At Helioid, we strongly believe that the future of the world wide web is experiencing a transition from minimal 2D interaction towards immersive 3D interaction. The constrained navigation offered by current browsers is outmoded and outdated. The popularity of the Wii and iPhone demonstrate that if users are given improved alternatives to the classic styles of interaction they will make use of them. Immersive 3D environments are an improved alternative for web browsing.
In early December Microsoft Live Labs released Thumbtack, which is said to: “[use] machine learning and natural language techniques to understand the information you give it.” Looking through the interface one notices some interesting tools. Such as a gadget that creates plots based on attributes of the items you collect and a “Layout Gadget” that I assume creates layouts but currently appears to only work with IE7. Intelligent parsing of information, on demand analysis, visualization, there are great ideas here. The unaccomplished obstacle is how to allow users access to these in an intuitive and simple fashion.
Continue Reading...A little over a week ago, TechCrunch featured an article on the latest round of funding raise by rising star in web search, Kosmix. In said latest round, Kosmix managed to rake in an impressive $20 million from a wide range of investors, led by Time Warner, bringing the search engine’s total funding to $55 million. Upon paying a visit to their site, it becomes immediately apparent what all the hoopla’s about. Kosmix pulls the top search results from a variety of popular sources in a variety of different categories, including video sites YouTube and Truveo, info sites like Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks, and shopping sites like Amazon and Ebay, in order to create a mash-up of all the possible kinds of information you might be interested in. A collection of related subjects are also presented in the left margin of the results page, in order to facilitate some degree of search refinement. Without a doubt, Kosmix provides a search experience quite distinct from the major search engines, and I feel fairly safe in saying that most searches performed with Ask would yield more fulfilling results with Kosmix. And yet, after playing with Kosmix for a while, I felt as though something was amiss.
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