Now this is actually rather fun: as a an indication of games becoming the vernacular of Media Era, read/play this Dethroner spoof on adventure gaming books (remember them?) and ongoing HDTV discussions.
http://dethroner.com/index.php/2006/11/28/choose-your-own-adventure-the-cave-of-hdtv/
(Gizmodo, thanks for the link)
Today was another busy day; meetings and then a quick trip into Helsinki, where I presented with Sonja Kangas on the social dimensions of digital gaming. The event was organised by the Finnish importer of PlayStation, and thus the PS2 party games (SingStar, Buzz etc.) were on the main focus in that sponsor part of the presentations. SingStar is actually rather fun: we tried that out some time ago with the Finnish “Legendat” version. I proved to be even worse singer than I had suspected. In Finland the pre-Christmas party tradition is quite active and this kind of performance oriented games are at their best in such (suitably relaxed) party setting. Pikkujoulut, here we come…
This is one of those areas where much interesting is going on: using mobile devices to keep track and share your life with your friends, coworkers and family. Several interesting applications and services are in the works, most of them still in beta, though. I have been particularly looking at these: Merkitys-Meaning, Context Watcher, Jaiku. As more people subscribe into these, the context information becomes more useful and interesting. I tried to install Merkitys-Meaning because of its integration into Flickr, but currently it cannot be signed into my E70 mobile (Symbian 60 3rd edition not yet supported, should be in January). Meanwhile, I continue testing Flickr integration into WordPress (attempted also the del.icio.us integrator plugin, but that did not work).
There were some serious problems with the network settings of unet.fi server — hopefully this temporary connection will work for now. I have ordered a new, business ADSL connection from a small local ISP (WLANnet), hopefully I can actually get from some service from them (knocking wood). But since they need to order the copper connection from Elisa, it can take three weeks before this transition happens.
IST 2006
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
This day and tomorrow will be spent in IST 2006 conference, which is the annual get-together of eurocrats and us “information society technologies” people. Full with ambient intelligence, social media, tangible bits and all sorts of other marvels, IST is a curious hotbed of activities, few actually ready for the streets, most staying eternally in prototype, or beta.
dark falls
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Now that rain has melted away the snow cover, it is apparent that we have entered ‘marras’, the season of death. Dark falls, tiny lights are set up to fight its domain, only accenting its depth.
window into winter
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
I was invited to participate in this global blog where people around the world write about their daily life:
http://topics192.blogspot.com/
In classic Finnish spirit, I used the opportunity to nag about the weather (only the British compete with Finns in their passion to discuss weather, as far as I know). And with this apparent climate change, there are obvious reasons to pay attention to what is going on in this blue-and-green planet of ours.
I will be today presenting a lecture where I outline some of the fundamental skills and learning processes that are involved in playing digital games. It is a public, studia generalia lecture, so welcome to listen; it is part of the Media Education project that our department participates in, see https://www11.uta.fi/blog/mediakasvatus/?p=16
Another moment of glory to the Finnish digital culture: Assembly, the key event of demo scene won this year’s MindTrek Grand Prix, the largest Nordic new media price. In this shot from yesterday’s Gala, Pekka Aakko (Pehu of Accession) and Jussi Laakkonen (Abyss of Future Crew) accept the price from Risto Linturi, a veteran of Finnish computer scene and one of its leading telecom and futurology consultants. Great to see the computer fandom getting recognition! The impact of Assembly events has been major indeed.
A new publication has come out in the Human Technology journal, summarising the key findings and methodological conclusions from our three-year-long Morphome project, funded by the Academy of Finland. As the external evaluators for Academy recently gave their estimates of all work done within the Proact Programme, they gave credit to our work, claiming that “design research should be a key aspect of human-centered computing research” and that “the kinds of work represented by this project should be supported in the future. This group, in the brief time of their project, became a leader in that regard. The Academy should consider supporting this and like-minded projects in the future at levels appropriate for sustained work.” Now that is what I call nice feedback, indeed! 🙂 You can yourself download our article from this address: http://www.humantechnology.jyu.fi/current/abstracts/mayra-et-al06.html
frans goes blog 
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