You might remember Imageepoch from games such as Arc Rise Fantasia, Fate/Extra and the Luminous Arc series. The publisher has yet to announce a PS3 game to date, but a job listing indicates that they’re hiring folks

Despite Foxconn allegedly asking all employees to sign contracts promising not to kill themselves, another worker has jumped out of a building window. This came hours after Foxconn’s CEO was boasting to press of the fabulous facilities at the factories. More »










Foxconn – Apple – Suicide – Business – China

Joe Romm of Climate Progress has an important piece today about Obama’s challenge and what his legacy will be based on the ecological disasters that face him (namely, the BP Gulf oil-gusher and catastrophic climate change). And Romm notes that the gusher is the lessor of the two in overall impact to humanity.

First, he asks what can the government do once the damage is done?

But even more unfortunate for Obama is that in spite of BP’s incompetence, nobody really knows how to stop the mile-deep undersea volcano (other than drilling a relief well, which takes many weeks). And nobody knows how to clean it up. Independent experts calculate that BP may be spewing the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez disaster ever few days. As Robert Brulle, a professor of Public Health at Drexel University and 20-year Coast Guard veteran, has noted, “With a spill of this magnitude and complexity, there is no such thing as an effective response.”

And the problem humanity faces is even worse than what is happening in the Gulf if we do not do something about cutting the use of carbon-based energy.

Scientists have been saying the consequences of significantly more volatile weather will create havoc for our would. And as Romm says, the torrential rains in Tennessee in the beginning of May (worse than the hurricane deluge that hit New Orleans during Katrina) are absolutely signs of what is coming.

Our world is already changing. Our choice now is on how much we can keep the changes less catastrophic by doing something about our misuse of carbon-based energy. There really is no more time to waste.

Facebook has unveiled the simplified privacy settings it has been talking about for the past week. The new settings are easier to understand and it’s easier to get an overview of what you share and with whom. The move is likely to settle the increasingly vocal and mostly warranted criticism of Facebook’s practices regarding user pr… (read more)

Regular readers will know that Acer’s been planning ereaders and tablets for some time, but the Dubai-based Shufflegazine saw Acer’s CEO fondling what looks like an ereader (check out the QWERTY keypad)—despite him calling it an Android-powered tablet. More »










Acer – Android – Google – tablet – Google Chrome OS

On first seeing this Fiat Mio concept, I will admit that the words “what the hell is that” crossed my mind. But it turns out it’s not such a silly idea after all. The Fiat Mio FCC III will appear at the Sao Paulo motor show in October 2010, having been designed with the help of collaboration from fans via the Fiat Mio site. The city car concept is 2.5 metres long and 1.5 metres high, with a futuristic design and high-tech cabin.

What you see in the gallery is only one version of the concept – called the ‘Precision’. By the time October rolls around, the definitive version will have been chosen from the various ideas and possibilities that appear on the website. The Mio will most likely be an electric drive car and by the time the concept stage is complete, many of the solutions will be adopted by the Fiat Topolino, expected for 2013.

Source | Autoblog.it

In the 1950s, three delusional Messiahs were gathered to live together in the same mental hospital. This is one of the most remarkable experiments in the history of psychology and I’ve written about it in an article for Slate.

I’ve had this tale told to me many times, but in a hazy way almost like a myth. I’ve been asked it as a question (“what would happen if three delusional Christs met each other?”) other times it appears as a trite abbreviate anecdote (“did you hear about the three delusional Christs? One decided he was the Father, the other the Son and the other the Holy Ghost!”).

It was, however, a genuine experiment, carried out by psychologist Milton Rokeach in the 1950s, and written up in the sadly out-of-print book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.

As Rokeach realised years later, the whole setup was entirely unethical and thankfully we have moved beyond manipulating patients’ lives for academic curiosity, but it remains a fascinating chapter in psychiatric history and I tried to capture the essence of it in the Slate piece.

These tales are surprising because delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality. One of most striking examples is the Cotard delusion, under which a patient believes she is dead; surely there can be no clearer demonstration that simple and constant contradiction offers no lasting remedy. Rokeach, aware of this, did not expect a miraculous cure. Instead, he was drawing a parallel between the baseless nature of delusion and the flimsy foundations we use to construct our own identities. If tomorrow everyone treats me as if I have an electronic device in my head, there are ways and means I could use to demonstrate they are wrong and establish the facts of the matter—a visit to the hospital perhaps. But what if everyone treats me as if my core self were fundamentally different than I believed it to be? Let’s say they thought I was an undercover agent—what could I show them to prove otherwise? From my perspective, the best evidence is the strength of my conviction. My belief is my identity.

Link to Slate article ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’.

Seems like people everywhere need some type of gossip. Why, where, whom, what, are always the words people are wondering. Last night at the American Idol 2010 Finale almost all the winners of the previous Idol Shows were present to pay tribute to the departing judge Simon Cowell, except one. And this is where the questions started. People started to wonder as why did the American Idol Season 7 Winner miss the show. David Cook had some other commitments due to which he could not appear.

David Cook’s absence was widely noticed but it was nothing dramatic to which the fans around the world flocked the internet to search the reason. So what was it, why did he miss. The reason explained below:

David Cook, the winner of the Idol Season 7, was attending a charity event in Kansas City related to cancer disease. The Idol champ is well known for his work for the charities, specially to cancer related as the disease took his brother’s life. He devotes most of his time looking to help many charities around and is well known amongst all. Charity Work has also won him great fan votes.

Another Idol who missed the event was the well known Adam Lambert. Lambert’s rep told that he missed the show due to vocal rest. Well these are some valid reason of missing the event but not something to be made an issue about.

Related posts:

1. David Cook: “Absent” on American Idol Finale
2. Lee Dewyze Wins The American Idol
3. American Idol Exposure Is No Guarantee

The to-ing and fro-ing of the Avatar 3D launch increased in noise today, with HDGuru.com reporting that the 3D Blu-ray will be bundled exclusively with Panasonic 3DTVs. We’d previously heard it’d be tethered to the purchase of Blu-ray players also. More »










Blu-ray Disc – Movies – Arts – Home Video – Blu-ray and HD

Affiliate marketers using WordPress know that integrating the right plugins will increase efficiency and usability, which will maximize the performance of the sites. These ten will each prove to be a worthwhile plugin to your toolkit, a step toward greater success.

1. WordPress Link Cloaking Program: if you like to include links to your selected affiliate programs or products in your posts, but don’t like to take the time to do it – or don’t want to forget to do it – this program will do it for you. Designate word groups or phrases and when you type them into your content a link will be automatically created.
2. phpBay Pro: if you are an eBay affiliate, then this is definitely a plugin that you should be running on your blog to embed eBay listings that are easily optimised for search engines. A similarly polished plugin is available from the developer for Amazon affiliates.



3. AdRotator from Clickbank: this plugin may be used with Adsense or function as an alternative to it if you’re unhappy with the low return on the Adsense ads that get fed to your site. It will randomly select an ad from your specified collection and display the advertisement where you want it.
4. Amazon Media Manager: a must for affiliates with Amazon and Amazon Marketplace, this plugin does just what you’d expect. It allows you the simplest way to adds products from Amazon to your WordPress blog, and keeps track of what you’ve added, allowing for quick and easy organization.
5. Wp-Amazon: seamless synchronization is simplified even more by making the entire Amazon catalog available through WordPress. It creates an “Insert from Amazon” link for below your posting area on entry and edit pages. Click it and open a search page for Amazon.com that allows you to peruse what’s there by product lines.
6. CafePress WordPress Plugin: this tool lets you effortless combine the PrestoGifto API, the CafePress API, and WordPress functions to crafts your pages. Product layout is simplified, thumbnails can be added and their size adjusted, and you select from a wide inventory of fonts, colors and styles. Choose any of the nearly 60 million products CafePress sells and feature them anywhere on your page, including sidebars or footers, or create their own unique page if you wish.
7. Chitika eMiniMalls Sidebar widget for WordPress v2.0: a lot of affiliates are having fun and success with Chitika, and this widget let’s you skip the course on HTML and simply drag and drop a Chitika eMiniMall into your sidebar.
8. Bidvertiser WP Widget: this tool allows you to make use of BidVertiser ads on your blog or site with just a couple of clicks.
9. Adsense Deluxe: the beauty of this plugin is that it allows you to easily add Google or Yahoo! ads into your content wherever you want. Never need to cut and paste Adsense code again! And you control which ads you employ.
10. Adsense Injection: this is another plugin that allows you to optimize your Adsense usage. This one takes random paragraph breaks in your content and interjects Adsense code. You can choose the colors and formats you want the otherwise random selections to be chosen from. There’s one injection per article, which includes 1-3 ads.

If creating pages that consistently make money is your goal, these 10 WordPress plugins will give you the business in the best possible way. Each is a proven winner when it comes to producing a healthier bottom line.

James Adams is a blogger and designer who works as a contributor and editor of the CreativeCloud design blog for an ecommerce store specialising in the HP 339 ink cartridge and other media supplies. He covers topics ranging from modern art to vintage print ads to gadgets and printed media design.

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Roegge, Martinez & Santiago

What do you do when you’re trained for the worst-case scenario but find yourself in the best?

There is a group of Marines here at FOB Payne that operates the “High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.”  Both the system and the guys are referred to as the “Hi-Mars”.

When called to action, the Hi-Mars scramble to their location and can fire two hundred pound rockets from the back of their launcher vehicles in less than two minutes flat. The rockets are GPS guided and designed to annihilate enemy hideouts. So far, this group hasn’t had any bunkers to bust, but they’re always at the ready.

Keeping the Marines focused when times are good is the job of Platoon Commander and Fire Direction Officer Lt Shon Roegge. He has the Hi-Mars running drills for hours, both morning and night, making sure they’re ready to support Marines in the battlefield, when they call for heavy artillery.

Roegge, who is from Rushville, IL, is on his first deployment, his freshness helps to keep the other guys who are on their third and fourth tours going. It’s especially tough for the guys who spend their free time thinking of their families back home, and in some cases children they’ve never seen.

SSgt Carlo Santiago’s wife gave birth to their third child on March 13^th. Santiago wasn’t there because Hi-Mars section chief is here on his fourth deployment.

“I think the Marine Corps like me coming back,” he said when asked why he has shipped out so many times.

Platoon Sergeant SSgt Victor Martinez, who is also on his fourth deployment, has missed between 2 and 3 years of his three children’s lives.  But they were the reason he signed up in the first place.  His wife, gave birth to their first daughter when the couple were just 16. Concerned about how he was going to care for his new family, Martinez joined the Marines. In his 9 years with the Marines, he’s missed wedding anniversaries, birthdays and his daughter’s cheerleading competitions. But, he says, the Corps has made the life he provides for his family possible.

Eco Factor: Sustainable concept computer designed to reduce e-waste.

The Igglu Modular PC concept has been designed to reduce e-waste and make upgrading and customizing computers simple and clean. The service plans have been designed to meet the changing needs over time. As technology advances, all the user has to do is to remove the component and replace it with a better one using an online account.

The computer features color coded, hot swappable modules for hard drive, optical drives, graphic cards, PCI drives and RAM. These modules can easily be removed and replaced with modules offering higher performance. The used modules are then returned to the company to be reused in budget services or processed for recycling.

The product has been designed for maximum energy and resource efficiency. The PC makes use of standard components housed in cases that are designed for reuse and recycling.

Via: Igglu

Very quietly the NL East has turned into an intriguing division. All five teams have winning records, every team has obvious strengths and weaknesses, and every fan base has something to look forward to as the summer approaches. The Phillies looked like a shoo-in winner two months ago, but perhaps it’s time to reopen the argument.

Philadelphia’s offense shouldn’t be a problem as the season goes along, but right now this lineup can’t get out of its own way. The Phils have been shut out three times in four games and the other result in that mix was no treat – eight bagels, followed by three meaningless runs in the ninth. And it’s been an interesting mix of pitchers doing it to the defending NL Champs; Daisuke Matsuzaka(notes) and Tim Wakefield(notes) held the Phils down on the weekend, and R.A. Dickey(notes) and Hisanori Takahashi(notes) have posted zeroes the last two days. Good luck finding a Cy Young contender in that mix.

Takahashi’s Wednesday turn (6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K) had the Citi Field faithful buzzing; it’s time to put him under the microscope. He had a good-not-great resume as a longtime starter in Japan, which enabled the Mets to get him dirt cheap this winter. He’s already 35 and the team had modest expectations for him into the season; some felt he’d settle in as a left specialist, and many figured he wouldn’t make the team out of spring training.

His fastball tops out in the high 80s but he’s got excellent feel for his off-speed pitches; he drove the Phillies crazy with his changeup. And he’s shown he can consistently miss bats, both in the bullpen (where he was for six weeks) and in the rotation (12 scoreless innings against the Yankees and Phillies over the last week). No matter how you’re doing it, 44 strikeouts over 38 innings puts you on the mixed-league radar. 

"He’s a great pitcher with great instincts," Jerry Manuel said of Takahashi Wednesday. "He had great command of his pitches tonight."

It all sounds nice, but there’s a logical con argument to Takahashi as well. He’s got an unusual motion with a hitch in the middle; you have to assume batters will get more comfortable with him as the season goes along. His Japanese career had its share of ups and downs; in four of the last six seasons his ERA was 4.13 or higher. It might be unrealistic to expect him to be anything past a back-of-rotation, six-inning pitcher.

I’ll sign off on Takahashi at San Diego next week; the Padres have yet to face him and they’ve struggled against left-handed pitching (.675 OPS). Takahashi long-term, that’s anyone’s guess. If I were doing a fresh Shuffle Up and Deal for starting pitchers tonight, I’d probably slot him in the $7-8 range.

Are you down with Takahashi, or is this fool’s gold? Feel free to discuss in the comments; I’ll be back in a little bit with 700-900 additional words, exploring the Wednesday baseball slate.

Valuestar N VN790/BS – that’s the name of the 3D PC that NEC today announced [JP] for the Japanese market. The company’s faster than expected: just last month, NEC teased such a machine in Tokyo, saying it’s likely to ship by October 2010. But Japan will get the PC as early as next month. And it appears to be a pretty cool machine.

Buyers will get a 20-inch 3D screen with 1,600×900 resolution and a Blu-ray drive to view content (images and video) stored in that format in 3D. NEC says for DVDs, users will be able to switch between 2D and 3D. Needless to say, the machine accepts 3D content in other forms, too (3D pictures from Fujifilm’s 3D camera, for camera).

Spec-wise, NEC throws in a Intel Mobile Core CPU (no details yet), 4GB RAM (8GB max.), a 1TB HDD, 3W×2ch speakers, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit as the OS. The main unit is sized at 490×362×169mm and weighs 8.6kg.

The PC also comes with a pair of glasses (an extra pair will set you back $67), a remote control, an integrated TV tuner, and a wireless keyboard.

NEC plans to start shipping the 3D set at the end of next month (price: $2,450). The company hasn’t said anything yet about international sales plans.

Eco Factor: Concept vehicle powered by a zero-emission electric engine.

The Mooovie by designer Han Jing, a graduate from the School of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, is a modular vehicle that can switch between modes, two-wheel and three-wheel, to meet individual requirements. The vehicle has been designed to meet the requirements of urban commuters.

The zero-emission concept runs on an electric engine and gets smaller in two-wheel mode to move easily on cramped roads. When in this mode, the drive can drive in the intelligent automatic drive mode to control the distance between the vehicles and driving line. The three-wheel mode offers better performance and lets the user drive in high speeds.

Via: The Design Blog

Luke Timmerman wrote:

This week we had a few of the usual small deals to cover, but there were a few moments to take a deep breath and look at the big-picture trends underway in the Northwest biotech community.

—Seattle Genetics is practically invisible compared to the drama queen across Lake Washington, otherwise known as Dendreon. But while few may have noticed, Bothell, WA-based Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SGEN]) is working methodically to make sure it is ready to commercialize its own potentially groundbreaking cancer drug.

—Once in a while, I dig into a tale from the nearby Vancouver, BC, biotech cluster, and this week’s story was about Valocor Therapeutics. This startup, a spinoff from QLT, is developing a light-activated, locally-delivered acne medication that it hopes will be safer than a widely used medication that has been linked to birth defects.

—If you run a nonprofit with a mission to provide an amorphous benefit to society, like improving science education, how do you justify your existence in a data-driven world? The Northwest Association for Biomedical Research, as part of the 10th anniversary of its Student BioExpo, tracked down some of the living, breathing people it inspired in its early years who are now pursuing careers in science.

—Who Needs VCs? Apparently Steven Quay, the former CEO of Sonus Pharmaceuticals and Nastech Pharmaceutical, doesn’t think he does. He’s started a new company, Atossa Genetics, that is seeking to pull off a $15 million IPO to commercialize a new tool for breast cancer screening.

—In good times and in bad, Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTIC) never fails to raise more cash from investors. This time, the company raised $21 million from three institutional investors a little more than a month after the FDA rejected its only drug candidate with a chance of reaching the U.S. market anytime soon. This new cash will be used partly to pay off some of the debt that has been threatening to drive the company out of business.

—There’s been a lot of buzz about the federal government’s new plan to spread $1 billion worth of tax credits and grants around the biotech industry, and Stewart Lyman took some time to bust a few popular myths about the program in a guest editorial.

—The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has secured $10 million worth of federal stimulus grants to buy some more sophisticated equipment and establish a high-powered computing center on its Seattle campus.

—GenoLogics, the Victoria, BC-based maker of life sciences software, raised $1 million in equity out of a round that could be worth as much as $1.5 million.

—Bellevue, WA-based RF Surgical, a medical device maker, raised $2.5 million out of a total financing round worth as much as $5 million, according to a regulatory filing.

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

by Ashley Braun.

Kids have a right to know the possible scopes of their own demise. You don’t have to put a monkey on trial to figure it out: It’s either gonna be biblical plagues or global climate change. Thank goodness both make a snazzy diorama!

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

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Like what you see? Sign up to receive The Grist List, our email roundup of pun-usual green news just like this, sent out every Friday. And help keep puns in environmental news by donating a Lincoln to
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Related Links:

Public service announcement: Don’t spit on the people transporting you

Show how much you—and BP—care with a commemorative oil spill T-shirt

Passive-aggressive cakes spill onto Gulf coast

The amazing show, which has rocked the U.S. as well as the world, American Idol 2010, is on the final stages. Great fun along with some teary eyes were witnessed at the show last night. The show received a surprise performance by the one of the greatest legend, Joe Cocker, who performed along with the two finalists. Cocker joined Crystal Bowersox and Lee DeWyze in a performance singing his hit song, “With A Little Help From My Friends”.

The American Idol Finale received one of the biggest surprise of the evening before one the two finalists were declared as the winner. Some other artists which also performed at the show included, Elliot Yamin and Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, Christina Aguilera,Enrique Iglesias, Carrie Underwood, Kris Allen and Blake Lewis.

The song performance by Cocker had been originally sung by the Beatles but his own unique version has touch new heights. Joe Cocker born in 1944 is an English rock/blues musician, composer and actor, who gained popularity in 1960s. He is famous for voice and arm movements while performing and also recipient of several awards which includes a Grammy in 1983 for his song, ‘Up Where We Belong’. Joe Cocker also made his way up to the Billboards Top 100 list performing on the Rolling Stone song.

Related posts:

1. David Cook: “Absent” on American Idol Finale
2. Siobhan Magnus Is Eliminated In American Idol
3. The Next American Idol Is – Would it be Bowersox or DeWyze – American Idol Prediction

… in virtual 3D. Very cool use of 3D modeling and visualization.

The release:

Virtual Romanesque monuments being created

		IMAGE: Taking laser scanner data with the Church of Valberzoso (Palencia, Spain). Click here for more information.

“With this methodology an exact model of the monuments or places of interest can be obtained in a virtual way”, Pedro Martín-Lerones, co-author of the study and researcher at the Cartif Foundation in the Technological Park of Boecillo (Valladolid), explains to SINC.

The project, which has been published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, makes it possible to create three-dimensional plans with colour images of historical and artistic places of interest. The data is recorded by laser scanners that take the maximum number of geometric measurements from a minimum number of positions.

“This ensures that accuracy is maintained, whilst also reducing the time spent on field work, because generally more shots are usually taken than are needed”, comments the researcher, who also explains that a three-dimensional model of the monument is produced “with millimetric accuracy, in comparison to the centimetric nature of conventional 2D templates”.

		IMAGE: 3-D model photo of the Valberzoso Church (Palencia, Spain). Click here for more information.

The data provided by the laser scanner is complimented by images captured by photographic cameras. This information is processed using two specific software programs developed by the researchers themselves: one which superimposes the information in colour of the photographs onto the three-dimensional model, and another that generates the final plans in 3D in a timeframe that is 40% quicker than the traditional method.

Martín-Lerones highlights the many ways this study can be applied: “It makes it easier to draw up intervention projects, as well as preservation and renovation projects on churches or other buildings, in addition to its potential uses for popularizing –on the internet, for example- the monuments in 3D”.

Information that is thousands of times better

The team has tested the methodology in five churches in the old Merindad de Aguilar de Campoo, located between the provinces of Palencia, Burgos and Cantabria. Of all those digitalized, the Palencian church of Valberzoso turned out to be one of the most representative, thanks to its artistic value, state of preservation and accessibility.

“There, it can be observed that by using three-dimensional measurement of a place of cultural interest the result is that the quantity of information captured is thousands of times better than what is obtained from conventional methods, whilst the time spent on field work is reduced by around 75%”, Martín-Lerones points out.

In the Merindad de Aguilar de Campoo the highest number of Romanesque artistic monuments in the world can be found. Since 2005, it has been declared a Heritage Site by UNESCO and it is presenting an application for European Heritage again this year.

###

References:

Pedro Martín Lerones, José Llamas Fernández, Álvaro Melero Gil, Jaime Gómez-García-Bermejo, Eduardo Zalama Casanova.
“A practical approach to making accurate 3D layouts of interesting cultural heritage sites through digital models”.
Journal of Cultural Heritage 11 (1): 100, 2010.
Doi: 10.1016/j.culher.2009.02.007.

Earlier this week, a blog post on ReadWriteWeb said that Google’s speedy and nimble Chrome browser was eating into the market share of Mozilla’s Firefox browser and other browser competitors, especially amongst the early adopters. Their post was inspired by data from NetMarketShare, a service that tracks the browser market share, and set off a chain reaction of other blog posts that glommed onto the Chrome-versus-Firefox story line.

There is no denying that Chrome has won the recent battle for mindshare amongst the early adopters. There is no denying that Mozilla has problems that go beyond the pending loss of their chief executive, John Lilly to a venture capital firm. And no one can deny that so far Mozilla has blown the opportunity to have an impact on the mobile platforms. And if my sources are correct, then it is plenty evident that Mozilla has been overcome with a sense of ennui, something which prompted wunderkid and Firefox’s co-reinventor Blake Ross to say, “I think the Mozilla Organization has gradually reverted back to its old ways of being too timid, passive and consensus-driven to release breakthrough products quickly.” Ouch!

How bad are things at Mozilla? Not as bad as one would think. In a recent blog post, Mozilla’s Aza Dotzler pointed out that for every Chrome downloader, there are 2.5 folks who download Firefox. “Firefox gained just over 100 million users in the same period that Chrome gained just over 40 million users,” he wrote.

One of my sources shared with me some internal Mozilla data and now I share that with you these metrics to give you a better understanding of how Firefox is doing on a day-to-day basis. While longer term data has been plotted in the accompanying charts, I have carved out the numbers for the most recent two weeks (May 12-to-May 25). Here is what they say about Firefox’s daily active users, where they are from and daily Firefox downloads:

• Firefox’s daily downloads fluctuated between 1.39 million to 1.81 million — averaging out at about 1.5 million downloads a day.
• As expected, majority of the daily downloads are for Firefox 3.6 though a small fraction still download the older versions of the software.
• Firefox saw between 98 million to 132 million daily active “installations.” Installations equals daily active users.
• During the two-week period North America had between 26 million to 33 million daily active “installations” indicating that Firefox is more popular outside of the U.S. and Canada.
• There were between 36 million to 54 million daily active installations from European Union, making it the largest Firefox market.
• Asia saw between 20 million to 25.4 million daily active users.
• On Mac OS X, there are roughly between 6 million to 9.5 daily active “installations.”

When I reached out to Mozilla, a spokesperson responded in an email: “Because our user base of roughly 400 million represents both early adopters and mainstream consumers, we see significant daily variations on week day vs. weekend. We also see this when there are local holidays and seasonal effects, and especially during the summer months when people are on holiday/vacation.”

Given that holiday season has started in many parts of the world, with schools and universities shutting down, we might be seeing a slump in Firefox usage and downloads. Firefox according to NetMarketShare is still showing growth on a month to month basis – from June 2009 (22.43 percent) to April 2010 (24.59 percent), Firefox has increased its marke share by 2.16 percent.

That along with the 100 million+ daily active installations (Mozilla claims it has 400 million users), shows that Firefox is far from having a real moment of crisis. Not only does it have time to course-correct and respond to all its critics, it also has time to regain momentum.

It could do so with the Firefox 3.6.4, which is going to release next week and will have built-in plugin isolation, allowing the browser to overcome the bloat and problems caused by plugins such as Adobe’s Flash (especially on the Mac version of Firefox.)

What is more important: Firefox needs to bring in fresh thinking of the organization and it is doing so by bringing on board Tantek Celik, a champion of open/web standards who in his past life created Internet Explorer for the Mac.

Related content from GigaOM Pro: (sub req’d):

What Does the Future Hold for Browsers?