After an unpleasant series of respiratory infections (propably asthma-related), I decided to do so something about it. Two days of vacuuming, washing and reorganising was a good start, but I also decided to upgrade my air cleaner. The old one (a Philips) is now washing off the particles in the computer corner, while an Electrolux Z8020 takes care of the bedroom. An interesting example of how the “life sustaining systems” in our homes start to remind you of space stations. This baby can sense both the amount of microparticles and the current sound level, and adjust its speed and power relative to either.
Author: frans
Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media, esp. Digital Culture and Game Studies in the Tampere University, Finland. Occasional photographer and gardener.
entertaible: electronic gaming and traditional board games
Combining physical and digital worlds is one of the major trends in games evolution currently, and you can see it happening in the physical gaming, movement sensing and location aware mobile gaming, for example. One of the things that we have been researching in the IPerG EU games project is combining board games with digital layers or functionalities (in work package headed by Interactive Institute in Sweden), and it was interesting to have a look at the ‘Entertaible’ concept by Philips. See: the project home page, and a video.
bill and conan making fools of themselves at the CES
Bill Gates’ CES keynote is being reported as giving out the message that the way to success in the future for software companies like Microsoft is to make software more like video games. But actually, if you watch the actual video recording of the performance, you will get a very curious, awkward kind of Conan O’Brian show, coupled with somewhat out-of-place Bill, and some of the most bug-ridden demos for some time shown in public. Hilarious!
the sony e-ink reader
Many interesting things for a gadget freak in the CES this year, again; I just want to point out that Sony is bringing out an E-Ink reader, with a USB connection for downloading and reading websites, JPEGs or PDFs in its completely flicker-free, paper-like screen; see Live From CES: The Sony Reader – by Gizmodo. Now, lets just have it half the thickness, with colour-enabled screen, and double the battery life…
what is your dangerous idea, 2006?
Every year the Edge.org asks some scientists and thinkers to ponder on some big question, this year: What is your dangerous idea? The finished 119 contributions are now available, and this is actually an online book in speculative thinking, and very refreshing visit into into our reality from multiple angles.
non-interactive interactive media, part 1
Like many others (I suspect) I have a secret love: media that does not want my attention or require that I actively use it. On the other hand, I also love the increased possibilities and opportunities provided by the latest information and communication technologies.
There is so much to say about this paradox, and how symptomatic it actually is, but here is just one link in this mini-series, dedicated to non-interactive “interactive media”: the RSS-capable screensaver by Microsoft. There are others, of course, but this was actually easy to install (a plus for us stressed out media people), and despite that this MSN Screensaver is still in Beta, it seems to work. You just set up your favourite RSS feeds, delete all MSN content feeds it attempts to serve you, make sure that the screensaver image folder points to somewhere you actually feel comfortable watching at (it will preinstall a series of pretty landscape photos), and voilá: you can rest your eyes and brain by staring at the semi-transparent info screens, all filled by mostly useless news clippings, sailing by. (There is weather information, too. But no Tampere, Finland; only Helsinki, and for some reason also Nivala and Mynämäki…)
Winter's flowers
After the obligatory Christmas flu, and the New Year celebrations, I had a little walk with my camera today. There are precious little sunlight hours in Finland at this time of year, and you need to look carefully to find anything among all that snow. But, on the other hand, the darkness, the white blanket covering everything: they have certain calming and eternal quality. Flickr has few of those pictures, my server (http://unet.fi/pics/2006-01-01/) some more.
The Video Game Revolution: "Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked" by Henry Jenkins | PBS
Tired of facing the same old myths about games being the direct cause for real-world violence, about the antisocial nature of game playing, of digital games being a child’s plaything? Well, Henry Jenkins of all people must be, but still he continues to set things right. Please check out his column “Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked” in PBS.org.
MGS User Research – Downloadable Talks
For anyone interested in researching gameplay experience, there is much of interest in the download area of MS Game Studio’s User Research.
the horde is evil?
Ted Castronova has an interesting post in Terra Nova, titled “The Horde Is Evil”. To summarise shortly, he claims that we cannot wipe out the age-old associations of evil imagery, and thereby to engage in World of Warcraft activities as an Orc or Undead character is not simply an aesthetic choice, but also an ethical one.
I have been doing my fair deal of study of the evil and the demonic imagery (see Demon 2005), and basically I agree with Ted: to adopt some of the clearly ‘chthonic’ (underworld) imagery in a game does mean getting involved with the antisocial or ethical associations these traditions carry with them. The age-old stories, our mythical heritage, is crafted from a human perspective, and creatures who kill, mangle and eat human flesh are the traditional opponents of everything hold as good, acceptable, or indeed, human.
But engaging with stories of evil, or with fantastic game worlds with evil characters, is not the same thing, as exploring such evil in one’s own life. We know the difference, and even if engagements with fictional “evils” become more and more complex as the realities we inhabit become multiple and their ‘reality-values’ relative rather than absolute, we just need to learn how to negotiate the consequences of one’s in-game choices, as much as we need to recognize different contexts of life in other daily arenas. And I know that becoming a Horde or Alliance character is currently by no means a neutral choice for many people: some dislike the other alternative for clear, ethical-aesthetic reasons. (In D&D, these choices in character selection were related to two axis, the good-evil [altruistic-sadistic], and lawful-chaotic [systematic/orderly-hedonistic/associative] ones. The Horde-Alliance dichotomy seems to be carrying the echoes of both axis.)
frans goes blog 
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