The HTML Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Media Source Extensions. This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams. If you wish to make comments or file bugs regarding this document in a manner that is tracked by the W3C, please submit them via our public bug database. Comments are welcome through 17 October. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is pleased to announce publication of the completed Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.0 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies (WCAG2ICT) as an informative W3C Working Group Note. WCAG2ICT provides guidance on the interpretation and application of WCAG 2.0 to non-web documents and software. It is the result of a collaborative effort to support harmonized accessibility solutions across a range of technologies. Learn more from the WCAG2ICT Overview and read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

David Barbato, a native Spanish speaker, worked with Dr. Ana Prados to translate a number of ARSET resources into Spanish, to help the program reach organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Thanks to David, presentation materials and hands on activities on how to use NASA imagery in Latin America and the Caribbean will soon be available on the ARSET Website: http://water.gsfc.nasa.gov.  In addition, David also learned about how NASA science is being used around the world.

IES Office OPT and CPT Workshop Schedule, Fall 2013

All workshops take place in Admin 218

Marissa Mayer is many things. A brand designer she is not.

After 30 days of change and countless dollars thrown at R&D, Yahoo! have unveiled their new logo. The past month showcased some options — most of which were bad — and unfortunately the end result is distinctly amateurish.

So what’s wrong?

Well to start with, in the context of a world waking up to the value of minimalism — if not flat design — Yahoo! have managed to date themselves overnight by embracing bevels reminiscent of stone carving; a skeuomorphic ornament best left in the 1990′s.

That carved stone look extends to the terminals, which are sharp and concave; except the ‘O’s which don’t have terminals, and the ‘!’ which does.

They’ve based the logo on Optima, which may be a great choice for a lawyer, but seems deeply inappropriate for a daring young brand with an exclamation mark in its name.

What’s more, the team at Yahoo! have tweaked the letter forms badly: compare the original contrast on the horizontal and vertical strokes with the newly symmetrical diagonals on the ‘Y’ and ‘A’; this is a large part of the reason the left half of the logo feels heavier than the right.

We wanted there to be a mathematical consistency to the logo, really pulling it together into one coherent mark.

You’d think that if you were going to apply kerning inconsistently you’d get it right somewhere, just by chance, but they haven’t. Take a look at the ‘YA’, ‘AH’, ‘HO’ and ‘OO’ as pairs. Mayer has suggested that there’ll be some small refinements made in future, and the first thing that needs to be done is fixing the tracking.

All in all it feels as if the logo has been derived from mathematical rules rather than set by eye, and both the promo video Yahoo! have released and one of Mayer’s stated aims seem to support that conclusion:

How did this happen?

The answer is depressingly familiar:

On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator. I think it’s one of the most incredible software packages ever made. I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous :) — Marissa Mayer

The in-house design team at Yahoo! must have been thrilled to discover an enthusiastic amateur was calling the shots.

This situation is in my opinion the worst kind of exploitation, in which designers are treated as little more than a mouse, or a walking-talking substitute for a CEO’s lack of design education. I have a lot of time for Marissa Mayer, but on this occasion it seems her ego was calling the shots.

How can we avoid this ourselves?

The first rule of branding, in fact the first rule of design, is that it’s not about making something the CEO likes; it’s about making something appropriate for the brand. No one is saying that branding is easy, especially with a brand valued at billions of dollars, but that’s all the more reason not to knock it out on the kitchen table over the course of a weekend.

The answer is to bring in a trained professional, from outside the organization who can take objective, informed decisions.

In other words, hire a designer.

What do you think of Yahoo!’s new logo? Have you rebranded recently? Let us know in the comments.

Ultimatum 2.5: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Builder – $35!

If it can cleverly blend hardware and software in new ways, reach new markets, and take advantage of Nokia’s patent portfolio, Microsoft’s billions could be well spent.

Nokia might have gotten the better of Microsoft this week in selling its once-dominant handset business to Microsoft and entering into a broad patent agreement in a deal worth $7.1 billion. Microsoft’s stock price took a big hit. And no wonder: given the declining state of Nokia’s business, the deal seemed like a desperate attempt to prop up the largest manufacturer of phones that run Windows before it went under or switched to Google’s Android system.

In version control, best practice is to commit your work in discrete chunks. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s easier said than done when real life gets in the way. In this Treehouse Quick Tip, we’ll learn how to overcome this hurdle with Git’s stash command.

The post Git Stashing – Treehouse Quick Tip appeared first on Treehouse Blog.