Mozilla has taken over stewardship of Hive Learning Network NYC: a network of over 30 organizations using digital technology and web culture to fuel learning. Hive NYC links educators from libraries, museums and after schools programs around creative, digital projects with youth.  Member organizations — of which there are 30 including The American Museum of Natural History, MoMA, New York Public Library, Global Kids and Urban Word NYC — collaborate on learning programs around youth-driven interests in everything from art and writing to history and web design.

The Hive Learning Network model pushes technology into the background, focusing instead on whatever kids want to learn about. The result is increased interest from youth in the short term, and a larger number of learners exposed to web literacy and digital skills over the long term.

Hive NYC will also act as a Mozilla-led “learning lab” to explore how youth can thrive in a remixable digital world. This will include continued development and testing of Mozilla digital learning tools including Hackasaurus or Popcorn with youth in New York City. We’ll also be prototyping the Hive Learning Network concept in London at the Mozilla Festival next month: Hive London Pop-Up for Young People.

Created with support from MacArthur Foundation, Hive NYC will continue to be a part of MacArthur’s broader Digital Media & Learning portfolio. Hive NYC is  part of a broader Hive Learning Network, which includes Hive Chicago (not directly affiliated with Mozilla).

Read more on HiveNYC, Mozilla and learning.

Today, Mozilla published this year’s annual State of Mozilla report. You can find full details on the annual report website. Included below is an excerpt from Mitchell Baker’s blog:

I am pleased to share with you this year’s annual State of Mozilla report. It details our opportunities, our community and our expanding set of initiatives…I invite you to learn more about the Mozilla Project and join us in our ongoing efforts to build a better Internet.

Mozilla is moving beyond software, looking for ways to bring open technologies and culture into new areas like art, media and education. We recently sponsored the Open Web Award as part of the Transmediale art festival in Berlin, Germany, combining digital art and the open web. With our new Mozilla Drumbeat initiative, we are engaging creators globally to shape the future of the web.

We were really excited to see more than 100 submissions for the Transmediale Open Web Award. The jury narrowed it down to three great contributions that all show potential, and could be seeds for incredibly exciting developments for art and the web in the coming years.

Jesse Scott (Graffiti Research Labs), center, accepts Open Web Award in Berlin on behalf of Evan Roth from Mark Surman and Henrik Moltke (Mozilla).

The winner – Graffiti Markup Language – enables the capture of graffiti motion data and turns it into something that can be shared and manipulated indefinitely. One can imagine not only great and exciting graffiti art but all kinds of motion expression. Just like the web itself potential of GML is totally open ended. Like LEGO, anyone can built whatever they want with it. For Mozilla, GML also has great educational value because it explains open data and standards in a surprising and fresh way to new people. We congratulate Evan Roth and the GML community on winning the award. Jesse Scott from Graffiti Research Labs in Berlin accepted on behalf on Evan Roth.

We also want to award a distinction to the other two finalists, Booki and Thimbl. Like GML, they represent exciting opportunities for creative expression on the web.

Firefox 4 will streamline and modernize the Web experience for our hundreds of millions of users. In addition to greatly improving performance, adding advanced graphics capabilities, and rethinking how people use tabs to organize their online lives, we have also been looking closely at the search options that we include in the search box, which appears to the right of the URL bar.

The current search options fall into three categories: general search, shopping, and reference.

Google remains the most popular general search and it will remain as the default search option, unless you change it. We will also continue to include Yahoo! as the second option for general search.  Yahoo! has a loyal following and continues to provide a differentiated user experience, even as it integrates the Bing engine for its algorithmic search results. Bing itself offers a user experience that we think users will find valuable, and with its significant rise in popularity over the last year, we will also be including Bing as a general search option for English language users.

Amazon.com and eBay will continue to be included by default as popular choices for shopping search engines.

Wikipedia will also continue to be included by default as a popular reference search engine. We’ll be removing Answers.com and Creative Commons.  Answers.com is a good service but we have found and we have heard from our users that Wikipedia is more useful as an included reference search engine. The Creative Commons search engine has changed over the years from one focused on locating CC licensed materials  to one focused on providing a general search from Google, Yahoo! and others. We are huge fans of Creative Commons and will continue to actively support their organization and mission through grants and joint programs.

Overall these changes will mean that English-language versions of Firefox 4 will display the following search services, in this order: Google (default), Yahoo!, Bing, Amazon, eBay and Wikipedia. The choices available to our users will vary around the world.  Localizers of Firefox will have the option to add Bing to the set of included search engines if they believe it is in the best interest of users in their locales.

As always, Firefox will continue to provide users with complete control over their list of search engines, with access to a large gallery of search plug-ins and the ability to change the default search engine at any time. Also, any website can provide a search plug-in using the Open Search protocol.

Search Refresh FAQ

Today we’re releasing an update to the Firefox 4 Beta to resolve two issues that have been causing problems for some of our testers:

• a stability issue on Windows,
• an issue with plugins on Mac OS X which made it difficult for users to type in some web pages, and showed white boxes over other web pages.

It’s thanks to our hundreds of thousands of beta testers and their continued feedback that we were able to identify, diagnose and address these issues. Existing beta users will be updated automatically, but of course we also welcome anyone to download the latest version from the beta website. Other than these bug fixes, today’s release has the same features and functionality as the previous beta update. The beta schedule hasn’t been impacted by this additional release, and we expect the next version of the beta in the coming weeks.

• Download Firefox 4 Beta
• Not convinced? Learn more about the features
• Got an opinion? Submit your feedback
• Short, to the point FAQ
• Long, technical release notes

Today, Mitchell Baker was announced as the recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2010 Growth, Innovation and Leadership Award. Mitchell will be honored for her achievements at the annual GIL 2010 event in Silicon Valley on September 13, 2010.

The award honor was announced in a press release issued by Frost & Sullivan, excerpt below:

“Profiled in TIME Magazine among their top 100 Scientists and Thinkers, Mitchell Baker is the visionary behind the Mozilla Project and is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide collective of employees and volunteers who are breathing new life into the Internet with the Firefox Web browser and other Mozilla products.

Serving as general manager of the Mozilla project since 1999, Baker shaped the license under which Netscape’s source code was released. In 2003, she became president and founder of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to openness and innovation on the Internet. As Chairperson of Mozilla, Baker continues her commitment to an open, innovative Web and the infinite possibilities it presents.”

Please join in congratulating Mitchell on this achievement!

Firefox 4 Beta 1 is now available and ready for testing. This first version is filled with dozens of new features and improvements. Here are more in depth explanations of some of the Firefox 4 Beta 1 features from the Firefox team:

Firefox 4 beta 1 is here – what’s in it for web developers?, Chris Blizzard

Firefox 4 Beta 1 UI Changes, Alex Faaborg

Introducing the New Add-Ons Manager, Dave Townsend

History of the Add-Ons Manager, Dave Townsend

Firefox 4 – FormData and the new File.url object, Jonas Sicking

WebM Video Support in Firefox 4 Beta, Chris Pearce

Web Developer “Console” in Firefox 4.0 Beta 1, Dave Dahl

We will continue to share more analysis and details for new features and changes in Firefox 4 as the product develops.

For more information on Firefox 4 Beta 1:

• Download Firefox 4 Beta
• Learn more about the features
• Submit your feedback
• FAQ
• Get the detailed Release Notes

We are excited to announce that Mozilla won the American Business Awards Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year (with less than 2,500 employees) in the software category!

More than 2,700 entries from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration in more than 40 categories, including Most Innovative Company of the Year, Management Team of the Year, Best New Product or Service of the Year and Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year.

We are so pleased to accept this award on behalf of the always innovative Mozilla Community!

Firefox 3.6 has been nominated for the People’s Choice Stevie Awards as the Favorite New Product (Software – New Version). Voting ends June 4^th. You can go here to cast your vote in one of two ways:

• Input the special Firefox 3.6 short code: M696H
• Under the Award Categories menu select “Favorite Software – New Version” and then click “Firefox 3.6”

After you vote, please complete the registration form with your name, e-mail address and telephone number. The Stevie Awards has a strict privacy policy and will not share your information.

Thanks to the amazing Mozilla community support, Firefox 3 won the People’s Choice Stevie Award in 2009. Please vote and help spread the word so we can try to win again in 2010!

Mitchell with Lisa Burda, granddaughter of Aenne, at award ceremony. DLD conference, Munich 2010.

Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, was awarded the Aenne Burda Award at the international Digital Life Design Conference in Munich, Germany. Mitchell is the fifth recipient of the award that honors successful, creative female entrepreneurs that are visionaries of the digital world. She received the award for alternative and transparent developments in software.

To quote from the press release issued by DLD-Conference: “Mitchell is a pioneer in the internet industry. The Mozilla Foundation calls for transparency and self-determination in the digital world and develops open-source software that allows everyone to contribute. With the popular browser Firefox Mozilla was able to take a significant amount of market share from the market leader.”

Mitchell Baker comments on receiving the award: “I am honored for the recognition, both personally and on behalf of the many thousands of Mozilla community members who contribute to Mozilla every day to bring innovation and self-determination to Internet life.  I am proud to receive this award and proud that hundreds of millions of people today trust Mozilla to make their digital world better.”

The award commemorates visionary entrepreneur Aenne Burda. The German business woman was a role-model for many of the post-war generation. Starting with a small publishing house, Aenne Burda created the world’s largest fashion publishing house.

Previous recipients of the award are Marissa Mayer of Google, Caterina Fake, Flickr-founder, Martha Stewart, TV-host and entrepreneur, as well as investor and internet pioneer Esther Dyson who presented the award to Mitchell together with Lisa Burda, granddaughter of Aenne.

Please join us in congratulating Mitchell for this award!