And so Firefox continues its march into Europe. It is no secret that alternative browsers are much more popular in Europe than they are in North America, and recent statistics by StatCounter confirm that Firefox 3.0 has actually surpassed Internet Explorer 7, making it the most popular browser in Europe.StatCounter gathers its statistics from its own network of users, which encompasses 3 million web pages, leading to 4 billion page views per month. As always, statistics are statistics, so I wouldn't bet your life on them.
As the graph shows, Firefox 3 has surpassed Internet Explorer 7 as the most popular browser in Europe. Of course, if we add Internet Explorer 6 and 8 figures into the mix, IE is still more popular.
Firefox holds a share of 35%, edging out Internet Explorer 7, who sticks at 34%. Internet Explorer 6 still sits at 11%, with IE8 having a share of 2.3%. This puts Internet Explorer's total share at about 48%, and Firefox' at 38% (thanks to Firefox 2.0 users). Opera also does very well in Europe, with a share of 7%. Chrome and Safari are both stuck below 3%.
The figures for Europe differ a great deal from those of the rest of the world. StatCounter's statistics for worldwide browser usage put IE at 62%, Firefox at 29%, and Opera, Chrome, and Safari at less than 3% each. North America has figures very similar to the worldwide ones, but with Safari at 5%, and Opera at less than 1%.
Diving deeper into the European figures, it's pretty clear that my country (The Netherlands) is a bit behind the times, with Firefox at 21%, and IE at 73% - the others barely make a blip on the radar (except for Safari at 3%). It seems like other European countries are the ones doing all the hard work: in Poland, for instance, Firefox' share is at 51%. Opera is doing very well in Russia, with a share of 37% (!).
The figures for operating systems are also fun. In Europe, Windows XP does 69%, Vista 24%, Mac OS X 3.5%, and Linux 1%, which happens to be similar to the worldwide figures. North America is the different one here, with only 0.5% using Linux, and 7.8% using Mac OS X.
As always, these are just statistics, so be cautious.
Technology White Papers
"In the first episode of Microsoft's new film series 'On the Whiteboard', Editor Pamela Woon chats with two-time Oscar winner Randy Thom about the (often underestimated) importance of sound in human-technology interactions. Thom, the lead sound designer at Skywalker Ranch who worked on films such as The Incredibles, Castaway and Forrest Gump, says that people rarely consider the significance of those signature sounds that come from their trusty devices, whether it be a cell phone, a computer or a tablet."
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"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.