Panasonic and Mozilla partner on Firefox OS for smart TVs

Panasonic and Mozilla have partnered to develop and promote Firefox OS – a new open platform for next generation smart TVs that is based on HTML5 and other web technologies.

Announcing the partnership at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the firms said that the new OS aims to offer consumers more personalised and optimised access to web-delivered online and broadcast content.

“With the launch of this new open platform, next generation smart TVs will gain full compatibility with web technologies and HTML5 standards used for cloud services and various future networked devices, enabling data from web services and devices to be easily mashed up on a single application,” the firms said in a statement.

They added that in next generation smart TVs, functions such as menus and EPGs will be written in HTML5, not embedded programmes, making it possible for developers to easily create apps for smartphones or tablets to remotely access and operate the TV.

Yuki Kusumi, director of the TV business division of the AVC Networks company of Panasonic said: “Panasonic had been expanding content and services dedicated for Panasonic TVs on our own portal site and our collaboration with Mozilla on Firefox OS will further accelerate various innovations and encourage many new services.”