Despite being The Finger a creation of an Israeli typographic artist, logo and type designer, despite the fact it clearly corresponds with ancient Jewish culture - Rang magazine, an Iranian ezine for graphic designers, could not have avoid it and recently published a follow up story about it (screenshot below). Well, yes, art is meant to be borderless but not always is.
Homage to the Israeli poet Hezi Leskley
The Finger consists with a short formalistic movie - practically a slow and beautiful taken travel shot of what seems like a 3d model of the Hebrew word האצבע (Hebrew for "The Finger"). Directed by Oded Ezer the movie is accompanied by a poster (shown top on this article) which was designed and photographed by the artist. According to Ezer The Finger was created as a homage to the Israeli poet Hezi Leskley and is titled after Leskley first book, published in 1986. Leskley was also a talented choreographer, an art critic and one of the first homo-lesbian activists in Israel and had died of AIDS in 1994.
Ezer is a top line internationally known artist who's works have been covered by major media channels, described with nearly every possible superlative from "emotional and powerful" (Die Gestalten Verlag) to simply "fascinating" (The NY Times). He has won many local and international prizes, including the Gold Prize at the international design competition of the Nagoya Design Center, Japan (2000); Certificate of Excellence at the 4th annual competition of the New York Type Directors Club and Certificate of Excellence at the "Bukva raz", a type design competition, Moscow, Russia (both 2001), and the Israeli Education Ministry Prize for Design (2003). Above: "Implanting Hebrew letters into my body" (as was shown on the Berlin talk).
The Finger by Oded Ezer from www.odedezer.com on Vimeo.
See also: Oded Ezer - Stami Veklumi
The Finger: An Imaginary Landscape of Hebrew Letters
X-Ray Photography as Art: Hidden Faces of The Inner Space
It was the first day of the year 1896. "What's that large dark oval spot on her finger?" Professor Ludwig Zehnder of the Physik Institute at the University of Freiburg, Germany must have asked his teacher, observing the strange photograph of a woman's hand. Wilhelm Röntgen's answer must have been something along the lines of: "Well, it's the ring… my wife just never takes it off". The first ever X-Ray photograph of a human body part was taken on 22 December 1895, about one week prior to Röntgen's meeting with Zehnder. Hand mit Ringen (German for Hand with Ring, left below), had revolutionized the way medical prognosis is done, but Röntgen's photograph was not only a major milestone in the history of medicine. Hand mit Ringen was also the first step towards X-Ray as a unique genre of artistic photography.
The following is a selection of contemporary X-Ray photography artists who all make spectacular images from everyday objects. While each of them has its own unique language, style or preferred subjects, all of them are hunters in a fascinating, sometimes shocking, inner-space reality.
Nick Veasey: The inside becomes the outside
http://www.nickveasey.com
Published last month by Goodman Books, Nick Veasey's book titled X-Ray: See Through the World Around You is probably the most spectacular well-made work of X-Ray art the world has seen by now. For a bit less than $50 (Amazon) we can all enjoy the inner beauty of a female foot in a high-heeled shoe, an electric chair, hands typing on a laptop and other "insides becoming outsides" by this unique British artist.
According to the Daily Mail Veasey, who uses a converted radar station in Kent for a studio, "passes x-rays through the objects he is photographing to create images on special film" and then uses "a 13-foot scanner to turn them into a digital file." As described by Veasey in his book Intro: "Nothing gives me more pleasure than revealing the inner beauty of a subject. The unseen can be seen, the internal elements and workings revealed. The inside becomes the outside".
Veasey's animal photos such as the above (fish) or the below (dog) are especially fascinating. "When we see an x-ray of the human body" says Veasey in his website, "we react to that image with medical associations. Animal x-rays however have a brutal beauty."
Veasey also makes custom per-order X-Ray images for various commercial clients, leading global brands that already realize the amazing visual qualities of his work. One of the most famous ones, known to every graphic designer all over the world, is the glower images used on the Adobe CS2 Suite packaging.
Another one, made for Adidas, reveals a sensor inside the sole of a sport shoe.
Diane Covert: Inside Terrorism
http://www.x-rayproject.org
Inside Terrorism by Diane Covert is an X-Ray and CT documentary of terrorism survivors and a most powerful modern art piece following the footsteps of Mathew Brady, an American photographer who documented the Civil War with hundreds of death images. The idea for the Inside Terrorism project began in 2002 as a personal response to the massive terror wave that swiped Israel during the first two years of the Intifada. It was also meant to comment on "the way terrorism has been justified in some circles."
According to Covert the X-rays and CT scans in this exhibit should be observed as "figurative images and portraits" deriving from "the desire to observe and describe reality with the most modern techniques available" but also from the "need to think and talk about" the by-products of terrorism.
In Covert's words: "Terrorists pack their bombs with common objects - hex nuts, bolts, nails, watches - all meant for peaceful, utilitarian purposes. By blasting them into human beings, they create the madness of our times."
Bert Myers: Inner Beauty of Nature
http://www.bmyersphoto.com
If you happen to have an access to an X-Ray machine you might be interested with this 160 page 10 X 10.5” full color hard cover coffee table book. Dedicated to the use of ionizing radiation in producing art images Inner Beauty of Nature is, according to Myers, the first book to cover both the history of X-Ray photography as a form of art and the technical aspects of this craft with enough details to allow "anyone with access to an X-ray machine can duplicate the work." The book contains 30 color and 45 B&W X-Ray prints.
As a retired Professor of Surgery at LSUMC and academic physician Bert Myers has always been interested in photography as a medium of art. In the 1980's, while using an X-Ray machine to make images of the very small blood vessels growing into healing wounds (microangiography), Myers had noticed some of the images looked like abstract paintings. "I started to explore the uses of Xray as an art medium, thinking I was one of the first to use such methods. In reality I was not, as Goby, Hall Edward, Dain Tasker, Albert Richards, and William Conklin had preceded me, though I was not aware of that until years later.
Myers subjects include various animals, mostly snail shells and fish (top on this chapter, left to right: Nautilus, Martin's Tibia, Giant Whelk), vegetable photographs such as of leaves and flowers (above: Morning Glory, Phalenopsis Orchid, Japanese Iris), minerals, man made devices such as the above Fluorescent Light Bulb.
X-Ray images are all B&W but in the late 80's Myers began experimenting with X-Ray photo coloring techniques, using filters in the enlarger and Cibachrome paper. Most recently he has been digitizing the images and adding color in PhotoShop. The result, as can be seen in the below (left) "Three Lillies" and (right) Loquat Leaves Orange is astonishing to say the least.
Steven N. Meyers: Negatives, Positives, and Solarized
http://www.xray-art.com
Adobe's decision to use flowers as subjects for their X-Ray styled cover was probably not a coincidence. Flowers and other plants are of the most popular within this line of expertise. According to Steven N. Meyers a flower X-Ray photo specialist, the earliest floral radiographs were created over 70 years ago. Yet, even today there are only very few radiographic artists in the world.
"By using x-rays instead of light, an unusual innervision can be revealed and nature shows us textures, details, and shadows that would otherwise not be seen" writes Meyers in his website. "Visible light is just a small part the electromagnetic spectrum, and falls between x-rays and infrared. My x-ray images are a collection of negatives, positives, and solarized images, solarized being partly negative and partly positive at the same time." The above images were created by Meyers between the years 1998 and 2008.
Judith K. McMillan: Shifting between warm and cold tones
http://www.judithkmcmillan.com
Photographer Judith K. McMillan uses an X-ray machine as camera to reveal the "beauty of natural plant forms invisible to the human eye". Ephemeral, eerie and extremely aesthetic, McMillan’s images include gladioli, poppies, water lilies, orchids, locust seeds and ferns.
McMillan uses a special technique in which she lightly tones the prints created from the X-ray negatives. This chemical process produces a shift between warm and cold tones, creating a dimensionality in the overlapping layers. Thus, unseen microcosm emerges as "predictable, common and familiar is transformed into a world of newly discovered pleasures."
The UN Voices Project: Print Advertising That Talks
A truly groundbreaking advertising campaign titled 'The UN Voices Project' was launched by Saatchi & Saatchi Australia earlier this week. Tailored for the United Nations, the new campaign combines innovative creative thinking with cutting edge mobile phone and image recognition technologies. According to Saatchi & Saatchi The UN Voices Project is probably the first attempt to make outdoor posters and press advertisement voice communicating with their targeted audience. Here is how this is done according to bestadsontv.com and four examples already printed (Click images for high-res versions).
"The campaign features outdoor posters, print and online elements. These are combined to reinforce the message of giving a voice to those whose plight normally goes unseen and unheard."
"People around Sydney are encouraged to take a mobile phone photo of the featured person’s mouth and send it to a number on the poster as a text message."
"Using digital image recognition technology and an Australian first call back service, the sender receives a return phone call with a pre-recorded message from the person they have photographed, giving a brief insight into how they live and highlighting some of the issues they face."
"The message then directs people to a UN website where visitors can leave their own comments and thoughts, turning the original seven voices into thousands."
Credits
Product: United Nations
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney
Creatives: David Nobay and Steve Back (Creative Director), VINCE LAGANA (Creatives), Steve Jackson (Creatives)
Lions Prefer Blondes: a Perfect Photojournalism Drama with a Happy End
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we know that since 1953. But did you know 180kg lions also like them very much? Well, at least according to this Daily telegraph story that might just be the case. It is not everyday that death grabs one's soul and hands it back while the entire process gets captured on camera in a perfect photojournalism drama with a heart and a happy end. Yet, for British primary school headmistress Kate Drew that is more or less how things turned out when a 180kg cat pounced on from behind and dragged her to the ground, sinking its teeth into the back of her neck.
Those amazing photos are signed with the watermark "Austral" but it is not clear who is the cool headed person who should be thanked for them.
Working as a volunteer teacher in Tanzania, Drew (28) was spending a few weeks "traveling across Africa on a bus with other backpackers". During this tour the group visited a reserve in Zimbabwe where lions are bred to be released back into the wild and tourists can pay $50 to "walk with several of the big cats" which are "considered tame enough to be allowed contact with humans". Here is what happened in Kate Drew's words:
"We were just leaving and everything seemed to have gone well - until one jumped at me from behind. I was scared enough when he pinned me to the ground, but when I looked up and saw the other two, I thought I'd had it.''
It may have been a miracle or just a random coincidence. Though the wounds on Drew's head left her with 13 stitches (below) they missed her brain stem and she was rescued by the brave reserve wardens (above) who "rushed in with sticks and wrestled the animal away."
According to the Daily Telegraph the lion was not on his way for it's lunch when it grabbed poor Drew but was apparently just playing around a little bit after being "attracted by her mane-like long blonde hair". There goes at least one advantage of being a blonde, ha?
Unfortunately, Drew's story is not always how things end in this genre. According to lairweb.org.nz, a website focusing on endangered large cats, only three out of every one thousand tigers will resort to attacking people, making their reputation as a man-eater "quite inaccurate". Yet, also according to this website, even this low number has been enough to make the tiger responsible for more human deaths than any other predator. Lions are cute but if you are still not sure they also kill people, here is a list of Mountain Lion Attacks On People in the U.S. and Canada since 1986.
International Street Artists Add (More) Multicultural Sauce to Israeli Society
"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart so individual freedom will naturally grow from self-determined activity." (Idiot The Wise)
It appears that the paintings of world's hottest British art star Banksy on the Palestinian side of the separation wall in the West Bank in summer 2005 were just the tip of the iceberg. Street art and graffiti scenes gain strong International momentum in Israel recently. Much of this trend is attributed to talented immigrants from former U.S.S.R. countries while there are also many active street artists in Israel who immigrated from European countries and North America.
As opposed to the Banksy case (above) and perhaps to what you may expect from street art in Israel, most of the street art messages are not related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but to internal society issues, while others refer to the conflict in a general, none-confronting approach. Some look at graffiti and street art as a form of vandalism. Others see it as a legitimate way of expression in a world where most public urban space belongs to commercial cooperates. This way or another, the new trend spices up the already heterogenic society in Israel with more multicultural sauce. Following are a few recent outstanding examples.
The Legal Action Gallery and Cosco Urban Lab
There are clear signs that Israeli street art is going mainstream. Take the 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition opened today (March 6, 2008) in the Legal Action gallery for example. Featuring the work of 100 street artists from around the globe, this spectacular exhibition curated by The Inspire Collective takes place next to the Casco Urban Lab in Florentine - at the heart of the "Soho" quarter in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Legal Action gallery was founded by artists Jamie Ame and Joy van Erven in October last year and features top street artists from Israel and other countries such as Klone, Know Hope, Zero Cents, Jove, Mi-Shee, Mimi the Clown, TigaPics, Azione, Booty, x10art, Sanko17, Sumone, Omino17, iamunknown and even the only street artist we know of in Iran (yes, Iran) who goes by the name of A1one. Check on this audio visual tour of the 1st annual Inspiration Art Exhibition that took place at Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem in the spring of 2007. Here are two "sneaky previews" from this year:
Ame (35) and van Erven are two living indications for the new trend. Ame, better known as Ame72, is a British origin street and graffiti artist who has been living in Israel in the past three years. He is known in Tel Aviv streets for his use of Lego stencils which "represent thought provoking and funny images of life in today's society". Ame's partner, Joy van Erven, is an experienced Dutch mixed media artist who initiated various crossover projects involving visual arts, architecture and urbanism. Before immigrating to Israel in 2004, he initiated a foundation for public space art in the Netherlands and was the curator of other art exhibitions and urban art projects.
van Erven is also the owner of the Casco Urban Lab in Tel Aviv (above), another alternative culture establishment that combines art, design and food. Casco (Dutch word for "undefined space") allows local artists, designers and performers representing their view of the city.
klone
Above: progress shots from a painting by klone (formerly known as street artist 'Make') made for a group exhibition opening next week March 10, 2008 at the Dweck gallery in Mishkanot Sheananim, Jerusalem. Below is a spectacular panoramic wall piece, collaborated by klone and jesus. Don't miss the click for the high-res on this one!
More from Klone at http://www.flickr.com/photos/klone
Inspire - Idiot the Wise
After finding himself alone and homeless in the cold streets of Chicago when he was just 16, Inspire (31) grew himself up to become an International known artist. He immigrated to Israel 5 years ago and his works are well known in Tel Aviv streets.
Other than being the curator of the 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition mentioned above, Idiot the Wise has been documenting public art and activism in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the last five years. Being an active cyberspace artist, though, his connections and collaborations go way beyond the borders of Israel. Idiot the Wise (aka SEVEN, INSPIRE, Exodus and TRY) is a "writer of divine names, painter of flowers, public artist and curator" who argues we have been force fed with "false hope and ideals" through "branded advertising that invades our private lives until the two become one".
His Flickr group ArtAttack "urges you to react to your environment" and "talk back" yet emphasizing this is not an act of "war on advertising" but more of an "inside joke" meant to "rattle things a bit" so that people can "start noticing things for themselves again". Idiot the Wise is also the founder of many other popular Flickr groups such as the INSPIRE Collective ("What inspires YOU?" 2,147 Members) and MiddleEastStreetArt (Middle Eastern Graffiti, Street Art, and Public Activism, 942 members).
For more about Inspire check on this interview by Mr. Z or any of the following:
http://www.flickr.com/people/idiotthewise
http://inspirecollective.blogspot.com
http://telavivstreetart.blogspot.com
http://poeticchemistry.blogspot.com
Zero Cents
This 22 years old dude immigrated to Israel from New Jersey, USA a few years ago and is already a prominent figure in Israel's street art scene.
Above: "Old woman feeding birds", one of 10 wood cutout installations in 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition. Below: "Face"
Above: Safta (Hebrew for "grandmother"), portrait of Zero Cent's grandmother (photo by nush). Below: banso: detail of a wall by Zero Cents, produced mid 2007. For more walls as well as installations, paintings stickers and paper pain art go to http://flickr.com/photos/zerocents
This is Limbo
Above: "Haven been overcome by tongue-tied times, minor orchestras mend together the tune and in a clumsy accent play: please believe", Cardboard and gauze bandages on cement, Bethlehem Separation Wall 2007. More from This is Limbo at http://www.flickr.com/people/thisislimbo
aifo2
A wall
More street art from aifo2 at http://flickr.com/people/aifo. For more information and articles about urban street art and graffiti around the world see WebUrbanist - the ultimate source for International urban culture.
PROGRESS: Obama screenprints by Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey who usually goes under his middle and last name Shepard Fairey, is a contemporary artist, graphic designer and illustrator who believes that Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States. Starting next Wednesday, January 30th, Fairey's screenprints titled PROGRESS will be put on sale online to support a larger statewide poster campaign. The screenprints are edition of 350 sized 24" x 36".
http://obeygiant.com
The 1000 Genomes Project: The Most Detailed Map of Human Genetic Variation
Mankind took a major step today as an ambitious effort codenamed The 1000 Genomes Project involving sequencing the genomes of at least a thousand people from around the world was announced in England. The 1000 Genomes Project will create "the most detailed and medically useful picture to date of human genetic variation". Multidisciplinary research teams participating in the 1000 Genomes Project will develop a mapped view of biomedically relevant DNA variations "at a resolution unmatched by current resources". According to the official announcement data from The 1000 Genomes Project will be shared with the worldwide scientific community through freely accessible public databases.
The The 1000 Genomes Project is supported by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England, the Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen (BGI Shenzhen) in China and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Richard Durbin, Ph.D., of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and co-chair of the consortium (in the above photo) explains why this was unthinkable only two years ago:
"The 1000 Genomes Project will examine the human genome at a level of detail that no one has done before. Such a project would have been unthinkable only two years ago. Today, thanks to amazing strides in sequencing technology, bioinformatics and population genomics, it is now within our grasp. So we are moving forward to build a tool that will greatly expand and further accelerate efforts to find more of the genetic factors involved in human health and disease."
NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. explains what are the new possibilities may be following this amazing breakthrough:
"This new project will increase the sensitivity of disease discovery efforts across the genome five-fold and within gene regions at least 10-fold. Our existing databases do a reasonably good job of cataloguing variations found in at least 10 percent of a population. By harnessing the power of new sequencing technologies and novel computational methods, we hope to give biomedical researchers a genome-wide map of variation down to the 1 percent level. This will change the way we carry out studies of genetic disease."
The 1000 Genomes Project
http://www.1000genomes.org
Concern in Jerusalem
It was on November 6, 2001 when Fox Network launched their later to be Emmy and Golden Globe award-winner TV series 24 and the idea of an Afro-American president to the USA was still a futuristic "what if" Hollywood experiment. Dennis Haysbert looked convincing and promising as David Palmer, commander of the world's most powerful armed forces. But it was just a TV series.
In just a few hours from now Air Force 1 will be landing in Ben Gurion airport and I wonder if it might has anything to do with the fact that today, six years and two months of George W Bush later, Israel's second popular daily newspaper Maariv had the front page of its print version covered with one of the most amazingly ridicules titles any Israeli daily ever came up with.
A scan is here on the left but as you probably can't read Hebrew I'll freely translate it. It says "Concern in Jerusalem: Obama Gets Closer to Presidency". Concern in Jerusalem??! I know for some, perhaps most, Israelis saying goodbye to George and his - how shall I put it - "approach" towards the Palestinian issue, Middle East and conflicts in general must be sad. I know Obama is Afro-American. I know he is a democrat. But concern? It sounds a bit dangerous when Israel is "concerned" over something, isn't it?
My guess is that someone at Maariv came up with an idea to use this half-threat half-complaint and convince Americans they just have to make this minor adjustment to their constitution and have George elected for just four more years. Otherwise we'll all be far more concerned soon. We might all have a Palmer-Obama as our next commander of armed forces and he might just not like using them as much as we want him to.
That would be horrible. It might end up with a little peace in the Middle East.
Shot or Not? New Bhutto's Assassination Video released on Channel 4
Slate magazine says "Bloggers are turning into ballistics experts" after the British Channel 4 released a new footage of Benazir Bhutto's last moments. The new video, according to Slate, is now compared to the Zapruder JFK assassination film and "further calls into question the Pakistani government's assertion that Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof handle" as it clearly shows Ms. Bhutto was shot. Watch Channel 4's new Bhutto's assassination footage.
Nonogramm: First German-Speaking Picture Logic Magazine
Looking for beyond-Sudoku experience? Nonogramm, the first German-speaking magazine dedicated to Picture Logic puzzles, was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by Raetsel Agentur Schweiz on December 6, 2007. Nonogramm is the second magazine in Das Auge (The Eye) series targeted at puzzle fans looking for more-satisfying puzzles than Sudoku. The 36-page magazine contains 60 Pic-a-Pix, 5 Link-a-Pix and 4 Fill-a-Pix puzzles all sourced from Conceptis and is published every two months. Subscriptions to Nonogramm available at internationale-presse.com
[Via conceptispuzzles.com]
Scrabulous on Facebook: 480K Daily Active Users in 6 Months. Some guys just never listen.
The idea to put the game on Facebook to broaden their reach was brought up - not a surprise - by one of their users. It was early June when the folks at Scrabulous.com wrote to Hasbro in an attempt to make sure there will be no copyright infringement issues if they do that. According to CNet Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, software developers and brothers in Calcutta, India, never heard back from the International toy giant. The Agarwallas released their Scrabulous on Facebook at the end of June targeting 2,600 users. Within weeks, the Scrabulous application had 20,000 users. Today, six months later, the Scrabulous counter says "480,273 daily active users, 23% of total".
A new version of the game was released by the Scrabulous brothers last weekend aiming to improve performance. Additional "coming soon" features include; Word Meanings (clicking to see the meaning of the last word); more language dictionaries; optional notes area below the board titled Scribble Pad; Improved Statistics and, of course, a touch of web 2.0 spirit in the form of Buddy Option, allowing adding opponents to buddy lists.
I have never been a huge fan of Scrabble and word puzzles. This story is more about Hasbro and large corporations in general than it's about Scrabulous and the Agarwallas. Some guys just never listen. And there will always be someone who does.
Scrabulous on FaceBook
http://www.scrabulous.com
iMedix: New Social Network to Help You Feel Better
Want to know more about your headaches or caffeine addiction? Searching for symptoms, diseases, treatments, or any other health related info? How about collaborating your efforts together with many other folks interested with the very same stuff?
iMedix is new social network helping people finding and sharing health related information. Members of the iMedix community use a spacial search engine that mixes results from the open Internet with user profiles, tags and recommendations and thus, assist each other by sharing their experiences and ranking medical content. According to iMedix their patent-pending search technology provides highly relevant results in response to health related queries. The engine "analyzes users’ feedback against millions of medical articles, pictures and videos in order to provide the best answers for health questions and concerns."
Concerned about your privacy? Uploaded content including text and images is of course accessible to other users and may appear in search results on iMedix. Yet, claiming for a 100% security and privacy procedures, iMedix enables you to upload your content and share it with other users without revealing your identity.
iMedix was co-founded in Israel by Amir Leitersdorf - and avid entrepreneur with strong Internet technology background who also co-founded and held the position of VP of Technology at Movota, which was sold to Bertelsmann Group in 2005. The iMedix start-up was just reported to raise $2M from private investors.
http://www.imedix.com
OpenSocial Alliance is here. Social Internet has changed.
It was just the end of October this year when we learned about another open standard alliance led by Google a move that was described as a "FaceBook killer". OpenSocial provides a common set of Application Interface (API) tools for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can now create rich interactive web applications, accessing data from other social networks, update feeds and create new mashed-up content.
Aiming for every social driven and user generated content website out there to implement the new standards, the OpenSocial alliance seek to change the way people are interacting with each other on the internet by removing some of the boundaries set by a chaosed freedom and commercial interests. Websites already implementing the new OpenSocial tools include highly popular websites such as MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle and Orkut. Members of the alliance also include Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, XING and many others. See them all here or check on the video below for interviews with some of OpenSocuial early industry adapters.
Google’s own social network, Orkut, is of course the one that Interests them most but a-la Google's style this is used mainly to give (a limited sandbox for OpenSocial development) rather than take (users from other websites by closing their cross platform communications capabilities). Furthermore, unlike Facebook which uses a proprietary language for their widgets, once you chose developing your new widget with OpenSocial you are totally free to use the best stuff Internet has to offer nowadays including Flash, html and javascript, or in other words - Ajax.
Even though latest figures show the impact on FaceBook's application market is yet minor, the OpenSocial alliance is just one of those things we can't understand how they did not exist until they did and it seems that Google just changed the rules of the game once again. Social Internet has changed. Adding the numbers and including the vast member pool of MySpace - FaceBook's mightiest competitor and an avid OpenSocial integrator - we get a "completely different picture of the combined OpenSocial sites compared to Facebook". A swift look at the above chart posted about a month an a half ago by Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, tells the whole story in short: FaceBook - you took the closed course and got knocked out by the open one. Just like your Microsoft partner.
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/
http://opensocialapis.blogspot.com/
IE7: "A little over a year". Lots of CSS bugs. Still no bug tracking.
Well, yes, it has been a little over a year since "they" released IE7 on Windows XP and for Windows Vista, so IE7 Group Program Manager Mr. Tony Chor, who is also an avid blogger, thought "it would be worthwhile to talk about where we are after the year." Why? because of "the positive impact IE7 has made" for Microsoft users, because "as you know" Microsoft "focused a lot on improving security in IE7" making "IE 7 the safest Microsoft browser released to date" and because - yes - "IE7 had both fewer fixed and unfixed vulnerabilities in the first year than the other browsers" they compared with.
Also, says Mr. Chor, "according to internal Microsoft research based on data from Visual Sciences Corporation "over 300 million users are experiencing the web with IE7" making it "the second most popular browser after IE6." I'll save you the rest of the exciting new features and reasons specified by Chor. You can read them all here if you like. The point here is that many angry folks seem to have been waiting a long time for such an opportunity to express their real feelings towards IE7 as well as Microsoft's approach for how to handle their interaction with Internet developer community. I quoted up some of the best onces for you as there are just too many of them. Enjoy.
"Sorry, I can't get past the all-too-frequent IE 7 crashing or hanging at seemingly random times to appreciate anything you just posted." (Internet Explorer has stopped working)
"...It would be sad for IE to fade away in its own delusions of grandeur and support its own misguided standards of how the web should be. Good luck and hope to hear about IE's future developments so I can properly hack my sites to work with its arcane developments." (Joshua)
"From the horrifically god-awful (IE6) to the merely depressingly buggy, nonstandard, and incomplete (IE7)... congratulations!" (Joseph E. Davis)
"... 1 year, still no bug tracking 1 year, still no updates on IE8 features 1 year, still no updates on IE8 bug fixes 1 year, still no ETA on IE8 release 1 year, still no ETA on IE8 Beta release(s) 1 year, still no ETA on IE8 Alpha release(s)" (Sam)
"...Every single day, web authors of all experience, from amateurs to experts/gurus, experience difficulties (from minor to major) with bugs of all kinds in IE 7. When is Microsoft going to finally fix all these proven and testcase-ed bugs?" (Gérard Talbot)
"IE Team called out for biased numbers" (Concerned User)
"I wonder when will you release IE without click to activate..." (n-blue)
"... Let's see... six years for IE7, so you guys are on track to have IE8 by what, 2012? Your problem is you think in terms of years. Your problem is that your company sees the web as a competing platform. Do us all a favor and stop making IE altogether." (Paul)
A few words about my own view. After spending four years with Conceptis development team putting up a totally dynamic yet 100% standard compatible application server there are simply no words to describe how horrible is the fact IE is a closed undocumented software ignoring the fact Internet is not owned by Microsoft:
We had a professional top-gun graphic designer added to our payroll to have the most spectacular GUI ever seen. At least a year was spent on coming up with the basic layout look and language. Aiming to support everyone's Internet experience we took a huge effort to have all of it implemented using 100% W3C standards. We came to a point where IE is supported on the site and design look almost as it should - there is not a single line of code in this project containing the bad behavior of mixing graphic design with code and all graphic instructions are done exclusively via CSS, just as they should be "by the book".
In short, we did our part. Yet, most of the time we spent on CSS development went to solving IE6 particular bugs. There were times when we were certain that eventually we'll bump into all of them, a frightening thought in light of the fact there are hundreds. Now with IE7 around it looks like things are not going to be very different. It looks like we will probably just have to add a bunch of IE7 dedicated hacks to our IE CSS override pool. As explained by a fellow named Gérard Talbot the IE development team still has to fix -
"at the very least 700 bugs, incorrect implementations (all testcase-ed, all demontrable, reproducible) happening in HTML 4, CSS 2.1, DOM 2 interfaces and then implement more or less 500 properties, attributes, methods specified in official W3C Technical Recommendations, W3C web standards (HTML 4, CSS 2.1, DOM 2 interfaces, DOM 2 Core, DOM 3 Core)."
How lovely...
There is one particular comment on this thread which I thought should be brought in full as it pretty much sums up my personal feelings towards the subject discussed. Here it is, exactly as posted on the official IE blog by owner of a web development company Adam Tichy on Thursday, December 06, 2007:
"I'm a web developer, not a literary scholar, therefore I cannot quite find proper words to describe my total disgust with IE. I honestly can't wait long enough for that horrible thing to just crawl into the depths of forgotten projects and die.
"Most of my customers provide consumer or business internet services and they rightfully insist that the web applications work properly in all major browsers. Since MS packages this crap together with the OS it is a small wonder that in whatever diminishing numbers, the IE is still out there in force. It makes my life a living hell! I have to either seriously compromise the design and functionality or essentially build several variants of the sites just to make it work for the ignorant IE6/7 crowd.
And I'm not so sure the smaller number of support calls is something to boast. Judging from the stats on my sites, more and more people access them via the "other" browser(s). If this trend continues (and hopefully it will) you will be receiving even less support calls in the future. 300 million my foot."
[Above illustrative image courtesy of Alex who bumped up a confirmed bug by Microsoft. Confirmed since medieval ages of IE 5.]
Magic and Loss
Remember a fantastic Lou Reed album from 1992 titled Magic and Loss? The bottom line of this album can pretty much be summarized by this single line from the Magic and Loss song: "Theres a bit of magic in everything, and then some loss to even things out." I could not resist digging out the lyrics of this fabulous poem today, when happiness and grief were magically blended in my Inbox, forming a single bitter-sweet mashup piece of Conceptis family history time line.
First, unlimited happiness and congratulations to Natalia and Amit Shrira, who other than managing the entire manufacturing process of all Conceptis picture logic puzzles, have also gave birth to a beautiful new and first baby girl. We don't have any photos to report yet, yet this would be the cause for the fifth "second generation" celebration in Conceptis.
At the same time, condolences go do Nir, a close friend and head of Conceptis Flash engineering department, who's grandmother had passed away in Friday night after lying unconscious for 10 days. Nir's grandmother was old but a grandmother is always a grandmother. I was very young when both of my grandmothers have passed away but I still remember how I loved them and how sorry I felt when they were gone [song lyrics: lyricsfreak, album photo: Amazon]
Magic and Loss, by Lou Reed
When you pass through the fire, you pass through humble
You pass through a maze of self doubt
When you pass through humble, the lights can blind you
Some people never figure that out
You pass through arrogance, you pass through hurt
You pass through an ever present past
And its best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light
Pass through the fire to the light
Pass through the fire to the light
Its best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light
As you pass through the fire, your right hand waving
There are things you have to throw out
That caustic dread inside your head
Will never help you out
You have to be very strong, cause youll start from zero
Over and over again
And as the smoke clears theres an all consuming fire
Lying straight ahead
Lying straight ahead
Lying straight ahead
As the smoke clears theres an all consuming fire
Lying straight ahead
They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you cant be shakespeare and you cant be joyce
So what is left instead
Youre stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment this wonderful fire
Started up again
When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly
When you pass through Im better than you all
When you pass through anger and self deprecation
And have the strength to acknowledge it all
When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic
That let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
And theres a door up ahead not a wall
As you pass through fire as you pass through fire
Trying to remember its name
When you pass through fire licking at your lips
You cannot remain the same
And if the buildings burning move towards that door
But dont put the flames out
Theres a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out
Some loss to even things out
Some loss to even things out
Theres a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out