What I’m Reading
Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.
Humongous 320-Gigapixel Photo Shatters Record
A 360-degree panoramic photo of London comes in at a record 320-gigapixel resolution.
More About: camera, london, pics, pixels
Neonode takes the ‘touch’ out of touchscreens with gesture control for your phone
Neonode’s Smartphone One platform uses proximity sensors to make best use of the space around the phone, allowing users to interact with their devices without ever laying a hand – or finger – on them.
Ubuntu Touch Beats Firefox OS For ‘Best of MWC’ From CNET
Jono Bacon writes “This week at Mobile World Congress both Firefox OS and Ubuntu have been wooing the audience with their mobile offerings. CNET reviewed both and felt that Ubuntu was ‘the clear winner.’ From the article, ‘The team thought that Ubuntu Touch, the tablet version of which we got our hands-on for the first time at MWC, feels more like the complete package at this point. We liked its slick, elegant interface that makes use of every side of the screen and puts your content and contacts front and center, minimizing the time spent hopping back to a home screen.'” They still liked Firefox OS though, and the mere existence of multiple Free Software mobile systems with carrier support is a good sign if you ask me.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mozilla makes strides with mobile-oriented Firefox OS
Last week we suggested a few things to keep an eye out for at Mobile World Congress, and last night we had our first sighting.
Mozilla announced a greatly expanded line-up for its Firefox OS. Firefox OS, or FOS, is interesting because it is entirely ‘web-based,’ meaning the average HTML-literate web developer can write an app for the system. Many developers (and carriers) see this as somewhat of a holy grail, the ultimate end game of all the mobile operating system platform wars.
Creating great mobile experiences in a world of OS fragmentation is one of the major themes of VentureBeat’s invitation-only Mobile Summit, which is only six weeks away (April 1-2 in Sausalito, Calif.). Read more about the Mobile Summit themes.
Firefox will not bring an end to the platform wars, but it is a step in that direction. In our post last week, we told you to keep an eye out for new hardware partners and new carriers. And at its press event yesterday, Mozilla delivered both. They now have three hardware partners including TCL (aka Alcatel), LG Electronics, and ZTE. That’s a good start, with devices shipping ‘this summer.’
Mozilla also announced 17 carrier partners, and this is probably far more important. Telefonica was already on board, having been the first to announce Firefox OS support last year. Added to this were America Movil, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Smart, SIngTel, Sprint, Vimplecom, and a few more.
You may not recognize some of the names on this list, and that’s because Firefox OS is targeting carriers in emerging markets. But Mozilla ha now lined up something like 17 of the top 30 carriers globally. This is a pretty serious list.
So far so good. There is still a lot we don’t know about Firefox OS, and it is still largely untested in the marketplace. But last night annoucement shows the company has made considerable progress.
Filed under: Dev, Mobile 
We’re holding our third annual VentureBeat Mobile Summit conference this April 1-2 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event gathers the top 180 executives from all segments of the mobile ecosystem to develop a blueprint for the industry’s growth in the coming year. For more information and to request an invitation, click here. 
