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Spice Fire One: India"s first Firefox phone to take on Android"s budget dominance

[email protected] (Tech2)
August 24, 2014

Firefox phoneMozilla"s Firefox OS as a smartphone operating system has had a negligible impact on the market, but all that could change very soon as the first Firefox smartphone has been announced for India. The Spice Fire One has predictable low-end specifications and a greatly attractive price tag.

At Mobile World Congress, Mozilla unveiled plans to expand to additional markets in Latin America and eastern Europe, and also announced a blueprint for any phone maker to make $25 Firefox OS smartphones, which it has now delivered on seemingly with the Spice Fire One, priced at Rs 2,299.

Many vendors are touting their low-cost Android devices as built for the first-time smartphone buyer. But we think that Android, iOS, BB 10 and Windows Phone are so far advanced for most first-time buyers that they don"t even know how to tap the full capability of the OS. Firefox is meant for just this crowd, making it easier to get apps and simple to use for non-practiced users. Firefox OS is built specifically for low-powered phones, and is optimised to run on hardware as low as a single-core processor, which is what Spice"s Fire One sports.

The phone is expected gives users the basic experience, without the performance overhead. It"s meant to decentralise the app publishing process of the leading operating systems, by giving developers full freedom to publish Web apps. The idea behind Firefox OS is it"s a Web-first platform, and not apps-first. It uses the full suite of Web standards such as HTML 5, WebRTC or RTSP for live video streaming, to bring apps and or to convert web pages into apps. In fact, if you use an Android phone, you can check out how this works as the Firefox broswer app lets you install apps from the Marketplace, like you would a regular Android app.

There"s a handy advantage with this system. Unlike on iOS or Android, where you may have to download apps, with Firefox OS, you have instant access to all apps, since they are basically modified versions of the website or webpage. Firefox says its search-and-launch mechanism will at least partially rid the problem of searching for and installing apps, which is part of the learning curve on any smartphone. This also means that developers don"t have to be bound by app-store rules that most OSes have. A developer could publish any app for Firefox OS on the Firefox Marketplace, just as easily as they would make a webpage.

Mozilla says its currently making big changes to the OS, which will come to handsets over this year. Among the changes is one for the way users access recently used apps or the notification centre. In a bid to set itself apart from the likes of Android, Firefox is working on a cross-platform sync service with Firefox Accounts, which was introduced with the radical Australis makeover. With Firefox Accounts, Mozilla can better integrate services including Firefox Marketplace, Firefox Sync, backup, storage, or even a service to help locate, message or wipe a phone if it were lost or stolen, according to the company. It would ensure your open tabs are synced across the phone and your PC.

The latest version of the OS, v 1.3, addresses some concerns such as POP3 email support, and NFC connectivity for interfacing and triggers. Firefox has also made improvements to the camera app, with support for continuous autofocus provided the hardware is present for such a feature. It"s surely adding a lot of things that are considered crucial in modern day smartphones, but in its own way.

Of course, the big questions are always about what one can do with the phone, the apps, games and utilities available. Here"s where Firefox OS could come undone. Sure, the Marketplace boasts popular apps such as Line, Twitter, Facebook and even Candy Crush, but it"s still a very underwhelming collection. WhatsApp, for example, would be the first app most smartphone newbies look for, but it"s not yet available on Firefox. That could of course change as more devices and vendors come into the picture. But the hard fact is that Firefox OS is still quite nascent and that"s its biggest drawback. Firefox is hoping it can impress first-time smartphone users with how much can be done in so little, which is something Android has yet to convince anyone about, save for a few exceptions.

Android is clearly dominating the budget segment, and such a monopoly is never a good thing for consumers. Choice is great, and Mozilla and Spice are making options available. Make no mistake, Spice is fully invested in Android; the company"s website does not yet have a page for the new Firefox OS phone, so it"s clearly just the first step to gauging reaction. And at Rs 2,299 for the Fire One, it"s making thing s way easy for the undecided buyer.

Firefox OS phones might not be so revolutionary that they will change the Indian smartphone market or to dethrone Android; no one thinks Firefox OS is mature enough to do that. But Firefox has the right idea of targetting first-time smartphone buyers, and now we can wait for more manufacturers to follow Spice"s lead, if the first Firefox OS phone is a hit.

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News Network
July 28,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 28: Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Monday alleged that BJP is trying to destabilise the Congress government in Rajasthan.

"It is the duty of the Governor to act according to the decision of the state cabinet. But he is acting like a central government puppet," he said at a protest organised here by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).

He said the Congress is protesting across the country to save democracy and save the constitution.

"We are not fighting through violence. We are protesting peacefully. The Constitution has given the right to protest in a democratic system," he said.

He accused the BJP of "being disrespectful" to the Constitution.

"Governments must walk within the framework of the Constitution. The Constitution gives everyone rights and duties. BJP destabilises elected governments and buys our legislators by horse-trading by spending crores of money. The same thing happened in Karnataka as well," he alleged.

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News Network
February 21,2020

London, Feb 21: Scientists have discovered a new species of land snail, and have named it Craspedotropis Greta Thunberg in honour of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg for her efforts to raise awareness about climate change.

According to the study, published in the Biodiversity Data Journal, the newly discovered species belongs to the so-called caenogastropods -- a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes, and forest degradation.

The scientists, including evolutionary ecologist Menno Schilthuizen from Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, said the snails were found very close to the research field station at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei.

They added that the snails were discovered at the foot of a steep hill-slope, next to a river bank, foraging at night on the green leaves of understorey plants.

The effort aided by amateur scientist J.P. Lim, who found the first individual of the snail said, "Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create."

"And it's a promise that people from all generations will join her to help," Lim said.

The researchers said they approached Thunberg who said that she would be "delighted" to have this species named after her.

The study work including, fieldwork, morphological study, and classification of identified specimen was carried out in a field centre with basic equipment and no internet access, the scientists said.

According to the study, the work was done by untrained ‘citizen scientists’ guided by experts, on a 10-day taxon expedition.

"While we are aware that this way of working has its limitations in terms of the quality of the output (for example, we were unable to perform dissections or to do extensive literature searches), the benefits include rapid species discovery and on-site processing of materials," the researchers wrote in the study.

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Agencies
January 7,2020

Washington, Jan 7: Facebook will ban deepfake videos ahead of the US elections but the new policy will still allow heavily edited clips so long as they are parody or satire, the social media giant said Tuesday.

Deepfake videos are hyper-realistic doctored clips made using artificial intelligence or programs that have been designed to accurately fake real human movements.

In a blog published following a Washington Post report, Facebook said it would begin removing clips that were edited--beyond for clarity and quality--in ways that "aren't apparent to an average person" and could mislead people.

Clips would be removed if they were "the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic," the statement from Facebook vice-president Monika Bickert said.

However, the statement added: "This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words."

US media noted the new guidelines would not cover videos such as the 2019 viral clip -- which was not a deepfake -- of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that appeared to show her slurring her words.

Facebook also gave no indication on the number of people assigned to identify and take down the offending videos, but said videos failing to meet its usual guidelines would be removed, and those flagged clips would be reviewed by teams of third-party fact-checkers -- among them AFP.

The news agency has been paid by the social media giant to fact-check posts across 30 countries and 10 languages as part of a program starting in December 2016, and including more than 60 organisations.

Content labeled "false" is not always removed from newsfeeds but is downgraded so fewer people see it -- alongside a warning explaining why the post is misleading.

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