29 July 2010
Great minds think alike
Google Makes Custom Web Typography Ridiculously Easy
Google has once again given an excellent new tool to designers and developers (and even CSS-savvy “common folk”) who long for better, more diverse typefaces on the web: a cool Font Previewer that makes adding a new font to your site as simple as copy/pasting a few lines of code.
Back in May, Google rolled out its Font Directory and the Google Fonts API. The idea was that these tools would make it simpler for designers and devs to embed a wider range of fonts in their sites and applications.
The previewer takes a few steps out of that process by giving you an idea of how a given typeface will look on your site; letting you adjust the font size and weight; letting you tinker with the leading, kerning and tracking; generating a number of drop shadows if you require them; and generating the code you need to make the magic happen.
It’s pretty hot. Here’s what it looks like:
If you click “Toggle controls,” you can see what the typeface looks like sans-grid, sans-controls on a plain white screen.
Once you’re done tinkering, you’ll see a dynamically generated code sample beneath the preview area. Your code will look something like this:
Then, just copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages. That’s it; you’re done, and your site has a lovely, interesting new font. We tried it out ourselves, and it worked even better than expected.
All the fonts in Google’s library are open source. Previously, Google’s Font API could be integrated into websites using HTML or a JavaScript WebFont Loader that the company co-developed with Typekit.
28 July 2010
Woman in Technology
Discrimination now rarely takes the form of some guy saying “hey little lady, shouldn’t you let a man handle that?” It is much more subtle, but just as ugly. These days, bright, thoughtful, enlightened people assume that the absence of women in certain fields results from women being unable to compete on merit. The assumption that, if someone creates a scholarship for women, it is because otherwise, women can’t hack it.
Should you worry about the tags on Wal-Mart underwear?
The retail giant Wal-Mart will place radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on underwear, jeans and other consumer items, according to several news reports, including one today from the Wall Street Journal. Companies have long used such "smart tags" to keep track of the inventory of goods going through the supply chain, but the move by Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, to put them on individual consumer items marks a (not unexpected) shift toward something that privacy advocates have long feared....If the idea that corporations might want to use RFID tags to spy on individuals sounds far-fetched, it is worth considering an IBM patent filed in 2001 and granted in 2006. The patent describes exactly how the cards can be used for tracking and profiling even if access to official databases is unavailable or strictly limited. Entitled “Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items in Store Environments,” it chillingly details RFID’s potential for surveillance in a world where networked RFID readers called “person tracking units” would be incorporated virtually everywhere people go—in “shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, restrooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, [and] museums”—to closely monitor people’s movements.
According to the patent, here is how it would work in a retail environment: an “RFID tag scanner located [in the desired tracking location]... scans the RFID tags on [a] person.... As that person moves around the store, different RFID tag scanners located throughout the store can pick up radio signals from the RFID tags carried on that person and the movement of that person is tracked based on these detections.... The person tracking unit may keep records of different locations where the person has visited, as well as the visitation times.”
The fact that no personal data are stored in the RFID tag does not present a problem, IBM explains, because “the personal information will be obtained when the person uses his or her credit card, bank card, shopper card or the like.” The link between the unique RFID number of the tag and a person’s identity needs to be made only once for the card to serve as a proxy for the person thereafter.…
- Wal-Mart already scares the shit out of me for a variety of reasons, none the least being the clientele they attract, endearingly dubbed by me and my family as Wal-Martians.
- There are already dozens, perhaps hundreds of retailers that use RFID tags as anti-theft devices - you only have to cut out the tag after you've bought the garment. HOWEVER, I understand that Wal-Mart may just be creating RFID tags that are embedded in the seams, rather than obnoxiously sticking out, waiting to be cut.
- I certainly don't think that "privacy is dead" as many corporate douchebags do, but I almost never use cash, so i expect that to a certain extent my personal information is already being collected and aggregated. Probably more than I want to know.
Are we slowly becoming a society that resembles 1984? Possibly. Is allowing our personal information enabling the government and corporate interests to know more about us than we want them to know? Likely. But look at the technological advances that are also coming out of it. How nice is it that you can just tap your credit card on the little reader and your transaction is complete? Wouldn't it be cool if you could just walk through a scanner and complete your entire inventory checkout and payment transaction all within an instant? Right? Well that's RFID and related technologies. Am I crazy about the idea of being tracked and data collected about me everywhere I go? Of course not, but it's already happening, and I definitely appreciate the other conveniences this tracking affords me.
Does you know someone who compulsively forwards bogus email rumors?
27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for.............
Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night skystarting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will culminate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.
Just when you thought it was safe to check your email...For the sixth year in a row, a message about the Red Planet is popping up in email boxes around the world. It instructs readers to go outside after dark on August 27th and behold the sky. "Mars will look as large as the full moon," it says. "No one alive today will ever see this again."
Don't believe it.
Here's what will really happen if you go outside after dark on August 27th. Nothing. Mars won't be there. On that date, the red planet will be nearly 250 million km away from Earth and completely absent from the evening sky.
Right: Only in Photoshop does Mars appear as large as a full Moon.
The Mars Hoax got its start in 2003 when Earth and Mars really did have a close encounter. On Aug. 27th of that year, Mars was only 56 million km away, a 60,000-year record for martian close approaches to Earth. Someone sent an email alerting friends to the event. The message contained some misunderstandings and omission--but what email doesn't? A piece of advanced technology called the "forward button" did the rest.
21 July 2010
Damon Lindelof on Inception
