Archive for July, 2010

by Vera H-C Chan

Leaks stayed a theme in July, as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill passed the 100 day mark and a whistleblowing website posted secret war papers. The revelations kept coming in the Russian spy network, with one more potential Mata Hari surfacing...from Texas? Turns out the month's best kept secret may have been where one not-so-small forward would establish his new basketball reign. Below, the buzz that would not stay quiet on Yahoo! searches and beyond.

Stemming the leaks
A cap finally clamped down on the gushing flow of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the real hero of the mission may ultimately be oil-eating bacteria. But, as China suffered its own catastrophic oil spill, U.S. attention shifted to a very different kind of leak: Whistleblowing site Wikileaks (+1,187% rise in searches) posted 92,000 classified documents on the Afghanistan war. The information—the U.S and its allies caused civilian casualties and some Pakistani agents helped the Taliban—turned out to be nothing new and yet everything new, and many sought to put the documents in context. A war of words is now erupting between founder Julian Assange and press secretary Robert Gates, among others. More leaks on "military abuses" are planned, as the government figures out both damage control and what damage might've been done to exposed sources.

Welcome to the Federation
As Angelina Jolie brought the sexy back in Cold War relations with her action flick "Salt," Rossiyskaya Federatsiya welcomed back some of its emigrant workers, who had been sleepers on the job in America. While lusty journalists lavished attention on comely divorcee Anna Chapman (+1,554%), she had competition with one Anna Fermanova (search term breakout). The Texas cosmetologist and English resident was stopped on her way to Russia packing night vision scopes worth a few thousand (apparently not the usual makeover tool), then arrested four months later on the return leg to the U.S. Meanwhile, outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward and his successor Bob Dudley swapped countries—a Russian post for a US job. But, who really got the better deal? According to the Business Insider, Dudley didn't do right with TNK-BP, "the single most valuable oil producer in the BP group," and got "ousted from the country." Now he's running BP in America — um, thanks?

The Courting of King James
The frenzied speculation over where basketball great LeBron James (+228%) would go ended up in a disappointed fizzle: not so much that he chose the Miami Heat, but more about ESPN's one-hour capitulation to James and his media handlers. Before the announcement, searches on Yahoo! imploded wondering "where lebron will land," "lebron james news," "lebron james rumors," "lebron james new team," "lebron james chicago bulls," and of course the very vital pursuit of "lebron james shoes" and what would happen to "lebron james house ohio." Suspicion over how much James controls ESPN continued when an article about a lavish Lebron Las Vegas party got yanked. Of course, this being the Web, a good story never dies.

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by Claudine Zap

This week, whether it was heading across the country or across town, travel stories got the Buzz filled with wanderlust: An airline asks its customers to board themselves, a journey in jeans makes for a buzzy viral video, and New York subway riders will get Wi-Fi. All these stories and more in your Buzz Week in Review.

What's next — we serve ourselves drinks?
Just in time for the summer airport onslaught, Continental Airlines has decided to test what they call self-boarding, and what we call DIY air travel. Once travelers at Houston Intercontinental Airport swipe their ticket, a turnstile door will open to allow the passenger entry into the airplane. While automated boarding does not require the human touch, an attendant will be on hand to deal with the usual customer service problems.

And we can imagine plenty of problems. Does anarchy rule in this experiment? No longer will passengers be called by row or color-coded boarding pass. Instead, they'll be expected to make a dash through a turnstile. Amazingly, the TSA is onboard, as it were, with self-boarding. The practice is already in place at many international airlines, like Air France and Air New Zealand. You'll be glad to know that human pilots are still required to fly the plane. For now.

Go west, young man in Levi's
There's nothing more American than putting life on hold for a trip — on foot — across the country. Just you and your perfectly faded, worn-in pair of Levi's, that is. A viral video made by the denim company has started a fad on the Web. OK, truth in advertising: The young man who stars in this journey in jeans didn't really walk the whole way. But a crew did drive him across the country, and over 14 days, took countless photos to create the cool, photo-montage look of the video. The stop-motion photography takes us from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, with many stops in between.

It certainly held viewers' attention: Searches on "journey in jeans" saw a rapid rise this week. The Daily Mail has a behind-the-scene look at the making of the video, which took 2,770 images to create. All that work appears to have paid off: The Levi's ad has been viewed over 600,000 times on Yahoo!. See it again here.

Calling all New York subway riders
The New York underground will no longer be a place to get away from it all — if it ever was. In between stops and on station platforms, riders will have a chance to keep their thumbs texting and their jaws moving. Where tunnels are wider and stations are closer together, stronger phone signals may even provide strap hangers with cell service for the entire trip. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority struck a deal with the company Transit Wireless to wire 6 test stations within two years — and in eight years to wire all 277 stations. So hey, if your iPad is stolen on the train, you'll be able to call the police to report the crime right away. That's a relief.

Also buzzing this week...
• The president of Iran has it in for Paul the Octopus.
• This guy is running for governor of Tennessee. The heck?
• Could J.Lo be the next "AI" judge?

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by Mike Krumboltz

Some art is just OK. You know, stuff like Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or the "Mona Lisa" by ol' whatshisface. They're cool if you're into that whole "masterpiece" thing. Then there are paintings that open up a worm hole through space and time by shear power of their awesomeness. These are very rare indeed. The best example we can think of: The highly acclaimed (by us) "Chewbacca riding a Giant Squirrel while fighting Nazis."

We're not sure if that really is the painting's name, but it should be. For in the painting, the Star Wars character is howling atop a giant (and bemused) rodent, while Nazi soldiers fall by the wayside. It's over-the-top ridiculous that manages to be bring a smile to just about everyone who looks at it.

The painting has been making the rounds on the Web for several days, but nobody seemed to know anything about the mad genius behind the image. Fortunately, the maniacs at StarWars.com tracked down the artist, a chap named Tyler Edlin. As it turns out, the story of how (and why) the painting came into existence is nearly as cool as the painting itself.

In the interview, Mr. Edlin explains that he created the painting for a friend who was getting married. The friend, who we one day would love to meet, apparently requested a painting of Chewbacca riding a squirrel for his wedding gift (no word on what his future wife thought of the idea). Later, he added that he would like Chewbacca to also be fighting Nazi soldiers. Ask and ye shall receive, amigo, for that's exactly what Mr. Edlin delivered.

The painting has been all the rage online over the past week, inspiring massive Web searches for "chewbacca riding squirrel" and "chewbacca art." If you want to own a copy of your own to hang above the ol' fireplace, Mr. Edlin is now selling them. Come on, you know you want it.

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by Mike Krumboltz

You know the saying "there's someone for everyone"? Well, it's true. Butch Patrick, 57, who played young Eddie Munster on "The Munsters" TV show in the '60s, is getting married. And not to just anybody. He'll tie the knot with his self-described "biggest fan," with whom he used to correspond when they were kids.

News of the impending nuptials sent Web searches on the groom sky high. But not even the surge of interest in all things Butch Patrick (his signature widow's-peak hairdo is particularly popular in the Search box) could match the level of lookups for his betrothed, Donna McCall.

Here's the story: When Mr. Patrick starred on "The Munsters," he and Ms. McCall would write back and forth to each other. Donna, it turns out, was a big fan and had a massive crush on the youngest Munster.

According to My Fox Philly, years passed and the two fell out of touch. Then, Ms. McCall, now 55, tracked him down on the Internet. The two exchanged phone numbers, talked, and agreed to meet for the first time at "Dracula Con II" in Philadelphia. Next thing you know, they're engaged.

Ms. McCall is a former cheerleader with the Philadelphia Eagles, a fact that helped contribute to the booming searches on "donna mccall eagles" and "donna mccall cheerleader." In an article for Philly.com, Mr. Patrick joked that while he does hear from female fans fairly often, not many are cheerleaders.

Says the future Mrs. Munster: "My first crush was Butch Patrick. I met him for the first time, but I feel like I've known him forever."

McCall accepted Patrick's proposal (of course), and now the two are set to tie the knot. "It's a great love story," says Ms. McCall, a retired pharmacist. "We're very happy together." Congratulations, guys!

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Web Directions USA, a conference for those in the Web industry, is happening on September 21-25 in Atlanta, Georgia. If you register before August 15, you can save $100. Or use this discount code, WDUSA-HC, to obtain the $799 registration price.

Yahoo! Developer Network will be represented by these speakers:

• Nicholas Zakas on "High Performance JavaScript"
• Dan Rubin on "Creativity, Design and Interaction with HTML5 and CSS3"
• Tom Hughes-Croucher on "An Introduction to Server-side JavaScript"

Amped is something new, on the day after the conference, September 25th. It's advertised as a "high octane day of hacking." Look for organizers to add more info to the website.

Christine Dorffi
YDN Blog Editor

by Vera H-C Chan

After the ratings drop and critical pile-on that was Season 9, "American Idol" is bound and determined to make its 10th anniversary one to remember. (Or at least, not one to forget — a subtle but important distinction.)

News and rumors about who's out and who's in are in high boil, and searches are breaking out on Yahoo! for "american idol judge" and "new american idol judge." Lots of viewers blamed contestants for a snoozer season, but the "Idol" powers-that-be know that the judges and people behind the scenes really steer the show.

Official news of the final "American Idol" judge slate likely comes August 2 at the 2010 Television Critics Association Press Tour, according to Entertainment Weekly. Meanwhile, here's the best guess of who's out, who's in, who never wanted in, and who still wants a chance.

Who's Out

• Ellen DeGeneres: Quit, and self-confirmed. She tweeted "Dim the lights..I've voted myself off American Idol." On her talk show site, DeGeneres explained she told FOX and the producers back in May. The longtime fan, occasional host, and one-season judge said "this didn't feel like the right fit for me."
• Simon Cowell: Retired, and confirmed old news. He retired because he had better things to do for "X-Factor." The American version debuts in fall 2011: MTV did a nice breakdown of what's the difference between "X-Factor" and "American Idol."
• Kara DioGuardi: Fired, and still in the rumor stage. TMZ reported the reality show wants to return to the three-judge format, with mega-star filling in the female slot. That makes the songwriter's the unwanted fourth wheel. Her buzz popped when she did things like pose for Maxim and Allure magazine, but otherwise was lukewarm.

Who's (Maybe) In

• Nigel Lythgoe: rumored, but pretty close to confirmation. No not a judge—Lythgoe was "Idol"'s executive editor until Season 8, when he left to focus on "Dancing with the Stars." He plans to crack whips, but viewers were already starting to tune out under his watch.
• Randy Jackson: confirmed — or at least, his firing isn't rumored. With a year left in his contract, only a wrecking crane could pry the producer and former Journey guitarist from that table...although Lythgoe reportedly had wanted to swing that ax wide.
• Jennifer Lopez: rumored, but almost all but confirmed. Deadline.com says her old manager has been meeting with producers for about a month now. Lopez needs a career resuscitation, but is she slumming it for "Idol"? She still has plenty of buzz left in her (and searches spiked big when she guest-starred on "SNL" and shimmied on the MTV Movie Awards with Tom Cruise as Les Grossman), and some of us still want her in an "Out of Sight" sequel.
• Steve Tyler: rumored, but all but confirmed. Having a second performer seems redundant, although recent "Idol" winners and successes have belonged more to the rocker realm. Only six months ago, he checked into rehab again, so that could add that unpredictable element.
• Jessica Simpson: rumor, and the (blonde) dark horse. Both TMZ and EW have reported on her meetings, which are among the most recent of contenders.

Who Was Never In

• Elton John: squelched rumor. The singer's publicist points to other commitments. Lythgoe was hot on keeping up the Brit slot after Cowell's exit way back in March, but the rumors have been that John had also wanted "too much money"—he allegedly passed on a $33 million contract.
• Justin Timberlake: squelched rumor. He was on the the wish lists of producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, along with Harry Connick Jr., Chris Isaak and Donald Trump (???), but it never progressed beyond that—in fact, an update on Hollywood Reporter said the singer/actor was "100% not interested." Talk about not giving your all.

Who Still Wants In

• Sean Combs: self-generated rumor. Among many, like Bret Michaels, who wanted the gig. Combs wasn't interested, until he found out what Cowell got paid. His self-promoting rally's little late, but considering his bad-boy background and how he pulled off mean on "Get Him to the Greek," he would actually be a spot-on Cowell replacement, even if he would have to sit next his ex. Awkward...or great TV?

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The latest Platform Preview Build includes two great interoperable features for working with the DOM – DOM Traversal and Element Traversal. These features provide web developers with simple, flexible, and fast ways of traversing through a document using the same markup across browsers. These features come in the form of flat enumeration, simplifying the DOM tree to an iterative list, and filtering which enables you to tailor the set of nodes you traverse. These features work with the same markup across browsers – you can try out any of the code here in the IE9 platform preview and other browsers.

Without these features, finding an element of interest on a page requires you to do one or more depth-first traversals of the document using firstChild and nextSibling. This is usually accomplished with complex code that runs slowly. With the DOM and Element Traversal features, there are new and better ways of solving the problem. This blog post is a primer and provides a few best practices to get you on your way.

I’ll start with Element Traversal, since it’s the simplest of the interfaces and follows familiar patterns for enumerating elements in the DOM. Element Traversal is essentially a version of DOM Core optimized for Elements . Instead of calling firstChild and nextSibling, you call firstElementChild and nextElementSibling. For example:

if (elm.firstElementChild)
{
    elm = elm.firstElementChild;
    
    while (elm.nextElementSibling)
    {
        // Do work...
    }
}

This is faster and more convenient, saving you the trouble of having to check for text and comment nodes when you’re really only interested in elements.

DOM Traversal is designed for much broader use cases. First, you create a NodeIterator or a TreeWalker. Then you can use one of the iteration methods to traverse the tree:

var iter = document.createNodeIterator(elm, NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT, null, false); // This would work fine with createTreeWalker, as well

var node = iter.nextNode();
while (node = iter.nextNode())
{
    node.style.display = "none";
}

The codepath above iterates through a flat list of all nodes in the tree. This can be incredibly useful since in many cases you don’t care whether something is a child or sibling of something else, just whether it occurs before or after your current position in the document.

A big benefit of DOM Traversal is that it introduces the idea of filtering, so that you only traverse the nodes you care about. While nodeIterator only performs flat iterations, TreeWalker has some additional methods, like firstChild(), that let you see as much or as little of the tree structure as you want.

The SHOW_* family of constants provides a way to include broad classes of nodes, such as text or elements (like SHOW_ELEMENT in the earlier example). In many cases, this will be enough. But when you need the most precise control, you can write your own filter via the NodeFilter interface. The NodeFilter interface uses a callback function to filter each node, as in the following example:

var iter = document.createNodeIterator(elm, NodeFilter.SHOW_ALL, keywordFilter, false);

function keywordFilter(node)
{
   var altStr = node.getAttribute('alt').toLowerCase();
   
   if (altStr.indexOf("flight") != -1 || altStr.indexOf("space") != -1)
      return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT;
   else
      return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT;                
}

For a live example, check out my demo for DOM Traversal -- I used NodeFilter extensively there. Complex filtering operations on the list of media elements were as simple as using a NodeFilter callback like the one above.

In this post, I showed that you have options in how to traverse a document. Here are suggested best practices for when you should use the various interfaces:

• If the structure of the document is important – and you’re only interested in elements – consider Element Traversal. It’s fast and won’t leave a big footprint in your code.
• If you don’t care about document structure, use NodeIterator instead of TreeWalker. That way, it’s obvious in your code that you’re only going to be using a flat list. NodeIterator also tends to be faster, which becomes important when traversing large sets of nodes.
• If the SHOW_* constants do what you need for filtering, use them. Using constants makes your code simpler, as well as having slightly better performance. However, if you need fine-grained filtering, NodeFilter callbacks become indispensable.

I’ve already found these features to be a great help in my own coding, so I’m really excited to see what you do with them. Download the latest Platform Preview, try out the APIs, and let us know what you think.

Thanks!
Jonathan Seitel
Program Manager