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Firefox Mozilla Television

Mozilla Partners With Panasonic To Bring Firefox OS To the TV 55

Posted by samzenpus from the tune-in dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At CES 2014 in Las Vegas today, Mozilla announced its plans for Firefox OS this year. Having launched Firefox OS for smartphones in 2013, the company has now partnered with Panasonic to bring its operating system to TVs, and also detailed the progress that has been made around the tablet and desktop versions."
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Mozilla Partners With Panasonic To Bring Firefox OS To the TV More

Mozilla Partners With Panasonic To Bring Firefox OS To the TV

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  • 2014 - WebTV returns (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Chromecast was the opening salvo in a battle that will rage all year.

  • Anything will be an improvement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amorsen ( 7485 ) <benny+slashdot@amorsen.dk> on Monday January 06, 2014 @06:24PM (#45882837)

    The current generation of "smart" TV's with every brand having their own interface is getting a bit tedious. Give me Android, give me Firefox OS, even give me iOS if you have to.

    • Cut cable/satellite, buy Apple TV, get Netflix. Even a regular, not-overpriced computer monitor will do. Why pay for a stupid built-in tuner and a crappy OS interface in 2014?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        Yep, not to mention security updates and maintenance to said OSes. I have my as dumb as possible TV hooked to a desktop with cordless mouse and keyboard and it does the job fine.

      • I would love to, but my wife would kill me. kill me extra-dead.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amn108 ( 1231606 )

        The thing is that, while you are absolutely right on all of your points, the main factor is image quality for intended usage - viewed from typical angular distance of 30-90 degrees or similar, TV of 30-55" size, first of all you will hardly find a computer monitor with sufficient luminosity/image brightness AND sufficiently little color distortion. Not to mention finding a computer monitor above 30" of size. Face it - not all of us watch movies from our working desk :-)

        The truth is, TV makers have gone a lo

      • Cut cable/satellite

        How should the sports fan in your household watch televised sports without a cable or satellite subscription? For the past few years and for the next few years, the "bowl games" (championships of NCAA Football Bowl Division) have been and will be on ESPN. And in NHL, some games of the Stanley Cup were shown on cable's NBC Sports Network during the past couple years. Not everybody is willing to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings that often.

    • Re:Anything will be an improvement (Score:5, Funny)

      by bob_super ( 3391281 ) on Monday January 06, 2014 @06:39PM (#45882911)

      My smart TV is running windows.
      It runs every browser and most of my favorite apps, flash, video, and it even runs productivity software, games, and non-latin websites.

      Just don't mind the little box behind the flat screen.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      The current generation of "smart" TV's with every brand having their own interface is getting a bit tedious. Give me Android, give me Firefox OS, even give me iOS if you have to.

      The problem is, even if they are based on Android, they still will probably each have their own interface. For some reason, every company seems to think they understand UI design better than whoever designs the standard Android interface, and unfortunately, more often than not, they're wrong. :-)

      And if you're really unlucky, you en

    • The current generation of "smart" TV's with every brand having their own interface is getting a bit tedious. Give me Android, give me Firefox OS, even give me iOS if you have to.

      I prefer it to be just a display, I can plug a cable box or a PC or a gaming console or a Chromecast or an AppleTV into it or whatever, I can choose what device, capabilities and interface I prefer and change it whenever I like. A TV just has to support as many connection options as possible.

    • I'd rather have an even better improvement that no smart TV will ever trump: a dumb TV with a smart box.
      • Well, in theory the smart TV gives you the advantage that you have fewer cables to manage. And if you have a lot of electronic equipment, that's a big deal. My room with computers has three desktops, one laptop and docking station, four monitors, five speakers, one wireless router, one home VOIP phone, one business VOIP phone, one USB webcam, one microphone, one cable modem, USB keyboards, USB mice, bluetooth keyboards and mice, and probably a partridge in a pear tree. Even with liberal use of zip-ties,

    • The current generation of "smart" TV's with every brand having their own interface is getting a bit tedious.

      These companies are trying to differentiate their products via software. The problem is that it is embedded software. If they were able to think ahead by more than one product cycle they would put all the "smarts" on a tiny little HDMI stick like google has with their chromecast.

      That would let them get all the benefits of a "customized experience" or whatever the marketing aholes are calling it this year, but it would be easily upgradeable in the field after the manufacturer has stopped giving a shit abou

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by CODiNE ( 27417 )

        Historically hardware manufacturers make terrible software. It's just a throw away to get you to buy the plastic in the box.

        Digital Camera software.
        Scanner Software.
        Printer Drivers with Photo Editing software.
        Harddrive "drivers" and software.
        Wifi cards.

        Once you buy it you're on your own.

        When these functions get absorbed by the OS it's usually a pretty good basic experience for everyone with the rare actually useful optional download from the maker for more knobs to turn.

        So iOS, Windows, Linux or Android...

    • I'd probably care more if I didn't keep the same TV for 7 or 8 years at a time.

    • "The current generation of "smart" TV's with every brand having their own interface is getting a bit tedious. Give me Android, give me Firefox OS, even give me iOS if you have to."

      I'm not disagreeing with this.

      But there is little difference between a TV and flat panel monitor these days, I can hook an XBox up to either of them as an example.

      All they need to do is standardize plugging a smart phone into a TV or monitor and make a wireless keyboard or game controller work and all of these issues about "som

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amn108 ( 1231606 )

        Differences:

        1. Available sizes - far less choice of monitors above say 30", which is considered "small" for a TV
        2. Different usage - TVs are meant to convey motion at the expense of still pictures (they usually do the latter adequately if not real well, however), while a monitor is basically for working, which puts ergonomy (read maximum brightness etc) at the top of priority list.

        Besides, you don't get the market economy into account - we don't get the technology we geeks think is best - average users get

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by amn108 ( 1231606 )

          Forgot #3:

          3. Brightness per unit of distance - TVs give out far more brightness per square meter of illuminated area than a monitor. The dimmest plasma TV rivals the brightest monitors out there, and the newest and brightest LED LCDs that are sold in droves to the consumers today will burn your eyes out were you attempt to use them as monitor :-)

  • Chaos for the Masses (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday January 06, 2014 @06:29PM (#45882863) Journal

    So now everyday TV watchers can experience the frequent random silly UI "upgrades" just like the rest of us. If you think losing the remote inside the couch is frustrating, imagine the buttons scrambling themselves randomly at 3am, and with "explanations" such as, "we are just gradually preparing for the future Flux Capacitor interface kit by mixing the old and new styles, whether they gel or not."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amn108 ( 1231606 )

      The LG TV I turned on at my parens in law's place did exactly that - a dialogue in the lower right corner of the screen telling me that it needs/will upgrade itself promptly. I don't remember what I did then, but I remember being pissed about it!

      Smart-TV concept is a ingenious strategy from TV makers to sell features to consumer when innovation doesn't sell or is lacking and when consumers are drowned in choice between TVs they can not differentiate between (except for the logo). I hate the concept, my pare

  • We asked Panasonic why it agreed to go with Firefox OS. âoeThere are no other alternatives that are truly open,â Merwan Mereby, Panasonicâ(TM)s US Vice President Interactive Content & Services Group, told us.

    That is interesting, because I thought a bunch of handset makers are using Android while giving nothing at all back to google.

  • Who the hell are they "announcing" things too? The doors don't even open until tomorrow. Saw a pic yesterday and they're still building everything. Manlifts and crews all over the place.
  • weekly updates, bloat and random changes. hmmm great just what I wanted in my TV's interface.
    • No kidding - as if my Panasonic "Smart" TV didn't suck enough already. Twice now we've sat down as a family to Skype with my mother on the other side of the world only to have the telly decide it needed to do an update NOW. Twenty minutes later, the 3 year old is in no mood to sit and talk to grandma, who is already tech-challenged and doesn't understand the hold-up. The inbuilt "OS" is slow and buggy and the UI is atrocious. The YouTube browser tries to do a full search for each letter you enter, so by

  • History repeats itself (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I liked it when televisions were simple beasts which showed programmes as they were being broadcasted. There was no bloat, no lag and they started up instantly. Any other services such as DVDs could be added by the user. Now they are a sluggish mess.

    Kind of like Firefox

  • I don't even watch TV! I am too sophisticated for that. Indeed, I don't even know what "Duck Dynasty" is. I just have a dumb terminal connected to a Dreamcast.

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