Singularity is the first large-scale online web conference in the world.

Born in the mind of the Flash genius Aral Balkan, the event is scheduled for October 24-26th, 2008, with more than 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities.

Last year, Aral asked his blog readers to promote the mysterious new brand. Shame on me for not having posted a badge before, but as i knew Aral’s work was mostly in the Flash arena, i was expecting something like a framework or some new Open Source project. But this blows my mind. It’s a huge one man effort, and skyrockets my respect for Aral as a true SOURCE OF INSPIRATION.

The sessions will be available to attendees for a period of six months, and later released under a Creative Commons license. It will take advantage of existing networks to get full community involvement (yeah, i follow you on Twitter, Aral).

And get inspired with this list of confirmed speakers:

• Andy Budd
• Ann McMeekin
• Brendan Dawes
• Carlos Ulloa
• Cheryl Annett-Baker
• Christian Heilmann
• Craig Swann
• Derek Featherstone
• Dr. WooHoo
• Ian Forrester
• Jeremy Keith
• Joshua Hirsch
• Keith Peters
• Lynda Weinman
• Mario Klingemann
• Mike Davies
• Molly E. Holzschlag
• Paul Boag
• Peter Elst
• Ralph Hauwert
• Richard Rutter
• Seb Lee Delisle
• Stephanie Sullivan
• Steve Webster
• Thomas Vander Wal

Aral, the badge is now on the sidebar, but it would be great if you had also a countdown badge. How long do we have to wait until October?

2008 is really shaping up with events in Portugal. After finding out that master designer Paula Scher from Pentagram, is scheduled to speak at ESAD the next 4th of May, today the gang from RIApt announced the first portuguese Flexcamp.

The conference about Adobe Flex and Adobe Air is heading to Portugal (at ISCTE) on the next February 19th, after a full year touring in the US.

Planned speakers:

• Serge Jespers, Adobe Systems
• Enrique Duvos, Adobe Systems
• Carlos Rovira, Flex and Flash integration
• João Fernandes, BlazeDS and LCDS
• João Saleiro, Connecting Flex to LAMP backend using AMFPHP

Register here.

The newest update on Google’s free analytics package has now support for Portuguese. As with English US-UK, we’re also used to this double localization, one for Brazillians and other for Portuguese, so it’s good news for us Europeans to have a dashboard in our mother language.
You can select it from the Language pulldown menu on the Analytics Settings–>My Account page.

While webmasters and data strategists are fine with the English interface, it will be useful to Portuguese clients that aren’t familiar with most of the terminology. For someone who spent 3 hours yesterday explaining the dashboard and main features, i surely welcome this addition.

Speaking of the other Google Analytics updates, you might want to update your code to the new ga.js javascript include and take advantage of the latest functionalities, like the one that allows the tracking of ecommerce transactions.

In one of those “duhh” moments, i became aware of a new feature on the New York Times. It happened while reading the priceless piece about Radiohead, and incidentally double-clicking a word. Surprise, surprise, a new window opened with a reference search on the highlighted word.

The feature is powered by Answers.com, although i’d love to see a Wikipedia powered one (perhaps with a Greasemonkey script ?).

In web design, it’s a best practice to gracefully conceal power-user features, and this one is a really useful life hack, specially if you’re used to Firefox’s context menu search. Take note of this simple and effective idea, and if your site has specialized or dense content you can use it as a cross-reference shortcut to provide enhanced interactivity and semantic help.

The newest release of Flash Player 9 Update 3 comes with a companion website: Adobe Flash On. To fully experience it, it’s advisable to install the latest plugin version, easily accessible with an upgrade option (or choose the standart mode).

Agency Credits: BigSpaceship

On screen, you can choose amongst a shuffle of video thumbnails, with a HD option delivering a full-screen experience on high resolution, powered by the new H.264 codec.

The Flash Player Update 3brings some impressive features (that i’ve pointed before), such as new H.264/HE-AAC video codecs and a performance boost.

Now all I need is some generous bandwidth and some fiber-optic connection to fire my cable company and store the TV for good. I’ll stick with the projector for series and good movies.

Last week i was amused with a drinking challenge, with one shot for each time that “2.0″ was spoken. While the other challengers were all geeks, i suddenly realized that we have to let go of this naming. And web designers are also starting to get fed up, as pointed out by Elliot Jay.

Presentation at FOWD

Sure we have a problem, but is anyone trying to figure out a solution ? My 2 cents would be to to look at the edges to find new paths to creativity. Art, interactive installations, local events or underground culture seem to be the most promising exit strategy to this 2.0 thing.

With everyone doing and looking the same, the web is starting to look kind of dull. And before you start rumbling, i know this site’s design is all about the 2.0 trend, but i’ve been working on a new template, avoiding rounded corners or gradients.

Just found Peter Merholz (from Adaptative Path) slidecast on experience design.

Important lesson:

Don’t focus on technology and features. Heck, don’t focus on the “product.” Focus on the experience you want to create, and build a system that gets you there.

The company of renowned web heroes Jeffrey Zeldman and Jason Santa Maria, just did a mid-winter reboot on their site.

Happycogg.com is now cleaner, more focused on content (as every site should be) and with a navigation on a H1:

We design beautiful websites, publish our best ideas, and speak to a worldwide community. Find out more about us.

Just moved to their new Philadelphia office, this sure is a peculiar way to start decorating the bureau. Find more about the redesign with Jason or Zeldman.