www.mypage.it | extraordinary web for kids
Preview of the first Italian 2.0 website for kids at the Bologna Children’s Bookfair
www.mypage.it, the first Italian 2.0 website for 5 year-old kids upward, was previewed at the Bologna Children’s Bookfair. Thanks to the tools that mypage.it offers, children will be able to build their own webpage directly online, in an original, funny and spontaneous way.
The users’ space will be constantly updated and modified and it will start a game that changes continously.
Users can develop and customise their webpages by using the kidgets, the digital toys which make up mypage.it webpages. Thanks to a considerable kidget library, children can create and customise their webpages on mypage.it and insert ready-made or original contents. The kidgets library is constantly increasing and offers a wide set of activities such as drawing, colouring, devising stories and comics, playing, watching videos, finding out about myths, animals, art, science and everything else that fascinates and tickles the children’s curiosity.
Through the creation of the webpages and the choice of the kidgets, children can share their passions ans interests: from sport to nature, from fashion to music. mypage.it tries to stimulate an active and creative approach to new technologies and, at the same time, kids are given the chance to become careful and judicious internet users.
mypage.it interface and topics are designed expressively for children so that they can find out the opportunities offered by the internet in an easy, direct and safe way.
mypage.it offers to parents an innovative and high-quality website with which their children can step into the web for the first time. mypage.it guarantees a safe use of the internet through an advanced and straightforward system of parental control. Thanks to a proper operating panel with restricted access, parents can monitor their kids’ activities on the website, for instance by turning on the “invisible” mode, enable or disable functionalities and restrict the use of the Internet during certain hours of the day. In order to offer further supervision, mypage.it does not provide any direct contact tools for the users and does not require personal information during the registration phase or later.
mypage.it also includes kidsearch, a directory of over 2000 safe websites suitable for children and approved by the team of mypage.it.
mypage.it will be released in a three language version (Italian, English and French) and is a “made in Italy” product. From September the English and French version will be available.
mypage.it was developed by a 10-year experienced teamwork that operates in multimedia and children’s software. “After several months of hard work, we’re proud to present www.mypage.it, a product which was created to give children the right web solution to surf the Internet in an innovative, interactive and funny way” declared Giuseppe D’Arpino, managing director of mypage.it srl. mypage.it is free. In the next few weeks a “private beta” programme will be released, accessible on invitation. To subscrive to the beta version or to receive more preview information on mypage.it, please visit the website: http://www.mypage.it/infosignup.
Press contacts:
Giulia Simi
press@mypage.it
+39.051.6565347
Trouble for Topshop today as War on Want demand sweatshop action
If you’re going near any branches of Topshop today, chances are you’ll find they’re a bit busier than usual. No – they haven’t slashed the cost of Kate Moss range, and there’s no magic money off coupon doing the rounds: the stores are being picketed by War on Want, a group opposed to poverty and exploitation.
This isn’t the first time that Arcadia, the umbrella organisation that owns Topshop run by Philip Green, has come under fire over human rights. In fact, today’s activity marks the one-year anniversary of a report also brought to public attention by War on Want, which claimed that Bangladeshi workers employed by the chain were paid just 5p an hour for an 80-hour week. A researcher working on behalf of War on Want said today that ‘I have kept in touch with workers from the Bangladeshi factories. Their pay and conditions have not improved’.
Philip Green, whose clothing empire makes him worth £5 billion has so far refused to comment. Back in August, he denied similar allegations about Arcadia, but today’s news would imply that little or nothing has been done to improve workers’ conditions.
via: hippyshopper (more…)
Platform for Art: Art on the Underground
‘Platform for Art: Art on the Underground’ explores the rich heritage of art on the London Underground and traces the current project’s growing success.
The book showcases some of the most exciting and innovative work from the contemporary international art scene, featuring visually stunning reproductions of works by many of the participating artists. These include Cindy Sherman, Janette Paris, David Shrigley, Bob and Roberta Smith, Emma Kay, Gary Hume and Liam Gillick.
The book also includes an introduction by the programme curator, Tamsin Dillon, and text by renowned art journalist and author Alex Coles, who explores the broader implications of the scheme and the role of public art in general.
Tuesday 27 November 2007, 6–9pm. Speeches will begin at 6.30pm.
London Transport Museum,
Covent Garden Piazza,
WC2E 7BB
Current exhibition:
Brian Griffiths ‘Life Is A Laugh’
July 2007 – May 2008
Gloucester Road Underground station
via: Transport for London
The graffiti that’s good for the environment
Edina Tokodi brings the greenery of the countryside to the city with her installations, many of which you can see at Inhabitat. “City dwellers often have no relationship with animals or greenery”, says Tokodi: “As a public artist I feel a sense of duty to draw attention to deficiencies in our everyday life.”
Via: Hippyshopper
Vivienne Westwood, “Active Resistance to Propaganda” manifesto reading on December 1, 2007
HAVING had her Active Resistance to Propaganda manifesto widely panned when she presented it at this year’s Hay Literary Festival, Vivienne Westwood will be hoping it receives a warmer response in London as she prepares to take it public again. The grande dame of British political fashion will present her ideas on art and insight amid the 17th century Dutch paintings and 18th century French works of the Wallace Collection at Hertford House next month. The manifesto – a dialogue between 25 characters including Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Aristotle and Whistler – will be read by Georgia May Jagger (as Alice), with other parts open to members of the public. “The most important thing about this manifesto is that it is a practice,” Westwood explains. “If you follow it your life will change. In the pursuit of culture you will start to think. If you change your life, you change the world.” Interested in giving it a go? The Active Resistance to Propaganda manifesto reading will take place at The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, W1 at 2pm on December 1. Tickets cost £12; call 020 7563 9551 to book, or to request to play a role.
via: vogue.co.uk
Can you help the planet just by searching the web?
The Bite
We don’t just think you can. We know you can. Little search engines that could support your fave causes and save energy – and are as free and as easy to use as Google.
The Benefits
- The same good results. These search engines pull their results from the Google or Yahoo databases.
- Donating to charity. Get on the donation train – each search you do via a charity search engine generates about $0.01 for good causes (the money comes from the ads on search-engine sites).
- Saving energy. Some engines have a dark background color instead of white, which when viewed on older, CRT monitors – consumes 20% less energy than typical engines.
Wanna Try?
- GoodSearch – powered by Yahoo, it donates 50% of revenues to a charity you choose each time you search.
- Blackle – an unofficial black version of Google that uses less energy than the white version on some screens (for a more colorful option, try The Green Spider).
- CatchTomorrow – customizable news, weather, and search options; donates 50% of revenues to the public school district of your choice.
- Green Maven – though it’s not for charity, this Google-based search engine yields results from green-related websites only.
via: idealbite.com
Contemporary art and China: UCCA, Ullens Center Of Contemporary Art
Opened on 5th November 2007, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is situated in a 8,000m2 Bauhaus styled factory building in the Dashanzi Art District in Beijing. Aiming to be China’s most comprehensive institute for contemporary arts, UCCA plans to engage a wide audience through a variety of activities and facilities: Three exhibition halls will show cutting edge contemporary art from China and around the world; a cultural events program will engage people with film, music, and dialogue; our contemporary art research room will be the only one of its kind in Beijing; and an education program will bring people into closer contact with the art, the artists, and their ideas.
UCCA works in conjunction with the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation, a vigorous supporter of Chinese artistic practice that has one of the largest collections of Chinese contemporary art in the world.
Hip-Hop as Art of Communication
Take an African-American entrepreneur promoting a Polish vodka owned by a French corporation using Chinese performers practicing an Afro-Latin-influenced art form that originated in the inner cities of the United States and you’ve got 32-year old Detroit native Dana Burton’s business. Welcome to hip-hop’s new world. In the process, Burton has become a marketing machine, the uber-influential partner of multinational corporations who want to reach young people in China.
Is hip-hop so different from blogging and social media?
The Culture
This culture has become one of the most far reaching arts movements of the past three decades. According to Jeff Chang in it’s a hip-hop world, Foreign Policy (emphasis mine):
The best artists share a desire to break down boundaries between “high” and “low” art—to make urgent, truth-telling work that reflects the lives, loves, histories, hopes, and fears of their generation. Hip-hop is about rebellion, yes, but it’s also about transformation.
At the core of hip-hop is the notion of something called the “cipher.” Partly for competition and partly for community, the cipher is the circle of participants and onlookers that closes around battling rappers or dancers as they improvise for each other. If you have the guts to step into the cipher and tell your story and, above all, demonstrate your uniqueness, you might be accepted into the community. Here is where reputations are made and risked and stylistic change is fostered. That this communitarian honoring of merit—whether it’s called “style,” “hotness,” or whatever the latest slang for it is—can transcend geography, culture, and even skin color remains hip-hop’s central promise.
As the message of hip-hop transcends borders, one thing has remained consistent: a vital progressive agenda that challenges the status quo. What could make Blog Action Day even more influential in the communities where it is celebrated? How could we make the message leap off the page and the online tools to reach our physical communities?
The Business
Hip-hop is also a booming business, with estimated $10 billion worth of trend-setting luxury and consumer goods every year in the United States alone, in addition to the 59 million rap albums sold. There is indeed a much larger potential looming on the horizon — Packaged Facts research estimates the purchasing power available to this market in the US at $780 billion. We’ve been reading the headlines on Microsoft Facebook deal — for a mere 1.6 % stake the software giant paid $240 million.
The commercialism is often at odds with hip-hop’s outsider ethos, yet in many places in the world it is creating opportunity and possibility that was not there before.
The Medium
Hip-hop spread so quickly, globally, thanks to powerful media houses — Universal Music and Sony have packaged and sold hip-hop with a gusto that is as fierce and aggressive as the movement itself. The attitude and culture were there first, then the distribution came as the appeal of influencing young people who embraced it became a marketing bonanza. Do you see any similarities with MySpace?
The Conversation
No matter the culture or the business motives, hip-hop always returns to its roots — competition and community that feed each other. It’s the give and take of something that both participants can relate to and in the most dramatic forms, it becomes the deepest kind of communication. Has anyone here experienced rapid fire conversations among bloggers? The ones of the connective kind are about things we can relate to, separately and together.
Hip-hop matters to those receptive to it because it is the language of the streets — nobody can control it. Why do you blog? It’s late at night and you’ve had a full day of work, yet you’re here reading this post. It’s the lure of independent thinking, the search for truth-telling and possibly transformation. True, many of us don’t engage in social justice through our blogs — many others do write about social transformation.
Social media has connected with many regardless of their title, status, or occupation — it’s a way to self-expression and a path to joining a community of like-minded people, globally. We probably ask ourselves the same question: can we?
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