Technology Effect

Mozilla has been steadily creeping toward its goal of releasing the first Firefox browser for mobile phones. On Friday, Firefox 1.0 for Nokia's Maemo--previously code-named Fennec--arrived. Firefox for the Maemo 5 platform has a few interesting conceits that set it apart from other mobile browsers, like Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Mozilla is banking on the uniqueness of its claim to fame--third-party, customizable browser extensions--to help its browser win mobile market share. Add-ons, after all, helped make Firefox the top browser alternative to Internet Explorer in the desktop space. To punctuate the importance of add-ons for Firefox's mobile browser, Mozilla also pushed out on Friday the general release of its bookmark and history-syncing extension, Weave Sync 1.0, for both desktop and mobile. Mozilla's accomplishment with a mobile version of Firefox is a mixed one, and not only because Maemo is a platform relatively few people have heard of. Nokia's open-source,...

Extreme HD: IBM Makes MRI Tech 100 Million Times Scientists at IBM Research, along with researchers the Center for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, say they have developed and demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology with volume resolution 100 million times finer than conventional MRI. Results of the demonstration were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The development represents a significant step forward in tools for molecular biology and nanotechnology by providing the ability to study complex 3-D structures at the nanoscale, according to IBM. Extending MRI to such fine resolution enabled scientists to create a microscope that, once fully developed, may be powerful enough to decipher the structure and interactions of proteins and pave the way for new advances in personalized healthcare and targeted medicines. "If we achieve our ultimate goal of atomic resolution, it could have a tremendous impact on medicine a...

Tesla Motors files for $100 million IPO Tesla Motors filed papers to go public , betting the time is right to raise $100 million on the stock market from investors eager to get a share of the nascent electric-vehicle market. The high-profile Silicon Valley company said it plans to use the proceeds from an initial public offering to continue manufacturing versions of its all-electric Roadster sports car and build the Model S, a luxury sedan. In its prospectus, Tesla indicated that it has sold 937 Roadsters and made $93.3 million through the first nine months of 2009. Its balance sheet shows that it has built up a stockholder deficit of $230 million.