Firefox 3.1 beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform that are scheduled for Firefox 3.1. Ongoing planning for this release can be followed at the Planning Center, as well as in the mozilla.dev.planning discussion group, and on IRC in the #shiretoko channel.

New features and changes in this release include: web standards improvements, added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3, a new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to, improved control over the Smart Location Bar, support for the new video and audio elements, the addition of the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms, and improved support for offline applications.

More information about these features are available in several places including the Mozilla Developer Center’s Firefox 3.1 for Developers article, and in the Web Tech blog’s Overview of features for Web Developers post.

David Tenser has published an extensive series of blog posts where he has been discussing a comprehensive vision for the scope and role of the Support.mozilla.org (SUMO) project. He has recently published the eighth and final post in the series, this one focused on the innovative and incredibly useful “Live Chat” feature. “If a problem isn’t yet covered in the Knowledge Base, or if the instructions in the article are too hard to understand, Live Chat is a powerful way for users to get in touch with Firefox experts and get hands-on assistance in solving their problems. Live Chat can also be a very fun way for contributors to provide support. Contributors helping out with Live Chat don’t just help users, they talk to each other in the backchannel as well, providing assitance to other helpers whenever needed. This means that although you’re usually the only one interacting with the user you’re helping, you’re never alone.”

David’s blog post goes on to discuss some potential future improvements for the service, including a fully integrated chat client, a simple scheduling solution, support for languages other than English, and automatically saving chat logs and associated user happiness ratings, among other things. If you’re interested in the Live Chat feature of the SUMO project and would like to see how the team is thinking about improving it in the future, read the full post over at the Firefox Support Blog.