February 25, 2004
Processing Wkshp I
Messed around a little with mouse movement and beginshape. Very basic, but I think it looks pretty cool.... :)
February 16, 2004
Writing
Hey guys, I've posted my writing assignment. The whole 'interactive' part of it sort of fell by the way side, but this just flowed out of me so I went with it. It's sort of an homage and tribute to the types of novels I love, romance and time-travel. But hey, you can choose your ending! That's Interactive, sorta.
Feedback always appreciated....
February 11, 2004
Gotta Love Research Data
From Price Waterhouse Coopers about Industry Projections for Video Games:
* "The North American video game market will expand from $7.8 billion in 2002 to $13.5 billion in 2007, growing at an 11.7 percent compound annual rate."
* "Online subscriptions to game sites will reach 13 million by 2007, and revenues will total $1.6 billion: more than six times the $249-million level in 2002."
* "Sixty percent of all Americans older than the age of 6, or about 145 million people, now play video games."
* "High levels of broadband connectivity make online gaming a desirable option for many Canadian households."
* "The Canadian wireless game market will explode over the forecast period, soaring from $4 million in 2002 to $90 million by 2007."
These facts are taken from Entertainment and Media Outlook 2003-2007
I'd really like to get a copy of both this and Technology Forecast 2003-2005
Also, a new press release from AOL,
"New York, February 11, 2004 - When it comes to online gaming, there's a new champion in town. Of those who play games on the Web, women over 40 play most often and spend the greatest number of hours per week doing so, beating out both men and teens, according to AOL Games' "Casual Games Report," conducted by Digital Marketing Services (DMS).
The study, a nationwide online survey of more than 3,600 casual game players (i.e., those who have played online games within the last three months), uncovered additional surprising results about men and women's attitudes and behavior regarding online games. Adults, for example, were more likely than teens to play online games everyday, and more adults than teens have stayed up all night playing games on the Web. "
From Digital Media Wire
February 07, 2004
MAFB's Two
Part two of the MAFB saga - my "proposal" for my MAFB project, since I finally figured it out.
Want to participate or know someone who might? Email me!
February 04, 2004
I can always use a chuckle...
From my favorite comic Sherman's Lagoon
February 03, 2004
Touchy Feely TV
From ASEE Prism:
As television becomes a more interactive medium, it may become active in other ways, as well. Indeed, couch potatoes may soon actually get to feel what they're watching. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin are convinced that "touch TV," a convergence of video-gaming and television, is the wave of the future.
The lab's Palpable Machines Group leader, Sile O'Modhrain, says that adding touch to television's ocular and auditory sensations "creates a greater sense of immersion... it makes [TV] more engaging." In one experiment, a small, low-power sensor was inserted into a soccer ball. The sensor transmitted a radio signal to a computer that controlled an actuator embedded in a sofa. Each time the ball was kicked, the viewer felt a thump in the rump. "It provided a different point of view" of the game, O'Modhrain says. Next, her group created an animated children's cartoon featuring a tiny bug. Viewers holding a special handset could "feel" some of the bug's movements. In one scene, the bug hitches a ride on the back of a bee, and the handset moves the viewer's hand and generates a buzzing sensation. If the user tries to constrain the handset's "flight," the bee on the TV screen also slows down.
Sports broadcasters may be the first to incorporate tactile-vision. Beyond soccer, O'Modhrain thinks the technology would work well for Formula 1 racing, which already uses in-car cameras. Viewers holding a remote could experience the feel of the car as it swerves and races around the course. For other sports, sensors could not only be placed in balls but woven into players' uniforms. But as technologists work to make televised sports seem more real by using digitally enhanced audio and video, and eventually adding touch, let's hope they don't take verisimilitude too far and include smell.
Now these are interesting
From an article in, "Telephony Online" titled, "10 Video Apps that will be under the tree in 2005"
The last three are the most interesting to me:
8. DIGITAL ART
If you respond to "Mr. Gates," this has been hanging on your wall for several years--but even for high-end consumers, digital picture frames have been a touch out of reach and a bit too complex. Digital photography has become common enough that carriers feasibly could offer services that let users store images on a network server and display an ever-changing array on their TVs.
9 USEFUL INTERACTIVE TV
Web TV hasn't caught on as a mass consumer product, but that isn't stopping vendors from toying with new models that bring together coach potatoes' love of the remote with advertisers' desire to reach potential buyers in unique ways. Perhaps by the end of 2005, someone will have figured out a way to change the mindset of TV viewers.
10 MICRO ADVERTISING
This is more for the carrier, and probably very scary for consumer advocates: The architecture most telcos are using to provide video service will allow advertisers to target not only certain neighborhoods, but individual houses--and even specific set-top boxes. Imagine a local ad for a car dealer going just to the set-top box sitting in the living rooms of households where the income is more than $100,000. Technology currently in lab trials makes it possible.
The rest of them:
1 HDTV
It's the ultimate "wow" technology. As HDTV sets come down in price and services are deployed, HDTV will go from a toy for the wealthy to a mass-consumer device. With technology currently in the lab, telcos will be able to offer the service over their existing copper networks in limited form by 2005.
2 NETWORKED PERSONAL VIDEO RECORDERS
If you have TiVo or ReplayTV, you already know personal video recorders (PVRs) are the best consumer devices since the microwave oven and are changing, the way people watch television. Satellite providers such as DirecTV have jumped ahead of competitors with combination set-top boxes/PVRs, but some access vendors are talking about the ability to offer the same capability within the telco network--meaning no additional box.
3. TRUE VOD
Another 'wow' service, particularly for subscribers stuck with analog cable. True video-on-demand is pay-per-view on steroids: Not only do users choose what time the movie starts, they also have full control over the playback. No late charges at Blockbuster, but a potential blockbuster of telcos deploying triple play.
4 VIDEO TELEPHONY
The "next big thing" for more than two decades, video telephony is actually starting to show some staying power. With fewer people flying over the past few years, many are more comfortable with desktop video-conferencing in their corporate lives. It wouldn't take a big leap to see that transferred to the home office, then into the living room.
5. PC VIDEO
While critics claim online movie services like Cinema-Now and MovieLink are fads that could be gone by the end of'04, both signed marketing deals with carriers. They allow users to download full-length movies and view them anywhere they can drag their laptop. Not for every user, but for the corporate road warrior, it's worthwhile.
6. REALLY LOCAL BROADCASTS
Nothing sells better if you're a small telco. Think Comcast or DirecTV really care about a high school football team or community theater? With technology now in place, carriers can use their presence in small towns to their advantage and showcase local activities. Like all politics, all broadcasting is local.
7. IP-ENABLED EVERYTHING
The consumer electronics market takes a build-it-and-they-will-come approach to IP, putting Ethernet interfaces on everything it churns out. Streaming audio between a home server or Net-based radio is easy enough for the typical consumer to understand. The next step is video service.
My thoughts on Interactive writing structures
We were talking about structure today in class and I thought I'd like to offer my perspective on interactive narrative structures. Some of these thoughts were assembled in my 505 (!!) paper, and I think they are very applicable to what we discussed today. And of course, I'm not asking you guys to agree with me, in fact I hope you offer different opinions!!
Is there a way to re-imagine an existing linear narrative and not make it a matter of choosing the right path?
In my own work, I would choose a limited structure, where there is really one ‘right’ path, and other tiny branches, that ultimately lead to death. This happened with my Titanic piece, and with a novel I once tried to do as a hypertext piece.
I think this occurs because there is just the one path of the story and it is hard to imagine the story differently. It probably also has to do with the inherent fault of the tree-branching system – infinite choices and a extreme headache for the developer. Unless its just a matter of a fork in the road, but then its less interactive because there's only one choice.
Its definitely a conundrum, and I wonder if it is really possible to have a truly interactive, non-linear narrative, unless it is originally imagined that way.
But since most of our brains do not think that way, that may be the reason that some narratives consistently use braided plots. Because it is usual to think a story through from A to B to C and whatever different that happens along the way really in the end doesn't affect the plot. But, this form is denying the user ‘true’ choice. Of course, a user only realizes it the second or third time through, so maybe a braided narrative is a good idea for a business model!
Now if I take the same braided plot structure and apply it to two characters, showing how they parallel their lives, then that might be an interesting use of the braided plot. But if you choose one character, how would you know that the other character was paralleling? We discussed today having two or three columns with parallel stories, and ways to make a user jump from one to another. But I'm still not sure how I could accomplish this in a webpage form. I think it would work best in a multi-windowed film a la Timecode. But that's not interactive. Or is it?
I really don't know what structure works best for both the narrative and the interactivity. For right now, it seems a developer just needs to choose what's more important for their specific project. Games tend to like nested funnel structures because they focus more on interaction then narrative. Books and films can adhere to a non-linear structure. Interactive narratives more or less seem stuck with tree-branching and braids, or the unapparent structures of Grammatron and Reach. But those pieces, at least for me, do not satisify. I feel I have lost much of the story and have focused more on following the paths. So, what I want to know/figure out is...what's next!?
February 02, 2004
MAFB's!
My quest for a Multi-Authored Fictional Blog has so far been fruitless....
But I did find these interesting links:
A MT plugin for anti-spam commenting
Rap for scholars?
Day Pop...
And had these thoughts:
Was reading about this 'Wiki' stuff, thought that might be a better outlet than a blogspace..hmm, what do you blog experts think? I *tried* to download TWiki I guess they're still evaluating my request...or something.
I found an article on an English teacher's experience with multi-authored blogs for his students It's a .rtf file... HERE (BTW - its 8 pages and a bit all over the place, sorry!)
He basically discovered that the students would not just write...no motivation.
Same point that Kellee brought up quite awhile ago, about not being motivated enough to write daily in a blog, (guess she and others don't care about their google score). But is acting as a character Enough motivation?
New Banner...hit reload!
Created the "banner" as part of our unrealized t-shirt contest. :) Thought I'd put it to good use. If the blog text is on top of it, refresh, refresh, refresh. Wish I knew how to fix that...(hint hint)