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Links for June 27th 2008
Interesting links for June 21st 2008 through June 27th 2008:
- Simpsons Map for Quake III Arena [YouTube] – A fantastically detailed mashup, bringing 3D textures from the Simpsons into Quake III. [Via Waxy]
- Is YouTube truly the future? [SMH] – Henry Jenkins and John Hartley give their take on the “pre-history” of YouTube, looking at DIY culture more broadly, including punk, zines and fandom, arguing for a deeper conception of participatory culture than just YouTube.
- Monster mash gives ad boss nightmares [The Age] – “More than 6000 spoof ads made by viewers have been uploaded to the website for an ABC television series about the advertising industry, delivering the state broadcaster the kind of viewer participation that would be the envy of the commercial world.”
- Half UK web videos are from YouTube [WatchingTV Online] – Comscore:”During March, 48% of the 3.5 billion web videos watched in the UK came from Google sites, of which 99% were from YouTube…. The BBC only has 1.2% share of the video viewing market despite the launch of the BBC’s iPlayer catch-up service. “
- Spore Creature Creator Trial – Download the first tool from Will Wright’s next gaming masterpiece … Spore! Make your creatures now and be ready to unleash them! (Check the specs – this one’s resources hungry!)
- Star Wars Crawl – Make a custom Star Wars Intro – Make you own opening crawl, Star Wars style. Come on, who hasn’t thought about doing this at some point in their (geeky) life? 🙂
- NASA spacecraft finds ice on Mars [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “The Mars Phoenix Lander has found ice on the surface of the Red Planet, NASA scientists say, in a key discovery for the spacecraft as it searches for water and signs of life on Earth’s closet planetary neighbour.”
Links for June 2nd 2008
Interesting links for June 2nd 2008:
- It Really Looks Like Ice on Mars [Universe Today] – The Phoenix Lander on Mars may have uncovered ice. As anyone with a passing interesting in Mars science fiction will know, actually finding water/ice on Mars is the single either makes or breaks the possibility of terraforming Mars! 🙂
- ABC Earth [ABC Online] – “The ABC Earth content layer (to be viewed using the Google Earth 4.3 application) is a trial that consists of video, images and content developed by the ABC. The layer includes National News and video …” (Fun way of engaging with news!)
- Facebook ban for PM’s staff [Australian IT] – “Staffers working in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office and on his household staff have been asked to remove their Facebook profiles.” (A move sure to reinforce the image of Australia’s PM as something of a control junkie!)
- Town forces Google to scrap street images [The Age] – “The small, private community of North Oaks in Minnesota enforces its trespassing ordinance, and Google Maps is no exception. The mapping service’s Street View feature allows users to see what a certain address or intersection looks like …”
Links for May 21st 2008
Interesting links for May 21st 2008:
- The Long Tail Wags the Dog [Technorati Weblog] – “Nowhere have we seen a bigger impact of blogging and social media on the American political landscape than on the 2008 presidential election. Candidate appearances formerly confined to a small town are uploaded to YouTube and seen by millions.”
- Big Brother’s vault for all net use, calls and emails [The Age] – “A digital vault containing information about every email, internet visit and phone call made in Britain is to be created in a European bid to battle terrorism. The plan, …has alarmed civil libertarians who are already anxious about a proposed ID card”
- Teenage burglar snapped on cameraphone [PerthNow] – “A teenage boy is facing burglary charges after being photographed on a mobile telephone after allegedly breaking into a Thornlie house. A woman took a snap of the 17-year-old as he rode away on a BMX bike …”
- Net starts to overtake TV [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “A new survey of internet consumer trends has revealed that people with broadband connections spend more time on the net than watching television. … Australians with broadband spend an average of 22 hours per week on the web. “
Links for May 12th 2008
Interesting links for May 9th 2008 through May 12th 2008:
- TimeTube – “Creates a timeline for any YouTube keyword search–very handy for visualising the activity around particular topics–and iterations/transformations of particular videos–over time.” (Via Jean)
- Victorian Liberal staffers sacked for blogging [gatewatching] – Two staffers in the Victorian Liberal Party were fired after they were outed as the writers of a blog highly critical of the party’s leader. Jason Wilson: “blogs revealed once more as a politically disruptive technology”. (More from the ABC)
- Storm Troopin’ – a set on Flickr – An absolutely wonderful set which tells the convoluted tale of Star Wars StormTrooper (toy) TK-704 and his many adventures in our world, from his quest for love, the arrival of other Troppers, and their shared love of doughnuts!
- Grand Theft Auto IV smashes sales record [theage.com.au] – “Grand Theft Auto IV blew away video game and Hollywood records as its creators reported that it raked in an unprecedented $US500 million in its opening week.”
Building an Australasian Commons – June 24, 2008: Brisbane
To explore, expand and expound upon the emerging Australasian Commons, the Creative Commons Australia team have organised a free one-day symposium which investigates a range of activities, programme and philosophies driving open access and the cultural commons across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia. I’ll be there, participating in a panel on the Creative Commons and Education, as well joining the team facilitating a workshop on ‘Building Knowledge: Open Education Resources (OER) and Research Materials’. Here are all the details:
… are proud to announce that registration is now officially open for the Creative Commons ‘Building an Australasian Commons’ Conference. The conference will be held on Tuesday 24th June 2008 from 8.30am – 5pm at the State Library of Queensland, South Brisbane, and is proudly supported by Creative Commons Australia (http://creativecommons.org.au), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (http://www.cci.edu.aau), and the State Library of Queensland (http://www.slq.qld.gov.au).
This event provides an opportunity for those interested in the free internet to come together to exchange ideas, information and inspiration. It brings together experts from Australasia to discuss the latest developments and implementations of Creative Commons in the region. The conference aims to be an open forum where anyone can voice their thoughts on issues relating to furthering the commons worldwide.
The current programme detailing the array of presentations, workshops and round table discussions can be found at http://creativecommons.org.au/australasiancommons. Attendance is free and open to all comers. However, places are limited, so if you’re interested in attending please register ASAP. Registration closes 9 June 2008. You can download the registration form at http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/ccauconf08/
australasian_commons_conference_registration.pdf and return it via email to Elliott@creativecommons.org.au.The conference will be followed on the day at 6pm by the second CCau ccSalon, a showcase of Creative Commons music, art, film and text from Australia and the region. This will be a great opportunity to mingle and relax after the day’s events while experiencing CC works in action. We look forward to welcoming you at ‘Building an Australasian Commons’.
Keep in mind, it’s a completely free event, so if you’re interested and can be in sunny Brisbane on 24 June, I’ll see you there!
[Image based on Them colors… by jurek d CC BY]
Grand Theft Auto IV
Looking from certain corners of the internet today you’d be forgiven for thinking that the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) had caused all other events in the world to pause. There has, simply put, been an avalanche of press for the video game. Apparently it might just clock upwards of $US400 million in it’s opening week (yes, that’s a lot of money). And to keep commentators on violence in the media (and specifically videogames) happy, somebody in London obligingly stabbed someone else in the line to buy one of the first copies of GTA IV. If you prefer something equally silly but a whole lot less violent (except, perhaps, to themselves) someone in the US is trying to set a record for continuous gameplay by enduring more than 25 hours in a row of GTA IV (and, yes, it is of course being streamed live across the net, complete with Twitter updates).
However, one of the more interesting subjects to emerge in the press frenzy surrounding the game’s launch is the revival of the synthespian (or synthetic thespian) debate, which last raged seriously when Gollum and his contemporaries proved CGI folks could give their flesh and blood companions a run for their money. Nowadays, it’s videogame (anti-)heroes getting the limelight. As Asher Moses reports for The Age:
He’s the biggest name in entertainment but you won’t find him striding down the red carpet or cavorting with Hollywood starlets under the watchful eye of the paparazzi. No, Niko Bellic, set to become the most high profile Slav in entertainment since Borat Sagdiyev took the box office by storm 18 months ago. He is among the new breed of entertainment personalities who, rather than being cast, are built from scratch by a team of programmers and graphic designers. He’s the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto IV and, just days after hitting the streets, is already giving flesh-and-blood Hollywood stars a run for their money. Launched around the world at midnight on Monday, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is on track to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Analysts have predicted the title, which has inspired near-perfect reviews from most gaming magazines, will sell at least 6 million copies in its first week.
Sure, the synthespian issue is wedged amongst hype about sales and violence, but it’s certainly an interesting question: to what extent do gamers ‘inhabit’ the characters they play and to what extent will they idolize these characters (provoking some interesting notions about the changing nature of celebrity culture … do we actually need celebrities to even have a supposedly ‘real’ version to idolize?).
For Australians, one of the other notable features of GTA IV is that, thanks to the fact that we still don’t have an R18+ category for games, our version of GTA IV has been toned down to get rating approval.
Update: Australian Game Pro reports that Australians attempting to import the international version of GTA IV (which doesn’t meet Australia’s MA15+ game rating limit) would be guilty of importing prohibited goods and could be fined up to $110,000!
[Photo by Rappzula CC BY NC SA]
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