There’s been a lot in the news lately about how 50 million Facebook users had their information used by Cambridge Analytica, a private company, without their knowledge.
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3">TAKE THE SURVEY</a>
The conversation since — both online and off — has been all over the board. Some people were not at all surprised by the story, saying this has been common practice for a while. Others were shocked, worried their personal information could be used for nefarious purposes. And still others seem not to really notice the news at all.
Which left us wondering, how do most people feel about this news and about Facebook in general? We put together a <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3">fun, quick survey</a> to try and find out how people are feeling right now. It’ll take about three minutes of your day.
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" data-href="https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4273732/d03b45c232a3">TAKE THE SURVEY</a>
We’ll use this survey to understand how we can better support and advocate for you and your personal information online. We promise not to use any of your personally identifying information on targeted ads. We promise not to sell this data to any third parties. And we promise to share the results of this survey back with you in a transparent and open way.

There’s been a lot in the news lately about how 50 million Facebook users had their information used by Cambridge Analytica, a private company, without their knowledge. TAKE THE SURVEY … Read more

How Do You Feel About Facebook? Take the Survey.

Flying Eze

Today, we primarily access the Internet through our phones, tablets and computers. But how will the world access the web in five years, or in ten years, and how will the web itself grow and change?
We believe that the future of the web will be heavily intertwined with virtual and augmented reality, and that future will live through <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/technology/what-is-a-browser/">browsers</a>. That’s why we’re building Firefox Reality, a new kind of web browser that has been designed from the ground up to work on stand-alone virtual and augmented reality (or mixed reality) headsets.
(If you love mixed reality &#8211; or even if you are just a curious bystander &#8211; you can read our announcement post <a href="https://blog.mozvr.com/firefox-reality-bringing-the-immersive-web-to-mixed-reality-headsets">here</a>.)
So why are we creating a browser for mixed reality?
Here at Mozilla, it’s our mission to ensure that the Internet is an open and accessible resource that puts people first. Currently, the world can browse the open web using our fast and privacy-focused Firefox browser, but continuing that mission in a rapidly changing world means constantly investing our time and resources into <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/">new</a> <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/">and</a> <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/news/announcing-the-initial-release-of-mozillas-open-source-speech-recognition-model-and-voice-dataset">emerging</a> technologies &#8211; and realities.
Mozilla has always been on the frontlines of virtual and augmented reality (see our work with <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/01/mozilla-brings-virtual-reality-to-all-firefox-users/">WebVR</a>, <a href="https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/webxr-ios">WebAR</a> and <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/">A-Frame</a>), and this is a mixed reality browser that is specifically built to tackle the new opportunities and challenges of browsing the immersive web.
Why is this important?
This is the first cross-platform browser for mixed reality. 
Other solutions for browsing and accessing the web on stand-alone headsets exist, but they are closed, and platform specific. Firefox Reality will be independent and will work on a wide variety of devices and platforms.
This is the only open source browser for mixed reality.
Just like our Firefox browser for the desktop, all of Firefox Reality is open source. Not only does this make it easier for manufacturers to add the browser to their platform, but it provides a level of transparency that our users have come to know and expect from Mozilla.
This is a browser that is built by a company that respects your privacy. 
We take privacy very seriously at Mozilla. Mixed reality is still new. We don’t yet have all the answers for what privacy looks like in this new medium, but we are committed to finding the solution. We will continue to build on the proven permissions model of the web platform, which provides even more protection than native apps provide. The Mozilla values will guide us as we create Firefox Reality, just as they do with every product we create.
This is a browser that will be fast.
We know fast. We have decades of experience with web compatibility and last year we released Firefox Quantum &#8211; a browser that was <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/news/introducing-firefox-quantum">rebuilt for speed</a>. All of that knowledge, technology, and experience will allow us create a best-in-class browser for mixed reality headsets.
This is a browser that is built for the future.
Mixed reality is the wild west. How do you type? How do you express emotion? How do you view the billions of existing 2D web pages as well as new 3D content? How do you communicate? Who maps the world and who controls what you see? Can we build on our work with voice recognition and connected devices to create a better browsing experience? We love tackling these questions. Everything is new again, and we are constantly building and experimenting to find the right answers.
Browsers are the future of mixed reality.
The future of mixed reality is about delivering experiences, not about building applications.  There shouldn’t be friction moving from one experience to another. Firefox was the first browser to implement WebVR &#8211; an open standard for sharing and enjoying virtual reality content through a web URL. This lays the groundwork for creating and delivering immersive experiences using a method that is as simple as opening a web page.
If you’d like to learn more, or view a demo of Firefox Reality running on the HTC Vive Focus, check out our Mixed Reality Blog. You can also <a href="https://twitter.com/mozillareality">follow us on Twitter,</a> where we will provide updates on when Firefox Reality will be available on headsets. Until then, stay tuned. Exciting things are coming.
&nbsp;

Today, we primarily access the Internet through our phones, tablets and computers. But how will the world access the web in five years, or in ten years, and how will … Read more

Mozilla Brings Firefox to Augmented and Virtual Reality

Blog

Post

Today marks the launch of Mozilla&#8217;s first full edition of the<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018"> Internet Health Report</a>, an open source effort to explore the state of human life on the internet.
As we put our final touches on the report, the United States scrambled to prepare for testimony by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, following revelations about user data obtained by Cambridge Analytica. The conversation: what should the Senate and Congress ask him?
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/what-congress-should-ask-mark-zuckerberg/556655/">The list of questions is long</a>. What do we do about the data of up to 87 million people floating around, unrecoverable? Can artificial intelligence help address suspicious behaviour around elections? What are Facebook’s responsibilities to users and the public? Unsurprisingly, it was also quite scattered. We do not yet have a collective mental map of how issues like these connect.
Creating such a map is a key goal of the Internet Health Report, in which people from across Mozilla’s extended community compile research and analysis about the internet.
There were moments when weaving together this year’s report felt just as scattered. We’re all mapping new territory, and we each only have part of the map.
As an example: we spent weeks wrestling over which angle to focus on in the report’s spotlight story<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018spotlight-understanding-fake-news/"> on ‘fake news’ and misinformation</a>. We went back and forth on which aspects of this complex topic we each thought was most important. And then, there was an “Aha!” moment: all of the issues we&#8217;d each been championing needed to be pieced together into a bigger story.
I sketched out a list on a napkin to help order our thoughts:
What the napkin said:
<img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-11358" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-600x600.jpg 600w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-1000x1000.jpg 1000w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-32x32.jpg 32w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-50x50.jpg 50w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-64x64.jpg 64w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-96x96.jpg 96w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874-128x128.jpg 128w, https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_0874.jpg 1336w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Collecting all our data
+ precision targeted ads
+ bots and fake accounts
+ FB dominates news distribution
+ not enough web literacy
= fuel for fraud and abuse,
and very bad real world outcomes
As with the rest of the report, the back and forth process produced<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018spotlight-understanding-fake-news/"> a solid piece</a>: a piece that connected misinformation into the big picture of the technology and economics that underpin the internet.
This process also served as a reminder that the internet is a complex social, business and technical ecosystem: a living system made up of computers and data and humans. Grappling with things like the Cambridge Analytica scandal requires stepping back and looking at this whole ecosystem. The Internet Health Report is designed to help us do exactly this.
The report is also designed to inspire. It includes interviews with:<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018meet-the-internets-first-responders-to-security-emergencies/"> volunteer cybersecurity first responders</a>; activists building<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018in-brazil-a-bot-in-the-public-interest/"> open-source, civic-minded bots</a>; and engineers<a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018building-a-multilingual-internet/"> creating a truly multilingual internet</a>. While the loudest news media headlines may be bad, there is a great deal of good news happening off most people&#8217;s radar. This is where we find hope and aspiration.
This sense of hope and aspiration is common across the broader movement that Mozilla is a part of. The open source movement. The internet freedom movement. The digital rights movement. Whatever you call it, there is a growing force that stands for the idea that we can build <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/news/mozilla-marks-20th-anniversary-commitment-better-human-experiences-online">a digital world that is open, accessible and welcoming to all</a>.
It is people from across this movement that compiled the Internet Health Report: smart and dedicated researchers, engineers, data scientists, policy analysts, even artists. Together, we had tough, collaborative conversations. We simplified complex ideas. We connected the dots. And, we started to map the problems, opportunities and conundrums of human life online.
Of course, creating a map like this is not just something you publish and then it&#8217;s done. Just like the internet, it is something that we can only build together, over time. Which is why <a href="https://www.flyingeze.com/tag/2018participate/">we encourage you to join us</a>. The internet is an ecosystem that humans build. It’s people who decide what it is and isn&#8217;t. It’s up to all of us to envision – and create – something healthy and humane.

Today marks the launch of Mozilla’s first full edition of the Internet Health Report, an open source effort to explore the state of human life on the internet. As we … Read more

Flying Eze

How Do You Feel About Facebook? Take the Survey.

PREVIOUS

NEXT

Advertiment

Comments

Flying Eze

Main Links

More

Features

Flying Eze