As a company we have directed most of our focus into e-commerce. But in the past few years, business has taken a turn and m-commerce is becoming very prevalent in our technologically sprinting society. Our mobile phones are functional and capable of nearly any task that we would normally need a computer to perform. But business never sleeps, and as a result, neither does advancement.<p>
According to Wired’s WebMonkey, Mozilla recently announced their progress on a project that they started last year called Boot2Gecko. B2G is Mozilla’s newest effort to build an innovative mobile operating system. The operating system is being built with solely standards-based web technology.
The Platform is being set to function on different levels with the first one being referred to as “Gonk.” Gonk is the hardware extraction layer, telephony stack, and other low end components that use the Linux kernel. Gonk is said to be very similar to upstream Linux. The middle layer is a rendering engine. A lot of the API innovation has taken place in this layer to enable new functionalities in the platform. The top layer, known as Gaia, is the B2G interface which functions entirely with HTML and Javascript.
The interaction within the platform and amongst the layers is managed by a process that acts as a server. This interaction allows for wireless modem functionality and important mobile tasks and features like accelerometers, geolocating, taking pictures, dialing, sms messages, accessing an address book, and simpler settings like “vibrate mode.” The calls are written in Javascript because it was Mozilla’s personal initiative to create a platform that functions off HTML, Javascript, and CSS.
All of the B2G programming can run in a desktop browser. The platform will be able to offer the same functionalities as the current mobile technology and more. In the early stages, B2G’s browser-based technology offers a vision of the future as Mozilla sees it and is already compatible with Samsung Galaxy S II’s because Gonk uses many similar bits of Android’s environment.
Many parties and hardware vendors are already interested in adopting the platform. It will be interesting to see Mozilla’s release-ready product. And although, very ambitious, the project is very capable of seeing speedy success in as early as Q2 of 2012.
Allied Wallet is very excited to see the B2G platform and wishes Mozilla all the best. What do you think about it? Is this a good innovational step? Would you feel comfortable in a mobile, web-based platform? Let us know what you think.
