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Imagine taking the social experience of a site like Facebook or MySpace and integrating it into a Web browser so that collaboration and communication with friends and colleagues is completely seamless.

Adaptive Path, a Web design company, in partnership with the people at Mozilla Labs (a virtual lab connected to the Mozilla Foundation, the Firefox browser creators), want to do just that. In this video, they show one possible future scenario of the Web: Aurora.

Here's what it means:  Let’s say you were in Japan and your business partner is in Ohio and you are working on a power point presentation. No need to e-mail the file back and forth. Using Aurora you could both work on the piece, view it discuss it, and make changes in real time. Call it extreme collaboration. Of course there are similar programs that allow us to work virtually on screens in another country, like Adobe ConnectNow and GoToMeeting, but this concept is built for the everyday browser, with a supposedly simple interface.

AdaptivePath released part 1 of their video series two days ago – and then just last night they launched part 2 – which shows what happens when the browser goes mobile. With a mere stamp of a thumbprint on a paper-thin card all browser data is transferred to the "mobile" card and the user is good to go. But, when you watch this segment, you might, like some of its commenters, think it looks surprisingly familiar. It looks like an iPhone.

Aurora (Part 2) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo

There appear to be no plans to go to market with this and no one is saying it will replace Firefox. For now it's simply a concept to explore.

8 Comments

1. 1. candide08 02:36 PM 8/6/08

   ho hum

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2. 2. p122525177 09:38 PM 8/6/08

   interesting things

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3. 3. steve1988 09:38 PM 8/6/08

   This would be interesting news if a browser like this did not exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_(web_browser)

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4. 4. bkurilko 10:30 PM 8/6/08

   Right now it's all about getting the hardware up to speed. We're looking good with the recent jump in touch interface, but it's going to take more than interface enhancements to tackle a seamless internet experience. Foremost we need a broader range of feasible network access, as in major corporations backing a single protocol. Beyond that I think ease of use/convenience as well as battery life and usage are the next major challengers. These videos show a pretty well thought out interactive experience, and I really hope we get to see software like this in the next few years, but I can't help but feel there's still something vital missing. It has to go beyond basic algorithmic suggestions based on popularity.
   
   

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5. 5. steve1988 11:28 PM 8/6/08

   I'd also like to point out that no one really wants to browse with other people. MSN Explorer and several other browsers have done this before and there are a ton of collaborative browsing plugins for Firefox. None of them have caught on. Browsing is personal... if you want to resolve a dispute, e-mail does the job just fine, and it doesn't require the other person to share your software or be online at the same time.

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6. 6. roneill 09:44 AM 8/7/08

   Very interesting but not without its flaws;
   
   I work for Glance Networks, where we produce a screensharing tool much like this called Glance. The biggest complaint we hear about other similar programs is that they're too complicated, and so simplicity has been the thing we've always striven for with Glance. With Aurora, I think the creators are seriously overestimating users' patience with learning a new interface; it doesn't seem nearly as intuitive or simple as they expect, particularly with the woman in the first video using that bizarre interface device to the left of her screen. It all seems a bit too futuristic in my opinion, and while there are wonderful ideas here, I feel that they need to dial it back a bit in order to make it accessible and understandable to John Q User

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7. 7. Christie Nicholson 10:18 AM 8/7/08

   These are all terrific comments. Thank you. Particularly to steve1988, who brings to light the human nature aspect (a challenge): "browsing is personal." We wrote about Flock last November in our Community -- but I have not looked at it recently, so thank you for reminding us about it.
   Please keep commenting and sharing any other ideas/sites you might have related to the future of Web browsing -- anyone think the Internet might produce something completely different from the Web...I think that was an idea that became popular when Linden Labs first launched Second Life...meaning that something similar (a 3D virtual experience online) might replace the Web...any thoughts?
   
   @roneill: i agree simple interface is crucial for participation; simple and mind-reading intuitive.
   

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8. 8. atomex 12:24 AM 8/16/08

   woo! its super cooL!

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