Firefox 3.6 will support accelerometers, make the internet seasick (video)

[Zetan]

If you, like us, are tired of the so-called browser wars trying to woo us with barely identifiable, context-dependent speed differences, this might be of interest. Firefox is about to get a whole lot more sentient on us -- at least those of us with accelerometers in our hardware -- courtesy of a new device API that is capable of maintaining a webpage's vertical orientation relative to the ground, no matter what sort of salto mortale the underlying machine (Mac or otherwise) might be doing. Think of it as the cherry atop your Windows 7 multitouch tablet cake. Originally intended for mobile platforms only, this software will make its way into version 3.6 of the full-fledged browser -- and you can find an early demo of what it can do just past the break.

...[Engadget Article]

[Read More]


All I can say is.. "Phaaaat"!


Edit.. Forgot to include the Engadget article link.. Added to Quote.

[Ken.]

Interesting concept, but not something that I would want to actually use because it's very easy for me to become 'sea sick' and so I would likely barf while looking at a display like that. 

[Zetan]

Interesting concept, but not something that I would want to actually use because it's very easy for me to become 'sea sick' and so I would likely barf while looking at a display like that. 

lol.. Well, I don't think the actual idea is to literally swing the display about, but rather support devices that use accelerometers to change the orientation of the screen from portrate to landscape and vice versa. Many mobile phones and (I hate to mention them) the iPhone etc have them.

Although some games for devices do use the accelerometer as the feedback, Marble Tilt and some beer game I see for the iPhone.

[IchBin]

Thats pretty cool. Will be interesting to see what things they come up with to use the accelerometers.

[Zetan]

We use accelerometers at work to record data during tests. It's been interesting now that we've seen them becoming popular. The ones we use are somewhat larger, around 1cm cubed and measure vibration in 3 axis.. at first we thought they were using a mercury switch of some sort, we use those too but for interlocks of vertical and horizontal orientation on some equipment.