TED Blog Link
Today, while reading TED Blog, I came across this even called Pangea Day. On May 10th 2008 "sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be videoconferenced live to produce a program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music."
The idea is to use the power of moving image to unite. To allow people to see the world from someone else's eyes. Here is a promotional trailer that was released just yesterday:
I truly believe that an effort of this magnitude will leave a positive mark on the world. It great to see the power of technology being used for this kind of effort. A globally organized event like this could have never happened before todays huge bandwidth and super computers.
Please join the effort and participate by going to pangeaday.org to sign up for the news letter, see the list of events in your area and learn more about it.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Positive Aspects of Games and Gamers
Digg Story Link
Media has a long history of bashing video games for just about anything. Here is an example of the blame put on games for the Virginia Tech shootings. This is just one of many such instances unfortunately. Anytime someone looses it and they happened to play games, media is quick to place the blame. But today I want to discuss the positive aspects of playing games and gamers to counter these miss conceptions.
There are many examples of games and gamers doing positive, even life-saving, deeds in our society. Here are a few of the most resent:
Twenty-eight year old Paxton Galvanek was driving home when he witnessed an SUV lose control a flip over several times. He stopped the car and ran over to see if he could help. He was quickly able to asses the situation, prioritize the injuries and administer basic treatment. He learned these things from playing America's Army which includes actual medic training.
Another example comes from a gamer who saved a life of his nephew by undergoing a dangerous liver transplant. A procedure where chance of donor death is 40%.
In addition there are now studies coming out that show that brains of video gamers are more developed in areas of coordination and spacial orientation. In fact one study shows that video games may help recovering stroke patients.
There is no doubt that doing nothing but playing games all day is not healthy for anyone. However the average gamers are not lethargic couch potatoes. Most of us have jobs, families and other interests. My argument is that media needs to stop this hate for games and accept this most resent and promising entertainment medium.
Media has a long history of bashing video games for just about anything. Here is an example of the blame put on games for the Virginia Tech shootings. This is just one of many such instances unfortunately. Anytime someone looses it and they happened to play games, media is quick to place the blame. But today I want to discuss the positive aspects of playing games and gamers to counter these miss conceptions.
There are many examples of games and gamers doing positive, even life-saving, deeds in our society. Here are a few of the most resent:
Twenty-eight year old Paxton Galvanek was driving home when he witnessed an SUV lose control a flip over several times. He stopped the car and ran over to see if he could help. He was quickly able to asses the situation, prioritize the injuries and administer basic treatment. He learned these things from playing America's Army which includes actual medic training.
Another example comes from a gamer who saved a life of his nephew by undergoing a dangerous liver transplant. A procedure where chance of donor death is 40%.
In addition there are now studies coming out that show that brains of video gamers are more developed in areas of coordination and spacial orientation. In fact one study shows that video games may help recovering stroke patients.
There is no doubt that doing nothing but playing games all day is not healthy for anyone. However the average gamers are not lethargic couch potatoes. Most of us have jobs, families and other interests. My argument is that media needs to stop this hate for games and accept this most resent and promising entertainment medium.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Spore Release Date Announced
Slashdot Link
When I first heard of Spore, the concept intrigued me. The core idea behind this game is to create a life form and follow it's evolution from a single cell to civilization to inter galactic travel. Players are given tools to create their creature as well as virtually everything else including buildings, trees, vehicles and other objects. Players will be able to create a dynamic, evolving universe of their imaginations. This is accomplished through various intuitive editors that are simple and easy to learn but powerful enough to facilitate great creativity. This ambitious concept came from Will Wright, a legendary game designer. He first became famous when he created Sim City, a game where the player is able to start their own city and manage every single detail of its growth. He was also the designer of Sims which gave players ability to create their own person and develop all aspects of their Sim's life. When Spore, originally code named "Sim Everything", was announced it had the whole gaming community buzzing with excitement.
Originally slated to be released in April of 2007, Spore was plagued by delays and set backs. When last year it was announced that it was getting pushed back to 2008 many thought that Spore was joining the ranks of other ambitious projects that never make into reality. However Electornics Arts cleared those fears when it announced the release date for this September 7th 2008. Furthermore they are simultaneously releasing it on PC, Mac, Nintendo DS and a cell phones.
For 10 years, while designing this game, Will Wright researched things like art, biology, evolution and other deep topics that are not usually associated with games. In an interview he was quoted as saying that this was his dream project, that one game he always wanted to create. If this game is as successful as it is expected to be, it will create a new genre in games called Massively Singleplayer Online.
The reason behind that new term is that Spore is a single player game at its core. However, all of the content is created by other players and will be procedurally imported into the user's gaming universe. In Massively Multiplayer Online games such as World of Warcraft where you are directly interacting with others online. In Spore you are never directly interacting with other players, but the content of your world is populated using the things others have created. This concept has never successfully been tried before and if Will Wright gets it right with Spore, he will not only create another instant classic but also blaze a brave new path for other game designers to follow.
When I first heard of Spore, the concept intrigued me. The core idea behind this game is to create a life form and follow it's evolution from a single cell to civilization to inter galactic travel. Players are given tools to create their creature as well as virtually everything else including buildings, trees, vehicles and other objects. Players will be able to create a dynamic, evolving universe of their imaginations. This is accomplished through various intuitive editors that are simple and easy to learn but powerful enough to facilitate great creativity. This ambitious concept came from Will Wright, a legendary game designer. He first became famous when he created Sim City, a game where the player is able to start their own city and manage every single detail of its growth. He was also the designer of Sims which gave players ability to create their own person and develop all aspects of their Sim's life. When Spore, originally code named "Sim Everything", was announced it had the whole gaming community buzzing with excitement.
Originally slated to be released in April of 2007, Spore was plagued by delays and set backs. When last year it was announced that it was getting pushed back to 2008 many thought that Spore was joining the ranks of other ambitious projects that never make into reality. However Electornics Arts cleared those fears when it announced the release date for this September 7th 2008. Furthermore they are simultaneously releasing it on PC, Mac, Nintendo DS and a cell phones.
For 10 years, while designing this game, Will Wright researched things like art, biology, evolution and other deep topics that are not usually associated with games. In an interview he was quoted as saying that this was his dream project, that one game he always wanted to create. If this game is as successful as it is expected to be, it will create a new genre in games called Massively Singleplayer Online.
The reason behind that new term is that Spore is a single player game at its core. However, all of the content is created by other players and will be procedurally imported into the user's gaming universe. In Massively Multiplayer Online games such as World of Warcraft where you are directly interacting with others online. In Spore you are never directly interacting with other players, but the content of your world is populated using the things others have created. This concept has never successfully been tried before and if Will Wright gets it right with Spore, he will not only create another instant classic but also blaze a brave new path for other game designers to follow.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Open Source
Digg story link
After reading this article it got me thinking: are there any disadvantages of open source software?
To start off, here is a brief introduction to open source software in the form of comparison between Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. One of the most popular and widely used open source applications is the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It is a direct competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Both of them can parse web pages equally well. Both have lots of features. The major difference is how they are developed. IE is a product of Microsoft which is a private, for profit, firm. Microsoft hires developers and pays them money to create, maintain and update their product. On the other hand Firefox is a piece of software that is developed under open source license. This means that anyone can get the source code for the browser. Although the non profit Mozilla Foundation guides the central vision of this product, there are thousands of volunteers who contribute to its development and testing. They are not compensated monetarily and provide their labor completely for free.
Firefox is just one example out of literary thousands of open source projects many of which rival their for-profit counter parts. So the question is there any draw backs to these?
From my personal experience I found that, in general, open source software is less user friendly than the stuff you pay for. This could be because this software is designed with more savvy users in mind. Developers are not concerned about the less knowledgeable users and assume that if you were able to find open source tool, you should be comfortable with a more advanced interface.
Another problem that I often run into is that it takes more time to setup and get the open source tools working. Perhaps this is because the makers spend their development resources on the product it self rather than the installers and wrappers.
Open source software is a great resource to individuals and groups. Often these tools are better than their costly counter parts. Despite some of the problems I have had with some of open source tools, I believe they are a great service to the internet community and I thank all open source developers.
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