Kit·Blog Notes

Fredo & Pid’Jin celebrate 2 years and 100 episodes. Congrats to Eugen and Tudor for the evil accomplishment.

Steve Jobs’ keynote address WWDC San Francisco 2007 is available as video-on-demand on the Apple’s new website. Enjoy.

Official on September 1st, BenQ will change its name to Qisda, that stands for “quality innovation speed driving and achievements.” Well BenQ, in Romanian your name stays for something else entirely — being more specific, this is like changing your name into Qunt.

Although on a Mac Opera is not really at home, on a mobile phone is quite a different story — and Opera Mini 4 beta is out now. The new features include full-page viewing with zoom. Highly recommended! [via Authentic Boredom]

Erik Spiekermann: “We won’t do pitches. We never do unpaid creative work, but sometimes it takes more time and trouble to convince them than to do the work. But it’s a principle.” Read the whole interview at IdeasOnIdeas.

Al and Laura Ries in their mysterious anti-iPhone crusade [1, 2, 3, 4]: “The iPhone will do a lot of things but it will do nothing well. And that is why it is destined for failure” and “If the iPod is the biggest success of the 21st century then iPhone is likely to be the biggest flop of the 21st century.” Strong words, bold predictions. One comment reads “Ries, you’re dated.”

Erik Spiekermann: “The official typeface for our license plates is called FE-Mittelschrift, with FE meaning it is Fälschungs-Erschwert, i.e. difficult to forge. Apparently car thieves, terrorists and notorious law-breakers had been exploiting DIN’s geometric construction principle and turning turning E into F or 3 into 8 etc by simply using a bit of black tape or white paint.” Read Complete forgery on SpiekerBlog.

The iPhone is out in the wild now and swarms of enchanted buyers are giving it glowing reviews. For an UI expert opinion head to John Gruber’s iPhone First Impressions and while reading it, stop for a second and think — this is only the first version of it, iPhone 1.0.

The perfect city via smart design is definitely doable — watch in Monocle’s City Slickers why “the measure of a city is more about everyday wonders - pavements, well-designed schools, punctual transport - rather than one-off grand projects”.

Are thou a graphic designer? Then learn how to properly pray like a graphic designer. Amen. [via Quipsologies]