GTA IV, Lost, the wire, aggrégateurs éditorialisés, etc.
Daily Soufron
- Un peu de web 2.0 appliqué à l'immobilier, mais ca impressionne beaucoup Jean-Michel Billaut : Connaissez-vous Jean Baptiste Dumont ? Le marché immobilier français se met au 2.0 (et à l'écologie)
- On en avait beaucoup discuté tous les deux, mais mikiane a mis un nom dessus "les aggrégateurs éditorialisés" : Les “agrégateurs éditorialisés”, media de demain ?
- Si quelqu'un a un petit chat à me passer, je suis preneur : This is NOT my idea of a Caturday
- Pour ceux qui utilisent beaucoup Google Reader, voici quelques conseils que j'ai trouvé utiles : Spending Less Time In Google Reader
- Le PDG de Sun fait scandale : Is Blogging Already Outdated ?
- L’activisme politique par le nom de domaine
- Did We Ignore the Rise of the Personal World ?
- Un joli poster des différents cctld du monde : WWW domain country codes of the world
- Les assises du numériques continuent à se faire descendre : Assises du Numérique #2
- Tibet and the China Olympics : calling out the sponsors
- Grand Theft Auto IV : le jeu qui voit très grand
- GameCamp
- A comparison of scenes from GTA IV and real-life New...
- C'est le 1000e numéro du magazine culte japonais sur les jeux vidéos... famitsu : Japanese Mag Famitsu Throws 1000-Issues Party
- Gameloft Sales Rise 11% To $40 Million In Q1
- Panel of MMO developers discuss the industry at Comic-Con
- Redécouvrez les livres de Frédéric Schodt qui parlaient des mangas, des robots et des jeux vidéos il y a 30 ans : Meet the Man Who Predicted Japan’s Humanoid Robot Craze [Mangobot]
- The New York Times on the New Art of Flickr
- Lost redémarre en grande pompe : Jay Glatfelter : On Lost : "The Shape of Things to Come"
- Lost : Ben and Widmore Play a Game of Risk [Lost Recap]
- The Four-toed Foot of Lost Is Planted in Science Fiction
- Les séries TV américaines sont tellement travaillées qu'elles sont désormais utilisées par les analystes pour illustrer leurs commentaires politiques : David Sirota : Chris Matthews vs. Jimmy McNulty
- Incroyables photos du Hoover Dam : Hoover Dam, Nevada 2007 ( via peterbaker) P.S. I’m...
- Godard’s "Alphaville" in pen, ink, and watercolor
- Apple Vs Google : The Battle for Mobile Software Developers
- Le Blu Ray devrait l’emporter sur le HD-DVD (3)
- La Wii reine des ventes devant la Xbox.. puis la PS3 (1)
- Échec pour le lancement de la PS3 à Paris (6)
- Ben seemingly teleported to Tunisia, which is the same place where the polar bear was found buried in the sand by Charlotte. There must be a passageway from the island to this location.
- Ben must have traveled to Tunisia from a cold place since he was wearing a winter coat and when he woke up, he seemed to breath out cold air.
- The jacket had the name Hallowax on it. Hallowax is the last name of the Marvin Candle look alike from the Orchid film that was shown at Comic Con 2007.
- Was the Orchid Station the place of Ben's departure? The producers have said that the orchid station video would be a clue as to how the polar bear arrived n Tunisia.
- There were many hieroglyphics present on the door to Ben's monster control cave. Give it a week for those symbols to be analyzed, but this wasn't the first time we've seen hieroglyphics. Anyone remember the countdown clock?
- The Shape of Things to Come is also the title of a novel by H.G. Wells, that takes the form of a history book from the future—but I'm sure you guys already knew that!
- Ben vomits orange liquid when he wakes in the desert. The anti-sickness serum is orange—so if you dose yourself before you time travel, perhaps you don't become unstuck in time.
- He's also wearing a parka with a Dharma insignia we haven't seen before, and the name Halliwax, though later he uses his Dean Moriarty passport.
- It's open season on doctors. Jack is already popping pills and showing signs of a disturbing illness, while the doctor from the freighter floats up dead, his throat slit. (By the way, Kendrick—the fictitious couple Ben tells the London hotel clerk he's on his way to see—is the doctor's name in Audrey Niffenegger's novel, The Time Traveler's Wife.)
- Finally, a question for you. When it comes to great, brain-hurty episodes like this one, I find I need several additional viewings and a supplementary podcast or two, plus visits to some of the websites, to come close to picking up all, or at least more, of the nuances and details. I'll enjoy that, but man, it's a time suck. How much time do you spend on Lost throughout the week?
- L'inscription est passée subitement de 300 € HT à gratuite !!! C'est bien mais je souhaite bien du plaisir à ceux qui ont payé avant ce changement (dont Ludo) pour récupérer leurs billes...
- L'édito de Besson a été modifié
- Mais où est donc passé Fillon dans le programme ?-)
- Le site Web évolue doucement vers ce qu'il me fait mal d'appeler du mieux ; en début d'après-midi, la page d'inscription gratuite était tellement buggée que le bouton de soumission du formulaire était caché ! Il fallait se positionner sur le dernier champ du formulaire et appuyer sur la touche Tab pour scroller la zone de texte et le faire apparaître. Bien entendu les premières lignes en haut de la zone disparaissaient... Non mais franchement, qui a osé pondre un tel site ???
- Et depuis ce soir, Ludo et moi sommes cités dans un article de ZDnet... Dans le genre amplificateur acoustique, c'est pas mal du tout.
- Sur le fond, le programme reste toujours aussi euh nul. J'ai hésité à employer ce mot, mais vraiment je n'en vois pas d'autre. C'est désespérant.
Connaissez-vous Jean Baptiste Dumont ? Le marché immobilier français se met au 2.0 (et à l'écologie)
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En avant-première, Jean Baptiste (encore étudiant en école de commerce !) nous présente Immobilio, un site 2.0 de recherche de biens immobiliers, site qui ouvrira début juin prochain.
Je dois dire que j'ai été bluffé par notre jeune étudiant.
Comment favoriser la recherche d'un bien immobilier dans le fatras de l'offre de biens ? Comment améliorer les services proposés au consommateur en recherche d'un bien ? (c'est un peu la définition du 2.0 me semble-t-il..).
Savez-vous combien il y a d'annonces immobilières en France à un instant donné ? Jean Baptiste l'estime entre 4 et 6 millions. Ce qui ne veut naturellement pas dire qu'il y ait autant de biens proposés à la vente. Loin de le là. En fait, selon un rapide calcul de Jean Baptiste, ces annonces correspondent entre 250 et 450.000 logements. Plusieurs professionnels en effet s'occupent de la vente d'un bien, et à ce titre, chacun y va de son annonce. Ce qui fait que c'est un peu le bazar pour notre consommateur en recherche d'un logement.
A partir de ce constat, notre jeune ami (qui a aussi fait une école d'ingénieur) a réfléchi. Et mis en place 3 processus algorithmiques des plus intéressants (dont il a pris des brevets)...
1/ la géolocalisation. Vous le savez certainement, les agents immobiliers évitent de publier l'adresse exacte des biens à vendre qui sont dans leur portefeuille (pour éviter naturellement qu'un confrère pique l'affaire). Grâce aux algorithmes mis en oeuvre par Jean Baptiste, 75 % par exemple des annonces proposant à la vente un logement dans Paris, sont géolocalisés assez finement. Et à partir de là, Jean Baptiste, qui a beaucoup d'imagination, a mis en oeuvre de nouveaux services très utiles pour le consommateur : par exemple le prix moyen du m2/rue (il y a plus de 4.000 rues à Paris),...etc...
2/ la recherche d'un bien en fonction du temps de trajet lieu de travail/domicile en transport en commun.C'est la partie écolo. Vous allez travailler à la Défense ? Vous cherchez un logement au plus près en transport en commun, parce que vous vous dites qu'avec l'envolée du prix du baril de pétrole, et les problèmes climatiques liés au CO2, il vaut mieux utiliser les transports en commun que sa voiture ? Utilisez donc ce service dans Immobilio... Dire que l'on n'y avait pas pensé dans notre Grenelle de
l'Environnement, à lier une recherche d'un bien en fonction des trajets
en transport en commun...
3/ Fatras de l'offre disais-je... Un bien immobilier peut donc avoir été proposé dans plusieurs annonces... Et les différents professionnels qui le proposent dans différents sites web ont pris des photos. Chacun à des moments différents, sous des angles différents... Et ce qui vous intéresse, vous qui recherchez un bien, c'est d'éviter de perdre du temps à consulter toutes les annonces concernant un même bien. Vous allez donc pouvoir utiliser un service très novateur : le dédoublement de photos (algorithmes basés sur la géométrie différentielle). Technologie d'ailleurs qui peut aussi être utilisée pour la vidéo.
Sur ces 3 points, Jean Baptiste nous fait une démo en avant-première dans ce billautshow.
Comment va-t-il gagner des sous ? Quid d'Immobilio à l'étranger ? (il y travaille déjà...).
Naturellement, les processus algorithmiques mis au point et utilisés pour le marché de l'immobilier, peuvent être utilisés dans d'autres secteurs d'activité.
Bref, des plus intéressants.
Je suis d'ailleurs frappé ces temps-çi par la qualité et l'intérêt des services divers que nos jeunes startuppeurs que je reçois devant ma caméra, mettent en oeuvre. J'ai de plus en plus confiance pour l'avenir : nos jeunes vont faire la France "full digital" comme on dit chez notre nouveau Secrétaire d'Etat à l'Economie Numérique... Il faut seulement leur préparer le terrain.
Avec d'une part, du TRES haut débit partout sur le territoire, et d'autre part, la mise sur pied de systèmes de financement moins conservateurs que ceux que nous avons jusqu'à présent... Mais d'aucuns s'y emploient...
Il serait judicieux lors des Assises Numériques qui seront lancées le 29 mai prochain, de donner une tribune large à ces startuppeurs, plutôt que faire des "Assises Théodule"... Remarquez, il y en aura au moins un de startuppeur (Tariq Krim de Netvibes, si j'ai tout compris)... Mais nos aimables organisateurs auraient au moins pu organiser une table ronde avec ces jeunes, et leurs demander ce qu'ils entendent par une France "full digital" d'ici 2.012 (lettre de mission du Président de la République au Secrétaire d'Etat à l'Economie Numérique)... Et ce qu'il faudrait faire pour répondre aux voeux du Président de la République.
Et peut-être que ce dernier pourrait les recevoir à l'Elysée le 29 mai prochain, pour comprendre ce que nos gamins ont dans la tête. Il renouerait ainsi avec une pratique chiraquienne. Chirac en effet recevait à intervalle assez régulier les jeunes de l'époque qui ont fait l'Internet français.. pour essayer de comprendre l'économie du mulot... (je le sais : j'y suis aller 2 ou 3 fois... Mais à l'époque j'étais plus jeune..).
Ce sont ces jeunes qui font faire la rupture...
Bon, ce que j'en dis...
En tout cas, les Français qui font la France de demain (matin) sont sur le billautshow... Et je suis très flatté qu'ils me demandent d'y passer...
Pour contacter Jean Baptiste Dumont ici
Le site de présentation d'Immobilio ici
© A Billautshow production - the video for the rest of us
Voir en ligne : Connaissez-vous Jean Baptiste Dumont ? Le marché immobilier français se met au 2.0 (et à l'écologie)
This is NOT my idea of a Caturday
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Let me out IMMEDIATELY or ye shall perish.
There you go, Jennifer N., your kitteh is now famous.
Famous and furious that is! (Please see C.O.X.C.U. for furiousness)
Voir en ligne : This is NOT my idea of a Caturday
Les “agrégateurs éditorialisés”, media de demain ?
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Proam, media-citoyens, agrégateurs d’information, blogs, site de media traditionnels, faisons le point sur ce qui se passe du coté des sites d’infos et sur ce qui semble se profiler…
On connait depuis un an, une croissance importante des media dits participatifs (ou pro-am pour professionnels - amateurs). Ce sont des sites qui mélangent plus ou moins des contenus d’origines diverses (journalistes, experts, internautes). La plupart du temps, ce sont les professionnels qui éditent ce contenu, fixant la ligne éditoriale et mettant en avant ce qu’ils jugent le plus pertinent. Dans cette catégorie on retrouve les Mediapart, Rue89, The Politico, TPM Café,… Ces sites mettent l’accent sur ce qu’ils appellent le contenu communautaire, à savoir les “commentaires” des internautes ou au mieux des blogs d’experts… A court terme tous les médias traditionnels (TV, presse écrite, radio…) intégreront cette dimension participative à leur offre internet. Ainsi, d’ici peu les sites media traditionnels ne devraient plus présenter de différence avec les pro-ams.
En parrallèle, des media dits citoyens vont plus loin dans leur démarche d’ouverture. Ils proposent une plus grande part de contenus rédigés par des non professionnels. Parfois, ils vont même jusqu’à laisser le choix éditorial aux rédacteurs amateurs ou aux lecteurs (par exemple via des votes). C’est le cas de Now Public, Agoravox, Oh My News,… Les articles proposés sont des contenus rattachés au site. C’est à dire que les auteurs font le choix de publier, sur la plate-forme, leur papier, leur video, leur photo et ces contenus deviennent propriété du site. Ils génèrent une audience pour le site et constitue le patrimoine éditoriale du site.
Enfin, nous connaissons tous les projets encore plus anciens que sont les portails (ou les agrégateurs). Le procédé utilisé par ces sites est extrèmement simple : construire des pages référençant des articles externes et les classer par thématique, chronologie, vote, etc… Digg, Technorati, Wikio, les portails d’actualité de Google, Yahoo et MSN sont aujourd’hui le meilleur générateur d’audience pour les sites d’informations et les blogs.
Il y a une voie mediane encore peu explorée : une nouvelle catégorie de media qui mixerait l’ensemble des pratiques citées précédemment. On pourrait l’appeler la catégorie des “agrégateurs éditorialisés”. Ces derniers porposeraient un ensemble hiérarchisé de contenus d’origine mixte (professionnels et amateurs). La hiérarchisation pourrait être réalisée soit par les lecteurs, soit par des équipes restreintes, des communautés d’éditeurs (journalistes ou non). Certains sites pratiquent déja plus ou moins cette approche. C’est le cas de Drudge Report, de Desourcesure, de Paperblog, de Betapolitique, de Wikinews, de France 24 Observers…Il me semble que les “agrégateurs éditorialisés” devraient être particulièrement appréciés par les lecteurs et les auteurs. D’abord parce que les contenus débordent et vont déborder de partout, les sources d’information ne cessent de se multiplier (les évolutions technologiques transfomant sans cesse nos terminaux en diffuseurs) et le besoin de hiérarchisation, de filtrage et d’éditorialisation deviennent plus importants que la création d’information elle-même. Enfin parceque les créateurs de contenus, souvent motivés par l’audience et la notoriété, ont un désir d’indépendance croissant ; de peur de d’être “récupérés” par des sites d’information participatifs ou des medias citoyens ils préfèreront être cités dans un agrégateur plutôt “qu’hébergés” sur une plate-forme commune.
Signal intéressant, Yahoo Actualités semble avancer un pion dans ce sens. Certains bloggueurs se voient proposer depuis peu d’intégrer le flux d’agrégation du portail. Le deal est alléchant au premier abord : Yahoo apporte de la notoriété et de la visibilité aux bloggeurs et récupère de l’audience et des liens vers du contenu pertinent. Demain cette pratique devrait s’intensifier…
Michel LEVY-PROVENCAL
directeur technique “nouveaux media” de
la chaine d’information France24.
www.mikiane.com
© Michel LEVY-PROVENCAL for L'Observatoire des médias, 2008. |
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"Voir en ligne : Les “agrégateurs éditorialisés”, media de demain?
Spending Less Time In Google Reader
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A few weeks ago, I felt overwhelmed by information overload and moved to think about how I wasted time online and alter my behavior toward efficiency. My first target: Google Reader.
Over the past year or so I’ve been a Google Reader addict, subscribing to about 200+ feeds, and literally churning through 500+ posts on a daily basis (about 1/2 hour a day). If you do the math, that means I’ve probably skimmed over 200,000 posts in the past year.
The really scary thing is: I seriously cannot remember more than a handful of them.
With so many posts glanced at, I wasn’t giving any enough attention to create even the faintest of memories. I also didn’t enjoy the feeling of a constantly-refilling pile, like a new rowboat to bail out each morning. That partial attention isn’t fair to the article writers. So I’ve changed the way I use Google Reader significantly to save time, feel less overwhelmed, resulting in hours saved over the course of a week.
Reducing the number of RSS subscriptions
Before: Subscribe to any feed from a blog or site that caught my interest.
Now: After a mass purge, I have reduced my feed subscriptions from 200+ to about 60.
How did I decide what feeds to eliminate? Google Reader has a “trends” section where you can see what blogs haven’t updated in quite some time, those that update way too often with trivial content, or what feeds you read the most. Lots of winnowing opportunity.
Another criteria for feed deletion is redundancy. Many prolific bloggers use Twitter and FriendFeed to share their blog posts. Most have that same blog imported into their FriendFeed. Therefore, I can subscribe to their FriendFeed Feed, and delete their blog’s RSS feed from Google Reader, and still be up to date on their recent blog posts. If someone is broadcasting the same message on several channels, why tune into all of them?
Browsing Through Feeds More Quickly
Before: I would open Google Reader in list view, click on the first headline to expand it, and then open every subsequent post by hitting “J” repeatedly, until every post was marked “read.”
Now: I just scroll and skim all the headlines. If something grabs me, then I’ll click on the headline and expand the article to read. I may then “share” that item (Shift + S) via my Google Reader Shared Items. The amount of time spent in Google Reader is reduced significantly.
I don’t know why I was hitting “J” repeatedly. When I go to Reddit, Digg, or the New York Times, I feel no obligation to click on every headline. How pointless would Reddit or Digg be if one hit “J” for every article?
No Guilt About “Mark All As Read”
At the end of my headline-skimming, I click the friendly button: Mark All As Read. If nothing grabbed me this time around, there is little chance I’ll return to it later in the day and find something I missed, because more likely, new posts will have filled the queue, dividing my attention.
I feel no guilt because articles in a feed reader are not email. I have no obligation to read them or to respond. If I skip a bunch of them, what does it matter? There will always be more articles to read later. The truth is: if I missed something interesting, most likely it will show up in: FriendFeed.
Using FriendFeed To Find What’s Really Worth Reading
I’ve mentioned FriendFeed several times. Many of the folks I follow subscribe to tons of RSS feeds themselves. If something is really worth checking out, odds are it will appear in one of their FriendFeeds.
Also, my Google Reader Shared Items are pulled into my FriendFeed feed. Each shared item is up for review by other FriendFeed users. I can go into FriendFeed later, and see if someone has liked something I shared, which indicates that that article is worth returning to and reading more carefully - or possibly even writing a blog post about.
Conclusion
As a result of the above actions, this capture of my Google Reader over the last two weeks says it all - much less time spent reading articles. And I feel just as informed as before.
If you’re skeptical, consider 200+ Google Reader feeds as equivalent to 200+ cable channels. Do you feel obligated to flip through each channel on a daily basis to see what’s on, or stare at the cable program guide to figure out what to watch? A smart use of technology would be to choose exactly what show to watch and use Tivo to “time shift” a show. To find a show to watch, ask some friends (who are way more television obsessed) and eschew inefficient channel-surfing. Leverage their time so you don’t have to waste yours channel-surfing.
Similarly, FriendFeed is replacing Google Reader as my information aggregator / filter. One big reason is the social filter of other FriendFeed users. In Google Reader I have just a pile of stuff to wade through with no indicators as to items’ quality. Just as sharing links through Digg and Reddit saved us time from browsing the entire web with the help of rabid web-surfers, so FriendFeed is doing the same with RSS feeds.
This is a post from: Webomatica
Voir en ligne : Spending Less Time In Google Reader
Grand Theft Auto IV : le jeu qui voit très grand
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Les qualificatifs ne manquent pas pour la sortie mondiale mardi 29 avril du jeu vidéo Grand Theft Auto IV : historique, évenement de l’année, records annoncés, carton commercial, etc…
On parle de 6 millions d’unités qui pourraient être vendues uniquement dans la première semaine, ce qui représenterait un chiffre d’affaire de 400 millions de dollars, soit autant que le record de Pirates des Caraïbes: jusqu’au bout du monde qui avait réalisé un CA de 404 millions en 6 jours.
Grand Theft Auto 4 pourrait devenir historiquement le plus gros succès commercial pour un produit culturel.
Le jeu vidéo est développé par la société Rockstar Games, qui appartient à Take Two Interactive.
Il sera disponible sur PS3 et XBox. Les ventes de ces dernières devraient connaître un joli coup de boost.
Attention cependant GTA est violent et réservé aux adultes. Il met en scène Niko Bellic, le personnage principal qui débarque d’Europe de l’Est pour Liberty City, une copie de New York. Pour réussir Niko devra devenir un gangster. Et ceci étant dit, tout est permis.
Voici l’un des trailers officiels de GTA IV:
En voici une autre bande annonce pour GTA 4 .
Articles qui peuvent vous intéresser
Voir en ligne : Grand Theft Auto IV: le jeu qui voit très grand
Is Blogging Already Outdated ?
"Jonathan Schwartz, CEO at Sun, has stated the following at the Web 2.0 Expo:
Blogging as a term at some point will become achronistic. Its about communication. Why not use the internet to communicate effectively and authentically. One of the toughest parts of the job is communicating with the 33,000 employees. Why not communicate with them [...]"
Voir en ligne : Is Blogging Already Outdated?
The New York Times on the New Art of Flickr
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Personally I believe that one of the greatest things that Flickr represents is a new democratization of fine art photography. For the past 100 years, much of what the world considers fine art photography has been bestowed upon us by a very small handful of influential gatekeepers. Literally, at any given time, probably less than 100 people control 95% of what the world is told to consider fine art. These are a few major museum curators, select gallery owners, and other influencers. These individuals not only control the prices that fine art photography will fetch, they quite literally control what is considered the best fine art in the world today. They tell people what photography ought to be deemed great and what ought to be deemed amateurish.
Par Thomas Hawk, Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection, 25/04/2008.
Lire la suite...
Voir en ligne : The New York Times on the New Art of Flickr
GameCamp
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It's on May 3rd in East London. And I'm missing it (get back from Canada on May 4th..! Ag!).
GameCamp is a free, public one-day event for people interested in
gaming and play. The objective is simple: to talk informally with
like-minded people and get excited about stuff involving games of all
kinds.We've already confirmed some stellar attendees from across the games
biz - from founding fathers to revolutionaries to cogs in the machine.
Expect a whole spectrum of games-related people to be there! Plus,
Harmonix's Rock Band. Yes, Rock Band.
What a laugh. I wouldn't miss this for the world if I were you and anywhere near East London in early May.
"Voir en ligne : GameCamp
L’activisme politique par le nom de domaine
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Le journal anglais "Telegraph" révèle une histoire assez incroyable. Tout commence par la récente annonce, faite par le gouvernement espagnol du nouvellement réélu Jose Luis Zapatero, de la création de 4 nouveaux ministères.
Problème, entre les services de presse et les services informatiques de ce gouvernement, la communication ne passe visiblement pas. Les noms de domaine de ces nouveaux ministères ne sont pas enregistrés par les autorités. Un particulier d'Alicante en profite donc pour s'en occuper.
Voilà qui fait désordre, surtout quand le particulier en question se révèle être un bloggeur activiste qui rend public la "bévue" gouvernementale et indique que les noms de domaine des ministères sont pris en otages !
Pour rendre les noms, le bloggeur demande que de récentes mesures prises par le gouvernement pour approvisionner en eau la région catalane de Barcelone, actuellement victime de sècheresses, soient étendues à l'ensemble du pays. "Ces mesures font que tous les espagnols doivent payer pour que les catalans puissent boire," indique l'intéressé sur son blog (on rappelle que les passions régionales sont très fortes en Espagne).
De source gouvernementale, des actions pour récupérer les noms seraient actuellement en cours. On peut supposer qu'il s'agit de procédures de résolution de litiges façon UDRP, à moins que des pressions soient exercées directement sur le registre espagnol… Et en attendant de récupérer ces noms, des domaines de substitution ont été réservés par les autorités pour permettre aux 4 ministères d'exister sur la toile.
"Voir en ligne : L'activisme politique par le nom de domaine
Jay Glatfelter : On Lost : "The Shape of Things to Come"
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Well, we've had 4 weeks to catch our breath from Season 4's breakneck speed. Last night, the "powers that be" wasted little time to make us breathless again. If "The Shape of Things to Come" is any indication of the rest of the season, the viewers are going to be in for one hell of a ride. Thanks to the WGA strike, the 4th season's final episodes will be even more dense and fast paced. Now, we get even more packed in to each episode, since the writers has to compress their original story path in fewer episodes.
In short, I LOVED this episode. Michael Emerson's Ben Linus has to be one of the most loved and hated characters on television today. The 2008 Elections may be coming, but the sides of "Is Ben Good?" or "Is Ben Evil?" might even bring a hotter debate. After last night's episode, that seems to be the main question that us as fans want and need to answer. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? This episode quickly solidified my opinion that our Losties are just people that have stumbled upon a greater story/war. The first season might have been a more primal survival story, but season 4 is shaping up to be an even greater struggle for survival against the armies of Charles Widmore and Benjamin Linus.
Here are some points of interest from last night's episode.
The Key to the Game is Australia?
Locke, Sawyer and Hurley's game of Risk seemed very aptly placed with the introduction of the "game" being played between Ben and Widmore. How much relevance does the game actually have to the show? Is there some significance to Hurley's statement that Australia is the key to the game? My co-host Jack says that in the game of Risk, Australia is the easiest piece of land to defend. This could just be a reference to the island in their board game being pivotal while the island being fought for in Ben/Widmore's game is quite pivotal as well. Of course, knowing Lost, it could have no relevance at all.
Smokey is a Bad Mother... Shut Your Mouth
I assume most people sat with their jaws dropped during the "When Smoke Monsters Attack!" scene. I sure was. This answered a few questions and raised a few more in true Lost fashion. Ben can actually control the smoke monster? Rousseau was right -- it actually is a security system? Exactly what did Ben do in his "Batcave" to summon the smokey beast? And will we finally find out what that damn thing is?
What are Those Rules?
After taking the gamble with Alex's life and losing (R.I.P. Alex), Ben stood in shock and then said, "He changed the rules." What are these rules? Are family members out of bounds? Kids, maybe? Also, why can't Ben kill Charles? He directly said that he couldn't. Is there some sort of time space continuum that could forever be disrupted if Ben kills Widmore at this time? There certainly is a history between Charles and Ben that we haven't touched upon yet. That will hopefully explain these rules in some detail...
Secondary Characters Taking Charge in the Secondary Storyline
Hmm...does it seem weird that a dentist not only knows how to shoot a gun quite well, but also knows Morse code? Bernard definitely seems to have an interesting past. Good for the writers further developing and including Bernie in the show since he is the last of the Talies.
Moving on...Is the doctor is dead? He had a nice cut on his face, in addition to the slit on his throat, indicating that he died and got a cut on his face since the last time we saw him. Is his arrival on the island coming from events happening in the future on the ship? Only time will tell and we'll have to get back to the Freighter storyline for that one.
Easter Eggs and Side Notes
"The Shape of Things to Come" was the perfect episode to get everyone back into the swing of Lost. It wasn't a mind f*ck a la "The Constant." It was an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride, which to me matched the "Pilot's" bombastic grandeur. I, for one, can't wait for the second meeting between Ben, Locke and Jacob, and hopefully we'll find out what that bloody smoke monster is!
What did you think? What are your thoughts, questions, comments, and/or theories? Let's open up the discussion in the comment section below.
Be sure to also check out my podcast "The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack" or on iTunes by searching "Jay and Jack" or "Lost Podcast"
"Voir en ligne : Jay Glatfelter: On Lost: "The Shape of Things to Come"
Did We Ignore the Rise of the Personal World ?
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In a week when Sony has announced yet more delays
(another in a longer series of gaffes that has spawned endless humiliation)
in the development of their much hyped virtual space, Home, and when even the roar from
WoW’s success seems to be fading into an echo, a reminder about the incredible success of
a little game that could... Like All in the Family or this year's indie darling Once (or the Aeron chair, for that matter), it almost never got made 'cause people making decisions about such things didn't believe Will Wright (who doesn't believe Will Wright?!) when he said it would be the best thing ever. Cause after all, who the heck would want to play in a virtual dollhouse?
The Sims franchise has now
sold 100 million copies (in 22 languages and 60 countries) since 2000. From a recent NYTimes article
sent to us by Tripp Roberts (who also notes how strange it is that videogame
articles appear in the television category):
All told, the franchise has
generated about $4 billion in sales or an average of $500 million every year
for the last eight years, placing the Sims in the rarefied financial company of
other giants of popular culture like “American Idol,” “Star Wars” and “Harry
Potter.”
I’m in love with Will Wright,
I am going to confess (though there’s no chance for me as his fiancée is way
more beautiful than even my best avatars). I saw
him speak at the Game Developer’s conference a couple of years ago: not about games, nor game design very specifically,
but rather an exploration of his intensely nerdy passions for astrophysics and
exo-biology and how they relate to game design (Spore, of
course). He’s a game designer that gets
underneath the covers, really thinking about what makes the game experience
unique from other media experiences, and how he can design games that provoke
and inspire. Pride, accomplishment and guilt, for instance, are emotions that videogames have the power to evoke in
spades (I had to stop playing Age of Empires because I felt guilty for burning
the little digital peasants out of their houses), but that are rarely present
in other media (except perhaps if you’re watching An Inconvenient Truth, I suppose). As a relatively new medium still struggling
to find ‘its language’, reminders like this are important… in the game designer’s
rant at GDC this year, for instance, several of the talks explored the idea
that there is still so much more to be done with videogames in terms of
engendering emotions that are positive (as Clint Hocking said, why isn’t Medal of Honor about honor, or Call of Duty about duty?), and fostering experiences that are a step beyond the videogame equivalent of B-movies and T-and-A fests.
Now as much as I like to talk about videogames being more
meaningful, I know that Terra Nova is a
blog about virtual worlds. And I believe in the social power of virtual worlds. I have often
pronounced to audiences that gaming has
traditionally been a social activity, and once computer networks evolved sufficiently people
gravitated towards playing with one another in a variety of time-tested
ways (do you know people who still play Solitaire once they have an Internet connection?). I have even ventured to say that
once people have the experience of gaming socially, they are less inclined to
go back (I backed this up with the assertion that people even play single
player games socially, as I did with all my single player games back in the day).
But maybe I’m wrong. What is it about the experience of the single-player Sims game that surpasses all else? Is it just the allure to demographics outside the core gaming audience? Or some sort of mysterious je ne sais quois that is unlikely to ever be replicated? This quote from the Times article got me thinking...
“What we’ve discovered is that the
Sims is a very private experience for a lot of people,” Rod Humble, head of the
Sims studio, said in a telephone interview last week. “It’s private because
it’s set in real life. Rather than on a console in the living room where
everyone can see, you generally play on a handheld or on a PC in the study,
where no one can look over your shoulder. You get to tap into this wonderful
childhood imaginary game, which is ‘What if I could create my own little world
and all the people in it and watch them go through their business and jump in
and change things when I want?’ That is a pretty personal fantasy.”
Okay, but won't people want to share their personal fantasies? I mean people do already. So why then did the Sims Online fail so miserably? Our own Mia Consalvo has a theory or two, all neatly documented in her chapter From Dollhouse to Metaverse: What Happened When The Sims Went Online (in the Player's Realm anthology). She notes that she enjoyed the Sims much more than the Sims Online, for instance, because she tends to be a more solitary player. But why? One reason is that solitary play allows one to construct a magic circle (for lack of a better metaphor) that doesn't have to look like a Venn diagram where players are constantly constructing, reinforcing and arguing about the boundaries between those two play circles. It is precisely the necessary overlp of the circles that creates so much conflict in MMO environments (more on this here and here). A truly satisfying game experience allows one to construct whatever type of circle they want, unfettered by gameplay or other social norms that might otherwise influence their freedom of expression:
Given an
artificial situation, players can experiment, allowing them to see ‘what
happens’ when a Sim nags another Sim for too long. There are no real
consequences involved. Yet when the other Sim is a real person, even if it’s a person I do not know,
my feelings change. I can nag a computer easily—another person is more
difficult. And likewise, even if I really wanted to have my Sim slap that other
Sim (or just peck her on the cheek), the other Sim now has the opportunity to
refuse. Not that the computer AI couldn’t, but it was different somehow. These
changes in my expectations for what is acceptable behavior are perhaps my own,
not shared by others. ...It is possible that because TSO is so similar to ‘real
life’ that I have transferred my behavioral norms—just as I wouldn’t expect to
be able to slap a stranger on the street IRL, neither can I do so in TSO. That
norm is not so pronounced in other types of online games, where situations are
more fantastical, and different behavioral norms already more established. But
the underlying point seems to be that players either bring with, or invent,
expectations for interactions, when other people are involved. And these norms
have consequences for how they behave. Whether that is a good or bad thing I
can’t say. But it does suggest that the ‘look and feel’ of a virtual world can
inspire in players certain behavioral norms, and as we see the rise of more
non-sci-fi and fantastical MMOGs, behavioral norms will likely change, as both
the environment and player base change as well (Consalvo, 2007, p. 22).
(So this, of course, makes me think about solipsism
(those of you who know me know that I have a
pet theory about us all living in a big virtual world, and we have also discussed it elsewhere here)… is this world I
live in a personal universe? Do any of
the rest of you lovely people exist? Oh, dear, I hate
it when my brain meanders into existential territory that leaves me
depressed. So unfair. And anyway, I don’t
care if all of you really exist or not ‘cause I love you anyway…)
The point is that game experiences can and should be about
the stories that people create themselves, not about the stories that others
choose to tell them. And what's lovely about this is that there is a huge body of literature amassed in recent years that addresses the possibilities of storytelling and personal narrative for transformational purposes. What it makes really clear to me is why people can find sort of basic and boring emergent environments endlessly fascinating, while many of us are left scratching our heads: what the heck is the appeal of grinding through several tens of thousands of creatures that need killing. Well, of course we know that no one would play WoW if there were no other people involved... but that has more to do with the state of evolution of single player games (the status quo plus people is better than just the status quo), and the fact that videogame narratives can now be constructed on the fly by all sorts of people at the same time. But what about the next evolution? Can it trump the MMO?
Soon (!) I will have
the option of designing my own personal Sim universe, designed with lots and lots of love by my favorite Will Wright. What could be better than that? And looks like they might have learned their lesson:
Spore is unique in that while it has multiplayer elements involved
there will be no direct live contact with other players. Players'
created content gets saved to a master server and will be downloaded by
the client-software of other players. In this way, a player will
interact with the content created by another player in a non-intrusive
manner.
I can show them my sandbox, but they can't mess it up. Is that the best of all worlds? My universe is unpwnable.
Voir en ligne : Did We Ignore the Rise of the Personal World?
WWW domain country codes of the world
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Here's a neat poster to help you visualize all of the top-level domains in the world...
At the end of every URL and email address is a top-level domain (TLD). Although .com is the world’s most popular TLD, it is far from alone. There are more than 260 TLDs in use around the world, most of which are country code top-level domains (ccTLDs).
The Country Codes of the World map includes 245 country codes, which encompasses all United Nations countries as well as numerous islands and territories. Each two-digit code is aligned over the country it represents and is color coded with the legend below for quick and easy reference.
Link, they're $30 each plus shipping. (via Kevin Kelly)
"Voir en ligne : WWW domain country codes of the world
A comparison of scenes from GTA IV and real-life New...
Voir en ligne : A comparison of scenes from GTA IV and real-life New...
David Sirota : Chris Matthews vs. Jimmy McNulty
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The "controversy" over Barack Obama's "bitter" comments was a media creation from start to finish - a brouhaha manufactured by very wealthy reporters and pundits who do anything they can to ignore, reject or otherwise downplay the very real issue of inequality and economic class in America. Using MSNBC's Chris Matthews and "The Wire's" Jimmy McNulty, I show in my new newspaper column out today that the very media ideology that spins up these "controversies" has gone from subtle to brazen in the last few weeks - and that intensification is breeding, yes, bitterness.
Matthews is the personification of this ideology inside the Washington press corps and chattering class. He is a guy so out of touch with reality that he looks at his $5 million annual salary, three Mercedes and luxurious Chevy Chase lifestyle and tells the New York Times he's not part of America's winner's circle. In that New York Times profile, he likens himself to a working-class champion, and yet when you watch Hardball, all working-class issues are stripped of their substance and turned into a screaming match over tactics, and nothing more.
This is par for the course in the media. Obama notes that when working-class Americans get economically shafted, they get "bitter" - and millionaire Tim Russert reacts by asking a group of millionaire political consultants to appear on Meet the Press to explain working-class politics to America. ABC's Charlie Gibson takes what could have been a substantive discussion of tax inequality, and turns it into a fact-free diatribe about the capital gains tax supposedly hurting regular Americans - even though most of it is paid by the wealthiest 1 percent. These people all couch their arguments and presentation in blue-collar iconography, but what's really coming through is a powerful form of elitism.
At a time when people are dying because of lack of access to health care and because of a misguided war, only the superrich elite have the luxury of treating politics like an entertaining sport and deliberately obscuring issues so as to justify economic royalism. The problem is that when the superrich in the media do this, it not only makes solving real problems harder, but it can breed - yes - bitterness among us commoners, because the underlying message is that our daily challenges are unimportant.
In my column, I use the example of Matthews and Jimmy McNulty - the latter being the everyman cop in HBO's "The Wire." In season 3 of the show, McNulty starts dating a Washington political consultant, and when he tries to get up to speed on her business by watching Matthews-style cable shows, he laments how divorced from reality the coverage is. Later on, he's downright bitter.
Though McNulty is a fictional character, he's a lot more real than cartoons like Matthews, Russert, Gibson and the rest of the media elite. The feelings he expresses, which I recount in my column, are widespread out here in America - and the media has a heckuva lot to do with that. It may be shocking for political junkies to realize it, but most of America does not wake up everyday thinking about Obama or Hillary Clinton's latest gaffe. Most of America has no idea who David Axelrod or Mark Penn is. Most of America doesn't care what the latest polls in Indiana say. Most of America is worrying about paying the bills, making it through the next day and providing for our families.
But you wouldn't know that if you turn on the television. No, when you flip on the tube, you are led to believe the only thing that matters are politicians screaming at each other, and millionaire pundits analyzing the sport of it. And then, incredibly, these same millionaires wonder why so many Americans think our entire political process is broken, and that the political discourse in this country doesn't care about the majority of the country it is supposed to represent.
You can read the whole column at the San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Ft. Collins Coloradoan, Vail Daily, TruthDig, Credo Action, In These Times, Alternet or Creators. You can listen to a podcast of the column here. The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.
Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.
"Voir en ligne : David Sirota: Chris Matthews vs. Jimmy McNulty
Lost : Ben and Widmore Play a Game of Risk [Lost Recap]
"
Lost returned last night after a five-week break at a new later time with an action-packed (maybe a little too much so) episode. In the words of my Lost-loving friend Karen, Ben and Widmore are playing a giant game of Risk, as they fight their own personal war around the world and throughout time. But more about that and the rest of the "The Shape of Things to Come" after the jump.
Let's talk about pacing for a moment. "The Shape of Things to Come" raced at full speed through the hour last night. It made me remember the last season of the Sopranos, where everybody and everything was shoehorned into the scripts. Last night we got the return of Vincent and Smoky, Claire's fake-out death, a truly shocking murder, a peek at Ben's secret lair, an explanation of why Sayid is Ben's paid assassin, time-travel, and a bunch of other meaningful information. On the one hand, this makes for an exciting episode, vastly superior to snoozers like "The Other Woman," but on the other, couldn't they divide the action up a little more evenly throughout the season? Is this a mark of writers who finally know where they're going and are concerned they don't have enough time to get there — or are they simply trying to deal with a strike-truncated season?
Back to that shocking murder. Poor Alex. To hear your father call your mother "an insane woman," then repudiate his relationship with you seconds before your murder at age 16 is tremendously sad — as is the fact that they have killed off yet another of my favorite female characters. They'd better not harm a hair on Penny's head, but after Ben's hotel room confab with Widmore, that hope is probably in vain.
Of course, Alex's death is the first time we get to see Ben drop the Evil Manipulator mask. He can't believe his eyes when Kearny pulls the trigger, which of course makes it all the more shocking to us (as does its placement shortly after finding out Claire's not dead after all). "They changed the rules," Ben mumbles. Which leads me to think that his nonchalance and bravado in his negotiations with Kearny are due to the fact that he's been in this exact situation before—only it doesn't end in Alex's death. This is a pivotal moment. Now we know why the stakes are so high. Before it was about power and possession, now Ben wants revenge in addition to the island. We get a glimpse of Ben's secret lair (its entrance, anyway), learn that he can summon, if not control, the Smoke Monster, and see him time travel (to 2005 Tunisia, Iraq, and London). All of this hinges on Alex's death.
Finally, Sayid. I know you are grieving for Nadia, but I thought you realized that Ben can't be trusted. He points out Ishmael Bakir, names him Nadia's killer, shows a photo in support of that allegation, and you swallow it hook, line, and sinker? The smile on Ben's face as he walks away after Sayid offers his allegiance is wonderfully evil and creepy—back to his true form after his daughter's death.
A few random comments:
Voir en ligne : Lost: Ben and Widmore Play a Game of Risk [Lost Recap]
The Four-toed Foot of Lost Is Planted in Science Fiction
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Maybe time (pun intended) will prove me wrong, but Lost is definitely a science fiction show. Despite the unexplained smoke monster and the general weirdness surrounding the island, Lost has firmly planted its foot (four-toed, natch) in the realm of science fiction this season, starting with the landmark episode, "The Constant," straight through to last night's Ben-centric kill-fest.
Oh, and by the way, spoilers abound.
In "The Constant," we found out that Desmond's psychic abilities weren't some sort of strange mystical phenomenon, they were based firmly in science. Pseudo-science, granted, but they were caused by radiation and time travel, two clear hallmarks of scifi film and literature.
"Voir en ligne : The Four-toed Foot of Lost Is Planted in Science Fiction
Hoover Dam, Nevada 2007 ( via peterbaker) P.S. I’m...
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Hoover Dam, Nevada 2007 ( via peterbaker) P.S. I’m actually a huge fan of Peter’s photography work. If only he was a tad more selective with what goes into the Portfolio, it would be amazing!"
Voir en ligne : Hoover Dam, Nevada 2007 ( via peterbaker) P.S. I’m...
Tibet and the China Olympics : calling out the sponsors
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Snip from news item:
"China's torch has arrived in Australia amid protests in Sydney and Canberra. Four Tibet activists were arrested after unfurling a large banner on a prominent Coke billboard in Kings Cross protesting Coke's sponsorship of China's tainted torch relay. "
"Enjoy Compassion," the banner reads. (courtesy SFT, thanks Oxblood).
"Voir en ligne : Tibet and the China Olympics: calling out the sponsors
Godard’s "Alphaville" in pen, ink, and watercolor
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Sneak peek at a show opening at New York's Adam Baumgold Gallery on May 1 -- "Alphaville," by Scott Teplin, features meticulously rendered pen and ink and watercolor drawings inspired in part by Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film (which happens to be my favorite movie, ever, period). Snip from the show description:
Teplin has filtered the city of Alphaville through his own imagination and drawn a world devoid of people - only evidence of their domestic and work environments remain for exploration.Godard filmed Alphaville when computers were in their infancy and not well understood by the public. As a result the film is haunted by Alpha 60 - a dictatorial talking computer that rules the city and forbids the concept of free individuals. Teplin's recreated Alphaville takes place in the present, where computers are not much more than an occasional laptop on a table and a few rooms set up for surveillance of other rooms in secret. Humor is always a prevalent thread in Teplin's work and he has used Lemmy Caution's name as an inspiration for weirdly overgrown indoor potted lemon trees that seem to devour the very wall that contains them - in the title piece of the show. Also featured in the exhibition are individually, vividly watercolored pen and ink drawings of each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, whose surreal rooms and environments follow the deductive structure of the letters. Another set of drawings focus on words and letters such as SLUMBER LORD and GRACIOUS HOST that become Teplin's eccentric, isometrically spaced rooms.
The exhibition highlights Scott Teplin's artist book(s) "Sinker Down and Out," (2007) a Kafkaesque journey of a donut's travels through the digestive path. "Sinker Down and Out" is a hand-drawn 'editioned' artist book. The first part is simply an artist book, similar to other tightly engineered volumes Teplin has created in the past, including maddeningly detailed pen drawings accompanied with strategically placed, scalpel-incised holes. Because artist books are notoriously difficult to exhibit, the second part of this project was born. It consists of one fully-bound book, identical to the original master copy, for each of the 21 page spreads in that master.
Link to gallery website, and here is the artist's site (thanks, Coop!).
"Voir en ligne : Godard's "Alphaville" in pen, ink, and watercolor
Japanese Mag Famitsu Throws 1000-Issues Party
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Weekly game bible Famitsu celebrates its thousandth issue with a huge bash for readers.
The monumental issue was released earlier this year on February 15, but it's never too late to have a party, and that's just what's happening tomorrow at The Grand Hall near Shinagawa station in Tokyo. The event will run from 11 AM to 4 PM and will include presentations from the editorial staff, game tournaments, an exhibition of past issues, stage events, and of course lots of merchandise on sale. Entrance is free.
I'll be heading there, so expect a full report on Monday. Pictured above, the latest issue of Famitsu, released today.
Photo: Jean Snow/Wired.com
Famitsu 1000th Issue Celebration Info [Famitsu]
See also:
"Voir en ligne : Japanese Mag Famitsu Throws 1000-Issues Party
Assises du Numérique #2
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C'est peu de dire que les articles de Ludovic Dubost et votre serviteur sur les Assises du Numérique (que j'ai appelées les Couchées du Numérique dans une discussion IM avec un ami qui se reconnaîtra) ont eu un léger impact...
Je suis bien content d'apprendre que les Assises « seront relayées au niveau local, au
cours du mois de juin, par des ateliers thématiques, ainsi que par un
blog »... C'est vrai ça, pour stimuler l'Innovation, rien de mieux qu'un atelier et un blog hein. J'ai honte pour mon pays, là, vraiment.
Au fait, dans l'article de ZDNet, Ludo a créé une "société" et moi j'ai créé une "startup". Ah. Il doit y avoir une différence, mais je ne vois pas laquelle. Ma boîte a cinq ans, est profitable depuis son premier jour. On fait du code et on aime ça. Il faut combien d'années pour ne plus être taxé de "startup" ou (bien pire) de "représentant du web 2.0" ?
Voir en ligne : Assises du Numérique #2
Gameloft Sales Rise 11% To $40 Million In Q1
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Mobile games developer and publisher Gameloft is reporting consolidated sales of € 25.3 million ($39.6 million) in its first quarter sales report for 2008, 11% higher than in the previous year. 94 percent of Gameloft's sales came from its game sales, with the remaining 6 percent attributed to Gameloft's console releases on the Nintendo DS and Xbox Live Arcade. Europe represented 44 percent of Gameloft's Q1 revenue, with North America at 29 percent, and the ...
"Voir en ligne : Gameloft Sales Rise 11% To $40 Million In Q1
Meet the Man Who Predicted Japan’s Humanoid Robot Craze [Mangobot]
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Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. In the spring of 1988, Japanese publisher Kodansha released a revealing English-language book titled Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia. The book predicted a new era when humanoid robots would dominate Japanese society in the same way that industrial robots were then dominating behind-the-scenes manufacturing in the country. It was a topic that nobody in the Western world knew much about at all. The author, Frederik L. Schodt, was a freelance interpreter from Washington, DC who lived in Japan as a kid and traveled extensively between the Japan and the US—often as a private interpreter for Tezuka Osamu, the God of manga (Japanese comic books). And he predicted a social trend that was nearly beyond comprehension in the 1980s.
Robot Kingdom has been out of print since 1992. Although it got great reviews and the publishers had high hopes for it, sales figures were small. That was probably because the stuff Schodt was writing about was so alien to a U.S. audience. Schodt remembers seeing the book on the $1 rack at a bookstore in downtown San Francisco. Not long after that, Kodansha gave him back all rights to the book, as well as the original plates that were used to print it.
"The only problem with the book is that it was released ten years ahead of its time," says Chris Baker, a senior editor at Wired magazine. "If it had appeared in the era of ASIMO and AIBO, it would have found the audience it deserved." (Author Tim Hornyak published a follow-up to Robot Kingdom, called Loving the Machine, in 2006. It's a more pop-y, updated look at the robot industry, which, according to Hornyak, "has been very well received.")
In the 1980s, Americans seriously believed that the Japanese were going to take over the world. While technology manufacturing stateside was still subpar, it was equivalent to religious ritual in Japan—organized, routine, and very, very precise. Schodt, who had been hired to interpret during factory visits by major Japanese telecom companies visiting the U.S., was taken aback by the vast chasm between the two countries' processes. "The US didn't understand Japan's obsession with quality control and manufacturing technology," Schodt says. "They thought, we have the space shuttle, and we have the bomb. What else could we possibly need? Their factories were a mess."
When he returned to Japan, Schodt signed up for factory tours at JVC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fanuc. He found that each company had intense pride in their manufacturing processes and culture. The best of them had entire assembly lines formed by robots in virtually unmanned factories.
For the Japanese, robotics was not just a natural step in the evolution of the world; it was an enormous financial and emotional investment into a glorified future in which humanoid robots would eventually help humans in daily life. People were excitedly tossing around words like "robot kingdom" (ロボット王国) and watching anime like Gundam and Astro Boy with starry-eyed hope for a happy sci-tech future. "Robots are a metaphor for the relationship between technology and culture," Schodt says.
The book itself is a classic—it talks about the first Japanese robot ever (a tea-serving mechanical bot from the 17th century), scifi robots, anime robots, religion's influence on robotics, the difficulties of defining the word "robot", and the promising future of the humanoid. Schodt took most of the photographs in the books on his own, and collected the rest via all-day train rides across Japan to meet his sources. He even drew all the graphs and diagrams in the book by hand.
In addition to predicting the rise of robots in Japan, Schodt also foresaw the manga craze that would hit the U.S. in the 1990s. In 1983, when he published the iconic Manga! Manga!, most Americans had never even heard of Japanese comics; today they take up entire sections of bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble.
We've come a long way since Robot Kingdom. Stories about new Japanese bots show up in the blogosphere every day, and we all know that Japan's headed into the next phase of full humanoid bot integration (because I told you so). But in 1988, Schodt's book was the only resource on Japanese robots that existed in the US.
If you ask the man himself, though, he'll tell you that he was just in the right place at the right time. "I haven't actually predicted anything very accurately in life," Schodt says. "All I've done is identify a couple of trends that were staring me in the face."
Spoken like a true futurist.
Voir en ligne : Meet the Man Who Predicted Japan's Humanoid Robot Craze [Mangobot]
Apple Vs Google : The Battle for Mobile Software Developers
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Its the coolest mobile gadget pitted against the open mobile software stack with unprecedented possibilities. The iPhone was a major contributor to Apple’s 36% growth for the second quarter results. Google’s Android is the search giants major foray into the mobile applications platform space backed by the Open Handset Alliance of component manufactures and carriers including Intel, Samsung, Nvidia and Qualcomm. Both Apple and Google are vouching for third party software development to make their business model a success.
An excerpt from Fonearena:
The guys at Google were sounding pretty confident at the recently held Emerging Communications Conference in Silicon Valley, and they were saying that Android is not afraid of Apple iPhone platform and will easily outsell the later, that is some confidence Google guys are showing I must say. For the uninformed the Android SDK was downloaded over 750,000 times, Apple are you reading this, if yes, then please respond to these guys at Google.
The battle for mobile platform dominance is also the battle between constrained and open architectures. Apple is known for its control over hardware and software technologies. Google espouses the advantages of openness. Apple has the advantage that the iPhone is a pinnacle of innovation and its software is highly intuitive. Google is yet to see the results of spreading a software stacks across a multitude of devices. There are the advantages of greater reach but then the question of varied user experience across devices.
Apple had to loosen some of its control on the iPhone SDK when it saw what a phenomenal market the whole third party application development was growing into. Through a business model similar to iTunes, users will be able to buy software via the AppStore.
Here’s a technology chart comparing the iPhone SDK with Google’s Android (credit):
Google may certainly have the reach with its Android, but you can be sure that Apple will be looking to gain from having the most innovative mobile hardware platform. Moves such as the acquisition of P.A. Semi are targeted towards reducing the dependence on component manufacturers. Google may claim that it will trump Apple but the fact remains that iPhone has proven itself already while Android will be out only later this year.
And while the battle is on, lets not forget Microsoft, which owns a healthy stake in the mobile OS market. Redmond is not going to sit and watch the show from the fence. The recent acquisition of Danger is a case in point. It is to be noted that Andy Rubins, the Director of Mobile Platforms at Google and leading the Android effort was one of the founders of Danger.
The question comes down to which SDK model provides the best returns for third party developers. Google would have the reach while Apple has an established business model and a slick device. Surely the mobile market is large enough to accommodate both.
Partner: MakeUseOf.com Amazing Websites and Tools you Never Knew About
Voir en ligne : Apple Vs Google : The Battle for Mobile Software Developers
Louis Vuitton Sues Darfur Fundraiser for Copyright Infringement
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The artist, Nadia Plesner, started a campaign to raise awareness of genocide in Darfur, and raise money for the victims. All the profits she makes from selling the t-shirts and posters go directly to the “Divest for Darfur” organization to help the victims.
Nadia told TorrentFreak: “I started this campaign because of the distorted way the media prioritizes between big and small world news. How can Paris Hilton make more front covers than the genocide in Darfur? So, I “pimped” a victim, to see if it worked. And it did!”
Her campaign indeed generated a lot of attention, but not for the right reasons. For her “Simple Living” campaign, Nadia decided to dress-up a Darfur victim with a Louis Vuitton-inspired bag, and a Paris Hilton-style accessory dog. Louis Vuitton, however, was not amused by Nadia’s creative expression, and filed a lawsuit where they are claiming over $20,000 a day, if she continues with the project.
Nadia received her first letter from the Paris based retailer on February 22th. Vuitton kindly urged her to quit raising money for the good cause, arguing that it infringes their intellectual property rights. Nadia was surprised by the letter, and decided to send a reply in which she explained that she didn’t use the exact pattern of a Louis Vuitton bag, and that the drawing simply refers to designer bags in general.
“Sometimes recognizable objects are needed to express deeper meanings, and in their new form they become more than the objects themselves – they become art,” Nadia writes in her reply. “I therefore stand by my freedom of expression - artistic and/or otherwise - and will continue my Simple Living campaign in order to raise money for the victims of Darfur.”
Louis Vuitton did not warm to her “free speech” argument, and filed a lawsuit on April 15th. Nadia told us that Louis Vuitton now demands $7,500 (5,000 Euro) for each day she continues to sell Simple Life products, $7,500 for each day their letter is published on the website and $7,500 a day for using the name “Louis Vuitton” on her website. In addition they want her to pay their lawyer costs and $15,000 to cover other expenses they have incurred in protecting their ‘intellectual property’.
Initially, the whole issue seemed to be a misunderstanding, as it looked like Nadia was trying to make money from selling the tees and posters. “In January I wrote on my website regarding the campaign, that 30% of the profits are donated to Divest for Darfur. This is not correct. It is 30% of the PRICE which is 100% of the profits,” she explained to us. However, even when the information was corrected, Vuitton didn’t back off.
Intellectual Property expert and lawyer Hans Bousie, who offered to represent Nadia without charge, told TorrentFreak that Nadia could exercise her right to freedom of expression, and her right to artistic freedom in particular. That is, if the design clearly resembles the original design, otherwise Louis Vuitton wont have a strong case to begin with.
In our opinion, Vuitton is abusing the intellectual property argument. They simply do not want to be associated with genocide and the darker sides of the world. This strategy obviously backfired. We encourage everyone to buy a poster or tee, or at least spread the word about this campaign and Vuitton’s shocking response.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Louis Vuitton Sues Darfur Fundraiser for Copyright Infringement
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Panel of MMO developers discuss the industry at Comic-Con
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Filed under: Age of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons Online, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, News items
Over at New York Comic-Con 2008, Ten Ton Hammer assembled a group of respected MMO developers to answer questions about the future of the industry, and just to talk shop in general. The members of the panel were: Age of Conan Game Designer Jason Stone, Warhammer Online Senior Producer Jeff Hickman, Turbine Vice-President of Product Development Craig Alexander, 38 Studios Vice-President of Creative Development Scott Cuthbertson, and EVE Online Game Designer Matt Woodward -- phew, that's a lot of capitalization.
There are two videos to watch, one in which the questions come from TTH, the other being an audience Q&A. Combined, the videos take the better part of an hour to watch, but you'll find some interesting and differing viewpoints on various topics, such as business models, world-altering events, product placement, sci-fi versus fantasy MMOs, winning market share from World of Warcraft, and community features in and out of game.
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