The blue frog is a character builder that use to be used by the devs on TC when a new feature comes out or something radical needs to be tested, it helps speed the process alone. It basically gives you XP for skills, armor, weapons, buffs ect. This is what it looks like
http://swg.allakhazam.com/images/bluefrog.jpg
The date is simply because Oru used his top secret time machine to go forward to November before writing this and forget he was posting it in October, hey, it happens.
Other than that im assuming they will set up vendors to test items like clothes ect....