Boot 2 Gecko

Boot 2 Gecko is the complete phone stack (including the telephony and message stack)on a Gecko engine.
Basically its a Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine running on a very light-weight Linux core.

Exciting facts about this mobile OS is
- Since the core of this stack is Gecko you can write apps using HTML5/CSS/JS
- Even the interface is written in HTML5.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G

Graffiti on computer screen

I am a fan of graffiti. I never imagined that the most interesting part of the graffiti, the motion can be captured using a markup language. GML (Graffiti Markup Language) is a universal, XML-based, open file format designed to store graffiti motion data (x coordinates, y coordinates and time) thanks to EvanRoth and team.
Mozilla hosted a website(www.markup.mozilla.org) dedicated for this new markup language.You can create and share your graffiti markups here.

Graffiti created by me on the mozilla's markup site you can play the motion of this graffiti here.

This site uses canvas HTML5 element and javascript to capture the graffiti motion and create a GML file.
Note: I am not sure whether this website works in browsers other than FireFox.

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Switching Firefox update channels

After Mozilla's announcement of switching to an accelerated development process, Firefox on mozilla-central will be forked to aurora channel. Going ahead Firefox builds will be available on nightly, aurora, beta and release channels. There is no straight forward way to switch the update channel in the current nightly builds, but you can achieve this by editing about:config on the latest nightly builds.

Steps to enable channel switching option in Firefox:

•  In address bar type in about:config and hit enter.
• Right-click the parameter listing and select New > String from the options
• Enter app.update.desiredChannel and give the new parameter the value release, beta or aurora.
• open the Help > About Minefield menu. you will see the option to change the channel

Firefox 2011 roadmap

Mozilla planning to ship 4 releases this year (2011 Firefox Roadmap here). Looks like Mozilla is feeling the pressure from Google Chrome's smaller release cycles. One of the Firefox's greatest strengths is its firefox add-on (extension) community. Every major release of Firefox calls for an upgrade of the firefox release version in the add-on's manifest file(which is a new version of the add-on), shorter release cycles calls for regular add-on update which is an overhead to add-on developers and AMO reviewers. I am very eager to see how Mozilla will be handling this.

FireFox 4 beta faster than Chrome

  For the first time javascript engine in Firefox 4 beta 8 builds clocked faster then google chrome's V8 engine. Mozilla’s “Are We fast Yet?” charts are showing the combined Firefox TraceMonkey and JaegerMonkey build to be faster than Chrome in Webkit’s Sunspider test.

  "JaegerMonkey" is the code-name for a new javascript engine, It is a JIT compiler for Javascript. TraceMonkey is the original javascript engine that is introduced in FireFox 3.5 . JagerMonkey is a general-purpose compiler which converts entire methods to machine code. When it detects a loop that can be traced, it automatically engages the trace compiler, which makes it even faster. Mozilla is optimizing the combination of  Jaeger and Trace working together in Firefox4 to get the best of Tracing and JIT.

Mozilla SeaBird

Mozilla jumps into the mobile world with its new seabird mobile phone experiment as part of Mozilla labs "Concept Series". Concept Series is an open forum hosted by Mozilla labs.

 This will have an in-built pico projector which can beam keyboard on to a flat surface, along with touch screen and blue-tooth dongle this will change the way user interacts with his mobile.

  Mozilla in its website says that  
"Seabird is not a Mozilla or Mozilla Labs project but part of the Mozilla Labs Concept Series. The Concept Series provides a place for the wider community to create and collaborate on projects which push the boundaries of the Web and the browser."





http://mozillalabs.com/conceptseries/2010/09/23/seabird/
http://mozphone.com/

Also checkout the website of Billy May Concept Series community member who created this project.
http://www.billy-may.com/

Phishing and New Mozilla Account Manager add-on

Phishing is all about deception. Check out Aza's blog post which talks about one such interesting way. Finally the post boils down to publicize the new Mozilla's Account manager add-on. http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/a-new-type-of-phishing-attack/ This add-on sounds like another form of open-ID implementation, with no cloud footprint and with its own spec. Still in the beta phases this feature might get included in the firefox browser soon. With this user security is as good as the security of the local data (to be more specific the Mozilla's security manager). Integration of this with One time password is a good to have. More Reading http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/accountmanager/ https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Identity/Account_Manager