Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
MOZILLA FOUNDATION HAS announced that it will launch its widely anticipated Firefox operating system for smartphones in mid 2013. It is seen as a direct challenge to the duopoly of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Mozilla, which campaigns for open development of the online world, showed off the first commercial version of the Firefox OS on the eve of the opening of the world’s biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain yesterday.
Smartphones equipped with Firefox OS look familiar to those on other systems, with an array of apps, or application programmes, to be made available on an online store, and a mapping programme developed by Nokia.
“With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online,” said Mozilla chief executive Gary Kovacs.
Mozilla, which aims to take third place behind Android and iOS, said it had already lured 17 operators including Sprint, China Unicom, KDDI, Singtel, Telefonica, Telenor and Deutsche Telecom.
Available in northern hemisphere by summer
The foundation said it was working with handset manufacturers South Korea’s LG and China’s TCL and ZTE on Firefox OS-run devices, with China’s Huawei to follow later in the year.
All the smartphones would be run with Qualcomm Snapdragon application processors, which use an architecture licenced by Cambridge, England-based ARM.
They will be available from the northern hemisphere this summer, with the first devices arriving in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. Other markets are to be announced soon, Mozilla said.
Google and Apple’s operating systems combined now control more than 90 per cent of the smartphone market.
Google’s Android ran 69 per cent of all handsets sold last year and Apple’s iOS 22 per cent, said a study by independent analytical house Canalys.
I’d love up-to-date timetables and a website that didn’t make me feel like walking.
The website is key, bad layout, needs to be made user friendly. Good service overall by Bus Eireann. Use them a lot, Privatisation cant happen over here, we need a company who can make some money on the more popular routes to cover all the losses on the rural routes. A private company will only worry about the profitable routes.
Why oh why oh why can I not find a geographical map of the bus routes? Sure the metro style maps are great and all, but if I am from outside the area and I need to get off the bus at the stop closest to my buddy’s house/my hotel/the local sports pitch, what use are they?
It would cost next to nothing to employ a student to input the routes in Google maps, or to integrate a GPS in to the buses for accurate recording of ACTUAL travel times.
their is a route planner option on Dublin Bus website !.
submitting “opinions ” to the NTA is a bad idea. it will be flooded with biased rhetoric from private companys
I would agree that given the size of the market that a monopoly that is held to standards (and accountable for them) would probably work better. Privatisation is not a really viable proposition – as it only really works well on certain routes. There is a place for the private sector.
The one big change that has to be made is the elimination of the antiquated and ridiculous “stage” system that Dublin Bus use and the gradual removal of cash fares. I have a LEAP card yet I still have to queue and tell the driver my destination or fare. How backward is that? I should be tagging on for 90min of transit and changing modes of transport if I need to.
I don’t get the bus but I hear good things
have your say