Been thinking about making the switch to Firefox, but worried about how well Google Workspace products will work? Well, we’ve got some good news for you.

Google services have always worked great on Firefox, thanks to our collaboration with the G Workspace team, who want to make sure their products work on all major browsers. But the internet never stops evolving, so we’re always looking for ways to improve people’s experience with services they choose to use on Firefox. 

Here’s an example of a recent improvement you can expect to see when you use Google Meet on Firefox: 

Google Meet

Want to turn on fun video effects during your next call? Or do you need to blur your background when you hop on your next online work meeting? You can now do both in Google Meet on Firefox. If you use Firefox version 115 or higher, you can set your visual effects either before or during your Meet meeting. 

If you are in the waiting room prior to your call, you can select “Apply visual effects” (the button with sparkles), which will present you the usual Google Meet menu of filter options.

If you’re already in the call, you can select “More Options” (the button with the three dots) in the menu bar at the bottom of the page and then select “Apply visual effects.”

It’s not just Google Meet. Here’s a list of other Google tools and services that works great on Firefox:

• Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Docs, Drive, Meet, Sheets, Slides)
• Classroom
• Forms
• Keep
• Maps
• Photos
• Translate
• Voice
• YouTube (videos and Music)

So if you’re considering a switch but have had concerns with compatibility, you can be confident that Google services work great with Firefox — and that we’re always working on meeting your ever-changing needs.

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The post Google Meet and the rest of G Workspace are working better than ever on Firefox appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Remember when the internet felt personal? Like a cool space for ourselves to discover really amazing things? The web allowed us to tell our stories in new ways, learn from others across the world and solve problems together. This extraordinary power is what sparked Mozilla’s commitment to a healthy internet, through activism and open source projects like Firefox. Now, just as we asked people to build with us 25 years ago, we invite everyone to join us in our new call to action: reclaiming the internet.  

Mozilla knows there are not-so-great things about being online these days. From misinformation and security risks to being tracked for our data and the great speed at which AI is overtaking our lives, it can all make us feel like we’re just scrolling along for the ride. But while profit has shaped the web for too long, we still believe that the best days of the internet are still to come — and that people can and should reclaim their narrative, their time and the connections they make online. This is why we’re taking Mozilla’s quarter anniversary as an opportunity to both reflect on our accomplishments of the last 25 years and to set a course for the decades ahead. 

To commemorate this moment, we are hosting a five-day event at the Alte Münze in Berlin this Oct. 12 to 16 that embodies all of what Mozilla has been, what it aims to be and what it envisions for the internet. 

Daytime visitors will get to explore the future through four immersive rooms that show what’s possible when internet users reclaim individual expression, inspiration, wonder and community. In the evening, we will host an array of programming including an awards ceremony celebrating the inaugural cohort for Rise25, a recognition of 25 everyday people who are shaping the future of the internet, creating technologies to be more ethical, responsible and equitable, and content that is more inclusive and diverse. They’re the next generation of leaders who will help empower all of us to make the internet cooler, safer and more aligned with the future we all dream of.

You can reserve tickets for Mozilla’s Reclaim the Internet event here.

Of course, we want you to join us even if you’re not in Berlin. You’ll be able to check out the exhibits and events on our Instagram and TikTok, including a livestream of the Rise25 award ceremony on Mozilla’s YouTube page. 

So, let’s come together and reclaim the internet. With your help, we can shape a future where individual expression, inspiration, wonder and community define our personal experiences online. The time is now to act, build and choose a better internet — and we need to do it together.

The post Reclaim the internet with Mozilla appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

What if we got to easily choose our internet browser, and didn’t have to rely on complex operating system settings to change the pre-installed default?

At Mozilla, our mission has always centered on empowering people to shape their own experiences online. But these days, big tech too often trumps individual choices, whether that’s through the algorithms that populate our feeds, the online reviews that influence our purchases or the barriers to changing pre-installed browsers on our devices — and keeping that choice. 

The reality is that much of our online experience is controlled by a small number of tech companies. Seeking a solution to the immense gatekeeping power concentrated in the hands of a few, lawmakers and regulatory bodies around the world are considering a range of interventions. One of these is “choice screens,” which prompt users to actively select their preferred default web browser.

Mozilla is interested in whether and how these remedies might work, not just as the maker of the privacy-focused Firefox, but as an organization with a mission to equip people to make their own choices. So, we conducted a survey of 12,000 people in Germany, Spain and Poland to understand how choice screens influence their decisions, preferences and satisfaction levels. Here’s what we learned:

1. Browser choice screens affect people’s decisions

Choice screens proved to be powerful influencers of user decisions. More than half of the people who were not presented with a choice screen said that they expected to change the default browser that had been selected for them, suggesting that the pre-installed browser may not serve the needs or preference of many users. On the other hand, 98% of the people who select a browser through a choice screen expect to stick with it. Even more encouraging: Choice screens led many users to opt for independent browsers that were not tied to the operating system or device manufacturer – a sign of fairer competition among browsers. 

2. The design, content and timing of the choice screen matter

Several factors affected people’s choices:

• Providing more information about the browsers led to a slight increase in users selecting independent browsers while reducing the preference for the pre-installed ones. 
• People preferred to see a wide variety of browsers. 
• The positioning of browsers within the choice screen played a crucial role, with lower-positioned browsers being chosen less frequently, particularly on Android devices. For example, moving a browser from the first to fourth on the list significantly reduces the likelihood of a user selecting that browser. 
• People preferred to see a choice screen during the process of setting up their device. Participants who see the choice screen after set-up, immediately after launching the pre-installed browser, are considerably more inclined to select this browser as their default choice. 

3. People want to choose their default browser

How users feel about choice screens was clear from the survey: An overwhelming majority (98%) of people preferred to see a choice screen. They want to see more information, a wide selection of browsers and the option to select their default browser while setting up their devices. 

4. Better user satisfaction

Perhaps most importantly, choice screens resulted in better user satisfaction across various metrics – including the ease of setting up the device, the amount of time it took to set up the device, and the range of settings they could customize. Notably, choice screens also boosted satisfaction with “the extent to which I felt in control” by 12%.  

Mozilla is currently engaging with regulators, companies, industry leaders, academics and consumer organizations to discuss the findings of this experiment. These insights provide a solid starting point for conversations to maximize the effectiveness of choice screens and address competition-related concerns. You can read the full report here. 

The power to choose an internet browser should be in the hands of users. When thoughtfully designed and implemented, browser choice screens have the potential to reshape the digital landscape and empower users to make informed choices in a web that’s teeming with possibilities. We’re excited to continue this journey towards a more open and user-centric internet, and we ask you to be a part of it.

The post Deciding for ourselves: 98% of people want a browser choice screen, Mozilla study finds appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S.

Red pandas are the first panda — discovered nearly 50 years before the giant panda. Unfortunately, they are also endangered with as few as 2,500 remaining in the wild. Founded in 2007, Red Panda Network (RPN) responds to threats to the species with community-based programs that empower local people to conserve red pandas and their habitat. You can learn about RPN’s work here. 

Additionally, across the world, there are several zoos that participate in a breeding program to help grow the red panda population. Now is a great time to visit the red pandas at your nearest zoo.

Before you go, let us tell you more about the red pandas and the people who care for those adorable red cat-bears (another moniker they go by). We reached out to five zoos who participate in the special red panda program, and sent questions to learn from the zookeepers and the red pandas they care for.

Click on the links below to read more about the red pandas and their caretakers:

• Idaho Falls Zoo (Idaho Falls, Idaho)
• Potter Park Zoo (Lansing, Michigan) 
• Sacramento Zoo (Sacramento, California)
• Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle, Washington)
• Zoo Atlanta (Atlanta, Georgia)

Thank you so much to the zookeepers who spent time to share their knowledge with us. We’d love to learn more about other red pandas in the world, so if you happen to be at your local zoo, share your photos with us on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. We can’t wait to see more firefoxes!

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The post Seeing a Firefox IRL appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S. See our full series of interviews here.

Situated in the Pacific Northwest, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle offers a temperate forest that provides cooler temperatures where animals like the red panda can thrive. There, you’ll meet Carson, an 8-year-old red panda. 

Carson’s caretaker is Megan Blandford, the animal keeper at the Woodland Park Zoo. Megan describes Carson’s personality as feisty, and from what we’ve heard, you can either find him looking for food scraps or napping at the top of his tree. We love naps, too!

We caught up with Megan where she tells us more about Carson, shares her first foray in the zoo world (you’ll never guess, it involved building a piano for a killer whale) and how caring for a red panda provides job security. 

Tell us about the red pandas you care for:

“…currently has one 8-year-old Himalayan red panda named Carson that you can see daily in Woodland Park Zoo’s temperate forest [habitat]. He’s got a very feisty personality and never hesitates to let you know his strong opinions and feelings about things. He will move heaven and earth for a few bites of grapes and apples, and is sure to assist the keepers every afternoon when we aren’t giving him his daily allotment of bamboo fast enough. When he’s not cruising around on the ground for potentially missed food scraps, you can usually find him curled up in his favorite snooze spot towards the top of the tree in front of his exhibit.”

What’s the coolest part about working with red pandas?

“There are so many great things about working with red pandas that it’s hard to say what the best part is! I think personally my favorite part is when Carson sees me first thing in the morning and gets SO excited. He will run along the fence to greet me and is equally excited to come in and eat/train when I come back over a few minutes later. Fun fact! Picture what you would imagine a unicorn sounds like, and that’s one of the primary vocalizations the red pandas make. It’s like an extremely high-pitched rapid neighing. I also love being able to do keeper talks and talk to the public about them and how special they are, and let them know that there are actions that they can take to help protect these unique animals that are endangered in the wild.”  

How did you get your start as a zookeeper?

“I’ve been an animal keeper since 2011 and have been working with red pandas since 2020. When I was in college, I initially wanted to become a veterinarian but learned through my university that I HATED performing surgery and needed to change my goals. After working in a herpetology and parrot cognition lab on campus, I thought I might try my hand at zookeeping. I first dipped my toe into the zoo world as an intern at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California, where I produced ideas and then built enrichment items for an orca they had at the time (I ended up working with an engineering team to build a Simon-says killer whale piano for her.) It can be very competitive to break into the zoo world, so after I graduated and was unable to land another zoo internship or job, I worked as a freelance photographer specializing in human rights violations in Africa, specifically the Gambaga outcast witch colony and the black markets around Ghana. When I got back to the U.S. I was lucky enough to get a full-time internship in Toledo, Ohio working with elephants. From there I was hired on, and the rest is history. I eventually started working at Woodland Park Zoo; the red pandas are always the highlight of my day.”

What does your typical day look like?

“My typical day starts with life checking all the animals on my unit to make sure no one had any issues overnight (e.g. HVAC going out, branch falling on a fence, tragically uninformed mallards wandering into predator areas, etc), which for me includes the maned wolves, red pandas, southern pudu and jaguars. Then I’ll prep their diets in the morning and start their morning feedings. After everyone is happy and satiated, I’ll start cleaning, and red pandas make up a large part of that because red pandas defecate a lot! Like, an alarming amount if you aren’t expecting it. Their diets consist of lots of items like bamboo that are very low in nutritional value and take lots of energy to digest. As a result, they both sleep and poop a staggering amount. If you imagine the amount a typical golden retriever might produce in a day, each red panda produces about five times as much as that per day, it’s fantastic job security. I’ll also train all the animals throughout the day so that they can participate in their own husbandry and veterinary care; it allows us the flexibility to give them choice and control regarding their care. For example, we do voluntary blood draws on Carson every few months. The male red panda is trained to sit on a platform and is reinforced with his favorite snacks while our talented veterinary staff draw blood from his tail. He’s great at other behaviors as well, like allowing voluntary injections and standing on a scale to obtain his weight. After feeding, training and cleaning, I then start to feed out their diets for overnight and check on them one last time (I like to think of it as tucking them in) before leaving for the day.”

Thank you, Megan, for sharing your stories about being a zookeeper and Carson. One of these days we’ll have to get an audio recording of Carson doing his impression of a unicorn with his “extremely high-pitched rapid neighing.”  

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The post Firefox IRL: Meet Seattle’s Carson, the Woodland Park Zoo’s feisty red panda appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S. See our full series of interviews here.

Sacramento Zoo has a full house with four red pandas: Amaya, Basu, Takeo and Pili. Just like people, each red panda has a unique personality. Their caretaker, Rachel Winkler, animal care supervisor at the Sacramento Zoo, shares her stories about this foursome.

Originally a math major, Rachel volunteered at the Sacramento Zoo when she discovered how much she liked caring for animals. From there, she went on to other zoos to learn more about becoming a zookeeper. Now, she’s back at Sacramento Zoo. She tells about the resident red pandas’ favorite snacks, sleeping spots and more. 

Tell us about the red pandas you care for.

“…we have four red pandas: one breeding pair (Amaya and Basu) and one pair of roommates (Takeo and Pili). Amaya is 6 years old and is our breeding female. She is pretty shy, only being comfortable with her regular keepers. She loves grapes and bamboo! Basu is 9 years old and is our breeding male. We call him the “golden boy” because of his yellow tinted fur, plus he’s super sweet. He loves strangers and always comes over when someone new comes to the area. Takeo is 14 years old and is the sweetest old man. Despite not having many teeth left in his old age, he loves craisins (cranberry raisins). He likes to sleep a lot, but usually loses his sleeping spot to Pili, since it’s her favorite spot too. Pili is 11 years old and is a sassy lady.  She likes to get what she wants, even if that means bumping Takeo out of somewhere he’s already asleep. Being on the older side hasn’t slowed her down, and she’s still very spunky!”

What’s the coolest part about working with red pandas?

“The best part about working with red pandas is knowing I get to take care of an endangered species; there are less than 10,000 red pandas left in the wild. While it’s sad to know their population is struggling in the wild, it is exciting to be privileged to work with such a rare animal, and help raise awareness about conservation efforts to guests to help them in the wild. Here at the Sacramento Zoo, we support the Red Panda Network, who works hard to protect native panda habitat in Nepal as well as conduct research studies to better understand and save the pandas. I also love working with the red pandas because they are charismatic fluff balls who love their grapes.”

How did you get your start as a zookeeper?

“I started volunteering at Sacramento Zoo when I was an undergrad at UC Davis.  I was actually a math major on track to be a teacher when I realized how much I liked the animal care field and helping with conservation. Through volunteering, I was able to get enough experience to get an internship at the Oakland Zoo over the summer of my junior year of college. After graduation, through my experience at the Oakland Zoo, I applied and was hired as a paid apprentice (full-time temporary learning position) at Oakland. While at Oakland, I got to work with a variety of taxa from tiny tenrecs all the way up to giraffes! After about two years at Oakland, I was able to get a full-time permanent position at the Santa Barbara Zoo, where I worked primarily with gorillas, giraffes and meerkats, as well as being cross-trained in all other mammal areas. After about four years in Santa Barbara, I took a primary ungulate keeper position at Sacramento and moved back. After three years, I was promoted to animal care supervisor, where I oversaw the ungulate department, and recently have moved to oversee the commissary and carnivore department (which includes the red pandas!).”

What does your typical day look like?

“Every morning animal care staff has a morning meeting where we go over important tasks for the day, the veterinary schedule for the day and share anything within sections that the whole department should know about. From there, we gather our diets for the day from the commissary and break into the section teams for the day and hash out section goals/needs. Once we have planned out the day, we go and do life checks on the animals to make sure everyone is okay to start our day. Mornings include the majority of cleaning of animal areas and habitats and feeding out a.m. diets. The rest of the day varies based on animals or sections you’re in, but some animals get midday feeds as well as p.m. feedings. After lunch usually lends free time for projects like creating enrichment, training or habitat upkeep.  At the end of the day, making sure everyone is fed, closed into appropriate areas/given access to off-habitat areas as needed, and we’re good to go until tomorrow when we do it all again.”

Thank you, Rachel, for sharing your stories about this foursome. Sounds like there are more fun adventures in store for this group.

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The post Firefox IRL: Meet Amaya, Basu, Takeo and Pili, Sacramento Zoo’s fantastic four red pandas  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S. See our full series of interviews here.

Forget “Gilmore Girls.” The best mother-and-daughter show to watch is right at Idaho Falls Zoo. We’re talking about red panda Linda and her little one, Saffron. 

In 2021, Saffron was born at Idaho Falls Zoo and since then, she’s been at her mother’s side. Katie Barry, general curator at the zoo, tells us that Saffron recently discovered how yummy grapes taste and is always looking for treats along with her mom. We chatted with Katie, who shared a fun fact about how red pandas are able to go head first down a tree.

Tell us about the red pandas you care for.

“Linda is very much a nosey panda, wanting to be right up in your business as we clean the enclosure. She is always looking for handouts and loves bamboo and grapes. Saffron is a little more cautious and will keep her distance until the food comes out. Linda always hogs the grapes, so growing up Saffron never knew how good they were until late last year when she had her first one. Now she will be right up with Linda waiting when keepers come in with treats.”

What’s the coolest part about working with red pandas?

“Red pandas are very curious, smart and playful animals. Being able to work with them is just amazing. They are fun to watch move the enclosure, over logs, ropes, ladders and tree branches. Their adaptation of the thumb-like bone to help grip the stocks of bamboo and cool ankle bone structure that allows them to turn their foot so they can go head first down a tree.” 

How did you get your start as a zookeeper?

“Beginning my career in zookeeping, I first obtained a biology degree with an emphasis in zoology. From there, I took the time searching for internships and other available opportunities to get work experience in the zoo field. For me, I did a yearlong program at a facility in Washington that had exotic, big cats and learned animal husbandry basics. My peers and I had classes going over USDA regulations, nutrition and diet prep to proper cleaning and care for the animals. After completing the program, I was fortunate enough to get a job at a zoo in Mississippi as a zookeeper. Through my career, I have had the privilege to work with a variety of animals, from reptiles to primates and just about everything in between. Though I did enjoy the carnivores best; the red pandas are part of the small carnivore group.”

What does your typical day look like?

 “A typical day consists of a morning meeting where as a team we discuss what is going on, any meetings, trainings, tours, etc. that may be happening that we need to know about and schedule for. From there, our top priority is to check all the animals in our areas making sure they are all in good health, followed by a.m. feedings, any medications that need to be given out and moving on to clean. Exhibits are cleaned and checked before animals are put back out for the day and once out, holding areas are cleaned and checked over as well as giving out enrichment. The day is finished up with making diets for the night and next morning followed by p.m. feedings, shifting of any animals per protocols and end-of-the-day health checks. During the middle of the day, as time allows, we do various projects around our respective areas, fill out the day’s paperwork and work with the animals on specific behaviors to help promote better veterinary care and overall animal management. While the zoo is open, the animal care staff provides educational encounters with the public throughout the day.”

For visitors to the Idaho Falls Zoo, you can meet the zookeeper at the red panda exhibit on Saturdays to learn more about the mother-daughter duo. 

Thank you, Katie, for sharing your stories about Linda and Saffron. It sounds like just the perfect show to watch this summer!

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The post Firefox IRL: Meet Linda and Saffron, Idaho Falls Zoo’s mother-daughter red panda duo appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S. See our full series of interviews here.

This past July marked the first birthday of Potter Park Zoo’s newest red panda, Wilson. His birth last year is part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA)’s red panda Species Survival Plan Program. To maintain genetic diversity in the red panda population, the Michigan zoo’s female red panda Maliha was paired with Deagan Reid, and together they brought Wilson into this world.

The family’s caretaker is Carolyn Schulte, carnivore and primate keeper at Potter Park Zoo. Carolyn grew up loving animals and is close to celebrating 10 years at the zoo. Carolyn tells us the advantages of having a solo cub to help care for, as well as how she and others on the team are able to deepen their relationship with the cub through close contact. 

Tell us about the red pandas you care for.

“We currently house three red pandas: Deagan Reid (dad), Maliha (mom) and Wilson (son). Deagan Reid is a great panda but prefers to do his own thing. He is willing to work with keepers for his favorite treat (pear) but more often prefers napping in a high spot in his habitat. Maliha is a very keeper-oriented panda, even when her favorite treat (grapes) is not involved, although she will never turn one down. This affinity for her caretakers means we have been able to train some helpful behaviors, including awake voluntary ultrasound, which we have used to confirm each of her three pregnancies. Wilson is our newest addition, born last July, and he had quickly become a staff favorite. Red pandas can have litters of one to four, with two being the most common, but Wilson was born as a solo cub. This means he got our undivided attention while still in the nest box, and he quickly learned that keepers usually mean snacks. He is a playful, inquisitive and intelligent panda and is a joy to work with.”

What’s the coolest part about working with red pandas?

 “Unlike most of the other animals in my department, red pandas are not protected contact, but free contact, meaning we can share space. This makes caring for them and training them much simpler and means it is easier to develop close relationships. Due to this close relationship, we also get to be more involved when cubs are born since our female Maliha allows us to check in on the cubs’ progress almost daily without getting stressed. We can also start forming relationships with the cubs at a young age while they are still in the nest box, which makes caring for them and training behaviors much easier.”

How did you get your start as a zookeeper?

“I always loved animals and knew I would work with them someday, I just didn’t know what that looked like. It wasn’t until I went to MSU and found out they had a degree in zoology with a concentration in zoo and aquarium science that I realized zookeeping was a real career pathway worth pursuing. I interned at John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids during college and worked there as a keeper aide the summer after graduating. I heard Potter Park Zoo had a paid internship available, so I applied and got it! After the internship I applied twice to open full-time keeper positions here before being hired on. I’m now almost to my 10-year work anniversary.”

What does your typical day look like?

“A typical day is busy. It begins with checking on and feeding all the animals I’m responsible for that day. The zoo is divided up into three animal departments, and each department is divided among two or three keepers on a given day. Most of the animals I work with require protected contact (humans and animals never share space), so feeding usually happens in off-exhibit spaces, giving me a chance to clean and check exhibits before sending animals back out for the day. This is also a good time to place enrichment (anything that encourages an animal to exhibit natural behaviors) in the exhibit. The middle of the day involves cleaning off-exhibit spaces and doing any projects that need to get done. The end of the day involves another round of checking on animals and feeding before leaving for the night.”

For visitors to the Potter Park Zoo, there are daily keeper talks, where you can learn fascinating facts and insights about the red pandas. 

Thank you, Carolyn, for sharing your photos and stories about the red panda family. We wonder how Potter Park Zoo will celebrate Wilson’s first birthday. Is the traditional smash cake for the first birthday also a thing for red pandas? 

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The post Firefox IRL: Meet Deagan, Maliha and Wilson, Michigan Potter Park Zoo’s red panda family   appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Did you know that the red panda is also known as a firefox? Sept. 16 is International Red Panda Day, so we thought it would be a good time to visit a Firefox, ahem red panda, in real life and talk to their caretakers at zoos across the U.S. See our full series of interviews here.

Do you remember the story, “Little Women”? It’s a classic tale about sisters who experience the ups and downs of life. Well, here’s another sister story to follow right at Zoo Atlanta, where a “Little Women” tale of red panda sisters is unfolding this summer.

Recently, Zoo Atlanta welcomed red panda sisters, Rose and Ruby from Zoo Knoxville. Their caretaker Michelle Elliott, Senior Keeper in Mammals at the Zoo Atlanta, shares fun facts about their red fur and her inspiration for becoming a zookeeper. 

Tell us about the red pandas you care for:

“We recently welcomed sisters Rose and Ruby to Zoo Atlanta from Zoo Knoxville, and they are still living in a special area for newly-arrived animals while their habitat receives some upgrades to make it a better fit for two red pandas (we previously had just one). While there, they are taken care of by an animal care teammate who welcomes all of the Zoo’s new animals – she gets to care for wide variety of species! She reports that they are doing great and are really beginning to show their separate personalities. We can’t wait to meet them!”

What’s the coolest part about working with red pandas?

“I love that there’s always something more to learn about them! Did you know that red pandas have red fur to blend in with a moss that grows in the trees in their native habitat, or that they don’t actually have paw pads? Their fur on the underside of their paw is just super dense. They are really neat animals!”

How did you get your start as a zookeeper?

“My inspiration to become an animal care professional came when I participated in an overnight program at Zoo Atlanta at 9 years old. I fell in love with the tigers, and when our instructor told us they were endangered, I decided to work in the conservation field so I could help save the species.”

What does your typical day look like?

“We arrive a couple hours before the Zoo opens to give the animals their morning meals, set up the public habitats for the day with enrichment, and do positive reinforcement training sessions with the animals. Once the Zoo is open and the animals are in their habitats, we clean their behind-the-scenes areas and prepare those with fresh hay beds and even more enrichment for the evening. There are often Keeper Talks, midday feedings, behind-the-scenes tours, or meetings in the afternoon, and at the end of the day we give the animals access to come inside to eat their dinners and start making a new mess for us to clean tomorrow!”

Thank you, Michelle, for sharing your stories. We can’t wait to for Rose and Ruby to meet everyone who visits them in their new habitat.

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The post Firefox IRL: Meet Rose and Ruby, Zoo Atlanta’s red panda sisters  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

After having met with many different candidates over the past several months to fill the role of chief people officer — a significant role that contributes greatly to Mozilla’s culture and future — I am pleased to announce that Dani Chehak has joined Mozilla as chief people officer on a permanent basis.

It was a little less than a year ago that Dani came onboard as Mozilla’s interim chief people officer. The time working with her, and the search to date, made it clear to me that Dani is the right person for Mozilla. She brings with her decades of experience in leading high performing people teams, a keen strategic business focus, a deep understanding of our industry, and an extensive network and community in both the tech and human resource realms. 

“For the past 25 years, Mozilla has been the home to incredibly dedicated and talented teams of people who are pushing hard every day to make the internet a better place for everyone,” Dani said. “I feel deeply fortunate to play a part in building a welcoming and inclusive culture at Mozilla where everyone is engaged and empowered to meet the opportunities ahead of us for the next 25 years, with our mission as our guide.” 

As chief people officer, Dani will oversee all areas of HR and organizational development at Mozilla Corporation. With Dani in this role, Mozilla’s People Team will continue to support Mozilla in building a culture that is inclusive and collaborative, especially important as our organization and operations continue to grow and modernize.

I want to express my appreciation for Dani’s contributions over the last year, and I’m delighted that she will continue the work she is leading at Mozilla.

Mitchell

The post Dani Chehak, Mozilla’s new chief people officer appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

More than ever, we need a movement to ensure the internet remains a force for good. The Mozilla Internet Ecosystem (MIECO) program fuels this movement by supporting people who are looking to advance a more human-centered internet. This week we’re highlighting Yoshiki Ohshima, a computer scientist and researcher with big ideas for how to shift the way that we think about building virtual worlds.

Software has always had the ability to shape the world around us, but the advent of spatial computing – brought about by the internet of things (IOT), virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and access to cloud computing technologies — is making those world-changing capabilities a little more literal. The growth of the “immersive web” brings new capabilities to the internet that allow us to interact with information, and each other, in new interactive ways — in some cases bringing us into entirely new worlds that are impossible to experience in our physical world. With such powerful new capabilities comes a need for new ways to build these experiences, and Yoshiki Ohshima has spent years thinking about new programming paradigms.

Yoshiki, who began his career at Walt Disney Imagineering, is now the chief scientist and co-founder of Croquet, an organization building foundational technologies for future generations of communication and collaboration tools. With over two decades of experience working at the forefront of collaborative technologies, Yoshiki has been helping realize the promise of technology to help us create and connect with others from the very beginning. 

Yoshiki’s work at Croquet focuses on real time synchronization applications that are designed to offer new ways of collaborating. Greenlight, which combines the functionality of whiteboards and screen shares with video and voice chat, provides a shared workspace for group communication and brainstorming. Croquet Microverse is another app that offers new ways to share information with multi-user virtual worlds.

While 3D virtual worlds aren’t new, advancements in computer graphics have led to their growing popularity in the past several years. Through his work in MIECO, Yoshiki is hoping to expand access to tools that help people shape the virtual environments around themselves in natural, intuitive ways.

“The unique feature of Croquet Microverse is that it allows developers and designers to work together in real time to create and improve contents in the live manner from within the 3D environment – and one can do this for complex programs, not just a small subset of features,” Yoshiki says.

Creating new ways to define behaviors in software beyond text-based programming languages is something that Yoshiki has been working on for years. By introducing visual, block-based programming into 3D environments, he sees an opportunity to improve our collaborative capabilities for co-creating virtual worlds.

Today, virtual worlds are being adopted for a wide range of use cases, which is being made possible by innovations and shifts in the way that we think about programming worlds. It is now easier than ever to build immersive educational experiences to explore the inside of the brain, or embed presentations and informational content into a shared world accessible from the browser. Croquet, which offers synchronization and simulation technology to make multi-user applications easier to build, is an ideal testing ground for 3D programming.  

Within these 3D worlds that Croquet offers, Yoshiki explains that his vision of collaborative, block-based programming would offer visitors capabilities that allow them to modify the digital world that they’re inhabiting. Croquet’s underlying “reflector” system enables perfectly synchronized simulations for everyone in the environment, which means that a change one person makes will be immediately seen by others. These capabilities, which build on top of principles found in other visual programming projects that Yoshiki has influenced, such as GP Blocks, open up the field of interactive programming for virtual worlds to a wider audience.

As the field of programming continues to evolve, Yoshiki sees a future that bridges between different skill sets to help people build together more collaboratively. 

“We are well-positioned to create a generally powerful, yet easy to use programming environment,” Yoshiki says.“An object created in one Croquet Microverse world is fully transportable to another world, and we hope to standardize the format for wider adoption by other platforms as well.” 

The post Advancing the future of the internet with new ways of defining our shared digital realities appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Here at Mozilla, we are the first to admit the internet isn’t perfect, but we know the internet is pretty darn magical. The internet opens up doors and opportunities, allows for human connection, and lets everyone find where they belong — their corners of the internet. We all have an internet story worth sharing. In My Corner Of The Internet, we talk with people about the online spaces they can’t get enough of, the sites and forums that shaped them, and what reclaiming the internet really looks like.

This month we chat with Iva Dixit, a writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine. We talk to her about being ratioed on Twitter, an internet equivalent of a “healing sound bath” and the pieces she rereads to take a break from online discourse.

What is your favorite corner of the internet?

There is nothing I find more calming, more accepting and more placid than Lisa Eldridge’s makeup videos and their adjoining comments sections. As someone who spends so much of my time wading through the debris of online derangement — for me, watching her videos to relax while simultaneously reading the comments is the internet equivalent of receiving a healing sound bath. It’s just a lot of older women shyly confessing how they’d never thought makeup was never for them but now her videos have convinced them to finally give it a try in their 50s; some of them will open up about how they finally felt brave enough to try red lipstick or glittery eyeshadow for the first time, after learning how to apply those from one of Lisa’s videos, or how their husbands noticed their makeup for the first time after they followed one of Lisa’s tutorials. 

Depending on my current obsession of the moment, I’ve been in the trenches of a lot of highly specific niche interest communities (skincare Reddit, fountain pen review sites, powerlifting message boards) across various platforms and I have watched even the politest of them descend into riots (which do not get me wrong, I also enjoy very much as a connoisseur of drama. I watched all 43 minutes of the original Tati Westbrook BYE SISTER video and I saw Bobbi Brown’s response to Meredith Duxbury minutes after she posted it on TikTok.) But I am just sort of struck by how for the past 13 years that Lisa’s been posting videos and I’ve been watching them, I have seen no name-calling in the comments and no casually tossed-off “what, THIS?” taunts of smug superiority towards Lisa herself (which is a highly specific form of internet trollery that really drives up my blood pressure). As I’m watching a video and actually reading the comments, I can’t help but internally cheer them on; I’ll be going oh hell yes @lizfrommanchester, I hope you try some lavender glitter on your eyelids next.

What is an internet deep dive that you can’t wait to jump back into?

In September 2020, I had decided to buy a film camera (for no reason just curiosity) and thus what began as a “best used film camera brand” Google search slowly escalated into an all-consuming fascination for the history of how the Soviet Union had a thriving photography and camera-manufacturing industry in its heyday — built entirely on copying the German and Japanese cameras of the time. Words like Zorki, Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod, Zenit-E, and facts like how during the Cold War, the USSR apparently had the second biggest camera industry in the world, things like hidden secrets of shutters in Soviet cameras — I think I enjoyed learning about the Soviet camera industry far more than I enjoyed the Leica camera that I bought, that I used for one or two rolls of film and then forgot about. But my Soviet camera obsession continues till today and I still periodically watch videos breaking down the differences between a Zorky and a Kiev.

What is the one tab you always regret closing?

In the rare few moments when I exercise restraint and refrain from buying something in the moment, thinking “it’ll be there in the morning,” and when I’ve gone back and seen that it’s now sold out in my size or that someone else bought the ebay item I was eyeing, OH I wish I could say I was self-actualized enough to not be possessed with regret, but it really does make me clench my fists in annoyance (at myself).

What can you not stop talking about on the internet right now?

The film “Oppenheimer” has emerged as my Great Soviet Camera obsession of 2023.

What was the first online community you engaged with?

I’ve written a lot about how much my no-internet no technology boarding school in India has shaped my life and how I think and live today. But around 2006, my parents had finally gotten a computer and an internet connection, and during my holidays from my no-internet boarding school, I was occasionally allowed to go online. 

At the time, I was a huge watcher of Hindi daily TV soaps, and I think my earliest interactions online were with a message board called IndiaForums, that had similarly daily-soap-obsessed people writing these highly detailed, utterly granular episode-by-episode recaps of all the soaps that I liked to watch at the time but I had missed out on months of it thanks to my no-tv-allowed boarding school. Then eventually they also started uploading Torrent links, so I was watching episodes of Kasamh Se and Kaisa Yeh Pyar Hai (at least when I could get them to load) in bulk, long before the concept of “binge watching” was invented in the current sense. Bless IndiaForums, because they would also put time stamps to the ad breaks and the almost-kissing scenes so you knew what to skip and what to fast-forward to.

If you could create your own corner of the internet, what would it look like?

That is too much responsibility for me. I think it would descend into chaos a lot sooner than I could predict.

Can you share a personal experience that makes you say, “this can only happen in 2023 on the internet”?

A few months ago I was at the center of a brief Twitter kerfuffle for my mildly contrarian opinions on the laundry and taxes line of dialogue from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” I initially saw a few snarky QTs on the tweet, muted it and went to watch “John Wick 4,” and then started getting texts from friends asking if I was handling it okay, all the while being completely and benignly oblivious to what was the “it” they were referring to. 

Turns out I’d been ratioed and pilloried into oblivion and had death and all sorts of misfortune wished upon me for my rather tepid criticism that the beloved Oscar-winning film is far from revolutionary or even romantic in how it equates labor and domesticity with conjugal love. (The L.A. Times film critic Justin Chang has a fantastic essay on this). I was fully aware I wasn’t going to make anyone happy, but even I was mildly taken aback at the strength of the vitriol (last I checked there were 3K quote tweets and counting!). However, an unexpectedly comical aspect to this all was that a few of the people frothing at the mouth at me had discovered my column on “Emily in Paris,” but they hadn’t bothered to actually read it. And perhaps it’s because of my vaguely European-sounding name, but they were convinced I was white and hence got doubly angry at me for, and I’m paraphrasing here but, “praising white female protagonists like herself” while “undermining narratives about POC and immigrants.” Which, sigh, self-explanatory.

What articles and videos are in your Pocket waiting to be read/watched right now?

I am unfortunately always, always caught up on everything ongoing in the current discourse, but for my own peace of mind I periodically go back to reread Burkard Bilger’s The Egg Men, about the high-octane lives of breakfast line cooks in Las Vegas and Tim Zimmermann’s Raising the Dead, an utterly chilling tale of a cave diver and how you never, ever mess with the water. Both are two of my favorite magazine stories ever written, and I like to reread them for pleasure as well as for learning how to write.

Iva Dixit is an editor and writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she most recently profiled Sean Paul, and where she has also written about the delights of eating raw onions, the mystifying popularity of “Emily in Paris,” the ”evils concealed by Indian Matchmaking,” and why “Bollywood Wives” was boring. Previously, she was on the editorial staff of The New Yorker, where she wrote about how skincare, real life and the internet all intersect while using prescription retinoids.

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The post A New York Times Magazine editor on her internet obsessions appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Earlier this year, we announced that we were testing a new way for Firefox Relay users to access their email masks directly from Firefox. Today, we’re taking it to the next level and rolling this feature over the next couple of weeks out to millions of Firefox Account users in Firefox. Signing up for a Firefox Account is free and has its advantages, and it now includes access to email protection with Firefox Relay.  

Throughout the year, we’ve been working on making it easier to get email protection in Firefox. In May, we added new features to the Firefox Relay add-on that enabled users to see Firefox Relay in their toolbar for every site, reuse existing email masks and generate a new random email mask. Keeping your real email address safe from trackers across the web is one of the key steps you can take to keep your personal information safe. 

Online protection hacks from the people that brought you Firefox Relay

If you haven’t yet tried Firefox Relay, hear from our Firefox Relay team of engineers and colleagues, who can share more about how they use Firefox Relay in their lives. They built and maintain Firefox Relay, not only for themselves, but to also help keep millions of unwanted emails from people’s inboxes. Here is a list of hacks you might encounter when you go online and ways that Firefox Relay can help:

• If you need to create an email address for things like completing surveys:
  • “The main difference between Relay addresses and regular email addresses is that there’s no need to get attached to the former. It’s really liberating to be able to deactivate an email address that has served its purpose with a single button press.”
• If you need to share your email address on social media or a public site, but don’t want to use one that’s tied to all your accounts (credit card, banking, streaming services or shopping):
  • “I’ve seen someone ask a question on social media, and add a Relay address for people to get in touch. I thought that was great: It allowed them to be contacted via email in the short term, without having their email address out there forever. They could simply throw away the Relay address when they were done!”
• If you have a busy life and your personal motto is “the more, the merrier”:
  • “At the time of writing, I’ve got 143 email masks — once you get into the habit of using them, it’s quite amazing how often you get asked for your email address. Let’s see, what have I used them for… I see lots of concerts, museums, and purchase other tickets, hotel reservations, newsletters, online courses — lots of things, really!”
• If you’re worried about data breaches, and want to minimize the effects of data leaks:
  • “Your email address is used to track you online and companies create profiles of information about you and your online behaviors, and it’s used in pretty shady ways. Using a relay mask breaks that connection.”
• If the thought of multiple email addresses tied to multiple email inboxes is just too much to organize:
  • “As for keeping your masks organized: honestly, there’s not much organization to do. Firefox will remember which mask you used where, and help you pick the right one.”
• If you have one email address and learning how a new service or product works simply frightens you, yet you want to learn ways to keep your personal information like your email address safe:
  • “Firefox Relay is right there when a site asks for your email address. Just choose ‘Protect your email address’ from the drop-down. (If you don’t see it immediately, you can always right-click and choose Relay to make a mask for any form field.)”

Thousands of users have signed up for our smart, easy solution that hides their real email address to help protect their identity. Wherever you go online, Mozilla’s trusted products and services can help you feel safer knowing that you have privacy protection for your everyday online life. 

If you don’t have Firefox Relay, you can subscribe today from the Firefox Relay site.

The post Protect your information with email masks now available in Firefox appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

I am delighted to share that Suba Vasudevan has joined Mozilla as our new Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations. In this role Suba will be responsible for leading Mozilla’s efforts to become more unified, impactful and efficient across our many businesses and products. She will report to me and join Mozilla’s senior leadership team.

At Mozilla, we are greatly expanding the types of products and markets we wish to pursue. Discipline, structure and focus are critical to our success. Suba has an incredible track record of helping businesses operationalize their strategies, supporting product organizations to bring forward better, more relevant products to new audiences.

“A mentor once told me to ‘do differently’; I’ve taken that advice to heart and followed it to Mozilla. I am thrilled to be joining at a time when a company with such a storied history and brand is pivoting to show the world how you can run a business but by ‘doing it differently’,” said Suba. “The potential to deliver on key priorities while upholding Mozilla’s principles is huge and I’m excited to be a part in Mozilla’s unique vision for the web, and redefine responsible technology now and into the future.”

Suba spent well over two decades leading small and large teams in strategy, operations, analytics, customer support and trust & safety. Most recently, she has nurtured and expanded critical global organizations within Meta, driving innovation and trust. Prior, she advised clients across industries at KPMG’s Advisory Services and began her career as a journalist in India, exploring the intersection of technology and business.

For several years, Suba served as a Board Member for Mainspring Schools, a local non-profit in Austin, Texas for children from underprivileged families, leading their Strategic Planning Committee and demonstrating her commitment to community and inclusion-focused initiatives.

I look forward to working closely with Suba, especially as Mozilla continues to modernize, focusing on the consumer, and offering a range of new products and services.

The post Welcome Suba Vasudevan, Mozilla’s new Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

As Mark Surman steps into President role, Mozilla seeks a new Executive Director to lead its non-profit programs

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Today, Mozilla is announcing the search for a new Executive Director to lead its non-profit movement-building programs. 

Mozilla sees itself as both an instigator and collaborator in the effort to shift the tides of tech. We break every conventional notion about what a tech company is. In fact, we don’t fit the traditional definition of ‘tech company’ at all. We’re a non-profit that champions privacy, human dignity and an open internet. We do this in two ways: by creating and investing in responsible tech products like Firefox that have the potential to ‘shape the market’ in a better direction; and by using philanthropic and advocacy muscles to ‘fuel a movement’ of people committed to creating a healthier internet. Together, all of these efforts make up: Mozilla. 

Over the past few years, Mozilla’s leadership — including CEO and Chairwoman Mitchell Baker and President and Executive Director Mark Surman — have been working to expand the scope of this work. Surman has been focused both on pointing to the Foundation’s movement-building programs at the challenge of creating trustworthy AI and on expanding the Mozilla portfolio to include a new venture capital arm and a commercial AI R+D lab. Starting in 2024, Surman will move full time to work on this growth and expansion work, remaining as Mozilla Foundation President. This is all part of an intentional effort to tee Mozilla up to have more impact over the next 25 years. 

With this change, we are seeking a new Executive Director to lead the Foundation’s movement-building programs. Currently, the Foundation has two core programs:

• Global Programs funds, convenes, and synthesizes the movement to increase the diversity, cohesion and impact of people working on internet health issues globally. The team has conducted research on AI transparency best practices; given grants to professors teaching young computer scientists to tackle AI bias; and run events that connect people building new models for data governance focused on empowerment and agency.

• Global Advocacy activates a grassroots approach to the movement, improving  internet health by creating meaningful changes in consumer tech products and tech policy globally. For example, the team has successfully mobilized tens of thousands of people to shine a light on how YouTube algorithms drive misinformation; pushed on companies to change their products in ways that improve privacy; and educated the broader public about biased AI.

The Foundation’s programs are supported by a  Strategic Operations team that ensures that both staff and our most active collaborators have the strategic frameworks, resources, data and systems they need to advance our internet health agenda and grow the movement. 

Through its programs, the Foundation also works closely with a community of fellows, alumni and partners from around the world. Through these programs, the Foundation works closely with a community of fellows, alumni and partners from around the world. This includes everyone from researchers tackling bias and discrimination in AI to data scientists scrutinizing the impact of tech platforms to gig workers taking control over their data. The Foundation also works in partnerships with more than a dozen other foundations who share their commitment to growing the movement for a healthy internet.

The new Executive Director will be taking over this work at an exciting and pivotal moment. Says Mark Surman: “More and more people are realizing the need more responsible tech products — and a movement that mobilizes people to reclaim the internet. Bringing in a new Executive Director will let us double down on the movement-building side of this equation. This is an opportunity for someone to not only help shape the future of Mozilla, but also the future of the internet.”

In its search for a new Executive Director, Mozilla is seeking someone with a proven record of taking a strong, established organization and making it stronger, bigger and more impactful. While they need not be an engineer or computer scientist, they should already be established as a leader on technology issues, understanding how they intersect with social trends — and then mobilizing people to join campaigns, contribute to research, and build technology that shows that a different future is possible. 

It’s critical that the next Executive Director embrace and exemplify Mozilla’s core values, including a commitment to open source, trustworthy tech and community building. They will be an open, dynamic and inspirational leader to the global staff, driving strategic focus to ensure all staff are clear on how their specific roles contribute to the wider strategic context. The Executive Director also needs to be an accomplished fundraiser, with an ability to work  comfortably with a wide variety of audiences from grassroots leaders to government officials to tech company executives.

Reporting to Mozilla Foundation’s Program Board, which is a subset of the overall Foundation Board, the ED will oversee an engaged staff of 100 who bring deep experience across technology, philanthropy and advocacy – and $30M in budget. The Executive Director is a part of Mozilla’s overall senior leadership team, serving as an ambassador to and bridge between Foundation’s programs and Mozilla’s business entities.

The full job specification is here. If you are interested in applying or have recommendations, please reach out to our recruiting firm, Russell Reynolds, at this email address: mozillafoundationed@russellreynolds.com

The post Mozilla Seeks New Leader for Its Movement-Building Arm appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Open source lies at the heart of Mozilla and our Manifesto. Despite its ubiquity in the current technology landscape, it is easy to forget that open source was once a radical idea which was compared to cancer. In the long journey since, Mozilla has helped create an open source browser, email client, programming language, and data donation platform while applying the ethos beyond our code, including our advocacy.

Recent developments in the AI ecosystem have put open source back in the spotlight, sparking heated conversations and accusations about whose ends it serves – a global community of developers, the entrenched dominance of big tech companies, or a little bit of both? Motivations and incentives matter and Mozilla believes in representing the core set of values behind open source while working with players of all sizes to advance a trustworthy ecosystem. As we noted in 2021, “openness” is often at risk of being co-opted, serving as little more than a facade meant to shield organizations and governments from scrutiny.

We’ve been following the debate closely at Mozilla and think the nature of open source in AI raises many new questions that are still in the process of being answered – what is open source when it comes to AI? How should regulation treat open source to foster innovation without providing a pink slip to necessary regulatory compliance? What are the contours of the commercial deployment and corresponding liability in open source software? None of these are easy questions and the potential for abuse inherent in powerful models only serves to further muddy the waters. Mozilla is exploring these questions by building open source technology to advance trustworthy AI at Mozilla.ai, giving grants to our community through the Mozilla Technology Fund (MTF), and through our public policy work.

On the public policy front, EU legislators are paying close attention to these developments. The most recent proposals for the AI Act from the European Parliament and member states include dedicated language on open source, and for good reason: open source development offers tremendous opportunities and can enable significant innovation and commercial deployment. Just as importantly, making AI models and components available under permissive licenses opens them up to important scrutiny from researchers aiming to evaluate, amongst other things, their safety and trustworthiness.

However, the special nature and capabilities of the open source ecosystem clearly require further improvements in the AI Act before finalization, as a coalition from the open source community recently argued. We think the coalition’s paper brings some much needed clarity, specifically by centering the debate on two key facets:

“First, the values of sound research, reproducibility, and transparency fostered by open science are instrumental to the development of safe and accountable AI systems.

Second, open source development can enable competition and innovation by new entrants and smaller players, including in the EU.”

We continue to crystallize our thoughts on these issues, both by collaborating with allies and centering our thinking around the community – an integral aspect of Mozilla’s role in the technology ecosystem – we are highlighting key considerations for EU legislators as they finalize the AI Act.

Regulating open source and openness requires definitional clarity

Slippery definitions of open source AI are rife in the ecosystem. In the absence of definitional clarity, shifting meanings of “open source” and “open” can be deployed strategically in the policy domain in ways that reduce oversight and hinder accountability. The final version of the AI Act should therefore clearly define what it means by “open source” and related terms.

Here are a few key places where clarity could help move the ball forward in the direction of greater AI accountability and further enabling open source development:

First, EU legislators should ensure that any definition of open source focuses on permissive licenses that are not undercut with restrictions on how or for what purposes they can be used. Releases that do include such restrictions would not meet conventional definitions of “open source”, including the definition provided by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The OSI definition could serve as a helpful point of reference in this regard. Should legislators want to create exemptions similar to those relating to open source releases for releases that come with certain use restrictions, for example so-called open responsible AI licenses (or open RAIL) or for releases limited to research uses, they should do so explicitly and without expanding conventional definitions of open source through regulation.

Second, openness in relation to AI is more complex, and more expansive, than in other contexts. While open source software typically relates to source code, it can relate to a number of different artifacts in AI: from the entire model (i.e. the model weights; not source code) to components like training data or the source code underlying deployment software or the training process. The AI Act should therefore clearly define AI components and be specific with regard to the question of which obligations should apply to providers of which components. The co-legislators’ proposals are still laden with ambiguity in this regard. For example, would obligations concerning foundation models apply only to those open-sourcing the trained model or also to those open-sourcing constituent components, such as training datasets? And how should obligations be applied if, for example, the model is openly available but the training data is not? In answering these questions, EU legislators should duly take into account the capabilities of the various actors along the supply chain and of open source communities more generally.

Recommendation: The AI Act should clarify that technologies claiming special treatment in this context should be released under licenses aligned with the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of “open source”. Further, the law should clarify the minimum set of components (indicatively – models, weights, training data, etc.) that should be released under an OSI license to benefit from regulatory exemptions.

Context is key when determining regulatory obligations

Open source AI enables important research on AI and its risks, but simply open-sourcing an AI model does not necessarily mean that it is released with research as its primary purpose. In fact, enabling broader commercialization has always been a key tenet of the open source movement. While appealing at first glance, relying solely on the intent to commercialize an AI model as a criterion for imposing regulatory obligations raises an array of thorny questions for regulators.

First, unless stipulated otherwise (e.g., through use restrictions in the license under which a model is released), openly released models can be adapted and used for any purpose — and that should be taken into account in formulating obligations for open source providers. At the same time, while many open source AI projects are carried out in the public interest or by open source community groups (e.g., Open Science’s BLOOM or EleutherAI), some are driven by well-resourced commercial actors. In fact, some of the most widely used and commercialized permissively licensed AI models — e.g., Stable Diffusion or the LLAMA family of models — have been developed by companies such as Stability AI or Meta, in some cases with the deliberate intent of commercialization.

Meaningfully tying regulatory obligations to commercialization requires much greater clarity on what differentiates non-commercial and commercial development, deployment, and maintenance. For instance, would a developer be considered a “commercial” actor if they receive some compensation for maintaining an open source component (that is also used for commercial purposes) in addition to their day job? The AI Act currently doesn’t provide that clarity. This is an issue that has also cropped up in debates around the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), where the solution likely lies in a combination of a revenue threshold (10-20m+) and the possibility for subjective exceptions. EU co-legislators should pay close attention to such files grappling with similar questions and further ensure that the open source community has clarity when it comes to interpreting concepts such as “placing on the market” and “putting into service”, which are critical in this respect.

Recommendation: The AI Act should provide clarity on the criteria by which a project will be judged to determine whether it has crossed the “commercialisation” threshold, including revenue. We urgently need language that ensures there is a subjective determination process that allows for nuance to reflect the variety of open source projects in difficult cases.

Openness doesn’t absolve from responsibility — but obligations should be proportionate

Regulatory obligations imposed on open source AI providers should not disincentivize open source development or outmatch the capabilities of the open source communities. However, they should also not lose sight of the AI Act’s objective to prevent harm and facilitate trust in AI. Therefore, it is important not to forget that open source AI should emphasize responsibility and trustworthiness, too. Nonetheless, any obligations imposed on open source AI should take into account the fact that with an increasing level of openness, compliance and evaluation become easier to achieve for downstream actors. For example, testing obligations can be met more easily if the model weights are made openly available (and the model subsequently deployable by anyone with sufficient computing resources to do so). Similarly, data governance requirements are easier to meet for downstream actors if training datasets are openly available.

The details of what this should look like in practice are key and suggestions should include subjective criteria that allow for case-by-case determination rather than just definitional gymnastics. This is the only way to prevent that merely marking something as open source absolves someone from all liability and neither does it place a crippling burden that makes open source AI development unfeasible. This is also linked to the question of base models and fine-tuning/other forms of modification, where liability questions are a lot more unclear.

Recommendation: The AI Act should allow for proportional obligations in the case of open source projects while creating strong guardrails to ensure they are not exploited to hide from legitimate regulatory scrutiny. This should include subjective criteria and a process that allows for case-by-case determination rather than encouraging definitional gymnastics.

Conclusion

It is clear that open source is only a part of the broader issue of what it takes to have an open and competitive AI landscape. We are thinking hard about this at Mozilla from the lens of data, infrastructure and compute resources, community involvement, liability and many other factors – there is much more to discuss and to do.

The post Openness and AI: Fostering innovation and accountability in the EU’s AI Act appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global pandemic that affects one in three women in their lifetime. Kwanele Bringing Women Justice, one of the winning startups at Mozilla’s Responsible AI Challenge, wants to help survivors of abuse in South Africa by giving women and children an easy-to-use tool to report and successfully prosecute crimes involving gender-based violence. 

Founder Leonora Tima understands the first-hand the impact of gender-based violence and the importance of safe spaces and support. She also understands the risks associated with AI and its greater impact on those using them. Leonora is passionate about the issue and is committed to creating a tool that gives a voice to people in need of help. We spoke to Leonora about her work, how she got started on Kwanele, and her vision for the future of AI.

From social work to AI

Having spent years in the nonprofit sector and quite exposed to the violence in South Africa and what Lenora describes as a “career junction” was her gateway to AI, but she also touches on her family experience with gender-based violence in 2020, when her husband’s family lost a young woman to violence. She also reflects on the impact that raising daughters has had on her and her commitment to fighting for women’s rights. Tech was never an area she thought she would find herself in, but she said “some of the words I use now, I’m like, did that just come out of my mouth!”

Starting Kwanele

Lenora always enjoyed tech and spent some time in the tech space working for a startup, where she saw the power of technology, especially for communities that are low income, and started researching what was available, how people in South Africa were reporting rapes, why they weren’t, issues with reporting violence and the barriers to justice. “We did a lot of work in the community… but over and over we found that people were struggling to access information,” she said. 

Access and ethical AI

“What was most horrifying for me was hearing from high schoolers that Facebook was their main source of information on the legal system, and then we had people that would go on to post to Facebook and had defamation cases against them,” Lenora said. 

In most communities, violence reporting apps can greatly enhance the support options available to survivors. However, without care, they can reinforce existing problems in how communities respond to violence. Lenora explains how Kwanele initially explored a Zendesk model for AI, where they would populate a lot of the data, but realized over time it was extremely limited. 

“A lot of the [large language models] are designed for English first language speakers… whereas in South Africa you have 11 main languages and a huge amount of cultural nuances,” she said. It was at this point that she started reviewing ethical AI with the support of Mozilla. “Mozilla was the catalyst in my AI journey,” she added. 

Lenora knows it’s important to start having important conversations about ethical AI: “People aren’t even aware of the problem, you can start talking about a solution when you didn’t even know people are stealing your data.”

Security is extremely important when it comes to gender-based violence. “We take security very seriously, we do a lot of due diligence, we encrypt, and check all of the information that comes through,” said Lenora.

Chatbots and accessibility 

There are so many people that need access to resources. Lenora recognizes that if done correctly, AI and chatbots could enable people to access information and resources at a reasonably low cost. “The nonprofit sector hasn’t grasped the enormity of the power of it, especially if leveraged correctly,” she said. 

“Nonprofits can have better access to funding and resources. Kids in communities that have limited access to resources. Racial bias is a huge problem, but with the speed at which AI is moving, hopefully, things will change quickly for specific environments,” Lenora said.

The future of Kwanele

AI and chatbots have gained a lot of traction and criticism over the past couple of years, but could the right use of this technology lead to change for good? Only time will tell, but for the time being, Lenora is betting on it. 

“What I’d like is that we’ll be able to guide other organizations in the nonprofit sector, on how to use this technology to their advantage and teach them how to leverage it, and I hope we’ll be able to leverage the bot to grow access to justice,” Lenora said.

The post Making trustworthy chatbots to support women plagued by violence and abuse appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Nowadays, the first day of school lands somewhere between August and September, so it’s no surprise we’re seeing back-to-school sales early. As you start your back-to-school shopping, one thing you’ll want to be on the lookout for are fake reviews and unreliable third-party sellers persuading you to buy poor-quality products. To save you time and money, meet Fakespot, a free browser extension and website that provides an easy way to identify fake and unreliable reviews. Fakespot recently joined Mozilla, a company with a 25-year history of building products and services that puts people’s needs first when they go online. Today, Fakespot announced its product categories with the most reliable and unreliable reviews, just in time for the back-to-school shopping season.

Since 2016, Fakespot has helped millions of shoppers confidently make well-informed purchases with its AI technology. Its AI engine analyzes reviews, filters out fake reviews, and leaves shoppers with a true understanding of the quality of a product so that they can feel confident about the decisions they’re making. As a free browser extension downloadable on most web browsers and mobile platforms, Fakespot analyzes reviews from top e-commerce sites including Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora and Walmart, so you get the most reliable product information before you buy. Bonus: The extension also provides seller ratings on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Shopify powered web stores. 

Millions of Fakespot users have come to depend on Fakespot’s Review Grade to help determine the authenticity of a listing, product and seller. It follows the standard grading system of “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, or “F” and represents the following: 

• Fakespot Review Grade A and B: These grade levels represent reviews that are authentic and reliable.
• Fakespot Review Grade C: This grade level should be approached with caution. The reviews are a mix of reliable and unreliable reviews.
• Fakespot Review Grade D and F: These grade levels are considered insufficient and unreliable reviews.

Shop confidently with Fakespot’s list of the best and worst product categories

Traditionally, Fakespot publishes an annual e-commerce report after its AI engine has analyzed millions of product reviews and sellers to identify the product categories with the most reliable and unreliable reviews for the year. Unreliable reviews contain generic fake reviews, unverified purchase reviews, promotional reviews, AI-generated reviews, and more in order to convince people to buy their product. For the back-to-school season, Fakespot analyzed relevant Amazon’s product categories (January to June 2023). Here are the results:

• Best product categories and where you’re getting the real deal

Shop easily, knowing that these products aren’t riddled with many fake reviews. These product categories had the least amount of fake product reviews, with Fakespot Grades of B or better.

• Monitors: Rest assure that the monitor category has 78% of reliable reviews. So treat yourself or the kids to a larger screen for home. It’ll be helpful when visiting educational sites, doing homework, or playing games with friends. 
• Phones cases: Whether it’s to protect it from those inevitable falls or an extension of your identity to accessorize, we found 69% of reliable reviews in this category. 
• Batteries: Another must-have accessory are batteries. This category came with 67% of reliable reviews. We must caution that although this category had less fake reviews, we found that there may be issues with sellers shipping used batteries. We recommend looking at the seller rating to see if they are a reliable seller. 
• Water bottles: A must for everyone these days! This category had 64% reliable reviews. 
• Sports & outdoors: There’s so much gear to buy in sports activities from uniforms, balls, and safety protection. We found that 63% of reviews were reliable in this category.  
• Computer accessories: Finally, the reviews for computer accessories were 61% reliable. This category excludes extension cords, USB cables and monitors.

• The worst product categories and where you’ll need to think twice before clicking “add to cart” 

Shop cautiously and thoughtfully consider your purchases before you buy from these product categories. These are the product categories with a Fakespot Review Grade of C or worse:.

• Earbud headphones: A popular product category and one of the most competitive. It’s no surprise that sellers use fake and incentivized reviews to get attention. This was our top product category, with 63% of the reviews being unreliable. 
• Chargers:  It’s likely that you’ll misplace your mobile device charger at some point. Keep in mind that it’s a crowded space, so many sellers resort to fake and incentivized reviews to stand out. We found 55% of the reviews to be unreliable. 
• Sneakers: First day of school outfits aren’t complete without a new pair of shoes! Unfortunately, there are counterfeits and knock offs which use fake and incentivized reviews to boost their ratings. We found that 53% of these reviews to be unreliable.
• Smartwatches: Parents often opt for smartwatches instead of smartphones, as a way to check in on their kid. Similar to smartphones, there’s still a lot of cheap and inferior products that don’t work, break easily and have limited functionality. About 51% of the reviews are unreliable. 
• Smartphones:  This is a popular back-to-school item for middle schoolers, high schoolers and college-aged kids. There’s an abundance of cheap and inferior smartphones, which brings the review reliability rating down. About 47% of the reviews listed are unreliable. 
• Backpacks: This product tops most people’s shopping list, so there’s a lot of competition, which leads to sellers resorting to fake reviews in order to move up in the search rankings. Shoppers can expect  46% of the reviews listed to be unreliable. 

Meet Fakespot, your new online shopping BFF

Fake and deceptive reviews are everywhere! For the last six years, Fakespot has helped millions of people feel safe about the purchases they’re making. Its AI technology analyzes the language and behavior patterns of reviews and reviewers to determine credibility.

Now a part of Mozilla, a company that’s built a long-standing reputation of creating and delivering products that puts people’s privacy needs first including Firefox the browser, Mozilla VPN, Firefox Relay and Firefox Monitor, Fakespot is committed to your trusted shopping guide.

So, whether it’s back-to-school or early holiday shopping, be sure to download Fakespot whenever you shop online. Available on most web browsers (Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) and mobile (Android and iOS) platforms. Download the latest version today.

Know before you add to cart whether you can trust a product’s reviews.

The post Fakespot shares the back-to-school products you should be extra careful buying this season appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Today, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is releasing the standard for Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, a novel standard of communication protocol for group messaging.

Why so many acronyms?

Don’t speak in acronyms? We got you! So, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a body of volunteers that develops open standards and protocols for the internet with the goal of making it work better. 

Feels very Mozilla, doesn’t it? Well, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Mozilla is an active participant of this working group. Ultimately, we support any new standard where we believe it will put people first and ensure they are empowered, safe and respected online.

Privacy and security should be the default, no? 

In today’s digital era, ensuring your communication is super safe and hush-hush is paramount! We all know how important it is to have robust, reliable, and oh-so-secure communication protocols. They’re like the superhero guardians that protect your precious data as it travels between people, devices, businesses, and even governments.

The new Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol is a game-changer. Providing end-to-end encryption to groups, it ensures confidentiality and privacy when people communicate with each other, ensuring that your messages, whether they’re in text, audio, or video form, stay completely under wraps from prying eyes such as infrastructure operators or malicious actors.

The nitty-gritty

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty details, MLS basically provides modern-day security properties that we have all come to expect by default such as Forward Secrecy or Post-Compromise Security – but like the superhero it is, it pushes those security measures to their very limits, achieving max security potential (that’s a lot of juice!)

At the core, MLS is what’s called a “continuous group key agreement” – this allows multiple entities to agree on a shared key and to contribute to it continuously. So, it doesn’t matter if your group is constantly changing, with friends joining and leaving all the time. Even if your group expands to over a thousand individuals, MLS creates a secure environment for group communication no matter how big the gang gets and without jeopardizing the security of past and future message exchanges. 

Using MLS, you’ll always know which other members of your chat group will receive the messages you send, and the legitimacy of new members entering a group is checked by everyone: there is nowhere to hide.

And long gone are the days when everyone had to be on the same app to benefit from these kinds of advanced security protocols. Of course, more can always be done to ensure that all apps follow this protocol and are able to be fully interoperable with other applications. That’s where the IETF and its partners, like Mozilla, play a crucial role in championing the widespread adoption of this new MLS standard and the future More Instant Messaging Interoperability (MIMI) protocol for interoperability of messaging apps.

Standardization and the power of the group

Similar to other efforts happening in open standardization bodies like the IETF, the power of MLS truly lies in its transparent design process. Similar to the design of TLS for client-server communications, the contributors to the MLS Protocol and MLS Architecture come from many different backgrounds including cryptography, software engineering, infrastructure and even academia and research.

This led to using a range of state of the art techniques – like mechanized symbolic security analysis with Tamarin or ProVerif, and proof assistants like FStar or new cryptographic proof frameworks – in the conception of this protocol to solve difficult problems and prevent mistakes along the way.

Ultimately, we managed to build a protocol that can cover many different architectures and applications without compromising on security. 

At some point, we’d like to see the standardization of a Web API so that web applications can leverage the technology directly from many different browsers. This would look like a browser performing all MLS actions for you, in contrast to the web application shipping its own MLS code in javascript or webassembly, which is potentially insecure.

The post Messaging Layer Security is now an internet standard appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Nolano, one of the winning startups at Mozilla’s Responsible AI Challenge, wants to make it easier to create AI apps. 

Founders Tejas Vaidhya and Ayush Kaushal realize the power of large language models. They also know that using them to develop apps typically require tools beyond the capabilities of a laptop or a smartphone. Tejas and Ayush are part of a growing community working to not only democratize the development of LLM-based tools, but to encourage collaboration and allow more user control of data. We spoke to Tejas about his work, how he and Ayush got started on Nolano, and his vision for the future of AI.

From architecture to AI

The internet was Tejas’ gateway to knowledge while growing up in a small town in India. He studied architecture as an undergraduate, but after writing a program for a design project, a friend asked him to join a computer science competition. “We failed terribly,” Tejas said. “But that was very fortunate because I found that there’s a lot of things to learn. 

He moved to Canada and is now a graduate student at MILA – Quebec AI Institute. He is active in the open source community, where he met Ayush.

Starting Nolano

Tejas and Ayush, who was studying computer science at the University of Texas in Austin, collaborated on a number of projects before starting Nolano, short for “No Language Obstacles.” As Tejas’ explained, Nolano’s aim is to leverage large language models to enable the creation of AI apps on mobile devices. Their compression techniques and software allow developers to run language models locally.

“If you’re running this locally, you get privacy and customization while saving a lot of CO2 release because you’re not using all the CPU in the data centers,” Tejas said. “We are very developer-focused.”

The magic of AI 

“AI excites me because it’s like the closest thing to magic,” Tejas said. “I used to think the same thing about architecture because whenever I used to visit some places, I go inside and I just feel like I’m in a different world. That’s exactly how I felt when I began studying computer science, but the results are just beyond your imagination.”

Specializing in natural language processing (NLP), Tejas finds the mix of determinism and ambiguity within language fascinating: “Even though it has this logical structure of grammar, at the same time it’s an art.”

Nolano’s potential

The chatbot landscape has been changed by models like ChatGPT. Tejas said developers can use Nolano to create interactive and personalized chatbots and autocomplete code tools. The underlying philosophy of Nolano is to reduce the computational resources required to run large language models, making them more accessible to developers, Tejas said.

He envisions Nolano continuing its research and development in compression techniques to further reduce the size and computational requirements of language models. But his ambitions extend beyond compression. Tejas recognizes the need for post-deployment tooling, focusing on areas such as model management, monitoring and ensuring the reliability and safety of deployed models. With an emphasis on continuous improvement, Nolano aims to gather feedback from users to enhance the functionality and security of their models.

The future of AI

Despite the uncertainties AI poses, Tejas is optimistic about its future. As long as we center humans, like Nolato does with developers for example, he said that AI can be a catalyst for progress to address issues like climate change. 

“There are definitely problems,” Tejas said. “We should make sure that we deploy AI responsibly. It can be used for fake news or propaganda, for example. But I think we also had problems with the printing press. And we figured out solutions for that.”

The post How to make trustworthy AI? Lower the barriers for developers appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.