Panasonic’s first Firefox OS-powered smart TV sets have hit the European market.
Mozilla took to its blog recently to announce the availability of Panasonic’s latest range of TVs in Europe. These televisions all run on the company’s Firefox OS.
“With Firefox and Firefox OS powered devices, users can enjoy a custom and connected Web experience and take their favourite content (apps, videos, photos, websites) across devices without being locked into one proprietary ecosystem or brand,” said Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal.
Six of Panasonic’s 2015 TV models will run on the operating system including the CR850, CR730, CX800, CX750, CX700 and CX680.
“Through our partnership with Mozilla and the openness and flexibility of Firefox OS, we have been able to create a more user friendly and customizable TV UI,” said Panasonic’s Masahiro Shinada.
In particular, Firefox OS has been optimised for HTML5 to provide a strong web content experience on the host TV – something that hasn’t always been the case with manufacturer-led smart TV software in the past.
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While Europe is getting these Firefox OS TVs first, Mozilla and Panasonic claim that they will be available worldwide in the coming months.
While Panasonic’s has chosen to go with Firefox OS, local rival Sony has gone with Google’s Android TV OS to power its 2015 TV range. It will be interesting to see how the two compare.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.