Mozilla's new phone OS to slash smartphone costs

Mozilla's new smartphone operating system, codenamed the "Boot to Gecko" project, will entice new users by offering them a smartphone at significantly reduced rate compared to the Android or Apple based alternatives. In fact Mozilla are claiming that the new phones could be "10 times cheaper" than an iphone, but how is Mozilla (and indeed the mobile phone manufacturers) able to make such a bold claim?

The proposed platform, which is expected to start shipping on it's first devices before the end of the year (2012), is expected to be totally reliant on running everything from the web and cloud based storage. At present it is planned that all of the phone functions, including making phone calls and texting would be web based. This eliminates the need for pre-installed software which require more memory and a faster processor to run, both of which are expensive elements of a smartphone. The result is that the phones will be made with lower specifications and thus, in theory, reducing the cost of the phone.

Mozilla have also declared that the project will be fully open source in order to encourage more community development and involvement from an early stage. Announcing this at an early stage is a smart move as it should get developers working on applications now, resulting in a decent number of apps being available when they start shipping on mobile devices later on this year (2012). This will certainly appeal to the niche open source market who are still calling out for a truly free and open phone operating system.

So far the early signs are promising, a quick system that is truly open source and for a fraction of the price. However there is one thing that could hinder the spread of this phone, even for potential customers that want it: mobile internet connectivity.

Whilst this is great in many cities around the world, a lot of people outside of the main cities can look up web pages on their mobile, however this is at a speed that is slower than the old 56K modems. I'm not talking about in some hidden places in the mountain range of Tibet or a community tucked away in the desert in Sudan. Take the UK as an example. There is good to excellent cell phone coverage throughout the entire country from John O'Groats to Lands End. However outside of most cities the mobile internet connectivity is truly awful. I can imagine that this is similar in vast areas of the world, great in the cities, but once you venture outside of the city limits the service will drop at an alarming rate.

Will this be the open smartphone OS that the community is crying out for? The signs look promising, but if your not in the city then, at the moment, the best hope for an open future may be to keep an eye on WebOS or Tizen.

Mozilla's new smartphone operating system, codenamed the "Boot to Gecko" project, will entice new users by offering them a smartphone at significantly reduced rate compared to the Android or Apple based alternatives. In fact Mozilla are claiming that the new phones could be "10 times cheaper" than an iphone, but how is Mozilla (and indeed the mobile phone manufacturers) able to make such a bold claim?

The proposed platform, which is expected to start shipping on it's first devices before the end of the year (2012), is expected to be totally reliant on running everything from the web and cloud based storage. At present it is planned that all of the phone functions, including making phone calls and texting would be web based. This eliminates the need for pre-installed software which require more memory and a faster processor to run, both of which are expensive elements of a smartphone. The result is that the phones will be made with lower specifications and thus, in theory, reducing the cost of the phone.

Mozilla have also declared that the project will be fully open source in order to encourage more community development and involvement from an early stage. Announcing this at an early stage is a smart move as it should get developers working on applications now, resulting in a decent number of apps being available when they start shipping on mobile devices later on this year (2012). This will certainly appeal to the niche open source market who are still calling out for a truly free and open phone operating system.

So far the early signs are promising, a quick system that is truly open source and for a fraction of the price. However there is one thing that could hinder the spread of this phone, even for potential customers that want it: mobile internet connectivity.

Whilst this is great in many cities around the world, a lot of people outside of the main cities can look up web pages on their mobile, however this is at a speed that is slower than the old 56K modems. I'm not talking about in some hidden places in the mountain range of Tibet or a community tucked away in the desert in Sudan. Take the UK as an example. There is good to excellent cell phone coverage throughout the entire country from John O'Groats to Lands End. However outside of most cities the mobile internet connectivity is truly awful. I can imagine that this is similar in vast areas of the world, great in the cities, but once you venture outside of the city limits the service will drop at an alarming rate.

Will this be the open smartphone OS that the community is crying out for? The signs look promising, but if your not in the city then, at the moment, the best hope for an open future may be to keep an eye on WebOS or Tizen.

Mozilla's new phone OS to slash smartphone costs

Ubuntu for Android

With a continued yearn for a free mobile phone operating system, despite the success of Android, users are still looking for a truly open experience. Canonical is joining in the competition for a share mobile phone operating system market, will this be the saviour and free and open alternative that we are looking for? Well it's early days but sadly the early answer would appear no. In this interview by Engadget with a Canonical employee named Richard, it is stated that Ubuntu for Android will be offered pre-installed by manufacturers and won't be available to download for regular users for now.

However this doesn't mean that the project will be a complete failure, it is at early stages of development and this thirteen minute interview gives us a little bit more information after an impressive introductory statement form Canonical:

With a continued yearn for a free mobile phone operating system, despite the success of Android, users are still looking for a truly open experience. Canonical is joining in the competition for a share mobile phone operating system market, will this be the saviour and free and open alternative that we are looking for? Well it's early days but sadly the early answer would appear no. In this interview by Engadget with a Canonical employee named Richard, it is stated that Ubuntu for Android will be offered pre-installed by manufacturers and won't be available to download for regular users for now.

However this doesn't mean that the project will be a complete failure, it is at early stages of development and this thirteen minute interview gives us a little bit more information after an impressive introductory statement form Canonical:

Ubuntu for Android

The Pirate Bay moves to a new home

Follow the court ruling today (01.02.12) the Pirate Bay operators moved the site from .org to .se Sources from inside the Pirate Bay state that it is to prevent the domain being seized by the US follow the completion of the court case today.

Today the Sweedish Supreme court decided not to grant leave to appeal in the long running trial, which started back in 2009. What does this mean? The fines and prison sentences handed out to Peter Sunde (8 months), Fredrik Neij (10 months), Gottfrid Svartholm (12 months) and Carl Lundström (4 months) will stand, along with the fine handed out of £4.3 million ($6.8 million).

Per E Samuelsson (Carl Lundström’s lawyer) stated “The verdict is absurd, I am disappointed that the court is so uninterested in dissecting and analyzing the legal twists and turns of one of the world’s most high-profile legal cases of all time.”

However, due to the ongoing nature of the trial and some common practices in Sweedish law, today ruling does not actually mean that the accused will serve jail time.



Changing the domain name to the Swedish domain .se puts the address out of the reach of US authorities. Along with the name change the defiant Pirate Bay operators changed the logo from the traditional ship to a closed fist (above) and issued a statement via their official blog:

"2012 is the year of the storm.

The Pirate Bay will reach an age of 9 years. Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we're still here. We've been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.

The people running the site has changed during the years. No sane human being would put up with this kind of pressure for 8 years in a row. An insane hobby that takes time from our families, our work (sorry boss) and our studies.

What binds us all together is a strong belief that what we do is good. That it is something we one day can tell our grandchildren about with pride. People from all over the world confirm this. We read testimonials from people in Syria longing for freedom, thanking us for what we provide. We receive more than 100 visits daily from North Korea and we sure know that they need it. If there's something that will bring peace to this world it is the understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. What better way to do that than with this vast library of culture?

With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday.

But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other. Do you think they will stop with SOPA/ACTA/PIPA? They will not. Because you won't stop sharing those files. Because we will not stay down. Because no one can turn back time. Together, we are the iron that hardens with each strike.

In this year of the storm, the winners will build windmills and the losers will raise shelters. So flex your muscles, fellow pirates, and give power to us all! Build more sites! More nets! More protocols! Scream louder than ever and take it to the next level!"

The Pirate Bay may have lost the battle, but from the statement today they are clearly indicating that the war is not over yet. Down but not out.

Follow the court ruling today (01.02.12) the Pirate Bay operators moved the site from .org to .se Sources from inside the Pirate Bay state that it is to prevent the domain being seized by the US follow the completion of the court case today.

Today the Sweedish Supreme court decided not to grant leave to appeal in the long running trial, which started back in 2009. What does this mean? The fines and prison sentences handed out to Peter Sunde (8 months), Fredrik Neij (10 months), Gottfrid Svartholm (12 months) and Carl Lundström (4 months) will stand, along with the fine handed out of £4.3 million ($6.8 million).

Per E Samuelsson (Carl Lundström’s lawyer) stated “The verdict is absurd, I am disappointed that the court is so uninterested in dissecting and analyzing the legal twists and turns of one of the world’s most high-profile legal cases of all time.”

However, due to the ongoing nature of the trial and some common practices in Sweedish law, today ruling does not actually mean that the accused will serve jail time.



Changing the domain name to the Swedish domain .se puts the address out of the reach of US authorities. Along with the name change the defiant Pirate Bay operators changed the logo from the traditional ship to a closed fist (above) and issued a statement via their official blog:

"2012 is the year of the storm.

The Pirate Bay will reach an age of 9 years. Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we're still here. We've been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.

The people running the site has changed during the years. No sane human being would put up with this kind of pressure for 8 years in a row. An insane hobby that takes time from our families, our work (sorry boss) and our studies.

What binds us all together is a strong belief that what we do is good. That it is something we one day can tell our grandchildren about with pride. People from all over the world confirm this. We read testimonials from people in Syria longing for freedom, thanking us for what we provide. We receive more than 100 visits daily from North Korea and we sure know that they need it. If there's something that will bring peace to this world it is the understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. What better way to do that than with this vast library of culture?

With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday.

But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other. Do you think they will stop with SOPA/ACTA/PIPA? They will not. Because you won't stop sharing those files. Because we will not stay down. Because no one can turn back time. Together, we are the iron that hardens with each strike.

In this year of the storm, the winners will build windmills and the losers will raise shelters. So flex your muscles, fellow pirates, and give power to us all! Build more sites! More nets! More protocols! Scream louder than ever and take it to the next level!"

The Pirate Bay may have lost the battle, but from the statement today they are clearly indicating that the war is not over yet. Down but not out.

The Pirate Bay moves to a new home

Early Tizen Screenshots Leaked

Tizen, the open source platform that has been created to replace the short lived Meego, has had some initial screenshots leaked. These are reportedly originating from a Samsung I9500 device and it is also expected that the earliest appearance of these could be next month (February 2012) at the Mobile World Conference 2012 in Barcelona, which runs for four days starting on the 27th of the month.



From early signs the user interface looks promising, it is clean and tidy and I suspect owes quite a lot to the Android setup. Given that this is one of the most popular and fastest growing smartphone operating systems then why not borrow some of it’s features.



However, despite how impressive the user interface, how well it may run or how truly open it is; technical superiority will count for nothing unless the community gets behind it. Developers need to be actively making and maintaining apps as well as some major manufactures supporting and shipping the Tizen operating system on devices. If this is limited to simply the technology experts and hackers then sadly Tizen will follow the path of Meego which it replaced. Currently Intel and Samsung are backing the project, but until it is released on a device we won’t know the public will take to the new operating system.



I for one will be very pleased to see another device, especially one that stays true to it’s word and remains mostly open source; something which can’t be said of Android. However the sad truth is that ‘Average Joe’ on the street doesn’t care about openness, but simply about performance, looks and what new apps they can get. By the time this is available to the general public (as much as it grates against me to say this) Tizen will need to have apps ready and polished for all the major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, G+), email clients, shopping, games, navigation and the variety that is widely available in the Android and Apple stores.



I really hope that Tizen can gain enough ground to be around for a long time, but as so many have come and gone before, it may end up being another short lived adventure.

Tizen, the open source platform that has been created to replace the short lived Meego, has had some initial screenshots leaked. These are reportedly originating from a Samsung I9500 device and it is also expected that the earliest appearance of these could be next month (February 2012) at the Mobile World Conference 2012 in Barcelona, which runs for four days starting on the 27th of the month.



From early signs the user interface looks promising, it is clean and tidy and I suspect owes quite a lot to the Android setup. Given that this is one of the most popular and fastest growing smartphone operating systems then why not borrow some of it’s features.



However, despite how impressive the user interface, how well it may run or how truly open it is; technical superiority will count for nothing unless the community gets behind it. Developers need to be actively making and maintaining apps as well as some major manufactures supporting and shipping the Tizen operating system on devices. If this is limited to simply the technology experts and hackers then sadly Tizen will follow the path of Meego which it replaced. Currently Intel and Samsung are backing the project, but until it is released on a device we won’t know the public will take to the new operating system.



I for one will be very pleased to see another device, especially one that stays true to it’s word and remains mostly open source; something which can’t be said of Android. However the sad truth is that ‘Average Joe’ on the street doesn’t care about openness, but simply about performance, looks and what new apps they can get. By the time this is available to the general public (as much as it grates against me to say this) Tizen will need to have apps ready and polished for all the major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, G+), email clients, shopping, games, navigation and the variety that is widely available in the Android and Apple stores.



I really hope that Tizen can gain enough ground to be around for a long time, but as so many have come and gone before, it may end up being another short lived adventure.

Early Tizen Screenshots Leaked

HIV or Unemployment?

This is a million miles away from what I would normally talk about on my blog, however after Dimitris Papageorgiou (@lopbox on identi.ca) brought this to my attention I felt unable not to talk about it.

The story in question has received hardly any media coverage in Greece and next to none in other countries, yet this will probably shock the majority of readers. The news story that was brought to my attention is available here and here (translated from Greek).

It concerns me that people feel that they need to infect themselves with the HIV virus rather than risk going into an uncertain future. Granted I do not live in Greece and am not aware of exactly the situations of these people however I can't help but feel that this is an incredibly short sighted (and worrying) view of life. Are these user aware of the dangers HIV exposes them to or are they simply feeling betrayed by their country and honestly feel that there is no alternative.

The articles state that the users are infecting themselves, at huge risk to their health and (I assume) life expectancy for the sake of 700 Euros a month. To put that into some other figures: 964 US dollars, 617 British pounds. Whilst I can't speak for the US, I know that working full time on minimum wage will net more than £617 in Britain at the end of each month.

The recession and the financial climate in Greece has been in the media focus for some time now, however these stories are not filtering through to the rest of the world. I can't help but think that a citizen of a member country of the European Union should have more security in the present time and hope for the future.

Whilst nobody wants to be the focus of charity work, even this would be better than infecting oneself with HIV in order to get by. However here in Britain, I have not seen any charity work for nearby countries like Greece. We (the British public) seem very keen on shipping goods and aid to far off countries. I am not condemning this, it is a worthwhile venture. However we also need to focus on those who are struggling in our own country and our neighbours in Europe. I am also aware that we are in difficult financial times, however, is our situation really that bad that we would infect ourselves with a deadly virus for an extra £617/$964/€700 a month?

For more information on the HIV virus visit the relevant NHS pages

This is a million miles away from what I would normally talk about on my blog, however after Dimitris Papageorgiou (@lopbox on identi.ca) brought this to my attention I felt unable not to talk about it.

The story in question has received hardly any media coverage in Greece and next to none in other countries, yet this will probably shock the majority of readers. The news story that was brought to my attention is available here and here (translated from Greek).

It concerns me that people feel that they need to infect themselves with the HIV virus rather than risk going into an uncertain future. Granted I do not live in Greece and am not aware of exactly the situations of these people however I can't help but feel that this is an incredibly short sighted (and worrying) view of life. Are these user aware of the dangers HIV exposes them to or are they simply feeling betrayed by their country and honestly feel that there is no alternative.

The articles state that the users are infecting themselves, at huge risk to their health and (I assume) life expectancy for the sake of 700 Euros a month. To put that into some other figures: 964 US dollars, 617 British pounds. Whilst I can't speak for the US, I know that working full time on minimum wage will net more than £617 in Britain at the end of each month.

The recession and the financial climate in Greece has been in the media focus for some time now, however these stories are not filtering through to the rest of the world. I can't help but think that a citizen of a member country of the European Union should have more security in the present time and hope for the future.

Whilst nobody wants to be the focus of charity work, even this would be better than infecting oneself with HIV in order to get by. However here in Britain, I have not seen any charity work for nearby countries like Greece. We (the British public) seem very keen on shipping goods and aid to far off countries. I am not condemning this, it is a worthwhile venture. However we also need to focus on those who are struggling in our own country and our neighbours in Europe. I am also aware that we are in difficult financial times, however, is our situation really that bad that we would infect ourselves with a deadly virus for an extra £617/$964/€700 a month?

For more information on the HIV virus visit the relevant NHS pages

HIV or Unemployment?

Problems with Nvidia on update to kernel 3.1.0-1

I recently came into some problems which gave me a great deal of hassle whilst updating to Linux Kernel 3.1.0-1, I have a 64 Bit System and source my software from the Debian Testing repositories.

On what should have been a fairly routine update, I restarted my system later in the day to find myself dropped into a command line with a message stating that X server had failed. Running the command nvidia-xconfig would produce a new xorg.conf file, but I would still receive the same error message about the nvidia module being unknown.

I spent a few hours trawling the forums on the net and they all pointed to a rebuild of dkms, however putting in the command sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-kernel-dkms, left me with the error message

Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

This left me scratching my head and very frustrated as I knew that the kernel source was installed. Finally I started looking at the installed components and noticed that the kernel headers did not match the kernel source number, my kernel source was 3.1.0-1, whilst the installed headers were linux-headers-3.0.0-1-common and linux-headers-3.0.0-1-amd64, a miss match.

1. I simply ran the command: sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.1.0-1-common linux-headers-3.1.0-1-amd64
2. then I followed it with: sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-kernel-dkms

and viola, upon restart I was back in my graphical environment. This, of course, will not solve every bodies problems, however this is the simple fix that worked for me, but it took me a long time to find it. Hopefully this will spare some people a few hours of pain and frustration.

I recently came into some problems which gave me a great deal of hassle whilst updating to Linux Kernel 3.1.0-1, I have a 64 Bit System and source my software from the Debian Testing repositories.

On what should have been a fairly routine update, I restarted my system later in the day to find myself dropped into a command line with a message stating that X server had failed. Running the command nvidia-xconfig would produce a new xorg.conf file, but I would still receive the same error message about the nvidia module being unknown.

I spent a few hours trawling the forums on the net and they all pointed to a rebuild of dkms, however putting in the command sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-kernel-dkms, left me with the error message

Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

This left me scratching my head and very frustrated as I knew that the kernel source was installed. Finally I started looking at the installed components and noticed that the kernel headers did not match the kernel source number, my kernel source was 3.1.0-1, whilst the installed headers were linux-headers-3.0.0-1-common and linux-headers-3.0.0-1-amd64, a miss match.

1. I simply ran the command: sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.1.0-1-common linux-headers-3.1.0-1-amd64
2. then I followed it with: sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-kernel-dkms

and viola, upon restart I was back in my graphical environment. This, of course, will not solve every bodies problems, however this is the simple fix that worked for me, but it took me a long time to find it. Hopefully this will spare some people a few hours of pain and frustration.

Problems with Nvidia on update to kernel 3.1.0-1

Putting Browsers to the test with Acid3 and Peacekeeper

During episode 5 of TuxJam I reviewed a browser called SRWare Iron. This is a fork of the Chromium browser (an open-source community version of Google Chrome) with a few tweaks under the hood.

I put three different browsers to the test using two online tools: Acid3 and Peacekeeper. The three browsers in question were:

1. SRWare Iron
2. Firefox 9.0a1
3. Seamonkey 2.3.3

From the Acid3 test, all the browsers performed very well:

SRWare Iron


Firefox


Seamonkey


However, it is during the second test using the Peacekeeper resource that SRWare Iron really separated itself from the other two. A brief look at the overall points:

Then we can break these down into more detailed reports of how the browsers final score was achieved.






From these findings on the Peacekeeper website, it appears that SRWare Iron performs doubly well compared to Firefox and Seamonkey. Whilst I did find it was a fast browser, I didn't notice that much difference between the three. However all of these browsers noticeably outperform Internet Explorer which I have to use day to day in my place of work. I do not wish to install it and run it using WINE to perform a fair test.

During episode 5 of TuxJam I reviewed a browser called SRWare Iron. This is a fork of the Chromium browser (an open-source community version of Google Chrome) with a few tweaks under the hood.

I put three different browsers to the test using two online tools: Acid3 and Peacekeeper. The three browsers in question were:

1. SRWare Iron
2. Firefox 9.0a1
3. Seamonkey 2.3.3

From the Acid3 test, all the browsers performed very well:

SRWare Iron


Firefox


Seamonkey


However, it is during the second test using the Peacekeeper resource that SRWare Iron really separated itself from the other two. A brief look at the overall points:

Then we can break these down into more detailed reports of how the browsers final score was achieved.






From these findings on the Peacekeeper website, it appears that SRWare Iron performs doubly well compared to Firefox and Seamonkey. Whilst I did find it was a fast browser, I didn't notice that much difference between the three. However all of these browsers noticeably outperform Internet Explorer which I have to use day to day in my place of work. I do not wish to install it and run it using WINE to perform a fair test.

Putting Browsers to the test with Acid3 and Peacekeeper