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Mozilla Is Working On a Firefox OS-powered Streaming Stick

Posted by Soulskill on from the casting-video-is-finally-arriving dept.

SmartAboutThings writes: Mozilla took the world by surprise when it announced that it was developing a Firefox operating system that would be used for mobile phones, particularly in developing markets. Such devices have already arrived, but they aren't the only targets for the new operating. According to a report from GigaOM, Mozilla is currently working on a secretive project to develop a Chromecast-like media streaming stick powered by Firefox-OS. Mozilla's Christian Heilmann shared a picture of a prototype.

49 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Mozilla doesn't build hardware by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mozilla doesn't build hardware. We make software, including Firefox OS. Firefox OS is a completely open platform freely available for any company to build on top of without restriction. There are dozens of companies building Firefox OS-based products today and there will be more tomorrow, covering mobile phones, tablets, TVs, set top boxes, game consoles, streaming dongles, wearables, and more. Some of those companies are working directly with Mozilla and others are taking the code and running with it on their own.

    1. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by asa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your attempt to confuse here isn't really helpful.

      Google does *sell* Google Glass and Nexus phones and tablets and Chromecast and Nest and soon Dropcams and probably more. They are "Google products" branded and sold by Google as theirs.

      Mozilla only has one device that it works on directly, the Firefox OS Flame reference phone. The rest of the hardware you see out there is being made and sold by someone else.

      And that's not just true of the hardware. Much of the work going on to extend Firefox OS software into areas outside of phones is being done by third parties for their products.

    2. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're an idiot. Please sit down and shut up.

    3. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Elbart · · Score: 1

      The only things missing now are buyers and users.

    4. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Mozilla doesn't build hardware. We make software

      Really? I thought YOU fucked up user interfaces.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    5. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Are you smoking something? You appear to be confused about what hardware is and what creating it actually entails from design through to manufacture. Its a *teensy* bit harder and more expensive than writing a VM.

  2. Much needed feature by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Please add an auxiliary audio output that doesn't require HDMI to get audio. TOSLINK or analog left/right, as long as we can route the audio somewhere else than the display itself.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    1. Re: Much needed feature by Trinn · · Score: 2

      I think the answer is obvious from the parent post. Without a dedicated receiver to route signals, hdmi all goes to one place, and many people prefer other speakers than their display has. I should also point out that the digital pcm streams in hdmi are easy to rip if hdcp is not active on the link, so your assumption is off. On the other hand I believe drm schemes only hurt the customer and the artist, only serving to enrich the content distribution cartels.

    2. Re: Much needed feature by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I think the answer is obvious from the parent post. Without a dedicated receiver to route signals, hdmi all goes to one place, and many people prefer other speakers than their display has.

      So you use a HDMI receiver or the digital output of your TV or a HDMI splitter with audio-out. That way you dont need audio and video cables running to every device.

    3. Re: Much needed feature by exomondo · · Score: 1

      My TV is a computer monitor. No speakers, no audio output. Why pay for a stupid TV if I'm not going to use its decoder box?

      Because your monitor doesn't have audio output, really the answer is right there just before the question. The decoder is hardly an expensive component.

  3. Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why has Mozilla been doing so much stupid shit lately? They pretty much killed Thunderbird, which was my favorite email client. They've been dumbing down Firefox, too. Now it has a really stupid user interface that I find really difficult to use. Firefox is still really slow and uses a lot of memory compared to Chrome. I don't even know why I still use Firefox. It's probably just because of Firebug. I've only heard very bad reviews of Firefox OS. Everyone who uses it says that the phones suck dink, the OS is really limited and shitty, there are no apps for it, and you're better off using a real mobile OS like iOS or Android. Then there are their other failed projects like that OpenID clone thing that never took off. Then there's that programming language that they're working on. I can't remember the name of it either but now that Apple has announced Swift it sounded like Swift does everything that Mozilla's new language did. Now I learn about this gadget today and I think it's just one more stupid thing that they're wasting their money on. Nobody really wants it and nobody is going to use it because it's probably going to be total shit compared to Chromecast and all the others that are already out there being used. Mozilla needs to stop playing catch up and they need to innovate or something. Just doing what Google or Apple or Microsoft has done, but doing it years later and doing a bad job at it to boot just doesn't make any sense!

    1. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

      thunderbird still around and just going to community development model. or you're going to pay mozilla for the expense of keeping it purely in house? no? you've never contributed to anything? then shut the fuck up.

    2. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by grim4593 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How has Thunderbird been killed? It is a stable mature piece of software. There are very few features that they could add to it without making a bloated piece of software.

    3. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by colfer · · Score: 2

      TB has some architectural problems and the withdrawal of paid developers by Mozilla makes it unlikely they will be fixed. The problem I ran into is that attachments cannot easily be stored separately from messages. That column showing the attachment count is actually just a guess. The db does not have real info on the MIME situation in messages. All that work is done on the fly whenever you open the message. You can detach the attachments from messages and store them separately, but only by clicking on messages one-by-one. There is an extension that attempts to automate detachment through filters, but it will crash if it encounters too many messages with attachments at one time, since the task is asynch. I confirmed all this with the extension developer - not the crashes, but the architecture and the fact that the db only guesses at the attachment count when you view the message list. Of the 12,000 current extensions, I found two or three that attempted to deal with detachment.

    4. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      There are very few features that they could add to it without making a bloated piece of software.

      Yeah, 'cause if the UI stopped refusing keyboard input while it was indexing a large folder the users would revolt!

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    5. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by grim4593 · · Score: 1

      Maybe I am an anomaly but I have not had the issues you describe. Thunderbird doesn't randomly crash for me much less hardlock my computer. My extensions don't break, not that I have many installed. Searching works great for me; I have 8 email accounts set up, most which go back nearly a decade and I can easily search for what I need without much of a delay (I have a SSD).

    6. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      Contact syncing? (eg: CardDav). That's been on their plate for years, and it's a pretty important feature nowadays that we have stuff like smartphone which we want to keep in sync.

      There's a few other critical features/issues still open which never got the attention they deserved.

  4. What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by mmell · · Score: 2
    Sorry - my hearing's shot. A couple years in the field artillery will do that to ya!

    Mozilla should go back to doing what they have always done best - annoying the shit out of Microsoft in the browser wars.

    1. Re:What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by CongoMongo · · Score: 1

      Hey, it's easy enough to misclick. ;)

  5. I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

    This is a fantastic idea. One that fits with what Mozilla does already. The perfect expansion of their work: 64 bit Firefox.

    Yeah, I know it's radical. And maybe they will struggle at first. But who knows, maybe they will succeed where so many other browser vendors have failed.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    1. Re:I've got a great idea! by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Firefox already is 64-bit and has been for quite a while.

      Just, not on Windows. I think their excuse was something to do with third party plugins not being 64-bit. (Although I'm pretty sure they have a 32-bit plugin shim that works on Linux and Mac OS X, so whatever.)

      I don't really care, though, since Firefox 30 entirely broke Firefox with the proxy where I work. Now I can't access outside sites at all due to OCSP errors and I can't access internal sites since they removed NTLMv1 support as a "security hole."

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      You hear that whooshing sound? Coming from somewhere over your head? Don't bother looking up. I'm well aware of waterfox and 64 bit nightlies.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    3. Re:I've got a great idea! by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      Why are you using "Waterfox" and 64 bit nightlies? The official Firefox builds themselves have been 64 bit for several years now.

      Assuming you're using Mac OS X or 64-bit Linux. It's just Windows that doesn't have a 64-bit Firefox for some dumb, poorly explained reason. (Keep in mind that 64-bit Firefox on Mac OS X managed to support 32-bit plugins, so it's not that. Clearly they can manage.)

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Assuming you're using Mac OS X or 64-bit Linux. It's just Windows that doesn't have a 64-bit Firefox for some dumb, poorly explained reason.

      Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

      My job requires specialized software that only runs on windows. And truthfully, the 32 bit version of Firefox works fine. But as you put it, it's dumb and poorly explained.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    5. Re:I've got a great idea! by Tridus · · Score: 1

      It'll be coming real soon now. Chrome just came out with a 64 bit version, and the Mozilla policy is pretty much "copy anything Chrome does."

      So, no worries!

      --
      -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    6. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      Mac OS supports shipping both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries in a single executable. That's what Firefox on Mac does.

      That _is_ a viable solution on Windows, albeit with multiple executables, but it about doubles the size of the download. Unfortunately, Windows users are very sensitive to the download size for their web browsers; past experiments have shown uptake dropping rapidly as the download size increases.

    7. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      Its user base would rather help than be snarky, but it's hard to help when Mozilla completely rejects you.

      More on-topic, I found this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.platform/oB-GAXt6Ijo/lUgjfUZ8ArEJ. Apparently "working on it" is the new way to spell "ignoring".

    8. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      This sounds like an actual use for that stub installer that you serve by default to Windows users. Just have it pick which version to download.

    9. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      You mean have it download both versions, on 64-bit, right? It's not a matter of choosing: you need a 32-bit process to run the plug-ins in, and a 64-bit one for the actual browsing.

      This is doable, and being worked on; it's just not been a top priority for various reasons.

    10. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      I was assuming that the 32-bit plugin process could be a lightweight shim. I doubt it'd need 64-bit versions of all 54 MB of the dlls that Firefox ships with.

    11. Re:I've got a great idea! by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      Uhm... 64bit firefox has been around for over half a decade. Wake up, dude!

    12. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Dude! I know! And have used it! Uhm... have you ever heard of sarcasm?

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    13. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      That would take a lot more development effort, since plug-ins depend on a lot of functionality being present in-process with them that's based on libraries that make up a good bit of that 54MB.

      On Mac, the plugin process is the same binary as the 32-bit Firefox process...

  6. DRM, DTCP, HDCP, NDA by tepples · · Score: 1

    I thought it needed to be secretive in order to appease the owners of copyright in the motion pictures that would be streamed through this device.

  7. Flash Player is 32-bit by tepples · · Score: 1

    A 64-bit Firefox would require more progress on Shumway, a free JavaScript-powered replacement for Adobe's proprietary 32-bit Flash Player.

    1. Re:Flash Player is 32-bit by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      and there was a 64 bit version of Adobe flash, but I don't think it's been updated in years.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    2. Re:Flash Player is 32-bit by Desler · · Score: 1

      Flash has had 64-bit versions for all Windows, OS X and Linux since version 11 from 2011.

  8. Why? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Do they have the content to support 'yet another smart tv platform'?

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Why? by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      It's based on a browser. I'm guessing their content source will be what we call "The Internet". Millons of videos ready to watch.

  9. Re: Chromecast-like? by Champion3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because those other browsers didn't have a huge extension ecosystem to contend with. Are you going to go and tell every extension author, big or small, new or old, maintained or not, that they need to rewrite their add on to work with electrolysis? No, you have to make e10s seamlessly compatible with the legacy, single-threaded APIs that those extensions use. That's hard.

    --
    I'm going to the casino. Don't gamble.
  10. You don't make OS's either by Viol8 · · Score: 2

    You've done the same as google did with Android - take Linux, write a few hardware specific drivers and shove a roll-your-own graphics interface on top. Its a pity you and Google don't give credit where its due frankly but oddly enough the word linux never seems to mentioned in any of your or their presentations. As if the effort of the thousands of people who helped develop linux counts for sweet FA in your marketing.

    1. Re:You don't make OS's either by mrjatsun · · Score: 2

      They did the same think linux did with GNU, take the GNU's code, shove a little kernel underneath. Its a pity it's not called GNU Linux.. removes-tounge-from-cheek.

      Seriously though, relax. There's decades of code and efforts that this leverages. Just enjoy the free code available even if you don't use it. Don't get all stressed out if they don't thank every one. This isn't the Oscars.

    2. Re:You don't make OS's either by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Its not a case of thanking them , its merely a case of acknowledging the fact that its not entirely of their own making. But instead they pretend they wrote the entire thing. Point taken about GNU.

    3. Re:You don't make OS's either by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      The linux proyect does not distribute any GNU code. Third parties create "GNU/Linux" distrinutions, and some of them mention GNU intheir name (eg: Debian GNU/Linux).

  11. Re:Chromecast-like? by davester666 · · Score: 1

    It's probably going to be a Steaming Stick...

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  12. Porn... by Rick+Richardson · · Score: 1

    Chromcast: no porn! http://gigaom.com/2014/02/03/no-chromecast-porn-apps/
    Firefoxcast: porn!

  13. Nice, but... by Trikoloko · · Score: 1

    Please let me know when they start making a web browser that whan updating does not disable half of the user extensions without warning.

    --
    My cellphone ringtone is a ring tone.
  14. YOU CAN'T FUCKING SAY THAT TO ASA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    HOLY FUCK SON! YOU'RE REPLYING TO ASA DOTZLER!

    YOU CAN'T FUCKING SAYING WHAT YOU JUST SAID TO HIM, SON!

    Look, Asa is more than just a God. He is the God Almight of the Almighty Gods. He is The Master, The Creator, The Founder and The Omnipotent Being.

    When Asa writes something, you don't just read it. You revere every single character it contains. You revere the whitespace between those characters. You revere the entire message, because it represents The All-knowing All-powerful Nature of Asa.

    Asa, PLEASE FORGIVE THIS POOR SOUL! He knows not what he is saying! Please, Asa, please don't hold it against him! He's just a Rubyist! We beg you to spare his rotten soul! PLEASE! WE BEG YOU!

  15. Formats supported? by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 1

    I suspect I can safely assume that it'll be easy for anyone (e.g. MediaGoblin or other projects) to write an interface to it. Can we also safely assume it'll support all media formats that Firefox supports natively (i.e. .ogg [vorbis], .ogv [theora/vorbis], .webm [vp8/vorbis], .opus [opus audio in ogg], and .webm version 2 [vp9/opus])?

    (and, seriously, why doesn't Mozilla throw in with MediaGoblin, or perhaps start a similar project to help end-users host their own "content"? It seems like an obvious direction for Mozilla's heavy emphasis on "web video" these days.)

    --
    Hacker Public Radio is our Friend