As mentioned in previous coverage of service TileStack, there was a version optimized for iPhones on the horizon. Tuesday that tool has been unleashed, and it's pretty neat. With all the hubbub about native iPhone applications it's easy to forget about Safari being a platform in its own, and TileStack is a good example of what can still be done.
The Web application lets you access all your saved TileStacks and use them like little mini applications. You can go into your own stacks and make edits that will be reflected the next time you visit, as well as when you come back to the files on a regular computer. You can also browse through everyone else's stacks and access them on the go. It's about as simple as it gets.
One thing that's missing is the full editing and creation environment found in the standard Web version, meaning you won't be able to build any new stacks from your phone. It's something we're not likely to see outside of a native iPhone or iPod Touch application.
TileStack is still in private beta, so you'll need to sign up for an invite to give it a spin. In the meantime you can check out this video of it in action below.
Back in days of yore I took a two-week course in HyperCard, the long lost Mac-only application creator that is now looked back on as one of the precursors to the modern Web. While our use of the application was mainly to create small animations with sounds and interactive buttons, it was fun, and if I really knew what I was doing, it likely would have led me down a different path.
So when I heard about a project called TileStack my ears perked up. The idea behind it is to bring old HyperCard stacks back to life by putting them on the Web, meaning you can take some of those long lost creations from the late '80s and early '90s and make them working Web apps. You simply upload them to TileStack's servers and they'll be converted and hosted for just you or the entire world to use once again--sans the software that is.
What makes the app especially cool is that you can make edits to public stacks, or just the ones you've uploaded from the past. You can also make entirely new ones with a Web-based editor that's a step up from the one in the old days.
So far, the mix of stacks goes from rehashes of modernday Widget files to honest-to-goodness early 1990s HyperCard test programs. There are also some newer creations that blend in special effects like fades, wipes, and transitions--some of the polishes that come with a decade of technological advancement. Co-founder and CEO Joshua Gertzen tells me future plans entail an iPhone-centric interface and more focus on widgetized content. Since the service runs without Flash, Gertzen says, TileStack is perfect for the iPhone and other devices that run on the Web without all of the latest technologies that are found on the desktop.
TileStack is in private beta with plans to launch at the end of summer. It originally demoed at the MacWorld Expo back in January. You can sign up on this page in the meantime. I've also embedded a demo of it in action after the break.
Kind of related: AniBOOM's ShapeShifter: easy user-generated animation creation
Does this look old to you? It is. This record collection organizer app comes from Claris--the ancestor of FileMaker, which now works on TileStack.
(Credit: CNET Networks)... Read more
SpaceTime is a new tool for searching the Web in three dimensions. You can search using Google and Yahoo, or dig deeper into niche services like eBay and Flickr. Results show up in a swirling sky-like environment where you can sort through rendered pages in stacks, similar to Windows Vista's Flip 3D window-shuffling effect and the upcoming Time Machine in OSX Leopard. You can maneuver around any page, and zoom back and forth. To see any result up close, just double-click on it and it will revert to a customized browser window that's running a shelled version of Internet Explorer.
SpaceTime installs as an extension, and is by no means a lightweight Web app. The minimum hardware specs will likely put it out of the range of most computers that are over two or three years old. In our testing, we found it to hog a considerable amount of RAM and CPU, so unless your machine is beefy, you're likely to have an undesirable experience. It's also limited to Windows machines, so Mac users are out of luck.
This is by no means the first venture into the world of turning the internet into 3D. 3B, which launched at last year's Web 2.0 conference, turns bookmarked pages into walls in a Doom-like 3D world. Users of the popular MMORPG Second Life are also able to put up live Web pages inside the virtual world.
Frankly, I really don't find a use for these services. When I am searching for something, I want it to be as quick and easy as possible. If I have time to dedicate to a search, I'm often using multiple search engines or the built-in search on Web sites. While SpaceTime is visually appealing, the amount of resources used and slow search speeds make it too prohibitive to take the place of something like your browser's built-in search box.
Yahoo search results show up as a stack of windows. Users can drift through them, or double-click on a window to view the page in their browser.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
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