Author: easyfilo

Enlarge (credit: Mozilla)

If you didn’t know that Mozilla made a VR-specific version of Firefox called Firefox Reality, then it’s OK for you to continue not knowing, because Mozilla announced today that it would be discontinuing support for the browser a little over three years after introducing it.

The Spanish co-op Igalia will pick up the pieces next week with a “somewhat beta” browser called Wolvic, which will be based on Firefox Reality’s source code. Firefox Reality will be removed from all the app stores in which it is available “in the coming weeks.” Like Firefox Reality, Wolvic will use the WebXR standard to enable VR and AR experiences on websites, rather than requiring a download of a standalone app from a curated app store.

This may simply be a case of a company discontinuing a niche project intended for a niche market that wasn’t generating sufficient user interest—it’s rare for companies not just to cancel but to willingly hand off overwhelmingly successful products. But Mozilla has been open about its need to carefully manage its resources as it has downsized over the years—The company endured multiple rounds of layoffs in 2020, both pre– and mid-pandemic, citing a need to “refocus.”

Enlarge / The Windows Insider program’s new logo. (credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 will be getting a significant new feature update sometime this month, and Microsoft is taking the opportunity to make some changes to its Windows Insider public beta program. The company outlined its plans in a blog post, along with a new logo (it looks like people but also hearts, neat).

Microsoft’s plans primarily impact the Dev channel, which will be “a place to incubate new ideas” but will more importantly be a place where Microsoft tests competing versions of features to see which one gets the best response. Some of the features might make it into the consumer version of Windows soon, some might make it eventually, and some may disappear never to be seen or heard from again.

For context, the Insider Preview program has three channels, each of which represents a different stage of Windows development. The Dev channel is updated frequently and previews not-always-stable, not-always-finished versions of new fixes and features, some of which are uncovered by external developers before Microsoft is ready to talk about them. The Beta channel is where near-final versions of features are tested before being tweaked for public release, and the Release Preview channel generally gets the exact same builds of Windows that are released to the general public a few days or weeks before everyone else.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Apple has surprised iOS app developers by announcing a plan to charge 27 percent commissions on third-party payments—nearly as high as Apple’s standard in-app payment cut of 30 percent. While Apple is applying the 27 percent commission only to dating apps in the Netherlands in order to comply with a government order, critics worry that Apple will charge commissions in any country where it’s required to allow third-party payments unless such commissions are specifically forbidden.

In a new support document for developers, Apple said the 27 percent commission will apply even when a developer simply links to their own website. “To comply with an order from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), Apple allows developers distributing dating apps on the Netherlands App Store to choose to do one of the following: 1) continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system, 2) use a third-party payment system within the app, or 3) include an in-app link directing users to the developer’s website to complete a purchase,” the document’s introduction said.

Explaining that the 27 percent commission applies to options 2 and 3, the document said: