Otaqui.Com

For years now I’ve heard tell of ‘Sparkle’, Microsoft’s supposed alternative to the Flash player / platform. At the time of this writing you can find search results on mcrosoft.com about sparkle, but few of those pages exist, and none of the actual product links. I’m guessing, but I think that their new product Silverlight is the same thing rebranded, and is certainly being touted as a smackdown-style competitor to Flash.

Adobe isn’t resting on its laurels, though – Mashable also reports that Adobe’s new Media Player is a direct competitor to Windows Media Player.

I can’t really see either platform having too much success in the short term since Flash not only has player-ubiquity on it’s side, but a huge developer-base; while in the media player world I still suspect a huge number of users don’t even know what one is, let alone why you would go and install another one and go through all the file- and mime-type hassles that entails.

Update:Techcrunch has quite a bit more information about the silverlight platform … and it actually sounds quite nice, although I’m not convinced that it will be that great for designers (not that I am one …)

If you’re interested in taking a breakdance course in London you might want to check out the following dance schools:

• Basement Dance Studio – York Way
• PS2 Breakstation – Kingsland Road
• Pineapple Dance Studios – Covent Garden

Most of these studios offer courses for adults and younger learners and other related courses as well, such as Popping, Locking, Robotics, General Hip Hop / Street, and other types of dance altogether like Salsa and Jazz.

I laughed. I know, I’m a geek.

Engadget reports on DARPA developing peril sensitive sunglasses. Oh wait, I mean threat sensitive binoculars. Sorry, my other head is really hungover from a few too many pan galactic gargle blasters.

This looks like it might have passed it’s sell by date, but it sure is a beefy font from Robert Bolesta.