As promised, Geeksphone is offering both of its Firefox OS smartphones starting today. While the Firefox orange-tinged Keon will set you back $119, the slightly more upmarket Peak is priced at $194 -- check out both of them in action after the break. The online retailer is willing to send both developer devices to anywhere in the world, so if you're looking to be part of the next billion smartphone users, place your order at the source.
[Thanks, Kyle]
Source: Geeksphone
After four months in the alpha incubator, BitTorrent has released its Surf file-sharing plugin in beta not just for Chrome, its initial browser, but for Firefox as well. In an effort to make downloading and discovery easier, the new plugin has a status window for monitoring file progress plus a recommendation engine that'll offer suggestions based on search terms. BitTorrent claims the results "prioritize legitimate content" and will "help creators and fans connect." With ventures like SoShare, Sync and live-streaming in the works, this is yet another sign that a brand (arguably) once synonymous with illicit activities is at least trying to go legit.
Source: BitTorrent (1), (2)
Subtlety can't always avert controversy. That leaked build of Windows Blue is a case in point: it suggests a relatively incremental update to Windows 8, yet some of its revelations are already causing quite a stir. Neowin now reports that Internet Explorer 11, as contained within the leaked build, identifies itself to host websites as "Mozilla... like Gecko." Confusing, right? Perhaps, but it's not really as underhand as it sounds, as you can see from the full line of code in the picture above.
The program still identifies itself (in brackets) as IE 11, but it forgoes Microsoft's older identifier ("MSIE") and simply describes itself as being a browser that renders HTML in a similar way to Firefox's Gecko layout engine. Neowin speculates that the reason for this could be to start afresh: by confusing host websites with a new identifier, IE 11 might avoid having legacy CSS code thrown at it, dating back to the bad old days when web designers had to give Internet Explorer special treatment. It's also been suggested that this could cause problems for business apps that genuinely rely on legacy CSS code -- although it's worth remembering that we're not looking at a final release here, and none of us (ahem) are even meant to be using it.
Via: Slashdot
Source: Neowin
Today, Firefox's Nightly channel received a pick me up in the form of its asm.js optimizer known as OdinMonkey. Baked into June's stable release of Firefox 22, this subset of Mozilla's rendering engine lets developers compile C or C++ to JavaScript by using Emscripten. This gives the code the potential to run within 2x its native performance. For those of you who've now gone cross-eyed, simply put this should give Firefox a hefty performance boost and open the door to more sophisticated browser-based games as well as faster web apps. For its inaugural offering, OdinMonkey is only available to Windows and Linux users, but the company says that OSX and ARM version are near completion.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Luke Wagner (blog)
I feel bad for Mozilla, I really do. Competitors and the march of time are closing in quicker than it can raise its defenses. Her crown jewel, Firefox, is feeling the squeeze as Chrome encroaches on its hard-won territory and mobile offensives have proven largely fruitless. This leaves Mozilla in an awkward position: that of out-of-touch industry stalwart. Being late to the mobile game and Apple's reluctance to open up iOS to third-party browsers has left the company boxed in. (Developers can create browsers for iOS so long as they use the same rendering engine as Safari -- a deal breaker for the Gecko-based Firefox.)
Mozilla has responded by borrowing a page from the Google (Chrome)book: build an operating system that is essentially nothing more than a browser. Firefox OS is yet another mobile platform built entirely on HTML5 that treats websites as apps. In fact, websites are the "apps" -- there is no such thing as native code. And while there are legitimate arguments for such a model, I've yet to see it convincingly executed. We've caught glimpses of Mozilla's smartphone offspring before, but Mobile World Congress 2013 was really the proper coming out party. Finally we've been given a chance to touch it, see it action and peek at the hardware it'll be running on. Unfortunately, at this cotillion, Mozilla failed to make a good case for anyone to court its debutante.
Let's start with the basic premise of Firefox OS. Like Chrome OS, there's little more here than a web browser running on top of Linux. But, unlike Mountain View's product, Mozilla has focused exclusively on mobile sites that are rarely as fast, stable or functional as their desktop counterparts. Ultimately the web-as-app approach doesn't work particularly well when you're trying to deliver a rich and smooth experience, especially on mobile. As Facebook has discovered, there are serious performance issues with HTML5. Mark Zuckerberg even went so far as to say that relying on it for mobile apps was one of the "biggest mistakes" the company has ever made. It doesn't help matters when you're trying to render that inefficient code on extremely low-end hardware, like the sub-1GHz single-core chip inside the ZTE Open.
The web-as-app approach doesn't work particularly well when you're trying to deliver a rich and smooth experience, especially on mobile.
The issues are only exacerbated when faced with limited bandwidth. The first batch of Firefox phones won't be terribly different from the original iPhone in functionality, though, they will have significantly faster data connections. That landmark device launched without support for third-party apps, as you might recall, and Steve Jobs famously told developers they could start creating applications months before the phone officially went on sale, because they were simply mobile websites. According to his biography, Jobs fought tooth and nail against having native applications on the iPhone, but eventually he came around because the experience provided by web apps was, at best, subpar. Granted, it relied on Cingular's painful EDGE network, but things are only marginally better on 3G or 4G as web apps have become more complex.
American consumers may be more demanding than those in the emerging markets that Mozilla is targeting, but the wireless infrastructure in South Asia and Africa is nowhere near as robust as it is in the Western world. This poses significant problems for the fledgling OS since it relies on constant connectivity to deliver information. Sure, some services can cache data locally for offline use, but that's a feature of HTML5 that has yet to be widely embraced by devs. Mozilla thankfully has Nokia offering some support for the disconnected with its maps, but most "apps" (and Mozilla's insistence on calling them that is frustrating) will require an internet connection to function.
Sparse coverage and slow speeds will pose significant usability issues for these new consumers, but perhaps an even bigger stumbling block will be price. While we don't know how much some of these phones will cost, the moderately specced Geeksphone Peak is expected to hit retail for around €200. Lower-end Android devices can be had for less than €100 at this point without a subsidy, such as the Galaxy Y and the Optimus L3 (both of which retail for around £50 or €60, through Carphone Warehouse). More important though, is the total cost of ownership. A device that relies on the web to feed it every sliver of an application, right down to its individual UI elements, will inevitably suck down a significant amount of data. Sure, it'll be far less than if you were hooked up to Spotify and Netflix all day, but it will likely be more than if your applications were installed locally. And in many of these nations, any data plan (not to mention one with a large data cap) is prohibitively expensive for much of the population. For example, in India, the median annual per capita purchasing power parity (PPP) is $3,608 according to the International Monetary Fund. For those that don't know, PPP is a way of measuring the relative value of currencies, accounting for things like cost of living. If you had to live on $3,500 a year, I doubt a smartphone data plan would be high on your list of must-haves.
The unfortunate truth is that Firefox OS just doesn't offer anything that consumers in developed markets want. Nor anything those in emerging markets need.
Mozilla's CEO Gary Kovacs shared a stage at some point with his counterparts at Ooredoo (formerly Qtel) and Bharti Airtel -- two operators that could find themselves carrying Firefox OS devices. But, while Dr. Nasser Marafih and Manoj Kohli spent significant time talking about the importance of increasing wireless broadband penetration during the shared keynote, they also harped on the importance of using available bandwidth efficiently. That does mean freeing up particular frequencies for 3G and 4G use, but it also means WiFi offloading and effectively managing data consumption on the device side. Nokia's Xpress Browser and Opera Mini do this through extensive use of compression that relies on a middleman server operated by those companies. It's not unthinkable that Firefox OS could use a similar technique on its "apps" but we've heard nothing about it or the creation of the necessary infrastructure from Mozilla. And if the phone is going to literally be nothing more than a portal to the web, then it's going to be a tough sell for those that have to subsist on a very strict data diet.
The unfortunate truth is that Firefox OS just doesn't offer anything that consumers in developed markets want. Nor anything those in emerging markets need. Mozilla can tell us "the web is the ecosystem" or encourage us to "blaze your own path," but a budget Android handset does all the same things and more. During their shared keynote Kohli turned to Stephen Elop and told him he'd like to see $30 smartphones. If Firefox OS has any chance of succeeding, it will have to deliver a rock-solid browsing experience at prices near that and figure out a way to efficiently manage data consumption. Most importantly, it will need to learn the same lesson Apple and Facebook have -- HTML5 "apps" just don't cut it.
Despite what your feelings may be about Firefox OS, various OEMs and carriers are clearly content with having more options to explore. The latest outfit appears to be Sony's Mobile entity, which, earlier today, announced it had reached a multi-year deal with Telefónica that will "explore the development" of a device running Mozilla's novel operating system. What's more, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Head of Products Business Group, Bob Ishida, says Sony Mobile engineers are already working on a project with the new mobile OS on the block, adding that the eventual goal is to "bring a product to market in 2014." Now, whether we'll see higher-end slabs than some of the ones we've experienced thus far, well, dear readers, that remains to be seen.
Show full PR textSony Mobile and Telefónica reinforce partnership with multi-year commercial and technical collaboration
Telefonica to range Sony Mobile's 2013 Xperia portfolio including Xperia™ Z and Xperia™ Tablet Z
Telefónica establishes technical partnership with Sony Mobile to leverage opportunities with the new Firefox OS open source platform
25th February 2013, Barcelona, Spain - Telefónica and Sony Mobile Communications ("Sony Mobile") today reinforced the strength of their commercial partnership in a multi-year agreement that confirms the operator's ranging support for Sony Mobile's 2013 Xperia™ Android device portfolio, as well as laying out a joint technical collaboration to explore the development of a handset running Mozilla's Firefox OS open source mobile platform.
Sony Mobile and Telefónica are long-term partners and Sony Mobile has in the past year steadily grown its portfolio of premium Android-based smartphones available on the Telefónica network, including the Xperia™ T - aka 'The Bond phone' and now the acclaimed Xperia™ Z smartphone and Xperia™ Tablet Z. Under the terms of the agreement, Telefónica and Sony Mobile will further strengthen their partnership and investigate emerging technologies such as the Firefox OS platform to extend Sony's premium product portfolio to a wider customer base.
"At Sony Mobile we continue to evaluate innovative technologies that can help deliver the premium user experiences that Sony's consumers expect," said Bob Ishida, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Head of Products Business Group, Sony Mobile Communications. "Our engineers are now working with Firefox OS Mobile and HTML5, evolving technologies which show great potential. In addition, we continue to work with our operator partners, including Telefónica, on a development project with an ambition to bring a product to market in 2014."
"Sony's Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z are stunning devices that really raise the bar when it comes to the premium smartphone and tablet segment- and we're delighted to be partnering to bring these to market across a number of our global channels," commented Marieta del Rivero, Group Devices Director, Telefónica. "As well as the great opportunity we have in 2013, our further collaboration around a possible device on the Firefox OS mobile platform will create the opportunity to reach new segments of the market, allowing us to provide an even wider choice of premium Sony device offerings for our customers."
Firefox OS marks a significant milestone for the industry, enabling for the first time devices to be manufactured to totally open web standards. It will provide customers with a rich, open and dynamic smartphone experience.
Via: The Next Web
Source: Telef?nica
The final version of Firefox 19 may have just left the den, but the Mozilla team are already hard at work on the beta version of Firefox 20, which just came out for Android today. Notable new features include a new per-tab private browsing feature that lets you alternate between normal and private tabs within the same session, customizable shortcuts for the home screen and support for additional ARMv6 devices. The browser also now supports lower-end phones with the minimum requirements of a 600MHz processor, 384MB memory and a QVGA display, which includes devices like the Samsung Galaxy Pop and the HTC Aria. Curious? Check out the release notes at the source, or if you're willing to tread those risky beta waters, just download it right now from Google Play.
Source: Mozilla Blog, Firefox Beta (Google Play), Firefox Beta mobile notes
ZTE's plans for this year's Mobile World Congress just got a little more interesting. While we've already taken a look at the huge Grand Memo in action, the Chinese maker's invite suggests that there will be another "major new mobile device" to show us, throwing in a 'ZTEMozilla' hashtag for good measure. We knew that Mozilla and ZTE have been holding hands for a while, and this serves to confirm mutterings that we'd see some Firefox OS hardware early this year -- although there's no hint of that mysterious European carrier just yet. Hold on, Barcelona. We're coming.
Show full PR textZTE – Life is Grand
Mobile Devices Global Media Launch – MWC 2013
ZTE would like to invite you to the announcement of two major new mobile devices at MWC 2013. To whet your appetite – the hashtags for the announcements will be:
#ZTEGrandMemo
#ZTEMozilla
Mozilla has released a new beta version of Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux that adds a number of new features to the popular web browser. Firefox 18 beta includes, among other things, improvements to make JavaScript web apps and games perform more smoothly thanks to a new compiler called IonMonkey.
IonMonkey has been in development for some time now. In layman’s terms, it provides a more efficient way for Firefox to process JavaScript and is able to run new optimizations that simply aren’t possible with JagerMonkey. It can also quickly emit native code translations of JavaScript functions on ARM, 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.
Download: Firefox 18 Beta (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Those running a Mac will be happy to know that Firefox 18 now supports Apple’s Retina Display. This of course will make virtually everything you do on the web look significantly better on a supporting panel.
There’s also a built-in PDF viewer that works across all platforms and standard support for W3C touch events. Those interested in security features may want to take note that you can now disable insecure content on HTTPS secure websites through the about:config menu.
The full change log has been republished below for your convenience.
NEW: Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up.NEW: Preliminary support for WebRTC.NEW: Built-in PDF viewer.CHANGED: Experience better image quality with our new HTML scaling algorithm.CHANGED: Performance improvements around tab switching.DEVELOPER: CSS3 Flexbox implemented.DEVELOPER: Support for new DOM property window.devicePixelRatio.DEVELOPER: Support for @supports added.DEVELOPER: Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates.HTML5: Support for W3C touch events impemented, taking the place of MozTouch events.FIXED: Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages.FIXED: Improved responsiveness for users on proxies.Interested parties can download the new beta browser by clicking here.
Firefox OS Simulator offers a first look at the mobile OS Mozilla let loose its first preview build of the mobile Firefox OS, allowing developers to begin testing their apps and inching the system closer to a public launch.
Firefox OS Simulator is available as an add-on to the Firefox browser, taking away the hurdle of developers requiring a compatible handset.
Launching the Firefox OS Simulator opens a new window complete with a lock screen and a simulated home button where installed apps can be tested as if a user is running a mobile device.
The simulator is in its early 1.0 version, and will continue to update as Mozilla works on the OS itself. However, the preview build should be enough for developers to get their feet wet for building apps compatible with Firefox OS.
Mozilla also has an update ready for Firefox browser users to allow per-window private browsing.
The per-window private browsing is a complete, from-scratch redesign of Firefox's private browsing mode, which now allows users to open a new private window without losing any existing Firefox windows.
Users can even right click on any link and choose to open the page in a private browser window using the feature.
Because it's a complete overhaul of the existing private browsing system and possibly still has some stability issues, the feature is only available right now for users with the experimental Nightly version of Firefox.
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We knew it was en route, and now developers anxious to try out potential apps for Firefox OS can finally get to cracking without the need to source any additional hardware. The 1.0 build of the Firefox OS Simulator enables devs to test their programs for the outfit's new mobile OS without having to find a compatible phone. Mozilla's calling this a "preview" for now -- given that Firefox OS itself is still in development -- but it's still an exciting launch for those who've been waiting patiently to get their code dirty. Moreover, the company is bringing per-window private browsing to Firefox, though it's being reserved for the experimental Nightly versions of Firefox until it's stable enough to hit the release channels. Head on over to the source links for more, or pop past the break for a video demonstration.
when.eng("eng.perm.init")
It appears Mozilla has quietly toe-tagged 64-bit builds of its Firefox browser for Windows. In a Google Groups discussion, managing engineer Benjamin Smedberg requested coders halt development on nightly builds of its 64-bit Windows distribution.
Mozilla's reasons to end 64-bit flavors of Firefox are numerous: limited plug-in availability, more frequent hang-ups and performance issues, stability problems due in part to a niche user/developer base, difficulty distinguishing between 32-bit and 64-bit bug reports and a general feeling that 64-bit users are second-class.
There was a five-day lapse between the question's proposal and the subsequent confirmation which affirmed the demise of Firefox's more futuristic alter ego. During this time, thread participants issued a number of mixed replies both for and against the decision.
One user said, "I agree whole-heartedly about switching off Win64 Nightly builds - crash-stats are just the tip of the iceberg.", linking to this discussion which spells out some of the troubles developers and users have been experiencing with x64 builds. Another user suggested, "How about you fix the problems instead?" -- the assumption being if Mozilla focused on 64-bit development, those supposed issues would no longer be a reason for the organization to eviscerate the project.
Since Smedberg's proposal specifically called out Firefox builds for Windows, 64-bit development appears to be safe for other platforms, like Linux -- for now. If it were to be canned for Linux users though, a x64 build of Chromium seems like the best alternative for 64-bit purists.
It's interesting to note that although Firefox alternatives like Internet Explorer and Opera offer 64-bit browsers, Google Chrome remains exclusively 32-bit for Windows. By virtue of being 32-bit, Firefox is limited to 2GB of memory usage -- one of the benefits to being 64-bit is access to more physical RAM. Unlike Mozilla's browser, Chrome runs each tab as its own process. This trick allows Chrome to gracefully surpass the 2GB limit without having to be 64-bit.
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