Mozilla HQ

Firefox for Android comes with the custom, open source fonts Charis and Open Sans to make the Web more beautiful and easier to read on your small screen. The Web is made up almost entirely of text and sometimes reading text can be difficult on small phone and tablet screens. These new fonts will replace the three available Android default fonts to enable a more visually appealing and clear reading experience on the Web. The difference is subtle, but beautiful.

Firefox for Android includes HTML5 compatibility improvements as tested on HTML5test.com, the leading industry HTML5 compliance test. Firefox Firefox scores 421 and 14 bonus points (out of a total of 500).

Thanks to the hard work of the many Mozillians who contribute to building the best mobile browser, Firefox for Android now has an average rating of 4.5 stars in the Google Play Store. Whoo-hoo!

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Android
• Firefox for Android Release Notes

Social sites are a key part of online life and with Firefox we want to make it easier to use the Web the way you want.  Mozilla developed the Social API to enable social providers to integrate directly into Firefox to make your browsing experience more social, customizable and personal. The Social API makes it easy for your favorite social providers to add a sidebar with your content to Firefox or notification buttons directly on the Firefox toolbar.

Last year we launched with Facebook as the first social integration partner in Firefox. Today, we are adding multiple new social providers Cliqz, Mixi and msnNOW to Firefox, in addition to Facebook Messenger for Firefox, to help you stay connected to your social networks, no matter where you go on the Web.

The new social providers in Firefox make it even easier for you to keep up with friends, family, news and events while you surf the Web. You can get real time updates about news activity, entertainment or your personal network while you browse the Web.

New providers you can now add to your Firefox include:

Cliqz:

Cliqz delivers a real-time stream of the most relevant articles, stories, and videos based on your interests directly to Firefox. In the upper left of the sidebar, you can personalize your news feed by selecting categories, keywords, websites, and specific people you want to follow. Share links across your social networks or by email; preview Twitter commentary; and save articles for later without ever leaving Firefox.

To activate, visit the Cliqz activation page and click “Activate Cliqz.”

Mixi:

The Mixi sidebar let’s you easily stay in touch with your friends on the Mixi social network in Japan. It provides a real-time activity stream of all comments and photo shares from your personal social network directly to your Firefox browser. Mixi for Firefox is only available to users in Japan.

msnNOW:

msnNOW makes it easy to stay up to date on the things people are talking about, searching for and sharing the most on Web. MSN scours the most interesting trends from real-time sources like Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and BreakingNews.com, so you’ll always know what’s happening and get the jump on what everyone is talking about. You can customize the activity stream to watch for particular types of trending content from the sidebar dropdown menu.

 To activate, go to the msnNOW page and click “Turn it On.”

The Social API has endless potential for integrating social networks, e-mail, finance, music, cloud possibilities, services, to-do lists, sports, news and other applications into your Firefox experience.  We designed the Social API to make it easier and more convenient to use the Web the way you want.  Soon we’ll add even more ways to integrate your favorite Web services into your Firefox Web experience.

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux Release Notes
• More information on Firefox Health Report

Mozilla’s mission compels us to provide people with an Internet experience that puts them in control of their online lives and that treats them with respect. Respecting someone includes respecting their privacy. We aspire to a “no surprises” principle: the idea that when information is gathered about a person, it is done with their knowledge and is used in ways that benefit that person. People should be made aware of how information is collected and used. Each individual should also be able to decide whether the exchange of personal data for the services received in return feels fair. This can be challenging to achieve, especially when balanced against convenience and ease of use: people expect a fast, streamlined user experience without excessive prompts and confusing choices. But we are always striving toward this ideal.

Mozilla is an active participant in the ecosystem of today’s Web economics. Much of the content and information that people enjoy and benefit from is funded by digital marketing and sponsorship. This is a valid business model. We simply believe that when personal data is collected to deliver these services, the collection should be done respectfully and with the consent of the consumer. Commerce works best when users understand the transactions they engage in. The best long-term customer relationships are built on trust.

Mozilla aspires to enable personalization — the customization of ads, content, recommendations, offers and more — that doesn’t rely on the user being in the dark about who has access to that information, and with whom that information is shared. As a major Web browser provider and, now, OS developer, Mozilla’s role is to experiment and innovate toward that aspiration. As an open source project, where contributions are welcomed by all, we encourage all in the industry to help, by constructively proposing approaches and collaborating with us in the open.

Here are a just a few examples of the work Mozilla is doing to explore personalization with respect:

• Persona is an identity system for the Web. It gives people control over their Web logins. People choose what identity to present to a given service. In particular, people can keep their work, personal, and other facets of their lives distinct.
• Do Not Track allows you to tell a website that you would like to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes including behavioral advertising. It lets users express how they would like information about themselves to be handled. It has many benefits. People who use Firefox must actively enable Do Not Track, making it very clear that the user has made an explicit choice Also, Do Not Track is independent of any particular technology, providing resilience in the face of technology evolution. We continue to work with a broad range of interested parties to see the Web adopt Do Not Track.
• Third party cookie policies are being evaluated to strike a better balance between personalized ads and the tracking of users across the Web without their consent. For example, an experimental version of Firefox allows cookies to be set by first parties and by third parties where Firefox has stored a cookie for the party’s domain, but to block by default third-party cookies whose domain is not known from Firefox’s cookie store. We’ve been evaluating that approach, as well as others, working with stakeholders from across the industry.

It should be possible to delight users (and yes, the right offer at the right time can be a delight), while treating them with respect. We continue to experiment with and evaluate new ways to put users in control of their Web experience and encourage you to join us in building toward this vision. We will share more updates soon.

A recent report by Citizen Lab uncovered that commercial spyware produced by Gamma International is designed to trick people into thinking it’s Mozilla Firefox. We’ve sent Gamma a cease and desist letter today demanding that these illegal practices stop immediately.

As an open source project trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world, defending Mozilla’s trademarks from this type of abuse is vital to our brand, our users and the continued success of our mission. Mozilla has a longstanding history of protecting users online and was named the Most Trusted Internet Company for Privacy in 2012 by the Ponemon Institute. We cannot abide a software company using our name to disguise online surveillance tools that can be – and in several cases actually have been – used by Gamma’s customers to violate citizens’ human rights and online privacy.

It’s important to note that the spyware does not affect Firefox itself, either during the installation process or when it is operating covertly on a person’s computer or mobile device. Gamma’s software is entirely separate, and only uses our brand and trademarks to lie and mislead as one of its methods for avoiding detection and deletion.

Through the work of the Citizen Lab research team, we believe Gamma’s spyware tries to give users the false impression that, as a program installed on their computer or mobile device, it’s related to Mozilla and Firefox, and is thus trustworthy both technically and in its content. This is accomplished in two ways:

1. When a user examines the installed spyware on his/her machine by viewing its properties, Gamma misrepresents its program as “Firefox.exe” and includes the properties associated with Firefox along with a version number and copyright and trademark claims attributed to “Firefox and Mozilla Developers.”
2. For an expert user who examines the underlying code of the installed spyware, Gamma includes verbatim the assembly manifest from Firefox software.

The Citizen Lab research team has provided us with samples from the following three instances that demonstrate how this misuse of our brand, trademarks and public trust is a designed feature of Gamma’s spyware products and not unique to a single customer’s deployment:

• A spyware attack in Bahrain aimed at pro-democracy activists;
• The recent discovery of the Malaysian government using Gamma’s spyware related to its general elections; and
• A promotional demo produced by Gamma.

Each sample demonstrates the exact same pattern of falsely designating the installed spyware as originating from Mozilla. Gamma’s own brochures and promotional videos tout one of the essential features of its surveillance software is that it can be covertly deployed on the person’s system and remain undetected.

Unfortunately, Mozilla is no stranger to the misuse of our brand. We’ve fought against companies that use our trademarks to deceive users into downloading malware, providing personal information or paying for Firefox, sometimes in a highly organized and syndicated fashion. Not only are these activities illegal, but we take them seriously because they are deceptive, harm users, cause consumer confusion, and jeopardize Mozilla’s reputation.

We’re grateful for the important work of groups such as Citizen Lab, Privacy International, European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights and Reporters without Borders, and encourage anyone interested in the growing prevalence and societal implications of online surveillance to support their efforts.

Hacking at the White House: introducing Maker Party 2013

We’re extremely excited to be participating in today’s White House Science Fair—and even more excited to have President Obama help us kick off our new summer-long Maker Party: thousands of community-led events around the world to celebrate the amazing things we can make and learn thanks to the Web.

Webmaking at the White House Science Fair 

Today, Mozilla joined President Obama at the annual White House Science Fair, celebrating the student winners of science, technology, engineering and math competitions across the United States.

Cathy Lewis Long from Sprout joins Zainab Oni,   Senque Little-Poole, and Mark Surman at the White House Science Fair

A student member of Mozilla’s Hive Learning Network project—16-year old Zainab Oni from MOUSE in NYC—was honored for her contribution to a wrist-mounted Arduino circuit, which helps visually impaired diners find their food. 15-year-old Senqué A. Little-Poole, from the Sprout Fund‘s Hive Pittsburgh chapter, was also honored, for his research on how to use anti-virus cells to cure diseases.

Mozilla’s Executive Director Mark Surman also was there, to talk about our efforts to teach technology skills and, with the help of the White House, to kick off Mozilla’s big summer-long campaign: Maker Party 2013.

Introducing Maker Party 2013

This summer, from June 15 to September 15, Mozilla and the National Writing Project will host dozens of partners from around the world in a giant global Maker Party. Thousands of events will celebrate the amazing things we can make and share on the Web — from video remixes, to apps and webpages, to DIY robots.

Maker Party 2013 will be the second annual summer-long party Mozilla has thrown focused on Web education and digital literacy. Last year’s campaign, the Mozilla Summer Code Party, included more than 700 community-led events, with more than 10,000 participants across 80 countries. This year the party will be much bigger—with 40+ big-name partners currently signed-up, and more to come.

Who’s coming to the party?

Maker Party 2013 is a big tent affair. We’ll be joined by dynamic start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and tech companies, including Black Girls Code, California Academcy of Sciences, DIY.org, Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, Intel, NYC Department of Education, and the Sesame Workshop. Together, we’ll be engaging more than 500,000 people to learn and make things thanks to the web. A full and growing list of the organizations joining the Maker Party is available at webmaker.org/party.

“This is a global party — and you’re invited,” said Mozilla Executive Director, Mark Surman.  “Mozillians are people who make things, and we’re part of a growing global community of people who feel the same way. That’s why this year’s party isn’t just about learning to code, but celebrating the huge range of learning, making and creating the Web makes possible.”

How to get involved:

• Join the party. Sign up at webmaker.org/party. Make something, share it, or teach others what you know.

• Watch the science fair live today. The White House Science Fair will be livestreaming from 11:30 am on.

• Host or attend a maker party. We make it easy to find an event near you—or to throw your own.

• Get more involved. Take part in our new “Teach the Web” open online course, and connect with other like-minded people around the world.

• Spread the word. We’ll be tweeting our announcement live from the White House using the #MakerParty hashtag. Join in!

Mozilla’s Maker Party is a part of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Summer of Connected Learning. 

Here at Mozilla, we believe the Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible. We believe in the importance of balancing the commercial goals of the Internet against those for the public benefit. Brazil’s Internet Bill of Rights, the Marco Civil da Internet, seeks to maintain this balance by guaranteeing basic rights for Internet users.  We support this kind of effort to create a comprehensive, pro-Internet policy framework. If adopted, it could well serve as a reference model for future legislation.

The legislation is groundbreaking in its intent. It secures important rights to Internet users through a civil framework rather than a criminal code. These rights include the right to privacy, freedom of speech, and access to information. It defends communications over the Internet, protects the sanctity of the Internet connection itself, requires comprehensive information in service contracts (particularly with respect to the protection of personal data), and limits third party access to connection logs and Internet applications.

The Marco Civil has been percolating since 2009. Despite a high level of community engagement (a collaboration of over eight hundred contributors), the legislation stagnated when commercial interests got involved. Important components of the legislation, such as the safe harbor provision regarding copyright infringement, have already been excluded.  We don’t want to see the legislation further diluted.

The Marco Civil mandates net neutrality while outlawing the tracking of consumers through deep packet inspection (DPI). These are two hot-button provisos opposed by certain commercial entities. The prohibition against DPI protects privacy and choice by outlawing its use to track unaware Internet users. The mandate of net neutrality contains very limited exceptions – and particularly prohibits businesses from charging for different types of services depending on what is contained in a data packet.

The drafters of the Marco Civil and other interested parties are hosting a seminar in Brasilia on April 17. This Internet Bill of Rights sets valuable precedent for not only global net neutrality and privacy principles, but for the protection of intellectual property rights everywhere.

For more on the Marco Civil, see here and here.

Looking towards the future of Firefox OS

Today we are announcing changes to our executive leadership team as we build up our pivot to mobile and build upon the foundation that’s now in place to accelerate into the opportunities in front of us.

Where we started

Mozilla has always believed that the Web needs to be a place where anyone can access information, communicate, create and collaborate without boundaries or restrictions.

Firefox was introduced for desktop computers in 2004 at a time when the Web was being held hostage to proprietary interests. Under the leadership of Mitchell Baker, Brendan Eich and others, Mozilla put individuals in control of their experience for the first time, and helped shape the future of the Web for the public good as an open standards-based platform for innovation.

Pivot to mobile

In 2010, it was clear that while the desktop was an important target platform, that the future is mobile. And there was an opportunity to move people to the center of their connected experience and unlock untapped potential for innovation by enabling the Web as the platform.

With a deep background in mobile, Gary Kovacs was enlisted as CEO in October 2010 to lead the organization and establish the framework to accomplish these goals. Over the past two and a half years, we’re incredibly proud of what we have accomplished:

Building mobile DNA deep into the organization, with the launch of Firefox OS, HTML5 apps and Firefox for Android, while also creating the global, operational structure to support market growth.

Delivering at the speed of the market and competition: Firefox desktop is faster, more secure, more stable, evolving faster; launched important services with Persona and Sync and Apps marketplace and added new partnerships.

Trusted consumer advocacy in public policy debates with SOPA/PIPA, DNT and more.

At Mobile World Congress 2013, we showed the world that Mozilla was now fully a mobile organization as we announced rollout plans for Firefox OS with broad industry support and commitments from 20+ partners to bring devices to market.

Aligning for the future

With a solid foundation now in place, Mozilla is entering an exciting phase – as we launch mobile devices with our partners around the globe – and a reinvigorated mission in protecting the Internet freedoms for the next 2 billion people coming online in the coming years.

To gear up for this next chapter, we are announcing the following Mozilla Corporation leadership changes:

• Gary Kovacs, having accomplished the goals and objectives he and the team set out to achieve, will be stepping down as CEO later this year but will continue to provide vision and leadership as a member of our Board of Directors. An executive search will begin immediately for his replacement.

• Mitchell Baker has expanded her role to become our Executive Chair as she returns to a deeper involvement in Mozilla’s daily activities. She will also focus on ensuring that organizations and individual contributors have the tools they need to make meaningful contributions to unlock the potential of the Web.

• Brendan Eich will continue his recently expanded role as Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President of Engineering, managing the organization’s product and platform engineering teams.

• Jay Sullivan, previously SVP of Products, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer. Jay will continue to drive Mozilla’s product strategy and roadmap, to lead the product and user experience teams, and to lead the Firefox OS program. He will also take a broader role in managing Mozilla’s continued evolution and growth.

• Harvey Anderson has been appointed SVP Business and Legal Affairs. In this new role he will have oversight for the apps marketplace initiative and continue to lead mobile and strategic partnerships, public policy, and legal affairs. He will also continue to serves as Corporate Secretary.

• Li Gong has been appointed Senior Vice President, Mobile Devices, and will be tasked with leading our global work advancing the adoption of Firefox OS on mobile devices, including engagement with our device partners, as well as delivery and support for our partners. Concurrently in the role of President, Asia Operations, he is tasked to broaden the presence of Mozilla within the mobile ecosystem in the region, outside of Japan. He remains CEO of our subsidiary companies in China and Taiwan.

Mozilla is uniquely positioned to bring the full power of the web to the next 2 billion people coming online, and our public benefit nature means that we can continue to invest in the Web as an open and neutral playing field for everyone, giving both commercial players and individuals around the world the opportunity to create and innovate. Our focus will continue to be embracing this uniqueness and expanding our efforts to be the catalyst of positive change in Web ecosystem.

For more information:

• Quote from Gary Kovacs: “The past two and a half years have been pivotal in the evolution and rapid growth of Mozilla,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO. “I am very proud of our accomplishments as a team. In our mission to empower the next two billion Web users, we’ve made great advances in desktop and mobile and in our ability to lead at the pace of the market. With this solid foundation and a strong team in place, this is the right time for me to announce the transition plan and a vote of confidence in the abilities of the leadership team. I am grateful for the privilege of leading this organization during this period of rapid growth, and I look forward to helping guide Mozilla’s impact on the future of mobile.

• Quote from Mitchell Baker: “Gary’s leadership has been hugely important in helping Mozilla develop deep mobile outlook and capabilities. I want to thank Gary for all the contributions that he has made to the project during this period of our evolution. I believe that we have an incredibly strong team and organization in place to lead us in writing this next chapter of Web history,” said Mitchell Baker, Executive Chair, Mozilla. “Together we will also strive to embrace our uniqueness and non-profit core, and grow with our partners and community in new ways.”

• Blog post from Mitchell Baker

• Mozilla Press Center

Mozilla’s mission is about advancing the Web as a platform for all. At Mozilla Research, we’re supporting this mission by experimenting with what’s next when it comes to the core technology powering the Web browser. We need to be prepared to take advantage of tomorrow’s faster, multi-core, heterogeneous computing architectures. That’s why we’ve recently begun collaborating with Samsung on an advanced technology Web browser engine called Servo.

Servo is an attempt to rebuild the Web browser from the ground up on modern hardware, rethinking old assumptions along the way. This means addressing the causes of security vulnerabilities while designing a platform that can fully utilize the performance of tomorrow’s massively parallel hardware to enable new and richer experiences on the Web. To those ends, Servo is written in Rust, a new, safe systems language developed by Mozilla along with a growing community of enthusiasts.

We are now pleased to announce with Samsung that together we are bringing both the Rust programming language and Servo, the experimental web browser engine, to Android and ARM. This is an exciting step in the evolution of both projects that will allow us to start deeper research with Servo on mobile. Samsung has already contributed an ARM backend to Rust and the build infrastructure necessary to cross-compile to Android, along with many other improvements. You can try this now by downloading the code from Github, but it’s just the beginning.

Rust, which today reached v0.6, has been in development for several years and is rapidly approaching stability. It is intended to fill many of the same niches that C++ has over the past decades, with efficient high-level, multi-paradigm abstractions, and offers precise control over hardware resources. But beyond that, it is *safe by default*, preventing entire classes of memory management errors that lead to crashes and security vulnerabilities. Rust also features lightweight concurrency primitives that make it easy for programmers to leverage the power of the many CPU cores available on current and future computing platforms.

In the coming year, we are racing to complete the first major revision of Rust – cleaning up, expanding and documenting the libraries, building out our tools to improve the user experience, and beefing up performance. At the same time, we will be putting more resources into Servo, trying to prove that we can build a fast web browser with pervasive parallelism, and in a safe, fun language. We, along with our friends at Samsung will be increasingly looking at opportunities on mobile platforms. Both of these efforts are still early stage projects and there’s a lot to do yet, so now is a good time to get involved.

To take a look at what we’re doing and contribute to the projects you can download and try the recently-released Rust 0.6 or check out the source for Rust and Servo on GitHub. Then come participate in the development process on the Rust (https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev) and Servo (https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-servo) mailing lists.

- Brendan Eich, CTO, Mozilla

Firefox includes a new enhancement to private browsing that allows you to open a new private browsing window without closing or changing your current browsing session. You can shop for a birthday gift in a private window with your existing browsing session uninterrupted. You can also use a private browsing window to check multiple email accounts simultaneously. We are also proud to announce that Firefox for Android also supports private browsing on a per tab basis. Firefox for Android allows you to open a new private browsing tab during your current browsing session, allowing you to switch between private and standard tabs within the same browsing session.

Firefox comes with a new Download Manager in the Firefox toolbar, so you can monitor, view and locate downloaded files without having to switch to another window. The new Download Manager makes downloading files with Firefox even easier. Firefox for Android allows you to customize the shortcuts on the home screen with your favorite or most frequently visited sites, so they are only a tap away.

Firefox for Android adds support for additional devices running on a less powerful processor architecture, ARMv6 processors. This includes popular phones like Samsung Galaxy Next, HTC Aria, HTC Legend, Samsung Dart, Samsung Galaxy Pop and the Samsung Galaxy Q. In September, Mozilla set to expand support for ARMv6 devices to bring an awesome Web experience to even more users. We are happy to say that now we are able to bring a better Web experience to close to 50 million  more phones.

For developers, Firefox includes getUserMedia, an important part of the WebRTC specification. It allows developers to quickly and easily write code that accesses the user’s camera or microphones.  Firefox also includes a developer toolbox that provides quick access to developer tools in one convenient window and gives developers easy-to-remember ways to switch between tools. Canvas Blend Modes allows developers to define how they want Canvas to draw over an existing image to create different visual effects.

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android
• Release Notes for Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Release Notes for Firefox for Android

This week we’re celebrating Mozilla’s 15th anniversary.  How can you help us commemorate 15 years of a better Web?

Read about it
Check out www.mozilla.org/contribute to read 15 facts about Mozilla, our biggest milestones and how you can join the Mozilla project. You can also read Mitchell Baker’s own reflections on the past 15 years and a look ahead to what’s next for Mozilla. Go here for a more in-depth look at the history of Mozilla and our 1998 origin.

Tweet your #Webstory
Starting today, the @Firefox and @Mozilla Twitter accounts will be telling our #Webstory by posting 15 facts about Mozilla. We invite you to join in and tell your own #Webstory, too. Give us a tweet, an image or a video about how you’ve contributed to 15 years of Mozilla, what Mozilla and Firefox mean to you, or a memorable moment you’ve had on the Web. Be sure to post on Twitter with the hashtag #webstory. We’ll be retweeting and responding throughout the day.

Make your #Webstory
Tell your own #Webstory with one of our Webmaker projects. Make a list of your own 15 favorite things about the Web, or make a video telling us about your first experience with the Web, and what you want it to look like 15 years from now.

Thank you to everyone who’s helped us make the Web better along the way. The success of our mission depends on participation from people like you. Find out how you can get involved or support Mozilla to help make a difference in the lives of users everywhere for the next 15 years – and beyond.

Mozilla, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web, is advancing the Web as the platform for high-end game development. With Mozilla’s latest innovations in JavaScript, game developers and publishers can now take advantage of fast performance that rivals native while leveraging scale of the Web, without the additional costs associated with third-party plugins. This allows them to distribute visually stunning and performance intensive games to billions of people more easily and cost effectively than before.

To make these advancements, Mozilla developed a highly-optimized version of JavaScript that supercharges a developer’s gaming code in the browser to enable visually compelling, fast, 3D gaming experiences on the Web. With this technology we are also opening up the path for 3D Web-based games on mobile as JavaScript performance continues to close the gap with native.

Today, we are excited to unlock this technology for high-performance games, by teaming up with Epic Games. By leveraging this new JavaScript optimization technology, Mozilla has been able to bring Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 to the Web. With this port, developers will soon be able to explore limitless possibilities when it comes to porting their popular gaming titles to the Web.

Mozilla was able to recently prove the Web is capable of being a compelling gaming platform with its BananaBread game demo, which is built using Web technologies Mozilla pioneered, including WebGL, Emscripten and now asm.js. The demo shows how high-end games can easily be ported to JavaScript and WebGL while still maintaining a highly responsive, visually compelling 3D gaming experience.

Developers wishing to test this technology can check out the latest version of BananaBread with its peer-to-peer, multiplayer WebRTC technology and JavaScript performance improvements. BananaBread works in all browsers that support WebGL.

As high-performance games on the Web move to rival native performance, Mozilla is also
opening up the path to Web-based games on mobile. We are working with premium game
publishers such as Disney, EA and ZeptoLab who are using the same technology to bring
performance optimizations to their top-rated games.

Developers can submit fun games and apps to the Firefox Marketplace now. The Firefox
Marketplace is currently available as a preview on Firefox for Android and will come to Firefox OS later this year.

Today we’re extremely proud to release Mozilla Open Badges 1.0, an exciting new online standard to recognize and verify learning. Open Badges makes it easy to…

• earn badges for skills you learn online and offline
• give recognition for things you teach
• show your badges in the places that matter.

This is a project we’ve been developing for the past two years, in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation. Why is it important? These days, we all learn things in a wide variety of ways, but there are few opportunities to gain formal recognition for these skills. Traditional certifications, like degrees and diplomas, still lack the granularity to show the skills people have — like writing skills for an engineer, or project management for someone with an arts degree.

Not only that, but there’s no way to take all those skills and show them off in one place, regardless of where you’ve earned them. Open Badges changes that. It takes digital badges to a new level and makes them more powerful, networked and credible.

More than 600 leading organizations are now using Open Badges to issue badges that count toward education, careers and lifelong learning. Together we believe this can shape the future of learning, and help unlock the full educational potential of the web.

Girl Scouts can now earn digital badges for building apps as part of the “My Sash is an App” project

“We often talk about finding ways to make learning more accessible to more people,” says Erin Knight, Mozilla’s Senior Director of Learning and Badges. “Open Badges has the power to make that happen. We can legitimize learning of all kinds, and empower people to create their own custom pathways toward jobs, education and opportunity.”

• Knits skills together. Through the Open Badges shared standard, badges for the same skill-set can connect and build on one another — whether they’re issued by the same organization or many different ones. Individuals can earn badges that recognize learning and skills from multiple sources both online and offline — from learning HTML with Mozilla, to volunteering and leadership skills with Girl Scouts, to learning introductory robotics and engineering with NASA.
• Full of information. With Open Badges, every badge has important data built in that links back to who issued it, how it was earned, and even the projects a user completed to earn it. Employers and others can dig into this rich data and see the full story of each user’s skills and achievements.
• Can go anywhere on the web. The Open Badges backpack gives users an easy way to collect their badges, sort them by category, and display them across social networking profiles, job sites, websites and more.
• Recognizes learning that matters. Open Badges’ free software allows any organization that meets the standard to begin issuing — and verifying — badges. Currently 600 organizations have issued 62,000 badges to 23,000 learners. A growing list of who is issuing badges is available here.
• Free, open to anyone, and part of Mozilla’s non-profit mission. Open Badges is designed, built and backed by a broad community of contributors. The open source model means improvements made by one partner can benefit everyone, from bug fixes to new features.

• Earn your first badge now. Earn a Mozilla Webmaker badge. Or earn a badge from one of these members of the Open Badges community.
• Get started issuing Open Badges. Explore ways to give recognition for the things you teach.
• Check out the Open Badges community. See who’s issuing and designing badges using Open Badges.
• Get in touch. Follow Open Badges on Twitter, get in touch with the Open Badges developer community or download the source code.

Today we’re thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s “Game On” competition.

The competition invited game designers and developers around the world to submit their games. The goal: show how new open technologies are pushing the envelope of what’s possible on the web.

We received more than 165 great entries total, with competitors from Morocco to Russia to Canada. Games ranged from web-programmed robots, to massively multi-player “tweet wars,” to mobile-powered multipedes.

Many took unique advantage of new open web innovations like WebRTC and WebGL to showcase new gaming potential on the web. Some used multiple devices, playing across desktops and phones. Other involved “hackable” web mechanics built right into the gameplay itself, teaching digital literacy and webmaking as players play.

“Any web-enabled device has become a potential gaming platform — on which developers aren’t just creating games, they’re discovering new ways to play,” said Chelsea Howe, Founder of TinyCo and one of the competition’s judges.

“Web-native platforms mean everyone is a potential player — no proprietary software, no console publishing, no constant updates. If you can get on the internet, you can play a game.”

These Game On winners will receive prizes that include red carpet treatment at this month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, as well as the opportunity to have their games published with Chillingo and featured in the Firefox Marketplace.

by Jonatan Van Hove (@joonturbo), Mads Johansen, Jonas Maaloe Jespersen & Tommy Rousse (@ludist) from Copenhagen

Turn any real-world space into a virtual zombie attack. The player holds a mobile device while blindfolded as the other players guide them around using their own devices to eliminate virtual “zumbies.”

“Using web technologies allowed us to play games that are coached over video chat, or have several spotters look at the same shooter on different devices. All of these things were previously impossible due to our device-specific ad-hoc solution.”

by Mark Zubovsky, Ivan Popelyshev, Vladislav Kozulya, Stanislav Findeysen from Moscow

A Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game, Bombermine lets you blow stuff up with up to 1000 other players on a single map — including Deathmatch, Team Play in squads with your friends, chat and more.

“We released an English version a few weeks ago, and have started receiving huge attention world-wide. In the first three days we got around 800,000 guests.” — Mark Zubovsky

by Nick Liow and Jason Church from Vancouver

Inject real code to move your character around. Hack other characters to steal your enemies’ abilities and share each others’ powers. Like hacking the Matrix — using real code that works on the web.

Runners Up: The quality of this year’s entries was very high, and we could only choose three winners. So please be sure to check out the runner ups and notable entries here.

Huge thanks to all who submitted to this year’s competition and joined the ten game jams we organized around the world. We’d also like to thank our stellar panel of judges, competition sponsors (NESTA & Nominet Trust) and partners (UKIE, IGDA,Github , Chillingo, Global Game Jam , NVIDIA). Game on!

• Play. Play the winning games or other entries.
• Stay in touch. Stay tuned at @mozgames for upcoming game jams and events.
• Make your own webby games. Check out our resources page.
• Meet the winners at GDC 2013.

Mozilla has been a pioneer and advocate for the Web for nearly 15 years. We are dedicated to promoting open standards and creating new Web experiences that allow innovation and creativity to flourish.

We created choice and competition in the desktop browser market when we launched Firefox and we are becoming the same catalyst for change in mobile with Firefox OS, enabling developers, operators and consumers to blaze their own path.

Unleashing The Fox

Today, we are “unleashing the Fox” – our ambassador for Firefox OS.

The Fox, like Firefox OS, is fun and friendly, supportive and protective, and fast and powerful. Blazingly fast, the Fox doesn’t play by the rules. It is everywhere you need it to be—a force for good that powers your mobile world, ignites your imagination, protects you and your identity, and supercharges your life. Lively, swift, and agile, the Fox puts freedom in your hands.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, attendees from the world’s largest mobile companies will experience first hand what Firefox OS brings to the world and spend time with the fox. Last night, we made announcements at our press conference with more mobile partners from around the world regarding their commitment and plans to roll-out devices in 2013, as well as the first devices and content you will see in the market.

We’re excited to see what happens when the fox unleashes the Web on mobile – stay tuned to see where the Fox blazes a path next.

Mozilla is excited to share that today 18 operators at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona announced their commitment to Firefox OS, which will power the world’s first Open Web Devices.

These operators include: América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telenor, TMN and VimpelCom. Telstra is welcoming the Mozilla initiative as an opportunity to deliver an innovative mobile Web experience to their customers. The breadth of operators now backing Mozilla’s Firefox OS demonstrates significant industry support for a fully-adaptable, unconstrained mobile platform.The first wave of Firefox OS devices will be available to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. Additional markets will be announced soon.

We are working with manufacturers Alcatel (TCL), Huawei, LG and ZTE to build the first Firefox OS devices, all powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset.

Firefox OS
Firefox OS offers the performance, personalization and price you want in a smartphone and a beautiful, clean, intuitive, personalized and easy-to-use experience.  Firefox OS includes all the things people need from a smartphone out of the box – calls, messaging, email, camera and more – as well as the things you wish a smartphone offered, like built-in cost controls, social features with Facebook and Twitter, location-based services, the Firefox Web browser, new ability to discover one-time use and downloadable apps, Firefox Marketplace and much more.

Firefox OS offers a deep contextual search that will take you to the exact content you want instead of just generic apps in the same category. It will allow far more sophisticated and deeper search capabilities as you can search both within apps and on the Web at the same time, which is not possible with native apps. For example, search for your favorite music artist and get results to buy your favorite song, concert tickets or even listen to your favorite song instantly.

With Firefox OS, you can simply enter any search term and instantly create a one-time use or downloadable app. Creating and consuming these apps on demand puts you in complete control of your app and smartphone experience and will make it possible for you to get the exact content you want, when you want it.

Firefox OS is an extension of the Firefox experience you know and love so you can expect all the security, privacy, customization and user control Firefox has always delivered.

Firefox Marketplace
Firefox Marketplace will offer apps in categories like games, news and media, business and productivity. These apps are tied to you and your online identity to take across devices and platforms. Leading mobile apps and Web developers around the globe will leverage the power of the Web unlocked by Mozilla to release apps in the Firefox Marketplace.

The Web enables limitless innovation and with Firefox Marketplace. Every Web developer can easily create and distribute HTML5 apps so you can find an app for whatever you want – even local, niche and emerging topics. Firefox Marketplace will include popular apps such as AccuWeather, Airbnb, Box, Cut the Rope, Disney Mobile Games, EA games, Facebook, Nokia HERE, MTV Brasil, Pulse News, SoundCloud, SporTV, Terra, Time Out and Twitter as well as personally-tailored and local apps that are relevant to users in their respective regions.

Most mobile apps are built with Web technologies at the core and then wrapped in a proprietary technology to distribute the app on a specific platform. Mozilla is unlocking the Web as a mobile development platform with Firefox Marketplace and unwrapping mobile apps to enable more opportunity and control for developers and consumers.

Firefox Marketplace will make smartphones capable of offering more powerful and immersive Web app experiences. The Web now has the potential to be the world’s largest marketplace with the new Web APIs Mozilla developed. The open Web platform and these new Web APIs also enable developers to distribute apps directly, with no need for gatekeepers, true to the Mozilla mission of creating choice, innovation and opportunity on the Web.

Firefox Marketplace can be previewed on Firefox for Android Aurora and will be offered with the first Firefox OS phones to launch later this year.

We are very excited to bring Firefox OS to the world and delivering the Firefox OS experience through Open Web Devices later this year.

For more information:

• Mozilla at Mobile World Congress Website
• Press Release: Mozilla Announces Global Expansion for Firefox OS
• Press Release: Firefox OS Enables App Discovery without Download and Firefox Marketplace Unlocks the Power of Web Apps on Mobile Phones

WebRTC or Web Real-Time Communications is an open source project led by Mozilla and a number of other companies, aiming to enable the Web with Real Time Communication (RTC) capabilities including video calls and file-sharing (currently a Firefox first), between browsers that can easily be integrated across every website. WebRTC is being standardized by the W3C WebRTC working group, to enable developers to more easily integrate real-time communications across the Web, whether on websites or mobile web apps.

WebRTC goes beyond VoIP and video conferencing, with no plugins to download or install that may not be compatible with all the browsers consumers use across desktop, mobile or tablet. The benefits of WebRTC are clear, imagine being able to shop online for a product and clicking on a product page where you can have a live video call with a customer service representative who shows you the gadget you are thinking of buying. Or as we demonstrated recently, being able to easily share almost anything on your computer or mobile device with family or friends: vacation photos, memorable videos – or even just a link to a news story you thought they might be interested in – simply by dragging the item into your video chat window.

Today, all parts of WebRTC, getUserMedia, PeerConnection and DataChannels are available to Firefox Aurora users. getUserMedia allows a developer to capture the user’s camera and microphone data (with the user’s permission) easily. PeerConnection enables the audio and video calling in a secure, hassle-free way, while DataChannels, which Mozilla is the first to implement, can be used by itself or combined with an audio/video chat to send almost any data that the browser can access. In addition, all voice, audio and data communications are encrypted allowing for highly secure human or data communication exchanges.

At Mobile World Congress this week, Mozilla, Ericsson and AT&T are taking WebRTC to the next level by demonstrating a proof of concept enabling Firefox to sync with a consumers existing phone number and provide calling services without any plugins to download. A demo, at our booths (Hall 8.1, booth F20 – Mozilla; Hall 2, location 2D140 – Ericsson), shows how consumers can easily take and receive video calls from their mobile phones or desktop browser using WebRTC or share their web experiences with friends or family who might be on a desktop PC or mobile phone across the other side of the world. The joint demonstration leverages Ericsson’s Web Communications Gateway, the Mozilla Firefox Social API and WebRTC support in Firefox. The demonstration also shows how Firefox can perform many functions usually confined to a mobile device, such as voice and video calls and SMS/MMS messaging. You can read the complete announcement here.

More on WebRTC to come!

- Mozilla

Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux introduces a built-in browser PDF viewer that allows you to read PDFs directly within the browser, making reading PDFs easier because you don’t have to download the content or read it in a plugin like Reader. For example, you can use the PDF viewer to check out a menu from your favorite restaurant, view and print concert tickets or read reports without having to interrupt your browsing experience with extra clicks or downloads.

Firefox for Android now available to 15 million more phones, in more languages and with more personalization

Firefox for Android  is now available to more Android devices with ARMv6 processors, bringing a better Web experience to almost 15 million more phones. This includes popular phones like LG Optimus One, T-Mobile myTouch 3G slide, HTC Wildfire S and ZTE R750.

There are many ways to personalize your Firefox Web experience and to customize the look, features and functionality. Firefox for Android introduces easy-to-use themes that let you change the look of Firefox without getting in the way, personalizing your mobile Web experience in just a few taps.

Firefox for Android now includes Traditional and Simplified Chinese locales to support a growing set of language preferences

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android
• Detailed release notes for Firefox for for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Detailed release notes for Firefox for Android

We are proud to announce that Firefox Flicks will welcome back:  Edward Norton (Oscar Nominated Actor), Shauna Robertson (Producer of hit comedies, including Superbad & Knocked Up) and Couper Samuelson (We Own the Night and Sundance Winning short, Whiplash ), to the judging panel, along with new judges Bob Harvey (EVP Global Sales and Marketing for Panavision), Franklin Leonard (founder of the Black List) and Catherine Ogilvie (EMEA Marketing for Dolby).

All individuals and teams that submit an entry will have the chance for their Flick to be seen by millions of people around the world. On top of this, contestants will be entered to win cash prizes that can be used to pay their tuition, buy equipment, or fund their next creative project.

• Grand Prize Award – The GPA Winner will be awarded the opportunity to take their passion for filmmaking to the next level and be flown to Los Angeles to work with top Hollywood producer, Couper Samuelson, script developer, Franklin Leonard, and other talent as well as Panavision to create their best :60 spot that will be premiered at a TBD time.
• Early Entry Awards — There will be multiple chances to win $1,000 for submitting a flick early (first early Flick deadline submission is April 3rd, 2013). The top three early entry submission Flicks will be included in the final round. There will be three early entry awards. The second deadline will be in June.
• Regional Winners — One winner from each contest region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific) will win a $5,000 cash prize and one runner up from each contest region will win a $2,500 cash prize.
• People’s Choice Award — Flicks Fans will be able to vote for their favorite flick during the People’s Choice Award voting period August 1 through August 31. The three winning Flicks will receive exposure of their films throughout Firefox channels Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Mozilla.org…as well as an amazing Firefox Flicks swag bag.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2013.

For more information, including submission guidelines and categories, and to enter, please visit www.firefoxflicks.org. Don’t forget to check out last year’s winners for some inspiration: http://vimeo.com/firefoxflicks

Firefox Flicks Judges

Edward Norton has acted in the films Primal Fear, Everyone Says I Love You, The People vs Larry Flynt,American History X, Rounders, Fight Club, Keeping the Faith, The Score, Death to Smoochy, Frida, Red Dragon, The 25th Hour, The Italian Job, Down in the Valley, The Kingdom of Heaven, The Illusionist, The Painted Veil, The Incredible Hulk, Pride & Glory and Leaves of Grass and Stone.

He has been nominated for two Academy Awards, for Primal Fear and American History X, and won a Golden Globe along with numerous other awards for his performances. He produced and directed Keeping the Faith and also produced Down in the Valley (Cannes Film Festival selection), The Painted Veil, Leaves of Grass and the documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama.

Norton is also a committed social and environmental activist, supporting the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Enterprise Community Partners, the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, the Libby Rouse Fund for Peace, the Signature Theater Company and Friends of the High Line. Recently Norton founded CrowdRise, an innovative new web platform that brings the power of crowd-sourcing and the fun of social networking to fundraising and volunteerism.

Shauna Robertson has produced some of the best comedies of the last decade. Her list of credits include Meet the Parents, Elf, Anchorman, The Forty Year Old Virgin,Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Shauna is a Canadian who moved to Hollywood to start working in the movies at age 17.

Last year she left the movie business to pursue her dreams of working in the non profit sector. In March 2010 she and her boyfriend, Edward Norton, launched the new web based company Crowdrise (http://www.crowdrise.com/) that helps individuals and charities make fundraising impactful and fun.

Couper Samuelson runs Jason Blum’s Universal-based production company, Blumhouse, which in the last year has produced the horror hit, Sinister, the fourth Paranormal Activity movie, and a sequel to the 2011 hit, Insidious, due in the theaters this August. Prior to Blumhouse, Samuelson produced the forthcoming Paramount release, Destination Wedding. Made for $100,000, that film will be the lowest-budget feature produced and released theatrically by a major studio in the modern era. Samuelson began his career at Mark Cuban’s 2929, where he co-produced movies including James Gray’s We Own The Night and Two Lovers, both of which were nominated for the Cannes Palme d’Or.

Bob Harvey, EVP Global Sales and Marketing for Panavision, the premier supplier of cinematography equipment to the motion picture industry for the second half of the20th century, has been in the business over 30 years. While working for Atari as Director of Sales for the coin op div. owned by Warner Communications, he became friendly with Clint Eastwood who helped him secure his SAG card in 1982. Warner transferred him to Panavision in 1984 where he started as Director of Marketing. He became very involved with production from start to finish of principal photography. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, a charter member of the IFP for independent films, a recipient of a FINDI award for his work with new and independent filmmakers and is thought of as a mentor to many successful filmmakers today.

Franklin Leonard is the founder of the Black List, the yearly publication highlighting Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays and the startup birthed to continue its mission.  Over 200 Black List scripts have been produced as feature films earning more than 140 Academy Award nominations including two of the last four Best Pictures and five of the last ten screenwriting Oscars. Franklin has worked in development at Universal Pictures and the production companies of Will Smith, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, Leonardo DiCaprio, and John Goldwyn. Before Los Angeles and all things film related, Franklin was – at different times - a business analyst at McKinsey & Co., a weekly columnist for the Trinidad Guardian in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad, and the communications director for John Cranley’s 2000 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio’s first district.  Since 2010, he has been named one of Hollywood Reporter’s 30 Under 30, Black Enterprise magazine’s “40 Emerging Leaders for Our Future,” AOL Black Voices “30 Black Hollywood Game Changers” and Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business.

As General Manager, EMEA Marketing, Catherine Ogilvie is responsible for brand, product, and partner marketing throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Catherine joined Dolby in 2009 as Vice President, Global Corporate Communications.

Prior to starting at Dolby, Catherine was Executive Vice President and General Manager at Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR agency, where she led the San Francisco office, building award-winning integrated communications programs for clients.

Previously, Catherine served as Director, Global Marketing and Communications, for the Almond Board of California, and as Senior Director, Marketing, for Napster, the original peer-to-peer music service. Catherine has also worked as a management consultant based in Munich, Germany, working with international media clients such as Bertelsmann, Kirch Gruppe, and Universal Studios.

Catherine studied theatre at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England, and pursued post-graduate business studies at the University of London earning a Master’s degree in Marketing and Communication.