Goodbye Amy Winehouse

We had to say goodbye to such a talented artist, Amy Winehouse. There are not so many singers who  just open their mouths and can take you on a journey, to places that you have never been before in a 5 minute song, Amy Winehouse was one of them.

I enjoyed her music deeply,  I always thought that she was an extraordinary musician. No one is going to rock the polyester tower wig and leopard print ballet flats like you did, Amy.

Rest in peace.

[ITFriend Vietsub] Amy Winehouse - Back To Black from Kentashjr0 on Vimeo.

Mac OS X Lion to hit the App Store Today!

Well it looks like the cat's finally out of the bag virtual box. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer just confirmed during today's earnings call that Mac OS 10.7 is due to hit the Mac App Store today, making Lion available as a 4GB download for $30. The new operating system packs 250 new features, including an iOS-like app launcher, multi-touch gestures, AirDrop for direct file sharing, and system-wide Resume. More enhancements that will feel particularly familiar to iOS users include a new version of Mail with conversation view, and reverse touchpad scrolling.

We'll have a full review of Lion later this week, but check out our hands-on preview for our initial impressions. Want to collaborate on projects with multiple machines? Lion Server will also be available as a $50 download -- for those of you that need to support an entire pride.

Interactive, Infographic iPad book

Our Choice, is a new ebook for the iPad and iPhone by Al Gore that includes many infographics and interactive data visualizations that the readers can interact with.  Intended to be the sequel to his book and presentations, An Inconvinient Truth, Our Choice brings a lot of the global warming data to life.

Mike Matas presented the book design in the TED Talk video above, and he’s the co-founder of Push Pop Press, a new digital publishing company. This is the first book from Push Pop Press, but they are working to make the software tools used to make this ebook app available to produce more ebooks.

Ignoring the message and any controversy this book will inspire, the use of data visuals in a ebook format like this is a sign of many more data visualizations to come.

Al Gore’s Our Choice will change the way we read books. And quite possibly change the world. In this interactive app, Al Gore surveys the causes of global warming and presents groundbreaking insights and solutions already under study and underway that can help stop the unfolding disaster of global warming.

Our Choice melds the vice president’s narrative with photography, interactive graphics, animations, and more than an hour of engrossing documentary footage. A new, groundbreaking interface allows you to experience that content seamlessly. Pick up and explore anything you see in the book; zoom out to the visual table of contents and quickly browse though the chapters; reach in and explore data-rich interactive graphics.

More than 30 original interactive infographics and animations

100% of Al Gore’s earnings from Our Choice will be donated to the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection.

The app is $4.99 in the iTunes Store, and if you purchase through this link, Our Choice ebook, a small portion will go to helping maintain one of my favorite blogs the Cool Infographics site.  You can also buy the printed book from Amazon.