Firefox 5 Scheduled for June 21

In order to get its new release system on track, Mozilla adjusted its release schedule for the final version. Version 4.2a1pre, which is version 5, will be leaving mozilla-central on April 12 and enter the new "aurora" channel (previously called experimental) as version 5.0a2. The beta version (5.0) will follow five weeks later and the final version is now scheduled to be released on June 21.

We aren't quite sure whether is versioning system will be entirely applied to version 5.0, but it appears as if Mozilla is planning to use it for version 6.0, which will hit mozilla-central as version 6.0a1 on April 12. Earlier today, Mozilla also discussed a versioning system that resembled Google's system and would have resulted in a version number like this: 5.4.55.123 (version 5, 4 beta releases, 55 experimental (aurora) releases and 123 mozilla-central releases.)  There may still be changes - the only thing we know for sure now is that Mozilla will drop the "pre" tag for its preview versions.

Google's Cloud-based Music App Leaked

Last week Amazon launched Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, a cloud-based storage and media player that allowed users to access their music from anywhere, including their Android devices. Now it looks like Google is stepping up to ensure it’s not outdone by the etailer.

The newest version of Android’s music app has been leaked and it seems Google is taking things to the cloud. The folks over on Tech from 10 recently found themselves looking at the developer’s Android Test Market, as opposed to the regular Android Marketplace they’re used to seeing on their Galaxy S Vibrant.

Microsoft to Show Silverlight for Xbox Next Week?

Silverlight 5 and Xbox 360 support should be the topic of Microsoft's keynote during the MIX 11 conference next week.

Tuesday brought reports that Microsoft may finally announce Silverlight support for the Xbox 360 console, thus completing its circle of cross-platform development currently featured on the PC and Windows Phone 7 OS. The announcement is due to take place at the MIX 11 conference next week.

Amazon Exploring NFC Payments System

You too, Amazon?

NFC has been a bit of a rumor-mill buzzword as of late. It seems like each of the major players in the smartphone OS market is working on an NFC solution. Gradually, reports of Google, Apple and Microsoft’s plans to incorporate NFC technology into their respective OSes hit the web last month. However, makers of cell phone OSes aren’t the only ones interested in NFC, and when you look beyond that market, it’s obvious who else would be.

Windows 8 to Get Time Machine-like History Vault

Windows 8 could make backups easy.

Keeping a backup of your data is a hugely important rule to almost all sorts of computing. While cloud computing through something like Chrome OS helps take care of that for casual applications, until everything is cloud-based users will need to take care of things for themselves.

According to winrumors, a new feature that might make it into Windows 8 is something that will potentially be called History Vault. The new feature will supposedly make use of the Shadow Copies that Windows makes when files are modified.