On Oct 30, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6 Beta 1.  Then on November 11, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6 Beta 2.

These betas of Firefox 3.6 introduced several new features:

• Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
• Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
• Support for the WOFF font format.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.
• A mechanism to prevent incompatible software from crashing Firefox.

Beta 1 coverage highlights:

CNET, ComputerWorld, Internetnews.com, PC Mag, PC Pro, PCWorld, ReadWriteWeb, ZDNet

Beta 2 coverage highlights:

BetaNews, CNET, DailyTech, DownloadSquad, GoMo News, InternetNews.com, Lifehacker, PCMagazine, The H,  Webmonkey, WebWorkerDaily

On Oct 20, Mozilla joined several organizations in endorsing the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) specification.  We also announced the intent to implement the specification starting in Firefox 3.6.

Wired’s Michael Calore on the WOFF spec:

This is a significant step forward not only for the emerging open format, but also for type on the web in general, which is still stuck in a state of mild turmoil.

For years, designers have been limited to using only a set of five or six common fonts on the web. But thanks to new font rendering tools within the emerging HTML5 and CSS3 standards, web designers now have the ability to use newer, more visually interesting typefaces — and make that type appear more consistently across browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions.

Coverage highlights include:

CNET, Technology Review, Webmonkey, Holy Info, The H, and Online PC.

Last Friday, the official Spread Firefox download counter reached one billion. To date, there have been more than 80 original pieces of coverage with most of the coverage being extremely positive and excited about the billion download achievement.

David Colker from the L.A. Times commented on the milestone:

Quite a feat for a browser that unlike Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari is run by a nonprofit organization with fewer than 250 employees.  Despite it’s lack of big corporate backing –or maybe partially because of that lack—Firefox has become hugely popular worldwide”

John Paczkowski from All Things D quoted Mozilla CEO, John Lilly:

As Mozilla CEO John Lilly told me this morning, ‘It’s a billion votes–a billion intentional decisions–for people to take control of how they interact with the Web. We–the whole Mozilla community, really–are really proud to have been part of building a product that’s been downloaded so many times, but more importantly, we’re all proud to have helped people take more control over their online lives by making intentional decisions.’”

And Ryan Paul from Ars Technica said:

Firefox has transformed the Internet by bringing innovation and a strong standards-based browsing experience to the masses. Its swift rate of advancement has been accompanied by rapid adoption, leading to the emergence of an enormous following of loyal users. The Firefox phenomenon has contributed greatly to leveling the playing field on the Web and reigniting competition in the browser market.”

Coverage highlights include: BBC News, CIO Today, CNET, Examiner, Fast Company, Geek.com, Information Week, Info World, Lifehacker, The Mirror, PC Magazine, PC World, The San Francisco Business Times, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, The TechHerald, TecZone, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, VentureBeat,

Mozilla Labs recently announced a call for participation in its latest project, Jetpack. Jetpack explores new ways to extend & personalize the Web.

Jetpack was received positively by the press, with many people noting that the already impressive size and dedication of the Mozilla add-ons community should help make the project a success. There seemed to be some initial confusion over the differences between Jetpack and Greasemonkey, but we continued to push the message that Jetpack was in part informed by the success of Greasemonkey, and that you’ll likely see support for Greasemonkey scripts to Jetpack to allow them work even better together.

The Register’s Cade Metz spoke with Aza Raskin about the goals of the project. He writes, “‘We want to enable more people to participate in the creation of browser functionality, following the Mozilla mission of making the browser yours, making the web yours,’ Mozilla’s head of user experience Aza Raskin told The Reg. ‘What if any eighth grader with a little skill could change the browser? What would that mean for the web?’”

CNet’s Josh Lowensohn notes some exciting benefits the release brings to users, “Besides no restarts and no breaking with updates, the most exciting aspect of Jetpack is how it can give users more control over what they see on a site, and how they can interact with its content. Like Ubiquity (another Mozilla Labs project), it also appears to be putting these add-ons right in the hands of users as soon as they visit a site with Jetpack controls, which means there’s less of a need to promote it in an add-ons directory to have users find it.”

US Coverage highlights:

PC Advisor, Lockergnome Blog, Trusted Reviews, Pocket-Lint, Internet News, Slashdot, TechSpot, InfoWorld, Ars Tehnica, CNet, PC World, eWeek, TechNewsWorld, ChannelWeb, InformationWeek, The Register, N4G, Vnunet.com

EU coverage highlights:

PC Pro, ComputerWorld UK, Heise Online, ZDNet, Yahoo UK & Ireland, eWeek, Computeractive, Digital Arts,

On March 31 Mozilla announced new designs for the Mozilla Firefox web browser by leading fashion, cause, sports and music brands. Personas has been building on the momentum it has built from its inception in 2007 in Mozilla Labs, with hundreds of designs from a growing community of artists and designers. Personas continues to grow to enable people to easily make their browsing experience more fun and personal.

Mozilla issued a press release announcing its work with a number of brands. Public feedback toward Personas as a simple and fun consumer tool to customize your Firefox has been largely positive. Some have been of the opinion that Mozilla should focus on improving the technical capabilities of Firefox instead of these “fun” tools, though, our main goal here was to introduce Personas to mainstream consumers.

As Kevin Purdy from Lifehacker notes, “Skinning Firefox for a new look doesn’t exactly add much productivity to your browsing day, but if you’re going to seek out that complete desktop theme feel, GetPersonas makes it seriously simple.”

Coverage highlights include:

US

Lifehacker, PC Pro, TechCrunch and CNet

Germany

Chip, Chip’s “20 favorite Personas”, ComputerBild, PcWelt, Heise

Spain

20minutos

Italy

downloadblogi.it

Earlier this week The Khronos Group announced an initiative with Mozilla to bring accelerated 3D graphics to the Web in hopes of improving online games and other Web applications.

The initiative has garnered excitement among the press, with discussions around the benefits of having games available directly from a Web browser, the eventual integration of 3D features into Firefox, and what this might mean for the competition.

WIRED’s Michael Calore notes, “Nobody can ignore the obvious fact that any 3D graphics technology with the weight of Mozilla, Google and Khronos behind it has one hell of a chance of succeeding. And even if it takes years to truly mature, Adobe should be worried.”

Coverage highlights include Ars Technica, CNET, ZDNet, BBC, Internet News, Information Week, and The Escapist.

Earlier this month, Mozilla’s Developer Tools Lab released its first project, Bespin. Bespin proposes an open extensible Web-based framework for code editing that aims to increase developer productivity, enable compelling user experiences, and promote the use of open standards.

There has been much excitement around the project, particularly in the developer community and technology press. As Ryan Paul from Ars Technica states, “The creative way that Bespin uses the canvas element demonstrates the power of open Web standards and the creative things that other developers are doing with Bespin validates the usefulness of the project.”

The project is already acting as a catalyst for innovation in the open source community. Alex Handy from the SD Times reports, “One open-source developer has already tied Bespin to a headless Eclipse server. This IDE mashup provided Bespin as the editor, while the Eclipse engine crunched and examined the code dynamically on the back end.”

Highlights of coverage include:

US:

Ars Technica, CNET, Internet News, Lifehacker, eWeek, SD Times

UK:

TechWorld, ZDNetUK, ComputerWorld UK, The Register

Germany:

Chip, PC-Welt, silicon.de, ORF, t3n, magnus.de, Heise

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced that Mitchell Baker is a winner of this year’s Women of Vision Awards in the Leadership category. Mitchell, along with Yuqing Gao, IBM Research, and Jan Cuny, National Science Foundation, will be honored for her accomplishments and contributions as a woman in technology at ABI’s fourth annual Women of Vision Awards Banquet at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose on April 30th, 2009.

The news was announced in a press release issued by The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, excerpted below:

The Women of Vision (WOV) Awards honor women making significant contributions to technology in three categories: Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact. The three winners were selected from a field of highly qualified women all of whom are engaged in technology professions in industry, academia, NGO’s or government. Candidates for the awards are considered based on their records of (1) consistent, significant contributions to technology invention and application; (2) effecting positive changes in the ways in which technology impacts society; and (3) demonstrated leadership in the technology industry that extends beyond their place of work.

Please join us in congratulating Mitchell in this achievement!