IE continues it’s downward spiral as the browser dips below 69% at the expense of Firefox and the WebKit-powered duo of Apple Safari and Google Chrome. The breakdown as paraphrased by TG Daily:

Net Applications released updated global browser market share numbers today, indicating that IE is losing users at an accelerated pace. The browser’s share dropped from 69.77% in November to 68.15% in December. Most rivals were able to pick up a portion of what IE surrendered. Firefox gained more than half a point and ended up at 21.34%, Safari approaches the next big hurdle with 7.93% and Chrome came in at 1.04%, the first time Google was able to cross the 1% mark. Opera remained stable 0.71%, but it is clear that the Norwegian browser cannot attract any users IE loses.

This is no surprise. Taking into account the seasonal fluctuation towards home users in December which point to higher “non-corporate” platforms and browsers, this is still a landmark statistic and shows that if the gradual decline continues, 60% and 50% are not that far off in the future. As the trend for Firefox and WebKit to rise at the expense of IE has been continuing for some time now. What surprises me are a couple of things though, specifically:

1. The rate at which IE is losing overall market share: While I predicted a decline in market share over the long term, I didn’t think I’d ever see it declining at the rate it is currently declining on a month to month average. It just seems steep to me.
2. Opera adoption: I thought that more people would pick up Opera – at least I thought they’d have 2 or 3 percent by now. They are by far the most deployed browser on the mobile web, but nobody knows it really because they could care less what browser is being activated from their baked-up phone UI, and it’s unlikely that they use it much (which is the fault of the phone vendors – Opera Mobile by itself is great.) I like Opera. It’s not my default browsaer, but I find myself using it from time to time for certain things. Certainly for print and presentations, and also it’s handy mobile web dev in Small Screen mode.

I wonder how much of those Safari numbers are being driven from iPhone and iPod Touch users? What is also interesting in these metrics is the inclusion of Google’s Chrome browser, which again is based on the WebKit core that Safari is founded upon. Chrome broke 1%, and at the same time they have begun recommending against IE and in favor of Firefox and Chrome for Google Gmail users. This is an interesting coup attempt to grab their Gmail base still floundering on IE6, and it is even more noteworthy that IE7 was not mentioned as an alternative. I am betting Chrome will be a major contender a year from now, and the overall WebKit market share might even approach Firefox’s levels. What is probably safe to predict is that IE will continue to lose out to Firefox and WebKit-based browsers and I would not be surprised at this point if the rate of increase in adoption of alternative browsers began to accelerate in 2009 towards these platforms.

It is nice to see strong lines of diversity returning to the browser market. The benefit will be for better browsers and stronger support overall for web standards.

I am sure that a moment like this:

was part of the inspiration that led to this:

Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest tenors of all time, is dead at 71.

I never had much of an appreciation for Pavarotti until one day back at NEC when a friend of mine played three recordings of the same section from a Puccini opera. The difference in tone, control, phrasing, and musicianship that came out of Pavarotti’s voice was striking when compared to the other versions, and you could tell that this was a different “instrument” we were dealing with here. The man’s voice was like a cannon ��� projecting over an orchestra with ease and command. In my recording of the Verdi Requiem, his initial entrance completely energizes the mood of the piece and lifts you out of your seat when you hear it.

When I bow the double bass, I often think of an operatic voice and try to emulate that effect somehow. Pavarotti certainly comes to mind often (although my favorite sound is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s…) Pavarotti was a model of the tenor voice to many, and a powerful musical inspiration to millions. Certainly a great legacy has been left by this master Tenor, and I am very grateful to have experienced his musicianship.

Check out this great clip on how the San Francisco Opera simulcast their performance of Madama Butterfly to thousands in the Civic Center plaza, for free. The clip includes some powerful scenes from the opera, as well as a bit of background on new General Director David Gockley.

Do these regularly. This is awesome.

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Joe Volpe gets hip

Sharp-eyed reader Nora Renka noticed that the drop curtain at the Met’s Romeo et Juliette features a medieval figure reading a book, and on the book is written the phrase “LORVM IPSVM ALL YOVR BASE ARE BELONG TO VS.”

W00t!

I saw the San Francisco Opera perform Doctor Atomic last night. My opinion: It was amazing, and this is one for the ages.

Now first off, let’s get the criticism out of the way: There were a couple of spots that just dragged on nebulously, and I started to just get plain old bored. It is very hard to get me bored at an opera ��� I love opera performances, and especially this one for me had given me a lot of anticipation. Specifically, I’m referring to Scene II, and just a little bit from Scene III.

However, this is a relatively minor critique in light of the overall composition, production, and performance.

Kristine Jepson as Kitty Oppenheimer was absolutely amazing. Her impressive vocal execution of some incredibly difficult passages was my favorite part of the vocal component of this opera. All the vocal performances were great, including the chorus, and I really enjoyed it.

The production, especially the set design and choreography, made a real impression on me. The visual sight of a mother and child alone on a dark stage, with an enormous bomb hanging right over their heads, while sounds of everyday conversation was looped via tape. The choreography was spectacular in the way it depicted the concepts of everyday work juxtaposed with the horror of war, all underlined by the physics of the atom.

Segments of the text were direct copies of things I recognized, from the letter by Leo Slizard to initiate the Manhattan Project, to Oppenheimer’s recitals of ancient Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita. (I may have missed it, but I don’t think that they worked in his famous and ominous recitation of the phrase from chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita before the Trinity test: I have become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.)

This was an opera about deep personal conflict, revolving around the genius Oppenheimer and his colleagues as they proceeded to build the greatest weapon of mass destruction ever conceived. To invent a conventional weapon is one thing. But to invent a weapon that is capable of erasing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in one instant, that is something that generates feelings of unimaginable horror, extreme guilt, and even inescapable fascination. What really left me after seeing this opera was the take on the issues involved: The conflict, the humanity, the despair, the fear, and the human curiosity and determination that saw it all through in the face of everything.

The opera ended with the test blast at the Trinity site, with everyone’s heads propped up from their positions of shelter in fascination and awe. As the rumble subsided, a Japanese woman’s voice can be heard repeating over and over again a simple request for a drink of water. This is an ominous reminder of the horrible aftermath of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the water was heavily tainted so that those that drank the water suffered and died from radiation poisoning, while those that did not drink suffered and died from thirst ��� and more importantly ��� a reminder that war’s greatest tragedy is how it affects the innocent.

I am especially glad that I got to see this opera in it’s premiere. I can tell that this one will go down in history as one of the top operatic works of our era. It is a work of genius, and I do not use that word lightly.

I think that this opera goes right on up there with Minard’s chart of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia as some of the most effective anti-war propaganda ever created.