An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by mmaunder on Saturday March 17, 2012 @12:27PM (#3717409)

This runs a Linux kernel with some components in common with Android like libusb, so really linux is the operating system and there is a browser running on top of it.

Lots more info: https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by ChuckMcM on Saturday March 17, 2012 @02:14PM (#3717686)

Yes, the title is misleading. It should have read "an entire phone user interface implemented in a browser" which would have been more descriptive.

I love that the mozilla guys have done the legwork of figuring out what APIs were missing in order to do that. That is a nice piece of work.

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by asadotzler on Saturday March 17, 2012 @02:31PM (#3717739)

It's more than a user interface though. It's a platform for Web applications that let those apps reach all the way down to the full capabilities of the hardware.

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by ChuckMcM on Saturday March 17, 2012 @03:10PM (#3717887)

Perhaps we share a definition disconnect. Is X11 a platform for a user interface or is it a OS?

I lean to the former definition but I'll be the first to agree that I come from an earlier time. When 'windows' came out it really was a user interface on top of MS/PC-DOS (and it still is IMO) however now several generations of folks have been brought up saying that Windows was the OS.

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by grannyg00se on Saturday March 17, 2012 @08:09PM (#3718635)

I don't think recent versions of windows can realistically be thought of as a UI on top of MS/PC-DOS anymore.

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by serge2k on Saturday March 17, 2012 @09:43PM (#3718833)

Can any version that was built on NT?

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by joenathan on Saturday March 17, 2012 @08:56PM (#3718729)

Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel, the OS is Boot-to-Gecko, in the same way that Android is an OS with a Linux kernel.

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Re:An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Moz... by cjsmith9 on Monday March 19, 2012 @03:27PM (#3725704)

You're right, in fact the Linux Kernel was used to minimize changes OEMs would have to make to support B2G. Also, Mozilla has been working with Qualcomm to make sure that B2G is optimized for their chips. It should be very interesting to see the potential market shift once B2G is released.

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