Image via CrunchBase, source unknown Been a while :)
A few positive life changes and the wrap-up of this year's Duke City Shootout have taken a bit of time lately, but as summer winds up and the school year begins to begin... things are good.
One of the best recent experiences I've had (in addition to the Shootout) is the opportunity to work with two classes at The Art Center Design College as part of efforts to promote the next NM Media Industries Conference (January 16th and 17th, don't miss it). Hearing pitches from their Marketing and Graphic Design classes, it was really heartwarming to see the effort and creativity each student applied -- and their interest in helping grow New Mexico's Media Industries. I look forward to the opportunity to share some of their work -- and to see more of what our film and media students are doing statewide.
But... about iPhones and application development. O'Reilly Radar has an update on the kinds of applications being put up for sale, and it's great information. Additionally, I think we're seeing one of the first nearly market-wide releases of software to the general public; by enabling such a wide range of application developers access to a wide channel of fairly early adopters, I think Apple has done a really good thing for software developers.
It's also something I think media-makers (whether its movies, music, games or other software) should be thinking about -- what can the distribution models in one industry learn from another?
But, in the meantime, here's the word from O'Reilly Radar:
With the iTunesApp store now over a month old, I decided to look closely at data from the U.S. store over the last three weeks. While sales numbers are not publicly available, Apple publishes overall as well as category-level rankings. There are currently just over 1,800 (paid and free) applications in the App store, double what it was three weeks ago. Games is the largest category with about 500 applications (roughly 27% of all apps), up 87% from three weeks ago. Puzzles, Arcade, and Board games are the three largest Gaming subcategories:
The fastest-growing category, Education, more than tripled over the last three weeks.
The average price per paid app is around $5.50, with 94% of apps priced at $10 or less. Prices vary considerably by category with expensive apps skewing the average price in a category: a single application priced at $449 drove up the average price of Finance apps to more than $22. Excluding the top and bottom 1% priced apps, the average price of an iPhone application is about $5.20. Similarly, by removing the top and bottom priced app in each category, we get a more reasonable estimate of the average price per app within a category (click here for details).
Thinking of a few events such as the Duke City Shootout, Motion 08, Media Industries (MISP) Conference and several others, I've really been wrestling with the idea that some events and companies need to Go Big or Go Home. It's certainly that way in the entrepreneurial world, and that's one reason it's great to see Lance Maurer's Cinnafilm making real headway with its new product for HD.
If you're in LA the next couple weeks or attending SIGGRAPH (or know of others who are), please check this out...
Cinnafilm HD1 Launch in Los Angeles
Cinnafilm (TM) HD1: Digital Alchemy in Your Studio
You are invited to be one of the first in the industry to see our new product, the Cinnafilm HD1.
We will be showcasing this breakthrough technology in Los Angeles throughout the first half of August (http://www.cinnafilm.com/press-STD-20080627.php). If you would like to reserve a private demonstration at our Beverly Hills satellite office (week of August 4th through the 8th), please make your reservation at http://www.cinnafilm.com/LA-RSVP/BH/.
The HD1 is the industry’s first all-in-one, software-based format conversion platform, designed exclusively for film simulation and unlimited frame rate conversion of digital video. Powered by the latest in graphics processing technologies, the Cinnafilm HD1 tower is a new paradigm shift in digital video processing. The HD1 delivers an array of unparalleled quality format conversions and celluloid simulations in REAL TIME. Cinnafilm HD1 solves the most common problems facing digital productions today in a single, affordable workstation.
The HD1 delivers:
High quality, believable simulation of celluloid film for DV (up to 10-bit uncompressed)
Freedom from render time - allowing fluid, full-resolution workflow visualization
Motion-compensated de-interlacing and re-cadence solutions with accurate scene-cut detection
Infinite Frame rate, scan rate, and format conversions, including seamless super slow motion effects
An intelligent timeline allowing stylistic control and key-frame animations
Color enhancement and fully adjustable organic effects like film grain
High quality up res and down res output – ranging from web quality to 4k uncompressed
We look forward to seeing you at our Beverly Hills satellite office and/or at our SIGGRAPH social hour.
Sincerely,
Lance Maurer, CEO Cinnafilm, Inc. www.cinnafim.com (505)242-6626 ext. 111
For additional information on Cinnafilm, please visit http://www.cinnafilm.com 600 Central Ave SE – Suite 229, Albuquerque, NM 87102, USA
Twitter Founder talks with Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington
AMAZING little (well, nicely in-depth) article at Tech Crunch yesterday between Twitter fan/critic (and super influential Tech Blogger) Michael Arrington and Twitter (and Blogger) founder Evan Williams at O'Reilly Media's Foo Camp after Twitter acquired Summize. It doesn't get much better than this (hence all the links).
Two things I really like: 1) that after staying away from Twitter for days, I checked in long enough to see Evan Williams' hint that something big was afoot. 2) I think this article does an especially good job at capturing the thoughts and struggles of a young entrepreneur, grappling with issues of how much to open up data, how to monetize services (and where not to)... it's pretty cool.
MA: What is your revenue model? Do you know yet? Have you thought about it?
EW: We’ve though about it. We had to do some thinking about that to raise a bunch of money, but it’s not actively in development right now. The broad strokes on the matter are obviously Twitter is being used for a lot of commercial purposes right now, in addition to social purposes. We think that works pretty well. We think there’s a lot of companies that we’ve talked to that seem to be getting a lot of value out of it. If that continues, if that becomes a rich world for users and the companies, we think we can extract some revenue from that.
Innovation, Music & Creative Business
Image via Wikipedia I'm often thinking of Google, but the single biggest reason that drives those thoughts is the capability to experiment with and develop strategies based on the volume of users. In terms of core business, that really feels pretty conservative; aside from a few world-changing events, that revenue stream seems very stable.
Similarly, many of the other internet startups haven't made huge leaps in their business models either: build a strong and consistent user base through some viral strategy, then sell ads and get revenues through referrals, and maybe sell to a larger outfit.
The real interesting experimentation in ways to monetize media still seem to be coming from the music world, and that, a new release from Radiohead, and perhaps a viewing of Music & Lyrics over the weekend led me to think of the perfect nature of the pop song for experimentation -- not just artistically, but in terms of other processes as well.
Earlier today, Radiohead released its new music video. They've done some creative work (and worked with some other creative artists) in previous video, but one clue that this is a little more interesting is its release in the Google Code section (http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/). You can also check in at the Google Blog here:
A few weeks ago we heard about a project Radiohead was working on. The band was making a new video, but they weren't using any cameras, just lasers and data. As you might imagine, we were intrigued.
The song is called “House of Cards,” from Radiohead’s recent “In Rainbows” album. In this new video, there were no cameras on set. Instead, two scanning technologies were used to capture 3D images. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produced structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne LIDAR system that uses multiple lasers was used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In the video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.
Whether you're a music fan or a developer (or both), we agreed with the band that it would be great to give you a deeper look into how all of this was done, and even a chance to play with the data yourself, under a license that allows remixing.
You can view the video, watch a short documentary about how it was made, interact with the video in 3D, download some of the data, and download an iGoogle theme and gadget - all at http://code.google.com/radiohead.
The technologies they're using are really interesting -- I know there are more than a few people doing sweet things with Processing -- but... what I find especially cool is that I think this experimentation with ways creative fans can work with materials developed by artists like Radiohead, Trent Reznor and Moby, isn't just a cool (or callous) business ploy (for instance OpenCut which is cool, but definitely business), but may actually be honest attempts to engage with their audience.
And if true creative engagement could be sustainable, that would be pretty cool.
Over at TechDirt, another artist finds other cool ways to connect...
Back when Trent Reznor was still signed to Universal Music, he tested out his own form of a promotional campaign for his latest album: he started hiding USB keys with songs off of the album in the bathroom at his various concerts. Fans would find the USB keys, bring them home and upload the songs -- making it into a huge event, generating much more interest around the album. Now that he's independent and testing out all sorts of interesting business model experiments, he's also doing plenty to connect directly to his biggest fans. Take, for example, this story in the LA Times about Reznor hiding concert tickets around Los Angeles, under rocks and in drainpipes, and then putting up coordinates and clues on the Nine Inch Nails website, sending fans racing across the city to see if they can find the free tickets. While it may be a little silly, it is yet another way for Reznor to build up a really loyal fanbase. He's making being a fan fun. Sure, it's not for everyone, but it's certainly adding value to the "true fans" that support Reznor.
A bit of a tangent, but back to the point. If we think in terms of scale, it's tough for me as an individual to really comprehend how millions of microtransactions work. A pop song though... feels like it has the right size for a number of things: experimentation on price (a la Apple), and experimentation by its creator on ways to distribute and use.
I you're a large corporation releasing only a few new products a year, they may have some variety and level of customization, but they'd better all work pretty well. If you're a band producing 8-16 songs every year or so, and maybe 4-6 videos, the scale of that competition encourages some innovative thought for each release, but also encourages you to keep moving on.
It's a balance I'd love to achieve.
btw... thanks to Will Reichard for the original link!
And... perhaps the best write-up on the process is at CREATIVITY (the making of video is pretty cool too).
Google enters Virtual World
In Venture Beat they're reporting on Google's entry into the 'virtual world' market (?) with it's "Lively" product. I'm a big fan of Google's approach of course, but some of their latest cool products and innovations (for example Gears, Open Social and Android) are yet to be fully realized. Will this move pay off?
Google is going into the virtual world business today as it unveiled “Lively by Google,” a product that lets users create highly personalized 3-D virtual rooms on the web. Users can create their own custom characters, or avatars, and interact with friends through text chats or animations.
The long-awaited move has been expected by rivals such as IMVU, Habbo, WeeWorld, and Gaia Online – all of whom offer virtual rooms and avatars targeted at young people. Lively by Google users will be able to embed videos or photos in the walls of their rooms. And the Lively rooms themselves can be embedded on a blog or web site with just a snippet of code. It will also be a Facebook application.
When Google moves into a new market, it’s a blessing and a curse. The small start-ups in the market can welcome the validation of their space. But then they have to watch out for some serious competition. In this case, Google signaled its interest early.
In 2005, the company made a secret bid to buy IMVU. The company turned Google down. The search giant did manage to hire one of IMVU’s five founders, Mel Guymon. Rivals such as IMVU and Gaia Online — which we wrote about here and here — have head starts with millions of members, but Google has a lot of marketing power to ease its entry into the market.
From GigaOm isn't too impressed yet either:
The other virtual shoe finally dropped today– after a year and a half of rumors, Google (GOOG) now brings us Lively, a web-driven mini-virtual world. Not a contiguous, immersive, fully user-created metaverse like Second Life, as it turns out– so it’s not really a direct competitor– but a series of virtual world chatrooms more akin to IMVU. (However, IMVU has a virtual economy of user-created content, while Lively does not, least not yet.)
...
Of course, all this doesn’t answer the most salient question: why would a search engine company create a virtual world in the first place? Does it even fit into their larger plans? As Mel Guymon, Google’s Head of 3D Operations, suggests to Virtual World News, the real takeaway is to validate a growing market for this space. “We’re basically saying this is a real space and everyone is doing this.” Sounds like the 800 lbs. gorilla is just saying, “Me too.”
Google's latest product launch, Google Lively is a 3D chat room offering that has plenty of people comparing it to Second Life, though in its initial version, it seems a lot closer to IMVU, a popular 3D chat solution that is apparently growing like mad. It's really no different than your everyday chat room other than the fact that your text chat takes place in a 3D animated room with avatars who can do a few different pre-designated actions. The Google version requires a software download, but after that apparently will appear in a browser, meaning that it can be included as parts of any site. It's still not clear what the actual advantage of such an offering is beyond traditional chat -- or what sort of advantage Google may have in providing a similar solution to what's already out there, beyond just the Google brand name. Perhaps there's more to this offering, but at a first pass, this seems like a me-too effort by Google without any significant advantage (yet).
This isn't say it won't get usage, but I'm having trouble figuring out what about this is really all that useful compared to other solutions out there. Google's successes all seem to be about a new and different take on something out there that makes is significantly more useful: Google search made search better, faster and cleaner. Gmail massively increased storage while providing a much cleaner, faster and more useful interface. Google Maps took the tired interface of internet mapping and made it (again) cleaner, faster and more useful. It's not clear that Lively really does any of that. It requires a download, and seems to merely copy what else is already out there without a significant advantage over any of them. Perhaps people will use this just because it's from Google -- but it still seems like it should be more compelling then just adding 3D avatars to chat.
As for Mike Ho's claims that this follows the same path as Gmail and Google Maps, I disagree. Both of those were instant sensations that attracted instant attention and usage do their differentiation. I also disagree with the assertion that Google is doing this just to add in contextual ads. While that may happen, contextual ads on chat seem a much more difficult proposition than on email, where there's a lot more content. Plus, it's difficult to see how ads would fit unobtrusively into such a scenario. Despite what some assert, Google doesn't try to stick ads everywhere, knowing that too many ads will often upset users. Finally, it's difficult to see how ads stuck into a synchronous process such as chat ad value. It would seem like they do more to detract value.
Google has been working on virtual world environments for about a year, and now they've announced Lively -- which has an unfortunate moniker that could inspire lawsuits from Microsoft Live branding folks. The descriptions of Google's new service have made Lively sound like a watered-down version of Second Life, aimed at people who can't figure out how to install an application. I'm a Mac user, so I can't even try it out -- but I'll take a stab at justifying Google's "me-too" avatar project.
Obviously, the main difference between Lively and any other virtual chatroom is that Google has access to a nearly instant critical mass of global users. But that doesn't mean Lively will be an sure-fire success. What will help ensure a Google hit is the consistent development of features that cater to users -- and then some text analysis magic that will provide relevant virtual world advertisements based on the Lively chat discussions. This is basically the same game plan that Google has used for Google Maps and Gmail (and Gtalk, too) -- start off with a sort of lackluster service and then add features that are compelling -- while sneaking in ads to monetize the service.
I'm not really disagreeing that Lively seems a bit lame at its start, but I'm slightly more optimistic that Google will be able to cultivate Lively and bring contextual ads into the environment. It just has to be entertaining enough to attract people to use it -- and I guess I don't see extraordinarily high barriers to keeping a Web audience entertained (see Youtube). Additionally, Google can build upon Gmail and Google Maps and its other offerings to enhance Lively -- which is something that Second Life and other virtual worlds can't necessarily do. On the other hand, it is also entirely possible that Lively could follow Orkut -- and miss out on the G-branding (why isn't it called Glively? or Google Life?) and the popularity of Google's more successful products. But I think Lively has a very good chance of tying together many Google services and reaching out to a younger audience...
It's been a while since I put on my Google hat to use that "What Would Google Do" thought process, and maybe that process (is there really a process?) has changed over time. It's certainly different than Apple's process for wide fully supported releases of products that are nearly always baked to perfection. (Maybe it's inherent in having a semi open source -- yet ultimately capitalistic -- mentality.)
If we take a long view (something possible with Billions in the bank), the immediate product is not really the point. If Lively works well, and makes more inroads into a general population not buying Second Life, that's great for Google. Regardless of that, if they can learn how best to monetize use of these spaces through ads... then they're very well positioned for whenever wider adoption of this or the tools mentioned above does happen.
Sports & Growth, Innovation
The idea of spending lots of time and effort (and $$$) on sports is something I have mixed feelings about. UNM President Schmidly's focus on Lobo sports and Mayor Chavez' desire for a (sports) event venue downtown have raised some valid concerns, but... when you're looking for the qualities of a first rate city (or a top tier university), sports are on the list.
They certainly are for Seattle's tech community, saddened by the loss of their beloved Supersonics. From Xconomy, a Seattle/Boston Tech Innovation blog:
It is a gloomy day in Seattle. First real rain in weeks, eerie echoes of thunder in the air—the city is in mourning. Yesterday, the Seattle Supersonics’ deal went down, with the NBA team set to leave town for Oklahoma next season. I had thought when I moved here that I’d get to enjoy at least one full season of the Sonics. I was wrong.
The Seattle Times has a moving editorial today, which begins, “Seattle sports fans can only feel despair as the high-tech shining city of the future loses its 40-year basketball franchise and a ton of civic pride to a group of dishonest brokers from Oklahoma City.” The article serves as an appropriate bookend to the way I first heard about the situation back in February, from Bill Simmons at ESPN (who will always be the Boston Sports Guy).
The emotional response from fans says a lot about the city. We’ll see if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a basketball fanatic, can help bring another Sonics team here (Seattle gets to keep the team name).
It’s impossible to measure, but as my colleague Luke points out, how many techies, entrepreneurs, and VCs have bonded over the years while catching Sonics games, and formed relationships that led to new ideas and ventures? We all know that innovation thrives in a well-connected community, and the community has now lost one of its key gathering points.
Sometimes it isn’t just about the money.
What key gathering points do we have here in New Mexico? What do we need?
Androidable
Google's Android platform... could change the frickin' face of telecommunications forever!
Well, with hype like that, the expectations are enormously high. With the success of Apple's iPhone and similar capabilities expected from Android (along with an easier path for homebrew applications and widgets, etc. to be shared, bought and used), I'm still on the optimistic side.
However, there've been a spate of rumors about troubles behind the scenes this past week (here's one from ReadWriteWeb), so... what's the deal?
The new issue of Wired has a nice 5,000-word piece by Daniel Roth offering a behind-the-scenes look at Google Android. More about Google’s (and their Android team’s) motivation and goals than about specific details of the platform, but interesting.
One thing I should make clear, given some of the email I’ve gotten this week, is that I’m rooting for Android, big-time. My obsession is with wonderful, thoughtful software and gadgetry. I love the iPhone because it’s fucking amazing, not because it’s from Apple. It’d be fantastic if even one Android-based phone is as good or better than the iPhone. And Android’s “code what you want to code, install what you want to install” openness is a fascinating contrast to Apple’s tightly controlled iPhone software platform.
If things work out ideally with Android, it’s easy to imagine how Android, as an overall platform, could wind up being better than the iPhone, or at least could force Apple to open the iPhone software platform further. But that’s an enormously big if...
I have high hopes for Android, but my expectations are pretty low.
(The Wired article is really worth ready, btw... it's here.)
One fun thing about attending the Google IO conference was seeing the real energy programmers and developers have regarding Android -- and the few really cool apps that could be played with in test models (check out more links to top apps and the open handset alliance here).
From a different perspective though -- referred to in the first day's keynote -- as with the spectrum auction and the open social initiative, Google doesn't need the actual Android product itself to be a huge success (though that would be nice -- and it's been a while since they hit a real home run); if they succeed in getting more telecoms to provide more of a web experience -- and hopefully inject a little more hacker mentality into the fray -- that will drive more (mobile) web traffic, thus more (targeted) ads, and more revenue.
So... I'm really hoping the Android project is a homerun (like, say, the iPhone), but continuing to hit double and triples isn't bad either.
Google I/O Sessions Up
I was lucky to participate in this year's Google I/O Developers Conference at Moscone Center.
As I sometimes explain, I'm not a developer, but I believe that with the convergence of media, New Mexico needs to grow its web and software developer community in order for Media to continue to grow. Who better to learn from than a little start-up called Google.
The main thread I followed during the conference was Open Social (http://opensocialapis.blogspot.com/2008/06/social-sessions-from-google-io-now.html). What's Open Social, and why might it be important? To try to sum it up, I attribute two major values to online social networks that we really need, Networking/Connection-building/Information Sharing, but also Distribution.
The web is more interesting when you can build apps that easily interact with your friends and colleagues. But with the trend towards more social applications also comes a growing list of site-specific APIs that developers must learn.
OpenSocial defines a common API for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds.
A common API means you have less to learn to build for multiple websites. OpenSocial is currently being developed by a broad set of members of the web community. The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the API and host 3rd party social applications. There are many websites implementing OpenSocial, including Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
There were, as you might guess, plenty of other things going on. (Visit http://sites.google.com/site/io/ for a list of presentation videos and slides.) I'm a big fan of the mashups being done with Google Maps (among others), but the real energy I was most aware of was around ANDROID and the Open Handset Alliance.
With the Software Developers Kit (SDK) for the iPhone out there, and a mechanism for iPhone developers' work to get out there and purchased, I'd expect the ANDROID development platform to start picking ups speed as well.
Taming the Hyperconnectivity Beast
Somewhere along the line, I realized that the idea of being as 'always on' and fully connected as possible has gone way past the point of diminishing returns, for me anyway. It seems that in the (endless) search for the ultimate aggregator of info I need and the 'perfect' productivity tool, I've been twitterizing my work (chopping it up into little flavor nuggets while rarely getting around to making the larger, more satisfying meals) (to stretch a bad metaphor).
Well, I'm working on cutting back, and while I'm thinking there are tricks to doing so... Maybe it's just a matter of discipline?
SAN FRANCISCO — The onslaught of cellphone calls and e-mail and instant messages is fracturing attention spans and hurting productivity. It is a common complaint. But now the very companies that helped create the flood are trying to mop it up.
Some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are banding together to fight information overload. Last week they formed a nonprofit group to study the problem, publicize it and devise ways to help workers — theirs and others — cope with the digital deluge.
Their effort comes as statistical and anecdotal evidence mounts that the same technology tools that have led to improvements in productivity can be counterproductive if overused.
The big chip maker Intel found in an eight-month internal study that some employees who were encouraged to limit digital interruptions said they were more productive and creative as a result.
Intel and other companies are already experimenting with solutions. Small units at some companies are encouraging workers to check e-mail messages less frequently, to send group messages more judiciously and to avoid letting the drumbeat of digital missives constantly shake up and reorder to-do lists.
By David Chartier | Published: May 14, 2008 - 08:00AM CT
Many of us leave our day jobs at the office and come home to our families, prime time television, or possibly an hour or two of World of Warcraft. According to a new study from Interactive Data Corp. (IDC) and sponsored by Nortel, however, an emerging demographic of "hyperconnected" individuals in the workforce doesn't have an off switch. While these Internet-thirsty gadget hounds are a respectable minority right now, IDC says the need for connectivity is on the rise—and the enterprise needs to be ready. So do the psychiatrists.
About a year and a half ago, I participated in a workshop with about 20 other people focused on the problem of information overload. This group included academics researching the impact and novel solutions to the problem, researchers from huge companies like Microsoft, Google, Intel, and IBM, analysts in the space, and a couple of people like me from companies working on information overload solutions.
We had a lot of great discussions, many of which really just got kicked off at the workshop. A number of us thought that it would be worthwhile to continue these discussions across this cross-section of people doing cutting-edge work in this field. We formed a steering committee and decided to build on the workshop and create a nonprofit organization focused on the huge and growing problem of information overload.
It took a lot of work, but after a year of meetings, discussions, and debates with an incredibly knowledgeable group of colleagues in this field, we're now ready to officially launch the organization. I'm really excited about the opportunities ahead of us. Matt Richtel just wrote a great article in the New York Times that talks about the Information Overload Research Group , some of the things we hope to accomplish, and why we think it's so important. A couple of my fellow IORG board members, Nathan Zeldes and Jonathan Spira, are featured prominently in the article.
Our first annual conference is going to be held in New York on July 15th. The final agenda is still shaping up, but we already have a number of great speakers and panelists lined up, including Maggie Jackson, the author of the new book Distracted.
I'll be writing quite a bit more both here and on the Information Overload Research Group blog over the coming weeks. A big thanks to all of my friends at IORG who have helped make this happen. It has been a real pleasure working with them, and I'm very excited about the future of this important organization.
Games and Morality
Neat column over in WIRED Games the other day with an interesting moral question...
About five minutes into the game, I finished my first battle, and it was a grisly spectacle of carnage. I'd killed about seven guys, and their corpses lay scattered about. Then I went around the corner to save my progress at the "sacred statue."
When I turned around ... the bodies were still there.
All seven of them. Everything was intact: the fractal flowers of blood on the walls, the body pieces I'd severed from their hosts -- a couple of legs, a stray arm -- scattered like doll parts.
Why was this so weird? Because the bodies weren't gone.
In the originalNinja Gaiden, every time you killed someone, within a few seconds the body would poof away in a cloud of eldritch smoke -- leaving nothing behind, not even a bloodstain. You'd dispatch 20 guys, go around the corner to snare some loot, and when you came back a few seconds later, the fight scene was as clean and sterile as an operating room.
This phenomenon is not limited to the first Ninja Gaiden. Over the years, I've noticed that most of the seriously violent games I love deal with the corpses by simply whisking them away. Take the recent Grand Theft Auto IV: I'd butcher my way through a gunfight, wander off to admire the view out a window, then on the way back to my car discover that the bodies were gone, neatly as if they'd been Raptured. Nothing left behind but their ammo.
On the one hand, this vanishing-body thing is such a blasé convention of gameplay that it's barely worth mentioning. No big deal, right? Often the designers make the bodies disappear for reasons of gameplay, because leaving all the bodies piled up is ludologically impractical: If every monster killed in World of Warcraft hung around forever, Azeroth would be so chest-deep in stinking corpses that you couldn't walk anywhere. The sheer metric tonnage of killing in our favorite games essentially requires that there be some sort of cleanup crew.
But still, I wonder if there isn't a moral effect here, too.
I mean, I've been gaming for 25 years. How many people -- or monsters, or entities, or robots, or whatever -- have I killed?
The Valleywag blog has a neat post on Trent Reznor and the changing world of the music business. Any info on how similar 'pay as you will' schemes are working for other creative media like film and games?
Trent Reznor is showing show business how it's done digitally ...Now that labels have realized that their core business will no longer be moving units through outlets like the now-defunct Tower Records, they're moving towards "360 degree" deals that ask for a piece of event income, licensing and merchandising. Which in the old model used to be the artist's bread and butter, as musicians didn't actually see much of a cut from album sales. The album was, as they say in Hollywood, a "tent pole" upon which other business opportunities were supported — and now the labels want the whole tent.
Reznor had the foresight to go independent as the old circus collapses around him. Owning his own production studio and promoting and distributing his content digitally means his costs are minimal. And production, promotion and distribution was exactly what labels used to lured artists into contractual cages. Reaching beyond the concept of moving units in mass volume and instead servicing hardcore fans with what they want, when and where they want it while making it easy for people to find and listen to his music, Reznor's got an opportunity to make a lot more money for himself than he ever would have with a label — and more creative flexibility as well.
Computing, Games and Science
It was announced today that the Los Alamos National Labs and IBM designed and built 'Roadrunner' computer, has more than doubled the speed of the previous fastest supercomputer -- and used technology originally designed for video games to do so.
Of course I'm glad that the work done here in New Mexico continues to impress and expand frontiers, but it also reminds me why I feel growing our local game industry is so very important.
The potential for having more high paying jobs is certainly one big reason. The fact that the work is more steady -- as with film, income from games usually rises during economic downturns -- and that many of the skillsets involved in game development and production are also needed by visual effects, aerospace and other industries we'd like to grow are a definite plus.
But in addition to that, electronic games are rivaling film and video entertainment in the amount of time they're consumed by our youth; many are saying they will be the predominant medium by the time our elementary school kids have become adults.
It's in the area of technology development and adoption, though, that the game industry has even more strategic importance. Not all that long ago, the military and the national labs were real drivers in the development of media related technology; only the government, the best research universities and our largest corporations were capable of investing the time and money to make the great leaps that were made.
Gradually though, the entertainment industry (as a larger set of demanding enterprise level customers) has become the main driver of tech innovation (though it and the labs still have much to learn from each other). The competition by industry players to provide the best video or game experience to their consumers is pushing wave after wave of innovation across the spectrum of media.
I'm not really suggesting the game industry is responsible for this supercomputing breakthrough. However, it seems like they're a worthy partner in trying to stay at the forefront of media technology development.
SAN FRANCISCO — An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.
The Roadrunner supercomputer costs $133 million and will be used to study nuclear weapons.
The new machine is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L, which is based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The new $133 million supercomputer, called Roadrunner in a reference to the state bird of New Mexico, was devised and built by engineers and scientists at I.B.M. and Los Alamos National Laboratory, based in Los Alamos, N.M. It will be used principally to solve classified military problems to ensure that the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. The Roadrunner will simulate the behavior of the weapons in the first fraction of a second during an explosion.
Before it is placed in a classified environment, it will also be used to explore scientific problems like climate change. The greater speed of the Roadrunner will make it possible for scientists to test global climate models with higher accuracy.
To put the performance of the machine in perspective, Thomas P. D’Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day.
The machine is an unusual blend of chips used in consumer products and advanced parallel computing technologies. The lessons that computer scientists learn by making it calculate even faster are seen as essential to the future of both personal and mobile consumer computing...
The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony’s PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations.
The Roadrunner also includes a smaller number of more conventional Opteron processors, made by Advanced Micro Devices, which are already widely used in corporate servers.
“Roadrunner tells us about what will happen in the next decade,” said Horst Simon, associate laboratory director for computer science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Technology is coming from the consumer electronics market and the innovation is happening first in terms of cellphones and embedded electronics.”
...
“We’ve proved some skeptics wrong,” said Michael R. Anastasio, a physicist who is director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. “This gives us a window into a whole new way of computing. We can look at phenomena we have never seen before.”
Also in the New York Times is a story on the brain wave and facial expression interface for games from Emotiv. Jim Wilson/The New York Times It's a pretty cool piece of equipment, not perfect (it's expected to retail for $299 for next holiday season), but I'm reminded of the introduction of voice recognition software and how that's evolved over time. (Emotiv, which I had a chance to play with at this year's Game Developers Conference, requires a brief train-up period where the system learns how the individual player's patterns of thought and expression work.)
It does have a little distance to go, but thinking of that, Novint's Falcon and motion capture systems, I'm also reminded how today's interface systems are increasingly driven by the game industry as well.
STILL using a mouse, keyboard, joystick or motion sensor to control the action in a video game? It may be time to try brain power instead.
A new headset system picks up electrical activity from the brain, as well as from facial muscles and other spots, and translates it into on-screen commands. This lets players vanquish villains not with a click, but with a thought.
Put on the headset, made by Emotiv Systems in San Francisco, and when a giant boulder blocks the path in a game you are playing, you can levitate it — not by something as crude as a keystroke, but just by concentrating on raising it, said Tan Le, Emotiv’s president. The headset captures electrical signals when you concentrate; then the computer processes these signals and pairs a screen action with them, like lifting a stone or repairing a falling bridge...
We're beginning to talk with people in shaping the next NM Media Industries Conference (the 5th annual!), and one of the things I've hoped to include at some point is a crash course in Web 2.0 and the technologies available to improve communications and make our work more efficient. (Yes, there's a real danger in some of these sites and programs glomming onto your time -- something we should address too.)
I'd guess that many of you are familiar with RSS feeds and some of the fundamentals of Web 2.0, but if you're not, how do you learn? (And, if you're a total Web 2.0 master, I'm eager to talk.)
We're continuing to look at this and other business development topics that can be applied across the media spectrum, but for now, here's a cool useful story I found using some of those tools (through a Steve Rubell post on FriendFeed. He shared it -- as did several other of the most important bloggers of our time!). Make Google Reader your Web Brain in 3 Easy Steps
(a blog by Daniel Smith) This makes my third post on this still-young blog about dealing with information overload on the web (and yes, I do realize the irony of that statement.) But in this day of countless blogs and news sites, combined with a daily barrage of email and countless social networks to keep up (not to mention micro-information overload from the likes of Twitter and Friendfeed), I think this is an issue many people struggle with. And hey, I just want to help.
So this post is going to show you how to handle the constant barrage of web-prose with poise and grace by using Google Reader as your personal web brain for filtering what you should read and capturing what you may want to reference later on.
Neat story over in Wired today about some of the new people getting involved in game design and why. Recognizing the power of games and their potential use in engaging and educating our youth is, thankfully, a growing phenomenon.
By Chris BakerJune 04, 2008 | 6:12:13 PMCategories: Education
NEW YORK -- Sandra Day O'Connor is going from Supreme Court justice to game maker.
Delivering the keynote address Wednesday at the annual Games For Change conference at Parsons The New School For Design, O'Connor detailed a project she is spearheading called Our Courts, which she described as an "online, interactive civic education project for seventh- and eighth-graders" that familiarizes students with the legal system. O'Connor believes that America's youth aren't learning enough about civics, and thinks that the educational power of videogames is just the thing to change that.
"Only one-third of Americans can name the three branches of government," O'Connor said, "but two-thirds can name a judge on American Idol."
"If someone told me when I retired from court that I'd be talking at a conference about digital gaming, I'd think they'd had one drink too many," O'Connor told the crowd of academics and gaming professionals.
Now in its fifth year, the Games For Change conference is run by Parsons The New School For Design and is dedicated to exploring the development of videogames that deal with social issues.
"Of the three branches of government, the one that's least understood is the judiciary," said former U.S. Senator and current New School President Bob Kerrey, introducing O'Connor.
O'Connor said that the No Child Left Behind act of 2001 has "effectively squeezed out civics education" from public schools. "We can't forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America is to produce citizens who have the skills and knowledge to sustain our form of government," she said. "Public education is the only longterm solution to preserving an independent judiciary and constitutional democracy."
The game "lets students engage in real issues and real problems," O'Connor said. It will allow them to "step into the shoes of a judge, a legislator, an executive -- teach them how to think through and analyze problems, take action and voice opinions to their elected representatives."
O'Connor said that she is "encouraged" to see young people becoming involved in political campaigns through the net. "E-mailing, blogging, networking on Facebook -- they can take leadership, make their voices heard through tools that belong to their generation. We need to give them ownership to allow them to interact with the material," she said.
Chris Kohler contributed to this report.
Photo: Associated Press/Matt York
Transmedia Fun...
One future of entertainment of interest to us here in New Mexico is exploration of immersive media (including 3D, but also fulldome, CAVE, RAVE and similar environments) -- basically using computational resources and facilities beyond the reach of normal people.
A different solution relies on transmedia, providing an experience across several channels or platforms, and/or, from a more guerrilla perspective taking and using produced content for alternative purposes.
Here's a fun example we saw during the talks from prospective candidates for UNM's Interdisciplinary Film & Digital Program.
Henry Jenkins and MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium has been studying these trends and developments... they're pretty cool. Check out the link to Jenkins' blog for much more.
I've been meaning to do another post on this topic for a while and recently posted this over on my blog. First, I was inspired by a story in Fast Company, sent to me by Jesse Alexander, which described a gathering of Hollywood's fan boy elite to talk about the futures of cross-platform storytelling:
Tim Kring, the lanky, goateed guy at the head of the table, created Heroes, NBC's hit television show about superpowered people. To his right, in a black hoodie and narrow black-framed glasses is Damon Lindelof, cocreator of Lost, ABC's island-fantasy juggernaut, as well as producer of next year's eagerly anticipated Star Trek movie, directed by J.J. Abrams. Across the way is Lindelof's buddy Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer of Heroes (formerly of Lost and the pioneering she-geek hit Alias). Nearby is Rob Letterman, the self-described nerdy director of DreamWorks' next mega-franchise movie, Monsters vs. Aliens. He's chatting up video game creator Matt Wolf, who's developing a project with Alexander....The long-haired bearded guy pouring straight bourbon is Ron Moore, creator of the new Battlestar Galactica, the Sci Fi Channel's acclaimed reimagining of the classic series. The guy eating pizza on the couch is Javier Grillo-Marxauch, a veteran producer of Lost and NBC's paranormal series Medium, who's now having his own fantasy graphic novel, Middleman, turned into a series on ABC Family.
So, how come I never get invited to parties like this?
The article goes on to introduce the concept of transmedia entertainment and to suggest that it is one of the hotest topics in the entertainment world today:
"In five years," Kring is saying, "the idea of broadcast will be gone."
"Right," says Lindelof. "Instead of watching Heroes on NBC, you'll go to nbc.com and download the show to your device, and the show will be deleted as soon as you finish watching it -- unless you pay $1.99; then you get audio commentary. You enhance it. It's like building your Transformer and putting little rocket ships on the side." ...
In the analog era, such efforts might have fallen under the soulless rubric of "cross-promotion," but today they have evolved and mashed up into a new buzzword: "transmedia." The difference is that cross-promotion has nothing to do with developing or expanding an established narrative. A Happy Days lunch box, in other words, does nothing to advance the story of Fonzie's personal journey.
While such merchandising campaigns still exist, transmedia offers one big plot twist: X-ray vision. Today's audience, steeped in media and marketing, sees through crass ploys to cash in. So the Geek Elite are taking a different approach. Rather than just shill their products in various media, they are building on new and emerging platforms to expand their mythological worlds. Viewers watch an episode of Heroes, then follow one character's adventure in a graphic novel. They tune in to Lost, then explore the island's twisted history in an online game. It is this "transmedia storytelling," as Alexander puts it, that ultimately lures the audience into buying more stuff -- today, DVDs; tomorrow, who knows what.
The article offers a pretty good snapshot of where the industry's thinking is at in terms of transmedia properties and certainly offers an up date on my discussion of The Matrix in Convergence Culture.
This week, the New York Timesreported on the plans to release a suplamentary dvd to more or less coincide with the release of the Watchmen movie next year:
The second film, tentatively called Tales of the Black Freighter, follows a side Watchmen storyline about a shipwreck and will arrive in stores five days after the main movie rolls out in theaters. The DVD will also include a documentary-style film called Under the Hood that will delve into the characters' backstories.
Those of you who have read Alan Moore's original graphic novel will recognize both of those titles as materials which are complexly woven into the narrative, offering us a glimpse into the way popular culture might have evolved -- towards pirate comics -- in a world where superheroes are real (Black Freighter) and a sense of the ways superheroes might be covered as cultural celebrities (Under the Hood). As the producers have striped down Watchmen for the screen, they have pushed these elements to the margins. In another era, they would have been left on the cutting room floor, but instead, they are becoming the backbone of Warner Brothers' transmedia strategy for the film.
The article also noted:
In addition, the studio plans a dozen 22- to 26-minute Webisodes to help make the complex story easier for the uninitiated to digest. Called "The Watchmen Motion Comic," it will be a panel-by-panel slide show of the graphic novel narrated by an actor.
Keep in mind that Warner Brothers was the studio which sponsored the Wachowski Brothers's transmedia development around the Matrix franchise.
All of this suggests how central transmedia entertainment has become to the thinking inside Hollywood today. So it is great to have a chance to share with my readers some insights from a real master of this practice.
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