1 years ago, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was released by The Mozilla Foundation, calling it “a fast, full-featured browser that makes browsing more efficient than ever before.” Even after the release of many browsers focused on power-users, Firefox continues to remain favorite of millions.

Everybody has one favorite web browser that they love. However, in past one year, I haven’t been loyal to one particular browser. I've used Firefox and Chrome as my primary browsers, paid my allegiance to Microsoft’s Edge and Vivaldi for some time, and meanwhile tried out some other open source browsers.

Since its advent, I’ve used Firefox and loved it for its features, customization and speed. The browser was released eleven years ago as an alternative browser with the color of open source sprinkled all over its release note.

To promote the browser, in December 16th edition of the New York Times, the Mozilla Foundation published a two-page advertisement. The ad featured the names of people who participated in the Foundation’s fundraising campaign and made this open source web browser’s version 1.0 a success.

Mozilla believes in the open source philosophy and is very different from how bills are paid at Chrome, Opera and Microsoft’s offices. The Firefox community works hard to make a web that is more open.

In the recent years, Mozilla Firefox has incorporated many new modern features and stressed more on user privacy. I praise the Firefox team for bestowing us the browser that gave a fresh new outlook to the world of web browsers and is currently the proud possessor of millions of users across the world, becoming one of the most popular web browsers on the planet. We hope that the Firefox team will give us more reasons to celebrate in the upcoming time.

Apple may be killing it in China with the iPhone, but the U.S. firm faces a pretty impressive young competitor in the smart watch space on Chinese soil. It isn't running Android, but there is a Google connection.

Mobvoi, a two-year-old Chinese startup founded by ex-Googlers, is shaping up to be a very credible smartwatch rival. The company specializes in language search technology, and it is that which forms the core of its own smartwatch operating system — Ticwear — and its self-made hardware: the Ticwatch.

An investment from Google, which partnered with the company to bring Android Wear to China, put Mobvoi in the international spotlight last month, but how does its tech fare?

The answer is pretty well.

On the sidelines of our Beijing event last week, Mobvoi Product Manager Yili Lin showed off the watch — in gold, no less — and walked us through its features.

The sad news for most DYK readers is that Ticwear and the Ticwatch are built for Chinese language users, but Lin hinted that an international version could be released in the future. We’ll keep you posted on that!

If your dream is to land your feet on Mars then you may have a shot because NASA is recruiting would-be space explorers. NASA will start accepting applicants from December 14th till mid of February.

NASA is looking to increase their crew members which are currently only 47 whereas in the year 2000 there were 149 space explorers. According to NASA, “The selected candidates may fly on any of the four different U.S. vessels during their careers: The International Space Station, Two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by U.S. companies, and NASA’s Orion deep-space exploration vehicle”.

Referring to the recruitment of astronauts , NASA administrator Charles Bolden stated : “This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realize the goal of putting boot prints on the Red Planet”.

As NASA tweeted

Want to #BeAnAstronaut, but not sure you’re qualified? We’ve debunked a few myths for you: https://t.co/FV9QG7xuUF pic.twitter.com/ivqdZe1VNZ— NASA (@NASA) November 4, 2015

Coming to the requirements of getting into NASA . First of all, you must be a US citizen with at least a bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics field. Secondly, three years of experience is a must. Thirdly, there would be a physical test which is similar to a tough armed forces physical exam or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Lastly, the candidates must also pass the space-flight physical test.The successful candidates will be announced in mid-2017. The interested applicant can apply at this link

Astronauts will be launched on missions into deep space environment thanks to NASA’s two projects; NASA’s Space launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.

“This is an exciting time to be a part of America’s human space flight program,” said Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “NASA has taken the next step in the evolution of our nation’s human spaceflight program – and our U.S. astronauts will be at the forefront of these new and challenging space flight missions. We encourage all qualified applicants to learn more about the opportunities for astronauts at NASA and apply to join our flight operations team.”

For detailed information about a career in NASA you can visit :

http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts

It’s a well-known fact that even without any formal engineering training, Steve Jobs had an unteachable understanding of technology.

Many people avoid calling him a programmer or an engineer, but nobody would deny that he was a visionary. He said that it took a very unique combination of technology, talent, business, marketing, and luck to change what he called the “fastest-moving industry in the world.”

Here, I’d like to share with you an expert from a 1994 Rolling Stone interview, where Steve Jobs explains exactly what object-oriented software is. It’s one of the best explanations about object-oriented programming I’ve come across till date.

Give it a read:

Jeff Goodell: Would you explain, in simple terms, exactly what object-oriented software is?

Steve Jobs: Objects are like people. They’re living, breathing things that have knowledge inside them about how to do things and have memory inside them so they can remember things. And rather than interacting with them at a very low level, you interact with them at a very high level of abstraction, like we’re doing right here.Here’s an example: If I’m your laundry object, you can give me your dirty clothes and send me a message that says, “Can you get my clothes laundered, please.” I happen to know where the best laundry place in San Francisco is. And I speak English, and I have dollars in my pockets. So I go out and hail a taxicab and tell the driver to take me to this place in San Francisco. I go get your clothes laundered, I jump back in the cab, I get back here. I give you your clean clothes and say, “Here are your clean clothes.”You have no idea how I did that. You have no knowledge of the laundry place. Maybe you speak French, and you can’t even hail a taxi. You can’t pay for one, you don’t have dollars in your pocket. Yet, I knew how to do all of that. And you didn’t have to know any of it. All that complexity was hidden inside of me, and we were able to interact at a very high level of abstraction. That’s what objects are. They encapsulate complexity, and the interfaces to that complexity are high level.

Did you enjoy this real life example used by Steve Jobs to explain object-oriented programming and software? Tell us in the comments below.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants a little help from the members of his social network.

Each year, Zuckerberg takes on what he calls “a personal challenge” and, this year, he is looking to Facebook users for some ideas.

“I’m crowdsourcing ideas for my next year’s personal challenge,” Zuckerberg wrote on his wall.

“For background, every year I take on a challenge to broaden my perspective and learn something about the world beyond my work at Facebook.”

Challenges in years past have included learning to speak Mandarin, meeting one new person who doesn’t work at Facebook every day, writing a thank you note each day to someone who made the world better, being a vegetarian (or only eating meat if he killed the animal himself) and wearing a tie every day.

“At our last town hall Q&A, someone asked me what my challenge will be for the new year and I said I’d love ideas from our community,” he said. “I have an idea of what my next challenge might be, but I’m open to more ideas before the New Year officially begins.”

Some suggestions included learning to play an instrument, running one mile every day rain or shine, making a baby, climbing a mountain and reading the Bible cover-to-cover.

Zuckerberg has yet to say if he has chosen his challenge. It will be interesting to find out what it is.

Before we talk about how to get your business story into Google news, we ought to talk about why. It is obvious, of course, that you want your business story in the news.

But why Google news in particular?

Well, first, if your business has been attempting to increase its exposure in organic Google web search or even Google shopping, a few more simple steps can increase how much publicity you’ll receive, in an area where your competitors can’t easily follow you.

Since you’re already creating written articles, you might as well get more than one benefit from them. You can create once, and profit in several ways.

Google News is a reliable, repeatable source of visitors, and they will usually arrive faster, while you wait for things like Google organic search results to kick in.

Second, reading news is one of the leading reasons why people log on to the internet each day. 85% of Americans over the age of 18 use the web, according to Pew Internet Research. 78% of those web users have arrived here to read news.

We used to read the newspaper. Now we scan news websites, headlines we find on Twitter or Facebook, and subscribe via email to industry news.

Since the main reason the majority of people come online is to use search engines like Google, you may be tempted to simply target Google organic search and be done with it.

However, consider this: if you can find places to get more customer eyes on your message – usually much faster than your desired keyword ranking – wouldn’t the extra sales and leads be worth your while?

How Does Your Business Story End Up in Google News Results?

There are three great methods. The first method, is by having a press release accepted to one of the 50,000 publishers sharing the 6 billion monthly clicks which Google News reserves exclusively for them. (That doesn’t include additional organic search traffic.)

For a small fee, there are many press release distribution services that will do this for you, for anywhere from $25 to $200 each time. You can also often find smaller publications that accept free or low cost press releases.

If you wanted to do this every day, it could add up to quite a bit of money. However, this isn’t a bad technique to test the market and repeat, say, once a week.

There’s an easier, faster way.

My favorite way to get published in Google News is having my article accepted by a publication that is already in Google News. They are commonly referred to as Google News publishers.

You don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand the benefits of being published in a prominent publication with a byline that points back to your site, versus the amount of money you’d have to spend in advertising to get that same level of exposure.

It’s a little more difficult to get into Google News this way because you may need to be approved by an editorial staff in order to be published. Those publications may ask for exclusive first-time rights to your article or original content. If you’re not a writer, or aren’t employing someone full time to write original content, that can be a hurdle.

Acceptance is also not guaranteed. You can see this as a disadvantage, or embrace the fact that it will make it harder for competitors to mimic your marketing and steal your thunder.

You might be thinking “but who wants to read a story about my timeshare company or pet furniture manufacturer.”

And you’d be right – they don’t. It’s critical for this method for you to find out what the people you want to end up at your site want to read, and write for them in the area that is related to your product or service.

This can work for any industry – Google News publisher sites focus on everything from business travel to pet health. And if your niche is so small that you can’t quite nail it, there are many publications that are publishing about your local area. To overcome this, you’d simply localize your story – remember, these articles can still come up in web or news searches with your keyword.

Failing that, there’s a third method.

It can take many tries and cost quite a bit of money. But there’s a third way into Google News that, if you succeed, can bring you benefits for years to come. Simply create a news site yourself, and get it accepted into Google News.

Brand journalism is a growing trend. Why not get ahead of the trend and become the media yourself?

If that doesn’t convince you, what about a share of the 6 billion+ clicks set aside for Google news publishers? Each site probably doesn’t get equal exposure. But the possibility of 40,000 to 120,000 extra visitors a month is reason enough to make the attempt if you meet all the other criteria.

The Google News publisher guidelines are strict and sites are often rejected, which makes this a plan for the long term. So run the numbers for your business and see if the return would be worth it.

In the meantime, attempt the other methods. They can help you get into Google’s news database, often quicker than you can get results from search engine optimization of your own site.

Even under the circumstances where the risk and expense may be a bit higher, so are the rewards and profit potential.

Woman Spends 14 Years Photographing World’s Oldest Trees

Beth Moon, a photographer based in San Francisco, has been searching for the world’s oldest trees for the past 14 years. She has traveled all around the globe to capture the most magnificent trees that grow in remote locations and look as old as the world itself.

“Standing as the earth’s largest and oldest living monuments, I believe these symbolic trees will take on a greater significance, especially at a time when our focus is directed at finding better ways to live with the environment” writes Moon in her artist statement.

Sixty of Beth Moon’s duo tone photos were published in a book titled “Ancient Trees: Portraits Of Time”. Here you can have a sneak preview of the book, full of strangest and most magnificent trees ever.

Remember the days when we had shelves full of CDs with music, movies, and back-ups of our more-important-than-life files? If you haven’t thrown them away yet, this list is for you!