One highlight of the visualization is the comparison of three pitches — fastball, cutter, slider. Each is distinguished by a different spin, created by a different grip and release.

Credit for the visualization goes to Graham Roberts, Shan Carter, and Joe Ward.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs tries the headscissors takedown:

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads… We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen bounces back with a half nelson leg sweep (video here):

The technology problems that Mr. Jobs mentions in his essay are “really a smokescreen,” Mr. Narayen says. He says more than 100 applications that used Adobe’s software were accepted in the App Store. “When you resort to licensing language” to restrict this sort of development, he says, it has “nothing to do with technology.”

Meanwhile, Adobe plans to demo Flash for Google’s Android OS this month — and give Android phones to all of its employees.

By the way, here’s Rey Mysterio performing the headscissors move:

So what can an information designer do with this?

Cliff Kuang at Fast Company looked around the web to find out. His selection for “best designed bracket” goes to NBC Sports:

Why? Because it’s a bonafide [sic] infographic–basically a cheat-sheet that allows anyone with only a passing interest in college basketball to sound smart after about five minutes of studying.

The NBC Bracket is here. It’s interactive, but broken. Hey NBC! Fix that absolute positioning.

Update: It’s fixed now.

The site is designed around a tight core of informational pages about the facility, while a new CP Blog provides an ongoing venue for current news, training videos, and links to the top stories at the separate blogs maintained by Eric Cressey and staff nutritionist Brian St. Pierre.

The most visible innovation is the retractable roof over Centre Court.

But this year’s Wimbledon Championships at the All England Club is also host to several IT innovations, most dramatically a smartphone application that superimposes match data on top of the phone’s video display.

IBM, Wimbledon’s long-term IT partner, developed the “Seer Android” app for the T-Mobile G1 mobile phone:

Pointing a G1 phone at a court, for example, would tell the user the court number, details of the current and previous matches and Twitter comments from experts and players, such as Andy Murray and Roger Federer.

The championship’s first official Twitter feeds are also up and running at @Centre_Court and @Wimbledon.

Essentially, this site is what I’d have been doing when I was 12 years old had the Internet and Photoshop been available to me in the eighties.

What stands out for me from this collection is Robinson’s ability to ask good questions — intriguing or amusing or both.

In some of the work, the question is more the point than the answer. What if baseball players literally stole bases? For more complex questions Robinson often produces just a well-drawn pie or bar chart. But occasionally, Robinson combines question, data, and visual idea into a smart visual explanation that goes beyond that.

For example, the left field wall in Fenway Park is 37 feet and two inches tall. And how tall is that?

The New York Times arranges their collection by category. I prefer the chronological order — and startling juxtapositions — of The Boston Globe’s collection (part 2, part 3).

Sports, politics, war, and disaster predominate, but some of my favorite pictures are those of science and nature, such as this photo from The Boston Globe:

For followers of baseball, the most statistically-minded of sports fans, each line on the chart tells a story: the injuries that cut down the output of Mickey Mantle; the lost years of Ted William’s career when he served in WWII; the late start of Mike Schmidt; the early decline of Jimmie Foxx; the extraordinary consistency of Hank Aaron.