echo \'\';
This is showing up images gr
Most likely old IE or too big image for IE8.
IE7 and below definitely don't support it. IE9 support inline images just fine. I IE8 have limited support. - Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme for list.
Try replacing data:image/jpg/png/jpeg;
with either data:image/jpeg;
or data:image/png;
depending on the format of the image. You can't expect it to be both a PNG and a JPEG.