Category: digital culture

digital cultures, digital lifestyles – you name it

Phone with a fold-away screen

Interesting, this thing apparently already exists (manufactured by Polymer Vision, a spin-off from Phillips) and could hit the stores in mid-2008. Folding, e-paper displays have been in laboratories for some time, but it would be nice to see some real consumer product like this mobile phone arriving into the street. More: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL2063412420080121?sp=true

Readius Phone

New media and game studies MA

This is currently only the pilot call, and unfortunately some of the courses will only be offered in Finnish, but a significant development in any case: Hypermedia Laboratory is now joining forces with the Information Studies to offer a two-year MA track within Information Studies, with focus in Hypermedia (new media, digital culture and game studies emphasis). The special call closes already in March 3rd 2008; see: http://www.uta.fi/hyper/opetus/syventavat.php.

LanTrek talk

LanTrek talk

As you can see from the photo, LanTrek 2008 is a lan party with loads of computers and young people in a large, darkened room: something that kids at least here in Finland regularly enjoy in great numbers. I gave there an hour-long talk about the digital culture for a smaller audience.

iPhone story, sort of

Offering some glimpses behind the curtains, Wired runs a story of iPhone: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone

STM meeting

STM meeting
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Today will be spent in Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, where I will be presenting views of digital culture and game studies in a working seminar on children, youth and wellbeing/malaise in contemporary society. Pictured is Minister Paula Risikko.

Finnish digital culture, Finnish independence

Finnish digital culture, Finnish independence
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Tomorrow is the 90th Anniversary for the Finnish republic, the Day of Independence. Today, somewhat appropriately, I visited one of the key coordinating institutions for the preservation of Finnish cultural heritage, Museovirasto (The National Board of Antiquities). Surprisingly lively and exiting discussion followed my brief presentation, looking deep into the possibilities for providing more shared opportunities for the “Museum 2.0” and gamelike, playful structures of collaborative construction of meaning around our national treasures – both material and immaterial treasures, like our memories that we can now attach with the digital versions of physical objects and places with much more flexibility than before.

GamesCultures.org: an open invitation

[This letter has been today also posted to the DiGRA mailing list, Games Research Network]

Dear colleagues,

This is an open invitation to a collaborative effort into mapping digital play around the world. Currently only scattered information on the popularity and forms of engagement with digital games in global context exist. Often particularly in media statements are nevertheless made that concern “all gamers”, even if researchers emphasise how both games and playing takes multiple forms and claims about some particular game or group of players do not necessarily apply to another. In the spirit of the recent “Situated Play” conference (DiGRA 2007), we propose a collaborative effort of collecting together research, observation and data about forms of play around the world. See: www.gamescultures.org, an open beta of wiki resource about global games cultures. Continue reading “GamesCultures.org: an open invitation”

Against the digital games divide

Here is something that I will be presenting in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health next week: a one page comment paper in Finnish from the game studies point of view to the ongoing discussion about children, youth and interactive media: Kannanotto 12.12.2007 STM:n työkokoukseen. My main points in English are:

  • Digital culture and games are currently unevenly distributed in our society in a manner which is likely to put them under suspicion, basically because lack of real knowledge (E.g. gameplay experience is often claimed to be more emotionally immersive than e.g. a novel or a movie, whereas according to our research, children actually talk mostly about immersion into challenge or action in games, and it is books and movies that can have really powerful “emotional effects”.)
  • Children have adventures and engaging experiences with games Continue reading “Against the digital games divide”

Kindle is here – but not for Europe?

This is something that I might actually use quite a lot — but it looks like that the wireless Whispernet is based on the US Sprint network, and thus this reader will not be available for Europe, not at least for now. See: Amazon.com: Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store.

P2 Course blog opened

Tomorrow I will start a new lecture course series, ‘Theories and Interpretation of Interactive Media (P2)’ in WordPress.com: http://newmediatheory.wordpress.com/ . I will be making use of Slideshare service in publishing my PPT lecture notes, further media still under consideration.