Paul McLanahan: The State of Mozilla.org - February 2015 |
Hello all! It's already been a month since last we spoke and much has happened! Let's get to it.
Note: It appears that monthly will be a better schedule for these than every 2 weeks, at least for me. I'll try to keep to that. Please call me out if I fail.
February is always a busy month for we developers in the Engagement team, at least since Mozilla broke into the mobile world with Fennec and Firefox OS. This is because the first of March is Mobile World Congress (MWC) time, and it's always a scramble to get things done in time. I concentrate mostly on the server side of the Web, but my colleagues in Web Prod who deal in HTML, CSS, and JS were more than a little busy. They launched a new page for MWC, a new Firefox OS main page, a new consolidated nav for all of that, and updates to various other FxOS related pages to support announcements. It was a herculean effort, the results are amazing, and I'm more than a little proud to work with them all. Special thanks to our new staff-member teammate Schalk Neethling for going way above and beyond to get it all done.
Also, long time friend of mozilla.org Craig Cook knocked out a refresh of the Mozilla Leadership page. Nice work Craig!
Not only all of that, but February saw a major overhaul of how bedrock handles static assets (CSS, LESS, JS, Fonts, Images, etc.). It's all part of the plan. There's more to come.
With these new toys came the ability to generate what are called "Immutable Files". This means that the system will now copy all static files to new filenames that include the md5 hash of the file contents. This means that the file name (e.g. site.4d72c30b1a11.js) will always necessarily refer to the same contents. The advantage of this is that we can set the cache headers to basically never expire. Any time the file content changes, the generated file name will be different and cached separately.
We're also generating gzipped versions of all files at deploy time. Whitenoise will see that these files exist (e.g. site.4d72c30b1a11.js.gz) and serve up the compressed version when the browser says it can handle it (and nearly all can these days). This is good because this is no longer happening at request time in Apache, thus reducing load, and we can use better and slower compression since it's happening outside of the request process.
Much more happened, but I'm loath to make this much longer. Skim the git log below for the full list.
Even more new contributors! HOORAY!
Thank you all for your contributions to bedrock and the Open Web \o/
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Armen Zambrano: How to generate allthethings.json |
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/armenzg_mozilla/~3/_3-Sanw88Gw/how-to-generate-allthethingsjson.html
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Air Mozilla: Martes mozilleros |
Reuni'on bi-semanal para hablar sobre el estado de Mozilla, la comunidad y sus proyectos.
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Florian Qu`eze: Mozilla not accepted for Google Summer of Code 2015 |
http://blog.queze.net/post/2015/03/03/Mozilla-not-accepted-for-Google-Summer-of-Code-2015
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Daniel Stenberg: curl: embracing github more |
Pull requests and issues filed on github are most welcome!
The curl project has been around for a long time by now and we’ve been through several different version control systems. The most recent switch was when we switched to git from CVS back in 2010. We were late switchers but then we’re conservative in several regards.
When we switched to git we also switched to github for the hosting, after having been self-hosted for many years before that. By using github we got a lot of services, goodies and reliable hosting at no cost. We’ve been enjoying that ever since.
However, as we have been a traditional mailing list driving project for a long time, I have previously not properly embraced and appreciated pull requests and issues filed at github since they don’t really follow the old model very good.
Just very recently I decided to stop fighting those methods and instead go with them. A quick poll among my fellow team mates showed no strong opposition and we are now instead going full force ahead in a more github embracing style. I hope that this will lower the barrier and remove friction for newcomers and allow more people to contribute easier.
As an effect of this, I would also like to encourage each and everyone who is interested in this project as a user of libcurl or as a contributor to and hacker of libcurl, to skip over to the curl github home and press the ‘watch’ button to get notified and future requests and issues that appear.
We also offer this helpful guide on how to contribute to the curl project!
http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2015/03/03/curl-embracing-github-more/
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Byron Jones: happy bmo push day! |
the following changes have been pushed to bugzilla.mozilla.org:
discuss these changes on mozilla.tools.bmo.
https://globau.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/happy-bmo-push-day-129/
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Chris Double: Firefox Media Source Extensions Update |
This is an update on some recent work on the Media Source Extensions API in Firefox. There has been a lot of work done on MSE and the underlying media framework by Gecko developers and this update just covers some of the telemetry and exposed debug data that I’ve been involved with implementing.
Mozilla has a telemetry system to get data on how Firefox behaves in the real world. We’ve added some MSE video stats to telemetry to help identify usage patterns and possible issues.
Bug 1119947 added information on what state an MSE video is in when the video is unloaded. The intent of this is to find out if users are exiting videos due to slow buffering or seeking. The data is available on telemetry.mozilla.org under the VIDEO_MSE_UNLOAD_STATE category. This has five states:
0 = ended, 1 = paused, 2 = stalled, 3 = seeking, 4 = other
The data provides a count of the number of times a video was unloaded for each state. If a large number of users were exiting during the stalled state then we might have an issue with videos stalling too often. Looking at current stats on beta 37 we see about 3% unloading on stall with 14% on ended and 57% on other. The ‘other’ represents unloading during normal playback.
Bug 1127646 will add additional data to get:
This will be useful for determining performance of MSE for sites like YouTube. The bug is going through the review/comment stage and when landed the data will be viewable at telemetry.mozilla.org.
While developing the Media Source Extensions support in Firefox we found it useful to have a page displaying internal debug data about active MSE videos.
In particular it was good to be able to get a view of what buffered data the MSE JavaSript API had and what our internal Media Source C++ code stored. This helped track down issues involving switching buffers, memory size of resources and other similar things.
The internal data is displayed in an about:media page. Originally the page was hard coded in the browser but :gavin suggested moving it to an addon. The addon is now located at https://github.com/doublec/aboutmedia. That repository includes the aboutmedia.xpi which can be installed directly in Firefox. Once installed you can go to about:media to view data on any MSE videos.
To test this, visit a video that has MSE support in a nightly build with the about:config preferences media.mediasource.enabled and media.mediasource.mp4.enabled set to true. Let the video play for a short time then visit about:media in another tab. You should see something like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V7wWemZ_cs
mediasource:https://www.youtube.com/6b23ac42-19ff-4165-8c04-422970b3d0fb
currentTime: 101.40625
SourceBuffer 0
start=0 end=14.93043
SourceBuffer 1
start=0 end=15
Internal Data:
Dumping data for reader 7f9d85ef1800:
Dumping Audio Track Decoders: - mLastAudioTime: 7.732243
Reader 1: 7f9d75cba800 ranges=[(10.007800, 14.930430)] active=false size=79880
Reader 0: 7f9d85e88000 ranges=[(0.000000, 10.007800)] active=false size=160246
Dumping Video Track Decoders - mLastVideoTime: 7.000000
Reader 1: 7f9d75cbd800 ranges=[(10.000000, 15.000000)] active=false size=184613
Reader 0: 7f9d85985000 ranges=[(0.000000, 10.000000)] active=false size=1281914The first portion of the displayed data shows the JS API video of the data buffered:
currentTime: 101.40625
SourceBuffer 0
start=0 end=14.93043
SourceBuffer 1
start=0 end=15This shows two SourceBuffer objects. One containing data from 0-14.9 seconds and the other 0-15 seconds. One of these will be video data and the other audio. The currentTime attribute of the video is 101.4 seconds. Since there is no buffered data for this range the video is likely buffering. I captured this data just after seeking while it was waiting for data from the seeked point.
The second portion of the displayed data shows information on the C++ objects implementing media source:
Dumping data for reader 7f9d85ef1800:
Dumping Audio Track Decoders: - mLastAudioTime: 7.732243
Reader 1: 7f9d75cba800 ranges=[(10.007800, 14.930430)] active=false size=79880
Reader 0: 7f9d85e88000 ranges=[(0.000000, 10.007800)] active=false size=160246
Dumping Video Track Decoders - mLastVideoTime: 7.000000
Reader 1: 7f9d75cbd800 ranges=[(10.000000, 15.000000)] active=false size=184613
Reader 0: 7f9d85985000 ranges=[(0.000000, 10.000000)] active=false size=1281914A reader is an instance of the MediaSourceReader C++ class. That reader holds two SourceBufferDecoder C++ instances. One for audio and the other for video. Looking at the video decoder it has two readers associated with it. These readers are instances of a derived class of MediaDecoderReader which are tasked with the job of reading frames from a particular video format (WebM, MP4, etc).
The two readers each have buffered data ranging from 0-10 seconds and 10-15 seconds. Neither are ‘active’. This means they are not currently the video stream used for playback. This will be because we just started a seek. You can view how buffer switching works by watching which of these become active as the video plays. The size is the amount of data in bytes that the reader is holding in memory. mLastVideoTime is the presentation time of the last processed video frame.
MSE videos will have data evicted as they are played. This size threshold for eviction defaults to 75MB and can be changed with the media.mediasource.eviction_threshold variable in about:config. When data is appended via the appendBuffer method on a SourceBuffer an eviction routine is run. If data greater than the threshold is held then we start removing portions of data held in the readers. This will be noticed in about:media by the start and end ranges being trimmed or readers being removed entirely.
This internal data is most useful for Firefox media developers. If you encounter stalls playing videos or unusual buffer switching behaviour then copy/pasting the data from about:media in a bug report can help with tracking the problem down. If you are developing an MSE player then the information may also be useful to find out why the Firefox implementation may not be behaving how you expect.
The source of the addon is on github and relies on a chrome only debug method, mozDebugReaderData on MediaSource. Patches to improve the data and functionality are welcome.
Media Source Extensions is still in progress in Firefox and can be tested on Nightly, Aurora and Beta builds. The current plan is to enable support limited to YouTube only in Firefox 37 on Windows and Mac OS X for MP4 videos. Other platforms, video formats and wider site usage will be enabled in future versions as the implementation improves.
To track work on the API you can follow the MSE bug in Bugzilla.
http://bluishcoder.co.nz/2015/03/03/firefox-media-source-extensions-update.html
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Geoffrey MacDougall: Infographic: Contribution & Fundraising in 2014 |
2013 was an amazing year. Which is why I’m especially proud of what we accomplished in 2014.
We doubled our small dollar performance. We tripled our donor base. We met our target of 10,000 volunteer contributors. And we matched our exceptional grant performance.
We also launched our first, large-scale advocacy campaign, playing a key role in the Net Neutrality victory.
But best of all is that close to 100 Mozillians share the credit for pulling this off.
Here’s to 2015 and to Mozilla continuing to find its voice and identity as a dynamic non-profit.
A big thank you to everyone who volunteered, gave, and made it happen.
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Rizky Ariestiyansyah: March Application Curation Board Task |
Have you visited Marketplace lately to app nominations in the spotlight? We just refreshed the ever-present “Mozillia Communites” apps collection. And a lot of apps populate the recent “Cats” and “Outer Space Collections” collections, this time we are move move and move to prepare next month featured application on Firefox Marketplace.
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Emma Irwin: Webmaker Exploratory |
Two years ago I proposed a Webmaker Club at my daughter’s school, and it was turned down in an email:
Because it involves students putting (possibly) personal info/images on-line we are not able to do the club at this time. They did say that they may have to reconsider in the future because more and more of life is happening on-line.
One year later, and because our principle is amazing, and sponsored it – I had a ‘lunch time’ Webmaker Club at my daughter’s elementary school (grades 4 & 5) . It was great fun, I learned a lot as always thanks to challenges : handling the diversity of attendance, interests and limited time. I never get tired of helping kids ‘make the thing they are imagining’.
This year, I was excited to be invited to lead a Webmaker ‘Exploratory’ in our town’s middle school (grades 6-8). Exciting on so many levels, but two primarily
1) Teachers and schools are recognizing the need for web literacy (and its absence), and that it should be offered as part of primary education.
2) Schools are putting faith in community partnerships to teach. At least this is what it feels like to me – pairing a technically-strong teacher, with a community expert in coding/web (whatever) is a winning situation.
My exploratory ran for 7 weeks – we started with 28 kids, and lost a few to other exploratories as they realized that HTML (for example) wasn’t something they wanted to learn. Of those 28 kids, only 3 were girls, which made me sad. I really have to figure out better messaging. We covered the basics of HTML, CSS and then JavaScript and slowly built a Memory Card game. Each week I started the class off with a Thimble Template representing a stage in the ‘building’.
Week3, Week4, Week5, Week6, Week7
I wrote specific instructions for each week that we tracked on a wiki, we used Creative Commons Image Search and talked about our digital footprint.
Having an ‘example make’ of the milestone for this class where each week kids could see, in advance what they were making.
Having a ‘starting template‘ for the lesson helped those kids who missed a class, catch up quickly.
Being flexible about that template, meant those kids who preferred to work on their own single ‘make’ could still challenge themselves a bit more.
Baked-In Web Literacy CC image search brought up conversations about ownership, sharing on the web and using a Wiki led to discussion about how Wikimedia editing and editors build content; about participating in open communities.
Sending my teacher-helper the curriculum a few days before, so she could prepare as a mentor.
Having some ‘other activities’ in my back pocket for kids who got bored, or finished early. These were just things like check out this ‘hour of code tutorial’.
We were sharing a space with the ‘year book’ team, who also used the internet, and sometimes our internet was moving slower than a West Coast Banana Slug. In our class ‘X Ray Goggles’ challenge, kids sat for long periods of time before being able to do much. Some also had challenges saving/publishing their X Ray Goggles Make.
Week 2, To get around slow internet – I brought everyone USB sticks and taught them to work locally – this also was a bit of a fail, as I realized many in the group didn’t know simple terms like ‘directory and folder’. I made a wrong assumption they had this basic knowledge. Also I should have collected USB sticks after class, because most lost or damaged in the care of students. We went back to slow internet – although, it was never as bad as that first day.
Having only myself and one teacher with that many kids meant we were running between kids. Also slightly unfair to the teacher who was learning along with the group. It also sometimes meant kids waited too long for help.
Not all kids liked the game we were making
So overall I think it went well, we had some wonderful kids, I was proud of all of them. The final outcome/learning, the sponsoring teacher, and I realized was that many of the lessons (coding, wikipedia, CC) could easily fit into any class project – rather than having Webmaking as it’s ‘own class’.
So in future, that may be the next way I participate: as someone who comes into say – a social studies class, or history class and helps students put together a project on the web. Perhaps that’s how community can offer their help to teachers in schools, as a way to limit large commitments like running an entire program, but to have longer-lasting and embedding impact in schools.
For the remainder of the year, and next – my goal seems to be as a ‘Webmaker Plugin’ , helping integrate web literacy into existing class projects :)
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Jared Wein: An update on my mentoring program |
Today is the start of the third week of the mentoring program.
Since the start of the program, four bugs have been marked fixed:
Also, the following bugs are in progress and look like they should be ready for review soon:
The bugs currently being worked on are:
I was hoping to have 8-9 bugs fixed by this time, but I’m happy with four bugs fixed and two bugs being pretty close. Bug 967319 in the “being worked on” section is also close, but still needs work with tests before it can be ready for review.
https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/an-update-on-my-mentoring-program/
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Anthony Hughes: Improving Recognition |
I’ve been hearing lately that Mozilla QA’s recognition story kind of sucks with some people going completely unrecognized for their efforts. Frankly, this is embarrassing!
Some groups have had mild success attempting to rectify this problem but not all groups share in this success. Some of us are still struggling to retain contributors due to lack of recognition; a problem which becomes harder to solve as QA becomes more decentralized.
As much as it pains me to admit it, the Testdays program is one of these areas. I’ve blogged, emailed, and tweeted about this but despite my complaining, things really haven’t improved. It’s time for me to take some meaningful action.
We need to get a better understanding of our recognition story if we’re ever to improve it. We need to understand what we’re doing well (or not) and what people value so that we can try to bridge the gaps. I have some general ideas but I’d like to get feedback from as many voices as possible and not move forward based on personal assumptions.
I want to hear from you. Whether you currently contribute or have in the past. Whether you’ve written code, ran some tests, filed some bugs, or if you’re still learning. I want to hear from everyone.
Look, I’m here admitting we can do better but I can’t do that without your help. So please, help me.
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Daniel Glazman: Adobe Edge Reflow anyone? |
I received this morning a message from the Adobe Edge Reflow prerelease forum that triggered my interest. I must admit I did not really follow what happened there during the last twelve months for many various reasons... But this morning, it was different. In short, the author had questions about the fate of Edge Reflow, in particular because of the deep silence of that forum...
Adobe announced Edge Reflow in Q3 2012 I think. It followed the announcement of Edge Code a while ago. Reflow was aimed at visual responsive design in a new, cool, interactive desktop application with mobile and photoshop links. The first public preview was announced in February 2013 and a small community of testers and contributors gathered around the Adobe prerelease fora. Between January 2013 and now, roughly 1300 messages were sent there.
Reflow is a html5/JS app turned into a desktop application through the magic of CEF. It has a very cool and powerful UI, superior management of simple Media Queries, excellent management of colors, backgrounds, layers, magnetic grids and more. All in all, a very promising application for Web Authoring.
But the last available build of Reflow, again through the prerelease web site, is only a 0.57.17154 and it is now 8 months old. After 2 years and a half, Reflow is still not here and there are reasons to worry.
First, the team (the About dialog lists more than 20 names...) seems to have vanished and almost nothing new has been contributed/posted to Reflow in the last six to eight months.
Second, the application still suffers from things I identified as rather severe issues early on: the whole box model of the application is based on CSS floats and is then not in line with what modern web designers are looking for. Eh, it's not even using absolute positioning... It also means it's going to be rather complicated to adapt it to grids and flexbox, not even mentioning Regions...
Reflow also made the choice to generate Web pages instead of editing Web pages... It means projects are saved in a proprietary format and only exported to html and CSS. It's impossible to take an existing Web page and open it in Reflow to edit it. In a world of Web Design that sees authors use heterogeneous environments, I considered that as a fatal mistake. I know - trust me, I perfectly know - that making html the pivot format of Reflow would have implied some major love and a lot, really a lot of work. But not doing it meant that Edge Reflow had to be at the very beginning of the editorial chain, and that seemed to me an unbearable market restriction.
Then there was the backwards compatibility issue. Simply put, how does one migrate Dreamweaver templates to Reflow? Short answer, you can't...
I suspect Edge Reflow is now at least on hold, more probably stopped. More than 2 years and still no 1.0 on such an application that should have seen a 1.0beta after six to eight months is not a good sign anyway. After Edge Code that became Brackets in november 2014, that raises a lot of question on the Edge concept and product line. Edge Animate seems to be still maintained at Adobe (there's our old Netscape friend Kin Blas in the list of credits) but I would not be surprised if the name is changed in the future.
Too bad. I was, in the beginning, really excited by Edge Reflow. I suspect we won't hear about it again.
http://www.glazman.org/weblog/dotclear/index.php?post/2015/03/02/Adobe-Edge-Reflow-anyone
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Henrik Skupin: Firefox Automation report – week 51/52 2014 |
In this post you can find an overview about the work happened in the Firefox Automation team during week 51 and 52 of 2014. I’m sorry for this very late post but changes to our team, which I will get to in my next upcoming post, caught me up with lots of more work and didn’t give me the time for writing status reports.
Henrik started work towards a Mozmill 2.1 release. Therefore he had to upgrade a couple of mozbase packages first to get latest Mozmill code on master working again. Once done the patch for handling parent sections in manifest files finally landed, which was originally written by Andrei Eftimie and was sitting around for a while. That addition allows us to use mozhttpd for serving test data via a local HTTP server. Last but not least another important feature went in, which let us better handle application disconnects. There are still some more bugs to fix before we can actually release version 2.1 of Mozmill.
Given that we only have the capacity to fix the most important issues for the Mozmill test framework, Henrik started to mass close existing bugs for Mozmill. So only a hand-full of bugs will remain open. If there is something important you want to see fixed, we would encourage you to start working on the appropriate bug.
For Mozmill CI we got the new Ubuntu 14.10 boxes up and running in our staging environment. Once we can be sure they are stable enough, they will also be enabled in production.
For more granular updates of each individual team member please visit our weekly team etherpad for week 51 and week 52.
If you are interested in further details and discussions you might also want to have a look at the meeting agenda, the video recording, and notes from the Firefox Automation meeting of week 51 and week 52.
http://www.hskupin.info/2015/03/02/firefox-automation-report-week-51-52-2014/
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Mozilla Open Policy & Advocacy Blog: CISA threatens Internet security and undermines user trust |
Protecting the privacy of users and the information collected about them online is crucial to maintaining and growing a healthy and open Web. Unfortunately, there have been massive threats that weaken our ability to create the Web that we want to see. The most notable and recent example of this is the expansive surveillance practices of the U.S. government that were revealed by Edward Snowden. Even though it has been nearly two years since these revelations began, the U.S. Congress has failed to pass any meaningful surveillance reform, and is about to consider creating new surveillance authorities in the form of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.
We opposed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act in 2012 – as did a chorus of privacy advocates, information security professionals, entrepreneurs, and leading academics, with the President ultimately issuing a veto threat. We believe the newest version of CISA is worse in many respects, and that the bill fundamentally undermines Internet security and user trust.
CISA is promoted as facilitating the sharing of cyber threat information, but:
The lack of meaningful provisions requiring companies to strip out personal information before sharing with the government, problematic on its own, is made more egregious by the realtime sharing, data retention, lack of limitations, and sweeping permitted uses envisioned in the bill.
Unnecessary and harmful sharing of personal information is a very real and avoidable consequence of this bill. Even in those instances where sharing information for cybersecurity purposes is necessary, there is no reason to include users’ personal information. Threat indicators rarely encompass such details. Furthermore, it’s not a difficult or onerous process to strip out personal information before sharing. In the exceptional cases where personal information is relevant to the threat indicator, those details would be so relevant to mitigating the threat at hand that blanket immunity from liability for sharing would not be necessary.
We believe Congress should focus on reining in the NSA’s sweeping surveillance authority and practices. Concerns around information sharing are at best a small part of the problem that needs to be solved in order to secure the Internet and its users.
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2015/03/02/mozilla-statement-on-cisa/
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Daniel Stenberg: More HTTP framing attempts |
Previously, in my exciting series “improving the HTTP framing checks in Firefox” we learned that I landed a patch, got it backed out, struggled to improve the checks and finally landed the fixed version only to eventually get that one backed out as well.
And now I’ve landed my third version. The amendment I did this time:
When receiving HTTP content that is content-encoded and compressed I learned that when receiving deflate compression there is basically no good way for us to know if the content gets prematurely cut off. They seem to lack the footer too often for it to make any sense in checking for that. gzip streams however end with a footer so they are easier to reliably detect when they are incomplete. (As was discovered before, the Content-Length: is far too often not updated by the server so it is instead wrongly showing the uncompressed size.)
This (deflate vs gzip) knowledge is now used by the patch, meaning that deflate compressed downloads can be cut off without the browser noticing…
Will this version of the fix actually stick? I don’t know. There’s lots of bad voodoo out there in the HTTP world and I’m putting my finger right in the middle of some of it with this change. I’m pretty sure I’ve not written my last blog post on this topic just yet… If it sticks this time, it should show up in Firefox 39.
http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2015/03/02/more-http-framing-attempts/
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This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 72 |
Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a systems language pursuing the trifecta: safety, concurrency, and speed. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Send me an email! Want to get involved? We love contributions.
This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub. If you find any errors or omissions in this week's issue, please submit a PR.
135 pull requests were merged in the last week, and 1 RFC PR.
Now you can follow breaking changes as they happen!
Self:Sized to be object safe.T::Item based on bounds that appear in where clauses.Mysteriously, during the week of February 23 to March 1 there were no RFCs approved to The Rust Language.
std::thread_local::* into std::thread.as_mut_vec from String."I must kindly ask that you please not go around telling people to disregard the rules of our community. Violations of Rule #6 will absolutely not be tolerated."
kibwen is serious about upholding community standards.
should_fail; irc; error codes; type ascription; triage.If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Email Erick Tryzelaar or Brian Anderson for access.
http://this-week-in-rust.org/blog/2015/03/02/this-week-in-rust-72/
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The Mozilla Blog: Firefox OS Proves Flexibility of Web: Ecosystem Expands with More Partners, Device Categories and Regions in 2015 |
Orange to bring Firefox OS to 13 new markets in Africa and Middle East; Mozilla, KDDI, LG U+, Telef'onica and Verizon collaborate on new category of phones based on Firefox OS
Barcelona, Spain – Mobile World Congress – March 1st, 2015 – Mozilla, the mission-based organization dedicated to keeping the power of the Web in people’s hands, welcomed new partners and devices to the Firefox OS ecosystem at an event in Barcelona, leading into Mobile World Congress.
Mozilla President Li Gong summarized the status of Firefox OS, which currently scales across devices ranging from the world’s most affordable smartphone to 4K Ultra HD TVs. “Two years ago Firefox OS was a promise. At MWC 2014, we were able to show that Firefox OS scales across price ranges and form factors. Today, at MWC 2015, we celebrate dozens of successful device launches across continents, adoption of Firefox OS beyond mobile, as well as growing interest and innovation around the only truly open mobile platform. Also, we are proud to report that three major chip vendors contribute to the Firefox OS ecosystem.”
Firefox OS MWC 2015 News in Detail:
• Mozilla, KDDI, LG U+, Telefonica and Verizon Wireless collaborate to create a new category of intuitive and easy to use Firefox OS phones: The companies are collaborating to contribute to the Mozilla community and create a new range of Firefox OS phones for a 2016 launch in various form factors – flips, sliders and slates – that balance the simplicity of a basic phone (calls, texts) with the more advanced features of a smartphone such as fun applications, content, navigation, music players, camera, video, LTE, VoLTE, email and Web browsing. For more details and supporting quotes see blog.mozilla.org.
• Orange announces bringing Firefox OS to 13 markets as part of a new digital offer: Today, Orange puts the mobile Internet within reach of millions more people, otherwise not previously addressed, with the launch of a new breakthrough digital offer across its significant African and Middle Eastern footprint. The Orange Klif digital offer starts from under US$40 (€35), inclusive of data, voice and text bundle and sets a new benchmark in price that will act as a major catalyst for smartphone and data adoption across the region. The 3G Firefox OS smartphone is exclusive to Orange and will be available from Q2 in 13 of Orange’s markets in the region, including, but not limited to, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, The Ivory Coast, Jordan, Niger, Kenya, Mauritius and Vanuatu.
ALCATEL ONETOUCH collaborates with Orange and announced more details on the new phone today:
• ALCATEL ONETOUCH expands mobile internet access with the newest Firefox OS phone, the Orange Klif. The Orange Klif offers connectivity speeds of up to 21 Mbps, is dual SIM, and includes a two-megapixel camera and micro-SD slot. The addition of the highly optimised Firefox OS meanwhile allows for truly seamless Web browsing experiences, creating a powerful Internet-ready package.
The Orange Klif is the first Firefox OS phone powered by a MediaTek processor.
• Mozilla revealed further details about upcoming versions of Firefox OS, among them: Improved performance and support of multi-core processors, enhanced privacy features, additional support for WebRTC, right to left language support and an NFC payments infrastructure.
• Earlier this week, KDDI Corporation announced an investment in Monohm, a US based provider of innovative IoT devices based on Firefox OS. Monohm’s first product “Runcible” will be showcased at the Mozilla booth at MWC 2015.
The Firefox OS ecosystem continues to expand with new partners and devices ranging from the line of Panasonic 4K Ultra HD TVs to the world’s most affordable smartphone:
“Just months ago, Cherry Mobile introduced the ACE, the first Firefox OS smartphone in the Philippines, which is also the most affordable smartphone in the world. We are excited that the ACE, which keeps gaining positive feedback in the market, is helping lots of consumers move from feature phones to smartphones. Through the close partnership with Mozilla Firefox OS, we will continue to bring more affordable quality mobile devices to consumers,” said Maynard Ngu, Cherry Mobile CEO.
With today’s announcements, Firefox OS will be available from leading operator partners in more than 40 markets in the next year on a total of 17 smartphones.
Firefox OS unlocks the power of the Web as the platform and will continue to expand across markets and device categories as we move forward the Internet of Things (IOT), using open Web technology to enable operators, hardware manufacturers and developers to create innovative and customized applications and products for consumers to use across these connected devices.
Creating Content for Mobile, on Mobile Devices
Mozilla today unveiled the beta version of Webmaker, a free and open source mobile content creation app, which strips away the complexity of traditional Web creation. Webmaker will be available for Android, Firefox OS, and via a modern mobile browser on other devices in over 20 languages later this year. For more info, please visit webmaker.org/localweb
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/03/01/firefox-os-proves-flexibility-of-web-ecosystem/
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The Mozilla Blog: Mozilla, KDDI, LG U+, Telef'onica and Verizon Wireless Collaborate to Create New Category of Firefox OS Phones |
New range of intuitive and easy-to-use phones to be powered by Firefox OS
Barcelona, Spain – Mobile World Congress – March 1, 2015
Mozilla, the mission based organization dedicated to keeping the power of the Web in people’s hands, together with KDDI, LG U+, Telef'onica and Verizon Wireless, today announced at Mobile World Congress a new initiative to create devices based on Firefox OS.
The goal of this initiative is to create a more intuitive and easy-to-use experience (powered by Firefox OS) for consumers around the world. The companies are collaborating to contribute to the Mozilla community and create a new range of Firefox OS phones for a 2016 launch in various form factors – flips, sliders and slates – that balance the simplicity of a basic phone (calls, texts) with the more advanced features of a smartphone such as fun applications, content, navigation, music players, camera, video, LTE, VoLTE, email and Web browsing.
Firefox OS was chosen as the platform for this initiative because it unlocks the mobile ecosystem and enables independence and innovation. This results in more flexibility for network operators and hardware manufacturers to provide a differentiated experience and explore new business ventures, while users get the performance, personalization and affordability they want packaged in a beautiful, clean and easy-to-use experience.
“By leveraging Firefox OS and the power of the Web, we are re-imagining and providing a modern platform for entry-level phones, said Li Gong, President of Mozilla. “We’re excited to work with operator partners like KDDI, LG U+, Telefonica and Verizon Wireless to reach new audiences in both emerging and developed markets and offer customers differentiated services.”
Yasuhide Yamamoto, Vice President, Product Sector at KDDI said “We have been gaining high attention from the market with Fx0, a high tier LTE based Firefox OS smartphone launched last December, and we have faith in the unlimited potential of Firefox OS. KDDI has been very competitive in the Japanese mature mobile phone market for decades, so we are confident that we can contribute to the Mozilla community in developing this new concept product.”
“Telef'onica is actively supporting Firefox OS, aligned with our strategy of bringing more options and more openness to our customers. Firefox OS smartphones are currently offered in 14 markets across our footprint and are helping to bring connectivity to more people who are looking for a reliable and simple user experience at affordable prices,” said Francisco Montalvo, Director, Telef'onica Group Devices Unit.
Rosemary McNally, Vice President, Device Technology at Verizon said “Verizon aims to deliver innovative new products to its customers, and this initiative is about creating a modern, simple and smart platform for basic phones. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Mozilla and other service providers to leverage the power of Firefox OS and the Web community.”
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About Mozilla
Mozilla has been a pioneer and advocate for the Web for more than 15 years. We create and promote open standards that enable innovation and advance the Web as a platform for all. Today, hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Mozilla Firefox to experience the Web on computers, tablets and mobile devices. With Firefox OS and Firefox Marketplace, Mozilla is driving a mobile ecosystem that is built entirely on open Web standards, freeing mobile providers, developers and end users from the limitations and restrictions imposed by proprietary platforms. For more information, visit www.mozilla.org.
About KDDI Corporation
KDDI, a comprehensive communications company offering fixed-line and mobile communications services, strives to be a leading company for changing times. For individual customers, KDDI offers its mobile communications (mobile phone) and fixed-line communications (broadband Internet/telephone) services under the brand name au, helping to realize Fixed Mobile and Broadcasting Convergence (FMBC). For business clients, KDDI provides comprehensive Information and Communications services, from Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) networks to data centers, applications, and security strategies, which helps clients strengthen their businesses. For more information please visit http://www.kddi.com/english.
About Telef'onica
Telef'onica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in terms of market capitalisation and number of customers. With its best in class mobile, fixed and broadband networks, and innovative portfolio of digital solutions, Telef'onica is transforming itself into a ‘Digital Telco’, a company that will be even better placed to meet the needs of its customers and capture new revenue growth. The company has a significant presence in 21 countries and a customer base of 341 million accesses around the world. Telef'onica has a strong presence in Spain, Europe and Latin America, where the company focuses an important part of its growth strategy. Telef'onica is a 100% listed company, with more than 1.5 million direct shareholders. Its share capital currently comprises 4,657,204,330 ordinary shares traded on the Spanish Stock Market and on those in London, New York, Lima, and Buenos Aires.
About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s largest and most reliable 4G LTE network. As the largest wireless company in the U.S., Verizon Wireless serves 108.2 million retail customers, including 102.1 million retail postpaid customers. Verizon Wireless is wholly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. For the latest news and updates about Verizon Wireless, visit our News Center at http://www.verizonwireless.com/news or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/VZWNews.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/03/01/new-category-of-firefox-os-phones/
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Pascal Finette: Link Pack (March 1st) |
What I was reading this week:
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