Hasta La Gadget!

Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs was present at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference today and he revealed that Firefox OS is going to be launched in five countries this summer. Initially being called Boot to Gecko project, Firefox OS is Mozilla’s contribution to the mobile OS market. It has been designed for low-end devices. This OS is based on HTML5 and JavaScript. Mozilla’s decision to launch their new OS in these markets is good, considering that low-end devices might gain better traction there.

The Firefox OS will be launched in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Venezuela this Summer. AT MWC, where they showed off a sample of Dreamfone running Firefox OS, the company announced its partnerships for this OS with various manufacturers. Alcatel, ZTE and LG have committed to manufacture low-end smartphones that are based on this OS. Carriers such as Telefonica in Europe and Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia and Telenor have also committed their support. There are some who believe that the market has no place for another operating system, the low-end is already being catered to by Windows Phone and BlackBerry. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out for Mozilla’s ambitious mobile plans.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 5S Rumored To Feature 12MP Camera, Facebook Reportedly In Talks With Apple And Microsoft About Porting Facebook Home [Rumor],

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla has been seeding Firefox OS to eager developers for some time. However, we’ve largely been denied a peek at how the developer’s own take on a mobile app store will play out on an actual device. Some of that picture just filled out thanks to some images of the mobile Firefox Marketplace that have landed in Engadget’s hands. From what we’ve seen of the current store, it’s a significant break from the top-level storefront we saw back in the Boot to Gecko days, not to mention Mozilla Marketplace on the desktop. The deeper exploration shows a minimalist store that’s focused on quickly delving into individual categories rather than an abundance of highlighted apps. We’re not seeing any startling revelations — there’s only free apps visible in these early images, for example — but the gallery is proof that Mozilla is well on its way to fleshing out the core of its OS for a launch next year. Let’s just hope that the rest of the software moves at a similarly quick pace.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Firefox OS Marketplace leaks in current form, shows shopping Gecko-style originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We initially saw Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko project revealed nearly a year ago in late July, and today Mozilla has updated everyone on the progress. If you are unfamiliar with the B2G project, it is Mozilla’s attempt at entering the mobile OS market with its own operating system based on HTML5/JavaScript.

To start things off, Mozilla has announced that B2G will now be known as FireFox Mobile OS. They have also revealed the new carriers that will support the OS: In addition to Telefonica and T-Mobile, who both both had previously pledged their support, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, and Telenor have joined the party. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko platform will see a 2013 commercial release, Boot to Gecko mobile operating system undergoing testing,