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Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

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Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#43
post #22

I wonder what happens to the previous Test Pilot experiments. I loved the experimental home page and the Tab Center [1]. I really hope it continues to live. [1] https://github.com/bwinton/TabCenter

On the main https://testpilot.firefox.com/ page, scroll down and click "view past experiments". Each one gets a write-up when it's over.

Hey, we're a little behind on writing up the last few experiments unfortunately. We'll be adding full reports over the next few weeks.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#44

what will happen to test pilot after the non-webextension are not allowed? As far i know must of these feature are implemented as extension and i don't thing webextension have the api to do a lot of thing that are in test pilot.

We're moving to a webExtensiony future. The idea here is that we'll be a first party consumer of the webExtension APIs so we can help test/drive/expand capabilities.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#45

I feel like I must be reaching the "get off my lawn" phase of my life, because I can't even comprehend a situation where I'd ever want to talk at my browser... maybe when I'm at home alone and, couldn't type for some reason? Certainly not in the office. Am I missing a use case, or am I just old now?

There are many use cases for this, among them:

* Mobile version of Firefox. It might be easier to talk to fill a form on mobile than type on glass screen.

* Accessibility. There is a huge under served demography of people who will welcome this as typing might be hard for them.

You may not be on any of the groups above but that doesn't invalidate the features.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#46
post #9

I've seen all the promo videos, and some questions remain unanswered: 1. What's Send encrypting with? It doesn't show anything related to setting up a password during the video. 2. What's Notes syncing with? 3. What's Voice using to analyze the voice commands?

3. Kaldi

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#47

I just wish it was .. faster. Lately I've been moving away from Google everywhere I can. I moved everything but Google Voice. Yes, even Google Search - I've moved to DuckDuckGo. On windows however, I had to fall back to Chrome, because I was just shocked at how slow Firefox was. Opening pages like Twitch.tv proved to be shockingly slow. Furthermore, my habit of opening many tabs in the background like I do in Chrome/…

It doesn't help that they keep cramming features into Firefox. Chrome feels pretty bare in comparison.

Many of said features are just bundled web extensions, add-ons, so they don't pollute the main code base. Please, don't spread FUD when it is not needed.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#48

I feel like I must be reaching the "get off my lawn" phase of my life, because I can't even comprehend a situation where I'd ever want to talk at my browser... maybe when I'm at home alone and, couldn't type for some reason? Certainly not in the office. Am I missing a use case, or am I just old now?

Actually, people who are very deep into the "get off my lawn" phase of their life, that is old people, are generally not the greatest typists. For them, the ability to talk instead of type, everywhere and not just in google search (which already has this) seems like a huge help.

I'll never use it. It's completely useless to me. But if my grandma actually did anything else than Facebook on her computer I'd show this to her.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#49
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people are faster at speaking than typing. Or maybe you're reading from a document (or pill bottle) and don't want to type with one hand or whatever. But what I usually use it for is if I'm having a conversation with someone and we want to look something up. It feels more anti-social to type silently for a while than to make the computer part of the conversation.

But it's only for searching after you've already navigated to a search engine, right? You'd have to be extremely slow at peck-and-hunting for it to save you much time (especially as search strings are so short) - and in the video you have to click "submit" to even do the search (and then presumably navigate normally with mouse). I can't see many instances where this could be worth it. Maybe I'm actually too young to…

Maybe the search engine is your homepage, or you just have to hit "g" and enter to get there, or it's bookmarked. Maybe you don't have hands, but you have an easy way to move a mouse around and click. Maybe you're eating a sandwich with one hand and don't feel like putting it down. Maybe you won't use it for a short query like "weather", but you will for sentence-long queries. Maybe you want to search "linux won't recognize wireless keyboard".

It's very easy to think of instances where this will be helpful.

Re: Mozilla launches voice search, file-sharing and note-taking tools for Firefox

#50

I feel like I must be reaching the "get off my lawn" phase of my life, because I can't even comprehend a situation where I'd ever want to talk at my browser... maybe when I'm at home alone and, couldn't type for some reason? Certainly not in the office. Am I missing a use case, or am I just old now?

Just to clarify these features are not yet on the release.
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