opensource
Nokia Phones to Control Home Appliances
Have you ever left the house wondering if you left the oven on? Thanks to Nokia, that soon won’t be a problem.
It is the stuff of science fiction: house lights, ovens, televisions and even security systems that can all be remotely operated and controlled at the touch of a button.
But now a new type of smart technology from mobile phone maker Nokia looks set to turn that fantasy into a reality.
The Home Control Center, which will go on sale at the end of next year, will mean British consumers are one step closer to living in “networked homes”, where everyday systems and devices are connected to the internet, allowing the home owner to monitor and activate them remotely using their mobile phone.
Nokia’s platform will run the open-source Linux operating system, meaning that third-party manufacturers that make fridges and televisions, will be able to build compatible technology into their devices at minimal cost. The Home Control Center will enable other smart-home solutions to be connected together, and provide users with a single, consistent way of controlling all their gadgets.
Smart homes have been around for years, but they’ve never been integrated into a single mobile interface intuitive enough for the average homemaker. As many Nokia users will tell you, Nokia makes beautifully intuitive mobile interfaces.
Apple makes a great mobile interface too, but they’re far too elitist to integrate their precious iPhones with common household appliances. Nokia’s combination of interface expertise and collaborative ethics could provide the missing key to the house of the future.
Firefox Revenues Up
How do you make money giving something away for free? Ask the Mozilla Foundation, who manage the development of the open source Firefox browser. They just released their financial statements for 2007. Late as those statements are, they look really good for the upstart browser.
“Mozilla’s revenues (including both Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation) for 2007 were $75 million, up approximately 12% from 2006 revenue of $67 million. As in 2006 the vast majority of this revenue is associated with the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google,” says Mozilla Foundation Chairperson Mitchell Baker.
Firefox reached 20% market share earlier this month. On a geekier scale, 48% of this blog’s readers use Firefox. What was once a deemed a toy exclusively for geeks is now recognized by a fifth of all netizens as an extensible tool for everyday tasks.
