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PARC's Popout Prism Aids Web Navigation

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the interesting-ideas dept.

sulo writes "Popout Prism is a Web Browser that reduces the amount of time users end looking for information in Web pages. By creating visual "popouts" that emphasize critical elements in Web pages, Popout Prism draws users' attention to the right information." Not a very complicated idea, but one that could be useful.

40 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. um, clippy, could you give me just a few minutes? by sweeney37 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps Microsoft could implement this in a future version of IE?

    Clippy: Were these the type of asian schoolgirl sluts you were looking for?

    Mike

  2. view this short video by gokubi · · Score: 4, Funny

    To see the Popout Prism browser in action, view this short video demo. Popout Prism Demo mpg (27mb)

    The product download is only 900 kb, while the demo video is 30 times the size. No, really, ubiquitous multimedia on the web is right around the corner...

    --
    I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
  3. Re:a problem by dj_paulgibbs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    probably the same way as you'd see a level in a game such as Unreal Tournament.

  4. Popouts by deman1985 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gah! My eyes!

    --
    KappaStone :: Constant Innovation
  5. I call fluff by sunbeam60 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This stuff wouldn't be necesary if web designers were better doing their jobs. Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.

    1. Re:I call fluff by Malc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who cares about the web designers? Google cached pages already does highlighting. If a web designer can't produce a well-designed web page, they've wasted their time AFAIC because I will just move on to a better site.

    2. Re:I call fluff by mblase · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.

      And if someone could just develop a web browser that converted poorly designed web pages to well-designed ones instead, I'm sure we'd all download it in a New York minute.

  6. OMG! by pb · · Score: 5, Funny

    I used Popout Prism on match.com, and those chicks looked *awesome*... Can I get some glasses that do this IRL, or do I just have to drink a lot of beer to get the same effect?

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
    1. Re:OMG! by jkrise · · Score: 4, Funny

      I used Popout Prism on match.com and those chicks looked *awesome*

      Use it on Slashdot.org and see what it does to your karma!
      Use it on Microsoft.com and see Where It Takes You Today?
      Use it on Hotmail.com and see if your spam is spicy!
      Use it on Passport.Net and you'll find your password is already hacked!!

      Cheers

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  7. To save you all some time... by nherc · · Score: 2, Informative
    All this does is highlight your search terms within the webpage ala Googles Groups (formerly Dejanews).

    /Me thinks this could be added to Mozilla quite easily.

    --
    'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
    1. Re:To save you all some time... by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's already in there. ctrl+f's search just selects the text, but if you use type ahead find (/text) its a bright green background.

      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    2. Re:To save you all some time... by nherc · · Score: 2, Informative
      I believe I first saw this technique done on Dejanews, before they were bought by Google.

      I was merely highlighting the point that *I believe* Deja was the first search service that provided the technique and prior art, not Google.

      --
      'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
  8. A good application... by GillBates0 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    for this would be cellphones or PDA's, which have displays that are too small to view normal webpages designed for larger displays.

    If the user is looking for specific information/keywords that are too small to read on the display, the browser could "popout" a magnified/highlighted/easier to read version of the surrounding context.

    And rather than coming out with a whole new browser, maybe it could be incorporated into The Google Toolbar or something similar....they've recently added new features to make searching within a webpage easier.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:A good application... by Brummund · · Score: 4, Informative

      FWIW, Opera has a special version of their browser, with the ability to render the usual webduhsigners fixed width websites on small screens. Check out Opera's Small-Screen Rendering.

      Qoute from the page:

      How do we do it?

      Opera's Small-Screen Rendering technology enables access to all the content available on the Internet today. Even before this innovation, it was of course possible to browse the Web with Opera. The problem is that most sites are designed with fixed widths that make them hard to navigate on small handheld devices.

      As an example, most news sites have a center column where the main article text is located. This column is usually 468 pixels wide (due to the standard ad-banner sizes) and the text is set to fill this width. This means that to read an article, you would have to scroll back and forth for every line of text.

      With Small-Screen Rendering?, the page is reformatted to fit inside the screen width and eliminate the need for horizontal scrolling. All the content and functionality is still available, it is only the layout of the page that is changed. This innovation is the key enabler for surfing on a mobile device.

  9. It's about time. by mikeophile · · Score: 2, Funny
    Finally, a solution to the age-old problem of viewing vertical centerfolds on a horizontal screen.

    Thanks Parc!

  10. Re:a problem by yotto · · Score: 2, Funny

    I would assume they use a little trick figured out, oh, a few thousand years ago, called perspective.

    --
    Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
  11. How long before this is hijacked for ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If this becomes commonplace, the only thing it's going to really do is make popup ads into Popup Prism (tm) ads.

    Oh, and it will probably suck more bandwidth to do it, too.

  12. While the project site is slashdotted... by mblase · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...you can still get some info and a download here (well, for the moment anyway).

  13. Does anyone really need this? by TSMABob · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have we all lost the ability to scan for information that we need on a webpage or any other source. Next they'll develop books that have the "keywords" you enter into your pda come off the page and slap you in the face.
    Just another technology to help those of us with tech-driven ADD[slashdot.org]

  14. Curmudgeon's Corner by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Those whose idea of a Web page is a Photoshop mockup or big fat Flash banner will hate this browser, and people using this browser will hate such pages.

    Those who produce well-structured and meaningfully-styled Web documents have nothing to fear from it... but people surfing such pages probably won't gain that much from using this browser.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  15. JAVA incompetance by mydigitalself · · Score: 2, Informative

    they appear to have fscked up their installation regarding JAVA.

    i have 3 or 4 different JVM versions on my box - and normally i can run just about everything without any problems. the highest version of JAVA I have is 1.4.1 and whenever i run their installer it tells me that JAVA is not found and then it installs JRE 1.3.1 and then does exactly the same thing.

    SYNOPSIS: if you have anything higher that 1.3.1, this probably won't work.

    1. Re:JAVA incompetance by sbuckhopper · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you are using windows its probably a path problems. I've noticed that some large name Java aplications (such as eclipse) completely ignore your JAVA_HOME variable and just look for the first JRE it can find in your path.

      Be very careful though because 1.4.1 installs a java wraper (javaw.exe) in your windows system directory. So in order for it to find the correct JRE you need to make sure that you put it first in your path infront of the windows system directory. If find this both obnoxious and dangerous.

      --
      "Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese," Wallace.
    2. Re:JAVA incompetance by _xeno_ · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I've run into stuff like this before. I blame Sun for making it next to impossible to locate the JRE on a given system without resorting to hacks like the JAVA_HOME environment, or querying the runtime environment of whatever answers to "java".

      What's really annoying is that Sun doesn't set the JAVA_HOME environment variable when you install J2SE. However, their J2EE SDK requires JAVA_HOME to be set. Various other Java utilities use the JAVA_HOME hack to make things work. You'd think Sun would - eventually - understand this and create some standard way of specifying where Java is on a given platform.

      The reason I call the JAVA_HOME variable a hack is because it negates the "platform independent" nature that Java is supposed to have. If I have to write a shell script for Windows and Unix to make things work, what's the point?

      What I really want is for Sun to create software that allows deploying Java apps in a truly platform-independant manor. JAR files are an improvement, in that they can be made "executable," but what I really want is a way of creating an application file that can bind itself as the editor for various file types, add itself to program menus, and do other various "GUI-ish" things, without relying on writing native code for every platform you deploy on. Likewise, for console/server code, I want to be able to create a program descriptor that has a native program automatically create the appropriate native stubs to run the Java program.

      I think Java Web Start was supposed to solve the GUI application deployment, but it isn't really a complete solution in that it requires using the Java Web Start application to run any program deployed that way. It also doesn't allow a program to specify itself as the default application for loading given file types.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:JAVA incompetance by bpendleton · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm familiar with the details of the development of this project.

      So, a couple of points:
      1) It's a research demo. Unfortunately, that means it won't work well on all platforms. But, it's available primarily so that you, the public, can see how the technology works.

      2) It's written in Java, but it embeds Internet Explorer. So, the installer is a Windows installer, because it wouldn't run anywhere else anyway.

      3) The installer is, unfortunately, not very robust. It's hard to find Java reliabily on a Windows system, and, because of bugs in an external library at the time Popout Prism was written, Popout Prism only runs in Java 1.3. If you have trouble installing it, you should uninstall any Java versions above 1.3, run the installer, point the .bat file at your Java 1.3 java.exe file, and then reinstall any newer versions of Java.

  16. Since MS knows Where We Want To Go... by jkrise · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why can't they simply take us there directly :-).. pre-emptive multi-browsiing or some such technology should be great.

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  17. Re:a problem by aborchers · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually it was just around 1000 years ago that perspective was first formulated by al-Haytham, and a few hundred years later that people began to apply it to the arts.

    --
    Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
  18. Re:um, clippy, could you give me just a few minute by imtheguru · · Score: 5, Funny
    Clippy: (after a lengthy pause): Seems like u are enjoying the asian schoolgirl sluts.
    • Would u like me to:
    • Order the full video
    • Find similar content
    • Set some mood music
    • Minimise myself, coz u are shy
    --
    Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
    A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
  19. Pop-up web browsing by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 3, Funny

    That couldn't possibly have applications in the adult entertainment industry, right?

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    stuff |
  20. Prediction by thung226 · · Score: 5, Funny

    IE developers will wake up and smell new advertising opportunity.

    IE adds pop-out technology to browser

    Websites start using new pop-out technology.

    Mozilla/Opera adds following option:

    File > Preferences > Windows > Turn off pop-outs

    Going in circles is fun.

    -n-

    --
    -n-
  21. Advertising problems by dysprosia · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now this helps you actually find the content of a page, web advertisers are going to start kicking up a fuss that Popout Prism is perceptually downplaying the importance of their ads...

  22. YYaaaawwn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd check out the site, but it's already slashdotted. But, from the description given, it sounds like yet another useless idea. Why? How many times have you gone searching for some topic using google, or whatever search engine, only to get you to a page that does everything it CAN to try to draw your attentiona AWAY from the actual content you are looking for (which usually seems to be rahter minimal/useless anyhow) just to try to throw ads at you or get you to purchase/subscribe some product?

    This'll end up being just another technology that gets hijacked to make the browsing experience WORSE, not better. And as far as the few, quality sites, I don't need anything like Popout Prism - I can find the info I want VERY EASILY on a good site.

    This Popout Prism sounds to me like a complete waste of developer brain-time.

  23. You know what would be REALLY cool ... by Titusdot+Groan · · Score: 3, Funny
    is if instead of all these windows and colour highlights it marked up the web page using the blink tag!

    That would REALLY let me find my important information quickly!

    Why don't more people use blink on their websites for drawing attention to important information?

  24. Netscape already has this.... by Rahga · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just hit "/", type the word you are looking for, and *BAM*, it gets highlighted and jumps to the next instance of the word.

    Okay, so it may not be the same thing, but it is a superior alternative.

  25. Re:Just what I need by Coward+the+Anonymous · · Score: 2, Informative

    "You think wrong. There are version differences in Java, and some programmers are dumb enough to write to a particular Java implementation, like Java 1.3 for instance, for a particular platform, like Windows for instance, for a particular application, like IE for instance. RTF download page."

    Well, Sun changed the way some things work between version 1.3 and 1.4 breaking some GUI applications. They don't provide any backwards compatability. It's not the programmers fault. As for a particular platform like Windows or Solaris or Linux, there is nothing in Java itself that is tied to a particular plaform. You do have the ability, however, to make system calls in Java thus making your app plaform dependent.

    --
    -- Jason
  26. that's not all... by mblase · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The "popout prism" itself is a kind of sidebar which displays the entire unscrolled page in thumbnail form, with a box highlighting the area you're currently looking at. If you use thumbnails in Adobe (Acrobat) Reader or the navigation panel in Photoshop, you've seen the same sort of thing.

    In addition, it lets you type in keywords above the thumbnail and highlight those words in the thumbnail for you to navigate to quickly. That's what makes the popout useful for pages that contain more words than images.

  27. Use Opera to customize how websites are displayed by Post · · Score: 5, Informative

    Opera has a lot of neat features when it comes to finding the goodies on a page. E.g., you can force your own stylesheets on a page, even multiple ("User Mode"). So I have a standard b/w stylesheet that underlines and colors links no matter what the designer intended, and another one to switch off all images (except those that are links).

    Also, you can zoom in and out pages: 25% gives a nice "thumbnail" style overview, while 400% should be enough for even the smallest, err, details. Bonus: Images and Flash movies are resized as well, so this is much better than IE's feature. Press "W" to move from headline to headline (assuming the designer actually used H1 and not just f****ng bold). Pressing [ctrl][j] brings up a window that shows all links on the page. Just select those you want and open them in a background window etc. etc.

    And just pressing F12 will give you a Popup menu to switch off all that nonsense that often keeps you from reading: GIF animation, background Audio, Java, Popups ...

    Also, Opera will allow heavy customization. Almost every element of the UI can be tweaked and moved around. Whether you want a minimalist, near-fullscreen browser or a large set of custom stylesheets, search engines etc. at your fingertips, new keyboard shortcuts or Google Toolbar style Bookmarklets: Just tweak a few INI files.

    PS: If it's only highlighting you want: When you're on Windows, the Google Toolbar is very helpful. Also, there's Text Spotlight, which does the same thing system-wide, not only in the browser.

  28. Re:Didn't You Know? by sunbeam60 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Didn't we try this a few years back? :)

  29. Wait a Minute.... by thelaw · · Score: 3, Funny

    Isn't web browsing innovation dead?

    jon

    --
    -- http://www.cerastes.org
  30. Re:Help on installing? by bpendleton · · Score: 2, Informative

    The download and Internet Explorer sometimes don't get along. Rename the file you downloaded to end in .exe, and it should work. Mozilla-based browsers do not have this problem.

  31. Re:The Prism License Slurps by bpendleton · · Score: 2, Informative
    It isn't clear from the article, but Popout Prism is a technology demonstration of a research concept. It isn't intended to be a general purpose browser. It is intended to be a way of allowing those interested in the technology to try it out, and get a feel for how it works.

    And, yes, there are some problems with the installer. If you're having trouble, write to popoutprism-support@parc.com, and we'll see what we can do to help.