General Gaming Article

Mozilla to Take on Chromecast with Firefox OS-running Device

Posted: 22 Jun 2014 04:38 PM PDT

Prototype already in hands of a select group of developers

Google's nearly year-old Chromecast dongle is about to get some fresh competition. Mozilla is gearing up to take on the $35 Chromecast with a Firefox OS-powered media streaming stick. The company's plans came to light a few days back when a Mozilla evangelist shared a photo of a "fully open TV casting prototype device running Firefox OS" via Twitter.

Mozilla evangelist Christian Heilmann's tweet outing the prototype was soon followed by a blog post containing a video of the said device (below) over at Gigaom. In the post, author Janko Roettgers describes the still unnamed streaming device as being part of an "ambitious project that aims to combine Mozilla's commitment to openness with a Chromecast-like media streaming device," adding that he has been closely monitoring the effort for some time now.

Per Roettgers, the device, which is currently in the possession of a handful of developers, can also run a number of Chromecast apps. Further, unlike Google's dongle, the Firefox OS-powered device won't be accompanied by any content restrictions. If that's not enough, it will come with an open boot loader and support casting from almost all major platforms.

Image Credit: Christian Heilmann

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Microsoft Unintentionally Confirms Surface Mini’s Existence

Posted: 22 Jun 2014 04:18 PM PDT

Surface Pro 3 user guide makes many references to long-rumored smaller sibling

Microsoft was widely expected to lift the curtain on an 8-inch tablet called the Surface Mini at its special event in New York on May 20, 2014. While the event did go through as planned, the long-rumored tablet was nowhere to be seen. What the world got instead was a 12-inch Windows 8.1 tablet called the Surface Pro 3 and a bunch of reports that suggested the Mini had been abandoned by Microsoft at the very last minute.

But in case you had any doubts about the existence of the Surface Mini, Microsoft's user guide proofreading department all but confirmed the tablet's existence this week when it failed to efface as many as four references to the Mini from the Surface Pro 3 user guide.

"I know it [Surface Mini] exists. It was the primary announcement a month ago, delayed literally last minute," wrote veteran Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott, who discovered the vestigial Mini references in the user guide, in a tweet Friday.

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