Mozilla hopes to help Web apps match phone apps

What if, when you fired up your mobile phone's browser, it showed a list of the same basic apps your phone does today? And what if a developer who wanted an app to span iPhones, Android phones, and Windows phones only had to write one Web application to do that?

That's the vision that Mozilla, developer of the Firefox Web browser, wants to enable through a project called WebAPI that's designed to make Web-based applications compete better with native apps. And Mozilla has begun hiring programmers for it as part of a plan to build the necessary plumbing by next February, CNET has learned.

Web apps have grown steadily in maturity and sophistication over the years, but they still can't do all of what software written to run natively on a computing device can do. And with the arrival of newly powerful mobile devices--those using Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems in particular--native app programming has experienced a renaissance.

Mozilla, though, wants the Web to catch up--at least as far as mobile phones. The WebAPI effort aims to provide HTML-based software with the necessary application programming interfaces (APIs).

"We are aiming at providing all the necessary APIs to build a basic HTML5 phone experience within the next 3 to 6 months," the Mozilla wiki page on WebAPI said. Among the interfaces planned are those to interact with a phone's dialer, address book, contacts list, and camera.

If Mozilla succeeds in the effort, the project could ease the lives of developers who today must decide whether to allocate resources for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and other operating systems. And, given that Firefox is front and center in the project, it could help Mozilla address its competitive weakness in the mobile market compared to the iOS and Android browser that both are based on the WebKit project.

Mozilla need not start from scratch. Some related work has been under way already through a group called the Device API, a project that browser maker Opera has pushed. In addition, some of the abilities are present in Adobe Systems' Flash technology, though that hasn't spread widely through the mobile device market.

Mozilla is hiring
Mozilla's Jonas Sicking revealed the WebAPI project on a mailing list yesterday and said Mozilla is hiring several full-time programmers to support the effort.

"We invite our community to work with our newly formed WebAPI team on closing the device API gap that exists today between the open Web platform and native APIs," Sicking said. "As with all other additions that we make to the Web platform, the goal is for them to be available in all browsers. We believe that Web developers should have a consistent and reliable platform to build on."

Mozilla hopes to standardize the new WebAPI interfaces--and significantly, it plans to do so through the World Wide Web Consortium. Years earlier, the W3C lost some HTML standardization initiative to a browser group called Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). The W3C, though, re-engaged with HTML standardization and now is working to speed its standardization process to match the pace of Web development better.

Web programming is growing by leaps and bounds for many reasons. Among them: the arrival of mobile phones with capable browsers and higher-speed Net connections; the surging performance of JavaScript, the programming language used for Web applications; the embrace of cloud computing, in which applications live on a server on the Internet and can be accessed from any device with a browser; and the competition among Microsoft, Apple, Google, Opera, and Mozilla to advance their browsers with competitive new features.

Nonetheless, it's native programming for mobile devices that's arguably the hottest new area. It's a market without dominant incumbent companies, flush with new customers and well integrated with payment mechanisms to deliver money to coders. The fact that Google's Chrome OS has strong internal competition from Android shows just how big a challenge Mozilla has in bringing its Web app programming vision to reality.

Linking with B2G
The Mozilla project dovetails with Mozilla's Boot to Gecko (B2G) effort. Its goal is "building a complete, standalone operating system for the open Web," all with a mobile device focus, such that opening your browser is the functional equivalent of turning on your phone.

In that regard, WebAPI also helps Mozilla match Google's Chrome OS, a browser-based operating system project that in recent months has arrived on lower-end laptops called Chromebooks. While the Mozilla and Google efforts compete to an extent, fundamentally they share a common goal in making the Web suited for advanced apps, not just basic ones. Right now programming something complex like Google Docs requires herculian abilities, and even that can't yet do basic things such as store data when the network goes down.

One more project of note, from the company that arguably has the most to lose from Web applications: Microsoft. Windows 8 will use Internet Explorer 10 for "tailored mode" applications, giving Web programming another big shot in the arm and, in all likelihood, significantly advancing the programming tools available to developers.

It's a somewhat ironic move, given Microsoft's fear in the 1990s that Netscape's effort to make the browser and the Web into something of a replacement for Windows. That fear led Microsoft into aggressive actions that ultimately led to the expensive, drawn-out antitrust lawsuit that took some of the wind out of Microsoft's sails.

What's not yet clear is how universal applications written for these foundations will be. Google has its Chrome Web Store, for example, for distributing Web apps that work with Chrome; some of those are Web apps that work on other browsers, too, but browser incompatibilities can interfere with that--particularly with new, immature Web interfaces. In addition, the Chrome Web store comes with payment and permission mechanisms that won't necessarily carry over beyond the Chrome realm. Windows 8, though it's using the same basic ingredients such as HTML and JavaScript, could come with other constraints. However, Microsoft hasn't detailed plans yet.

Web Intents
Chrome OS and Mozilla's B2G also are embarked in parallel on efforts to mirror a technology on Android phones called "intents." The intents system lets applications register to be mechanisms to handle certain actions that can be performed with certain types of data. For example, the intents system can hand off a photo in the photo gallery to the Facebook app for posting when a user taps the "share" button.

To this end, Google is working on a project called Web Intents that does the same thing, but Web applications are registered to perform the actions and the browser hands off the content. Mozilla's parallel is called Web Activities, part of its experimental OpenWebApps add-on.

Mozilla is tackling other uncertainties, too: should its interfaces be high-level ones such as one for the camera, or low-level ones such as one for communicating over USB? And what's the best way to constrain the APIs so they don't cause security problems?

The work, combined with the rapid development of browsers themselves, means Web apps have a vibrant future. It means a certain amount of chaos for Web programmers, but the confusion of active projects is a better alternative to the stagnant waters of dormant or dying environments.

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World stock prices rise over US debt deal hopes

LONDON — Investors boosted stocks and sold safe-haven assets Monday, betting that a last-minute deal in Washington meant the U.S. economy would avoid default.

There remained a widespread assumption, however, that credit ratings agencies could downgrade U.S. Treasuries from their vaunted triple-A status, a move that would impact the valuation of numerous other assets.

Investors were also digesting data pointing to stagnant growth in the global economy, with Chinese factory activity slowing and euro zone manufacturing falling.

Story: House passes bill to prevent US default

After a tense weekend spent in search of a compromise to allow the U.S. borrowing limit to be lifted, U.S. President Barack Obama said leaders from both parties reached a deal to cut the budget deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years, with additional savings of $1.4 trillion possible.

The plan must be passed by both houses of Congress and will still face some opposition. But it is expected to allow the debt ceiling to be raised, avoiding the prospect of Washington not being able to pay its bills and defaulting.

World stocks as measured by MSCI climbed 0.6 percent with emerging market shares up 1.2 percent.

Video: Will a deal restore faith on Wall Street? (on this page)

There were large gains in Japan, where the Nikkei rose 1.3 percent. In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 rose 0.7 percent with banking shares enjoying a big boost.

But there remained a degree of skepticism about how long the rise in risk sentiment would last, given the likely U.S. downgrade, which some believed could come this week.

"It is a relief rally on the back of the parties coming together, but it could only last for a couple of days as the United States could now face a ratings downgrade," Manoj Ladwa, senior trader at ETX Capital, said. "That would impact every part of the United States."

Story: Economists warn cuts to federal spending ill-timed

It would also raise issues for assets elsewhere. Some large pension funds, for example, will only hold triple-A debt, meaning they may have to sell Treasuries and buy elsewhere, crowding trades into German Bunds, for example.

The relative valuations of a number of assets, meanwhile, are based on their difference from supposedly risk-free Treasuries.

The flip side of Monday's stock rally was the unwinding of investor positions taken to protect against U.S. default.

Gold fell more than 1 percent before recovering. It was at $1,616 an ounce after hitting all-time nominal highs last week.

The dollar rose against the Swiss franc, which has seen intense interest from investors as the dual euro zone and U.S. debt crises have stirred markets this year.

Commodity currencies — those tied to the prospect of large developing market growth — climbed, with the Australian dollar nearing a 29-year peak against the greenback hit last week.

"In the short term, there will be relief in market sentiment today and maybe this week, as the U.S. will avoid a default, but the problems are not fully solved so I think we will see a muted reaction," said Richard Falkenhall, currency strategist at SEB in Stockholm.

"You have the risk of ratings agency downgrades, and no further fiscal stimulus in this deal," he said.

On bond markets, yields on U.S. Treasuries and core euro zone debt rose, reflecting some selling to release money parked in fixed income in the run-up to the U.S. deal.

The premium investors demand to hold Italian and Spanish government bonds rather than benchmark German Bunds fell in line with the outperformance of riskier assets.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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