Mozilla building mobile OS to battle Chrome

Mozilla revealed preliminary plans today to take the Gecko engine that drives its Firefox browser and turn it into an open-source operating system that will eventually work on phones and tablets.

Called Boot to Gecko, it is known that the source code will be released to the public "in real-time," wrote Andreas Gal, a Mozilla researcher. Gecko is the rendering engine that powers Firefox and the e-mail client Thunderbird. By contrast, while Google's Androidmobile operating system is open source, the main development work on it does not become available until after Google has green-lit its publication--sometimes not until months afterward.

"We will do this work in the open, we will release the source in real-time, we will take all successful additions to an appropriate standards group, and we will track changes that come out of that process. We aren't trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox, we're trying to have them run on the web," Gal said in a forum post. Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of technical strategy, said that the Boot to Gecko apps won't use the Android SDK but instead run new and current Web app APIs

He also identified four areas for development. One is new Web APIs, which means building "prototype APIs for exposing device and OS capabilities to content." This is how the operating system would support current essential mobile features such as telephony, SMS, cameras, USB, Bluetooth, and near-field chips. A second area for development is to build a privilege model, which is a key security feature for ensuring that new features are "safely exposed to pages and applications," he said.

Boot to Gecko will include some low-level Android code for kernel and driver support so that it can run on Android devices. This does not exist yet, and porting it to a new system could prove to be extremely challenging. Then there is the final area of development--that of applications. The idea behind Boot to Gecko is to create a system where native Web apps can run just as well as the native apps for iOS do on that device.

Shaver added that the company is looking at Tegra 2 devices because they offer hardware acceleration of open audio and video formats.

For people who want to get a stronger idea of what Boot to Gecko will amount to, Gal noted that its "starting point" is a device running Firefox for Android as its homescreen, with some custom APIs thrown in. He also admitted in that post that there is an "ultimate goal" to the project, that of "breaking the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile device world."

Source: http://download.cnet.com

Nokia C6-01

The new Nokia C6-01 is full 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display mobile phone running the latest Symbian ^3 OS.The new Nokia C6-01 sports a 8 mega-pixel camera with dual LED flash and a secondary front camera (VGA) for video calling.Nokia  C6-01 features the best of social networking and mobile entertainment in a stainless steel and glass design.

The key features of the new NokiaC6-01 are :

• 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash
• nHD touchscreen display
• High speed 3G connectivity
• Symbian^3 OS
• Wireless LAN WiFi
• Bluetooth
• USB
• Audio Player
• Video Player
• FM Radio

The detailed specifications of the new Nokia C6-01 mobile phone are :

• Dimensions
  • Size: 103.8 x 52.5 x 13.9 mm
  • Weight : 131 g
• Display and user interface
  • Screen size: 3.2-inch
  • Resolution: 640 x 360 AMOLED
  • Up to 16.7 million colours
  • Capacitive touch screen
  • Orientation sensor
  • Proximity sensor
  • Ambient light detector
• Keys and input methods
  • Touch screen
  • Front: application key, send & end/power key
  • Side: camera key, lock key, volume up & down
• Colours
  • Black
  • Silver grey
• Personalisation
  • Three customisable home screens with the option to add widgets, theme, shortcuts and icons
  • Customisable profiles
  • Ring tones: mp3, AAC, AAC+ 64-tone polyphonic, AMR, WMA
  • Themes
  • wallpapers
  • screensavers
  • ring tones
  • pre-installed themes
  • changeable colour themes
• Battery
  • BL-5CT 1050 mAh Li-Ion battery
  • Talk-time (maximum):
  • GSM 720min
  • WCDMA 290min
  • Standby time (maximum):
  • GSM 420h
  • WCDMA 380h
• Memory
  • microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 32 GB
  • 2 GB microSD memory card included
  • Internal memory: 340 MB user memory
• Operating Frequency
  • Quad band GSM,HSPA
  • Automatic switching between GSM bands
  • Flight mode
• Data Network
  • GPRS/EDGE class B, multislot class 33
  • HSDPA cat 9 10.2 Mbps
  • HSUPA cat 5 2.0 Mbps
  • WLAN IEEE802.11 b/g/n
  • TCP/IP support
  • Capability to serve as data modem
  • Support for MS Outlook synchronisation of contacts, calendar and notes
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth version 3.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
  • High-Speed USB 2.0 (micro USB connector)
  • 3.5 mm AV connector
  • Micro USB charging
  • FM radio
• Software platform & user interface
  • Symbian^3 OS for Nokia
  • Java MIDP 2.1
  • Flash Lite 4.0
• Applications
  • Nokia Messaging
  • Social
  • Ovi Maps with free lifetime navigation
  • Ovi Store
  • Nokia Ovi Suite
  • Cmail
  • Flashlite 4.0
  • Ovi Suite 2.2
  • Web TV
  • Games
• Email and messaging
  • Easy-to-use email client
  • Email web widget
  • Nokia Messaging for email
  • Mail for Exchange
• Browsing and internet
  • Full web browsing of real web pages
  • Web browsing with touch control
  • Supported markup languages: HTML, XHTML MP, WML, CSS
  • Supported protocols: HTTP v1.1, WAP
  • TCP/IP support
  • Visual history, HTML and JavaScript suppprt, Flash LIte 4.0 and Flash video support
  • Nokia Mobile Search
  • RSS reader
  • Ovi Store for application downloads
  • Support for streaming video
  • Social networking profiles visible in phone contacts
  • Upload and view photos and see locations via Ovi by Nokia Social client
  • Social networking events visible in phone calendar
• GPS and navigation
  • Integrated GPS, A-GPS
  • Ovi Maps with free car & pedestrian navigation
  • Wi-Fi Positioning
  • Compass and accelerometer for correct orientation of display
  • Use Nokia Ovi Suite to get the latest country maps for Ovi Maps for free
• Camera
  • 8 megapixel camera (3264 x 2448)
  • 2x digital zoom
  • Dual LED flash
  • Second camera (VGA) for video calls
  • Image formats: JPEG, Exif
  • Face recognition feature
  • Automatic location tagging (geotagging) of images and videos
  • Red eye removal, face tracking and automatic motion blur reduction
• Video cameras
  • Main camera
  • Take high-quality 16:9 videos
  • HD quality 720p resolution
  • Video capture 720p 25 fps with codecs H264, MPEG-4
  • Settings for scene, video light, white balance, colour tone
  • Secondary camera (VGA) for video calls
  • Video codecs & formats
  • H.264, MPEG-4, VC-1, H.263 (CIF 25fps), Real Video 10 (QVGA 25fps), ON2 VP6 (VGA 25fps), Flash video (VGA 25fps)
  • Streaming D1 25fps: MPEG-4; H.264; VC-1, RealVideo 10 (QVGA 15fps), 3GP
• Music features
  • Nokia Music Player and mono IHF speaker
  • Ovi Music
  • 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug
  • Music codecs: .MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+
  • Music meta-data ID3 tags, album art
  • Bit rate up tp 320 kbps
  • DRM support WM DRM, OMA DRM 2.0
  • Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Gaming
• Use the touch UI to play games
• Includes preloaded games
• Download games from Ovi Store

Source: Tharun's Blog

Government shutting down hundreds of data centers

The U.S. government is aiming to pull the plug on hundreds of unneeded data centers over the next few years in an attempt to save the taxpayers some hard-earned cash.

In blog published yesterday, the White House's Office of Management and Budget admitted that instead of consolidating data centers as many businesses have done in recent years, the government went in the opposite direction. Between 1998 and 2010, federal agencies actually quadrupled their number of data centers despite increases in the efficiency of data storage.

And of course, taxpayers have been stuck paying the bills for those data centers and all the equipment, supplies, and controls they require. The energy costs can be especially high as such data centers can soak up 200 times as much power as standard office spaces, according to the blog.

In a mea culpa over its spending spree, the White House said it plans to shut down a total of 373 redundant and unnecessary data centers by end of 2012. The government has already closed 81 so far this year as part of its goal to power off 195 such centers throughout 2011 as a whole. Looking down the road, Washington is aiming to shut down more than 800 data centers by 2015, a plan it believes would save taxpayers more than $3 billion.

"By shrinking our data center footprint we will save taxpayer dollars, cutting costs for infrastructure, real estate and energy," the OMB's Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients said in the blog. "At the same time, moving to a more nimble 21st century model will strengthen our security and the ability to deliver services for less."

The data centers due to be put out of commission are located across roughly 30 states and include ones run by a variety of federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Treasury. Taxpayers who want to see which data centers are going out of business can view a Google map of them set up by the government.

Source: news.cnet.com

India VS England 2000th Match

London, July 15: Many are asking the question whether Test cricket is a tenable sport in this fast-paced day and age. An 8-hour-a-day, five-day game that oftentimes culminates in a draw, may defy the norms of entertainment in the present paradigm. But the fact that the 2000th such encounter is all set to unfold at the home of cricket Lords, England, with a sell-out crowd ready to witness the epoch, is validation of its enduring popularity.

England has always been one to purport tradition and custom and now there are nine other such participating countries following suit where Test cricket is concerned (with the appearance of new entrants on the horizon). Today's set up is indeed a far cry from the early years of this long-winded contest where the only countries that engaged in such were England and Australia.


Indeed, Test cricket has certainly come a long way in terms of its global appeal, from its first edition which took place between the inaugural Ashes series in Melbourne in 1877. Naturally, it follows that the volume of matches played has also soared - from 803 in its first hundred years to nearly 1,200 in the last three-and-a-half-decades.

Test cricket even came in for a water-shed modification in tactics during the infamous Bodyline series when Douglas Jardine's England toured Australia in 1929/30. The ruthless England skipper redefined the way the game would be played for the decades that followed by having his pacemen Harold Larwood and Bill Voice bowl straight at the batsman's body to stifle the flow of runs. He defended the controversial new strategy as "legitimate leg-theory". Australia were taken off-guard at such a ploy and many of their premier batsman, including the great Don Bradman, had no answer as the English ran amok and reclaimed their Ashes glory.

By then Test cricket's membership had opened up to the West Indies, New Zealand and India, with the former colonies of the British empire demonstrating their mettle and passion for the sport. A spate of dull series by game's oldest rivals in the early 1960s threatened its existence till a colourful West Indies unit came up with more vibrant innovations.

The rest as we know, is history.The advent of one-day cricket in the international arena and the recent phenomenon of Twenty20 has done little to shirk the momentum behind cricket's purest format. Long Live Test Cricket!