Mozilla Releases New Version of Jetpack – An Experimental New UI

Posted 06/14/2009 at 12:34pm | by Justin Kerr

3

Comments

Print

The labs team at Mozilla has been hard at work on Jetpack 0.2, and is actively looking for volunteers to help test out, and give feedback on the new experimental UI. For those who haven’t been following its development, Jetpack allows users to create custom sidebar applications. These can range from something as simple as a Twitter stream, to a fully functional media player that will allow you to view flash videos while still surfing the web in the same tab.

According to Jetpack designer Aza Raskin “Jetpack is two things at once: it is a platform for experimentation and it is also a solid set of APIs that anyone to easily build new Firefox features”. It’s pretty clear that the web browser, like most modern operating systems is a mature platform, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Mozilla is likely hoping that if Jetpack takes off (pardon the pun), it will be easier to break away from the pack in the future.

Users wishing to get involved in Jetpack’s development are encouraged to install the add-on, report bugs, or even just hop into the discussion groups to leave feedback. Hit the jump to check out a video of Jetpack in action, and make sure to leave your experiences in the comments if you decide to give it a try!

Jetpack: Slidebar from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.