The BBC has just done an article on Firefox which is great but, as always has bought up the Google-Mozilla link. Google has a search engine plugin which, when some uses it, generates money by search advertising.
Mozilla also have search deals with Yahoo! as well which I see no mention of. However, they did cover Netscape, Microsoft’s little tiff with the United States DoJ about anti-competitive behavior.
Still they do include a video of Mozilla Europe President Tristan Nitot which is worth the read alone.
Mozilla’s mobile platform developer DougT has added a patch to a bug which would add an attribute to the MouseEvent property which would expose the amount of pressure applied to the touchscreen of an Internet enabled device, in this case, the Nokia N810.
As you can see in the video below, the screen reacts and displays pressure from both the stylus and finger pressure. The applications for this can be used for scrolling or on a display device etc…..
Adobe the famous owners of PDF, Macromedia suite, Flash and basically everything web design has now dropped their licensing fee’s in a bid to open up Flash to the mobile computing platform. One would assume this means both cellphones and Internet tablets etc…
The Open Screen Initiative AKA the Open Screen Project already has some high level backers including Nokia, Motorola, ARM, Samsung and LG along with Intel and Cisco systems. Also included is content partners such as the BBC, MTV and NBC. Flash by Adobe’s estimates has a install base of 98%, something even that Microsoft would be envious of given it’s 90% install base of all net connected PC’s.
There is also a broader aim with a view to expanding on Adobe’s AIR platform which faces competition from Microsoft’s Silverlight.
However the problem with both these platforms like Flash is that they are proprietary systems with vendor lock-in possibilities.
Back in 2006, Adobe gave the Mozilla Project access to its ActionScript JIT runtime engine (part of the Flash player and consequently part of Firefox 4.0) on the Tamarin Project contributing over 135,000 lines of code to the project itself.
But the only real viable options to keep the platform itself open is both the Gnash and the Prism projects (along with the Mobile project) which would allow for porting of the ActionScript engine itself to the Linux platform along with other open source implementations for local viewing of video files on the Internet on the mobile platform. This would allow for an open platform and would avoid the problem with vendor lock-in with open standards being employed and allowing for a richer user experience without the problem of not being to view the web itself without having some sort of Adobe product installed. Already we have seen open Operating Systems (GNU/Linux), open hardware architectures (the PC) and now we are seeing open mobile platforms (Maemo).
March 31 1998 for those of you that remember back that far is the date that the Mozilla Project launched officially. As Mitchell points out:
Today is a special day.
March 31, 1998 is the date that Mozilla was officially
launched. It’s the date the first Mozilla code became
publicly available under the terms of an official open source license
and a governing body for the project — the Mozilla Organization
— began its public work. It’s always been known
in Mozilla parlance as “3/31.” We’ll be
celebrating Mozilla’s 10 year anniversary throughout 2008
. Today I want to look at our first ten years, and a bit at
the next ten years.
Ten years ago a radical idea took shape. The idea was that an
open source community could create choice and innovation in key
Internet technologies where large, commercial vendors could
not. This idea took shape as the Mozilla project.
Oh an they mentioned him too.10 years ago, Mozilla.org kicked off, the MPL was incepted (currently at version 1.1), and the code base was opened up.
As an ex-Netscape (Mozilla Application Suite) user, I can honestly say that the past 10 years have definitely kicked ass. Happy 10th Birthday Mozilla, heres to another 10!
The latest release of beta of Firefox 3.0 has been released - Beta 4 the latest iteration of the open-source browser includes significant improvements relating to memory management and site security including better protection against JSON leaks including:
[Improved in Beta 4!] New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.
[Improved in Beta 4!] Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.
Full information is available from the beta 4 release notes.
Version 0.9 of the SSB Prism has just been released by Mozilla’s Mark Finkle along with a Firefox extension (3.0beta3 - 4 only) and includes the following features:
Pick an icon to represent a web app on the desktop: Prism can use the web app favicon or the user can pick a custom image to represent the web app.
Run each web app in its own profile: Prism now places each web app into its own process/profile so they don’t interfere with each other, which also makes it possible to install a web app twice and use it simultaneously with two different user accounts.
Badge the dock icon: Initial support for adding a badge to the desktop icon has been added. Currently, this can be done through a custom webapp.js file. We’re working on creating and reusing web standards to expose this to content without requiring custom scripts.
Flock 1.1 (based off the Mozilla Firefox 1.8 trunk) the infamous WebMail version with integration of Gmail and Yahoo! web-based E-mail services as well as Picasa photobook web albums integration as well. Automatic updates will be switched on to upgrade everyone from the 1.0.9 release to the 1.1 release in the next week.
Interesting side note: the trunk will be switched over to the Gecko 1.9 branch after Mozilla has completed Firefox 3.0 however, they have already begun work on the trunk.
This one is doing the rounds at the moment via Mozilla. There’s a t-shirt design contest with the prize of being the official Firefox 3.0 T-Shirt in the Mozilla Store (hopefully both the US/Canadian and the International one) as well as prize up for grabs. The deadline is for March 16th 11:59PM PST. The prizes are (along with submission guidelines):
“Your Reward:
1st Place Winner:
Worldwide recognition for designing the official Firefox 3 T-Shirt featured in the Mozilla Store.
A free Firefox 3 T-Shirt to show off your winning design.
$250 gift voucher to Amazon.com.
4 runners up:
A free Firefox 3 T-Shirt with the winning design.
A $50 gift voucher to Amazon.com.
Submission & Judging Criteria:
You can submit more than one design, but only one submission can qualify to the second round.
All designs must be print-ready, and created using a scalable vector graphics (SVG) program such as Adobe illustrator or Inkscape (an open-source SVG program).
Your design is printed on the front of the T-Shirt only and fitted
within a max area of 10” x 10” (25.4 cm x 25.4 cm). It
should not cover the sleeves or the seams.
Make sure to suggest a T-Shirt color to complement your design. The available T-Shirt colors can be found here.
Optional step:
If using Adobe programs, download the Photoshop “T-Shirt Design Template” file attached to this group post (scroll all the way down). You must right
click and “Save Link As” in order to download the file to your desktop.
Then open the file using Adobe Photoshop and add your design image to
the appropriate layer: Select a T-Shirt color from the base layers or
color palette layer, upload and add your SVG-based design to the
“YOUR DESIGN” layer.
If using a different program, you can download the alternative JPG
file “T-Shirt Design Template” to use for displaying your design. The
file is attached to this group post (scroll all the way down).
Save your file as a JPG or PNG image format and upload it into your Flickr account.
Tag your photo with the phrase “FF3 Tcontest”. This will allow
us to search for and pull your photo into a public image gallery.
Photos uploaded into this contest-specific group will qualify as a submission and reviewed by the Mozilla team.
Make sure your Flickr account is linked to an active email address;
this is the only means of contacting the finalists! You have 5 days
from the date of notification to get back to us with the necessary
documents to proceed to the next round.
Don’t forget, the submission deadline is Sunday March 16th 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST). Need some help with the time zone? Check out the Time Zone Converter and calculate the appropriate deadlines for your location.
First round judging:
An internal team at Mozilla will review the
submissions and the top 5 designs meeting all criteria will go to the
second round. Designs are evaluated using the following factors:
Concept / Originality
Effective communication of brand and Firefox 3
Completeness of design – must be ready for print
Visibility – eye-catching and visible from a reasonable distance
Legality
Feasibility
Second round judging:
The top 5 designers will be contacted through
Flickr to submit all eligibility documents, including the
high-resolution SVG design files via email.
The top 5 designs are re-posted online at the Mozilla Store website for voting.
Voting is worldwide and open to everyone. You choose the winner!
Design Guidelines:
We’re looking for a unique, creative design
that embodies the essence of Firefox 3. We know this is a challenging
task, so here are some thoughts to help guide you:
General Concepts:
We like to think that Firefox 3 will make the
Web better and more enjoyable for its users. So, you could focus on
themes that reflect the positive aspects of the Web as a whole (and
perhaps show Firefox’s connection to them) - things like innovation,
global community, collaboration, knowledge, fun, technology, etc.
Specific Concepts:
You could also focus on any of the specific
Firefox benefits as the basis for your concept. These include security,
customization, “100% organic software”, performance,
productivity and of course many more. See the Firefox messaging document for more inspiration.
We’d like to stress that your interpretation
of the above themes (or any others) does not have to be literal. The
back of the T-Shirt will contain the Firefox logo and the Get-Firefox URL,
so on the front you’re free to be as abstract as you’d like. For
example, you’re certainly welcome to use the Firefox logo again in your
art on the front but it’s by no means mandatory. Our top priority is to
find a great shirt design that in some way represents themes like the
ones mentioned above. Be creative and have fun!
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