Mozilla Launches Firefox OS

Gadget show goes soft on hardware

Barcelona, Spain (CNN) - I came to Mobile World Congress expected to be wowed by lots of shiny new gadgets, but I'm leaving impressed by the seemingly less sexy subject of mobile operating systems. Turns out there's a lot happening here.


A lot of the buzz was focused around the Firefox OS launch on Sunday. A rival to Android, iOS and Windows Phone, it seems unlikely it will get much traction in the West. But in places where people have yet to buy a smartphone it might stand a chance -- it's intended to run on less powerful phones that are cheap to make and sell.

One of the aspects of the launch that surprised most people was the number of manufacturers and network operators backing the OS.

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That's a sign of how fed up those parties are getting of being told what to do by Apple and Google, and how worried they are that they are being increasingly locked out of the profits of the smartphone sector. They are lashing themselves to Firefox OS in the hope that it will lead to more money for them down the line.

Also shown off for the first time was Tizen, Samsung and Intel's alternative to Android.

Due later this year, Tizen has had a long history of false starts, so we were excited to take a look at it. It essentially looks a lot like Android, but seemed pretty janky to us and a long way from being ready for release to consumers. It wasn't the best of debuts for something so important.

Read more: Will we ever have battery-free mobiles?

But for me and the rest of the CNET team, the star of the show is something very few people will have heard of.

Ubuntu Touch is an operating system for mobiles and tablets coming in October. It doesn't have the big names attached to it like Firefox OS and Tizen, but it feels a lot slicker.

Instagram Ads Coming Soon

The Facebook-owned app is ready to start making money by inserting ads into the feeds of its US users.

 

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom at the company's press event for its video offering.

Instagram will soon be inserting photo and video ads into the stream for its US members, the 3-year-old Facebook-owned service announced Thursday. People will notice the "occasional ad" in the "next couple months," Instagram said.

"Seeing photos and videos from brands you don't follow will be new, so we'll start slow," Instagram said in a blog post on the change. "We'll focus on delivering a small number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community."

The ads have yet to make their appearance in Instagram's mobile apps, CNET has confirmed, but the service is prepping people in advance of their release so as to stave off a potential backlash from the community. A Facebook spokesperson declined to provide exact timing on the arrival of the ads.

The change, though expected, will be a radical one for the more than 150 million people who use Instagram's iOS and Android applications on a monthly basis. Though a boon for parent-company Facebook's bottom line, the ads bring with them the potential to alienate active users and could stir up a controversy like the one that bubbled up when Instagram temporarily changed its terms of service at the end of last year.

"As always, you own your own photos and videos. The introduction of advertising won't change this," the company iterated so as to avoid a similar dustup.

Instagram, for its part, is promising magazine-quality ads that "feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many of you already enjoy from your favorite brands." The service also said that users can, just as on Facebook, click to hide the ads they don't like.

Google's Nexus 5 Coming Soon: 50% Cheaper than iPhone 5S

A source says the new Google phone will come with an attractive price for those that have been hankering for a new Nexus.

This image that purports to be one of the clearest yet of the new Nexus 5 has been floating around in recent days.

 

The hype and rumors we're hearing around the upcoming Nexus 5, expected from LG and Google later this month, is that it could instantly become the new Android phone to beat. But the latest whisperings hint that it could also give the iPhone 5S a run for its money when it comes to how much of your money you have to shell out for one.

TechRadar says a "source familiar with Google" has told the site that the successor to the popular but LTE-less Nexus 4 will ship in the latter part of October and cost "half the price" of the iPhone 5S.

What's a little tricky about this is that the source seems to be referring to United Kingdom prices and ship dates, which can be different from what we see in the United States. If the Nexus 5 were to be half of what an unlocked iPhone 5S sells for at retail stateside (it starts at $649 for 16 GB contract-free with a T-Mobile SIM), that would mean we could see a new unlocked Nexus that, according to TechRadar's source, will meet the specs of the iPhone 5S, but for less than $350.

That would certainly be a welcome deal for Nexus fans hoping for a repeat of the $299 price tag for an unlocked Nexus 4 right out of the gate.

We'll see in the coming weeks if Google actually offers such a pre-holiday bargain on a top-flight phone, or if we've just caught wind of some sort of UK-only pricing scheme or just total bunk.

Be sure to read up on everything else we expect in a new Nexus, and let us know in the comments if you plan to get one of your own.

Adobe Hacked, 3 million Customer's Accounts Compromised

The massive attack exposes customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders.

 

Adobe announced on Thursday that it has been the target of a major security breach in which sensitive and personal data about millions of its customers have been put at risk.

Brad Arkin, senior director of security for Adobe products and services, explained in a blog post that the attack concerns both customer information and illegal access to source codes for "numerous Adobe products."

A few examples include Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, and the ColdFusion Builder. However, as far as the source code is concerned, Adobe assured that there is no "increased risk to customers as a result of this incident."

Adobe officials added that the investigation has not turned up any zero-day attacks either.

Unfortunately, the culprits have obtained access to a large swath of Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords.

Arkin specified that removed sensitive information (i.e. names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, etc.) about approximately 2.9 million Adobe customers.

He added that investigators don't "believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers" from Adobe's systems.

While federal law officials are involved, Adobe stressed that there are some precautions that customers need to take action on now.

Adobe is resetting the passwords on breached Adobe customer IDs, and users will receive an email if they are affected. The software giant is also currently notifying customers whose credit or debit card information was exposed.

Adobe has also promised to offer these customers with the option of enrolling in a one-year complimentary credit monitoring membership where available.

Tech's 10 Largest IPO Countdown

Twitter has just made its IPO filing public. Where might it land on the list of the largest Internet public offerings of all time?

 

Twitter has just made its IPO filing available to the public, and it's trying to raise $1 billion.

The 140-character microblogging platform certainly isn't the first Internet company to go public with sky-high expectations. Facebook famously went public last year amid a circus-like atmosphere, only to debut to a rude awakening: technical problems on IPO day and investor concerns about monetizing the service. Since then, of course, the stock has rebounded, on the strength of its growing advertising business.

In that spirit, here are the top 10 Internet IPOs of all time, as ranked by Renaissance Capital, the public-offering research firm. If Twitter reaches its goal, it would fall at about sixth place on the list.

10. Orbitz Worldwide, July 2007, $510 million -- The travel site sold its stock at $15 per share, short of the $16 to $18 investors were expecting.

9. Groupon, November 2011, $700 million -- The daily-deals site went public in the largest offering by an Internet company since Google. The company increased its offering by 5 million shares to accommodate demand.

8. Renren, May 2011, $743 million -- The Chinese social network did exceptionally well in its public market debut, and was seen as a curtain-raiser for Facebook's offering, which would take place the next year.

7. Giant Interactive Group, October 2007, $887 million -- The Chinese online gaming company's debut was seen, in retrospect, as a worse fumble than Facebook's.

6. Zynga, December 2011, $1 billion -- The social gaming company, which was intimately tied to Facebook at the time, performed tepidly out the gate.

5. Shanda Games, September 2009, $1.04 billion -- The Chinese online gaming company had the biggest IPO of the year, but fell flat as well.

4. Infonet Services, December 1999, $1.07 billion -- A relic of the pre-bubble days, Infonet provided managed data communications services to well over 1,000 companies worldwide.

3. Yandex N.V., May 2011, $1.3 billion -- The Russian search engine was the biggest tech IPO of 2011, and shares popped on the first day.

2. Google, August 2004, $1.6 billion -- The search giant lowered its share price before going out, to quell concerns from skeptics.

1. Facebook, May 2012, $16 billion -- The biggest tech IPO of all time was infamously riddled with problems.

Twitter vs. Facebook: the Numbers

Twitter filed to go public today. Now, for the first time, it's possible to see how its financials and user numbers stack up to those of its chief rival.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (left) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Twitter formally filed to go public today, a move that means for the first time, the company's financials are available for any and all to see. As the company prepares to raise $1 billion in its IPO, it's worth taking a look at how Twitter's revenue, profit, and user numbers stack up against those of its chief rival, Facebook. (The comparative metrics, however, are a little different, as you can see below.)
To be sure, there's never been any doubt that Facebook is a far bigger company, with revenue and user numbers that (so far) dwarf Twitter's. Now, after years of relying on less-than-official looks at Twitter's performance, it's possible to see exactly how the social-networking/microblogging company has been doing:

Twitter

Facebook

.

Financials

.

Revenue (for 2012)

$317 million

$5.49 billion

.

Revenue (for first six months of 2013)

$253 million

$3.271 billion

.

Advertising Revenue (for 2012)

$269.4 million

$4.28 billion

.

Advertising Revenue (for first six months of 2013)

$220.6 million

$2.85 billion

.

International Revenue (for 2012)

$53 million

$2.56 billion

.

International Revenue (for first six months of 2013)

$62.8 million

$1.8 billion

.

Users

.

Monthly active users

220 million

1.15 billion

.

Daily active users

100 million+

669 million

.

Mobile active users

165 million

819 million

Twitter in IPO, flaunt Mobile Prowess

Striving to avoid the kind of early criticism Facebook endured, the company is upfront about its progress on the mobile front in its IPO filing.

 

Twitter isn't shy about touting its mobile prowess.

In its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the microblogging company pulled back the curtain on its operations to show off a business that not only has a healthy presence in the mobile arena, but also is actually intimately tied to it.

"Mobile has become the primary driver of our business," Twitter said in its filing.

The filing made it fairly clear to anyone who cared to pore through the 200-plus page document that Twitter is a company that puts mobile at the forefront (referencing mobile 130 times), leaving no doubt where its growth opportunity will come from.

In doing so, Twitter is avoiding some of the shrapnel that fell on Facebook when it released its own IPO filing. When Facebook filed to go public, many questions remained about its ability to generate revenue from its mobile business. While Facebook has largely answered those concerns in recent quarters, it endured a rough few early months.

Twitter didn't make the same mistake. Of its 218.3 million monthly active users, Twitter said 75 percent accessed its service through a mobile device. That's up from 66 percent from a year ago. The company said its most engaged users access Twitter through a mobile app.

Mobile's the big money maker too. The company said 65 percent of its advertising revenue came from mobile, and cited the introduction of its "Promoted Products" ad service to iOS and Android in February 2012 as a key driver of advertising opportunities.

Twitter touted its ability to utilize a mobile device's location to deliver targeted advertised tweets, tapping into the holy grail of relevant advertising. It also touted the introduction of its #Music service as well as its video-clip service Vine, both of which are mobile apps.

Twitter even talked up the 140-character limit, which was based on the company's origins as an SMS-based communication tool.

Twitter, however, did acknowledge that it generates less revenue per timeline view for mobile applications than it does for its desktop counterpart, largely because promoted tweets aren't as prominently displayed on a smartphone app. Because the growth in mobile is occurring faster than on the desktop, the company warned that one of its key metrics -- revenue per 1,000 timeline view -- would fall even as total revenue increases.

Twitter posted 80 cents per 1,000 timeline views in the three months ended June 30, compared with 64 cents from a year ago.

As a result, there will likely still be questions about how it keeps that metric rising and how the company can better take advantage of its strong presence in the area.

It's clear from the IPO filing that it's likely something Twitter is obsessing about too.