IONIZED: A Journal of Witty Commentary

Go help spread the word:

Firefox 3.5 — code-named Shiretoko — is set to launch on Tuesday, June 30th! How cool would it be if we could set off fireworks worldwide to celebrate? We’d light up the night country by country, town by town, to show the world just how amazing Firefox is. Just like New Year’s, only better — since you get to see who “launched” the fireworks. We’re going to make a big bang by spreading Firefox with Social Media.

And, we need your help! You can be part of the Shock heard round the world. Tell others what you love about the newest version of Firefox. Our community is everything to us, and when it comes to spreading Firefox, nothing is more effective than word of mouth marketing. So we want to get everyone involved in introducing Firefox 3.5 to the world. Let’s keep the momentum going for a full 24 hours as we spread the message around the world, one time zone at a time.

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“Let The Right One In” is a Swedish film that probably ranks among my top movies. It’s a highly romantic, charming film, that just happens to have a vampire as one of its central characters. The American version of this is in production with David Reeves, director of Cloverfield. Like many upcoming films, I’ve been bullish; with some new info coming out of that, I’m getting really excited:

“I was just hooked,” Reeves recalled recently. “I was so taken with the story and I had a very personal reaction. It reminded me a lot of my childhood, with the metaphor that the hard times of your pre-adolescent, early adolescent moment, that painful experience is a horror.”

He seems like he understands what makes this film special — the personal nature that pervades this film, not the vampire-genre tropes that are only a small part of the film.

(Via SlashFilm)

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Khoi Vinh has a nice write-up on the great type-casting (hah!) in “Doubt”:

That subtle but meaningful harkening back to the typographer’s personal history, his works and his ideas, and the subsequent link drawn to the subject matter of the movie makes for sharp, canny typography. It’s not just Cheltenham’s aesthetic benefits that are conscripted into service for these titles, but also the ideas that typeface evokes. As typographic selections in cinema go, it has to rank up there among the smartest, and certainly among the most conceptually rewarding I’ve seen.

Too bad the DVD designers didn’t follow the lead of the film; they ended up using Trajan, the go-to typeface for movies. Typical.

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Sebastiann over at Cocoia has a nice little review of that gorgeous custom-made stencil kit for iPhone UI designers that was released a few weeks ago.

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Apple demands a certain level of control with their App Store; they don’t want something that people would be offended with on the store. With the recent addition of rating system to the store, we thought that they would be a little more lenient to Apps, essentially opening it up to some more risque titles. Yet the system put in place is still too vague and unspecific to work:

That’s the key point to all of this: The ratings range from making no sense to having way too much gray area. Apple is expecting developers to rate their apps correctly, but if it simply doesn’t allow anything in the last two categories to get through, of course those developers are going to wiggle their apps into the “safe” categories. Any why shouldn’t they? A lot of those definitions appear to be the exact same. And that’s probably why we’re seeing a lot of apps that aren’t supposed to get through, slip through the system.

Flat out: The system is broken.

The situation Apple puts developers in with the App Store approval process is hell. Even as consumers, the prospect of being restricted to the whims and tastes of tight Apple reviewers is sad. This is the downside to a closed model: we’re dependent on one gatekeeper to access an entire world of applications; if the gatekeeper sucks, everyone in the ecosystem gets screwed.

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A very strange story that’s blowing up over the internet is the apparent acquisition of our favorite swedish service, The Pirate Bay. The strange thing, though, is the company buying it, Global Gaming Factory X:

Global Gaming Factory X is, in their words, the “biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world,” making this story even more bizarre than it appears. This is sort of like GameFrog buying Demonoid, or, I don’t know, Laser Quest buying Empornium. Odd, is the point.

» Read the rest of this entry «

What’s amazing wasn’t how they kept 35 news organizations quite; it’s that they were able to keep overzealous Wikipedia users from reporting the journalist’s capture:

Earlier last week, New York Times reporter David Rohde escaped from a Taliban prison. He had been a Taliban hostage for the last seven months, but the general public had absolutely no clue. In a joint effort by The New York Times and Wikipedia, the story was kept quiet until his daring escape. In November 2008, Rohde was captured and held hostage by the Taliban, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal. But until he managed to escape, most of the general public had absolutely no clue. To prevent Rohde’s value in the eyes of his captors from rising, the New York Times kept more than 35 major news organizations from reporting on the story. They believed that the publicity from reporting his capture would inflate the value of Rohde’s life, increasing the difficulty of negotiating for Rohde’s release.

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John Cairns at Film School Rejects has a nice opinion piece regarding his bafflement over Transformers 2 and it’s huge box-office performance over the weekend. I completely agree; the movie is utter garbage, yet people are still going out to see it.

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Ever since Toy Story 3 was announced (way back in 2007), I’ve been cautious about it. The prospect that there would be a second sequel to one of my favorite childhood films was disconcerting; there are rarely any good third films of a franchise (Return of the King as the exception.) Some information coming from animator Angus MacLane, director of the short “Burn-E” and one of the head animator’s on “Wall-E”, has calmed my fears:

“I feel like we’ve grown up making these movies, and each of the films represents where the filmmakers were at the time of making the films,” MacLane said in an exclusive interview in Burbank, Calif. “Certainly we’re approaching this film 10 years later, so I think we’re sort of coming at it from the standpoint of [Andy] has grown up, and we’ve grown up with these toys, and we have a reverence for them, but we also have different things as a priority.”

MacLane assured fans that he and his Pixar colleagues take Toy Story 3 seriously. They would not make a cheap knock-off sequel (ahem, Disney). And he said the new installment will mark the true conclusion of a trilogy.

The exciting themes about this film, like tackling the idea of adulthood and growing out of childhood, have sparked my interest. Also, their promise of a serious conclusion to a series as great as “Toy Story” has set my expectations high, even for a Pixar film. I’m predicting that it’ll be my film of 2010.

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FSJ welcomes Palm to war:

But hey. Maybe you’ll lure away some of our developers. Maybe you’ll lure away some customers too. So this is your business plan: You’re going to set up a Camaro car lot across the street from the Mercedes dealer, and put up some bright balloons and streamers and maybe some huge signs about how your cuh-raaaazy prices can’t be beat! Oh, and maybe some kind of big inflatable dog or something. And a bouncy castle for the kids! Free hot dogs! Girls with big hair, wearing shiny shorts and tiny T-shirts! A year’s worth of free gas!

Yeah. Good luck with that. Really.

Steve is so eloquent.

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This ad actually makes you want to click; it’s very funny, engading, and addicting. Ads like this are what we need to save advertising.

(Via Michael Mistretta)

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It’s the ongoing debate of algorithms versus friends:

Imagine, for example, if online comments were written by people using their real names rather than by anonymous trolls. “Up until now all the advancements in technology have said information and data are the most important thing,” says Dave Morin, Facebook’s senior platform manager. “The most important thing to us is that there is a person sitting behind that keyboard. We think the Internet is about people.”

Having actual people, ones that you listen to, shape what you search for and what ads you’ll see is a powerful idea. People who you know can give better recommendations than some company — you trust them and they understand you.

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Despite the excess of Twitter apps for the iPhone, there’s always room for well-designed apps that are simple, functional, and good looking. With Birdfeed, Neven Mrgan (Panic Software) and Buzz Andersen (Cocoalicious and Podworks) have filled that requirement — it’s easy to use and really beautiful.

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I’ve never liked Delicious as a book marking service; it’s too powerful, too cluttered, and more than I need. Instapaper has been how I’ve bookmarked things I wanted to read, listen too, or watch. It’s simple, elegant, and flexible. With folders and sharable starred lists, the site becomes even more powerful while still retaining that simplicity:

Another big update is that you can now subscribe to other Instapaper users’ Starred items, making the service social. The advent of the folder feature allows for this, as when you click on the “Add folder” link, you now have an option to add another users’ starred items simply by typing in their Instapaper username. Those items are placed in the left-hand sidebar of the Instapaper site, and when you click on a user’s name, you will see all their items just as you would your own Instapaper items.

New linked-list feeds, here I come.

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Psychology is an important thing to understand if you’re a designer — after all, design is how we interact with something, how we use and and think of it. Without knowing some principles of how the human mind works, a designer can’t make an effective design.

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Another Psychology-based design article, dealing with the effect that aesthetics and beauty have on the perceived usability of a site.

Many eyetracking studies conclude that large graphics and graphic elements attract few “gaze fixations,” but can we really conclude that large, aesthetic, tone-setting graphics have no lasting effect on the user’s attitudes toward a site? To put it bluntly, are designers who create visually compelling sites simply wasting time and treasure on graphic indulgences that obstruct efficient e-commerce and communication?

Perhaps not. Another body of web user experience research shows that website users are powerfully influenced by aesthetics, and that positive perceptions of order, beauty, novelty, and creativity increase the user’s confidence in a site’s trustworthiness and usability. Recent design writing and interface research illustrate how visual design and user research can work together to create better user experiences on the web: experiences that balance the practicalities of navigation with aesthetic interfaces that delight the eye and brain. In short: there’s lots of evidence that beauty enhances usability.

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I’ve never had much respect for Sanford, even though he’s the Governor of my home state; before the Stimulus money conflict, he always seemed too self-centered to run the state government. With his latest stunt, he’s finally lost everything:

But this was something entirely different. At a time when every last bit of political life is scripted, here was a powerful man wiping tears from his cheeks and talking about the intimate details of his shameful behavior. His wife wasn’t at his side — she’d kicked him out and told him not to call.

“The bottom line is this: I — I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” the governor said. “I developed a relationship which started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently, as I suspect many of these things do, in just a casual e-mail. . . . But here recently over this last year it developed into something much more than that.”

Disappearing for five days, leaving for Argentina without anyone’s knowledge, and having an affair — all while missing father’s day — does not represent a decent Governor, let alone human being.

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It’s a known fact that newspapers are struggling; revenues are falling, readers are leaving, and interest in the medium is waning. To fight this Judge Richard Posner in one of his blog posts has some, well, interesting ideas:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

Basically, he’s saying we can’t link to newspapers without asking their implicit permission. » Read the rest of this entry «

Interesting:

iA’s Web Trend Map plots the leading Internet names onto the Tokyo Metro System. The domains and personalities are carefully selected through dialogue with map enthusiasts. Each domain is evaluated based on traffic, revenue, age, owner and character.

Good looking, too.

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A great designer, writer and speaker, Mr. Stocks has redesigned his site — it’s beautiful. Oh, and check the footer; it’s very, very nice.

I’ve been promising a new version of this site for over a year now, but after several false starts and failed attempts, temporarily nuking the old site ended up being the only thing that would force me to do it. And so today I unveil the beast (which is best experienced with Safari, by the way)…

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Takes a dip… and keeps on recording. Pretty Surprising, considering that most smartphones die on contact with even a little puddle.

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Though it’s something everybody wants, a move to Verizon looks even more unlikely with these facts brought up:

That means Apple would have to switch or supplement chip providers, which would be difficult given Apple’s penchant for secrecy, and how closely the company reportedly has worked with Infineon. Infineon could develop its own CDMA chips, but Qualcomm owns an enormous number of patents related to CDMA (which it invented), and it would be a complex, long-term, but doable project for Infineon to obtain the rights. That all makes it unlikely in the short run.

Infineon also has one software-defined product, where software can reshape the radio standards supported in the chip, but CDMA isn’t on the list of supported standards.

It’s something that should be in the pipeline in a few years, but not as soon as 2010 like many people speculate.

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Finally, a beautiful and simple way to create a book relatively cheaply. Just upload your PDF, and Blurb will use it exactly to set the book.

(Via Michael Mistretta)

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Steve’s just glad he wasn’t death number three yesterday. Oh, and Phil Schiller makes some off-color jokes about boys’ underpants.

Leave it to FSJ to lighten the mood.

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I’ve been hesitant to write about this. Not because I don’t like him or that I don’t appreciate what he’s done for music — I definitely understand his importance. It’s just that I never got saw him in his prime, in the days of “Thriller” and “Off the Wall.” I never had those reverent memories many had of him; too young to have known his great work as it was released, nor exposed to it as I grew up. Frankly, there isn’t anything I could add to the abundant discussion that’s already been posted. Despite this, it’s too overwhelming a story just to ignore.

So, rest easy Michael. Just keep on dancing, and people will remember.

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The 3GS will do for mobile video what the original did for photos, just like Phil Schiller predicted. It will be the leading video taking device this year.

Mobile uploads to YouTube have increased by 400 percent since last Friday’s release of the iPhone 3GS, Google announced today. The device is the first iPhone with video capabilities and is able to upload videos directly to MobileMe or YouTube, even over the 3G network. With the ability to send videos to the Internet almost immediately, it’s no surprise that users are taking the opportunity to upload videos on-the-spot from their iPhones.

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Typography has never been easily managed or controlled on the internet. Hacks like SIFR or Cufón, attempt to give some semblance of control to designers but are still not standard methods of typographic use on the web. HTML5 has support for @font-face embedding, yet it still lacks settings for kerning, ligatures, and other preferences — let alone the controversy over copyright issues for font foundries.

Typekit wants to solve this dilemna. Support from multiple (yet still unnamed) foundries, simple embedding through a line of javascript, and no DRM help to bolster its case against @font-face embedding and other methods. Despite this, I still had doubts: how would fonts render in different browsers, how would copyright problems be handled without DRM, and which foundries would actually back this? Their original press release was vague and left these questions to linger, causing me to doubt this ever coming to market.

Now, though, they’ve released a notice about their first round of funding:

“This funding is the next step in our plan for bringing real typography to the web,” said Bryan Mason, Small Batch co-founder and President . “We want to build a nimble, safe tool that makes it easier for web designers to do amazing design online, and a lot of people believe in that goal. We’re excited and humbled by the team of investors supporting us.”

Tony Conrad of True Ventures leads a team of high-profile investors that also includes:
* Evan Williams, Twitter CEO and Founder
* Caterina Fake, Flickr and Hunch Founder
* Matt Mullenweg, WordPress/Automattic Founder
* Ron Conway, Angel Investor whose early investments include Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal and Twitter
* Chris Sacca, Lowercase Capital
* Josh Felser and Dave Samuel, Freestyle Capital
“Typography is the last missing piece of great web design,” said Jeffrey Veen, Small Batch co-founder and CEO. “We’re working closely with type designers to create a new market for their work.”

That’s a serious group of high-profile entrepreneurs; if there wasn’t a tangible product with a real chance of making it to market and succeeding, they wouldn’t have invested so heavily into this venture. There obviously is real interest in the internet and design community for something like this to be released, and with this they’ve calmed the fear and uncertainty of before. Their is hope for a web with good, beautiful typography coming — and it has some legitimacy and excitement behind it now.

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Well, the first full-nudity porn app was accepted into the App Store a few days ago:

This is not just an application that downloads softcore content from the Web, bypassing Apple’s censorship. There is no censorship here, as this is truly an Apple approved app “rated 17+” for “frequent/intense sexual content or nudity” and “frequent/intense mature/suggestive theme.”

Not surprisingly, though, Apple seemingly removed it:

The softcore app, Hottest Girls, was downloadable for a few hours on Thursday, but is now unavailable. Neither Apple nor the developer were immediately available to provide an explanation, but it appears Apple changed its mind after the app received so much press attention on Thursday.

But, the developer updates us on the situation:

Apple hasn’t removed the app, the developer has, thanks to the strain on the saucy images server. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app,” says the developer. “Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing.” The app still works for those who have already bought it, the developer says.

Yes, the first porn app on the App Store was pulled because of a strain on the developer’s server. Too many men, too little bandwidth — a recipe for disaster.

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It even got a spotlight on the Today Show:

This morning Google Voice was featured in a segment on the Today Show, during which NBC News correspondent Janet Shamlian outlined her experiences with the service over the last few months (her verdict: she loves it). It’s an interesting piece to watch if only to see how the mass media is trying to describe Google Voice without confusing everyone watching, which can be a difficult task.

I’ve been waiting for a few months now; just the idea of a centralized, simplified interface for managing calls — like what Google did with email — excites me.

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Jeff Atwood (a previously non-Apple guy) has finally acknowledged the importance of the iPhone, at what it means for the world of programming:

The platform is now so compelling and polished that even I took the plunge. For context, this is the first Apple product I’ve owned since 1984. Literally. I am largely ambivalent towards Apple, but it’s impossible to be ambivalent about the iPhone — and in particular, the latest and greatest iPhone 3GS. It is the Pentium to the 486 of the iPhone 3G. A landmark, genre-defining product, no longer a mere smartphone but an honest to God fully capable, no-compromises computer in the palm of your hand. Here’s how far I am willing to go: I believe the iPhone will ultimately be judged a more important product than the original Apple Macintosh.

[…]

I didn’t write this to kiss Apple’s ass. I wrote this because I truly feel that the iPhone is a key inflection point in software development. We will look back on this as the time when “software” stopped being something that geeks buy (or worse, bootleg), and started being something that everyone buys, every day. You’d have to be a jaded developer indeed not to find something magical and transformative in this formula, and although others will clearly follow, the iPhone is leading the way.

He’s great writer and quite a good programmer; many of the things I learn about programming come from him.

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