Firefox OS shows up on a mystery phone, we go hands-on (update: now with video!)
Firefox's mobile operating system showed up on a mystery phone tonight at a pre-CES event ahead of its unveiling later this year, carrying no branding and looking light on features. Sadly, the WiFi in the event space didn't give us much of a chance to explore the OS' inner workings, and the phone was dubbed a "mystery" device by Mozilla reps, but we did snap some pictures of it. We also know that it's got at least an ARMv6 CPU and 256MB of RAM, and likely more power than that. Mozilla's planning a 2013 launch of the Firefox OS -- an OS powered entirely by HTML5 -- in partnership with Telefonica, Qualcomm, and "a long list of industry supporters.
The phone we handled felt like a pretty standard low-end Android device, albeit running an HTML5 open source OS. Swapping between apps was quick and responsive, but the phone really wasn't doing too much. Mozilla's aiming the OS at low-end phones in emerging markets, and told us that South America would be its first focus. While what we saw was still pretty bare bones, the OS has certainly seen some heavy updates since its big debut at last year's Mobile World Congress.
Update: To be extra clear, Mozilla isn't launching hardware, but a mobile OS that works across various devices. Sorry about any confusion!
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