Ratchet Up

Boo!

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Cody Brown on Video Game Theory

ody Brown―who runs the Avant Gaming website―is coming to my New Digital Image class next Monday to talk about videogame theory, and he sent along this assignment for the class. Thought you might like to see what college is like these days. Every day is like this, you'd hardly recognize the place.

Assignment:

1) Read: Clive Thompson's “Online video games are the newest form of social comment” (Cheesy source, but the author is reputable.)

2) Play:
New York Defender
Al Quaidamon
The Suicide Bomber Game

3) Read: Shuen-shing Lee's “I lose, Therefore I Think”

4) Familiarize yourself with the Videogames with an Agenda exhibit.

5) Play:
The Howard Dean for Iowa Game
Vigilance 1.0,
September 12th: A Toy World

6) Print this pdf and bring it to class.

All of this should take you an 60 to 90 minutes [Quoth The Ratchet: yeah, good luck]...plus it should really tick off your roommates when you're playing these games and get to call it homework.

Daily Links (All Syndicate-able):
Avant Gaming
Antifactory
Buzzcut
Gamasutra
Game Girl Advance
Grand Text Auto
Habitat Chronicles
Ludology.org
Ludonauts
Memory Card
Reality Panic
Select Parks
Terra Nova
The Ludologist
Water Cooler Games

The Books:
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game
Homo Ludens
Man, Play, and Games
Hamlet on the Holodeck
The Language of New Media
Understanding Comics
The Ultimate History of Video Games
High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games

―

Sketchy

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S K E T C H Y

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Das Fotohandy Als Guide

Here's the idea. You're in a foreign city, and as they say in orienteering, you've “lost contact with the map.” You're dead lost. What to do? Simply whip out your camphone and take a picture of the most easily recognized monument. Next, send the snap off to an image identification program that that susses out the locale.

Then be thankful for the nice little map the computer sends back to help you wayfind yourself to a boot of pilsner or some outsized pastry.

That's what they are up to at the Inhaltsbasierte Bildsuche für Fußgängernavigation. The site's in German, but we already know how to have it translated with the click of a mouse.

I'm not sure how this will work in the United States, but imagine giving it a try anyway.

[Via Picturephoning]

Eminem's “Mosh” And Lyrics

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Very interesting. [Quicktime broadband.] With notes by the director of the video. And just great lyrics here. And a very smart analysis.

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Camphones Offer Superman's X-Ray Vision

At some point, most boys wanted to be Superman, if for no other reason than to have his power of X-ray vision. Especially in junior high. Who really thinks about solving crime when it's time to ogle your way through the halls between classes? Well, this fantasy of scopic power has been technologized in several ways, the latest of which seems to be via the camphone:

“A new mobile phone gadget has raised fears it will be a perverts' dream. The £100 add-on will turn camera phones into X-ray specs which can see through clothes. It is said to be particularly effective on dark bikinis. Originally designed for taking pictures at night, it has quickly been exploited by voyeurs. Made by Japanese company Yamada Denshi, it can be bought on the internet and fitted to high-end phones. Night-filters are the latest device used by Japan's obsessive voyeur community. In recent months, two professors from prestigious universities have been arrested for taking hidden camera pictures up female students' skirts. A recent trial of six members of a club specialising in snaps of women on trains revealed the massive extent of the country's voyeur network. [...] The cameras effectively give users night vision by picking up on heat to create outline pictures. Because bodies are hotter than clothes, the pictures produce an image of the body without the clothes.” [Daily Record]

Want to see some HOT ACTION yourself? If you are over 18 and have the permission of your parent, step inside the tent.

[Via Picturephoning]

The Invisible Train: Handheld Augmented Reality

I don't venture much into videogames here, since I'm not a big player, apart from an early obsession with Dark Castle back in the days of black & white screens. Cody Brown, a regular member of the gang here, is way into this stuff and sends along the odd post. But Invisible Train seems rather interesting, pointing in some new direction. Plus I like the graphic below that suggests how VR big-rigs with their head-mounted displays are evolving toward something as simple as a rasta-boy with PDA.

“The Invisible Train is the first real multi-user Augmented Reality application for handheld devices (PDAs). [...] The Invisible Train is a mobile, collaborative multi-user Augmented Reality (AR) game, in which players control virtual trains on a real wooden miniature railroad track. These virtual trains are only visible to players through their PDA's video see-through display as they don't exist in the physical world. This type of user interface is commonly called the ”magic lens metaphor“. Players can interact with the game environment by operating track switches and adjusting the speed of their virtual trains. The current state of the game is synchronized between all participants via wireless networking. The common goal of the game is to prevent the virtual trains from colliding.”

Here's my favorite picture of the Train being demoed at the recent SIGGRAPH. It's a rogues gallery of new media types: the geek, the eccentric [where's his bola tie?], the sassy girl gamer, the lean & hungry designer...and a kid in the background, the next generation, waiting impatiently for everybody to get the hell out of the way so she can play.

[The Invisible Train]

Net Now / Net Future

hink you have a good grasp of the internet? Here's a picture of the net now that may surprise you. The graph charts current traffic on the internet. It shows that in the US filesharing accounts for just under 70% of internet use, while HTTP accounts for only about 10%. This floored me. Look at Asia, where HTTP is just a blip and where P2P is over 80% of bandwidth. Then think of where we'll be in three to five years, when tons of video and audio is streaming easily and being shared P2P. It's surprising how quickly BitTorrent has become the number one client for sharing big files like movies and television programs.

[“The True Picture of Peer-to-Peer Filesharing” from CacheLogic]

The Future of Timex

Right now I'm writhing around on the floor. Squirming in agony. Silent for a moment in fetal repose. Then, sucking air, coming up again. And just hurling my body from wall to wall. I so much want every one of the watches in the Timex competition for the watches of 2154.

Without one, how will I ever live in this world?

I'd love the energistime, “a kind of tentacular watch which shows your global energy consumption and the free time you win or loose.”

Or the OrgaRhythm. It “dynamically reacts to changes in diet, lifestyle and environment.” [I'm trying hard these days not to have a “lifestyle” but I'd gladly settle for one if it meant getting my hands on this one.]

The Floating Bracelet is understated, and I would quite like being the object of a force field. Sorta like a copper bracelet, only time-aware.

I love time-on-a-nail, but I'm afraid I'd pick it off at a scary movie and loose it to the sticky floor.

It looks like we'll be putting time stickers on our bags in the future...and even on our [flack?] jackets. The model here has apparently just witnessed a homeland atrocity. When he can remove his hands from his eyes, he'll no doubt check the time and phone in the location.

You'll even be able to match your sticker watch to your clothes. Today, a good bet would be to take the one in front, since the new black is gray and the new red is orange.

Check em out.

Signs of of the Times

Forthcoming: a new bag designed by Apple and Incase. For a teenager's nomadic life: laptop, special configuration to hold an iPod and feed the earbuds through the top, mobile phone. And of course, that skateboard. Footloose and wireless, the only way to roll.

I'll leave it to others to dissect the corrosive psychology behind Af-Am “bling bling.” [Although this fun little movie gives it a pretty good stab.] But you'll find it in [diamond] spades here at Baby Phat. Where a key lifestyle bling is their all-pink, quilted Baby Phat fashion-phone.

Finally, a great little film that demonstrates how digital technologies are bringing friends together. [Via Ben Shapiro]