The Insider News

The Register[^]:

Open ... and Shut It's hard to believe it now, but not too long ago the web was dangerously close to being owned by one vendor: Microsoft. As mainstream users came to equate Internet Explorer's logo with the Web, Microsoft worked to lock in its advantage with increasingly proprietary technology like ActiveX. It surely would have done so, too, but for the seemingly futile Mozilla browser, née Firefox. Born in the ashes of Netscape's failed browser business 10 years ago this month as Phoenix, Firefox 1.0 is arguably the most important technology developed in the last 50 years.

Wired.com[^]:

What we learned is that you have to sell out (a little) to sell (a lot). I’d argue that many makers have to do this when they want to scale. Going from 0 to 1 million units projected in just our first year meant we had to make a number of tradeoffs – from where to manufacture and how to work with partners without alienating our core community, to what features we chose (or didn’t choose) for the Raspberry Pi in the first place.

The Verge[^]:

Of course, spending a lot of time in Chrome isn’t enough to justify buying a Chromebook — I could easily have continued running the browser in Windows or Ubuntu. But as the idea of switching to Chrome OS matured in my mind, I became increasingly impatient with the extraneous features and restrictions full-blown operating systems forced on me. Even Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which I ran on my work laptop, took a good 20 seconds to boot, then required four or five clicks to get to the browser.

Mozilla[^]:

For the past year Mozilla has been working on an experimental login system that completely eliminates passwords on websites while being safe, secure, and easy to use. Persona is ready to use for authentication: it works in all major smartphone, tablet, and desktop browsers, the user experience has been thoroughly reviewed and polished, we’re committed to the core APIs, and its infrastructure is highly available and stable.

PCMag.com[^]:

Microsoft's failure to adhere to the European Commission's "browser ballot" requirement could result in formal charges, according to a new report. As noted by Reuters, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told reporters in Warsaw that the organization is "working on" opening a formal proceeding against Microsoft for its browser missteps. Almunia said he does not expect the investigation to last too long since Microsoft has already acknowledged its mistakes, Reuters said.

Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision[^]:

Microsoft could have had most of the 107,000 Windows Phone 7.5 apps running on Windows 8 on day one. It would have been a fairly (read VERY) easy thing for them to do. It seems like arrogance on the part of Microsoft Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky is all that kept this from happening. And it could prove to be a fatal mistake on his part. But that isn’t what this posting is about. Despite Microsoft’s possible missteps, developers would be quite foolish to ignore Windows 8/RT’s new “Windows Store” applications.

Richard Banks - Agile and .NET[^]:

With Windows 8 being RTM’ed and a slew of new devices to be launched on October 26 (just a few weeks away) I can’t help but wonder where the new keyboards are. Sure, Microsoft has announced some new keyboards and mice, but they’re not gesture enables and have no charm keys on them. The keyboard is just a fairly standard keyboard with the new Windows logo on it. Boring!