Hasta La Gadget!

Mozilla is planning on jumpstarting development for its Firefox OS marketplace. It is hosting three app workshops in the next few months. The first app workshop will take place in Madrid, Spain on April 20th. The second will take place in Bogota, Colombia on May 18th, and the final workshop will take place in Warsaw, Poland on June 1st. There will be more workshops announced at a later date.

Mozilla is looking for app developers who are experienced in developing with HTML5 and JavaScript. While applying for the event, you will need to show some references to your experience with building web apps. They are mainly seeking applicants who have successfully built apps on Chrome, WebOS, or Blackberry WebWorks, or any “open web app” for mobile devices and PCs. They are also looking for developers who are able to develop apps in Spanish, Polish, or Portuguese.

Mozilla will provide the food and drinks at these workshops, as well as some Firefox goodies. Developers will also be able to get their hands on Mozilla’s Firefox OS Developer Preview phones. There will also be Firefox OS developers there to help you along the way. At these workshops, you are able to develop a new app for the Firefox OS, or port any of your existing apps to the mobile operating system.

The Firefox OS devices are set to launch this summer to over 18 operators all around the world. Several phone manufacturers, including LG, ZTE, Huawei, Sony, and Alcatel, are already in support for the upcoming operating system. Mozilla already has a good selection of popular apps available for the OS, including Facebook, Twitter, Pulse News, and more. With these workshops, it hopes to be able to launch with a decent selection of apps in order to appeal to the masses.

[via Mozilla]

Mozilla announces Firefox OS app workshops is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook is going rampant with its changes. It has brought on a new targeted ad interface for marketers, a new and improved timeline, support for hashtags, and now a new Chief Technology Officer. Mike Schroepfer, previously the Senior Vice President of Engineering, has become the new CTO of Facebook, replacing interim CTOs Cory Ondrejka and Mike Vernal. It’s still uncertain what Facebook will do with Ondrejka and Vernal.

Schroepfer was perviously the Vice President of Engineering for Mozilla, as well as the Chief Technology Officer of Sun Microsystems’ data center automation division. Facebook believes that with Schroepfer’s impressive experience and expertise, he will be able to improve upon many important aspects of the company’s main money makers. Schroepfer will be improving the company’s mobile division, as well as develop more ways to mine user data for better advertisements.

Along with promoting Schroepfer to CTO, Facebook has also announced that it will be supporting hashtags. These moves make it appear as though the top social network is trying to copy Twitter. Just a couple of days prior to Facebook’s promotion of Schroepfer, Twitter also promoted one of their own to CTO. Twitter’s CTO spot, which was vacant since 2011, was filled up by Adam Messinger, previously the Vice President of Application Development. And the hashtags feature, as well all know, was popularized by Twitter.

This could all be a coincidence, but it wouldn’t be too surprising if Facebook really is looking at other social networks to see how it can improve its own user experience. With Schroepfer working on improving Facebook’s data mining and mobile experience, Facebook’s support for hashtags, and all of the other changes the company has planned in the past few weeks, Facebook is hoping to dramatically increase its advertising revenue.

[via Wired]

Facebook promotes ex-Mozilla engineer to CTO is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mozilla launched its first Firefox OS Simulator late last year, letting developers test out apps on the new platform even though the software was still very much in development. It only makes sense, then, that a new version would surface following the mobile operating system’s official unveiling at Mobile World Congress 2013. Like versions 1.0 and 2.0, Firefox OS Simulator 3.0 runs as an extension in Mozilla’s browser and is available on Linux, Windows and OS X. The new preview adds several features, including Push to Device, which brings over apps installed on the OS Simulator to a Firefox OS device provided it’s connected via USB. Rotation simulation and an updated version of the software’s Gaia interface are also on board. To give the Simulator a go, head to Mozilla’s FTP server, where you’ll find it under the working name r2d2b2g. Click through to source links for the full installation directions.

Filed under: Software, Mobile

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Via: CNET

Source: Hacks.Mozilla.org, Mozilla FTP Server

Mozilla stated at SXSW that it is not currently developing a version of its Firefox browser for iOS and it does not intend to do so in the future. Mozilla feels that it can better focus its time and development elsewhere because it won’t be able to build the browser it wants on the iOS platform. As CNET says, it won’t be able to “carry over its sophisticated rendering and javascript engines to iOS.”

The iOS platform isn’t exactly friendly with 3rd party browsers. Users are forced to stick with Safari as their main browser. Other browser companies are still releasing their product to iOS, despite their product not being able to be used as a default choice, because they just want to be part of iOS’s ecosystem. Right now, Safari dominates 55% of the mobile browser market, while Firefox only holds a measly 1%.

Jay Sullivan, Senior VP of products for Mozilla, and Mike Taylor, a Web Opener for Opera, believe that the consumers’ choice in what browser they use is an important part of what makes “browsers, and the Web in general, great.” Many companies see the importance of giving consumers a choice in what web browser they can use. Microsoft especially took notice when the EU demanded them to give consumers more web browsers to choose from instead of its Internet Explorer.

Firefox will continue to work to improve its browser on the Android OS, because it allows them to create the browser it wants. However, despite offering its browser on Android OS, many users will still opt for better alternatives like Chrome. If it hopes to grab more of the mobile browser market, it’s probably going to have to place all of its bets on its upcoming Firefox OS.

[via CNET]

Mozilla will not bring Firefox to iOS is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s Pwnium challenge followed a familiar pattern in its first two years, with white hat hackers invariably finding a Chrome vulnerability and prompting a round of patches that ultimately made the software stronger. For the Chrome OS-focused Pwnium 3, there’s been a slight hiccup: there were no hacks to patch. Despite Google offering a total of $3.14159 million in bounties, entrants couldn’t demonstrate a working exploit on the Series 5 550 target machine. That may be a testament to Google’s steady security improvements, but it doesn’t help discover what holes are left. We’d add that few were left unscathed at the Pwn2Own competition running in tandem — the regular Chrome browser, Firefox and Internet Explorer all came tumbling down, and Safari may have escaped only because contestants didn’t register in advance. Even so, the Chrome OS results may have Chromebook Pixel owners feeling better about their purchases.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Apple, Microsoft, Google

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Source: Geek.com, eSecurity Planet