Sesma Creatvt

El amor en los tiempos de las redes sociales

2012-02-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

Sending Love into Space and Over the Web

2012-02-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

Source:LiveScience

History of Mobile App Stores

2012-02-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

HTML5 versus Adobe Flash

2012-02-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

How to: Get More Clicks on Twitter

2012-01-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

El futuro de compartir archivos tras el cierre de Megaupload

2012-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

¿Qué es lo que proyecta acerca de tí tu imagen en línea?

2012-01-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

¿De dónde provienen las ganacias de Google? Aquí lo tienes, por industria y empresa

2012-01-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

Smartphones Are Just Like Cigarettes

2012-01-22T15:07:00.000-08:00

Estudiantes norteamericanos consideran que la tecnología es esencial en su formación

2011-12-20T13:34:00.000-08:00

Teens and the cruel world of social networking

2011-12-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Data Visualization: Day 2 of LeWeb

2011-12-09T23:32:00.000-08:00

5 empresas que comenzaron en un garage y llegaron a la lista Fortune 500

2011-11-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

Cómo los estudiantes pueden beneficiarse de Google cuando están investigando

2011-11-24T15:36:00.001-08:00

Las diferencias entre las personas que toman Coca y Pepsi

2011-11-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

10 fundamentos de Ghandi para cambiar al mundo

2011-11-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

Effects of the Internet Blacklist Bill (SOPA)

2011-11-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

8 Zettabytes of Data by 2015

2011-11-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Numbers Behind the Digital Lifestyle [Infographic]

2011-11-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

The mobile users behind geosocial and location-based services [Infographic]

2011-11-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

Cómo Social Media se va apoderando cada vez más de nuestro tiempo

2011-11-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

Mobileverse in 60 seconds

2011-11-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

15 insights del cerebro de Google

2011-10-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

Why Content is King for SEO

2011-10-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

History of Web Standards

2011-10-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Datos y hechos curiosos de la vida de Steve Jobs

2011-10-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Apple Fanboy Syndrome

2011-10-03T15:49:00.001-07:00

Google and your memory

2011-09-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Research and Design by: Online Colleges Site

Awesome Vintage Tech Ads

2011-06-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

Honest Logos by Viktor Hertz

2011-06-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

WikiLeaks

2011-06-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"

2011-05-02T10:31:00.001-07:00

16 Ways To Use Your Wrist

2011-04-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

How JavaScript & HTML5 Are Remaking the Web

2011-03-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

WebGL Brain Surface and Tractography Viewer

Using JavaScript, jQuery and WebGL, developers at Children’s Hospital Boston created the Brain Surface and Tractography Viewer.

This is a web front-end tool that lets researchers explore data from an MRI scan within the web browser and in real time.

The implications of this type of technology for aiding in medical research are stunning. The fact that this all takes place in the web browser means that a researcher or doctor could explore MRI results from another part of the hospital — or another part of the globe.

Google Body Browser

Google released its Body Browser as a showcase for the WebGL support now included in Chrome. It’s a great proof of concept and is also useful as a learning tool.

In December, I described the project as “three-dimensional, multi-layered browser version of those Visible Man/Woman model kits. Or a virtualized version of Slim Goodbody, if you will.”

The Google Body Browser is a great example of just how fast technology is moving in web browsers. In December, only beta builds of Google Chrome and WebKit nightlies supported WebGL. Today, every shipping version of Chrome supports the technology and Firefox 4 — which is nearing release — also works with WebGL out of the box. Safari users still need to use a WebKit nightly, but we expect to see final support rolled out soon.

MathBoard

MathBoard is a featured case study on Google’s HTML5 Rocks page and for good reason — it adroitly highlights how robust web apps can be built using HTML5, even if they start life on other platforms.

MathBoard is a popular education app for the iPad that helps students learn and practice their integers.

We’ve discussed how mobile developers are using HTML5 in their app development process, but this is actually the inverse. N2N-Apps aimed to do a high-fidelity port of the app for the web browser in HTML5. Using HTML5, SnowUI and jQuery, the goal was met.

Arcade Fire, “The Wilderness Downtown”

Before they won a Grammy, Arcade Fire won our hearts with their innovative and awe-inspiring music video created using HTML5.

This Google Chrome Experiment, directed by Chris Milk, takes listeners into the video. As I noted last summer,

“In addition to timed-playback, synchronized effects and custom windows sizes for the video and animated content, this video also features custom rendered maps directly from the Google Maps API. Using SVG, the drawing application, for the postcard aspect of the video adds an interactive and personal touch.”

More than six months later, this still rocks our world.

Lost World’s Fairs

When Microsoft released the first IE 9 beta, the company contracted Friends of Mighty to create this stunning web page that showcases the power of WOFF and web fonts.

Using JavaScript goodies like Lettering.js and built using HTML5 Boilerplate, this is not just a beautiful web design, it’s a look at what is possible with HTML5.

HTML5 isn’t just about 3D effects or creating web apps — it is also offers great advancements to how content — including text — is displayed and how users can interact with that text.

The Economy of SXSW: Music, Film and Media [Infographic]

2011-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

via RetailMeNot.com

EvoMouse Pet Offers Multitouch Control, Looks Like a Cute Dog [PICS]

2011-03-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Meet evoMouse Pet, a dog-shaped device that turns any surface into a touchpad. Tracking your fingers, it lets you do anything a regular mouse can do, and then some.

Beyond conventional mouse functions such as cursor control, right- and left-clicking, dragging and double-clicking, the Celluon evoMouse offers multitouch capabilities, letting you rotate and zoom on images and scroll text using gestures. The device can even recognize your handwriting if you use either your finger or pen.

Celluon says the evoMouse Pet will be available first in the UK in late March or early April at a price of around $99. But is it worth it? Couldn’t you just get a Magic Trackpad from Apple that can do the same gestural controls? Sure, but that only works on a Mac — this device works with Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Windows, Android and BlackBerry.

It’s small enough to take with you, and connects either wirelessly via Bluetooth or plugged in with a USB cable. Take a look at Celluon’s teaser video and you’ll get an idea of the scale of this tiny device, whose two laser eyes follow your hand’s every movement.

One possible use: Celluon says it’s ideal for those with carpal tunnel syndrome who suffer from the slightest effort of pushing around a physical mouse — perhaps this little evoMouse Pet will now let those sufferers run with the big dogs.

A Very Happy 25th Birthday To The Legend Of Zelda

2011-02-21T15:18:00.000-08:00

We’re seeing a lot of 25th anniversaries of well-loved gaming franchises lately, and for good reason: the NES came out in 1986, so necessarily its launch titles and big sellers will be having birthdays around now. They’re like the baby boomer generation of games, all the same age, all sharing the same historical milestones. “Remember when we went 16-bit for the first time?” I sure do.

At any rate, Zelda has to be among the top few game franchises of all time, not just in sales, but in mindshare. Personally, my favorite is still A Link To The Past on SNES. Agree? Disagree? Let’s just take a minute to appreciate how awesome these games have been.

There we go. Thanks for all the good times, Link (and link-alikes).

And one last thing that may blow your mind if you didn’t know it already:

5 Free Tools for Competitor Keyword Research

2011-02-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

1. SEOmoz Term Extractor

To use this tool, you will need to register for a free account at SEOmoz. You will then have access to this tool as well as a variety of their other free SEO tools.

Once you’re logged in, head over to the SEO Tools section and choose the Term Extractor. Enter the URL of your competitor to receive one word, two work, and three word phrases the website is targeting as well as the HTML elements those terms are found in on the website.

Needless to say, the bottom area is a good way to learn some on-site optimization tips as well!

2. Open Site Explorer

Open Site Explorer also falls under the SEOmoz tools umbrella, so once you’re logged in to SEOmoz, you have access to this as well. To use this tool for keyword ideas, enter the competitor’s URL and go to the Anchor Text Distribution tab.

This will show you up to 20 of the keywords that your competitor uses for anchor text when link building, hence letting you know what they are targeting and how strong their link building campaign is with the number of root domains and links using that anchor text.

3. Google AdWords Keyword Tool

I know, I know, we all know about Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Usually I use the type in a word and let it make suggestions for me aspect, but for this exercise, I entered a domain to see what would happen.

The key is to go to the Columns, and check Extracted From Webpage. Then you will find that if you entered domain.com, it focuses on a particular page from the domain, and not the domain homepage. So if there isn’t a domain.com/index.html or other similar type of page, you won’t get the homepage’s keyword suggestions. But for other specific pages on the site, you can pin down the keywords that AdWords recognizes from those

4. SEMRush

SEMRush allows you to enter a domain and view ten of the top keywords that the website ranks for organically, showing the keyword, position in search results, traffic percentage, and other useful information, especially if you are going to use CPC for your website.

It also shows what URL on the site ranks for the specific keyword, but I removed that column to make the image fit in the space above.

5. Alexa

Aside from just giving you your traffic score, Alexa also gives you the chance to see keyword queries that bring a high percent of traffic to a particular URL. Just go to the Site Info tab and enter your competitor’s URL. Once you Get Details, go to the Search Analytics tab to see top queries driving traffic to the site, and keywords that are on the rise / decline.

If you scroll down from here, you will also find lengthy lists of keyword phrases for high impact search queries for the URL, search engine marketing activity based on ads for particular keywords, and additional keyword opportunities that the competitor (or you) could pursue.

Live on YouTube

2011-01-04T15:00:00.001-08:00

Minimalist Designs

2011-01-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

Murder Ink Sticky Notes

2011-01-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Image of the Day: Zombies vs. Supermodels

2011-01-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

Mobile Year in Review 2010 Video

2010-12-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Social Media, Apps, and Data Growth Headline 2010 Mobile Trends

Watch our rapid-fire tour of 2010's key consumer and technology mobile trends showing the staggering growth in consumer mobile usage across a dizzying array of applications and social media platforms.

Highlights of the Mobile Year in Review 2010 Video

Massive increase in apps downloaded

FIVE BILLION apps downloaded — up from 300 million in 2009

Whopping expansion of location-based services

FIVE MILLION Foursquare users — up from 200,000 users in 2009

Surge in mobile social media platforms

347 PERCENT growth in Twitter mobile usage
200 MILLION mobile Facebook Users
100 MILLION YouTube videos played on mobile devices everyday

Ongoing explosion in data traffic

3,000 PERCENT growth in one carrier’s data traffic since 2008
3,339: average number of texts sent per month by US teens.

Unprecedented competition and choice

96 PERCENT of mobile users can choose from 3 or more providers
92 PERCENT of mobile users are satisfied with their provider
4 CENTS: average voice rate per minute in the US
77 MILLION: number of smartphones shipped in the fall of 2010

9 Ways to Connect With Santa on the Web

2010-12-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

1. E-mail Santa

This is a great online service, as you get results right away, which anyone with impatient little ones will know can only be a good thing. Fill in the blanks of a standard “Dear Santa” letter, and moments later you’ll have a personalized reply from the big man himself to read on screen or print.

2. Send a Call From Santa With Google Voice

After a relatively quick Q&A session asking the name, age, choice of gift (with some amusing answer options in the drop-down menus), this Google-backed service will generate a quality-sounding “call” for the rugrat(s) in your life. In reply, they can leave a message for Santa via a toll-free number.

3. Personalized Santa Video

You do have to register for this Disney service, but it’s worth it, or will be when you see the look on children’s faces as their names and photos show up on Santa’s monitor, as he checks to see if they are on the nice list. They are, of course.

4. Smilebox’s Dear Santa Video Card

Smilebox’s “Dear Santa” download makes your youngster the star of the show. You can customize the clip with personal info and then add adorable footage of your child cutely lisping through his or her Christmas wish list. Sharing options make the video easy to send to adoring grandparents, aunts and uncles too.

5. Santa’s Good List Interactive Quiz

It’s the elves in the spotlight here as they take children through 12 questions to ascertain whether they’ve been good enough to get on the nice list. The service is password protected so you’ll need to hand over your e-mail to get a “key,” but once you do you can check in again anytime to make sure your child’s name is still on the nice list.

6. Portable North Pole Personalized Santa Video

Another personalized video message from Santa, the PNP offering takes you through some comprehensive questions for a fully featured clip tailored to toddlers or older children and, yes, even grown ups too. The Santa is magnificent with a rather splendid beard and an authentic kindly manner. Recommended.

7. Visit the North Pole

Ideal for rainy (or snowy!) day activities during school vacation time, this site is chock-full of Santa, elf, reindeer and North Pole-themed interactive stories and educational games for online fun. There are recipes, craft ideas and print-outs for offline holiday activities to amuse the kids too.

8. NORAD Santa Tracker

Thanks to NORAD and Google, you can track Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve, something guaranteed to get the children very excited indeed. This long-running tradition has been given a new lease on life in recent years with Google’s involvement, adding a little bit of map-based magic to millions of Christmas Eves around the globe.

9. I Caught Santa Photo

If you’re in need of some “proof” that Santa exists (and don’t have the Photoshop skills to create your own), then for a fee you can upload your own photo and paste on one of I Caught Santa’s Father Christmases. It’ll cost you a penny under $10 via the site or from $0.99 via the iPhone app.

10 Social Media Deals to Check In to on Black Friday

2010-11-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

RadioShack has teamed up with Foursquare to create the 'Holiday Hero' badge. Unlock this badge and you can get 20% off your purchase. If you don't have time to unlock the full badge, just checking in at RadioShack will let you save 10%. This deal is valid through 12/31/2010. Also check out RadioShack's Facebook page for more deals and specials.

Check in to any American Eagle store and unlock a coupon for 15% off your purchase. This coupon expires on 12/31/2010.

Sears is running specials on its Facebook page. To get in on the specials, just 'like' the latest offering. If enough people like a deal, it will go live at Sears.com.

On Friday, Gowalla will be hiding $50 Amazon.com gift codes at various retail spots across the United States. The company hasn't revealed where the codes are hidden, but says to check the usual suspects like the mall, big box retailers, etc. Be sure to check in at all your favorite haunts if you want a better chance at getting $50 at Amazon.com.

Hit up your local Hollister before Thursday and check in on Foursquare to score 20% off your purchase.

Check in to JC Penny on Foursquare and you can save $10 off your purchase of $50 or more.

Coca Cola is partnering with SCVNGR and Simon Malls on Black Friday. Complete all the challenges and you can earn points to get instant rewards like gift certificates and Coke-branded merchandise. Coke will be giving away $100,000 in gift cards.

Sports Authority is giving away 20 $500 gift cards on Black Friday. Check in using Foursquare and you have a chance at being randomly selected to win.

Starting at 9:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving, the first 3,000 people to check in to Toys 'R' Us using Facebook Places, Foursquare or Yelp will earn a 15% off coupon for purchases of $150 or more.

REMED | Street Artist

2010-11-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

Via Buamai

Best Brand Viral Videos of 2010 [TNW Social Media]

2010-11-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

T-Mobile Arrivals Video

This is the most recent in a string of stunning viral ads from T-Mobile in which people come together to dance in a variety of places. The latest one is set in Terminal 5 at Heathrow and you can’t help but have a huge smile on your face after watching this one.

Roger Federer Gillette

Is it real or is it fake? It’s the question that you’ll be asking after you watch this video in which Roger Federer shows incredible skill. I’m pretty much in the fake camp because he would have taken the guys head off if this was real!

The Old Spice Guy

Everybody is probably familiar with this campaign but although we all know the story line it simply has to be included in the list for it’s sheer originality. Not a single video but instead 100s of personalized videos from one of the biggest ad stars on the planet.

Samsung Video Camera

So how do you create a viral video that shows off the amazing quality of a new Samsung video camera? Well you get a crazy kid who can do pretty much anything with a business card. This simply blows my mind and the kid clearly has a lot of time on his hands!

Heineken – Men with Talent

This one is Dutch but you won’t have any trouble finding the formula that they are ripping the piss out of. More of a TV advert given the production values that a Youtube specific ad but it has been shared all over the world.

Coke – Happiness Machine

If there is one thing that Coke love doing it is making people feel good with their advertising and making them happy and this simple little idea certainly ticks those boxes. Every college should have a happiness machine!

Google Chrome – Speed Test

Even the company that owns Youtube feels they have to make videos for the platform which is what Google did with this stunning video to promote the speed of their Google Chrome browser.

BMW Table Trick

Love this little video because it really gets the message of the product across in a very short period of time and takes one of the oldest tricks in the book and puts a modern spin on it. Not a lot of views but a great concept!

The Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car

One of the oldest tricks in the books taken to a much bigger level. You’d expect this to go at the speed of light wouldn’t you? Maybe these 2 ingredients are actually better for eating?

Facebook Could Buy RockMelt to Beat Google

2010-11-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

I've spent the morning playing with and writing about RockMelt, the social Web browser.

RockMelt hooks into Facebook Platform to let users browse content online and share it with their Facebook friends and tweet to Twitter.

Users can also integrate RSS feeds. Pretty much anything anyone wants to do to read or share content can be done in RockMelt without forcing users to open up multiple browser tabs to share content on Facebook or Twitter.

I'm a heavy Google user. I can do a search in the search box, preview a Google result and click on it:

If I like a search result I find on Google.com, I can share it with friends by easily clicking the share button:

Boom, all of that happened without me having to bounce to my Facebook page.

So you have in RockMelt is the ability to search Google and share on Facebook. This is very powerful stuff. Both Google and Facebook win.

But if Facebook were to buy RockMelt, it could theoretically swap out Google as the default search for Bing and really ding Google.

I mean, if social search is the Next Big Thing, what better way for Facebook to do this than own a browser and let users share information through it, both on the desktop, and hopefully soon, mobile?

So if I'm Facebook, I'm definitely considering buying RockMelt before it gets too big and too expensive and wielding it as a sharp ax versus Google.

The glaring irony of all this is Facebook could do this leveraging a product built from Google's Chromium work.

Though of course Chromium is based on Apple's WebKit, so what we have in RockMelt is just the latest of progressive iteration on Web browsers.

If I'm Google, I wouldn't take this threat lightly. More eyeballs are spending more time on Facebook, which in 2010 really ramped up its online ad capabilities.

ComScore just found that Facebook led all online publishers with 23.1 percent market share in Q3. Facebook's market share has increased 13.9 percentage points from 9.2 percent in Q3 2009.

That's a huge threat to Google and it's $2.5 billion display ad run-rate. Armed with a browser as its users' new window to the Web, Facebook could do some serious damage.

WTF?

2010-11-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

wtf-poster serie by agency minga, argentinia.

more posters here.

Geek Optimism

2010-11-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful way to look at the world. I just wish I knew who the original artist is.

Update: The artist is Selin Jessa. Link -Thanks, Andy!

What Kind of Geek Are You? [INFOGRAPHIC]

2010-10-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

Starbucks and L’Oreal Test Location-Based SMS Coupons in UK

2010-10-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

UK network provider O2 has partnered with location services platform Placecast to enable brands to automatically deliver targeted SMS and MMS to more than one million opted-in O2 customers based on their exact whereabouts.

O2 Media, the mobile marketing arm of O2, has signed on Starbucks and L’Oreal as the first two brands to test the location-based messaging service in the UK for a six month trial period. The O2/Placecast partnership lets Starbucks and L’Oreal fence off geographic zones and push SMS discounts to O2 customers who enter those areas.

Starbucks is offering O2 customers 50% off discounts — delivered via SMS and redeemable at nearby stores — on its Starbucks VIA Ready Brew product. The discount will be delivered to individuals who have expressed an interest in food and beverage. As for L’Oreal, the makeup brand will dole out a buy-one-get-one-free discount on a hair care product to customers interested in beauty.

If you’re an O2 customer, you will start receiving offers from Starbucks, L’Oreal and other brands that sign-on, if you’ve opted-in to the O2 More program, are 16 years of age or older and have shared your interests.

While O2 serves as the gateway between brand and mobile consumer, the network promises not to share your data with partner brands. The carrier also regulates SMS delivery frequency to a maximum of one per day.

The partnership between Placecast and O2 is a first of its kind in the UK and one that we find quite interesting. The combination of geo-fencing technology and carrier distribution is a potentially huge, and device-independent, way to deliver mobile marketing messages to the consumers who want them.

Image courtesy of Darwin Bell, Flickr

Un guisante y un tubérculo

2010-10-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

“Mi niñez estuvo inmersa en la cultura popular a la que fueron expuestos millones de niños en la América de posguerra de la década de los cincuenta. Mientras veía incontables show de terror, ciencia ficción, guerra, caricaturas, vaqueros y marionetas que serpenteaban de nuestra televisión blanco y negro, yo hice mi colección de cómics y figuras de plástico que fueron llenando mi inmaduro cerebro. La suscripción de mis padres a la revista National Geographic alimentaron una temprana pasión por hombres prehistóricos y culturas primitivas”. Así comienza el texto introductor de Todd Schorr (Nueva York, EUA) y en cierta forma resume parte del pensamiento de la corriente Low Brow donde impera el mensajes del surrealismo pop, los cuales nos son cercanos a muchos de los nacidos en los 80′s (además de que como país [México], consumimos mucho de nuestro vecinos). Inevitable hablar de su magistral técnica y de un depurado sentido del humor, a veces chispeante a veces negro, siempre recomendable.

Todd Schorr

8 Awesome Webcomics You Don’t Want To Miss

2010-10-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Geek & Poke

Geek & Poke is an almost daily online comic bringing hilarious commentary on the latest news in the Web 2.0 world. Whether it’s a take on the latest Twitter attack, a new gadget that’s just hit the market or thoroughly geeky fare about code, Geek & Poke is bound to bring a smile to your face.

xkcd

Updated three times a week, xkcd, which needs no introduction, describes itself as a “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language“. And it delivers on all four points and more. The bare-bones drawings put the focus entirely on the wry sense of humour that has become a regular part of many a geek’s weekly addictions. Sometimes the comic’s humour or idea can sail right over your head, but some fun is also to be had in trying to figure out the meaning behind some of the more cryptic strips.

Dog House Diaries

Also updated three times a week, Dog House Diaries is another webcomic steeped in a wry sense of humour. From the life expectancy of a slinky to the hot towels they bring you on airplanes, Dog House Diaries leaves no stone unturned. Although the guys behind it would have you think it’s all about love, life and sandwiches (or the love life of sandwiches, whichever you prefer).

Indexed

Published on weekdays, Indexed takes a slightly different approach. At first glance, the site looks like a bunch of index cards from math class. On closer inspection, you’ll find that they’re an interesting commentary on almost everything under the sun. The site will probably have you thinking, why didn’t I think of that first?

Cyanide & Happiness

Cyanide & Happiness is one webcomic where you can go to get a daily fix in geek humour. Every day a new comic is posted, the kind of which you want to print off and hang up on your cork board. They’re all that good. Be warned, however, that this webcomic is certainly not for the faint of heart.

Abstruse Goose

Ab struse Goose is a little bit like xkcd, but a lot easier to understand. It has the same sarcastic sense of humour, commenting on human nature, current events and even xkcd itself.

Geeks In Love

Geeks in Love is a lesser known geeky webcomic all about, you guessed it, a pair of geeks in love. They spend more time staring at their gadgets than at each other, but somehow, it works. Geeks in Love will also strike a chord with Apple fans, what with all the Apple paraphernalia here and there.

The Oatmeal

The Oatmeal admittedly is a little bit more elaborate in its drawings than the other webcomics listed here, but it is sheer genius. The Oatmeal is probably as mainstream as a geek webcomic could ever get. While it isn’t updated half as often as we would like, each new update more than makes up for the long wait. Part grammar nazi, part geek pop culture and totally off the wall, The Oatmeal is a must for any self avowed comic-loving geek.

10 Awesomely Geeky Birthday Cakes

2010-10-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

1. Dungeons and Dragons

Get your 20-sided dice ready because this massive cake is a feat of artistic cake magic. It was made for a birthday boy that plays in a group of D&D fanatics. The edible sculpture was created by Mike’s Amazing Cakes. If you have time, be sure to check out their website as well, because their gallery is, indeed, awesome.

2. World of Warcraft

Speaking of geektastic cakes based on role playing games, this Horde World of Warcraft cake may not look quite as professional as the D&D cake, but the details on the shield, particularly the wood grain, are pretty impressive nonetheless. From what I can gather, the creator, who made it for her boyfriend’s birthday, only does this as a hobby, not a job. It sounds like she might want to consider changing careers to do this for a living.

3. Super Mario

Here’s another amazing video game cake, starring everyone’s favorite plumber, Mario. This link is definitely worth a look, as the creator, Su Yin, actually details all the work that went into planning and creating the cake, including a step-by-step photo gallery. The work involved in a project like this is pretty incredible.

4. Zombie Girl

I don’t know what’s cooler, the fantastic zombie girl on this cake or the eight-year-old little girl that requested it. While the cake is pretty amazing, made by Barbarann Garrard from rice cereal treats and fondant, how cool is it that a girl that age would prefer a cake showing something crawling from the grave instead of a pony or Barbie?

5. Tom Selleck

What’s scarier than a little girl obsessed with zombies? Naked Tom Selleck. I have to respect the artist who created this bit of wonderment though, it’s pretty cool that she was able to make Mr. Selleck resemble a hunky Disney prince.

6. Indiana Jones

The only things missing from this great golden idol cake by Clever Cake Studio are an Indiana Jones Ken doll and a giant marzipan boulder. Even so, the fact that you can actually switch out the bag for the golden idol allows you to play the role of Doctor Jones without having to worry about death by rock.

7. Dalek

While any Dalek cake would be cool in my book, it’s a whole new level of awesome when you find one that’s over two feet tall and 44 pounds. If you eat it all at once, you’re sure to help the Dalek meet its primary goal to “exterminate!” The site has an incredibly detailed look at the cake’s construction if you’re interested in knowing how something so awesome was actually created.

8. R2-KT

Of course, you can’t talk about geeky anything without mentioning Star Wars. This amazingly realistic R2-KT cake by Mark Joseph Cakes features a ton of cake surrounded by fondant and its legs are made from rice cereal treats. This site details the creation process, which is pretty intense thanks to the detailed paint job and assembly process.

9. Yoda

This Yoda cake is so realistic that I would be afraid to cut it for fear of suddenly being stunned by the force and beaten up by the little green man. The cake was created by Debbie Goard of Debbie Does Cakes for a seven-year-old’s birthday party. This has to be one of the most delicious of all the cakes here, as his head is made from rice treats, while the body features strawberry cake with Barvarian custard filling.

10. Storm Trooper On The Toilet

What’s nerdier than a regular Star Wars cake? One that also features bathroom humor. While it makes sense that this was made for a six-year-old, there’s no doubt that many internet geeks will get even more pleasure out of the idea of a stormtrooper going to the bathroom than the child the cake was meant to impress. If you’re interested in getting your own Star Wars potty humor cake, better get on the phone with Aurora Cakes, the company that made this masterpiece.

'Versus' Cartoon Series - Everyone Fights Everyone

2010-09-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates vs. Crazy Professor

I'm a sucker for reality-twisting tricks like this, where Bill Gates turns the whole arena into Windows.

Jafar vs. The Hulk

The series really gets creative with its twists, and it uses every possible trope that the audience already associates with the famous characters it's borrowing. It's so satisfying to see these familiar figures use all their abilities in a slapstick comedy.

SAW vs. Sherlock Holmes

I hate SAW. I love this.

The Ring vs. Robin Hood

Seriously, the combinations these guys think up... the girl from the Ring fights the mythical hero Robin Hood.

Darth Vader vs. Die Heavy

The most narrative of the fights so far. I'm not sure who Die Heavy (The Heavy?) is, but I am in love with Darth's voice acting.

Jack Sparrow vs. Shrek

Just a typical fight between two pop culture characters.

The Mask vs. Bugs Bunny

Fair warning, these two trickster heroes get really gory. It's still just simple cartoons though, and nothing you don't see on Itchy and Scratchy.

The everyday lives of superheroes: 20 awesome images

2010-09-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

Gregg Segal

Dulce Pinzòn

Wiseacre Photo

Agan Harahap

Estado de la blogosfera en 2010: los blogs están mejor que nunca

2010-09-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Con más de 150 millones de webs identificadas como blogs en Blogpulse se puede decir que la blogosfera goza de una muy buena salud. Si a eso le sumamos el informe de eMarketer que apunta que los blogs seguirán creciendo en 2011 podemos sin duda alguna afirmar que los blogs no solo no están muertos sino que están mejor que nunca.

Y prueba de ello es esta infografía de The Blog Herald que muestra datos tan interesantes sobre el perfil de los bloggers como los siguientes:

67% de hombres – 33% de mujeres
El 65% de los bloggers tienen entre 25 y 45 años de edad
Los EEUU es donde hay más bloggers (48%) frente al 26% en Europa
El 77% actualiza el blog semanalmente
El 72% de los bloggers escriben por afición
El 15% escriben tanto por placer como por una compensación económica
El 13% se dedican profesionalmente a los blogs, ya sea por su cuenta o para una red de blogs
El japonés es el idioma más utilizado (37%), seguido de cerca por el inglés (36%)
El español lo usan el 6% de los bloggers

Kitteh Komic of teh Day: Iz Alwais teh Goggie!

2010-09-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Source: Cat Versus Human

Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART]

2010-09-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Top Twitter Trends This Week: 9/11 – 9/17

Rank	Topic	Top Index This Week	Intensity	Description
#1	MTV VMAs	1	3	Lady Gaga accepted the award for Video of the Year (for "Bad Romance") at MTV’s VMAs Sunday, Sept. 12th wearing a dress, shoes and purse made out of pieces of raw meat. The band 30 Seconds To Mars won the 2010 MTV VMA Best Rock Video for "Kings and Queens."
#2	NFL	1	2	Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, and Indianapolis Colts safety Bob Sanders were the most tweeted about individuals. Sanders was injured recently in a game against the Houston Texans. He has a torn biceps tendon and may be out indefinitely.
#3	Taylor Swift / Kane West Controversy	1	2	People are sending letter-style tweets ("Dear Taylor Swift") along with their reactions to the premiere of her latest song, "Innocent." Kanye West’s MTV VMA performance with the lyrics "Let’s Have a Toast" has inspired many tweets.
#4	9/11 Remembrance	1	2	Nine years ago on September 11th 2001, the "Twin Towers" of the World Trade Center were destroyed in a terrorist attack that killed thousands. People are remembering that day.
#5	PowerPuff Girls	1	2	People are tweeting about their favorite memories and characters from the PowerPuff Girls cartoon show. It originally started trending on Saturday when the show was aired on TRANS7, one of Indonesia’s TV stations.
#6	Mexico Bicentennial	1	2	Mexico celebrated its bicentennial on Thursday, September 16. The Bicentennial Celebration at the Zocalo included a variety of incredible fireworks and a military parade.
#7	Twitter	2	2	Twitter is introducing a new website design that will include embedded media and content in users’ streams.
#8	Google	1	1	Google has launched a new Doodle on its British and Irish websites to celebrate the 120th anniversary of mystery writer Agatha Christie’s birth.
#9	Soccer/Football	1	1	The UEFA Champions League 2010-2011 started Tuesday, September 14. Popular football memes this week were "Immortal Tricolor" – the nickname for Brazilian football team Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense. Fans of Spanish football team Real Madrid chanted "Hala Madrid" to support them when they beat Ajax 2-0.
#10	Restart	1	1	As a reaction to the appearance of the band Restart on the top trends list, users are expressing their dislike of the Brazilian band. Notably, "CALA BOCA COLORIDAS," meaning "Shut Up, Colorful Girls" in Portuguese refers to the mostly teenage fans of the band. Restart is part of a new "colorful rock" movement whose fans wear gaudy clothes and strange haircuts.

If Google Maps Were Real: An Artist’s Vision [PICS]

2010-09-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

The above image is one of several from Alejo Malia that depict a world in which all the elements of Google Maps — place markers, public transit symbols and even the yellow street view guy — are completely real and physical objects looming over our buildings, streets and heads.

Malia is a Spanish illustrator and designer who, while relatively unknown, has a very strong social media presence. He’s on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogspot and Flickr.

He uploaded this set of images (titled “Google’s World“) yesterday, but it’s not his first literal imagination of the technological world of the web; he also produced an image that incorporated Facebook’s “Like” button into a real photograph.

Here’s the rest of the “Google’s World” set. Enjoy, and be sure and tweet your appreciation at Malia if you like his work.

[Via Gizmodo]

More About: alejo-malia, art, artist, flickr, Google, Google Maps, google's world, illustrations, Illustrator, pics

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Fake in Front

2010-09-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

Pixilation process, music video. Directed/produced/edited by Demi Pietchell. Music by FnB. Written by Demi Pietchell/Maxx Cozza/Kristin Lorch. Photography by Demi Pietchell/Maxx Cozza.

Categoría:

Música

50mm Prime Lenses on Flickr

2010-09-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

These are some of my favourite photographers on Flickr that use 50mm prime lenses in their work. Their work is inspirational and will give you an idea of the potential of 50mm prime lenses:

Chrissy White

December Sun

Idle a While

Milki.C

Tommy Oshima

Moaan

Carf

Thomas Shahan

Seven Important Social Media Trends For The Next Year

2010-09-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Social media changes from month to month. Trends come and go quicker than the seasons change. The latest trendy site could be next year’s Myspace and the hottest new site probably hasn’t even been conceived yet or is at the couple of guys in a garage stage. Having said that there are some trends that I think will continue over the coming year and with that in mind I wanted to share them here. Rather than focusing in on the finer detail I have compiled the list below in broader terms with all the main players represented. All in all it should be an exiting year ahead in social media and these should be seven of the main trends…

Group Buying

This really has been the huge power house of online commerce in the last year. Services like Groupon have come on the scene in a big way (Even Microsoft entered the market today) and the idea behind it really is so simple that it makes you think “Why didn’t I think of that”. Like all kick ass ideas this one is incredibly simple and instantly understandable and there is something in it for everybody. The idea is nothing new but giving it legs through things like apps and the ability to share deals with friends makes the whole sector spread faster. Expect this to continue in a big way over the next couple of years with copy cat services and the big players rolling in to more territories and rolling out better and more extensive deals.

Question And Answer Sites

These sites are hardly new and have been around for years but a new range of social features and bigger audiences have seen existing sites and some innovative start ups make this an interesting space once again. The big boys like Facebook are rolling this out as we speak to their huge user base and will be making it front and center on profiles as they look to tap in to the collective knowledge of the site. Another innovative start up that is making some serious noise within the tech community is Quora which should break out in to the main stream this coming year. Collective knowledge is incredibly powerful and social media is making that knowledge easier to spread.

Mobile

I was going to call this section location but I really do think the opportunities in this sector extend far beyond people checking in to bars for free coffee. There is no doubt that services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook places will continue to grow and be adopted by a larger audience but I don’t even think the most exciting technologies have even been invented in this space yet. The best is yet to come. The really exciting thing to consider is what can be achieved with mobile advertising and with all the big players including Google and Apple trying to crack this market the real innovation has yet to come. People all over the world are walking around with mini computers in their hands and you can basically let your imagination run wild with the endless possibilities that offers to the social media industry.

Facebook Credits

Facebook have been dipping their toes in to the credits system of micro payments over the last 6 months by giving users free credits to help them get used to the system as well as doing a massive deal with Zynga to add the credits to their games. I strongly believe Facebook credits will become one of the defining moments in Facebook’s history and be the cash cow that drives them forward towards IPO. With Facebook taking a cut of the credits and brands and businesses scrambling to use them there really will only be one winner in all of this. Expect Facebook credits to be ubiquitous across the web within 2 years as people use the trusted platform to by all sorts of things.

Branded Content

Brands and businesses are starting to realize that one of the main ways of engaging their customers and offering value is to create content that enriches the user’s social media experience rather than just blasting messages out at them. With users starting to get more and more aware of ads and adding their own filters the smart brands will create bespoke content that engages users in a meaningful way and offers value. Building that content in to Facebook and other social sites while all hooking back to their own website will be crucial with video playing a more and more important role in the branded content play.

Twitter Monetizing

They sure are taking their time on this one but they are very much at the stage Facebook were 18 months ago when they just went on a land grab of users and made sure their service was as stable as possible. Twitter have started rolling out some monetization features like promoted tweets but they haven’t really come in with the hard sell just yet. I’d expect Twitter to keep focusing on growth for the best part of the next year before switching on the revenue in a major way just like Facebook are at the moment.

Google To Keep On Failing

I don’t care how many people Google hire or companies they buy they are always going to struggle in the social media space. They don’t have it in their DNA as a company to be social as far as I can see and Facebook just keep pushing further and further ahead anyway. Google have had big launches with Wave and Buzz over the last year and even though they are giving Google Me a bigger push and dedicating more resources to it than ever I just don’t see it being a big success. Where I do see them having success is in the social games sector because I think their portal for this along with some of their acquisitions have been very shrewd. Expect another disappointing year for Google in the world of social media.

The Man Who Paints on Books

2010-09-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

4 Great & Inspiring Sites For Creative Writers To Visit

2010-08-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Writing.com

Since being founded in 2000, Writing.com has grown out to be the single largest writing community site on the web – and not only thanks to the convenient web address. Even after a relatively recent design overhaul, the website still looks a bit old school. At times, browsing the website can feel a bit stiff, but what it misses in UI, it makes up for in content.

Users can hone their pen by writing within a number of subgroups, embedded in the Interactive and Non-interactive categories. Non-interactive documents are one-document short-stories, poems, essays, interviews and (despite the article subject) even non-fiction. Sadly, a premium membership is required to use the multiple chapter book templates.

The non-interactive categories include interactive stories, campfire stories (spinning stories in a group of close friends), and even quizzes.

Writing.com is the largest, and quite possibly the most feature-rich writing community. Because of its size, evidently not all writing hosted on the writing site is quality material. But the rich interaction, and support for independent formats, makes it a worthy place to try your pen.

Storybird

Storybird is a rather interesting collaborative storytelling project, focused around picture books. Ordinarily, two or more people connect over the site, and write part of the picture book in turn, in a robin go round style. Additional people need to invited by the one who started the story, so the collaboration is aimed on friends and family – perhaps a parent with child.

If you want, though, you can write the entire story on your own.

The pictures are supplied by a small army of artists. Before you hit off, the site asks you to pick a work of art from the gallery, or browse by art themes. Starting off from your initial pick, the Storyboard story maker, depicted above, is filled with a jumble of other drawings by the same artist. You can drag these drawings on the canvas, and add text. Finished picture books can be shared online, made public on the site or (in the future) even printed!

Protagonize

Protagonize is a modern, aesthetic writing community that’s been around since 2008, and has received much acclaim. It’s entirely based around collaborative storytelling, and is perhaps the only one of these kinds of writing sites that actually feels good to use.

Central are the interactive stories, or so-called addventures. These stories consist of small chapters, after which a choice is presented to the reader. The reader can effectively direct the character through the adventure.

It’s by all means not a new concept, but the web has given it a whole new dimension. It’s not just directing the story anymore. You can start, or continue on a whole new branch of the story, and everyone can contribute!

Apart from the addventures, you can also start a collaborative linear story, where other writers are able to add new fragments, but can’t branch off. If you’re not all the community-animal, you can opt for solo stories as well, but believe me when I say you’re missing out on a lot of fun.

Bibliofaction

Like Protagonize, Bibliofaction is focused on one kind of storytelling, but it’s not interactive. Instead, they believe in the power of the short story, it being “perfect for this busy day and age”. The main goal of Bibliofaction is to re-promote creativity to a generation that has been lulled by fixed-format reality TV, or for that matter, any kind of entertainment.

Like that, Bibliofaction is becoming the modern home of the short story, a day where writers and readers meet, and share experiences. Another nice incentive are the short story competitions, which are held by Bibliofaction. Show off the true might of your pen, and you might even win a couple of attractive prizes.

What do you think of the above writing sites? Do you know any alternatives, that we shouldn’t have missed? By all means, let us know in the comments section below.

10 Incredibly Inspirational Moments on YouTube [VIDEOS]

2010-08-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

1. The Fall of the Berlin Wall

2. The Moon Landing

3. Tiananmen Square Protests

4. Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech

5. Professor Stephen Hawking's Zero-Gravity Flight

6. Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics

7. Wright Brothers

8. President-Elect Barack Obama's Victory Speech

9. Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile

10. Gandhi's Dandi Salt March

7UP: Love Story

2010-08-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

Vintage Internet Ads

2010-08-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

55DSL

2010-08-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

via Four Fifths Design

10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers

2010-08-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

1. Taking Your Talent To The Web

This detailed, intelligent guide is a how-to on transitioning from print to web by Jeffrey Zeldman. It was written for print designers whose clients want websites, print art directors who’d like to move into full–time web and interaction design, homepage creators who are ready to turn pro, and professionals who seek to deepen their web skills and understanding.

Even though it was written in 2001, much of the advice about transitioning from print to the web still holds true, and print designers and art directors are still scrambling to move into web and interaction design.

2. Web Designer’s Success Guide

Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive resource for starting your own freelance web design business. Written by Kevin Airgid, a recognized designer who runs an interactive studio, the book offers step-by-step instructions on topics like transitioning from full-time to self-employment, marketing your freelance business, managing projects and pricing yourself appropriately.

3. Designing For The Web

A Practical Guide To Designing For The Web aims to teach core web development techniques based on the principles of graphic design. Written by recognized designer and author Mark Boulton, it is a stand-out amongst web design books with the right balance between practical and inspirational.

It features five sections: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Color and Layout. The focus is on learning graphic design theory, which you can then easily apply to your own designs.

4. Design Your Imagination

Design Your Imagination is a complete and comprehensive guide on website design for those new to the industry, although it may also prove helpful for experienced web designers as well. Almost every aspect of website design is exemplified in this e-book, which aims to help beginners hone their creativity.

This book features more than 28 chapters that deal with a broad array of subjects, from the history of web design through web design principles, planning, and more, all illustrated with practical examples.

5. Time Management For Creative People

Compiled from a series of posts published on Business of Design Online by writer and creativity coach Mark McGuinness, this is an easily digestible guide to help professionals in the creative sector maximize their time and productivity.

Subtitled “Manage the Mundane – Create the Extraordinary,” this book is designed to help you maintain your creative focus while dealing with your other commitments. It includes plenty of practical time management tips tailored specifically for creative types.

6. Getting Real

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophy of 37signals, a developer of web-based software used by over one million people and businesses in 70 countries. With short, value-packed chapters, this book is an excellent guide for building web-based applications in a smarter, faster and easier way.

7. The Woork Handbook

The Woork Handbook is focused around web design and programming and primarily deals with CSS, HTML, Ajax, web programming, Mootools, Scriptaculous and other topics about web design.

It is an excellent reference book on a range of subjects all drawn from a wealth of excellent articles published on Woork.

8. A Practical Guide To Web Typography

Robert Bringhurst’s book, The Elements of Typographic Style, is on many a designer’s bookshelf, and is considered to be a classic in the industry. The renowned typographer Hermann Zapf calls the book “a must for everybody in the graphic arts, and especially for those just entering the field.”

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, this book has been structured as a walk through Bringhurst’s working principles, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS. Practicality is ever present with workarounds, alternatives and compromises for less able browsers.

9. Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

This e-book is a practical guide with advice on how to improve your websites, software, hardware, and consumer products, all with an eye on accessibility and avoiding future snags. Written by Shawn Henry, an outreach coordinator who promotes web accessibility for people with disabilities, it’s a straightforward and engaging resource.

The book covers the basics of improving accessibility in design projects with tips for comfortable interaction, having accessibility in a user-centered design process, examples of accessibility in user group profiles, personas, scenarios and much more.

10. Web Style Guide

An in-depth resource that offers information and instruction related to several areas of web development, including interface design, information architecture and usability.

The book explains established design principles and illustrates how they apply to projects whose primary concerns are information design and efficient search and navigation.

Beginner and advanced designers will find this to be one of the most practical guides available.

Logo Design: Cars, trucks and vans

2010-08-18T20:29:00.002-07:00

About the author

Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo Gabriel, a 25 year old designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobbie for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

Logo Design: Cars, trucks and vans

2010-08-18T20:29:00.001-07:00

About the author

Logo Design: Cars, trucks and vans

2010-08-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

About the author

Printed Books vs E-Books

2010-08-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Vector Pictogram

2010-08-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

}

Another Place

2010-08-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Another Place by Jonathan Wateridge is a series of seven large oil paintings, each 3m x 4m, depicting scenes from the production and narrative of a fictional American film that is centred on an unseen catastrophic event.

Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It)

2010-08-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It) [Lifehacker Top 10]: "

An unexamined brain is a tricky thing to carry around. You've got unintentional biases, marketing weaknesses, 'overclocking' issues, and all kinds of other mental bugs you may not know about. Here's a helpful list of the mind's weird ways.
Photo by Digital Shotgun.

10. Knowing You Can Get Smarter Makes You ... Smarter

There's a way of thinking that goes that, since you didn't grow up with genius parents or Einstein's instinctive reasoning, you're only going to be so intellectually able throughout your life. But consider that when a group of college students were given a course that studied the ability to grow smarter and improve performance, they performed notably better in their further college studies than those students who were never taught such thinking. You can easily convince yourself that rigorous study can be a time sink, or let yourself believe in the brain's ability to adapt, and then actually adapt your own gray matter. And it kind of applies to the rest of this list, we'd hope. Photo by Adam NFK Smith.

9. Your Eyes Skip Over Good, Cheap Menu Items and Fall for Menu Tricks

Why would a menu describe one breakfast item as 'Fresh-cut Yukon potato hash browns with vanilla griddle cakes and thick-cut slab bacon,' while the menu right under it is simply labeled as 'biscuits with sausage'? Because the restaurant makes more money off that first item than the second, and uses the filler adjectives, and its proximity to a non-descript item, to push it. Tastes are, of course, a very personal thing, but if you want to let your hunger make the decision rather than the menu designer, read up on the psychology of menu design and you'll have a bit more ammunition the next time you head out to eat.

8. Your Brain Can't Stop Spinning, Even When You're Asleep

It's not modern technology and consumer culture that gives us too many distractions and worries, but our brains. The human mind has had a tendency to spin off into unproductive cycles of worrying and wondering as long as humans have been around, but you can train yourself to focus on one thing, or no things, and get some actual relaxation and much-needed perspective. We put together our best take on the why and how of meditation in a guide for the rest of us. Photo by tess.

7. Online Stores are Just as Tricky as Retail

It's the suckers who head to the mall and pay the listed price for their shiny objects, right? Then again, online stores have just as many tricks up their sleeves. Blue backgrounds are used to convey the comfort and calm of an item, and your decision. Virtual catalogs are filled with high-price items they'll never sell, to make mid-range items more appealing, and vital text is placed to the right of pictures, while less appealing facts are on the left. When you're facing the power of consumer research, do just like a shopping trip: make a list, name a price, and stick to them both. (Original post)

6. You Give Priority to Experiences that Prove You're Right

Everybody you know is getting an Android phone! What's more, it seems like Droid phones have taken over your city's billboards, and absolutely nobody wants to keep their BlackBerry anymore. Or, you know, maybe that's not the case at all. When you or somebody else puts a container around your experiences ('Everybody's heading to Android'), your brain can do funny things to your experiences, tinting everything toward a certain conclusion while drastically minimizing, say, those 10 people in line at the coffee shop, all checking their BlackBerries. Put another way, 'If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' (Original post)

5. You Grow Attached to Items the More You Touch Them

Ever set out to 'Really, seriously clean out this room,' then find yourself, 20 minutes later, slowly sorting through photos and memorabilia, unable to toss a single thing? Erin Doland, editor of the Unclutterer blog, explained in a guest post why we can't help holding onto clutter. The more you touch things over a lifetime, but also in the last few minutes, the more attached you grow to those things. It's why every retailer worth their salt wants you to test, try, but most of all handle their sample goods, and it's why you find it hard to toss things that were once precious, but now totally useless. Have a friend or professional help you out by holding things up for you, rather than let your hands get all sentimental. Photo by Elsie esq..

4. You've Got a Finite Amount of Habit-Changing Willpower

It's a sad bit of truth, but spending all day at work being nice to people that you should blow up at can mean exploding on your friends or significant others after you punch out, or reverting right back to tossing your coat instead of hanging it up. Fast Company's Dan Heath explains how your mind processes temptations and habits in an entertaining video and in a explanatory write-up, and offers some simple advice—don't give yourself too many things to change-right-now-immediately-for-life all at once.

3. Your Deeper Desires Go Shopping With You

Do you really need another 16 GB thumb drive to move files around, or are you just angry with all the tech problems you had at work? Are you really in need of a garage sale panini press, or are you just late on grabbing lunch? It's not such a stretch. As the Moolanomy personal finance blog points out, the role of HALT feelings—Hunger, Anger, Tiredness, Loneliness—are no small thing in the impulsive decisions we make. Step back from that thing you're about to open your wallet for, consider your HALT levels, and maybe you don't end up a bit more weighed down with the unnecessary. Photo by Christian Haugen.

2. You Value New Numbers Based on Other, Unimportant Numbers

Why do infomercial hosts insist on telling you what 'you'd expect to pay' for any item they're about to price? Because the 'Anchoring Effect' works. A salesman tells you that the golf clubs you're looking at cost $1,200, you scoff, and suddenly he's noting that, this week, they're on sale for $599. Your brain remembers the first number, it sets the second number against it, and it looks like you'd be stupid not to pick up this deal—no matter how ridiculous the first price. Photo by bradleygee.

1. You Let Negative Feelings About Putting Off Tasks Prevent Actual Work

Could sending out that email really be so painful that you've put it off three days in a row? Likely not, but it certainly feels that way every time you try to dig in. It's what a Psychology Today post describes as the 'overwhelming wave' of negative emotions, building and seemingly towering over you when you try and address yourself to a task. Knowing that it's really this kind of meta-misery, though, you can perhaps acknowledge it, let it go, then move on. Photo by Steven C Wilson.

How Super Heroes & Super Villains Gain Their Powers

2010-08-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

How Super Heroes & Super Villains Gain Their Powers: "

Everything you need to know about fast food in one big picture

2010-08-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Everything you need to know about fast food in one big picture: "

A big infography with everything you need to know about fast food in one big picture… Burger does not seems good anymore…"

15 Great Geeky Web Comic Strips [PICS]

2010-08-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

15 Great Geeky Web Comic Strips

There are hundreds of great web comics out there, which means if you’re new to the format, diving in can be difficult. We’re narrowed the many options down to 15 sure-fire funnies that will give you a regular smile.

In the tradition of the social media web comics we recently brought you, here are 15 fabulous online cartoon sites and series that are perfect for geeks.

Have a giggle through our gallery below and be sure let us know any you like that didn’t make the list in the comments.

1. Player vs Player

Boasting a cast of great characters and some funny in-jokes that will have you coming back for more, this popular strip from Scott Kurtz centers on a fictional video game magazine and its employees.

2. The Brads

The two Brads from this cool web comic are based on real-life netizens Brad Colbow (who creates the comic) and Brad Dielman, both from Cleveland, OH. The strip's topics encompass web dev and design, Twitter, and various iProducts, as well as a dash of current affairs.

3. Penny Arcade

Dating back to 1998, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahuliks' Penny Arcade is practically a web comic institution and must-read stuff for anyone into video game culture.

4. Dog House Diaries

The story goes that Ray, Will and Raf started a web comic as an alternative to becoming super heroes. Although not strictly limited to geek topics, there's more than enough geekery to hold your interest.

5. Hijinks Ensue

Joel Watson's 'geek comic' is about 'geeking for the sake of geekery' and will elicit more than a few knowing smiles.

6. xkcd

Romance, sarcasm, math and language are the main topics covered by ex-NASA employee Randall Munroe. Check it out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday -- you won't be disappointed.

7. Joy of Tech

Nitrozac and Snaggy's brilliantly illustrated and very funny Joy of Tech is essential reading as far as the online tech and geek world goes.

8. Dork Tower

Dork Tower is said to be 'for anybody who's ever been burned being an early adapter; who's made more Twitter tweets than actual Twitter followers; for people who know the significance of '42;' who have bookmarked more than one area of thinkgeek.com.'

Is this you? Then hit up that subscribe button, pronto!

9. Ctrl+Alt+Del

Tim Buckley's gaming-themed CAD has evolved since its 2002 debut from standalone strips to a storyline where readers get to vote on plot development via e-mail. If you're not a reader, then it's well worth a catch-up session to get you up to speed with Ethan & Co.

10. Cyanide & Happiness

Controversial comic Cyanide & Happiness offers a daily slice of seriously dark humor and is not recommended for anyone who is easily offended.

11. Little Gamers

Little Gamers from Christian Fundin and Pontus Madsen offers a semi-autobiographical look at a pair of gamers and their friends, presented alongside regular blog posts (or 'rants') about every day life.

12. User-Friendly

J.D. Frazer's inspiration for User-Friendly is said to come from years of working in I.T. and has chronicled the events at an ISP since 1997.

13. PC Weenies

Another comic dating from the late Nineties, PC Weenies from Krishna M. Sadasivam follows serial job hopper Bob Weiner and family through their colorful, cartoon life.

14. ExtraLife

If you can't get enough of Scott Johnson's excellent illustrations backed up by some excellent humor, then there's always his podcast to check out too.

15. The Oatmeal

As fans will know, the Oatmeal's comics cover wider pop culture. They offer up illustrations as diverse as 'Six Reasons to Ride a Polar Bear to Work' and 'How to Name a Volcano.' Since Matthew Inman regularly touches on geeky topics, his strip can happily have a place on our list.

30 New Free High-Quality Fonts

2010-08-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

30 New Free High-Quality Fonts: "

Piron

Piron is a highly legible typeface, very well suited to any display or text usage: Web, print (especially magazines), brochures, logos, posters, flyers, motion graphics. The font comes in two weights: regular and oblique. Designed by Alexander Nedelev and Veronika Slavova. Available for free and commercial use, and available in OpenType format.

Nobile
The font is designed to work on digital screens and handheld devices without losing the distinctive look usually found in fonts designed for print. The aim here was to design a font that would function well, have good legibility on screen yet also look good — not only at larger display sizes but also right down to small text sizes. The font is available in the Google Font Directory and was released under the Open Font License. The family comes in four weights (regular, italic, bold and bold italic).

Mr Jones Book and Mr Jones Book Italic (Registration required)
Mr Jones was originally conceived as a family for print design, consisting of a sans and a headline. The lowercase forms are wide for legibility at small sizes, while the caps are narrower to save space and keep an even balance of negative space when used in body copy. The overall widths of certain characters have been adjusted to almost extremes to keep an even balance of white space around each letter. The font works well in body copy but will need decreased tracking in larger settings. It comes with proportional, old-style and tabular figures and discretionary ligatures.

Pigiarniq Inuktitut (Download link)
An oldie but a goodie. Heard of Nunavut? A small territory in Canada with one of the lowest population rates of the world? Probably not. Only 0.01 people live there per square kilometer, mostly Inuit. The citizens of Nunavut speak four languages: French, English, Innuinaqtun and Inuktitut. A few years ago, the government of the region decided to design a new typeface to enable its 28,000 citizens to use all four languages in a uniform manner. The result was a beautiful, rich and professional free sans-serif. The family includes bold, heavy, italic, light and regular weights, all available for free use.

St Marie
St Marie is a rich type family designed for online applications and print. This release is a preview of the upcoming family, and the designer has released two weights (St Marie Thin and St Marie Thin Web) for free. The download package contains the weights in the formats OTF, WOFF, EOT and SVG, as well as a @font-face kit. See this example of St Marie Thin Web (HTML-page).

Code: Free Font
This sturdy yet playful little font family can be applied to different kinds of graphic design work: Web, print, motion graphics, t-shirts, posters, logotypes. The font contains 192 characters and two weights (regular and bold) and is available in OTF for PC or Mac.

VAL Stencil
A quite distinctive, memorable font with two variations: lowercase letters bend to the left and uppercase letters bend to the right. This unique font will give your headlines originality and dynamism. Designed by Svetoslav Simov of Fontfabric, available in OTF.

akaDora (For personal use only)
akaDora is a fairly simple script font with wide character support. Designed by James Daniel Milligan.

Arcus and Arcus Italic (Registration required)
Arcus is a geometrically constructed font with rounded curves. The font contains a wide range of alternative signs, small capitals, lining and old-style numerals, fractions, superiors, inferiors, ligatures and discretionary ligatures; all this is within the frame of OpenType functions. The type family was designed for headlines, logotypes and corporate identities, and it is not a good fit for long text. Available for free and commercial use.

Crimson Text
Open that old tome from the bookshelf over the fireplace, stick your nose in its pages and smell the ink, the glue and the immortality of the printed words. That is what Crimson Text is meant to be like. The font is released under the Open Font License.

Acid (Free for personal use only)
Acid was designed by Stephan Baum specifically to be used in logotypes and body copy. The form of glyphs is similar to the design classic B42 by Marcel Breuer (Bauhaus) and has a very geometric character. The font contains 103 glyphs, comes in six weights (regular, regular italic, medium, medium italic, bold and bold italic) and is in the process of being developed. Released under Creative Commons.

Real Origami (Free for personal use only) (PDF specimen)
The designers based this font on an origami alphabet by Japanese artist Taichiro Hasegawa. A very original, distinctive and playful font.

Quadranta
According to its creator, this design was started with quadrant arcs. Quadranta is a display font that would fit logo designs and playful headlines. Available for personal and commercial use. Designed by Darim Kim using FontStruct.

Balonez Fantasia
Yet another distinctive, playful font with rounded glyphs. This would be great fit for brochures, magazine and t-shirts. Designed by Thiago Calza. Freely available for personal and commercial work. Available are two weights in TrueType.

Juice
Juice is a modern, dynamic sans-serif type family. The font contains six weights (light, light italic, regular, italic, bold and bold italic), each containing 161 glyphs. The font is available in TrueType format. Designed by Dhany Arliyanti.

Geomancy Typeface (Free for personal use only)
Geomancy is a chunky, retro geometric font that hearkens to French and American art deco. With some letterforms taken directly from posters and ephemera of the period, the all-uppercase set comes with many alternates and ligatures, so you can give a little of that varied, hand-painted feel to your work. Available in two weights: hairline and extra bold.

Prociono
Prociono is an Esperanto word meaning either the star Procyon or the animal species known as the raccoon. It is a roman typeface with blackletter elements. The release includes both OTF and TTF. Source files are available as well.

Edelsans (Free for personal use only)
Edelsans was designed as a noble geometric font for the screen, with few corners and mostly rounded glyphs. The typeface is not completely finished but is free for non-commercial use.

Neu Eichmass
Neu Eichmass (German for New Etalon) is a typeface based on the weight 100 grams. The name is a reference to International Prototype kilogram, as a base unit of mass in the International System of Units. The typeface has a modern, cold, measured feel to it, reflecting its origin (its metal “parents”). It is a sans-serif font and takes inspiration from famous grotesques and stenciled types associated with marketplaces and street traders. Further inspiration comes from 1920s and ’30s constructivism. The font can be easily stenciled and is appropriate for different uses (street art, retail, independent shops, street markets). It comes in a headline font and a medium point body text suitable for print. Designed by Ivan Khmelevsky.

Ingleby Font
A beautiful, carefully crafted serif font, with signs of the fine antiqua tradition. Designed by David Engelby, the font comes in four weights: regular, italic, bold and bold italic.

Ibarra Real
Ibarra Real is a public domain font of Ibero-American character. Created in 2005, Ibarra Real is an elegant design, mixing tradition and modernity; a genuine badge of the particular Spanish culture that was created by Joaquín Ibarra in 1780. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Notice 1: Packaging Symbols (Download)
A symbols font with various weather, packaging and usage symbols.

Notice 2: Navigation symbols (Download)
Yet another symbols font, this one containing symbols for public transit, car and flight navigation.

Notice 3: Cloth Symbols (Download)
This symbols font contains pictograms for the clothing industry. The font is available in OpenType and was designed by the Russian studio Otlab.

Glyphyx (Registration required)
This set of two free fonts features symbols and icons for use in data visualization. Glyphyx One includes symbols related to transportation, while Glyphyx Two has symbols related to leisure activities. Available in OpenType and TrueType formats for Windows and Mac.

Free Symbol Signs Collection
Here is a collection of 50 common symbols for signage, professional designed. The symbols are free for use and are available in OpenType format. All were designed by Sander Baumann, set to the proportions of a regular typeface, so you no longer need to copy and paste such icons into your designs.

Rally Character Set (Specimen | Preview | Download)
Lukyan Turetsky released this character set of car rally symbols. The font contains standard signs of control in rallies, rally-related infographic icons, blanks for logos and other graphics, symbols for legends and other symbols and marks. In OpenType and available for free.

Oblik Serif Bold (Registration required)
Oblik Serif Bold is a sophisticated contemporary font with vivid and playful glyphs. The font could be a great fit for headlines and posters but is hardly usable for long body text. The font has wide character support and is available for free and commercial use. Comes in OpenType format.

Paranoid
Paranoid is a yet another experimental font, collaboratively designed by Simon Carrasco, John Stuart and Kevin Yeun Kit Lo. Paranoid is a purely geometric display face, conceived as a contribution to (and subtle critique of) the still growing trend of bold, geometric and counterless typography. It is equally suited to bringing back the joy of ’80s dance parties or expressing the ominous foreboding of inevitable nuclear disaster. A flexible face in spite of its limited form. Please contact the designers before using this font commercially.

01.BASE
This free font is bold and experimental. It would come handy for bold statements on t-shirts and posters. The font was designed by Fabian De Lange and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.

Last Click

Typedia
Typedia is a community website dedicated to classifying typefaces and educating people about typefaces. Think of it as a cross between IMDB and Wikipedia, except for type. Anyone can join, add or edit pages for typefaces and the people behind them.

Venice Superior Apartments in California by Kanner Architects

2010-08-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Venice Superior Apartments in California by Kanner Architects: "

The Venice Superior Apartments by Kanner Architects are located on Venice Boulevard in California. The vibrant colors and exciting design of these apartments is such a perfect reflection of the Venice vibe!

The complex is 36,000 square feet, consisting of 38 apartments and three stories. The balconies have great south-facing sunlight and a nice view of the street to interact with the festivities and foot traffic below. Mostly one-bedrooms, the apartments are loft-like inside with linear kitchens, high ceilings and clerestory windows.

Exterior materials such as corrugated metal, smooth plaster and dark Trespa underscore the clean lines of the architectural design. Tall green screens provide a vertical landscape element to the urban setting. To conserve water usage, grounds will be xeriscaped around hardscaping also designed by Kanner Architects.

Hague DSLR Motion Cam for the Canon 5D & 7D

2010-08-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Hague DSLR Motion Cam for the Canon 5D & 7D: "

* Specifically designed for Canon 5D, 7D plus similar DSLRs for HD Movie Mode

* Smooth camera movement

* Manual fine trim on both axes

* Eliminates camera shake * Quick & simple to set up

Suitable for all DSLR cameras and camcorders weighing between 0.8kg. – 2kg.

DMC – Hague DSLR Motion Cam £127.62 ex vat £149.95 inc vat. Available now at www.cameragrip.co.uk

The DSLR phenomenon has grown at an extraordinary rate recently as more cameramen look to take advantage of the high quality HD movie footage these cameras can capture. Hague Camera Supports have now designed a stabilizer specifically for this range of cameras which will allow the user to further enhance the quality of their productions.

The New Hague DSLR Motion-Cam is a handheld camera stabilizing system that has been specifically designed for DSLR cameras such as the Canon 5D and similar. These stills cameras have become extremely popular as alternatives to camcorders due to the high quality recording ability when used in HD Movie Mode, but unfortunately they are difficult to hold, especially when you require moving camera shots. With the DSLR Motion-Cam you can create super smooth “Steadicam type” shots.

The new DSLR Motion-Cam has been designed to cope with different lenses being used, and the fact that on these camera’s the tripod mounting hole is never in the centre of balance, which can make them difficult to balance on some stabilizers. On the new DSLR Motion-Cam Hague have increased the range of movement forward & back, plus extra sideways movement for balance correction.

The crucial part of any stabilizer is the gimble, as it is essential that the handle is totally free moving. The Hague DSLR Motion-Cam’s gimble has a highly polished ball with a nylon socket, plus a radial ball bearing handle ensuring super free movement. This makes it far superior and more effective than any other “ball type” stabilizer on the market.

The stabilizer is supplied with a selection of counterbalance weights to support cameras up to 2kg. Once balanced, forward & back fine trim is achieved by manually moving the camera plate forward or back, and sideways fine trim achieved by hinging the weights on the counterbalance plate from side to side.

Suitable for DSLR cameras and handheld camcorders between 0.8kg – 2kg.

Approx size: – Length 20cm. Width 10cm. Height 30cm. Weight: – 0.75kg. plus counterbalance weights. Colour Black.

Out of the Bachs

2010-08-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Out of the Bachs: "

Cuban Film Posters by Eduardo Muñoz Bachs (1937 – 2001):

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1975 poster, El llamado de la selva

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1976 poster, Zorro

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1972 poster, El caballero inexistente

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1975 poster, Mercedes Sosa

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1976 poster, Trópico

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1976 poster, La Patagonia rebelde

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1972 poster, Estación Bielorrusia

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1973 poster, Monólogo

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1976 poster, El ladrón que vino a cenar

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1972 poster, Juegos tramposos de amor

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1972 poster, La virgen y el gitano

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1978 poseter, Las manos

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1973 poster, Petulia

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1975 poster, Rosa Blanca

***

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1969 poster, El Gallo de Oro (The Golden Rooster)

see the original post on Cuban Posters

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1969 poster for the ICAIC’s Cine Movil (Mobile Cinema)

see the original post on Cuban Posters

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1968 poster, Los Vengadores Incapturables

see the original post on Cuban Posters

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1969 poster, El Hijo Prodigo

see the original post on Cuban Posters

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1967 poster, El Azote de Dios (God’s Whip or Bicz Bozy)

see the original post on Cuban Posters

***

And an image — not Bachs’ — which I am constitutionally unable to resist posting:

Alfredo Rostgaard, Nixon fold-out poster

Graffiti GIFs by INKIE & INSA

2010-08-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Graffiti GIFs by INKIE & INSA: "

Graffiti GIFs, lettering by INKIE and backgrounds by INSA.

found at dvdp

The origins of abc

2010-08-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

The origins of abc: "

Where does our alphabet come from?

We see it every day on signs, billboards, packaging, in books and magazines; in fact, you are looking at it now — the Latin or Roman alphabet, the world’s most prolific, most widespread abc. Typography is a relatively recent invention, but to unearth the origins of alphabets, we will need to travel much farther back in time, to an era contemporaneous with the emergence of (agricultural) civilisation itself.

Robert Bringhurst wrote that writing is the solid form of language, the precipitate.[1] But writing is also much more than that, and its origins, its evolution, and the way it is now woven into the fabric of civilisations makes it a truly wonderful story. That story spans some 5,000 years. We’ll travel vast distances, meet an emperor, a clever Yorkshireman, a Phoenician princess by the name of Jezebel, and the ‘purple people’; we’ll march across deserts and fertile plains, and sail across oceans. We will begin where civilisation began, meander through the Middle Ages, race through the Renaissance, and in doing so discover where our alphabet originated, how and why it evolved, and why, for example, an A looks, well, like an A.

SUMER

Cuneiform

The Sumerians began to experiment with writing at the close of the fourth millennium BC, in Mesopotamia between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (roughly modern-day Iraq). Like most writing systems, Cuneiform, initially scratched — later impressed by a stylus — into soft clay, started out as a series of pictograms — pictures representing words. The word for bird, for example, existed at first as a simple pictorial representation of a bird. The figure below demonstrates this process of abstraction or rationalization. In time, the pictures of things came to represent, not only things but, sounds. It is clear that a written language with signs that represent sounds requires fewer characters than a language in which a sign stands for a thing or an idea. We use 26 letters (and the Romans used only 23 to create some of the most outstanding literature the world has ever known) while the Chinese, for example, have to learn thousands of characters to express themselves. Even early cuneiform comprised some 1,500 pictograms. A language in which a picture or grapheme represents a thing or an idea has its advantages: people may speak any language while the written form stays the same. So a Chinese from the border with Korea can speak a totally different dialect than his compatriot in Beijing, who would not understand him when he speaks, but can read what he writes.

1.1 The pictographic origin of Cuneiform.

Figure 1.2 is an example of Proto-Cuneiform, one of the earliest examples of writing know to us. It’s a form of Cuneiform that exists between the earliest purely pictographic forms and the later more abstract forms. Moreover, as there was no fixed or standard writing direction, the signs were often rotated to conform to the direction of writing employed — a bird is still a bird through 360 degrees of rotation.

1.2 Proto-Cuneiform. Subject: beer rations.

While the Sumerian language ceased to be spoken after about 2000 BC, the influence of its written form (Cuneiform) is still felt today. The Sumerian language was mostly replaced by the language of their Akkadian conquerors who did, however, adopt the Cuneiform signs of the Sumerians. This form of writing was used until the 5th century AD. Figure 1.3, shows the Cyrus Cylinder, recounts the fall of Babylon in 539 BC (Daniel 5 in the Old Testament) to the Persians led by king Cyrus.

1.3 Cyrus Cylinder (Akkadian cuneiform), 6th century BC. On display: Room 55, British Museum.
© Trustees of the British Museum

EGYPT

The writing of the gods

The Egyptians developed a similar system of pictograms, one many of us are familiar with. Hieroglyphic inscriptions (literally sacred carving), like Cuneiform started out as pictograms, but later those same pictures were also used to represent speech sounds. Looking at the different forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs we can better understand how those pictures of things representing words became more and more abstract. While you might be familiar with the form of Egyptian hieroglyphs carved into stone (lapidary inscriptions), they do, however, come in several forms or styles — all influenced by the medium upon which they are written, the purpose for which they are written, and their intended audience.

2.1 Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The Egyptian pictographs evolved into a cursive style called hieratic that was freer, written more rapidly and contained numerous ligatures.

2.2 Hieratic script, 12th Dynasty.

A yet later form is demotic, which represents the most abstract form of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Although written mostly in ink on papyrus, the most famous example is to be found on the granite Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone (196 BC), found by scholars who had travelled to Egypt with Napoleon in 1799, is important because it was the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is written in two languages, and three scripts: two forms of Egyptian (hieroglyphic & demotic), with a Greek translation.

2.3 Demotic script, 3rd century BC.

The story of the alphabet continues in Egypt during the second millennium BC, but the Egyptians are not its authors.

THE FIRST ALPHABETS

Wadi el-Hol

Until the discovery of two inscriptions (graffiti) in Wadi el-Hol, Egypt, in 1999, it was generally held that the beginnings of alphabetic scripts could be traced to around 1600 to 1500 BC, to the Phoenicians, a people of traders who lived on the coast of today’s Lebanon and Israel. However, the 1999 discovery reveals that, rather than the early Semitic alphabet being developed in their homeland of Syria-Palestine, it was instead developed by the Semitic-speaking people then living in Egypt. This strengthens the hypothesis there must have been ties between Egyptian scripts and their influence on those early Semitic or proto-Sinaitic alphabets. Moreover, it pushes back the origin of the alphabet to between 1900 and 1800 BC.

In the photograph of Inscription 1 from Wadi el-Hol below, the sign highlighted in red (hover over to see) is of an Ox head (ʼaleph) — the origins of the Latin A, and a letter with a long history — early Sumerian cuneiform also uses the Ox as a sign.

3.1 Inscription 1 from Wadi el-Hol. Written right to left. Hover over the image to see outlines and highlights.

By about 1600 BC in the region between the two dominant writing systems of the time, Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, we see the emergence of other more systematised alphabets like ugaritic script (14th century BC) that developed in what is today Syria. The ugaritic script employs 30 simplified cuneiform signs. And thus begins the story of the alphabet.

3.2 Abecedary from Ugarit.

PROTO SANAITIC

At the same time as the short-lived ugaritic script was being developed (an alphabet adapted from Cuneiform), another alphabetic system emerged that was influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs. This proto-Sinaitic alphabet of consonants was pictographic, yet each pictograph represents a sound rather than a thing or idea. It is this proto-Sinaitic alphabet that really marks the starting point, the root of numerous modern-day alphabets, from Arabic and Hebrew to Greek and Latin.

4.1 Proto Sinaitic script, c. 1500 BC.

Note the difference between the signs of Inscription 1 from Wadi el-Hol (figure 3.1), and those of the proto-Sinaitic script (figure 4.1). The latter are just a little more abstract. Note especially A (aleph), which has a simplified ductus (fewer strokes). Note too the simplified stick figure, representing a person at prayer. Cut off the torso and the head, rotate what’s left, and you will see in it the origins of the Latin E:

4.2 The evolution of E (see also figure 4.1 above).

But how and why did this alphabet of pictographs evolve into a series of abstract symbols? Mark-Alain Ouaknin, in Mysteries of the Alphabet suggests that the answer is to be found in the transition from polytheism to monotheism:

The second of the Ten Commandments states: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath…’ This prohibition on the image forced the Semites, who still wrote their language in a pictographic writing, to rid themselves of images.

I’m not convinced. Both Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs evolved from pictographs into more abstract signs. Both civilisations remained polytheistic throughout those transitions. Therefore, Monotheism and the prohibition on graven images cannot, I think, be responsible for the evolution of the proto-Sinaitic pictographic alphabet into proto-Hebraic and proto-Phoenician (or proto-Canaanite). Perhaps, in fact, the reverse is true: that the use of abstract letters may have induced the idea of an abstract God who forbade graven images — but permitted their representation as abstract signs.

THE PHOENICIANS

The Purple People

Jezebel, of Old Testament infamy (1 Kings) was a Phoenician princess.

While the invention of writing itself could never have progressed without a highly structured and even authoritarian state to back it up, the coming of the modern alphabet is a completely different story. Written in Cuneiform we have the wonderful adventures of Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu, but most of the clay-tablets from the agricultural city-states are more mundane: lists, taxation, and commercial transactions.

6.1 Phoenician inscription, late 11th century BC.

The Phoenician alphabet was probably developed for quick and easy to read notes that a merchant would make on his trips along the ports of the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians are now best-known for their terrible god Baal, to whom children were sacrificed in an enormous cast iron stove. But this story is a 19th century invention, as is the sensual image of the Phoenicians in Flaubert’s Salammbô. The Phoenicians were traders who created a loose empire of city-states along the coasts they visited: Africa, Spain and Sicily. Carthage is probably the best known of these Phoenician colonies. They owed their initial rise to a simple snail that can still be found on the coast of Lebanon and that, left rotting in the sun, could be used to make purple dye — thus the Greek-coined Phoenician or purple people, from phoiniki, meaning purple or crimson.

To this day, not all alphabets have letters to represent vowels. Hebrew and Arabic are the best known examples.

This simple and ingenious modern alphabet of consonants from which the last vestiges of pictograms had been erased, is indeed a merchant’s instrument: easy to learn, to write and to adapt. And adapted it was by cultures that we are generally much more familiar with: the Greek and Roman societies that form the base of modern Western civilisation and the lesser-known Tuscans.

6.2 Phoenician alphabet

First, Moloch, horrid King besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fire
To his grim idol. — from Milton’s Paradise Lost.

GREEK

Enter the vowel

Although the earliest extant Greek inscriptions date back to the 8th century BC — the first Olympic games were held in 776 BC — many scholars think that the Greeks adopted the West Semitic Script (the Phoenician consonant alphabet) three centuries earlier. (note: Naveh, Millard, McCarter, and Cross concur. See Naveh, pp. 185-6). For a long time (at least until the widespread adoption of Ionian script in the fourth century BC), the Greek scripts followed no fixed direction, being written left to right, right to left, and in horizontal boustrophedon. (Braille is set boustrophedonically.)

Boustrophedon from Greek βουστροφηδόν “ox-turning”—that is, turning like oxen in ploughing, is a type of bi-directional text. Rather than going from left to right as in modernEnglish, or right to left as in Hebrew and Arabic, alternate lines must be read in opposite directions.CSS by @simurai. See code.

7.1 Greek Papyrus of Artemisia, 3rd century BC. See Thompson, p. 119.

In Greek scripts we witness the jettisoning of pictographic forms in favour of abstract, linear forms. Based on comparisons of late Phoenician alphabets and archaic Greek scripts (and Greek tradition; e.g. Herodotus) it appears that the Greeks simply adopted most of the Phoenician signs but added the vowels that the Phoenicians had left out.

7.2 Greek inscription from Thera, 8th century BC.

ETRUSCAN

The Etruscans came to Italy from western Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). From about 750 BC, the Greeks, as far north as Naples, were settling in Italy. Finley writes about their passionate addiction to everything Greek — except for the Greek’s gloomy take on the afterlife and its dreadful underworld. They were among the first imitators of Greek vases which they often decorated with phoney Greek inscriptions.

One of the last known speakers of the Etruscan language was the learned emperor Claudius who wrote a dictionary now lost. To this day no-one has deciphered the Etruscan language, yet in classical times it was known for its great literature, unfortunately none of which has survived.

Not only did the Etruscans adopt much of the art and religious rites of the Greeks, but, most importantly for our story, they adopted the Greek alphabet. Rome may not have been an Etruscan town but the Roman kings were Etruscans. After the disastrous attack on the oldest Greek colony Cumae (beautifully situated on a high hill on the coast, ten miles north of Naples) in 524 BC, and Rome’s subsequent expulsion of the Etruscan king, Tarquinius Superbus their civilisation slowly waned. Within a few centuries the Roman Republic became the master of Italy and absorbed the Etruscans completely.

8.1 Abecedary from Marsiliana, Etruria, ca. 700 BC.

However, their alphabet survived and prospered as it spread over the world with the expansion of the world’s mistress, the mighty Roman Empire.

LATIN

Musical chairs & the tale of Z

The Latin alphabet that we still use today was created by the Etruscans and the Romans from the Greek. It had only 23 letters: the J, U and W were missing. The J was represented by the I, the U was written as V and there was no need for a W. The story of the Z is particularly interesting.

The new letter G (based on C) was added; Z was borrowed from the Greek, then dropped as Latin had no need for it. G took its place in the line-up, until a little later when the Romans decided they needed the Z (when Greek literature became the vogue and they started to introduce many Greek words), they re-introduced it, but since its spot had be taken by G, it was sent to the back of the alphabet, where it remains to this day.

9.1 Detail from Trajan inscription, ca. 114 AD.

RUSTIC CAPITALS

From the square Roman capitals (preserved on the plinth of Trajan’s Column (114 AD), developed the freer-form and slightly more condensed Rustic capitals.

10.1 Rustic Capitals, ca. 4th century.

Uncial & Half Uncial

The ‘lowercase’ makes its entrance

Most writing was of course done on papyrus and on walls, informal and quick. The cursive was the letter that Martialis read aloud to his friends when he recited his poems at night. This was a letterform that could be jotted down quickly with a reed pen dipped in ink. The ‘old’ cursive is difficult to read but the ‘new’, that evolved from the 4th century onwards resembles our own writing. It spawned the much later Carolingian minuscule letter — the Adam & Eve of all printing types used today. The second great invention, the codex, came at the same time. While the Romans used scrolls made of papyrus, in the fourth century somebody had the idea to cut parchment into oblong pieces and sew them together — thus creating the first random-accessible book. Together with the eminently readable script this must be considered one of the greatest inventions of all time.

11.1 Uncial, France, 7th century.

11.2 Left: Insular, England, 8th century. Right: Visigothic, Spain, France, 9th century.

In France, Merovingian; Visigothic in the Iberian peninsula (figure 11.2); the Beneventan (figure 11.3) in Southern Italy (which shows features of the Half-Uncial, and late Roman Cursive; and in England and Ireland, the Insular forms (figure 11.2).

11.3 Beneventan script, ca. 1100.

Carolingian to Gothic

An Emperor and a Yorkshireman

The anonymous author of Carmen de carolo Magno refers to Charlemagne as ‘the venerable head of Europe’ and ‘the father of Europe.’ Though that’s something of an exaggeration, Charlemagne’s influence was substantial and long-lasting, and he succeeded in uniting most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire. A man obsessed with bringing order to his expanding kingdom, he sought reform in just about every sphere. For our story his most important reform concerns his efforts to reform writing. Though efforts were already under way, he gave the job to a Yorkshireman, Alcuin of York. Alcuin strove for clarity and uniformity. These efforts, with the backing of Charlemagne and the Church, brought about the Carolingian minuscule (or Carolingian script).

A beautiful, legible book hand; long ascenders and descenders, letting in light between the lines, open and round letters with few ligatures and variant letterforms. The early Carolingian scripts share some features with the Roman Half-Uncial (the club shape ‘head serifs’ on the ascenders of b, d, h, and l, by the 11th century these were replaced by triangular serifs, similar to those we see in numerous roman typefaces of the incunabula (latter half of the 15th century). The early, rounder a was dropped in favour of one similar to that found in early Roman Uncials. In manuscripts penned in this hand, it is not uncommon to see the r with a descender.

With Charlemagne and the Church behind it, the Carolingian script quickly spread across Europe, deposing a multitude of regional scripts on its way. By the second half of the tenth century, Carolingian script had reached England, replacing late forms of the Insular script; in Spain it replaced Visigothic.

That the open forms of the Carolingian script were replaced, from the 12th century, by the darker, more condensed, angular, ligature-ridden, closed forms of the Gothic scripts is, as Delorez writes, one of the mysteries of history.

The causes of the transformation of Carolingian script into Pregothic, or the ‘Gothicizing’ of Carolingian script, have been debated for a long time and the discussion has virtually come to an end without any one explanation gaining general acceptance. — Derolez, p.68

Perhaps a partial explanation is to be found in the new Gothic aesthetic that was sweeping Europe.

12.1 Left: Late Carolingian script, between 1033 & 1053. Centre: Pregothic script, mid-twelfth century. Right: Gothic script (Textualis Formata), between 1304 & 1321.

Of course it was the Gothic script in the form of the formal book hand, Textualis (more precisely, Textualis Formata) that would later become the model for the typeface used to set Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible (ca. 1455).

12.2 Left: Tironian et in this detail from a 14th century manuscript, written in Textualis Formata. The first example in the first line: Arbres et fleurs et ce que orne. Right: Detail from Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, ca. 1455. Note the tironian et on the last line.

From the beginning of the 12th century the tironian ‘et’ (still used in Irish to this day) began to replace the et ligature, or ampersand. It wouldn’t make a come back until the later Humanist scripts, models for the first roman typefaces.

Roman

Enter typography

The typographical medium could hardly hold more of the Italian Renaissance, the intense admiration for the classical precedent in the capitals, the humanists’ love of clarity and grace in the small letters. — Harry Carter, p.71 (on Jenson’s roman type).

Printing and 15th century humanism are closely related, and since the humanist philosophers and philologists (literally ‘lovers of words’, meaning they loved classical Latin) reintroduced classical Latin as the lingua franca of their class, it is no wonder that the first roman alphabets of the earliest printers only used the 23 letters of the classical era. The J was added later. The first J in print was probably made in Italy, early in the 16th century; the written form was first used in the Middle Ages, in France and the Netherlands. The W is a letter not known to the Latins but used often in the vernacular languages of the west. Well into the 17th century it was set in type as VV, but you will also find two Vs that have been cut down and joined to form a W.

13.1 Left: Early roman of Sweynheim & Pannartz, Rome, 1469. Right: Jenson, Venice, 1472.

We stand in the 17th century, some 5,000 years after the Sumerians set stylus to clay. We now have a dual alphabet of 26 letters, uppercase and lowercase forms. There is hardly a straight line to be seen in the history of the alphabet. No Darwinian progress there, no survival of the fittest. Many of the aforementioned scripts developed side-by-side, some disappeared and reappeared, some can be shown to be the product of the mind of one man like Alcuin of York. And we do not know what would have happened if Hannibal had marched straight to Rome after winning the battle of Cannae instead of loitering.

Putting the pieces together

Writing and alphabets evolve for a number of reasons. We can explain the transition from pictograms to the linear, more abstract forms in terms of rationalization. Moreover, regional and national variations develop, their success, in part at least, owed to political and geo-political factors: A victorious invader brings its culture, including its language, both spoken and written. Context is also an important factor: text cut in stone contemplating the deeds of emperors is something different than an advertisement for a brothel scratched on a wall in Pompeii. The substrate, or writing material (whether clay, stone, wax tablets, wood, metal, papyrus, parchment, or vellum; and the writing implement, a reed, chisel, quill, broad nib pen — they all affect the form the alphabet takes. The speed of the hand is another factor. As an interesting exercise, write the capital alphabet,

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

slowly and deliberately — in your best hand. Now write it again at twice the speed. Finally, write it as quickly as you possibly can. The rapid hand introduces a reduced ductus (fewer strokes), and fewer pen-lifts, with those neat capital letters of the first round turning into something freer, more cursive. You can then further evolve your letterforms by using the most rapidly written alphabet, and begin to rationalise it, adjusting the proportions, altering the shading (contrast), and the result is an entirely a new hand.

14.1. A brief history of A.

I have focused on writing systems that contributed to the later development of the Latin alphabet, but of course the story of the written word is broader and more profound. I have not mentioned writing systems that developed independently (e.g. Chinese and Japanese), and other scripts that do owe a debt to the proto-Sinaitic and Phoenician alphabets, like Hebrew and Arabic. The evolution of writing cannot be fully appreciated (comprehended, even) in isolation. Its stories are woven deep into the fabric of histories and civilisations, its paths steered by politics, religion, economics, and by innumerable other factors. So, the next time you set pen to paper, or tap keys on your keyboard, take a moment to reflect on the origins of these simple signs, signs that furnish us with incredible power — the power to describe all things.

Credits
Collage illustration by Able Parris.
Desktop wallpaper versions of Able’s Ox illustration.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr. Paul Dijstelberge for his innumerable corrections, suggestions, enthusiasm, good humour, and learning.
Recommended reading
If you don’t have time to read everything in the bibliography, then a fine & entertaining introduction to this topic is Marc-Alain Ouaknin’s Mysteries of the Alphabet, 1999. But remember this was published a few months before the discoveries in Wadi el-Hol.

Footnotes
The Solid Form of Language — Robert Bringhurst, p. 9 [return]

Select bibliography
Early History of the Alphabet. An introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography — Joseph Naveh
Handbook of Greek and Latin Paleography — Edward Maunde Thompson
The Solid Form of Language — Robert Bringhurst
The Book through 5000 years — H.D.L. Vervliet
A View of Early Typography up to About 1600 — Harry Carter
The History & Power of Writing — Henri-Jean Martin
The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books — Albert Derolez
The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe — Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
A Short History of the Printed Word — Chappell & Bringhurst
Mysteries of the Alphabet: The Origins of Writing — Marc-Alain Ouaknin
The Illuminated Manuscript — Janet Backhouse
Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique — Marc Drogin
From Gutenberg to OpenType — Robin Dodd
Aspects of Antiquity — M.I. Finley
The Romans — R.H. Barrow
The Birth of Europe — Jacques Le Goff
Shapes for Sounds — Timothy Donaldson

20 Best Logos With Hidden Meaning

2010-08-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

20 Best Logos With Hidden Meaning: "

There are thousands of logos, some of them are great, some really great and some of those have a “hidden” meaning in the that you might have missed. I’ve ran through lots of logos and chose the best ones with hidden details. Those artists are THE designers for they’ve been so creative and talented to come up with such awesome results.

Take a look at 20 best creative logos I posted here. You will like them! These logos inspire you to think more creatively and to give it all out when you’re making some brand’s “face” following all the rules and breaking them at the same time!

The list is in alphabetical order:

8 Fish

How many fishes do you see here? This great concept was designed for a sushi restaurant by designer Jerron Ames, Copyright, Arteis. A fabulous example of using the negative space. Frankly, I’d change the color theme, but we ain’t talking about colors today, are we?

5.10

Designed for the family business dealing with footwear. Smart enough to be on this list as well. Just look at the “5″ and “10″ cooperation!

Amazon

Can’t believe you’ve never heard of Amazon, come on! Worldwide trademark is recognized by millions everyday. What’s great about the logo? The arrowed smile that they bring to customers faces, ok, I know it, everybody knows, but did you ever think about the direction and the meaning of this arrow? Yes, it implies that Amazon.com covers everything from A to Z.

Eight

An awesome display of genius! Look how the designer played with the “8″ to form the word “eight”! That’s a wow-logo. A beautiful mind did it, but whom exactly I don’t know.

Elefont

Do you see only the “e” letter? Look carefully and you will spot the elephant’s trunk formed by the negative space! As far as I know the logo was designed by a Logomotive designer just as a result of inspiration.

Fedex

Fedex is what comes to mind first when you think of delivery. Seen that two-colored logo a zillion times, but did you ever notice the hidden arrow between the “e” and “x” letters? This great work was designed by Linden Leader & Landor associates in the year 1994 and the arrow apparently symbolizes speed and precision, the two main goals of the company.

Formula 1

Now here’s the Speedy logo. Makes you feel how fast formula cars are, doesn’t it? Simple, yet catchy with a hidden “1″, do you see it? Again, we see the smart usage of the negative space.

Hope For African Children Initiative

What do you see first, the faces or the Africa map? It’s interesting that different people see the same picture/image differently. Isn’t it?

Minimum

Designed by Kilment Kalchev, this is a wow-logo for real. I really love its simplicity [and the complexity at the same time]. Can you read the word “minimum” there? Or you see just the waves? Hehe…

Mosleep

Apparently, the company deals with sleeping disorder. And the logo explains it in the very best way. A beautiful art. And smART.

Mamouth

Another elephant logo. This was designed for a French children clothing company. It’s just nice. No really hidden details though, but it deserves your attention.

Northwest Airlines

They have changed their logo, but I liked the old one, the one I’m showing here, the one they had been using from 1989 up to 2003. It’s just excellent! There’s everything: the “N”, the “W” and the compass arrow showing North-West direction. Just beautiful and so creative!

Piano Forest

Baskin Robbins

A shoutout to ice cream lovers! Those of you who really love ice cream must have noticed the “31″ in the Baskin Robbins logo. Didn’t you? It stays for 31 flavors they offer. Pretty good concept, huh?

Roxy

Now, this one is not actually hiding anything from us, but it does in some way. Roxy is a part of Quicksilver company and they produce clothing and accessories for girls who like snowboarding, surfing, etc. And the logo of Roxy is actually the combination of two Quicksilver logos, forming a heart shape together. So simple and so smart!

Sun Microsystems

Oh well, this is my favorite logo ever! The very best. The logo was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt, of Stanford University. I don’t have any words, just look at it and enjoy/envy!

Toblerone

I’ve blurred the surroundings so that you see the logo clearly. Do you see the standing bear in it?? Toblerone is a chocolate company in Bern, Switzerland. Sometimes, Bern city is called “The City of Bears”, hence the logo. Nice concept! One thing I don’t like about the logo is that it looks like there’s a horse tail on the bear’s back. [IMHO]

Treacy Shoes

I don’t really know about the company, but the logo conveys their production to the fullest. And it is so cute that I think they make shoes for kids. Do you see the shoe formed by the negative space?

Hartford Whalers

Everything is here: the “H” [Hartford], the “W” [Whalers] and whale’s tail itself. Another beautiful example of using the negative space.

ZIP

At first, you might not notice the “I”, but it is there. The zipper between “Z” and “P” is the “I”. Cool.

Twitter Launching Official Tweet Buttons This Week [EXCLUSIVE]

2010-08-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

Twitter Launching Official Tweet Buttons This Week [EXCLUSIVE]:

Twitter is launching an official Tweet Button for sharing articles on websites and counting how many times a URL has been shared, according to documents Mashable has obtained. The Tweet Button could launch as soon as this Thursday.

We’re still diving into the details, but from what we can tell, the Tweet Button is designed to be the most comprehensive counter of retweets and shares across Twitter’s network. It is a single line of code that can be added to any website. There are three versions of the button (110×20, 55×20, 55×63) with five different settings for customization.

In fact, we have embedded the default Tweet Button below. While the embed code in fact works, the actual act of retweeting an article is not possible for most users, including us. According to our sources, only a few accounts currently have that ability activated:

The company that is most likely to be affected by this development is Tweetmeme, which powers most of the retweet buttons you see on websites and blogs across the web, including Mashable.

Twitter could be directly competing with Tweetmeme, but we think it’s unlikely that Twitter would just spring this product on the world without talking to Tweetmeme first. We believe it’s likely the two companies have a deal, but don’t know what it would look like as of yet.

We have reached out to Twitter for comment. In the meantime though, we have included the documents and the code for embedding Tweet Buttons below. We’ll update this post with more details as the story develops.

More Details: The Tweet Button

Brainy Bike Will Tweet Its Feelings

2010-08-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Brainy Bike Will Tweet Its Feelings: "

Meet Precious. Precious will ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Tweeting his stats along the way and making assessments over time including comments on the weather, hilliness of the terrain, and speed. Why? Because it can.

You can follow the old boy over here and he and his riders are raising money for Livestrong. You can donate here.

Mad At Google? The Question Is: Are You Mad Enough To Stop Using It? Can You Even Stop?

2010-08-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Mad At Google? The Question Is: Are You Mad Enough To Stop Using It? Can You Even Stop?: "

<A HREF="http://www.crunchgear.com/tag/google/"Google’s in an odd bind these days. It’s far and away the biggest Internet company out there, and with that size and position comes great responsibility, to echo the sentiment found in Spider-Man. It drew heat yesterday—and rightly so—for joining forces with Verizon to help draw up “rules” for the Internet, as if the Internet needs rules be successful. Now the Wall Street Journal has published a report detailing the company’s ongoing, internal discussions surrounding its possible use of the one thing that makes it so valuable: your information. At one point will it be seen that Google has “crossed the line” with respect to its use of your information?

Foto

2010-08-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

[ untitled ]: "
"

La historia no contada de Mario Bros [Humor]

2010-08-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

La historia no contada de Mario Bros [Humor]: "

Sin dudas para Mario Bros no fue tan sencillo matar tanto Goombas, aquí lo sucedido luego.

Wowd’s Facebook Client Lets Users Refine Their News Feed

2010-08-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

Wowd’s Facebook Client Lets Users Refine Their News Feed: "

Wowd, a free real-time search client, now allows users to connect to their Facebook account in order to browse and interact with custom feeds based on time, content type, keyword search, or specific friends.

The downloadable client runs a local server off the host’s computer, so while Wowd utilizes a web browser for interface, a user’s private data never leaves their machine. Wowd plans to monetize this fuller-featured version of Facebook’s often overlooked friend lists by running ads based on terms popular in the posts of a user’s network.

Backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, KPG Ventures and the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund, Wowd released its web search and history client in October of 2009. These tabs, which showed top 20 lists of links in certain interest categories and let users tag and search their history, are today joined by a social tab housing the Facebook integration where users can like and comment on stories and update their status using a basic publisher. Wowd social is more customizable than Seesmic’s Facebook interface, but doesn’t offer access to events and messages like Microsoft Silverlight 4 Client for Facebook

Once a user installs the client and allows Wowd access to all their Facebook data, they’re prompted to create a “Favorite Friends” list using the multi-friend selector. The Wowd social home page lets users see a news feed tag cloud, view rankings of their most active friends, and refine their news feed by friend list or custom feed, date range, and content type.

For instance, a user could create special views of their news feed by selecting the automatically generated “Infrequent Posters” list, “Most Recent” time parameter, and video content type, or build a ”Photographers” custom feed showing the most relevant photos posted in the last month by a few shutter-happy friends.

Feeds can be further refined using the search bar to only return posts including a specific keyword, and any search can be saved as a custom feed. Users add friends and keywords they want stories to include, and can set up desktop alerts for when new posts come into the custom feed.

Wowd’s surveys and interviews of Facebook users showed that many wanted a better way to conceal application spam. Instead of hiding items post by post or from certain applications like on Facebook, all application-based stories are filtered into a Spam feed. This removes feed clutter while retaining a quick way of checking for anything interesting.

Graphically unique is the My Wall Summary, which turns a user’s profile into a bulletin board of thumb tacked photographs, sticky notes of popular terms, an upcoming birthday list, and a notebook page of wall posts and tagged status updates. Viewing familiar content in a new design is fun, but My Wall isn’t clickable or customizable, making it more of a novelty.

Wowd is a smooth-running utility for Facebook power users who want more control over their news feed or the ability to make custom feeds by combining search with other parameters. However, many of Wowd’s features are available through Facebook’s native search and friend lists, and the rest could be replicated in the forthcoming friend lists revamp. We’ll be covering how it does in the coming months.

Nvidia scores a $25M Pentagon contract to develop 1,000X faster supercomputers with graphics chips

2010-08-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nvidia scores a $25M Pentagon contract to develop 1,000X faster supercomputers with graphics chips: "

A team led by Nvidia has won a $25 million research grant from the Pentagon to create high-performance supercomputers that exploit the computational capabilities of graphics chips.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia has been promoting this crusade for several years, and the award from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is an endorsement for it. Nvidia calls it GPU computing, after the graphics processing unit chip. Most supercomputers use collections of servers whose brains are microprocessors, or the central processing units made by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. But Nvidia’s graphics chips are programmable and can handle non-graphics tasks. They are particularly good at number crunching and visual computing chores.

Under a four-year contract, the team plans to build a new class of “exascale supercomputers” that are 1,000 times more powerful than today’s supercomputers. The team includes Cray, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and six top universities. The problem is that conventional supercomputers are starting to hit practical limits, since they can only do so much computation given a certain amount of electrical energy.

Bill Dally (pictured), Nvidia’s chief scientist and senior vice president of research, said the project recognizes Nvidia’s accomplishments in parallel computing and GPU computing. Sveral other teams also got DARPA contracts to work on simlar systems. Prototypes are expected to be completed by 2018.

IBM Illustrations

2010-08-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

IBM Illustrations:

15 Developer/Hacker Women to Follow on Twitter

2010-07-28T23:56:00.000-07:00

15 Developer/Hacker Women to Follow on Twitter: "

Everyone should know at least one woman who can code her way out of a wet paper bag.

While women developers, computer programmers and hackers of all stripes are by far outnumbered by men in their field, they’re hardly nonexistent. They blog, they tweet, and they do fantastic work to keep the Internet afloat. We’ve chosen to highlight 15 reader-recommended tech women here; if you know of others who should be on our radar — specifically women with coding skills — please do let us know about them in the comments section.

Some of the women on our list are “Internet famous.” Some, less so — for now at least. Some have worked at big tech companies like Google and Apple and Adobe. Some are startup employees or fly solo. Some are hardcore hackers, some are web design-focused. We’ve even got a hardware geek on our list.

With a big hat-tip to all our friends on Twitter who recommended these women, here are 15 technically skilled women (in no particular order) to follow.

1. Pamela Fox

Pamela Fox is a graduate from the University of Southern California Computer Science Department, where she earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees with minors in 3D animation and linguistics. She lives in Sydney, Australia and works for Google as a Wave API Developer Advocate.

2. Jeri Ellsworth

This woman is a self-taught computer chip designer and expert electrical and mechanical engineer. She taught herself to program as a kid by reading Commodore 64 manuals. Ellsworth lives in Oregon, works as a consultant, and has a serious penchant for pinball machines, of which she owns 60 or so.

3. Emily Chang

Emily Chang lives in San Francisco and works at Ideacodes, a web dev/design shop she co-founded with husband Max Kiesler. She’s a nationally recognized expert in user experience and interaction design. In addition to her Twitter account, we also recommend her personal blog.

4. Hilary Mason

This data-loving lady is a computer science professor with a thing for machine learning. Mason does research at Johnson & Wales University and also works as a scientist for Bit.ly. She occasionally posts code on her personal website.

5. Danese Cooper

Danese Cooper is the Wikimedia Foundation’s CTO. She’s also a huge open-source advocate; in fact, she’s affectionately known as “The Open Source Diva” in certain circles. She worked for the Peace Corps, on the floor of a stock exchange, and even at a law firm before making the move to tech, where she began at Apple in 1991.

6. Leah Culver

Leah Culver is a software engineer specializing in web apps and Django development. In 2007, she co-founded Pownce, a social networking site, and sold it in late 2008. These days, she’s a freelancer in San Francisco, where she cranks out applications and speaks on a number of topics relevant to web devs and designers. Culver is also an open-source advocate; we recommend checking out her blog.

7. Amanda Wixted

Amanda Wixted is a game programmer and an iPhone tech lead at Zynga. In fact, she’s the one responsible for FarmVille for iPhone. Before she went to Zynga, she was a lead programmer for Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man for iPhone. And how’s this for street cred: Each of the iPhone games Wixted has worked on has been in the Top 10 Free Apps in the App Store.

8. Sarah Allen

Sarah Allen has helped to develop such products as After Effects, Shockwave, Flash video and OpenLaszlo, a development framework for web apps. Formerly an employee at Apple, Adobe and Macromedia (pre-dotcom crash), she now acts as CTO of mobile startup Mightyverse, does some consulting on the side, and reaches out to women in the Ruby on Rails developer community. You can keep up with Allen’s goings-on via her blog.

9. Jenn Lukas

Jenn Lukas says she loves three things in life: Coffee, kittens and XHTML. Judging from her website, we’d guess that unicorns are a close fourth. She’s done web design projects for such big names as ESPN, Johns Hopkins University, United Healthcare, ABC Sports and Microsoft. Lukas lives in Philadelphia and works at Happy Cog, a web design and UX consultancy.

10. Nicole Sullivan

As a performance engineer and international evangelist for Yahoo, Nicole Sullivan does as much communication and research as she does actual app building. She’s an engaging, readable, and regular blogger, and a CSS expert to boot. Sullivan lives in Menlo Park, California.

11. Laura Thomson

Laura Thomson is an “Internet engineer,” a self-applied job title we don’t see thrown around too often. But given her position as a senior software engineer at Mozilla, makers of Firefox, we can’t argue with the description. She’s a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) advocate, and she wrote the book on PHP and MySQL web development. She’s an Australian who lives in Maryland.

12. Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer was one of the first 20 engineers at Google; in fact, she was hired in the same month that Google got its first round of funding. Currently, she’s the company’s VP of search product and user experience, which means she basically green-lights every product that gets released to the general public, including Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps and many other apps and features.

13. Sara Chipps

This software developer is one of the minds behind Girl Develop IT, a low-cost program for women who want to learn how to code. Chipps posts regularly on her personal blog, including code samples, and she’s particularly skilled in .NET development. She lives in New Jersey and works on contract.

14. Alison Gianotto

Alison Gianotto has been blogging for 15 years, give or take — that means she started out before blogging was called “blogging.” She co-authored a few books on PHP/MySQL, too. Gianotto is currently working in New York City as the director of information architecture at a creative agency.

15. Gina Trapani

Gina Trapani is a programmer, but she’s perhaps best-known for founding Lifehacker, a blog that we at Mashable like to read, ourselves. She tapered off her Lifehacker leadership in January 2009 and recently wrote a thorough guide to Google Wave. She’s currently developing ThinkTank, a web-based platform for crowdsourcing insights via social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Buzz. Trapani resides in San Diego, California.

Hacker Publishes Profile Data Of 100M Facebook Users

2010-07-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Hacker Publishes Profile Data Of 100M Facebook Users: "

When is a hack not a hack? With all the brouhaha over privacy lately, no doubt Facebook users would be disturbed to know that their details might have surfaced on an internet file sharing site.

According to British site Thinq, the directory was compiled by hacker Ron Bowes of Skull Security using a web crawler program. The 2.8GB torrent reportedly contains 171 million entries, relating to 100 million individual users. Facebook claims a total user base of 500 million.

The file contains user account names and a URL for each user’s profile page, which could contain details such as addresses, dates of birth or phone numbers.

The problem is that Bowes didn’t have to use his hacking skills to break into the Facebook site to compile his directory - he simply harvested publicly available data from Facebook’s open access directory. The affected users all have one thing in common - they hadn’t changed their privacy settings to make their pages unavailable to search engines. However, visiting an user’s profile from this directory would also allow you to click through to their friends’ profiles, even if the friends had not made their profiles searchable.

Privacy has been a big issue for Facebook in the past, though the debate has quietened down since the last big tranche of privacy setting changes in May. The latest news is sure to raise the question about whether the default settings should be more protective of user data.

YouTube Banned in Russia Over Racist Video

2010-07-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

YouTube Banned in Russia Over Racist Video: "

A court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to YouTube because the site hosted “Russia for Russians,” which was judged to be an extremist video.

The court’s decision also applies to the Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by Adolf Hitler.

With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of governments that have blocked access to YouTube at some point or another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K.

Generally, these bans are instituted because the videos on the popular hosting site show something a government would rather its citizens not see, from state police brutality at a protest to unflattering depictions of its leadership to “immoral” or sexual content.

However, this particular ruling stems less from a desire to protect a country’s internal PR and more from a desire to keep Russian media — including citizen-generated and social media — free from the possibly harmful influences of ultranationalist, racist and xenophobic speech. The phrase “Russia for Russians” itself is a slogan of hatred used against the multi-ethnic society that exists in Russia today, and searching for the phrase “Россия для русских” on YouTube will return a number of disturbing videos typical of the white nationalist movement around the world.

But intentions aside, this ruling still constitutes what many other governments would consider a prohibition or restriction of free speech.

The owner of Rosnet, the ISP affected by today’s decision, is Aleksandr Ermakov. He spoke to media today, saying essentially that the court had thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

“All of mankind is using this website. And providers like ours do not violate Russian law. But we are still being forced to close the website so that our users can not log on and watch the videos. This is absurd! According to this logic, we have to demolish all buildings that have swastikas on the walls. Or when two people are discussing a bomb over the phone, we have to take away the phones from all people across Russia.”

More on Rosnet’s legal position can be found at this website.

Moreover, a Google rep told the Moscow Times, “To limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution.”

What’s your opinion of the court’s ruling? In attempting to safeguard ethnic diversity, did they go too far in the direction of inhibiting free speech and free information? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

5 Ways Facebook Questions Can Be Improved

2010-07-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

5 Ways Facebook Questions Can Be Improved: "

Facebook’s newest feature, Questions, has the potential to bring social Q&A into the mainstream. But like most beta features and apps, Questions is somewhat fragmented, and suffers from usability issues and apparent bugs. It could also benefit from a more seamless and connected integration across the social platform.

Perhaps most notably, the feature could be more effectively integrated with Facebook Pages, which are used by millions of users and brands worldwide. To better engage their audience and customers, brands and publishers will look to take advantage of the feature with their pages – a place they have built their following, their social Facebook hub. Though Facebook told Mashable’s Ben Parr that brands will eventually be able to answer questions using their pages, the current functionality is limited and disjointed.

Because the new feature is still in beta and not yet available to all users, we thought we’d provide feedback on what the feature is missing and how some of the gaps could be bridged. We’d love to hear what you think of the feature, its strengths and its faults in the comments or by answering our Facebook Question, “How do you think Facebook Questions can be improved?”

1. Easy Publishing to the Wall

The feature would be better if it was integrated with profile and page walls. Right now, if a user posts a question, a small link referencing the question shows up in the “recent activity.” At the moment, Facebook Pages are not able to publish the questions onto their walls, a place that showcases all of the page’s activity and is a resource for users. Being able to publish questions to the wall will let everyone to track a questions more easily and will feature questions in a familiar setting for easy interactions.

Before this feature was released, questions on Facebook were being asked by users in the form of status updates, which would be represented as the stationary status of the user or page, but also as a post on their walls for users to interact with. Following similar protocol for questions would make the experience familiar for users.

2. Responding to Questions on the Wall and News Feed

For seamless integration, users not only need to be able to see the questions in familiar places, but also respond to them in those places. This means being able to respond to questions on the Wall or in the News Feed without having to click-through to an unfamiliar Questions page. This will not only make interaction with Questions easy, but likely result in a lot more of the Questions being answered. Currently, Questions are teased in the form of a link, similar to the way links are often displayed.

3. Asking and Answering Questions Through the Tab Feature

The Questions feature enables users and brands to add a tab that organizes its Questions activity. Users navigating to a brand page are able to ask questions related to the page in the Questions tab, which holds the prompt, “What do you want to know about______?” However, the tab suffers from issues similar to the ones we’ve outlined above; your interaction with the question is limited to clicking through or commenting (and you can only comment if you’re connected to the user in question).

Also, when an administrator of a page posts a question, it currently lives elsewhere. This might simply be an issue of beta functionality. However, it would make more sense when a publisher posts a Question on their page that it would be referenced in the tab. As of right now, the questions shown in the tab are only questions from users, and not all user-generated questions are displayed. Also, publishers are not able to post questions through the tab feature at all yet, which is a feature we’re expecting will be released soon.

4. Commenting On and Liking Answers

Like any content on Facebook, users will expect to be able to comment on Questions and “like” them. Users are able to mark questions as either “helpful” or “unhelpful,” and these notes are tallied next to each question. But it isn’t the same as the familiar “like” functionality. Commenting is especially crucial, but is limited to answers of users your are friends with. However, users may want to interact with a specific answer or follow up with another question to a specific answer, but this sort of experience is currently fragmented. Because Questions is a more open product of Facebook, commenting would be more useful to extend beyond just a user’s immediate friends.

5. Analytics and Improved Search

Analytics will especially be important to brands using the feature on their pages, and we’re guessing it will be listed among the interactions in Facebook Insights. Brands will want to track and learn how to best engage their audience with Questions and most effectively use the feature. This would include tracking the number of people who responded to a poll question, how many followers a question received and similar metrics. Brands will also look for administrative control over answers to their questions, similar to comment moderation controls on a Facebook Page.

This also ties into an improved search within the Questions product. Questions and topics are difficult to locate through the current search functionality, which often shows empty results despite the availability of relevant questions and answers. For example, even searching for questions related to Facebook turned up zero results.