Mozilla Labs’ Aza Raskin talks about the big picture for Ubiquity
Mozilla, the company behind the popular Firefox browser, just announced a very cool project that’s in the early stages of development — Ubiquity, a tool that allows users to access services like mapping, translation and search on any website. Earlier today, I had a chance to interview Mozilla Labs‘ head of user experience Aza Raskin about plans for Ubiquity, including a mobile version, improved usability and how Ubiquity could become a Star Trek-style supercomputer.
The interview… Continue Reading
Google Gears quietly launches beta test for Safari
Gears is an open source project run by Google which allows users to take online data offline via a web browser plug-in. It can, for example, allow you to read Google Reader feed items even when your computer is not connected to the Internet, and soon it will allow you to read your Gmail messages too. Unfortunately, thus far to use it you had to be running either Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox browsers…. Continue Reading
More Facebook executive musical chairs: Mozilla’s Shroepfer joins engineering; board changes happening?
Facebook has been looking for new engineering leaders for months. It just got one, in Mozilla’s Vice President of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer. His responsibilities will include “leading front-end product and platform engineering,” according to Facebook. This helps sort out some of the ongoing executive musical chairs at the social network — ex-Googler Elliot Schrage recently assumed executive responsibility for Facebook’s developer platform, a source told me the other week. Schrage will focus specifically on marketing… Continue Reading
Pop technology: Colbert show gave Firefox 3 download rate a solid boost
Firefox 3 already broke a Guiness world record when it launched last month and was downloaded more than eight million times in the first 24 hours. Now, in a demonstration of the increasingly common intersections between web technology and pop culture, Firefox parent company Mozilla has some stats up that precisely calculated the impact of a mention it received on the popular Colbert Report TV show. Mozilla tracked the minute-by-minute download rate to try to… Continue Reading
Mozilla’s Firefox 3 wins Guinness world software download record
When Mozilla launched Firefox 3, the latest version of its increasingly popular web browser, on June 17, it was aiming to set a new world record for most software downloads in 24 hours. Guinness World Records, the company that adjudicates such gee-whiz world record claims, has just given Mozilla the prize.
Mozilla didn’t just win the record; with 8,002,530 downloads, it went way beyond the 5 million goal that it set for itself. (If you’re one… Continue Reading
Skyfire nabs Mike Rowehl to handle scalability
Skyfire is a hot new mobile web browser that touts itself as “The PC web. On your phone.” It also touts itself as “real fast,” something which new team addition Mike Rowehl will have a hand in maintaining as the company’s scalability architect.
We last wrote about Rowehl two months ago when the mobile web browser Mowser, a company Rowehl co-founded and was chief executive of, was purchased by the Ireland-based consortium dotMobi. He stayed on… Continue Reading
Firefox 3: Records are made to be set
Sometimes a race horse stumbles out of the gate and it wins anyway. Such is the case with Mozilla’s Firefox 3.
Mozilla put out a lofty goal of 5 million downloads for Firefox 3 on the first day. As of noon today, the number stands at just over 8.5 million. In the United States alone, over 2.6 million people have downloaded the browser. Very, very impressive.
While attempting to set a Guinness World Record for software downloads… Continue Reading
Failfox 3, er…Firefox 3: The race to 5 million is on, but the race to one proves difficult
It is both annoying and laughable when a company massively hypes its own launch, only to result in broken links and 404 pages. As Stinger taught Maverick in Top Gun, you shouldn’t let your ego write checks that your body can’t cash. Mozilla apparently never learned from that message, and the launch of Firefox 3 has badly stumbled out of the gate.
Mozilla’s failure is actually worse than most in a couple regards. First, it is… Continue Reading
Today is Firefox download day. Will it hit 5 million?
Hey kids, it’s past midnight on June 17th and you know what that means: It’s Firefox Download Day! In a few hours, the latest iteration of the insurgent web browser, Firefox 3, will be unleashed upon the world.
If you live on the west coast, the time to download will be 10 AM. If you live on the east coast, you’ll have to wait until 1 PM. For everyone else, check out this map.
Mozilla, the makers… Continue Reading
Insurgent web browser Firefox 3 launches in six days
The first release candidate of Mozilla’s Firefox 3 web browser has been out for almost a month but the company had been quiet about when the final version would be released. Instead, all we got was that it would ship “when it’s ready.” Well now we know: it’ll be ready next week.
The final version of Firefox 3 will ship on June 17. This represents 34 months of active development on the follow-up to its hugely… Continue Reading
Roundup: Dell pushes for green PCs, Atari releases exercise system and more
Here’s the latest action:
Dell wants greener PCs (now if only their customers did too) — The computer maker says its laptops and desktops should consume 25 percent less energy by 2010. But the Wall Street Journal notes that Dell has an uphill battle in its effort to become the self-proclaimed “greenest IT company”, because many IT departments think environmentally-friendly computers are too expensive.
Atari releases exercise game system to compete with Nintendo’s — The new Wii Fit… Continue Reading
LiMo gets new partners including Verizon — an open rival to Google’s Android?
The Linux Mobile Foundation, or LiMo, has been trying to create an open-source platform for device manufacturers, carriers, third-party application developers and others in the mobile industry since last year. By using the open source Linux operating system, companies across segments of the mobile industry will have lower technical and cost barriers to mobile operating system innovation, the effort hopes.
Today, LiMo has gotten a big boost, maybe: Eight new member organizations have joined, including the… Continue Reading
Live blogging: Mozilla Chairman Mitchell Baker on opening the mobile web
To unleash the wild creativity of the Internet on mobile phones, we have to open them up to the real Internet, says Mitchell Baker, the second speaker of the morning at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.
The chairman (er, chairwoman) of Mozilla says it shouldn’t matter what device you use to access the web.
Mozilla is the nonprofit that makes the Firefox browser, which is being used by hundreds of millions of people as an… Continue Reading
Updated: Q&A with Mozilla’s John Lilly on 10 years of Mozilla and the future of browsers
Mozilla, the maker of the free open source Firefox browser, is turning 10 years old on Monday.
More than 160 million users use Firefox, which competes with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari. The nonprofit Mozilla, based in Mountain View, Calif., also publishes the open source Thunderbird email client. I use the beta version of Firefox 3.0. I’m happy with its speed and superior functions (like “restore session” which returns you to all of your… Continue Reading
Opera and Safari beat IE and Firefox to Acid3 milestone
The latest versions of the web browsers Opera and Safari are claiming to have reached the big 100/100 score milestone in the Acid3 web standards compatibility test, making them the first browsers to do so. The two sides are thought to have completed the task within minutes of each other, both beating the much more popular Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers to the milestone.
The Acid browser test is developed by The Web Standards Project in… Continue Reading
Roundup: Farber takes over at CNET, Mozilla’s new email subsidiary, Scribd iPaper, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET
2) Mozilla launches email-focused subsidiary
3) Scribd creates iPaper, an Acrobat competitor
4) Hewlett-Packard has great first quarter
5) Tesla Motors pulls in another $40M
6) Verizon, AT&T unveil new unlimited wireless plans
7) Oligarchs, proletariat run amok in Silicon Valley
Scientists suck up CO2 to make alternative fuel
Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET — One familiar figure is stepping aside for another at CNET, where long-time editor-in-chief Jai Singh… Continue Reading
Mozilla, parent of Firefox, sees leadership change
Mozilla, the Silicon Valley company that runs the popular browser Firefox, said John Lilly (pictured below), its chief operating officer, has become chief executive.
The move comes after steady growth of market share by Firefox, which now has about 17 percent, compared to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s 76 percent, according to NetApplications.
The gulf is still large, but Firefox’s share is up significantly from just a few percentage points four years ago. Some people believe the browser should… Continue Reading
Mozilla’s Weave, lets you save bookmarks, passwords across Web
Mozilla recently launched a new online service called Weave. Weave allows you to store settings and other data so that it can be used across multiple devices. For example, you can save your personal bookmarks in Weave (it is saved on a Mozilla server), and then recall them when working on a different PC or even a cellphone.
Weave serves as a buffer between the Internet and a user’s desktop, and is Mozilla’s first step into… Continue Reading
Roundup: Yahoo’s internet cafes, Smartshopper’s backflip, and more
1) Yahoo launches brick-and-mortar internet cafes in Vietnam
2) Mozilla Corp., maker of the popular Firefox web browser, made $66 million in revenue in 2006
3) The internet still probably won’t be taxed in the US, through 2014
4) Adware company Zango buys comparison shopping service Smartshopper, a $9 million backflip
5) Tioti, social TV site, raises first round
6) Anti-aging product review site RealSelf.com launches, announces nearly $1 million in funding
Yahoo launches brick-and-mortar internet cafes in Vietnam – It’s an… Continue Reading
Mozilla releases The Coop — social networking in your browser
The Coop is a new social networking feature by Mozilla, which will let users of its Firefox browser keep track of what their friends are doing online, and share content with them.
It will integrate with web services, using data feeds so that you can keep up your friends’ activities on various sites. This may hurt Flock, the browser company that was about to release a version with similar features (we saw a demo several… Continue Reading