jetpack

Windows 7 slate by Christmas? Seriously? FLO TV really didn't, your iPhone could be our new set top box, Panasonic takes another run at gaming, WebOS could be moving into a mansion, and you've finally got your jet pack, alright? Now stop whining.

Mozilla had to restart an effort to overhaul Firefox's extension technology, but the Jetpack reboot is steadily coming together.

Mozilla has released five beta versions of the Jetpack Software Developer Kit, a package that puts a friendly face on Firefox's inner workings so that extensions can do things such as open new tabs, add menu items, and modify Web pages. And the latest schedule was announced this week: its goal is to release Jetpack 1.0 by the end of 2010.

"We've been working on the SDK for almost a year now (and the Jetpack project … Read more

Web-based image editor Picnik, which is now a part of Google, has long been the built-in editor for Yahoo's Flickr photo-hosting service. And if you've found yourself wishing it was just as simple to edit other images around the Web, you're in luck. A relatively new Firefox extension called "Instant Image Edit with Picnik" lets you edit any image on any site, using Picnik--all with little more than a right-click.

The extension was built using a new part of Mozilla's Jetpack API, which lets developers add items to the contextual menu of a user'… Read more

Since I was young, I've dreamed of being a pilot. I'm still nowhere close to that shining goal as age slowly creeps up on me.

My next target is to cough up $90,000, which again is a near-impossible ambition as I am a poorly paid scribe. At least I can write about it. Humpf.

The Martin Jetpack by New Zealand's Martin Aircraft is the closest thing to bringing my childhood fantasies to life. If I place an order now and put down a 10 percent deposit, it could be mine in 12 months. The problem is … Read more

Mozilla, faced with new competitive pressures, has begun work on three separate, significant changes to Firefox.

First is a new JavaScript engine that--with a transfusion from the project behind Apple's Safari--should run Web-based programs at least 30 percent faster. Second is a new graphics engine for Windows that will take advantage of hardware acceleration for graphics and text. And third is a programming tool to help bring to fruition a new system for Firefox add-ons.

Mozilla made notable gains against the dominant Internet Explorer since Firefox's launch five years ago, but for much of that time, Microsoft's … Read more

Mozilla won't make a 2009 deadline for releasing Firefox 3.6 and is giving itself more time to complete a major update, version 4.0.

The organization behind the open-source Web browser had predicted a final release of Firefox 3.6 in December 2009, but the Mozilla Web site now includes "ship Firefox 3.6" as a goal for the first quarter of 2010.

In addition, Firefox 4.0, which had been due in 2010, now is "aimed at late 2010 or early 2011," with a beta due in the summer of 2010, according to Mozilla.

Schedule delays are common in the software world, but browser development is furious these days with the arrival of Google's Chrome into the market, Apple helping to expand the frontiers of what the browser can do, Opera trying to dramatically speed up JavaScript execution and display performance, and Microsoft getting more ambitious again with Internet Explorer. "We've always been more quality-driven than time-driven, but we understand timing in the market matters to our users and our competitiveness," said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, in an October interview. … Read more

Google is on the verge of launching a Web site to showcase its extensions to customize what its browser can do.

The company's latest developer preview edition, Chrome 4.0.249.0, promotes the feature on its opening screen and its new-tab page. "New! Google Chrome now has extensions and bookmark sync," the page reads, offering a link to a site that's not public yet, https://chrome.google.com/extensions. (Bookmark sync is already available.)

Extensions and support for Mac OS X and Linux are the headline features of Chrome 4.0. It's available as … Read more

Well, according to one listener, you can't get away from underwear in Japan so the Google StreetView cameras shouldn't try. Also if you deleted those pictures of you in your underwear from Facebook, I can still see them. In fact, deleting photos from social media doesn't make it as deleted as you might like. We also talk Pirate Bay, RealDVD, and other court cases.

Web sites ‘keeping deleted photos’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8060407.stm… Read more

Mozilla Labs has launched a new project called Jetpack that could drastically change how users interact with Web sites and manage third party add-ons.

In a nutshell, it enables developers to create code packages that can be toggled on and off without the end user having to restart their browser. This is something that cannot be done with Firefox's current add-ons system, but has been possible in third-party tools such as Greasemonkey, which allow users to pick and choose which scripts are active.

It solves another annoyance by letting developers create code that isn't outdated or broken every … Read more