For more information, see the release announcement blog post.

For more details about Weave 0.7, please check out the details over at the Weave blog!

We’ve now completed our inaugural Test Pilot study, with more than 5,000 opt-in participants from around the world providing invaluable data into how they use tabs in their daily Web browsing, and today we’re making this data available under an open license for analysis by the wider research community.

With this first study our primary objective has been to provide a trial run of an end-to-end process while still maintaining user privacy. We believe that we’ve been able to gather enough information to answer the questions posed by the Tab Open/Close study while ensuring that we’re true to the privacy policy and guiding principles. All submitted test data is stored in anonymous form, none of it is directly associated with any potentially personally identifiable information, and no directly personally identifiable information was collected or stored.

Data from this study is being made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, with the additional requirement that you acknowledge that Mozilla cannot vouch for the quality or timeliness of any third-party analysis or work derived from the Mozilla Test Pilot Data.

We’re still working on the best way in which to license data from the Test Pilot program. Please do join us in the discussion group, especially if you are a researcher and help us better understand requirements for publication.

We encourage people to make creative use of this data, to conduct analysis and to perform research on these downloadable datasets. When you publish work derived from our test data, we ask that you cite Mozilla Test Pilot as the source. While it’s not required that you contribute back your analysis, we truly hope that you will join us in the spirit of shared exploration and research. Please do share your work back with us through the discussion group.

Tab Open/Close Study Test Data (9/3/2009-9/24/2009)

Get Involved

We invite you to participate in shaping the future of the Test Pilot program:

1. Install and play with the Test Pilot add-on .
2. Report a bug.
3. Suggest ways to better structure the program or improve the user experience of participating in tests.
4. Add your ideas for usability tests to the test proposals page on the Labs wiki.

Your favorite web browser is Firefox, you played with Mozilla Labs’ projects, probably you even hacked on them already? Now is the time to join the Mozilla Labs team and work with the wider community on creating the future of the Web.

We are currently looking for all-stars in the following roles:

Product Marketing Manager – Labs

You will be a key contributor to Mozilla’s outbound product marketing efforts for its innovation programs in general, and projects like the Concept Series, Ubiquity, Weave and Jetpack specifically. If you’re passionate about the Web, and are willing to roll-up your sleeves, then this position is for you.

Learn more and apply here.

For our Jetpack project:

Product Manager – Jetpack

Are you a talented Product Manager who wants to guide future development of Mozilla Labs’ Jetpack project? Read more about the position and apply here.

Labs Engineer – Jetpack

Are you an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to help design and develop the underlying technology framework for Mozilla Labs’ experiments, with an initial focus on the Jetpack project? Learn more about this role and apply here.

And for our Developer Tools/Bespin:

Labs Engineer – Developer Tools (Bespin)

We are looking for a forward thinking Software Engineer with a focus on User Interface creation to join the Developer Tools Lab and initially focus on the Bespin project. The Developer Tools Lab is a group within Mozilla’s Labs organization that is focused on making it fun and easy to create amazing applications on the Open Web platform. Bespin is a newly formed experiment in delivering a revolutionary code editing experience entirely in the browser using Open Web technologies, like HTML 5’s canvas element, local storage, web workers, and so forth.

Read the full job spec and apply here.

We have two awesome speakers this time around, so it will be double the excitement. Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick from Google will talk about all the cool work that’s happening on the real time web. In particular, they’ll talk about Pubsubhubbub and Webfinger.

We will also hear what a lot of the Mozilla Labs projects have been working on, in 5 minute lightning talk style presentations. We’ll have a few slots open for other lightning talks as well, so if you are working on a cool project, this is a great opportunity to show and tell.

As with previous Labs nights, there will be some good food.  Please RSVP on the meetup page if you plan to attend as that will help us determine how much food to order.

PS: We are also working on getting someone from the Firefox team come give a talk. Stay tuned for more info.

For more information, see the release announcement blog post.

We are happy to announce the launch of Jetpack 0.5, the bootstrap edition. This release adds many more features, API, an updated Twitter library, and improves the installation experience.

What’s New

Boostrap: Streamlined Installs

Before this release, if as a developer you wanted people to use your jetpack, you’d first have to get them to install the Jetpack add-on and then come back to install your functionality. This meant that most jetpacks were meant used only by early adopters. With Jetpack 0.5, we’ve greatly simplified the process. You can now provide a one-line install link which will, if the user doesn’t already have Jetpack, both install Jetpack as well as your feature. With bootstrapping, the install experience for a jetpack is now easily accessible to everyday users.

Read the instructions on how to link to your jetpacks to take advantage of the new streamlined installation.

Try it out by installing the voice-memo app

Music

We’ve been living in a digital music divide, where web applications could only play music in the cloud, and desktop applications can only play music on a local harddrive. Jetpack.music is the first step towards unifying those two, by allowing the browser to easily interact with the music you already have. For now, this makes media control features for Firefox easy to implement (think Foxytunes). In the future, we’ll be working on giving this ability to web content.

For example, if you want a feature that tries to find and play “Thriller” everytime Firefox starts up, you could write:

let tracks = jetpack.music.search('thriller');
jetpack.music.playTrack(tracks[0]);

For more information on what you can do, see the documentation.

Audio

Starting in Jetpack 0.4, you could record sound to disk and play it back. Now you can manipulate the streaming audio data as it comes in. This is useful for realtime audio applications such as voice chat.

jetpack.audio.recordToPipe(myCallback);

Right now the data is raw PCM float stereo samples, but we’re working on adding support for re-encoding this byte stream back into an OGG/Vorbis file. Check out AudioEncoder.cpp if you want to help.

For example applications and documentation see JEP 18.

The Contest

As part of Jetpack 0.5, we kicked off a competition a couple weeks ago. It ends on the 15th of September. For making the coolest or most interesting Jetpack, we are offering a brand new netbook (the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE). For the runner-up, we’ll send you a big package of Mozilla swag. Special kudos for Jetpacks that use the latest features in Jetpack 0.5.

• The contest ends lasts until the 15th of September.
• Win a netbook!
• See the contest details
• Submit your Jetpack

Get Involved

Mozilla Labs is a virtual lab where people come together online to create, experiment and play with Web innovations for the public benefit. The Jetpack experiment is still in its infancy and just getting started. There are many ways to join the team and get involved:

• Install and play around with the initial Jetpack API and demos
• Write a JEP
• Report a bug
• Grab the source code and fix a bug or add a feature
• Discuss, debate and add to the design in the Jetpack discussion group
• Join us in #jetpack on irc.mozilla.org

We’re also looking for a full-time product manager and software engineers to join Labs and work on Jetpack! What title is better than Jetpack PM? Check out the career opportunities available.

— Aza Raskin, on behalf of the Jetpack team

Bob Marley:

Project Runway:

Fame:

Lilly Pulitzer:

H&M:

Vans:

Yoga Journal

What’s Next?

The Personas gallery continues to expand with creative contributions from thousands of people around the globe. One important goal is to make the persona creation process as simple and as inclusive as possible. Click here for a tutorial on how to create a persona design, and join the discussion how to make the process better.

– Amy Zehren and Suneel Gupta on behalf of the Personas development team.

In particular, we’d love to see:

• Introductory talks/slides-decks about what Jetpack is, and how to use it
• Jetpack tutorials and walkthroughs

We are planning on organizing events around the world to get people engaged, excited, and using Jetpack to get real-world feedback on Jetpack’s platform and it’s needs—shaping the future of Jetpack and browser development. For example, on October 2nd, we’ll be running a 24-hour Hackathon in Prague. The Hackathon starts with a set of hands-on lessons on learning to use Jetpack. As part of the effort to bring more creators and pedagogues into the mix, we’ll be highlighting and promoting your work. We may also help you find speaking and other evangelist opportunities. There’s also the possibility that if your Jetpack talk or tutorial stands out as an exemplar, we’ll sponsor your participation including travel at one of these events, like the inagural Hackathon in Prague.

How To Get Involved

• Create your tutorial or talk. If you are doing a talk, please also create a video of you giving the talk (a la this tutorial from John Resig on jQuery)
• Add your link to the tutorials and talks page.
• Talk about your ideas on the Jetpack news group.
• Because Prague is just around the corner we’re hoping to finalize the initial content by the 14th of September. If you write something by then, there is a chance to join us in Prague!

About Jetpack

Mozilla Labs is a virtual lab where people come together online to create, experiment and play with Web innovations for the public benefit. The Jetpack experiment is still in its infancy and just getting started. There are many ways to join the team and get involved:

• Install and play around with the initial Jetpack API and demos
• Write a JEP
• Report a bug
• Grab the source code and fix a bug or add a feature
• Discuss, debate and add to the design in the Jetpack discussion group
• Join us in #jetpack on irc.mozilla.org

We’re also looking for a full-time product manager and software engineers to join Labs and work on Jetpack! What title is better than Jetpack PM? Check out the career opportunities available.

— Aza Raskin, on behalf of the Jetpack team

We need you to join the flight!

About the test: Tab Open/Close Study

One-second Summary:
This study aims to understand user behaviors after they open or close a tab.

Tabbed browsing is now the standard interface offered by all major web browsers, and it‘s been argued that the browsing experience becomes difficult to manage when more than a handful of tabs are opened.

For this study, together with other co-pilots, you will contribute to the design of a key feature of Firefox – tabs. You will help us determine the best default behavior when you open or close a tab, especially when you may already have many tabs open. When you interact with tabs, Test Pilot will automatically record what you do (open/close/switch etc) and when you do it (time-stamp). (It will not record which websites you visit.) Through these log data, we may be able to detect certain patterns that help us design the default browser behavior that works best for most users.

One thing to note is that Firefox tab behaviors may be dramatically changed by different tab-related add-ons. In order to distinguish test data from browsers with such add-ons and browsers without them, the data that is uploaded will include information about add-ons that are installed.

If you are interested in knowing more about this test, please take a look at test details.

How to participate

This very first test will start as soon as you upgrade the Test Pilot add-on and it will run for seven days.

Since this study aims to understand users’ behaviors on current tab design through log data, you are not required to do any extra work besides using the Internet as you always do. No survey or additional software is required for this test.

When the test ends, all pilots for this test will be asked if you want to submit your test data or not. The test data will be expired and removed from your computer one week after the test ends if you don’t respond to the submission.

Also, aligned with the Test Pilot guiding principles and privacy policy, all pilots for this test will be able to:

* Know what this test is about and what type of test data would be collected before it starts.
* Review all the test data during the test and before you submit.
* Opt out from the test at any time.

All test data will only be stored in anonymous form. None of it will be directly associated with any personally identifiable information about you. The data will automatically be removed from your computer after the test ends or after you quit the test.

If you are interested in helping us improve the participation process while trying out the first study, please join us in the Test Pilot discussion group.

Get Involved

This test is still the very first experiment, “a demo test” before running more future Test Pilot tests. We are planning on constantly improving it for the next iterations. We need your feedback, especially on the participation process and metrics design for the test. Please join the team and get involved in any of the following ways:

* Install and play with the Test Pilot add-on .
* Report a bug.
* Help improve the user experience of participating in tests through the Test Pilot discussion group.
* Help design test metrics or analyze data in the Test Pilot discussion group.
* Add your ideas for usability tests to the test proposals page on the Labs wiki .