Programming

BARCELONA--Chinese mobile-phone maker Huawei has joined the Tizen Association and said it plans to build phones using the open-source, Linux-based operating system.

In addition, Huawei joined Tizen's board, which also includes Intel, NEC, Casio, NTT Docomo, Orange, Panasonic, Samsung, SK Telecom, Telefonica, and Vodafone.

The association also announced the open-source release of the Tizen beta and a Windows version of programming tools to build Tizen apps.

"Further enhancements and improvements to Tizen and its development environment will continue as we work towards a final release, targeted for the second quarter of 2012," the association said today during … Read more

BARCELONA--Facebook would like to build more mobile Web apps and fewer mobile native apps. Really, it would -- but browsers just aren't up to it, the company has concluded.

Web apps naturally span the multitudes of mobile devices that Facebook loves to run on, but they support Web standards so inconsistently that it's a developer's nightmare, said Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor, speaking here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. So Facebook is trying to do something about it: "We're taking on mobile web standards," Taylor said.

It's a two-pronged effort. … Read more

The mobile technology landscape is incredibly confusing. There are numerous choices, ranging from new HTML5 technologies, native app development methods, and all sorts of content management systems.

At CBS Interactive, we have numerous mobile solutions, including native apps for CBS.com, CNET, and "60 Minutes," along with mobile-optimized Web sites for GameFaqs and global properties like ZDnet.

At first blush, it seems problematic that various properties have picked completely different architectures for mobile delivery. A technologist's initial inclination is to have everyone run a consistent architecture across all of our properties. Yet it actually makes sense to … Read more

Google has released a test version of its browser with the ability to run programs written in Dart, the company's language designed to improve on JavaScript.

"This release of Chromium with Dart VM integration is a technology preview, and should not be used for day-to-day browsing. After more testing and developer feedback, we plan to eventually include the Dart VM in Chrome," said Google programmers Anton Muhin, Vijay Menon, and Pavel Podivilov, in a blog post yesterday.

Google developed Dart as a way to improve Web programming, for example with better performance and with a language it … Read more

Startup Unity Technologies released version 3.5 of its video game engine that now includes support for Google's Native Client browser-boosting software.

Unity's software is a cross-platform tool that lets game programmers reach a wide range of devices--everything from iPhones to Windows to browsers. Cross-platform tools are only worth it if they reach a broad number of platforms, though, so it's important to expand, and the company has been working on Unity 3.5 for months.

Native Client is Google software built into Chrome that lets programmers run lightly modified C or C++ software directly in the … Read more

Mozilla plans to release a concept version of Firefox for Windows 8's new Metro interface in the second quarter with alpha and beta versions to follow in the second half of 2012.

Mozilla announced the Firefox for Metro project in conjunction with its 2012 strategy documentation deluge.

Metro is a new user interface that replaces the Windows start button and menu with a grid of tiles. Those tiles launch software, but when they're on people's home screens they also can display anything from photos to message notifications. Deeper down, Metro comes with an entirely new set of … Read more

Mozilla is best known as the developer of Firefox, but it's reaching well beyond the browser with a 2012 strategy that strives to use the open Web to counteract ecosystem lock-in.

Firefox embodied Mozilla's effort to counter the damage that Microsoft's browser dominance caused on the Web. But now, as revealed in Mozilla 2012 plans published Sunday, the non-profit organization is putting the crosshairs on other big competitors, too: Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Those companies, along with Microsoft, each are building an ecosystem encompassing devices, operating systems, app stores, and apps. People should be worried about getting … Read more

In the battle between native apps and Web sites, an Italian startup called Apps Builder wants to help those on the Web side defect to the enemy.

The company offers a subscription-based Web service that converts Web sites into mobile applications. Last month it added Windows Phone app support to its earlier options--iOS, Android, HTML-based Web apps, and Chrome Web apps. And it's seeing some significant usage of its service.

Specifically, the company just passed the milestone of 20,000 apps developed through Apps Builder, and those apps have been downloaded a million times from their various app stores, … Read more

The dominance of Apple and Google mobile browsers is leading to a situation that's even worse for Web programming than the former dominance of Internet Explorer, a standards group leader warned today.

Daniel Glazman, co-chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) group overseeing the formatting and effects standard called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), said that programmers are overlooking other browsers when they use newer CSS features--even when those other browsers support the features.

The result is that those other browsers--Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera, chiefly--might have to essentially masquerade themselves as other browsers. When that happens, the "… Read more