Huminized and Enso

I read a post on Slashdot a few days ago about Mozilla hiring several developers from Humanized to work at the Mozilla Labs on Firefox. The original article is available on Ars Technica. The Humanized developers are known for their expertise in usability and innovative user interface design.

Anyway, after surfing around on their site I found this interesting app called Enso. If you use a Mac it is similar to Quicksilver. Right now Enso is Windows only, but it says on their site that they are planning a Mac and Linux version in the future. Basically Enso is a launcher app. You can launch things very quickly just by pressing the caps lock key and typing the commands. You can type “open program name” to open an application. You can type “Google search query” and bang you are on Google with your query. It will even do inline math on the fly, so if I type out 5*72 and highlight it, then type calc and select calculate (four-function) it will solve the equation right in the app you are using whether it be a word processor or an online form.

The best way to understand this app is to watch the Enso demo and actually try it out for yourself. So far I’m using it at work and it does take some getting use too, but I think it could really speed up a lot of people’s productivity. The site has lots of other cool projects on it too, so check it out if it interests you.