she can save the web. Again. The talk is now up now and at about 3:15 into the interview she showed off a really compelling HTML 5 demo.

But while she put a brave face forward, Mozilla is seeing competition it’s never seen in its short life (and so is the web). Google Chrome is taking market share on one side. New social browsers like RockMelt and Flock are ready to satisfy a new customer need. But the real attacks are from mobile and iPads, which either don’t allow Firefox to run, or make it hard for people to use alternative browsers to their own built-in web.

I laid out how this new future does have dangers. So, now, it’s up to us.

Is there a future for the Web? For Mozilla? Or are we all going to crawl into Steve Jobs (or Steve Ballmer’s, or Eric Schmidt’s trunks?)

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Mozilla Calls the Future on its Concept Seabird Phone

November 30 2010 by admin in Gadgets |

The future is now, and I wants it.

We’ve come a long way since the first days of analogue mobile phones. And we’ve seen such rapid advancements in technology that it’s hard not to speculate what will happen next. The Mozilla Seabird Project did just that. The video you’ll see bellow is part of Mozilla Labs’ Concept Series, a crowdsourced experiment that explores how users might interact with multimedia content as devices and technology advance.

Thousands of users called for a goodbye to traditional desktops and hello to absolute connectivity, which designer Billy May, a Mozilla Labs community member turned into an “Open Web Concept Phone,” which later became known as “The Seabird.

May decided to play around with a few futuristic concepts in its new camera concept like Dual Pico projectors (45 Lumens @ 960X600), wireless charging, a built-in bluetooth headset with haptic clicking, 3D pan and zoom and an IR touchpad area, while keeping a few of our established industry standards like an 8.0 MP camera and mini USB port. The future looks pretty awesome, and also like its right around the corner.

N.B. Seabird is not a Mozilla or Mozilla Labs project but part of the Mozilla Labs Concept Series. Mozilla has not plans to produce a mobile phone.

Thanks to @hotlunchrecords for the tip!

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