Firefox OS

You can now get a taste of Firefox OS straight from your desktop browser, thanks to a new Firefox add-on called r2d2b2g that bakes a Firefox OS simulator right into your desktop browser.

Mozilla wrote in its blog post announcing the simulator add-on that the tool has two complementary goals for helping developers. Currently at version 0.7, the company hopes that by version 1.0 the add-on will be stable enough to let developers easily create apps for the new OS.

The second goal for the add-on is that it frees developers from having a device to install a pre-release build of Firefox OS. Given that the Mozilla has said that the initial target audience of Firefox OS will be emerging markets, this could be a boon for developers who may have limited access to multiple mobile devices. It works via the B2G desktop client, which can't emulate device hardware but does have several non-desktop APIs enabled.

Although Mozilla says that it's not having problems getting developers interested, it's hard to imagine that it's not an uphill struggle as Firefox OS joins a crowded field of mobile operating systems. While ... [Read more]

The extramarital affair scandal engulfing former CIA director David Petraeus have brought massive public attention to the convoluted U.S. laws governing e-mail privacy. We've got some quick tips for keeping your electronic communiques private.

Before getting into the more technical side of things, there are some simple behavioral changes you can make.

Always log out of your e-mail when you're done using it. This goes for any online service, including social networking sites. Logging out prevents a cached password from keeping you signed in even after the browser has been restarted.

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Never use your preferred personal e-mail account for highly sensitive communication. Set up new e-mail account that's not connected to you in any way, and is only used for communic... [Read more]

Better mobile support and more desktop options give SkyDrive users a bit of a boost today, as Microsoft updates its cloud storage service.

The desktop improvements include the ability to share SkyDrive files with one click from Windows 8's File Explorer (also known as Windows Explorer in previous versions of Windows,) and selectively sync folders from a Windows or Mac. This can help keep small-drive devices from filing up too quickly.

You can now control photo upload and download size in SkyDrive on Windows Phone 8.

Android and Windows Phone apps have been updated, too, so that you can now more easily browse files in your SkyDrive. You'll also be able to control photo upload and download size through the Windows Phone app, and people with Androids get some additional file management tweaks. You'll now be able to upload any file type from your SD card, rename files and folders in SkyDrive, and create custom sortings.

Flipboard now supports iBooks.

Flipboard, the mobile app that lets users see all of their desired news in one place, now supports books.

The company announced today that when iOS users download its latest update, they'll find that they can comb through 25 book genres, including fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks. In order to deliver that functionality, Flipboard has incorporated Apple's iBookstore into its app and essentially acts as a conduit to help users find out about the iPhone maker's iBooks.

When sifting through Apple's library of titles, Flipboard users will be able to read a publisher's write-up, find author information, and tap a link to download the title in Apple's iBookstore. That link is arguably the most important feature for Flipboard. If folks are referred to a title through Flipboard and buy it in the iBookstore, the app maker gets a 5 percent commission from Apple. In other words, it's another way for Flipboard to generate some cash.

Flipboard announced in August that its app now has 20 million users. Those folks share 3 billion items per month. In June, ... [Read more]

Mozilla's revenue, driven chiefly by Google search-ad revenue stemming from Firefox-driven search traffic, has risen steadily over the years.

With more than 400 million Firefox users, Mozilla doesn't have a problem with relevance. And with today's disclosure that organization's revenue grew 33 percent to $163.5 million in 2011, the nonprofit organization doesn't have a problem with money.

But it does have a problem with mobile.

So concludes Mitchell Baker, leader of the organization behind the open-source Web browser and other projects designed to keep the Internet free from proprietary constraints. Firefox, which just celebrated its eighth birthday, is the main lever that Mozilla uses to try to keep the Internet open. But Firefox is largely absent from the explosive growth in the mobile world of smartphones and tablets.

Mozilla leader and "Chief Lizard Wrangler" Mitchell Baker, at Mobile World Congress in 2012.

"The current state of the mobile ecosystem concerns us the most," said Mitchell Baker, who has led Mozilla since it was spun out of the Netscape browser project. Mozilla can't bring its full browser technology to iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows ... [Read more]