Archive | Robots

The Return of the Robot

When we last saw the Firefox 3 robot, he was triumphantly proclaiming victory in honor of the record-setting release last June.

Since then, of course, the Mozilla development community has been hard at work modifying and improving Firefox 3 to get it ready for the upcoming 3.1 launch. So, in that same spirit we sent the robot back to the shop for some upgrades, too.

The idea behind the upgrades was to give the robot a look that would be appropriate for the Shiretoko release, so we enlisted the help of talented mecha illustrator and colorist Josh Burcham. As you can see from this screenshot of the Firefox 3.1 beta 1 first run page, the robot is still lurking in the shadows, but don’t worry…more will be revealed soon.

The Return of the Robot

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Did You Survive the Summit?

It’s been well-documented that this year’s Mozilla Summit was a fairly eventful week, what with a highway-blocking rock slide, bear sightings and a half-day power outage on top of the talks, sessions, ping pong games, dinners, etc.

At the suggestion of Deb Richardson, we decided to immortalize the various dramas by turning them into a laptop sticker. Tim Hogan from the Royal Order was there to experience it all first hand and was kind enough to translate the excitement into the artwork below (based, of course, on the original design by Nobox).

So, if you did indeed survive the Summit you should be getting one of these in the mail sometime in the next few weeks:

Did You Survive the Summit?

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And the Winners Are…

Last month I announced an impromptu contest to see who could come up with the best interpretation of the Firefox 3 Beta 2 ‘robot’ artwork. I have to say, I was both surprised by and impressed with the volume and creativity of your comments. There were certainly a lot of great ones.

It took me a little longer than planned to determine the winners, but I’m pleased to report that after much careful deliberation, I have the results. Before I go any further, though, let me make it clear that these are not the “right” answers. There is no single “right” answer…it’s all just a matter of highly subjective interpretation, and these were the three that struck me the most (and won the t-shirts).

The “Extremely Thorough Analysis” award goes to Lim Chee Aun:
“The robot doesn’t seem like a bad guy. It’s actually a good guy! It’s beaming up the Firefox logo in the sky, just like in the Batman movies! It’ll fight off all the bad guys with its powerful boxing gloves and could run super fast like Flash (notice the Flash superhero symbol on the ears?). It’s built to be tough against any attacks, bugs and even evil UFO’s that shoot down buildings. ‘The world needs Firefox 3!’ The robot’s antenna (on the head) shall spread the news through all forms of telecommunication. Though it’s getting dark (notice the dark background and the sun sets), the robot shall not rest and will always fight till the end! Firefox rules!”

The “Should Have Been the Sequel to ‘the Matrix’” award goes to Lachlan:
“This is of course a picture taken at the mighty Firefox take over in 2011, Giant Robots will be built from rival software developers to destroy the Mozilla headquarters, but of course, the robots discover the power of their programs and preach holograms of Firefox and Thunderbird logos! Reminding the world to switch.”

The “Abstract Art Interpretation” award goes to Veekay:
“Well, here goes my thoughts… The robot is FF3 ! And the buildings are actually IE – look at the three buildings that look prominently – thats the ‘E’ lying down and the ‘I’ had already fled the place fearing the UFO’s that are the bugs that hit you hard due to non-standard HTML done by ‘IE’ gurus”

Thanks to everybody who participated…this was a lot of fun. And will we see the robot again in the future? Stay tuned!

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The Robots Are Coming!

Goal: Create a first run page for the latest Firefox 3 beta that would be eye-catching enough to make people stop and explore ways they can provide feedback.

Solution: A giant robot, of course.

Your Challenge: Answer the unanswered questions…who is behind this rampaging robot? Are the UFO’s in the background working with or against it? What’s the significance of it all? Post your theories in the comments section – the best one gets a Firefox t-shirt.

The robots are coming

Thanks to Nobox for getting in touch with their inner sci-fi geeks and creating the very cool art for this page.

**Update**
The informal contest is now over (details here)…thanks to everyone who submitted their theories. I’ve been really blown away by all your ideas!

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